Read Online What Scares You the Most? by R.L. Stine - Free Book Online

and never be seen again.
    The wind blew into the hole, making a dull whistling sound.
    April realized her whole body was shaking. “Please—please don’t make me go in the cave!” she begged.
    Then she saw the flashing red light.
    At first, she thought it was a burning torch.
    Who is carrying a torch through the forest? she wondered. Is it someone on my team?
    And then she saw the black-and-white patrol car on the other side of the low wall. The light on top of the car flashed red-blue, red-blue, red-blue.
    Two dark-uniformed officers jumped the wall and were jogging through the playground toward April.
    â€œHey!” one of them called to her. He was very young, she saw, with tiny, dark eyes and the shadowof a black mustache.
    â€œWhat are you doing up there?” his partner, a woman officer, shouted.
    â€œClimbing!” April called back.
    The two officers stopped beneath April at the bottom of the hill. Beneath their caps, they frowned at her. “It’s late,” the woman said softly. “The park is closed.”
    April squinted down at them, suddenly dizzy.
    â€œWhy are you here?” the officer asked again.
    The words rang in April’s ears. “Why am I climbing this hill to the cave?” she asked out loud.
    She uttered a gasp. “I don’t know.”
    â€œYou’re in your pajamas,” the woman officer said. “And you’re barefoot.”
    April gazed down at her red-and-white-striped pajamas. I’m out in my pajamas? But—why? she asked herself.
    â€œI—I thought I was home in bed,” she told the officers. “I—I didn’t know…”
    And then she glimpsed a figure, half hidden by the side of the patrol car.
    Pam!
    â€œPam—what are you doing here?” April called in a trembling voice.
    Pam took a few steps closer, her hands in her jacket pockets. Her blond hair fluttered in the wind.
    â€œI—I followed you,” Pam said. “I saw you go out, April. And I was so worried. So I followed you. Whatare you doing out here? Why did you leave the house?”
    â€œI don’t know,” April told her. “I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.”

21
    And then she was back on the island.
    It had to be a dream, right? But why were the colors so vivid, everything so real, as if she could reach out and touch the trees, the sandy ground, the blue rocks.
    She felt so hungry, her stomach gnawed. Too weak to walk, she crawled over the rocks. Her throat ached from dryness, as if she’d been eating sand.
    I have to find food, she thought. I have to find food or I’ll starve.
    She picked up a small brown coconut off the ground. Yes! She pounded it against a tree trunk. Pounded it. Pounded it.
    I’m too weak, she realized. Too weak to crack it open.
    She stared at the coconut between her hands. She could practically taste the sweet milk inside, the chunky meat.
    It’s like the mystery I’m trying to solve, shethought as she dreamed. So close…I’m so close. But I can’t get to it. It’s locked away from me.
    Then Marlin appeared. He sat cross-legged in front of her.
    How long had he been there?
    His dark eyes reflected the moonlight. April saw two crescent moons in his eyes.
    â€œMarlin—where have you been?” she asked.
    â€œI disappeared,” he answered in a low, flat voice that wasn’t his.
    â€œBut where?” she asked.
    â€œI disappeared here. On the island,” he told her. “I am going to stay here forever.”
    April saw a flash of blue inside a cave. Was someone watching them?
    â€œIt’s time for you to come home,” she told Marlin.
    â€œNo. I disappeared here,” he replied.
    â€œYou have to come home,” April insisted. “You have to come home—now.”
    He gazed blankly at her. She could see the crescent moons in his eyes. But he had no expression now. No