The Dead List

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  shit worse.” He pushed off the counter and straightened. “And I don’t want to see you hurt, and he hurt you last time, at the worst possible moment in your life.”

  There was no denying the truth to that statement as much as I wanted to. My gaze dropped as I shook my head. “It’s not like that. I mean, it’s not the same situation.”

  “You sure about that?” he asked quietly.

  I nodded.

  Gavin leaned forward, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. He dragged me forward, off the counter and to his chest as he hugged me, and it felt good—maybe a little longer than I expected, but I soaked up the warmth. As wrong as this was, I took from him what I had wanted so badly from Jensen. I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of fresh laundry.

  “I know Jensen might be acting like he’s got some common decency right now, but just be careful around him,” he said, squeezing me. “He’s changed. We all have, but him especially. Just don’t forget what he did to you.”

  #

  Gavin left shortly after Mom came home, and I hung out in the kitchen while she cooked up some fatty Hamburger Helper, cheeseburger style and afterwards, while I cleaned up.

  “I talked to Dr. Oliver today,” she said, as I loaded up the dishwasher.

  It took me a few seconds to remember what she was talking about, because my mind was so wrapped up in what Gavin had said. Closing the dishwasher, I turned around with a sigh. “So, when’s my appointment?”

  “Next Friday, after school.” She wiped a dishtowel across the table in front of where I sat. Admittedly, I was a messy eater. “I can go with you if you want.”

  And that was the last thing I wanted. “No, thank you.”

  She wrinkled her nose at me as she tossed the towel into the sink. “You don’t have to make it sound like it’s the worst idea ever.”

  I laughed. “Well, it’s not the greatest idea.”

  Mom narrowed her eyes, but then she tilted her head to the side, studying me. “Honey, you look terrible.”

  “Wow.” I laughed again. “Thanks a lot.”

  Walking over to me, she placed cool hands on my cheeks. “Have you been sleeping?”

  “Yes.”

  She tsked softly. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  That I was. Sighing, I pulled free. “It’s been a little hard sleeping.”

  “Maybe I should see if he can get you in sooner. Or I can get him to order a script for sleeping pills,” she offered, turning to where she’d tossed the dishtowel. “They worked last time.”

  Last time.

  I took a deep breath. “I don’t need them, Mom.”

  But later that night, long after Mom had already gone to bed, I lay in mine, watching the shadows from the swaying branches outside dance across the ceiling. The TV flashed different colors every so often, the volume turned up just loud enough to drown out the creaks and groans the house made.

  Perhaps the sleeping pills wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

  It was past midnight, my eyelids heavy, but sleep was allusive. I tossed and turned, too hot, and the pillow felt too hard. My brain cycled through the conversation with Gavin and then Jensen, to the bird and beyond, to what happened on Saturday.

  I wasn’t sure what time it was when I tossed the covers off and climbed out of the bed. The low blue light from the TV cast a glow across my bedroom. Weary to my very bones, I shuffled into my bathroom.

  Flipping on the light, I crossed the room, my bare feet silent against the cool tile. I stopped in front of the sink, yawning as I turned the water on. Cupping my hands under the cool stream, I bent over, splashing the water over my face. It did very little of anything, but I dipped my hands again and then scrubbed my eyes.

  As I lifted my head, letting the water trickle between my fingers, cool air brushed along the back of my neck. I froze as my heart kicked against my ribs.

  Water streamed into the sink, but there! I felt it again, across the base of my neck, a cool breath stirring the tendrils of hair. And then I heard it—a heavy footstep, like a boot connecting with the floor, followed by another.

  Eyes shut and skin tingling, I slowly straightened. Nothing is behind me. It had to be the air kicking on and my ears playing tricks on me. Nothing is behind me.

  Drawing a deep breath that didn’t reach my lungs, I opened my eyes. Oh God, I was wrong—so very wrong. A scream rose in my throat.

  It stood behind me, the face covered in the starkly white clown mask, and it’s black, empty holes where the eyes should be. Slowly, it cocked its head to the side and made a guttural tsking sound.

  I spun around, stumbling back into the hard sink. He lurched at me, glove covered hands reaching out—

  Jerking up in bed, I gasped for air as my heart thudded against my ribs. Nightmare—it was just a nightmare.

  “Oh, my God.” I pressed my hand against my chest

  No one was here. I was safe, but my poor heart hadn’t registered that. Pressing my other hand against my chest, I sucked in several deep breaths.

  Something about the room wasn’t right, though. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I lowered my hands to the edge of the blanket, pulling it from where it rested around my knees. I tucked the comforter under my chin, glancing at the window. The curtains were still. That wasn’t it….

  The TV.

  A knot formed under my ribs. The TV was turned off. I hadn’t done that before I fell asleep, and I hadn’t turned on a sleep timer. Hell, I wasn’t even sure how to turn one on. Mom did it, I told myself. She had to have come in and turned it off.

  I lay back down, curling onto my side as the sweat dotting my skin turned cool. My heart gradually slowed down, but I didn’t close my eyes for any length of time.

  I didn’t go back to sleep.

  Chapter 8

  Running late the next morning, I grabbed my Pop Tart, kissed Mom, and then raced for the door. I stopped before I barreled out, turning back to where she stood, pouring black coffee into her mug.

  “Did you come in my bedroom last night?” I asked. “And turn off the TV?”

  Light blonde hair fell back over her shoulder as she looked over, her brows pinching together. “No. Why?”

  The knot under my ribs grew twice its size. “I guess I must’ve set the sleep timer or something.”

  The only way I’d set the time was by accident and I couldn’t even fathom the chance that it could be something else. My brain was unable to cope with weird, stress crap today. Saying goodbye, I headed out under the overcast sky.

  By some sick twist of fate, I ended up parking next to Wendy’s fancy, relatively new car. Which looked to be a Lexus, but I refused to investigate the make of the car too closely, because it was likely that I’d fall on my face if she were seriously driving that kind of car. But as I climbed out, a few seconds before her, I wasn’t thinking about her pretty car that didn’t have a dent by the hood or a cracked front light, like mine.

  Wendy looked like a hot mess.

  Her blonde hair was slicked back in a low ponytail and short strands had slipped free, hanging limply against ruddy cheeks. It was like she’d forgotten her powder and concealer this morning. Dark shadows bloomed under her eyes. She was wearing a loose screen t-shirt and sweats, something that I’d wear, but never expected to see her out in public in, especially the pink sweat pants.

  She looked as bad as I felt.

  Actually, I couldn’t remember ever seeing her look so bad and I’d known the girl since elementary school.

  She turned and as she closed the door, her troubled gaze met mine. “Hey,” she said.

  I stared at her. “Hi.” And I waited for some caustic, snotty remark, but when she simply walked toward the building, I was left standing there like an idiot.

  Well, that was… unexpected and just a little strange, kind of like a less-snarky alien or something invaded her.

  School was uneventful other than Linds telling me that the ‘volunteer’ meeting on Saturday would be at the old farmho
use that held the haunted tour every year and was pushed back to the afternoon.

  There were no dead cardinals and Jensen didn’t visit me during lunch, and I tried not to be disappointed by that. I had no reason to expect that he would, and it was probably better that he hadn’t. Being friends with him was stupid enough. But I couldn’t help but notice that Wendy sat her little butt down right next to him. I also noticed that Monica was absent from the table.

  On second thought, I hadn’t seen her all day.

  “You should probably stop looking over at their table.”

  “Huh?” I turned my attention to Heidi.

  Hair separated into pigtails, she looked adorable. With the baby face and freckles, she could pull it off. When I wore my hair like that, it looked like I escaped an asylum. Picking at a granola bar, she grinned. “You keep looking over there. If you want me to believe that you’re not interested in Jensen, you’re going to have to try harder than that.”

  “I’m not looking at him.”

  “You checking out Brock or Mason?”

  “What? No.”

  Her grin turned impish. “So, like I said…”

  I stuck my tongue out at her, and she giggled. For the rest of lunch I resisted the urge to check out his table. It was only when I was ditching my tray and half eaten food that I glanced over there again. Instead of my searching gaze meeting Jensen’s, it was Brock who I ended up connecting with.

  He wasn’t smiling, and the expression on his face was unfathomable. The knot below my ribs expanded, and I quickly looked away.

  “You okay?” Heidi bumped her shoulder against mine.

  “Yeah,” I said, forcing a smile that felt weird on my face. I needed to get some sleep tonight because my paranoia was at an all time new high. As we left the cafeteria, I glanced up the wide hall leading to the front entrance of the school. I squinted.

  “Cops?” Heidi said, swinging her purple book bag.

  I shook my head. Definitely cops, but not the school kind. They were deputies, and from this distance, I couldn’t tell who they were, but one of them looked like Deputy Jordan—the officer from where Jensen was giving me lessons. “I wonder why they’re here?”

  Heidi’s delicate brows furrowed together. “I don’t know, but I doubt it’s about rainbows and puppy dog tails.”

  Wrinkling my nose, I pressed my lips together “Yeah, I doubt it.”

  Curious about their presence, I dwelled on it throughout trig class. Heidi was right in her own little weird way. Deputies at the school didn’t bode well, but there could be a million reasons as to why they were here. During art class, my last period of the day, I couldn’t sit still in my class as we studied a bunch of paintings of vases with flowers in them and started our own versions of the paintings. Nervous energy built in my system, like I’d chugged three Red Bulls.

  It had nothing to do with my impending self-defense lesson.

  At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

  Needing to drop off my books and grab my English text for homework, I headed to my locker with Linds, crossing paths with Gavin, who ended up tagging along. The black shirt he wore had more wrinkles in it than an elderly home.

  “You should volunteer to help out with the haunted farmhouse this year.” Linds eyed Gavin like he needed to have a reason to be where he was.

  “Huh?” He frowned, appearing distracted.

  “The haunted farmhouse,” Linds repeated, sighing as I stopped in front of my locker. “You know. The thing we do every year that you never help out with.”

  “Also the thing that Linds cons me into doing every year,” I added, hiding my grin when she shot me a dirty look.

  “Oh, yeah. That.” Gavin leaned against the locker beside mine. “You know, not interested.”

  Linds frowned, but like a tenacious pitbull, she wasn’t ready to drop it yet. “You know, you should be interested. Volunteering builds good karma. And you want good karma, right?”

  “I’m pretty sure volunteering for Habitat for Humanity brings good Karma,” he reasoned, glancing over at me with a slight smile on his face. “Not volunteering for a stupid haunted attraction.”

  “You’re going to Hell for that,” Linds replied.

  “I’m not sure that’s helping your case.” Laughing, I opened my locker door and came face to face with a wide smile and black, empty eyes. A scream burst out of me as I jumped back, dropping my book bag on the floor.

  “What the hell?” Gavin pushed off the locker, swinging around so he faced mine. “Jesus.”

  Linds clapped both of her hands over her mouth.

  Hanging from a rope off the small hook in the back of my locker was nearly an identical replica of the mask the attacker had worn—the same kind of mask I’d found on my bed, but had disappeared as if it had never been there.

  It was the same wide, red smile and large, empty eyes painted on a plastic mask.

  My heart kicked in my chest as I squeezed my eyes shut. Arms went around me, turning me away from the locker. It was just a stupid mask, but good God, seeing it again froze the blood in my veins. All I could see was the mask inches from my face and feel the hands around my neck, squeezing the life right out of me.

  Someone smothered a laugh behind me. Or attempted to. Another person issued a harsh curse. I pressed my face against Gavin’s chest, wanting to wash away the image of the mask. The trembling edge of panic crept over me.

  “What’s going on?” boomed a deep voice—Mr. Holden, our English teacher. “Hey, what is…?”

  Gavin stepped back, pulling me with him, and I knew the moment the teacher had arrived. I opened my eyes as Mr. Holden walked in front of us.

  “This is ridiculous!” shouted Mr. Holden, snatching the mask out of my locker. “Masks? Dead birds? These are not funny, people. Have some common sense.”

  As Mr. Holden raged on about the “seriously disappointing level of maturity” in the school, Gavin and Linds quickly ushered me away. We made it to the stairwell by the time I realized my face was still planted against Gavin’s chest and his arm was around me. There was something too intimate about the embrace, so I pulled away, slipping out of his arms. I was a little embarrassed, because I felt… it felt weak, but maybe I was being too harsh on myself. I did almost die in the hands of someone wearing that mask.

  “You okay?” Linds caught my hand, her dark eyes flashing.

  “Yeah, it’s just, I saw that and all I could think of was what happened. I wasn’t prepared for that.” As the initial shock of seeing the mask in my locker faded, anger rose like a fire-breathing dragon. “Who would do that?”

  “I don’t know.” Gavin reached for the door, opening it. “Someone with an extremely sick sense of humor.”

  My hands were shaking as I went down the cement stairs. “It wasn’t there before lunch. Someone had to have gotten in to my locker and put it in there afterward.”

  “It wouldn’t be hard to do.” Linds tucked a tight curl back behind her ear. “I mean, you hit those lockers in the right spot, and they pop right open.”

  That much was true, but I didn’t get why someone would do that. Like the dead cardinal, it was the kind of prank that was unnaturally cruel and not funny.

  “They shouldn’t have given the description of the mask in the news,” Linds commented. “I get why they did it, but every idiot knows what it looks like now and they’re doing shit like this. Kind of like that old movie in the nineties, where the killer wore the mask and then everybody at school started wearing one. Who knew people in real life would be just as stupid?”

  Gavin snorted. “I would’ve wagered that they would’ve been that stupid.”

  “I don’t get it, though,” I said as we stepped into the warm air outside, my heart still beating too fast. “It wasn’t funny. Knowing what happened to me, why would someone do that?”

  Linds looked away, nibbling on her lower lip.

  My breath caught as anger and a tangy fear warred inside me. “What if it wasn’
t a prank?”

  She stopped, folding her arms around her waist. “What else could it be?”

  “Maybe a warning?” I shivered in spite of the warm air.

  “A warning of what?” Gavin found my hand, gently squeezing it