15
QUINDECIM
Calla
Dare sprawls on the passenger side seat, taking up every inch of space as I drive us carefully down the mountain. I don’t even glance at my mother’s cross as we pass, and although I’m sure Dare has seen it and wondered about it, he doesn’t mention it.
“So where exactly are we going?” he asks in his sexy as hell accent as we turn onto the highway at the bottom of the mountain.
I glance at him and smile.
“Are you scared?”
He shakes his head, rolling his dark eyes.
“Not hardly. I’ve got you to protect me.”
I laugh at that because the idea of little me protecting huge him is laughable. But then I shake my head. “You’re going to have to wait.”
So he waits while I drive. Into the night, along the quiet highway, until we turn off and head into a quiet part of town, then out onto the edge, where it’s darkened and only a few city lights twinkle in the night.
We drive beneath the old burned out sign, the words that form a rickety neon arch, faded purple and created back when neon signs were cutting edge. The bulbs have long ago been broken, a glaring reminder that this place is sad and abandoned.
JOYLAND, the letters spell out.
Even the letters look spooky, all darkened and jagged. There’s nothing joyful about this place anymore, other than the memories that it contains, memories of riding the old train with Finn, laughing with him on the bumper cars, running through the haunted house. But that was all before they closed this place, of course. Afterward, Finn and I came here to be alone, to huddle together and talk amongst the creepy buildings because we found it amusing to scare ourselves. But we haven’t been here since mom died. I guess real life is scary enough.
I pull into an abandoned parking spot, between faded orange lines, among a sea of other empty slots.
“My parents used to bring Finn and I here when we were little,” I explain. “But the owner apparently got into tax trouble and overnight, this place was locked up and abandoned.”
Dare looks around, at the black parking lot, the darkened gates, and at the rickety Ferris wheel looming above the gated horizon, it’s spindly bars a haunting white against the blackness of night.
“So you just come here and sit in the parking lot or what?” he speculates, his face blank. I chuckle.
“No. We figured out a way in a long time ago.”
Dare grins now, as realization spreads across his face. “Ohhhh. Breaking and Entering. Always a crowd favorite.”
I chuckle again. “Somehow I’m guessing this will be a first for you.”
I open my door and the creak echoes through the night because there are no other noises here to mask it. It feels like we’re on the edge of the world, all alone, and if we take one wrong step, we’ll vault over the side.
“It’s all right,” I call over my shoulder as I head for the park. “The owner is long gone. We heard he’s overseas now so I’m sure he doesn’t care who pokes around. We’re not the first, and we won’t be the last.”
I feel Dare behind me, so close that I can smell his cologne, as I lead him along the fence. Finally, I see what I’m looking for… the jagged hole that someone cut away years ago. It’s just the size for a person to crawl through.
I duck through it, and Dare doesn’t hesitate to follow. The idea that he trusts me enough to follow without question makes my belly warm. He barely knows me.
But as I turn and pause, staring up at his handsome face, the look in his eyes melts my insides. Because he wants to know me. That much is clear.
I swallow hard, then turn back around, surveying the scene in front of me.
The Midway is empty, completely abandoned and dark, like something out of a horror movie. The carnival games line each side, with grotesque clown faces and peeling race cars, and the gleaming paint of a beaver as it watches me from afar.
Trash blows in the breeze like paper tumbleweeds, and there is graffiti on a few of the buildings, evidence that we certainly aren’t the first here. TURN BACK, is written in artful red and black. DROP DEAD is painted directly beneath it in glowing orange. And then, at the very bottom, painted in eerie, morbid white, is DEATH COMES TO US ALL. I don’t bother mentioning that my brother painted that one.
“Interesting,” Dare says slowly, as he pivots in a circle. “But I wouldn’t say it’s creepier than a funeral home.”
“That’s because this isn’t what I want to show you,” I tell him mischievously. He glances down at me.
“Well, I’m ever ready,” he announces. “Lead on.”
I giggle at his formal tone, which even still is sexy with his accent, and without thinking, I reach behind and grab his hand in the dark. I almost startle at the contact, at the feel of his warm fingers and strong hands. He’s surprised by it, but he doesn’t shirk away. Instead, he grips my hand firmly, yet softly, and I pull him along, enjoying the very idea that I’m touching him right now.
I’m holding hands with Dare DuBray.
We walk through the dead center of the Midway, past the Old Mill boat ride, with it’s rotting boats bobbing in the murky moat, past the hanging swings, their chains creaking as they move in the wind, and past the bumper cars, with the defunct cars all shoved together in the middle.
I stop in front of Nocte, Joyland’s version of a house of horrors.
Dare reads the dark sign, the black letters that seem to drip with blood. “Nocte, huh?”
I nod. “It means by night in Latin. Finn used to love this place. And I think it’s what started his love of Latin.”
I don’t mention my theory that Finn loved this place because the grotesque horror of it made even him feel sane. That’s why we still come, because it still has the same effect, maybe even more so. The atmosphere of abandonment adds to the horror, making it seem real, somehow. So when he walks through it, he’s the sanest thing in the room, aside from me.
Dare and I stand staring up the winding drive, toward the deserted mansion that seems to leer at us from above, some of its windows broken out and winking. Plants line the drive, and weeping trees form a canopy, creating a shadowy walkway.
Dare glances at me. “Ok. It’s creepy.”
I smile, even as chills already form along my spine. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
I tug on his hand, and we start up the drive. “When this was running, they used to have ghosts and zombies jumping out along the way, scaring you, telling you to turn back.” I pause, staring up at him. “Do you want to turn back, Dare?”
My voice contains a flirty challenge, and he hears it. He turns to me, grinning.
“Not on your life.” The moonlight shines down on him, illuminating the dark stubble that lines his jawline, and glinting off the ends of his hair. He seems to shine, for a moment, and I itch to reach up and touch his face.
But I don’t.
Instead, I smile. “Let’s do it, then.”
We climb the creaky stairs of the porch, cross the creaking boards, then turn the brass handle of the door. Dare steps fearlessly over the threshold.
“Which way?” he turns to me. I pull out my flashlight and shine it around the familiar foyer. Red velvet lines the walls, hanging in an ominous way reminiscent of blood. It smells musty and old in here, oxygen deprived and dusty.
“That way,” I point to the right, toward the hall that I know leads to the bedrooms.
Because suddenly, I just have to be close to him. It’s a need, not a want. An unconscious pull, a call that I desperately want to answer.
We inch along the hall, with every other step creaking, and I catch Dare glancing behind us several times.
“Scared?” I ask cheekily.
“Not at all,” he answers calmly, stepping around a mannequin lying in a pool of fake blood. The mannequin seems to stare up at me with lifeless eyes, eyes that seem too knowing to be glass, too real to be fake. It’s part of the draw of this place. It’s creepily real. And now, since it’s abandoned and dark, it’s scarier than they ever meant for it to be.
As we walk, I know without looking where Dare is. It’s like I’m a planet and he’s my axis… or my sun. I feel his heat, I feel his presence, and I ache to lean into it, to fold into him, to absorb his strength.
It’s a sudden urge, and I’m startled with the intensity of it.
I’m startled because I’ve never felt it before, not like this. It’s enough to make me feel guilty, because it distracts me from other feelings that have overwhelmed me lately…the blinding grief.
I swallow hard as I lead him to the first bedroom.
Stepping inside, I shine the light around, at the mannequin lying on the bed, with the rope around its neck and the knife in its chest. She stares at me accusingly with matted blond hair, like she wants to know what the hell we’re doing with this intrusion.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
That’s the truth of it. What I know is that I like the way Dare makes me feel. I like being distracted from pain. I like the way my heart flutters and my stomach flips whenever he’s around. That’s what I know.
I turn my attention from the mannequin to her surroundings. The bed-sheets are splattered with ‘blood’ and on the wall, THE GOOD DIE HERE, drips in ominous red, supposedly written by the murderer’s finger dipped in the victim’s own blood.
“Are you?” I ask Dare with a smirk. “Good, I mean?”
He looks at me sharply, then his mouth tilts into a smile. “I’ve had no complaints.”
I shake my head because obviously that isn’t what I meant, but it’s funny so I laugh anyway.
“Hmmm. Then we might be in danger. If you’re good, I mean.”
I scoot closer to him and suddenly, I’m in his personal space. I’m pressed against his chest, and the rock hard solidity of it surprises me. He’s lithe and slender, so I didn’t expect him to be so…immovable, so muscular and hard.
I take a deep breath, inhaling his masculine smell, and stare up at him.
He’s staring down at me, his gaze connected to mine, just like the first day I saw him. But this time, there’s something in his eyes that wasn’t there before, there’s an expression there that I’ve only seen in my dreams. Want. For me. It shakes me to my core, causing my breath to linger on my lips.
I reach up to touch his face, my fingers grazing his jaw, his stubble teasing my fingertips.
“I’m ready to ask my fourth question,” I tell him, my voice wobbling slightly. His nearness makes me dizzy.
“Go on then,” he answers, his voice ever calm.
“Do you have a girlfriend back home?”
My words sound childish, almost. Because girlfriend seems so juvenile. Because my feelings seem huge and adult.
Dare sucks in his breath, and reaches up to enclose my fingers within his own, holding them in place as he stops me from exploring the rest of his face. He stares into my eyes and I can’t read him now.
“No.”
He’s holding my hand against his chest and I feel his heart beat against my palm.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It’s loud in the silence.
The chemistry between us is palpable enough to touch, weaving around us, pulling us together, the air snapping with its electricity.
But he doesn’t move.
And I don’t either.
I want him to kiss me. I imagine the way his full lips would feel, firm, yet soft. I imagine the way his hands would feel on my back, pulling me closer, closer, closer.
But he doesn’t move and neither do I.
And then suddenly, he releases my hand and steps back.
“So is this all you’ve got, then?” he asks, his voice teasing me now. The sexual tension is sadly broken.
I can’t help but smile though. For the simple reason that it was there in the first place.
“Yeah. I guess your balls of steel saved you today,” I tell him. He grins again, and then we make our way toward the foyer. As we cross the parlor though, I see something interesting, and pause next to the door-jam.
DD and CP are inscribed inside a heart. Corny and sweet. I trace the letters with my finger.
“What a coincidence,” I murmur, for some reason aching on the inside, aching to be that CP and for Dare to be that DD. Because Corny or not, it’s so intimate, so heart-breakingly personal. It smacks of first love, of high-school sweethearts, of things that are normal.
My hand falls away and I keep walking… because we’re not those initials, and my life is not normal.
When we step outside, I take a deep breath of fresh air, breathing in the moon and stars and pine trees.
“There was more to see in there,” I tell him softly, on the edge of the darkened driveway. The corner of his mouth tilts.
“Let’s leave that for another day,” he suggests as we walk.
I nod because our moment back in Nocte wasn’t imagined. Maybe it scared him, like it sort of scared me, and that’s why we’re running from it now.
Because it was sudden and hot and blinding… like a shooting star.
After we’re back in my car and driving toward home, I glance at him.
“Maybe you could give me a ride on your motorcycle sometime? I’ve never been on one.”
He nods. “Maybe.”
He stares out the window, careful to stay on his side of the car. I muse about that for a second, but refuse to dwell on it. But I’m so busy dwelling on it five minutes later that what Dare says next seems to come from left field.
“I’m ready to ask you a question,” he tells me softly, his voice husky and seeped with the night.
I raise an eyebrow. “Okay. Shoot.”
I’m expecting him to ask about a boyfriend, or my dating history, or even how old I am. He doesn’t. His question actually slams into me with the force of a freight train, returning me to my reality.
“Can you tell me about your mom?”
There’s a solid beat before I can make myself speak.
“Why?” I manage to croak, still stunned.
Dare shrugs, but his expression is soft, his dark eyes liquid.
“I don’t know. It just feels like a way to know you better.”
That answer, of course, melts my ovaries and I relax, the small of my back slumping against the seat.
I take a deep breath and grip the steering wheel hard enough to turn my knuckles white.
“What do you want to know?”
He stares at me for a second, before reaching over and loosening my grip on the wheel. His fingers are dry and warm, where mine are cool and clammy.
“Whatever you’d like to tell me. For instance…are you like her? Do you look like her?”
I smile. “I wish I was like her. She was artistic and amazing. I’m…not. But I do look like her. I look exactly like her, actually, which is probably hard on my dad right now. Finn looks like him.”
“So she was born in England? Why did she move to America?”
It’s my turn to shrug. “She was. But I don’t know why she left. She said she didn’t get along with her parents very well. She hasn’t spoken to them in years, and I’ve never personally met them.”
“Huh. Interesting,” Dare murmurs. “I think it’s good you can talk about her. When my mom died, I couldn’t talk about her for almost a year.”
I do a double-take. “Your mom’s gone, too? You only mentioned your dad before. I’m so sorry! What happened?”
Dare stares out the windshield, into the night. I can tell he’s not really seeing it.
“She died in an accident with my step-father.”
My stomach tightens into a knot for him, because God, I know that grief, that sudden, shocking, annihilating grief. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him limply. He nods.
“Yeah, it sucks. But I know how you’re feeling right now, at least. I realized after my mom died that it always helps when someone knows what it’s like.”
He’s right. It’s hugely comforting.
“It’s hard,” I admit to him. “It’s especially hard because it was my fault. I called her at night when it was raining. If I hadn’t done that, she would still be here.”
Dare looks at me sharply. “You can’t believe that. That it’s your fault, I mean.”
I look away. “Of course I can. It’s true.”
“It’s not,” he argues. “I personally believe that when your number is up, it’s up. Surely, living in a funeral home your whole life, you believe that, too. Sometimes, there isn’t an explanation for something.”
“And sometimes, there is. In this case, the explanation is a telephone call.”
Dare shakes his head. “It’s going to take some doing to convince you that you’re wrong. I can tell.”
“You can try,” I tell him resolutely. “But if Finn and my father can’t do it, I doubt you can.”
“Challenge accepted,” he says seriously, and the look in his eyes takes my breath away.
“Why do you care?” I ask him suddenly. “You barely know me.”
He’s silent for a second, fiddling with the silver band on his middle finger. When he looks back up, his eyes are filled with a hundred things I can’t name.
“Because I feel like I do. Because we’re the same in so many ways. Because I know how horrible it was to lose my mother. I can only imagine how hard it is when you think it’s your fault.”
Yeah, I think to myself. It’s almost too much to bear.
“It is hard,” I admit. “But sometimes, when you least expect it, someone tosses you a lifeline.”
His eyes meet mine and I see that he knows exactly what I’m saying. That he might be my lifeline. There’s no reaction, though, only a silent acceptance and maybe a spark of satisfaction.
We fall quiet now, comrades in this special club of having lost our mothers. It’s not a club that anyone enjoys belonging to, but I know that I, for one, feel even closer to him now.
After a few minutes, I can’t stand the silence anymore.
“You’d better be careful with those questions,” I tell him, feigning a smile. “You’ve only got eighteen left.”