“You, sit,” I tell Aya, pointing at the ground. “Julie, help her get her shoes back on. I’m going to get Shana.”
Then, before either of them can argue, I hurry across the alley and step into the warehouse. Crumpled up magazines and empty McDonald’s containers litter the floor. Silver light slips through the cracks in the cardboard taped over the windows.
I hesitate at the door, reluctant to move farther inside.
“Shana,” I hiss. It’s too dark to see anything but hulking shadows. A crowbar leans against the wall just inside the door. I grab it and hold it in front of me like a weapon. The cold metal bites into my palms. I take a tentative step inside.
For some reason, I’m reminded of Mountainside. After Rachel died, I got a new roommate, this girl named Tanya. Tanya was a sleepwalker. A couple of times a week she’d creep out of bed and disappear into the clinic. The nurses told me I didn’t have to look for her, but I couldn’t help it, not after what had happened to Rachel. I couldn’t sleep if I didn’t know where Tanya was. I’d lie in bed, picturing all the different ways she could die.
At night, Mountainside was a chilling place. The floorboards creaked and shadows stretched across the long, narrow halls. And then there was the screaming. Withdrawal is worst during the night. Girls would sob and mutter to themselves and scratch at their doors. The sounds echoed around me as I crept past their dorms, calling Tanya’s name.
I blink and my eyes start to adjust. I’m not at Mountainside—I’m in a gross warehouse with Shana. A bare mattress lies in the corner, a large black stain spread across its surface. I look away.
“Just dirt,” I mutter under my breath, knowing that’s not true. I move farther into the warehouse, tightening my grip on the crowbar. Nerves climb the backs of my legs, making my knees feel weak.
Something flickers at the corner of my eye. I whirl around, swinging the crowbar. A cat leaps from the windowsill to the floor, its paws silent on the concrete. Thick yellow pus oozes from a wound on its side and clumps in its fur.
My stomach churns. The cat watches me with glassy eyes.
“Damn it,” I whisper. I move deeper into the warehouse, careful to step around the trash littering the floor. I listen for movement or for Shana’s familiar throaty laugh. But I only hear my own ragged breath. The crowbar nearly slips from my sweaty hands.
The space is smaller than I expected, just one room about the size of a garage. A second door stands ajar at the side wall, sending a sliver of light through the darkness.
Something shuffles through the trash next to me. Every muscle in my body tightens. I spin around.
“Shana?” I whisper. I hold my breath and raise the crowbar. No one answers. I step forward, wiping a sweaty hand on my jeans. Dimly, I remember the screams echoing through Mountainside. Goose bumps rise on my arms.
A crumpled-up piece of newspaper rustles. I wrap my fingers around the crowbar again. “Shana? Is that you?”
A second cat appears beneath the newspaper and darts for the door.
I breathe a sigh of relief. To hell with this place. Shana can live here, for all I care. I lower the crowbar and edge around a pile of blankets.
The blankets move, and an arm shoots out and grabs my ankle. I scream, and whip my crowbar around. It slips from my hands and clatters to the floor.
A man with a cracked, ashen face peers out from the nest of blankets. He’s missing an eye, and the skin over the socket looks shiny and raw. It grows mottled around his cheekbone and forehead. Flaps of puckered, blackened flesh jut off his face.
Fear grips my chest. My heart thuds, and I can’t seem to find my voice. I feel like I’m in a dream where I want to scream but I can’t. Except this isn’t a dream. I glance over at the crowbar, but it’s too far for me to reach.
“Your friend went that way,” the man says in a gravelly voice, nodding at the door. He lets go of my leg and burrows back under the blankets.
I run for the door.
I burst into the cool night air and there’s Shana leaning against the alley wall. She takes a puff of her cigarette and blows the smoke out through her teeth. Another homeless man stands next to her. Dirt and grease line his face, but he’s younger than the one-eyed man I saw inside. Thick blond dreadlocks hang down his back, and he has plastic grocery bags knotted around his feet instead of shoes.
The tension drains from my shoulders, but adrenaline still pounds through my veins, leaving me hot and jittery. My heart beats like crazy. It’s almost like being high.
“I’m going to kill you,” I say, letting the warehouse door slam behind me. Shana flicks her cigarette, sending a shower of ash to the ground.
“Then why are you smiling?” she asks. I bite my lip. It’s that giddy thing again. I can’t get scared without grinning like an idiot.
Besides, the warehouse was kind of exciting. In a terrifying way.
“I want you to meet my new friend,” Shana says. “Casey, this is Lawrence.”
The homeless man flashes me a peace sign, quietly humming under his breath. Shana passes him her cigarette, and he takes a deep drag.
“Um, hi,” I say. Lawrence tries to hand the cigarette back to Shana, but she waves him away.
“Keep it,” she says. “Case, you’ll never guess what Lawrence just told me.”
I raise an eyebrow, waiting.
“Lawrence was telling me about this alley a couple of blocks over.” Shana stands on one foot, scratching the back of her leg with her boot. “Get this. The alley was singing.”
“Humming,” Lawrence interrupts, his voice deep and melodic. He takes another puff of Shana’s cigarette. “The alley was humming, not singing. There weren’t any words.”
“That’s right,” Shana says. “Don’t you think that’s crazy, Casey? A humming alley?”
“Humming?” I repeat. Shana gives me a comically slow, intentional wink and something clicks inside my head. “Wait, you mean there was music playing? Under the alley?”
Lawrence frowns. “I guess it could have been music,” he says.
I jog to the corner and peer down the opposite alley. Woody crouches in the middle of the street, his head pressed against a manhole cover. The cow costume still hangs from his waist, looking worn. Dirt and grease stain the limp tail and the cow’s white ears.
“I don’t think this is it,” he mutters.
Sam stands over him, frowning. “I’m telling you, he said Covert Street, not Cooper Street,” he says.
“Maybe.” Woody pushes himself to his feet and heads farther down the alley. He kicks a beer can, and it skitters behind a Dumpster.
“Guys!” I shout at them. “Shana found something.”
Sam and Woody jog over to us, Aya and Julie trailing behind them. Aya’s only wearing one of her shoes and carrying the other. She loses her balance when she tries to walk and stumbles into Julie, giggling.
“What’s up?” Sam asks. Woody stares at Lawrence’s grocery bag shoes as Shana repeats the story of the humming alley.
Woody pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and removes a twenty-dollar bill. “Lawrence, my man, how’d you like to make some money?” he asks.
• • •
Lawrence leads us through the darkened Manhattan streets, to another alley several blocks over. Woody walks beside him, but Sam lags behind. Now is my chance. I fumble with my turtle necklace and hurry up next to him.
“Hey,” I say, nudging him on the shoulder.
“Hey,” he says back. Usually his voice is casual, and even a little cocky. Now it sounds strained. I roll my lower lip between my teeth, and silence stretches between us.
“So.” I cough awkwardly. “Um, how’s school?”
Sam shrugs. His jeans hang low on his hips and his shirt’s a little wrinkled, like he dug it out of the back of his dresser. “Same,” he says.
�
�Any news about James?” I ask. James is Sam’s older brother. He was the one who taught Sam to play guitar, but he’s a meth addict, and he disappeared right before graduating high school. He’s been MIA for a little over a year. Because of him, Sam never touches drugs. He doesn’t even drink.
Sam glances up at me. Some of the tightness leaves his jaw. “Nothing new,” he says in a voice that sounds a little more like normal. “Heard he was in California, but who knows?”
Sympathy tugs at my chest. “He hasn’t called?”
“Once.” Sam pinches the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “It was weird. He didn’t even sound like himself.”
I rub my thumb over Myrtle’s shell. Tori Anne, from Mountainside, was a meth addict. She spoke with a lisp because the drug had rotted all her teeth.
“I’m sorry,” I say. Sam shakes his head.
“Don’t be,” he says. “You didn’t do anything.”
Woody calls Sam’s name, and Sam jogs up next to him, leaving me alone. Shana nudges me with her arm.
“So cute,” she says. I stare at the back of Sam’s neck, where his hair brushes against his shirt collar.
“You never thought so before,” I tell her. Back when we were dating, she used to call him “that little puppy who follows you around.” She told me to find him a new home.
Shana winks at me. “Oh, yeah. The cow costume’s a total turn-on,” she says, and I realize she’s talking about Woody. The jealousy I felt fades away.
“It’s probably the udders,” I say. Shana loops her arm through mine, and the two of us fall in line behind Julie and Aya.
“You should have seen how he looked at me,” I whisper when the others are out of earshot. Shana frowns.
“Who? Sam?” she asks. I shoot her a look.
“Of course Sam.”
“How did he look at you?”
I shrug, not sure how to explain it. I think of the tightness in his jaw, the strained sound of his voice.
“Like I’m broken,” I say finally. Shana raises an eyebrow. “Like I remind him of James,” I add.
Shana brushes the hair back from my face and kisses my forehead. “You’re nothing like James,” she says.
“You weren’t there,” I say. My voice cracks, and I have to stop and take a breath. I don’t want to cry in front of Shana, not with Sam just a few feet away, but I don’t know how to talk about Mountainside without bringing up all these weird emotions. “Those girls in rehab,” I continue. “They were—”
“Stop.” Shana cuts me off. “They might have been broken, but that doesn’t mean you are. You’re stronger than that.”
I don’t answer right away. Her voice gets harder. “Do you understand?”
I sigh and nod, wanting to believe her. Ahead of us, Julie leans her head back, staring up at the sky. Dark curls trail down her back. She hums “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” under her breath.
“This is where you belong,” Shana adds. “With us. Tell me you didn’t miss this.”
“Wandering around New York in the middle of the night?” I ask.
“It’s like eleven. Hardly the middle of the night. And I meant hanging with your friends. Going on an adventure.” Shana elbows me. “Remember that night at the playground?”
I groan, thinking about the time Shana showed up in the middle of the night and woke me up by throwing pebbles at my window. She used to do that sometimes, when she and her mom had a fight and she needed to get out of the house to cool down. I had expected her to take me to some illicit party, but instead she drove to the playground two blocks away. She grabbed my arm and pulled me over to the swing set.
“Race you,” she said, plopping down a swing.
“To where?” I asked.
Shana shrugged. “The moon.”
Shana swung higher and higher, pumping her legs until the chains groaned and the swing set lurched in place. Then—when she was so high it looked like she’d tip over and fall backward—she jumped.
She fractured her ankle in three places. I had to carry her back to the Buick and drive her to the hospital. I called her mom at least seven times, but she never even picked up the phone. My mom answered on the first ring.
“I’d prefer not to end up in the emergency room tonight,” I say, leaning my head on Shana’s shoulder. “Maybe this adventure can end with food?”
“Man cannot live on bread alone, Casey,” she says.
“What about pancakes? I’m pretty sure man can live on pancakes.”
A rat scurries across the alley, its pink tail whipping behind it. It freezes in the middle of the street and stares at us with red eyes.
“Holy shit!” I take a quick step back.
Aya screams and stumbles over her feet. Julie bursts out laughing but grabs Aya’s arm so she doesn’t fall. The rat twitches its nose. I flinch. I imagine it darting toward us, snapping its long, sharp teeth. But it creeps along the curb and out of sight instead. I sigh in relief.
Shana takes a swig of Jack Daniel’s. “It’s just a rat, guys,” she says, tucking the bottle back into her pocket.
“It’s disgusting,” Aya mutters. Julie kicks a soda can into the shadows where the rat disappeared, and something darts across the pavement. Aya releases another high-pitched shriek, and Julie laughs even harder.
Suddenly, Lawrence stops walking. He, Sam, and Woody crouch down in the street.
“This is it!” Woody shouts, wiping the dirt off a manhole cover. The rest of us crowd around him.
“Feel that?” Lawrence asks. Music vibrates through the ground, making the street hum.
“Cool,” I say, crouching next to Sam. I’m close enough that I can smell him, the combination of soap and pine needles.
The manhole cover’s made of iron, with a City of New York logo stamped over the center. Someone has painted a neon pink X over it. Woody digs his fingers around the sides of the cover and yanks.
“Are you sure that’s the right . . .” Julie starts, but she lets the end of her sentence trail off when Woody grunts and shoves the cover to the side of the hole.
“X marks the spot,” he says, wiping his hands off on his costume. Shana grabs my arm and jumps up and down, squealing. Together, we all peer into the darkness.
A rickety metal ladder descends into the black. Far below, I can just make out flickering candlelight and hear the distant sound of drumming. Something drips against the bottom of the tunnel, and the sound echoes toward us.
“Well,” Sam says, leaning back on his heels. “Who wants to go first?”
SIX
I LOWER MYSELF DOWN THE LADDER. THE RUNGS chill my fingers even though the day’s heat still lingers in the air.
“Gross,” I say. “It smells like fish.”
“It’s an adventure.” Julie climbs onto the ladder above me. Her Doc Martens combat boots clank on the rungs, making the entire ladder tremble. She got the boots from her mom, who was way into grunge in the nineties and had written Pearl Jam rules across the leather in silver Sharpie. “Adventures aren’t supposed to be clean.”
“That’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever said,” Aya mutters. She crawls into the opening next, carefully placing one blackened foot onto the ladder’s rungs.
“You didn’t care about being smelly when you were playing Queen of Garbage earlier,” I say. Julie pokes Aya’s foot and snickers.
Aya tries to kick her. “Hey, stop shaking the ladder,” she says. A nervous laugh bubbles up in my throat. We’re kind of high up, and this thing doesn’t exactly feel steady. I glance down, but I can’t see past Shana’s blond head. My leather flat slips from my heel, and I curl my toes to keep it from falling.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared.” Shana’s voice echoes up from below me. I tighten my grip on the ladder rungs, feeling dizzy.
“I never get scared,” I shoot back. Someth
ing icy and cold slithers down the back of my shirt. I shriek, nearly losing my grip on the ladder. My shoe slips off my foot and spirals into the darkness.
Shana cackles. “Yeah, you’re a badass.”
I rock back and forth to make the ladder jiggle. Shana screams with laughter and hugs herself to the rungs.
“Shit!” she shouts. “I take it back. Don’t do that again.”
I laugh as we climb deeper underground and the subway tunnel slowly comes into focus. A giant laughing clown face stretches across one wall, orange spray paint dripping down the tile. Candles flicker on the ground. Distant music echoes through the tunnel and pulses up from the floor, making the wicks tremble.
Excitement floods through me. I can already hear voices and laughter coming from deeper in the tunnel. It sounds like the party’s in full swing. I lower my foot and my toes hit wet concrete. Chills shoot up my leg.
“Ewww.” I giggle, balancing on one foot. We’ve reached a narrow platform overlooking a single row of grimy train tracks. A water-stained poster reads SERVICE CHANGES. I flatten the edge of the paper, but it’s too faded to read.
“That’s hella old,” Woody explains, stepping up behind me. “These tunnels have been closed since Hurricane Sandy.”
“Creepy,” I say, and another thrill of excitement shoots through me. I turn, still balanced on one foot. “Has anyone seen my shoe?”
“This it?” Sam holds up my shoe, turning it so the candlelight catches the studs on the toe. Even in the dark I see the little dimple in his cheek.
“Yeah,” I say. I clear my throat, annoyed at how breathless and girlie I sound.
“Catch!” He tosses me the shoe and I awkwardly lunge to catch it.
“Thanks,” I say, slipping my shoe back on. Sam gives me a thumbs-up. I’m not entirely sure how to respond to a thumbs-up from the only boy I’ve ever loved, so I just nod.
“Aw, it’s like an incredibly awkward Cinderella,” Shana says. She pulls another cigarette out of the pack of Djarum Blacks that she steals from her corner market, and strikes a match. The blue-orange flame flickers over her pale skin and pink-tipped hair. Silvery smoke snakes around her.
Survive the Night Page 5
