Welcome to the Dark House (22 page)

I dial 9-1-1, just as I did that night, knowing the phone won’t work. And I’m right.
It doesn’t. Instead, a thrashing sound tears through the silence.

It’s happening again. I’m twelve years old. I pinch the skin on my knee.

Music begins to play—a blend of violin and viola. I clench the bed covers, still trying
to get the phone to work. But then it slips from my grip and falls to the floor. Bile
fills my mouth. I swallow it down and take a deep breath, reminding myself:

I’m no longer twelve years old.

Parker is right outside.

The door to my parents’ bedroom opens. The music grows louder. A man’s there, dressed
as the Nightmare Elf in a red suit and hat. He’s wearing a mask. The elf’s grin is
frozen on his face.

“Good evening, Princess,” he whispers. “It’s
very
nice to meet you.” The words send shivers all over my skin.

Unlike six years ago, there are no sirens in the background, no response to any 9-1-1
calls.

I clench my teeth, feeling a flood of emotion overcome me: fear, anger, regret. There
have been six years of emotions before I got to this moment.

Before I got to this moment, I took self defense classes every Saturday morning. And
slept with a kitchen knife under my pillow. And walked to and from school with a can
of bug spray in my pocket. I imagined this very scene at least a thousand times, and
yet it still feels like a dream.

A nightmare.

I mean, it can’t possibly be happening, can it?

He turns the knife in his gloved hand. It’s a six-inch, spring-spike, double-action
blade, like the one that killed my parents.

I reposition myself on the bed, unfolding my legs from beneath me, and pressing my
back up against the wall.

He moves closer. Standing over me, he pokes the tip of the blade into my neck. “You
knew I’d come back, didn’t you?”

The blade pokes deeper with the motion of my throat as I swallow. He cocks his head,
studying my face.

I press my back harder against the wall. My legs bent in front of me, I kick outward.
My heel plunges into his gut.

He stumbles back, but comes at me with the knife again, holding it at my jugular.
“A quick incision is all it’ll take. Just tell me when you’re ready.” He glides the
blade across my skin. “Be a good girl now,” he sings.

Just then, something pelts against the window. He turns to look and I grab his arm.
I bring it up to my mouth and bite down through his sleeve, into his flesh. He lets
out a wail. The knife drops from his grip.

I reach for it, but he snatches it away before I can get it. I move quickly, scrambling
to the foot of the bed, struggling to get to the door. But he grabs my leg, holding
me in place, slashing my ankle. At least four inches.

I tumble off the bed. My cheek smacks against the hardwood floor. Lying on my belly,
I search the room for something—
anything
—to protect myself with. I spot a metal ruler on the desk. I begin toward it, grappling
forward on my elbows, but he steps on my hand, freezing me in place. The heel of his
boot grinds down into my fingers, cracking the knuckles, burning the skin.

Parker shouts my name from outside.

“Your friend won’t be able to get in,” he says, standing over me now. “The doors are
locked. The windows have bars. It’s just you and me now, Princess.”

I roll over to face him and he kneels down, pinning me against the floor with the
knife. I swallow, feeling the point of the blade cut into my skin, just above my collarbone.
A trickle of blood runs across my chest, soaking into his glove.

Breathing hard, I look toward his waist, wondering if I could kick him again—if it’d
make enough of an impact from this angle, or if exerting myself would only push the
knife in deeper.

“Please,” I whisper, able to hear the desperation in my voice, trying to think of
something clever to say.

A giant crash sounds. I feel it in my bones, but it’s in the room. The window broke.
He straightens up to look.

I kick him—
hard
—plunging the heel of my shoe into his groin. He doubles over, letting out a grunt.
The knife flies from his grip. I crawl across the floor and manage to grab it.

I get back on my feet, holding the knife out toward him, gripped in both hands.

He straightens up again. “Be careful with that, Princess.” Standing just a couple
of feet away, he approaches me slowly, his arms extended.

“Don’t!” I shout.

He lunges at me. His hands wrap around mine as he tries to wriggle the knife from
my grip.

“No!” I thrust the knife forward, plunging it deep into his side, in the space between
his ribs.

He lets out a gasp. His eyes slam shut. He stumbles back.

I turn away and bolt out of the bedroom, closing the door behind me.

The door to my parents’ room is open a crack. I push it wider, able to picture their
room that night: the blood on the wall, over the bed, soaking the sheets, filling
the cracks of the hardwood floors.

I cover my mouth, shaking my head.

“Ivy!” Parker shouts from outside, snapping me back to the moment.

I tear down the stairs, missing at least three of the treads toward the bottom. I
propel forward, headfirst, somehow catching myself. I go to open the front door, but
it’s the kind that locks automatically. The lock doesn’t turn. It seems to be stuck.
I can’t quite get my fingers to work right.

I can hear him upstairs. The clunking of footsteps, the thwacking of wood against
the wall as he flings the door open.

Finally, I get the lock unstuck and flee outside, slamming the door behind me.

EXT. IVY’S NIGHTMARE RIDE
—
NIGHT

A small yellow house with a picket fence and bars on the windows. I’m just about to
throw another brick at the window glass, when I hear something at the door
—
the sound of a LOCK TURNING. The knob RATTLES.

Ivy comes flying out of the house, tears streaming down her face. Blood stains the
bottom of her pants. Her leg’s bleeding. A sideways slit.

I drop my mental camera and pull off my T-shirt. I tear a piece of fabric and wrap
it around her ankle as a bandage.

“My bag,” she says, checking her shoulder. There’s nothing there. “I left it. I lost
Taylor’s phone.” She looks back at the house, just as a TV screen lights up behind
us. The costumed Nightmare Elf appears on the screen—most likely the same guy from
the welcome video, the one dressed in the elf costume.

“Greetings, Dark House Dreamers,” he says. “Congratulations on facing your nightmares…
and surviving them
.” He releases a maniacal laugh. “Now, how would you like to see a rough cut of the
film? I do hope you’ll enjoy it.”

Numbers flash across the screen, from ten down to one. The screen goes black, and
then gets punctured by the image of headlights.
Welcome to the Dark House
appears in red crayon. The movie starts: there’s a car driving down a gravel road.
Trees and brush surround the car on both sides.

The next thing I know, the name Ivy Jensen appears in the credits. It’s followed by
my name and then Natalie Sorrento. The car continues, angled toward us on the screen,
before finally coming to a stop.

“It’s us,” I say, able to see now that the car is actually a hearse. Ivy gets out
and stares up at the
WELCOME TO THE DARK HOUSE
sign. More credits continue to roll: Frankie Rice, Shayla Belmont, Garth Vader, Taylor
Monroe.

The film looks like it was professionally done, like whoever did it knows how to work
a camera, but still, it’s not Justin Blake’s work—not the lighting, nor the audio,
and certainly not the camera angles.

My bite marks throbbing, I keep one leg slightly elevated as I hold Ivy close, watching
as our night at the Dark House unfolds. I’ve seen most of the content before, but
some of it is new: a blond girl—who I assume to be Taylor—applying a thick coat of
lipstick; Garth uncovering a splotch of blood in Taylor’s closet; and Ivy watching
me sleep—the same way I had watched her sleep. There’s also a close-up of Garth and
Shayla kissing, and of Frankie in the hallway, bummed that he’s not the one she’s
with. We fade out on a back shot of Taylor as she flees the Dark House, into the woods.

Ivy huddles closer as we watch the scene where we enter the amusement park through
the tall iron gate, as Shayla and Garth start cheering, and as we all stand beneath
that first TV screen, where Justin Blake supposedly spoke to us. The shot dissolves
on the tense expression on Ivy’s face—the same one that’s on her face now.

It’s clear that the movie has been at least partially edited. I can tell by all the
cutaways—each of us on the Nightmare Elf’s Train of Terror ride, all experiencing
different things.

Finally, we get to Frankie’s ride. Anxiety bubbles in my stomach as Frankie enters
the shed at the back of the graveyard. After a phone call fiasco, he finds a trapdoor
and descends a ladder, going down to an underground graveyard.

He moves toward the back row, where there’s a giant hole in the ground. The camera
zooms in on a gravestone. Frankie’s name is engraved in the polished marble. Beneath
it are dates—what I’m assuming is Frankie’s date of birth, plus today’s date.

A moment later, there’s a ringing sound. It takes me a beat to realize that it’s coming
from the movie. A phone’s been buried; the ringing is coming from inside the hole.

Frankie climbs down into it, desperate to answer the call. He starts digging deeper,
slinging the dirt with a shovel, creating a pile by his feet.

“Where’s the phone?” Ivy whispers.

A coffin appears. A skeleton. A watch. The camera refocuses, angling on Frankie as
dirt comes down on him from above.

Eventually burying him alive.

His screams have blades; they cut a hole in my gut. “Holy shit,” I whisper, over and
over again, almost unable to take it anymore.

Ivy’s face is full of tears. She holds her aromatherapy necklace up to her lips.

The scene fades to black, and then we cut to Shayla. She found Frankie’s grave. But
then a noise startles her and she moves down a tunnel—what appears to be a mine—where
she finds a body hanging in a closet; I can’t tell if it’s real. The camera angles
on the Nightmare Elf. He approaches her from behind and lifts her up by the neck.
Her feet flutter in the air as she struggles to break free. The last thing we hear
from Shayla is the sound of her body as it drops to the ground.

The scene switches again. We’re with Garth in his nightmare ride now. There are holograms
and movie clips. Garth moves down a long, dark alleyway, dodging a dangerous encounter
with the Nightmare Elf, trying to seek refuge in Hotel 9. The ride ends with Garth
jumping out of a window. There’s a close-up of him landing facedown against the pavement
below. The Nightmare Elf appears again. The scene cuts just as his ax is raised high.

Ivy lets out a gasp that rivals mine. She’s crying uncontrollably, her chest heaving
in and out.

The scene changes once more. It’s Natalie’s turn now, but the film quality has changed.
None of it looks edited. It’s more like footage tacked on from surveillance video.
Natalie’s trapped inside a house of mirrors, pounding against the glass. The mirrors
eventually shatter and cut into her skin. Blood sprays everywhere. Natalie’s screams
are hoarse and desperate, I can feel them in my chest. But then I don’t hear them
at all. The silence is far worse than her screaming.

There’s more footage too—of the disappointment in Ivy’s eyes when Eureka Dash’s scream
interrupted our moment by the gate, of me entering the eel tank, and of Ivy and me
kissing.

Finally, the closing credits roll. The screen goes black again. Then Ivy and I appear
live, on the screen. The camera’s on us.

“You’ve made it,” the elf says. “The lone survivors, worthy of seeing the rough-cut.
And now, as promised, I have a sneaking suspicion that you might be ready to leave
the park. Am I right?”

“Where is he?” Ivy whispers, looking over both shoulders. She repeats the question,
over and over, faster and faster.

“The entrance gates will reopen at the count of three,” the voice says. “You will
then have exactly ten seconds to get out. If you don’t make it, don’t despair; consider
yourself a lead part in the sequel.” He snickers. “Now, are we ready?”

I look in the direction of the entrance gates.

“One, two…”

Before he can get to three, Ivy and I make a beeline to escape. Keeping pace behind
her, I hobble past a slew of games. Past the merry-go-round, the strong-arm challenge,
and the Nightmare Elf’s Train of Terror.

I hear the entrance gates unlatch. The doors begin to creak open. The bites on my
legs are throbbing. The one on the back of my knee burns with each step.

Just shy of getting to the gate, Ivy’s necklace falls to the ground, but she doesn’t
notice. I stop to pick it up. The bite at my side stings as I bend forward. There’s
a pulling-stretching sensation, and I let out a grunt. The pendant slips free of the
chain. Sweat drips, stinging my eyes.

“Parker!” Ivy shouts.

I scurry to pick up the pendant, blood drooling down my leg and from my waist. And
then I start moving toward the gates again, limping as fast as I can.

I trip and fall to my knees.

The gates have started to close.

Ivy’s already free, already on the other side. “Hurry!” she shouts. She struggles
to hold the gates open, but the doors are far too heavy. I see her getting dragged,
using all her weight against the steel bars.

I get up and hobble forward, feeling my eyes fill with tears. I’m not moving quickly
enough. There’s no way I’m going to get there in time.

The gates lock shut just short of my getting there.

“No!” Ivy screams. Her voice echoes inside my head, bouncing off the bones of my skull.

I’m locked inside with no way out.

“We’ll get you out of there,” she says, grabbing my hands through the bars.

Meanwhile, I’m crying too hard for words, no longer able to hold in my emotion. The
necklace falls from my grip.

“One of those underground tunnels has to lead outside,” she says. “Or maybe we can
try digging again.”

“Just go,” I say, shaking my head, knowing that she can’t stay.

“I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.”

“You need to get help,” I tell her. “Then come back for me.”

“I won’t leave you,” she insists, crying even harder now.

“You have to,” I say, looking away, not wanting her to see what a mess I am.

Eventually, she picks up the necklace and places it back in my hand. “Hold on to this,”
she says. “Until I come back, okay?”

“Just promise me you’ll come back.”

She kisses me through the bars. Her lips are warm, her breath is hot. I can feel her
tears on my skin, can already feel her absence in my heart.

“More than promise,” she says, before kissing me one final time. After that, she turns
on her heel, and escapes into the night.