Rogue Wave (The Water Keepers, Book 2) (23 page)

“I just do what the women tell me to do,” he said with a chuckle.

Heather was ecstatic when I called to tell her we were getting off work early and heading to her house, and there were seven other girls there to greet us when we arrived at Heather’s door.

“You better be hungry,” Heather said, leading me anxiously into the kitchen. In a high-pitched voice she added, “I made your
favorite
…”

I was pretty much starving, so the wide buffet of taco fixings spread across the counter was a welcomed sight. Of course, when Heather said she
made
my favorite, what she really meant was, I went and
bought
your favorite at the restaurant down the street. That was pretty much the closest Heather got to cooking, but there were certainly no complaints out of me.

I tossed a couple of tacos on a plate and headed into the large rec room where Lindsey and Julie were playing some kind of dancing video game in front of Heather’s huge TV.

Lindsey’s ponytail bobbed up and down as she turned to me in the middle of a dance move with an animated smile. “I’m totally in love with this game,” she said.

“Me, too,” Julie agreed in between breaths. “It’s way fun. And it’s, like, a really good work-out, too. But I think I need to stop and get a drink. Do you want to go next?” she offered.

I held up my plate and nodded. “Um, sure. Maybe after I finish eating.”

Normally, I would jump at the opportunity to join in, but I wasn’t in the mood to dance or play games. There was too much to worry about. Not feeling like myself, I sat quietly on the couch and observed the others having fun. Of course, after a few minutes, the girls talked me into joining them anyway. I should have guessed I wouldn’t last long sitting in the back corner of the party, sulking and filling my face with tacos. My friends wouldn’t allow it. The whole point of the party was to cheer me up after all. And I had to admit, it was nice to have a little fun and forget my fears for a couple of hours.

It also helped ease my troubled mind a little more when I finally got a text from my mom. She said she got my message about the party, was on her break at work, and would see me tomorrow back at home. At least I knew one person I was worried about appeared to be having a normal night. Then again, it was only a text. I didn’t actually hear her voice. I couldn’t help but entertain the idea that someone could easily be in possession of my mother’s phone and send me a message pretending to be her.

After the night grew dark, we all changed into our pajamas while Heather popped an enormous amount of popcorn and emptied a pile of candy in front of the TV.

“So, what movie do you guys want to watch?” Heather asked. “My awesome boyfriend, Nate, dropped by after school so we could borrow his favorite movie tonight.” She held up the movie case, and I cringed when I saw the title…
SCREAM
. I wasn’t a big fan of horror movies to begin with, and the last thing I needed in my head right now was images of killers and bloody murder victims.

“Nick says it’s the perfect slumber party movie,” Heather went on, “because we’re all going to be scared out of our minds.” She smiled devilishly. “Unless any of you are too chicken… I think my brother’s watching a Disney cartoon down the street if anyone wants to join him.”

“I don’t know about you guys, but I love scary movies,” Kelly said energetically.

Nicole nodded in agreement. “Me too, especially when you have a cute boy sitting next to you that you can grab during the scary parts.”

I glanced discreetly at the other girls around the room, secretly hoping someone would put up a fight, but nobody did. Either my friends were more afraid of Heather than they were of the movie, or I really was the only big chicken in the room.

Heather pulled the disc out of its case and inserted it in the player. Then she turned around in front of the TV with a wry smile. “Get ready to be scared, ladies.”

As the opening scene unfolded on the screen, I clutched my blanket tighter around my body. I’d never seen the movie before, but it was so obvious that Drew Barrymore was about to become dog meat. You could feel it coming. There was no way she was getting out of there alive. I focused on the bowl of popcorn in my lap, humming to myself inside my head as a distraction.

Over an hour and several murders later, my inner distractions had long since lost their effectiveness. It was official. I was scared. From the intense expressions on my friends’ faces, I was sure they were feeling the same way. The jokes and light-hearted ambiance that were present in the room at the beginning of the night had turned to a room full of quiet stares and shivers.

Logically, I knew it was just a movie and everything was totally fake, but I couldn’t turn off the trepidation growing inside me. I was already a jumbled ball of nerves before I even arrived at the party. The truth was, I was the only person in the room who had ever lived through a real-life, terrifying experience before, at the hand of an actual murderer, and the only one who had been awakened in the middle of the night with a knife to her throat. For all I knew, there could be someone lurking outside the house at this very moment, waiting for the chance to kill me. Or worse, someone could be planning the same fate for Rayne or my mom.

It didn’t help that the main character in the movie was named Sidney, which had an eerie similarity to my own name, especially when it was said in a low, calloused tone or demonic whisper. Every time the bad guy said,
Sssid-neey
, it felt like he was talking to me.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I slid quietly from my blanket and tiptoed out of the room.

My stomach gurgled unhappily down the hallway, full of tacos and candy and popcorn, but I crept across the house to the kitchen anyway. I would rather make myself sick eating tacos than spend another minute with the unnerving images of a horror movie running through my head.

I took a few plastic containers from the fridge and placed them next to the kitchen sink on the counter. When I glanced up, catching a glimpse of the dark window above the sink, I quickly looked away. An eerie chill crawled up my back. I had the strangest feeling that something, or someone, was out there.

The room was too still. I shoved the food containers back in the fridge, realizing it was more spooky out here alone than it was watching the horror movie with the rest of the group. I started back across the room the way I had come. None of the shades were drawn around the house, and everywhere I looked, the dark windows felt open and vulnerable. I only made it a few steps into the next room when the lights suddenly clicked off. My muscles clenched as the air froze inside my chest. In an instant, the entire house went black.

20. TRUTH

Screams echoed through the house from the other room. My first thought was,
this is it
.
They’re coming for me
. I stood in place, unable to see, eyes darting back and forth with nothing to land on. A second later, I remembered the phone in my pocket and flipped it open, using the screen as a dim flashlight. I still could barely see the floor, but I held out my hand to feel the air in front of me, inching forward.

Where could I go? Ash and his father probably didn’t make mistakes when it came to this type of thing. If they wanted someone dead, they were going to be dead. Would it change anything if I found my way back to the group? Would there be safety in numbers? Or would my friends needlessly get hurt or killed just because I was near them?

Before I could decide, a stampede of screams and running bodies hurdled down the hall toward me.

“Oh my gosh, we’re going to die,” I heard one girl say through the commotion.

The light timed-out on my phone and I fumbled to turn it back on. Just then, weighted force crashed into me, knocking me to the ground. My phone flew out of my hand. Another scream rang in my ear from the person tangled on top of me.

“It’s him,” she cried out. I recognized the frantic voice. It sounded like Nicole. “Go back,” she said to the others. “It’s him. Go back.” She moved desperately to climb off of me.

“No, it’s me. It’s Sadie,” I said urgently.

Nicole’s arms flew around me in relief. “Sadie! You guys, stop. It’s just Sadie.” She stumbled to stand, holding my hand and pulling me off the ground. “Oh my gosh, Sadie. We saw him. In the window. He’s here.”

“Who’s here?” I said, hoping I didn’t know the answer.

Nicole clamped my hand tighter. “The guy from the movie…in the scream mask.”

The rest of my friends huddled around me at the edge of the hall.

“He was wearing a mask?” I said, confused.

“Yeah,” Lindsey said, breathless. “Just like the guy in the movie.”

Suspicion arose inside me, pushing down some of the fear. It was too big of a coincidence. The chances that Ash or Voss or anyone they might send to find me would just happen to be wearing a scream mask had to be small. These guys were professional agents, not freaky characters from a horror flick.

“Okay you guys, just calm down,” I said, trying to ease the panic. “It’s probably just someone playing a joke on us. One of the guys from school or something.”

“Come on,” I said, pulling Nicole’s hand toward the family room. “Everyone just stick together and we’ll be fine.”

We held onto each other’s arms and shoulders, scooting forward like one big mass of a person. Just as I was finally able to get everyone half-way into the room, a loud knock rapped on the sliding glass door. We all jumped with more high-pitched, girly cries. My eyes shot over to the dark glass door just in time to see a flashlight click on outside. A tall figure wearing a scream mask stared back at us, causing everyone to shriek again in unison. Out of instinct, we turned around and pushed each other the other direction, back where we came from.

The huddle of frightened girls stopped outside the hall again. A faint light flickered a few feet away, followed by the chime of a ringing phone. We all stared over in silence at the cell phone buzzing on the floor.

“Where did that come from?” Kelly said through the dark.

“I think it’s my phone,” I said. “I dropped it.”

The ringing continued to break the silence. “Maybe you should go get it?” Nicole suggested hesitantly.

I broke from the group, guided by the light on the small screen, and picked up the phone. I didn’t recognize the number on caller ID.

“Hello,” I answered quietly.

“Hello,
Sadie
…” a dark voice sang, just like the guy in the movie. I paused, not able to respond. Logically, I assumed it was just a stupid boy from school playing a trick on me. But hearing the voice, and reliving the chilling scene I had just witnessed in the movie, was enough to make my hands tremble. “Do you like
scary movies
?” the voice asked eerily when I didn’t respond.

“Who is it?” I heard one of the girls whisper. “What do they want?”

My throat cracked. “Uh, he wants to know if I like scary movies.”

“Okay, I’m officially freaked out,” I heard another girl say.

I hung up the phone. Whoever the guy really was, he was the last person I wanted to talk to right now. A moment later, a distant knocking came from around the corner, probably from the front door. I moved back to the group, reinstating my phone as a flashlight, while the knocking continued, gradually getting louder.

“The door’s locked, right Heather?” Julie asked.

I pointed the light from my phone around the group until I found Heather’s face. She didn’t appear the least bit scared compared to the others. In fact, she almost looked like she was enjoying herself. I knew Heather’s voice pretty well, and it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t heard her voice during the entire ordeal.

Heather repressed a smirk. “I don’t know if the door’s locked. Why don’t we go check?”

A few worried glances were exchanged across the huddle, when the knocking sound stopped abruptly.

“I think they’re gone,” Heather said. “Let’s go take a look.”

I decided Heather was up to something. With the way she was acting, it was very possible she was in on the prank herself, so I followed after her. The rest of the girls followed us shortly after as well, probably when they realized I was the only one with a light.

Heather peered out the peephole on the front door. “I don’t see anyone,” she said. “But maybe I should double check.” She unlocked the deadbolt, placing her hand on the knob.

“Wait,” Nicole blurted. “He could be hiding in the bushes.”

Heather smiled coolly and opened the door. “I guess we’ll just have to see.”

As soon as the night air blew through the entryway, all the rooms in the house suddenly illuminated. With the lights back on, I could see the tentative expressions of relief leak slowly back on each of my friends’ faces. All except Heather, whose face was filled with something that looked more like genuine surprise.

“Oh…my…gosh,” Heather said. “Look, you guys.” She leaned over and emerged in the doorway, holding a vase of at least three dozen red roses. Oohs and aahs whispered through the group. All the fearful glances from the girls had completely disappeared, replaced by smiles and giggles.

“Is it for you?” Kelly said. “Like, is there a card or something?”

With the door still open, Heather set the large flower arrangement on the entry table. She found an envelope and immediately brightened. “It says Heather,” she chimed, holding it out for all to see. She slid out the card and began to read it in an animated voice. “Dear Heather, I scream, you scream, we all scream for…” she paused as a wide grin covered her entire face. “…for
prom
. Heather, will you go to prom with me? It would be a real
scream
. Love, Nick.”

“That’s like, the coolest prom invitation ever,” Julie said. But she spoke too soon. A black figure jumped out with a growl at the bottom of the porch. All of us screamed one last time, until Nick pulled the mask off his face with a howl of laughter. Heather’s eyes lit up and she ran down the steps to throw her arms around him with a big smooch.