Fright Night

by Maren Stoffels

  I walk through the living room and run my hand over the piano. In the kitchen I fill a glass with water. It’s only now that I realize how thirsty I am. My mouth still tastes like cockroach too.

  In two gulps, I empty the glass and then I fill it again. The cold water makes my head clearer. There’s just a photo frame left on the windowsill. Sofia took the photo. It’s like there’s been a burglar in here. None of the stuff feels like mine anymore, not now that I know Sofia’s been touching it.

  What was she doing here? It’s no wonder she looked guilty when I showed her the photo and asked her about my room. She had no right to be in there—and she knows that. Did she go into my old bedroom here too? I open the door to the hallway again. At the bottom of the stairs I feel my legs go limp, but I still place my foot on the first step.

  When I reach the top, the first thing I do is open the bathroom door. The bathroom’s smaller than I remember. At Quin’s, they have a separate shower and bath. Here we just have a shower, with a tiny washbasin. The washing machine is positioned so that you have to squeeze past it sideways to step into the shower. But it’s clean. Even now. Did Mom ask Gerda to look after the place?

  I think about our old neighbor, who used to chat with Mom. She was crazy about Mom and always paid her compliments. I’d hear her voice downstairs when I was stuck in bed yet again: Oh, Dylan’s so lucky to have such a caring mom.

  Ah, of course, it was Gerda who let Sofia in! She’s the only one with a key. What if she told Sofia things about me? Gerda’s such a gasbag—she always knew all the neighborhood gossip. Maybe Sofia knows even more than I feared.

  Quickly, I close the bathroom door behind me and look at the door to my bedroom. Behind that door is my familiar refuge, the place where I could hide away. The place that ultimately changed into my prison, shut off from the outside world. Should I really go in there?

  But then I think about tonight. Everything’s gone to pieces. How much worse can it get?

  I push down the door handle.

  It takes a moment for my eyes to get used to the dark, but then I see my bed, with the striped comforter. On the ceiling there are still those sticky stars I was really too old for, but still I left them there. And I see my desk with the stack of comics, which I know inside out. After all, I had plenty of time to read.

  * * *

  —

  “Great,” Mom says, looking around the room. “This is perfect.”

  The curtains are closed and I am lying on the bed. On my back, dead still, like Mom wanted.

  She had a very long conversation with the new doctor, and he was going to run some tests because my muscle strength had decreased so much. The tests were going to start next week. Mom was so happy that she’d bought me an ice cream from the hospital lobby. Strawberry and chocolate, my favorite flavors.

  Back in my bedroom, she’d tucked me in really tightly, so I could hardly move. She’d been doing that a lot lately. I lie there now, packed up like a mummy for days on end.

  “Dr. Luiting says you’re not allowed to leave your bed.”

  Dr. Luiting is nowhere near as nice as Eliza. I wasn’t allowed to call him by his first name, and his eyes didn’t sparkle. He said he thought Mom was very smart.

  Mom bought loads of books with tricky titles, all about being sick. Luckily I have my own comic books to read. That makes the days pass a bit faster.

  I long to be outside, though, to feel the fresh wind on my face. I even long to be back at school, because then I’d see Quin again. Mom says I can’t go to school for a while, though.

  She even sent away Sven, who came to ask if I wanted to play soccer.

  “I’m interested to hear what Dr. Luiting will have to say next week.”

  Mom looks at the tight comforter with a satisfied smile. “You know, I think you’ve taken another turn for the worse.”

  I nod obediently, because since I’ve started doing that, Mom has stopped hitting me.

  SOFIA

  “F-fell down the stairs?” I stammer.

  Quin turns around. “Can we continue?”

  “But…how?”

  “You know, he just fell.” Quin sighs, like I’m a little kid who doesn’t understand the rules of a game.

  “Why would he lie about it?”

  “No idea. Why does it matter?”

  How can Quin be so laid-back? He just found out that Dylan told three different versions of a story!

  “I think Dylan’s been through some really bad stuff.”

  Quin bursts out laughing. “What gave you that idea?”

  “His neighbor told me he’d spent months in bed.”

  Quin frowns. “Gerda? You spoke to her?”

  “I went to his house. She let me in.”

  “Dylan was sick for a while, that’s true. Sometimes he didn’t come to school for weeks.”

  “So what was wrong with him?”

  “The doctors didn’t know exactly. Something with his muscles.”

  “Didn’t you ever ask him about it?”

  “When Dylan was at school, he just wanted to be normal. To play soccer and stuff.”

  I exchange a look with Nell. “If you ask me, you only know half the story, Quin.”

  “What are you talking about? I know Dylan way better than you do—and I’ve known him longer too. You weren’t there the first night he couldn’t sleep at my house. You weren’t there when he woke up screaming every night. Do you have any idea how hard it is for him not to live at home?”

  Quin’s comments hurt. He’s right. They have a shared past I’ll never be a part of.

  “That’s all it is. You’re just being paranoid,” finishes Quin.

  “I think Sofia’s right,” says Nell. “I live with kids like that. I’d recognize that kind of behavior anywhere.”

  “Dylan isn’t crazy!”

  Nell makes a soothing sound. “I’m not saying he is. But he attacked you tonight like you were his archenemy. Do you think that’s normal?”

  Quin doesn’t reply.

  “Why is it that Dylan lives with you?” asks Nell.

  Quin shrugs. “Because his mom’s sick.”

  I nod. “She has cancer.”

  “No. It’s something mental.” Quin says it and then falls silent. I can see on his face that he’s beginning to understand the knots Dylan has tied himself into. “Of course he said it was cancer. Like he’s going to go around telling everyone his mom’s gone mad.”

  It feels like someone’s standing on my chest with their entire weight. “I’m not everyone, am I?”

  Quin doesn’t reply.

  “Was his mom a danger to him?”

  “Of course not.” Quin shakes his head. “If anything, she was overprotective. She was always at the hospital with him, sometimes a few times a week. His mom was crazy about him.”

  I think about the photo from the windowsill. “They don’t seem too close in that photo.”

  “Photo? You mean the one Dylan showed us?”

  I nod.

  “You have no idea…” Quin pauses for a second. “The boy in that photo isn’t Dylan.”

  DYLAN

  I sit down on the edge of my bed. The pressure of the mattress feels so familiar. How many hours have I spent lying here? I had to lie in this bed for days, as my muscles grew weaker and weaker.

  I drop back and lie down. It feels exactly like it used to. I see my old ceiling. I know every lump and bump. I can trace every little crack. I gave a name to every sticky star. The biggest one of all was called Quin.

  What went wrong tonight? I gave Quin a bloody nose. Feels like I don’t know myself at all.

  But Quin has no idea what it was like being here, in this bed, with my mom hovering around. He has Hester, and she’s the exact opposite of Mom. Hester’s a nice woodstove that
makes you warm and rosy-cheeked. Mom’s like an open fire that burns you.

  How am I ever going to explain that to him?

  When I finally went back to school, I didn’t want to talk about home. I couldn’t. If Mom found out I’d confided in Quin…So we played soccer, the best medicine. Until even that stopped working. My muscles kept letting me down.

  I quickly tense my legs, and then my arms. I clench my fists and my jaw. Then I let everything go and relax again. My body’s almost back to normal, all except for my right leg. Dr. Luiting says the fracture will never completely heal.

  * * *

  —

  I fall down twelve steps.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I feel a sharp pain in my right leg. When I look at it, I wished I hadn’t. It’s like my leg is made of clay. It is twisted at a weird angle.

  My first reaction is relief. This time I don’t have to pretend. But then I start screaming.

  Mom comes hurrying downstairs and crouches beside me. “We have to go to the hospital.”

  * * *

  —

  I stand up and walk to the last door: Mom’s room. When I was little, I spent lots of time in there, but in recent years it had been off-limits. What does it look like now?

  I swing the door open and for a moment it’s like she’s standing there in front of me. I can vaguely smell her perfume, which she always put on when we went to the hospital. I even catch myself glancing over my shoulder to make sure she’s not standing behind me. But the landing’s empty.

  I look at the pale-green bedspread, which strangely reminds me of the hospital.

  A long time ago, she sometimes let me climb into bed with her early on a Sunday morning, but the memory’s so vague that I’ve started to wonder if it’s real.

  As I step through the doorway, I feel pressure on my chest. What am I doing here? What do I hope to achieve? I walk to the bed and sit down. I feel something jab my thigh and take out Sofia’s postcard. The blue lake on the front takes my breath away for the second time tonight.

  When I turn over the postcard, I see thick black letters.

  ONE DAY I’M GOING TO KILL YOU.

  The photo had distracted me before. I hadn’t seen the words. Did Sofia take the postcard from this house, like the photo? That means it was meant for me or Mom. But who sent it?

  Somewhere inside my head, a door opens with an answer behind, but it only opens a crack.

  “No,” I say quietly. “It can’t be…”

  I stand up and walk back to the landing. At the top of the stairs, I pause. There are the twelve steps leading down, but there’s also another staircase.

  The stairs to the attic.

  I look up, into that dark hole. No, I don’t want to go there. That chapter’s closed, over. But when I want to go downstairs, my right leg stays where it is. It’s like it’s forcing me to go upstairs. No matter what I try, I can’t walk downstairs.

  “Okay,” I say quietly. “You win.”

  For the first time, my right leg cooperates. It even seems to be moving faster than my left one. Before I know it, I’m up in the attic, where it’s even darker than downstairs. My eyes refuse to get used to the dark here, and I need to turn on the light. I run my hand over the wall until I find the switch. The attic fills with bright fluorescent light.

  I hold a hand in front of my eyes and peer through my fingers. There are all kinds of things piled up against the slanting wall. Overnight bags, my old high chair, a large supply of detergent, and some moving boxes containing Mom’s clothes. There’s no sign that this was ever a bedroom.

  Or is there?

  In a few places, there are stray strips of tape with torn-off corners of paper. That’s where the posters were, which Mom must have pulled off the wall.

  I feel my heartbeat speed up as I take the photograph from my pocket. The fold in it splits their faces in two. Why did Mom leave it on the windowsill? Did she miss him? Or was it to torture me?

  I swipe my finger over his pale face. Some days he looked worse than me, even though Mom left him alone.

  Because she had chosen me.

  Me.

  But why? Because I was the youngest?

  I drop down onto the floor; it feels dusty. And then, like someone has pressed a button, I start to cry. I cry the tears that have been in there for years but were never allowed to come out.

  This attic is where he slept.

  My brother.

  SOFIA

  “Dylan doesn’t have a brother,” I say. “That’s impossible.”

  The boy in the photo is Dylan’s double.

  “Yes, he does,” says Quin. “An older brother.”

  “How…” I search for words, but I can’t find any.

  Nell puts her arm around me. Quin looks uncomfortable.

  “As far as Dylan’s concerned, he doesn’t exist. That’s why he never talks about him.”

  “So what happened? Please, tell me.”

  Quin cracks his fingers. “It all went wrong at home, so Dylan’s brother lives somewhere else now.”

  “Where?”

  Quin shakes his head. “I don’t know if I…”

  “Just tell us,” Nell says. “I don’t think it matters now.”

  “He was taken away by social services.”

  My head’s spinning. It’s like I don’t even know Dylan anymore. How can he have kept this secret all this time?

  “Was it because of his mom’s sickness?” asks Nell.

  Quin shakes his head. “No, no, not at all. Kelly went off the rails all by himself.”

  It’s like the ground underneath me has turned into quicksand. I’ve already heard that name tonight.

  “Kelly?” Nell’s voice falters. “Is Dylan’s brother called Kelly?”

  Quin smiles. “Yeah, I know. It’s a girl’s name.”

  At that moment, two figures loom out of the darkness. One is a clown with yellow lenses in his eyes, and next to him is a boy with scars on his face. It looks like he’s been attacked by a wild animal.

  The clown laughs. “Finally! There you are.”

  MURDERER

  If that knife hadn’t been there, everything would have turned out fine.

  But the knife was there.

  KELLY

  Nell is here, right in front of me. As usual, my heart starts beating faster, even now that I know what she thinks about me.

  I look her right in the eyes. I have to see if she recognizes me. But she doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t.

  “Follow us.” Sandy leads the way. He already told me about the bunker in the woods. It’s the perfect place, far enough away from Fright Night. Sandy often used to sleep there to get away from his mom. He says we should have no problem getting in.

  When no one was watching, I went back and turned the arrow to the right. We don’t want anyone to come along and spoil our fun, do we?

  I walk along at the back of the group. Nell is deep in conversation with the other girl, who seems to be trying to calm her down.

  “Maybe it’s someone else with the same name,” I hear the girl saying.

  I have no idea what they’re talking about, but I don’t care. I can’t take my eyes off Nell and Martin. Those two think they’re safe, but they have no idea who’s behind them. Wearing this makeup gives me such a feeling of power. I can do anything to them—and they won’t have a clue that it’s me.

  “Hey, which zone is this?” I hear the other boy ask. He’s younger than Martin and he looks vaguely familiar. His face is covered with dried blood. Has he been fighting?

  “There’s no talking in this zone,” Sandy warns him.

  I feel a smile on my lips. I could never have done this without him. I know I can count on Sandy. He’ll never let me down like Nell did tonight.

 
Suddenly I feel ashamed for letting Nell say such negative things about Sandy. Who does she think she is?

  “I’ve never met such a grumpy clown,” I hear Martin say.

  Sandy stops abruptly and looks at Martin. “What was that?”

  “I just said you seem pretty cranky for a clown.”

  For a moment, I think Sandy’s going to take out his knife, but then he says, “Believe me, I can be way crankier than this. Now keep walking.”

  * * *

  ■ ■ ■

  “We’re here.”

  A concrete bunker looms up in front of us, weather-beaten and covered in ivy. Lit up by our flashlight, the place looks eerie—the perfect setting for our Fright Night finale.

  “Now are you finally going to tell us what zone this is?” asks Martin.

  Sandy pushes against the wooden door, which swings open, as promised. “In there.”

  Martin crosses his arms. “I asked you a question.”

  Sandy goes and stands right in front of him. He shines his flashlight straight into Martin’s eyes. “And I said, in there.”

  “Marty…” Nell takes hold of Martin’s arm. “Come on.”

  I look at the small gesture. The rings on her fingers, except for her ring finger. What would it feel like if Nell touched me like that? She even has a pet name for him.

  Then they go into the bunker. The entrance is low, and I have to duck so I don’t bang my head. It smells of mold and wet dog. So this is where Sandy spent so many nights on his own. I feel a pang of sympathy. Maybe he had an even harder time than me. At least I had my own attic, my own little island.

  Don’t think about that. I press my fingertips to my temples. The psychologist says it helps to bring you back to the here and now.