Return to the Dark House (12 page)

“More fun than I’ve had in weeks, to be honest. Sad but true. I mean, no offense.”

“None taken.”

“And now inquiring minds want to know: do you blame me too?”

“Blame you?”

“For leaving the Dark House. For not taking Natalie with me, for not hiding somewhere—in the woods, maybe—and trying to warn you guys as you arrived.”

“A lot of people would’ve done the same,” I tell her. “Escaped from the Dark House, that is.”

“Would
you
have done the same?”

I bite my lip, thinking back to how scared I was that weekend. “Part of me thinks that even if I’d wanted to bolt, I never would’ve made it out of there. I would’ve been
paralyzed by my fear.”

“By the time Natalie even crossed my mind, I was already deep into the woods. That message I wrote in the closet—get out before it’s too late—just tells you how much of a
coward I was. It was done on a whim, while I was hiding from Midge. I’m surprised you even found it.”

“But I
did
find it. And I never forgot it. I knew something about it wasn’t right.”

Taylor shrugs. “I should’ve done so much more.”

“You did the best you could at the time,” I say, channeling my inner Dr. Donna.

“It was a full day and a half before I was able to get help,” she says. “After I escaped, I still wasn’t in the clear; someone was chasing me in the woods.”

“Did you see who that someone was?”

“No, but eventually, when I got far enough away, I hid behind a fallen tree, my cheek pressed against a sharp twig, trying not to move. I stayed like that for hours, exactly as you
describe—paralyzed by fear. I didn’t move again until daylight.”

“On Saturday,” I say to be sure. “The day we went to the amusement park.”

“Exactly.” She nods. “It took a long time to find the road, and even longer to get picked up. But I did. A couple of truckers found me. They didn’t speak English. Neither
of them had a phone. And I didn’t want to risk having them stop their truck. I just wanted to get away. They brought me to a bus depot and paid for my ticket. I ended up in Minneapolis, where
I called the police. But I didn’t know where the Dark House was—not really. And I just kept thinking about all of you guys, wondering what was happening.” She looks away, her eyes
filled with tears. “It seems like all I’ve been doing lately is wondering
what if
.”

“But hindsight is twenty-twenty, right?”

“So you don’t hate me?”

I get up from the bed to bring her a box of tissues. “Of course not. Far from it.”

“Well, that’s a relief, because I was so afraid to meet you.”

I sit down beside her and blot her tears with a tissue. “Well, I’m really glad that we
did
meet—that you changed your mind about getting together.” Because this is
the closest I’ve felt to anyone since Parker. And it feels good to be the strong one for a change—even if it’s just in this moment.

I
WAKE UP TO A
buzzing sound. My cell phone vibrates against the floor. I have a new e-mail message.

I sit up in bed. It’s three a.m. Taylor’s still asleep. A smiley face sleep mask covers her eyes; the front of it reads
HAPPY NAPPER
.

I reach for my phone to check who the message is from. The brightness of the screen stings my eyes and I have to squint.

But still I can see it: the Nightmare Elf’s name in my in-box.

My heart tightens. The phone slips from my grip, clanking to the floor, waking Taylor up.

She pulls down her sleep mask. “What is it?”

“He wrote me back.”

She sits up, clicks on her night table light, and then comes to join me on the futon.

The e-mail’s subject line reads
TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS
. I click to read the message.

I clasp my hand over my mouth, feeling my entire body shake.

“Is that true?” Taylor asks. “About the mac and cheese?”

“True.” I nod. There’s a sharpness in my chest, making it hard to breathe.

Taylor gets up to grab her laptop off her desk. Meanwhile, I reach into my bag for a sachet of lemon balm. I hold it up to my nose, concentrating on its ability to soothe.

“What the hell?” she shouts, sitting beside me again.

There’s an error message on the computer screen. Taylor tries refreshing the page—it’s the Filmeo account; I can tell from the URL. But the video’s gone. The account
appears to have been deleted.

“What happened?” she asks. She goes back to the original e-mail message, copies the link, and then pastes it into the browser. But the error message is still there. “We should
call the police. They might be able to trace the e-mail address—or the server, that is—to find out where this person’s located.”

“I’m assuming they’re already doing that. I mean, they have the e-mail address from the Movie Marvin video.” The police tried tracing the original Nightmare Elf e-mails
from a year ago as well, only, for whatever reason, they weren’t able to pinpoint a location.

“Let’s just go talk to them.” She gets up and returns to her bed, closing the laptop.

My phone vibrates again. It’s another message from the Nightmare Elf. The subject line reads:
RAIN
,
RAIN
,
GO
AWAY
.

I click to open it up. The words
Do you like a wet seat?
make my head spin.

“What is it?” Taylor asks.

I look up in her direction, but then my eyes fix on the window behind her. Rain pounds against the glass.

“
What?
” she persists.

I get up and bolt out the door.

I
VY RUNS FROM MY ROOM
—yet again. I follow her out—down the stairs and through the lobby—calling after her in my loudest whisper to
avoid waking anyone up.

I push through the exit doors. Ivy is a good distance in front of me. There are streetlamps shining over the parking lot, but it’s still hard to see. It’s raining out. The droplets
pelt my eyes, making me wish I had my sleep mask, or at least an umbrella.

Ivy moves like a contestant on
Supermarket Dash
, weaving through cars (in lieu of store displays), trying to find her own car (instead of a prize-winning box of Cheerios).

“Ivy?” I call, once again.

She stops in front of a small dark sedan a couple of rows over. I hurry closer, able to see that the windows of the car are open.

She swings open the driver’s side door and reaches inside to retrieve something from the seat.

“What is it?” I ask, standing right behind her now.

“My windows weren’t open,” she mumbles.

“Well, I should hope not. This isn’t exactly Punta Cana. I’m freezing my ass cheeks off.”

She snags a flashlight from her glove box and shines it over a bright red envelope. The front of it reads
FOR APRIL
,
WITH LOVE
, in black block
lettering. “He’s here,” she whispers; there’s a tremor in her voice.

I take the umbrella sticking out from the side door compartment. I open it up and hold it over us. Meanwhile, Ivy aims her flashlight all around—over cars, at windshields—before
going to tear the envelope open.

“Hold up,” I say, stopping her a moment by grabbing her wrist. “This is tangible evidence. We shouldn’t even touch it. We should just bring it to the police.”

She ignores me and continues to rip it open, her dampened fingers unable to work fast enough. Finally, she pulls out a card. “An invitation.”

“To where?”

She reads it over, her jaw clenched, her nostrils flared.

“What does it say?” I ask.

She turns it over so I can see.

“There’s something else,” she says, pulling out a 4 × 6 photograph. It’s a picture of five dolls. They’re all lined up against a crude cement wall: a guy doll
dressed in dark clothes, with lots of silver jewelry; a girl doll with weird patchy hair and shrouded in dark layers; two more guy dolls (one holds a guitar; the other one reminds me of a surfer
dude with his scruffy blond hair); and a pretty dark-skinned girl with a smiling face.

“These represent the missing contestants, don’t they?” I say, more as a statement than a question.

“And if we want to save them, we have to go to this.” She nods to the invite. “We have to follow his rules or else their roles will get cut.”

“Meaning?” I ask, fearing I know the answer.

Ivy pulls out her phone and opens it up to the Nightmare Elf’s last e-mail. She hits
REPLY
.

“Holy Hell!!” I pull her fingers away from the screen. “Haven’t you ever heard of impulse control? Let’s talk about this.”

“What is there to talk about? Are you with me on this or not?” She raises her eyebrow, à la Tippi Hedren in Alfred Hitchcock’s
The Birds
.

“By ‘with me,’ do you mean not calling the police?”

“By ‘with me,’ I mean saving the others once and for all.” Ivy glares at me like a possessed vampire junkie on blood-flavored crack.

“Look—” I take a deep breath. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. We’re standing in the middle of a rainstorm, in the middle of a parking lot. And
I’m not even wearing public-viewing-worthy PJs.” I flash her the hole in one of my kisses, right over my left butt cheek.

“So…”

“So, let’s go back inside, change our clothes, get some shut-eye. We can rethink things in the morning when we’re not so saturated.”

“Except that every moment we wait, the clock just keeps on ticking.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if she can hear the ticking inside her head, like a time bomb about to go off. “We have twenty-four hours to respond,” I remind her. “So, what do
you say we use at least six or seven of them? I can’t be responsible for any decisions made before ten on a Saturday morning with a stomach devoid of home fries and sausage links.”

My comment takes her off guard, and the tension in her face releases. Game point: I’ve won this round.