The Mary Shelley Club

by Goldy Moldavsky

  “So you unleashed Felicity on him?”

  “If he confessed to the Saundra thing, then he’d confess to the game, and to the club. Felicity understands that.”

  I hated how clinical he sounded, talking about violence and death and betrayal like they were predetermined answers on one of his cheat sheets.

  “Understood,” I spat. “I bashed her head in.”

  Freddie watched me carefully. “You’re bluffing,” he said.

  “I’m not.”

  He must’ve heard something in my voice or seen something in my face, because his expression changed, almost like he was amused.

  “You think I’m bad. But of the two of us”—he poked me with the knife—“only you’ve killed somebody.”

  Despite everything—despite the feel of his knife as it threatened to break through my coat—I longed for another way out. I receded inside myself, searching for a glimmer of hope, for something that would take me out of this situation. A magic word that would make all of this stop.

  “Armadillo.”

  My voice was so small I doubted if Freddie fully heard me. I could barely hear myself. At first he seemed confused, but then his eyes dimmed, a black flicker of recognition dawning on him. We were back in that alleyway, before Thayer’s Fear Test, when I’d painted his face with my fingers and we’d discussed safe words, never thinking I’d ever need to use one with him. Back in a time before I really knew how screwed up this game could be.

  I let out a shaky sigh as I felt the pressure of Freddie’s knife lessen, his hand dropping slightly. But then something hardened in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Rachel, I can’t break the rules. I can’t let you go.”

  That wasn’t good enough.

  Maybe my mom was right. Maybe I should join the field hockey team, because I kneed Freddie in the groin so hard that he groaned and dropped his knife. He stumbled, reached for the blade, but I got to it first. I grabbed it and swung, knocking its hilt into the bridge of his nose, which exploded with a satisfying crunch. It was enough to knock him onto his back.

  I took off.

  I hoped the trees and the darkness were enough cover. After everything, after the truth, after seeing who was really behind the mask, I kept coming back to the fact that all of this was just a childish game. Not just the club itself, but even this very moment, when I was at once running for my life, panting for breath, and basically playing a fucking game of tag. Only, if I was caught, I was dead.

  My warring thoughts, my racing heart, the darkness of the park—it was all closing in on me, and before I realized it was there, I’d slammed into something. No, someone. I bounced back, expecting Freddie and already swinging my arms, but it was Bram.

  I recoiled but then I remembered I didn’t have to be scared. I was still gripping the knife in my hand. I held it up over my head like Norman Bates had taught me.

  “Rachel, wait.” Bram took a step back, his hands out, showing me that they were empty.

  “I know everything!” I barked, my voice shredded. “I know I’m the target!”

  “Rachel, I’m on your side.”

  “Bullshit!” Of course he would say that. I aimed the knife at his lying mouth. “I don’t believe you.”

  “You shouldn’t!” Freddie called, walking through the trees to us, a hand clamped over his bleeding nose. “Bram was in on it the whole time. He’s the Stu to my Billy Loomis!”

  Freddie walked up next to Bram and I swung the knife between the two boys to keep them back. It felt as useless as swinging a twig between two approaching lions. Both of these assholes were dangerous and I didn’t trust either of them. But there was something I could do—a last-ditch effort to see if Bram was lying.

  “Thayer told me we aren’t the only ones playing. What did he mean?”

  “I’ll tell you everything,” Bram said, but before he could say anything more, Freddie tackled me. The next thing I knew my mouth was shoveling snow and the knife had flown out of my hand. I scrambled up, searching for it, but by then, the knife was back in Freddie’s hands like it’d never left. He was so close that I had no time to run, only to brace myself as he lurched toward me. I raised my arms to shield myself, expecting to feel the sting of the blade slashing through my thick sleeves. As the knife came hurtling toward me, I shut my eyes instinctively.

  Instead, I heard a groan.

  When I opened my eyes, I saw that Freddie’s knife was shiny with red. And that Bram was holding a hand to his chest. The scene in front of me almost didn’t make sense, but the blood seeping through Bram’s fingers painted the picture for me. He stumbled backward, looking just as shocked as I felt. He turned to Freddie, as though to ask him why he’d done that, but when he opened his mouth to speak, only blood came sputtering out.

  As Bram slumped to the ground, Freddie turned to face me. “This is how it’s going to go,” he said, out of breath and sweating. “I’m going to tell the police that you were scared, kept talking about some guy from your break-in last year who followed you all the way to the city. You were afraid he was going to kill you. I’m going to say that it turned out to be Bram. I tried to fight him—I tried to save you, I really did—but I was too late. He got to you. He killed you.”

  Hearing Freddie narrate my death made me choke back a sob.

  “And when he came after me, well”—Freddie used the back of his hand to wipe the moisture from his forehead, never letting go of the knife—“We both know how easy it is to lie about ‘self-defense.’”

  I shook my head, my ears ringing, my eyes stinging with tears. “I never lied about that.”

  “Yes, you did.” The force of his words seemed to propel Freddie forward. “You want to know why all of this happened? Why I picked you? I did it because you lied, Rachel. You killed Matthew Marshall.”

  It was like he’d just pushed me off a cliff. Matthew’s name sounded so foreign coming out of Freddie’s mouth. It didn’t belong to him. I wanted to reach out, stick my hand inside Freddie’s mouth, and pull his tongue out. I would hold tight with my fingernails. I would pull until it tore off, until his face didn’t look a face anymore.

  I could’ve done that. And in another life I might have. But as I watched Freddie, fixing his grip on the knife, I recognized something in him. The monster inside.

  Freddie and I were two sides of the same coin. Fear had created me, lured out the monster who reacted recklessly, who’d killed Matthew. For Freddie it was anger that made him this way. I could see it so clearly now. Freddie was a puppet to his anger. But I wasn’t going to let my fear control me anymore. I wouldn’t be reckless.

  I would fight—I would do everything to stop him. But I knew now who I was. I might have done a monstrous thing once, but that did not make me a monster. I was a survivor. And that was much stronger.

  Freddie closed the gap between us until there was nothing but me and him. He raised the knife, but as he brought it down, the blade was wrenched out of his hand.

  Bram, risen from what I had thought was death, had the knife. He plunged the blade into Freddie’s back.

  The two of them fell to the ground.

  53

  I WOKE UP screaming. No nightmare this time, just blackness. I swallowed in air, reaching for the switch on my bedside lamp, but I was all nerves and my arm bolted out like a live wire, hitting the lamp. It teetered, but my mom’s hand caught it before it could fall to the floor.

  “Shh, here,” she whispered and turned the lamp on. The light immediately bathed everything in a warm glow. Mom sat on the edge of my bed and smoothed back my hair.

  I almost broke down and cried just seeing her. She told me she’d spend the whole night in my room, even after I pointed out that the only chair, perpetually piled with my worn clothes, was creaky old wood. I was so glad she hadn’t listened to me.

  “I’m sorry about the lamp. I’m such a mess. You shouldn’t have to stay up with me like I’m a child.”

  “Rachel, the lamp is fine. It’s okay to be a little on edge rig
ht now. You just went through something … unbelievable.”

  She sighed, a crease forming between her eyebrows. I knew my mom’s tells as well as she knew mine. The way she looked down at her hands because she didn’t want me to see her tears. The way her lips settled into a tight, straight line, mustering up resolve, strength. I recognized her tells because they were the same as mine.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  She looked at me, exasperated. “You didn’t even break the damn lamp.”

  “Not for that.”

  Mom sighed. “Jamonada. You don’t have anything to be sorry about. I’m sorry that these bad things keep happening to you. I was really hoping the city would be a fresh start.”

  I didn’t deserve her pity. I’d brought this on myself. I’d practically knocked on trouble’s door and begged to be let in. And now my mom was blaming herself.

  “So what happened?” she asked. She’d waited until now to broach the subject. She’d given me room to breathe when she’d gotten a call from the police, come to get me, sat with me in the back of the cab as the night blinked into day.

  The police had given her the facts—the pieces they’d found scattered in the little corner of Central Park where my nightmare had come to life. They’d found Freddie dead, with a rubber mask on his face, which they used to connect him to Lux’s accident. They were also going to reopen their investigation into Saundra’s death. They’d found both Bram and Thayer alive, Thayer barely breathing. Felicity hadn’t turned up, though, and I didn’t mention that she’d been there.

  And then there was me, curiously without any major bodily harm. They seemed suspicious, which meant they obviously weren’t horror fans. There was always someone left standing at the end. A F inal Girl.

  I told my mom a version of what I’d told the police. Freddie attacked me. He attacked Bram. And Bram did what he did because Freddie was about to kill me.

  I hated upsetting my mom, but she deserved to know what happened. It was the truth, which was something I had fought hard to tell.

  “I can’t believe it,” Mom said finally. “Freddie Martinez. He was such a good kid in all of my classes. I never would’ve guessed that he could be so violent.”

  Neither could I. But “violent” wasn’t the word I’d use. Freddie was evil. It was difficult enough facing your monsters when you knew what they were, but that was nothing compared to inviting them in and not having a single clue. Freddie had pulled the wool over my eyes since the first moment I’d looked at him. I felt like such an idiot, thinking about how his smiles had made me swoon, when really they were meant to blind me.

  Freddie’s death had only left me with more questions. That time he told me his deepest, darkest secrets, was he saying that all in a grand plot to deceive me? Every time we kissed, did he hate it? Did he want me to fall for him just so he could stab me in the back on the way down?

  The only answer that felt honest was yes. To all of it.

  Mom put her arms around me and let me cry on her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her again.

  “None of that,” my mom said. “You’re safe now. You don’t have to be scared anymore. But I’ll stay in your room for as long as you need.”

  “Go to bed, Mom.”

  “You sure?”

  Mom pinched my cheek as she searched my face, seeming to go over every freckle. Normally, if anyone looked this closely at me, I’d freak. I was sure they could see me for what I really was, the horrible person I’d become the night of the attack. But I knew better now. I wasn’t a monster.

  I was the one who’d defeated the monster.

  “I’m beat,” I said, meaning it. “I should get back to sleep.”

  Mom hesitated, like she was afraid to leave me alone. But eventually she pulled the blanket all the way up to my chin, tucking me in.

  “You’ve got a guardian angel,” she said. “I’m so grateful Bram was there.”

  The last I’d heard, Bram was in surgery, but it seemed like he was going to pull through.

  He had to. Because we needed to talk.

  54

  THE LAST TIME I’d seen Bram, my hands were covered in his blood. I’d used his phone to call for help in the park and stayed with him until it arrived. I’d tried to staunch the bleeding with my hands, and then I took my coat off and applied as much pressure as I could to the wound in his chest. By the time paramedics arrived, my arms were sore from pressing so hard. It’d been terrifying, being alone with him as he lay unconscious, bleeding into the snow.

  I didn’t know what state he’d be in now. Whatever it was, I’d thought it’d be more difficult to see him. Like maybe there’d be guards posted at his door, or restricted visiting hours and rules, or maybe he’d be flooded with too many visitors and I wouldn’t get a chance to talk to him. But all I had to do was say his name and a lady behind a desk told me his room number.

  Mom let me stay home from school. Well, she made me take the day off. But I couldn’t sit still at home. And when I told her I wanted to see Bram, she understood.

  I found his room and knocked, and after a moment I heard his voice. That distinctive low rumble. “Come in.”

  I opened the door slowly and peeked inside. It was a private room, and Bram was alone. He was sitting, propped up with two pillows, in his hospital bed. There was a bandage wrapped over his shoulder like a toga, and on the rolling table beside him was a pink plastic jug of water. I stepped inside and watched as he reached for the jug. He winced as he gripped the cup. I walked straight to him and took the cup from him. The sound of the liquid glugging from the spout was the only thing to break the silence. I handed him the cup and he nodded his thanks before sipping from it. Bram didn’t seem surprised to see me, but then, he never had. “You’re alone,” I said.

  “My parents were here all night,” Bram said. “I sent them home. My mother said she’ll be back with my favorite pajamas.”

  “You have favorite pajamas?”

  “They have a sushi print.”

  It was a tiny detail, but this was Bram. He did not divulge details, tiny or otherwise. I took it as a sign. Maybe it meant that he’d be more open with me. That there wouldn’t be any more secrets. I hoped, at least.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like I’ve been stabbed in the lung.”

  The weight of that statement was enough to plop me down into the chair beside his bed. It was the harsh reality of what had happened, of how lucky he was to be alive. And how grateful I was that he’d been there.

  “Thank you,” I said. The words were really not enough, but they were all I had.

  Bram shrugged, or attempted to, then winced again. “Thank you, too.”

  I shook my head, confused. He was the one in the hospital bed. He was the one who’d almost died. “For what?”

  “You saved my life,” Bram said. “You stopped the bleeding.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, but there seemed to be an unspoken understanding between us. He knew what it was like now to end a life, to do the worst thing you could possibly do to another human being. We shared that. But Bram wasn’t a bad person. He’d done what he had to do.

  I was finally learning to look at myself with the same kindness I was extending toward Bram. We were both fighters. We’d saved each other.

  “Bram, there’s something I have to know. Were you really not in on it with Freddie?”

  “Freddie picked you as his target and we let him,” Bram said slowly. “But I didn’t think it would go this far—none of us did. When he told us the plan for his Fear Test, we let him do it because we thought there was no way he would be able to pull it off. We didn’t think he’d have you hooked for months.”

  It stung, hearing this. And the look on my face must’ve been easy to read because Bram added, “No offense.” He gave me a small smile, as if realizing how ridiculous it sounded.

  Offended? Because I’d managed to get strung along by a maniac? Nah. “Thayer, too?”

  �
�Thayer really thought you’d beat Freddie at his own game. He didn’t think it’d go as far as it went either. We both wanted out.”

  I realized now that when Bram had told me to leave the club it was because he was trying to warn me. “I wish you would’ve told me.”

  “I couldn’t. It was one of our Fear Test tasks. Lie and wear the mask whenever Freddie asked.”

  I was consumed by a morbid desire to hear about Freddie’s plans to deceive me. I leaned into the curiosity. “Tell me his plan.”

  Bram took a deep breath even though it looked uncomfortable. “Freddie wanted to slowly weave in the mask any chance he got. He wanted you to hear about it. I guess he was hoping it’d trigger you or something, that you’d be freaked out because of your break-in.”

  He’d been right. “So at my Fear Test, when Lux claimed she saw someone in a mask?”

  “That was Freddie.”

  Of course it was. My gut had told me as much. Bram himself had told me it was him, too.

  “I knew he’d worn that stupid mask, but chasing after Lux went too far. I was pissed at him for what happened to her. He told me that Lux tripped. He swore he didn’t touch her.”

  “And the night of Felicity’s Fear Test? I was right, wasn’t I? It was you who Sim kicked in the ribs.”

  Here, Bram looked even more contrite. “Yes.”

  I nodded, feeling vindicated, and somewhat relieved that all the pieces that had seemed so scattered before were now clicking into place. But with the clarity came biting anger. I had to remind myself that Bram had fought for me. That if I could trust anyone, it was the guy who had a hole in his lung for my sake.

  “So it was Freddie who spray-painted Saundra’s plaque?”

  “He would rather get us all in trouble than risk the game ending prematurely. There was only his Fear Test left and he was going to make sure it happened one way or another. He didn’t tell any of us he was going to vandalize her plaque. We were as shocked to see our names up there as you were.”