Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror Read Online Free PDF Page B

Halloween.
    And what a Halloween. . . .
    Not quite so . . .
    Perfect.

SUCKERS
    â–¼ SUZANNE WEYN ▼
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    â–¼ NEWYORK,2060 ▼
    I t wasn’t that I didn’t want to ever visit the tiny planet of Lectus; I just didn’t want to live there. I mean, who wants to move at the end of his junior year of high school? You just don’t ask a guy to do something like that. I was set to go to the junior prom with Stephy Hoppington. She was counting on me. And on July Fourth I was planning my first skydive with my pals. I’d already put a deposit down on the plane ride.
    But my family isn’t like other families because Dad and Mom are actors, not just regular thespians, either. Biggs and Julie Boreidae are both movie stars, the kind that appear on the cover of cheap newspapers at the grocery store checkout line with headlines that announce every month that their marriage is ending. Splitsville is the way one magazine put it last March.
    These reports were obviously bogus. Mom and Dad were more together as a couple than the parents of anyone else I knew. (Which maybe isn’t saying much, but still . . .)
    The weird press and the fact that family was important to Mom and Dad was partly the reason Dad decided to relocate us to Lectus, supposedly the newest, hottest place for the elite to set up residence. He wanted the family to be someplace more private; “away from the ever-prying eyes of the paparazzi,” was how he put it.
    My school, Flemont Prep, has some real rich kids in it, but, just the same, all my friends were super impressed that we were going to Lectus. Real estate on Lectus costs so much that only billionaires could afford it. But with Mom and Dad’s combined star power they were able to buy a private ranch on the newly terra-formed planet at the outer edge of the solar system—plus first-class tickets on the new, high-speed, luxury space transport, Gattus .
    Not one of us four kids wanted to go. My older sister, Felicia, cried day and night until her face was permanently puffed. My younger twin brothers, Chester and Chomper, weren’t any happier. (We gave Chomper that nickname because as a baby he liked to bite everything in sight.) I tried to reason with Dad about the inconvenience of living so far away from the movie industry, but Chester and Chomper just plain-out begged, pleading not to be taken from their friends.
    I don’t think Mom was even really that thrilled about the move, but she was philosophical about it. “Lectus is supposed to be gorgeous,” she said, trying to console us, “and it’s a wonderful hopping-off point to some of the really desirable other planets that are so popular these days as movie locations. Dad and I can be home much more often this way.”
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    We were standing on the docking platform when Gattus came into view. I had to admit, the huge space transport was something to see. It was so gigantic I felt like a microbe standing next to it. And it had these two giant, green headlights in front. As it descended into its transport dock its engine purred steadily.
    â€œAll aboard, kids,” Dad instructed as we crossed the walkway. When we reached Gattus , we entered a dark walkway. It was soft and the floor was cushiony under my feet.
    â€œWhat is this?” I asked Dad.
    â€œIt’s a bio-transport,” Dad explained. “All our biological needs are built right into the structure of the ship.”
    â€œDo you mean I could bite this floor and there would be food in it?” I asked in disbelief.
    â€œYep.”
    â€œWeird,” I mumbled.
    In no time at all, we arrived at our new home on the planet Lectus. As the transport docked, an uneasy feeling overcame me. Maybe it’s just fear of the unknown, I told myself. How I wish now that that had been true.
    As soon as we disembarked, a space bus whizzed us out to our ranch. It was a vast expanse, but there