Crazy, Sexy, Ghoulish: A Halloween Romance (Crazy, Sexy, Ghoulish Book 1), Page 2

  Snarling, I chased him.

  Another girl might’ve felt bad, but I was glad for a moment I hadn’t let fear get the better of me. I could do more than stare at him. I could scare him. That was my job.

  He jerked his head around to look at me.

  Seeing I wasn’t going to stop, he kept running—all the way to his car.

  I only halted a car row away, when a couple getting out of their truck saw me and jumped back in, hitting the door locks.

  Brendan hopped into his car and slammed the door shut. Then he leaned forward, and our eyes locked through the windshield. A jolt passed through my body.

  “I’m going to suck out your bone marrow!” My voice was so shrill and demonic, it made me tremble.

  Seven years later, I could still make him flinch.

  ***

  I stayed late to help Tim tidy up after the Haunted Shack closed that Monday night. I even cleaned the floor where the dolls sat, which was the one room that scared me. I wasn’t getting paid extra for it, but Chris had to work at the department of motor vehicles the next morning, Ryan was too high, and our crazed mental patient, Elle, said she needed her beauty sleep—though Tim said that was contrary to the goals of the Shack. Also, I was too wired from seeing Brendan, too unsure what to think, too consumed with how different he looked. Too worried he’d recognized me.

  Plus I tried to help out at the Shack whenever I could. Tim had been sweet to me these past two years—teaching me how to scare people, saying I had potential, letting me be someone else for a few dozen nights every October.

  He finally drove me home, and when I got out of his car, it was almost two in the morning. The neighborhood was still and silent, surrounded by the dark silhouettes of trees against the night sky, their branches jagged and blackened like rotten arteries.

  I’d moved back home a few weeks ago to save money. Mom got laid off last summer, and we were struggling—hence my need to get that shiny Halloween bonus. I didn’t know how I was going to afford the next semester of college, but I’d probably have to quit school and get a full-time job. Not that I didn’t feel like a freak in theater class lately anyhow. Maybe I could quit school and start selling some organs.

  How much would one of my kidneys fetch on eBay? There was a question I never thought I’d type into my phone.

  I dragged my feet on our driveway, scuffing my white nurse shoes in my fatigue. Trying to be quiet to not wake Mom, I unlocked the door and slowly opened it. The adrenaline from seeing Brendan fading, I was becoming tired, with a sluggish sadness that was hard to identity. A feeling that sloshed my insides, but hid when I tried to pinpoint its source.

  I wiped the blood off my cheeks and hair, but was too beat to take off my uniform and fishnets. Collapsing on my bed, I passed into a deep sleep.

  Chapter Three

  In the dream I carried a heavy silver tray covered with organs. Some were round and bright red, others flat ovals of dark bruised purple. Another mysterious one was long and grayish white. They were wet and glistening, squishing and sliding in a shallow pool of blood, threatening to spill from the tray.

  They were so heavy. I had to get rid of them, but I didn’t know how.

  But then I realized they were mine: my slick dark liver, my pale coiling intestines trembling as if they were alive.

  And then all of a sudden Brendan was there in front of me, wearing his hoodie and staring at the tray of organs. He was disgusted.

  “Try some,” I said, trying to sound nice and sticking the tray under his nose. “Buy some.” But he just shoved it away and the whole tray came crashing down, all my guts sliding and gushing to the floor in an unpleasant heavy wet slap, blood splashing both our faces.

  I gasped and woke up in bed covered in sweat.

  His eyes were blue. Brendan’s eyes were blue.

  Dark blue. Like deep river water. The evening sky.

  I couldn’t sleep then, not a chance in hell. I couldn’t shake the nightmare or the way it’d made me feel—gross and unwanted, and like something bad was going to happen that I couldn’t stop.

  I looked around my room, the one I’d had for years, but in the darkness even familiar shapes seemed strange, not quite right. I lit a candle and grabbed my laptop, seeking solace in the internet. I checked tomorrow’s weather (gloomy) and my bank balance (terrifying) before sighing and checking my various social media accounts.

  A friend had posted a clip from one of the Cleaver Man movies, and to make myself feel better I grabbed some cold, leftover chicken wings from the fridge and came back to watch it in the candlelight. It was one of my favorite scenes, the part where the southern girl—who’s had her jock boyfriend, best friend, and favorite librarian all get killed—becomes so enraged she goes after the black-cloaked Cleaver Man himself in a fearful fit, stealing his hatchet and butchering him to bits.

  It was cheesy, but just what I needed. “You’re not going to kill me!” I said along with the frightened actress in my best southern accent. “You’re not going to kill anybody ever again!” She stumbled in her sandals and Daisy Dukes, wielding the weapon, until, out of breath and bloody, she stalked off into the sunrise—to fight off the killer again in the next film when he came back miraculously resurrected.

  I clicked off, smiling. Then, before I could think about it, I typed HorrorMonger into the search bar. Brendan’s website.

  Maybe I was curious. Maybe I wanted to see if he’d recognized me that night. Maybe I wanted to see that face, that body again. Maybe I just wanted to torture myself that a person I’d tried to socially annihilate in middle school now had more followers on Twitter than the number of people in our hometown.

  HorrorMonger had a blog, several video series, and a dozen active forums for horror geeks. Brendan had written horror movie reviews for the past several years at least, from old-school stuff to every Cleaver Man sequel, not to mention haunted house reviews from around the state, critical pieces on horror tropes, and stories about being involved in the horror community.

  I read a couple of his recent posts. He was funny and smart, and his review of the latest Cleaver Man movie made me giggle until my eyes teared up. Is that what was going on under that hoodie seven years ago? I never would have guessed.

  The ugly truth was that it probably wouldn’t have mattered. I might’ve still been a monster to him.

  One thing was for sure: Tim was right. In the land of horror geeks, Brendan was their king. I clicked over to the clip of him talking about his haunted house visits that month.

  “We’re doing something different this year at HorrorMonger,” he said in the video, sitting in what seemed like a dorm room, a blood-splattered poster for Cleaver Man IV in the background. “I’m doing tours of all the haunted houses in the region and ranking them on this site. Rankings come out Halloween morning. I’ve been trying to be a little quiet about it, but I think the rumors are spreading already.” He laughed. “But if your house is not listed on my schedule, make sure to message me.”

  He took a sip of something from a can and I pulled my laptop closer, studying him. He was wearing a thin blue cotton shirt, and I could see those shoulder muscles up close. I bit my lip and tasted copper.

  “I’ve been to some really incredible houses in the past, stuff that was pretty mind-blowing…”

  “Yeah, but how did you get those biceps?” I whispered.

  “Everybody gets freaked out by different things,” he continued, “and it’d be awesome if you guys could all comment about your favorite haunts around here…”

  I watched him talk, so animated and so unlike what I would’ve guessed in middle school. A little geeky, yes, in the sense that he was really passionate about the scary stuff. But who was I to judge? It was four in the morning and I was dressed as a zombie nurse.

  He started talking about his favorite haunted house to date, a place where his cousin lived in Cleveland. He was discussing what made it so incredible—a cohesive theme of medical experiments g
one awry, drastic temperature shifts in the house, long periods where nothing happened that ratcheted up the anticipation and fear. As he got more enthused, his voice quickened and one of his eyebrows raised over those blue eyes.

  “Silence is the worst. The worst. When there’s nothing happening but you know something’s about to, but you don’t know what, that’s when it’s most scary.”

  As the end of the clip, he smiled, and it was somehow devilish and sweet at the same time, charming but tentative, and I felt the sadness come back as he reached forward to flip a switch and the video faded to black.

  It wasn’t just that he was hot. It wasn’t. The way he talked, the way he smiled, it was like he wasn’t just somebody you wanted to kiss, but the guy you wanted to sit next to in class or go with to a diner in the middle of the night.

  Maybe he didn’t remember me. Maybe the things I’d said seven years ago were a distant memory for him, kid stuff. Middle school was ages ago, really. I hardly remembered it myself. Lockers, math problems, kissing with tongues, being a monster.

  I had to find out. I scrolled through the archives of his blog, searching for some indicator he remembered, some title like “How Nora Travers Tormented Me in Middle School.”

  It was almost five a.m. and four hours until my morning theater class when I finally saw it in his archives from a few years ago. A post titled “How I Got Here.” My heart stuttered. It was vague, but somehow I knew what I’d find. I started reading.

  He’d written about how he was a horror geek since he was prenatal or something, how he tried to hide it so people wouldn’t think he was a sociopath. Then he mentioned getting picked on at school, but maybe that was a good thing because it motivated him to succeed and—and then my heart started beating again, fast, as I read over the words—and maybe it made him want to “show that witch Nora and her friends that I wasn’t just some nerd who was going nowhere.”

  He remembered me.

  He’d gotten hundreds of comments on that post. Dude, fuck them, you’re awesome, someone named TheScareKrow had commented. The Geek shall inherit the earth! another had written, an older guy apparently by his avatar. Then there were scores of stories of other geeks talking about getting terrorized by monsters like me.

  I closed my laptop.

  Okay, he hated me.

  He like super hated me.

  I blew out the candle and watched the wisps of smoke rise into the air, the sharp scent of smudged flame filling the room.

  But what did Brendan think about me tonight? The zombie me, the girl that he hadn’t recognized as “that witch Nora?”

  Unless he had recognized me…

  I opened up the laptop again. Pulled up Twitter.

  I found him, but didn’t follow—@NoraTravers was not someone he wanted to be connected to, in the real or virtual realm. Instead I clicked on his handle, @WhoreforHorror.

  He had last tweeted ten minutes ago about his mom being right about not drinking coffee after 3 p.m. But—but!—before that he’d tweeted, Haunted House tonight was ok. Boosted at the end to awesome by a naughty nurse. Of the undead variety.

  I smiled.

  Quickly, before I had time to realize my brain had turned into candy corn, I opened a new account on Twitter, @NaughtyNurse666. I aimed my phone down and snapped a photo of my crossed fishnet-clad legs and uploaded it as my profile picture.

  Then I replied to Brendan’s tweet.

  You know it’s a good scare when you shudder (and drop your phone).

  I let out a shaky breath. I wanted him to like me—some part, some shadowy version of myself. Not that witch Nora, not somebody beyond redemption.

  A voice in my head angrily whispered, What are you doing?

  I lived by certain rules in life: Go to class. Take notes. Read two-thirds of the stuff you’re supposed to. Go to work. Scare people. Don’t let them know you’re just some twenty-year-old girl trying to make her tuition. Go to bed by two a.m. Don’t hit on guys with mustaches. Don’t tweet people who knew you before age fifteen. Don’t eat weird things at weird times. Don’t think about the past.

  I’d broken most of those rules in the past few hours. At least I’d kept the mustache one. But if Brendan had had a mustache to go with that face, that rule might not have stopped me.

  My phone pinged.

  I had a notification.

  Chapter Four

  @WhoreforHorror had tweeted me back.

  Wow. They let zombies on Twitter now? Is this really…?

  Fingers trembling, I tweeted him back.

  Yes. Didn’t you notice the legs?

  Is this a trick question?

  I grinned. Maybe.

  Can’t believe I’m tweeting you. Up late too?

  Yeah.

  Coffee?

  No. And then I added, Btw, I liked how you ran all the way to your car in the parking lot. Coward.

  Can you blame a guy? I thought for a sec you were going to really eat my braaaiinnnss.

  I licked my lips. I WAS going to eat them. I bet they taste like chicken.

  Too bad. I need them for class. Maybe rain check?

  I giggled into the dark of my room. Outside my window, the blackness was fading to gray and soon there’d be enough light to see everything more clearly.

  Are you sure I’m not outside your window right now? I tweeted.

  A minute passed.

  Umm… I’m not going to confirm or deny that I just looked out my window. #dejected

  Check behind the shrubs next time, I responded.

  Woah, feeling kind of teager right now.

  Teager?

  It’s a new emotion I just made up, he wrote. Terrified + eager = teager.

  I started laughing more, but before I could tweet back, he wrote again. Not that I have emotions. Because I’m a guy. Grr, argh!

  Right…

  So how long have you worked at the Shack? he segued. Haven’t seen you there before.

  Two years. Guess you have bad timing. Or a bad memory.

  I flinched as I realized what I’d written. But it’d already posted.

  No, he tweeted. I would’ve remembered you.

  My eyes widened, and I couldn’t think of a response, and after a minute I didn’t have to.

  Maybe I’ll see you there again this week, he wrote.

  OH? The experience wasn’t too JUST OKAY for you? I felt the need to defend Tim and Chris and Ryan on this point. Well, at least Tim.

  Read the last part of that original tweet again, he wrote. Seriously, planning another trip this week.

  What night? I managed to tweet back, hoping it’d be a night I was working, praying it wasn’t.

  What night are you working next?

  My heart started thumping in my chest.

  Wednesday.

  Then I’ll be there Wednesday night.

  Chapter Five

  It couldn’t go on. Not like that.

  You had one job, I reminded myself. Scare Brendan to get that Halloween bonus.

  Instead I’d done—something else. Flirted. Scared him, yes, but then tweeted him suggestive things and pretended like I wasn’t really a monster. It was bad for the Haunted Shack, and it was horrible for me. A little slip like that again, and I wouldn’t just lose my chance at the Halloween bonus, I’d expose who I really was and I’d see, up close and terribly personal, that look on Brendan’s face I’d seen in my nightmare: disgusted, disturbed. Hateful. And I’d deserve it.

  I felt the stirrings of a crush for him, but I’d liked guys before. I couldn’t let it distract me. It was too treacherous.

  It was Wednesday night. Halloween was in three days, on Saturday night. I had four nights to keep it together, to keep the mask on and forget about him. Scare him if he showed his face.

  As I walked to work, I fingered the folded envelope in my bag. Inside was a letter. Second tuition notice, it said at the top. We were late on the payment. Again.

  At the Shack, I slithered on a lo
ng, slinky black dress, low-cut and with a slit up to my hip. I donned a wig of straight, shiny black hair that fell to my waist. I spread thick white makeup over my face, coated my mouth in ruby lipstick, and dribbled fake blood in a little trail from my bottom lip to my exposed collarbone.

  He’d said he was coming that night. But why? Maybe it was because of me and maybe it wasn’t, but if he showed up, I’d terrify him. But I’d be someone else.

  We usually worked the same position at the house, but Tim had agreed to let me change it up tonight, provided I brought more of that “nefarious magic” again.

  I’d arrived at work early, and used the extra time to walk through the house to my position slowly, slinking through the corridors and lingering in the dark corners. I loved the quiet, creepy calm of the house, the silence before the screams and the people from your past showed up.

  Inhaling the scent of pine at the entrance, I walked along the bumpy woodchips as the ground gave away to something softer, moss-like, that felt plush and sinking, like you were walking on a cloud—or the mouth of a beast’s hole.

  There was a long walk from the entrance into the heart of the house—a stroll into the pitch black with the walls narrowing and the floor unpredictable. I knew the Shack inside and out, in complete dark and gray light, knew where to avoid the light-up buzzers and hanging skeletons. But still I put my hands against the walls to steady myself as I walked.

  The first room in the house was the only one I hated, the one I told Tim I’d never work in. The dolls. They sat on a big bookshelf, these black-eyed, antique-looking dolls, most of them about six inches tall.

  If you looked close at them—preferably during the day, it was horrid any other time—you could almost imagine it: long ago these dolls were clean, pretty things that some girl played with. They probably had shiny hair and crisp little sailor outfits and were wanted for tea parties with beloved stuffed bears.

  But little girls grew up. And the dolls grew old, became dirty and broken. Unloved, lying forgotten in moldy basements or under beds, growing twisted and foul in the dark. Maybe one day the girl, now a young woman, found them and saw them for what they really were: little plastic things with beady stares and glued-on hair, dusty and mean.

  Then she sold them on the internet to my boss Tim.

  Some of the dolls had missing eyes, some missed half a head of hair—as if some cruel older brother had yanked it out. One of them had its head twisted and snapped completely off, only its body in a red dress sitting there.