“What do you mean?” Tree asked.
“You ditched our house meeting.”
“It was canceled.”
“When?”
Tree raised her eyebrows. “Uh, after I kicked my murdering roommate out a window?”
“Exactly.” Danielle huffed. “Who’s going to pledge Kappa now that we have a death curse? We’re in crisis mode, Tree.”
Danielle’s tunnel vision refocused, allowing her to notice there were other people at the table. Sort of. As her eyes fell on Carter, Ryan, Samar, and Dre, she frowned and turned back to Tree.
“Ew,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Who are these people?”
Ryan watched as Samar’s eyes almost fell out of his skull. Is he actually drooling?
“I’m Samar,” he said, quickly wiping the sugar off his shirt, jumping up, and offering his hand to Danielle, who stared back as if she were unfamiliar with the custom of a handshake.
Ryan noticed Samar’s gaze drifting down to Danielle’s cleavage. He wasn’t the only one.
“Hey, Samosa!” Danielle snapped her perfectly manicured fingers in Samar’s face. “My head’s the middle one.”
Samar turned beet red and sank back into his seat, still sneaking glances up at her like a lovesick puppy who’d just been scolded for peeing on the floor.
Danielle turned back to Tree. “Anyhoo, call me as soon as you’re done with your creepy little Comic-Con meeting.”
She turned and left, her perfect hair flowing behind her like a cloud of glory as she pushed past the peons littering her path.
Samar watched her go, stunned. “Did she just call me ‘Samosa’?”
Dre nodded. “Yup.”
Ryan was about to come unglued. He slammed his hand down on the table, and everybody jumped.
“Guys. Focus. I really don’t want to die.”
“Look on the bright side,” Tree said. “At least you’ll come back. I died sixteen times.”
“Sixteen?” Ryan shouted and rubbed at his chest. “Hell no! That shit hurts!”
Carter held up a hand. “Okay, okay. Listen. I have an idea. I say we just find the safest possible place and wait it out.”
“Where?” Tree asked.
Ryan could hear the skepticism in her question. If what she’d told him so far was the truth, it might not matter where they went or what they did. The killer would find him. His invention had created a world where he could make an infinite number of different choices, but the outcome would always be the same: someone would find him and kill him.
According to Tree, his only hope was to find out who the killer was and kill that person first. Still, maybe Carter had a point. Maybe it would be better to find a super-safe place and hunker down with his homies. If nothing else, the odds were better for five of them against one killer than for just Ryan all on his own.
They had lunch in the cafeteria, but Ryan didn’t have much of an appetite. He was exhausted and drained, but the fear of being alone, or worse, trapped in a small space with a psychopath kept him from even entertaining the idea of sleep. They all cut their afternoon classes and hung out in the cafeteria, stymied by the virtual lack of anyone who’d want Ryan dead. As Ryan pointed out, he’d spent most of the last four semesters in the basement of the science building. How could anyone want to kill him? No one even knew who he was.
Finally, Carter checked his phone and announced it was time to change venues, so they waited for Samar to get one last churro, and then they followed Carter across campus to the safest place at Bayfield University.
* * *
—
When they arrived at the Bayfield basketball arena, the crowd was already cheering at full volume.
The announcer was calling the starting lineup, and Ryan realized that he’d never actually attended a basketball game once in his two years at school.
If it had been any other time, he might have actually enjoyed it. The energy in the crowd was contagious and exciting, and the cheerleaders weren’t terrible to look at. He understood why Carter had thought this might be the best place to wait out the night.
He also understood that Carter had made one small error in judgment. As soon as they walked through the doors, Tree froze and Ryan almost bumped into her. He followed her gaze up at the stands, and a chill ran straight up his spine. The view was a nightmare:
A sea of screaming fans wearing Bayfield Baby masks.
Hundreds of them.
Everywhere.
Ryan turned and glared at Carter.
“Safety in numbers!” Carter yelled over the roar.
Tree just gave a grim shake of her head.
“Who picks a creepy baby for a mascot anyway?” Ryan grumbled. “I knew I should have gone to MIT.”
They found their seats just before tip-off. The crowd went wild when Bayfield scored first, and Tree saw Tim sitting a few seats away with a guy she recognized from the track team. They looked like an ad for Beautiful College Men with Perfect Bodies and Square Jaws. She stared just a moment too long, and he looked up and saw her. Tree panicked and gave him a thumbs-up. She was afraid she was being ridiculous about this, but she was proud of him somehow. It couldn’t have been easy to come out to his whole fraternity, but here he was, a day later, with a guy who was as handsome and muscular as he was. Only gay men could look that good at a basketball game—or any time, really. It wasn’t fair, really, but you couldn’t fault them for wanting to hang out with each other.
Tim smiled sheepishly at her and nodded like, Yeah, he’s pretty cute, right?
Her phone buzzed, and she saw a text from her dad. It was a picture of Tree and her mom a few years ago, along with the message:
I’m really proud of you. She would be, too.
Tree couldn’t help but think about her lunch with her dad yesterday. They’d connected in a way she’d thought they’d buried along with her mom. She smiled, but Carter must’ve seen the tears in her eyes before he glanced down at the picture.
“That your mom?” he asked.
She nodded. “It’s ironic. I thought I was stuck in the same day for some big, cosmic reason—facing my mom’s death—but it had nothing to do with her. Turns out it was just some scientific fluke.”
Carter considered this as the Bayfield Babies called a time-out.
“That doesn’t make it mean any less, does it?” he asked.
Tree wasn’t sure how to answer.
She’d changed so much living, and dying, the day before again and again. She wished her mom could see who she was now. What good was it to become a better version of yourself if you couldn’t be with the one person who loved you the most in the world?
Tree glanced up at the scoreboard and beyond to the Division Championship banners hanging from the metal beams that held the roof far above them.
Can you see me, Mom? I hope you can.
She immediately felt like a fool. She’d died sixteen times just yesterday, but each time she came back, there was nothing to tell—no bright light, no hint of an afterlife. If anybody should know what lay beyond death, it was Tree, but she’d always reset the day right back in Carter’s bed.
She leaned against Carter’s arm a little closer. Maybe he was right. Does it mean any less if we’re just here because of a random act of science?
“I guess not,” she said, staring up at the banners in the rafters.
Carter leaned in, and just as Tree felt his lips on hers, the sirens blared.
6
The fire alarms were deafening. Everybody else in the arena seemed to think it was a prank, but Ryan’s stomach knotted up as the announcer came over the PA system:
Students and faculty, please make your way to the nearest exit. This is not a drill. Please exit in a calm and orderly fashion. Again, this is not a drill.
The crowd erupted
into groans and boos, and Ryan looked at Carter and Tree. Carter jerked his head toward the door, and they made their way down the bleachers and into the passage leading out of the arena.
The concrete hallway was packed with overhyped, rowdy guys who had clearly smuggled booze into the game with them. They pushed and shoved everybody along the way instead of just waiting their turn like normal human beings.
Ryan felt the terror rise in his throat as he felt the rush of people separate him from Tree and Carter. He glanced up to find that he was surrounded by a group of fans wearing Bayfield Baby masks, and the blood started to race in his ears. His eyes darted around in search of Carter and Tree, Samar and Dre, but he couldn’t see them. The masks continued to come at him, fast and thick.
It could be any of them.
The thought made Ryan stop dead in the middle of the corridor, frozen with fear. He took a deep breath and kept turning around, looking for Tree and Carter.
And there he was.
A man was standing stock-still in the middle of the current of bodies. He was wearing a black tracksuit and a baby mask, twenty feet away, right between Ryan and the gate out to the parking lot. The lightless eyes of the mask held Ryan in a hollow gaze.
Then he started pushing his way toward Ryan through the crowd.
Ryan was shaking as he spun around to fight his way upstream against the drunk and excited torrent of fans who were sweeping him toward his certain doom. He felt like he were caught in a wave so large he couldn’t tell which way was up. He was in full panic. Ryan couldn’t stop holding his breath, until he gasped for air and started screaming for anyone to help. But no one took him seriously. They either ignored him or elbowed him out of their way.
They think this is all a prank.
Ryan glanced over his shoulder and saw the psycho in the mask was gaining ground. Something flashed in the man’s hand. Ryan barely saw it for a split second, but he instantly knew it as the glimmer of a sharp blade.
The killer was seconds away from being close enough to grab him, and Ryan’s flight instinct finally kicked in. He lowered his shoulder, threw elbows, and fought the flow of bodies with everything he had until he reached a nearby door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Ryan burst through the door and into a cramped maintenance room. He stumbled along in the dim light, frantic and searching. Finally! Another door at the end. He had just stepped through it when he heard someone following in the first door.
The door slammed shut behind Ryan, and he ran deeper into the large storage room. Long rows of boxed items stacked in disorganized towers lined the rows. It was like somebody’s grandpa had been randomly stashing athletic equipment, merch, and supplies in his massive garage. He ran down the rows toward a huge supply cage that rose two stories at the back and slipped inside just as a door banged at the other end of the space.
Ryan moved as quietly as he could past more stacks of Bayfield sweatshirts, banners, flags, and foam fingers. He passed a row of standing mannequins wearing more Bayfield swag, each one with a baby mask. Behind him, he heard the door to the cage rattle and clang, the sounds so close, and Ryan tucked himself behind a stack of boxes in a far back corner. He was crouched under a metal stairway that led to the second level of the cage. He couldn’t stop shaking, and he covered his own mouth with his hand, hoping not to give himself away, hoping that he could hear the footsteps of the killer in time to flee.
The first footstep on the metal stairs just above him made him jump, and he bit down hard on his own fingers to keep from yelping in terror. The killer continued to climb, and then Ryan could see him walking across the perforated metal platform that formed the second story of the supply closet.
He was dripping with cold sweat, shivering in terror. He tried to scoot deeper into the corner under the stairs, but as he did, he bumped into something behind him. The killer’s footsteps above him stopped instantly at the noise. Suddenly, light from a cell phone flashlight flooded the area beneath the stairs. The killer was trying to find him, flashing the light back and forth, scanning the area all around him. Ryan squeezed his eyes closed and waited for the worst.
But after a couple of booming heartbeats, he heard the footsteps above him move on. The light was gone. Ryan stepped out from the corner beneath the stairs and seized the chance. It might be the last one he ever had. Silently, he doubled back the way he came, keeping his eyes trained on the killer’s shape above, watching the psycho in the mask move in the opposite direction.
As he stepped around the mannequins, one of them lunged at him. Ryan screamed as dead eyes opened behind the baby mask, and he felt his body being pinned back. The killer pressed him back against the wall and swung his blade high in the air.
Ryan yelled one more time as the knife tumbled down, down, down…and somehow missed him completely.
The knife clattered across the concrete floor as the killer crumpled beside it.
Light flooded the warehouse, and Ryan saw Tree, armed with a heavy bronze trophy.
“Holy shit!” Ryan shouted.
Above him, a voice called out, “What was that?” It was Carter.
“Down here!” Tree yelled.
Ryan heard footsteps racing across the upper platform of the supply cage. It must’ve been Carter up there looking for him.
Tree dropped the trophy with a metallic thud and reached over to hug him. He was still shaking like a leaf, soaked in sweat, and panting like a dog on a hot day.
“You okay?”
All Ryan could do was nod in shock as Carter bounded down the metal stairs.
“What the hell?” Ryan finally got enough air into his lungs to yell. “I thought you were the killer! Why didn’t you say something?”
“I was looking for you!”
Carter glanced down at the killer lying on the floor, out cold. He smiled at Tree.
“Damn. Good job.”
“I’ve had practice,” she said without smiling.
“Who is it?” Carter asked.
“Only one way to find out.”
Tree bent down and pulled off the mask, flinging it immediately away as she jumped back and all three of them yelled in shock.
Ryan rubbed his eyes and felt his knees start to shake underneath him.
Lying on the floor in front of them was himself. Ryan was awake, trembling, and he was also lying at his own feet, knocked out cold.
Tree and Carter both slowly looked up at him, then back down at the version of him on the floor.
Ryan wanted to tell them that this was a dream; that this was impossible.
But he could only muster two syllables:
“Da fuuuuuuuck?”
7
After a brief moment of extreme freak-out, Tree was finally the one to insist that Carter and Ryan stop trying to figure out why or how or what the actual hell was happening; they only had to snap the fuck out of their paralysis and accept that this was a thing. If Ryan #2 woke up, he’d try to kill Ryan again.
As usual, she was correct. Thank god somebody around here has a bias for action, Ryan thought. And of course it would be Tree. She was the one who had just lived yesterday sixteen times in a row.
They put the mask back on Ryan #2, and somehow Ryan and Carter managed to carry him back to the science lab.
They tied him up in a chair in the glow of Sissy. Then they all collapsed in a sweaty panting mess and tried to catch their breath and figure out what the hell to do next.
Carter broke the silence. He was still trying to reach for the most reasonable solution.
“You sure you don’t have a twin brother?” he asked. “Maybe you were separated at birth?”
“Of course I’m sure!”
Ryan had decided somewhere between the gym and the lab that this bonkers bullshit was his new normal now. Still, he was unprepared for the moment when Ryan #2 s
tarted to stir. As he came to, eyes blinking hard, the impostor seemed to realize the gravity of his situation.
And then, he spoke. “Oh, shit.”
“Oh, shit is right!” Ryan yelled at him. “Who are you?”
“Who do you think I am, dummy?” Ryan #2 shot back.
“He’s you,” Carter whispered, clearly trying to wrap his brain around the warped universe he now inhabited.
It didn’t help that Ryan shouted, “Duh!” at the top of his lungs—in perfect unison with his doppelgänger.
Tree was on a mission. “What the hell is going on?” she asked Ryan #2.
He briefly struggled against the power cords holding him but then gave up and answered her.
“I was trying to close the loop, but I somehow got knocked into a parallel time loop! We’re all in serious danger! The longer we exist in the same dimension, the worse things will get! It’s a butterfly effect! You have to kill him!”
Ryan was on his feet now. “Me?” he yelled.
Ryan #2 ignored him and kept talking to Carter and Tree. “He’s going to create bigger problems if you don’t stop him! Kill him! Now!”
“Screw that!” Ryan said, trying to get his friends’ attention. “Kill him!”
“You’re wasting time!” Ryan #2 told them. “Do it!”
“Dude! I’m your friend, not him!”
Ryan was on the verge of hysteria now as Carter and Tree looked back and forth between them, a couple of deer caught in headlights.
Ryan had to act fast. His only help in this whole bananas day had come from Carter and Tree. If they got confused or gave up on him now, he was on his own, and that was something he wasn’t ready to deal with. The only way out of this was to reset and send them all back to the beginning.
“Screw this,” he said. He reached over to the control console and powered up Sissy. His invention crackled to life with a hum that made the whole room vibrate as the asshole version of himself that was tied up in the chair started yelling, “Stop him!”
“Wait!” Tree turned to him. “Ryan, maybe you should stop.”
Happy Death Day & Happy Death Day 2U Page 15