21 Dares: A Florida Suspense Mystery (19 page)

Chapter 23

A
bbie held her phone to her ear. She thought she
misheard. “What?”

“Someone
attacked us.” McKenzie’s sobs came through the speakers. She struggled to speak.
“He came at us.”

“Is
this a joke?”

“Help
me! Please!” McKenzie’s sobs crackled through the phone.

“Where’s
Rocky?” Abbie wasn’t sure McKenzie heard her through the sobbing and asked it
again. “Talk to me, McKenzie. Where’s Rocky?”

“He’s
dead.” McKenzie blurted it out then broke down in sobs.

“What?”

“He
killed him, Abbie. He killed him.”

“Who
killed him? The man that’s been following me?” Abbie listened to McKenzie’s
cries. A heartbeat later, Abbie yelled into the phone. “Was it the man who’s
been following me? McKenzie, what’s going on?”

“I
don’t know. He’s wearing a mask. A Gareth the Ghoul mask–” She stopped, then
screamed. “No, get away from me! Get away!”

A
loud crash blared from the other end, followed by another. “McKenzie? What’s
happening? McKenzie, are you there?”

Abbie
looked at Susan. “Something’s happening to McKenzie.”

“What?”
Susan looked dumbfounded. “What happened?”

“McKenzie’s
in trouble.” Abbie looked at the phone. Struggling noises rippled through the
speaker. A thud! A whap! McKenzie’s screams of terror. “McKenzie? Are you there?
McKenzie?”

The
phone disconnected. Abbie looked at Susan. “We need to call the police.”

“Wha—”
Susan stuttered. “What’s going on?”

Abbie
looked back at her phone. “Someone attacked McKenzie.
Someone
wearing another freaking Gareth the Ghoul mask.
She said Rocky’s dead.”

Dharma’s
eyes widened. “Call the police.
Now!”

Abbie
pressed “9” then “1” when a new text message came in. It was from McKenzie’s
phone number. She opened the message.

Abbie
looked at Susan. “This is crazy. This can’t be happening.”

“Something’s
not right.” Susan looked down at the sidewalk.

“I
don’t care. I’m calling the police.” Abbie gripped her phone as Susan asked her
to wait. Abbie wasn’t listening. “I’m calling the police.
Right
now.”

 
A new text message beeped on their phones and Abbie
opened the photo. It was a picture of McKenzie.
Her eyes
wide.
Her face bruised and bloody.
A twisted
rag was tied between her lips. A box cutter pointed at her head. Its shiny
blade pressed to her cheek.

“Wait!”
Abbie’s heart stopped. “Wait.”

Susan
saw it too.
Then Dharma and the twins.

Abbie
paused. A new message beeped on her phone. Susan’s phone vibrated. The twin’s
phones dinged and they held them up. Abbie opened the new text message and Dharma
leaned in close to see it. Abbie read the text out loud.

Abbie
turned away from her phone. “This can’t be coming from Dr. Wachowski. He
wouldn’t do this. He couldn’t!”

“Do
you think McKenzie’s in that old cigar factory?” Dharma stood beside Abbie,
Susan, and the twins and looked back down the street.

“Of
course she is,” Susan said. The girls stared at her, clearly unsure what to do.
Susan laughed. “McKenzie and Rocky are waiting to jump out and scare us. She
probably put your therapist up to all this. Or maybe he put them up to it.”

“God,
I hope not. He is a little weird though.” Abbie ran a hand over the top of her
head, pulling back her hair. She felt a headache coming on.

“This
can’t really be happening, can it?” Dharma’s thumbs tapped her phone. Susan
approached her.

“Who
are you calling?”

“I’m
calling the police.”

“Do
you not see what’s happening here?” Susan snatched the phone out of Dharma’s
hands. “Do you want McKenzie to get in trouble?
And what
about your therapist?
He could lose his license over this little stunt.”

“I
don’t care.” Abbie paced as she spoke. “Something’s not right. We need to call
the police.”

“This
isn’t a Jamie Lee Curtis movie,” Susan said. “Those Halloween masks of Gareth
the Ghoul, the abandoned cigar factory, the over-the-top text messages, this is
a prank. We’re being punk’d.”

“It’s
not a funny.” Abbie grasped her unicorn pendant. She tugged on it.

“It’s
still a prank.” Susan paused, as if letting her words sink in. “If we go back
to the cigar factory, we’ll probably find McKenzie and Rocky there, laughing at
us. I bet your therapist is there too.”

“You
really think so?” Abbie asked.

“I
don’t buy it,” Dharma said. “If this is a prank, they’re taking it too far.”

“Exactly.”
Susan pointed at Abbie for dramatic
effect. “That’s why we don’t want to call the police. They’ve taken things too
far and they’ll get in trouble now.”

“But what about Dr. Wachowski?”
Abbie tugged on her
necklace till she felt like the clasp would snap on the back of her neck. She
couldn’t help herself.
 
“I just can’t see
him doing this?”

“Honestly,
I’d change therapists,” Susan said. “I’m just saying.”

“No.
I can’t do this.” Abbie conceded to the hopelessness of the entire night. The
party, which she didn’t even want in the first place, had turned into a
disaster. She walked a couple of steps along the sidewalk before throwing her
hands up and yelling. “I’m done. I’m going home.”

Susan
yelled behind her. Abbie stopped as Susan’s voice echoed down the empty street.
“What would Buffy do?”

“Excuse
me?” Abbie looked back over her shoulder. McKenzie glared at her.

“So
you’re just going to let McKenzie and your stupid
therapist
win
?” Susan asked. “What would Buffy Summers do? Would she save her
friend or would she just go home?”

Abbie
shut her eyes.
 
At the end of the second
season, after Buffy had to kill Angel—the love of her life, her soul mate—she finally
threw in the towel. She gave up and walked away.
Left
Sunnydale.
But she came back. There were still five more seasons of
fight left in her, plus all the comic books and TV tie-in novels.

 
“Of course,” Abbie said under her breath.
“What would Buffy do?”

Abbie
opened her eyes. Turning around, she headed back to the group. Susan smiled.

“Exactly,”
Susan said, putting an arm around Abbie’s shoulder. “Now let’s go back and show
McKenzie that we can kick some vampire ass.”

Chapter 24

T
he girls crossed the street, headed back to the cigar
factory. Lindsey lagged behind. “You really think there’s going to be
vampires?”

“Vampires
aren’t real.”
Lindsay motioned for her sister to
catch up as Susan laughed
.

“You
obviously haven’t met some of the men I’ve dated.” Susan stepped up onto the
curb, moved faster down the block.

It
took them nearly ten minutes. When they arrived, Abbie sent a text.

After
a moment, she received a response.

Abbie
looked at Susan. “Dr. Wachowski is on the roof?”

“More
like McKenzie and Rocky,” Susan said. “They’re probably waiting to jump out and
scare us half to death.”

Abbie
gulped. “Unless I fall to my death.”

Susan
took her hand. “I’m going with you.”

“Really?”

“I
got you into this.” Susan stood up straight, put her hands on her hips. “This
is just as much on me as it is McKenzie and everyone else.”

“You
don’t have to this,” Abbie said. “But I’d really appreciate it if you did.”

“I’d
go with you too,” Dharma said, her white blonde hair blowing in the wind. “But
this isn’t like screaming outside a bar. This is messed up.”

“That’s
okay.” Susan winked at Dharma. “And when they jump out at us, I’m gonna knock
their teeth down their throats.”

Abbie
looked back at the old stone factory. “I don’t think they’re in there.”

Susan
shook her head slowly toward Abbie and grinned, as if she knew something Abbie
didn’t. Then, she turned back to Dharma and the twins. “Stay out here and at
the first sign of trouble, call the police.”

“How
will we know if it’s trouble?” Lindsey looked at Susan then over at her sister.

Lindsay
nodded toward her, then back at Susan. “We’ll hear you scream?”

Susan
scratched her head, as if seriously thinking about it a moment, then smirked.
“Yeah, if you hear me scream, it’s probably trouble. If you hear McKenzie
scream, you’ll know I’m handling it.”

Together,
Abbie and Susan walked past the lonely guard shack and across the yard. They
opened the metal doors and entered the dark factory. Abbie held up her phone
and turned on the bright flash, using it as a flashlight. Abbie shined her
light on Susan’s face to see how she was doing.

Susan
took out her phone. The screen lit up and she turned on her flash. It bathed
the wall behind her in a stretch of white light,
then
darkened.
She shook the phone. The flash returned. It brightened, lighting the warehouse.

“Guess
it’s working again,” Susan said, holding up her phone. They stepped cautiously
past stacked boxes, many of them damp and mildewed, and empty wood pallets. Abbie
trembled as they came to the small office. The grey Gareth the Ghoul masks lay
inside.

“Why
would they leave those masks here?” Abbie swept the room with her phone light.
Cockroaches scurried into the corners. “That’s not cool.”

“Maybe
they didn’t realize how it would affect you,” she said. “Do they know about
your sister?”

“McKenzie
does, yeah.” Abbie’s beam of light followed the floor to a metal door. It was
marked “STAIRS” in dull yellow block letters. “Everyone back in Pembroke Pines knows.”

They headed for the stairwell and opened the
heavy metal door. It squeaked loudly, and the girls stepped into the dark corridor.
They shined their phone lights up the stairs. A rat sat on the third step,
looked at them with red eyes, obscenely naked ears and a scaly tail as long as
its body. It reared up on its hind legs.

Susan screamed. The rat jumped from the step
and scampered away in the shadows beneath the staircase.

“It’s just a rat.” Abbie shined her light up
the steps. “This building is probably infested with them.”

“I hate rats.” Susan gulped a deep breath. “I
hope we don’t see anymore.”

Abbie shined her light as far up the
staircase as she could. It looked like it raised-up five levels, at least.
Taking the first step, Abbie started the climb upwards. Susan followed.

 
“So what happened to her?” Susan footsteps
echoed around them, through the stairwell. “Your sister, I mean.”

Abbie
gripped her unicorn pendant, remembering her sister. “We were attacked in our
home. I was about five years old. Heather was twelve.”

“And
he killed her?”

“Slit
her throat with a box cutter.” Abbie let go of the pendant. She moved faster up
the steps. “Heather protected me, gave me time for the police to get there.”

“And
the man that attacked you? He had a tattoo?”

“On his right arm.
 
It was Gareth the Ghoul. I saw it as he took
my sister away.”

“I’m
really sorry.” Susan remained a step behind as they came to the first landing. She
paused. Abbie listened for movement. McKenzie and Rocky could jump out at any
point. But, she heard nothing.

“Thank
you,” Abbie finally said. “I really try not to think about, well, you know?”

“I’m
surprised you don’t have nightmares.”

“I
used to. Now nothing about it even feels real anymore. I mean it’s like I’m
remembering something I watched on TV a long time ago.”

They
passed the third floor landing. Around every corner, Abbie prepared her nerves
for a sudden jolt. She knew it was coming. It never did.

They
finally reached the top level
. Abbie
peered over the railing, down to the dark five levels below. A door marked
“ROOF ACCESS” waited to be opened.
They pushed it, found it unlocked.
The girls stepped outside, onto a flat, concrete rooftop. A three foot wall outlined
the perimeter. Behind them, the stairwell door slammed shut. Abbie jumped.

The
wind rushed, screamed. It blew Abbie’s hair wildly around her head. Susan’s
shirt tail flapped as if she had wings.

“Hello?”
Susan called out. Her voice echoed. “Is there anyone out here?”

No
one answered.
 
Abbie sent a text message.

Abbie
looked around. They were alone. There really wasn’t anyplace for McKenzie and
Rocky to hide. She wasn’t sure if she really expected them to be out here
anyway. Honestly, she didn’t know what to expect.

 
“So where are they?” Abbie asked. “If they’re
going to jump out and laugh at us, then where are they?”

“I
don’t know.” Susan whistled, motioning toward the city lights on the horizon. She
walked to the ledge, leaned against the perimeter wall.
 
“What a view.”

Abbie stepped beside her. Far off fields of
light stretched ahead of them. Vivid down town high-rises lit the horizon. Glistening
blue on the Causeway reflected in the bay. Stars spotted the dark above, a few
of them moving.

“Tampa International Airport is out that
way,” Abbie said.
After a moment, her phone chirped. A text message came through.

Abbie
read the message,
then
typed, “
It’s too windy. I’ll fall
.”
Susan asked what was in
the message. Abbie didn’t answer her. Before she could hit SEND
,
another text message came across.

Abbie
read the message then typed back.