OTHER DANGERS

Most of the scary stories in this book have been passed down the years. But the ones in this chapter have been told only in recent times. They are stories that young people often tell about dangers we face in our lives today.

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Donald and Sarah went to the movies. Then they went for a ride in

Donald’s car. They parked up on a hill at the edge of town. From there they could see the lights up and down the valley.

Donald turned on the radio and found some music. But an announcer broke in with a news bulletin. A murderer had escaped from the state prison. He was armed with a knife and was headed south on foot. His left hand was missing. In its place, he wore a hook.

“Let’s roll up the windows and lock the doors,” said Sarah. “That’s a good idea,” said Donald.

“That prison isn’t too far away,” said Sarah. “Maybe we really should go home.”

“But it’s only ten o’clock,” said Donald.

“I don’t care what time it is,” she said. “I want to go home.”

“Look, Sarah,” said Donald, “he’s not going to climb all the way up here. Why would he do that? Even if he did, all the doors are locked. How could he get in?”

“Donald, he could take that hook and break through a window and open a door,” she said. “I’m scared. I want to go home.” Donald was annoyed.

“Girls always are afraid of something,” he said.

As he started the car, Sarah thought she heard someone, or something, scratching at her door.

“Did you hear that?” she asked as they roared away. “It sounded like somebody was trying to get in.

“Oh, sure” said Donald.

Soon they got to her house.

“Would you like to come in and have some cocoa?” she asked. “No,” he said, “I’ve got to go home.”

He went around to the other side of the car to let her out. Hanging on the door handle was a hook.

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THE WHITE SATIN EVENING GOWN

A young man invited a young woman to a formal dance. But she was very poor, and she could not afford to buy the evening gown she needed for such an occasion.

“Maybe you can rent a dress/’ her mother said. So she went to a pawnshop not far from where she lived. There she found a white satin evening gown in her size. She looked lovely in it, and she was able to rent it for very little.

When she arrived at the dance with her friend, she was so attractive,

everyone wanted to meet her. She danced again and again and was having a wonderful time. But then she began to feel dizzy and faint, and she

asked her friend to take her home. “I think I have danced too much,” she told him.

When she got home, she lay down on her bed. The next morning her mother found that her daughter had died. The doctor did not understand what had caused her death. So he had the coroner perform an autopsy.

The coroner found that she had been poisoned by em- balming fluid. It had stopped her blood from flowing. There were traces of the fluid on her dress. He decided it had entered her skin when she perspired while she was dancing.

The pawnbroker said he bought the dress from an undertaker’s helper. It had been used in a funeral for another young woman, and the helper had stolen it just before she was buried.

‌- HIGM BEAR4S

The girl driving the old blue sedan was a senior at the high school. She lived on a farm about eight miles away and used the car to drive back and forth.

She had driven into town that night to see a basketball game. Now she was on her way home. As she pulled away from the school, she noticed a red pick-up truck follow her out of the parking lot. A few minutes later the truck was still behind her.

“I guess we’re going in the same direction,” she thought.

She began to watch the truck in her mirror. When she changed her speed, the driver of the truck changed his speed. When she passed a car, so did he.

Then he turned on his high beams, flooding her car with light. He left them on for almost a minute. “He probably wants to pass me,” she thought. But she was becoming uneasy.

Usually she drove home over a back road. Not too many people went that way. But when she turned onto that road, so did the truck.

“I’ve got to get away from him,” she thought, and she began to drive faster. Then he turned his high beams on again. After a minute, he turned them off. Then he turned them on again and off again.

She drove even faster, but the truck driver stayed right behind her. Then he turned his high beams on again. Once more her car was ablaze with light. “What is he doing?” she wondered. “What does he want?” Then

he turned them off again. But a minute later he had them on again, and he left them on.

At last she pulled into her driveway, and the truck pulled in right behind her. She jumped from the car and ran to the house. “Call the police!” she screamed at her father. Out in the driveway she could see the driver of the truck. He had a gun in his hand.

When the police arrived, they started to arrest him, but he pointed to the girl’s car. “You don’t want me,”he said. “You want him.”

Crouched behind the driver’s seat, there was a man with a knife.

As the driver of the truck explained it, the man slipped into the girl’s car just before she left the school. He saw it happen, but there was no way he could stop it. He thought about getting the police, but he was afraid to leave her. So he followed her car.

Each time the man in the back seat reached up to over- power her, the driver of the truck turned on his high beams. Then the man dropped down, afraid that someone might see him.

‌THE BAåYS!ITTER

It was nine o’clock in the evening. Everybody was sitting on the couch in front of the TV. There were Richard, Brian, Jenny, and Doreen, the babysitter.

The telephone rang.

Maybe it’s your mother,” said Doreen. She picked up the phone. Before she could say a word, a man laughed hysterically and hung up.

“Who was it?” asked Richard.

“Some nut,” said Doreen. “What did I miss?”

At nine-thirty the telephone rang again. Doreen an-swered it. It was the man who had called before. “I’ll be there soon,” he said, and he laughed and hung up.

“Who was it?” the children asked. “Some crazy person,” she said.

About ten o’clock the telephone rang again. Jenny got to it first. “Hello,” she said.

It was the same man. “One more hour,” he said, and he laughed and hung up.

“He said, ‘One more hour.’ What did he mean?” asked Jenny. “Don’t worry,” said Doreen. “It’s somebody fooling around.” “I’m scared,” said Jenny.

About ten-thirty the telephone rang once more. When Doreen picked it up, the man said, “Pretty soon now,” and he laughed.

“Why are you doing this?” Doreen screamed, and he hung up. “Was it that guy again?” asked Brian.

“Yes,” said Doreen. “I’m going to call the operator and complain.”

The operator told her to call back if it happened again, and she would try to trace the call.

At eleven o’clock the telephone rang again. Doreen answered it. “Very soon now,” the man said, and he laughed and hung up.

Doreen called the operator. Almost at once she called back. “That person is calling from a telephone upstairs,” she said. “You’d better leave. I’ll get

the police.”

Just then a door upstairs opened. A man they had never seen before started down the stairs toward them. As they ran from the house, he was smiling in a very strange way. A few minutes later, the police found him there and arrested him.

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