The Most Frightening Story Ever Told (24 page)

Mr. Rapscallion awoke late and with a sore head. He'd taken a couple of old bottles from the wine cellar and had celebrated a little too enthusiastically. But almost immediately after he was out of bed, he realized that in all the excitement of the previous evening he had quite forgotten to give Billy his prize money.

“How could I be so careless?” he asked Mercedes when, eventually, she and Elizabeth showed up at the shop. “And him and his family so poor and everything. You know, I bet a thousand dollars is really going to make a lot of difference to those people.”

“It's probably just as well you didn't give it to him last night,” said Mercedes. “A twelve-year-old boy walking home at night with a thousand dollars in his pocket? That wouldn't have been such a good idea.”

“He didn't walk home alone,” said a voice. “I walked him home.”

They looked around as the door announced a customer in the usual spooky way. It was Altaira.

“Altaira,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “How wonderful. I'm so glad you came by. And while I was here.”

“I just dropped in to congratulate you,” she said. “On the success of the contest. I think you must be in every newspaper and on every TV show in the country. I guess now you'll be able to keep the shop.”

“Yes. Elizabeth? Mercedes? This is my daughter, Altaira.”

“Hi,” said Altaira.

“What a lovely name,” said Elizabeth.

“Thanks,” said Altaira. “It's from
Forbidden Planet,
the movie.”

“Oh, I love that movie,” said Mercedes.

“Me too,” said Altaira.

“I wonder where Billy is,” said Mr. Rapscallion. He looked at his watch. “Frankly, I thought he'd be here. He usually is, by now.”

“We did have a very late night,” said Altaira. “I can't stop yawning.”

“Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Him walking you home?”

“I can look after myself,” said Altaira. “I'm street-smart. He's not.”

“That boy is rather unworldly, it's true,” admitted Mr. Rapscallion. “So what happened?”

“Dad.”
Altaira looked away. “Please. It's private,
if you don't mind.
” She found herself coloring as she remembered how they had sat on his porch in front of Billy's house and Billy had held her hand in his. Nothing had been said. Nothing needed to be said. But she certainly didn't want to tell her dad any of 
that.

“You know what we should do?” said Mercedes, quickly changing the subject. “We should take a taxi over to Billy's house and give him and his family the prize money right now. We could all go. The four of us. It might be a nice surprise for them.”

“You think they'd mind?” asked Elizabeth. “Us turning up unannounced like that?”

Mercedes shrugged. “When did people ever mind someone turning up to hand them a thousand dollars in cash?”

“You've got a point,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “I think it's a terrific idea.”

He went to the drawer in the cash desk.

“Now where's that proof of purchase he filled in with his address?”

“It's 320 Sycamore, Southeast Hitchcock,” said Altaira.

“What if he's already on the way here?” said Elizabeth.

“Sycamore is off Potter Road,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “If he's already on his way here, we're bound to see him. Potter Road is the quickest way to get here.”

Carefully, Mr. Rapscallion took a thousand dollars in cash from the Brown Bomber and put it in his coat pocket.

“What kind of place is it?” he asked his daughter.

“Oh, a big old house. It was nice. A real family home, you know.”

Then they went outside onto Hitchcock High Street and found a cab.

Mr. Rapscallion told the taxi driver, “320 Sycamore.”

The cab driver looked at them strangely. “
320
Sycamore?”

“That's what I said,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Off Potter Road.”

The driver shrugged and did as he was told. They drove southeast for about ten minutes, along Potter Road, and then left onto Sycamore. The houses along Sycamore were big, brick-built, three-story homes for large, wealthy families, with high mansard roofs. Some of the houses looked at least a hundred years old. Finally, the driver pulled up in front of the very last house on the road.

“Is this the place?” asked the driver.

“Of course it is,” said Mr. Rapscallion without really looking at the house.

“Well, this house ain't been lived in for forty years,” said the driver.

“Oh, my Lord,” said Altaira, and covered her mouth.

320 Sycamore was a large, heavy block of a house with a big, square central tower that was sort of standing guard over it, and at least a dozen blank, staring windows. It was also badly neglected—a dreary, creepy-looking ruin. The front door was gone and most of the window shutters were hanging off their hinges. The front garden was badly overgrown and full of discarded tires and broken timbers.

“Are you sure this is 320 Sycamore?” Mr. Rapscallion asked the driver.

“Mister, I've been a cab driver in Hitchcock for thirty years and I know every inch of this town.”

“This is the house,” Altaira said quietly. “Only it was kind of different last night. Everything was. The house. The garden. Everything.”

Shocked and puzzled, Mr. Rapscallion paid what was on the meter and followed Mercedes and Elizabeth up to the ruined porch. Altaira stayed on the sidewalk for a moment and then walked after her father, who kept on glancing at her with a look of concern.

“It's all right, Dad,” she said. “I'm okay.”

They stepped across a large hole in the floor and paused in front of the open doorway. This was shrouded with hundreds of spiders' webs as if no one had crossed the threshold in at least ten years.

“It's like something out of ‘Sleeping Beauty,' ” said Elizabeth.

“Except there's no sign of any beauty,” said Mercedes.

Mr. Rapscallion cleared the webs away with the forearms of his coat and went inside. Broken glass cracked under the soles of his shoes. Inside, the house was dark and forbidding, cold and damp and, most of all, unwelcoming, as if some terrible, unspeakable tragedy had affected it.

“Billy?” he called. “Mr. Shivers. It's me. Mr. Rapscallion. Is there anyone at home?”

But there was no answer. Just the sound of the wind moaning through a broken window, and a loose shutter tapping gently against the casement.

“I'm getting a bad feeling about this,” admitted Mercedes.

“Think how I feel,” said Altaira. She shook her head. “Maybe I made a mistake. I must have. I mean, just look at this place.”

Mr. Rapscallion stuffed his hand into his pocket and took out the sales receipt that had brought them there. “No,” he said. “There's no mistake. 320 Sycamore. That's his handwriting. He wrote the address out himself.”

“Great,” said Altaira. “That's just great.”

They went into the front garden, where a man with a hard hat and a roll of plans under his arm was getting out of a small truck. He looked surprised to see anyone coming out of the old house.

“Can I help you folks?” he said.

“We're looking for the owner of the house,” said Mr. Rapscallion.

“I'm the owner,” said the man. “My name's Burt Erney, and I'm planning to restore this house and live in it myself.”

“Then I really think we have the wrong address,” said Elizabeth.

“We were looking for the Shivers family,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Fenton Shivers and his son, Billy.”

“Sorry,” said Mr. Erney.

“Our mistake,” said Mercedes.

Mr. Rapscallion, Altaira, Mercedes and Elizabeth started to walk back along Sycamore.

“Wait a minute,” said Mr. Erney. “Did you say Shivers?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Rapscallion.

Mr. Erney went back into his truck and took out his briefcase. “I have the deeds to the house with me,” he murmured, searching through some old papers. “I thought I recognized that name. Yes. Here we are. A Mr. Shivers was the previous owner of the house.”

Mr. Erney showed them the deed.

“Only I didn't actually buy the house from him. I bought it from his lawyers, just a few weeks ago.”

“There's something attached to the back of the deed,” said Elizabeth. “It appears to be a newspaper clipping.”

“So there is,” said Mr. Erney, and, removing the paper clip that attached the clipping to the deed, he handed it to Mr. Rapscallion.

Mr. Rapscallion glanced at the clipping and sighed. “It appears to be dated forty years ago,” he said, and then read the clipping aloud:

Hitchcock: Monday. Three members of a family, including a six-month-old baby, were killed and one was seriously injured when a truck lost control and ran into the back of a car on Hitchcock High Street, outside the public library on Sunday morning. The victims were traveling in the car. They have been identified as Fenton Shivers, 38, his wife, Agnetha, 34, and their daughter Fiona, age six months. The Shiverses' son, Billy, 12, has been admitted to the Walden Pond Hospital, Potter Road, in critical condition but is not expected to survive. The family, residing at 320 Sycamore, in Southeast Hitchcock, was on its way to the Hitchcock Baptist Chapel when the accident happened. Fenton Shivers was at the wheel at the time of the accident. The driver of the truck was not injured.

Mr. Rapscallion was quiet for a moment.

Altaira took a deep breath and tried to stop herself from screaming. “Well, I guess that explains why his hand was so cold,” she muttered.

“You held hands with him?” said Mr. Rapscallion.

“I thought I did. Now I'm not so sure.”

“Yikes,” said Elizabeth.

“That's what Billy used to say,” said Altaira.

She sat down on the sidewalk for a moment and wiped a tear from her eye.

“Are you okay?” asked her father.

“I think I'm going to barf.”

Mercedes and Elizabeth sat down as well and put their arms around her.

“She's had a bit of a shock, that's all,” Mr. Rapscallion told Mr. Erney. “We all have. May I borrow this clipping, please?”

“Of course.”

After a few moments, Altaira started to feel a bit better.

“Come on,” said Mr. Rapscallion. He started to walk back along Sycamore.

“Where are we going?” asked Mercedes.

“The Walden Pond Hospital,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “On Potter Road.”

The Walden Pond Hospital, which was now called the New Walden Pond Hospital, was a large building on the edge of a small lake. There was an old part and a new part. The old part looked better than the new part.

They went inside and asked to see the person in charge and eventually they were all admitted to the office of a Dr. Price, who was a tall, fair-haired man in a white coat with large bright eyes.

Mr. Rapscallion explained their mission: “We're making inquiries about a patient who was brought here forty years ago.”

“Forty years?” Dr. Price took a deep breath. “That's quite a while.”

“Yes, I know it's a long time. The boy was called Billy Shivers and he was age twelve. This may sound strange to you, Doctor, but we were hoping to find out when he died. Presumably it wasn't long after the car accident that killed the rest of his family. I brought this newspaper clipping along to help us find out a bit more.”

He handed over the clipping, but Dr. Price did not read it.

“You're asking me about William Shivers?” He looked surprised.

Mr. Rapscallion nodded. “I know it's a lot to ask.”

“Look, I don't know what this is about. Or who you people are. But William Shivers was, in a way, this hospital's most famous patient. When I say famous I actually mean infamous. You see, William Shivers was in a coma here at Walden Pond for forty years.”