Dark Moon (Nightmare Hall)

by Diane Hoh

  Eve, completely drained, hanging on now by sheer force of will, knew that neither of them could hang on much longer.

  When the wheel started to slow down, she was afraid to trust her own senses.

  But she wasn’t imagining it. It was slowing … not quickly, but gradually, as if whoever was at the controls realized that a sudden, abrupt reining in of the renegade wheel could be disastrous.

  So it happened slowly, so slowly that the hysterical screams continued until the wheel had come to a complete stop. Only then did the sound of hysteria, like the wheel’s speed, diminish, becoming instead a soft, sickly chorus of gasps and groans of relief.

  As the ambulances arrived, screaming onto the carnival site once again, each passenger’s hands had to be forcibly peeled away from the brass guardrail. They had to be lifted bodily from the wooden seat and carried down the ramp to safe, solid ground.

  Eve and Serena’s car came to a rest midway to the ground. The minute the car stopped swaying, Eve used the last ounce of strength she possessed to haul Serena back inside the car, where she lay unmoving, scarcely breathing, her face completely colorless, until their car slowly inched its way to the ground and they were lifted out.

  The minute her feet touched the ground, Serena fainted.

  Chapter 22

  THERE YOU ARE! SEE how much better everything works when you’re right out there with nothing getting in the way of your beautiful rays shining down upon me? I could feel the power filling me up, making me stronger.

  And listen, this was a very big deal. Couldn’t have done it by myself. Too much even for me. Wasn’t it fantastic? Have you ever heard such screaming in your life? Well, yes, I suppose you must have. But I hadn’t. It was so exciting.

  I felt totally invincible. So powerful! It was the most exhilarating experience of my life.

  They’ll shut it down now. They’ll have to. And the whole, stupid thing will go down in Salem’s history as one massive failure. She’ll be held responsible, of course, she and the others. They all deserve it. Naysayers. Skeptics. Who are they to judge? Ignorance is no excuse.

  I have to let her know why it happened. I don’t care so much about the others. Let them find out or not, it makes no difference. All I really wanted to do was punish them, and I’ve done that. But her … I want her to know. That’s what she wants, right? She can’t stand not understanding something. So all I’m really doing is giving her what she wants.

  Of course once she knows, I’ll have to kill her. That’s no big deal. It’s not like I’ve never done it before. There was my precious mama first, and then after that, there was Carolyn, my best friend in high school, who should have known better. Learned her lesson, didn’t she?

  This one will be a piece of cake. She doesn’t have a clue. I don’t even have to be careful around her, which makes it so much easier.

  Ready or not, Evie, here we come!

  Chapter 23

  THE FOUNDERS’ DAY CARNIVAL at Salem University was shut down the next day. The first thing Friday morning signs went up all over campus, warning people away from the site while safety inspectors from the state combed every inch of every ride, and the Ferris wheel in particular.

  Eve’s reaction was immediate when she heard the news. The carnival is closed, she thought grimly. Will he quit now? Was that all he wanted, to shut down the carnival? Or was there more?

  She had a chilling feeling that there was more. That it wasn’t just the carnival he was out to sabotage. And silly as it was, she couldn’t help feeling that it just might, after all, have something to do with the moon. If that was true, this nightmare wouldn’t end until the moon was once again no more than a tiny sliver of silver.

  That could happen tonight. The moon could be full tonight.

  “It had something to do with a cog,” Kevin told her that afternoon. “The Ferris wheel, I mean.”

  They were sitting on the fountain on the Commons, trying to relax and recuperate from their harrowing ordeal. Three people remained in the hospital, recovering from injuries. Serena had been released, as had Eve and her friends.

  All but one. Don, the young man from Twin Falls who had manned the dart booth, was dead, Eve had learned the night before. She was still reeling from the news.

  “What about a cog?” she asked Kevin.

  “They’re saying someone fooled with one of the wheel’s cogs. The controls slipped out of gear, and that’s all she wrote. We were lucky, one of the inspectors was kind enough to point out to me. We all could have been killed.”

  Eve nodded silently. Of course they could have. And it was no surprise that the controls had been tampered with. Hadn’t she known that all along? “Well, at least they won’t write it off as an accident. Maybe they’ll even get to the bottom of things. Some answers would be nice right about now. As for the carnival itself, it suddenly doesn’t seem so important, does it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Kevin shifted on the stone wall. “We’ve still got the street dances in town, tonight and tomorrow night.”

  Eve would go to the street dance tonight. Why not? If she could survive the Ferris wheel, she could survive anything.

  Andie and Eve dressed for the street dance in silence. All of campus had been unusually quiet all day, and Eve wondered if anyone could possibly have a good time at the evening’s festivities.

  So she was surprised when she did have fun.

  She hadn’t had a chance the night before to talk to Garth except to make sure that he was still in one piece. He was, and other than bruised elbows and knees, he had seemed fine. It would be nice to see him away from campus.

  He was waiting for her in front of the post office when she and Andie arrived in town. Traffic had been blocked off at the bridge in the center of town, and a crowd was already milling about while the band, a group from campus, warmed up on their wooden platform above the street.

  “I was afraid no one would show up, after last night,” Eve commented, glancing around. “But,” she added with false brightness, “there’s no Ferris wheel here, is there?”

  She danced with Alfred, who was limping slightly, and with Kevin, who seemed preoccupied. He had been a good friend of Don’s and he seemed to be taking the death hard.

  Serena hadn’t arrived yet. Eve wondered if she would come at all. Her legs had been so badly bruised, she wouldn’t be able to dance.

  It was a beautiful, balmy May night. The kind of night when nothing is supposed to go wrong. The sky was almost clear, with only a few clouds off in the distance, the breeze warm and gentle, the streets and buildings awash in the silver glow of the pumpkin-sized moon.

  Alfred wanted to take her home after the dance. She said no, thanks, as she always did. He seemed to take it well. Better than usual. He just shrugged and said, “Later.”

  Eve was dancing a slow dance with Garth, when he reached up suddenly and released her barrette. Her thick, curly hair spilled onto her shoulders.

  “Hey! What’s the big idea?” But she wasn’t really angry.

  “Leave it,” he said softly when her hands left his shoulders and flew to her hair. “Hair that pretty shouldn’t be held captive.”

  Laughing, Eve thrust the barrette into her jeans pocket and went on dancing.

  Freeing her hair freed something else inside of her. She felt, for the first time since her father had left the house, like Eve, instead of just Nell’s daughter.

  “Thanks,” she said to Garth after a while and he must have known what she meant, because he just smiled and nodded.

  She had hot intended to be alone at all. She had planned all along to keep someone she trusted with her at all times.

  But when Garth said, “Don’t go away. Be right back. If we’re going to keep dancing like this, we need fuel,” and left her, she didn’t go very far, didn’t seek out another safe someone to be with. Garth would be right back. So she just backed up a little, into a quiet, dark corner in front of the drugstore, away from the crowd.

  “Eve?”r />
  Eve turned around.

  Serena, pale and sweaty, her eyes glancing around nervously as she tugged at Eve’s elbow, pulling her backward. “Don’t let him see us!” she whispered urgently.

  “Who?”

  “Alfred!” Serena held out her hands. They were holding a plastic bag, and they were shaking. “I found something, Eve. I wasn’t going to come down here at all tonight, my legs hurt so bad, but I found this, and I thought you should see it right away.” She handed Eve the bag.

  Eve opened it and peered inside. “What is it?”

  “Darts. Look! The metal-tipped kind. A whole bunch of them. And an invoice. Alfred ordered them, Eve, on his own. His name is right there on the slip.”

  Eve removed the piece of paper. It was dark in the corner. She had to hold the paper up to the moonlight. Alfred’s name was there, his signature. She’d seen it before, on all the cards he’d sent her. “I don’t understand,” she said, glancing up at Serena.

  “All this time,” Serena breathed, “all this time, he was right there in the house. Right there at Nightmare Hall! Down the hall from me. Why didn’t I guess? I’m so stupid. There were all kinds of clues. I just didn’t see them.”

  “You’re not a detective, Serena,” Eve comforted. “What else is in here? Where did you find all this stuff?” She began poking around in the bag, careful not to cut her finger on one of the dart tips.

  “I was supposed to ride into town with Alfred.” Serena shuddered at the thought. “But I knew I wouldn’t be able to dance, so I went down the hall to tell him I wasn’t going. He’d already gone without me. Never even told me he was leaving. I guess he just took it for granted I wouldn’t be going, after last night. Anyway, I was about to leave his room when I noticed the bag. It says, ‘Foley’s Carnival Supply’ on the side, see there?”

  Eve looked. There it was.

  “And I thought, why would Alfred be ordering supplies for the carnival? I knew you’d done all that stuff. So I peeked. And there they were.”

  Eve pulled something rough and prickly from the bag, held it up to the moonlight, remembered the bewildered look on Alice’s face as she was thrown to her death. “Burrs? These are burrs, Serena.”

  “He wouldn’t have picked one from the roadside the day of the parade,” Serena pointed out. “Someone might have seen him. So he must have plucked a bunch of them before that day, when no one was around, and kept them. And that’s not all, Eve. It’s so weird, I mean, I knew Alfred had a thing for you, but …”

  Eve held her breath. “What?” she hissed.

  “Your name is all over the place. Doodles, everywhere. Eve Forsythe, Eve Forsythe, Eve Forsythe. On notepads on his desk, papers on his bed, on his cork bulletin board. He’s really nuts about you, you know.”

  “But … that doesn’t make any sense.” Eve rolled the burrs around in her hand. “If he’s so nuts about me, why would he try to kill me?”

  “Because you’re not nuts about him. You know about guys like that. If they can’t have you, no one can. What probably set Alfred off was seeing you with Garth.”

  Eve couldn’t think. She was trying to, very hard, but she couldn’t. Alfred? Well, why not? That made as much sense as anything else. And Alfred believed in all that parapsychology stuff, and had been annoyed when they’d all poked fun, especially her. It was very possible that Alfred believed the moon gave him special powers.

  “Do you think this is enough evidence to take to the police?” Serena asked nervously. “Maybe we should go back to the house and see if there’s anything else. But don’t tell anyone we’re going, or Alfred might find out. If he caught us snooping in his room …”

  She wanted to go to Nightmare Hall? Just the two of them? Alarm bells went off in Eve’s head. Something wasn’t right …

  And then she remembered.

  The voice at The Snake had said, “I killed my beloved mother.” She had heard that as clearly as she’d heard that he was going to kill her, too.

  Alfred’s mother wasn’t dead. Eve had met both of Alfred’s parents on Parents’ Day. They had both seemed quite hale and hearty.

  Serena’s mother, on the other hand, was dead.

  Serena was lying about Alfred. And there could only be one reason why she would be lying, and why she would have the darts and the burrs in her possession.

  “Okay, Serena,” Eve said calmly, “that’s probably a good idea. We’ll go to Nightmare Hall, just the two of us. We’ll get more proof about Alfred … I’m sure there’s more … and then we’ll go straight to the police. But I left my purse over there on that bench,” she pointed. “Be right back. Don’t go away.”

  And she turned, intending to blend into the crowd before Serena could stop her, and find Garth and the others.

  But she never got the chance.

  Something came down hard on the side of her head, crashing into her temple, and the very bright moon and the black sky and the crowd and the music and the bench where she hadn’t left her purse, hadn’t even brought a purse with her, disappeared into a thick, velvety black void.

  Chapter 24

  EVE KNEW WHERE SHE was the minute she came to. As groggy as she was from the blow to her head, she couldn’t mistake that smell.

  An attic. She was in an attic, with its strong scent of mothballs, cedar, and that musty odor that always collects at the very top of a house.

  And she knew, too, with sinking heart, which attic this was. She remembered it from the tour that Serena had taken them on the night they came for pizza.

  Nightmare Hall. She was in Nightmare Hall, in its dark, stuffy attic above the third floor. She remembered it well. Low, slanted ceilings, boxes and old furniture everywhere, garment bags on hangers, and low, squat windows on one side, leading to a rusty old fire escape. She couldn’t see well, but reflected moonlight showed the white lace curtains blowing in the night breeze. The windows were open.

  “Well, well, well, look who’s up! Hi, there.”

  Eve was lying on the smooth, hardwood floor in the middle of the room. She pushed up on her elbows to peer into the darkness. Her head spun. When she looked up, she saw Serena sitting on a pile of boxes, looking down at her.

  “The door is locked, Eve,” she said with pleasure. “It’s just you and me. Isn’t this cozy?”

  Eve sat up, leaned against the legs of an old sewing machine. “No, it’s not cozy,” she said coldly. “It’s crazy! What are you doing?”

  “Well, me and Moon up there,” Serena waved a hand toward the window, “are teaching you a lesson. You made fun of us, Eve. You made fun of the power.”

  “I wasn’t the only one. Lots of people did.”

  “That’s true. And one of them, Alice, is dead, isn’t she, Eve? And Boomer would have been, if that stupid doctor hadn’t been there. And the rest of them got a lesson in manners last night, didn’t they?”

  Eve sat up straighter. “You were on that Ferris wheel! You knew something was going to go wrong with it and you got on it, anyway. You must have known you might be killed.”

  “Oh, no,” Serena said calmly, “not me. I knew I couldn’t die. I knew the Moon would save me. It’s true, I didn’t really expect to be tossed over the edge. But even when I was, I wasn’t worried.”

  “You were terrified. I saw it in your eyes.”

  Serena laughed. “Well, maybe I had a little crisis in confidence there for a few minutes. I was very high off the ground, Eve. But then I remembered who I was and that nothing terrible could happen to me, and I wasn’t so scared after that.”

  “Yes, you were.” Eve’s head moved, studying the room. Moonlight, the very “power” that Serena believed made her invincible, was also providing enough light to see by. And what she could see was that the only way out was through those windows. The thought of the rickety fire escape turned her stomach. But two things she was sure of: It was the only way out, and this insane girl in front of her, sitting casually with her legs tucked up underneath her, her hands behind her ba
ck, a lazy, smug smile on her face, intended to kill her.

  There was absolutely no question about that in Eve’s mind.

  “Why do you want to kill me, Serena?” she asked, pulling herself to her feet. “I’ve never done anything to you. Okay, I made fun of those so-called ‘powers.’ But,” she added gently, “you never told me you had any. How was I supposed to know?”

  Serena’s smile vanished. “Who said you could stand up? Stay right there, where you are. I didn’t tie you up because you can’t go anywhere with the door locked, but if you make one move …” She lifted the hands she’d been holding behind her to reveal a baseball bat. “I’ll bash in your skull. For good this time.”

  “Oh, please.” Eve took a small step sideways. “Don’t be so melodramatic. It just sounds silly.”

  Serena jumped from her perch, her face contorted with rage. “See? See how you do that? See how you make fun of people, put them down so easily? You do it all the time, Eve.”

  Shaken, Eve stood perfectly still. Did she do that? Was she like that?

  “I should have headed that committee,” Serena shouted, brandishing the baseball bat perilously close to Eve’s face. “Me! That’s why I wanted it to be this week. The week of the full moon. Because I knew my powers would be strongest then. The Moon helps me. He helped me that first night, with my mother. A shadow moved across him and that was my signal that he was helping me. There’ll be a shadow tonight, too. Any minute now. And I’ll be able to tell when it happens.” She smiled. “So will you, Eve, I promise you that.”

  Eve said nothing.

  “You really should have picked me to chair the committee,” Serena said. “I could have made this whole week the best celebration ever.” Her lips twisted in a sneer. “Look how you’ve fouled it up.”

  “You’re right, Serena,” Eve said calmly, taking another step sideways. “But none of us knew about your powers. You should have told us. Then you would have been picked to head the committee instead of me.”