Dead End: Midnight Hollow

by Penn Cassidy

  I thought some more about that psychic and his ominous words of warning. They continued to swirl around in my brain until I thought I might go crazy. He’d said something dark was coming for me, something not right. What could that possibly mean? Did he mean my bullies? The guys? Were they planning a prank? I didn’t think so.

  His words felt too heavy for something as little as that. I’d been pranked plenty. I’d had my locker filled with lamb's blood, had my shampoo switched with crafting glue, and had the tires on my car slashed more times than I could count. Besides, we weren’t in high school anymore, they had a lot more going on in their lives now that didn’t involve wasting their time on me.

  So no, that wasn’t it. His warning still curdled my stomach. I felt nauseous as I sat alone, watching the fields rush by in the moonlight. I knew Mads had likely forgotten about the whole encounter by now. She probably brushed it off as a crazy person’s scheme to con two young girls out of money. But he hadn’t taken my money. He hadn’t wanted anything from me but the promise that I’d keep my eyes open. I wished I could have gone back to ask him more, but Maddie had been ready to get the hell out of there fast. I didn’t blame her. The entire situation was sketchy.

  A chorus of howling filled the silence and snapped me out of my dark thoughts. I stiffened, sitting up a little straighter in my seat. Were those…wolves? I didn’t think this county had wolves, but they had to be because it sure as hell didn’t sound like dogs. They were howling in sync like a song, a beautiful, haunting song that had the hairs on my arm standing on end. A few others on the bus heard it too, and several people were waking up, looking around a little disoriented. There was a nervous murmuring through the bus as it slowed to the fifteen mph speed limit.

  We were nearly home now. I could see the Sunset Hollow Graveyard just up ahead behind the thick orchard that split Farmer Orson’s vast property, which went for miles. Even from here, as we sloped down a small incline, I could see the wrought iron gate standing tall, peeking out of the rolling fog. Farmer Orson’s corn field was on the other side of the street, and it was split into two halves on either side of the orchard up ahead.

  The wolves were howling still, growing louder, and I shivered because the road veered off soon, as we’d be headed for a small road that ran through the orchard and over a small canal street. This section of road at night always gave me the creeps.

  The moon cast an eerie orange glow into the fog that covered the road as far as I could see. It billowed between the cornstalks we passed and slithered up the pole of one of Farmer Orson’s many scarecrows, making it look like it was smiling at the bus as we slowly drove by. I didn’t know if it was just the fact that it was Halloween night that was spooking me out, but there was a weird sort of electric charge in the air. I felt like my blood was crackling and my skin itched. I couldn’t wait for this night to be over. I just wanted to curl up on the couch with Mads and watch some horror movies until I passed out.

  I shot off a quick text to Auntie Pip, letting her know we were about five miles outside of town. I’d parked my car behind the college, and I wasn’t looking forward to the long trek through the dark to get it. Especially when I was still feeling creepy vibes from Frank’s words rattling around in my head.

  The bus jolted to the side suddenly, and I flew forward, grappling for the seat in front of me before my face hit it first. Everyone was awake now, as several loud thumps hit the outside of the bus. People were shouting and struggling to stand, trying to figure out what was going on.

  “What was that?” someone yelled from the front in panic.

  Were we crashing? I righted myself and grabbed onto Maddie’s hand when she startled awake and sat up with wide eyes.

  “What’s going on?!” she yelped, eyes frantically searching in a sleepy daze. “Toby?!” Her fingers squeezed mine tight as she realized something was wrong.

  “I don’t know, but grab a hold of something. I think we hit an animal…” I craned my neck to see down the aisle of the bus as we started swerving on the road. That would have been a big fucking animal.

  More thuds hit the front, and several people screamed. The orange glow of the moon was instantly obscured by blackness, and the whole bus was shrouded in shadows. The thundering sound grew deafening when the bus began to shake. Maddie and I, like most of the others, scrambled to see out the side window. My eyes widened at what we found. What looked like hundreds of vampire bats were flinging themselves at the side of the bus, the sound of breaking bones echoing through the windows as blood smeared down the sides after they dropped away from the glass. They slammed into us from all sides before falling away and doing it over again. They were swarming so thickly that they obscured the light almost completely.

  Many of them hit so hard that through the blood, spider web like cracks appeared as if they were going to come smashing through the glass. They just kept coming, and when I looked around, I could see that it was the same for every single window on the bus. I scrambled away from the window, backing into the aisle just as the bus rocked sideways. I flailed, knowing I was about to crash into the aisle hard, but I never made it that far. Hands hooked under my arms, catching me mid fall, and I heard a low grunt behind me.

  I scrambled to sit up, and the strong hands fell away. I looked over my shoulder to find Jason standing there, palms hovering near me, as if ready to catch me if I fell again. Our eyes held, even through the violent rocking of the bus, and something strange passed between us. He’d helped me, saved me from what would have been a nasty fall that could have broken my neck… But why?

  I didn’t have time to contemplate, because the next thing I knew, the bus slammed forward roughly, teetering to the side before slamming back down on the apsalt. I heard the screeching of tires on asphalt, and more of that sickening thudding and the splattering of the bats hitting the side. Howls still rent the air through the screams that echoed in my ears. The world seemed to teeter on its axis for a moment. I screamed, Maddie screamed, and so did everyone else.

  This was why all school and charter busses should come equipped with fucking seatbelts. Shit like this was why. We were going to fucking die, all for a stupid carnival that wasn’t even that fun. I should have driven my own car, but nooo. The carnival grounds didn’t have parking for large crowds. These idle thoughts flooded my brain, but I was pretty sure it was just chatter to keep the terror out. I already hated cars, ever since the accident that took my parents, and had a panic attack each time I got behind the wheel.

  The bus never righted itself. In the blink of an eye, we were hurtling sideways, and I felt us tilting downwards. The nose of the bus was taking us vertical, so I assumed we were careening down some kind of hillside. People were falling all over the place, bodies slamming into one another. I tried to grab Maddie’s hand, but I watched in horror as she was ripped away, body flinging down the bus towards the front.

  “Maddie!” I shouted with a desperate cry.

  Something hard hit my head, and I realized quickly in a daze that I was plastered against the roof of the bus. The noise was deafening, like the roar of an ocean, or an oncoming freight train. All I could see in the darkness were the terrified eyes of the other passengers. There was blood everywhere, and I heard bones cracking, which caused vomit to rise up my throat, and guttural screams of agony all around me. I was pretty sure my own scream was mixed in there too, but I couldn’t be sure. It was all happening so fast.

  The last thing I remembered, before the sound of shattering glass and bending metal filled my ears, was locking eyes with a pair of familiar green ones filled with so much terror, it was staggering. I heard Norman’s scream just as the darkness crashed over me…

  I blinked my eyes open in what seemed like both one small second and a lifetime later, nothing but orange surrounding me. My eyes adjusted, and I saw a hazy orange fog was floating calmly above me. Beyond that, I could see stars and that massive orange blood moon hovering overhead.

  My brain gave a pulse of pain as I
struggled to sit up. I could immediately smell burning rubber and coppery blood in the air as the accident came barreling back into my memory all at once. A sob ripped from my throat, but ended in a sputtering cough tinged with blood as I toppled onto my hands and knees, my hands sinking into the grass as I crawled. My skin was covered in black soot, and my dress was torn to shreds.

  When my ears popped, sound exploded around me suddenly. I could hear the crackling inferno of the fire blazing in the distance and a cacophony of whimpers from every direction. I was in the middle of a barren field that used to be crops, and all around me were my old classmates, scattered like leaves in the wind, nursing all sorts of horrible wounds that told me some wouldn’t be waking up again. I saw so much blood that I was ready to vomit.

  My throat was so thick with smoke, I coughed and gagged as I crawled around, looking for Maddie desperately. I needed to find her. I needed to find her and the guys immediately. Then we needed to get to a phone, because I must have lost mine in the chaos. In the distance, I saw the bus, torn to shreds with tendrils of smoke leaking from it. I couldn’t say what compelled me to do it, but suddenly, I knew I had to get to the bus. The urge was overwhelming and too all-consuming.

  So I crawled hard and fast, pain radiating through my body. I tried to see past the stinging in my eyes and feel past the aches in my joints or the oozing cuts littering my skin. I pulled myself closer to the crumpled pile of metal. So far, I hadn’t seen any dead bodies, but it was pretty hazy out there. I heard plenty of screaming in the air surrounding the crash. I was somewhat glad I couldn’t see completely, there had to be dead bodies scattered around the crash.

  I made it to the bus and realized that it was only the back end of it. The rest was completely torn away, and I could see it a little farther down the way, lying on its side with the engine smoking. I frowned at the chaotic scene. I didn’t think we’d been going nearly fast enough for this severe of a wreck. But those bats… It was like they came out of nowhere and targeted the bus specifically.

  Ripping my way into the broken cabin, I shuffled torn seats, purses, and personal items out of the way. It was like crawling my way through the apocalypse. It was dark inside, and without the light of the moon to guide me, I was running on instinct. The smell of gasoline was pungent, and something dripped from the roof. I didn’t want to think about what it could be. Frantically, I searched. I moved with tunnel vision, ignoring my own wounds to find Maddie and the guys. I wasn’t prepared in the slightest for what I found as my world tilted on its axis.

  I screamed in rippling agony the moment I spotted Jason’s lifeless grey eyes staring upwards, his jaw slack and his throat hemorrhaging blood. He was half covered by a torn seat with a piece of metal stuck right through his abdomen. He was gone. There was no life left in his face. I was screaming as I fought to get to him, shoving things out of the way, repeating his name over and over again, as if he’d pop up and tell me he was okay.

  I threw a sheet of what used to be the roof off to the side, but staggered back, slicing my hand on a jagged edge of metal. Norman was there, covered in blood and three feet away from Jason. His neck was bent at an odd angle, and his green eyes, that not twenty minutes ago were glaring right into mine, were lifeless.

  Oh, god, oh god, what do I do?! Don’t fucking leave me!

  I managed to find the strength to pull myself up and over the last few seats, and immediately gagged, spitting off to the side when I saw both Freddy and Michael lying there, only five more feet away from where Jason and Norman were. They were dead, there was no question about it. Nobody could survive wounds like that. All four of my oldest friends were gone. It was gruesome. It was wrong and unnatural, something no one should ever have to see in their whole lives. I screamed so loud, I didn’t even sound like me anymore.

  This couldn’t be real. It had to be a nightmare… Maybe I fell asleep on the bus, and soon I’d wake up back in Sunset Hollow, everyone safe and unharmed.

  But it was real. I could feel it in my bones, all of this was happening. My friends were dead. I was hurt, I didn’t know how badly…and Maddie. Where the fuck was Maddie?!

  The world began to spin as my body locked up. Every single sound for miles dissipated in seconds. It was like time slowed, and all I could hear was the thump, thump, thump of my heart. It beat like an ominous drum, pulsing in my ears. What felt like liquid cold rushed over my whole body, filling my veins with ice. Fog from outside the bus rolled through the broken windows like water, as if I was somehow pulling it inside. It swirled around the floor of the bus like undulating waves, crawling up the seats and around my legs and torso

  I stared at the four people that had always held my heart, tears streaming down my cheeks. I couldn’t accept it. How could they be gone? These boys who’d turned into men right under my nose. My first loves, my most solid enemies. How could they just not…be anymore?

  A strange calm fell over me. Eerie. Slow. Cold. It was like I was suddenly detached from my body and my emotions. The fog wrapped around me tighter, thicker. Even though I was inside the mangled bus, a sudden wind blew around me, whipping my hair around my face, and in the distance, I could hear the crash of thunder. Through the orange tinged fog, bright flashing lights lit the night with electric green as I stared at guys' corpses.

  Then I grew angry. I could feel the rage filling me up as I cursed the universe or whatever god decided this was supposed to happen exactly one year to the day that my world fell apart. Some force compelled me to move, and my body jerked forward as if pulled on a string as I made my way to Jason first, staring into his sightless eyes. Reaching down, I cupped his cooling cheek in my palm for two slow heartbeats, icy breath whooshing from between my parted lips.

  Words flew through my brain, words I didn’t recognize in a language I didn’t know. They were clear and insistent, and so I spoke them aloud.

  “Idcirco praecipio tibi ut vivere!”

  I screamed the words through the whipping, swirling wind. Thunder crashed, nearly drowning them out, and lightning slammed into the side of the bus, rocking it like waves.

  I did the same to Michael, Norman, and Freddy. I touched their faces, and the cold fled my body and seeped into theirs. I chanted those words over and over again, and each time I did, lightning struck the ground inches from the bus.

  It was just a touch. I shouldn’t have, they were dead. I should have been screaming. I should have been stumbling back out of the bus and waving down an ambulance. Instead, I was caressing the dead, saying our last goodbye that I’d never really fully be able to do.

  As my fingers left Freddy’s cheek, that coldness in my bones intensified. I felt frozen and slow, so I staggered backwards, toppling over onto what was left of a bench seat. My head hit the wall of the bus, and my eyes rolled to the side where I spotted a pale hand sticking out of a pile of torn metal. I grasped the hand with the slim fingers that were all too familiar, and it was ice cold, unfeeling and dead. I squeezed my eyes tight and repeated the words one last time, giving it all I had until my body felt like giving up.

  I knew I was dying then. I knew it better than I knew my own name. So I finally looked down, brought my palm to my abdomen, and pulled away fingers covered in thick, warm blood. I should have been afraid. I should have felt…something. Anything. But I only felt cold.

  As my mind began to wander and my consciousness waned, the last thing I could remember with perfect clarity was the orange fog that continued to pour into the bus like water, filling it up until I could no longer see the corpses of my oldest friends. The world went silent before it all fell away.

  One Year Earlier

  “I have to be there, Mom, all my friends are expecting me to show up. I’m the only person in my school who never shows up to this stuff. Besides, I’m almost eighteen. I think that’s plenty old enough to go to one small Halloween party.” Gripping the back seat of the car, I leaned forward, begging as if my life depended on it.

  “Absolutely not, October. We alrea
dy talked about this. I don’t want you out on Halloween, and that’s final. When you do turn eighteen, you can do what you want, but until then, you follow my rules.” Mom turned her head slightly, her expression stern and telling me without words that we’d reached the end of the discussion.

  I sat back into the leather seat with a scowl, my arms crossed over the fabric of my cheer uniform. Annoyance bloomed in my chest and simmered just like always. It was like she wanted me to resent her. Literally everyone at my high school would be at the party. It was being held at the old barn on Mill Street. Maddie had been practically on her knees begging me to go with her. The guys would be there too, and we had a lot to talk about, like where our relationship was headed and such. So many secrets to finally spill…

  I’d done some things that I wasn’t proud of, but I wouldn’t apologize for following my heart. I refused to be sorry for stolen kisses and secret touches. The only thing I was sorry for was not being completely transparent with the guys. I needed to be straight with them, and I’d thought this party would have been the perfect time to do so, but apparently, my parents didn’t care.

  Our friendships were changing. If I was being honest, they’d been changing for a while now, but it was time we figured out what to do about it. There were four of them and one of me… It was all so confusing, and someone was bound to end up getting hurt. Probably me.

  I didn’t know how to tell all four of them that I’d kissed each of them separately behind their backs without meaning to. Okay…maybe I did mean to, but I hadn’t meant to lie about it. It was a surprise every time it happened. I never set out to hurt anyone, and you honestly couldn’t pay me to choose between them, because I loved all four of them equally. I finally knew that all these feelings I’d been harboring for Jason, Michael, Freddy, and Norman were real, and they were mutual. I loved them, and deep down, I was pretty sure they loved me back. But would that love disappear when they found out?