The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky (ebook reader for manga TXT) 📕

but she was def getting annoyed. Trevor put his phone away and shook his head. “I’m staying right here.”

But he couldn’t be the only one who heard the music. Tinny, way too jolly-sounding. It was an itch in his brain. “Yo, does anyone else hear that?”

“Hear what?” Bram said, coming up for air.

“I think it’s coming from upstairs. I told people the second floor was off-limits.” He was starting to get up when Bram’s hand pushed him back down.

“You stay, I’ll go.” Then, in a low voice in Trevor’s ear, he added, “Be the Man.”

Bram was probably just going to scope out a room for him and Lux, Trevor thought, but whatever. Back to the matter at hand. Lucia was looking extra eager tonight. But then Lux leaned over and she and Lucia started whispering like Trevor wasn’t even there.

His pocket buzzed and he took out his phone. A text from Bram.

Something weird up here.

“I’ll be right back,” Trevor told the girls, who continued ignoring him.

He had to sidestep around Jamie Powells, who had his tongue shoved down George Chen’s throat, then nearly crashed into a girl as she flew down the stairs. Felicity Something. Her eyes were wild.

“What were you doing upstairs?”

But she didn’t answer. As he watched her run off he noticed a blue smear on her sleeve. Makeup? It reminded him of the awful face paint that clowns used. He turned back to the stairs. He hesitated. Something weird was going on. Trevor bounced on the balls of his feet, just like he did before a game, pumping himself up. Nothing to be scared of.

When he got upstairs, he didn’t see Bram. But he also didn’t hear any trace of the strange, tinny music that had made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It was almost too quiet. The noise from downstairs felt muted, like someone had put pillows over his ears. “Bram?”

Trevor’s phone buzzed. A text from Bram.

Bram can’t help you.

“What? Bram, where you at, man?” he muttered.

That music again. Now Trevor could make out what it was. He’d heard that song before. It was the exact same song that had been playing at his seventh birthday party.

The music was coming from down the hall. From Trevor’s own bedroom. His door was open, and then, in an instant, a light switched on inside. His bedside lamp.

Trevor was drawn to it like a moth. He treaded slowly. That knot between his shoulder blades was back, his whole body stiffening with dread. He felt like he was being watched.

“Bram?”

No one was there.

But then he saw feet sticking out from under the other side of the bed. Trevor rushed over and now he could see it all. “Bram!”

Bram was facedown on the floor in a pool of blood.

Trevor was about to reach for him when he noticed something by the blood. Red, too, and sticky. A footprint, but way too big.

Trevor’s breathing grew shallow when he saw the smiley face embossed on the sole of the imprint. Then Trevor noticed more footprints. A trail of them, all leading one by one to the closet door.

He should’ve run. He should’ve called for help, done something. But that delayed response again.

A buzz.

Another text. From Bram.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

And then, a giggle. A maniacal, cloying, disgusting giggle, getting louder and louder.

“What the hell?” Trevor yelled, backing up.

The closet door banged open and out lunged a clown, swinging a knife. He let out a cackle and this time there was no delayed response. This time Trevor ran like he was on the field—no, like he was seven years old and a killer clown was out to murder him.

He ran downstairs, nearly tripping over his own feet. The crowd parted and someone cut the music. Trevor stood there in silence, his chest heaving for air. They were all staring at him, some of them even taking out their phones to film him. When he looked down, he could see why. There was a wet stain down the front of his pants.

 17

WE RAN, SHOES thwacking pavement, my hair whipping my cheeks, the wind swooshing by my ears. All of it colored by the sound of my breathing—hard and electrified.

Our rendezvous point had been decided beforehand: Tompkins Square Park, seven blocks from Trevor’s duplex, a five-minute breakneck run from the scene of the crime. Some of us could have left for the park once we finished our roles in the Fear Test, but we’d wanted to stick around, to see Trevor get his.

Felicity could’ve run track, she was going so fast. I, on the other hand, was out of breath by the second block, but the buzz of what we’d just pulled off kept my legs pumping. Freddie’s wig was off, but he was still in costume a few paces ahead of me. He turned and reached back for me and for five blocks we ran together, hand in hand, through the black-paved streets and past the twinkling buildings.

The running, getting away with it, the feeling of Freddie’s fingers interlocked with mine—it turned all of Manhattan into a blur. I squeezed his hand and he squeezed back, both of us grinning like, well, clowns.

We burst into the park. Felicity was already waiting there, palms on knees, gulping air. A minute later, Bram showed up. Half of his long-sleeved tee was dyed red, his cheek and jaw streaked with it, too. It looked real, though we all knew it would never congeal and turn brown like real blood would. He rubbed a towel into his damp hair, making it stick up in clumps. He wasn’t out of breath, though.

“Took an Uber,” he said. “I told everybody I tripped and hit my head.”

“They believed you?” I asked, my breath ragged.

“Head wounds are gushers.” Bram ruffled the towel around his head. “Where’s Thayer?”

We looked around, waiting. The longer the minutes stretched, the more our buoyancy began to char at the edges. And then Thayer barged in through the shadows. I’d