The Fear Zone

by K. R. Alexander

“It’s okay,” Andres tells her. He takes her arm consolingly. “It’s morning. Nothing bad can happen now, right?”

  “Are you all forgetting that clown?” Kyle asks dryly. He seems to realize he’s being a jerk when he says it, because he immediately lowers his eyes again.

  “No,” April whispers. “I’ll never forget that. Ever.”

  We head to the graveyard together. The late autumn sun is tilting above the trees and the sky is clear blue, but there’s a chill that whispers of winter on our heels. A promise of cold that none of us can shake. And it’s not just the wind or weather that makes me shiver.

  With every footstep toward the graveyard, the sensation of being followed grows stronger.

  I keep glancing around as we walk through downtown. Staring at kids and adults with the same sense of trepidation.

  It doesn’t help that everyone we pass seems to be watching us.

  We stay close together as we walk. No one says anything. No one tries to make a joke. We keep our heads down and walk past the old Halloween decorations, the costumed mannequins and plastic bats and leering pumpkins, the gaggles of kids on their way to class, and we try to pretend that we aren’t there.

  I swear I feel eyes on the back of my neck. Someone is definitely watching me.

  I glance over. A kid is walking past, wearing a winter coat with the burgundy hood pulled up.

  I can’t see their face.

  Not at first.

  But they must notice me staring. Because a second later, they turn their head.

  Ever

  So

  Slowly

  And the clown stares back.

  I trip and nearly knock April over. She grabs me just in time to keep me standing.

  “Did you—” I gasp. “Did you—”

  “What?” she asks. Immediately, everyone jerks to attention, scanning the street wildly.

  I look back to the kid.

  But now it’s just a little girl with black pigtails, surrounded by her laughing friends. Not a terrifying clown out to get us.

  “Nothing,” I say. I try to shake it off. “Just imagining things.”

  I can tell from their expressions that none of them believe it.

  I’m on high alert the entire walk to the graveyard.

  I keep jerking my head to watch people as they pass. Keep jumping when my reflection appears in a storefront window.

  I feel like I’m being watched.

  It’s the same feeling I got Friday night. The same chills when I knew there was something in my closet.

  Even here, in the light of day, we. Are. Not. Safe. And I know that the very last place we should be going is the grave that brought all of this about in the first place.

  It doesn’t help that I know Deshaun saw something.

  Even though he’s trying to brush it off, I know that look. He’s terrified. He’s as terrified as I was when the clown first appeared.

  At least now they all see it. At least now we all know that we’re in this together. The trouble is, I can’t tell if that actually changes everything.

  Andres takes my arm as we walk through town and up to the graveyard.

  “I’m sorry for not believing you earlier,” he whispers.

  I squeeze his hand. “It’s okay, I understand.”

  I’d expected to be angry with him, but it’s impossible to feel anything but relief that things between us are repaired. Like we said—we need to stick together. Now more than ever.

  We reach the graveyard and head straight toward the grave. I feel like I could make my way there with my eyes closed at this point. I feel like the graveyard has become a part of me, or I’ve become a part of it, and I’ll never be able to get far enough away.

  The thought is far from comforting.

  The grave is exactly as it was when I last visited—nothing written or carved on the tombstone, and no sign that anyone has been here digging in the last decade. The grass is green and littered with dead leaves, and the gnarled tree beside it reveals nothing, not even pigeons.

  “Come on,” I say anxiously. I check my phone. We don’t have much time. “Let’s look. There has to be something around here. Has to.”

  We break up and search around. Kyle inspects the tree, and Deshaun and Andres walk down the hill a bit to see if there’s anything nearby.

  I drop to my knees and brush aside the leaves.

  That’s when I see it.

  A sock.

  Hidden under a pile of leaves at the base of the tombstone.

  Not just any sock.

  One of my socks. Pink with tiny pandas all over it. I wore this the other day. It had been in my hamper.

  In my closet.

  “Guys,” I whisper. Barely a whisper. And yet, they’re all at my side in a heartbeat.

  “What is it?” Kyle asks.

  “My sock.”

  “What’s it doing out here?”

  I reach over and pick it up with trembling hands.

  “There’s something inside,” I say.

  I don’t want to reach inside. Not at all.

  Andres must be able to sense my hesitation, because he kneels down beside me and takes it gently. Then he reaches into the sock and pulls out a folded note. When he reads it, his eyes widen with fear.

  “What does it say?” Kyle asks.

  Andres can’t answer. He holds the note out for all of us to see.

  We stare at the note for what feels like an hour. No sound, no words between us, not even birds calling out in the cold air. We stare at the note, and the threat feels even more real than before, even more real than seeing the clown gesture at all of us.

  This thing doesn’t just want to scare us.

  It wants to hurt us.

  And maybe it can only do that at night, but that’s only a few hours away, and we’re not even certain that’s the case anymore. And we have school until then.

  The absolute last thing I want to do is go.

  That’s the first rule of scary movies, right? Never split up. And what is school if not a systemized way of splitting kids up?

  Deshaun’s watch beeps.

  “Yikes,” he says, silencing the alarm. “We gotta go.”

  “Maybe we should skip,” April says.

  “And do what?” Kyle asks. “My dad—my parents would kill me if I played hooky.”

  “Same,” Deshaun says. “Besides … I spent all day in the library researching yesterday. I didn’t learn anything on how to defeat something like this. Everything I tried clearly didn’t work.”

  We go silent. The truth is heavy between us: None of us know how to defeat something like this. We’re just normal kids. We aren’t equipped to fight ghosts or ultimate evil. It’s just us four against something we can’t even comprehend.

  Wait …

  “It says five,” I say.

  “What?” Kyle asks.

  “The note. It says none of you five. That means—”

  “Caroline was lying,” April completes. “Of course she was. That’s just like her. She must be having nightmares too.”

  “We have to find her,” I say.

  April crosses her arms over her chest. “We could just let her suffer.”

  “But maybe she holds the clue,” I argue. “I swear she picked something up in the graveyard. She took the tin box away, remember? Maybe there was something inside. A clue we’re missing.”

  “Then you guys will have to find out,” Kyle says.

  I groan. I forgot that they are at the high school.

  “Okay. April, you and Caroline are just going to have to set aside your grudge. We need each other to survive this. All of us.” I look to Kyle and Deshaun when I say it. They nod.

  “We should go,” Deshaun says. “We all have each other’s numbers now. We can update throughout the day and meet after school.”

  “Provided nothing happens,” Kyle says.

  “Yes,” Deshaun says. “That.”

  He pauses. Then his eyes light up.


  “Wait, I have an idea. In movies, right. The protagonists always have to just face their fears to banish the monster. What if that’s what we have to do?”

  “You want me to face a shark trying to eat me?” I ask. Just the thought makes me shudder.

  “No. Well, I mean, yes? Maybe?”

  “You don’t seem very certain,” April says.

  “I’m not! But it’s our best shot. Maybe if we start facing our fears, they’ll go away.” He seems to lose conviction and stares down at his feet. “I mean, it’s worth a try. It’s not like we have any better ideas.”

  I nod. I don’t like this plan, don’t like that we’re going to split up for eight hours, but it’s the only thing we can do. And it’s not like he’s asking me to track down a shark and throw myself into its tank. Or at least I don’t think that’s what he’s asking me. Because if I have to swim with an actual shark … I’m not sure the whole face your fears thing is going to work.

  “Nothing bad will happen,” I say. “We just have to stick together.” I glance at April. “Easy, right?”

  She doesn’t respond. None of them do.

  I walk to school with tears drying behind my eyes.

  When I step into the main hall, I don’t see any other kids.

  I only see the tunnel.

  The walls of dirt.

  They surround me.

  Every step, and they close another inch.

  Suffocating me.

  Burying me.

  I can’t believe Andres wants us to talk to Caroline. It’s bad enough that she was involved at the beginning, but now she has to be a part of it again?

  Neither he nor I talks the entire way to school. What is there to talk about? Homework doesn’t seem important when a deadly clown is chasing us. Worrying about a test doesn’t compare to worrying about how we’re going to face our fears.

  Because my fear is the clown himself. How in the world am I supposed to face that?

  It’s strange, stepping into the school. It’s so normal. Like, shouldn’t there be creepy music or flickering lights going on in the background? Something to show that everything has changed and nothing will ever be safe again? But no—kids are laughing and shoving each other and playing music, and Andres and I walk through them all, heads down, terrified at what we’ll see if we look someone in the eye.

  It makes me wish Deshaun was here. I mean, Andres makes me feel safe, sure. But Deshaun, well … he’s older. He knows all about this sort of stuff, and that makes me think he knows how to tackle it.

  And he’s cute.

  I push the thought down with a blush. This is no time to be thinking about that. He probably wouldn’t even be interested, anyway.

  “Where’s Caroline?” I ask when we pass her locker. She isn’t there. And neither are her two annoying friends.

  Andres glances around. “No clue. Maybe we try finding her at lunch?”

  I nod.

  We stand there, unmoving. We have two minutes to get to class, and neither of us wants to be the one to break away. Because that will mean we are separated for the next three hours. Maybe we’ll pass by each other in the hall. But without him around, I feel …

  “I’m so scared,” he whispers.

  “Me too,” I admit. I keep glancing around. Expecting kids to be staring at us suspiciously or something. No one does.

  I go on. “But I mean … you should be fine, right? It’s not like you’re taking classes in the ocean or something. Unless you’re worried about flying sharks.”

  Andres’s eyes go wide as I talk. His mouth drops open.

  “What?” I ask.

  “It’s Monday,” he whispers.

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So Monday we’re starting swimming in gym class.”

  My breath catches in my throat. I try to push it down and appear strong for him, though, because the last thing he needs is to see me looking worried.

  “I’m sure it will be okay,” I say. I take his arm consolingly. It clearly doesn’t work. “Just keep reminding yourself that there’s no possible way for a shark to get inside a swimming pool. Even if they did, they’d die from the chlorine! And if that doesn’t do it, you could always say you’re sick.”

  His face does look a little green.

  “Yeah,” he says distractedly. “Yeah, maybe I’ll try that.”

  The bell rings.

  “Okay,” he says. “Okay. Um. You stay safe. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Yeah,” I reply.

  He turns and begins walking away, down the hall, his shoulders slumped and head down like a doomed man.

  I only watch him go for a second. Then I dash to my locker and store my things. Thankfully, there are no notes from a killer clown in there. One thing is going right today.

  As I’m rushing to my first class of the day, I pass by a classroom door.

  Two steps past it and I halt.

  I peer back slowly, the entire world fading away to a blur of shadows and dull noise.

  There, in the window, waving with his maniacal grin, is the clown.

  I stare at him, and he stares back, those two pale blue eyes making my entire body run cold.

  He’s here.

  He’s here.

  I can’t move. Can’t scream.

  And then, someone bumps into me, and the world clatters back.

  No clown in the door. Just kids racing to make first period.

  I swallow the bile in my throat and turn away, hustling to my class.

  Even though I can’t see him, I feel his eyes on my back every step of the way.

  “Do you think they’re going to be okay?” Deshaun asks after first period. We haven’t heard anything from either of them. The way he keeps checking his phone has me thinking the worst.

  “They should be,” I reply. “They’re smart.”

  I close my locker and start walking toward our next class. Chemistry. So fun. At least we take it together.

  “Yeah, but what if something happens to them?” he asks. He checks his phone for what is probably the hundredth time since we got here. I don’t check mine. I don’t want it to seem like I’m just waiting to hear from Andres. Even though I am worried about him. A little.

  At least he doesn’t have to worry about sharks attacking during English class.

  “They’re in school,” I say. “Think about it—this is, like, the safest place for us to be in a situation like this. We’re surrounded by other kids and adults. That thing would be stupid to try to attack us now.”

  “I know, but …” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t think this is something we can stop or predict.”

  “You said we should try facing it if we saw it again,” I say, raising an eyebrow. “You sounded pretty sure about it.”

  “I am. I mean, I was. But last night. You don’t understand, Kyle. I put out everything I could think of to repel the ghost or demon or whatever it is. And it ignored them like they were just toys.”

  “Did it hurt you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then there you have it,” I say. I nod and smile at one of the kids on my football team, trying to seem cool and nonchalant and not at all worried that someone is going to ask about how sleepless I look or overhear this very strange conversation. “You were alone and you made it out okay. Now we’re surrounded by people. Nothing to worry about. And April and Andres aren’t alone either.”

  They always feel the strongest when you’re alone.

  Immediately, I’m no longer in the school hallway.

  I stand in the living room, and Dad is drunk. My blood chills as the memory overtakes me. As my mom goes to the garage to get a shop vacuum because Dad has broken a beer bottle all over the carpet. Snakes writhe and twine through the shattered glass. Dad doesn’t even seem to notice he’s broken something. He thunders around, yelling about work or Mom or me, I can’t really tell at this point.

  I also can’t move.

  I feel frozen.

  I know if I move, he
’ll come after me. I know if I move, the snakes will attack. I’ve seen Dad in this state before, when his face is red and his fists are clenched. He wants to fight. All he needs is for a target to present itself.

  Dad roars and curses and slams his fist into the wall. It breaks through the drywall easily. It’s not the first spot we’ve had to cover with a picture frame. The last was a photo of the three of us, all pretending to be one happy family. The irony has always tasted bitter in my throat.

  Even though I expect it, I still yelp and flinch back on the sofa, where I’ve been sitting for the last few hours. We’d all been watching TV together. Fine and happy. But a dozen beers in, and Dad stopped being either of those, and now I have nowhere to go but here.

  Dad turns and looks at me. His red face twists into a scowl.

  And that’s when I am acutely aware that Mom is outside, out of earshot, and I am in here.

  “You,” he growls.

  He starts cursing. Calling me terrible names I try to drown out but that will stick to my subconscious forever.

  He steps toward me. Snakes curl and hiss at his feet.

  “No,” I whisper, and it’s then that I feel myself, still standing in the school hall, watching this memory unfold like a nightmare’s black wings. “Please.”

  Dad’s arm cocks back, a snake curled around his bicep, and I wince in fear.

  I feel his hand on my arm. Yanking me off the couch.

  Only the punch never comes.

  The hand on my arm doesn’t let go, and after a moment I realize that the voice saying my name over and over isn’t my dad’s, but Deshaun’s.

  “Dude,” he says, shaking me. “Kyle, what’s wrong?”

  I open my eyes. Why did I shut my eyes? Why was I flinching from something that happened months ago?

  I swallow hard as the bustle and roar of the crowded hallway comes back. I stare around at my classmates with wide eyes.

  What just happened?

  That wasn’t just a memory. That was real.

  “I …” I whisper. I look to Deshaun, who stares at me with wide, nervous eyes.

  I can’t finish the statement. I can tell from his look he doesn’t need me to. We both know what’s going on.

  “Come on,” he says. “Let’s get to class.”