03 - Monster Blood by R.L. Stine - (ebook by Undead) Page A

face reddened. “You got me so upset, Evan, with all your
complaining, I completely forgot. Of course she can’t hear us.”
    How am I going to spend two weeks with a strange old lady who can’t even hear
me? Evan wondered glumly.
    He remembered eavesdropping on his parents two weeks earlier when they had
made the plan. They were seated across from each other at the kitchen table.
They thought Evan was out in the backyard. But he was in the hallway, his back
pressed against the wall, listening.
    His father, he learned, was reluctant to leave Evan with Kathryn. “She’s a
very stubborn old woman,” Mr. Ross had said. “Look at her. Deaf for twenty years, and she’s refused to learn sign language or to lip-read.
How’s she going to take care of Evan?”
    “She took good care of you when you were a boy,” Mrs. Ross had argued.
    “That was thirty years ago,” Mr. Ross protested.
    “Well, we have no choice,” Evan heard his mother say. “There’s no one else to
leave him with. Everyone else is away on vacation. You know, August is just the
worst month for you to be transferred to Atlanta.”
    “Well, excuuuuse me!” Mr. Ross said sarcastically. “Okay, okay. Discussion
closed. You’re absolutely right, dear. We have no choice. Kathryn it is. You’ll
drive Evan there and then fly down to Atlanta.”
    “It’ll be a good experience for him,” Evan heard his mother say. “He needs to
learn how to get along under difficult circumstances. You know, moving to
Atlanta, leaving all his friends behind—that isn’t going to be easy on Evan
either.”
    “Okay. I said okay,” Mr. Ross said impatiently. “It’s settled. Evan will be
fine. Kathryn is a bit weird, but she’s perfectly harmless.”
    Evan heard the kitchen chairs scraping across the linoleum, indicating that
his parents were getting up, their discussion ended.
    His fate was sealed. Silently, he had made his way out the front door and around to the backyard to think about what he had
just overheard.
    He leaned against the trunk of the big maple tree, which hid him from the
house. It was his favorite place to think.
    Why didn’t his parents ever include him in their discussions? he
wondered. If they were going to discuss leaving him with some old aunt he’d
never seen before, shouldn’t he at least have a say? He learned all the big
family news by eavesdropping from the hallway. It just wasn’t right.
    Evan pulled a small twig off the ground and tapped it against the broad tree
trunk.
    Aunt Kathryn was weird. That’s what his dad had said. She was so weird, his
father didn’t want to leave Evan with her.
    But they had no choice. No choice.
    Maybe they’ll change their minds and take me to Atlanta with them, Evan
thought. Maybe they’ll realize they can’t do this to me.
    But now, two weeks later, he was standing in front of Aunt Kathryn’s gray
house, feeling very nervous, staring at the brown suitcase filled with his
belongings, which stood beside his mother on the stoop.
    There’s nothing to be scared of, he assured himself.
    It’s only for two weeks. Maybe less.
    But then the words popped out before he’d even had a chance to think about them: “Mom—what if Aunt Kathryn is mean?”
    “Huh?” The question caught his mother by surprise. “Mean? Why would she be
mean, Evan?”
    And as she said this, facing Evan with her back to the house, the front door
was pulled open, and Aunt Kathryn, a large woman with startling black hair,
filled the doorway.
    Staring past his mother, Evan saw the knife in Kathryn’s hand. And he saw
that the blade of the knife was dripping with blood.

 
 
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    Trigger raised his head and began to bark, hopping backward on his hind legs
with each bark.
    Startled, Evan’s mother spun around, nearly stumbling off the small stoop.
    Evan gaped in silent horror at the knife.
    A smile formed on Kathryn’s face, and she pushed open the screen door with
her free hand.
    She wasn’t anything like