The Second Horror (10 page)

“No!” Cally screamed. “Brandt! Don’t leave me!” Brandt’s body shriveled and decomposed before her eyes. His skeleton collapsed into the floor. Cally’s wails of anger and despair echoed through the house, all through the night.

Brandt had been taken from her. She felt as if the evil of the house had defeated her once more. She was alone again.

“There they go,” Cally muttered to herself. “I’m being abandoned once more.” She hovered in her usual place, staring out of the attic window. A cobweb draped across the ceiling just above her face. Rats scampered across the dusty floor, searching for something to nibble on. In the street in front of the house, Cally saw a long, black hearse. Four men moved out of the house and slowly down the driveway, shouldering a shiny dark wood coffin. “Look,” Cally said, pointing out the window. She spoke as if to a friend- -but she had no friends. “There it goes. There goes Brandt’s coffin.” Mr. and Mrs. McCloy followed behind the coffin in a grim procession. Mr. McCloy wore a dark suit. Mrs. McCloy wore a black dress and a black veil. Behind the veil she sobbed, her head bowed, a handkerchief pressed to her face. “Brandt’s parents,” Cally said in contempt. “I never liked them. They were so stupid. So uncaring. So self-absorbed. I’m glad they’re going. I can’t wait for them to leave. “Get out of my house!” she roared at them. Of course they couldn’t hear her. The undertaker pulled open the back of the hearse. The pallbearers lowered the heavy coffin, struggling with it, then slid it inside. The undertaker shut the door of the hearse. Mr. and Mrs. McCloy climbed into their car. The undertaker sat in the front seat of the hearse. He started the motor. A tremor of grief and fury seized Cally. “No!” she screamed. “Brandt stays here with me. Don’t take him away!” But the long, black hearse pulled silently away from the curb and rolled quickly down Fear Street and out of sight. Cally let out a long, shrill animal wail of protest. It echoed through the empty house. The misery on Cally’s face hardened into a mask. Her icy blue eyes glittered with hate. “I won’t be alone here forever,” she murmured through clenched teeth. “Someone else will move into this house. “Sooner or later, a new victim will come.” She snickered scornfully, thinking of the evil she would do—next time. “Someone will pay for my unhappiness,” she vowed. “The next people to arrive will be sorry they ever came to 99 Fear Street.”

TO BE CONTINUED …