A Terrifying Taste of Short & Shivery Page 9

  “I have heard from Don Rodrigo’s servants,” Miguel’s grandfather said, “that the bird soils the floors and furnishings, tears the chairs and drapes with its beak, and throws down and shatters the glass and china. But when Don Rodrigo storms at his servants about the damage—and he is a most violent man, Miguel, who uses violent language—the servants just tell him the raven made the mischief. Then Don Rodrigo becomes calm again. ‘If it is the work of the devil,’ he says, ‘then it is well done!’ Such a wicked man!” Miguel’s grandfather said. “You must stay away from him and that accursed bird.”

  But Miguel was curious. He would often watch Don Rodrigo in the street. The man lived richly, eating from dishes of solid silver carried by servants wearing clothes embroidered with gold. Yet he dressed like a beggar. Over his shirt and breeches he wore a long cape reaching almost to his heels, which the king of Spain had given him. It bore the emblem of the king himself. When Don Rodrigo wore it, he commanded respect. Yet even this cape, Miguel saw, was shabby and greasy and covered with stains.

  The raven, El Diablo, was always preening itself. Its feathers were glossy and unruffled. Secretly Miguel put out corn and bread, and the bird often came to him. It would gobble up the food greedily, then watch him. From the way it looked at him—head cocked to one side, eyes staring into his own—Miguel almost felt it was going to speak to him. Then from the nearby house would come the snapping of Don Rodrigo’s fingers and the call “El Diablo!” and the bird would fly off.

  Two days before Miguel was to return home, Don Rodrigo discovered him feeding the raven in the alley beside his grandfather’s house. “Traitor!” the man shrieked at the bird, and he tried to grab it. But the raven gave a mocking cry and flew to safety. Then the man turned on Miguel. “Has the miserable creature struck a bargain with you? Tell me!” he yelled.

  Confused and frightened, Miguel fled down the alley while Don Rodrigo shouted threats after him. The boy did not tell his grandfather what had happened. But he swept every trace of corn and bread crumbs from his windowsill. Then he fastened his shutters.

  That night, as he lay in bed, Miguel heard wings beating outside the shutters. Claws slashed at the wood; he heard the tunk-tunk-tunk of the raven’s razor-sharp beak as it tried to break in. In a panic, Miguel took his crucifix off the wall and laid it against the shutters. Instantly the attack stopped. Then the boy heard the faint, impatient snapping of Don Rodrigo’s fingers. Then nothing.

  The next morning his grandfather’s house was abuzz with amazing news. During the night Don Rodrigo’s servants had been awakened by terrifying shrieks and pounding from the master’s bedroom. When they finally broke down the heavy doors, they found the signs of a terrible struggle: Bedclothes were tossed about, chairs overturned, the doors of the wardrobe were nearly torn off, and most of the clothing inside had been thrown onto the floor. Blood was splashed about, and bloody raven feathers lay in every corner. But there was no other trace of Don Rodrigo or El Diablo.

  “Their master, the devil, has carried them off,” Miguel’s grandfather said. “That is a fitting end to both.”

  On his last night, Miguel slept with his shutters fastened and the cross in place. Once, he thought he heard the whirr of wings outside, but he couldn’t be sure.

  For many reasons, Miguel did not return to Mexico City to visit his grandfather for several years. When he did, he found the house of Don Rodrigo empty and falling to ruin. People would cross themselves and hurry past the place.

  It was said that the house was haunted. On certain nights, Miguel was told, the ghostly figure of Don Rodrigo could be seen and heard, snapping his fingers and calling, “El Diablo!” Then, with an answering caw, the raven would fly out of the darkness and settle on a windowsill of the dark house, and Don Rodrigo would stroke the bird’s back. Then both would vanish.

  On Miguel’s first night at his grandfather’s house, there was a tremendous storm. The lightning and thunder kept him awake. Between thunderclaps, Miguel thought he heard a sound like fingers snapping. Opening his window, he became sure that the sound came from Don Rodrigo’s house.

  As he listened, the sound seemed to hypnotize him. He felt he had to obey the summons the way the raven had done. He quickly dressed himself, took a lantern, and followed the sound to Don Rodrigo’s house.

  The force of the storm had blown the front door open. Like a dreamer, Miguel crossed dusty rooms and climbed the staircase to the second floor. Lightning revealed the open door of a large chamber at the end of the hall. Past a bed, the double doors of a huge wardrobe gaped on the very heart of darkness.

  From inside came the snapping, louder than ever. Miguel climbed inside the wardrobe. Something urged him to run his hand over the wooden wall at the back. He discovered a peg that moved, opening the hidden door to a secret room.

  In the lamplight, Miguel saw the mummified remains of Don Rodrigo; the dust-dry figure was wrapped in the dirty old cape with the king’s emblem. But it was spattered with dark blotches. And there were marks upon the face, and wounds still visible on the mummy’s chest, that Miguel guessed had been made by the beak and claws of a raven.

  Then, to his horror, the right hand snapped its fingers. Half expecting the remains to sit up and speak, Miguel backed away. The next instant the raven flew in and landed on the mummy’s wrist. It cocked its head and studied Miguel with glowing eyes.

  Too frightened to speak, Miguel just shook his head. The bird’s eyes burned into his own. Again he shook his head. With a dart of its beak, the raven snapped off the mummy’s thumb and middle finger. Then it flew to Miguel’s shoulder, and dropped the finger bones into the boy’s shirt.

  The bones sliding down between his shirtfront and bare chest, and the weight of the bird on his shoulder, shocked Miguel into action. He swung his lantern around, and the raven hopped back to the mummy with a cry. Miguel, mad with fear for his very soul, threw the lantern at the bird. It flew screeching into the corner as the cape caught fire, and the mummy was wrapped in flames.

  The raven cried again. Miguel pressed his hands to his ears and fled through the darkened house. The flames followed, setting the place ablaze. Outside, he felt a sudden pinching of the flesh at his stomach—as though some tiny animal were biting him. Horrified, he remembered the finger bones still in his shirt. In disgust, he clawed them free and hurled them into one of the urns beside his grandfather’s door. He sealed his shutters with a cross, then prayed until he fell into an exhausted sleep.

  The next day he was told that lightning had struck Don Rodrigo’s house and burned it to the ground. Miguel tried to convince himself that he had had a dream. But the finger bones at the bottom of the urn told him the truth of what had happened. He buried them in the farthest corner of the garden.

  Never again did the ghostly fingers of Don Rodrigo summon the raven. But no matter where he went, Miguel could not put aside the horrors of that night. Worse was the belief that he had only to snap his own fingers and whisper “El Diablo!” and the bird would come to him. When his life grew difficult, he found it hard to resist the temptation for wealth and power that was only a snap of the fingers away. And this struggle was the worst torture of all.

  Narrow Escape

  (United States—California)

  Tessa waved goodbye to her friend Joanie as she started the engine of her car. Then she groaned as the gas gauge flickered above Empty. She had been so upset and angry with her father, she had forgotten to fill the gas tank. One more disaster in an already disastrous night. First the blowup with her father, who had forbidden her to drive alone after dark. Then her own storming out into the night, determined to see her friends. She could just imagine the scene that was coming when she got back home.

  She knew her father thought he was acting for her own good. Somewhere out there was the murderer the media called the Gold Country Killer. His victims were scattered across the part of northern California where gold had first been discovered. He attacked only people who were alone: a hiker, a
fisherman, someone whose car had stalled out on a lonely stretch of road.

  Tessa’s anger came flooding back. It was her father’s fault they had moved from San Francisco to Parkhurst, which was about as middle-of-nowhere as it got. He was a writer: He loved being away from the people and noise and movement that Tessa missed. She had argued against the move, but her parents had overruled her. The family didn’t even live in town, but way beyond. Going to school, visiting friends, everything was a hassle. And now her father wanted to ground her after dark.

  To make things worse, the evening had fizzled. Brad Sanders and the other guys from the football team had decided to bag dinner at Joanie’s. So it had been girls’ night: porking out on pizzas (with more than half of them still in their greasy boxes—thanks, guys!) and watching the Scream flicks on video (not real thrilling—Tessa and her friends had seen them too many times already).

  Tessa looked at her watch: 10:35 P.M. The only gas station was the Fast-Fill on the other side of Parkhurst. She made a right and headed for it, hoping that creepy Dale Robbins wouldn’t be working as cashier. He was always trying to make a date with her. It had gotten to the point where she avoided him every chance she could.

  Her luck was also running on empty: She recognized Dale’s rusty old red pickup truck even before she saw the tall, skinny boy inside the glass booth. Dale was wearing a stupid baseball cap with the Fast-Fill logo; it made him look even geekier. She parked at the pump farthest from the booth. Dale waved to her. Geez! she thought, how bad is this night gonna get?

  When she pushed her money through the slot, Dale said, “It’s nice to see you, Tessa.”

  “I want ten dollars of unleaded,” she said, hoping to cut off the small talk before it began.

  “I’d really like to ask you something,” he said.

  “Some other time,” she said. “I’m late, and my father is gunning for me.” She walked back to her car, waiting in a pool of light beside a shadowy clump of trees. She heard the click as Dale turned on the pump. When she had gassed up, Tessa decided to make a quick stop at the rest room. Her bladder was running on full.

  She circled the cashier’s booth, thankful that Dale was taking care of another customer. When she left the rest room, the other car was gone. But Dale had suddenly gone bananas, waving and pointing and yelling her name through the loudspeaker of the booth.

  Tessa hurried back to her car, yanking the unlocked door open so that she could make a fast getaway.

  The speaker over the gas pump crackled. “Tessa, you’ve got to get out of the car, now!” Dale yelled.

  “Get a life!” she shouted. She slammed the door and burned an impressive amount of rubber as she left the Fast-Fill.

  But when she turned onto the main road, her rearview mirror showed a set of headlights pulling out of the Fast-Fill. She guessed the other customer had been using the men’s room while she had been next door. She drove slowly, dreading the angry showdown waiting for her at home.

  A short way up the main road, she turned onto the littleused side road that led home. Glancing in her mirror, she saw that the other car had turned in after her. She could see only its headlights in the darkness. Strange! Her family had very few neighbors, and they usually weren’t out this late.

  Suddenly the headlights of the car following her came on to full beam. Not knowing what was up, but afraid this was a deliberate attempt to blind her, perhaps run her off the road, Tessa accelerated. But as fast as she accelerated, so did the car behind. She could not get away from the glaring lights that flooded the inside of her car, though she tilted the mirror down to keep from being blinded.

  Still hoping it was one of her neighbors who had partied too heartily and couldn’t tell his high beams from a hole in the ground, Tessa turned off the road onto the narrow lane that wound up through the trees to her house. There were no other homes along the lane.

  “Good riddance, creep!” she muttered.

  To her horror, the car behind followed, its headlights blazing. By this time she was convinced she was being stalked. In panic she put maximum pedal to the metal. Her car lurched ahead. Taking the curves at speeds she had never attempted before, she prayed she would reach her parents’ house before it was too late.

  The car behind followed relentlessly.

  Rounding a curve and checking her rearview mirror, Tessa caught a glimpse of her pursuer through a break in the trees. It was Dale’s rusty red pickup! She grew even more terrified. Was Dale the Gold Country Killer? She thought of all the Scream twists she had watched on video earlier. Why not? Who’d suspect the school fool of murder? Or was he simply angry that she had blown him off at the Fast-Fill? In either case, it wouldn’t be pretty if he caught her.

  She managed to get a little extra oomph out of her car. I’m going to make it, she told herself. She knew her father would be watching for her. The ex-Marine would make short work of a wuss like Dale.

  Then she hit a pothole. The car fishtailed. She tried to remember all the rules about steering into the swerve and keeping control. Nothing worked. Her hands gripping the wheel, she slid across the oncoming lane and into a drainage ditch.

  Stunned for a moment, Tessa struggled with her seat belt. The rusty red pickup squealed to a halt on the shoulder across from her. Dale leapt out, carrying a tire jack.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered, still struggling with the straps. She released the belt just as Dale jerked open the door. “Don’t hurt me!” Tessa screamed, but Dale just threw her out of the car. She fell to the gravel, cutting her hands and knees. Like a frightened crab, she tried to scuttle away from him.

  But Dale ignored her. He yanked open the passenger door behind the driver’s seat. A dark figure sprang out, knocking Dale into the roadway, sending the tire iron spinning toward her. The man had his hands around Dale’s throat. Tessa saw a length of knotted cord; the guy was trying to strangle Dale.

  In an instant, Tessa realized that Dale had risked his life to rescue her.

  She picked up the tire iron, swung it over her head as hard as she could, and knocked Dale’s attacker unconscious.

  Tessa knelt beside Dale. “You saved my life,” she said.

  “Ditto,” he said, rubbing his throat. He picked up his Fast-Fill cap from the road and dusted it against his jeans. Then he replaced it. “I saw someone crawl into the back of your car just as you were leaving. I tried to warn you, but—”

  “But I blew it,” said Tessa. “Maybe I’ve blown a few things this evening.”

  “Anyhow, I followed with my headlights on to keep that guy ducking down in the backseat.”

  “You’re a hero,” she said.

  “Hey, no big deal,” he said. “But we better hurry and call the cops. I’m gonna follow you home, as soon as we get your car out of the ditch.”

  “I just realized something,” Tessa said. She knocked his cap off his head, then tousled his hair. “Lose the cap. Work with the hair. There’s hope for you yet.” And she grinned at him.

  The Black Fox

  (United States—Connecticut)

  Not long after the Revolutionary War, a hunter named James Winslow, who lived near the Salmon River, took his rifle down from the wall and stepped out of his cabin. His dog followed. In the cold, bright night, his friend, Occom, a Mohegan, waited. The Indian was wrapped in a deerhide cape against the biting wind. Around them, the moonlight lay bright on the deep snow-drifts.

  The two men greeted each other briefly, then set out into the pine forest. As they followed the dog, the only sound was the faint crunch of their feet on the crusted snow. They were hunting a fox that had troubled the countryside for weeks. It slipped into barns and smokehouses and henhouses, and boldly made off with piglets and cured meats and chickens. Those who had caught sight of the creature escaping with a fat hen clamped in its jaws swore that it was coal black. “It was like a shadow running across the snow,” one man said.

  The local farmers had offered a large reward for the fox’s hide. This was what drew J
ames Winslow and Occom into the freezing winter night.

  The dog bounded on ahead, searching for a trace of the fox. Keeping his voice low, Occom said, “The moigu—the shaman—did not want me to hunt with you tonight. He said the fox we seek is a thing that is evil. No bullet or arrow can slay it.”

  “Do you believe that?” Winslow challenged. “I’ve seen enough half-chewed hams and bloody chicken feathers to know that this fox fills his belly like any other fox.”

  Occom shrugged. “The moigu is an old man. His ways are the old ways. I am a Christian now. I think like the white man.” He smiled grimly. “I think the fox will give up his hide to us tonight. And the farmers will give up their gold to us soon after this.”

  Suddenly the dog froze, growled, then pointed with his uplifted paw. Winslow cocked his rifle; Occom bent his bow. The jet-black fox watched them from the top of a snow-covered boulder. It almost seemed to be daring them to take action.

  Winslow fired. Occom loosed his arrow. The creature should have been dead twice over. But somehow bullet and arrow missed. The creature gave a yip almost like a laugh, and scurried off.

  The dog charged after it. The men followed. From time to time, the puzzled dog seemed to lose the scent. Then he would pick it up again, and the chase would continue. The hunters followed deeper and deeper into the woods.

  Then the dog halted at the edge of a clearing. Across a patch of moonlit snow was the fox’s den, a hollow at the base of an outcropping of rock. The two hunters saw a flicker of black tail as the fox disappeared inside.

  The dog was strangely silent. When Winslow snapped his fingers and tried to urge the dog forward, the poor creature simply whined. It would not budge. “Fool animal!” Winslow snarled. He signaled Occom, and the two moved toward the shadowed mouth of the fox’s lair.

  “We’ve got him trapped,” said Winslow, raising his rifle.