Hello again, Story Club members.

I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most and keeper of the strangest,

spookiest tales on earth.

Today is another Ivy's chilling tale.

This dangerous tale story club members might make you dread the New Year.

It's one I call Old Year, New Year, Danger, Near.

Five, four, three, two, one, happy New Year!

Sarah Rogers countered down with everyone else at the party.

She was staying overnight with her best friends to

celebrate. They were all drinking sparkling apple juice and snacking on lemon cake and pumpkin

cookies to ring in the new year. Last year had been the hardest year of Sarah's life, and she was

thrilled to see the back end of it. It seemed that each month, she'd survived some kind of disaster that had nearly killed her.

For example, in January, her house burned down when a space heater had set the curtains on fire.

In February, she'd fallen through the ice in a duck pond and nearly drowned.

In March, she was almost struck by the downtown city bus. In April, a tornado hit as Sarah

was walking home and she had to hide in a ditch as it passed, the wind roaring like a thousand lions

above her. In May, she got deathly allergic to some pollen in nearby trees and was miserable

for two months, having to go to the doctor several times in June.

In July, she almost drowned again swimming with her friends in a lake. Sarah's quick-thinking

friend had saved her, barely. In August, she was hiking a trail and almost fell off a cliff. In September,

she was crossing train tracks on her bike, got stuck, and was nearly flattened by the passing locomotive.

In October, Sarah fell down a flight of stairs, lined from her cumbersome Halloween mask as she was heading out to go trick-or-treating.

...