Half-Minute Horrors Read online

  HALF-MINUTE

  HORRORS

  EDITED BY

  SUSAN RICH

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Something You Ought to Know by Lemony Snicket

  The Chicken or the Egg by Jerry Spinelli

  In Hiding by Kenneth Oppel

  The Old Man in the Picture by Richard Sala

  The Babysitter by Erin Hunter

  Grand Entrance by James Patterson

  Halloween Mask by Sonya Sones

  Tenton by Tom Genrich & Michèle Perry

  Nanny by Angela Johnson

  The Legend of Alexandra & Rose by Jon Klassen

  What’s Coming by Arthur Slade

  An Easy Gig by M. T. Anderson

  Mr. Black by Yvonne Prinz

  The Foot Dragger by M. E. Kerr

  Trick by Adam Rex

  Hank by Dean Lorey

  One of a Kind by Sarah Weeks

  A Walk Too Far by Gloria Whelan

  A Very Short Story by Holly Black

  Deep Six by Faye Kellerman

  The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, A Novel as Told by Lisa Brown in Fewer than 30 Seconds

  The Attack of the Flying Mustaches by Pseudonymous Bosch

  Takowanda by Nadia Aguiar

  Heart Stopper by Sienna Mercer

  Up to My Elbow by Jack Gantos

  Four Gleams in the Moonlight by Stephen Marche

  The Goblin Book by Brad Meltzer

  Worms by Lane Smith

  The Dare by Carol Gorman

  The Ballad of John Grepsy by David Rich

  Soup by Jenny Nimmo

  The Creeping Hand by Margaret Atwood

  Wet Sand, Little Teeth by Mariko Tamaki

  A Thousand Faces by Brian Selznick

  Chocolate Cake by Francine Prose

  At the Water’s Edge by Ayelet Waldman

  My Worst Nightmare by R.L. Stine

  The Beast Outside by Adele Griffin

  Unannounced by Aliza Kellerman

  Krüger’s Sausage Haus by Mark Crilley

  There’s Something Under the Bed by Allan Stratton

  Cat’s Paw by Sarah L. Thomson

  Horrorku by Katherine Applegate

  The Itch by Avi

  The New Me: A Pantoum by Gail Carson Levine

  Always Eleven by David Stahler Jr.

  Aloft by Carson Ellis

  Skittering by Tui T. Sutherland

  Stuck in the Middle by Abi Slone

  All Fingers and Thumbs! by Joseph Delaney

  Don’t Wet the Bed by Alan Gratz

  The Final Word illustrated by Brett Helquist, story by Josh Greenhut

  The Shadow by Neil Gaiman

  A Day at the Lake by Lesley Livingston

  Whispered by Jon Scieszka

  A Disturbing Limerick found & envisioned by Vladimir Radunsky

  Through the Veil by Alison McGhee

  The Rash by Daniel Ehrenhaft

  Where Nightmares Walk by Melissa Marr

  On a Tuesday During That Time of Year by Chris Raschka

  Death Rides a Pink Bicycle by Stacey Godenir

  I’m Not Afraid by Dan Gutman

  The Doll by Alice Kuipers

  Easy Over by Frank Viva

  Them by Libba Bray

  Tiger Kitty by Joyce Carol Oates

  Inventory by Jonathan Lethem

  Shortcut by Michael Connelly

  Strawberry Bubbles by Lauren Myracle

  We Think You Do by Barry Yourgrau

  The Prisoner of Eternia by Aaron Renier

  In Conclusion by Gregory Maguire

  Index

  About the Editor

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  LEMONY SNICKET

  Something You Ought to Know

  “The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing” is a phrase that refers to times when people ought to know, but don’t know, about something that is happening very close to them. For instance, you ought to know about the man who watches you when you sleep.

  He is a quiet man, which is why you don’t know about him.

  You don’t know how he gets into your home, or how he finds his way to the room in which you sleep. You don’t know how he can stare at you so long without blinking, and you don’t know how he manages to be gone by morning, without a trace, and you don’t know where he purchased the long, sharp knife, curved like a crescent moon, that he holds in his left hand, sometimes just millimeters from your eyes, which are closed and flickering in dreams.

  There are, of course, things he does not know about you, either. He does not know what you are dreaming about, but then it may be that he does not care. His clothes are rumpled and have odd rips in them here and there. One of his coat sleeves is longer than the other, and this may be to cover his right hand. The sleeve is long enough that if you were to wake up and see him, which you never do, you might not see that his right hand is strange and crooked. It would take a while, in the darkness of the room, to notice that it is missing three fingers.

  He comes every night. His right hand does not know what the left is doing.

  JERRY SPINELLI

  The Chicken or the Egg

  “I was first,” said Egg.

  “I was first,” said Chicken.

  “I was,” said Egg.

  “I was,” said Chicken.

  “I was!”

  “I was!”

  “I was!”

  “I was!”

  “Okay,” said Chicken. “You win.” And pecked Egg. Seven times. From seven holes Egg bled yellow into the barnyard dust. Until all of Egg was out instead of in.

  Chicken grinned. “But guess who’s last.”

  KENNETH OPPEL

  In Hiding

  My father and I lay tensely side by side in total darkness, not daring to breathe. The space was small and smelled bad. We were flat on our backs, scarcely able to lift our heads. Above us, the thing shifted restlessly on its bed, grunting. I hoped it would settle itself soon.

  Finally the thing stopped moving. I counted seconds. Was it asleep? Or just lying there awake, waiting?

  “Now,” my father whispered in my ear.

  And very slowly we reached out and up to grasp the child’s ankles with our cold, dead hands.

  RICHARD SALA

  The Old Man in the Picture

  ERIN HUNTER

  The Babysitter

  The phone rang, echoing around the white-and-silver kitchen that was as glossy as a hall of mirrors. Jess was surrounded by a dozen reflections of herself as she went to pick up the handset.

  “Hello?”

  For a moment there was no answer, just the faint sound of someone breathing. Jess thought of her friends laughing as they told her not to accept the babysitting job from someone she’d never met. “They probably live in a creepy old house in the middle of the woods!”

  They didn’t. They lived in a top-floor loft with a view of the city that made Jess feel like a bird. The white leather sofas smelled of plastic wrapping.

  Then a little voice said, “I’m coming home,” before the line clicked off.

  Was there another child Jess didn’t know about?

  The phone rang again. “I’m coming home!” Now the voice sounded old, tired, and fretful. There was a tap of footsteps. Climbing marble stairs. Like the ones that led up to the loft.

  Jess looked down. Something was brushing her leg. It was the phone cord. It had fallen out of the wall.

  The sound of scratching at the door. Like a dog. In her hand, the phone rang. “I’m home!” rasped the voice, older than sand. “Did you wait up?”

  JAMES PATTERSON

  Grand Entrance


  Here’s what I remember about that night, and though I’ve been told it’s not possible, I remember everything clearly, like a dream come to life. . . .

  I felt trapped. There was terrible screaming.

  Where am I? I wondered. Some kind of tightly enclosed space.

  My fear was extreme. I tried to stay calm, but I couldn’t.

  There was water everywhere around me.

  The screaming kept getting louder. And closer.

  Then a voice broke through.

  “It’s a girl,” said the voice.

  Suddenly, it was quiet. Another voice filled the room. I realized it was mine.

  And I was screaming like a baby.

  SONYA SONES

  Halloween Mask

  I am me,

  but I am not.

  I can’t be sure

  whose face feels hot.

  Is it mine?

  Or is it its?

  So strange how snug

  this new mask fits. . . .

  Gazing in the mirror

  over my sink,

  staring into eyes

  that refuse to blink,

  holding my ground,

  I stare right back

  at eyes the deadest

  shade of black. . . .

  I swallow hard.

  This can’t be true—

  when last I looked,

  my eyes

  were blue!

  TOM GENRICH & MICHÈLE PERRY

  Tenton

  Father said stuffed toys were childish. But at nine Ava still adored hers, most of all Tenton, the white rat. Tenton had velvety fur worn thin and long tickly whiskers, and traveled with her between Mom’s place and here. No matter what Ava’s fear, Tenton always knew how to comfort her.

  One evening Father, as usual, nodded good night to Ava and closed the bedroom door. She heard his chair whine as he sat down to work again.

  Shadows slowly lengthened into night. Under the covers Ava whispered, “I don’t ever want to go back to school. I hate it!” Something drove her to add, “You go, Tenton. You take my place.” Tenton’s red eyes glittered.

  The next thing Ava knew, she was being tossed into the air like a rag doll. She hit the carpet yet felt nothing. In the half-light she saw a creature leap out of bed, a girl of sorts with shiny pale hair, her hair, wearing a pendant necklace, her necklace—but a girl who moved like a rat, scurrying stealthily on all fours. Ava screamed: no sound. She scrambled: no movement.

  The girl-size rat crept over, red eyes deep with malice. Reflected in them Ava saw a little stuffed toy flung aside on the carpet, white limbs a-tangle, blue eyes wide with panic. Ava’s blue eyes.

  The rat hissed and raced to the open window. A long naked tail snaked over the sill; claws clicked down the trellis. Then the sounds of movement faded.

  In the morning Ava heard Father’s alarm, his shuffling footsteps. “Ava!” he grunted. “Get up, or you’ll be late! Ava!”

  Ava did what she could. Which was nothing.

  ANGELA JOHNSON

  Nanny

  My nanny, Sara, tucks me in as the shadows wait for her to leave so they can creep out of the closet toward me. She smiles as she steps over the books and puzzle pieces I’ve left on the floor, then closes my door.

  But tonight I decide to escape the shadows. I open the door and dash toward Sara’s room, only to find her at the end of the hall, whispering to them—the shadows—and telling them with a smile that I was waiting for their nightly visit to my room.

  JON KLASSEN

  The Legend of Alexandra & Rose

  ARTHUR SLADE

  What’s Coming

  My father always used to say you’ll get what’s coming to you and I really didn’t like know what he meant until like this moment right now ’cause I can’t even move my arms and my chest it’s the pressure you see I’d decided to slip into old Widow Sturm’s house and I stole the heavy silver candlesticks and quiet as a rat I snuck back out the basement climbing over this container with old wood on top it’s for catching rain oh yeah it’s a cistern and the wood broke and I fell into this pit that just has thick slimy mud inside and I keep sinking and as it reaches my nostrils I start to bubble and I can’t help but wonder is it the candlesticks that keep pulling me down

  M. T. ANDERSON

  An Easy Gig

  Galv thought the Kennedys’ baby was being very good. He didn’t hear a peep from the kid all night. As babysitting gigs go, it was incredibly easy. The baby was already down for the night when he arrived. So Galv watched TV and talked to Raoul on the phone and ate the lasagna the Kennedy parents had left in the oven for him.

  He did not check the baby’s room to make sure the baby was still sleeping. He didn’t check the crib to make sure the baby was even still there.

  He lay on the sofa with his head hanging off the armrest and his lasagna plate on his stomach, making up song lyrics with Raoul. They laughed hard.

  And when the parents came home and said, “How was the baby?” Galv said, “Oh, he was good. Really good. I didn’t even hear a peep from him.”

  But Galv didn’t know how the baby was. He hadn’t checked.

  “No,” said Mr. Kennedy. “The baby was bad.”

  “Very bad,” said Mrs. Kennedy. “The baby cried and cried.”

  “No he didn’t,” said Galv, confused.

  “Before you got here,” Mr. Kennedy explained. “The baby was so bad he had to be punished.”

  “And when we punished him,” said Mrs. Kennedy, “we made a mistake.”

  “And then,” said Mr. Kennedy, “we needed somewhere to hide the body. And someone to blame.”

  Galv backed toward the door, terrified. He couldn’t speak.

  “You can’t run from it,” said Mrs. Kennedy. “The police will never believe you. The crime is already yours.”

  Mr. Kennedy smiled. “How did you like the lasagna?” he said.

  YVONNE PRINZ

  Mr. Black

  Every morning at seven sharp, my next-door neighbor emerges from the front door of his house. He has no wife, no kids, and no dog. He disappears up the street on foot wearing a black suit, black shoes, and a black hat, and carrying a black briefcase. We call him Mr. Black. One day my curiosity gets the better of me and I peek into his living room window. Through a crack in the blinds I see that it is not a living room at all. It’s a waiting room. Five more Mr. Blacks sit in a row of plastic chairs, not moving, not blinking, not breathing. I hear a whirr, and a small camera mounted up in the far corner of the room swivels and focuses in on me. A red light blinks. I run.

  M. E. KERR

  The Foot Dragger

  My father thought the reason my older brother was mean was that he was short. He’d grow out of it.

  When he came in late at night, while my parents were asleep, I would hear him heading toward our bedrooms. He would drag one foot and take his time climbing the stairs.

  Step . . . drag . . . step . . . drag. Heavy breathing. The door handle turned.

  I decided two could play this game. As the handle turned, I’d jump out at him. I was ready for him. Step . . . drag. The heavy breathing. He was there.

  “Gotcha, Paul!” I threw open the door and saw him.

  This very tall man.

  ADAM REX

  Trick

  DEAN LOREY

  Hank

  Hank was one of the most adorable puppies you’ve ever seen, which is why it was such a shock when, seven years after the day we brought him home from the pet store, he looked up at me with his big, beautiful Labrador eyes and said, “I’m going to kill you.”

  “You . . . you can talk?” I whispered.

  “Of course, dummy. I just haven’t talked to you until right now.”

  I was alone in the house with him. It was a freedom I gained on my thirteenth birthday—a freedom I suddenly regretted.

  “I haven’t decided exactly how I’m going to do it yet,” Hank continued, stepping closer on his padded
feet. Drool dripped from his long front teeth. “I was going to tear into your throat while you were sleeping, but I think I may just go ahead and do it right now.”

  “But . . . but I thought you loved me,” I replied, stumbling backward. “I thought we were best friends!”

  “I know. What a dummy you are.” He laughed cheerlessly. “Yeah, every time I licked you, you know what I was thinking? I was thinking, I’m gonna kill him. Lick. Make him suffer. Lick, lick. Watch him die in front of me with that scared, confused look in his eyes.”

  “You thought that when we were snuggling?” I reached behind me. My hands closed around a lamp—a weapon, maybe? “I had no idea . . .”