Phantom

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Debbie? Debbie . . . no! Why?”

Rebecca felt her anger slip away. It was so strange—this wild gamut of emotions, each one intense and uncontrollable in its turn. Now she found herself once again being overcome with despair. Emotionally, she was falling apart, despite her outward calmness. She knew that no matter what happened now, some permanent damage was being done to her psyche.

“Debbie, no! Why?” Debbie mocked her in a high-pitched, singsong voice. Somehow that scratchy sound was ten times worse, ten times more disturbing, than the voice distorter had been. “Why do you think, Becca? What was always the motive of the phantom?”

Rebecca couldn’t answer, couldn’t comprehend. None of it made any sense. The pieces hadn’t fallen into place when the mask was stripped away, as she had thought they would. Instead, the whole puzzle had been knocked apart in one foul swoop, leaving her lost and more confused than ever. Debbie was her friend, one of her best friends. How could she hurt people, hurt her, in such horrible ways.

“What’s the matter, Becca?” Debbie continued to taunt her. “Does the cat have your tongue? Would it help you to think if I took Tom out of the equation? Do you think that would simplify things?”

“No!”

The point of the gun was leveled at Tom, and Rebecca made a mad dash across the narrow room to throw herself back in front of him. Talk about roll reversals! Who was the hero and who was the damsel in distress, anyway? It seemed like she was the one doing all the protecting while both the guys were practically useless. Something that Debbie only seemed to find amusing.

“Seems like we can go on this way all night.” Debbie mused. “With you playing at being a human shield. But I think it would be simpler, Becca, if you just stood right here in front of me.” She gestured her forward. “You can’t save them both, you know.”

“Don’t listen to her, Becca! Run!” Justyn shouted from his chair. “Don’t worry about us!”

Debbie immediately went over and waved the gun in his face. “No comments from the peanut gallery, please,” she instructed.

Justyn was unfazed. “Screw you, you crazy bitch.”

Debbie laughed, almost good-naturedly, and took a step back as if she intended to walk away. But before Rebecca knew what was happening, she snapped back around, quick as lighting, and struck Justyn hard in the temple with the butt of the pistol. Rebecca gasped and covered her mouth with her hands when she heard him groan and saw his head wobble on his shoulders. It wobbled so much that he put every bobble-head doll in the world to shame.

Rebecca was ready to sprint back over to his side, but Tom restrained her. At first she was annoyed, thinking that he was still trying to keep her from Justyn, even after all they had been through. It took a second before she realized that he was only able to hold her back at all because his hands were free. Tom was free and Debbie had no idea.

“Do what she says until I figure something out.”

He whispered just under his breath in her ear. Rebecca nodded, but she was skeptical. Would whatever plan Tom came up with include Justyn? She didn’t think Tom would have a problem leaving his former rival behind if push came to shove. But Rebecca wouldn’t be going anywhere unless they all left together.

“No whispering, please,” Debbie told them, turning away from a half-conscious Justyn. “And Becca—I asked you nicely to come stand in front of me. If I have to ask again, I won’t be quite so cordial.”

Rebecca forced her shaky legs to carry her forward. She stood dead center between Tom and Justyn, hoping she would be able to shield whichever one came into more immediate danger. She tried her best to scope out the room for any chance of escape without giving it away, but Debbie interrupted her thoughts.

“Do you have an answer yet?” she asked.

Rebecca was confused. “An . . . an answer to what?”

Debbie rolled her eyes. “You asked me why . . . and I asked you the phantom’s motive. Sooo, what’s your answer?”

Rebecca thought hard. She didn’t want to give the wrong answer. The only thing she could think of didn’t seem logical. But Debbie was tapping her foot impatiently and swinging the gun around which didn’t seem very safe. So she just blurted out the first word that popped into her head

“Lo . . . love,” Rebecca stuttered.

“Love,” Debbie echoed. “Yes, Becca. Love. It drives us all to do the most insane things. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. Take for example the fact that you would fall in love with that Gothic freak . . . .”

“Who are you calling a freak, you psychotic whack job?”

“Justyn, SHUT UP!” Rebecca yelled.

She wished he wouldn’t antagonize someone who was obviously mentally unstable. He looked like he wanted to say more, but Rebecca shot him such an angry look that it actually silenced him. Either that or he had passed out again, because his eyes closed. As worried as that made her, it was better than him running his mouth.

Debbie also looked annoyed about the outburst, but thankfully decided to ignore Justyn. “Do you have any idea, Becca, the pain of unrequited love? The kind of pain that Christine inflicted on Erik.” She was silent for so long after that, Rebecca wondered if she was supposed to give an answer. The whole room hung in deadly silence until Debbie finally continued, her voice a little louder, a little angrier. “No, you don’t know. You have no idea. You have men fawning over you all the time. You break hearts. You don’t have yours broken.”

“Debbie . . . I don’t understand.”

Rebecca was lost. Who did Debbie love? Justyn? That hardly seemed possible. She could barely stand the sight of him. Tom then? In all the years they had gone to school together, she had never seen Debbie look at Tom twice. Never once had she joined in at sleepovers when Carmen and Rebecca listed his many attributes. If she had, Rebecca would have never stood in her way. And there wasn’t anyone else that ever came up, at least not that Rebecca could think of.

“Of course you don’t understand, Becca,” Debbie scoffed. “You never see what’s right in front of your eyes.”

“Then tell me, Deb. Please. Tell me what I did wrong so that I can fix it.”

Keep her talking right? That was the key. That was what they always did in the movies. She only needed to keep her busy long enough to come up with a plan. She saw out of the corner of her eye that Tom was trying to inconspicuously reach into the pocket of his jeans. Maybe he had his cell phone with him. Maybe he was calling for help at that very moment. Rebecca hoped Debbie wouldn’t notice. She tried her best to keep the attention focused on her.

“You can’t fix it, Becca. It’s too late. Too late for them. Too late for you. Too late for us.”

“Us, Debbie? What do you mean by us?” She had to ask aloud, too shocked to believe it could mean what she thought it meant.

Debbie sighed in a combination of sadness and frustration. “Think about it, Becca. Who’s always been there for you? Who supported you before the tryouts? Who stood up for you when Wendy was giving you a hard time? Who was the only one who stood by you through everything? Everything. Even when the guys and Carmen deserted you, who was still there?”

“You.” Rebecca was playing along; doing her best to hide the disgust she felt now that she knew Debbie was a cold-blooded murderer. “You, of course, Deb. You’re my best friend. You always have been.”

Debbie laughed, a little bitterly. Rebecca swallowed hard. She was afraid she might have said the wrong thing—a mistake that could very well be her last under the current circumstances.

“Your friend. You know, I was okay with that for such a long time. But suddenly, you had these two buffoons fighting over you, treating you like a possession.” She gestured at Tom and Justyn, each in turn, making Tom jump and Justyn, who had opened his eyes again, sneer. “They disrespected you. I couldn’t put up with that. That’s why they had to go.”

“You’re the one who needs to go,” Justyn said with a roll of his eyes, a move that looked more than a little painful given the condition of his face. “Straight to the mental institution.”

“Shut up, Justyn!” Rebecca and Debbie both shouted in perfect unison, albeit for different reasons.

“You see what I mean,” Debbie continued. “They’re animals, Becca. You deserve so much more! That’s why I did all this. At first, I thought I would just scare you a little, and make you think it was one of them. I hoped that would make you stay away from them. That’s why I sent the notes, and made the curtain fall. That retard, Mr. Russ, almost caught me more than once—first with the curtain, then with Wendy. He was always lurking around—so annoying. I thought that after what I did with Wendy, making her trip into the mirror, you would finally realize I meant business. But just like always, you didn’t listen. That’s when I realized that it wasn’t going to be enough to just play games. I decided I had to kill the guys.”

“Oh, Debbie . . . .” Rebecca couldn’t help herself. She started crying again as the full magnitude of Debbie’s illness hit her for the first time. She was sick. She was incredibly sick.

“I thought it was going to be easy,” Debbie told her. “But I kept running into complications. The first time I went after Tom was at the Halloween dance. He had already left the bathroom when I went in to find him. Of course, I found Mr. Russ there instead. He confronted me about the accidents.” She made quotation marks with the hand that wasn’t touching the trigger of the gun. “He threatened to expose me. So what else could I do? I had to get rid of him. Luckily for me, the old guy didn’t have much strength in him. He didn’t even put up much of a fight.”

“Debbie, you didn’t . . . you couldn’t . . . .” Rebecca already knew for a fact that she had. Actually hearing her admitting to her crimes out loud, and admitting it so matter-of-factly, made it seem so much worse and so much more real.

“My next plan seemed fool proof. I grew up in a house with a mechanic dad and four older brothers who followed in his footsteps. There’s nothing I don’t know about cars. It was easy to cut the brake lines. I was sure I would get Tom that time. But then he had to ruin everything by lending Jay his truck. Not that that moron didn’t get exactly what was coming to him . . . .”

“Aghhh!”

That last comment was more than Tom could stand. He flung himself at Debbie, giving away their one advantage. He was still a little unsteady on his feet from his injuries, so Debbie easily sidestepped his desperate leap. When he tried to get to his feet he found the barrel of the gun less than a foot from his face, aimed directly between his eyes.

“Don’t play games with me, surfer boy.” Debbie warned. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Just do it, Debbie.” Tom was sobbing. He thrust himself closer to her, daring her. “You’re gonna kill us all anyway, right? Why drag it out? You’re the one who’s playing games.”

Debbie was thoughtful for a moment, and Rebecca found herself wishing the two men in her company would both keep their mouths shut for five minutes. Maybe then they would have a chance of surviving this nightmare.

“You’re right, Tom,” Debbie said. “I should just get it over with. But let’s make it interesting, shall we? Let’s give Becca a choice. Let’s make our little game truly phantom worthy.”

Rebecca didn’t like the sound of that. “No, Debbie. Just let them both go. I’ll stay with you. I promise.”

“How noble.” Debbie smirked. “Placing yourself out there like a sacrificial lamb. But no, you need to learn a lesson, Becca. And the only way you’ll learn that lesson is by having to make a difficult choice.”

“What . . . what kind of choice?”

“The choice between life and death, of course,” Debbie explained. “So who will you choose, Becca? Tom or Justyn? Choose between them once and for all, and choose wisely, because one of them will die.”

“No.” Rebecca gasped.

“Screw her, Becca. Run!” Justyn tried to pull his arms free, desperate to come to her aid. Rebecca appreciated the sentiment, but it was pointless. He was too weak, and bound too tightly.

“He’s right,” Tom agreed. “Let her kill us. She’s gonna do it either way. You just get out of here.”

“Tick, tock. Tick, tock.” Debbie tapped her foot impatiently. “Time is running out. Make your choice, Becca.”

Her whole body trembled. She thought she had known what fear was before, when she was being terrorized, when she found Wendy’s body hanging on the stage, when the gun was pointed at her. That was nothing. That was rated G in comparison to the way she felt now. She was afraid that someone was going to die right in front of her, and that she might as well be pulling the trigger herself. For Rebecca, that would be a fate worse than death.

“Debbie.” Rebecca pleaded. “You can’t expect me to pick who dies. You can’t do this to me!”

“I can’t do this to you?” Spittle flew from Debbie’s lips as she screamed at her, eyes flashing, lips pursed in fury. Rebecca felt herself flinch. She took an inadvertent step backwards in the face of so much rage. “I love you, Becca! I’ve always loved you. And you don’t even care. Now you need to know what it feels to lose someone you care about. You need to have your heart broken. So choose. Who do you love more?”

Of course, her first instinct was to scream out Justyn’s name. She couldn’t live without Justyn. She loved Justyn. But she also couldn’t live with herself if she let Tom die because of her. She couldn’t choose. She wouldn’t choose. Instead, she started to sob again just as her shaky knees gave out beneath her. She slipped to the floor in a broken, useless heap.

“Oh, poor Becca.” Debbie sympathized. “Poor, poor Becca.”

“Shoot me!” Justyn offered. He puffed out his chest as much as was possible, considering he was pretty well strapped down. “Leave her alone and just shoot me! You know you want to, you sick, twisted, demented . . . oufff.”

Tom made one swift jump across the room and punched Justyn in the stomach just as it appeared that Debbie’s eyes were actually going to bulge right out of her head. Even though Rebecca hated what it must have done to his still healing ribs, she was grateful for the intervention. Tom had just saved Justyn’s life. Debbie had been ready to explode and Justyn had his finger on the detonator.

“Time’s up,” Debbie said through clenched teeth. “If you won’t play, I guess I need to think of a new game. I know! This is perfect. You’re going to love this, Becca! So, here we go . . . eeny . . . .” Debbie motioned the gun in Justyn’s direction, very casually, like it was no more than a pointer or a ruler.

“Debbie, what are you doing?” Rebecca asked, forcing herself back to her feet.

“Meeny.” She ignored Rebecca’s question, and moved her hand so that the gun was now pointed at Tom.

“Deb, no, I’ll choose! I’ll choose.” Rebecca begged. “Just give me a little longer to think. Please, just a few more minutes!”

Just until whomever Tom called on his cell phone finally arrives. Assuming he got through to someone at all . . . .

“Nope. Sorry, Becca. I like this game way too much to stop now.” The point of the gun went back to Justyn. “Miney . . . .”

Rebecca knew what was coming—the last word, the last step in the game. Then the gun would go back to Tom, Debbie would fire, and Tom would be gone forever. Rebecca couldn’t let that happen. She had to stop it; she had to save Tom. It didn’t even matter if she killed herself in the process, just as long as Tom and Justyn were both safe. That was all that mattered.

Rebecca flung herself toward Tom. Using the full power of her body weight, she managed to knock him to the ground, landing hard on his chest and winding him momentarily. Rebecca thought she had bought herself at least a few seconds. But Debbie was smart. Debbie had tricked her. Before Rebecca and Tom could raise their heads to see what was happening—before Rebecca realized that the gun hadn’t shifted at all but was stilled aimed at Justyn who could only sit in stunned, wide-eyed horror—Debbie laughed and pulled the trigger.

“Moe,” she said.

No one even had time to scream as the bullet plunged into Justyn’s chest.