The Most Frightening Story Ever Told (21 page)

Mr. Rapscallion did his best to make the story seem more frightening than it was. He read it in his deepest, scariest, most sepulchral voice, with full expression, as if he had been an organist sitting in front of a church organ, pulling out all the stops to make the organ come alive. By doing this he hoped to inject some more “atmosfear” into the story.

Mr. Rapscallion was an excellent reader. Billy thought he sounded professional, like an actor onstage. Vincent Price could not have read better, and he was an actor whom many people thought an expert in the delicate art of sounding sinister.

After ten minutes it was already becoming clear, however, what had been clear to Mr. Rapscallion from the first time he read the story himself: that the words in the story were too long and the ideas too complicated for young minds to grasp. Kids reared on cheap cartoons and comic books had little or no understanding of the proper English used by Shelley and Polidori. He might as well have read them a dictionary. In short, the scariest story ever written was too old-fashioned to be scary anymore.

Wilson's eyes were closing. Hugh was yawning. Lenore was shifting impatiently in her chair. Vito was scratching his butt. Only Billy looked as if he was at all interested in something other than the possibility of winning a thousand dollars.

And then something strange happened. The clock on the mantelpiece stopped ticking. Of course, mechanical clocks stop ticking all the time. That is why they must be wound up with keys. But it was the way that the clock on the mantelpiece stopped ticking that made this seem a little more strange than it might otherwise have been. This particular clock stopped ticking and instead it started tocking. Only it couldn't properly be called tocking so much as
talking,
because the noise the clock started to make sounded much less mechanical and much more human, as if someone inside the clock was actually repeating the word “tock” over and over again:

“Tock-talk-tock-talk-tock-talk-tock,” said the clock.

“Excuse me,” said Wilson Dirtbag. “I'm very sorry to interrupt you, dude, but, like, is it my imagination, or is the clock actually talking?”

Billy shook his head. “I can't hear anything.”

Mr. Rapscallion paused for a moment and looked up at the mantelpiece. “Perhaps it does seem to be making a slightly different sound to the one it usually makes,” he admitted. “What of it?”

“Tock-talk-tock-talk-tock-talk-tock-talk,” said the clock.

“Hello-oh,” said Lenore. “They're just trying to scare you, birdbrain.”

Ignoring the insult—which was hardly an insult, since his mother was always calling him “birdbrain” and he was quite used to the name—Wilson Dirtbag got up to investigate the timepiece. It was a large, rectangular wooden clock with an unusual mechanical feature. In a little arched window above the actual dial was the tinplate model of a small, dwarfish man wearing a brown suit and a black bowler hat. The man held a large, lethal-looking ax and was chopping at another dwarfish man's neck in time with the clock's movement.

For a moment or two, Wilson looked closely at the clock. “Cool clock,” he murmured. Then he pressed his waxy ear against the clock face and listened closely.

“Hear anything?” asked Billy.

“Shut up,” hissed Wilson. “I can hear something.”

A second or two later, all of the color drained from Wilson's spotty face. He took a step back and looked gravely at the mantelpiece. For it seemed to Wilson that a dark, almost spectral voice had spoken directly to him from inside the clock.

And this is what the voice said to him: “Wilson. Yes, I
am
talking. I'm talking to
you,
sonny, you evil little creep. You're a very naughty, horrible, disgraceful boy, Wilson. Even worse than those kids back in the London workhouse, in 1820. I've seen rabid dogs I liked better than you, Wilson. Who were better behaved than you, too. And if you don't mend your ways soon, I'm going to leave this clock and come after you and chop off your head with an ax. Don't think I won't. Because I will.”

No one else in the room had heard what was said to Wilson, but everyone else in the room couldn't help but notice that all his greasy, straw-colored hair was now standing on end. Billy thought Wilson's hair looked exactly like a wheat sheaf.

“It's a trick.” With fumbling fingers Wilson opened the door on the front of the clock and peered inside. “There must be some kind of transmitter inside the clock.” But there wasn't. All he could see were sprockets and wheels and weights and pulleys. All of which stopped moving quite suddenly. Even the little man with the ax stopped moving.

Wilson closed the clock and, expelling a deep, unsteady sort of breath, he moved away from the mantelpiece and was about to sit down when the voice spoke in his ear again.

And this is what the voice said to him: “It would be a grave mistake to think that I'm inside the clock. And I mean a
grave
mistake. That's where you'll be if you're not careful, you mongrel. So. You can't get away from me. I'm going to be watching you from now on, Wilson.”

Wilson squealed and spun around on his heel, as if looking for someone. But there was nothing there. All he saw was everyone else looking at him strangely.

“Stop fooling around and sit down,” said Hugh.

“Didn't you hear it?”

“They can't hear me,” said the voice. “Only you can hear me, Wilson. And just in case you think you're imagining this, here's a little reminder that you're not.”

Wilson squealed again as something invisible squeezed his elbow and pinched his earlobe. This was too much for Wilson and, screaming with fright, he ran from the Reading Room, out of the Haunted House of Books and into the street, where he was pursued by his mother, Fedora, and several news reporters keen to buy his exclusive story. Because good news doesn't sell newspapers.

Back in the Reading Room, everyone was astonished, most of all Mr. Rapscallion.

“That's very odd,” he said.

“Very,” agreed Billy.

“What's wrong with him?” said Mr. Rapscallion. “I haven't even gotten to the frightening part of the story yet.”

“No kidding,” said Lenore.

“You haven't gotten to the interesting part either,” yawned Hugh.

“And then there were seven,” said Vito.

“Seven?” said Hugh. “What do you mean, seven?”

“Seven,” repeated Vito. “What, are you blind? Mr. Rapscallion, you, me, Billy, Lenore and the two ladies observing. That makes seven people in this room.”

“No, no,” said Hugh. “There are eight of us here, surely. All of the above. And the baby.”

“Baby?” Vito laughed. “Are you crazy? There's no baby in here. Who would bring a baby to hear some old man read a scary story?”

“So-called scary story,” said Lenore. “Let's be accurate here.”

“Less of the ‘old man,' please,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “If you don't mind.”

“Of course there's a baby,” said Hugh Bicep. “Can't you hear it? It's on the other side of that door, in that room.” He was pointing to a small door in the oak-paneled wall behind him.

Everyone listened closely for a moment. Lenore Gas shook her head of red hair very slowly.

“You're losing it,” she said.

“That's just a closet,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Where I keep a mop and the vacuum cleaner. There's no room there. And certainly no baby.”

Hugh shook his head and laughed. “You can't fool me,” he said. “I know a baby when I hear one. And I don't believe anyone would keep a baby in a closet.” He got up and moved toward the door in the paneling. “Look, I'll prove it to you.”

As he put his hand on the little handle, Lenore said, just a little nervously, “I don't think I'd open that door if I were you.”

“Why not?” said Hugh. “There's nothing scary about a baby. For Pete's sake, what's wrong with you people?”

“Nothing's wrong with us,” said Lenore. “We're not the ones who are crazy enough to believe there's a baby in that closet.”

“Perhaps I've just got better hearing than anyone else,” said Hugh, and threw open the door, to reveal a mop and a vacuum cleaner and, on the floor of the closet, a pile of old blankets.

“If you ask me,” said Vito, “he's got indigestion. Too many cheese sandwiches.”

Hugh knelt down and, placing his hand on the blankets, he leaned into the closet, which appeared to be empty. For this reason, he was surprised to find that the blankets under his hand were warm, exactly as if someone had been lying on them. There was a baby smell, too. Milk and baby powder and diapers. And then he saw something at the back of the closet.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “There's movement.”

In spite of all his muscles, Hugh wasn't a courageous boy. It was the idea of proving the others wrong that made him reach all the way back into the closet.

“There's a baby in here, all right,” he said firmly, although he still couldn't actually see a baby. “I've got its little hand in mine. I can feel its other little hand, tickling my forearm.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Hugh?” demanded Mr. Rapscallion. “Of course there's no baby in that closet. You know what? I think this is just a tactic to delay my telling the rest of the scary story, and scare the others.”

“Agreed,” said Vito.

“Except that we're not scared,” insisted Lenore, although her voice was more than a little scared.

Hugh recognized that it wasn't normal to keep a baby in a dark closet beside a vacuum cleaner and a mop. He also recognized that the baby wasn't tickling his arm; it felt more as if the baby was writing on his arm. All of this took just a few seconds, and, slightly unnerved by this last realization, he withdrew his large paw from the back of the closet and stood up again. And that was when he perceived that his forearm was now covered with tiny, neat handwriting. Writing that would have taken any adult—let alone a baby—several minutes to have completed.

The fright of seeing this writing was quite enough to remove Hugh's desire to remain at the in-store event and, screaming, he ran from the Reading Room, out of the Haunted House of Books and into the street, where he was pursued by his father and several more news reporters keen to buy his exclusive story. Because good news doesn't sell newspapers.

Hugh hadn't even read the message written on his arm. But when, several hours later, he did read the message—and, it must be said, this was the first thing Hugh had read in a long, long time—this is what he read:

“Hugh Bicep. You're a very naughty boy. Greedy, barbarous and cruel. I've seen goats who were more civilized than you. With better table manners, too. And if you don't mend your nasty little ways soon, I'm going to leave this closet and crawl after you and cry underneath your bed at night so that you won't ever be able to get any sleep. Not ever. Don't think I won't, because I will. I'll lie there crying every night, and drive you mad until you start behaving yourself like a normal boy. What's worse, only your ears will hear me. And just in case you think you're suffering from indigestion and that you've imagined any of this, you haven't. Which is why this message, that only you can see, Hugh, will remain on your arm for three whole months, or until your behavior improves, noticeably.”