The Most Frightening Story Ever Told Read Free Page A

than he had imagined. The Red Room was at least as big as a tennis court. There were many bookshelves containing thousands of books. To Billy’s delight, all of the books were about ghosts. For several minutes he did nothing but look at the spines of the books. And almost half an hour had gone by before Billy noticed that there was nothing beyond the Red Room, as Mr. Rapscallion had said. Even more puzzling than this, however, was the discovery that the doorway by which he had entered the Red Room had disappeared. He was now enclosed on all four sides by bookshelves and nothing but bookshelves. Obviously there was a secret door in the shelves, but as to which wall of books this was in and how it was to be opened Billy hadn’t the first clue. And for several minutes afterward, he just stood there in the center of the Red Room, looking in one direction and then another, and then another.
    Billy supposed the Red Room was called the Red Room because the carpet and the ceiling and all of the bookshelves were the color red. About the only things that weren’t red were the books and Billy himself. The room was lit by seven candles, which struck Billy as a little dangerous in a bookshop. But the candles created some strange shadows in the room and made it seem a bit more creepy.
    Especially when one of the candles in a sconce on the wall blew out.
    And then another.
    Billy picked up one of the candles that were still lit and went to light the two candles that had gone out. But as he did so, two more candles went out, as if an invisible finger and thumb had nipped their wicks.
    “That’s a bit odd,” Billy said to himself, turning to light these as well. Almost immediately the flames on another two candles were extinguished and the darkness seemed to take several large steps toward Billy himself.
    The boy gulped loudly.
    “What’s going on?” he said, with a strange high note of panic entering into his already high voice. “I want these candles to stay lit.” With a shaking hand, he leaped from one snuffed-out candle to another and, for a moment, he successfully managed to keep all seven lit.
    But then four candles went out at once and Billy heard himself cry out with terror as the darkness seemed to gain on him. “Yikes. This is getting kind of creepy.”
    Worse was to follow. In his haste to reach one of the unlit candles, the flame upon the candle in his trembling fingers seemed to drag against the air, and then went out. Billy gulped again, dropped the dead candle onto the carpet and reached for one of the two that were still lit—even as this new candle flickered and died in a little wisp of wraith-like smoke.
    Horrified, Billy bent down to pick up the candle from the floor and turned to face the last remaining lit candle. Just as he raised it to the only candle that stood between him and complete and total darkness, this last candle went out as well.
    Darkness surrounded the boy like a thick envelope. It was as if someone had picked him up and dropped him into a deep bag made of black velvet and then tied it tight before throwing the bag into a hole.
    Then he heard the floorboards creak. He tried to tell himself that these were probably creaking under his own very nervous weight. But it was only too easy to imagine that he wasn’t alone in the Red Room. That someone or something was in there with him. And trying to scare him, too.
    “Is someone there?” he asked, hoping very much that someone or something didn’t answer. “Because if there is, I think it’s in very poor taste to frighten another person like this. Even if this is the Haunted House of Books.”
    The floorboards creaked again, in a sinister sort of way.
    Somehow Billy managed not to lose control, hoping that as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he might eventually see something. But the darkness remained as black as pitch. Indeed, the darkness seemed to intensify. It was almost as if the darkness surrounding him was becoming thick enough