Twice Burned Read online

  Annotation

  DON'T PLAY WITH FIRE.

  Springwood High sophomore, Colleen Martini is plagued by a recurring dream… of being burned at the stake.

  When a psychic tells Colleen that she was Joan of Arc in a previous life, she begins to suspect that her history book report on the same topic is more than just a coincidence. Fueled by fear, Colleen desperately searches the library to find the truth.

  Engulfed by an inferno of mysterious accidents, she soon hears a death knell summoning her.

  Knowing she must solve this mystery before her fate is sealed, Colleen comes to understand that sometimes the line between truth and fiction can be deadly…

  * * *

  David Bergantino

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  * * *

  David Bergantino

  Freddy Krueger's Tales of Terror #4: Twice Burned

  …and this would be dedicated to…?

  OCR Mysuli: [email protected]

  Prologue

  Welcome back, beautiful dreamer! Just doing some reading by furnace firelight — a biography of the Marquis de Sade. Remedial reading, of course, so I don't mind if you interrupt. There's nothing like a good book for passing time between murderous rampages. Don't you agree?

  My children — my prey — are like books. I add a few twists and turns to sad, storybook lives before bringing them to their unexpected endings. I am a great writer. And prolific, too. Heh heh heh… Why, the boiler room is rather like a library of lost souls.

  While you're here, I have a real page turner for you. Hold this book in your hands. Notice the quality of the leather cover? Human skin, specially tanned. And each dark brown letter is printed with the blood of victims from this very tale of terror!

  Novel concept, don't you think?

  But make sure you return this book before its due date. At this library, the fine for an overdue book is a killer!

  Chapter 1

  "Burn the witch! Burn her!"

  Hands tore at her clothes, at her hair. She was dragged forward by the angry crowd, flung to the ground, kicked, then violently wrenched to her feet so the process could begin again. The hate in their eyes blinded them to the fact that she was not even struggling. She knew her fate. And accepted it.

  A glob of wetness landed in her face. Wiping it away, she looked into the eyes of a boy who couldn't have been more than six years old. "Witch!!!" he screamed shrilly, and spat at her again.

  She smiled at him. He's only a child, she thought. He doesn't know what he's doing. I forgive him.

  "My baby!" A bedraggled middle-aged woman saw the witch's smile and pulled the boy to her. She desperately hugged the child to her chest. "The witch has cast a spell on my baby!" With that, the woman dragged the child into the roiling crowd and was gone.

  She felt for the woman, and worse for the child, who would grow up learning his parents' unwarranted hate and fear. Then the thought was abruptly broken as she was yanked to her feet. Strong arms grasped her, as if she had the power to escape. As if she wanted to escape. Before she could get her bearings, she was lifted, spun around, and slammed up against a rough wooden stake. Her arms were pulled behind her and bound tightly by the wrists. A heavy rope was wound around her body, binding her even more securely to the post. Then, as she muttered prayers of forgiveness for her misguided murderers, she noticed the instability of the surface on which she stood. If not for the ropes, she would surely fall. She looked down, past the screaming, hateful faces, past her feet.

  Books. She stood atop a mound of ancient books.

  The musty smell of yellowing paper and leather rose above the stench of hysteria. The scent would have calmed her — had she needed calming. But she understood. The adults didn't understand what they were doing, any more than the boy did. But she knew. They were fulfilling a destiny assigned by a much greater power. She had seen and recognized this destiny long ago, in the many visions bestowed upon her.

  Again she smiled tenderly at the crazed mob that meant to kill her. Many screamed and turned away, afraid of bewitchment. An approaching torch bearer became so frightened that he dropped the torch in the crowd, nearly setting fire to the long skirt of a nearby woman.

  "Blindfold the witch!" someone screamed. "Silent she may be, but curses us with her eyes!"

  With that, a sweat-soaked piece of cloth was drawn tightly over her eyes and secured by a knot behind the post. But even with the blindfold, she could see the scene quite clearly. She was being granted her final vision: her own death.

  A voice shouted from the crowd. "She is powerless. Now burn the witch! Burn her!"

  The crowd joined in, chanting, "Burn the witch! Burn the witch!"

  A new torch bearer moved forward. He was bald, his face scarred and deformed. He leered with evil delight as he held the torch up for all the crowd to see. The crowd responded by chanting faster and louder. Then, turning from the mob, the hideous man threw the torch at the pile of books. With a whoosh! the volumes burst into flame. Half the mob began to cheer as the other half continued their chant in a feverish pitch.

  "Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn the witch!"

  Heat rose from beneath her. A thick, choking smoke billowed up from the burning books. And for the first time, she felt doubt — and with it, fear. What if she was wrong? What if this was not her destiny? The tattered remains of her dress caught fire and searing heat began to consume her legs. She struggled against her bonds, but clearly she would be dead long before the rope would burn through. She ceased struggling and accepted her fate.

  From her impossible vantage point, she saw the crowd stoking the fire with more books, the deformed ringleader urging them on. The chanting subsided then, and was replace by a watchful silence. No doubt they expected more struggling, or some final, terrible curse.

  But she struggled no more, and never cursed them, not even as the heat and smoke began to overwhelm her. She would not curse them. She would simply die. The torch bearer stood there, his arms crossed, waiting.

  * * *

  "Wow! Weirdo-rama!" exclaimed the pudgy, bespectacled boy sitting next to her in history class. It was toward the end of the period, and the students were allowed to converse as the teacher reviewed their report proposals. "Good thing you woke up before you died. If you had died, you wouldn't have woken up."

  "Don't say that!" Colleen Martini smacked Kirk's hands. He had been drumming on her desktop for the last ten minutes.

  Kirk leaned back in his chair, a snide grin on his face. "That should teach you to watch what you read before bed. What do you expect when you fall asleep in the middle of Joan of Arc's life story?" He rocked in his chair. "Do what I do. Read comic books before you go to sleep. Then, if you dream, you're a superhero or something. That's the way to go." Unable to contain his excess energy any longer, he began to drum his hands on his thighs.

  Kirk Newman had been Colleen's buddy since homeroom in seventh grade, and she couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been nervous and fidgety. Today he seemed more agitated than usual. She suspected he was preparing to launch into one of his periodic declarations of love for her. He claimed to have a "permanent crush" on her and every six months or so, would ask
her to be his girlfriend. Colleen hated when he got that way. Close as she felt to Kirk, he wasn't her type, dating-wise. And after each time she gently rejected him, their relationship would become uncomfortable for a while until he got over it. The time was ripe for him to fall in love with her again, especially now that she had begun to date Kirk's cousin, Lance Mathews. It wasn't right for Kirk to feel as competitive as he did with his cousin. After all, Lance was a freshman in college. She and Kirk were still sophomores at Springwood High School.

  Colleen didn't want to talk about her dream anymore. Nor did she want Kirk to make a scene that would embarrass them both. So she quickly changed the subject by asking the topic of his report. Each student had one week to write a paper on the historical figure of his or her choice.

  "Who do you think I chose?" Kirk asked. Leaning against the back of his chair with one arm, he looked off into the distance. He raised one eyebrow and narrowed his eyelids in a dreamy expression. Running his fingers slowly through his greased-back hair, he took a long, slow drag from an invisible cigarette. This he tossed away with a practiced, but still somewhat fumbling, flick. For the big finish, he favored her with a smoldering stare that, set in his homely, doughy face, only served to make her laugh.

  "Let me guess," she said between snickers. "Barney the purple dinosaur?"

  Kirk snapped out of his character instantly, trying to feign hurt, but his own smile kept him from pulling it off. "No! The man, the legend… James Dean."

  Colleen shook her head, laughing as Kirk repeated his pantomime. He had been obsessed with James Dean for a long time. His bedroom walls were lined with posters, and his video collection contained every movie starring, about, or containing any sort of reference to the pop icon. The whole mystique, the fast-cars-and-faster-girls image, entranced Kirk. Unfortunately, the image fit him about as well as a neon blue suit would fit a funeral. Colleen had seen Rebel Without a Cause and East of Eden — at Kirk's insistence. It had been instantly clear to her that her friend did not resemble James Dean in the slightest. Elvis in his Vegas years, maybe, but James Dean, never.

  Suddenly Colleen realized he was staring at her. At first she thought he was still impersonating James Dean. But then she realized that the passion burning in her friend's eyes was his own. The time had come. He was going to ask her out. Colleen felt her face grow hot. There was an awkward silence between them. Somehow, the entire classroom became utterly quiet. Kirk appeared ready to say something, and Colleen was certain now that the whole class would hear. He took a deep breath. So did Colleen.

  Then the bell rang.

  Kirk snapped his mouth shut as Colleen let out all the air in her lungs in a long sigh. The history class, which had not truly been totally silent, burst into a low roar as students got up from their desks, chattering away as they began to file out the door.

  "Remember!" called out Mr. Klusky, the history teacher. "These papers are due next Friday. That's a week from today for the chronologically impaired among you. And some of you will be chosen to deliver the reports orally to the class the following week, so be prepared." Many students groaned in displeasure at this unexpected added announcement.

  Kirk stood quickly. The look of passion disappeared from his face. "I'll see you later at the library," he said brightly to Colleen. Then, with a wink, he darted out the door.

  Colleen rose slowly as he left. "Saved by the bell," she muttered quietly to herself. She finished stuffing her books into her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and headed out of the classroom.

  Wrapped in her own thoughts, Colleen didn't notice the figure that fell into step directly behind her. She did feel a little tickle on the back of her neck, just above the collar of her blouse. Reaching, back, she touched the spot lightly, never breaking her stride.

  Seconds later, something sharp bit her on the neck. Colleen screamed.

  Chapter 2

  Colleen screamed again.

  Instinctively her hands flew to her neck and her fingers closed around something hard and smooth. As she tried to pull it off her skin, it was roughly yanked from her hands. She shrieked once more, then turned quickly at the sound of laughter behind her.

  "Oh, you are a Colleeny-Weenie, for sure!" taunted a coarse female voice. The voice belonged to Vicki Stratton, who was flanked, as she almost always was, by Tish Hughes and Melina Carlton.

  Almost in unison, Tish and Melina repeated, "For sure." Then they giggled like schoolchildren watching a boa constrictor swallowing a rat.

  Colleen gulped, and absently rubbed her sore neck. Without turning around, she was aware that many students were staring at her because she had screamed. A few of them knew that a tense scene was likely to follow.

  Considered a bad egg by all of the school's faculty and most of the students, Vicki Stratton was a rotten baker's dozen as far as Colleen was concerned. She certainly looked the part, with her pointed, black boots and black jeans so tight, it looked as if Vicki had painted them on and stuck a brass button in her navel. Vicki's short, auburn hair was swept back, revealing tiny ears that had nevertheless been pierced about five times each. Tish and Melina were cheap imitations of Vicki, each of them a bad girl in training. At the moment, the baddest of the girls, Vicki, held a plastic novelty shark-on-a-stick. Manipulating the little ring at the end of the wooden dowel on which the shark head was mounted, she brandished it at Colleen. Each time Vicki pulled on the ring, plastic jaws ridged with teeth snapped inches from Colleen's face.

  "Oh look," Vicki squealed, bringing a hand up to her cheek in melodramatic surprise. "I gave Colleeny-Weenie a hickey! What will her big college boyfriend say to that, I wonder?"

  "Leave me alone, Vicki." Colleen knew she sounded whiny, but couldn't help it.

  Vicki lowered the shark-on-a-stick and walked right up to Colleen. "Whattaya gonna do about it if I don't, huh?" Their faces were inches apart. Colleen quickly shrank away from Vicki's glowering eyes. "You know, we're reading a book in English class about you and your boyfriend. It's called Of Mice and Men!" A harsh laugh escaped her. Melina and Tish tittered in the background.

  Colleen just wanted to die. Then a voice spoke up.

  "I wasn't aware you could read, Miss Stratton, judging from your grades in my class." Colleen looked up to see Mr. Klusky standing in the doorway of his classroom. Vicki's only response to him was a sneer. "Now, leave Ms. Martini alone and get to class."

  "I'll catch you later, Colleeny-Weenie." Vicki winked and snapped the shark jaws in Colleen's face twice. Then she spun around abruptly and walked off, Melina and Tish following close behind.

  The crowd immediately began to break up. Colleen looked up at Mr. Klusky and silently thanked him for his intervention.

  He smiled at her sympathetically while shaking his head. "If you'd like to talk, Colleen, my next period is free."

  "No, thank you," Colleen replied, feeling her face flush with embarrassment. "I have a class. But thank you."

  "We wouldn't take the whole time. And I could write you a note. If you like, we could go down to the principal's office."

  Colleen began to back away, stammering. "No, no. It's, uh, okay, Mr. Klusky. We don't have a problem, really. We're just two different people who rub each other the wrong way, I guess. I mean, I appreciate your concern and all, but I can take it. Really. Like you said before, I'd better get to class." Colleen turned away, mostly to escape Mr. Klusky's pitying gaze. Just as she did, the bell beginning the next class period rang.

  "I'd better write you that note, at least," Mr. Klusky called after her.

  Barely turning back, she called back, "I'll be okay." Then she turned the corner.

  When she arrived at her math class minutes later, the look on the teacher's face made it clear she had heard about Colleen's confrontation with Vicki. Slipping silently into her chair, Colleen mouthed the word "sorry." The teacher nodded slightly, and resumed class.

  Nobody really understood exactly how sorry Colleen did feel. It seemed as if Vicki was at the top of the sc
hool's food chain and she was at the bottom. C'est la vie. Such is life. Though actually, to Colleen, it was more like c'est la guerre. Such is war. Because that's how life sometimes felt.

  Chapter 3

  The rest of the school day went by without further incident. Colleen passed Vicki in the halls several times, but pretended the other girl didn't exist. She knew that if they locked eyes for even a moment, Vicki would try to bait her again. Her efforts were successful. Soon school was over and Colleen had made it unscathed to the Springwood Public Library to work on her history report.

  Normally Colleen enjoyed going to the public library. The place had seemed ancient even when she had been a small girl. All the bookshelves were made of old mahogany, and the few walls not hidden by books were paneled in the same dark wood. Mounted on the walls were ornate light fixtures that had been converted from gas lamps and oil paintings of Springwood's founding fathers. The database terminals, which had only recently replaced the antiquated card-file system, and the barcode readers used to check out books were, along with the Touch-Tone phones, the only signs of truly modern technology.

  But today Colleen found herself unable to concentrate on her work. At first she thought it was due to her run-in with Vicki. But that wasn't it at all. It was her dream. The image of being burned alive atop a pile of books kept popping into her mind. At the moment, she was surrounded by books, and that made her feel unsafe. Not even the presence of Kirk and his cousin Lance, both of whom worked at the library, made her feel any safer. At least Vicki was nowhere to be seen. But then again, Tish was here, sitting two tables down from Colleen. And where there was Tish, Vicki might not be far away.

  Actually, when Vicki wasn't influencing her, Tish could be very sweet, and under other circumstances, Colleen thought that the two of them could have been friends. But mild-mannered, homely Tish held Vicki in awe. Sadly, Colleen understood. Tish was not a happy girl, and most of it stemmed, according to the prevailing rumors, from troubles at home. She apparently had an abusive father — and a mother unable or unwilling to protect herself or her daughter from his angry tirades. It was a well-known fact that Tish had run away many times to escape them both. Colleen guessed that Tish was drawn to Vicki because she exuded a power and strength of character that her mother lacked.