characters wrong somehow? We haven’t been in it to see what the house is like, Davey.”
“No, we can’t go in,” he said insistently, wetting his lips as he did when he got nervous. “No. It’s wrong. You can feel it. It isn’t scary—it’s bad. Evil.”
She looked at the house. It was spooky—the theme park had done a good job. Images were hazily visible in the windows: creatures that had just crawled from the grave, bony, warped, black-and-white, like zombies or ghosts, horrible to behold.
“You should stop your friends from going in there. Make Tyler come back. He wanted to stay with you. But you were all stubborn and mean.”
Sarah heard the words and spun around to stare at Davey. But he didn’t even seem to realize he had spoken to her.
He was looking at the stand where there were all kinds of toys.
Sarah suddenly smiled. His eyes were wide; he was happy to look at the toys. Davey loved the movies and he loved toys—that made movie-inspired props and toys extra special.
“Let’s go see what they have,” she told him.
* * *
“THIS IS WRONG,” Tyler said as he got into the line for the haunted house with Suzie, Hannah and Sean. What was one more haunted house? he asked himself, irritated that he had let Sarah push him away. No matter if it was their idea or not, Davey had gotten them the tickets. He’d been patient enough to dial his phone over and over and over again.
And Tyler knew that Sarah was feeling alone—as if Davey was her responsibility, and she wasn’t about to burden anyone else.
Tyler loved her. He knew they were both lucky, both blessed. People referred to them as the “Barbie and Ken” of their school. He liked to think it wasn’t just that he played football and she was an amazing cheerleader—for any team the school put forth. He tried to be friendly, kind, sympathetic—and he worked hard in class.
Naturally, he and Sarah had been intimate—though not in a way that would give others a chance to tease them. They were discreet and very private; Sarah would never do anything to disappoint her parents. But in their minds, marriage was a given. Sometimes, in the middle of a class, Tyler would smile, imagine being with her in such an intimate way again, when they both laughed, when they grew breathless, when the world seemed to explode. She was an amazing lover and he hoped he reciprocated. Sex was fireworks, but life was loving everything about her—her great compassion for others, her integrity. He liked to think that he was similar in his behavior.
Leaving her on her own tonight hadn’t been considerate in any way.
“I’m going to go back and wait with Davey and Sarah,” he said flatly.
“Go back where?” Hannah asked him. “They’re already gone. And besides, Miss Stubborn Pride isn’t going to let you stay with her. I’m sure you already tried to and she sent you after us. She doesn’t want you to have a lousy time just because she has to.”
Tyler gritted his teeth and looked away. “She isn’t having a lousy time—and neither am I, Hannah. I love Davey. No one out there has a better heart.”
It was true, though, that Sarah and Davey had walked off somewhere.
He should have firmly ignored Sarah when she’d pushed him away. She was usually bright enough to be angry if someone didn’t understand that hanging out with Davey was like hanging out with any friend...
And Tyler was suddenly angry himself; they wouldn’t be here at all without Davey. Davey had won the tickets.
“Oh, come on, Tyler!” Hannah said. “It’s okay! The retard is her cousin, not yours.”
He wanted to slap Hannah—and he was stunned by the intensity of the feeling. In his whole life, he’d never hit a girl. And Hannah was a friend. She was usually...fine.
“Hannah, you know calling him that is not okay. Not cool. He’s just like you or me,” Tyler said.
“Maybe like you!” Sean said, laughing. “Not me. Hey, come on—this is supposed to be the coolest thing here, ghosts coming up out of the ground from all over. They say the creatures—animatronic or whatever—are the most amazing, and they put their best ‘scare’ actors in this one. Tyler, come on, we take Davey with us all the time. But this is our night. It’s our last Halloween together. If he doesn’t want to come in, screw it!”
“Not to mention that, as I already pointed out, we don’t even know where they are anymore,” Hannah said.
“Yep, well, I do have a cell phone,” Tyler said.
“Tyler, leave it,” Suzie said. She looked guilty, too, he thought. But maybe she was right. “We have VIP tickets—we get to move into the express lane up there. We’ll be out soon and then we’ll explore the food booths—Davey will like checking those out! And we’ll hug him and tell him that he was right—we should have stayed out. It was really scary, so now we’re all hungry!”
An actor in some kind of a zombie outfit came toward them, using a deep and hollow voice to ask for their tickets. They showed their passes and were moved up quickly in the line.
They entered the mudroom of the Cemetery Mansion. Bloody handprints were everywhere. They were met by a girl in a French maid outfit—with vampire teeth and blood dripping down her chin.
“Enter if you dare!” she said dramatically.
A terrified scream sounded from within. And then another. And another.
The place had to be amazingly good.
“Ah!” said the maid. “I say again, enter if you dare! Those who have come before you seem to be just...dying to get back out!”
She opened the door from the mudroom to the foyer and stepped back.
Tyler thought she looked concerned. As if...
As if people actually were dying to get out.
* * *
“CAN WE GO look at the booth over there?” Davey asked Sarah.
He gave her a smile that made her ashamed. She had been secretly bitter; she’d wanted to go with her friends. It wasn’t terrible that she should want to; she knew her feelings were natural. But she felt guilty, anyway. Davey wasn’t being mean, she knew. He wasn’t hurting her on purpose. He had his irrational fear set in his mind.
“Come on!” She caught his hand and led him to the toy stand. This one was stocked with prop weapons.
There were all kinds of great things: realistic plastic ray guns, gold-gleaming light-up lasers and much more. There were fantastic swords, like from some 1950s sci-fi movie, she thought. They were really cool—silver and gold, and emitting light through plastic blades that shimmered in a dozen colors.
They were cheap, too. Not like the licensed merchandise. It was called a Martian Gamma Sword.
Sarah smiled, watching Davey’s fascination.
She worked three days a week after school at the local theater
