The Show Must Go On!

by P. J. Night

  “I succeeded in getting you away from the stage on opening night, though your falling was never part of my plan. I also did it for selfish reasons. I did it to free myself and finally allow my spirit to rest.”

  “I don’t understand,” Bree said.

  “It’s part of the curse of the play,” the spirit explained. “Not only does the girl playing the lead die, but she is cursed to be stuck inside the play, reliving it day after day, doing all the scary things that happen again and again, just like the girl who died thirty years ago, the first girl to ever play the role.”

  “That’s why I was able to watch her performance in one of my dreams!” Bree suddenly realized. “She is stuck in the play, doing it over and over, dying again and again. One of those times I was able to watch her through my dreams. Just like I saw you die in my dreams.”

  “That’s when I crossed timelines and was able to enter your physical reality in the theater that night,” the other Bree said. “But I couldn’t figure out how to warn you in any way you would actually believe me.

  “And now that you are safe, I am finally free to rest in peace.”

  Before Bree could say anything else, her other self smiled and faded away, leaving Bree standing in the field of flowers with an overwhelming feeling of peace. Just before her dream faded, leaving her in the deepest, most restful sleep she had experienced in weeks, Bree thought about the good things that being in the play had done for her. She thought about how being involved with the play had given her the confidence to go onstage again and break out of her shell. Only next time, she would do it in a play that was not cursed!

  After a few more days in the hospital, Bree finally went home. She rested at home for another week before she felt well enough to return to school. On her first day back, before classes, a meeting of the cast of The Last Sleepover was called to decide the fate of the play. With the auditorium still under reconstruction, the meeting was held in the gym.

  Being back in school for the first time since her accident, Bree felt surprisingly calm. All the fears, doubts, and anxieties that had plagued her for weeks had vanished along with her spirit self when her dream had ended.

  Stepping into the gym, Bree was greeted by a standing ovation.

  “Welcome back, Bree!” Melissa shrieked, rushing over to Bree and throwing her arms around her. “This school is just not the same without you!”

  “It’s great to be back,” Bree said.

  “All right, everyone, please take a seat in the bleachers,” boomed someone from the front of the gym.

  Bree turned her head, along with everyone else. She knew from the voice that the speaker was not Ms. Hollows, but rather a tall man walking with a cane.

  “Hello, everyone. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Mr. Gomez,” he began. “I’m the drama teacher here at Thomas Jefferson. I was also supposed to have been your director for this year’s play, but unfortunately, I broke my leg shortly before rehearsals were to begin.”

  “What happened to Ms. Hollows?” Melissa asked.

  “She was only hired to direct that one play,” Mr. Gomez explained. “And since the performance got postponed, and I was able to return to work, she has left the school.”

  “I won’t miss her,” Tiffany whispered, leaning close to Bree’s ear. “She was weird.”

  Wow, even Tiffany’s being nice to me, Bree thought, smiling.

  “And so now we come to the question of the fate of the play,” Mr. Gomez continued. Beside him, on a chair, sat a stack of copies of The Last Sleepover. “As you know, all future productions will be put on here in the gym until the repair of the auditorium is complete. Since you have worked so hard rehearsing The Last Sleepover, I thought maybe we could talk about restaging it here. What does everyone think?”

  Before anyone could speak, Mr. Jenkins, the school janitor, walked into the gym.

  “Sorry for the interruption, folks,” he said, then went about lifting a large plastic bag full of garbage from the gym’s trash can.

  Without saying a word, Bree stood up and walked over to the stack of scripts.

  “We may do a play in the gym, Mr. Gomez, but it won’t be this play,” she said, gathering up the pile of scripts in her arms.

  “Wait a minute, please, Mr. Jenkins!” she called out, walking across the gleaming wooden gym floor. Reaching the janitor, she pulled open the large plastic bag of garbage, then turned back toward Mr. Gomez.

  “In fact, Mr. Gomez, no one will ever perform this play again.”

  Bree dumped every copy of The Last Sleepover into the garbage bag before returning to her seat. “Now,” she began. “What play do we all think we would like to do?”

  EPILOGUE

  THIRTY YEARS LATER . . .

  Bree slowed her car as she approached the school. She always enjoyed driving up to Thomas Jefferson Middle School. It brought back a flood of good memories about close friends and fun times.

  Today Bree was here to pick up her daughter, Elle, following Elle’s drama rehearsal. Bree was so pleased that Elle—short for Gabrielle—had shown an interest in theater, recalling how much her own involvement with school plays both in middle school and then in high school had added to her years as a student.

  As Bree sat in the car with the window rolled down, she noticed an odd-looking woman standing near the entrance to the school. The woman was tall and had medium-length, jet-black hair. She wore a long, dark coat. Who is that woman? she thought. The woman turned around, revealing dark circles around her eyes.

  “Ms. Hollows!” Bree gasped.

  She paused for a moment and caught herself. This woman looked younger than Bree herself. “There’s no way that could be Ms. Hollows,” she said to herself. “That was thirty years ago, and Ms. Hollows would have to be in her sixties now.”

  Still, Bree was surprised, as she watched the woman disappear into the school building, by just how deeply the idea of seeing Ms. Hollows affected her after all these years.

  A few minutes later Elle came bounding out of the school. She ran up to Bree’s car, bursting with excitement.

  “Hey, Peanut, how was drama rehearsal?” she asked as Elle slipped into the seat beside her.

  “Fantastic, Mom,” Elle replied. “You’re not going to believe this. My drama teacher found an old play in a trunk in the basement of the school. She told us that no one has put on the play in years!”

  “Really?” Bree asked, starting the car. “What’s the name of the play?”

  “It’s called The Last Sleepover,” Elle explained. “And I’m just dying to play the lead!”

  CHAPTER 1

  What happened in the woods that night changed everything, forever, and if the girl had known what was going to happen, she never would have left her house. Never left the safety of locked doors and windows, and the sound of laughter coming from the television, and the good smells of food cooking in the kitchen, and the warm glow of lights in every room.

  But she didn’t know, see? She didn’t have a clue what was waiting for her, at the edge of the darkness, so when she heard the scratching, she thought it was the stray cat that had been coming around. The one with the tattered ear and the hungry eyes.

  The sun was just about to set. She could see it still shining in the west, like an orange ball of fire on the verge of falling into space. So she thought, I’ll just put some food at the edge of the yard. For the cat. She poured a cup of kitty chow into a plastic bag and grabbed her coat. Then she walked out the back door, into the dying light, like it was no big deal, because it wasn’t . . . not yet.

  That was a mistake, she realized later. She should have told someone—anyone—that she was going outside. Into the twilight. By herself.

  At the edge of the yard, she looked for the cat by the tree where it usually waited for her. But tonight, the cat was nowhere. “Here, kitty, kitty,” she called softly, kneeling down and snapping her fingers like she always did.

  Still the cat did not appear.

  Th
e girl sighed. The air was damp, as if the fog were rushing in faster tonight than usual, hardly waiting for the sun to finish setting before blanketing the woods in a thick mist that was impossible to see through. She felt so sorry for the poor cat, sleeping in the woods all alone, even when it was cold or windy or wet.

  Then she heard it again: the scratching. Just beyond the tree line. And—what was that? A whimper?

  A cry for help?

  The girl glanced behind her at the house, still all lit up, so warm and cozy. She wanted to go back there.

  So why was she walking toward the woods?

  Because she couldn’t bear it, the thought that the cat was sick or hurt, or in trouble. If she could help the little cat, she would. Of course, she didn’t know then what was really in the woods.

  “Here, kitty,” she called again, pushing through the tree limbs. “I won’t hurt you. Here, kitty.”

  Silence.

  That the woods should be so chillingly quiet, the girl realized, was weird. Very weird. But instead of feeling afraid, she was curious. She should have been afraid.

  On she continued into the woods, all the way to the clearing where she’d spent so many summer nights on campouts, telling stories in the flickering light of a campfire. She knew that clearing as well as she knew her own bedroom, but she’d never seen it the way she did tonight.

  It was hard to see through the mist, but she could tell right away that the clearing was not empty.

  And whatever was in it was a lot bigger than a stray cat.

  The girl hid behind a thick-trunked tree, her heart thundering in her chest, and stared with wide eyes. She couldn’t have looked away even if she’d wanted to.

  Well, to be honest, she did want to look away. But her eyes were locked on the creature, and she wondered, suddenly, if she was dreaming.

  But she knew that that was nothing more than a wish, an empty hope. Because nothing had ever felt this real—from the painful pounding of her heart to the bitter taste of fear in the back of her throat. She swallowed, hard, and held on to the tree trunk for support.

  The monster was eating . . . something. Dark red liquid dripped from its mouth, soaking into the dirt beneath it. The girl’s stomach lurched, but still she did not move.

  And she did not look away.

  Then, to her horror, the creature reared up on its hind legs at the same moment the mist cleared. In the dim twilight, she saw more of it than she ever wanted to:

  An enormous lizardlike body, covered in scales and slime. Two tremendous, leathery wings, folded tight against its back. Two thick, stumpy arms; the end of each one curved into a razor-sharp talon, dripping . . . something. Something foul. Back legs that rippled with muscle. A knobby, bumpy head, with two red-rimmed, beady eyes, and a mouthful of fangs. And a tail that was studded with spikes as long as the girl’s forearm.

  Perhaps the worst, though, the memory she would never forget: Along its waxy underbelly ran an angry, raised scar that was barely visible in the fading light. It was obviously an old injury; she could tell from the way the skin puckered around it. Yet still it oozed as if it would never heal. The creature was like nothing she had ever seen before: part bird, part lizard.

  All monster.

  It tilted its head to the side, rotating slowly . . . slowly . . . until—no, it couldn’t be—wait—it was—it was staring right at her, the pupil of that horrible eye dilating as it focused on what it wanted. Then, more powerfully than she ever could have imagined, the creature leaped through the clearing, directly to the tree she was hiding behind. One of its talons sliced through the darkness but somehow missed her, and got stuck in the thick tree trunk instead of in the girl’s skull. Suddenly she was no longer rooted to the ground in terror; she was running for her life, crashing through the underbrush back to the safety of her house, the solid walls, the strong locks. The creature struggled to get free, screaming in frustration as it watched its prey escape. And it sounded like—

  It sounded like—

  CHAPTER 2

  “Aiiiii-ck-ck-ck-ck!” Jenna Walker shrieked, so shrilly and bone-chillingly that all the other girls cried out in horror and clapped their hands over their ears. A satisfied smile flickered across Jenna’s face. Her story was definitely the scariest one by far, and she hadn’t even gotten to the really freaky part yet.

  “Somehow, thanks to the trunk of that old pine tree, the girl made it back to her house,” Jenna continued in a slow, quiet voice that made everyone else go completely silent. “She waited all night for the creature to follow her there, to smash through the windows. But it never did.

  “And the next day, in the bright morning sun, she dared to step outside again. The woods were full of sound: chattering squirrels, chirping birds, scurrying chipmunks. If the woodland creatures felt safe enough to be out, she should feel safe too. So, one step at a time, she returned to the clearing.” Jenna paused. She took a deep breath before she continued.

  “There was no sign of the creature. No sign of whatever it had been eating, or the blood that had soaked into the ground. There weren’t even any tracks. The girl started to feel embarrassed. Foolish. Had she imagined it? Was it all a dream? And then . . . she saw . . . this.”

  Jenna reached behind her back and whipped out an enormous talon, gleaming in the beams from the flashlights. Once more, everyone screamed, just as she’d hoped.

  “Stuck in the tree . . . the claw of the Marked Monster!” she announced.

  “Ewww! What is that?” Brittany shrieked.

  “Jenna, wow. That was the scariest story, no doubt,” Jenna’s best friend, Maggie, said, shivering.

  “True,” Laurel chimed in. “Way to go, Jenna.”

  Jenna grinned at her friends. For the last three years, they’d been having sleepovers, and this was always her favorite part: telling scary stories. After the girls had eaten pizza and popcorn, after they’d watched movies and given each other pedicures, after everyone else in the house was asleep, they turned out the lights, lit up their flashlights, and tried to freak each other out. Sometimes Jenna spent the entire week before a slumber party trying to think up a scary story to top the last one she’d told, spending hours searching for creepy tales on the Internet. That’s where she had learned all about the Marked Monster. Jenna had even read a description of its haunting shriek.

  Brittany’s face wrinkled up in disgust as she stared at the claw. “That is too gross. Where did you get it?”

  “What do you mean?” Jenna replied. “I just told you. I pulled it out of the tree in the clearing behind my house.”

  “Wait—that was you?” Brittany asked. “You are the girl in that story?”

  “Well, duh,” Jenna said. “We’ve only camped out in that clearing, like, a hundred times.”

  Brittany shook her head. “No way. Not true. You probably just got the claw at the Halloween Store.”

  “You wish I did,” Jenna shot back. “I mean, yeah, I didn’t see the Marked Monster in the woods or anything—that part I made up. But I did find its claw in the tree. Trust me, the claw is the real deal. Here. See for yourself.”

  She leaned forward and dropped the claw in Brittany’s lap. Brittany jumped up so fast that the claw clattered across the floor. “Get that nasty bird toenail away from me! It’s probably covered in germs!”

  Everyone cracked up then, and Brittany’s face got all red. “You think it’s so funny?” she asked, but when she started laughing, the other girls knew she wasn’t really mad. “Here you go. Why don’t you spend some quality time with this toenail?” She scooped the claw off the floor and tossed it toward Maggie, who shrieked as she caught it and immediately chucked it toward Laurel.

  “Ack! Get it away! I don’t want it!” Laurel cried, throwing it wildly toward Jenna. Too wildly.

  There was no way for Jenna to catch the talon as it soared toward her; there wasn’t even enough time for her to move out of the way. She heard the rip of her sleeve; she felt the burn as the talon sliced through he
r skin; and they all heard the thunk as the talon smacked against the wall behind her and plunged to the floor.

  Jenna sucked in her breath sharply and grabbed her arm. She felt something hot and wet soaking through her torn sleeve.

  “Oh no, no, no, are you okay?” Laurel asked in a rush. “Oh, Jenna, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “No, it’s cool. It was just an accident,” Jenna said, biting the inside of her cheek as she tried not to cry. It was just a little cut. But it really, really hurt.

  “I’ll get a clean T-shirt for you to wear,” Maggie said.

  “Mags, where’s your first-aid kit?” Brittany asked.

  “Come with me; I’ll show you,” Maggie said.

  “What can I do?” Laurel asked, hovering around Jenna. “Do you want some ice or something to drink or—”

  Jenna forced a laugh. “Laurel, it’s okay.”

  “I just feel so, so bad,” Laurel continued. Her hands fluttered nervously in the air.

  “Chill,” Brittany ordered as she walked back into the rec room. “It’s not Jenna’s job to make you feel better.”

  Jenna flashed Laurel an extra smile. Brittany could always be counted on to tell it like it was, but sometimes, Jenna secretly thought, Brittany could try to be a little nicer. It wouldn’t kill her—especially since they’d known Laurel for only a few months. She had moved to Lewisville in the middle of the school year, and even though she’d made friends pretty quickly, Jenna secretly suspected that Laurel still felt like the new kid.

  “Here, Jenna,” Maggie said, holding out a T-shirt.

  “Thanks,” Jenna said. She changed into Maggie’s T-shirt, careful not to get any blood on the sleeve. Yep. It looks like I’m gonna live,” Jenna joked, and all the girls laughed. “Let’s go get some—”

  There was a sudden silence.

  “Um, what?” asked Maggie. “Let’s get some what?”