by Rysa Walker
Games end, too. Win or lose, they end. You just have to find the clues. Collect the treasure.
She curls up in her father’s chair, partly because it smells faintly of his cologne and it makes her feel safe, and partly because it faces the living room window, so she’ll be able to see the flash of headlights when Dani and Tucker finally come home. Once she settles in with the throw blanket tucked in around her feet, she opens the checklist she made for Tucker.
And then Daisy starts ticking off every element of every horror classic that she’s noticed in the past day, starting with Oculus and The Wicker Man and working backward. This includes a few that she hadn’t noticed at all before this and others that she’d noticed long ago and joked about. No horror fan worth her salt could attend a high school led by a Principal Snyder and not make at least a few jokes about the Hellmouth. She’d also joked about the fact that the annual Halloween bonfire was held at a farm owned by Charles and Mandy Tower, but no one had actually called the place Tower Farm until she pointed this out a few years back after watching Halloween V.
She jots down names, places, events. Are they clues? Daisy doesn’t know, but she makes a note of anything that seems even remotely connected. Occasionally, she checks her Compendium of Horror Classics for specifics, wishing the damned internet was working. The book is a few years out of date, and a Google search would also be so much faster than manually searching through the book.
Daisy doesn’t realize she’s drifted off until she hears the thud of her iPad hitting the floor. Her first concern is whether the thing is broken—it’s not—but then everything that has happened in the past day comes flooding back. She picks the tablet up and checks the time. Nearly one. If Dani was coming home, she’d have been here by now.
And if Dani isn’t home, she’s either in trouble or she’s not real.
Either way, Daisy’s not staying here alone. She grabs Tucker’s spare house key from the hook in the kitchen, pulls on her boots, and heads next door.
The night sky seems strangely truncated. A full moon shines down from above—almost directly above—along with a sprinkling of stars. But beyond that cluster of light, the sky is black. Blank. As though the other stars have been erased from the galaxy.
She starts to slip the key into the lock, but something stops her. As much as she doesn’t want to wake Tucker, is it wise to sneak into the house of a man who sleeps with a gun within easy reach? Probably not, and that goes double when he’s had a day at least as stressful as her own.
So, she rings the bell and waits, even though her imagination jumps at every tiny sound, every faint breeze. When Tucker opens the door, she steps inside and into his arms.
This time when she kisses him, there is no hesitation on either side. His lips are fierce, almost desperate, as if he needs to answer the same question. As if he needs to be sure that she is real. That he is not alone.
He stops once on the way to the bedroom, to ask if she’s sure.
“We can wait,” he says. “I love you. I want you. We don’t have to rush things, though. We can take it slow.”
But there’s a hint of doubt in his voice, and she can tell that he’s thinking exactly the same thing she is. After a day like today, they can both easily imagine quite a few scenarios where there is no tomorrow.
Find happiness where you can in this world.
Daisy smiles as she thinks of that bit of advice from Martha Yarn. She doesn’t know why Miss Martha made the choice she did, but those words were probably the last bit of advice she handed down. It would be a shame to let them go unheeded.
“No,” she whispers into the hollow of Tucker’s neck. “I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. I don’t want to wait. But I’m okay with taking it slow.”
They do take it slow. Time seems to stretch and warp, and for a brief, endless moment, Daisy forgets everything else. There is only Tucker. His touch. His breath against her skin. They are like that tiny circle of night sky above Haddonwood, outside of which nothing else exists.
And when reality, such as it is, settles back in, Daisy is certain of one thing. She might not be able to prove it logically, but it is the one true thing she knows beyond all doubt.
She is not alone. At the very least, this is a two-player game.
Four
JULIE
Julie collapses onto the couch in the darkened living room of Bill’s house. She stopped here partly because it was closer than walking all the way home, but also because she really, really hoped he’d be here. That he somehow survived and walked back, the same as she had. Or at the very least, that the girls would be here.
It’s well after one in the morning, however, and neither Daisy nor Dani are home.
“No need to stay over,” Bill had told her. “Daisy is pretty darn responsible. Just check in on them and make sure Dani hasn’t burned the house down. We have insurance, but I’d rather not have to use it.”
Being out this late doesn’t feel very responsible to Julie. She rubs the back of her neck where a knot of tension has been steadily growing over the course of the day and pulls her sore feet onto the couch. She’ll wait. They’ll come home eventually, and when they do, they’re going to get a piece of her mind for worrying her.
And she is worried. She tries to keep her mind focused on the best-case scenario—the girls went to a Halloween party, probably that bonfire they have each year. They lost track of the time. Or just didn’t see the need to come home, since they’re free agents this week. Maybe they slept over at someone’s house.
Julie can’t quite convince herself that this is the most likely scenario, however. Not after today…although that was technically yesterday now. Starting out with a dream about that damn scarecrow was bad enough, but things actually went steadily downhill from there.
She walks into the kitchen to get something to drink. Water. Something stronger, maybe, although she’s not sure if Bill even keeps anything like that around with two teenagers in the house. A stiff shot of bourbon would be heaven right now…and it’s not like she’s going to be driving in the foreseeable future, given that her car is quite literally no more. It has expired. Gone to meet its maker. It is an ex-car.
The fact that she is making Monty Python jokes in her head at the end of this abysmally long day is proof that she needs that drink. But sadly, there is no bourbon. No beer. Some cooking sherry, but she’s not that desperate.
Apparently, the girls weren’t here long. The kitchen is clean, except for a familiar-looking pie tin in the sink and baking items lined up neatly on the counter. Eggs, butter, sugar, and half a bag of chocolate chips. Looks like someone was planning to make cookies but changed her mind.
Julie sticks the eggs and butter back into the fridge and grabs a La Croix. As she’s cracking it open, her cell phone rings in her pocket. She jumps, sloshing the drink onto her shoes. The noise startles her more than usual, partly because the house is so quiet, but also because her phone hasn’t worked all day.
She stares at the screen, relieved to see Dani’s name at the top. Which is odd, because she doesn’t remember putting Dani’s number into her contacts. But she must have, at some point, because there she is.
“Dani,” she says. “Thank God! I’ve been worried sick about the two of you.”
There’s no answer from the other end. Julie sits up on the couch. “Dani?”
“Can you come get me?” Dani’s voice is ragged, like she’s been crying. “Please, Julie. I’m in trouble.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the school. The principal’s office, I think… I see Snyder’s name on the desk.”
“At the school? Why? It’s after one a.m.”
“I don’t know. When I woke up, I was here. I feel strange.”
“Strange how?”
“I don’t know. I think someone drugged me. Maybe at the party?” Dani begins to cry on the other end. “Oh God. Dad is going to kill me…”
“No, he won’t. I’m on my wa
y. Stay on the line, though, okay?” Julie rummages through her pockets for her keys as she closes the front door behind her. She remembers that her keys were in the Camry—the Camry that disappeared—at the same instant that her right hand closes over the keyring.
At the same instant that she sees her Camry, parked at the curb.
Her feet are sore and blistered from the walk back into town, the walk she’d had to make because her car disappeared. And yet here it sits.
A tiny, very reasonable voice in her head points out that it might not be a good idea to drive a vehicle that has a history of vanishing into thin air.
Right now, however, she’s willing to overlook that little flaw.
“See if you can get to an exit and then tell me where you are,” Julie says into the phone. She pauses as she gets into the car, looking at Tucker’s cruiser in the driveway next door. Maybe she should walk over and ask him to come with her, just in case there’s a problem.
But this is the first time Dani has trusted her. The first time Dani has asked for her help. And Julie knows instinctively that Dani wouldn’t want her pulling in Tucker Vance or anyone else, except maybe Daisy. And since Daisy isn’t here…
“The office door won’t open,” Dani says. “I can’t get out.”
Well, that could be a problem, she thinks. But then she catches sight of her purse on the backseat, where she placed it before her car disappeared and then fucking reappeared five miles and more than four hours later. And she knows beyond any doubt that the keys to the school are in there where they’ve been since…before. Since when the nameplate on the principal’s desk read Kennedy instead of Snyder, and the teenagers at Haddonwood High rapped their way through a lesson about Romeo and Juliet.
“I’m on my way, Dani. I’ll be there in two minutes. Keep talking, okay? Tell me about—”
But the phone goes dark. Julie throws it onto the passenger seat in frustration and whips around the corner at a speed that would be dangerous if Haddonwood hadn’t morphed into a ghost town in the past twelve hours.
The lot is empty when Julie arrives at the school. She parks in the spot closest to the front door and then realizes the sign reads Reserved for Principal. Fighting back a laugh, she snatches her purse out of the back and begins feeling around at the bottom for the keys. I have the keys, so I guess I get the parking space, too, Snyder.
A strong sense of foreboding hits her as she stares at the building. It’s completely dark. Even the security lights are out. She really doesn’t want to go in. Dani’s in there, however, and she’s in trouble or at the very least in emotional pain. Even if she wasn’t Bill’s daughter, Julie would have to go.
When Julie looks down at the fat ring of keys in her hand, she doesn’t hesitate. She knows it’s the one with the neon-orange cap on the key head. And she’s right. It fits perfectly.
She pushes the door open and stares into the darkened hallway.
Step on in, little Julie. Nothing can hurt you here. Nothing at all.
She takes a single step inside, looking left and then right. Nothing comes barreling down the corridor toward her, and she feels silly for being so on edge. Leaving aside the whole issue of keys and iambic pentameter—and her certainty about all of that is fading away like the aftermath of a dream—she’s been here dozens of times for school board meetings, to vote, and on a few occasions to comfort or counsel someone who was grieving.
But the place seems different in the dark. Shapes lurking inside the open classroom doors—chairs and desks, things she wouldn’t even notice in the daylight—look like caged animals waiting for an opportune moment to spring forth and rip her to shreds. The next person through the door would likely find an arm here, a leg there, and her severed head, half chewed and dripping with saliva over by the Coke machine.
Julie gives herself a mental kick. How has she managed to creep herself out about walking into a dark building? She hiked for miles in the dark earlier, with nothing but a tiny flashlight, after everything around her vanished.
Then she gives herself a second mental kick for leaving that tiny flashlight on the counter at Bill’s house.
All she has to do is get to the office, though. There’s an entire box of flashlights behind the secretary’s desk on the bottom shelf. Julie can see them perfectly in her mind’s eye. The school is a designated emergency shelter. They have to keep flashlights on hand.
She hurries down the hallway, her shoes clacking loudly against the polished floor. The door is unlocked, fortunately. Finding the right key in the dark would have been next to impossible, let alone getting it into the slot with shaky hands.
Once inside, she holds her arms out, feeling her way toward the counter. Her shin bangs into the edge, and she bites back a curse. Dropping to her hands and knees, she inches along the wall to the box of flashlights, which are exactly where she thought—no, where she knew—they would be. Although, if this were a movie, one of those crazy slasher films, the flashlights would have been gone.
The logical part of her brain insists that she was just lucky. She must have seen the flashlights behind the counter on one of her trips to the school. And that’s certainly possible.
Of course, the logical part of her brain has no explanation for why those keys were in her purse, or for any of the other insane things that have happened since she woke up this morning.
Julie grabs one of the flashlights. It’s the old-fashioned type, large and heavy, and its heft feels reassuring in her hands. She stands up and clicks the gadget on. A ray of deep-red light shoots from the end, and she frowns. It’s obviously a red filter, the type that you use to maintain night vision. But it bathes the room in a hellish crimson glow that isn’t very comforting right now. She bends down and tries another one, but they all have the filter attached, and whoever screwed the headpiece back on must have had the world’s tightest grip, because she can’t get it to budge.
It will have to do. She shines the light down the hallway leading to the principal’s office, which somehow exists in her mind both as my office and Snyder’s office. The door is open, and she thinks of something that probably should have occurred to her back at Bill’s house when she first answered the phone.
This is a joke. Dani’s back at home right now—up in her room laughing her ass off at the thought of stupid, stupid Julie Kennedy, running around pitch-black halls in the middle of the night.
Julie shakes her head. She doesn’t know Dani all that well, but she does know Bill, and he’s talked about the girls a lot. Yes, Dani is wild, and she occasionally gets into trouble, but she’s not cruel.
“Julie?”
Julie screams and drops the flashlight. It spins, casting dim red light onto the counter and walls.
For a second, she doesn’t recognize the girl. Her hair is a pale blonde bob with bangs. But then she realizes it’s Dani. This must be a Halloween costume of some sort.
“Dani! You scared the hell out of me. I thought the office was locked. How did you get out?”
The girl takes a step toward her. “I don’t know,” she says, sounding confused. “I woke up here a few minutes ago. I heard noises upstairs. Who else is here?”
Julie hasn’t heard anything since stepping through the door. “I had to unlock the door, so unless someone broke in, we’re probably alone. How did you get out of the office?” she asks again. “When you called me, you said you were trapped.”
Dani frowns. “I didn’t call you.”
“Yes, you did. Not even ten minutes…” She trails off as another possibility occurs to her. The girl on the phone had never said she was Dani. What if it was Daisy who called? What if she has Dani’s phone?
“Someone else is in this building,” Dani says. “We need to get out, right now.” She shoves past Julie toward the hallway.
“Dani, wait!” Julie reaches out and grabs the girl by the shoulder. “Someone called me from here. Someone with your phone. I thought it was you. And…Daisy wasn’t at the house.”
�
��I just want to get out of here,” Dani says. “This place creeps me out.”
“I’m not going until I look around. Your sister could be here. Someone called me. She sounded…hurt.”
“Okay,” Dani says. “But we need to hurry.”
Dani follows behind Julie as she checks the rooms in the school office complex, including the principal’s office. Her flashlight picks up the nameplate on the desk—Principal Snyder—but she can remember a different nameplate with her own name engraved on the metal.
Julie is more and more convinced that Dani is playing a game. Punking her, as they say. She called, and now she’s lying about it. But if so, she’s a damn good actress. The girl on the phone had sounded terrified.
“See?” Dani says. “She’s not here.”
They leave the office area, but Julie doesn’t head for the exit. Instead, she turns right, toward the classrooms. She shines the flashlight around in a sweeping arc. Nothing but empty desks and someone’s jacket hanging by the door.
“She’s not here,” Dani whispers from behind her. “Can we just go?”
Julie nods toward the exit. “Go on, then. The car is unlocked. Wait for me outside.”
“Are you kidding? I’m not going out there alone!”
And then they both hear a noise. A shuffling sound up ahead. It’s low and muffled by distance, but it sounds like someone moving.
“This way,” Julie says, turning toward the noise. Her beam lands on a poster—HAPPY FALL Y’ALL.
“No,” Dani says. “Are you crazy? You never follow the noise!”
Julie whips back toward her, eyes blazing. “It could be your sister,” she hisses. “Unless you know something I don’t? Unless this was all a big joke you planned with your friends.”
Dani shakes her head. “I told you. I never called you. Why the hell would I call you, Reverend Kennedy?”
The sneer when Dani says those last two words reminds Julie of Scott Jenkins, but she ignores the girl and pushes open the double doors that lead into the gym. Dani mutters a few choice words under her breath and follows.