Alone, save for the set of eyes that burn on the back of my neck wherever I go.
Thankfully, I spot Kyle at the far end of the cafeteria, sitting by himself and poking at his food. I grab my own lunch—a sub sandwich and chips—and make my way over to him.
He glances up briefly when I sit across from him, then looks back down. There are dark circles under his eyes, like bruises, and maybe it’s the light, but he looks older. Much, much older.
Haunted.
“Hey,” I say after a few moments pass in awkward silence.
“Hey,” he grunts back.
“You okay?”
He shrugs.
I’ve seen him shut down before, but this feels worse. I know that right now, more than ever, the five of us need to stick together. April is right—we defeated the clown before because we worked as a team and helped one another face our fears. But alone? We don’t have a chance.
Especially if the clown has fed.
“About this morning—” I begin.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he interrupts. His voice is gruff.
“I know, I know, but look, Kyle, this isn’t something April is making up.”
“Sure.”
“No, it isn’t! Last night …” I take a deep breath. Once more, I feel eyes on the back of my neck, and fight back the urge to look around. “Last night I … I saw it. Outside the window. The clown. He was smiling at me with those terrifying eyes, and he’d written something in the frost on the window. He wrote, Time to Play.”
Kyle doesn’t say anything.
I stare at him, wondering if he’s heard me. Then he looks up slowly, and his haunted eyes are even more grim.
“Sure you did,” he says. “Just like I’m sure Jeremy and the others are really missing, and this isn’t something that April and Jeremy plotted after you and I went home.”
The way he says it makes my stomach drop. He even sounds older.
He … he sounds like his dad.
“What? You don’t believe me?”
“Of course I don’t believe you,” he responds. “There’s no way the clown is back. Jeremy and the others are probably just hiding somewhere, skipping school. I bet April even told you to make up the story about seeing the clown outside. I know you’d do anything for her.”
“Kyle, I—”
“No!” He slams a hand on the table, making his utensils rattle. A few kids look over, but he ignores them and rages on, though at least he lowers his voice. “No, no excuses. I’m not falling for it, Deshaun. This is all some stupid prank because April wants us all to be together again. I’m not falling for it. I refuse to believe the clown is back. We defeated it. Okay? Over. Done. We all know it, and this whole thing is just sad. Pathetic.”
“But why would she do that? Why would any of us pretend the clown was back?”
“Because to you guys, the clown wasn’t real. Not really. You all think this is just a game.”
“What—”
“It showed you stupid things like ghosts or sharks. Big deal. That isn’t scary. Not really. It showed me …” He swallows and shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over. And I refuse to believe otherwise, got it? So just let it go. The clown isn’t back. We aren’t all going to magically be best friends again. The world doesn’t work like that. Just because April doesn’t want to grow up and face reality—”
“Dude!”
“What? It’s the truth. She hates that we aren’t all hanging out all the time. She hates that we’re growing up and going separate directions. And all the rest of you hate it too. You don’t want to face the future. You don’t want to face the truth.”
Anger boils in my veins. I’ve never wanted to yell at Kyle before, but right now, I do.
“And what truth is that?” I ask through gritted teeth.
He stands up and looks at me.
“We’re alone. All of us. And we can’t depend on anyone.”
Then he grabs his tray and storms from the cafeteria.
I watch him go. Watch him throw most of his food in the trash and head out the door. I’m not the only one.
Someone giggles beside me. I turn slowly, fear freezing my blood, because it can’t be here. It can’t be.
But there, right beside me, is the clown, wearing its puffy outfit, its blue eyes watching Kyle leave.
Then its head turns to face me, slowly, even though the rest of its body stays still. Its eyes pierce like the sun. Were they ever that bright before?
“One down,” it says with a giggle. “Four to go.”
It opens its mouth wide, splitting its face in two, a great, gaping black pit of razor teeth that stretches and stretches larger than its body. It leans toward me, snaps down to devour me. I can’t move. Can’t scream.
And right as it swallows me, right as the darkness becomes everything, the clown explodes in a flurry of confetti and balloons and laughter. Right in the middle of the cafeteria. Right in the middle of a few hundred kids.
None of them seem to have seen a thing.
I sit there, my breath racing, burning in my lungs.
Waiting for it to come back.
Waiting for literally anyone else to say something, to raise the alarm. But no one else has seen the clown, or the balloons that pop when they hit the ceiling, or the confetti that melts when it reaches the floor.
Kyle was right about one thing:
We’re alone.
If only he’d been right about the clown.
Everything is wrong.
We shouldn’t be fighting. Not now. Not ever. But especially not now. Not with five other kids missing. Not when I know it’s going to come after us next.
It already has.
I sit with April in the back of the classroom. Chemistry. Our teacher, Mr. Borne, drones on, and I try to take notes, but all I can think about is the anger in Kyle’s voice and the fear in April’s. Something horrible is going on, and it’s not just the clown showing us our fears this time.
Somehow, it’s found a way to turn us against one another.
April scribbles away in her notebook beside me. I try to catch her eye, but she ignores me. She isn’t angry with me, I know. But she is hurt, and there’s nothing I can do to help. It makes me feel helpless. Just as helpless as when we buried my mother.
The moment I think it, I feel it—the crumbling walls, the dirt pressing in on all sides, the light fading as the earth closes in. The old fear of being buried alive.
I take deep, steady breaths and press my hands onto the table, remind myself that it is just my imagination, that I am in school, in chemistry, and I am not being buried alive; it is impossible. The feeling slowly fades. I keep breathing deeply. I keep my mind calm. There is no point panicking. I know this.
Dirt falls on the notebook. Great clumps of brown soil tumble across my fingertips.
It’s just your imagination.
Even if the clown is back, even if it can catch us here, all it can do is try to scare me. I can fight it by refusing to be scared. Right?
“You think that will work?” comes a voice right beside me. I know that voice, even though I haven’t heard it in two years—it’s burned into my memory, a nightmare always at the edge of my awareness. The clown. It giggles ominously. I refuse to look over, refuse to give it power.
“I want to play, Caroline. And you will play with me. You. Will. PLAY.”
The ground rattles. Beakers and burners roll off the desks, glass vials shatter to the floor. But still I don’t look up. Still I refuse. I can’t see April anymore, even though I know she remains beside me. I can’t hear her, or anyone else, above the grumbling, roaring earthquake as the classroom collapses around me. I close my eyes. This is all in your head. This is all in your head.
The rumbling stops. The sensation of dirt on my shoulders and hands disappears.
There’s a hiss, a wheezing of air, and something cold and slimy reaches under my chin.
I gasp and open my eyes as a rotting h
and turns my head
to face the zombie sitting right beside me.
It is horrible. Gray-green flesh falling from its skull, rotted teeth that smell like old feet, one eyeball dangling from its socket. April and the rest of my class are nowhere to be seen. Instead, I’m standing in a graveyard covered in fog and broken tombstones. Far, far away from reality. And safety.
The zombie smiles at me and wheezes again, its breath a foul cloud. Its fingers tighten around my chin. Its fingernails dig into my flesh. I feel its broken nails cut my cheek. I force myself not to scream or cry because this is real, this is real.
“You can’t ignore me anymore, Caroline,” it says, its voice horribly similar to the clown’s but raspier. “I’m no longer just in your imagination. I’ve fed. I am everywhere. You can’t escape. You ran from me once, but now you all are mine!”
From the corner of my mind I see them—dozens of zombies, shambling toward me with rotting flesh and missing limbs. They claw from the ground, moaning horribly. Another skeletal zombie nears, reaches out, puts its hand on my shoulder, pulls me close to devour me.
I scream. Finally, I scream.
And I’m back.
Back in the classroom. Back beside April. The clown is nowhere to be seen, nor are the zombies.
The whole room is silent. Staring at me. And it’s only then that I realize it’s because I’ve been screaming out loud. For real.
I swallow hard and look down, trying to ignore the questioning stares and the laughter of my classmates.
“Are you okay, Caroline?” my teacher asks.
I nod silently and wait for him to resume teaching. Thankfully, after what feels like forever, he does. It takes a lot longer for my classmates to look back to their notes. They don’t stop laughing quietly to one another. If only they knew. If only they knew …
I reach up and touch my cheek. When I bring my hand away, there are tiny drops of blood from where the zombie’s nails pierced my skin.
“What was that all about?” April whispers.
“It was here,” I reply through the tears that start falling from my cheeks. Fear pulses within me. “It was right beside me. Only now, it’s worse. It’s so much worse.”
“But I didn’t see a thing.”
I can’t respond. All I can do is cry silently and show her the blood on my fingertips. It was here, and it’s no longer just in our heads.
It can hurt us.
Somewhere in the distance, I hear the clown giggle, along with the jingle of bells.
I can’t stop worrying for the rest of the school day.
I keep thinking about Caroline freaking out and saying the clown was in class with us—next to me, yet somehow invisible. At least I finally, finally got a text back from Deshaun, which didn’t say much beyond we are okay. But I don’t believe it. It’s like every time I blink, I can see Kyle pushing us away as he stormed off. I can hear Caroline screaming. I can see the neon-orange hat she handed to me. I can imagine Jeremy and the others being taken.
But the worst part is that while the rest of my friends suffer, I don’t see a thing.
Not since the note this morning, not since the giggling.
It’s worse than being personally attacked. The knowledge that the clown is out there, biding its time and preying on my friends. It’s hunting them, making me watch as they face terrible nightmares. And I can’t do anything about it.
I stand outside the school, waiting to catch sight of my friends as the rest of the school spills out. I hope we’re still on for the sleepover tonight. I truly don’t want to be alone. I don’t think any of us should be. It isn’t safe.
I almost sigh in relief when Andres and Caroline step out together … though Deshaun and Kyle are nowhere to be seen. My heart thuds painfully, and I can’t tell if it’s relief that Andres and Caroline are okay, or fear that Deshaun and Kyle might not be.
“Did anything new happen?” I ask the moment they near.
“Hello to you too,” Andres says. He glances around nervously. “Yeah. After we left the cafeteria, I saw spiders in the garbage can.”
“That’s not very strange,” I say. There are bugs in the cafeteria all the time.
“These were. They were huge. The size of my head.” He swallows and looks around once more. “I think … I think it’s changed. It isn’t just showing us what we really fear. I think it’s showing what others fear too.”
“That would explain the zombies,” Caroline whispers.
“Zombies?” Andres asks.
I shudder at the cold breeze that blows past as she fills him in. I swear I hear giggling but try to convince myself it’s the crowd of kids rushing by, and not the clown listening in.
“The clown,” Caroline continues, looking pale with fear, “I mean, the zombie, whatever … it said it had fed.”
I can’t imagine what that means for Jeremy and the others. I don’t want to—it’s too horrible. We just hung out with them last night! Have they been consumed by the evil? Trapped forever in the caves? Overtaken by their fears?
Each option seems more horrible than the last.
“Have you heard from Kyle?” I ask, trying to push the thoughts away. “I’m worried about him.”
“Me too,” Andres admits.
“Do you think the clown is getting to him?” I ask.
“I think it’s close,” he admits.
“Well,” I say, “we’re just going to have to make sure Kyle comes tonight.”
“Tonight?” Andres asks.
“Tonight. Caroline’s. The sleepover.”
“Right,” he says. “Good luck with that.”
“I don’t need luck,” I say. I look toward the door, to where Deshaun and Kyle are finally walking out. “I have Deshaun.”
“You’re going to need more than that,” Andres mutters.
Deshaun and Kyle are deep in discussion—it almost looks like an argument—and although it’s clear that Kyle’s trying to avoid us, Deshaun steers him our way.
“Hey,” Deshaun says sheepishly. “How … how are you doing?”
“Besides the fact that we’re all being hunted by an evil clown that’s already captured five kids?” I ask sarcastically. “Great.”
“We don’t know that it captured them,” Caroline says. “There’s still hope.”
“Right,” I say. “But we also know that we’re probably the only ones who could find them.”
I expect Kyle to say something biting, something about how he isn’t going to help, but he just stands there in sullen silence, looking down at his shoes.
“Are you all coming tonight?” Caroline asks the boys.
“Oh,” Kyle mutters. “Um.”
“Yes,” Deshaun says. He nudges Kyle. “We are. Kyle needed to grab some stuff from home, though.”
“Yeah,” Kyle quickly says. “I’m going to head there now.” He looks to Deshaun, then Andres. “Alone.”
“Suit yourself,” Andres says with a forced nonchalance.
“Okay, then,” Deshaun says. He looks at Kyle nervously. “I’ll see you later?”
Kyle nods. Then, without a goodbye, he turns and starts walking home. I want to tell him to stop, that we’re safer as a group, but I don’t want to set him off. It’s more important that he comes to Caroline’s. Besides, right now it’s daylight, and there are other kids walking along the streets with him. He won’t be targeted now.
Then I remember that Caroline was targeted when she was sitting right beside me, and my confidence falters.
“Should we really let him go?” Caroline asks.
“He’ll be okay,” Deshaun replies. He comes over and takes my hand, gives it a squeeze. Then he forces a smile. “We should run by the store and get some snacks. I bet all the Halloween candy is on sale.”
“Yeah,” I say, squeezing his hand in return. I watch Kyle go, a sinking feeling in my stomach. “That sounds fun.”
“What are we going to do about the others?” Andres whispers. “We can’t just l
eave Jeremy and the rest out there. We have to find them.”
“But how?” I ask. “You know how the clown works. It’s toying with us. It won’t reveal them or where it’s hiding unless it wants to be found.”
“I know,” Andres says. “But I still think we should try.”
Deshaun clears his throat. “Maybe we should go to the graveyard later,” he says. “If Caroline saw the grave, maybe it’s a sign. Maybe we can find something out there.”
I know it’s the last place he wants to be, seeing as he got lost there when he was a little kid, but he tries to keep his voice strong and brave.
“Or maybe it’s a trap,” Andres says. Deshaun raises an eyebrow, and Andres quickly carries on. “But, I mean, I’m with you. Even if it is a trap, I don’t want to just wait around for the clown to come find us. Or for Jeremy and the others to get hurt worse than they already are.” He watches Kyle turn the corner. “We just have to hope we can make it till then.”
“We will,” Caroline says. “Together.”
Except I know the truth. We all do. The clown has already divided us, and unless we manage to mend the cracks, we won’t stand a chance.
I take the long way home.
Not home. Not really. To Deshaun’s house. To where I stay.
His parents may have taken me in, but it’s not mine. Not really. I don’t fit in there. I don’t fit in anywhere. Never have.
I’ve always been different. Always been apart.
Dad was right in that at least.
I’ll never fit in.
I’ll never be loved.
Not really.
I don’t know why my feet lead me there. Maybe it’s the dark thread of my thoughts pulling me onward. But it seems like I blink, and I’m there.
One minute I’m with my friends outside the school.
The next, I stand outside my old house. Home.
I stand on the other side of the street. Staring up at the curtained windows, dark in the afternoon light. The well-mowed front yard. Normally mowing was my job, but I bet Dad made sure Mom did it. He always did like a clean yard. And a clean house. Even if he refused to be the one making it clean.
Everything is perfect from the outside.
The Fear Zone 2 Page 5
