Return to the Dark House (6 page)

“You’ll love having your own room,” Chantel says, bringing a strand of hair up to her lips for a taste. “You won’t have to worry about a roommate talking your ear
off while you’re trying to study, or having her friends barge in at all hours of the day and night while you’re trying to get work done, or—the worst—eating all of your
food.”

“I practically have my own room
now
,” I say, referring to Emily’s absence. “And I absolutely hate it.”

Emily and I were assigned as roommates, only she moved out (to crash on her BFF Barbie’s spare futon) after only a few weeks into the semester, telling everyone that she couldn’t
possibly be expected to sleep in the same room as a killer.

“Plus, all of that barging-in-and-eating-each-other’s-food stuff...” I continue. “It actually sounds pretty nice.”

“You’ll love it,” she insists, voiding out my words with a jingle of her dollar-store bracelets; there are at least twenty silver bangles loaded on her arm. She lets them slide
up and down her wrist as she talks—her own sort of background noise.

“Aren’t there any other options?” I ask. “Somebody else who needs to switch roommates? I’d be happy to meet with them first. I mean, seriously.” I feel my
eyes begin to fill. “I’m not as horrible as everybody thinks. I was voted Most Popular in high school for three years in a row, for god’s sake.” My words sound stupid and
desperate, and that’s exactly what they are.

Chantel continues to stare at me, a plastic smile on her face, as if none of what I’m saying matters.
Jingle, jangle, jingle
. A second later, my own background noise kicks in: My
phone rings in my pocket. I don’t recognize the number.

“Go ahead and take it,” Chantel says, as I’m about to hit
IGNORE
. “I have to run. I just wanted to let you know that everything is all
set.”

I try my best to hold it together as Chantel turns on her heel, joining a group of sorority pledges in the corner of the lobby (all dressed up like Elvis), leaving me without a say.

My phone continues to ring. I click on it to answer, eager for some love, even if it’s in the shape of some nonexistent prize I need to claim: “Hello?”

“Taylor?”

“Yes.”

“This is Ivy Jensen. We spoke on the phone once before...when I was at the amusement park...during the Dark House weekend.”

“Wait, how did you get my number?”

“It was attached to your contest essay. It’s sort of a long story, but the essays showed up in my mailbox one day. I really think we should talk.”

“Okay, but I’ve already told the police everything I know.”

“I realize that, but I was hoping that if we got together and compared notes, we could come up with some new ideas.”

“Ideas for what? The FBI already has our testimonies.”

“Well, I think that we can do better than the FBI.”

The conversation falls silent. I don’t know what to say, except that I don’t want to talk about the Dark House anymore—about why I left, or what I saw, or what I could’ve
done differently.

“Taylor?”

“We’re not the police.”

“Can we just meet and talk?”

I gaze out at the lobby of students. The group of sorority pledges attempts to serenade all of us by singing “Hound Dog” by Elvis, only it sounds more like
hedgehog
, which is
so completely distracting.

“I’m really sorry, Ivy. But I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, and I need to stay focused on my studies.”

“But people are still missing,” she says.

“Okay, but aren’t those people believed to be dead?”

“Do
you
believe it?”

“I don’t have any reason not to. I mean, it’s been more than three months, and there was so much blood everywhere.”

“How about this reason: If you went missing but your body had yet to be uncovered, would you want people to stop looking...to just assume that you were dead?”

“I’m really sorry,” I tell her again, still focused on the sorority girls and wishing that I were one of them. If this were before the Dark House weekend, there’s no
doubt in my mind that I would be.

“Can we at least talk on the phone, sometime when you have more ti—”

“I’m sorry,” I say, cutting her off. “I just can’t do this right now.” I hang up before she can argue. And then I go back to my room and cry myself to
sleep.

A
FEW DAYS LATER
, C
HANTEL
shows up on my doorstep, asking me to move out of my room. “We were able to get you in even
earlier than expected!” she announces, twirling a strand of hair. “Are your bags all packed?” There’s a big, bubbly smile across her spray-tanned face, as if she’s
doing me a colossal favor.

“Oh,” I say, for lack of intelligent words. “I’m actually in the middle of a Shakespeare assignment right now.” I glance over my shoulder at the
unopened books on my desk. “And I wouldn’t feel right neglecting Romeo, considering how sucky his love life is. Can’t moving day wait until the weekend?”

“I can help you,” she suggests. “With moving, that is.” She smiles wider. “The R.D. really wants this loose end tied up by dinnertime tonight,” she says,
looking past me, toward my side of the room—at all of my scream queen posters from
Scream
,
Halloween
,
A Nightmare on Elm Street
, and
The Shining
. Each poster
features an exceptionally talented lead actress in the midst of a heart-pounding scene.

“I’ve been meaning to take them down,” I say, with a nod to Neve Campbell. I don’t know why I haven’t already. “I used to be a little obsessed with strong
female characters in cult-followed horror flicks.”

“
Used to be?
”

“Yeah, you know, as in the past tense of the verb
be
.”

Her face goes graveyard-serious, but I’m not sure she gets the dig. “No, I mean, has something changed since the start of the semester?”

Okay, um,
seriously
? “Just about
everything’s
changed since the start of the semester.” She knows that, so why is she asking?

“Someone said that you were a theater major.”

“Dance and theater, actually. I love the idea of combining the two.” At least, I used to love it.

“Like a musical version of
Psycho
? Norman Bates waltzing across the living room with his mother’s cadaver.”

“Talk about getting a stiffy,” I joke. But I’m not sure Chantel gets that either, because she doesn’t so much as grin.

“So, shall we get started?” she asks. “I’ll bet between the two of us, we can get you moved in no time.”

A group of girls on the floor lingers in the hallway, eavesdropping on our conversation. To them, I’m the girl who ran away and never looked back. The girl who’s perfectly fine
walking over dead bodies if it serves her in the end.

No one wants me here. I’m starting to not want it either.

A few more days pass, I have my new single room (down the hall, sequestered from everyone else), and people on the floor are buzzing about a mixer that’s happening
tonight at a fraternity house across the street from our dorm. Apparently, it’s a big deal, with a live band
and
a DJ. And, P.S., you have to wear all blue. It’s something about
a blue moon tradition.

Girls in the dorm traipse around, trading blue clothing and borrowing one another’s blue accessories. Once again, I’m sitting (lurking) in the lobby, by the soda machine, like a
dirty old man in a lingerie shop. It’s become my go-to spot, because at least while I’m here, though alone, I can still be surrounded by people.

A group of girls with blue wigs and Smurf-colored faces rushes by me. I’m pretty sure they’re from the east wing, but it’s super hard to recognize them, which sparks an
idea.

I head upstairs and into the common bathroom. Just as I’d hoped, a bunch of blue stuff’s been left behind—makeup, hair-spray, body paint, glitter. I spend the next hour
shrouding myself in shades of blue—my face, my hair, any visible shred of skin—until I can barely even recognize myself. The pièce de résistance: a tiara atop my head,
only after just a few seconds of wearing it, I’m reminded of Sarah Michelle Gellar from
I Know What You Did Last Summer
(in the Fourth of July parade scene, just minutes before
she’s slaughtered by Susie’s dad/the psycho fisherman), not to mention Sissy Spacek from
Carrie
(when she’s voted prom queen and goes up on stage, adorned with a
princess-worthy tiara, and pig blood gets dumped on her head).

And so I take the tiara off.

My nerves absolutely racked, I venture across the street to the party house. The door is unlocked; I go inside. The living room area is overflowing with blue people, carrying blue drinks,
dancing to blues music, under bright blue flashing lights. I navigate to the punch bowl in the kitchen seeking a little liquid courage.

“Thirsty?” a boy asks me. He’s dressed like one of the guys in the Blue Man Group.

“Very.”

He ladles punch into a cup and passes it to me. “Freshman?”

“That obvious?”

“It’s just that I haven’t seen you around before.”

“And you know everybody who goes here?”

“Just about.” He taps his blue cup against mine.

“Maybe you just don’t recognize me in my current state of blue.”

“I think I’d remember someone like you—blue or otherwise.” His dark brown eyes crinkle when he smiles; he’s so unbelievably adorable. “I’m
Jason.”

“Taylor,” I say, shaking his hand, stoked that I decided to come here tonight.

“My sister’s a freshman here too. Do you know Barbie Reynolds?” He nods to my ex-roommate’s BFF. I met Barbie on talent show night, just a few weeks into the semester.
She smelled like roasted nuts and hated my rendition of the shower stall scene in
Psycho
—when Janet Leigh let out that delicious, blood-curdling scream.

“I don’t know her,” I say, quickly turning my back to Barbie, remembering how, after the talent show, she and Emily pulled me aside, acting all nice like they wanted to get to
know me more, only to leave me feeling worse than I ever thought possible.

We’d gone up to Emily’s and my room. They sat on my bed and started asking me all sorts of questions about the Dark House weekend, pulling others in from the hallway to listen to my
answers—until it felt as if I were on trial, as if I were the one responsible for everything that happened.

“Okay, so, no offense,” Emily began, “but ever hear of a thing called nine-one-one? I mean, when you realized the place was so messed up, wouldn’t that have been, like,
the logical thing to do?”

“Except I didn’t have my phone with me at the time,” I tried to explain. “I was hiding in a closet.”

“In the same room that your phone was in, though, right?” Barbie raised an eyebrow at me. “So, couldn’t you have just grabbed it?”

“Before you decided to bolt?” someone else asked.

Their questions made my head spin:

“Why didn’t you wait in the woods until the others came?”

“Why didn’t you warn the others before they went into the house? Weren’t they expected to arrive just minutes after you left?”

“What took you so long to get help? Wasn’t there, like, a 24-hour delay?”

“Do you think that if you’d acted sooner, the others could’ve been saved?”

“How can you even look at horror stuff now knowing that people are dead because of it? And because of you?”

There must’ve been at least twelve people in the room at one point. And, though they all had their questions, deep down they already knew the answers—or at least the ones they wanted
to believe. Eventually, when I could no longer take it, I just rolled over in my bed, smothered my ear with a pillow, and stared at the wall, waiting for everyone to leave.

Emily stopped sleeping in our room after that night. Two days later, I was told I’d be getting a new roommate. The following afternoon, the plan had changed again; I was to get a single
room (because no one wanted to be with me) as soon as something opened up.

“Too crowded?” Jason asks, evidently noticing that I’ve shrunken at least three inches in the last three seconds.

Before I can respond, someone bumps me from behind. Blue punch spills onto my back and onto the table. “I’m so sorry,” the girl says.

Jason hands me a stack of napkins. “How about we go outside. There’s a patio in the back.”

“Fantabulous,” I say, following him through the kitchen and out a pair of sliders. It’s quieter out here—just small groups of people sitting about the yard.

Jason motions to a wooden bench and we take a seat. “Better?”

“Much.”

“Not into big crowds, I take it.”

“I actually love big crowds,” I say, thinking about all of the dance competitions I’ve been in—hundreds of people watching my every pointe, chassé, and
rond de
jambe
. “I’m studying to be an actress, or at least I was, or am...or was. I don’t know.” I let out a nervous giggle. “Let’s just say that college has been a
big adjustment, and I’m questioning pretty much every aspect of my life right now.”

“Well, I hope that things are starting to clear up.”