Samar screamed bloody murder as he shrank back from Ryan’s wild swings, shielding his head from the blows with both hands. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Why are you sneaking up on me?” Ryan yelled back.
“I was bringing you a—” Samar looked down at the churro he’d just dropped on the floor to avoid being pummeled. He sighed. “Well, now it’s covered in bacteria. Two dollars, wasted.”
Samar bent down to retrieve the churro, and when he stood back up, Ryan saw a look of raw fear on his face that made Ryan’s blood run cold.
His friend’s terror was the last thing Ryan saw before he felt an arm snake around him and jerk him back. He caught a glimpse of a Bayfield Baby mask over his shoulder, but before he could scream, the blade of a knife was slamming into his chest. The flash of cold steel and the excruciating rasp of his bones against the blade sent an electric shock of pain blazing through his entire body, and as his eyes rolled back into his skull, all he could hear was…
“La Bamba.”
He opened his eyes and jerked upright, clutching at the white-hot fire in his chest where the knife was lodged.
But there was no knife.
And no guy in a baby mask.
Just a taco truck rumbling by, with Ritchie Valens’s classic turned up way too loud, way too early in the morning.
3
As he pushed open the door to his car, Ryan’s heart was still racing. That dream was a little too fucking real.
An avalanche of fast-food wrappers and soda cans tumbled onto the pavement as he climbed out and closed the door behind him. He stretched and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, then crossed the street to head back to the dorm. The second he stepped onto the curb, a yapping Pomeranian charged at him out of nowhere.
“Jelly Bean! No!”
Ryan whirled around to see an older lady grinning with her big dentures. He rubbed his eyes again. Am I still dreaming? Something about the whole thing felt way too familiar.
As he hurried past the woman with the crazy dog, he saw the hedge along the sidewalk and stopped short. Somehow, he knew this part. He took a step back toward the road and glanced around next to the curb until he found a small rock. Eyes narrowed, he chucked it into the bush.
“Ouch!”
Bull’s-eye, he thought as a man popped out of the bush and glared at him. “What’s your problem?”
The man grabbed the rock and wound up to throw it back. Ryan took off so quickly that he just barely dodged the skateboarder whipping around the corner holding a tray of lattes.
“Sorry, bro!”
Ryan stood slack-jawed and watched him slalom down the sidewalk. How do I remember all of this?
The rest of his walk back to his room was an echo. There was the activist with the clipboard just outside, and the kid with the trombone in the hallway, his roommate screaming, “Shut up!” at the top of his lungs.
Ryan felt the overwhelming buzz of panic as he raced down the hall to his room, and he felt his hand freeze as he reached for the doorknob.
Please let this be different. What was he doing? He was a scientist. He didn’t believe in any grand, guiding hand. This was all a crazy coincidence—his overactive subconscious playing tricks on him, egged on by too many Hot Pockets before spending the night sitting upright in his car. He was exhausted to the point of hallucinating. Ryan tried to shake it off and pushed open the door to his room.
Holy. Shit.
There they were. Tree, stretched out on the bed, laughing, as his roommate hovered over her, their lips just seconds from being in full lock.
Carter glanced over, saw him, and pointed to the hallway.
“Out.”
He couldn’t move. Ryan was frozen, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as his mind raced, trying to comprehend the fact that he was clearly having a mental break.
“Ryan!” Carter was trying to get him gone, but it was no use.
“Dude,” he said. “I am trippin’ right now.”
“Yeah,” Carter said, clearly annoyed. “No kidding.”
“No. No…”
Carter glared at him, waiting, as Ryan struggled to find the words to articulate what was happening.
Ryan couldn’t leave. He didn’t care how many pillows his roommate threw at him. Maybe no one would believe him, but he and Carter had been through some shit together, and if there was even a remote possibility that another person would listen to him, that person was Carter, hands down.
He took a deep breath and threw himself upon the mercy of the court.
“I’m having that thing. What’s it called? When you feel like you’ve already lived through something before?”
The moment the words left his lips, the blonde on Carter’s bed popped up and looked at him like she’d just seen a ghost. No, wait. It was more than that. Like Ryan was the ghost.
She narrowed her eyes and said, “Déjà vu?”
Maybe she was smarter than he’d given her credit for. Usually, he tried not to judge people by the way they looked, but anybody as hot as she was couldn’t be smart…could they? It was improbable—like Elisabeth Shue playing an electrochemist in that old movie The Saint.
“Yes!” he shouted. “That! I feel like I’ve totally lived through this day already.”
She turned to look at Carter, and Ryan saw an understanding pass between them. They’d only spent two nights together, and it was like they’d known each other for weeks already.
“Bill Murray,” Carter said.
“What the hell’s going on?” Ryan asked.
Before anyone could answer, his phone started playing Samar’s ringtone again.
Oh my god, Ryan! Answer me already!
He answered with a weird dread that he’d only experienced when his mom made him take that girl from church to the Valentine’s dance his sophomore year because it was the right thing to do!
Samar was having the same, overexcited day again, too. “Dude! Dude! Get over here now! This is crazy!”
Ryan forced himself to speak. “I have to call you back.”
As he hung up, the blond girl guided him to Carter’s bed.
Ryan sank down next to her, his mind racing. He was exhausted and confused. All he really wanted was a bong rip the size of Manhattan and a nap in his own bed, but this girl wasn’t about to let this go, and that was probably a good thing. At least she seemed to believe him.
“Okay, listen to me,” she said. “The day reset when you died. Right?”
“But it was just a dream.” Ryan tried to focus. “Some psycho dude in a baby mask stabbed me.”
Tree shared a look with Carter that communicated more than Ryan had ever shared with anyone. How long have these two really been hanging out?
“Tombs is dead,” Carter said.
Tree nodded. “So’s Lori.”
“Then who’s the killer this time?”
Watching the two of them talk, it was like they’d developed their own secret language. Ryan was totally lost.
“Uh, hello?” he interjected. “Would somebody please start explaining what the hell is going on?”
Tree sighed, then took a deep breath.
“Recap,” she said. “I was stuck reliving the same day, Monday the eighteenth, over and over, until someone wearing a Bayfield Baby mask murdered me on the night of my birthday. I had no idea who it was because I was such a bitch and so many people hated my guts.
“So, at Carter’s suggestion, I made a list of suspects. Turns out, it was my roommate, Lori, who kept helping a serial killer escape from the hospital, hoping it would look like he murdered me when in fact she was the one all along, and all because she was jealous of an affair I was having with my professor, Gregory, who was married.”
Ryan’s eyes widened involuntarily.
“I know,�
�� Tree said. “Pretty shitty. Anyway, I finally kicked Lori’s crazy ass out a window and killed her, which broke the loop, or so I thought, but it looks like I only passed the loop to you, and now you’re stuck in this day until we figure out how to stop it.”
There was a long pause as Ryan took it all in. He looked over at Carter, then back at Tree, waiting for one of them to burst out laughing.
But they didn’t.
That’s when it hit him. “Oh my god,” he said. “I’m still dreaming.”
Carter frowned. “What?”
“It’s like Inception,” he explained. “It’s a dream within a dream.”
“Dude,” Carter said. “This isn’t a dream.”
Ryan ignored his roommate and stretched out on Carter’s bed instead, squeezing his eyes closed.
“What are you doing?” Carter asked.
“Shhh!” Ryan said. “I’m waking myself up.”
A sharp pain shot through his chest for a second time this morning, and he sat up yelping and smacking away Carter’s hand as his roommate gave him a titty twister.
“See?” Carter said. “Not dreaming.”
Tree walked over to the corner of their room and turned around with Carter’s baseball bat over one shoulder.
“Show me where you died,” she said.
Maybe this was all insane, but Ryan knew for certain what he’d just been through (twice) just today, and he felt lucky as hell that Tree Gelbman (of all people) happened to be standing here. Her presence in his roommate’s bed for a second morning in a row was, itself, an unexplainable phenomenon; the fact that she believed him and actually had a plan? Well, that was a miracle on the level of a Hollywood studio actually making Crazy Rich Asians.
Ryan jumped up and raced for the door. If this crazy girl had kicked her own roommate out the window, he certainly wasn’t going to start disobeying her now.
4
Ryan led Tree and Carter into the dim lab and pointed past the ventilation units and shelves full of beakers to the door of the adjacent room.
“Back there,” he whispered.
Tree raised the bat and advanced. When they got to the next room, it was empty, and Ryan nodded at the abandoned janitor’s cart.
“Over there. Storage closet.”
Tree stepped forward, but she felt Carter’s hand on her arm. She stopped and pointed at the bat.
“Here,” he said. “Give me that.”
“I can handle myself,” she said.
“Haven’t you died enough?”
She couldn’t argue with that. She shrugged and handed him the bat.
Carter took the lead, moving toward the closet with slow, deliberate steps. Tree followed close behind, and Ryan was about to bring up the rear when his eyes fell on the mop sticking out of the janitor’s cart. He grabbed it just for good measure.
Ryan could feel his heart pounding in his chest as Carter reached the door to the storage closet. The blood rushing in his ears was almost deafening. The adrenaline coursing through his veins made it impossible for him to stay quiet.
“Bash his head in, Carter!”
“Shhh! Idiot!” Carter hissed. Then he reached for the handle.
The door yawned open with a slow, eerie creak, revealing nothing but darkness beyond.
Carter slipped his free hand inside and felt around for a light switch, but when it snapped on, there was nothing to reveal. The room was empty.
Carter and Tree both turned back around to face the room, and Ryan saw the full whites of their eyes. He’d seen that look before from Samar. Baby Face must be right behind him.
Before he could move, he felt hands grabbing him, and the adrenaline exploded. Not this time, mothafucker.
Ryan screamed like a banshee and whirled around, whacking Baby Face across the side of the head with the mop. He heard a voice shouting curses in Hindi as the mask flew off.
“Samar! You asshole!”
Samar was holding his head, a welt fast turning purple across his cheek. “Why did you hit me?” he wailed.
“Why do you keep sneaking up on me?”
“I think my cheekbone is broken!” Samar said, wincing as he ran his fingers gently along his face.
The lights popped on suddenly, and Dre came running into the room. “What’s happening?”
“Ryan broke my cheekbone!”
Tree picked up the Bayfield Baby mask and nodded at Samar. “Was it him?” she asked Ryan.
“No. He was here when I got killed.”
“What?” Samar was completely lost.
“Where did you get this?” Tree asked him.
Samar shrugged. “It was lying in the hall. Somebody must have dropped it.”
A door banged open, and they all turned to see Dean Bronson storming into the room.
“Uh-oh,” said Dre.
“That’s it!” yelled the dean. “I’ve had it!”
Samar and Dre were already scurrying away.
“Where are you going?” Ryan yelled.
“It’s churro day at the cafeteria,” Samar called out as he raced for the door.
Dre was right behind him and shouted, “Nom nom!” as she followed him into the hallway.
Dean Bronson made a beeline for Ryan. “We’ve had four rolling blackouts, fried electrical circuits, broken bulbs all over campus, and it’s all because of your little science project.”
Tree looked at him through narrowed eyes. “What science project?”
* * *
—
Ryan loved the effect Sissy had when someone saw it for the first time. He’d never had the experience of taking it all in and seeing his fully formed creation for the first time, and he never would. He’d built it from the ground up with his own sweat, tears, and no small amount of love. He knew every inch of the device pulsing in front of them now, its glow reflected in Carter’s eyes as he stood slack-jawed in front of it. What Ryan was no longer sure of was how exactly Sissy functioned. Somewhere along the way, inspiration had taken over, and he’d become fully obsessed. His dreams were filled with equations and the potential of Sissy’s power, and he’d followed that vision as it helped lead the project far beyond his original designs. He knew what he’d intended for the machine to do; he’d never considered what might happen if it began to operate outside the realm of his intentions.
Once Dean Bronson had dropped the bomb that he was sending security to collect “your little science experiment” by 6:00 p.m., a stunned silence descended on the lab once more as Tree slowly circled the device, her face a mix of awe and horror.
“The Sisyphus Quantum Cooling Reactor,” Ryan said softly. “We call it ‘Sissy’ for short.”
He pointed out the features by way of explanation.
“These are proton lasers. When they fire, they cool the centrifuge, right here, to nearly below one nanokelvin.”
Tree stared at him as if he were speaking Klingon. He wiped his palms on his jeans and tried again.
“Basically, we’re trying to prove that time can be slowed down on a molecular level. It hasn’t worked yet, but we got some promising data after the device fired the other night.”
“When?” Tree demanded.
“12:01 a.m. yesterday.”
“Monday, the eighteenth.” Tree groaned and flopped down on the nearest desk.
“What?” Ryan asked.
She sighed. It was a long, heavy exhalation, and in it, Ryan heard the unbearable heaviness of a bone-deep exhaustion he’d not thought was possible in a white girl whose privilege was as big as her shoe collection.
“You created the time loop, dummy.”
With that, Tree stood up and grabbed the baseball bat, picking her way over the canyon of cables as he and Carter hurried to catch up with her in the hallway.
5
; They found Dre and Samar in the cafeteria munching on churros and joined them at one of the round tables by the windows, Ryan still trying to refute Tree’s theory as she explained it to his friends.
“That’s impossible,” he said. “Sissy was not designed to do that.”
“Maybe we’re just discovering what it really does.” Samar popped the rest of a churro into his mouth and licked the sugar off his fingers.
“An unintended reaction.” Dre considered this. “Maybe we thought we were slowing time, but what if we looped it instead?”
Tree nodded. “And now you’re stuck in this day. Congrats. Oh, and by the way? You’re going to die. Again…and again…and again.”
Ryan’s eyes went wide. “Carter, tell your girlfriend to stop trying to scare me.”
“She’s not my—” Carter cut himself off, his unfinished thought wafting through the air like a sour burp. Tree shot him a look.
“Wait,” he said. “Are you my girlfriend?”
Tree tried to suppress a little grin. (She did not succeed.)
“I don’t know,” she said. “Kinda.”
The smile that spread across Carter’s face was so goofy it made Ryan’s teeth ache.
“Oh my god!” he said with a healthy dose of sarcasm before he leaned in and turned up the volume. “Hello? She just said I’m going to die!”
Tree shrugged. “Well, you’d better figure out how to close the loop before the killer finds you again.”
“But I don’t know how it happened! It just fired on its own!”
Tree opened her mouth to respond but stopped short. “Oh, god.”
“What?” Carter followed her gaze across the cafeteria and saw Danielle, Tree’s shallow best frenemy and head Kappa bitch, coming at them in a hurry. She was decked out in a tailored school spirit outfit that fit her like she’d been melted and poured into it. From the look of things, he could tell she was on a mission—and she was pissed.
Tree smiled at Danielle as she reached their table. “Hey, Danielle.”
“Where were you?” she demanded.
Happy Death Day & Happy Death Day 2U Page 14