Explains it all, right?

  Sure. Keep telling yourself that.

  “Having fun yet?”

  As soon as the whispered feminine voice hit her ears, she saw the figure out of the corner of her eye, silhouetted against the window in the far corner of the room. A jerk of her head toward the image made it disappear.

  “Wha..?”

  Nobody there now. Nothing but the deep black rectangle of glass looking out into the nothingness beyond.

  “Cheryl?” Isabella called out with feeble timidity. Neither word nor image responded. A trick of the mind.

  No. There was somebody there.

  “Just my mind playing games on me.” She murmured to herself. “Or just them trying to freak me out.”

  Her fingers drummed the tabletop for a moment. Not gonna do it, she thought to herself, not gonna let them freak me out. I’m killing this fear tonight.

  She glanced at the alarm clock: Eight minutes after eleven.

  Twenty-two more minutes, and the fear would be dead.

  If I last that long…

  **

  Eleven-thirteen.

  The incident of the real-or-imagined sounds had almost been forgotten about. Almost.

  Isabella rubbed her palms on the knees of her jeans. The movement was more about relieving an urge to fidget nervously, rather than wiping the sweat away from her hands. Calmness seemed to be one step away from her, eluding her attempts to achieve it. The stretch of silent nothing was doing its job of helping to relax her guard, but she knew better than to put it completely down. The moment she did, the other three would spring something on her. She just knew it. Where they were right now, she didn’t know; Isabella was pretty sure they had slipped out of the room quietly when her eyes had been closed (How did they do that without making any noise?). A glance back at the door window proved to be useless. The hallway outside was pitch dark, even darker than the poorly lit exterior of the school. They could have been right outside, taking turns and making faces at her, and she probably wouldn’t have been able to see them, not unless they pushed their faces directly against the glass pane.

  What are you three up to?

  Another noise in the lab answered her.

  Drip.

  It was subtle, barely noticeable. Had Isabella been busy with something else, she might not have paid attention to it.

  Drip.

  She furrowed her brow in confusion. Had she just missed hearing it? Did she have her mind wrapped up in so much imaginary terror that she had become oblivious to the sound.

  Drip-drip.

  No. The sound was new, fresh.

  Drip-drip-drip.

  One of the lab faucets was letting out water.

  As Isabella turned her head to look, the drip increased to a trickle-a tickling sound of wetness splashing against stainless steel. She could see it: a stream falling from the faucet furthest away from her, sparkling with the light from the nearest trio of candles. Before she could decide whether or not to get up and investigate, the trickle gave way to a steady stream, then a hissing, furious roar of water.

  Isabella could feel her breathing beginning to speed up, could feel her skin beginning to mist over with sweat again. Nobody was turning on the water. For that matter, she couldn’t tell whether or not the valves were being turned at all.

  “Nice trick.” She mumbled, although the assurance she was trying to give herself did not help. Inside, her heart started to beat quickly again. If Brandon, Carrie, and Cheryl were behind this, they would have to be applauded for how well they set this up.

  Wait a minute. What do you mean “if”? Of course they’re behind this! They have to be! How else could this happen?

  A dark corner of her mind volunteered to answer that question, but Isabella silenced it. She wasn’t interested in hearing alternative explanations.

  The faucet stream ended in an abrupt cutoff, and the shroud of still silence settled upon the room once again. But there was something different now, something Isabella didn’t realize until just now. The faucet had distracted her from another change, a more subtle one. What was it?

  She looked around, looking for the other change. She found it.

  The three candles in the corner of the room behind her and to her right were no longer burning.

  Her heart began to knock on her chest, asking to come out.

  **

  Eleven-nineteen.

  The silence.

  That was what Isabella hated. The silence, the waiting. The time between the strange occurrences in which nothing at all happened. It built up within her a tense anticipation, almost begging for whatever was going to happen to just happen. Get it out of the way, and let her scream. Let her jump ten feet high in the air, let it happen now. Not eleven-thirty, now. For a brief, fleeting second, she wondered whether or not the other three were just going to let nothing at all happen at eleven-thirty, instead trying to get Isabella to just scare herself. Maybe that had been their plan all along, so they could prove that Isabella was just a little fraidy-cat, like everybody at school thought.

  Well good luck on that… I’m not going to give them that satisfaction. Right, Isabella?

  She had almost convinced herself of it.

  Another loss of light grabbed her attention. Another set of candles going out?

  No. The nine remaining candles still burned. It was a different light which was dying.

  The streetlamp outside.

  The glowing blue ball hanging from its post was fading, dimming down. Now how did they do that? Isabella thought to herself. No, she decided, that couldn’t be them. Had to be coincidence. They’re creative, clever, but even that was beyond them. It had to be.

  The lamp winked out.

  Before Isabella, the windows transformed into panels of thick, impenetrable blackness. No candlelight reflected on the glass panes. Instead, the windows seemed to absorb the light into the solid tar on the other side. The dark swallowed up any sense of depth or distance, instead pressing inward, cutting Isabella off from the rest of the world. She was submerged in liquid night.

  She would drown in it. She was sure of it.

  A fluttering orange trio was extinguished. This time, it was the set of candles over by the sink, where the faucet had been running. The already weak candlelight weakened even more. Shadows boldly expanded and hovered; massive geometric holes that cut through the shine cast from the small flames.

  Isabella took in a slow breath, realizing that her bottom lip quivered as she did so. Wet blurriness rimmed her eyelids.

  I won’t start crying. I won’t start crying….

  She sniffed hard, wiping the back of her sweatshirt sleeve against her face. Drying tears left cold streaks on her cheeks.

  The blue streetlamp exploded to life.

  Isabella gasped, then took a calming exhale, then caught her breath before finishing it.

  There was somebody outside, under the streetlamp.

  Isabella leaned forward, squinting. Somebody was there, standing still, arms at his-or her-sides. The person was standing square to her, although she could not tell whether she was seeing the figure’s front side or back side. All that could be made out was a dark silhouette, outlined in frozen blue light.

  A silhouette without a head.

  “No…” Isabella whispered. “I’m looking at him wrong.”

  But her eyes didn’t lie to her. Where there should have been a rounded form between two shoulders, there was nothing.

  Cyrus Jones.

  The name came to her as soon as the realization of what she was seeing hit her. The farmer who had been found in the middle of his own corn field, mysteriously decapitated. The farmer who, according to local lore, stalks this area after dark, in search of his head.

  The sound of loud panting hit Isabella’s ears. She snapped to her right, expecting somebody there. Nobody. Her left now; still nobody.

  The panting was her own breathing: rushed, hurried, frightened.

  She looked back at the unmoving figure, brain working overtime to bring logic into this situation, and also to shift her thoughts from adrenaline-pumping fright.

  Brandon. That’s gotta be Brandon out there.

  Had to be. He’s doing that. The figure appeared to have a similar build to her tall male friend.

  Yeah. That’s him. All he has to do is lean his head forward far enough, and from here it looks as if he’s headless.

  Sure, that made sense. It had better make sense, or Isabella was going to scream and cry.

  The streetlamp flickered, then went out again. Before Isabella could react, the blue illumination reignited at full power.

  The headless figure was no longer there.

  **

  Eleven twenty-nine.

  Only three candles remained lit-those were in the front left corner of the lab, with little more than half an inch remaining on each wax cylinder. The rest had made a clumpy mess of a frozen wax puddle on their resting places.

  Isabella had had enough.

  “Ummm...” she started with a weak voice, “Guys…. I don’t wanna do this.”

  No response. No faucet turning on. No headless figure outside.

  “Guys!” She called out. “Did you hear me? I’m done! C’mon out!”

  Still nothing.

  Alright, now what? Were they even in the room?

  Isabella bit her lip. The dread coming upon her caused her head to feel light. She turned around completely, expecting Brandon, Cheryl, and Carrie to be there, having possibly entered the room in stealth, maybe ready to slap their hands on her shoulders and scream in her ears as soon as the clock alarm went off.

  But nobody was there.

  A gust of chilled wind hit Isabella in the face. The unexpected sensation made her shiver, forcing her eyes to squint shut for a split second.

  Open eyes revealed an almost pitch-dark room.

  The final candles had burned out.

  Isabella clenched her teeth, turning back toward the clock. Still one minute left.

  Be ready for it, Isabella.

  Quick and shallow puffs of air entered and exited her nose and mouth. A tear ran down the left cheek.

  It’s gonna happen… They’re gonna do it, and I’m gonna cry. No. I WON’T cry! I WON’T be scared!

  But her body did not share that push of mental resolution. The shakes started in her chest, queasiness in her stomach.

  The clock still did not change.

  Arms and fingers channeled the shuddering feeling. Fear quaked her wrists, trembled her fingers.

  “No…” she sobbed.

  Eleven twenty-nine.

  Now the tears flowed freely. A piece of bravery washed away with each one.

  The clock went blank.

  Despite her sobs and terror, Isabella found this odd. What happened? Did it become unplugged? Did it just die on her own?

  Did something pass in front of the face of the clock?

  Eleven-thirty. A pleasant chime sounded off.

  Isabella let out a yelp, eyes darting this way and that, watching the deep shadows of the lab, looking for something or someone to jump out.

  Nothing.

  Eleven-thirty.

  She slouched in her chair, taking in a deep, relieving breath that was interrupted by convulsing sobs. She shut her eyes, pressing her lips together. A joke… a big joke. That’s all it was.

  She smiled, letting out a laugh. Another laugh. Tension lifted from her body.

  Isabella’s eyes opened in grateful satisfaction-

  -and froze.

  Her mouth opened the rest of the way and screamed.

  In front of her were three faces, pale. The middle face was that of a boy-Brandon. Carrie and Cheryl, with their familiar hair. Ruby red eyes devoid of pupils stared at her above noses that seemed to be flattened and turned up, bearing a vague resemblance to the snout of a pig. Below each nose was an open-mouthed grin, the corners of the lips extending past the borders of each face, giving them a grotesque, surreal appearance. Guarding the entrance to each black throat were two rows of crooked shards of teeth.

  The faces floated toward her, accompanied by six gnarled, talon-tipped hands.

  Isabella fell back in the chair, her head bumping against the floor. Ignoring the shot of pain it sent through her skull, she rolled to the side, pushing herself up, lurching for the door. Panicked fingers collided with the doorknob, failed to wrap around it the first time, then managed to cling to it and turn it, flinging the door outward into the dark unknown of the hallway. She didn’t look back; she didn’t dare look back. Tennis shoe-clad feet made a swift turn to the right, toward one of the dim red Exit signs.

  She continued to scream, but the scream was distant in her ears, somebody else’s nightmare, from which she was trying to escape. Her legs pumped as hard as they could, working against the weight of nighmarish fear that wanted to slow her down. Shadows passed her: doors, lockers, walls, all blurring by in black and blacker forms.

  She turned the corner. Three glowing faces greeted her.

  Isabella screamed again, piercing her own ears, hands flying into her face.

  Two hands gripped her shoulders.

  “Izzy!” a heavy voice called.

  “Nooo!” She cried, bursting into another round of sobs.

  “Izzy, what’s wrong?” came a feminine voice.

  The hands were not digging into her, were not tearing her apart.

  With a reluctant upturning of her head, away from her palms, Isabella looked through saltwater-drowned pupils at the faces.

  Brandon. Cheryl. Carrie. All normal. All faces wearing concern instead of malevolence.

  “Did the alarm already go off?” Carrie asked.

  Isabella could only sob in reply.

  Cheryl looked at Brandon “I told you we took too long!”

  The tall young man shrugged his shoulders. “Sor-ry!” he shot back in annoyance.

  Cheryl put her arm around Izzy’s shoulders. “What happened, Izzy?” she asked.

  Isabella continued her sobs. “That… wasn’t… funny.”

  “What? Izzy, did something catch fire?”

  “You know what you did!” Isabella snapped defiantly. “And it wasn’t funny at all!”

  Cheryl, Carrie, and Brandon exchanged looks with each other. “Izzy, we were down by Mr. Evans’ room.”

  “Yeah, right!” the short, terrified girl wiped her face away with the back of her sleeve. “You know what? This is garbage! You hear me? Garbage!”

  “He’s telling the truth!” Carrie protested, “We were-“

  “Shut up!”

  The angry command carried with it an urgent sense of dread, so pained and agonized that the other three dared not argue with it.

  Isabella sniffed hard, glaring at them with malcious intensity. “Just shut up! I want to go home! Now!”

  Cheryl removed her arm, stepping back. “Alright. Let’s go to the lab and-“

  “No! Not the lab! Some other way out of here!”

  “That’s the only way out, Izzy.” Brandon replied, “Unless you intend to set off an alarm.”

  Isabella pressed her lips together, mulling this over. “Fine.” She stammered. “I’m going.”

  Carrie jerked a thumb toward the dark hallway from which they had just come. “Let me go get something out of my locker, and then we’ll go.”

  “Forget it!” Isabella pulled away from the other three. “You go get your stuff on your own! I’m leaving without you! Don’t leave for another five minutes, until I’m gone!”

  “What about spending the night with us?”

  “I’m going home!”

  “Are you sure you want to-“

  She turned her back on them. “I’ll walk it!”

  **

  Isabella entered the unlit lab again. All quiet; no strange happenings or faces were there to greet her. She was grateful for that, and didn’t intend to stay in there long enough to wait for any. Whether real tricks played by the other three, or phantasms conjured up by her own untrustworthy imagination; she wanted no more of them. The fright had been enough for one night. Enough for several nights, in fact.

  Her heart was just about to normal now, as was the rest of her body, almost completely free of the shakes by now. Good for that. Maybe she could call up one of her cheerleader friends and catch up with them. They might still be out on the town somewhere, chasing after Barry Silvers. Why not join in the hunt? A wry smile crossed her face at that thought.

  Yeah-let’s call them. As soon as she leaves the building. The fear factor aside, cellphones just didn’t work well in the school.

  She popped open one of the sliding windows, inserting her leg into the gap. One of the few times she was thankful for her petite body; it permitted her to make a job like this easy, whereas somebody Brandon’s size would have to wiggle and squirm his way out of here.

  Out she went, touching down on the ground. A brief glance back into the room revealed it as still quiet. The other three had not yet followed her. Good. The further away they were right now, the better. Who cared whether or not they talked about her as being a fraidy-cat Monday? For that matter, even explaining this whole mess to her parents wasn’t a worry for her to thnk about right now. There was time to explain that later. She just wanted to leave this place.

  And leave it she would.

  Her hand plunged into her pocket, pulling out the cellphone. Tara’s number was on speed dial, so getting a hold of her and hearing the comforting voice of a friend would be only a matter of seconds.

  She had just pressed the dial button when the gnarled, talon-tipped hand came down on her shoulder.

  **

  Dear Reader,

 

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