Officer Santora hitched up his britches with two thumbs through two belt loops. “Well, then, I’m going to put you under arrest.”
“That’s a good idea.”
Tree got out of the car and put her hands behind her back just to make things easy. She smiled as he cuffed her. “I’ve never been arrested before,” she explained.
Santora only grunted in response and pushed her into the backseat.
“Thank you!” she shouted at him through the glass. If she hadn’t been shackled, she’d have kissed him on the cheek.
As he closed the door, Tree heard the police radio crackle to life. The dispatcher was calling out a warning.
All units, we’ve got a 187 at the university hospital. Suspect is believed to be an escaped patient. Be advised—
Tree heard the roar of an engine somewhere behind her. She saw headlights growing larger at an alarming rate, and just as Officer Santora squinted in that direction, the car came barreling straight at him. Sparks crashed over Tree as the glass in every window shattered. Tree screamed as she saw Santora hit with a force that bent his body in ways that weren’t natural, sending him flying into the air and then tumbling out of it twenty yards in front of the cruiser. His crumpled body lay lifeless on the shoulder of the road, illuminated by the unrelenting glow of his own cruiser’s headlights.
Beyond the cop’s body, the other car made a skidding U-turn, fishtailing into a 180 until it faced in her direction. The cop car was completely flooded with light. Tree shielded her eyes as she heard a car door open and close.
Footsteps came closer as the figure approached, backlit by the car behind him. The Bayfield Baby mask appeared in the window, just as Tree dreaded it would.
“What do you want?” she screamed through the glass. “Why are you doing this to me?” She was crying now, and angry. She shouted, “Who are you? Show your face!”
Without a word, the killer turned around and walked back to his car. Tree was dumbfounded.
What now?
He got into the driver’s seat, and a black-gloved hand emerged from the driver’s-side window of his car. Between the thumb and forefinger was a single lit birthday candle. It was only at that precise moment Tree smelled the gasoline hemorrhaging from a hole in the side of the cop car. She was locked in by handcuffs and police car doors that couldn’t be opened from the inside. There was no escape.
“Holy shit!”
Tree looked out her broken window at the fountain of gas that was spraying onto the road beneath her. Then she watched in horror as the gloved hand of her killer dropped the lit candle out the window of his car. It tumbled end over end over end.
Whoosh!
A yellow-blue flame raced back toward the police cruiser. Tree could see her own reflection in the orange-red glow. She had just enough time to whisper, “No!” once and yell, “Oh, fuck!” at the top of her lungs before a massive explosion split her eardrums with a sonic boom, and she felt her skin and muscle melt away in the searing heat. Up, up, up she flew in a searing ball of fire.
19
The tower bell was ringing yet again as Tree opened her eyes. She was exhausted. Wincing in pain, she gradually pushed herself up to a sitting position.
Carter popped up from under the desk. “Oh, hey. You’re up!”
Tree held up a hand. “Silence!”
Carter stopped talking and stared at her. She smiled at him, then rolled her eyes and hauled herself to her feet. She grabbed her phone and dismissed the call from her father, then shuffled over to Carter’s desk and unearthed his toiletries bag. He watched as she poured out the entire bottle of Tylenol into her hand.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to take that many. You could die.”
“If only it were that easy.”
She tossed the entire fistful of pills into her mouth, then snapped her fingers.
“Water, por favor.”
Carter got her the bottle from his bedside, and Tree gulped it down, swallowing every last pill.
“Aaaaah!” She smiled at him, then put the water bottle down and strode over to the door, flinging it open as Carter’s roommate, Ryan with the bleached-blond hair, appeared. Before he could say it, she cut him off.
“Hi. I’m the so-called fine vagine, and if that’s the way you refer to girls, then you and your hand are going to have a very lasting relationship.” She gave him a big smile. “Have a nice day!” she finished before gently pushing him back into the hallway and swinging the door closed.
She turned around to find Carter standing there with a confused look on his face.
“What?” she asked.
He smiled. “I mean, are you always this charming in the morning?”
“Just this one,” she said, and she gave him a big silly grin, then dropped it and marched back over to his dresser, grabbed her pants, and started to get dressed.
“So, were you having a bad dream?” he asked.
“Sorry?”
“You were screaming before you woke up.”
Tree reached down to pull on her shoes. “Well,” she said, “I was dying. Again.”
“What?”
Tree nodded. “It’s a long story.”
“You know, I’ve got time. I’m not doing anything today.”
Tree paused with her hand on the doorknob, but the same damn sticker gave her pause.
TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
“Seriously,” she told him, “I hate this sticker.”
Then she marched out into the hallway.
Carter hustled to catch up. “Hey! Wait!” he said, falling into step with her.
“Why are you following me?” she asked without slowing down.
“I want to hear your story.”
“Look, no offense,” Tree said, “but the last time I explained it to you, it got me nowhere.”
Carter stopped walking. “The last time?” He hurried to catch up with Tree as she took long, sure strides out of the dorm. “So you’re having bad dreams? I took a course on neurocognition and dream content.”
“Hooray for you,” Tree said as they passed the judgmental art student. She bared her teeth at him and made a biting noise like a dog.
“I might be able to help you,” Carter explained.
Tree didn’t break her stride. “Can you stop me from reliving the same day, every day, only to be murdered by someone I may or may not know?”
Carter frowned.
“Yeah, thought so.”
Tree kept walking as they passed the girl with the clipboard.
“Stop global warming?” the girl asked, thrusting the clipboard at Tree, who took it and handed it off to Carter. It stalled him briefly, and Tree felt him hustling up to her yet again. She had to give it to him—he didn’t give up easily.
“Wait. You think you’re reliving the same day? Literally?” he asked.
“Yup.”
“And somebody kills you?”
“Yup again,” she said.
“Come on. You’re just messing with me, right?”
Tree stopped in the middle of the quad and turned to face him.
“Sprinklers.” Tree snapped her fingers, and the sprinklers went off as if on her command. She turned and pointed at the parked car. “Car alarm,” she said as the blaring sound filled the air. Tree grabbed Carter by the shoulders and turned him to face the frat pledges singing “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer.”
“Now,” she said. “See that pledge over there in the baseball cap? He’s going to fall riiiiiiight…now.”
The pledge went down on the grass with a thump.
“Any questions?” She thumped Carter on the shoulder and kept walking.
To his credit, Carter kept following her, and finally, Tree agreed to go with him to a diner just off campus. Carte
r sat and watched as Tree shoveled a giant burger into her mouth. She took a sip of her Diet Coke, then let out a giant burp.
Carter smiled. “That’s impressive.”
“That was nothing,” she replied. She raised her hip off the seat of the booth and let out a massive fart that sounded like a trumpet. She grinned at him as he glanced around to see if anyone had heard.
“Did you get it all out?” he asked.
“Whatever,” Tree said. “You won’t remember it anyway.”
Tree’s phone sprang to life on the table. Her dad was calling. Again.
Yeahhh! It’s my birthday, and I ain’t gotta pick up the phone!
Carter glanced down at the screen. “It’s your birthday?” he asked.
Tree nodded and sent the call to voice mail, then turned the phone over on the table.
“It’s your dad,” he said. “You want to get that?”
Tree stared at her plate in silence.
After a second, Carter kept talking. “I was never close to my dad,” he told her. “Can’t even remember the last time he called me on my birthday.”
“Yeah,” Tree said. “I’m supposed to be with mine. I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting through another uncomfortable celebration while we both pretend that everything is awesome.”
Carter frowned. “Are you closer with your mom?”
“Was,” Tree said.
“What happened?”
Tree looked up at Carter, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. The look was enough.
“Oh.”
“Yup.” Tree was grateful that he hadn’t actually said the word. “Three years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That sucks.”
“Yeah,” Tree agreed. “We actually share the same birthday, though.”
Carter smiled. “That’s crazy.”
“When I was a kid, I always got to skip school. We’d go to the beach.” Tree couldn’t stop herself from smiling as she told him the story. “My dad would buy us this huge birthday cake and put just one candle on it. We’d blow it out together.”
“Bet you miss her.”
Tree nodded. “You know, it’s funny. When you relive the same day over and over again, you kind of start to see who you really are. If my mom saw me now, who I’ve become, I don’t think she’d be very proud.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true,” Tree insisted. “I’m not a good person, Carter. Maybe this is karma. Maybe I deserve it.”
Tree buried her face in her hands. Thankfully, Carter didn’t insist on talking right away. They sat for a minute in silence, listening to the clanking of dishes and the line cooks calling orders in the kitchen on the other side of the counter.
Finally, Carter leaned in from the other side of the booth. “Look, I don’t know you all that well,” he said, “but it’s never too late to change. Especially if what you’re saying is true. Each new day is a chance to be somebody better.”
“That’s just it,” Tree said. “I don’t think I have that many chances left. I keep on getting weaker every time I come back. Maybe I’m like a cat with nine lives. Eventually, I’m going to run out.”
They sat there in silence again, but Tree was surprised to see that it wasn’t uncomfortable. Carter was just there. He wasn’t bored or agitated. He wasn’t constantly checking his phone. He was present. He was willing to be right there with her, no matter how real or vulnerable things got. Tree realized that she hadn’t had anyone to talk to about the way she truly felt since her mom died. Somehow, she could say these things to Carter, and it made her feel better knowing that he heard her—even though he wouldn’t remember it tomorrow.
The TV over the counter near their booth cut to a breaking news report, and Tree turned to see the same reporter standing outside the hospital on campus.
I’m standing outside Bayfield University Hospital where suspected murderer Joseph Tombs is being treated for a gunshot wound following a deadly shoot-out this morning that left one officer dead.
Tree stood up and moved closer to the monitor. She called out to the waiter behind the counter and asked if he could turn up the volume.
“What’s going on?” Carter asked from the booth. “Tree?”
Tree was glued to the screen as the reporter continued:
Tombs was the subject of a nationwide manhunt that ended after a five-month pursuit across four state lines that left six known female victims.
Authorities are still not sure if Tombs is responsible for the murders of more than a dozen other victims he claims to have buried across the vast deserts of Arizona and New Mexico.
When Tree saw the pictures of the six women Tombs had already killed, she suddenly remembered the policeman sitting at the end of the hallway on the fourth floor. In a flash, everything came together.
“Oh my god,” she whispered. “He’s been here the whole time.”
“What?” Carter didn’t understand what was happening, but Tree had no time to explain. She turned around and raced for the door of the diner, leaving him behind at their booth, calling her name.
20
Deena, the nurse, was reading her Harlequin novel when Tree burst out of the elevator on the fourth floor and ran up to her station, shouting at the top of her lungs.
“He’s going to escape! Call the police!”
“Who?” Deena yelled back.
“Joseph Tombs! Just call the cops!”
Tree saw Deena grab the phone, but it was going to be close. Rounding the corner, she ran down the hall just in time to see the officer on duty walk into Tombs’s room.
“Wait!” Tree yelled, trying to stop him. “Don’t go in there!”
He was already gone.
“Shit!”
Tree looked around for any sort of help she could find. Her eyes landed on a big red fire ax in a glass case. After only a second of hesitation, Tree slammed her elbow into the glass, sending shards tinkling to the floor. She grabbed the ax and started making her way down the hall to the room.
Behind her, Deena called out, “Excuse me! What are you doing?” But there was no time to explain.
Tree peered through the window in the door. It was covered with blood spatters, but she couldn’t see anyone. Slowly, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Across the room was an empty hospital bed with a pair of arm restraints dangling from the guardrails. The fear coursing through her made her knees tremble, but she kept putting one foot in front of the other until she could see the officer’s body on the other side of the bed. His throat had been slit, and a pool of red was spreading beneath him, deep crimson against the stark white linoleum. Just as she noticed his gun was missing, she heard something move behind her and wheeled around to see the killer in the Bayfield Baby mask pointing the officer’s gun at her.
Tree swung the ax right as Tombs fired, and the bullet ricocheted off the metal blade. The force of the impact knocked the ax out of her hand. Tree screamed and ran for the door as Tombs fired again, this time narrowly missing her head, the bullet tearing a hole in the drywall.
Out in the hallway, she immediately slammed into Deena, who was running down from the nurses’ station.
“What are you—” Deena started to ask, but Tree knew there was no time.
“Run!” she screamed.
She tried to grab Deena’s hand and drag her along, but Deena pulled back. She didn’t understand what was happening.
As Tree turned around to run down the hallway without her, she caught a glimpse of Tombs raising the gun again. Bam! Bam! Bam! Tree screamed and kept running as she heard Deena’s body hit the floor.
Tree raced to the elevators and frantically stabbed at the button. Behind her, she heard a cold-blooded laugh and turned around slowly.
Tombs had her cornered against
the elevators. Slowly, he reached up and pulled off the Bayfield Baby disguise. Somehow, his real smile was even creepier than the mask’s frozen plastic one. A cold chill traveled the length of her spine, and Tree watched, helpless, as he advanced, raising the gun.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Carter ran around the corner and tackled Tombs, taking him down to the floor. The gun flew out of Tombs’s hand, clattering across the floor, and spun to a stop at Tree’s feet. She bent down to scoop it up as Carter and Tombs wrestled on the floor.
Tree pointed the gun at Tombs and shouted, “Stop!” as Tombs punched Carter in the face, knocking him unconscious. “Stop right now!” Tree screamed one last warning, and Tombs froze as he caught sight of Tree training the gun at his head.
Without hesitating, Tree took one step closer and pulled the trigger.
Click.
Tree’s eyes widened in horror as she realized the clip was empty.
A sickening grin spread over Tombs’s face. He began to chuckle at Tree’s growing panic as she continued to pull the trigger to no avail, shouting at him to stop.
Click. Click. Click.
Tree watched as Tombs grabbed Carter by the collar, pulling him upright and smiling right at her as he took Carter’s head in his hands and twisted.
The sickening snap of Carter’s spine made the bile rise in Tree’s throat, and she screamed Carter’s name. Tombs let his lifeless body fall once more, his head smacking with a dull thud against the floor.
Tree watched through tears she could not control as Tombs came her way. She had no choice but to run, and she raced for the exit Carter must have used. The old wooden double door opened only a few inches—both handles were poorly bound by a chain and padlock—but it was enough. Tree carefully threaded herself through the space.
Tombs stopped behind her. He’d never be able to fit, but she kept moving; those doors wouldn’t hold forever. She slipped through a door marked UNIVERSITY BELL TOWER and found herself at the bottom of the stairwell that held the chimes she’d awoken to every morning for what seemed like a very long time. She tripped over something in the dim light and reached down to find a crowbar. A series of loud bangs and the splintering of wood announced that Tombs would not be far behind.
Happy Death Day & Happy Death Day 2U Page 10