The Prom Queen

  Fear Street.

  I was driving to Fear Street at night in the worst storm I had ever seen.

  But I had no choice.

  Rachel was in trouble. Maybe in serious danger.

  I had to get there as fast as I could.

  I could barely see the white line on the side of the road ahead of me. The rain continued to lash down. But I kept my foot firmly on the gas.

  Pictures began to form in my mind. Terrifying pictures.

  I saw Simone, alone in her house, alone in her room. The killer enters. He has a knife. He wrestles with her. Slams her up against the bookcase.

  I saw it all so vividly in my mind’s eye. Saw the knife plunge down. Saw her duck. Saw the books crash to the floor. Saw the killer attack again. Saw him stab Simone again and again. The blood spurting onto the carpet.

  I shook my head to drive the horrifying pictures from my mind. But the frightening thoughts wouldn’t go away.

  Why hadn’t I told my parents where I was going?

  When the phone line went dead and Rachel was cut off, I didn’t think. I didn’t ask.

  I just ran out of the house.

  With only a thin blue windbreaker held over my head, I burst through the front door. Running from my house to the driveway, I had gotten soaked. Now I felt chilled to the bone.

  The Fear Street cemetery suddenly loomed on my right, glassy and distorted through the sheets of rain. The rows of white, crooked gravestones seemed to lean toward me as I slowed the car for Rachel’s house.

  I saw a bolt of lightning streak toward the middle of a row of tombs. The thunder boomed almost at the same instant. This is the kind of storm that can rouse the dead, I thought, shivering.

  I leaned forward in my seat, my face almost pressed against the windshield. I tried to peer through the rain as the wind pushed my car toward the slanting graves.

  I gasped as I saw a shadow dart into the road.

  I slammed on the brakes.

  But not in time. I felt the car jolt. I felt a bump. Something was under my tires.

  My throat tightened in fear.

  “No!” I cried aloud. “No!”

  That bump. That horrifying bump.

  I knew that I had just run over someone.

  Chapter

  10

  With my eyes shut tight, I slid to a stop. Breathing noisily, I pushed open the door and stumbled out into the rain.

  Who was it?

  Who had I hit?

  A streak of lightning lit up the road and made it brighter than daylight for a split second. Several yards behind the car I could see someone lying in the middle of the street.

  I started to run toward the person, the cold rain thundering on my head.

  As I got closer, I saw that the figure was small.

  A child?

  “Oh, please—please, no!” I screamed into the rain.

  My hair was plastered flat, like a helmet fitted to my head. The blue windbreaker was sticking to me. My jeans were soaked.

  “No! Please—no!”

  And then I was standing over the body.

  It was a raccoon. A dead raccoon.

  The middle of the raccoon’s belly was a mass of raw meat.

  The animal’s dark eyes were open and staring at me.

  A wave of nausea swept over me.

  I looked away.

  It was a good thing I did.

  Because I glanced up just in time to see a car round the corner and come roaring toward me.

  I screamed and toppled backward onto the curb.

  The car roared past. I don’t think the driver even saw me.

  Slightly dazed, I climbed to my feet. Avoiding the dead raccoon, I started running back through the pelting rain toward my car.

  Somehow, driving almost blindly, I managed to pull the car up Rachel’s driveway.

  There was no sign of trouble outside the house. Lights were on inside. I ran up the walk and pounded on the front door.

  I heard footsteps approaching. The porch light flicked on, and Mrs. West peered out at me through the white gauze curtains. Her mouth fell open when she saw me. I guess I was a sight.

  “Lizzy!” she exclaimed, flinging open the door. “Are you okay?”

  “Where’s Rachel?” I cried.

  “Rachel? Upstairs in her room. What are you—”

  I didn’t wait for her to finish. I took the stairs two at a time.

  It was dark on the second floor. As dark as it had been at Simone’s house on that terrible night.

  I stared at Rachel’s closed door, the narrow strip of light shining out underneath. I didn’t want to imagine what I would see inside.

  I didn’t want to open that door.

  But I had to.

  Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the doorknob—and pushed the door open.

  Chapter

  11

  “Rachel!” I cried.

  She was sitting on her bed.

  In the pale yellow light from her bed-table lamp, I could see that her eyes were red and puffy, her nose runny. Wads of pink tissues surrounded her, and she had an unsoiled tissue in her hand. Her mouth fell open as I burst in.

  “Are you okay?” I cried.

  “No,” Rachel replied quietly. “I’m not.” She blew her nose loudly as if to prove the point.

  “Were you attacked?” I said.

  “Attacked?” Rachel’s expression became bewildered. “Huh?”

  I couldn’t catch my breath. I was panting loudly. It was hard to talk. “You called—you sounded so upset—then the line—it went dead. I thought . . . I thought the worst!”

  “Well, you were right. The worst did happen.”

  “What?”

  “Gideon is—” She started to sob again. “Breaking up with me.”

  I stared at her in astonishment. “You called me over here in this storm for that?”

  Rachel looked stung. “I needed someone to talk to. I tried to tell you . . . about Gideon. But I guess the phone was knocked out by the storm.”

  She picked up the receiver and listened. “Still out.” She glumly tossed it back onto its cradle.

  I turned around to see Mrs. West in the doorway. “Rachel? Lizzy? What on earth is going on?”

  “Everything’s fine,” we both called in unison.

  There was a pause, then Mrs. West said, “If you need me, I’m downstairs.”

  Rachel sniffed. “You’re dripping all over my room.”

  “Well, how about giving me a towel?”

  She walked out to the bathroom and came back with a towel that she tossed at me.

  I said, “And how about thanking me for trying to save your life?”

  “Thank you,” she muttered. She avoided my stare, her eyes welling up with fresh tears. “How could he do this to me?”

  My heart was no longer pounding against my chest. I felt angry at Rachel—but also very relieved. I toweled my hair briskly. “What happened?”

  Rachel didn’t answer. When I removed the towel, I saw that her face was contorted by crying. She was crying the kind of tears that are so painful they’re silent.

  “Rachel,” I said gently. “It’s not so bad. I promise.”

  She turned over and buried her head under an old brown gorilla pillow her mom had sewn for her when she was a kid. Her sobs came in painful bursts. I sat on the bed and put a cold hand on her shoulder.

  “Rach,” I said. “Come on. What happened?”

  “He’s dropping me for Elana,” she said into the bedspread.

  “He’s what?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said. Rachel and Gideon had been going together almost as long as I could remember. If any relationship seemed solid, it was theirs.

  “How did it happen?”

  “I don’t know!” she wailed. “They’ve been working together on a social studies project and . . .” She didn’t have to describe the rest. “Elana,” she said bitterly, raising her voice. “She think
s she can have anything she wants. But she can’t have—”

  She was sobbing again, even louder this time. She pounded her gorilla pillow with both fists.

  “Easy, easy,” I told her gently. I kept my hand on her shoulder, but she was really starting to shake. I couldn’t calm her down. Everything I said only seemed to make it worse. I probably should have kept my mouth shut and just let her cry. But instead I said, “Well, I know a good way to get revenge. Beat her out for prom queen.”

  Rachel raised up on her knees and jerked away from me. “Are you crazy?” she cried. “Gideon was the only good thing in my whole rotten stupid life. Who cares about being prom queen? I won’t even have a date for the prom!”

  “I don’t have a date, either,” I said. I suddenly felt like crying myself. I was remembering the day Kevin found out he was moving to Alabama. That day Rachel had sat on my bed while I cried.

  I tried to think of something comforting to say. “I’ll be your date,” I told her.

  “Terrific.”

  She finally pulled herself together a little and apologized for making me come out in the storm. I told her I’d call her in the morning and headed back to my car.

  The storm was still raging as I drove home. But at least I wasn’t terrified now, knowing that Rachel was okay. Her heart was broken, but compared to what I thought had happened, a broken heart seemed minor.

  I ran into the house, pulled off my soggy windbreaker, and stood looking for a place to hang it. My dad called out to me.

  Uh-oh, I thought. Here comes a major lecture.

  I had run out at night and taken the car without telling them.

  He called me into the den. I entered reluctantly, knowing I was in big trouble.

  But to my surprise, he was sitting at his desk with a big ear-to-ear grin on his face. He was wearing his favorite ratty old red bathrobe, the one with the ships’ anchors all over it. In front of him his computer monitor was on and filled with figures. He’s an accountant and is always really busy.

  “Did you hear?” he asked as soon as I entered the room. “They caught the guy who killed those girls.”

  Chapter

  12

  I should have been overjoyed. But I felt my heart start to pound all over again. I was almost afraid to ask who it was. The image in my head was of a boy with brown hair and eyes set too close together—Lucas.

  “It was on the news,” Dad said. “It was some guy who escaped from the state prison.”

  I let out a long breath slowly.

  “And Simone? Did they say anything about Simone?”

  My father’s pleased expression quickly faded. He shook his head. “There’s no word on Simone.”

  I sat down on the black leather footstool. “At least,” he said, “we can relax a bit now. The guy is caught.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” I said.

  I went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. I wanted a snack, so I opened the vegetable crisper. Not that I wanted a vegetable. That was where my mom hid the chocolate from my father, who was developing quite a paunch.

  I dug out a huge Nestlé Crunch bar, poured a big glass of skim milk, and sat down at the yellow table. I know it’s ridiculous to drink skim milk when you’re pigging out on a chocolate bar, but I figured, why not cut calories where you can? Anyway, chocolate always helps me relax. I’ve read articles that say it’s addictive and that it makes people feel loved. I believe it.

  Gnawing on a big chunk, I turned on the small kitchen TV.

  The ten o’clock news was on—the weather just finishing. “So, in conclusion, rain, rain, and more rain,” said the grinning weatherman.

  The anchorman smiled and turned to the camera. “Thanks, Tony. We may not be dry tomorrow, but at least we’ll be feeling a lot safer. Repeating our top story, a man believed to be the Shadyside killer has been caught.”

  I lurched forward in my chair as they showed footage of the killer being led into the Shadyside police station.

  Most people cover their faces when they’re arrested and on TV. Not this lunatic.

  He stared right into the camera. And smiled. He was missing several teeth; his smile looked black and rotten. He was short, slight, but wiry with tattooed, muscular arms—arms that had been too strong for Tina, Stacy, and Simone.

  “What made you do it?” cried a reporter, reaching through the crowd and shoving her microphone in the killer’s direction.

  The police were trying to hustle him inside, and his lawyer was shouting “No questions!”

  But the killer stopped and flashed that rotten smile of his. “Do what?” he asked with exaggerated innocence.

  “Murderer! Murderer!” a woman was shrieking off-camera. The killer disappeared into the station, still smiling. He turned to give one last wave to the cameras, his small eyes burning.

  I reached over and snapped off the TV. I was sorry I had seen it. Now when I pictured what had happened to Simone, I could picture the killer’s face. That smile. It was as if he had been sending a message to me—“I’m still going to get you.”

  I went upstairs, brushed my teeth, toweled my hair dry all over again, then climbed into bed. I turned off the light and stared up at the Day-Glo stars I had stuck to my ceiling. Usually they helped make me sleepy. But that night they weren’t working. Nothing was.

  Was Dad right? Could we all relax a little now? Was it possible that this whole frightening episode was over? Those questions rolling through my mind, I drifted into a restless sleep.

  I didn’t sleep long.

  I was awakened by a loud, insistent knocking on the front door.

  I sat bolt upright in bed. I stared at the clock. It was almost midnight.

  Was it possible that I only dreamt I had heard someone knocking?

  I knew I hadn’t. But I waited in bed anyway, hoping I was wrong. The loud knocking was repeated. I got out of bed, grabbed my robe, and started down the stairs.

  My mother, tying her robe as well, met me at the landing. My dad was standing in front of the burglar alarm control panel, punching in our code number to shut off the alarm so we could go downstairs without setting off the siren and waking the entire neighborhood. We all exchanged frightened glances and then went down the stairs together.

  Dad yanked the door open.

  Standing outside in the rain was a grim-faced police officer. He looked past my father to me. “Elizabeth McVay?” he asked.

  “That’s me,” I said quietly.

  “Were you at Rachel West’s house tonight?”

  My parents both turned to stare at me. “Yes,” I said.

  “Well,” the cop said, “I’m afraid I need to talk to you. You were the last person to see her alive.”

  Chapter

  13

  “Maria’s rosary,” I said. I made a check on my clipboard. “The captain’s whistle. Check.”

  I was in the prop room, making sure I had everything for that night’s rehearsal. Trying to keep my mind on what I was doing was the hardest part.

  It was Thursday night. A week had passed since Rachel’s murder. A week that had passed for me in a total daze. I just tried to put one foot in front of the other.

  Soon after I had left Rachel’s house that rainy Wednesday night, her family left too. Her dad had insisted on taking all the Wests out for ice cream—never mind the rain or that it was nine forty-five.

  But Rachel was so upset over Gideon that she had refused to go.

  Mr. West asked her nicely, then he begged, pleaded, and even ordered. He isn’t the most understanding guy in the world.

  Rachel can be as stubborn as her father. There was no way she was going out for ice cream when her boyfriend had just dumped her. “I’d rather die than go!” she yelled at her father.

  Of course, those were words her dad will never forget. And he’ll probably never forgive himself for leaving Rachel at home alone.

  Then again, he thought the killer had been caught. We’d all seen his strange, smiling face on TV.
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  So Rachel’s family had gone out for ice cream without her.

  When they got home, Rachel was there.

  Facedown on her bedroom floor.

  Stabbed to death.

  “The picnic basket,” I said out loud. “Check.”

  I lowered my head. Now I was remembering Rachel’s funeral. I thought the whole school would have been there. But not that many kids showed up. Gideon came. I bet he felt pretty low. He sure gave her a nice farewell present—dumping her for Elana.

  They buried her in the new section of the Fear Street cemetery. It started raining again during the ceremony.

  I tried focusing my attention on the play. I used to love being up in the prop room. At our school the prop room is way up at the top of the flies—that’s what they call the area above the stage. It’s hidden in a corner at the end of the catwalk that goes across the stage. It’s so small it feels like a secret attic room. It’s filled with all kinds of wild props. There are cardboard boxes stuffed with swords, feathers, old-fashioned phones, canes, every kind of dishware, bells, whistles, even a gun with a flag inside that says “Bang!” when you fire it.

  Right then the tiny cramped room struck me as very scary. Who would hear if something happened to me up there? No one.

  Then I noticed something peculiar.

  The door to a small closet was slightly ajar.

  I knew I had closed it after the last rehearsal. I knew because I close all closets until they snap shut. It’s a silly habit I have. I like things to be neat. I can’t stand a drawer that’s half-open or a cupboard door that’s half-shut.

  I slowly approached the closet. The only thing I could hear was my heart beating.

  Slowly I pulled the door open.

  A box of papier-mâché masks crashed down and almost clunked me right on the head.

  There was no one in the closet. I knelt down and muttered to myself as I checked the masks. Luckily, nothing had been broken.

  And that was when the boy’s voice behind me said, “Hi, Lizzy.”

  I stood up fast. It was Robbie. He was pointing a gun right at my head.

  “You’re dead,” he said.