Creep Street by John Marsden Page A

her teeth chattering. You’re in full view of the graves now. There’s a little mist blowing around them and a kind of white glow where the moonlight reflects off the crosses. Everything’s very quiet, nothing moving except the mist, but it seems colder here than anywhere else. It’s like this is a special little chill spot all of its own. Like the garden has its own refrigerator.
    You and Stacey are getting in each other’s way, mainly because you’re trying to hide behind each other. You’re hugging like you’re old friends, and after all you only met that day. But then you forget about Stacey because, in the distance, you hear a clock start to chime, and you realise this is it, this is the witching hour, this is the first stroke of midnight.
    â€˜Let’s get out of here,’ Stacey mutters. Her teeth are doing their tap-dance right in your ear. It can’t be good for her braces. You want to ask her about that but you decide this mightn’t be the best time. The clock is striking for the tenth time. You’re about to agree with her about leaving. But it’s really too late now. With the clock striking for the last time you’re about to see the most frightening sight of your young life . . . or you’re about to realise you’ve wasted a lot of precious sleep time.

omehow you make yourself turn around. It’s not easy. There’s so much sweat pouring down your body that the ground’s getting muddy. But, with the same kind of courage that you showed on the Grade One camp when you owned up to being the Phantom Pisser, you make the big move.
    And there before you is a horrible sight. A gruesome disgusting foul revolting sight. It’s some kind of corpse, and it’s standing there looking at you. Well, as much as anyone can look when they don’t have any eyes. Instead of eyes this figure has bony sockets in its face. Instead of a nose it has a hole. Instead of clothes it has mouldy rags hanging off its filthy rotten body. You can see shreds of flesh through the holes in the clothes. As you stand there, frozen in horror, it slowly opens its mouth. Out comes a long dark fat worm. It’s about a metre long. It drops to the ground and squirms away, wriggling and writhing. Then the corpse advances on you. You’re completely helpless. You open your mouth to scream, and that’s the last sound you ever make. The cold slimy fingers of the corpse close around your throat and slowly squeeze the life out of you. Everything goes black and you die. A few days later they have your funeral, and then you’re cremated and your ashes scattered to the four winds.
    There’s only one question left to answer. If you’re dead, how come you’re managing to read this story right now?

he clock strikes for the twelfth time. At that moment you see a sight so horrifying that you feel you’re floating into the air. The only thing that keeps you on the ground is Stacey’s arm, gripping yours so tightly that she leaves bruises. You don’t even notice that. Your skin is prickling all over, like you’ve got ants covering every inch of you. You want to scream but there’s a lump in your throat so big that not even ice-cream could squeeze past it.
    It’s the graves, of course; that’s where it’s happening. One grave in particular: the middle one. The ground over it is bulging like it’s pregnant. You can actually see the dirt sliding off it and the grass slowly uprooting. A split appears down the middle of it. A weird white light is shining out of the earth: a soft light, glowing around the edges. You think Stacey’s making some kind of noise but you can’t hear it exactly. It sounds like a wombat trying to snore with a peg on its nose. You don’t dare look at Stacey, though. All you can look at is the earth bulging and rising and opening like a big dark mouth. You know something’s going to come out