Twenty-Three

SILENCE IS MY enemy. Not only because it drives home how alone I am, but because it means none of the washers or dryers are running. Which means there’s a good chance nobody’s coming to get their laundry anytime soon.

Still stoked on adrenaline, I look for an obvious way out. Two small windows covered in wire mesh on the wall facing the hill. A back exit that I test and find locked. Washers beneath the window, dryers against the far wall. Two molded plastic lawn chairs with curling magazines stacked beneath, a folding table.

I bang on the door for a while, yelling for help, not holding out a lot of hope. The closest thing is the deserted bus shelter; the laundry building’s set back from the units, embraced by the woods.

I sit in a chair, tapping my legs, facing a wall clock—4:10. Dad won’t be home for another hour at least, maybe two. Ma, not until seven thirty. I’ve been skidding in right at curfew most nights lately, so they won’t worry until after eight. I go to the window, look out at the trailhead, only a stone’s throw from where I stand. Bree and Sage will come that way, eventually. Probably. Unless Trace gives them a ride home.

For now, the only thing that makes sense is switching the lights on and off, like an SOS. Should be enough to catch somebody’s attention, eventually, especially as it gets darker out. Or maybe somebody will decide to stop in with their dirty socks and towels. Hopefully before tomorrow.

For the first hour, I pace from the switch plate to the windows, periodically checking for any sign of Bree and Sage. My palms and knees sting with scrapes from hitting the pavement, and I’ve got a patch on my chin, too. Maybe Kincaid and I can compare road rash. If I ever see him again.

Around five, cars start turning into the Terraces, people coming home from work. I flash the lights, bang the door, yell for help, look to see if any brake lights come on. Nobody stops. I growl frustration in my throat and kick a washer. Seriously, people—look up!

When I cross the two-hour mark, I grab a magazine. Woman’s Day. Dated two years ago, featuring a photo of a mom who lost one hundred pounds on an all-soup diet, beside a headline advertising the perfect Easter layer-cake recipe, inside! I slide down the wall into a sitting position beneath the switch panel, turning the light on and off as I page through.

Laughter. My head snaps up. Boys, somewhere nearby.

It’s the hoodies. I watch them thread around one another down the hill. Coming to make sure nobody’s let me out yet, probably.

They laugh some more, call a few insults down to me, then tires pass over dirt as they turn down the woods trail. No more sounds.

More time passes. I keep flashing the lights. Full dark outside now.

The whisking of pedals and gears draws me back to the glass: one hoodie emerges from the trees, Yellow, from what I can see by the streetlight glow. Maybe he’s the only one with a curfew. He doesn’t spare my prison a glance, taking his time riding up the center line toward home, steering with one hand, using his phone with the other.

I rest my forehead against the glass, breathe out, leaving a fog. When something else moves along the tree line, I don’t react right away, expecting another hoodie to pop out.

The movement’s not on the trail, but in the bushes, a shadow that shifts, goes still. Something’s over there.

I stare, trying to convince myself it isn’t real, more space junk drifting through my mind, but something stirs in me, an instinctive prickle. Big beast coming.

It moves farther out, clear of the trees. Takes a couple steps.

Tall, broad silhouette. A hood up over its head, maybe, or long hair, I can’t tell which. Staring up the hill, where Yellow Hood has disappeared. Another step, turning back toward the woods, ready to blend into the night again.

Then it hesitates, like maybe instinct tapped it, too—the primal sense of being watched. It looks toward the laundry building, where I stand, frozen, unthinking, the light framing me in the window. Slick, pale gleam off the face, somehow too small for the head, misshapen, like a crumpled paper plate.

I jerk back, lunging for the light switch, sending the room into darkness, praying I ducked in time, that maybe you can’t see as much from the outside as I think. Hold my breath, counting seconds—only reach nine before I hear a heavy footstep on dead leaves. It saw. It’s coming.

I whirl, eyes half-adjusted to the dark, only the white lawn chairs having any distinction. I lift one, jam its leg through the door handle and across the frame as hard as I can—the leg’s too wide, only slides about two inches through before it sticks. I hear the scrape of the cinder block being pushed away from the door.

I stare at the chair, wedged horizontally, as if by levitation. Praying that thing out there will test the door, think it’s locked from the inside, give up.

It tries the outer handle; the door moves, as if with a breath. Stopped by the chair leg.

Counting seconds again: one, two—another tug, harder. Go away. Go away.

Thud, thud, thud. Harder. Sensing some give, working at the leg. I’ve got nothing to fight with, nothing but light, so I slap the switch again, casting it all into brilliance. Fine curls of plastic peel up from the friction of the handle; he’s making headway, working it down, widening a gap to show a sliver of darkness beyond the jamb, so little space between me and it.

“Leave me alone.” My voice. Shaky, but there. “Get out of here.” Louder, shouting: “Get out of here!”

The door saws back and forth, the leg developing a sickening bend against the frame.

I run to the folding table and push, skidding its rubber-stoppered feet over the floor until it slams across the width of the doorway, bracing my palms against the edge, teeth gritted, leaning my whole weight into my barricade, as if it’ll do anything once that thing gets through the door.

The gap of darkness widens—then holds in place as it looks in at me.

The wetness of a single eye. Face coated in peach-hued plastic, showing a slender, painted eyebrow. A mask.

The head tilts, face bobbing in the gap. Pink lips with a hole punched in the center, a circle of airbrushed blusher on the cheek. I know it, of course I do, but there’s no time to process—too busy screaming, “Leave me alone!” Turn, seizing the first thing I see—trash can—heaving it at the mask. Garbage explodes. Grab the magazines, pelt them at the door, heave the other chair, grab it on the rebound and throw it again. “Get out of here!”

When I stagger back, gasping, the mask is gone. The door is closed.

I breathe, waiting. It worked. I scared him off. Then headlights flash through the windows, the real reason he stopped trying to get in: someone’s coming down the hill, slowing, signaling a left turn.

I run to the door, start to yank the chair free so I can make a dash for the road, flag them down. A spiderweb-thin strand of chill adheres to my spine. I look over my shoulder.

The princess mask is there, in the far window. Just looking. I stare back, hands locked on the chair, unable to do anything but watch as it gives a slow, condescending dip of its head . . . and leaves.