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

for Shakespeare in the Park and we drove in from Long Island. Even then, with the lamps on, park maps, and packs of people all there to see the show, Mom and I had still gotten lost, meandering through the lawns and winding roads. Now I started typing into Google Maps, but my hands must’ve been numb from the cold, because my phone slipped out of my grasp and made an indelicate belly flop into the snow. I picked up the phone and tried to wipe it down, but Thayer was already on the move and I couldn’t lose him. I pocketed the phone and caught up.

The park was so different at night. When it gleamed in daylight, Central Park was the city’s beating heart. There could’ve been a million people inside, but it always felt like it could expand endlessly to make room for more. But at two in the morning, there were no joggers or cyclists. No park attendants in their green golf carts. No street vendors selling ice cream and overpriced bottles of water. At nighttime, the city’s beating heart was a black hole.

“Is Freddie here yet?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know what he’s going to do for his Fear Test?”

Thayer shook his head, and the silence that elapsed was so deep I could hear the snowflakes landing on our jackets. Minutes passed like strange whispers in the dark. We’d been inside the park only a few minutes, but already it felt like we were in another world, the city falling away, blurred out. It was like we were inside a snow globe; the edges of everything seemed to fade into nothingness.

I felt stiff fingers sharply graze my arm. I jumped, but there was only a tree, its low-hanging branches reaching to scratch me. I tried to steady my breath, but my heartbeat was revving like a chain saw. That was how I knew I was scared—had been scared since we’d gotten here: when the most mundane things took on a sinister vibe. It was just a tree, and it was just the park, but all of it was giving me the creeps. If this was a Grimms’ fairy tale, we were at the part where the deceptive whimsy of the story gave way to the unexpected gruesomeness hidden within it.

Thayer’s silence wasn’t helping. I wanted more than anything for him to go back to being the guy I’d known, cracking obscene jokes just to make me laugh. The guy who’d existed before Saundra died. I had the distinct feeling that I was walking with someone I knew and yet didn’t really know at all.

At first, I noted with relief that our steps were so clearly imprinted in the snow, because it meant somebody could potentially find us if the Fear Test went sideways. Then, I realized that it also meant that these tracks could lead someone directly to us. It was like the scene with the hedge maze in The Shining. I was Danny and somewhere out there was Jack Nicholson with an ax.

Some people would probably find this setting serene. A calm, black-and-white contrast to the bustling city beyond the borders. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something seemed off. I looked behind me and found darkness. More darkness in front of me, but in the distance I could swear the darkness took form.

I stopped in my tracks.

“Do you see that?” I asked. “Up ahead, it looks like there’s someone there.”

“I don’t see anything.” But Thayer didn’t even look in the direction I was pointing. And anyway, what I thought I’d seen must’ve slunk away or evaporated, because the view was back to formless black.

Still, the uneasiness stayed with me. With every step we took, I had the sinking feeling that Thayer knew something I didn’t. That my friend, a person I should trust, was actually leading me somewhere I shouldn’t be going.

“Thayer, what’s up?”

He didn’t even try to answer this time. A twig snapped but I forced myself not to react. I put my hand on his forearm and he finally stopped, looking me in the eye for the first time tonight.

“You don’t have to be scared,” I said. “If the Masked Man is here, he’s only after me.”

Thayer looked down at the ground but I bent my knees, forcing our eyes to meet.

“I’m ready for him. Whatever happens tonight, we’re going to stop all this.”

When Thayer did look up, it was with glassiness in his eyes. “Was Saundra into drugs?”

“What?” I said.

“Hard drugs.”

The randomness of the question made me laugh, a short, sudden burst. “No. Never.”

Thayer nodded, like he knew just as well as I did that the suggestion was ridiculous.

“I got her autopsy report,” Thayer said.

My ears perked up. I knew he had access to this stuff through his father, even if his father didn’t realize it.

“She had LSD in her system. A lot of it. Someone drugged her.”

“What?”

“She was tripping,” Thayer said. He was looking down as he spoke, his chin tucked into his neck but I could hear the tears in his voice. “She was seeing things.”

“Tell me everything, Thayer. What did you find out?”

“You can really hurt yourself when you have a bad trip. When you have that much acid in your system and you have a bad trip, you could do really dangerous things. And Saundra was having a really bad trip—”

He was starting to repeat himself, the words coming faster and faster, so I stopped him, got to the point. “How do you know? You couldn’t tell she was having a bad trip from an autopsy.”

Thayer finally picked his head up and looked at me, almost like he was surprised I hadn’t caught up yet. “I was on the roof with her.”

There was a sound, a rushing in my ears. It felt like all the air was gone, and no matter how much I tried to gulp it in, I got nothing. I must’ve been breathing, though, because I was still standing there. My heart