Festival of Fear by Graham Masterton

are, please help me.’
    She hung on and hung on, while Baba Jaga continued to scream and curse. After a few minutes, however, Daisy came into the utility room, carrying Anka. She looked very pale and serious.
    â€˜Mommy?’ she said. ‘I ran next door but there was nobody there and then I got scared that the witch was going to hurt you so I came back.’
    â€˜She’s locked in here, sweetheart. The witch is locked in here. I just have to keep her here until she freezes.’
    Baba Jaga screamed again, and the freezer chest tilted dangerously to one side, but Grace managed to brace one leg against the wall and push it back upright.
    After that, the witch was silent. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, then an hour. After an hour had passed, Grace thought she heard a soft crunching noise inside the freezer chest, but that was all.
    It was nearly three thirty in the morning before she dared to turn the key and ease open the lid.
    The witch was crouched inside, unmoving, and her black sacking dress was thickly coated with sparkling white rime.
    â€˜Is she dead?’ asked Daisy, peering anxiously over the edge of the freezer chest.
    â€˜I don’t know. I hope so.’
    Very cautiously, Grace reached out and touched the witch’s twig-like hair. It was so brittle that three or four strands of it snapped off.
    She hesitated, and then she took hold of the witch’s bony arm. She twisted it around, and as she did so it cracked, sharply, and broke. She dropped it on to the floor, and it shattered into even more fragments.
    Feeling emboldened, she plunged both of her hands into the freezer chest and seized the witch’s body. It collapsed, with a crunch, as if it were made of nothing but layers of burned, frozen newspaper. Her skull broke apart, too, and her pelvis, until Grace was left with nothing but a freezer strewn with black ashes.
    â€˜I think we’ve killed her, sweetheart,’ she told Daisy, smacking the ash from her hands. ‘I think we’ve gotten rid of her for good and all.’
    She closed the lid and locked it, and then she picked up Daisy and carried her back upstairs to her bedroom.
    â€˜Can I sleep with you tonight?’ Daisy asked her.
    â€˜I was going to ask you the same question. But I don’t think I want Anka in the room.’
    â€˜But she’ll be so lonely !’
    â€˜No, she won’t. She can spend the night in your closet, with all of your other dolls.’
    â€˜But—’
    â€˜No, Daisy. I think she still needs some more disinfecting. The place where I found her . . . well, it was very germy. They had an outbreak of pneumonia, not long ago, and I don’t want you to catch that. ’
    She tucked Daisy into her bed and kissed her. ‘It’s OK. I’ll leave the landing light on. And I’ll go down and lock the door to the utility room, OK?’
    â€˜Tell Anka I’ll see her in the morning. Give her a kiss.’
    â€˜OK, sweetheart.’
    Grace went downstairs. She paused in the kitchen doorway, and then she went through to the utility room. The freezer chest was still firmly locked, and when she rapped her knuckles on top of it, there was no response. She didn’t know how she was going to get rid of Baba Jaga’s ashes, but she would think about that in the morning.
    Meantime, she went through the living room and opened the front door. It was a quiet night, cold and clear, with a three-quarter moon shining through the oaks. She walked across the front lawn, and then across to the other side of the street, where there was nothing but trees and tangles of briars.
    She held up Anka in front of her and now she could clearly see that the doll was giving her a narrow-eyed look of expectancy, as if she were saying, what are you going to do with me now, Grace ? Maybe that was why Gabriela’s grandmother had warned her never to allow anybody to take photographs of Anka. Anybody who saw them