Elyograg (Briarcliff Series, Book 1)

  ESIRPRUS

  I painted my last fingernail with O.P.I. “umpires come out at night” polish. Gravity Falls’ theme song blared out from my phone. I flipped it over.

  Moriah: GOING TO BE EPIC

  Right—I blew on my nails. I still had no idea what was even going on, really. Moriah was being all cloak-and-dagger about it all. Granted, I loved surprises as much as the next person did, probably even a little more, but this was getting insane. At this rate, the party would be beyond epic—it would be outta control. I glanced over at the bed. On top was the gift Moriah had given me.

  “Seriously,” Moriah said. “Don’t you think it’s weird that chick doesn’t think anything is strange about that huge sheet of plastic spread over the floor?” She grabbed a handful of popcorn and stuffed it into her mouth, her gaze directed at the television. We were watching American Psycho.

  “Maybe she is hard-up or something?” I reasoned. “Or, maybe she is merely mesmerized by Christians Bales’ perfect face?” I watched the screen as he circled around the girl in his apartment.

  “Eww, no way…” Moriah said. “I don’t care how hot a guy is. If he invites me over and there is plastic on the floor, I am taking my ass right back out of the door.”

  “What if it was Kingston?” I reached into the bowl and grabbed out a junior mint.

  “Well…hmmm,” Moriah said and smiled wistfully.

  “That’s what I thought,” I laughed and popped the candy into my mouth.

  Moriah crossed her legs and wiped her hands off on her yoga pants. “I almost forgot,” she said excitedly, and reached down into her bag. “I got you an early birthday present.”

  “No way!” I squealed excitedly. “You didn’t have to do that.” I crossed my legs and sat forward.

  “Now don’t freak out,” Moriah warned, holding something behind her back.

  “Oh—kay,” I said slowly, my excitement diminishing quickly.

  “Ta-dah!” Moriah pulled a box out from behind her back.

  I looked down at the box and blinked stupidly. “Ah…thanks.” I took the box and read the container. “‘TROJAN Stimulations ECSTASY’ a revolutionary design that lets you feel the pleasure, not the condom.”

  “They’re in assorted colors too,” Moriah added, excitedly.

  “Wow,” I said. I was too stunned to say anything more.

  Moriah smiled gleefully, apparently quite pleased with herself. She bounced up and down on the bed. “Aren’t they great?”

  “Ah…”

  Moriah’s phone rang and saving me from having to lie. “Hold on.” Moriah reached over and lifted her phone from the top of her bag. She punched the button and held the phone up to her ear.

  “Speak,” she said and climbed off the bed.

  “Oh, hi Mom,” she sighed. “What? But we’re watching a movie,” she complained and ran her hand down her long ponytail. “Come on, can’t I…” She paced back and forth. “Okay,” she exhaled. “I’ll be home soon.” Pressing end on her phone, she tossed it in her bag. “I gotta go.”

  “Why?” I set the box down. “Is something wrong?”

  “You know my mom.” She rolled her eyes. “She probably had too much wine and wants to talk to me about some guy she likes.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, you know how she gets.”

  “Yeah, I know.” And I did. Her mom pulled that crap at least once a week.

  Moriah gathered her things and hoisted her bag on her shoulder. “We’ll have to finish that one next time,” she said and pointed to the television. “Or, you can watch the rest yourself…if you really want.”

  “Ah, no,” I laughed. The only reason I was watching the movie in the first place was because it was Moriah’s pick this week.

  “Why? You scared?” Moriah laughed maniacally.

  “Stop it, Moriah,” I warned.

  Moriah bumped shoulders with me. “Just kidding.”

  “Yeah,” I said, frowning. “You’re so not funny.”

  “You love me.”

  “Yeah, I do,” I admitted and opened the door. “Be careful,” I told her.

  “Yeah, I’ll try not to get lost.” Moriah stepped out on the landing. “Oh, and don’t forget to bring those tomorrow.” She nodded her head in the direction of the bed.

  “Oh, I won’t,” I assured her and stepped outside.

  Moriah gave me a quick hug and trotted down the stairs into the back lot behind the café. “Don’t forget,” she called and opened her car door.

  “I won’t,” I yelled back.

  Moriah climbed in her car and honked the horn.

  I waved as she pulled away. Taking a deep breath, I inhaled the cool evening air as I looked up at Briarcliff Manor, the silhouette illuminated in the glow of the full moon. I shivered and rubbed my arms.

  “Creepiest place ever,” I said. The story Chance told me last weekend still freaked me out. Granted he was probably exaggerating, but the place was pretty creepy even without the story.

  I turned to go back inside.

  A blood-curdling scream rang out in the distance.

  I jumped and turned. My heart hammered erratically. Briarcliff Manor was suddenly lit up like a football stadium at night.

  Another scream split the air.

  I flung the door open, ran inside, and slammed it shut. “Ohmigod!”

  Not able to help myself, I cracked the door open and looked again. But now Briarcliff was cloaked in darkness. Even the moon had disappeared.

  A shiver of dread raced up my spine. I slammed the door shut and bolted it. Just to be on the safe side, I grabbed a kitchen chair and pushed it under the handle.

  My mind came back to the present. Now, even in the light of day, I still wasn’t too sure what I had heard or seen last night. Maybe I imagined it all—a result from watching too many horror movies. I didn’t know and really, when it came down to it, I didn’t think I wanted to know either.

  SEGATS

  “Moriah,” her mother yelled.

  Moriah tensed and set down her flattening iron. She walked to the door and poked her head out. “What?”

  “I’m leaving,” her mom yelled up the stairs. “Do the dishes before you go anywhere and switch the laundry.”

  “But Mom, I’m going to be….” Then she remembered her mom wasn’t supposed to know what she was doing. “Fine,” she gritted and walked back into her room. Irritated, she yanked the cord from the wall and grabbed the bottle of Kiehls styling crème off her vanity.

  “Moriah, do the dishes, do the laundry,” she mimicked her mother. “Moriah, take care of your looks or no one will want you.” She made a face. “Moriah, why can’t you get better grades? Are you stupid?” She put a glob of styling cream in her hair and spread it down the length. “Moriah, hold your stomach in, you look pregnant.” Moriah chewed her lip and pushed her stomach. “Whatever,” she sighed.

  She should be used to her mother by now, but she wasn’t. Her mother was a wannabe. She wanted to be everything she wasn’t, which was rich. Her mother was really pretty too, but she was always waiting for someone else to save her from the proverbial blue-collar world they lived in. Her father had been some kind of musician/lead singer in a famous band, which was her mother’s one claim to fame. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out and Moriah had never even known him. Every time she saw a singer in a famous band with blonde hair, she always wondered if maybe he was her father. Her mother would never tell. She wondered if her mom even dated him, really, or was she just some random groupie who slept with him one night and got knocked up as a result.

  Either way, her Mom never told her who he was, if she even knew herself. Her mother styled hair and did make up for a living. She worked at the only salon in town; it was trendy and upscale. She always went to IMATS shows, making sure she was caught up on the latest styles and trends. This was “honing her craft,” she would tell Moriah, and then she would take off for long spans of time to go to mo
re shows. From the looks of the people who worked at the salon, it looked like it would be more of a party. They all seemed pretty cool.

  Her phone buzzed. Kicking a pile of clothes out of her way, she grabbed up her phone.

  Kingston: BE THERE IN 20

  Dammit! She jerked off her old cutoff sweats and t-shirt and tossed them with the rest of her clothes on the floor. She grabbed a vintage tee, pulled it over her head, and then pulled on a pair of cut-off jean shorts. Bending down, she dug under her clothes for her shoes but couldn’t find the pair she wanted, so she pulled on her tall Uggs. Hopping across the room, she grabbed her weekender bag, dumped her entire bowl of makeup off her vanity into the matching case.

  A vintage head vase held her makeup brushes and she grabbed those, too, and dumped them inside her overstuffed bag. These were another one of her mom’s must-haves: “Moriah, a good makeup brush can and will, make all the difference in the world when applying makeup.”

  Actually, she bought most of her own and Moriah’s at the art store. She said they were made better and more affordable. She bought the metal sharpeners for her pencils there too, and Moriah had to agree, nothing sharpened eyeliner pencils better than a metal one. And it only cost like a dollar, whereas the kind in the normal stores cost like ten. “Tricks of the trade,” her mom would say.

  Get Burned by Sleeper Agent, blared out of her phone again. She picked it up.

  Kingston: WHERE ARE YOU?

  “Shit!” Grabbing up her duffel and purse, she took off down the stairs. The kitchen still smelled like burnt toast. She tossed the dishes in the dishwasher, ran to the laundry room, and switched the laundry. Five minutes later she was back in the kitchen. She pulled off a neon post-it and wrote a quick note to her mom.

  At Evie’s for the weekend

  Call me if you need me!

  Sloppy kisses - M

  Crossing over to the fridge, she lifted a flower magnet, stuck the post-it to the front, and then headed out to meet Kingston.

  ECNEDIVORP

  A bloodcurdling scream echoed out in the night, starting a similar chain reaction across the blanket-filled park. Pieces of popcorn showered down as two young girls frantically hopped across blankets to empty patches of grass, trying to get out of the park before the next victim was murdered. Their two shadows hastily slid across the large white screen towards the entrance/exit, which garnered quite a few rude remarks from the people watching the movie.

  “Dude, he peed?” Colton scoffed. “What a girl!”

  “I’m not kidding around man.” Chance pushed his shaggy blonde hair back from his face. “Briarcliff Manor is whacked.”

  “Yeah,” Colton agreed. “It is.” His eyes drifted up to the ominous silhouette of Briarcliff Manor.

  “What are you two girls crying about?” Kingston stepped on the edge of the plaid blanket.

  “We’re talking about how whacked Briarcliff Manor is,” Chance said.

  “Whacked or not,” Kingston said. “That’s where my party’s going to be next weekend.”

  “No way!” Chance shook his head.

  Kingston lifted his brow. “Yes way.” He finished off his drink. “Barnaby, you got anymore jungle juice?”

  Barnaby picked up the thermos and shook it. “Sorry dude, Colton drank the rest.”

  Colton gave Barnaby a nasty glare and mouthed “douchebag.”

  Barnaby flipped him the finger.

  “You can have some of mine,” Colton offered.

  Kingston made a face. “Ah…No.”

  “What’s with the face, man?” Colton frowned.

  Kingston laughed.

  “Colton is such a baby,” Moriah complained.

  “I don’t think so.” I turned and my breath caught. Hot- Ass- to- Die- for Colton Hayward just turned in my direction. Then I realized he wasn’t exactly looking at me, but instead at Moriah, who was a big-busted Barbie look-alike. Yeah, I thought Barbie was just a pipe dream too, until Moriah came to town. Sighing, I crawled back down to the end of the blanket and grabbed up a bag of chips. Taking a handful of chips out, I ate one after another as Colton flexed his muscles at the end of the blanket.

  “Can I have some?” Barnaby leaned back on his elbows. His head was near my lap and his dark curls skimmed my thigh.

  He had nice hair and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was soft as it looked. “Sure.” I held out the bag. “What’s Chance talking about?”

  “Oh…” Barnaby pulled out a handful of chips. “He’s just having a baby over some shit that happened at Briarcliff.”

  “What happened?” I turned and looked up at Briarcliff, the silhouette perfectly outlined in the glow of the moon.

  “Chance said some friend of his walked down the drive on a dare, and thought he heard footsteps coming up behind him, but when he turned around, no one was there and he ended up pissing himself.”

  “Are you serious,” I half-choked-laughed.

  “Totally,” he said. “I bet Chance was the one that peed, though.”

  I glanced at Chance as he pulled his fluffy hair back in a ponytail—he looked hot. “Probably.”

  “Do you like the movie?” Barnaby reached out and grabbed some more chips.

  “Yeah, it’s okay.” Truthfully, I wasn’t paying much attention to the movie. I was watching Colton, instead.

  “Army of Darkness is the best one,” he said and popped another chip in his mouth.

  “There’s more than one of these?” I widened my eyes.

  His brow creased. “Um, yeah, Evie…it’s a trilogy.”

  “What did they just find?” I asked, paying attention to the movie for the first time.

  “The Book of the Dead,” he said. “And watch.” He pointed at the screen. “They’re about to play the tape which will inadvertently unleash the demons.”

  “Eww.” I made a face. “I just don’t get it.”

  Barnaby’s eyes crinkled at the corners under the clear lenses of his glasses as he smiled up at me. “What don’t you get?” He reached up and tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear.

  “Why would anyone want to go and hang out in the middle of the woods, in a shack?” I asked.

  “It wouldn’t be too scary of a movie if it was in the city.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Don’t look at this part,” Barnaby warned. “Cheryl is about to get it done by that tree.”

  I made the mistake of looking and almost gagged. “That’s just wrong.”

  “I know,” Barnaby, laughed. “Sam Raimi is a genius.”

  ‡

  “Scuzey, scuzey, Ms. Harrington,” Mr. Bixby said as he rushed past me doing a dodge-and-weave back onto the sidewalk as my mind came back to the present.

  “Hey, Mr. Bixby,” I called after him.

  His arm shot out in the air as he waved back.

  I glanced at my watch. “Right on time.” I pushed the easel for the specials out of the way.

  At eleven o’clock on the dot, Mr. Bixby would take an early lunch from the bank and high step (his signature workout move) around the town square. He looked like a prancing horse.

  Ms. Winters, backed out of alien—her neon-green hybrid car and lifted Darby, her miniature Shih Tzu out of the backseat.

  Mr. Bixby sailed past.

  Darby saw Mr. Bixby. He squirmed out of Mrs. Winter’s arms and made a break for it.

  “Darby! Get back here!” Ms. Winters yelled and hustled after Darby down the sidewalk.

  Briarcliff Township had its fair share of eccentrics. Maybe the small town merely seemed to amplify the occupant’s personalities. If they were in a big city you probably wouldn’t notice them as much…well, then again, maybe you would. They were hard to miss.

  “Woo Hoo, Evie,” Jenny Jenkins called and trotted toward me with a baby Bjorn strapped across her chest…her daughter Mable’s chubby legs dangled out the bottom.

  “Hey, Mrs. Jenkins,” I said as I adjusted the angle of the chal
kboard.

  “Are your mom and dad coming back for the holidays?”

  “Ah, it’s still kind of early.” I brushed the chalk off my hands. “I’m not real sure…maybe.”

  “Well if they don’t, you know you are more than welcome to come to our house for the holiday. Mi casa es sue casa.”

  “Yeah…ah…”

  “Oh, it will be perfect,” she cut me off and reached forward to squeeze my arm. “You need some meat on those bones of yours,” Jenny said. “Don’t you worry; Jenny will have you fattened up in no time.” Her voice came out sounding babyesque. “It’s the least I can do for your mom. Of course, that will give you plenty of time to play with my little Mable here.” She patted Mable’s bottom.

  Mable? Nooo! “Ah…I forgot. I think Moriah’s mom is making something for us if my parents can’t make it.”

  Jenny creased her brow. “Oh. I didn’t realize her mother cooked…” She cooed at her daughter.

  “Yeah, she does, sometimes, um, on special occasions,” I lied, dodging the bullet. A gust of wind pushed my hair forward and I brushed it back over my shoulder.

  “Well,” she breathed, “if you change your mind…”

  “Of course,” I told her. “I will let you know. I mean if my plans change,” I added nicely. “Thanks for thinking of me.”

  “Well, you know it is the least I can do. You poor dear…” She petted my arm. When her fingers hit my bare skin, I noticed how cold her fingers were. “Stuck all alone, day-in and day-out with no family close by,” she said. “I don’t know what your parents were thinking, leaving you all alone. I would never leave my little babies alone, ever…would I, my little sweetheart,” she cooed to her daughter.

  Mable gurgled out a mouth full of bubbles.

  “I’m certainly going to miss playing with this sweet little girl,” I lied again, and touched Mable’s little frilly pink sock.

  Mable kicked out her foot and screamed.

  Jenny widened her eyes, covered Mable’s leg protectively with her hand, and took a step backward. “My goodness,” she said, lifting her arm to look at her watch. “Would you look at the time,” she said a bit too loudly. “I better go before I’m late.” Then she took off down the sidewalk.