by Temple West
“You’ll be fine, Mystic. It’s just a party. It’ll be a hoot.”
I snorted my disbelief and opened the passenger door. Stepping down, the slit in my knee-length dress rode halfway up my thigh. I covered it quickly with my cloak and muttered, “Shit.”
This was going to be ridiculous.
“Come on!”
I’d gone straight home with Trish after school on the pretext that I was spending the night—which I suppose I was, but not until we’d made it through this party. I wobbled after her in the three-inch stilettos I’d splurged on after I’d gotten asked to prom the year before, as a sophomore. They were the only shoes that even remotely went with my admittedly half-assed costume. For now, they were extremely difficult to navigate across the pock-marked, improvised parking lot. When I finally caught up, Trish opened the barn doors and ushered me inside. I took one step and stopped dead.
Holy Halloween.
The place was packed. I recognized most of the juniors and seniors from my school, plus what must have been every other junior and senior in Warren County. There were hundreds of people. Someone had rigged up an intense lighting system that pierced the barn with shards of rainbow light. Three-quarters of the bottom floor had been turned into a haunted maze. Trish—who’d come as a Valkyrie—pulled on my arm.
“I just saw Meghan go into the maze. Let’s scare the crap out of her.”
And before I could protest, I was pulled into WEIRD WORLD—that was the sign above the maze, anyway. Glow-in-the-dark handprints were smeared down the cardboard walls, providing the only light, while fake spiders and cobwebs hung from the cardboard ceiling. With groups of other kids rushing past, giggling and screaming, it took all of ten seconds for Trish and me to get separated. Squinting in the darkness, I picked a corridor, which branched off in three directions, and headed right. Which seemed to be a really bad idea, because it was absolutely pitch-black.
I groped my way down the walls and slowly turned a corner, patting the toe of my heels blindly on the floor to preidentify things I would like to avoid stepping in. My feet must have activated a motion sensor, because a strobe light flashed on suddenly, blinding me. I was so startled I screamed and jumped back—and what I backed up into wasn’t a wall.
A hand clamped down over my mouth and a muscled arm pinned my elbows to my side. A fun-house mirror reflected the intermittent strobe light, briefly illuminating the person who was holding me. He looked up through a curtain of dark, wavy hair, grinning.
It was Adrian, thank God, and not some random creeper—though I still wanted to punch him in the face for scaring me. Without Trish I felt strangely vulnerable.
“I’m a pirate,” he explained, as if I couldn’t tell from his costume. “Apparently we kidnap people.”
I wriggled free and punched him in the arm, then immediately wished I hadn’t because it hurt like hell.
“You scared the crap out of me,” I said, shaking my hand to dilute the pain. “I could have stabbed you in your manly bits with my heel.”
He rubbed his arm and glanced at my stilettos, but his mouth was quirked in a smile. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
The smile slipped off Adrian’s face as he looked me over head to toe through the mirror, and if I didn’t know he was trying to figure out what my costume was, I might have been offended—or flattered. My emotions were sort of all over the place.
“I’m a vampire,” I explained, since it wasn’t obvious. I hadn’t had time to order crazy colored contacts or fake pointy teeth online, and the nearest costume store was eighty miles away. The only thing that said “vampire” about me was some bright red lipstick, a lot of eyeliner, the “cape” I’d fashioned out of my mother’s old quilt, and the skintight black dress I’d made myself a year ago (also, coincidentally, for prom, and also now way too small in the chest region, since those had popped out of nowhere a few months back). With my sewing machine broken and no time to plan, it was the best I could pull together in less than a week. Well, that was a lie—I probably could have made something crazy out of tissue paper and Popsicle sticks, but I honestly didn’t feel like putting that much effort into a party I didn’t even really want to be at in the first place. I was a party pooper.
“So that’s your theme?” Adrian asked, interrupting my thoughts. “Vampires?”
“We were supposed to come as mythical creatures,” I replied with a shrug. “I picked vampire.”
Okay, so vampire had been the best match for my extremely limited clothing options, but whatever. The motion sensor for the light must have gone back into sleep mode because the strobe cut off suddenly, plunging us into darkness.
From somewhere to my left, Adrian’s disembodied voice asked, “Why did you pick vampire?”
I frowned, although he couldn’t see me. “Why do you care?”
But there was no answer—he wasn’t there. I called his name again, turning in circles, but if he could hear me, he didn’t respond. I was instantly irritated. Way to abandon me in a scary-ass haunted maze.
Grabbing blindly for the wall, I picked a direction and started wandering again until I made it to the exit where Trish was waiting for me, though not before being almost trampled by a herd of freshmen who’d somehow snuck in and were now being chased out by football players from a neighboring district.
“Where were you?” Trish asked as I finally appeared. “It wasn’t that hard.”
“Apparently one of my hidden talents is getting lost in mazes. Go figure.”
Trish nodded like that made sense, then pointed at a table stacked with the entire contents of the local liquor store. “Want a drink?”
I stared at the pile of alcohol.
I’d never been drunk before. I’d once had a half a glass of wine with my mom over dinner, but I’d never been to a party like this. I’d never been to anything close to this. The normal, I-have-life-goals-and-a-solid-future part of me was saying no. The I’m-all-alone-and-I-hate-the-world part of me said, out loud, “Why not?” I grabbed Trish’s arm as she started to walk toward the table. “Just don’t let me do anything stupid.”
She grinned. “Hey, if you want to have a good time, I’m not gonna stop you.”
There was a bowl of what someone said was Jungle Juice sitting in the middle of the table. It looked like fruit punch, which seemed safe, as I had no idea what any of the other bottles of alcohol were, and doubted I could drink anything straight. As soon as Trish and I had our red Solo cups, the music suddenly died and it went dark. A spotlight appeared on a pirate as he clung to the ledge of the second-floor railing. Seems the guys had also come up with a theme, as the majority of them were dressed in varying degrees of pirate garb. I’d seen quite a few Captain Morgans walking around with bottles of rum, looking very pleased with themselves.
The pirate dude waited for the noise to die down and finally raised his arms, yelling into a mic, “Juniors!” like he was the announcer in a stadium arena. I guess he was, in a way, because the place erupted into an absolute frenzy. Whatever was about to happen, everyone was very excited about it.
“Tonight,” the pirate continued, “you shall all be initiated!” There was another round of screams and my stomach felt slimy. “Tonight,” he continued, “you will prove yourself worthy to be called the Children of Warren County!’”
More screams. What was this, some sort of Satanic ritual? I was thinking about how far it would be to get to the door. And then how far it would be to walk back to my aunt and uncle’s. And how I would explain my outfit. And my makeup. And why I wasn’t at Trish’s. Let’s face it, I’d probably get lost and eaten by a bear. But that might be better than suffering through whatever public humiliation was about to come my way.
Trish glanced at me. “I see that look on your face. Come on, Mystic; just get into the spirit of things and this’ll be a lot more fun. It’s a long way back to Stony Creek.”
I looked at her. She was right. It was a long way back to Stony Creek. I stared at my punch, and it stared
back at me.
“What’s in this?” I yelled at Trish over the din.
“Vodka, Red Bull, some other stuff,” she yelled back. “That’s the beauty of Jungle Juice, you never really know!”
It sounded awful, but I sipped, and couldn’t actually taste any alcohol. It was mostly sweet, but tangy sweet, like pineapple juice. I downed the rest of it in a series of long gulps. I’d come here to let loose, after all. Vodka was certainly going to make that dumb plan happen faster.
The announcer-pirate waved for attention. “Juniors, the time has come. You have three phases of initiation. The test of the Holy Grail!” The guys cheered loudly. “The test of physical prowess!” More cheers. “And—truth or dare.”
This time it took a full minute to quiet the crowd down again.
“Form a line!” he said, then disappeared. On either side of the barn, horse stalls had been converted into drinking stations, and their doors were now flung open. In line, partygoers were handed a plastic, dollar-store “grail” and told to drink whatever was in it. Most went away coughing. Trish downed it in one gulp.
“Not bad,” she told me. “Just red wine.”
I stepped up to the table and a pirate handed me a cup. I tried to look into it, but he shouted that I wasn’t allowed to peek. I took a deep breath, let it out, then drank. I almost spit on reflex and turned to Trish with a mutinous look. “That was not red wine.”
“I know,” she said. “It was tequila. But I didn’t think you’d drink it otherwise.”
Before I could respond, the flow of the crowd pushed us along to the next station. Guys were herded up the stairs to the second floor, girls formed a semicircle below them. A huge pile of hay had been stacked up against the wall, ten feet high and fifteen feet deep. One by one, half-drunk guys jumped off the second floor into the pile, some more gracefully than others, flattening it dramatically as time went by. I saw Ben and Jack from our class leap safely down, but I didn’t recognize anyone else. It was kind of dumb, but strangely entertaining.
“What do the girls have to do?” I asked Trish, tugging on her arm as pirates flailed above us.
She grinned as another guy catapulted himself off the railing. “All we have to do is watch.”
After a while, the line of boys ran out, and I was amazed no one had cracked their skulls or broken an arm, although a few had tottered outside to puke. After the last guy plummeted to the floor, picking himself up with a dazed look, the announcer-pirate hopped onto the railing and said, “Wait! Here for a one-night-only special encore, the one, the only, Adrian de la Mara!”
The place erupted with screams, the crowd cheering. And then the spotlight went on and there he was, standing in a loose linen shirt, pirate pants, and historically accurate leather boots, because of course he would have those just lying around. There was a ladder built into the wall that headed up to a tiny platform that made up the third level of the barn. Adrian bowed with a lazy smile, then began climbing. Nervous, I watched as he reached the ledge forty feet off the ground. He turned toward the wall, facing away from the crowd, and backed up until only the toes of his boots kept him from falling into space.
The cheering stopped. It was dead silent.
He bent his knees, arms out to either side.
And then he jumped.
His body catapulted toward the ceiling and then back again to the crowd, twisting in the air like a diver once, twice, three times; gliding through the multicolored lights, finally somersaulting into a landing that made the hay ripple in a fifteen-foot arc like he was some avenging angel come down for war.
But he was standing. And he looked totally fine. Which was not right.
How could he be alive, let alone standing? His head was bowed, and into the intense silence he looked up right at me, his eyes seeming to flash out their own light from the shadow of his face. All at once, the screaming cheers began, and they were deafening, reverberating off three stories of wooden walls so it seemed like a crowd of thousands. He smiled once, and the lights went out, leaving the barn in utter darkness. When they came back on, he was gone. Even though no one could see where he was, the cheering went on and on.
I turned to Trish. “How did he do that?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea! Isn’t it great?”
Was everyone crazy? People shouldn’t be able to do that. Why wasn’t anyone calling an ambulance? I mean he had to have some sort of compound fracture, cracked vertebrae, shin splints or something. Trish tugged me over to the last station, but I snagged a cup of punch on the way. She just laughed at me as I downed it. Happy freaking Halloween.
“Ladies, ladies, please come forward,” the pirate announced, mic in hand. “Since our gentlemen took the last round, we’d like to extend the honor of truth or dare to you. Please form a line!”
Trish pushed me gleefully forward. Since most of the other girls seemed to be as shy as I was, at least about performing in public, and because Trish was dead set on embarrassing me as much as possible, I somehow ended up being first. We were on the second story by the railing when the spotlight hit me.
“What’s your name?” the pirate-announcer asked with a game-host smile, shoving the mic in my face.
I blinked, trying to keep his face in focus. “Caitlin.”
Someone in the crowd yelled, “Go, Caitlin!” but I didn’t recognize the voice.
“And what are you tonight, Caitlin?”
I blinked at the announcer again. “What?”
He held the mic away from his mouth and whispered, “What’s your costume?”
“Oh. I’m a—” It sounded so stupid out loud. Let’s be honest, it sounded pretty stupid in my head, too. But the drinks were finally working their way through my inhibitions, so I smiled at him, trying to put some sass behind it. “I’m a vampire.”
I heard some of the guys cheer.
The announcer smiled encouragingly. “All right, Caitlin the Vampire: truth, or dare?”
I’d already decided. “Truth.”
I may have been drunk, but I wasn’t stupid. Dares always ended up being a thin excuse to do something vaguely or overtly scandalous with the even thinner defense of “but I had to.” In seventh grade, the class perv, Kyle Hanson, dared the class nerd, Sean Rubatino, to touch my boobs. It was a dare, and dares were sacred. I didn’t really have breasts to speak of anyway, so I let him do it, but we were both uncomfortable and I felt dirty about it for weeks.
“All right, all right,” the announcer said to quiet the chorus of boos from the crowd of guys below. He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from a large glass jar. Unfolding it, he read, “When, where, and with whom was your first kiss?”
There was a chorus of awws from the girls and catcalls from the guys. How had this happened? How had I picked truth and still managed to embarrass myself? It was suddenly very warm in the barn with the spotlight and the press of bodies and the bright flush of embarrassment. I found myself gripping the railing to stay upright.
It only occurred to me much later that I could have named anyone from my old school and no one here would have known who he was.
“I’ve never kissed anybody,” I admitted finally. Behind me, I heard Trish snort.
There was a moment of surprised murmurs before an unidentified pirate yelled, “Everyone kiss Caitlin!” Before I knew what was happening, another pirate pinned me to the railing and covered my general mouth area in a sticky, wet kiss. The awkward laughs around the room immediately transformed into gasps. Suddenly, the kisser was gone and I was being picked up, fireman style, and carried away from the railing and the spotlight and the humiliation. A door opened and slammed shut.
“Out,” Adrian demanded.
Couples muttered and cursed, but didn’t question him, scrambling to adjust clothing before hurrying out of the room. Adrian set me down on a couch carefully.
“Stay here,” he told me, and started for the door.
“Adrian!” I called out, grabbing on to his arm before he could walk aw
ay. “He was just joking,” I said, trying to smile. “It was a joke.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He tried to get up again, but I pulled him back.
“If you go out there, it’ll just make you look stupid, because everyone thought it was a joke, and you took it seriously, which makes it look—it makes it look like something it’s not.”
“I don’t care,” he stated flatly, and made to leave again.
“I care,” I said desperately. “Please, Adrian, just drop it.”
“Why are you trying to make this okay?” he asked, glaring at me. I didn’t understand why he was so angry.
I fluttered my hands around in an agitated gesture. “Because it’s not important. I just want to feel empty.”
His eyes narrowed in concern. “Empty?”
Oops. I hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud. “Full,” I corrected myself, nodding. “I meant full.”
I flung my arms wide to demonstrate how full, overshot, lost my balance, and stumbled backward. Luckily, Adrian caught my hands and pulled me forward before I could fall. I giggled, because the whole situation suddenly seemed really, really funny.
“Okay,” he said, patting my back awkwardly. “What did Trish talk you into?”
“Just one drink.” And then I snort-laughed because it wasn’t true. I’d had three drinks.
“I should get you home,” he murmured into my hair. But he didn’t make any move to leave.
“Hey,” I said, looking up. “Did you know there was going to be alcohol here?”
He met my gaze, an amused smile on his face. “I think that was implied.”
“Somehow I didn’t know,” I told him slowly, the words lagging behind my brain. “I thought ‘Hey, a Halloween party!’ I forgot about alcohol. And here we are.” I smiled up at him again, then leaned my cheek against his man chest.
Then the full implications of where we were hit me.
“Whoa.” I looked around the room with grave concern. “People do stuff back here. And you took me in here and kicked everyone out.” My eyes got big. “I bet people think we’re doing stuff.”