The New Girl

by R. L. Stine

  It was the strange neighbor. He was leaning on the hood of Cory’s car. He was wearing the same rain slicker and white tennis hat, even though it was a bright, sunny morning. Voltaire, the big Doberman, was at his side. Cory jumped back, then was relieved to see that the dog was on a leash.

  “Don’t ever see you much in the daytime,” the man said, grinning at Cory, not exactly a friendly grin, but a more pleasant expression than Cory had ever seen on him.

  “Guess not,” Cory said, walking slowly to the car.

  “They’re not home,” the man said, pointing to the house. “Left early this morning.”

  “Oh,” Cory said. “Know where they went?”

  The man seemed offended by the question. “I’m no snoop,” he said curtly.

  “You seem to know a lot about them,” Cory said.

  The man looked at him thoughtfully. “Can’t help but notice some things when you’re a neighbor,” he said finally. “You seem like an all-right young man.”

  The compliment startled Cory. “Thanks.”

  “That’s why I can’t understand your comin’ to visit them,” he said pointedly. The dog barked. “Okay, okay, Voltaire.” The man pulled himself up from Cory’s car. “Be seein’ you,” he said, giving Cory a wave as if they were old friends, and then trotted off to keep up with his pulling dog.

  “Not if I see you first,” Cory said under his breath. Neither the old guy nor his dog seemed as threatening in the daytime, though. Just a snoopy neighbor out walking his dog day and night, trying to see what he can learn around the neighborhood.

  Well, Cory had learned absolutely nothing. He took one last look at the old house, then dejectedly got back into the car. He had spent the whole night going over and over what he was going to say. And now there was no one to say any of it to.

  He spent the afternoon trying to do some homework. He was terribly behind. He called the Corwins’ house every half hour. There was no one home all day or all evening.

  The next morning, feeling nervous and out-of-sorts, he drove to school early and waited by Anna’s locker for her to show up. But she hadn’t arrived when the bell rang, and he went to his homeroom, disappointed again.

  He didn’t catch up with her until after school. Then he ran into her by accident outside the biology lab.

  She looked for a moment as if she didn’t recognize him. Then her expression changed and she gave him a warm smile. “Cory. Hi.”

  “I—I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got to go home and—”

  He grabbed her arm. He wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t sure what he planned to do. He just knew he wasn’t going to let her get away. “No. You’re coming with me. I’ve got to talk to you. I’ll take you home after.”

  She didn’t resist. She could see that he was serious, that he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  He led her to his car in silence, pulling her as if she were a captive, not letting go of her hand, as if she might slip away and disappear into thin air if he didn’t hold on. He drove to the Division Street Mall. She played with the radio, pushing the buttons in order, listening to a station for ten seconds, then moving on to the next.

  At the Pizza Oven he guided her to a booth in the back. She slid in across from him, smiling uneasily, her eyes darting nervously to the front of the long, narrow restaurant. It was quiet. Only a few booths were filled. Most of the after-school crowd hadn’t arrived yet.

  A waitress slouched over to them, cracking her bubble gum noisily. Cory ordered two Cokes. Then he turned to Anna and took her hand. “Tell me the truth about you, and about Brad,” he said, staring into her deep blue, mysteriously opaque eyes. “I want to know what’s going on. Everything.”

  She didn’t question him. She seemed to know that she had no choice this time. And once she started talking, she seemed eager to get the story out, desperate to tell it to him, relieved to finally have someone to tell it to.

  “I moved here last month with my mother and Brad,” she began, looking at Cory, then shifting her gaze to the front window of the restaurant, then back to Cory. “My father left us, just disappeared several years ago. My mother is not well. She’s very frail. Brad has always been the head of the family.

  “About a year ago,” she continued, talking rapidly in her soft voice, “something terrible happened to Brad. He was in love with a girl named Emily. Emily was killed in a plane crash. It was just awful. And Brad never recovered from the shock.”

  “What do you mean?” Cory asked.

  “He lost his grip on reality. He just couldn’t take Emily’s death. For a while he imagined that Emily was still alive. We had a sister. Her name was Willa. Willa was a year older than me. She looked like me, but she was really beautiful. She was the true beauty of the family.

  “After Emily died, Brad got very protective of Willa and me. He got very mixed up. He started calling Willa by the wrong name. He started calling her Emily. Soon after that he started telling people that Willa was dead—even when she was standing right there in the room!

  “We didn’t know what to do with Brad. He was so mixed up. We tried to get him to go to a doctor. But he refused.”

  “Here’s the Cokes. Pay now, please,” the waitress interrupted.

  Cory pulled out his wallet and found two dollar bills. Anna tore the paper off the straw and greedily drank her Coke almost to the bottom without taking a breath.

  “Go on. Please,” Cory urged.

  “The story just gets worse,” she said. A single large tear formed in each eye. Her eyes look like two blue lakes, Cory thought.

  “Brad kept confusing Willa and Emily. He kept saying Willa was dead. Then, one horrible day, it happened. Willa was killed. She fell down the basement stairs.”

  Cory groaned aloud. “How awful—”

  “Brad was home at the time. He said it was an accident. Willa was carrying some clothes down to the basement, and she just slipped and fell. But Mom and I never believed him. We suspected that Brad had pushed Willa.

  “First, you see, he was telling people that Willa was dead. And then—she really was dead!

  “We were so frightened. We were terrified of Brad, of what he might do next. But we had no one else to support us. Dad left when we were little. He just took off. Mom was too sick to work and too proud to take welfare. We had no one but Brad. So what could we do? We had to believe his story that Willa’s death was an accident.”

  “So then you moved to Shadyside?” Cory asked.

  “No. Not yet. This was still last spring. Brad seemed better for a while. But then his mind became confused again. He started telling people that I was dead. I was so scared, I didn’t know what to do. Was Brad going to kill me next? I was terrified every day.”

  “I don’t believe this. I just don’t believe it,” Cory said, offering her his Coke since she had finished hers.

  She took a long sip. “Somehow Mom got the strength to insist that we move. We moved here to Shadyside. We hoped the new surroundings would help snap Brad out of his shock, his confusion. But it hasn’t helped. He keeps telling people that I’m dead. And at the same time he’s terribly overprotective. He won’t let me go out, or have dates, or anything. Some days he won’t even let me go to school.”

  “So that explains it,” Cory said, more to himself than to her. The dreadful details of her story were still spinning through his mind. This poor girl is living in a nightmare, he thought. I’ve got to find a way to help her. We’ve got to get Brad out of the house.

  But then he remembered something.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” he said.

  “What?” She looked as if she were dreading what he was about to say.

  “I saw a newspaper clipping. From Melrose. It said that you were dead. It had a picture and everything.”

  “Oh.” She flushed. Her hands gripped the edge of the Formica tabletop. She was thinking hard. She didn’t seem to have an answer. “Oh, yes. I remember that newspaper thing now,” she s
aid, her normal color returning. “I guess I blocked it. Isn’t it horrible? Can you imagine seeing your own obituary in the newspaper? Brad claimed that the newspaper got it all wrong. But I think Brad just couldn’t face Willa’s death, and so he told them it was me.”

  Cory shook his head in disbelief.

  “Cory, I’m so frightened all the time,” Anna said, grabbing his hand in hers. “I don’t know what to think. Is Brad confusing me with Emily? Is he confusing me with Willa? Since he’s telling people I’m dead, does it mean he plans to kill me too? I’m really scared—especially now that my mother is visiting her sister.… Brad and I are alone.…”

  Cory just stared back at her, at the soft tears forming along the rims of her beautiful eyes, at her golden hair. He didn’t know what to say. It was such a sad and frightening story.

  Suddenly she leaned across the tabletop and pulled his face close to hers. She began to kiss him, gently at first and then harder.

  Then, just as suddenly, she stopped and pulled back.

  Her face filled with horror.

  Cory turned around in the booth to see what she was looking at. There was Brad outside the front window, his face pressed to the glass, a look of fury on his face.

  “I—I’ve got to go,” Anna said, her face filled with panic.

  She leapt up from the booth and disappeared out the back door of the restaurant.

  Cory turned to the front. Brad hadn’t moved from the window. He was staring straight ahead at Cory, his face frozen in hatred, in rage.

  CHAPTER 22

  He tried to call Lisa as soon as he got home, but she was out with her family. Then, after dinner, he tried to call Anna. The phone rang and rang. He let it ring twenty times. He counted the rings.

  Then, his head spinning with frightening images, images of Brad’s furious face, images of Anna’s fear, images of Anna falling down endless basement stairs, he hung up.

  He tried five minutes later, and five minutes after that, letting the phone ring twenty times each call, but with the same results.

  What if something had happened to her? What if Brad, in his rage at seeing them together in the restaurant, had done something to her?

  No. He couldn’t allow himself to think that.

  But he had to. Brad had already killed once. Or so Anna believed. Who was to say that he couldn’t kill again?

  Standing with his red face pressed against the restaurant window, his eyes bugging out, his mouth twisted in fury, Brad had certainly looked like someone who could kill.

  Cory picked up the phone and, ignoring his trembling hand, dialed the Corwin house again. Someone picked up on the sixth ring.

  “Yeah?”

  Cory recognized the harsh voice. “Brad? I know Anna’s there. Put her on the phone.”

  “Anna isn’t anywhere. Anna is dead.”

  The phone clicked off. Brad had hung up on him.

  What did Brad mean? Was Anna really dead now? Had Brad just killed her?

  No. This was just another of Brad’s sick, twisted fantasies.

  Or was it?

  Cory realized he had no choice. He pulled on his jacket, ran down the stairs two at a time, and grabbed the car keys from the front entranceway table. “Hey—where are you going?” his mom called.

  He mumbled an answer. He wasn’t sure what he said. He pulled the front door closed behind him, and a few seconds later he was speeding through a thick, wet fog, driving blindly, with Anna’s face his only guidepost, driving once again to Fear Street.

  “Anna, be alive,” he said to himself. “Please—be alive, be alive, be alive.” The windshield wipers, clearing the wet fog from the glass, clicked the rhythm to his words: “Be alive, be alive, be alive…”

  The drive seemed to take hours. Finally he pulled up the long gravel drive to the Corwin house and squealed to a stop. Not turning off the engine or the lights, he threw open the car door and ran up to the porch.

  He stopped at the front door, raised his hand, and knocked—and heard a loud scream.

  A scream of anger, of fury.

  “He’s come for me! Let me go!!”

  She’s alive, he thought.

  And without hesitating he pushed open the heavy wooden front door and burst into the house. He found himself in a dark, narrow entranceway with a small coat closet along the wall. He inhaled the powerful smell of mothballs. Beyond the entranceway was the living room, lighted only by a small, flickering fire in the fireplace.

  “Let me go!” he heard Anna scream. “He’s come to see me! Me!”

  His heart pounding, Cory ran into the living room. There on the floor in front of the fireplace, Anna and Brad appeared to be locked in a desperate fight. She was sitting on his chest, struggling to remove his arms from around her waist so that she could stand up. She managed to pin his arms down, but Brad reached up a hand and pushed under her chin until her head snapped back. Then he quickly rolled out from under her and gave her a hard shove that sent her sprawling toward the fire. With a loud groan he climbed to his feet, prepared to attack again.

  Cory hurtled across the room, his arms outstretched, ready to help Anna any way he could.

  Hearing Cory approach, Brad turned around, startled. But he turned too late. Cory leapt onto his back. Cory drove a fist into Brad’s side, and both of them fell to the floor and began wrestling to get the advantage.

  “Cory! You’re here!” Anna cried, recovering and moving away from the fire.

  Brad swung around, trying to land a punch in Cory’s midsection. But Cory scrambled away and the punch went wild.

  “Get out of here!” Brad shouted, saliva dripping down his chin, his small eyes wild with rage. “You don’t know what you’re doing! You don’t want to be here!”

  “Too late!” Cory cried. He lowered his head and rammed it into Brad’s chest. Brad cried out and staggered backward.

  “Help me, Cory! Please—help me!” Anna was shrieking from the corner of the room. She was holding her hands over her ears as if trying to shut out a deafening sound.

  But Cory and Brad were scuffling in silence now.

  Brad was soft and not very powerful, but he was bigger than Cory and seemed to be more experienced at fighting. He spun Cory around and shoved him hard into the wall.

  Dazed, Cory dropped to all fours and tried to shake it off. But Brad leapt quickly onto his back and began pulling his head back.

  “My neck! You’re going to break my neck!” Cory screamed.

  But his cries made Brad pull back even harder.

  “Help me, Cory. Help me!” Anna continued to scream, wedging herself tightly in the corner of the room.

  Still pulling Cory’s head back, Brad lifted Cory to his feet. Cory struggled to breathe. He realized he was about to go under, about to lose consciousness. The pain made it so hard to move, so hard to think.

  Somehow he grabbed a vase off the table beside the couch. It was heavy and nearly slipped from his hand. But with one last burst of strength he brought the vase down hard over Brad’s head.

  Brad’s eyes shut tightly from the pain. He uttered a short cry that faded as he dropped to the floor. Cory, gasping for air, took a step back, trying to ready himself for Brad’s next onslaught. But it didn’t come. Brad fell heavily onto the floor and didn’t move. He was unconscious.

  Before Cory could regain his balance, Anna was in his arms. She threw her arms around him, nearly knocking him over, and pressed her face against his. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you, thank you. I knew you would come. I knew it.”

  Cory’s heart was pounding so hard, it felt about to explode. His chest heaved as he struggled to catch his breath. His muscles ached from the strain of the fight, and he began to feel sick to his stomach.

  “I knew you would come. I knew it,” Anna repeated, pressing against him.

  “We—we’ve got to call the police,” Cory said, trying to back away from her grasp, trying to calm himself, slow his breathing.

  “Thank you for savi
ng me. Thank you.” Her breath was hot against his cheek.

  He looked down at Brad, still sprawled unconscious on the carpet. “Anna—please. We’ve got to move quickly. Brad won’t be out for long,” Cory pleaded. He wasn’t sure Anna was hearing him. “We’ve got to get you away from here. We’ve got to make sure you’re safe from him.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.” She took his hands and started to pull him toward the stairway in the front hall. “Come with me, Cory. We’re alone now. He can’t bother us.” She kissed his cheek, his forehead. She gave him a devilish look. “Come to my room, Cory. He can’t bother us now.”

  “No, Anna—please. We’ve got to call the police,” he insisted. Her eyes were wild, unreal, like big blue buttons. Her face seemed to glow with excitement. “Anna—Brad will wake up soon. We can’t—”

  She pulled him up the creaking, uneven stairs. “We have to celebrate, Cory. You and me. Come.” A sexy, inviting smile spread across her face. Her eyes grew even wider, even more opaque.

  Cory gave in. He realized he couldn’t resist her. He started to follow her up the stairs.

  “I want to show you something, Cory,” she said as they reached the landing.

  “What? What is it, Anna?”

  “This,” she said. The smile faded instantly from her face. Her eyes narrowed. She reached down to a low table in the narrow hallway and picked something up in her hand.

  What was it?

  Cory had trouble making it out in the dimly lit hallway.

  She held it up. It was a silver letter opener shaped like a dagger, sharp as a dagger, too, from the looks of it.

  “Anna—” Cory felt the fear well up in his chest.

  “This will take care of Brad,” she said. She plunged it through the air, a practice swing.

  “No!” Cory yelled. “I won’t let you.”

  “I won’t let anyone stand in my way,” she said. “Not even you.”

  She raised the letter opener above her head. She moved toward him, brandishing it like a knife. In the shadowy light her face became hard, frightening, ugly with hate.

  “Put that down!” he cried, backing up, confused, not sure this was really happening. Hadn’t he just saved her? Wasn’t she just in his arms thanking him, inviting him up to her room? “Anna, what are you doing? Stop. We have to call the police!”