The Show Must Go On! (7 page)

“I'm—I'm okay, Mr. Harris, thanks,” Bree assured him. “This is all just so freaky. The play hasn't been performed since then. Until now. And I'm playing the lead, just like Gabrielle Ashford. And my name is Gabrielle.”

“I don't think I've ever heard anyone at this school call you by your real first name,” Mr. Harris said.

“No, and there's only one person who does. Thank
you so much, Mr. Harris. I really appreciate your help. I have to head home now.”

“It's my pleasure, Bree. And come back anytime. It's always nice to see you.”

“Thanks.”

Bree hurried from the library, her mind racing.

Mildred is Millie the ghost. Gabrielle is me. I mean, Gabrielle played the lead and died. Tiffany's story was true. She also said the play was cursed and that I would die. Is that true too?

“I've got to talk to Ms. Hollows,” Bree murmured to herself, heading to the auditorium.

She shoved open the big auditorium door and stepped inside. She saw no one.

“Ms. Hollows!” she called out. “I need to talk with you.” Her voice echoed around the empty, cavernous room. “Ms. Hollows!” she yelled again, heading down the center aisle toward the stage. Again she got no answer.

Bree bounded up the stairs leading onto the stage and scooted backstage. It too was empty. She was completely alone in the auditorium. Or was she?

She got the strong feeling that someone was watching her. “Hello?” she called. “Is anybody here?”

Stop making yourself nuts, Bree,
she thought as she
marched back up the aisle toward the door.
Go home. Get some rest. You are imagining—

She spun around on her heels, certain that she would see someone behind her. The feeling of being watched was overwhelming. But she was alone.

Leaving the auditorium, she strode quickly along the long hallway. She headed for the front door of the school, her footsteps echoing down the empty corridor. As Bree listened to the sound of her own footsteps, she could swear that she heard a second set of footsteps mingling with her own. She stopped.

Silence.

Resuming her walking, she heard the second set of steps again. This time she stopped and spun around. She saw no one.

Reaching the front door of the school, Bree glanced back over her shoulder one more time as she grabbed the door handle. This time she caught a glimpse of a shadow disappearing around a corner. She threw open the door, burst from the school, and ran home as fast as she could.

As she ran, above the sound of her own hard breathing, Bree heard footsteps following her the whole way home.

CARRIE: Someone is following me.

RACHEL: What do you mean?

CARRIE: I heard footsteps behind me as I was walking home.

RACHEL: Did you see anyone at all?

CARRIE: No, that's what I'm saying. I didn't see anyone. But I did have the strong feeling that someone was following me, AND I clearly heard footsteps behind me. When I took a step, whoever was following me took a step. When I stopped, the second set of footsteps stopped.

RACHEL: Sometimes having a good imagination can be a problem, you know.

CARRIE: It's not my imagination. Something strange is happening.

“Cut! Very good scene, everyone,” Ms. Hollows shouted. “Let's take a ten-minute break.”

Bree and Melissa were up onstage on Monday after school, rehearsing the play. Bree was struggling with her lines today—she hadn't slept again last night and was finding the lack of sleep starting to really affect her. She also found it a bit weird that they were rehearsing the scene in which Carrie thinks someone is following her home from school, so shortly after Bree had experienced the same thing. The play seemed determined to mirror her life—or was it the other way around?

And the events in the play seemed all the more real to Bree now that the set was completed. She caught the eye of Justin, the boy in charge of putting the set together. He was being extra cautious since the light incident and came out on the stage in between scenes to make sure everything was in order. Or in the case of the mess that was Carrie's bedroom, disorder.

“Everything looks great, Justin!” Bree said, trying
to take her mind off everything and focus on the fact that this was going to be a very good play.

“Thanks,” Justin replied, tightening a clamp that held two sections of wall together. “It does look pretty cool.”

“Now that the window is in, it looks like a real room.”

“Check this out,” Justin said, slipping back behind the wall in which the window hung. “Tony, do the lightning!”

Lights flashed on and off behind the window. The shutters whipped back and forth, slamming against the outside of the “house” as if the wind were blowing them during a storm.

“Very cool!” Bree exclaimed. “It's going to be great when an audience sees it.”

“And we got the chandelier up and working,” Justin said.

Bree glanced up and saw that the chandelier had been hung. It was dusty and covered with cobwebs. Its lights flickered on and off. She was standing directly beneath it.

A wave of fear suddenly swept through her as she relived the moment when the stage light fell right next
to her. She took a step to the side so that she was no longer right under the fixture.

“Awesome,” she said, regaining her composure.

Bree walked to the side of the stage, where she spotted the top of a staircase that the crew had built. The handrails and the top few stairs disappeared behind a curtain offstage, giving the impression that a person could walk downstairs to a lower level of the house.

“This looks so real!” Bree exclaimed, gripping the handrails and looking down, almost expecting to see a real staircase. Instead she saw a soft mattress a foot below, there to break her fall in the play's final scene. “You guys are good!”

Melissa, who had run off to the dressing room after their scene, joined Bree onstage.

“Doesn't it look incredible, Lis?” Bree asked.

“It's so real I'm almost scared!” Melissa joked.

Bree smiled, but Melissa's innocent comment reminded her of what had happened last week. She had tried to forget it. She didn't want to ever tell Melissa about it, but now she felt like she couldn't keep it to herself any longer. She pulled Melissa away from everyone and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper.

“This is going to sound so strange, but last Thursday, before I went home, I heard footsteps.”

“Footsteps?”

“Yes. Well, first I thought that someone else was in the auditorium.”

“Well, that sounds terrifying,” Melissa said sarcastically.

“It was actually because no one else
was
in the auditorium. At least not that I could tell. And it felt like someone was watching me. Then, as I walked down the hall toward the front door, I was certain I heard another set of footsteps. Someone was following me. I could just tell.”

“Uh, we're on a break, Bree. No need to continue rehearsing.”

“No joke, Lis,” Bree said, realizing as she said it how crazy this all sounded . . . and how much like the lines they had just rehearsed. “I'm not talking as Carrie now. I'm me. And I'm telling you that the same thing that happens to Carrie in the show happened to me the other day. Someone followed me home.”

“Did you see anyone?” Melissa asked.

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean, ‘not exactly'? You either saw someone or you didn't.”

“I caught glimpses, a quick peek of something, like a shadow moving in the hallway.”

“Bree, I think this creepy play is really starting to get to you,” Melissa said. “All this so-called crazy stuff can be easily chalked up to coincidence.”

“But here's the other thing,” Bree continued. “I went to the library and found out that the girl playing Carrie thirty years ago did die on opening night. And, get this. Her name was Gabrielle!”

“Yeah, so . . .”

“Don't you see, Lis? It's all happening again. It's connected. There's something not right about this whole play. Tiffany was right!”

“Say it louder. I love when people say that,” Tiffany said, stepping up behind Bree. “What was I right about?”

“The girl who died thirty years ago,” Bree replied. “How'd you know?”

“Something I overheard my parents talking about ages ago. I told you the play was haunted,” Tiffany said. “You should quit before something happens.”

“Are you threatening her?” Melissa asked.

“I'm just saying,” Tiffany replied casually, walking away.

“I can't believe she's still trying to get your part,”
Melissa said, seemingly more upset at Tiffany's words than Bree was.

“I'm starting to wonder exactly what I believe, Lis,” Bree said softly, not quite sure if Melissa even heard her.

“Okay, everyone, the break is over,” Ms. Hollows announced. “Places onstage, please.”

Once again, Bree tried her best to shrug off her unease and put her mind back into the play.

The girls took their places for a key scene in the show. In the story, the sleepover was well underway. Carrie suggests they play a game.

CARRIE: The game is called “The Witch's Body.” It's kinda creepy and kinda goofy.

(CARRIE PULLS OUT A LARGE PLASTIC BAG BULGING WITH ITEMS INSIDE IT.)

CARRIE: This is the story of the witch who was so old that her body began to fall apart. And it just so happens that I've got the body parts right here in this bag!

(CARRIE SHAKES THE BAG MENACINGLY AT HER FRIENDS. THE OBJECTS RATTLE AND MAKE SQUISHING SOUNDS.)

RACHEL: Body parts? Gross!

CARRIE: That's where the game part comes in. I'm going to pick a body part from this bag and put it in this smaller bag.

(CARRIE TAKES A SMALL PLASTIC BAG AND PUTS IT NEXT TO THE LARGER BAG.)

CARRIE: Everyone will take a turn reaching into the small bag and feeling a body part. Then you have to say what body part it is and what the object REALLY is. Okay, now, everyone close your eyes.

(CARRIE REACHES INTO THE LARGE BAG AND PULLS OUT ONE OF THE ITEMS. THEN SHE PUTS IT INTO THE SMALL BAG.)

RACHEL: I'll go first!

(RACHEL SHOVES HER HAND INTO THE BAG.)

RACHEL: EWW! I feel something round and wet and squishy. And it's bigger than my hand. Wait. Wait. I know. It's the witch's heart!

CARRIE: You got it. Okay, now what is it really?

RACHEL: A—a peeled tomato!

CARRIE: Two points for Rachel. Okay, Laura, you're up.

(SOUND EFFECT: TAP. TAP. TAP. THE GIRLS ARE ALL STARTLED BY A TAPPING NOISE AT THE WINDOW.)

RACHEL: What was that?

LAURA: Sounded like someone tapping on the window.

CARRIE: Yeah, but we're on the second floor. How could someone be up here?

LAURA: Maybe it was just the wind blowing a tree branch against the window.

CARRIE: Totally. Let's get back to the game.

(CARRIE PULLS ANOTHER “BODY PART” FROM THE BIG BAG AND PUTS IT INTO THE SMALL ONE. LAURA REACHES INTO THE BAG.)

LAURA: I feel two little round squishy things. I know. I've got the witch's eyeballs.

CARRIE: Great!

LAURA: And I know what they really are. They're peeled grapes!

CARRIE: Another two points. Excellent. I—

(SOUND EFFECT: TAP! TAP! TAP!)

CARRIE: Did you see it? Did you see it?

RACHEL: See what?

CARRIE: The face! There was a face in the window.

(LIGHTNING FLASHES, REVEALING THE FACE OF A LITTLE GIRL WITH DARK, SUNKEN EYES AT THE WINDOW. CARRIE IS THE ONLY ONE TO SEE IT.)

CARRIE: Look!

(ALL HEADS TURN TOWARD THE WINDOW, BUT WHEN THE LIGHTNING ILLUMINATES THE OUTSIDE, THERE IS NO FACE AT THE WINDOW.)

RACHEL: So now you're seeing things?

CARRIE: Seeing things? You all saw the hairbrush and the mirror, right? And I saw her face.

LAURA: The ghost.

CARRIE: Yes, the gh—

(THERE ARE TAPPING SOUNDS AGAIN AT THE WINDOW. THIS TIME THEY ARE EVEN LOUDER AND MORE URGENT. EVERYONE TURNS BACK TO THE WINDOW. THERE, STARING IN AT THEM FROM OUTSIDE, IS THE GHOST.)

EVERYONE: YIIEEE!

(THE GIRLS ALL SCREAM AND RUSH TO THE SIDE OF CARRIE'S BEDROOM OPPOSITE THE WINDOW, TRYING TO GET
AS FAR AWAY AS THEY CAN FROM IT. CARRIE'S BLACK CAT ARCHES ITS BACK AND HISSES.)

RACHEL: Who could it be? How did she get up here?

CARRIE: Either someone is pulling a prank . . .

RACHEL: Or?

CARRIE: Or it's the ghost of the girl who used to live in this house, trying to come to our sleepover!

“And fade the lights to black,” Ms. Hollows said. “Excellent, girls. Gather around for notes. Can we have our ghost out onstage, please?”

Tiffany came walking out from backstage, still wearing her scary pale mask with black, soulless eyes. She joined the others at center stage.

“Nice job, Tiffany,” Melissa said as Tiffany sat down beside her. “But next time you should try the scene with the mask
on
.”