Fright Night

by Maren Stoffels

  Martin clenches his jaw.

  “Thought so. You’re all talk.”

  I suddenly feel dead tired. I want to go home. I want to sleep. And I want to wake up tomorrow and find that this was all one big nightmare. I want Nell to be waiting for me on the bench and for her to tell me that she wants to go out with me. But what I want most of all is not to want her anymore. Nell is an illusion that is sucking me dry.

  Sandy runs the blunt edge of the knife over Martin’s cheek.

  “No…” Nell hiccups through her tears. “Don’t. We won’t say anything. We won’t cause any problems for you.”

  “People like you always cause problems for us! You think you’re better than us.” Sandy turns the knife and draws it in one slow movement down Martin’s cheek. The blood pours out like berry juice. Martin grimaces, but he doesn’t make a sound.

  “Stop! Please!” Nell pleads, grabbing Sandy’s arm, but he doesn’t listen. A pitch-black shadow slides across Sandy’s face. That must be how he looked at his mom that time. His mom, who drove him crazy until he really lost it. Years of therapy were supposed to help him—and they did. He finally learned to control himself. Until now. I can see it in his eyes.

  “Stop,” I say in a hoarse voice, but Sandy raises his knife again.

  “Quit it.” This time I say it louder.

  Sandy finally looks at me. His eyes are wild.

  “What’s your problem?”

  “That’s enough,” I say quietly.

  Sandy shakes his head. “We have to show them who’s boss.”

  “They already know that.” I look at Nell, who’s as pale as a corpse. Sofia and Quin are still holding hands. We have power over the four of them, but it doesn’t help. I feel just as empty as I did before.

  “Give me that knife. This has to stop.”

  Sandy shakes his head. “It’ll never stop, Kelly.”

  My name shivers around the bunker. I see Nell looking through the three layers of makeup.

  “K-Kelly?” she stammers. “Is that you?”

  SOFIA

  Kelly is here. Dylan’s brother. I look at his dark eyes again. Now that I know who’s standing before me, I recognize the eyes from the photograph.

  “How could you…” Nell stares at him. She shakes her head slowly, as if that might help the information to fall into the right boxes.

  “Leave,” says Kelly quietly. “It’s over.”

  “So it was you who kissed her?” Martin’s face is ashen. “You are so busted, man. I’ll personally ensure you never come anywhere near Nell again.”

  Kelly ignores him. His eyes are fixed on Nell, who is still shaking her head.

  “Go on. Leave.”

  Why aren’t we moving? If this Kelly is offering us a way out, we need to take it.

  “There’s no need to be scared of me anymore. I won’t hurt you.”

  Kelly’s voice is much quieter than before. For a moment, I hear a resemblance to Dylan, and yet I don’t want to hear it. I take a quick look at Sandy, who is standing right next to Kelly. Now that he’s distracted, we should be able to make it to the door.

  Quin pulls my arm and, without thinking, I follow him. He pushes the door open and we almost stumble over each other to get out. The fresh air hits my face as I start running. I count my steps. Five, six, seven…

  What do we do if they come after us? How does it feel to get a knife in your back? Do you die instantly? Or do you slowly bleed out?

  In the distance, I can see a light. Another Fright Nighter?

  “Hey!” I shout. “Over here!”

  “Help!” calls Nell, from just behind me. “We need help!”

  I hear Martin groan. The beam of light is heading our way. It’s going way too slowly. I run toward it, with Quin.

  “Over here!” I keep shouting. “This way.”

  The light’s very close now.

  It feels like my feet leave the ground when I see who it is.

  DYLAN

  I feel her arms around my neck. Sofia presses her shaking body so tightly to mine that all the air is knocked out of my lungs.

  “What happened?” I ask. Her hair tickles my face.

  “In the bunker…Martin…a knife…Where were you?” Sofia lets go of me and gives my chest a thump.

  Quin’s face is twisted with fear. “We have to get away from here, as quickly as we can.”

  “What’s going on?” I look behind them. Martin and Nell come running up together. Martin is stumbling, as if every step is an effort. There’s a bloody gash on his face and a bloodstained denim jacket wrapped around his arm.

  It’s Sofia’s jacket.

  “Wh-what—” I stammer.

  “They attacked us.” Sofia’s voice is trembling. “There’s a clown with a knife. And the other one tried to kiss Nell. Your brother’s…”

  “Kelly?” I feel a flaming pain in my chest. So I wasn’t going crazy—he really is here. Did he do that to Martin?

  “That friend of his is insane.” Sofia takes my hand. “We have to go.”

  I look at our hands, which fit together perfectly. One day I’ll tell her everything. I can trust her. I slip her bracelet back around her wrist and give her my flashlight.

  “Here. Follow the path back toward the exit. Get someone to call the police.”

  Sofia looks at me with big eyes. “What about you?”

  I look at the darkness behind her. “Is he in there?”

  Quin shakes his head. “You’re not going in there. He’s dangerous.”

  * * *

  —

  “Mom, where’s Kelly?”

  “Gone.” Mom is sitting at the kitchen table, flicking through a magazine.

  “Gone? What do you mean?”

  “He lives somewhere else now.”

  I thought about our last conversation in his room. Did it have something to do with that?

  Mom turns a page. “Just be glad you’re rid of him.”

  * * *

  —

  “Guys,” Nell pleads, “Martin needs help.”

  Quin looks back. For a moment, I think he’s going to go with them, but then he hands the flashlight to Nell.

  “You guys go.”

  Nell nods gratefully and starts walking. Martin groans with every step he takes.

  Bewildered, I look at my friend. “What are you doing?”

  “What do you think?”

  Sofia nods. “We’re going with you.”

  MURDERER

  Did you feel it coming?

  DYLAN

  The concrete of the bunker feels cold when I hide by the entrance with Quin and Sofia. Angry voices are coming from inside.

  “Why did you let them go?”

  “It’s over, Sandy.”

  I thought I’d forgotten Kelly’s voice, but I recognize it instantly.

  “Over? Are you kidding? Do you have any idea what’s going to happen now? That bitch is going to report us to the police and we’re both going to end up in jail!”

  “Then why did you say my name? You were lucky she didn’t already recognize your voice!”

  He curses. “You should never have lost your head over a neighbor.”

  “Nell is…”

  “She’s just some girl, like billions of others! Wake up, man!”

  I feel Sofia’s clammy hand in mine. Quin is panting. I’m putting them in danger. This is my fight, not theirs.

  “You guys need to go,” I whisper.

  In the darkness, I just see a glint in Quin’s eyes. “Never.”

  He let me send him away before, but I know he’ll stay this time.

  “And it’s all thanks to your little brother,” comes a voice from inside the bunker.

  I gasp. This is about me.

&
nbsp; “What’s Dylan got to do with this?”

  There’s a sigh. “All the trouble started with him, didn’t it?”

  Is this about the last conversation I had with Kelly, just before the accident on the stairs?

  * * *

  —

  “You’re almost out of medication. I’m just going to go by the pharmacy.” Mom puts her head around the door. “Stay in bed, okay?”

  I nod obediently.

  “See you later.”

  My bedroom door closes, soon followed by the front door. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. This has to come to an end—and Kelly is my only chance.

  I frantically kick off the comforter. It isn’t easy, because it’s so tightly tucked in. I peep around the curtains to make sure she’s gone. Mom is heading down the road. Ten minutes is all I have.

  I dash out into the hall and up the stairs. I haven’t been in his room for ages. I know better than that. Kelly seems to be getting angrier and angrier lately. With Mom, with me, with the world.

  “What?” he shouts when I knock on his door.

  I swing the door open and see my brother lying on his bed. He raises his eyebrows when he sees me.

  “Is the patient out of bed?” he says.

  “I have to talk to you.” Feeling jumpy, I look over my shoulder. One of my ten precious minutes has already ticked away.

  “What about?”

  “About Dr. Luiting. About the injections. About Mom.”

  Kelly sighs. “What is it this time?”

  * * *

  —

  “Stop it.” Kelly’s voice sounds weak.

  “Since when do you stick up for him?”

  “I’m not. I just don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  * * *

  —

  “I’m not sick.” It feels like I’m throwing my diary at his feet and yelling, Go on! Read it!

  “You’re not sick?” Kelly laughs. “You look like a ghost.”

  I look over my shoulder again. How many minutes do I have left?

  “I’m pretending. I have to. Like, I don’t need glasses. See!”

  Kelly looks through my lenses. “Huh?”

  I can see from his face that he doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.

  “I don’t have a prescription. These are fake. I swapped Mom’s old glasses for this pair.”

  “W-why?” Kelly stammers.

  “Because I have to pretend,” I say again. “It’s a kind of game. Do you see?”

  A shadow passes over Kelly’s face. “A game?”

  “Yes, Mom’s game.”

  He swears at me.

  Shocked, I look at him. “What?”

  He curses again, hitting me with his pillow.

  “But…,” I say. “You don’t understand.”

  “Go away!” Kelly stands up from his bed and forces me backward. I grab hold of the handrail just in time, or I’d have fallen then and there.

  Kelly puts his face right up to mine and in his eyes I see the wild look that has become all too familiar lately.

  “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t want you to be my brother. I don’t want to play soccer with you.”

  “It’s Mom. Mom makes me do it.”

  The most important words I have ever spoken are drowned in his rage.

  “I want you to die!”

  I thunder down the stairs, two steps at a time.

  “Do you hear me?” Kelly shouts after me. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re dead!”

  On the landing, at the top of the stairs, I stumble over my own feet—and then go tumbling down.

  * * *

  —

  “He fell. That poor sad little Dylan fell down the stairs. Big deal. Too bad he survived.”

  My hand slips out of Sofia’s.

  “He must have laughed so much when you were taken away by social services.”

  “That’s not true!”

  It’s a moment before I realize that loud voice came out of me. Inside the bunker, everything goes silent, and Sofia and Quin hold their breath too.

  I take a step forward, into the bunker. “That is not true.”

  KELLY

  Even before I see him, I know it’s him.

  “That is not true.” Dylan’s standing in the doorway. He’s tall now and he has to bend his knees to come into the bunker. He still has the same wide mouth and dark eyes, just like mine. It’s like looking at an old photo of myself.

  Sandy looks like he’s seen a ghost. “Dylan?”

  I’ve often wondered what it would be like to see him again. What would I feel? The same rage I felt that afternoon? The grudge I held against him after that? Strangely, I don’t feel any of that. It’s like everything’s gone numb.

  “I never laughed.” Dylan’s voice pulls me back into the bunker. “You were just…gone. Mom said it was better that way.”

  I press my fingertips to my temples, but not even a thousand fingers could help me now.

  “You hated me. You sent me away that afternoon, but I just wanted to talk to you.”

  That part of my life is sealed off, hidden away. All those years of therapy had an effect. I’ve managed to put things into perspective. I dyed my hair and let it grow. It was time for a new beginning, a new Kelly. I told everyone my mom and dad had died in a car accident. Killed instantly. A simple lie and people never ask any more questions. What else was I supposed to say? That my own mom had thrown me out?

  “Why did you hate me so much?”

  Dylan’s voice sounds just like it used to. Wailing, whining. When I went to the bathroom at night, he was often crying in his room. I never went in, always crept back upstairs.

  “Were you that jealous of me?” Dylan looks at me, pleading. “Please, just tell me why.”

  “Why?” I growl. “Do you really have to ask that? Thanks to you, Mom didn’t know I existed! The two of you went away for whole days. Into the hospital, out of the hospital. I was ten years old, Dylan, ten! You stayed away for entire weekends and I had to cook for myself, do the laundry, and change your stinking sweaty sheets. Whenever Mom came back, she was always mad at me. She snarled at me, told me I had to try harder. After all, it wasn’t my little brother’s fault that he was sick. Everything at home revolved around you. Everything!”

  Dylan’s eyes filled with tears. “Do you think it’s what I wanted?”

  I snort. Even after all these years, he still can’t stop playing the victim.

  “You stayed in bed and Mom took care of you. She was with you every day, but she’d stopped caring about me. I got thrown out. She rejected me, like I didn’t belong to her. And she let you go on living there. You always came first.”

  DYLAN

  Kelly’s words go through me like bullets.

  “Be glad!” I scream. “Be glad she didn’t choose you!”

  Kelly’s eyebrows go up. His Fright Night makeup moves stiffly.

  “When are you going to get it? I didn’t want her to take care of me.”

  Behind me, I hear Sofia and Quin coming into the bunker. Sandy grabs his knife and holds it out.

  “Get back.”

  I’m shocked by the sharp blade. Is that what Sandy used to carve up Martin’s face?

  “You’re acting like you’re the victim here!” yells Sandy. “But you grew up with your mom. You have no idea what Kelly went through because of you!”

  “Is that why you wanted to kill me?” I ask quietly.

  Kelly looks at me. “What?”

  “This postcard.” I take it out of my pocket and hold it up. “You recognize this place, don’t you?”

  It was the last vacation for the three of us. Mom
left me alone for two weeks and I hung out with Kelly, building forts, eating ice cream, and swimming all day long. It felt like I finally had a big brother.

  But back home it began all over again. Mom moaned that I’d spent way too much time in the sun. Dr. Luiting was never going to believe I was sick. So she forced me to rest in bed again, and Kelly retreated to the attic. He went back to being distant and mean. Within a few weeks, it was like the vacation had never happened.

  “Here.” I turn the card to show him the words. “You want to kill me.”

  Kelly’s expression freezes. “I didn’t write that.”

  I hold out the card farther. “Well, you’re the only one who knows where we went on vacation that time.”

  “That’s not true. I told Sandy…” Kelly turns to look at Sandy, who’s blinking his yellow eyes way too quickly. “Sandy? Did you…”

  “What if I did?”

  Kelly stares at Sandy in disbelief. “You threatened to kill my brother?”

  “That thing!” Sandy’s trembling fingers grip the handle of the knife more tightly. “That’s not your brother! I’m your brother. I’m the one who’s been here for you all these years!”

  Kelly slowly shakes his head. “When did you send the card?”

  “Monday.”

  “So that’s why you were back so late from the grocery store.” Kelly’s voice cracks. “Why?”

  “I wanted to terrify him. Then he could feel what it’s like for once. Someone had to do it, didn’t they?”

  “Your plan didn’t work,” I say. “I don’t live there anymore.”

  Kelly and Sandy both look up at the same time.

  “I live with Quin now.”

  Kelly’s eyes widen. “What? Why?”

  “Because it was too dangerous at home.”

  Sandy takes a step forward. “That mouth of your just spits out lies.”

  And then everything happens at once. He grabs Sofia, holds the knife to her throat, and pulls her away from us.