The Conclusion (11 page)

“I don't like this,” Chris repeated. He stared so hard at me, as if seeing me for the first time. “I don't like this. I'm very confused.”

He continued to squint at me, massaging his neck. “What's going on here, Karen?” he demanded. “What's happening here? Tell me.”

“It's Darryl,” I insisted. “Don't look at me like that. Please—Chris. You're upsetting me. You're really upsetting me. It's Darryl. See? It's always Darryl. He . . . he's so bad. But he cares about me so much. He just can't control himself.”

Shaking his head, Chris spun away, stumbling over the grass. Then he began to lurch down the front lawn.

“Chris—wait!” I shouted after him. “Wait—
please!”

He hit the street and kept running. He glanced back once, his face filled with fright and confusion.

“Chris—please!” I called. I started to chase after
him. “I'll send Darryl away!” I cried frantically. “I can do it! Really, I can! I'll send Darryl away if you'll come back!”

He turned the corner and vanished behind tall hedges.

I stood in the middle of the lawn, my chest heaving up and down, hot tears running down my cheeks.

“Chris? Chris?” I called his name, even though I knew he couldn't hear me.

“I'm sorry, Chris,” I murmured. “I'm so, so sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”

My sadness quickly turned to anger. Clenching my fists, I turned to Darryl.

“How could you do that to him?” I cried. “How could you do that to
me?”

But Darryl had vanished too.

I searched the front yard for him.

“Darryl—?”

My eyes swept up and down the street. Then I turned back to the house. Had he gone inside?

The front door stood closed. I peered into the living-room window. Total blackness inside. I couldn't see a thing.

What am I going to do about Darryl? I wondered, pulling open the front door and stepping in. He's ruined everything for me. Everything.

I made my way into the living room. “Darryl? Are you here?”

No reply.

I stopped behind the slashed couch. I shivered. It was nearly as cold indoors as out.

I had moved all the couches and chairs back where
they belonged. But they had all been ripped and slashed beyond repair.

I turned away from the couch—and saw a sheet of paper on the low table beside it.

Another note?

Another one?

Yes.

I picked it up with a trembling hand and raised it close to read it:

There is no escape, Hope. No escape from yourself.

I shivered again as I stared at the handwriting.

Did Chris write this? I asked myself. Is that why Chris was running from the house? Has he been the one leaving me these frightening messages?

No.

No. Not Chris.

Staring hard at the small, thin handwriting, reading the words again and again, I recognized the handwriting.

Handwriting I knew so well.

Because it was
mine.

I
don't know how much time passed. It could have been a few minutes or several hours.

Sitting in the slashed armchair, staring out at the darkening skies, the gathering storm clouds, I lost track of time. I held the note in my lap, held it tightly in one hand, so tightly my hand ached.

Every few minutes I'd stare down at it. I'd read the words again, hoping that this time the handwriting would be different. Praying that the handwriting would belong to someone else.

There is no escape, Hope. No escape from yourself.

The message was pretty clear. But when had I written it? And why?

And was I the one who trashed the house and destroyed all the furniture?

Why couldn't I remember?

Was I losing my mind?

I didn't want to believe that. When Darryl suddenly appeared in front of me, his expression so hard and cold, his eyes like blue ice, I held the note up to him.

“Did you write this?” I asked wearily. I suddenly felt so tired. Tired of being afraid. Tired of running.

Tired of Darryl and all the trouble and heartbreak he caused.

“Did you?” I demanded, shoving it in his face. “Is this your message to me?”

Darryl's lips curled into a sneer. “I'll do much worse if I catch you with Chris again,” he said softly.

“You can't do that to her!” Angel cried out from the torn couch.

“Darryl, it's time to give yourself up,” Jasmine added. “You know you need help. You know you are out of control. Give yourself up, Darryl. It's time. You know it's time.”

Darryl let out a cry of rage. He spit on the floor. His cold, cold eyes froze me in a terrifying grip.

“Angel and Jasmine are right,” I said softly. “Listen to us, Darryl. It's time.”

“No—!”
he shrieked.
“No! No! No!
I won't listen to you! I won't listen to any of you! What do you know? What do you know about anything?”

“Darryl, please—” I pleaded, jumping to my feet.

“What do you know about me?” he cried. “Do you have any idea what I think? What my feelings are? If you cared at all about my feelings—about
me—would you be standing out in the middle of the front lawn kissing that guy Chris?”

“Darryl—” I was desperate to stop him before he flew into another wild rage.

“If any of you cared about me,” Darryl screamed, “you wouldn't tell me to turn myself in. You'd know that everything I did, I did for you!”

“And now it's time to stop,” Angel insisted.

“Nooooo!” Darryl wailed hoarsely, his face red with fury. “I won't stop. I won't. I'll show you. I'll kill Chris now! I'll kill him tonight!”

“I won't let you!” I shrieked. I grabbed the front of his T-shirt with both hands. “I won't let you! I won't let you touch Chris!”

A knock on the front door made all of us turn around.

I dove to the window and peered out. But I couldn't see who was on the porch.

Another knock. Harder. More insistent.

I dodged around Darryl and hurried to the door. “Who is it?” I shouted.

“It's me. Chris,” came the reply.

A grin spread darkly over Darryl's face. “Excellent!” he exclaimed softly, his eyes dancing. “Here he is. How did he know I was looking for him?”

“No—Chris! Go away!” I shouted through the door. “Go away—now!”

“I won't go away,” Chris called back. “Open the door. I really want to see you.”

Darryl's grin grew wider. He clenched and unclenched his fists, readying himself.

“Chris—you can't come in!” I cried. “Please—”

“Open up! Come on!” Chris pleaded.

Darryl stepped up to the door. “Let him in, Hope,” he murmured, grinning gleefully. “You heard the man. He wants in. So . . . let him in.”

He bumped me out of the way—and pulled open the door.

C
hris entered reluctantly, his expression tense. His eyes darted from side to side, landing on me, then quickly moving over my shoulder to the living room.

“Chris, please—”I started. “You shouldn't be here. You should leave before—”

But as he stepped shyly into the entryway, I saw to my shock that he wasn't alone.

Melanie walked in behind Chris, biting down on her bottom lip, her hands shoved into the pockets of her brown sheepskin jacket.

And behind her came four dark-uniformed police officers, their faces grim, their arms stiffly at their sides, hands near their black leather gun holsters.

“Hey—!” I cried out. “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

“Yes. That's her,” Melanie told the officers, her voice just above a whisper. She kept her eyes on Chris, avoiding my angry stare.

“That's Hope,” Melanie said, her face a blank, revealing no emotion at all. “She changed her hair color. But I recognize her.”

“I thought so,” Chris mumbled, also afraid to look me in the eyes. “I hoped I was wrong. I wanted to believe her name really was Karen. But, after Melanie described Hope, I wasn't sure. Then when she freaked out on the front lawn this afternoon, I knew she was the one you've been looking for.”

A tall officer, with steely blue eyes and pale blond curls falling out from under his uniform cap, stepped forward. He reached out a hand, as if inviting me to dance. “Please come with us, Hope,” he said softly.

“Nooooooooo!”
A horrified animal howl burst from my throat.

He reached for me.

But I slapped his hand away.

I spun away and ran for the stairs.

“Hope—stop!” Angel cried. “You can't run away from them!”

“Yes! Run! We'll protect you!” Jasmine shouted. “We'll all protect you!”

And then I heard Darryl close behind me. “I'll kill them! I'll kill them all!” he raged.

And now all four of us were running, pushing our legs, grabbing the old wooden banister, running desperately up the long stairway.

I glanced back and saw all four cops on the stairs behind me.

“Please stop. We won't hurt you!” one of them called.

“We want to help you,” another cop chimed in.

Below them, I saw Chris and Melanie at the bottom of the stairs, eyes wide, staring up at me in horror.

I spun away from them and ran. Followed by my three friends.

My good friends.

Into the bedroom. And out the narrow door to the balcony.

The little balcony where I'd slept the night before. Slept under my coat like a poor, homeless orphan.

“Stop! Please stop!” a cop shouted from the bedroom doorway.

“We want to
talk
to you!” his partner insisted.

My heart pounding from the run up the stairs, I swept Jasmine and Angel into my arms. And held on to them tightly. So tightly.

“You've been such good friends,” I told them. “You've been such wonderful friends. The best I ever had.”

I hugged them close and pulled Darryl into the hug too. “You've been a good friend too, Darryl,” I told him. “I know you only tried to help.”

And then all four of us hugged.

Hugged until a police officer burst onto the balcony.

And my friends and I leaned back. Leaned against the old wooden railing.

I heard a
crack.

I heard it break away.

I tried to save myself. I tried to save us all.

But we were hugging so tightly. So tightly.

I couldn't break free from my friends.

I couldn't break the hug.

And so the balcony railing gave way.

And all four of us fell.

I
t was so horrible. I think I'll keep seeing it for the rest of my life.

If only Melanie and I hadn't turned to the side window. If only we hadn't looked out at the moment Hope fell.

At first I didn't realize what was happening.

I saw something hurtle down.

A flash of color. Arms and legs.

Then I heard a heavy
thud.

And a sickening,
crack
ing sound.

And as I stared out the dust-smeared window in horror, I realized it was Hope.

And I realized she had landed on her head.

The sickening
crack
 . . . it . . . it . . .

My stomach lurched. I gasped for breath.

I . . . I couldn't think about it. I couldn't put it into words.

But I kept seeing it. And hearing it. Again and again.

I know I'll never erase the picture of her broken, bent body sprawled in that deepening pool of blood.

Melanie turned away from the window with a gasp. She buried her face in the front of my coat.

She was sobbing, her entire body trembling. I hardly knew her. But I wrapped my arm around her to try to calm her.

I'm not sure how long we stood like that, holding on to each other, holding each other up. But I stepped back as the grim-faced officers returned to the house.

“Is she . . . dead?” I asked, my voice breaking.

The tall, blond officer nodded.

“You two can leave now,” his partner said softly. “We'll want to talk to you later. But you've had enough. You don't have to hang around.”

“Thank you for calling us right away,” the blond officer said to me. He turned to Melanie. “And thank you for agreeing to come and identify her.”

We left our names with them and told them we both live in Fear Hall.

“Fear Hall,” one of the cops muttered, shaking his head. “I should have known.”

Clinging close together, Melanie and I made our way shakily from the living room. As I stepped past the ripped-up couch, a sheet of paper on the floor caught my eye.

I bent down and picked it up.

“Wow,” I muttered, shaking my head as I read the handwritten message. I handed it to Melanie. “It . . . it came true,” I choked out.

In a low whisper, Melanie read the note out loud:

There is no escape, Hope. No escape from yourself

R.L. Stine is the best-selling author in America. He has written more than one hundred scary books for young people, all of them best-sellers.

His series include
Fear Street, Ghosts of Fear Street
and the
Fear Street Sagas.

Bob grew up in Columbus, Ohio. Today he lives in New York City with his wife, Jane, his teenage son, Matt, and his dog, Nadine.

“This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental”.