She put down the cupcake and crawled off her bed. Sometimes having a roommate really drove her bonkers.
Where’d Lori put the freaking remote?
She went over to her desk and started digging through the piles of books, papers, and mail. The black envelope she’d seen a couple of days ago when she’d found her graduation photo slid out of the stack, her name scrawled across the front in what looked like red crayon. Something about the fact that there was no stamp or postmark piqued her curiosity. She picked it up and flipped it over. There was a sticker on the back seal that read IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY.
Tree tore open the envelope and pulled out the card.
ANOTHER YEAR OLDER AND YOU’VE STILL GOT GAME.
She flipped it open and saw that the inside was covered in illustrations of bingo cards. It was one of those talking cards, and a recorded voice called out bingo numbers: “G 48!” Something was set up to spin in the middle of the card, too, but it had been altered. The spinner, which it appeared was supposed to point to the numbers printed on the card, had been replaced with a picture of the Bayfield Baby. Its freakish smile whirled around and around, finally coming to a stop over the words Have a lucky day.
Beneath that was a handwritten scrawl that made Tree’s heart pound in her chest:
Enjoy today…because there is no tomorrow.
Then, with no warning, the television behind her suddenly went dark. An icy stab of fear pierced her chest and tightened its cold grip around her stomach. Slowly, Tree put down the card and walked over to the TV. She turned the TV back on manually and reached down to flip the channel away from Teen Mom. The next channel was in the middle of a breaking news story, reported by a female reporter standing outside the emergency room of Bayfield University Hospital.
—where suspected murderer Joseph Tombs is being treated for a gunshot wound following a violent shoot-out this morning that left one officer dead.”
The mug shot of a menacing killer with long, stringy hair wearing an orange jumpsuit flashed across the screen as the reporter continued, “Tombs had been the subject of a nationwide manhunt—
The screen went black again, and Tree jumped in panic. She looked around the room, noticing the bathroom, then the closet. Slowly, she took a couple of steps back to the bookshelf until she was close enough to grab the hammer she’d just used to seal herself inside.
A cold wave of nausea and anger swept over her as she walked with slow, quiet steps toward the closet, trying not to breathe. She cursed her own stupidity.
Damn it, Tree. Did you really not think to check the closet before you barricaded yourself inside your own room?
She raised the hammer and threw open the closet door. Nothing but clothes on hangers. Sighing with relief, she closed the door, but as she turned around, her eye was drawn across the room to a tiny movement through the open bathroom door.
Did the shower curtain just move a little?
This time, she walked even more cautiously across the room, hammer raised, her free arm outstretched. Her blood was roaring in her ears, and Tree wondered if this time she might just die from fear. She stepped into the bathroom and extended her shaking hand to the floral shower curtain, praying for the nerve to pull it open. Just as her fingers brushed the fabric, the TV blared to life, screaming a commercial into the room.
Tree jumped and spun around, running back into the room.
Who was turning on and off the TV?
The fact that the killer had the remote didn’t hit her until she heard the breathing through the mask behind her.
Tree spun around to find the familiar figure wearing all black and the Bayfield Baby mask smiling in homicidal glee. Before she even screamed, the knife was raised and coming at her. She narrowly escaped the strike with a dodge to one side, and the blade dug into her mattress.
Swinging the hammer with everything she had in her, Tree cracked the killer on his shoulder blade and watched as he stumbled over the bed, disappearing in a heap on the floor. She ran to the door, pushing and pulling the dresser away, inch by inch until she could yank the door far enough open to escape, but it was too late. As she grabbed the knob, she saw the deranged Bayfield Baby charging at her, knife raised. She felt the blade rip all the way through her chest and splinter out the door behind her, pinning her to the wood. As she slumped against the steel blade impaling her in a white-hot pain, she let out a bloodcurdling scream that echoed in her own ears until everything went dark.
Even in the blackness, she could hear her own screaming, and it continued as she sat bolt upright in Carter’s bed, tearing at his T-shirt in hysterics.
13
Tree couldn’t stop screaming, and she saw Carter jerk up under the desk, hitting his head hard and joining her with his own yell of shock.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, shooting out from under the desk. “What’s going on?”
Tree had no words. She was frantic and jumped out of bed too quickly, doubling over in pain.
“Tree!” Carter reached for her. “Are you okay? Are you sick?”
Her cell phone started playing that ringtone, drowning out the last of the 9:00 a.m. bell chimes outside. Tree grabbed her phone and shouted, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” before throwing it against the wall in rage. She grabbed her head, sobbing and shouting, “Oh my god! Oh my god! Make it stop!”
Carter ran over to her, alarmed. “Are you okay?” He tried to touch her, but she pushed him back.
“Get away from me!” she bellowed at him.
“All right!” He took a step back.
She pulled on her pants, still wearing the T-shirt Carter had given her to sleep in, then raced to the door, flung it open, and ran into the hall. His roommate with the bleached hair flattened himself against the wall as she passed, and by the time she got out the front door, Tree was crying uncontrollably.
As she raced past all the events and people she knew would be waiting for her, she could barely see or hear them. Art student, activist, couple at the sprinklers, car alarm, pledge passing out…it was like she was getting tunnel vision. The world seemed to get smaller and smaller. She felt herself begin to hyperventilate. She was light-headed now, and her peripheral world was beginning to spin. She could feel the eyes of everybody on the quad staring her down. Every face was a frown. Every look one of disgust or of menace. She must look like a crazy person, but she didn’t care. Who could she trust? Who would believe her? How could she ever make this end?
Tree was so dizzy, the ground shifting beneath her, that she felt herself pitch backward, right into someone who was walking behind her.
She looked up and saw it was Carter. He held out her shoes, her bag, and her shiny tank with the spaghetti straps.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You forgot your stuff.”
Something about the kindness in his voice made Tree begin to cry. As everything spun around her, she collapsed into his outstretched arms that were full of her stuff.
“Help me,” she pleaded.
As she sobbed against his green plaid flannel shirt, Tree felt his arms slowly close around her. She wasn’t sure how long he held her there in the middle of the campus, letting her ugly cry all over him.
All she was sure of was that, for the first time in four days, she felt safe.
* * *
—
An hour later, Tree sat at a table in front of the huge windows in the Bayfield cafeteria. The glass went floor to ceiling, and the soft light that spilled through the lovely green trees cast a beautiful glow over the room. Midterms were approaching, and the place was mostly deserted; only a few tables had students wearing headphones and feverishly typing on laptops.
Tree stared down at the table and sucked the last few drops of her Diet Coke through a straw. She’d finally stopped crying, but she knew she wore the face of a raccoon beauty queen, smeared with a mask
of melted mascara. At any other moment in her life, she’d never have agreed to come to a public place looking like this. She was still wearing Carter’s T-shirt over her skintight black pants from last night’s party, but she was unable to locate a single fuck to give within her. It was funny what you suddenly no longer cared about when the stakes in your life were turned up a notch.
Carter sat across from her, eyes wide and mouth hanging open in disbelief as he tried to process what she had just explained to him three times in a row.
“Would you stop staring at me like I took a dump on your mom’s head?” Tree asked. She couldn’t even bring herself to look him in the eye.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just trying to wrap my brain around this.”
“How’s that going for you?”
“Assuming I believe any of this is even remotely possible, there has to be a reason you’re stuck in this day. Okay? Out of all the other days in your life, what makes this day special? What gives this day meaning?”
Tree shook her head and shrugged, finally gathering the courage to look at him. “Nothing,” she said.
The moment the word left her lips, her phone began to ring:
Yeahhh! It’s my birthday, and I ain’t gotta pick up the phone!
Carter pointed at the phone as Tree let her father’s call go to voice mail.
“It’s your birthday?”
“Yeah,” Tree said like it was no big deal.
“Hello!” Carter was incredulous.
“So? Birthdays are just an excuse to eat cake and open presents. There’s no real meaning behind a birthday.”
Carter rolled his eyes. “It’s symbolic. Whoever’s killing you knows it’s your birthday.”
Tree wasn’t convinced. Carter could tell.
“All right, look.” He pulled a napkin out of the dispenser in the middle of the table and a pen out of his shirt pocket. “Give me a list of names of everybody who knows it’s your birthday, and we can find whoever’s trying to kill you.”
“Well, thanks to my sorority, pretty much the entire school knows it’s my birthday. They’re throwing me this stupid surprise party tonight. I mean, it literally could be anyone.”
“Who has motive?” Carter wasn’t letting this go.
Tree thought about it for a minute. “Okay, maybe it’s Danielle.”
Carter nodded and started the list. “All right.”
“I mean, I made out with some guy she liked right in front of her last night.”
Carter paused and looked up at her briefly. “Oh.” He nodded to the side and gave her a half smile. “Must have been before we met. Busy night.”
Tree rolled her eyes. “Okay, Mr. I’m-Gonna-Take-This-Drunk-Girl-Home-and-Take-Advantage-of-Her. Don’t judge.”
“For the record,” Carter leaned in, suddenly serious, “I didn’t take advantage of you last night, okay? I slept on Ryan’s bed.”
Tree stared at him. “We didn’t have sex?”
“No!” Carter seemed offended by the suggestion. “You were wasted last night. I was afraid you were going to fall or choke on your own vomit like Janis Joplin.”
Tree was tempted to smile at this last part, but she realized two things that made her pause: 1. Carter might be the sweetest guy in the world, and 2. he was kinda cute.
The guys she typically went to parties with were all after one thing and one thing only. She stared into Carter’s eyes, and he held her gaze and stared right back. After a minute, he gave her a small smile. Suddenly, the awkwardness of shared attraction became too much for them both. Tree glanced out the window, and Carter looked back down at their one-name list.
Flustered, Tree wiped a hand across her cheek. “What were we—?”
“Suspects.”
“Right! Suspects. So, Danielle. Gregory? His wife. Creepy Tim. Oh!” She leaned forward and pointed at the list as Carter scribbled down names on the napkin. “That tiny girl from T.J. Maxx that I got fired.” She nodded and continued thinking. “Maybe the Uber driver I spit on last week. I think his name was—”
Carter looked up at her, a pained expression on his face.
“What?” Tree said. “Nobody’s perfect.”
He rolled his eyes and put down the pen.
“All right, look,” Carter said. “The way I see it is, you have an unlimited number of lives, so you have unlimited opportunities to solve your own murder.”
Now it was Tree’s turn not to believe her ears.
“So, I’m just supposed to keep dying until I figure out who the killer is? That’s your genius plan?”
Carter shrugged. “Do you have a better idea?”
Tree thought about it for a minute and discovered that she didn’t.
As they left the cafeteria, Carter offered to walk her home.
“I’m fine,” Tree said. “But thank you. Besides, I want to get started on the list.”
“You’ll be okay?” he asked.
Tree shrugged. “If I’m not, I’ll see you in the morning.”
Carter laughed and nodded. “And you’ll have to explain this to me all over again.”
Tree smiled. “Well, I guess it’s a plus that you’re such a good listener.”
She couldn’t tell for certain, but she was pretty sure Carter started to blush. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looked down at his sneakers.
“I do what I can.” After a second, he looked up at her. “Good luck tonight.”
As Carter turned and headed back to Williams Hall, Tree stood for a minute and watched him go.
Carter wasn’t at all what she’d expected, and if it hadn’t been for this damn time loop she was stuck in, she never would’ve spent more than those first few minutes of the day with him. Tree never would have given herself the chance to get to know Carter under normal circumstances, and something about that gave her pause.
How many people had she blown right past based on something annoying she saw on their outside: their hair, their clothes, the music they listened to, the car they drove, their body fat percentage, or the way they did their eye shadow?
Four days ago, she’d woken up for the first time in Carter’s bed and had been horrified to be sleeping in a dorm room. She’d judged him instantly as not having enough money to live anywhere else, had decided he was a nerd because of the posters on his wall. She’d cut him off when he tried to introduce himself, refused to take the water he’d offered her when he’d brought her the Tylenol. He’d just been trying to be friendly, but she’d shut it all down because she’d been afraid she’d spent the night with a guy who wasn’t up to her standards.
But now, she realized, she’d been wrong.
Not only was he “up to her standards,” Carter was far more interesting than any of the morons she usually went out with. He was smart, funny, and patient. Who else would’ve ushered the campus basket case into the cafeteria mid-meltdown, gotten her a soda, listened to her insane story, and actually talked through how to deal with it in the event that it were true? Most of the people she called friends wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help her once they saw the mascara running down her chin and the bizarre outfit she was wearing—let alone sat with her in the cafeteria while she sobbed and begged them to believe her unbelievable story.
As Carter turned the corner at the end of the courtyard, he glanced back at her and stopped for a second. He raised his hand in a little wave and smiled at her.
Now it was Tree who was blushing.
As he slipped out of sight, Tree realized that she’d never been caught staring after a boy like that. She was the girl who had game. She was the one who called the shots and never, ever gave a compliment first. She never let boys see her cry. She didn’t let anybody know if she was feeling afraid, or sad, or…well…that she had any feelings at all, really.
That
just wasn’t who she was.
As she turned to walk back to the Kappa house, a new thought came to her: Maybe that’s who I’m becoming.
For the first time in four days, she felt the slightest glimmer of hope.
14
Tree put Carter’s plan in motion as soon as she got back to her room. After cleaning and organizing her desk so that she could actually sit at it and work, she made a list of the main suspects:
NICK. (She crossed his name off immediately because, well, if he’d already gotten killed, he couldn’t be the killer.)
TIM. Stalker-like tendencies. Mad I don’t return his texts. Saw me making out with someone else. Judgmental every morning when he sees me walking home from Carter’s.
STEPHANIE. Has caught on I’m sleeping with her husband.
DANIELLE. Mad that Nick likes me more than he likes her. I made out with Nick. Still angry about that guy freshman year.
It was something. That night, Tree started with Tim.
She knew from previous parties that his room was on the ground floor of the frat house and had a window that looked out into the driveway. Of course, it was a long shot that he’d even be there, or that the blinds would be up, or that she could learn anything by looking at him through a window, anyway. Then again, that any of this was happening at all was a long shot, and Tree figured it was worth a try.
If Tim caught her snooping around, all the better. If he was the killer, he’d come after her and she’d either kill him, or at least wake up in Carter’s bed knowing who she was after. If Tim wasn’t the one, then the real killer would still come for her and Tim wouldn’t even remember that she’d stalked him when today started all over again tomorrow.
She waited until it got dark and headed out when she saw Danielle beginning to put the curlers in her hair. Across campus, she crept up the driveway and found both Tim and his window blinds were up.
Happy Death Day & Happy Death Day 2U Page 7