“Term paper time!” Ms. Liu announced. “Your topic is: female authors and their male protagonists.”
Thayer Turner’s hand immediately shot up. “Can we have partners?”
Ms. Liu sighed. “Fine, you can partner up with the person sitting next to you.”
I ducked my head down, face burning. The only way this day could get any better was if the ceiling crashed on top of me. I expected Bram to beg the person on his left to partner up with him, or to raise his hand and tell Ms. Liu he was in the wrong seat today. But out of the corner of my eye, I could see Bram staring straight ahead as if he hadn’t heard Ms. Liu. It seemed like he wasn’t going to put up a fight.
The guy sitting in front of me glanced back at us and snorted. Apparently, he found it hilarious that I had to partner with the boyfriend of the girl I’d allegedly tried to stab in the art-supply closet. Like Bram, I stared straight ahead and tried to ignore him, but I was relieved Bram hadn’t made a scene. By the time the bell rang, I had finally worked up the nerve to speak to him. I turned to Bram, but he spoke first.
“I’ll write the paper,” he said. His voice was deeper than I expected, the low rumble of a train over tracks. It was weird, having kissed him without ever having heard him speak.
“Shouldn’t I help?”
He swept the books off his desk and stood. “No.”
* * *
By lunchtime, my phone was blowing up with new memes about me. Only this time, instead of me snatching Lux’s hair out, these memes depicted me as a raging maniac with a pair of scissors. In one of the memes someone had placed a picture of my face over that of Lupita Nyong’o from Us, sporting golden shears. I had to give them credit for good taste.
I shoved my phone into my pocket and tried to feel grateful that at least no one was making fun of me to my face. I could deal with memes. Until I got to the lunch line in the cafeteria.
“Murderer.”
My blood went cold, and I looked up to see who’d said it. It was the girl behind me on line. I spotted her micro bangs and remembered I’d seen her at the abandoned-house party. She’d been sitting out on the stoop, reading a book. There was an odd expression on her face now, almost like admiration.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“You murdered Lux McCray.”
She spoke so calmly that it was unnerving. “I didn’t—” My voice cracked, and I had to start again. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Not literally,” the girl continued. “Just her image. With a pair of scissors, right?” She laughed and it sounded strange coming out of her mouth. “You’re the Arts and Crafts Killer of Manchester. Kudos.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said, but she didn’t seem to hear me.
“Move it along, girls,” one of the lunch ladies behind the counter said.
“I don’t pay you to rush me,” the girl growled at her.
I paid for my food and got as far away from the girl as I could, but her words followed me like a dark shadow. I could feel panic start to set in. It made my tray quiver as I tried to unclench my hands. I didn’t even bother to wait for Saundra at our usual table, just headed straight to the back. I didn’t want to wonder whether she’d suck it up and sit with me or just avoid me like everyone else. I would make the decision for her. I picked a new table, the one adjacent to the door that opened to the back alley, where all the garbage got taken out. No one ever sat there. It was perfect.
I took out my phone and tried to steady my breathing. I could’ve distracted myself in a million different ways, so of course I went to Matthew’s Instagram. My fingers typed his name in automatically, like they’d done a million times before. I tapped on the soccer picture again, the last one he’d ever posted. It wasn’t just his smile, or how happy he seemed. I liked to see if there were any new comments. His friends had left all their goodbye messages in the post. They’d stopped a while ago, but sometimes a new message popped up. Nothing today.
“He’s cute.” Saundra peered over my shoulder, getting an eyeful of Matthew. “Is he from your old school?”
I startled and rushed to put my phone away. “Do you mind?”
The wounded look on Saundra’s face made me instantly feel like crap.
“I’m sorry for snapping at you,” I said quickly. “You just scared me.”
“Geez, you’re jumpy. Anyways, why are you sitting all the way over here?”
“You don’t have to sit with me,” I said. “You must’ve heard what Lux’s been saying about me.”
“What, that you pulled that prank on her at the séance? Please. No offense, Rachel, but I really don’t think you have the energy to come up with something so elaborate. Also, I was the one who dragged you to that party. Lux is a known liar who, coincidentally, does not deserve that sweet baby angel boyfriend of hers, but that’s beside the point.”
Saundra either had the attention span of a gnat or she was kinder than I deserved, because she set her tray next to mine and sat down like the whole thing—my pariah status, the snapping—was already forgotten.
I felt my insides twist. Saundra still wanted to sit with me. Even though I sucked. She pitied me, which made me pity myself. I needed to put an end to this pity party before things got even more pathetic.
“I’m serious, you don’t have to sit here. You should leave before someone else sees you talking to me.”
Saundra looked at me, confused and maybe a little hurt. “Rachel—”
I stood. “It’s fine, I’ll go.”
I was already on my way, palms pushing against the exit door. No alarm sounded and nobody stopped me.
Manchester wanted me there about as much as I wanted to be there.
* * *
I didn’t go far. Central Park was across the street and it was a nice day. I planned to take one of my usual aimless, lazy strolls to forget about how shitty everything was. But before I did that, I stopped at one of the hot dog carts at the entrance. I’d never gotten around to eating lunch.
“Two hot dogs, please.” Someone ordered from behind me. I spun around to tell off whoever had cut in front of me.
“Do you want yours with ketchup?” Freddie asked.
It took me a beat to answer. “And mustard.”
He made a face but it faded quickly. “One with ketchup and one with ketchup and mustard, please,” he told the vendor.
“What are you doing here?”
“I saw you leave the lunchroom. Got curious.”
“So you decided to ditch, too?”
“Mhmm.” Freddie handed the vendor a couple bucks and accepted the dogs wrapped in foil. He opened one up, saw the mustard, and handed it to me.
“Thank you,” I said as I took it.
“You’re welcome.”
We walked farther into the park. I ate my hot dog silently as I tried to figure out Freddie’s deal. Not just his motives for being here right now, but also the super-secret club he was a part of. The guy was kind of an enigma.
There was a dichotomy in everything about Freddie. He was slim but not scrawny. Sinewy, maybe. But if he were on a football field, he’d get plowed, easy. His hair was close-cropped and tidy on the sides, but the top was loose and messy and fell over his eyes. His eyes were nice. Deep brown and shrouded with so many lashes it looked like he wore liner. But his glasses threw enough of a glare to obscure them most of the time. It was like he was almost complete, but not quite. Almost put together. Almost perfect.
“So why’d you run off?” Freddie asked.
“Why’d you come after me?”
“I told you. Curious. Your turn.”
I took another bite of my hot dog. “Isn’t it obvious? I wanted to get away from there.”
Freddie’s mouth was full but he nodded. “Yeah, Manchester’s a trip at first, but you get used to it.”
“How did you get used to it?”
“I figured out a way to game the system. You have no idea how much those people will pay for a halfway decent book report.” Fredd
ie devoured his last bite of hot dog, leaving a small smear of ketchup in the corner of his lip.
I remembered what Saundra had said, about Freddie’s illicit yet lucrative extracurricular hustle. “I don’t think I can game my way out of this one.”
“Rachel, I know Lux blames you for what happened at the séance. I’m sorry if that has made things tough for you at school. But it’ll blow over. Something new will happen that’ll have everyone talking and they’ll move on.”
“Will you and your mysterious club be responsible for this something new, by any chance?”
“Maybe.” His eyes shone behind his glasses and his lips quirked, but I couldn’t take him seriously with that bit of ketchup still on his face.
“You’ve got some…” I gestured at my own lip, and he swiped his hand over his mouth. “So if I ask you what you guys have planned, will you tell me?”
“Sorry, I can’t.”
I tore a bite off my hot dog and began walking ahead, forcing Freddie to catch up.
“Why do you want in so bad?” Freddie asked. “You don’t even know what we do.”
“I think I’d like it.”
“You might hate it.”
“I think I need it.”
It sounded weird when I said it like that. Desperate. Kind of vulnerable. But it was out now and I couldn’t take it back. “Did you hear that I almost killed Lux McCray with a pair of scissors?”
“Yeah,” Freddie snorted. “She makes up all kinds of stuff.”
“It’s true.” I stopped walking and turned to face him. He was taller than me, and I had to tilt my head slightly to look him in the eye. “I mean … I wasn’t going to kill her, obviously. But I did attack her with the scissors. That part is all true.”
Any trace of laughter left Freddie’s face, but he didn’t look at me like the rest of the school did, like I was a freak. “Did she threaten you?”
“Not exactly. I just lost my cool.”
“We all do.”
“Yeah, but I thought I could deal with it. Lately, though, everything I’ve been doing isn’t cutting it anymore. I just need to find something that’ll make me not lose my cool. Like … an outlet.”
“And you think my club will do that for you?”
“I’m willing to try it.”
I thought about what Saundra had said to me that night at the party: I just needed to find my people and everything else would fall into place. Maybe Freddie and Thayer and their club were my people.
As Freddie watched me, I wondered if this conversation would end like the last one we had, with him walking away and leaving me wanting. But this time felt different.
“What’s your number?” he asked.
11
I CHECKED THE time on my phone, then the street signs again.
A few hours after I gave Freddie my number, a cryptic text had popped up on my phone.
Midnight at the corner of Camp Crystal Lake’s killer and when Cillian Murphy finally wakes up from his coma.
I had figured out the references pretty quickly, but had no clue how to meet someone at the corner of Jason Voorhees and 28 Days Later. Then I’d figured “28” must relate to a street, someplace in Kips Bay or Chelsea in Manhattan. But there weren’t any streets named Jason on Google Maps. Finally, I’d searched for Voorhees, which also was not a street, road, boulevard, or avenue in Manhattan. But then Google asked if I meant Voorhies Avenue.
Bingo.
Voorhies Avenue intersected with East 28th Street all the way at the southern edge of Brooklyn, close to the beach. I couldn’t imagine anyone from Manchester even knowing this place existed, let alone setting foot there. But it was the only place that fit the clue.
Unless there was another Voorhies Avenue—one that wasn’t misspelled—up in Westchester or something. But if I had to take the Metro North to get there, I was out. Sneaking out of the apartment without waking my mom was one thing; trekking to the suburbs was another. That was a different level of scary.
As I stood there watching the minutes go by on my phone, I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake. Getting lured to a faraway spot, when no one knew where you were, to go meet some strangers felt increasingly sketchy. It was too quiet here among the crammed-together houses. I hated quiet streets. They reminded me of Long Island.
The only noise came from the beating of my heart, getting louder in my ears and quickening with every passing minute. Soon, it was drowned out by the sound of a car engine. Far, but getting closer.
I could see a white van coming down the block, the only vehicle that had been on the street for the last fifteen minutes. When it slowed down in front of me, I noticed the lettering on the side: ROPA VIEJA CATERING, with a fading photo of what looked like chicken and rice underneath.
Was this my ride? Confusion set in, which only made my heart beat faster. I tried to peer through the window, but it was opaque.
“Hello?” At the sound of my voice, the side door slammed open.
Two figures jumped out so fast they were nothing more than a blur. Before I could scream, everything went black, as if I’d been knocked out.
But I was still awake, still breathing. I realized a hood had been pulled over my head.
I began yelling and my hands went immediately to tear the hood off, but someone yanked my arms down. I kicked but my boots cut through wide-open air. I continued shouting as they lifted me, as my knees hit a hard surface, as hands gripped my shoulders and forced me into a sitting position. The engine started up again, and I jostled with the sudden movement.
I couldn’t see anything beyond the hood, but my breathing grew more and more rapid as images of the attack flashed before me, when I was held down on the kitchen floor, my arms pinned just like they were now.
I screamed. The sound that tore out of me was primal, a sound I didn’t recognize. But a voice cut through it.
“Hey, it’s okay.” In the complete darkness, the voice rang clearly in my ears.
“Freddie?”
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” Freddie said. “Hey, pull over.”
“No stopping now. This is how we do things,” someone else said.
The club. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. My heart was still beating at a breakneck pace, but now as much from adrenaline as from fear. It was almost exactly like the feeling I used to get from watching horror movies, but tenfold. One hundredfold. Adrenaline didn’t always have to mean fight or flight, did it? What if sometimes it meant stay and see what happens? Adrenaline for the reckless.
“If she scares this easy, maybe we should let her go,” another voice said. This time, it was a girl’s.
“No,” I said quickly. I’d gotten this far. “I’m fine.”
“Good,” Freddie whispered close to me, his voice like a calming balm. “We’re almost there.”
A new sensation broke through the darkness: a hand gently encircling mine. I squeezed Freddie’s hand back, grateful.
The ride felt quick, like it hadn’t lasted more than five minutes. But maybe that was just because everything inside me was racing. The van came to a stop, and two hands took me by my arms and hoisted me to a stand. We walked for a few minutes, and then I could tell we’d gone indoors when the salty smell of sand and ocean changed instantly to the canned smell of a damp room. I heard keys or a chain jingling, the wail of a metal door opening.
“Watch your step,” someone told me. I lifted my knees high with caution. Freddie, who was still holding my hand, guided me carefully.
At last we stopped walking. There was a tug at the back of my head and the hood slid off my face.
I blinked quickly, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. I was in front of a wall. A lumpy gray wall. After a few more blinks, I saw that the lumps were actually pieces of skeleton. Skulls, ribs, and hands were suspended in motion and reaching out to me, like they were trying to break free from the cement. I stumbled backward, my feet catching on a long metal rail on the floor that curved into the darkness.
“Easy,” Freddie said, grabbing me before I fell.
I spun around and saw that he was standing next to three other people. There was Thayer; the girl I remembered from the abandoned-house party—the same one who’d called me a murderer on the lunch line; and then there was Bram Wilding. Lux McCray–dating, object-of-Saundra’s-affections, reluctant-term-paper-partner Bram Wilding.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Only a little!” Thayer said. He wore a long red robe, or maybe it was a cloak. “We are always kidding, but only a little.”
I struggled to understand what I was seeing. I was pretty sure I’d never once seen this mix of people together in school. I took in my current surroundings, a dark, low-ceilinged Halloween-looking bonanza, with ghouls up on the walls and weird train tracks along the floor.
And then there was Bram. Out of everything, he was the thing that made the least sense. I was beginning to wonder if this was some sort of murder club and I’d been incredibly stupid to let them take me to a second location. But as the minutes passed, none of them brandished any weapons.
Finally, Thayer edged forward, and I reflexively took a step back and tugged on the edges of my sleeves.
“So you like scary movies,” he said.
Not what I was expecting him to say. “Uh, yeah.”
Felicity fixed me with a brittle stare, but Thayer’s face had broken into a grin. “What kinds?”
“Kinds?”
“Kinds of scary movies,” Thayer said.
“Oh. Well, I like it when scary movies are atmospheric? I also like slashers.”
“My favorite, too!” Thayer said. He was practically giddy now, which only seemed to make Felicity scowl more deeply. I avoided looking at Bram.
“Hey, quick lightning round for a minute: Who was the killer in Halloween?”
Was he kidding? “Michael Myers.”
“Correct! And in Prom Night?”
“Would you lay off her, Thayer?” Freddie said. “Sorry,” he said to me. “Thayer likes to get ahead of himself sometimes. I know this is probably really confusing.”
The Mary Shelley Club Page 6