Welcome to the Dark House (21 page)

G
ARTH’S RIGHT
. W
E’RE HERE FOR
a reason. And it’d be crazy to walk away from an opportunity this monumental. And
so after he takes off to find his nightmare, I head off to find mine, despite what
Harris says.

“You have to understand how much this means to me,” I tell him. “Justin Blake has
really been there for me.”

“And I haven’t?”

“Of course, but this is different. He was there for me in ways that you
couldn’t be.”

“Well, then maybe you don’t need me at all.”

“That’s not what I mean, Harris.”

“Don’t do this, Nat. If you don’t listen to me ever again, listen to this: get out
of there. If you don’t, you just might join me…on this side.”

I pull out more hair—from my eyelashes this time—wishing that his words didn’t burrow
so deeply into my heart.

I circle the park for a third time, still searching for my ride. We passed by it earlier,
but I wasn’t ready to go in at that point, especially with Harris’s barking.

“Are you a little lost?” a voice asks, just behind me.

I turn to look. There’s a movie screen there. On it is Little Sally Jacobs from
Night Terrors
, wearing a pair of pink sunglasses to hide her skeleton-key-punctured eyes. It’s
mid-scene and she’s asking Mrs. Baker, a new neighbor, if she’d like to come inside
the house for a glass of lemonade.

“You can meet my parents,” Sally says, sweetening the deal. “Mama just made the lemonade
this morning. She should also have some cookies coming out of the oven right about
now.”

This part of the movie—when the woman follows Sally inside—kept me awake for hours,
because I knew just what would happen. And I was right. Mrs. Baker never came out.

I watch the scene for several moments before gazing around at the other movie screens
scattered about the park: all of Justin Blake’s films at various points in the story—some
in the middle (Lizzy Greer chasing a streetwalker with an ax), others at the climax
(Eureka trying to escape Pudgy the Clown, in some overhead ductwork). It appears that
Forest of Fright
just started, and the end credits are rolling on
Halls of Horror,
toward the center of the park.

At last, I spot my nightmare ride; it’s called Mirrors of Mayhem, and it’s basically
a fun-house maze of mirrors.

It’s dark as I approach. There’s a blacked out door at the front. I climb the steps
to enter, but it’s locked.

“What the hell?” I shout, jiggling the handle and pushing my weight against the door
panel.

Still, it won’t open—even after ten minutes.

I scurry down the steps and circle the ride, searching for another way in, wondering
if maybe there’s some trick.

Finally, the “ride” lights up, as if by magic. Music pours out of it—a mix of organ
and harmonica.

As I climb the steps again, the music grows louder, making it nearly impossible to
hear Harris. Still, I know his voice is there. I can hear it, struggling over the
music—like someone fighting to keep above water, only to end up drowned out by the
waves.

I enter the walls of glass and the floor begins to rotate. I take careful steps, trying
to avoid eye contact with my reflection by keeping my focus down. But it’s absolutely
no use. My reflection is everywhere—in front of me, beside me, cut in half, multiplied
by five, as part of a giant mosaic of shapes. My Scissorhands hair, my crooked nose,
my pudgy lips.

Arms too long.

Hips too wide.

Swollen skin from picking, plucking, pulling, pinching.

My face flashes red. In one mirror, I’m short and bulging, with stocky legs, a gigantic
stomach, and a tiny head. In another mirror, I’m all stretched out and my face looks
even longer than it is.

I try to turn around, to get out, but I’m already lost in the maze of my reflection.
I shut my eyes and extend my hands to feel my way around so I don’t have to look.
But I manage to bump into the glass anyway—my cheek brushes against a corner of a
glass panel. I open my eyes, catching sight of the brown mole on my upper lip. It
looks bigger than I remember. Puffier than ever before. Is this another distortion
mirror?

I turn away, smacking into another glass pane—my nose this time. My sunglasses fall
off. Blood trickles from a nostril, over my lips, and drips off my chin, landing on
yet another image of me—so much worse without the glasses, in the light. I’m standing
on a mirror. Another droplet of blood hits the reflection below my feet.

There’s more red—a flash of it reflected in the mirror. Someone’s moving behind me,
behind another section of glass. And yet I don’t see a face. The image is too fast
and fleeting. The redness whirls and ripples, as if the person’s wearing a cape.

I turn, following the figure with my eyes. Finally, the image stops. I see a slice
of red, perfectly still. I wait, breathing hard. My breath steams up the mirror, making
an oblong stain against the glass, covering my forehead.

At last, I see who it is. The Nightmare Elf—most likely the same man who appeared
on the TV screen when we entered the park, wearing a mask that has pointed ears, chubby
cheeks, and curly blond hair. The mask is stuck in a perpetual grin; the forehead
of it is shiny, as if it’s somehow sweating too.

“You know why the elf is here, don’t you?”
Harris asks, ripping a hole in my heart.

Why is he so hell-bent on hurting me, on ruining this experience?

“What experience?”
he asks.
“Is this what you call a fun time?”

I hold my bloody nose. Where did my sunglasses go? I don’t see them anywhere now.
I keep looking for an exit. But, just one step away, I bump into a wall. The elf starts
laughing. His head tilts back, jittering slightly, and he holds on to his belly. I
sniff up the blood and extend my arms again, moving out from behind a pane of glass,
trying my best not to cry.

The Nightmare Elf moves too. One moment I think he’s in front of me, the next he’s
behind me again.

Then at my right.

And over to my left.

The reflections are too overwhelming. I’m standing in an alcove of a thousand mini-reflections
of me. They make a checkerboard pattern, boxing me in, stealing my breath.

There’s not much air. My chest feels tight.

A swirl of red dances around me and then does a cartwheel behind my back.

I try to get out of this alcove. I move to the side and then inch into what I think
is another area, but it looks exactly the same; the checkerboard pattern surrounds
me on all sides. I look up. There are mirrors there, too. And still more mirrors as
I turn around—as if the thousand have somehow quadrupled.

Finally, the music stops. There’s a rushing sensation inside my veins. I don’t see
the elf anywhere. There’s just my reflection every way I turn.

I move out from behind a glass panel, but I’m blocked. There are mirrored walls all
around me now, as if someone’s locked me
in.

I run my fingers up and down the panes, my breath fogging up the glass, wondering
if there might be an empty space I’m not seeing. The Nightmare Elf giggles, but still
I can’t see him. I’m feeling more trapped by the moment. My throat constricts. I can’t
get enough air.

“I’m really sorry, Nat,”
Harris says.
“I wish you would’ve listened
.”

I turn around and around as the floor beneath me continues to rotate. My head is dizzy.
I stumble over my feet.

Suddenly, a wall goes black. I reach out to touch it just as a light clicks on inside
it. The Nightmare Elf is there, on the other side. He waves at me with his glove-covered
hand.

“
He’s come to watch you suffer,”
Harris says.
“The elf always appears at the time of death. After he steals your nightmare and uses
it against you, he comes around to watch his dirty work play out.”

“Stop!” I scream. Blood spouts out of my mouth, from my nose, spraying the glass.
I cover my fists with the sleeves of my jacket and then pound against one of the walls.

Nothing happens.

I pound harder, kicking the glass with my boot. The mirror breaks. But there’s another
mirror in its place, just behind it.

The elf laughs harder.

Harris begins to pray:
“Hail Mary, full of grace
…
”

My heart beats faster. My pulse races harder. I start throwing my body against the
glass walls, beating the panes with my fists, kicking as hard as I can.

Glass shatters, cutting into my skin, making everything red. Thousands of years of
bad luck. I look up, just as a giant shard of glass slices downward.

P
ARKER IS REALLY BLEEDING
. Lying on his back, he’s breathing hard, shivering from either fear or pure coldness.
There’s a bite mark on his side, two in his left thigh, and a few more on his calves
and feet.

I take off my sweatshirt and blanket it over his chest, along with Natalie’s scarf.
“I’ll be right back.” I run down the stairs, round the corner by the phone booth,
and see the first aid kit in the distance, hanging on a post.

Despite the blinking lights, the park feels vacant, especially without Parker by my
side. It’s quiet, as if someone’s muted the volume, shut off the music, and pulled
the plug on all the movie projectors.

The air is warm and thick as I move toward the post. Just a few yards away from it
now, I hear something: the sound of footsteps, the crunching of gravel.

I stop and look around. Nothing.

I turn back to head for the first aid kit. There’s a scuffing sound behind me again.
“Who’s there?” I call out.

No one answers.

An owl hoots in the distance as I grab the first aid kit. It’s a metal box with sharp
corners. I position it in my hands with a corner pointed outward, ready to use it
as a weapon if need be.

I hurry back to the Sink or Swim ride and scurry up the stairs, two at a time, tripping
on the tread at the very top. I kneel down by Parker’s side, trying to catch my breath.
“We’ll get through this,” I tell him.

I doubt that he believes me. I hardly believe myself.

Parker turns away from the tank, trying not to show too much emotion, even though
his wounds are raw and weeping.

I pop open the emergency kit. Inside is a picture of first aid supplies. Otherwise,
the box is empty. My heart clenches. My face flashes hot. I want to scream at the
top of my lungs, but I hold in my emotion too.

I reach into my bag, grateful to have brought along a few tea bags. Since his skin
is already wet, I’m able to apply them directly to the wounds, placing one on the
bite on his thigh, another on the bite on his waist, and then my last one on his ankle.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Tea contains tannins,” I explain, pressing the tea bag against his ankle. His calf
muscle flexes in response. “And tannins help clot blood. They also act as a natural
astringent, which means there may be less chance of an infection.” The golden hair
that covers his legs appears slightly curly from the dampness. I wonder how it would
feel against my skin. I swallow hard, trying to stay focused, noticing a large bite
mark at the back of his knee. I flip one of the tea bags over to the fresh side and
press it firmly against the spot.

Parker flinches from the pressure. “Lucky for me that you just happen to carry tea
bags around in your purse.”

“I think I may’ve mentioned that tea is sort of my vice.”

“Sounds more like a serious problem. Should I be staging an intervention?”

“Surprisingly chipper for escaping a tank full of hungry eels, aren’t we?”

“Are you kidding? If I knew it’d mean getting this kind of treatment, I’d have been
eel bait hours ago.”

I apply a bit more pressure to the wound. “You’re a really good clotter, you know
that?”

“Should I feel special, or do you say that to all your flesh-eating-eel victims?”

“You should feel special,” I say, surprised by his persistence in flirting, especially
all things considered.

I spend the next several minutes treating his wounds before I can no longer hold in
the question: “What’s happening here?”

Parker sits up and reaches for his clothes, his whole demeanor shifted—from somewhat
optimistic to totally dismal.

“I mean, what would’ve happened if you hadn’t gotten out of there?” I continue.

He pulls his T-shirt on over his head—over his smooth, tan chest. “I don’t even want
to think about it.”

“Okay, but we have to think about it. You could’ve died in there.”

“Bottom line: you shouldn’t go on your nightmare ride.”

“Is that why we haven’t seen the others?” I ask. “Because they didn’t make it out
of their own nightmare rides?”

“Unless maybe they escaped?”

“And maybe Blake has nothing to do with this contest.”

“There’s no maybe there. I suspected that something was off as soon as we stepped
inside those gates. When Justin Blake appeared on the screen, I could tell that it
wasn’t real—just a bunch of sound bites edited together. The real Justin Blake has
too much to lose.”

“So where do we go from here?”

“Tell me about your nightmare,” he says.

“I want to.”

“But what? My sexy bloodstained physique intimidates you?” He tries to stand, but
the bites on his legs make him wince. He grabs his pants anyway, my cue to turn around.

A second later, I hear something drop to the ground. His boxer shorts, sopping wet.
I can see them out of the corner of my eye. The sound is followed by the swish of
jeans as he yanks them on.

“It’s safe,” he says.

Still sitting, I swivel around to face him. His hair is damp and tousled. The cotton
of his T-shirt sticks to the muscles of his chest. And his jeans hug his upper thighs.

“Well?” he asks.

At first I think he’s asking me how he looks. But then he sits back down, takes my
hands, and tells me that I can trust him. “If it’ll make you feel any better, I can
tell you about a real nightmare that I once had.”

“No more stories about eels?”

“No eels,” he says. “When I was seven, I wandered off in a department store and couldn’t
find my mom afterward. I ended up in the boys’ bathroom, crying in one of the stalls.
Finally, a worker found me and brought me up to the service desk, where my mom was
crying too. Anyway, for months afterward, I had nightmares about getting left behind
in various places—on a road trip, at the grocery store, in the shopping mall—no matter
how many times I made my mother promise that she’d never lose me again.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s so sad.”

“Now, your turn. And keep in mind that nothing you say about your nightmare is going
to freak me out.”

“Don’t be too sure about that.”

“You’re a lot stronger than you know,” he says. “I mean, you made it here, didn’t
you? You entered this contest, you got on a plane.”

“My parents were murdered,” I tell him. “Six years ago. In their bedroom. I was home
when it happened.”

Parker studies my face, perhaps waiting for me to tell him it’s only a joke. “Who
did it?” he asks, finally.

“They never caught the guy, but they know he’s a serial killer. He murdered a few
other people before my parents, always playing music at the scene of the crime.”

His faces furrows.
“Music?”

“Scores from various horror movies—
Psycho
,
The Shining
,
Halloween.
He was a big fan of the genre. His killings—the style in which he did them—were copycat
murders from the films. For my parents, it was the bedroom scene from
Haunt Me
.”

Parker grimaces, perhaps picturing the scene. “I know that film.”

“That’s one of the biggest reasons I came on this trip—to meet people who love horror,
that is. To learn from them. To see horror as a source of entertainment, rather than
the bane of my existence.”

“And how’s that working out for you so far?”

“I’m cured, can’t you tell?” I look at the tank. “Just when you thought it was safe
to go back into the water.”

“
Jaws II
, have you seen it?” He smirks.

“What do
you
think?” I smirk back. “Anyway, the guy who killed my parents, we made eye contact.
I saw his face. And after everything was over, I had to change my identity and move
in with a foster family. Natalie was right…I don’t like being filmed. I don’t want
to risk that he might one day recognize me.”

Parker looks down at our hands, still gripped together, and for five horrible seconds,
I think he’s going to let go. But instead he squeezes my hands tighter.

“His eyes have haunted my nightmares ever since that night,” I continue. “I don’t
want to relive what happened.”

Parker looks deeply into my eyes. Part of me wants so badly to glance away. But I
don’t, even as he breaks the clasp of my hands, and slides his fingers along my face,
setting fire to my skin. “Do you want to hear what a nightmare would be for me
now
?”

“What a nightmare
would be
?”

“Going home after this weekend and never seeing you again.”

“Seriously?” I ask, waiting for the punch line.

His eyes remain steady and somber. “Promise me that won’t happen, okay?”

“I promise.” I nod.

He runs his thumb over my lips, awakening every last nerve inside my body. My head
feels spinny as his lips press against mine, feeding the aching deep inside me. His
kiss is soft and sweet and salty inside my mouth. My hands move over the muscles in
his forearms. Heat spills across my thighs and over my hips. I want so badly to crawl
up right inside of him—into the part that knows no fear.

“Ivy,” he whispers, once the kiss ends. He’s slightly out of breath.

Meanwhile, my entire body quivers.

“You’re right,” he says. “We’re going to get through this.”

“Maybe we should wait the night out,” I suggest. “It’ll be sunrise before we know
it.”

“Except I don’t think sunrise is going to get us out of here.”

“So, then what do you suggest?”

“Keep looking for hotspots, keep trying to find a way out. And, in the meantime, try
to focus on what happens after we get out of here.” His pale blue eyes stare into
mine, and once again I don’t look away.

I don’t ever want to look away again.

“There’s so much about you that I want to know,” he continues.

“Really?
” I ask, almost unable to imagine the idea of anyone wanting to know me: this person
who’s seen too much, this girl who might still be in danger.

“Will you let me?”

I nod, unable to hold myself back. And so I lean in to kiss him again, almost forgetting
where we are, and what we’re doing here.

“I’m not going to let you go,” he says, once the kiss breaks. “After the weekend,
I mean. I think it’s fairly safe to say that you’re stuck with me. If that’s okay,
that is.”

“Definitely okay.”

Parker reaches out to take my hand, and together we move down the stairs, beyond his
ride, past a Forest of Fright Tilt-A-Whirl and a ride called Nightmare Alley. We round
a corner.

And that’s when I see it.

Again.

We passed by it when we first entered the park, only I wasn’t quite ready to look
at it then—not that I’m feeling particularly ready now.

My nightmare ride.

A small yellow house with a white picket fence.

“Ivy?” Parker asks.

I look toward the door, silently acknowledging the fact that I’ve been dreaming about
my parents’ killer for the past six years, and so when you stop to think about it—“I’ve
given myself six years to prepare for this moment,” I say.

“Don’t do this.” He grips my hands, as if trying to squeeze some sense into me.

I pull away, feeling a chill. “I have to,” I whisper.

Keeping a firm grip on my mother’s necklace, I begin up the walkway, anticipating
what awaits me inside. Is it possible that I’ll learn something about my parents?
Or maybe about that night?

Parker calls out to me, telling me to shout if I need anything, promising to come
looking for me if I’m not out in ten minutes.

The door swings shut behind me. A foyer light brightens the entryway. The layout of
the house is different from my childhood home. The stairwell is on the left rather
than the right, there’s no hallway closet, and the walls are painted blue rather than
covered with rose-colored wallpaper.

There are framed photographs on the wall. They’re obviously different from the ones
that had lined the stairwell of the real 3
Mulberry Road, but still the idea is the same. They’re photographs of me, available
online: a picture taken by the local paper at my eighth-grade graduation and a photo
of me on a recent school camping trip.

My bedroom is to the right at the top of the stairs. My parents’ room is on the left.
Their door is closed. My head feels woozy. I reach out, my fingers trembling, to try
the knob, but it’s locked.

I head into my room and flick on the light, but it doesn’t work. Only the dim hallway
light seeps into the space. Exactly like that night.

I breathe in and out, trying to stay present in the moment, as Dr. Donna advises.

My room looks right: the pink paisley bed linens, the faux-fur beanbag chair, the
soccer banners and Katrina Rowe posters.

I sit on the bed, flashing back to that night—awakening from a thrashing sound across
the hall, then hearing a gasp, a sputter, and an agonizing moan. Those noises were
followed by a stifling silence, interrupted by a voice: “And now it’s your turn.”

I pull Taylor’s cell phone from my bag, remembering the phone receiver that I had
that night—a cordless extension from the kitchen.