Scream All Night

by Derek Milman

  “Excuse me!” I say, shouldering my way through the crowd. “Excuse me, please!” I step on a foot or two as I push my way through the crowd, my stupid forked tail getting in everyone’s way as I try to keep up with Gavin, who is so fast. They literally start playing “Keep On Running” by the Spencer Davis Group. “Excuse me, sorry!” I knock into a fellow demon and spill his beer. “Sorry!”

  I run out of the ballroom. I see Gavin turning the corner at the end of the cavernous black-and-white, marble-floored hallway, lined with gleaming knights in armor, each of them standing in a recessed alcove, pinpointed lights from above.

  People call this hallway, which connects all the main rooms of the Karloff Wing, Medieval Row. Some of these knights were used as actual costumes in one of Moldavia’s biggest flops that went on to have a roaring second life on DVD and late-night cable, Dr. Jekyll and the Knights Templar in Hawaii, which was unreal. My favorite thing about that movie was a review by Jamie Renquist, writing for Gore & Gristle, in which he stated: “It is possible Dr. Jekyll and the Knights Templar in Hawaii was entirely written, produced, and directed by a possessed bottle of tequila.”

  I find Gavin in the hunting room. The room has dark wood-paneled walls, mounted deer heads (I don’t think they’re real; my dad loved animals), everything draped with tartan blankets. If I was a Scottish recluse who liked aged cheese, silk pajamas, and Agatha Christie, this is where I’d go to get drunk and die. I sit next to Gavin on the sofa. He’s fingering an empty crystal tumbler, looking down at the floor.

  “Why did you run away from me?” I ask, panting.

  “I didn’t want to get in trouble.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He shakes his leg. “I stole something. I thought you found out.”

  “What did you steal?”

  Gavin reaches inside his jacket and removes something dark, square, and leathery. He hands it over without looking at me.

  “Oh, my journal!”

  “I swiped it from your closet. I figured you found out it was me. I’m sorry.”

  I look at the cover of my old, sad journal and laugh a little. The last thing I want to do is crack open this stupid thing. I am so done thinking about and reliving that period of my life. “Did you find the pen, by any chance?”

  He shakes his head.

  I hand the journal back to Gavin. “Here. Keep it safe for me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. But why did you take it? And why do you keep it on you? That’s so weird.”

  “Because I wanted to know all about you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Because you’re the one everyone talks about around here. I didn’t remember you from when I was little.”

  “You’ve been here that long?”

  “Yes. You played Alastair, the best Moldavia character ever. I love that movie so much. You’re my hero.”

  I’m too confused by this statement, and everything he’s saying, to be disturbed that a kid loved a movie I starred in where I chowed down on a dying woman’s fetus. “I’m your hero?”

  “You’re such a good actor, and you stood up to him and you left.”

  I never saw myself as a role model to anyone. My tormented face is what you see staring at you when there are no better horror options on whatever streaming service you’re currently frustrated with.

  “It sucks you weren’t treated well,” says Gavin. “Your dad was nice to me. He took care of me. It made me sad when I read what it was like for you growing up here.”

  Apparently, he read my journal like it was a novel—the kind where you start to really care about the main character. I sit back and sigh. “You know, it isn’t nice to read people’s journals . . . and invade people’s privacy like that. It’s a little stalker-y.”

  “I didn’t know how else to get to know you. I’m just an intern, and you’re Dario Heyward. I’m lonely sometimes. I found this by accident. I wanted to read what it was like for you. You wrote some really good stories. And cool stuff about making Zombie Children.”

  “How old are you, Gavin?”

  “I’m eleven.”

  I do the math in my head. He was born about a year before my mom was committed. A lot of people who came through Moldavia had major issues—financial problems, addiction problems, whatever. Maybe my dad took care of him because his mom was unable to. Of course, there’s another reason my dad would feel responsible for him. . . .

  “Who’s your mom?”

  “She worked here. But she left.”

  “Why did she leave?”

  “She was sick,” he replies. “But it’s okay.” He smiles, shakily, and it occurs to me I’ve never seen him smile before. “She’s getting better; she’s coming back for me.”

  “That’s great! Who’s your dad?”

  He peers at his refracted reflection in the tumbler. “I didn’t know him,” he says in a somber tone. “He left before I was born.”

  I nod and wait for more. But he doesn’t say anything else.

  I’m not getting the whole story here, but I can’t make this into an interrogation. He’s just a sad, lonely kid. I pat him on the knee and stand up.

  I’m glad my dad took care of Gavin. Hell, by the end of the night some chambermaid I never saw before is probably going to crawl out of a piano bench to tell me how kind and loving my dad was to her as a child. My dad seems to have lavished affection on pretty much everyone except me. And I guess Oren. But at some point, I have to move on from feeling slighted.

  I turn to Gavin. “You shouldn’t feel alone here. That’s never a good thing. If you ever feel that way, come find me. And we can talk it out. Yeah?”

  He nods. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  I feel like that’s a good, solid beat to stroll out of the room on, so that’s what I do. I walk out of there feeling like a goddamn hero.

  Maybe half the kids in this castle were actually fathered by my dad. Jesus, maybe? Or maybe Gavin is just a type A kleptomaniac stalker. Right now, I’d rather just not know. I’m learning sometimes that’s the best choice you can make around here.

  The costume ball is still in full swing. They’re playing a lot of danceable, Goth-inflected post-punk. Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Echo and the Bunnymen. It got really crowded, and the costumes more profane (hello, sexy zombie nurse). I don’t see Jude or Hayley anywhere, so I settle in a corner booth by myself.

  Something about talking to Gavin and seeing that old journal really opened the hornets’ nest, because that buzzing begins to kick up a real fury in my ears. I sink back into the booth, drinking cocktails, as everyone comes over to say something nice to me.

  That’s right, I’m the Big Kahuna here now, and people want to kiss up, make a good impression. Some kid comes over to me to tell me how cool I am, how thrilled he is to be here. I recognize him as one of the scruffy dudes on the props crew who was laughing at Oren when he was on the roof. Maybe he was the one who told him to jump.

  He’s like: It’s so good to officially meet you, man. My name’s Addison.

  I’m like: Now that we’ve met, Addison, go pack your bags, you’re out of here.

  I enjoy watching his face fall and his eyes go wide. It gives me a visceral thrill.

  Addison asks if I’m serious. I say I am, I explain why, and then I tell him to get out of my face. He backs away, destroyed, vanishing into the manic crowd.

  Oren is still my brother—even if he’s a total disaster of a human being.

  I get up, find a bloodstained hockey mask someone discarded, and put it on my face. I barrel into the center of the dance floor and start thrashing around, dancing wildly by myself, getting lost in the lights and the music and the smoke and my fellow freaks jumping all around me. I untie my hair and let it fall over my shoulders.

  A lady dressed as a mermaid announces the sun is coming up. Somehow, the entire night went by. I’m a drunken, sweaty mess. I follow the crowds staggering out of the ballroom onto the east lawn. The ma
genta sun is rising over the hills, breaking through the layer of morning mist hovering over the dewy grass. And all these intoxicated monsters come stumbling out of the castle, into the rising sun. It’s like some circle of hell ejected us out of its sordid depths. I laugh. It’s beautiful.

  And so is Hayley. She’s coming toward me. Her costume is still perfectly intact after this whole night. Of course it is. “Hi there,” I say. “Where have you been?”

  She shrugs mischievously. We watch the sunrise together for a moment.

  “Where’s Jude?” I say. Hayley points over to my right. Jude and Mistress Moonshadow are holding each other. Jude’s head is on her shoulder, his eyes closed. They’re dancing in the grass to music that isn’t playing anymore, the sun fraying the outline of their bodies; they look radioactive. I wasn’t expecting this. But it’s Jude. I should have known it wouldn’t take him long.

  Hayley and I look at each other, smiling.

  We sneak back to her room. We kiss, both of us leaning against her wall. Everything feels charged in a new way, because we’re not totally ourselves, we’re lost in our costumes. The sunrise cuts around the edges of Hayley’s window shades. Dust motes float in the rosy beams, which illuminate all the framed photographs of Hugo and Aida, like they’re waking from hibernation. Then it’s like they’re staring at me. I pull away from her. “What’s up?” she says, adjusting her fairy wing.

  “It’s just . . .” The room is slanting and readjusting itself around me. I’m suddenly feeling how much I drank. “It’s been a really long twenty-four hours.”

  Hayley follows my eyes to one of the photos on a bookshelf. She reaches around me and flips the frame facedown.

  “How did your parents meet?” I ask her.

  She smiles. “My dad went to Ireland on a documentary film crew when he was right out of college. My mom accidentally served him two pints of Guinness at a pub he went to in Limerick.” She laughs to herself. “Literally, in County Limerick. It was a rough place at the time, actually. They called it Stab City.”

  “I thought your mom was from Dublin.”

  “Originally. But she was studying there. She was in art school. My dad drank both pints, and asked my mom on a date. I think that second one gave him the courage. The rest is history, I guess—although my mom finished school, I know that. I don’t remember how they wound up here. They told me . . . it’s funny . . .” She shakes her head. “The things you forget.”

  “I like that story.” I take her hands. “I do think I came back here for you, Hay. There were several reasons. Obviously. But that was a big one.”

  She squeezes my hand and sighs. She looks a little stricken by my admission.

  I brush her hands against my cheek. “You know I may not have . . . forever.”

  “Don’t say that,” she says. “You have a future to—”

  “I don’t know if I do.”

  “You do.” She gives me a firm look.

  I take a lock of her hair and curl it around my finger. “I think I should see my mom.” Hayley opens her mouth a little, like she’s about to say something, but doesn’t. “I just think it’s time.”

  “Yeah, of course,” she says quietly.

  “I know you loved my dad,” I say, “but he wasn’t . . .” I’m trying not to say too much, but I had a lot to drink tonight and my tongue is kind of loose.

  “I know about the letters,” she says.

  I clap a hand over my eyes. I have no idea what to say to that.

  “Oren found them when he was going through your dad’s papers after he died,” she says. “Both of us collected everything we found that we thought was relevant. I don’t think either one of us knew how to bring this up to you, or if we even should.”

  “Oren led me to them.”

  Hayley rolls her eyes. “Of course he did.”

  We’re both quiet for a moment.

  “Your dad did bad things,” says Hayley. “No question.”

  “Then why did you love him so much?”

  “I hated him too at times. Don’t think I didn’t.” Her eyes briefly flash a fire I’ve never seen in her before. “But I was able to look past a lot of that. I saw so much pain in him. You know this place, Dario . . . it works in perverse ways. Lucien became a father to me. I needed that.”

  “Or did he need that?”

  “I needed that,” she repeats.

  I offer her a strained, wobbly smile.

  “I think you should see your mom,” she says, hesitating a bit. “If you’re ready. Because I’ll tell you something—she really doesn’t have forever.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She takes a breath. “Talk to your brother about all that, okay?”

  I pinch my upper lip. “Okay.”

  She looks at one of the overturned picture frames. “After my mom died, I left Moldavia for a little bit.”

  This catches me by surprise. “You did?”

  She folds her arms. “What? Did you think I was some sort of enchanted princess who could never leave the castle?”

  “No, I—”

  “I took a little trip to Ireland . . . to pay tribute to my parents. Dublin. And I toured the Irish countryside. I found the bar where my mom worked, where they met. It was cathartic for me. It was like I finally got to say good-bye to them.”

  I really can’t picture Hayley anywhere else but here, which is ridiculous.

  “It was amazing,” she says. “I’ve always been interested in Irish literature, and medieval architecture . . . all the different kinds of architecture there.”

  “I’m glad you got to go.”

  “I met someone,” she says, her eyes sharpening.

  That knocks the wind out of me. “The person you were . . . FaceTiming with?”

  “He’s a grad student at Trinity. Law.”

  “He’s older.”

  Hayley shrugs. “A little.”

  “And you guys have been keeping in touch and all that?”

  “It’s not . . .” Hayley runs her hands up and down her arms. “It’s not anything. We’re just friends. Obviously. He’s there. I’m here.”

  “You care about him, though.”

  “I barely know him.” But the conflicted dreaminess in her eyes suggests something more. And, hey, it’s not like she doesn’t have a right to be happy.

  “So what are you going to do?” I say.

  “About what? I came back here and everything was falling apart. The bookkeeping, the schedules . . . Franklin can’t do it all on his own. This place needs me.”

  I rub my stomach. “I’m not feeling so great.”

  “You don’t look great.”

  In her bathroom, I splash water on my face. I look at my strained, sallow reflection. I don’t recognize the person looking back at me. It’s like I’ve aged five years since I’ve been here. I think about Hayley going to Dublin, meeting some guy. Hayley wasn’t going to be confined to this castle, waiting for me. I’m such a dumbass for even feeling jealous. Overcome with a sudden, maddening thirst, I drink out of the faucet, slurping, soaking my chest. I wipe my mouth with the sleeve of my costume.

  When I stumble back into Hayley’s room, she’s still in her costume, asleep on the floor, leaning against the foot of the bed. Her wings are folded and collapsed around her, the edges ignited by the sunrise suffusing the room. She looks like a little girl again, spun back into the past.

  I make my way to the door, but I’m unsteady on my feet and slam into the side of her desk, knocking over a stack of papers. Buried under countless loose script pages and old call sheets and a few more books on architecture (which make more sense now) is something I definitely wish I hadn’t seen.

  A GED diploma, and a bunch of college applications.

  Most of the applications are dated over a year ago, and they’re only half completed. Obviously, never mailed. I flip through Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Oberlin, Amherst, Princeton, NYU. The most recent one is for Trinity.

  “Oh God,” I whisper
, cringing, as my stomach lurches.

  I’ve been such an idiot. When I left Moldavia, I never realized I was whisking away someone else’s dreams with me. Someone else’s future had to be sacrificed to fill the gap I left. And it was Hayley’s. Oren was never going anywhere. I stole that from her.

  Hayley always considered a future outside these gates.

  Maybe she didn’t even want me to come back here, so the studio could be sold, and she could finally make her escape. I never thought about that. But she cares about this place. It’s everything to her. Otherwise, she would never have returned. She wouldn’t work this hard. I have to save the studio—for her, for everyone here.

  I spend a full minute just kneeling over the mess of her unsent college applications, imagining this life she never got to have, squeezing my fists into my eyes.

  Then I stumble downstairs and outside.

  More people are gathering on the east lawn, hesitant to bid farewell to another Crepuscular Dusk. Two sylphs in diaphanous gowns come up beside me, linking my arms. The dawn hangs over us, heavy and humid.

  The sun is up now, revealing all of us for what we really are.

  And it’s fucking blinding.

  Part III

  From the review of Zombie Children of the Harvest Sun by Corbert A. Mince, Ghastly Ghoul Magazine, issue #343.

  Moldavia Studios has never shied away from exploring the desecration of innocence. Witness Yolanda Deir Nasterfeld as the tortured twins of Conjoined Connie. In a rough-hewn, bleached-out world of human desperation, each Connie fights for control of their (shared?) soul, with one sister’s morality tried, and then eventually corrupted, by the other’s murderously nubile manipulations.

  Then there’s Griffin Carlson (Abe Laybey) in Escape the Night. A lonely night porter with a penchant for the harmonica, he becomes a mass murderer overnight after succumbing to the demands of his vampire crush, Vanessa Van Reese (Chelsea Jewel), and isn’t above severing the head of his own stepmother with a hatchet to satisfy his lover’s bloodlust. In Hex on My Ex, heartbroken bookworm Trish Williams (Juniper Doss) tries and fails to ward off the seductive coven of witches down the street who have a lot in store for her cheating fiancé—provided she joins their gang.