Return to the Dark House

by Laurie Stolarz

  “What if the Nightmare Elf killer knew about Houdini and was trying to copy his style? What if he was hoping that you’d pin the Dark House weekend crimes on Houdini?”

  “Ivy...”

  “What?” I ask, able to hear the ticktock deep inside me. It throbs against my chest, echoing inside my brain. “You’re wasting your time on any other theory that doesn’t involve my real parents’ killer.”

  “I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: leave the manhunt to the experts, okay?” He closes his notepad and tucks it inside his jacket.

  “What about Taylor?” I persist.

  “The FBI already spoke to her.”

  “So how come I haven’t heard the outcome? Why did she leave the Dark House early?”

  Taylor was supposed to have been my roommate for that weekend. She and Natalie were the first to arrive at the house. But not long after their arrival, Taylor left, in the midst of unpacking—without her bags, without her cell phone, without a word to Natalie that she was leaving. Later, we found a message in Taylor’s closet, scrawled against the back wall: GET OUT BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE. I’m pretty sure Taylor wrote it—pretty confident that it was her way of trying to warn us.

  “I need to talk to Taylor,” I tell him. “We need to compare notes, fill in blanks, discuss each other’s chronology....”

  “Whatever Taylor claims to have seen at the Dark House is of no concern to you right now.”

  “Can you arrange for the two of us to meet?”

  Thomas leans forward, as if about to let me in on a secret. “You’re what, three weeks out of a mental hospital?”

  “Five weeks.” I swallow hard.

  “And how many times have you called and/or come to see me since then?”

  “Four?”

  “Try fourteen,” he says, his voice softening. “Fourteen times in five weeks. Now, I know this must be frustrating, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate your input, but my advice for you?”

  “Forget it,” I say, getting up from the table. I go for the door, slamming it shut behind me.

  DOZENS OF DANCE RECITAL DRESSES hover above my head. The tassels dangle into my eyes. The unsettled dust makes me have to sneeze. But I can’t. I won’t. I have to remain still.

  I’m hiding inside a closet, tucked behind the dancing bear costume from The Nutcracker Suite.

  Someone comes into the room. I hear a floorboard creak. The sound of feet scuff against the carpeted floor. There’s a sniffle and then a cough. Did someone open a dresser drawer? Is that my suitcase being zipped?

  “I don’t think she’s in here.” Midge’s voice. “No, I already searched it,” she says, talking on the phone. “Yes, of course. That one’s already done too. Are you even listening to me? I think she might’ve left.”

  The closet door slides open. The costumes shift forward and back. I’m at the far end, against the wall, about to lose my lunch. My hand is bleeding. The wound is throbbing.

  “Wait a second,” Midge says, still talking on the phone.

  The costumes push forward again. Sequins poke into my eye.

  “Come on, now. You aren’t really implying what I think you are, are you?” she continues. “Well, then you can go to hell.”

  The phone beeps a couple of seconds later. I think she hung up mid-conversation. I hear the door shut.

  My heart pounding, I grab the lip-gloss tube that’s in my pocket and write the word KILLER across the wall.

  “Taylor?”

  I write KILLER again, bearing down so hard that the tube snaps in half. Blood from my hand spurts over the rug.

  “Earth to Taylor Monroe,” someone sings.

  And that’s when I realize...when I snap out of my daydream.

  I look down at my notebook. The word KILLER is scrawled across the page. My pencil—not my lip gloss—has snapped in two. There is no blood; the cut on my hand has long since healed.

  Chantel I-never-stop-playing-with-my-hair Coughlin, my resident advisor, is standing over me, twirling a curlicue around her finger. We’re in the dorm lobby. At school. There are groups of students sprinkled about the space—doing their homework, sipping their coffee, texting on phones, and chatting among themselves.

  “Holy embarrassing moment, Batgirl.” My face fries with heat. I close up my notebook.

  Chantel flashes me a polite smile, as if my nutty behavior is totally normal and doesn’t warrant a snarky comment.

  “I totally zoned out, didn’t I?” I’ve been doing that lately, having flashbacks, getting cold sweats, murmuring to myself like some Twilight Zone–ish freak. “Lack of sleep does some funky stuff to people, doesn’t it?” I fake a giggle.

  “I have some good news,” she says, straight-faced, all business, still curl-twirling. “It took some doing, but we were able to move your case to the top of our priority list.”

  “I have a case?” I ask, feeling the confusion on my face.

  “A single room will be opening up sooner than anticipated. We should be able to get you in by the end of next week.”

  “Couldn’t I just switch roommates?” I ask, pretty sure that I sound like a broken record. “It’ll be kind of weird living alone. I mean, I came here to be with people.”

  “You’ll love having your own room,” Chantel says, bringing a strand of hair up to her lips for a taste. “You won’t have to worry about a roommate talking your ear off while you’re trying to study, or having her friends barge in at all hours of the day and night while you’re trying to get work done, or—the worst—eating all of your food.”

  “I practically have my own room now,” I say, referring to Emily’s absence. “And I absolutely hate it.”

  Emily and I were assigned as roommates, only she moved out (to crash on her BFF Barbie’s spare futon) after only a few weeks into the semester, telling everyone that she couldn’t possibly be expected to sleep in the same room as a killer.

  “Plus, all of that barging-in-and-eating-each-other’s-food stuff...” I continue. “It actually sounds pretty nice.”

  “You’ll love it,” she insists, voiding out my words with a jingle of her dollar-store bracelets; there are at least twenty silver bangles loaded on her arm. She lets them slide up and down her wrist as she talks—her own sort of background noise.

  “Aren’t there any other options?” I ask. “Somebody else who needs to switch roommates? I’d be happy to meet with them first. I mean, seriously.” I feel my eyes begin to fill. “I’m not as horrible as everybody thinks. I was voted Most Popular in high school for three years in a row, for god’s sake.” My words sound stupid and desperate, and that’s exactly what they are.

  Chantel continues to stare at me, a plastic smile on her face, as if none of what I’m saying matters. Jingle, jangle, jingle. A second later, my own background noise kicks in: My phone rings in my pocket. I don’t recognize the number.

  “Go ahead and take it,” Chantel says, as I’m about to hit IGNORE. “I have to run. I just wanted to let you know that everything is all set.”

  I try my best to hold it together as Chantel turns on her heel, joining a group of sorority pledges in the corner of the lobby (all dressed up like Elvis), leaving me without a say.

  My phone continues to ring. I click on it to answer, eager for some love, even if it’s in the shape of some nonexistent prize I need to claim: “Hello?”

  “Taylor?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Ivy Jensen. We spoke on the phone once before...when I was at the amusement park...during the Dark House weekend.”

  “Wait, how did you get my number?”

  “It was attached to your contest essay. It’s sort of a long story, but the essays showed up in my mailbox one day. I really think we should talk.”

  “Okay, but I’ve already told the police everything I know.”

  “I realize that, but I was hoping that if we got together and compared notes, we could come up with some new ideas.”

  “Ideas for what? The FBI a
lready has our testimonies.”

  “Well, I think that we can do better than the FBI.”

  The conversation falls silent. I don’t know what to say, except that I don’t want to talk about the Dark House anymore—about why I left, or what I saw, or what I could’ve done differently.

  “Taylor?”

  “We’re not the police.”

  “Can we just meet and talk?”

  I gaze out at the lobby of students. The group of sorority pledges attempts to serenade all of us by singing “Hound Dog” by Elvis, only it sounds more like hedgehog, which is so completely distracting.

  “I’m really sorry, Ivy. But I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, and I need to stay focused on my studies.”

  “But people are still missing,” she says.

  “Okay, but aren’t those people believed to be dead?”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “I don’t have any reason not to. I mean, it’s been more than three months, and there was so much blood everywhere.”

  “How about this reason: If you went missing but your body had yet to be uncovered, would you want people to stop looking...to just assume that you were dead?”

  “I’m really sorry,” I tell her again, still focused on the sorority girls and wishing that I were one of them. If this were before the Dark House weekend, there’s no doubt in my mind that I would be.

  “Can we at least talk on the phone, sometime when you have more ti—”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, cutting her off. “I just can’t do this right now.” I hang up before she can argue. And then I go back to my room and cry myself to sleep.

  A FEW DAYS LATER, CHANTEL shows up on my doorstep, asking me to move out of my room. “We were able to get you in even earlier than expected!” she announces, twirling a strand of hair. “Are your bags all packed?” There’s a big, bubbly smile across her spray-tanned face, as if she’s doing me a colossal favor.

  “Oh,” I say, for lack of intelligent words. “I’m actually in the middle of a Shakespeare assignment right now.” I glance over my shoulder at the unopened books on my desk. “And I wouldn’t feel right neglecting Romeo, considering how sucky his love life is. Can’t moving day wait until the weekend?”

  “I can help you,” she suggests. “With moving, that is.” She smiles wider. “The R.D. really wants this loose end tied up by dinnertime tonight,” she says, looking past me, toward my side of the room—at all of my scream queen posters from Scream, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Shining. Each poster features an exceptionally talented lead actress in the midst of a heart-pounding scene.

  “I’ve been meaning to take them down,” I say, with a nod to Neve Campbell. I don’t know why I haven’t already. “I used to be a little obsessed with strong female characters in cult-followed horror flicks.”

  “Used to be?”

  “Yeah, you know, as in the past tense of the verb be.”

  Her face goes graveyard-serious, but I’m not sure she gets the dig. “No, I mean, has something changed since the start of the semester?”

  Okay, um, seriously? “Just about everything’s changed since the start of the semester.” She knows that, so why is she asking?

  “Someone said that you were a theater major.”

  “Dance and theater, actually. I love the idea of combining the two.” At least, I used to love it.

  “Like a musical version of Psycho? Norman Bates waltzing across the living room with his mother’s cadaver.”

  “Talk about getting a stiffy,” I joke. But I’m not sure Chantel gets that either, because she doesn’t so much as grin.

  “So, shall we get started?” she asks. “I’ll bet between the two of us, we can get you moved in no time.”

  A group of girls on the floor lingers in the hallway, eavesdropping on our conversation. To them, I’m the girl who ran away and never looked back. The girl who’s perfectly fine walking over dead bodies if it serves her in the end.

  No one wants me here. I’m starting to not want it either.

  A few more days pass, I have my new single room (down the hall, sequestered from everyone else), and people on the floor are buzzing about a mixer that’s happening tonight at a fraternity house across the street from our dorm. Apparently, it’s a big deal, with a live band and a DJ. And, P.S., you have to wear all blue. It’s something about a blue moon tradition.

  Girls in the dorm traipse around, trading blue clothing and borrowing one another’s blue accessories. Once again, I’m sitting (lurking) in the lobby, by the soda machine, like a dirty old man in a lingerie shop. It’s become my go-to spot, because at least while I’m here, though alone, I can still be surrounded by people.

  A group of girls with blue wigs and Smurf-colored faces rushes by me. I’m pretty sure they’re from the east wing, but it’s super hard to recognize them, which sparks an idea.

  I head upstairs and into the common bathroom. Just as I’d hoped, a bunch of blue stuff’s been left behind—makeup, hair-spray, body paint, glitter. I spend the next hour shrouding myself in shades of blue—my face, my hair, any visible shred of skin—until I can barely even recognize myself. The pièce de résistance: a tiara atop my head, only after just a few seconds of wearing it, I’m reminded of Sarah Michelle Gellar from I Know What You Did Last Summer (in the Fourth of July parade scene, just minutes before she’s slaughtered by Susie’s dad/the psycho fisherman), not to mention Sissy Spacek from Carrie (when she’s voted prom queen and goes up on stage, adorned with a princess-worthy tiara, and pig blood gets dumped on her head).

  And so I take the tiara off.

  My nerves absolutely racked, I venture across the street to the party house. The door is unlocked; I go inside. The living room area is overflowing with blue people, carrying blue drinks, dancing to blues music, under bright blue flashing lights. I navigate to the punch bowl in the kitchen seeking a little liquid courage.

  “Thirsty?” a boy asks me. He’s dressed like one of the guys in the Blue Man Group.

  “Very.”

  He ladles punch into a cup and passes it to me. “Freshman?”

  “That obvious?”

  “It’s just that I haven’t seen you around before.”

  “And you know everybody who goes here?”

  “Just about.” He taps his blue cup against mine.

  “Maybe you just don’t recognize me in my current state of blue.”

  “I think I’d remember someone like you—blue or otherwise.” His dark brown eyes crinkle when he smiles; he’s so unbelievably adorable. “I’m Jason.”

  “Taylor,” I say, shaking his hand, stoked that I decided to come here tonight.

  “My sister’s a freshman here too. Do you know Barbie Reynolds?” He nods to my ex-roommate’s BFF. I met Barbie on talent show night, just a few weeks into the semester. She smelled like roasted nuts and hated my rendition of the shower stall scene in Psycho—when Janet Leigh let out that delicious, blood-curdling scream.

  “I don’t know her,” I say, quickly turning my back to Barbie, remembering how, after the talent show, she and Emily pulled me aside, acting all nice like they wanted to get to know me more, only to leave me feeling worse than I ever thought possible.

  We’d gone up to Emily’s and my room. They sat on my bed and started asking me all sorts of questions about the Dark House weekend, pulling others in from the hallway to listen to my answers—until it felt as if I were on trial, as if I were the one responsible for everything that happened.

  “Okay, so, no offense,” Emily began, “but ever hear of a thing called nine-one-one? I mean, when you realized the place was so messed up, wouldn’t that have been, like, the logical thing to do?”

  “Except I didn’t have my phone with me at the time,” I tried to explain. “I was hiding in a closet.”

  “In the same room that your phone was in, though, right?” Barbie raised an eyebrow at me. “So, couldn’t you have just grabbed it?”

  “Before you deci
ded to bolt?” someone else asked.

  Their questions made my head spin:

  “Why didn’t you wait in the woods until the others came?”

  “Why didn’t you warn the others before they went into the house? Weren’t they expected to arrive just minutes after you left?”

  “What took you so long to get help? Wasn’t there, like, a 24-hour delay?”

  “Do you think that if you’d acted sooner, the others could’ve been saved?”

  “How can you even look at horror stuff now knowing that people are dead because of it? And because of you?”

  There must’ve been at least twelve people in the room at one point. And, though they all had their questions, deep down they already knew the answers—or at least the ones they wanted to believe. Eventually, when I could no longer take it, I just rolled over in my bed, smothered my ear with a pillow, and stared at the wall, waiting for everyone to leave.

  Emily stopped sleeping in our room after that night. Two days later, I was told I’d be getting a new roommate. The following afternoon, the plan had changed again; I was to get a single room (because no one wanted to be with me) as soon as something opened up.

  “Too crowded?” Jason asks, evidently noticing that I’ve shrunken at least three inches in the last three seconds.

  Before I can respond, someone bumps me from behind. Blue punch spills onto my back and onto the table. “I’m so sorry,” the girl says.

  Jason hands me a stack of napkins. “How about we go outside. There’s a patio in the back.”

  “Fantabulous,” I say, following him through the kitchen and out a pair of sliders. It’s quieter out here—just small groups of people sitting about the yard.

  Jason motions to a wooden bench and we take a seat. “Better?”

  “Much.”

  “Not into big crowds, I take it.”

  “I actually love big crowds,” I say, thinking about all of the dance competitions I’ve been in—hundreds of people watching my every pointe, chassé, and rond de jambe. “I’m studying to be an actress, or at least I was, or am...or was. I don’t know.” I let out a nervous giggle. “Let’s just say that college has been a big adjustment, and I’m questioning pretty much every aspect of my life right now.”