It must just be the light.
“Yes, sweetie. It’s time for you to join me. I miss you, sweetie. I want you to come home.”
My heart aches so badly I drop to my knees.
“What do you mean?” I ask. But I know what she means.
The visions of the grave closing in.
The memory of the day I lost her, when that first clump of dirt echoed on top of her casket, when the earth swallowed her down. It had been cool and blue outside. Just like this. I had been surrounded by people but so, so alone. Just like this.
“It’s time, Sunnybunny. My angel. You’ve fought so hard. But now you can rest. You can rest with me.”
I don’t know where she pulls it from, but she hands me a shovel. It glints in the sun like a smile. Like her smile.
“You know what to do, sweetie. Join me. Join me.”
He smile widens. I feel the weight of the shovel in my hands and watch her eyes burn blue.
She steps behind me, puts her hands on my shoulders.
She leans over and whispers in my ear.
“You are worth nothing without me. I was the only one who loved you. Everyone else is just pretending.”
I see her reflected in the shovel’s blade.
But it isn’t my mother I see.
It is the clown.
His mouth red and split in a smile that slashes his face. His eyes burning blue like the hottest part of fire.
“Do it,” he says. And now I hear it is his voice.
The same clown I saw when leaving the graveyard. The same one I’ve seen in passing reflections, in faces in the crowd. The one I know has been haunting not just me, but all of us. Toying with us.
I’m not going to be haunted or toyed with anymore.
“No!” I yell.
I go to stand, to spin around and knock the clown down.
When I move, the clown is no longer there.
The vision or hallucination shatters.
I stand on my mother’s grave, a stick in my hands, and look at the kids who joined me. My friends. The clown or the ghost of my mother is nowhere to be seen.
April jerks forward, as if suddenly unfrozen. The rest follow shortly after, shaking themselves and staring around wildly.
“What was that?” April asks. “What did you do? The clown … I saw you talking to the clown, but we couldn’t move.”
“It tried to convince me to dig my own grave.” I can barely finish the sentence. “It wanted me to think it was my mom. It wanted me to give up on everything.” I swallow hard and force myself to smile. “I think it’s scared. I think we’re close.”
Deshaun isn’t really paying attention to us. He’s staring behind me, his eyes wide.
“I think you’re right,” he says, his voice terrified. “But I don’t think we’re close—I think we’re here.”
I turn around.
My mother’s grave is gone.
Instead, the thick trees around us tower and arch in. Stones of old grave markers poke up from their roots. And there, amid the tangled mass of root and dirt and old graves, is a cave bored straight into the earth.
Deeper in, a pale blue light beckons.
I stare into it. I can already feel the earth closing in around me. No part of me wants to go in there.
I clench the stick that the clown tricked me with.
Deep in my heart, I know:
My mother would not want me to give up.
She would not want me to lose her forever by burying all my memories beneath fear and loss.
She would not want me to think I’m alone.
No.
She would want me to fight.
“Okay,” I say. I tighten my fists. “Let’s go.”
“Are we really going in there?” Kyle asks.
I keep looking around, expecting the clown to pop out at any second to scare us. But the birds chirp in the sky and the cave beckons darkly. I know we don’t have a choice. This is where it all ends.
And I don’t have any clue how it’s going to end for us.
I still have no clue how to defeat the monster.
April steps up to my side. She takes my hand. Her fingers shake, and for a moment the movement shocks me. Then I realize she isn’t holding my hand to comfort me, but to be comforted. I squeeze. Her hand is warm, and when she looks at me, she smiles faintly.
It’s then that I realize it doesn’t matter if we don’t know how to face down this ghost or monster or whatever it is. We are together. Finally. And we are going to end this. One way or another.
“Yeah,” I say. “We’re going in.”
I pull out my phone, turn on the flashlight, and lead the way down into the dark.
“What do you think is down here?” April whispers.
“I don’t know,” I respond. “But we’re going to find out.”
She nods, as if that’s answer enough.
Caroline, Kyle, and Andres are behind us. I glance back once. They all have phones out, casting harsh white light over the walls.
Even though we’ve only moved a few feet, the exit is already gone, replaced by a wall of dirt. My breath catches.
We’re trapped.
I keep my mouth shut, though. Try to look brave.
“We can do this,” I say.
They all nod at me, but they don’t seem to buy it. Kyle raises an eyebrow at me holding April’s hand, and I feel myself blush in spite of our surroundings.
“Whatever we do,” I say, looking forward once more, “we have to stick together. Remember, this thing feeds on our fear, and we’re more vulnerable when alone. So no matter what, we don’t. Split. Up.”
No response. They must just be scared to talk; I don’t blame them—this place seems to drain all life and happiness from me. It makes me want to curl against the wall and hide.
It’s so quiet, all noise feels like throwing a great shiny target up in the air that says “Attack me!”
Wait.
It’s so quiet.
I can’t hear their footsteps anymore. Did they stop? The moment the question crosses my mind, April lets go of my hand.
“Guys?”
I pause. Reach back for April’s hand. She takes it.
“Why are we stopping?” I ask as I look back.
“They’re lost,” comes a voice. “Alone.” I glance over. Fear courses through my veins.
The clown stands beside me, gripping my hand tight.
“Just like you,” he growls.
One moment I’m surrounded by friends.
The next footstep, and the cave goes dark—my phone blinks off and the light at the end vanishes.
The next thing I realize is: I’m alone.
Completely alone.
“Guys?” I yell out. My voice echoes. As if I’m in a large cave. I reach my hands out to the sides in the pitch-blackness—I can’t see my own fingers, let alone the walls, and I can’t feel anything either. I take a tentative step forward. My foot squishes in mud.
I freeze.
Hold my breath.
The ground was dry before.
Immediately my heart starts to race, because in the distance I hear the
drip
drip
drip
of water.
All you have to do is stay out of the water, April had said. And when I hear the slosh of waves, I know that that is the last thing I will be able to do.
Deshaun said we need to stand up to our fears.
I’d hoped he was wrong about that.
I don’t hear anything else for a while. Just the drip of water and the churn of waves.
Then, slowly but surely, I see a light.
Dim, hazy, the air above me begins to glow. Like millions of tiny stars burning into existence, the ceiling reveals itself. For a moment, all I can think of is how beautiful it is, and how this surely can’t be part of the nightmare. Millions and millions of crystals glitter on the cavern ceiling, casting a pale bluish light over everything.
; It’s that “everything” that makes my stomach churn with newfound fear.
Water.
I am surrounded on all sides by water.
Glittering waves and murky depths. And it’s not just the droplets dripping from the ceiling making sound in the waves.
The water isn’t empty.
Fins slice through the waves. All sizes, all gray and triangular—some as large as boat sails and others the size of my fist. There must be dozens. Hundreds. They swarm and thrash in the waves surrounding my tiny, muddy island.
I turn in place, nearly paralyzed with fear.
Can sharks jump?
There’s nowhere to go.
I am stuck on this tiny island.
Forever.
And then
the ground
below my feet
rumbles.
I gasp
as inch
by
inch
the island
begins
to
sink.
Water sloshes up to my toes, soaks through my shoes.
I am alone, and the island is sinking, and the
sharks
circle
in.
Help! I want to cry out. Only I can’t speak. I don’t want the sharks to hear. I don’t want them to know. Besides, there’s no one here to help me.
Only …
On the far shore, I see another cavern. Blurry, as if behind a pane of frosted glass. And inside …
Kyle?
Hissing fills my ears.
Snakes slither on every surface.
I can’t see a surface. Only snakes.
Fat and thin, gray and yellow, green or banded red and black. They writhe around my feet. Twine up my ankles. Drip down from walls.
Walls.
I’m not in the tunnel.
I’m in my house. In the basement.
And there, at the far end, sitting in a high-backed chair, is my father. Around him, the terrariums are open, seething with snakes.
Snakes cover him. They curl up his legs and drape over his arms, circle their tails over his fingers like rings. A yellow coral snake circles the top of his head in a sinuous crown.
He is the king of my domain.
His eyes burn blue, flash pure hatred at me. He will have my head.
He opens his mouth to speak my name.
A crimson snake, thick as his tongue, slithers out instead.
“Kyle,” it whispers in my father’s voice, dropping slowly down to my father’s lap.
The serpent on my father’s crown stares at me, eyes glinting in the ghostly light.
“Worthlessss,” the crown hisses.
“Weak,” whispers another snake.
“No,” I say. I take a step backward and am met with the furious hiss of serpents. I freeze in place. “I’m not,” I say. There’s no strength behind it.
I’m scared. So scared.
Not only of the snakes.
But because they are right.
Every snake sounds like my father, and as they slither around me, they hiss all the horrible things he’s said. All the terrible truths he’s told me.
“Freak.”
“Unlovable.”
“Mistake.”
I want to cover my ears, but the serpents curl up my legs, twine heavy as tree trunks around my arms.
“No son of mine,” hisses a cobra by my ear, my father’s voice resonant on its forked tongue.
Serpents everywhere. Cold and biting. Serpents in my heart, telling me everything I already know.
“Even your friends despise you.”
On his throne, my father watches the snakes surround me. Watches with that slashed-on grin and burning blue eyes. I don’t think he’s ever been happier to see me.
“Where’s Deshaun to save you now?” asks a viper at my waist.
I close my eyes. Try to ignore the cold, scaled bodies that wrap around me. Squeezing me.
I think of Deshaun. My only friend. Always there to rely on. Always there to help. Always knowing the answer.
And he is nowhere to be found.
The clown vanishes in a swirl of smoke the moment I see him, leaving me in complete and utter darkness. It’s then that I realize my phone is no longer there.
Just me.
Just the dark.
The emptiness.
Only I know, in the deepest pit of my stomach, that I am not alone. I know that I am no longer in the cave.
I feel it first. The race of goose bumps over my skin, the tingle on the back of my neck.
The telltale marks that I am being watched.
“What are you?” I call out to the dark.
Giggling responds, childish and yet somehow ancient, like a soul long trapped in a crypt.
Immediately, my imagination goes haywire.
In the darkness, I see in my mind’s eye a little girl, a ghost as pale as a sheet. She floats in front of me with vacant eyes, calling my name. Is it my imagination? Or is she there, floating in the black, just out of arm’s reach? Fear floods my veins, cold and spiky.
I take a step back and trip over stone.
Light flickers around me.
I stand in the middle of a graveyard. The graveyard. Just like before. Lost and alone but not alone.
Just like before.
The graveyard stretches on into infinity, nothing but burnt grass and gnarled trees and broken tombstones.
And the light … the light isn’t from the sky, not from any lantern.
The light is from the ghosts.
Hundreds of them, hovering over their tombstones, transparent and pale blue, shining faintly. All of them looking at me with milky eyes.
I take another step backward and am met with a growl.
I turn, shaking, and see a man with his head twisted backward.
“What do you want?” I ask, my voice trembling as I try to find a spot as far away from all of them as I can.
“For you to run,” says the little girl. She smiles. Her grin splits her face in two. “Run away, before we scare you to death.”
The moment the words leave her mouth, the ghosts all vanish.
And then, like a wolf howling in the night, I hear them wailing. Laughing. Reaching out to me with dirt-crusted nails. Wanting to tear me apart.
I don’t think.
I run.
“Hello?” I call out.
I can still feel the after trace of Deshaun’s hand in mine, but I can’t see him anywhere. I can’t hear anyone. Can’t even tell if I’m still in the tunnel.
Fear grips my heart.
I am alone.
“Hello, April,” comes a voice.
I’m not as alone as I thought.
I blink, and the clown stands before me.
We’re no longer in the dark of the tunnel, but in my backyard. The sky is cloudy and dark, and there is a table covered in presents and a cake, and we are not alone. My classmates circle us, the clown standing just within the ring. My classmates stare with hatred plain on their faces—squinted eyes and snarled mouths and clenched fists—while the clown … the clown just smiles his terrifying smile, his teeth sharp needles and his eyes the only brightness in the otherwise bleak landscape.
“Are you looking for your friends?” the clown asks.
“I … I …”
The clown’s smile somehow grows wider, wider than any human mouth should go. I should be used to this, but I’m not.
“You don’t have any friends, April.” He giggles. “No one wants to be your friend. No one.”
“That’s a lie,” I say. I clench my fists. This is all just a test. This is all just the clown messing with me. And yet, his words sting with the tiny sliver of truth. The question. What if he isn’t lying?
“Why don’t I just let them tell you themselves,” the clown says. He bows theatrically. And then, with a jingle of the bells on his shoes, he vanishes.
My classmates remain.
There, right in fro
nt of me, is Andres.
Only it doesn’t look like Andres, not really—his skin is dull gray and so are his eyes, and when he opens his mouth, his voice sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a well.
“I feel sorry for you, April,” Andres says.
“What?”
“That’s why I’ve always stuck around you.” He takes a step closer. “I don’t actually like you. I can’t stand being around you! But I feel bad for you, because no one else likes you. It’s sad. So sad. And so I’m stuck pretending to be your friend.”
“That’s not true,” I say. I feel tears well at the backs of my eyes. I wipe them away, and when I can see again, the clown is behind Andres, hands on Andres’s shoulders, leaning down to whisper in his ear.
“Tell her what you really think,” the clown says.
“I think you’re boring,” Andres says, as if he doesn’t even notice the evil clown behind him. “I think you’re stupid. So stupid you didn’t even realize I was just pretending.”
He laughs. It’s harsh and cruel, and for some reason, it reminds me of the clown.
The other kids laugh as well.
“You’re fat too,” calls one of the kids. I look over. It’s Caroline, flanked once more by her two stupid friends. “Fat and stupid. You’ll never have friends. Let alone a boyfriend.”
“Yeah,” says Deshaun. He steps over to Andres. “You really think I’d like you. Like that? No one likes you, April. No one.”
I close my eyes and crumple to my knees as my classmates close in.
As they call me terrible names.
As they say all the horrible things I know they’ve wanted to tell me this entire time.
I’m trapped.
I thud my hands against the cushioned roof. No, not a roof—a lid.
I can see from the faint light that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere that I’m in a box. A coffin.
I’m stuck in a coffin.
I struggle and squirm but I can barely move. The coffin is so tight around me.
“Help,” I gasp. It’s barely a whisper. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
My lungs choke for fleeing oxygen. I’m going to suffocate. I’m going to suffocate down here and no one will know where I am.
No one will care.
I’ve been horrible. So horrible. Why would anyone care about me? Why would anyone try to save a girl who’s bullied them?
The Fear Zone Page 12