You Can't Come in Here!
Read You Can't Come in Here! Online
Authors: P.J. Night
âReady for a Scare?' Excerpt
The tall, black-clad man stepped slowly toward the sleeping woman who was stretched out on the couch. Behind him, pale light from a mist-shrouded moon trickled in through a broken window. In the distance, the mournful wail of a wolf split the deathly still night. The man strode one step closer, brushing past a spiderweb, sending the eight-legged creature scurrying up its silvery strands. Reaching the couch, the man parted his brilliant red lips, revealing two long, sharp, gleaming white fangs.
“And now, my dear,” the man said softly, leaning down toward the woman's exposed throat, “you will be mineâforever!”
As the man's fangs closed in on her neck, the woman suddenly awoke. Her eyes shot open in horror as she
stared up at the beastlike jaws moving quickly toward her.
“AAAIIIEEEEEE!” she screamed, but her cry went unanswered.
Almost.
“Emily? Is that you? Is everything all right? I heard a scream,” said a voice drifting down the basement stairs. Downstairs, in her family's home theater, Emily Hunter hit the pause button on the DVD's remote.
“Yeah, Mom, I'm fine,” Emily replied, shaking her head.
Why does she always interrupt me just at the good part?
she wondered, staring at the horrific image frozen on the big screen in front of her.
“Well, I'm home, honey,” Emily's mom called down. “You watching a scary movie again?”
“Yeah, Mom. I like scary movies, remember?” Emily shouted up the stairs.
“Okay, dinner will be ready in about half an hour,” her mom replied. “Dad will be home any minute.”
Emily glanced at the clock. It read 8:10. She shook her head.
“I bet I'm the only kid in the entire country who eats dinner at eight thirty,” Emily mumbled to herself. Then she shrugged and hit play.
Up on the screen, the man had the woman locked in his supernatural gaze. She was spellbound by his stare, unable to move, trapped by his dark, penetrating eyes. He bit down hard, sinking his teeth deeply into her neck. She went limp in his arms, not dead, but no longer truly alive. The vampire's victim had been ushered into the world of the undead.
“Cool!” Emily said. Then she hit rewind and watched the scene again.
“Hey, Em, I'm home!” came her dad's voice from the top of the stairs.
“Hi, Dad,” Emily shouted up to him, pausing the movie again.
“How was your day?” her dad asked.
“Good, thanks.”
“Great,” her dad said. “I'll see you in a few for dinner.”
As she went back to the movie, Emily thought about the long hours that both her parents worked. Her mom was a lawyer. Her dad, a vice president of a pharmaceutical company. Emily knew that without all their hard work she would not be sitting in a state-of-the-art home theater watching one of her favorite horror movies. And if letting herself in after school, spending a few hours
alone, and eating dinner at eight thirty instead of six like the rest of the world was the price, well, she figured she didn't have it all that bad.
As the undead man and woman on the screen stepped from the old gothic mansion in search of fresh victims, the credits rolled, and Emily's mom called her for dinner.
“On my way, Mom!” she shouted, flipping off the TV and bounding up the stairs.
“So what did you do at school today?” her dad asked as he passed Emily a bowl of mashed potatoes.
“Nothing too exciting,” Emily replied, scooping potatoes onto her plate next to a mound of string beans. “I had to climb the rope in gym. You know how much I love that. But chem lab was fun. Ethan and Hannah were lab partners. And Ethan put too much red powder in with the blue powder, and white smoke and bubbles started pouring out of the beaker, all over the lab table and the floor. It was so funny!”
“I always said Ethan was a born scientist,” her father teased. “Hey! How about we play some Wii after dinner?”
“Can't,” Emily replied through a mouthful of string beans. “Going across the street to hang out at Drew and Vicky's.”
“So late?” her mom asked. “We're getting up early tomorrow to drive to the beach.”
“It's Friday night, Mom. And besides, I'll be home by my nine thirty curfew and I'll go straight to bed,” Emily said. “I promise.”
“It seems like you're always going over there,” her mom said, shaking her head. “Are you embarrassed by your own house?”
“Of course not. Drew and Vicky just feel more comfortable at their own house, I guess.”
“I don't know how anyone could feel comfortable in that house,” her mom said. “It's a wreck.”
“That house has been a wreck for all the years we've lived here,” Emily pointed out. “That's not their fault.”
“Yes, but it was empty for a long time,” her mom said. “When I heard that someone had bought it and was moving in, I was thrilled. I figured they'd fix it up. But the Strigs have been there for a few months now, and they haven't done a thing. The siding is still ripped up. The old shutters hang from the windows. The porch is about to collapse, and the next big storm we get will probably take that roof down. The lawn is brown and dead. They haven't planted a single flower. It's just a
disgrace to this neighborhood. Your father and I and the rest of the people on this street work hard to have a nice place to live, and a nice community.”
Emily looked away for a second, then she turned back to her mother. “I just think you don't like Drew and Vicky,” she said. “But you only met them once for, like, two minutes. You don't even know them.”
“Oh, honey, it's not true that I don't like Drew and Vicky,” Mrs. Hunter explained. “But it is true that I've never even
seen
, much less
met
, their parents. Normally I'd insist on meeting them before you hung out at their house, but I guess it's okay since you're only right across the street.”
“You know that there aren't any other kids in the neighborhood, Mom,” Emily said. “Everyone's old, even older than you and Dad, and now I finally have some kids my own age around here. They're a lot of fun to hang out with and I just want to be friends with them. So what if I go over to their house all the time?”
Emily's mom sighed. “All right, go have fun,” she said, knowing how much Emily missed having other kids around. Then she scowled slightly. “But I still wish their parents would fix up that house.”
“I'll tell them that, Mom,” Emily joked, getting up
from the table and bringing her plate into the kitchen. Then she kissed her mom and hurried across the dining room. “Bye. See ya later.”
Emily bolted out the front door before her mom could say anything more. She glanced up and down the block. House after house looked pretty much the same. The soft glow of streetlights and porch lights revealed muted-color siding, sliding glass doors leading onto decks, nicely mowed lawns, landscaped gardens, and blacktop driveways.
And then there was the Strig house.
Looking across the street, Emily saw the ramshackle old place. The last few flakes of paint on the original wooden clapboard danced in the wind. The sun-bleached shutters dangled on rusty nails. Most of the windows were broken, and those that weren't were boarded up. Green moss spread across the roof. The front lawn had died long ago, and even the weeds seemed to be struggling to survive.
Emily realized that her mom was right. The place looked as if no one had lived there for years. But she knew better. She knew that a family with two kids was living there. And they liked her. They wanted to hang
out with her, and she liked hanging out with them. They had a lot of cool stuff in their house. And that was good enough for Emily.
She walked across the crunchy brown lawn and stepped up onto the porch. Ancient floorboards creaked as she approached the front door. Emily was about to knock when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She jumped at the touch, spun around, and found herself face-to-face with Drew Strig.
Drew was taller than Emily, and very thin. His face was pale. His jet-black hair sprang out in every direction and looked as if it hadn't had even a chance meeting with a hairbrush in years. His black T-shirt and jeans looked slightly too small for his body.
“You scared me!” Emily exclaimed, and started to laugh. “I didn't hear you step onto the porch.”
“Sorry about that,” Drew said. “I wasn't sure you were going to make it over tonight.”
“Yeah, my mom gave me a hard time,” Emily explained. “You know, the usual. âIt's so late. Why are you always going over there?'”
“Maybe she doesn't like us,” said a voice from above.
Looking up, Emily spotted Drew's sister, Vicky, sitting
on a branch in an old gnarled tree that spread out across the front yard and overhung the tattered porch. Vicky looked very different from her brother. Her hair was pure white, but not old-lady white, more like glowing platinum. It hung down to her shoulders in perfectly straight strands extending from the part in the middle of her head. There was never a strand out of place. Her skin was the same color as her hair, and her thin lips had an odd purplish tint to them.
She was as skinny as her brother and almost as tall. Her black oversize shirt extended below her waist. The sleeves were so long, they hid her hands. Her clothes were dirty, but she didn't smell bad. She smelled kind of sweet and earthy, like the way the dirt smelled when Emily's mom churned up the garden each spring. To Emily, Vicky looked like some kind of goth-hippie hybrid. In fact, Emily thought that both Drew and Vicky dressed like rock stars. Emily, with her long, curly, reddish brown hair, sneakers instead of boots, and often sunburned face (from always forgetting to put on sunscreen before she went outside), never thought she looked as cool as these two.
“Nah,” Emily responded. “It's not that she doesn't like you guys. I think she just doesn't like your house.”
Vicky nodded and pushed herself off the branch. She dropped down onto the porch without making a sound and without the slightest stumble.
“Nice move,” Emily said. “You should try out for the school gymnastics team.”
“But I don't go to your school,” Vicky said, lifting herself onto the porch railing, which shifted slightly even under her light weight.
“You could probably still join the team though,” said Emily. “It's a bummer you guys are homeschooled. Any chance that'll change next year?”
“Not likely,” Drew answered. “Our parents would just rather have us stay home and teach us themselves.”