I Scream, You Scream!, page 3
ODD RAIN.
DAD IN OR …
Andy’s hand reached the top rung. Sam pulled him up by the elbow. He made it!
They made it.
Together.
After a moment, Andy asked, “Which way now?”
Sam shook her head. “No idea.”
A noise came from the distance, the crashing of a tree.
They decided to walk the other way. And quickly.
After a short walk, Sam spied a steep ravine and a small stream below. “Water,” she said.
Andy didn’t hesitate. He scrambled down the ravine, grabbing tree roots for balance, sending dirt and stones tumbling downhill as he went.
“Slow down,” Sam warned. She took a few cautious steps and reached out to grab onto a large rock for balance. “You could easily fall and—”
The unstable rock shuddered and rolled away beneath Sam’s hand.
It happened in an instant.
Enough time for Sam to think, Uh-oh.
And next she was rag-dolling down the ravine, plummeting head over heels past Andy, rolling toward a stand of trees.
With amazing speed, Andy lunged in front of Sam. He wrapped his arms around her torso and they rolled like a ball into the tree. Andy braced his right arm and took the full force of the impact against the tree trunk.
The sound was terrible.
Andy’s arm below the elbow shattered like glass.
11
WIRES
Sam tried to clear her dizzy, throbbing head. Her banged and bruised body ached. She opened and closed her fingers, tested her legs, opened her eyes. Nothing was broken.
Andy sat perfectly calm, leaning against the tree trunk.
He cradled the injured arm in his free hand. The only hand he had left.
His other hand was shattered in the fall.
But instead of flesh and bones and blood, Sam saw metal rods, wires, and tiny lights. The insides of his arm looked like a computer.
Stunned, Sam crab-walked away in horror, stumbling backward, scrambling up the slope.
“Wait, Sam!” Andy cried. He stepped closer.
“Stay away from me!” Sam screamed.
Andy dropped back, sitting down quietly.
Sam couldn’t speak. She stared at Andy’s arm. She saw, too, that his face was bruised in the fall, and a flap of skin by his eye was torn off. Beneath it, she saw wires and more metal.
The letters of the anagram jumbled in Sam’s mind. In a flash, DINARDO turned into ANDROID.
“You’re not … you’re not human,” Sammy stammered.
“I am sorry. It was not supposed to be this way,” Andy said. “I have failed.”
“What are you?” Sam asked.
“A friend,” Andy said.
Sam shook her head, no. She stood, stepped away, and prepared to run.
Suddenly a loud pop, like a fireworks display, exploded high in the sky. But instead of colorful lights, dazzling letters appeared against the clouds.
The letters formed words.
The words read: GAME OVER.
12
OVERSTREET
Samantha Carver and Andy Dinardo the Third—the robot boy, or android, or whatever he was—walked together in the peaceful forest.
Andy knew the way, and Sam followed.
The game was over.
Sam had not realized it had been a game all along.
Andy said, “My assignment was to keep you safe.”
“You were protecting me?” Sam said. “I thought I was the one who saved you. Remember?”
Andy glanced at Sam. He looked down, almost in shame. “That is what I wanted you to believe.”
They walked for twenty minutes, most of it in silence. “Where are you taking me?” Sam demanded.
Andy stopped. “We have arrived.” He pointed to a cabin in the woods. It was a small, ramshackle place, with only one window and a door. A whisper of smoke curled from the chimney. “All of your questions will soon be answered.”
He turned to look at Sam, with his humanlike face made of synthetic plastic, wires, chips, and flashing lights. “I am sorry,” he said. He gestured with his arm. “You were not meant to see me this way.”
Sam couldn’t help but marvel. She was talking to an android. No wonder he had such a peculiar way of speaking. Every word was flattened out, without expression. Now Sam understood why.
“You don’t use contractions,” Sam said. “I am sorry. You were not meant. I knew there was something weird about the way you talked.”
“It is a bug in the software,” Andy admitted. “I can not speak in contractions.”
“No, you can’t,” Sam said defiantly.
“No, I can not,” he replied, and smiled.
The cabin door squeaked open. It was an invitation. COME INSIDE.
Sam looked at Andy. She wasn’t sure.
“You once asked me to trust you,” he said. “Now I ask the same of you. Trust me. I will protect you, always.”
Inside the cabin, the thin man in the black suit sat at a long, wooden table. He was the man who took Sam’s ticket outside the Dragon Tooth.
“Please,” he gestured to an empty chair. “Sit, Samantha Carver. I have food, lemonade. A phone to call your parents.”
Sam looked at the tray of fruit, sandwiches, and snacks. Her stomach twisted with hunger. She did not sit.
“Who are you?” Sam asked.
“I thought you might have guessed by now,” the man said. “My name is Phineas Z. Overstreet.”
“The billionaire?”
The man bowed his head. “At your service. I see you have met my son.”
Sam blinked. She looked to Andy. “Your son?”
Overstreet grinned, revealing yellow teeth behind thin lips. “Well, not technically, of course. Andy is an android, as you can see. His last name, Dinardo, that was a clue we left for you.”
“An anagram,” Sam replied. She sat down at the table. Reached for an Oreo and twisted it open. “Dinardo, android. I figured it out when I saw his face was made of wires and stuff.”
The man spoke to Andy. “I see you’ve sustained an injury, Andrew. You will be repaired at the lab.”
“Are you an android, too?” Sam asked.
The man coughed in an odd sort of laughter. “No,” he answered. “I am merely a lonely billionaire, shut off from the rest of the world.”
“So you built an android?”
The man nodded. His searching eyes fell on the window, as if fearful of the great world outside, recalling loneliness and cruelty. And at that moment, he seemed impossibly sad. His gaze returned to Sam’s face. “Yes, I created Andy. I think of him as a son.”
“So all of this,” Sam said, “everything that happened to me. The explosions, the avalanche in the tunnel, the spaceship, the bats, the danger. None of it was real?”
“The bats were real,” Overstreet replied. “Imported from Argentina.”
“What about the dead man covered in blood?” Sam asked. “The woman with the fire extinguisher?”
“Actors, the blood was red glop, ketchup or something of the sort,” Overstreet answered.
“And the other kids on the ride? What happened to them?” Sam asked.
Overstreet tilted his head sideways. His eyes flickered with mischief. “They are safe. I suppose you could say they had adventures of their own.”
“The spaceship?”
“A hologram.”
“Where my parents?” Sam asked.
“They are waiting at a luxury hotel. My treat, of course. Probably sitting by the pool, sipping cool drinks, dangling their toes in the water. It’s all been explained to them,” said Phineas Z. Overstreet. “You can see them as soon as you wish.”
“I wish,” Sam said.
She stood, sighed, and shook her head with weariness. “I was scared out of my mind. I thought I was going to die. I can’t believe that none of it was real.”
“Your bravery was real,” Overstreet said.
“I am real.” Andy had been standing against the wall in silence. Now he stepped forward and looked at Sam.
Sam considered the creature that stood before her. An android named Andy Dinardo the Third. He was like Pinocchio, not a real boy, not really. He was a science project made of rods, plastic, chips, and software.
He had no heart.
Sam walked up, looked him in the eye, and hugged the android close to her chest. “Thank you for protecting me,” she said.
She turned to the lonely man in the dull black suit. “Mr. Overstreet,” she said. “After I see my parents, I want one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“I want to do it again.”
“Again?” He raised an eyebrow.
She grinned, white teeth gleaming. “You’ve created the greatest thrill ride in amusement park history. And I want to go again,” she declared. “Again, again, again!”
A buzz came from inside Overstreet’s jacket pocket. He pulled out a sleek metallic device. “Yes? I see,” he spoke into it. “Please send along the helicopter. And what is the status of the new prototype?”
He listened, eyes fixed on Samantha.
“Send an image, please.”
Overstreet jabbed a finger expertly at the device in his hand.
A photograph appeared for his eyes only. His thin lips curled into a smile. “Very nice. We’ll need five hundred more by the first of the month.”
WHERE DOES THE RIDE BEGIN … AND WHEN DOES IT END?
WHAT IS REAL … AND WHAT IS PART OF SOME PLAN WE CAN’T BEGIN TO COMPREHEND?
DO ANY OF US REALLY KNOW?
AND MIGHT THERE BE, IN SOME SECRET LABORATORY, A SMALL ARMY OF ANDROIDS LINED UP IN TIDY ROWS?
EACH ONE WEARING YOUR FACE?
LOOKING FOR MORE THRILLS AND CHILLS?
DON’T MISS THE THIRD SCARY TALES BOOK …
Illustrated by IACOPO BRUNO
IN THE GATHERING DARK OF AUTUMN TWILIGHT, THREE STUDENTS ENTER A NEAR-EMPTY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. THEY HUSTLE TO FETCH FORGOTTEN THINGS: BOOKS, ASSIGNMENTS, BASKETBALL SNEAKERS.
THEY ARE NOT FRIENDS. THEY SCARCELY KNOW EACH OTHER.
BUT THEY WILL SOON BE TRAPPED INSIDE — DOORS CHAINED, LOCKED SHUT. IN THE BASEMENT, A MYSTERIOUS NIGHT JANITOR WAITS. AND OUTSIDE, MOVING IN THE MIST, DARK SHAPES SHUFFLE CLOSER, EVER CLOSER …
WALKERS IN THE MIST
Arnold stood by a window at the far end of the library, from which vantage point he could observe the grounds behind the school. Through the mist, he could see the baseball diamond and basketball courts, the swing set and monkey bars, and the jungle gym that looked like an old pirate ship.
The wind was still. Not a leaf stirred. High above, a full moon appeared like a cloudy eye that stared, unblinking, through the mist.
“I wanted to check outside,” Arnold told them. “After what the night janitor said about, you know, it being dangerous.”
“Yeah, so?” Carter asked.
“Take a look,” Arnold said.
Esme gazed out the window. “It’s hard to see anything.”
“There!” Carter put a hand on Esme’s back, and pointed with his free hand.
As Esme’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she began to make out shapes moving through the grounds. Men and women dressed in clothing from olden times and others in tattered rags, all drifting aimlessly through the school playground.
A murder of crows flapped and bickered near the figures, landing on heads and shoulders. None of the dark shapes seemed to mind.
“Their clothes seem so old-fashioned,” Esme said. “Like they’re dressed up for a fancy party or a dance or—”
“—a funeral,” Carter said.
Arnold hesitated, uncertain. “Those people don’t seem normal.” His breath smelled like spearmint gum. He cracked the gum loudly and chewed.
“Nooooope,” Carter agreed.
Could this be real?
Esme saw, or thought she saw, through the fog, a crow peck at the face of one of the figures. Again and again, the black scavenger plucked at the man’s eyes.
Yet he shuffled along as if he were just a sad, pathetic scarecrow in a cornfield. Couldn’t even scare away a crow.
“How come they’re out there,” Carter wondered, “just wandering around in the dark? It’s freaky.”
No one dared to guess. But it didn’t look right, they all felt it.
Dozens of figures ambled across the grounds. Listlessly, aimlessly, like school-children at recess without the energy to play. Some wore puffy dresses, others were dressed in suits and ties. They walked with their arms at their sides, heads pitched forward, as if led by their noses.
“They don’t seem awake,” Carter said. “Like they are sleepwalking or—”
“Zombies,” Arnold said.
A FEIWEL AND FRIENDS BOOK
AN IMPRINT OF MACMILLAN
I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM! Text copyright © 2013 by James Preller. Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Iacopo Bruno. All rights reserved. For information, address Feiwel and Friends, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
ISBN: 978-1-250-01888-5 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-1-250-01889-2 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-250-04240-8 (ebook)
Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto
First Edition: 2013
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eISBN 9781250042408
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James Preller, I Scream, You Scream!
