Truth or Dare . . (13 page)

There was a pause.

“Cut some off?” Samantha finally asked in a puzzled voice.

“Yeah, when you left that lock of hair in my dresser drawer,” Abby said. “With the note?”

“I put a note in there—for Jake,” Samantha said. “But that was all.”

“Wait a minute,” Abby said as her hands fell away from Samantha's hair. “Are you saying that you
didn't
put a lock of hair under the note? Long red hair, tied with a purple ribbon?”

“Absolutely not!” Samantha announced as she turned around to face Abby. “I'd
never
cut off my hair. I haven't had it cut since I was four years old.”

Abby's eyes grew wide as she stared at Samantha. “But if you didn't leave me a lock of red hair,” she said slowly, “then who
did
?”

Emily bolted out the front door before her mom could say anything more. She glanced up and down the block. House after house looked pretty much the same. The soft glow of streetlights and porch lights revealed muted colored siding, sliding glass doors leading onto decks, nicely mowed lawns, landscaped gardens, and blacktop driveways.

And then there was the Strig's house.

Looking across the street Emily saw the ramshackle old place. The last few flakes of paint on the original wooden clapboard danced in the wind. The sun-bleached shutters dangled on rusty nails. Most of the windows were broken, and those that weren't were boarded up. Green moss spread across the roof. The front lawn
had died long ago, and even the weeds seemed to be struggling to survive.

Emily realized that her mom was right. The place looked as if no one had lived there for years. But she knew better. A family with two kids was living there. And they liked her. They wanted to hang out with her and she liked hanging out with them. They had a lot of cool stuff in their house. And that was good enough for Emily.

She walked across the crunchy brown lawn and stepped up onto the Strig's porch. Ancient floorboards creaked as she approached the front door. Emily was about to knock when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She jumped at the touch, spun around, and found herself face-to-face with Drew Strig.

Drew was taller than Emily, and very thin. His face was pale. His jet-black hair sprang out in every direction and looked as if it hadn't had even a chance meeting with a hairbrush in years. His black T-shirt and jeans looked slightly too small for his body.

“You scared me!” Emily exclaimed and started to laugh. “I didn't hear you step onto the porch.”

“Sorry about that,” Drew said. “I wasn't sure you were going to make it over tonight.”

“Yeah, my mom gave me a hard time,” Emily explained. “You know, the usual. ‘It's so late. Why are you always going over there?'”

“Maybe she doesn't like us,” said a voice from above.

Looking up, Emily spotted Drew's sister, Vicky, sitting on a branch in an old gnarled tree that spread out across the front yard and overhung the tattered porch. Vicky looked very different from her brother. Her hair was pure white, but not old-lady white, more like glowing platinum. It hung down to her shoulders in perfectly straight strands extending from the part in the middle of her head. Her skin was the same color as her hair, and her thin lips had an odd purplish tint to them.

She was as skinny as her brother and almost as tall. Her black oversize shirt extended below her waist. The sleeves were so long they hid her hands. Her clothes were dirty but she didn't smell bad. She smelled kind of sweet and earthy, like the way the dirt smelled when Emily's mom churned up the garden each spring. To Emily, Vicky looked like some kind of goth-hippie hybrid. In fact, Emily thought that both Drew and Vicky dressed like rock stars. Emily, with her long, curly, reddish brown hair, sneakers instead of boots, and
often sunburned face (from always forgetting to put on sunscreen before she went outside), never thought she looked as cool as these two.

“Nah,” Emily responded. “It's not that she doesn't like you guys. I think she just doesn't like your house.”

Vicky nodded and pushed herself off the branch. She dropped down onto the porch without making a sound and without the slightest stumble.

“Nice move,” Emily said. “You should try out for the school gymnastics team.”

“But I don't go to your school,” Vicky said, lifting herself onto the porch railing which shifted slightly even under her light weight.

“You could probably still join the team though,” said Emily. “It's a bummer you guys are homeschooled. Any chance that'll change next year?”

“Not likely,” Drew answered. “Our parents would just rather have us stay home and teach us themselves.”

Emily shrugged. “Your parents around tonight?” she asked, glancing up at the Strigs' house and noticing that every window was dark.

“Yeah,” Drew said. “Somewhere in the house.”

Emily nodded as Vicky slipped off the railing and
walked past her without making a sound. She followed, noticing that the floorboards creaked loudly beneath her own clumsy feet.

Drew pushed open the front door. It swung inward with woeful squeak. Emily followed the Strigs inside.

“Drew, Vicky? Is that you?” called out a woman's voice.

“We're upstairs,” added a man's voice.

“Ah, Mom and Dad,” Drew said to Emily. “Told you they were around somewhere.” Then he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Yeah, it's us, Mom. Emily's here. She's gonna hang out for a while.”

“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Strig,” Emily called up, as she closed the front door.

Emily followed Drew and Vicky deeper into the house. This was not the first time she had been inside, but the weird layout of the place always surprised her a bit. It was so different from her own house right across the street. Just inside the front door, there were two narrow hallways, formed by unpainted Sheetrock walls. One turned to the left. The other led to a large room that was made entirely of wood paneling. And not just the walls, but the floor and ceiling too, as if someone had found a bunch of the stuff on sale and
decided to build a whole room out of it.

“Ah, the famous Strig rec room,” Emily said as they stepped in.

“We like it,” Vicky said, somewhat defensively.

“Hey, I like it too,” Emily replied quickly. “Who wouldn't?”

The room looked as if it had been magically transported here from a college dormitory. Its main furnishings were a Ping-Pong table and a foosball table, plus a couple of ripped-up chairs and a table with an old-fashioned rotary dial phone. A line of electric guitars and amplifiers stood in a row along one wall. A stereo, complete with a record turntable, sat in one corner. Next to it stood stacks and stacks of vinyl LPs. Drew turned on the stereo and put an album on the turntable. Punk music filled the room.

“Don't your parents mind you playing music so loud?” Emily shouted as she flipped through the stack of albums.

“Nah,” Drew replied. “Whose do you think these are?”

“Ready to lose?” Vicky asked, stepping up to the foosball table and grabbing the handles on one side. Emily took the other side and spun her players a few times.

“Game on,” she said, dropping the ball onto the table.

Emily and Vicky slammed and twisted the game's
handles making the little plastic players they controlled kick the ball. Vicky reacted instinctively when Emily fired a shot at her goal. Her goalie blocked the shot, then she deftly passed the ball through Emily's defense and fired it into the goal.

“Ugh,” Emily moaned, spinning a handle in frustration. “How are you so good at this game?”

Vicky smiled at her friend. “I've had a lot of practice. Don't worry, once you've played as much foosball as I have, you'll beat me. Another game?”

Before Emily could decide, her phone sounded with a text message. Pulling out her phone, she saw that the message was from her mother. It simply said,
NINE THIRTY.

“Ah, my mother, the human alarm clock,” Emily said. “Sorry, guys, I promised her I'd be home by nine thirty.”

“See you tomorrow night?” Drew asked.

“Can't,” Emily said. “My parents have the whole weekend planned. We're spending Saturday and Sunday at the beach. Kind of a ‘summer's almost here' thing.”

“Bummer,” Vicky said. “But we'll see you Monday?”

“Definitely! See you later.”

Emily hurried across the street and slipped into her house. Her parents were in the living room watching TV.

“I'm here!” Emily announced. “Nine thirty-two on the nose. That's what we agreed, right?”

“Cute,” her mom said. “Thanks for coming home right away. Did you have fun? What did you do?”

“Played games and stuff, you know,” Emily replied.

“Video games?” her mom asked.

“No, they don't have a TV, actually,” Emily said. “We played foosball.”

“Foosball?” her dad said. “I played that all the time in college. Great game. Maybe I could join you one time?”

“Dad!” Emily groaned.

“Just kidding,” her dad said.

“All right, hon,” her mother said. “Time for you to get some sleep. I'm going to wake you at seven.”

Emily grimaced. Waking up early was not her thing. “Really? That early?”

“The early bird doesn't get stuck in traffic,” her father reminded her.

Emily smiled as she trotted up the stairs to her room. That was one of her dad's signature corny phrases.

After brushing her teeth and changing into her pajamas, Emily flopped onto her bed, popped her earbuds in, and turned on her iPod. She imagined playing the
guitar chords herself. It wasn't long before she got sleepy and took out her earbuds.

A-hooooo!
Ow-ow-w!
came a loud gut-piercing howl. Emily felt the blood freeze in her veins, then remembered the DVD she had been watching.
Dad must have turned on that movie. Jeez, he scared me half to—

A-HOOOOO!
OW-OW-W!

This time the howl was louder, and Emily knew instantly that it wasn't coming from the basement. The bone-chilling shriek was coming from outside.

She dashed across her room, stumbling over a stack of books she had left on the floor. Catching herself on the windowsill, she peered out the window. There, on the Strigs' brown front lawn, a huge wolf loped toward the house. The wolf's back legs were long and slender, its chest round and muscular. Matted gray fur extended down its powerful front legs in mud-stained clumps.

But it was when Emily caught sight of its jaws that her heart rose into her throat. Was that blood on the animal's snout? The wolf opened its mouth wide and howled again, revealing long white fangs flecked with specks of red.

Porch lights all up and down the block blazed to life. Seeming to notice this, the wolf glanced over its shoulder,
then quickly turned back toward the Strigs' front door. Crouching low, as if it were stalking prey, the wolf slowly climbed the stairs onto the front porch.

“Drew and Vicky,” Emily muttered in horror. “It's gonna hurt Drew and Vicky!”

She turned and dashed from her room. Practically flying down the stairs, she exploded out the front door. Running down the street, she felt her heart pound as she watched the wolf lunge toward the door.

“Get away from there!” Emily shouted.

At the sound of her voice, the wolf turned and stared right at her, baring its razorlike teeth and growling. Then the snarling beast turned back, pushed the door open with its snout, and walked right into the house.

“No!” Emily cried, running faster now. Reaching the porch, she took the stairs two at a time then stopped short at the front door. She pushed the door open slowly, straining to see inside without actually sticking her head through the doorway. Pushing back against the terror shooting through her body, and shoving aside all thoughts of her own safety, Emily burst into the Strigs' house.