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  I sat up, able to hear more noises: a gasp, a sputter, an agonizing moan. Then silence, broken by an unfamiliar male voice: “And now it’s your turn. You won’t feel a thing.”

  My mother screamed. “Please, no,” she begged. “Don’t do this. I have a—”

  There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t try to guess at her missing words: “I have an idea”? “I have something to tell you”? “I have a daughter”? “I have a wallet full of cash”? I’ll never know for sure. Her voice was cut short with a thwack. Then music began to play. String instruments. An eerie blend of violin and viola that reverberated in my heart.

  I grabbed the phone on my night table and dialed 9-1-1. “I think someone just killed my parents,” I told the operator, hearing a hitch in my throat, hearing words come out of my mouth that no one should ever have to say.

  “Where are you?” the operator asked.

  “In my room, across the hall.”

  “Is the person still in the house?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, keeping my voice low. “I mean, I think so. In my parents’ room.”

  “Okay, I have your address. I’m sending help right over. Can you tell me your name?”

  My name? My mind scrambled. My pulse quickened. And suddenly I couldn’t get enough air.

  “Hello?”

  “Ivy,” I choked out. “Jensen. My name, that is.”

  “Okay, Ivy. Listen to me carefully now. Is there a lock on your bedroom door?”

  I looked toward the door, no longer able to hear my parents.

  “Ivy?” the operator asked. “Are you on the first floor? Is there a window?”

  I couldn’t answer, couldn’t think straight. My hands were trembling so furiously, but still I told myself that I wouldn’t drop the phone; I’d keep it firmly gripped in my hands.

  But then I saw it happen.

  In slow motion.

  Falling from my fingers.

  Bouncing off the bed.

  Landing against the hardwood floor.

  It made a loud, hard knock. I felt it in my chest. It stopped my breath, stunned my heart, shot an arrow through my brain.

  My bedroom light was off, but with the door cracked open, the hallway light leaked into my room and he was able to see me.

  “Good evening, Princess,” he whispered.

  His hair was long and silver, tied back in a low ponytail. His face was covered with stubble. He cocked his head and smiled at me; his lips peeled open, exposing a pointy tongue and crooked teeth.

  We both froze, just watching each other, awaiting the other’s move—like two wild animals in the night. His eyes were unmistakable: tiny, dark gray, and rimmed with amber-brown. They reminded me of a bird’s eyes.

  His gaze wandered around my room—my walls, my floor, my bed, my dresser—as if taking everything in. The paisley bed linens, the soccer banners, my fuzzy beanbag chair, all the Katrina Rowe posters hanging above my bed.

  A few seconds later, his eyes fixed back on mine, and he smiled wider. “It’s very nice to meet you,” he said, overemphasizing every word.

  I wanted to throw up. Chills ran down my spine.

  Sirens blared in the distance then. He remained in the doorway a few more moments before backing away slowly and fleeing our little yellow house with the white picket fence and the long brick walkway—the place that I’d always called home.

  But I knew that wouldn’t be the end.

  It’s now six years later. Those eyes are still out there. And I live in constant fear that the killer will come back for me one day.

  In my dreams, he plunges a knife deep into my gut before I can rouse myself. My eyes flutter open, and I’m able to see him. Those birdlike eyes.

  His lips peel open and he smiles at me, his pointed tongue edging out over his jagged, yellow teeth. “You knew I’d come back, didn’t you?”

  He twists the knife—two full turns—before pulling it out to examine the blade. I touch my stomach, smearing blood on my palms.

  That’s when I finally wake up.

  I haven’t told anyone this, but sometimes I wish that he would come back, once and for all. At least then it would be all over.

  I PUSH THE TIP OF the blade into the skin and make one solid cut. The onion falls in halves. I rip the skin off one of the halves and make a series of cuts, trying to get the layers as thin as possible—a technique only attainable with the sharpest of knives and the precision of an Iron Chef.

  I toss the onion shreds into my bowl and look up, nearly awestruck by Enrique’s Italian sausage. It’s perfectly plump and juicy, slathered in a red chili glaze and stuffed with paprika and oregano.

  “Ivy!” my sister Rosie shouts. She jumps in front of the TV screen, distracting me from Enrique’s stuffing technique. Rosie is eight years old and in love with SpongeBob. “What are you doing?”

  I’m elbow deep in ground pork shoulder and shredded onion. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  She peeks at the TV screen, where Enrique, also dubbed the Spicy Italian Chef (even though he’s from Argentina), is dressed in a bib apron and a pair of heart-patterned boxer shorts (his usual TV attire). Though I’m fairly certain his tanned, rippling muscles are part of the ensemble as well. Enrique’s explaining the merits of a chunkier sausage over a lengthier one (something about moisture retention), but I’m pretty sure the vast majority of female viewers—not to mention his growing number of male admirers—could care less.

  “He’s hot,” Rosie says. “But shouldn’t you be using a fork to mix that stuff?” She points her glue-encrusted fingers into my bowl, coming way too close for my culinary comfort.

  “Get out.” I swat at her. “Have you been eating glue again?” There are suspicious-looking globules stuck in the corners of her mouth.

  “I want a snack,” she says, avoiding my question. “And I also want you to read my tea leaves.” She takes a jar of dried mint from the spice rack and smacks it down on the counter.

  “I’m saving that for Willow’s stomach.”

  “Willow can spend the night doubled over in pain for all I care. She refuses to let me borrow her blush.” Rosie’s big brown eyes bulge out in annoyance—a teenager stuck in an eight-year-old’s body, Elmer’s glue included.

  “You’re too young for makeup. Go find something productive to do.” I flash her my porkified palms in an effort to repulse her, but the porkiness doesn’t seem to bother her one bit.

  Rosie starts singing extra loud—“tra la la”—and flailing her arms, trying to block the TV screen. Meanwhile, Willow, my twelve-year-old sister, comes rushing into the kitchen, saying there’s something in the living room that I just have to see.

  “I’m busy,” I tell her.

  “Well, get unbusy,” Willow says. “Because Rain and Storm are at it again.”

  Rain and Storm are my ten-year-old twin brothers, and the reason that people take birth control. I can hear Rain’s menacing giggle from the living room. Meanwhile, it seems I’ve missed at least three of Enrique’s steps. He’s pouring a cup of red wine vinegar into a separate bowl, but I have absolutely no idea why.

  “Come on!” Willow shouts. “They’re going to mess up the drapes.”

  I grab a rag to wipe my hands, moving from behind the island. In doing so, I accidentally bump my bowl. It drops to the floor. Ground pork shoulder falls against the tile with a slimy thud.

  “Ewww,” Rosie squeals, nibbling glue residue from her fingers. “I’m not eating that.”

  I hurry into the living room, where Storm and Rain stand with their backs toward me, facing the bay window. “Prepare!” Storm orders.

  I hear an all-too-familiar zipping sound.

  “Aim!” Storm calls out.

  “Fire!” they both shout.

>   It takes me a second to realize what they’re doing. Pee shoots out, hitting the two potted plants in the window, splashing against the soil, and spraying all over the window screens.

  “Go to your room!” I yell.

  “Well, you did tell us to water the plants…” Storm argues, still giggling.

  “Now!” My tone must scare them, because they do as they’re told.

  “Enrique’s all done,” Rosie says, from the kitchen. I can already hear the theme song to SpongeBob. “Now can you get me a snack and read my tea leaves?”

  Most other eighteen-year-olds would probably hate my life. But I honestly don’t know what I’d do if it weren’t for the distraction of this household. I was placed with this family by protective services after my parents were murdered. My foster parents, Apple and Core (self-renamed from Gail and Steve) were a stark contrast to that darkness. Once hippie environmentalists, who named all their children after something in nature, they now need to make a decent living. So, while they go off to work, I stay at home playing full-time nanny for zero-time pay as the eldest of their five kids. School is my only time off, but it’s April vacation, and everyone’s home.

  And speaking of April…that’s my real name, my birth name I should say. But my foster parents changed it to Ivy. We had a renaming ceremony, complete with floral head wreaths, a dip in the lake, and dancing around a fire. I can’t say I minded. I wanted to be someone else. I prayed to be someone else. Except for my name, so far my prayers have gone unanswered.

  MY CELL PHONE CHIRPS, announcing that I have an e-mail. I pull it from my pocket to check. It’s a message from the Nightmare Elf, only this time it didn’t go into my spam box. I click on it, remembering the nightmare contest I entered months ago.

  TO: IVY JENSEN

  FR: [email protected]

  SUBJECT: YOU’VE BEEN CHOSEN

  2 ATTACHMENTS

  Dear Lucky Dark House Dreamer,

  In my hefty elf sack, your nightmares now keep.

  Better think twice before falling asleep.

  —The Nightmare Elf

  YOU’VE BEEN CHOSEN

  What: To attend an all-expenses-paid weekend, including an exclusive look at director Justin Blake’s never-before-seen companion film to the Nightmare Elf movie series, plus the chance to meet Blake himself. Congratulations. Your entry was one of seven selected from over twenty thousand applicants.

  Where:Stratten, MN, home of Stratten University. Winners will stay for two nights at a bed & breakfast, chosen specifically by the Nightmare Elf.

  When:July 17–19

  Transportation: Once your attendance is confirmed with receipt of your registration packet and release form (see attached documents), air and local transportation arrangements will be provided.

  RSVP:To reserve your spot, complete the attached forms and return ASAP. Space is limited.

  NOW, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

  PACK YOUR BAGS…AND PREPARE FOR THE SCARE OF YOUR LIFE.

  “THIS DISCUSSION IS OVER,” my mother says in her 1950s cardigan with an angel pin poked through the fabric.

  Did a discussion ever start? There’s a smug smile on her face because she thinks she’s putting her foot down, but the fact is that her foot—as well as her entire body—has been under my dad’s thumb ever since I can remember. My mother doesn’t have a single thought that she can actually call her own.

  We’re sitting at the dining room table. A vase full of tea roses separates us, marking our opposing territories: me against them, thorns against roses.

  “You need to think seriously about your future,” Dad says. Before retirement, he worked at a plastics factory making BPA-infested food containers. He knocked my mother up when he was in his late fifties—when he was married to someone else, too—and when my mother was twenty-year-old eye candy, working as a teller at the bank. “Do something meaningful with your life,” Dad says, as if I could ever compete with Harris.

  My brother Harris and I were the product of said affair—twins, born less than sixty seconds apart. Even then we didn’t want to leave each other’s side.

  “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” I tell them. “My essay stood out over all the other entries.”

  “Exactly,” Dad snaps. “You have potential, but instead you hide it beneath that costume of yours.”

  “You wouldn’t forbid Harris to go,” I say; the words come out shaky.

  Dad’s face blows up like a balloon with too much air. He hates it when I bring up Harris. He hates it when I talk, period.

  Before he explodes entirely, I storm to my room, locking the door behind me. The e-mail announcing that I’m one of the winners is still open on my computer. I read it again, making sure that it’s real—that it still says what I think it does. My parents can never take that away.

  I gaze over at my bookcase, the shelves of which are filled with all of Justin Blake’s work, including a copy of My Nightmare, his autobiography, in which he talks about feeling like a constant disappointment to his parents. I know that feeling all too well.

  I move over to my dresser mirror. There’s a desk blotter covering the glass. I take it down, careful where I look; I don’t want to see my whole reflection right away. My pulse racing, I pull off my sweatshirt, trying to focus on just the Nightmare Elf tattooed on my belly. When I went to the tattoo parlor, I told the artist to make an extra bulge in the elf’s sack for my nightmare—the biggest one of the bunch.

  I grab an eyeliner pen off my dresser and, across my belly, beside the elf, I start to write the words In his hefty elf sack, my nightmare now keeps, but there isn’t enough room. The letters are squished.

  I turn sideways to scope out the space on my back. Justin Blake’s birth date is tattooed at the very bottom, right in the middle of my underwear line, right below Pudgy the Clown’s chain saw.

  Harris thinks it was psycho of me to get a man’s birthday permanently inked on my skin. But at the time that I got it—just after my mom and sister had girls’ night out and “forgot” to invite me—it made perfect sense, because I couldn’t thank God enough for placing Justin Blake on this earth.

  I angle my back a little more toward the mirror and pull down my underwear to see the couple of tattoos on my ass cheeks: Little Sally Jacobs’s skeleton keys and part of the Nightmare Elf’s infamous catch phrase, “Better think twice before falling asleep.”

  Looking at all these tattoos now, I want to tell myself how ballsy I am—how ballsy I was to have gotten them in the first place. But the truth is, they were strategically placed. I could never have gotten them where my parents would see, just like I could never go against their wishes and accept Blake’s generous offer.

  FINALLY I GET OFF THE PLANE, but I’m so full of negative energy that I can’t even stand myself. I’m starving. My muscles ache. The woman sitting next to me in coach wouldn’t stop coughing toward the side of my face. Plus, she smelled like bacon, and not the hickory-smoked country kind, more like the kind that’s micro-ready in thirty seconds. And, as repulsive as that is, the smell only made me hungrier.

  Admittedly, I’d wanted to upgrade to first class, but primo seats are slim to none when you’re traveling to East Bum Suck, Minnesota, population: twelve.

  I know; I sound disgusting. And I know; I shouldn’t complain. I mean, this is a new adventure with new people and new opportunities…right? Plus no one twisted my arm to come here. I’m here of my own free will, as part of the Shayla Belmont “make the most of every moment” mission to have a fun and fulfilling life.

  This airport is minuscule. People from my flight disperse like ants from repellent. Do they know something I don’t? Did I miss the memo on fleeing creepy airports at the proverbial speed of light?

  A woman rushes by me, nearly knocking me over.

  “Excu
se me,” I call out, suddenly noticing that her pants are way too short, exposing her socks—purple ones with bright pink hearts, just like my best friend Dara’s socks. The coincidence gives me a chill.

  I gaze toward the windows, but they’re blacked out so I can’t see. I look around for a security officer or for someone who might be awaiting my arrival, but unfortunately I find neither.

  A gnawing sensation eats away at my gut, making me question whether I should turn back around and go home. Still, I grab my bag and head up to the car rental counter. An attendant stands there, but it appears as though things could shut down at any second.

  “Can I help you?” the attendant asks. She’s at least seventy years old with long white hair and the palest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. She keeps her focus toward the crown of my head, rather than looking me in the eye.

  I run my hand over my hair, wondering if she’s admiring my new do. I got my hair straightened at a salon in Chelsea, a place that actually knows how to work with black-girl tresses rather than frying them as crisp as the aforementioned bacon.

  “Good afternoon,” I say, putting on my best smile. “Someone’s supposed to be picking me up, but I’m wondering if there’s another level to this airport. Is there a separate waiting area?” I look around some more, but I don’t see any stairs, or an escalator.

  “Would you like to rent a car?” she asks. “I have midsize sedans or minivans.”

  “I don’t actually need a car.” I let out a nervous giggle.

  “Are you sure? Because there’s a free box of wild rice with every rental.” She places a box of rice on the counter and grins at me like it’s Christmas, exposing a bright blue tongue and teeth that have browned with age. “This particular grain is native to this area.”