by Nancy Holder
“Inky!” Beth cried, and she held up a hand, telling August to wait. He crossed his arms and stood there for a second, but just then, he heard someone calling his name and whirled around.
Hiro stood on the steps with something in his hand. August looked at Beth, who was running down to the water’s edge. He would be just a few feet away; he lifted a hand at Hiro and walked over to him.
“God, where the hell have you been?” August said.
“I was hiding, okay? And be careful,” Hiro said. “There’s a mountain lion skulking around. Do you have a clue about Cheater Theater? I mean, is there a written clue and not one that you made up yourself?”
August blinked at him. “Wait, what? A mountain lion?”
Hiro nodded. “I fell through the floor and I guess it was too smart to do the same. But you can bet it’s still around here. Do you? Have a clue?”
“Yeah,” August replied. “It was hidden in some boxes in the party room.”
Hiro exhaled. “Then I made a wrong turn and this is the right place. We’re supposed to put these on.”
For a moment, August shuddered as if someone were holding him over a vat of liquid nitrogen. Could it be Hiro? Is this a trick?
But then Hiro showed him the thing in his hand. It was a cheap rubber devil mask complete with horns and a goatee. August looked at Beth again. The fire was building and there was light. Inky was leading her toward them. She’d be there any second.
He ducked inside the shack to see a room decorated with spray-painted stars on the walls, ceiling, and floor. Nothing had been cleaned up: their tormentor had simply sprayed over cobwebs, piles of trash, dried seaweed, a rat corpse. A rickety table like an old-fashioned school desk was positioned in the center of the room. On it sat five ugly masks with names written inside them: Hiro, Praveen, Beth, Kyle, and August. Robin appeared to be off the hook. He remembered that she hadn’t actually been invited, so maybe she really was.
There was a piece of paper on the same table as the masks. It read PUT ON YOUR MASK AND PERFORM YOUR SCRIPT. FIRST NAMES ALPHABETICAL.
“That puts you first, August DeYoung,” Hiro said. He handed August an ivory-colored skull mask. August regarded it anxiously.
“Maybe this is laced with poison or something,” August said, examining the mask.
“Just put it on, okay?” Hiro snapped, glancing around the room. “We don’t want to piss this guy off.”
“He’s probably pissed off at you for hiding. By the way, you’re supposed to put yours on now, too.”
“Not until after you read your script,” Hiro began, and then August tapped the sign. Hiro frowned. “Maybe.”
Hiro put on his devil mask. “It stinks,” he informed August. Then he gestured for August to do the same.
“Beth should have been here by now,” August said. He picked up his script. “Hold on. I’ll get her.”
“Oh my God,” Hiro snapped. He stomped toward the front door. “Beth!” he called.
Then August heard the little dog yipping and finally processed what Hiro had said about a mountain lion.
“Beth, come here!” he shouted.
The hut exploded.
HIRO’S RULE #3: Never let a girl pin you down.
Flames and cinder blocks and sheets of siding rocketed toward Hiro; in a miraculous split second, he dove into the sand and covered his head. Chunks of stone and metal plummeted around him like bombs. The worst pain he had ever felt spread up his back; he was on fire. Shrieking, he rolled over. Smoke rushed into his eyes, blinding him. He scrabbled to his feet and ran away from the heat as fast as he could. He kept going and going; he heard screaming, and another explosion racked all the bones in his body as he ran to the beach, his feet sloshing into the water before he fell gratefully into the ocean. The water surged over his back, cooling and stinging.
“Help,” he said, but he wasn’t sure he spoke aloud. He couldn’t hear anything. As he pushed himself weakly to his knees, he raised trembling arms to pull off the mask.
Needles stabbed the backs of his hands. Again. Again. Into his fingers. He flailed, yelling, but the sound was muffled. He fell face-first into the water and the foul rubber mask pressed against his nose and mouth. He tried to draw in a breath but he couldn’t. Then his head smashed down hard on sand and pebbles and there were more needles. He couldn’t lift his head out of the water. Was someone forcing him to stay under? He couldn’t breathe. Panicking, he sucked in and—
ROBIN’S RULE #14: Where there’s life there’s hope.
“Kyle?” Robin said. He had been gone a long time just to get some water, and she was ill with fear for him. She hazarded one tiny step outside the shed.
An explosion bursting into the sky shook her off her feet. She fell against the shed door, then stumbled out and looked upward. Above the burning warehouse, a fireball whirled like a second, orange moon.
“Kyle!” she shouted.
She flew to the warehouse and looked in, seeing nothing but smoke, and called his name again. Then she raced to the cliff and looked down. Some kind of building had burst apart, and piles of rubble burned like dried leaves. Branches of the pines had ignited.
At the water’s edge, Beth was shrieking and wrestling with something in the water. The killer, Robin thought.
“I’m coming!” Robin shouted.
Her heart beat helter-skelter against her rib cage as she jettisoned herself down the super-steep path. She slid and rolled, knowing she was getting cuts and scratches but not feeling them. Orange and red flames glowed on the sand, on the thrashing ocean, where a body floated. Drew, Robin thought, and she was afraid she was going to throw up. There was something very wrong with its head and something like seaweed was floating on top of it. Beth was at the water’s edge, alternately pulling the body by the ankle and then doing something to it with a shiny object. Robin slogged into the water. Then Inky flashed behind her, barking and yipping as he wove between her legs.
“Robin! Robin!” Beth shrieked. “Don’t touch it!”
Before Robin could stop herself, she crawled over to the body and flipped it onto its back. She stifled a cry at its unexpected ugliness until she realized that it was a guy wearing a mask.
Don’t let it be Kyle, she beseeched every star in the sky, and then she gingerly placed her hands beneath the bottom edge of the pliant rubber and eased it up over a chin, and then a pair of lips.
She knew then that it was Hiro.
“Help me!” Robin yelled to Beth. “He’s going to suffocate!”
Beth was crying wildly. Robin got Hiro onto the sand. The mask had been stapled onto his head. She ripped at the rubber and chunks of skin came with it.
“Was anyone else in that building?” she said as Beth continued to cry. Beth tossed the shiny object in the water, put her hands on top of her head, and collapsed in the sand.
Beth didn’t move or speak again as Robin ran warily toward the fire. The heat kept her at a distance; she circled around to one side and peered into the flames. Her head throbbed; she braced herself to see horrible things, the worst things, worse than bludgeonings and drownings. For so much stone and metal, the fire was intense. Pieces of siding formed a tent, but it was filled with smoke and burning embers. There couldn’t be anyone inside, not alive, anyway.
And then she thought she saw movement behind the fire.
THE NAME IN THE ENVELOPE
BETH’S RULE #6: Hurt others before they hurt you.
“Beth, please help me,” Robin said, poking her head back around the haystack-shaped piles of burning debris. “Who else was in here? Do you know? I thought I saw someone moving. Someone might still be alive.”
But Beth had had enough of death and fire. It was beginning to sink in that she had…
She had…
Done something to Hiro.
She was shaking and doubled over, holding her stomach. Icy sweat beaded her forehead. She hadn’t known. She’d thought he was the killer.
But she had killed him.
Beth bolted.
“Damn it, Beth, help me!” Robin bellowed.
Inky bobbed and danced, and Beth kept her eyes glued to him like a homing beacon. Inky threw himself against her shins, so she bent down and picked him up. She looked back at Robin, who was still digging in the fire. Beth didn’t see anyone else. Robin had just seen the shadows cast by the fire. Beth was sure of it. August wasn’t in there. She hadn’t seen him go in. The explosion must have scared him back up the path.
If she believed that, why did she have to stop and throw up? Why was she crying and scanning the smoky orange billows for August?
She reached the top of the path. Lights suddenly flashed on as if someone had thrown a switch. They were fastened to poles that were angled downward, revealing a figure standing at the railing of the deck.
Kyle.
“Robin!” She whirled on her heel and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Kyle is up on the deck!”
She hurried toward him but he didn’t move. Kyle just stood there as still as a statue. In her arms Inky squirmed and yipped and Beth finally let him go. The little Chihuahua ran toward Kyle…but then he kept on going.
“Kyle,” she said. “Have you seen August?”
“Beth,” he said, but his voice was…different. He was looking at her with the strangest expression on his face.
Then Inky reappeared, trotting beside another figure.
Drew.
ROBIN’S RULE #15: Trust your friends to have your back.
Kyle.
And electricity.
Robin left the burning debris and charged up the path, racing onto the lighted deck. Kyle was safe, unhurt. For a millisecond Robin couldn’t register why Beth was losing it, but then her eyes focused beyond Kyle to the ghost standing behind him.
Drew.
He was holding a rifle like the one belonging to the big-game hunter zombie on the beach, and it was pointed at the back of Kyle’s head.
“Surprise,” Drew said.
Her heart stopped. There was a wild roaring in her head. She saw dots and blackness, but she forced herself to stay conscious. She tried to move, to speak.
All this time, Drew.
It was impossible.
“You’re dead. They saw you fall into the ocean,” she said, gasping.
“Looks can be deceiving.” His eyes were dilated, his face very oily and wet. He was higher than a kite and Robin wondered if she could make it if she rushed him. She looked at Beth again, now huddled against Kyle, weeping hysterically. Robin needed her not to check out. They might make it if they rushed Drew.
Or he might shoot Kyle, or Beth, or her.
“Who fell from the cliff?” she asked. Not one of them. A stranger? Someone else who’d had the misfortune to cross his path?
“Let’s go to the warehouse,” Drew said. “We can talk there.”
Robin’s blood ran cold. He’s going to kill us. We’re not going to get out of here alive.
Unless we act.
“Put your hands on top of your heads. All three of you.”
No, Robin thought. This can’t be how it ends. This can’t be happening to us.
“Do it,” Drew said, “or one of you dies now.”
“Do it, Robin,” Kyle said quietly. He folded his hands one over the other on the crown of his head.
“Please, no,” Beth said. “Please, Drew. We haven’t done anything to you.”
“It’s not about you,” he said, and he laughed silently, like a deflating balloon. “Put your hands on your head, Beth, or I’ll shoot them off at your wrists.”
He’s so drugged up. We can take him.
Her brain went into overdrive, plotting, tossing out ideas, panicking. Her rib cage contracted, containing her terror. They headed along the deck through rolling smoke and fog and she looked up at the roof. She swallowed down a yell as she spotted bright yellow and orange flames dancing in the tower. The warehouse was on fire.
Oblivious, Drew herded them toward the front door. The windows were glowing yellow coffin shapes. There was more light than when Robin, Thea, and Beth had pulled into the lot. All this time, they had had electricity and not known it.
To go into the warehouse was to die. She forced herself to think. Kyle had lost the baseball bat and the killer—Drew—had taken the tire iron. The knife, what had happened to the knife?
Too soon, before she had made any kind of plan, they were at the door, and Drew gestured with the rifle at Beth. It was wobbling in his grasp.
“Open it,” he said.
“Okay, okay, I am.” Beth clutched the doorknob with both hands. “It’s warm.”
Inky barked and whined, weaving in and out of Beth’s legs.
“And shut that dog up or else,” Drew said.
“We can’t if we keep our hands on our heads,” Robin informed him. “If you’ll let me pick him up—”
“No.” He pivoted and aimed the rifle at Robin. Every hair on her body shot straight up. She had never looked down the barrel of a firearm before, and it was terrifying. It was like standing still as a wildfire rushed toward you. Her heart knocked against her sternum and her knees turned to water.
“One, two…,” Drew said.
“I’m opening it. I am!” Beth said.
The door opened, light spilling across the threshold as Beth moved toward Robin. A tendril of smoke danced near them. Inky darted in, then backed up and tried to crawl up Robin’s shins.
Drew tracked Beth’s every move. Robin couldn’t breathe.
“Go inside,” he ordered.
“There’s a fire,” Beth said.
“Just a little one.”
“Drew, please, let us go,” Beth said again.
“Beth, shut the hell up or I’ll kill you,” said Drew. “Right now. I’ll splatter your brains all over the side of this building.”
“Go in, B,” Robin pleaded.
“He is going to kill us,” Beth wailed. “That’s why we’re going in here. He’s going to shoot us.”
Drew snickered as if that were the best joke ever. Then he waggled the rifle at Beth again.
All this time, Kyle had stood stock-still. But Robin could see his mind working. He was trying to piece together an escape plan, too. A plan of attack. She had faith in him. In them. They weren’t dead yet, and they weren’t going to be.
“Put your hands back on your head, and go into the warehouse,” Drew said to Beth.
Beth began crying so hard she could barely move, but she lurched across the threshold and hobbled forward. Drew gestured for Robin to go next. It was a nightmare to show her back to him. All he had to do was pull the trigger and she would be dead.
She walked inside, breathless with fear. The smoke wasn’t thick, but it made her cough. Drew coughed, too, and she stiffened, terrified the gun would accidentally go off. Two pole lamps positioned on either side of the stage gave light to the room. The battery-operated lanterns were off.
Drew hadn’t told Kyle to move. Robin figured he was doing it on his own, and she tried to reach out to him, sense him. Beth moved ahead of her, but barely, racked with sobs as she nearly tripped over Inky. The dog plunged ahead.
Robin’s stomach clenched as Drew muttered, “Shut up, you stupid mutt.” She kept walking steadily behind Beth.
She braced herself to see the coffins of Cage, Heather, and Stacy, but they weren’t there. Drew had taken them away. She looked furtively around.
Three large red plastic gas cans were set against the wall beside the food table. They looked exactly like Kyle’s missing can. A box of long kitchen matches sat on top of the middle one.
Robin started to lose it as the direness of their situation hit her squarely in the gut. Drew was going to burn the warehouse down. Probably shoot them all, then splash more gasoline on the fire and leave.
Had Kyle seen the cans, too? Her anxiety was boring a hole in her composure. They had to make a move, and soon.
“I said shut the hell up!” Drew yelled.
“Beth,” Robin said. “Stop crying. You have to stop now.”
“Please, Drew, please,” Beth sobbed. “Don’t. We won’t tell anyone.”
“Like I could trust you to keep your mouth shut. Walk toward the stage,” Drew said.
Robin couldn’t feel the floor as she put one foot down in front of the other. She was walking to her execution. All this time, this whole night, she hadn’t ever really believed that she would die.
Desperately Robin’s eyes traveled over the food table. She tried to imagine taking Drew on with a wooden skewer. Hitting him over the head with a can of soda. He was ragged, on drugs. But he probably wasn’t as exhausted as she was. She hadn’t eaten for hours. She should have been slamming back water at the very least. Her mouth was very dry.
She scanned for knives.
Her breath caught.
There, on the corner of the table, were the baseball bat and the tire iron. Just lying there, begging to be taken. Was it a trick?
He must have brought them back into the warehouse. She couldn’t believe he would leave them out in plain sight. If it wasn’t a trick, then he must be incredibly cocky or so high he wasn’t thinking straight. Either way, it put a chink in his armor.
A chink would give them a fighting chance.
You’re crazy, said the voice in her head. He has a gun.
It might not be loaded. It might not work. It might not even be a real gun. She had to be willing to take that chance.
“Stop at the stage,” Drew said behind her. How close was he? She couldn’t say.
She stopped and slid a glance left, right; she saw Beth, who was barely able to stand up. But she couldn’t see Kyle. He hadn’t advanced as far as she had. She hazarded a couple of steps backward, and then he showed up in her peripheral vision, but just barely. She backed up again. He seemed to be doing something, fumbling with some object. She saw a flash of metal and almost shouted with joy.
He’s got the knife.
“Stop there, little red Robin. Not one more inch,” Drew warned.