I hurry back to the Sink or Swim ride and scurry up the stairs, two at a time, tripping on the tread at the very top. I kneel down by Parker’s side, trying to catch my breath. “We’ll get through this,” I tell him.
I doubt that he believes me. I hardly believe myself.
Parker turns away from the tank, trying not to show too much emotion, even though his wounds are raw and weeping.
I pop open the emergency kit. Inside is a picture of first aid supplies. Otherwise, the box is empty. My heart clenches. My face flashes hot. I want to scream at the top of my lungs, but I hold in my emotion too.
I reach into my bag, grateful to have brought along a few tea bags. Since his skin is already wet, I’m able to apply them directly to the wounds, placing one on the bite on his thigh, another on the bite on his waist, and then my last one on his ankle.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Tea contains tannins,” I explain, pressing the tea bag against his ankle. His calf muscle flexes in response. “And tannins help clot blood. They also act as a natural astringent, which means there may be less chance of an infection.” The golden hair that covers his legs appears slightly curly from the dampness. I wonder how it would feel against my skin. I swallow hard, trying to stay focused, noticing a large bite mark at the back of his knee. I flip one of the tea bags over to the fresh side and press it firmly against the spot.
Parker flinches from the pressure. “Lucky for me that you just happen to carry tea bags around in your purse.”
“I think I may’ve mentioned that tea is sort of my vice.”
“Sounds more like a serious problem. Should I be staging an intervention?”
“Surprisingly chipper for escaping a tank full of hungry eels, aren’t we?”
“Are you kidding? If I knew it’d mean getting this kind of treatment, I’d have been eel bait hours ago.”
I apply a bit more pressure to the wound. “You’re a really good clotter, you know that?”
“Should I feel special, or do you say that to all your flesh-eating-eel victims?”
“You should feel special,” I say, surprised by his persistence in flirting, especially all things considered.
I spend the next several minutes treating his wounds before I can no longer hold in the question: “What’s happening here?”
Parker sits up and reaches for his clothes, his whole demeanor shifted—from somewhat optimistic to totally dismal.
“I mean, what would’ve happened if you hadn’t gotten out of there?” I continue.
He pulls his T-shirt on over his head—over his smooth, tan chest. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Okay, but we have to think about it. You could’ve died in there.”
“Bottom line: you shouldn’t go on your nightmare ride.”
“Is that why we haven’t seen the others?” I ask. “Because they didn’t make it out of their own nightmare rides?”
“Unless maybe they escaped?”
“And maybe Blake has nothing to do with this contest.”
“There’s no maybe there. I suspected that something was off as soon as we stepped inside those gates. When Justin Blake appeared on the screen, I could tell that it wasn’t real—just a bunch of sound bites edited together. The real Justin Blake has too much to lose.”
“So where do we go from here?”
“Tell me about your nightmare,” he says.
“I want to.”
“But what? My sexy bloodstained physique intimidates you?” He tries to stand, but the bites on his legs make him wince. He grabs his pants anyway, my cue to turn around.
A second later, I hear something drop to the ground. His boxer shorts, sopping wet. I can see them out of the corner of my eye. The sound is followed by the swish of jeans as he yanks them on.
“It’s safe,” he says.
Still sitting, I swivel around to face him. His hair is damp and tousled. The cotton of his T-shirt sticks to the muscles of his chest. And his jeans hug his upper thighs.
“Well?” he asks.
At first I think he’s asking me how he looks. But then he sits back down, takes my hands, and tells me that I can trust him. “If it’ll make you feel any better, I can tell you about a real nightmare that I once had.”
“No more stories about eels?”
“No eels,” he says. “When I was seven, I wandered off in a department store and couldn’t find my mom afterward. I ended up in the boys’ bathroom, crying in one of the stalls. Finally, a worker found me and brought me up to the service desk, where my mom was crying too. Anyway, for months afterward, I had nightmares about getting left behind in various places—on a road trip, at the grocery store, in the shopping mall—no matter how many times I made my mother promise that she’d never lose me again.”
“Oh my gosh, that’s so sad.”
“Now, your turn. And keep in mind that nothing you say about your nightmare is going to freak me out.”
“Don’t be too sure about that.”
“You’re a lot stronger than you know,” he says. “I mean, you made it here, didn’t you? You entered this contest, you got on a plane.”
“My parents were murdered,” I tell him. “Six years ago. In their bedroom. I was home when it happened.”
Parker studies my face, perhaps waiting for me to tell him it’s only a joke. “Who did it?” he asks, finally.
“They never caught the guy, but they know he’s a serial killer. He murdered a few other people before my parents, always playing music at the scene of the crime.”
His faces furrows. “Music?”
“Scores from various horror movies—Psycho, The Shining, Halloween. He was a big fan of the genre. His killings—the style in which he did them—were copycat murders from the films. For my parents, it was the bedroom scene from Haunt Me.”
Parker grimaces, perhaps picturing the scene. “I know that film.”
“That’s one of the biggest reasons I came on this trip—to meet people who love horror, that is. To learn from them. To see horror as a source of entertainment, rather than the bane of my existence.”
“And how’s that working out for you so far?”
“I’m cured, can’t you tell?” I look at the tank. “Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water.”
“Jaws II, have you seen it?” He smirks.
“What do you think?” I smirk back. “Anyway, the guy who killed my parents, we made eye contact. I saw his face. And after everything was over, I had to change my identity and move in with a foster family. Natalie was right…I don’t like being filmed. I don’t want to risk that he might one day recognize me.”
Parker looks down at our hands, still gripped together, and for five horrible seconds, I think he’s going to let go. But instead he squeezes my hands tighter.
“His eyes have haunted my nightmares ever since that night,” I continue. “I don’t want to relive what happened.”
Parker looks deeply into my eyes. Part of me wants so badly to glance away. But I don’t, even as he breaks the clasp of my hands, and slides his fingers along my face, setting fire to my skin. “Do you want to hear what a nightmare would be for me now?”
“What a nightmare would be?”
“Going home after this weekend and never seeing you again.”
“Seriously?” I ask, waiting for the punch line.
His eyes remain steady and somber. “Promise me that won’t happen, okay?”
“I promise.” I nod.
He runs his thumb over my lips, awakening every last nerve inside my body. My head feels spinny as his lips press against mine, feeding the aching deep inside me. His kiss is soft and sweet and salty inside my mouth. My hands move over the muscles in his forearms. Heat spills ac
ross my thighs and over my hips. I want so badly to crawl up right inside of him—into the part that knows no fear.
“Ivy,” he whispers, once the kiss ends. He’s slightly out of breath.
Meanwhile, my entire body quivers.
“You’re right,” he says. “We’re going to get through this.”
“Maybe we should wait the night out,” I suggest. “It’ll be sunrise before we know it.”
“Except I don’t think sunrise is going to get us out of here.”
“So, then what do you suggest?”
“Keep looking for hotspots, keep trying to find a way out. And, in the meantime, try to focus on what happens after we get out of here.” His pale blue eyes stare into mine, and once again I don’t look away.
I don’t ever want to look away again.
“There’s so much about you that I want to know,” he continues.
“Really?” I ask, almost unable to imagine the idea of anyone wanting to know me: this person who’s seen too much, this girl who might still be in danger.
“Will you let me?”
I nod, unable to hold myself back. And so I lean in to kiss him again, almost forgetting where we are, and what we’re doing here.
“I’m not going to let you go,” he says, once the kiss breaks. “After the weekend, I mean. I think it’s fairly safe to say that you’re stuck with me. If that’s okay, that is.”
“Definitely okay.”
Parker reaches out to take my hand, and together we move down the stairs, beyond his ride, past a Forest of Fright Tilt-A-Whirl and a ride called Nightmare Alley. We round a corner.
And that’s when I see it.
Again.
We passed by it when we first entered the park, only I wasn’t quite ready to look at it then—not that I’m feeling particularly ready now.
My nightmare ride.
A small yellow house with a white picket fence.
“Ivy?” Parker asks.
I look toward the door, silently acknowledging the fact that I’ve been dreaming about my parents’ killer for the past six years, and so when you stop to think about it—“I’ve given myself six years to prepare for this moment,” I say.
“Don’t do this.” He grips my hands, as if trying to squeeze some sense into me.
I pull away, feeling a chill. “I have to,” I whisper.
Keeping a firm grip on my mother’s necklace, I begin up the walkway, anticipating what awaits me inside. Is it possible that I’ll learn something about my parents? Or maybe about that night?
Parker calls out to me, telling me to shout if I need anything, promising to come looking for me if I’m not out in ten minutes.
The door swings shut behind me. A foyer light brightens the entryway. The layout of the house is different from my childhood home. The stairwell is on the left rather than the right, there’s no hallway closet, and the walls are painted blue rather than covered with rose-colored wallpaper.
There are framed photographs on the wall. They’re obviously different from the ones that had lined the stairwell of the real 3 Mulberry Road, but still the idea is the same. They’re photographs of me, available online: a picture taken by the local paper at my eighth-grade graduation and a photo of me on a recent school camping trip.
My bedroom is to the right at the top of the stairs. My parents’ room is on the left. Their door is closed. My head feels woozy. I reach out, my fingers trembling, to try the knob, but it’s locked.
I head into my room and flick on the light, but it doesn’t work. Only the dim hallway light seeps into the space. Exactly like that night.
I breathe in and out, trying to stay present in the moment, as Dr. Donna advises.
My room looks right: the pink paisley bed linens, the faux-fur beanbag chair, the soccer banners and Katrina Rowe posters.
I sit on the bed, flashing back to that night—awakening from a thrashing sound across the hall, then hearing a gasp, a sputter, and an agonizing moan. Those noises were followed by a stifling silence, interrupted by a voice: “And now it’s your turn.”
I pull Taylor’s cell phone from my bag, remembering the phone receiver that I had that night—a cordless extension from the kitchen.
I dial 9-1-1, just as I did that night, knowing the phone won’t work. And I’m right. It doesn’t. Instead, a thrashing sound tears through the silence.
It’s happening again. I’m twelve years old. I pinch the skin on my knee.
Music begins to play—a blend of violin and viola. I clench the bed covers, still trying to get the phone to work. But then it slips from my grip and falls to the floor. Bile fills my mouth. I swallow it down and take a deep breath, reminding myself:
I’m no longer twelve years old.
Parker is right outside.
The door to my parents’ bedroom opens. The music grows louder. A man’s there, dressed as the Nightmare Elf in a red suit and hat. He’s wearing a mask. The elf’s grin is frozen on his face.
“Good evening, Princess,” he whispers. “It’s very nice to meet you.” The words send shivers all over my skin.
Unlike six years ago, there are no sirens in the background, no response to any 9-1-1 calls.
I clench my teeth, feeling a flood of emotion overcome me: fear, anger, regret. There have been six years of emotions before I got to this moment.
Before I got to this moment, I took self defense classes every Saturday morning. And slept with a kitchen knife under my pillow. And walked to and from school with a can of bug spray in my pocket. I imagined this very scene at least a thousand times, and yet it still feels like a dream.
A nightmare.
I mean, it can’t possibly be happening, can it?
He turns the knife in his gloved hand. It’s a six-inch, spring-spike, double-action blade, like the one that killed my parents.
I reposition myself on the bed, unfolding my legs from beneath me, and pressing my back up against the wall.
He moves closer. Standing over me, he pokes the tip of the blade into my neck. “You knew I’d come back, didn’t you?”
The blade pokes deeper with the motion of my throat as I swallow. He cocks his head, studying my face.
I press my back harder against the wall. My legs bent in front of me, I kick outward. My heel plunges into his gut.
He stumbles back, but comes at me with the knife again, holding it at my jugular. “A quick incision is all it’ll take. Just tell me when you’re ready.” He glides the blade across my skin. “Be a good girl now,” he sings.
Just then, something pelts against the window. He turns to look and I grab his arm. I bring it up to my mouth and bite down through his sleeve, into his flesh. He lets out a wail. The knife drops from his grip.
I reach for it, but he snatches it away before I can get it. I move quickly, scrambling to the foot of the bed, struggling to get to the door. But he grabs my leg, holding me in place, slashing my ankle. At least four inches.
I tumble off the bed. My cheek smacks against the hardwood floor. Lying on my belly, I search the room for something—anything—to protect myself with. I spot a metal ruler on the desk. I begin toward it, grappling forward on my elbows, but he steps on my hand, freezing me in place. The heel of his boot grinds down into my fingers, cracking the knuckles, burning the skin.
Parker shouts my name from outside.
“Your friend won’t be able to get in,” he says, standing over me now. “The doors are locked. The windows have bars. It’s just you and me now, Princess.”
I roll over to face him and he kneels down, pinning me against the floor with the knife. I swallow, feeling the point of the blade cut into my skin, just above my collarbone. A trickle of blood runs across my chest, soaking into his glove.
Breathing hard, I look towar
d his waist, wondering if I could kick him again—if it’d make enough of an impact from this angle, or if exerting myself would only push the knife in deeper.
“Please,” I whisper, able to hear the desperation in my voice, trying to think of something clever to say.
A giant crash sounds. I feel it in my bones, but it’s in the room. The window broke. He straightens up to look.
I kick him—hard—plunging the heel of my shoe into his groin. He doubles over, letting out a grunt. The knife flies from his grip. I crawl across the floor and manage to grab it.
I get back on my feet, holding the knife out toward him, gripped in both hands.
He straightens up again. “Be careful with that, Princess.” Standing just a couple of feet away, he approaches me slowly, his arms extended.
“Don’t!” I shout.
He lunges at me. His hands wrap around mine as he tries to wriggle the knife from my grip.
“No!” I thrust the knife forward, plunging it deep into his side, in the space between his ribs.
He lets out a gasp. His eyes slam shut. He stumbles back.
I turn away and bolt out of the bedroom, closing the door behind me.
The door to my parents’ room is open a crack. I push it wider, able to picture their room that night: the blood on the wall, over the bed, soaking the sheets, filling the cracks of the hardwood floors.
I cover my mouth, shaking my head.
“Ivy!” Parker shouts from outside, snapping me back to the moment.
I tear down the stairs, missing at least three of the treads toward the bottom. I propel forward, headfirst, somehow catching myself. I go to open the front door, but it’s the kind that locks automatically. The lock doesn’t turn. It seems to be stuck. I can’t quite get my fingers to work right.
I can hear him upstairs. The clunking of footsteps, the thwacking of wood against the wall as he flings the door open.
Finally, I get the lock unstuck and flee outside, slamming the door behind me.
EXT. IVY’S NIGHTMARE RIDE—NIGHT
A small yellow house with a picket fence and bars on the windows. I’m just about to throw another brick at the window glass, when I hear something at the door—the sound of a LOCK TURNING. The knob RATTLES.