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Authors: R.L. Stine

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And saw him raise the silver gun barrel toward her.

Patrick shook his head. He stared at Gretchen with eyes that were suddenly glazed. His features were hard.

He's become a totally different person, Gretchen realized.

“Why did you kill her?” Gretchen asked. “Why did you kill Cindy?”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Patrick chanted. He squeezed his eyes closed for a second, as if he were in pain.

“Everybody shut up. And keep still,” Patrick
warned, opening his eyes again. He swung the gun around, pointing it at each one of them. “Don't move. I'm warning you.”

“But why?” Gretchen insisted. “Why did you kill her?”

“Tell us,” Gil said. “We want to know.”

“She was your friend, Patrick,” Hannah cried. “Why did you kill her?”

Patrick sighed. “She found out something I did,” Patrick revealed. “Something bad.”

“What?” Gretchen urged.

“Something that happened before I moved here,” Patrick whispered. “No one knew about it. Not even my parents. But Cindy knew. Cindy found out.”

“What did she do after she found out?” Jackson asked. “Did she threaten to tell other people?”

Patrick shook his head. “No. She didn't do that.”

“Then what did she do?” Gil asked.

“She teased me,” Patrick replied. “She loved teasing me about it. At first it didn't matter, because I was so crazy about her. But she didn't care about me. She didn't care about me at all! You know what she did?”

“What?” Gretchen croaked.

Patrick's face twisted with rage. “She pretended to like me. But she went out with Gil!” he screamed. “She didn't care about hurting me. She only wanted to tease me. All she cared about was reminding me about what I'd done. Teasing me. Teasing me. Teasing me.”

He let out a sob. “It was too much. IâI guess I just cracked.”

“And so you killed her tonight,” Gretchen choked out.

“Yes,” Patrick replied softly, lowering his eyes. “IâI planned it so carefully. From the moment I found out we were having this party.”

His chin trembled. His whole body shook. “I gave Cindy a birthday present to die for.”

Gretchen swallowed hard. I had no idea Patrick was so troubled, she thought. No idea.

I guess we never know what's really inside peopleâeven our good friends.

“I almost changed my mind about killing her,” Patrick continued. “After everyone left the cabin, I followed her into the kitchen. I told her I wanted to give her a kiss for her birthday. But do you know what she did?”

No one answered.

“She
laughed
at me!” Patrick shrieked. “She said she'd never let me kiss her. She tried to leave the kitchen, but I wouldn't let her. I grabbed her by the arm. And when I did, she slapped me.”

So it was Patrick, not Jackson, I heard arguing with Cindy, Gretchen thought.

Patrick shook his head sadly. “She shouldn't have done that.”

“Is that when you killed her?” Gretchen asked.

“Yes,” Patrick answered. “You should have seen the expression on her face when she saw the knife. She really didn't think I'd do it. I didn't either. Butâbut I did.”

Patrick's face darkened with anger.
“I did
. Don't
you see? I had to put a stop to the teasing. I couldn't take the teasing anymore.”

Patrick raised the pistol and aimed it at Gretchen. His finger tightened on the trigger.

It's all over, Gretchen realized. Patrick's going to kill me.

“I'm sorry. But now you have to die, too,” Patrick whispered.

Gretchen watched helplessly as Patrick's finger tightened on the trigger.

Squeezing it back.

There's nothing I can do, Gretchen thought. I can't get away. I'm going to die.

Gretchen squeezed her eyes shut. She covered her face with her hands.

She heard the deafening gunshot.

Then, her own terrified scream.

Chapter
36

G
retchen waited for the burning pain.

Waited.

She opened her eyes. She saw the front door of the cabin swing open. The door slamming against the wall had been the loud noise.

Not a gunshot.

A dark-haired police officer in a blue uniform stood in the doorway. A sandy-haired officer stood behind him.

“Are you kids okay?” he asked. He stepped into the cabin. The other officer followed behind, shaking rain off his uniform. “My partner and Iâ”

Gretchen watched in horror as Patrick turned the gun on the police officer.

“No!” Gretchen screamed. “Patrick! No!”

Gretchen threw herself at Patrick.

She pushed him to the floor, pinning him underneath her.

Behind her, she heard her friends screaming.

The two police officers dove across the living room.

Gretchen clawed at the gun in Patrick's hand.

He tried to twist away from her. Raised the gun toward her again.

Gretchen gripped his hand and smashed it against the floor.

Smashed it hard. Again. Again.

Finally, his grip loosened.

The dark-haired officer reached down and snatched the gun away from Patrick.

The other officer pulled Gretchen to her feet.

Patrick sprawled on the floor, rubbing the hand Gretchen had smashed.

The officer locked the handcuffs around Patrick's wrists.

Gretchen glanced at the nametag on the policeman's uniform:
READE.
“You got here just in time, Officer Reade,” she told him.

“Looks that way,” he replied, glancing around the cabin.

Gretchen took a deep breath. “Heâhe killed Cindy,” she stammered. “Her bodyâit's in the kitchen.”

“He stabbed her to death with a knife,” Hannah sobbed.

“At first we thought the escaped prisoner had killed herâ¦” Gretchen continued

“Escaped prisoner?” Officer Reade gave Gretchen a puzzled look.

He pulled Patrick to his feet. Gretchen saw the dark scowl on Patrick's face. He staggered forward, his head hanging, his hands clasped behind his back.

“What escaped prisoner?” Officer Reade asked.

“The one who killed those three teenage girls,” Gretchen replied.

The police officers exchanged confused glances.

“Officer Harding and I don't know anything about an escaped prisoner,” Officer Reade replied.

Patrick tossed back his head in an ugly laugh. “That's right,” he said. “There was no escaped prisoner. I made him up and told you he killed teenage girls so that you would believe he killed Cindy.”

“And we did believe you,” Gretchen sighed. “Because you were our friend.”

“You were all so stupid,” Patrick murmured, shaking his head. “You believed everything I told you. You fell for all the evidence I planted. The forged note. The bootprint in the flour. The bloody knife in my sleeping bag. Even with Cindy's blood on my shirt and my baseball cap in her hand, you believed that I didn't do it.”

“That's because we didn't want to believe you could do something so horrible,” Gretchen said in a whisper.

Patrick narrowed his eyes at the two officers. “Why are you here?”

“Your father told us you stole his gun. He said you were coming here for a party and asked us to get it back,” Officer Reade answered.

“Patrick said that Cindy found out something about him,” Gretchen told the officers. “She found out something he did before he moved here. Patrick said that's why he had to kill her.”

Officer Harding turned to Patrick. “Oh, yeah? Did she find out you set that fire in Waynesbridge?”

Patrick sneered. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

The police officers exchanged glances. “You got away with those things because of your father,” Officer Reade told Patrick. “But you won't get away with this.”

He dragged Patrick out of the cabin.

Officer Harding turned to Gretchen and her friends. “Do you mind waiting here until we take him back to shore? We'll send another boat back for the rest of you.”

Gretchen watched until the officers were out of sight, then turned to her friends.

“How did Cindy find out that Patrick set a fire in Waynesbridge?” she asked.

“She
didn't
find out,” Hannah replied. “Cindy didn't know anything bad about Patrick. She just liked to tease him. She used to tell him he looked dangerous.”

“Dangerous? That's all?” Marco exclaimed.

“That's all,” Hannah said sadly. “She didn't really know anything. Not anything at all. And do you know
what I think? Do you know why Cindy teased Patrick so much? Because she liked him.”

Gretchen sighed, suddenly feeling very tired.

Jackson slid his arm around her shoulders.

She snuggled her head against him.

Outside the window, the sun was rising.

“Party's over,” she whispered.

About the Author

R.L. Stine invented the teen horror genre with Fear Street, the bestselling teen horror series of all time. He also changed the face of children's publishing with the mega-successful Goosebumps series, which
Guinness World Records
cites as the Best-Selling Children's Books ever, and went on to become a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. The first two books in his new series Mostly Ghostly,
Who Let the Ghosts Out?
and
Have You Met My Ghoulfriend?
are
New York Times
bestsellers. He's thrilled to be writing for teens again in the brand-new Fear Street Nights books.

R.L. Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the National Education Association Read Across America. He lives in New York City with his wife, Jane, and their dog, Nadine.

A Parachute Press book

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.