Prologue

  1

  “I can’t believe we’re going to a Valentine’s dance,” Dana Fear said, shaking out her dark hair, studying herself in the dresser mirror. “It’s so totally geeky.”

  “It’s for a good cause,” Jamie Richards replied. “You know all the money goes to the homeless.”

  “Clark knows the DJ,” Dana said. “He does the mixes at that teen dance club on Wayland Road that no one goes to.”

  “Never been there,” Jamie said. “Hey, you and Clark are together a lot these days.”

  Dana smoothed lip gloss over her lips. “He’s hot,” she murmured. “And yeah, I think he’s really into me.”

  I was watching the two girls from the bedroom window. It was open a crack, and I could hear every word they said. They didn’t see me—otherwise they would have quickly shooed me away.

  Or maybe they’d scream in fright.

  Pressing against the window glass, I watched Jamie slip on a sheer, violet midriff top and straighten it over her waist. “Is this too sexy?”

  Dana snickered. “Too sexy? What does that mean?”

  “No. Really.” Jamie bumped her cousin away from the mirror.

  “I like that skirt,” Dana said. “It’s so short. You can’t sit down in it. Where’d you get it?”

  “Old Navy. Believe it?”

  Dana wore a loose-fitting silvery top and low-riding jeans. She wasn’t as knockout pretty as her cousin Jamie, but she knew how to show off what she had.

  Watching her, I felt bad that I’d made the decision to kill her.

  “When is Lewis picking us up?” Dana asked.

  Jamie glanced at her bedtable clock. “In half an hour, I guess. I’ll call his cell and see if he’s ready to leave.”

  Dana giggled. “This is so retro. A double date. Like in an old sitcom or something. We should have made the guys bring us corsages.”

  “Corsages?” Jamie frowned. “No way they’d know what corsages are.”

  I was getting bored. Also, the girls were enjoying themselves too much. We can’t have that—can we?

  I decided to show them I was there.

  Jamie bumped Dana away from the mirror again. “I hate my hair,” she said, tugging it with both hands. “Here. Help me put it up.”

  Dana combed her fingers through Jamie’s hair. “Your hair is so much thicker than mine,” she said. “And bouncier. Mine just lies there limp.”

  Jamie handed her the brush. “Hurry. We don’t have much time.”

  Dana raised the brush to the back of Jamie’s hair—then stopped. “Whoa. Hold on. There’s something in your hair.”

  She pinched her fingers around the little crawling thing in Jamie’s hair, pulled it out, and examined it. “Oh, my god! It’s a little white worm!”

  “Huh?” Jamie spun around. “Let me see it.” She squinted at Dana’s hand. “It’s . . . I think it’s a maggot!”

  “Here’s another one,” Dana said, lifting something off Jamie’s scalp. “Oh, wow. Another one. Yikes! Jamie—there are dozens of them!”

  Dana held up four or five maggots in the palm of her hand.

  “Ohh . . . my head—it itches!” Jamie cried, scratching frantically.

  Dana ran the brush through Jamie’s hair and watched the tiny white worms fall to the floor.

  Jamie let out a scream. “Dana—they’re in your hair too! Get that one! It’s crawling down your forehead!”

  Dana slapped at her forehead. She started frantically picking maggots from her hair.

  “My scalp! It itches! It burns! Ow! We’re covered in them. Covered in maggots!”

  2

  Both girls were screaming now, screaming and crying, and frantically pulling at their hair.

  They probably wouldn’t make it to the dance.

  I decided it was time for me to leave. I raised my wings and took off, floating high above Jamie’s house.

  They still hadn’t seen me. If they had, they would have screamed some more. They would have recognized me, the blackbird with one eye missing.

  And they would know that the EVIL lives, the evil still haunts them.

  At least, they consider me evil. I have a different point of view. I think I’m on the side of justice. I only want what is fair.

  After all, they invaded my house last year. They broke into the Fear Mansion and looted it. They gleefully stole our possessions.

  Didn’t anyone ever teach these kids that crime doesn’t pay?

  Well, that’s what I plan to do. I plan to teach them that important lesson.

  Dana and Jamie think they have killed the evil. Burned it in that fiery kiln in Jamie’s garage. They think they can relax now.

  But I’m still here.

  I’m closer to them than ever.

  And I have the amulet. The jeweled pendant that gives me so much power.

  They won’t get away with their crime. I’ll see to that.

  I’m not evil. What an ugly word that is. I desire only justice.

  Trying to burn us away gives me even more reason to seek my revenge.

  Even more reason to kill them one by one.

  Part One

  One Month Later

  3

  “Lewis, you are evil,” I said. I gave him a hard shove.

  He grabbed my hands and pulled me down the hall. “Check it out,” he said. “My new room. Jamie, this house is so huge, it’s like I have my own apartment. My parents will never even know we’re in here.”

  “You have a dirty mind,” I said. I grinned at him. “I like that!”

  Shark and Nikki laughed. Dana dropped onto the black bedspread and pulled Clark down beside her. “What’s up with the dark walls? Everything is black in here,” she said, gazing around.

  Lewis smiled at me. “I was watching this cable show about famous bachelor pads,” he said. “These guys all had black walls. Totally cool, right?”

  “But you need a mirror on the ceiling,” Clark said.

  We all laughed.

  “Get up,” Lewis told Dana and Clark. “You gotta check out the den.” He trotted down the long, carpeted hall, and we hurried to keep up with him. Everything looked so bright and clean. The house still had that new-paint smell.

  “Check it out,” Lewis declared, waving us into the den. He clicked on the ceiling lights. We stared at the wide-screen TV on the wall. “It’s plasma,” he said. “We get about twenty high-def stations.”

  “Awesome!” Shark exclaimed. “Just in time for March Madness. Are the basketball games in high def?”

  “For sure,” Lewis said. “You guys can come over next Saturday and watch. You bring some six-packs. I’ll get sub sandwiches. My parents are going out, so we’ll have the whole house to ourselves. Par-tee!”

  “Sweet!” Shark declared. He smoothed his hand over the back of the green leather couch. “Is this real imitation plastic?”

  “Ha-ha.” Lewis rolled his eyes. “Sit down on it. It’s so soft, you sink in about two feet.”

  Nikki and Dana raced to try out the couch.

  “Whoa. Wait. You guys can’t come here next Saturday,” Clark said, waving his hands. “You’ve gotta come to my game. If we win Saturday night against Riverview, Shadyside goes to the state finals.”

  My cousin Dana jumped up and slid an arm around her new boyfriend’s shoulders. “Yeah. We’ve gotta go to Clark’s game,” she said. “Go, Tigers—right? Shadyside rules!”

  Shark laughed. “Can you picture Dana as a cheerleader?” He did a glum-faced, dull-voiced cheer. “Go, Tigers. Go Tigers. Whatever.” A perfect imitation of Dana.

  Everyone laughed except Dana. “I don’t get it,” she said. “I don’t sound like that. I’m totally excited we might go to the tournament. Mainly, I like to watch Clark play.”

  “She likes it when Clark gets all sweaty,” Shark said.

  That got a big laugh. Dana gave Shark a hard slap on the back.

  I stood in the doorway, watching Lewis. It made me feel good to see him smiling and happy and excited.

  Things are going so well for Lewis. One, his parents bought this enormous new house. Two, he got early acceptance at Brown. So he didn’t have to wait, biting his nails for the college acceptance letters in April.

  Even I was starting to relax a little, starting to feel as if I could breathe normally again.

  Senior year began so tragically for all of us. Three girls in our class died in the most horrible ways.

  When school opened in September, I was still recovering from a painful accident. Late one night, Lewis and I fell. We were in the yard of the old Fear Mansion on Fear Street. We were curious about the ghosts and legends of the place. Everyone in town believed it to be a place of evil. Everyone believed the Fear family to be sorcerers, users of dark magic.

  Anyway, the old mansion had just been torn down. Lewis and I shouldn’t have been there so late at night. We fell into a deep excavation hole. We were both nearly buried. We broke a lot of bones.

  It took months for us to recover. Lewis and I had to repeat senior year. When school started the following September, I still had a bad limp. The nerves in my hip and legs hadn’t healed.

  But I had a much worse problem, a problem I had no way of discovering. You see, the excavation where I fell had uncovered an old grave. The grave of Angelica Fear.

  Angelica was said to be the most evil of all the Fears. According to the stories, she had been given an amulet—a silver, jeweled pendant with evil powers. The amulet held the secret of immortality. And before she died—a hundred years ago —Angelica swore she would come back someday.

  I know it sounds totally bizarre. Totally unbelievable. But sadly, it’s all true. When I fell on Angelica’s grave, she rose up and possessed me. She took my body. And she used it to . . . to . . . murder the three girls in my class.

  I don’t know why she did it.

  I don’t remember any of this. I guess I’m lucky that I don’t remember it. If I did, I’d probably go stark-raving nuts.

  Sometimes I think I am crazy. Sometimes I think none of it could be true. But when I see those empty seats in homeroom, I know it happened. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

  My cousin, Dana Fear, came to live with me and my family in September. Her mother died, and her dad didn’t want to take care of her.

  Dana told me all this. Dana explained to me about how Angelica Fear took over my body, possessed me, and used me for her evil.

  I had no memory of that whole time. Dana told me how she destroyed Angelica. She shoved her into the big pottery kiln in my garage. She heard Angelica’s screams and watched her evaporate into a green gas.

  Yes, Dana killed Angelica. She freed me from her evil ghost. I was me again. But it took so long to feel like me. It took so long to believe the horrifying story. And to believe that Angelica was gone for good.

  But here we were. March. And things were going really well for everyone. Lewis so happy. And Dana starting to get over her father’s rejection. And finding Clark, a new guy she really likes.

  For three months, I’ve been ME again. It seems that Lewis and I can finally enjoy our last months of high school and look ahead to happy times after that.

  Lewis and I have been together for so long. My parents say we’re like an old married couple. They say we even fight like an old married couple.

  I don’t think that’s true.

  In fact, things have been so strange, sometimes I’m not even sure I know Lewis that well. Sure, we see each other every day. And we still care about each other a lot. And I enjoy holding him, being with him.

  But . . . there are many things we don’t talk about. So many things we can’t talk about.

  So much pain and horror to cover up, I guess.

  Sometimes I feel there’s like a wall between us. And I wonder what he’s thinking about.

  Does he think about me being possessed by a hundred-year-old ghost? Does that gross him out? Does he think I’m a murderer?

  Besides Dana, Lewis is the only one who knows my secret. The only one who knows the truth.

  He has been very kind and very caring since . . . since it all happened. But . . . something has changed between us. It’s hard to describe. I just feel a distance I didn’t feel before.

  A wall.

  But maybe that is all in my mind. Lately, I’ve had a bad habit of thinking too much, trying to analyze things that don’t need analyzing.

  Lewis is happier these days. We all are.

  He showed off his high-def TV. Then he suggested we all go to the late show at the Fear Street Acres Cineplex. It seemed like a good idea.

  I had no way of knowing that halfway through the movie, the horror would return for me.

  4

  It was a midnight show of an Adam Sandler comedy. So dumb, we all started calling out our own jokes. We were just about the only ones in the theater, so it really didn’t matter.

  Shark was doing a very good imitation of Adam Sandler. He even got up and did a funny walk up and down the aisle. We were hooting and laughing. And then someone sitting in the back complained. And a skinny little guy in a red blazer, who looked about twelve and had a high, cracking voice, came and told us we’d have to leave if we didn’t chill.

  So we quieted down, although we couldn’t stop giggling. And then Clark spilled all the change from his pocket. It clattered over the floor. And we started laughing and goofing all over again.

  I slid down in my chair and raised my knees to the seat in front of me. Adam Sandler was chasing after Drew Barrymore, and I thought, whoa, he looks a lot like Lewis. Except Lewis is not so geeky-looking.

  Shark was still imitating Adam Sandler. Nikki shoved him, pleading with him to stop. Dana and Clark had their arms around each other and were lip-locked, totally ignoring the movie.

  I suddenly felt drowsy. It had been a long day. I had a very long Chem test in the morning. After school, I had to take care of my little brother Danny and make him dinner. Taking care of Danny can make anyone tired. He’s like a tornado or something. He actually bounces off the walls!

  So I started feeling tired. I guess my eyes closed. I wasn’t really following the film. Maybe I dozed off for a few minutes. I’m not sure.

  When I opened my eyes, it took a while for the screen to come into focus. Drew Barrymore had been a blonde in this movie. Why did she suddenly have dark hair?

  I gasped when I recognized the face. Not Drew Barrymore’s face. My face.

  Yes, I saw myself on the screen.

  Blinking hard, I lowered my legs and pulled myself up straight. I felt a cold tingle at the back of my neck. Squinting hard, I watched Lewis walk onto the movie screen. He was wearing Adam Sandler’s jeans and red-checked shirt. But it was definitely Lewis, and he had a very frightened expression on his face.

  I raised my hands to my cheeks and stared as another figure walked into the scene. A woman. I didn’t recognize her at first.

  On the screen, my expression changed. My eyes bulged in fear. I watched Lewis grab my hand. The woman turned. Angelica Fear! I recognized her cold, clear eyes, her high cheekbones, the cruel, thin-lipped smile on her pretty face.

  She appeared solid at first, but then she faded until I could see through her. Transparent now, like a movie ghost.

  On-screen, she floated over me. My hands flew up to protect myself. I watched myself stumble back against the wall. Where were we? A house I didn’t recognize.

  Staring in horror at the movie screen, I knew what Angelica was doing. She was trying to possess me again. She floated over me, then started to lower herself.

  In the movie scene, Lewis uttered a cry. He grabbed for her waist with both hands to try to pull her away from me. But his hands shot through her transparent body. He grabbed only air.

  On-screen, I tried to run, but she held me in place. I saw her dropping into me, her legs disappearing first. Sliding . . . sliding down until her waist poked down into my head and we appeared like some kind of terrifying conjoined twins.

  Angelica was possessing me again, and I couldn’t escape.

  I watched Lewis leaping high, grabbing at her. Grabbing at nothing as she slid lower, lower into my body.

  As I stared at the screen, I gripped the chair in front of me, gripped it tightly until my hands ached.

  And I watched Angelica Fear disappear inside my body. I watched the terrifying scene on the huge screen in front of me, and my whole body shook as if jolted in an earthquake.

  Without even realizing it, I stood up—and opened my mouth in an ear-shattering scream of horror.

  5

  Lewis pulled me out to the lobby. The skinny guy in the red blazer had a broom and dustpan in his hands. He stared at me blankly.

  “I . . . saw us,” I told Lewis, my whole body trembling. “I saw us—on the screen.”

  He put his arm around me and guided me out the glass doors.

  “Anything wrong?” I heard the red-blazer guy call before the door swung shut.

  My friends came bursting out after us. Shark carried his huge bucket of popcorn. Dana grabbed my hand. “Jamie, you’re shaking. What happened?”

  “I . . . I’m not crazy,” I stammered. “But I saw Lewis and me on the screen. Angelica Fear, too.”

  I stopped there. Shark, Nikki, and Clark didn’t know anything about Angelica Fear possessing me, forcing me to do those murders. And I didn’t want them to know.

  Dana squeezed my hand between both of hers. “Jamie, your eyes were closed,” she said. “I saw you sleeping. Really. It was a dream.”

  I shook my head. “No. I was awake. I know I was.”

  Lewis had his arm around me. The others stared at me as if I were crazy.

  Shark stuffed a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “You freaked us all out,” he said, chewing. “It had to be a nightmare. I didn’t see you up on the screen!”

 

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