Bloody Horowitz Read Online Free PDF Page A

And as it spoke, Henry saw that its tongue had gone green and there was some dark-colored liquid dribbling over its lower lip.
    â€œNo!” Henry replied. He wiped away his tears, but more instantly followed. “How did you find me?” he whimpered. “How did you get here?”
    â€œYou wrote to me.” Darren Shan shuddered. “You made me reply. And when I licked the envelope . . . the pain! It was you, Henry Parker.”
    â€œGo away! Just go away!” Henry closed his eyes, hoping this was just some sort of hallucination. But when he opened them again, Shan was still there. “You stole my idea!” he screeched. He couldn’t help himself. And at the same time, he had a sudden, crazy thought. This could hardly be better. He had spent months and months waiting to tell Darren Shan what he thought of him. Well, now Shan had returned from the grave to hear it. What was he going to do about it? He was a phantom! If he wanted to contact the police, he’d have to do it with a Ouija board.
    â€œYou stole Ring of Evil from me. I sent it to your publisher and they gave it to you. You took my story and my characters and you made millions of dollars, and I got nothing. Well, now I’ve shown you. I came up with the perfect murder. Yours! And soon you’ll be forgotten, but I’ll write another book and nothing will stop me . . .”
    â€œYou killed me!” Shan wailed.
    â€œYes. I did. It was so easy. A little potassium cyanide mixed with the glue on the envelope. And you were such an idiot, you fell for it. I’d love to have been there when you licked it. You thought you were writing to some sick kid who loved your books, but in fact it was me.”
    Henry began to laugh. He was still laughing when the lights in his bedroom flashed on and half a dozen policemen ran in and dragged him out of bed.
    â€œThank you very much, Mr. Shan,” one of the policemen said.
    â€œIt was my pleasure,” Darren Shan replied.
    It was only then that Henry saw what should have been obvious all along. He had been tricked. Darren Shan was very much alive. Somebody had given him some clever makeup, turning his skin white. There was red dye in his mouth and he was wearing contact lenses. The smoke and the sewage smell were being pumped into the room by a machine just outside the door. And Shan was holding a tape recorder. There was a microphone attached to his shroud. Everything that Henry had said had been recorded and would be used against him when he went on trial.
    â€œNo!” Henry howled as he was bundled out of the room and down the stairs. It wasn’t fair! His plan had been perfect. What could possibly have gone wrong?
    They answered that question when they interviewed him at Paddington Green police station. He was interviewed by two grim-faced detectives. The man in charge was named Jack Grest. He was a big man stuffed into an ill-fitting suit.
    â€œYou might like to know,” he muttered, “that my son is a big fan of Darren Shan. He’s got all his books. I don’t know how I’d have been able to break it to the little lad if you’d murdered his hero.”
    â€œI—I don’t understand,” Henry stammered. He was crying again, still unable to accept what had happened. “How did you find me? What went wrong?”
    â€œI’ll answer that, you swine,” the other detective said. “Mr. Shan has an assistant who helps him with his fan mail. Her name was Fenella Jones and she was the one who licked the envelope you sent.”
    â€œShe was the one you murdered,” Grest continued.
    â€œBut how did you know it was me?”
    â€œWe didn’t. You covered your tracks well. But the thing is, publishers keep copies of all the crank letters they receive, and they had your name on file. You had every reason to want to harm Mr. Shan—even though he never copied a word of your ridiculous book. And when we found out