The Prom Queen Read online

  I opened the door to the stairwell. It sure was dark down there. You’d think they’d keep a few lights on when people were still using the school!

  I hesitated for a moment and then went in.

  The heavy door shut behind me with a very loud click. Suddenly wary, I turned and tried the doorknob.

  The door had locked behind me.

  I suddenly felt a heaviness in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to be locked in a stairwell in the dark all night. I prayed that the gym would be open.

  I groped my way down the darkened stairs. By the time I got to the bottom, it was just about pitch-dark. I was waving my hands around in front of me in slow motion, trying to feel my way.

  As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I found the door to the gym and turned the knob. Locked.

  I’m trapped in here, I thought.

  I can’t get out.

  I—I can’t breathe!

  No. I could breathe perfectly fine. I scolded myself for overdoing it.

  Calm down, Lizzy. Calm down.

  My heart was pounding like someone playing on a tom-tom. I began to bang on the locked door with my fists.

  “Come on, somebody! Anybody! Let me out!”

  I pounded for several minutes.

  No response.

  There was no one else down here.

  Simone was probably on stage now, singing her little heart out. Would anyone miss the set designer?

  I doubted it.

  I tried to tell myself to stay calm, but my fear took over. A wave of terror swept over me.

  I had to get out of there. I had to.

  I started to pound again with all my might. When that didn’t work, I started screaming.

  I had screamed twice when I heard footsteps approaching on the other side of the gym door.

  I stopped screaming. And listened.

  I should’ve felt relieved. But instead, I became more frightened.

  My breath caught in my throat. My head was throbbing.

  It’s the killer, I thought.

  He’s been hiding in the gym.

  He’s heard my screams. He knows I’m all alone, trapped in here.

  And now he’s coming for me.

  The footsteps grew louder.

  I knew I should run.

  But before I could move, the door was pulled open—and I screamed again.

  Chapter

  4

  “W hat’s the matter with you? Why are you screaming like that?”

  It was Mr. Santucci, the school’s maintenance man. He gaped at me, his expression more frightened than mine.

  “Why did you come down this way?” he asked, studying my face in the dim light. “This door is locked.”

  “I-I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I was looking for someone.”

  “There’s no one down here,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s all locked up. You gave me a scare.”

  I apologized again, feeling like a fool. Why had I screamed like that? Why had I let my fear take over?

  My heart still pounding, I followed him through the empty gym. Still grumbling, he let me out one of the back doors.

  As I was walking through the parking lot, I heard a familiar sound and glanced over toward the lighted tennis courts, which were at the far end of the lot.

  The tennis team was practicing. Dawn would be there. Maybe she had seen Simone.

  Just as I started toward the courts, the gate in the fence opened and a girl came out. She was too far away for me to see clearly. But I could tell she was tall and carrying a tennis racket in one hand.

  I got a little closer and could make out long blond hair. And then I recognized her.

  “Dawn!” I called.

  She looked up, startled, and barely waved. She opened the door to her mother’s red Camaro.

  I jogged over to her. She wasn’t going to take off without saying hello, was she?

  “Dawn!” I called again. “Have you seen Simone?”

  She held on to the car door. “Not since school,” she called back. She tossed her racket into the car and slid inside.

  “Hey! Wait a sec!” I called. She pulled out. I had to jump to the side as Dawn backed up. I waved my arms at her as I ran toward the car.

  “What’s the rush?” I called as she rolled down her window.

  “Sorry,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “I was looking for Simone.”

  “Yeah, well, like I said, I haven’t—”

  “Dawn!”

  I was only a few feet from her now. Close enough to see her face clearly. It was scratched and bleeding. She looked as if she’d been clawed by a vicious cat.

  “It’s nothing,” Dawn told me, catching my openmouthed stare.

  “What do you mean, it’s nothing? You’ve got—” I was right up beside the car now. “You’ve got blood all over your tennis whites.”

  “Oh, well, nothing a little detergent won’t—”

  “Yeah, but what happened?”

  Dawn revved the motor. “I was hitting with Marcie. Turns out she’s got this wicked groundstroke. She kept hitting it deeper and deeper. Then I crashed against the stupid fence. It’s nothing. It looks a lot worse than it is. But listen, I’ve got to get home because—ah—well, because I’m late,” she finished lamely.

  With that she pulled out. I shook my head. It seemed as if she was hiding something, but I had no idea what it could be.

  “Lizzy!”

  I turned. It was Eva, waving to me from across the parking lot. Standing near her were several of the other cast members. I could see Robbie climb into his car and slam the door.

  “I couldn’t find her!” I yelled back.

  Eva nodded. “Rehearsal is canceled. We have no idea where she is.”

  I suppose I could have gotten Mr. Santucci to open the auditorium and let me finish painting the abbey. But at that point I was no longer in the mood.

  I headed for my car, planning to drive straight home. But then I remembered that Simone lived in North Hills, which is near the school. I decided to stop off there on my way. Maybe Simone was home by now.

  Her parents’ big Lincoln was parked in the driveway. I pulled in behind it. I scooted out and ran up to ring the bell. Mrs. Perry’s face appeared beside the drapes, checking to see who was there. Then the door opened.

  “Hi, Lizzy,” she said distractedly. “How nice to see you.” She was wearing her coat. “Please come in.”

  Mr. Perry walked in from the hall. He was also wearing his coat and was glancing through a pile of mail. “Lizzy McVay!” he exclaimed warmly, as if he had been waiting to see me for weeks. I always thought Mr. Perry was a nice guy.

  “Simone is up in her room,” Mrs. Perry told me. “At least, I think she is. We just got home, but I saw the light on up there as we drove up.”

  I smiled and thanked her as I mounted the dark, thickly carpeted front stairs. Nice going, Simone, I thought. She must have totally forgotten about rehearsal.

  I slowed down as I neared the top.

  It was dark up there except for a strip of light coming from under Simone’s door.

  “Simone?” I called.

  No answer.

  Probably listening to music with her headphones on.

  I crossed to her door and knocked.

  “Simone? It’s me, Lizzy. Can I come in?”

  Still no answer. I knocked one more time.

  Then I opened the door.

  And gasped in horror.

  The entire room had been torn apart.

  The room seemed to tilt. For a moment I felt as if I were about to fall.

  The first thing I focused on was Simone’s old teddy bear. It lay on the floor near the bed. Its head had been ripped off and white stuffing poked up through its open body. The bear’s glassy black eyes stared up at me blankly.

  The rest of the room quickly came into focus.

  The floor was cluttered with Simone’s belongings.

  The sheets and bedspread had be
en pulled off the bed.

  A lamp lay broken on its side at the foot of her desk.

  Papers were scattered everywhere. One of the white window curtains had been ripped off its rod.

  It looked as if a terrible struggle had taken place.

  Uttering a low cry of fright, I started to back away.

  But then I saw the most horrifying sight of all.

  On the carpet near my feet was a large, dark puddle of blood.

  Chapter

  5

  I didn’t scream. I came closer to fainting. I could smell the blood near my feet and rushed through the room to the open window. I needed fresh air, and fast.

  I stuck my head out, gasping for air.

  And that’s when I saw him.

  His figure was illuminated for just an instant by the Perrys’ back porch light.

  A man.

  Running across the backyard into the woods. He was carrying a big gray sack in his arms.

  I stared as hard as I could into the darkness. But he ran out of view.

  And then I finally began to do what I thought I would have done right away.

  I began to scream.

  • • •

  The next afternoon after school I was back at Simone’s house. So were Justin, Robbie, Elana, Dawn, Rachel, and a couple of others. The police had wanted to question all of Simone’s good friends.

  Even with all the people in the Perrys’ living room, the room felt empty. We all missed Simone. No one had seen her since the day before.

  The police hadn’t arrived yet. No one was saying much. Everyone was pretty scared.

  I got up and went into the kitchen. I wanted to see if I could help Mrs. Perry. But mostly I wanted to get out of the living room.

  “Oh, Lizzy.” Mrs. Perry gave me a brittle smile as I walked in. She was arranging peanut-butter cookies on a plate to serve to all of us. But I could see that her hands were trembling. And her mascara had run slightly. “The police will be here any minute,” she told me.

  “I’ll get that,” I said, taking the cookies from her hand.

  It was as if she needed something to hold on to to keep her calm. Her hands started to shake even more now. She lifted them to cover her face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I’m so scared.”

  I knew what to do when kids started crying or acting scared. I could usually joke them out of it, or hug them, or whatever, till they felt better. Whenever Rachel got really down, for instance, I always used to say, “Your feet stink.” It was so stupid that it made her laugh every time.

  When adults freaked out, I was totally at a loss though. Obviously I couldn’t tell Mrs. Perry that her feet stank.

  I just stood there helplessly as Mrs. Perry began to cry. Luckily Mr. Perry came into the kitchen at that moment. He quickly put his arms around his wife.

  “Simone’s going to be fine,” he whispered to her.

  “No, she won’t,” she sobbed.

  Mr. Perry tightened his grip around her. “Whoever kidnapped her only wants money. We’ll give him whatever he wants, and that’ll be the end of it.”

  I could tell he didn’t really believe it. What kind of kidnapper left a puddle of the victim’s blood all over the floor?

  A killer, that’s who.

  Like the guy who had killed that girl, Stacy, who was found in the Fear Street woods.

  Mr. Perry tried to smile reassuringly at me over his wife’s shoulder, but his face was very drawn. There were big, dark bags under his eyes, like a raccoon’s circles. “Please just tell everyone the police will be here any minute.”

  I headed back into the living room.

  All the kids stared at me when I went into the room, as if they were hoping I might be Simone.

  I shrugged. “They say the cops’ll be here any minute.”

  As if on cue the doorbell rang.

  Two police officers were standing on the front porch. Mr. Perry hurried in from the kitchen. His face lit up when he saw them. “Any news?” he asked hopefully.

  One of the officers, a tall, lanky guy, shook his head. The other one—a short, dark-haired woman—frowned. Mr. Perry’s face fell.

  He showed them into the living room and introduced them to all of us. Then he said, “I’ll get my wife,” and left.

  “I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us,” Officer Jackson, the tall, lanky one, told the large group. He looked almost as worried as the Perrys.

  “Do you really think it’s a kidnapping?” Dawn asked him.

  Officer Jackson shrugged his narrow shoulders.

  I could hear Mrs. Perry blowing her nose in the kitchen.

  “We hope so,” Officer Barnett offered with a tight little smile. “But we also have to be prepared for—”

  “For the worst,” Officer Jackson finished her sentence. “Right now we’ve got several officers out combing the Fear Street woods.”

  We all stared at one another in silent horror. The Fear Street woods, where they had found Stacy. The woods, where— An image flashed in my mind from the TV news: the blue body bag lying in the muddy ravine.

  If there were people in the room who didn’t believe it before, they did now—we’d never see Simone again.

  Rachel caught my eye. It was as if she wanted me to tell her this wasn’t really happening.

  I tried to be reassuring. But as horrified as I had been when Stacy had been found in the woods, it was nothing to what I felt now. This was Simone, someone I had known since kindergarten.

  Mr. and Mrs. Perry were walking toward us, Mrs. Perry carrying a tray of cookies, and Mr. Perry holding a pitcher of milk. Mrs. Perry bit her lip when she saw the police. Mr. Perry took the tray from her and set it down on the coffee table.

  Robbie Barron reached out and took a cookie. Everyone stared at him. How could he eat at a time like this? He bit into the cookie, and in the silence of the room, everyone heard him chomp. He glanced around and saw everyone staring at him. He put the rest of the cookie down.

  Just then the telephone rang.

  We all jumped, as if we had just gotten an electric shock. Mr. Perry bounded out of the room. He came back a moment later.

  “Just my secretary,” he explained, grim faced.

  “Okay,” Officer Barnett said, taking a large black notebook from her belt hook and flipping it open. “Let’s get started. We need any information that might be helpful in finding Simone. Anything,” she added firmly.

  “Everything is important. Understood?” her fellow officer added, his eyes surveying us one by one.

  I nodded vigorously, as if it were really a question that needed an answer. Then Officer Jackson said, “Who wants to start?”

  They stared at us. We all shifted uncomfortably in our seats. This was worse than when a teacher asked a question and nobody raised a hand.

  A lot worse.

  “Okay, let’s start with where you all were last night,” suggested Officer Barnett. She turned her eyes to the boy sitting closest to her—Justin.

  Justin appeared very nervous, even more nervous than the rest of us. “I—uh—I was at—”

  Why does he sound as if he’s thinking up a lie? I wondered.

  “I was at Elana’s,” he finally said. “Studying. I mean, you know. We were doing our homework together.”

  I stared at Elana. That was a shocker!

  Elana caught my glance and blushed. She turned away.

  Who asked who? I wondered. I bet it was Elana who asked Justin. She probably didn’t like it that Justin had asked out Rachel and Dawn and passed her over.

  I glanced at Mrs. Perry. But she didn’t seem surprised. I guess she had a lot more on her mind right then than whether or not Justin was cheating on her daughter.

  “I was working all afternoon,” Rachel said, “at the Seven-Eleven. Then I was at home.”

  “I was playing tennis,” Dawn told the police. She glanced at me. I remembered her bloody tennis whites. But she had explained that, the accident with the
fence.

  Officer Jackson was looking at me expectantly. “I was working on the set,” I began.

  “The set?” he asked.

  “Simone’s school is putting on The Sound of Music,” Mr. Perry interjected.

  The policeman nodded. “Go on.”

  “I already told this stuff to the police last night,” I said.

  “Tell us,” Officer Jackson said patiently.

  I told the whole terrifying story again. How I had stopped to find Simone. How I had found her room all torn up. About the blood on the carpet. And how I had run to the window for air and had seen a man running away in the darkness.

  “Now,” Officer Barnett said, “this is very important. Can you remember anything about what the man looked like? Anything at all?”

  Everyone was staring at me. I felt myself begin to sweat. It suddenly seemed up to me, and me alone, to catch Simone’s attacker.

  I tried, in my mind, to stare out Simone’s window again. But I couldn’t picture the man.

  He was a dark blur.

  A dark, frightening blur.

  I shook my head no.

  “This sack he was carrying,” Officer Jackson asked. “How big was it?”

  I knew the question he was really asking. “As big as a person,” I said.

  Mrs. Perry gasped and raised her hand to her mouth.

  “Robbie, what was wrong between you and Simone yesterday?” Elana asked tentatively. “I mean, it looked like the two of you were really having a big argument.”

  All eyes turned to Elana, then Robbie, then back to Elana.

  “It was nothing,” Robbie mumbled.

  “It didn’t sound like nothing,” Elana said. “You were really mad at her for always showing up late for rehearsals. You said she was wrecking the whole production with her lousy attitude. You said if she didn’t start coming on time, you were going to stuff her nun’s wimple down her throat and—”

  “Of course I was arguing with her,” Robbie interrupted shrilly. “Who didn’t argue with her! She was impossible!”

  That word was made me wince. “Robbie!” I said.

  We all stole glances at Mr. and Mrs. Perry.

  Robbie blushed bright red. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—I mean . . .”