Strawberry Wine (30 page)

The night of the haunted house at Roosevelt High found Alli dressed in a pale pink slip dress almost identical to the one Sissy Spacek wore in the movie
Carrie
. Like Sissy, Alli was covered from head to toe in blood red corn syrup. It was sticky, and most uncomfortable. Yvette couldn’t have been happier to see Alli covered in the sticky mess. She looked like a cat that had gotten into the cream.

Alli was determined not to show her discomfort in front of Yvette. She was exhausted and the haunted house hadn’t even opened yet. She found a stool to sit on, careful not to get corn syrup all over it, and watched as volunteers ran around making last minute adjustments to the different sets. The main hall way of the school and the large gymnasium had been divided up using wooden dividers and intricate draperies. Each area boasting a different theme or scene. There were torture chambers, zombies, the wolf man in a cemetery, and various iconic sets paying homage to the gory scenes in classic horror movies.

Alli’s only job was to scream as the maze goers came into her area, and hit a remote button that set off a hiss of fake fire around the door. The fire was really just a fan blowing shimmery material lit by a red light, but the effect was eerily realistic.

The lights dimmed. “Places everyone!” Trilled Yvette. Alli grudgingly rose from her stool just as Jason breezed through. He had been looking for her, and smiled when he saw her. He was dressed in an impeccably tailored tux with a dramatic black cape that flashed red silk lining as it blew behind him. Of course. A vampire to Yvette’s sleeping maiden. Alli should have known.

“Miss Wilson. You look great.” He said, and then, more quietly, “How are you feeling?”

Alli smiled up at him. He was distractingly gorgeous in his finery. “Wow.” Was all she could manage.

Jason hid a smile. He could hear the shuffling noise of the first students entering the maze. Luckily, his character was supposed to wander through the maze, jumping out at random places to scare people.

“You better go.” Warned Alli. “I don’t think there were any vampires in Carrie.”

He gave her a brief nod, and dramatically pulled his cape in front of his face, arching a brow. Alli laughed as he held the pose all the way out the door to her set.

The night dragged on slowly for Alli. Her high heels were wreaking havoc on her sore, swollen feet, and she had a persistent ache in her lower back. As a group of revelers went through her fiery exit door, she set the remote controller down and dug her fists into her back at the base of her spine. She felt crampy, and a bit woozy. The heat from her set lights coupled with the suffocating sticky coat of corn syrup was becoming extremely uncomfortable.

Alli could hear chains rattling. That was her cue that someone was coming to her set. Grabbing the remote controller, she prepared to scream at the unsuspecting partiers. Where was her reliever? She was supposed to get a break every forty five minutes.

People continued to wind their way through the haunted maze, and still no one came to relieve Alli at her post. Fog from the fog machine two sets over was seeping into Alli’s area. It tickled at the back of her throat, adding to her overall discomfort. Alli fanned at herself in an unsuccessful attempt at getting some fresh air. She needed a break. She was lightheaded and needed to eat something. Not to mention her shoes were cutting painfully into her feet.

Finally reaching her breaking point, Alli decided to leave her post. The pain in her lower back was increasing. She felt the need to relieve herself. She carefully peeled her feet out of her high heels, dumping them in the corner and wishing the fire around her exit door was real so she could burn them. Gingerly, she made her way to the ladies room, snaking her way through the back of the sets so as to avoid any maze goers.

The bright flash of blood in Alli’s underpants didn’t register with her at first. She had been covered in so much fake blood all night, along with everything else in her set, that she had grown desensitized to it. After a moment of confusion, she started to panic, realizing the blood’s implications. “No. Oh, no.” She gasped. She fumbled with the roll of toilet paper, trying to get a long enough length to double over on itself. Her heart was racing in panic, and her fingers were slow and clumsy. The toilet paper roll was not cooperating.

Alli’s breaths were coming in short bursts. She doubled over as a sharp cramp gripped her. She could see the toilet water beneath her, stained a murky dark pink. She could only guess at the amount of blood it had taken to make such a vivid shade. She felt a wave of nausea surge up, and before she gathered the sense to stand, her guts clenched, sending a stream of acidic vomit up her throat.

The smell of blood and vomit in the bathroom hit Ellen like a wall. “Hello?” She called out. There was no answer. “Is anyone in here?” She quickly checked under all of the stall doors, but the bathroom was empty.

Alli walked back through the haunted maze. She was slumped forward, keeping one hand clutched tightly around her middle, the other on the wall for support. Where was Jason? She had to find Jason. She could feel the floor beneath her bare feet starting to shift. She lurched forward just as a group of students came around the corner. Assuming she was jumping out to scare them, they shrieked in glee and continued on their way through the maze.

Alli fell to her knees. She could feel a hot slickness on her legs. The dim passageway became dimmer as her vision blurred. Alli didn’t feel the impact of her head hitting the floor.

It was Ellen that found Alli’s body in the passage way. She screamed, kneeling to brush the hair from Alli’s face.

Jason was in the main hall of the school when he heard the scream. It was different from the other screams echoing off the walls of the sets. This scream made his hair stand on end. Mrs. Drake noticed the difference too. Her face blanched under her Bride of Frankenstein make up. In a split second they both turned and ran into the heart of the maze.

Jason got there first. A small group of frantic students had gathered around Alli’s body by the time Jason reached her. He burst through the other students, kneeling quickly by her side and checking for a pulse. “My God! Alli? Alli can you hear me?! Someone call an ambulance!” Jason ran his hands over Alli’s face. Her skin was cool and clammy, her breathing shallow. “Alli?” He was frantic. He shifted her body to lay it flat, noticing a warm wetness on his hand. Blood. She was covered in blood, and he couldn’t tell how much of it was corn syrup and how much was her own.

Mrs. Drake arrived huffing and puffing. “An ambulance is on the way!”

Jason scooped Alli into his arms and started barreling through the maze. It would take forever for medics to wind their way through the maze with a stretcher. He made it to the front of the school, Alli’s limp body tucked tightly against his chest, just as the ambulance pulled up. The medics jumped out and took Alli from Jason, putting her on a stretcher. “She’s pregnant!” He gasped to the paramedic fitting an oxygen mask over Alli’s nose and mouth. There were lights flashing, radios squawking, and people peppering him with questions. He answered them as best he could.

Mrs. Drake arrived at the ambulance just as Jason was climbing inside. The paramedics made to question him when he spat, “I’m not leaving her!”

“It’s okay!” Trilled Mrs. Drake. “He’s a family friend!” The medics didn’t have time to argue further.

The doors to the ambulance slammed shut, and it pulled away from the school leaving a gathering crowd of curious onlookers. Mrs. Drake stared after it, her mind spinning with implications from Jason’s possessive demeanor concerning the Wilson girl. Verna was never going to believe this!

Jason sat paralyzed with fear. Alli looked so pale, almost corpse-like. The ride to the hospital took only a few minutes, but it seemed an eternity to Jason as he watched Alli laying cold and still, her life blood soaking through her slip dress, turning the once pale pink a startling blackish red.

He followed closely beside the stretcher as they wheeled her into the emergency room, but there was such a crowd of medical personal rushing to attend to her that he couldn’t get close enough to hold her hand. “I’m here, Alli!” He shouted hoarsely, hoping she might hear him through the chaos surrounding her. As the stretcher entered a pair of double doors, two staff members kept Jason from following. “I’m sorry sir, you’ll have to wait here.”

Suddenly there was no sound. Jason watched in slow motion as the double doors closed, obscuring his view of the stretcher. He fell to his knees right there in the hallway, his tux covered in blood - his sweet Alli’s blood, and he wept. He didn’t know how long he knelt there on the cold linoleum floor. Slowly he became aware of the sounds of the hospital buzzing around him. He was being gawked at, but nobody had the nerve to approach him.

Clumsily he rose to his feet. A calmness was descending upon him. There was a quiet quality to his thoughts. Linda. Alli’s mother. He should call Linda. He patted his jacket pockets, but he knew he had left his phone in his truck. His mother would have the number.

Numbly Jason went to the reception area and asked to use the phone. Mary picked up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Mom, Alli’s hurt-” Was all he could manage before he started sobbing.

“Jason? Jason what’s wrong?! Where are you?” Her voice was filled with panic.

Seeing Jason struggling to speak, the receptionist gestured to take the phone.

“Hello?” She asked into the receiver.

“Hello? Who is this? What’s going on?” Mary demanded.

“This is Miss Holder at Sacred Heart Emergency Room.”

“Emergency room! Is Jason okay? Is my son okay?” Mary’s mind was racing through all the terrible scenarios mothers never want to have to face.

“Are you Jason?” Miss Holder asked Jason. Off his nod, “Your son is fine ma’am. He appears to be suffering from shock.” Jason’s breathing had calmed again and he gestured to take the phone back. “Mom? I’m okay. It’s Alli. Something’s happened to her. I need to call Linda.” But as he was speaking, Linda rushed through the doors. “Never mind, Mom. She’s here.” And he hung up the phone in order to meet Linda around the counter.

“Jason! My God!” Linda shrieked when she saw the blood covering Jason’s once white shirt.

“Alli collapsed at school-” He started to explain, but got interrupted by the triage nurse.

“Are you Allison Wilson’s people?”

“I am! I’m her mother!” Linda answered. The nurse nodded curtly. “I’m going to need you to come with me.”

Mary Taylor stormed through the emergency room doors and spotted her son almost immediately. He was perched on the edge of a seat, his eyes fixed on the double doors leading into the hospital proper. She gasped at the sight of him, covered in blood as he was. He had taken off his tuxedo jacket, and the bright white fabric of the shirt where the jacket had protected it from Alli’s blood stood out in contrast to the stained front. It looked as if he were wearing a morbid breast plate.

“Jason.”

He looked up. “Mom!”

He was ghostly pale.

Greg handed his keys to the valet and took the offered ticket. The gallery was ablaze with light. Finely dressed people were milling about, filling every pocket of the large space. Catering staff wove through the crowd, offering trays of champagne and hor’dourves.

Alli looked surreptitiously around for Jason, and she couldn’t help but feel that Greg was doing the same. This was a bad idea. She shouldn’t have come tonight - not after telling Greg about Jason. Then again, she couldn’t very well just leave Jason in the dark. If Greg were going to approach Jason, it was better that Jason know Greg knew about them.

Alli declined the champagne and Greg scooped two off a tray and handed her one anyway. “Appearances, dear.” He murmured. She took the flute of fizzy liquid and Greg rested his free hand on the small of her back. She was wearing a very low cut dress. The back was bare all the way down to the base of her spine. Greg’s fingers were chilly from having held the champagne, and as he brushed them against her skin Alli shivered.