The Most Frightening Story Ever Told (3 page)

Almost as soon as Billy started to scream, one of the red bookshelves swung open like a secret door to reveal the brightly lit hallway he'd walked along forty minutes earlier. The waxwork of the twin girls wearing the blue dresses was still there. The twins were holding hands sweetly, like before, but—and perhaps he imagined this—it seemed to Billy as he ran, still screaming, out of the Red Room that they were smiling now.

At the end of the hallway Billy kicked the tricycle out of his way and stepped, nervously, onto the spiral staircase. Trying his best to ignore the very definite swaying motion of the steps under his feet, he managed to descend safely to the floor below.

The tall man in the black coat was still browsing the Vampires and Voodoo Section, and now that Billy saw him again, he realized the man was wearing a priest's collar and had a cross on a chain around his neck.

Seeing Billy again, the priest smiled. “You've been up to the Red Room, I hear.”

“Yes,” said Billy.

“Your first time in there?”

“Yes.” Billy tried to control the feeling of panic in his chest. And wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, gradually he recovered his breath and his nerve.

The man's smile widened. “I could tell. Maybe I should have said something before you went up there but I didn't want to spoil the fun for you.”

Billy frowned. “You mean you knew what was going to happen?”

“Of course. This whole shop is rigged like a haunted train ride in an old carnival. A ghost train. Of the kind you might find in a theme park.”

“You mean the Red Room—it's not haunted?”

“No, no, no,” said the man. “Well, at least I don't think so. No, it's all a trick, my boy. A trick. For example, the door disappears when you step on a spring-loaded floorboard. And it only opens again when an electronic sensor detects the sound of someone, such as yourself, screaming. That is, provided you scream loud enough. The sound sensor is getting rather old and needs replacing, probably. You have to block the door with a heavy book if you don't want any of that to happen.”

“I see.”

The priest returned the book he was reading to the shelf and removed the pair of little gold-framed glasses he had been wearing on the end of his long nose. “I'm Father Merrin.” He smiled and extended a long, thin hand to Billy.

Shaking the priest's hand, Billy said, “My name is Billy Shivers.”

“Pleased to meet you, Billy,” said Father Merrin. “I'm sure.”

“What about the candles in the Red Room?” asked Billy. “How do they work?”

“Simple. After you've been in there awhile, the room switches on little currents of air that blow through tiny holes in the walls behind them.”

“Oh.”

Billy thought that Father Merrin was older than Mr. Rapscallion. He looked ill, too. And Billy wondered if Father Merrin might himself be a corpse, or something worse.

“Look here, you're not a real ghost, are you?” Billy asked the priest.

“No.” Father Merrin smiled. “I'm flesh and blood.”

Billy looked relieved. “A haunted train ride, eh?” Billy nodded. “That explains a lot.”

“It explains everything,” said Father Merrin. “Doesn't it?” He chuckled. “I mean, what else could the explanation be?”

“But it must have cost a great deal of money to build this place,” said Billy. “Don't you think?”

“Oh, yes. A small fortune. I believe the man who helped Mr. Rapscallion to build this shop was a first-class professional magician. A stage conjurer all the way from Las Vegas, Nevada, who used to design and build tricks for some of the best cabaret acts in the world. For example, look here.”

Father Merrin steered the boy gently toward a shelf at the back of the Vampires and Voodoo Section. In front of the shelf was a table. And on the table was a plastic voodoo doll with several pins stuck in its body.

“Now then,” said the father. “The voodoo doll. Pick it up and see what happens.”

Billy picked up the doll and stared at it expectantly. Nothing happened.

Father Merrin frowned. “Wait now. It's been a while since I played with this one. Ah yes, now I remember. You have to pull out one of the pins. That breaks an electronic circuit in the room, somewhere, but don't ask me to explain it exactly, I'm not very good with technical things.” He nodded at Billy. “Well, go on, Billy. Do it.”

Billy looked around nervously, as if wondering what would happen next, and then did as the priest had suggested. He pulled one of the long needles out of the plastic voodoo doll.

Immediately, a length of rug proceeded to remove itself from the floor, after which two of the floorboards slowly lifted up on hinges. Outside the window there was a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder and the electric lights on the ceiling flickered and then dimmed. A heavy kind of smoke started to billow from the open floorboards and creep across the room like something almost alive.

“Dry ice,” murmured the father. “Atmospheric, don't you think?”

“That's the word Mr. Rapscallion used,” said Billy. “ ‘Atmosphere.' ”

“Shh,” said Father Merrin. “This is the best bit now.”

Slowly, a man who seemed to have been buried under the floorboards sat up stiffly, as if coming to life after a very long time. His head was bald and his ears and nose were as pointed as the goblin's in a fairy tale. His eyebrows were joined in the middle like a horrible hairy handshake. His teeth were sharp, like a fierce animal's. And his fingernails were longer than the keys on an old piano and every bit as yellow. He wore a coat buttoned high up on the neck so that the strange-looking creature hardly seemed to have a neck at all.

Billy gasped and took several steps back onto the priest's big feet.

“Yikes,” he said. “What is that?”

“It's all right, Billy. It's only a vampire. Well, a dummy that's supposed to be a vampire.” Father Merrin bent forward and patted the dummy on its bald head. “See? But wait. We're not quite finished.”

For a moment the lights went completely out, and when they came on again, the creature had disappeared and the floorboards and the rug had returned to their original positions.

“Wow,” said Billy.

Father Merrin pointed at the doorway. “Watch over there.”

Even as he spoke, Billy saw what looked to all the world like the creature's disembodied black shadow creeping out of the room. Billy ran to the door and watched the shadow slide as stealthy as a cat along the wall to the top of the curved staircase, where, finally, it disappeared.

“Wow,” he said again, thoroughly impressed. “That was amazing. It really looked like that creature's shadow creeping out of the room all on its own.”

“Didn't it?” said Father Merrin, happily. “Didn't it just?”

“Was that really supposed to be a vampire?” asked Billy.

“Yes. The shadow part is some kind of projection from a hidden camera. And the dummy is just a dummy. He looks hideous but that little bald fellow's always been one of my favorites in this bookshop.”

“You mean you come here a lot?” asked Billy.

“Oh yes. Often enough to know that Mr. Rapscallion will be cross with me if I give any more of his shop's secrets away. I've said enough. But I didn't want you to be too scared, Billy. You see, there aren't many children who come into this bookshop. At least not anymore. Sometimes I forget that Mr. Rapscallion actually designed this shop for children.”

“He did?”

“Yes. Years ago, this shop used to be full of children. Full of them. This was one of the most successful shops in Hitchcock. But as you can see, it's only grown-up children like me who come here now.”

“This place is fantastic,” said Billy. “Why don't the other kids come here?”

“I don't know.”

“Maybe they got scared off,” said Billy.

“I'm afraid it might have more to do with the fact that children these days don't seem to be in the least bit interested in books,” said Father Merrin. “That includes Mr. Rapscallion's estranged daughter.”

“How old is she?”

“Twelve, I think.”

“Estranged, you say? That means they don't like each other, doesn't it?”

“I wouldn't like to say. Either way, she doesn't live with him. She lives with her mother, who's not much interested in books either.”

“But I love books,” insisted Billy. He looked up just in time to see some fantastic-looking rats scurrying across the ceiling, upside down. “I can't honestly imagine a life without books.”

“Unfortunately, the majority of kids these days don't seem to share your opinion,” said a voice.

Billy looked around to see Mr. Rapscallion standing in the door of the Vampires and Voodoo Section. He was looking tired and irritated. Just like before.

“They're too busy with their nerdy electronic games and their stupid televisions and their annoying cell phones and their geeky computers to think of reading books,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “It makes you wonder why people even bother to teach reading in schools.” Mr. Rapscallion sighed loudly. “It makes me worry for the future of the human race. Always supposing that I do actually care about something like that.”

“Oh, come now, Mr. Rapscallion,” said Father Merrin. “You don't mean that.”

“Don't I?” Mr. Rapscallion grunted. “Don't I?”

“No,” insisted Father Merrin. “I don't think you do.”

“Maybe you're right.” Mr. Rapscallion frowned. “Maybe.”

“I know I'm right.” He pointed at Billy. “This is young Billy Shivers.”

Mr. Rapscallion grunted.

“How do you do, sir?” said Billy.

“You'll forgive me for being nosy, I hope,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “But, this being a shop 'n' all, I have to ask. Is either of you two colorful characters actually planning to buy a book? Because otherwise we're closing up for the night.”

Father Merrin handed Mr. Rapscallion the book he had been reading. It was titled
Résumé for a Vampire.

“This one looks good,” he said. “What do you think?”

Mr. Rapscallion looked at it and shrugged. “Could be.” He looked at Billy. “What about you, sonny? Find anything you want to read?”

“Oh, there were plenty of books I wanted to read. And while I was in the Red Room, I actually read several chapters of a book before the candles started to go out, and I got scared.” Billy looked awkward. “But to be honest, the plain fact of the matter is that I don't have any money.”

“No money.” Mr. Rapscallion sighed.

“No. None at all. I'm terribly sorry.”

“Great,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Just what we need to have in a bookshop that's almost on its knees. A customer who doesn't have any money.”

“Usually I go to the Hitchcock Public Library,” explained Billy.

“Libraries.” Mr. Rapscallion stared at Billy and pulled a face. “Libraries are full of people like you who borrow books instead of buying them. Cheapskates who seem to think that books just grow on trees. I ask you, what kind of world would we have if everyone just borrowed stuff? Just imagine if people borrowed cars or bicycles or chicken dinners or jewelry or cellular telephones instead of buying them. The world would be broke. That's the kind of world we'd have. But for some reason, people think it's okay to borrow a book. And then we wonder why booksellers are going bankrupt.” He shook his head. “I hate libraries.”

Father Merrin and Billy followed Mr. Rapscallion down the curved wooden staircase to the big brass cash register near the entrance.

“But what about poor people?” asked Billy.

“You're talking to poor people,” said Mr. Rapscallion. “Please don't make the mistake of thinking there's any money selling books, kid. Because there isn't. I'm the living proof of that.” He smiled a slow, sly smile. “Well, almost living, anyway. You couldn't really call this a life.”