Midnight Games (2 page)

We all kiss the plaque when we come into Nights. I mean, just about everyone kisses it. Partly as a joke, and maybe some of us think it keeps bad luck away. I'm not so sure. My friend Galen kissed it one night and his lips got stuck to it. It was horrible. He wound up in the hospital. The weird thing is it happened right after
he told me he knew something really important about the Fears. Something dangerous! But I kiss it, anyway.

Ryland slides a bottle of Bud across the bar to me. He knows none of us Night People are old enough. He knows we all have fake IDs. But he's cool about it.

I tilt the bottle to my mouth and take a long pull. My neck aches. All of my muscles ache, as if I've been in an accident or something.

I turn and take a few steps beyond the bar. I see my buddy Shark sitting with Lewis Baransky in a booth against the back wall.

“Hey, Nate—” Jamie Richards calls to me. She's at a table with Ada, my girlfriend. It seems weird to call Ada that. We've only been going out a few weeks. It just sort of happened. I'm not really sure how.

We've been friends for a long time. And then, suddenly . . . wow.

I walk over to Jamie and Ada. I lean down and kiss Ada on the lips. She raises her hands to my face—then jerks them away.

She stares at me wide-eyed. “Nate—what happened to you?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Both girls are staring at me now. I drop down in the chair next to Ada.

“Your face—,” Ada says. “Is that blood?”

I raise a hand to my cheek. It feels crusty. It hurts when I touch it.

Ada reaches her hand into my hair. “Oh, gross.” She makes a disgusted face. “Dried blood. In your hair.”

Jamie frowns at me. “What happened? Are you okay? Were you in an accident?”

I shut my eyes to think about it. I have a hollow feeling in my stomach. And my brain . . . my mind is a blank.

“You're totally scratched up, Nate,” Ada says, grabbing my hand. “Look. There's blood on your hands, too.”

“Hey, Nate—you get in a fight?” Shark calls from the back. “Who won?”

“Definitely not me,” I shout back.

But I don't feel like joking around. My ears are ringing. I take another long pull on the beer bottle.

Ada and Jamie are still staring at me. Ada brushes some caked blood off my hair.

“I walked here,” I say, thinking hard. “Through Fear Woods. I . . . uh . . . think I fell.”

“Did you land on your head?” Shark calls.

Lewis laughs. He has a high whinny of a laugh. He sounds like a horse.

I make a fist. “I'm going to land on
your
head!” I tell Shark.

Shark jumps to his feet. He sneers at me like he's tough or something. “Dude, you want to take it outside?”

I jump to my feet.

Everyone laughs. They know Shark and I are good buddies. Shark is a pretty wild kid. He gets in trouble sometimes. But he'd never fight me. We look out for each other.

Especially since that night at Candy's house. Especially since we have that big, awful secret to keep.

Ada pulls me back down. “So you were walking here and you fell?”

I nod. “Yeah. I guess I cut myself on some brambles.”

She shakes her head. “Must be really tough brambles,” she mutters. “You're a total mess.”

Ada pulls me up and leads me by the hand to the bathroom at the back of the bar. It's a filthy mess. The sink is rusted brown, and there are clumps of wet toilet paper all over the floor.

“Doesn't Ryland ever clean this place?” Ada asks.

I shrug. “He's got a tough job. You know. Sitting up front and reading magazines all night.”

Ada wets some paper towels and starts to mop the dried blood off my face. It really hurts, but I don't flinch or anything. Gotta be tough, right?

She frowns at me as she dabs at my cheek. “You sure you fell?”

I hesitate. I almost tell her the truth. That I don't remember how it happened.

But that's just too weird. When I think about how my mind is blank, I get that scared, hollow feeling in my stomach again.

“Yeah. Fell,” I said. “Stupid, huh?”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Stupid.”

We kiss for a while. I put my arms around her and hold her tight. I want to hold on to her for a long time. Something scary happened to me in the woods, and I don't know what it was.

I only know I'm really afraid.

After a long while, Ada pulls away from me. We're both breathing hard. I can still taste her lips on my lips.

“Let's get out of here,” she says, pressing her forehead against mine. “It reeks.”

When we return to the table, Shark and Lewis have joined us. Lewis is holding hands with Jamie. They've been going out for years. Shark is spinning a large gold coin around on the table.

“Is that real gold?” Jamie asks. “Where'd you get it?”

Shark holds the coin up for her to see. “It's very old. Know where I got it? That night we were all in the Fear Mansion last year. In that hidden room we found. Before they tore the house down. That night we swiped all that stuff?”

Jamie took the coin and examined it, turning it over. “I'll bet it's real gold.”

Shark grinned at her. “Maybe I'm filthy rich and don't know it. I took a whole pile of these coins from that room.”

Jamie spins it on the table. Shark grabs it up. He finishes his beer and walks over to Ryland to get another one.

Lewis is wearing his down parka, even though it's about eighty degrees in the bar. He turns to me. “You look tense, Nate.”

I don't answer. I don't know what to say to that.

“We're all tense,” Ada says. “Everyone at school is tense. Haven't you noticed?”

I tilt the beer bottle to my mouth. “Because of Candy?”

Ada nods. “A lot of people think it wasn't an accident. They think Candy was murdered.”

Whoa. I nearly drop the bottle. Shark and I were there. We
know
what happened. We
saw
Candy go flying headfirst down the stairs, screaming to her death.

Shark glances at me. He tucks the gold coin into his jeans pocket. “People think there is a killer out there?”

Ada narrows her eyes at him. “They say it wasn't a human killer. They say it was the curse of Fear Street.”

I shake my head. “That's so over,” I say. “Fear Street is a shopping center now. How can anyone still believe that stuff?”

Shark taps the table. “We're sitting right where the Fear Mansion stood.” He shouts to Ryland behind the bar. “Hey, Ry—think this bar is haunted?”

“Yeah. By you guys.” Ryland doesn't lift his head from his magazine.

“Hey, you love us,” Shark replies. “If we didn't come here every night, what would you do?”

Ryland grins. “Enjoy the peace and quiet?”

The front door swings open. We all turn. A girl steps into the neon red light at the entrance.

The red light shimmers and wraps around her like a cloak.

And behind the curtain of red, I see . . . I see another figure. A dark figure rising above the girl.

I lean over the table and squint into the eerie light. It's a bird. A giant blackbird. It raises its wings and beats them hard, as if fighting off the red light.

I see one blue eye. The eye seems to be staring into the bar, staring straight at
me
!

I know it.

I recognize that bird from somewhere.

And I open my mouth in a scream I can't stop.

5

Ada jumps up. She shakes me by the
shoulders. “Nate—what's wrong? What
is
it?”

The girl takes a few steps into the bar. Behind her, the bird vanishes.

It just disappears into the red neon. The last thing I see is its blue eye.

I take a deep breath and hold it. I watch the girl approach. Did she know that bird was hovering above her? I don't think so.

Ada squeezes my shoulders. “You're trembling,” she says. “What made you scream like that?”

Everyone stares at me.

I keep my eyes on the girl. “I . . . I guess I freaked because of that girl,” I tell them.

I don't want them to know I'm suddenly seeing strange, one-eyed blackbirds.

“The girl looks so much like Jamie,” I say. “I . . . I thought I was seeing double.”

Jamie laughs. “Of
course
she looks like me. What's your problem, Nate?” She gives me a gentle shove. “It's my cousin Dana. Remember I told you about her?”

My heart is still pounding.

Up at the front, Ryland is telling Jamie's cousin to kiss the plaque on the wall. She hesitates. She waves at Jamie. Then she leans forward and gives the plaque a peck.

“Remember?” Jamie whispers. “Dana is going to live with me and my family. For the rest of senior year.”

I'm starting to feel normal again. But I can't lose the picture of that staring blackbird, floating in the red neon above Dana's head.

“She looks so much like you,” I tell Jamie. “Isn't she the one you don't like?”

“Sshhh.” Jamie shoves me again. “Here she comes.” She turns to the others. “Be nice to her, guys. She's had a horrible year.”

Dana steps up to the table. She has Jamie's wavy, black hair and her round, high forehead and dark eyes. When she smiles, she has Jamie's smile.

“Hi, everyone,” she says.

“You made it. I didn't know if you were coming or not,” Jamie tells her.

Shark pulls over a chair. “I'm Shark,” he says. “That's Lewis, and that ugly dude is my friend Nate.”

Everyone laughs.

Dana pulls out the chair and starts to sit down.

“Nice to meet you,” she says. “I'm Dana Fear.”

PART TWO

6

My name is Dana Fear, and I'm
seventeen. A week after I moved in with my cousin Jamie Richards, she threw a party to introduce me to her friends. That was very nice of her.

Jamie hasn't always been nice to me.

We didn't get along when we were kids. My first memories are of Jamie pulling my hair and not letting me play with her dolls.

She had shelves and shelves of dolls, I remember. And a big, clean room, with bunk beds so she could have sleepovers. And she had a huge closet filled with toys and games and videos.

My room at home was about the size of her closet. My family was poor, and we lived in a tiny, falling-down house on the edge of the Fear Street Woods.

Jamie's family never visited our house. We always went to her house. Her father was a lawyer or something, and my parents were always talking about how rich they were.

They lived in a big, stone house in North Hills, the fancy part of Shadyside. I remember the long driveway that curved around to the back. They had a barbecue grill with a tall chimney built right into their patio, and their own tennis court.

Funny, the things you remember from your childhood.

I remember standing with Jamie on her tennis court one day. She spilled out a big, wire basket of tennis balls. They rolled all over, and she ordered me to pick them up.

I ran around the court, gathering up tennis balls. And when I filled the basket, she spilled them all out again.

She thought that was a riot. She tossed back her head and laughed. I thought she was really mean.

When I was ten, my family moved away from Shadyside, and I didn't see Jamie for the longest time.

Last year, I heard about her accident. I
didn't know the details. I heard she was at the old Fear Mansion when it was torn down, and she and her friend Lewis fell into the hole for the new foundation. A mountain of dirt started to fall in on them, and they were almost buried alive.

I called Jamie when she finally got home from the hospital. She was surprised to hear from me. She said she couldn't remember the accident at all. She knew that two off-duty cops had rescued her and her friend Lewis.

She said she had a bad hip, which made her limp. But everything else seemed okay. She was totally bummed that she had spent so much time in the hospital in rehab for her leg that she wouldn't be able to graduate with her class. She had to do senior year over again.

We talked on the phone about seeing each other someday, even though we were in different cities. Of course I didn't know then that my life was about to blow up, and that I'd have to come live with Jamie and her parents for the rest of senior year.

Last week, when I climbed the steps of her front porch, I set down my suitcases and my hamster cage, and I took a deep breath before ringing the bell.

I had a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

What would Jamie be like? I wondered. I knew she'd still be pretty, with those big, dark eyes and her creamy, pale skin and wavy, black hair.

But would she be glad to see me? Or would she still treat me as the poor cousin she was forced to hang out with?

I raised my finger to the big, brass doorbell—and the door swung open before I could ring it.

Jamie came rushing out and swept me up in a warm hug. She stepped back to look at me. Then hugged me again.

“You look so fabulous!” she gushed. “I—I can't believe you're here! It's so awesome you're going to be living here!”

She picked up my heaviest bag. “You're tall now,” she said. “I was always taller than you, wasn't I? I remember those awful yellow Reeboks you used to wear, without any laces, right? You thought that was cool or something, but it was so geeky.”

I laughed. “I didn't think you'd remember me at all.”

She narrowed those dark eyes at me. “Of course, I do. I remember everything. I was
bossy then, totally mean to you. I guess it was because you were so quiet and sad-looking and . . . shy.”

“I'm not shy anymore,” I said, grinning.

It's true. No one would ever call me shy. For one thing, I'm really into guys. And I know how to get their attention.