Oh my God. He was asking her out. Wait – was this a date? She looked around the room, as if hoping to see an audience there who could corroborate what she’d just read and interpret exactly what it meant. Where the heck was Molly when you needed her? Of course it was a date … Movies meant date. Food meant date. Movies and food definitely meant date. A real date. She was just asked out! Then the complete joy that had her jumping up and down in her room, squealing like a piglet, stopped as quickly as it had come on, replaced by icy, realistic panic. What was she doing? There was no way her mom was gonna let her go. No freakin’ way. Especially if she knew Zach was seventeen. She nibbled on a nail. Shit. She didn’t want to tell him no. What if he didn’t ask again?

ElCapitan says: hello? LainBrain says: Hmmm … I definitely want 2 see that. ElCapitan says: will ur mom b cool? LainBrain says: dont know. specially after today ElCapitan says: then dont tell her

Lainey stared at the computer as if it were alive, watching her carefully through its blinking curser. Her stomach twisted with both unease and excitement.

ElCapitan says: what she dont know cant hurt her

She looked around the empty room. A strange tickle itched the back of her throat, as if something had gotten stuck halfway down and wasn’t budging any more. That could work. She could tell her mom she was going to the movies with that new girl, Carrie. It’s not like she’d ever check, anyway. Liza was the problem child, not her. And short of, ‘Did you have a good time?’ she knew there’d be no questions asked. There never were.

LainBrain says: I cant b home 2 late though ElCapitan says: ull b home by 10. I have practice @ 8 ElCapitan says: thats AM!!!

Lainey chewed on her lip. Her brain was a mush of thoughts. What should she do?

ElCapitan says: u still there? LainBrain says: ummm … thinking ElCapitan says: I’ll pick u up at school. weve played CS High b4. Stay late and meet me @ 5:30 in the parking lot in back by the baseball field. Ill b in a black BMW LainBrain says: 5:30? ElCapitan says: cant get the car till Dad gets home. CS is a hoof

That’s right. Zach lived in Jupiter, which, according to MapQuest was, like, an hour away. He was gonna drive an hour just to see her … Lainey took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding. She’d never done anything wrong before. Besides the picture, she’d never gone against the rules. But her mom would just say no for the sake of saying no, and because she had these dumb, arbitrary rules about how old you had to be to do certain things. Twelve for make-up, thirteen for group dates, fifteen for car dates. A knee-jerk reaction to Liza’s screwed-up adolescence. If she didn’t go on Friday, when would she ever meet Zach? Never, that’s when.

LainBrain says: k. sounds like fun ElCapitan says: cool. keep it low. I don’t want ur mom or step to trip. Find a theater near u where its playin LainBrain says: k ElCapitan says: cant wait to finally meet u LainBrain says: me 2

She leaned back in the chair. Her brain was spinning. She not only had to figure out how she was gonna get herself across town on Friday afternoon to Coral Springs High – which she’d never even been to before – she also had to figure out how that self was gonna look like the girl he thought she was when she got there. Then an icy thought gripped her, causing a race of goosebumps to ripple across the back of her neck.

What if it didn’t work? What if he saw right through her and knew she was thirteen? What would he do then?

The computer blurped.

ElCapitan says: dont worry. ull b safe w/me

She smiled. It was as if he’d just read her mind. Again.

ElCapitan says: im no psycho

When the last bell rang on Friday afternoon, Sawgrass Middle exploded like an overfilled cake pan in a hot oven. A thousand bodies simultaneously poured out every door, scrambling for a school bus or the car rider pick-up line, hurrying to unlock bikes or meet up with friends for the walk home. Homework, tests and projects were three long days off. For a half-hour, deafening chaos ruled the crowded schoolyard.

And then it was over.

Perched on her tippy toes atop the hand dryer in the girls’ bathroom, Lainey watched out the tiny crank window as the last of the packed yellow buses pulled out of the roundabout, and the crazed chatter of fifty or so screaming voices slowly faded away. Crumpled pieces of paper and empty snack bags dotted the deserted schoolyard, rolling like tumbleweeds across the parking lot and football field. There were no after-school activities, club meets or conferences on Fridays at Sawgrass – even the teachers left when the last bell sounded. By now, the halls were as lifeless as the parking lot.

Lainey exhaled the breath she’d seemingly been holding all day – all week actually – and climbed down from the dryer, grabbing her book bag from the handicap stall, where she’d hidden out since the bell rang. With her bus long gone, she was now one step closer to going through with this. She checked her cell – it was 4:10. She had time, but not too much, considering she still had to put on make-up, get dressed and catch the 5:10 bus up on Sample Road that would take her over to Coral Springs High. Then she had to find the baseball field parking lot. Not too much time was good, she told herself, as her stomach started to flip-flop again. She didn’t want any downtime to think about what she was doing or why she shouldn’t be doing it, because she knew that she’d probably chicken out. That was one reason why she hadn’t told a soul about meeting Zach tonight. Not even Molly. Because she didn’t want anyone talking her out of it. The other was more of a personal safety net. If, God forbid, Zach didn’t show up – if, say, he stood her up – well, then no one would ever have to know about that either and she wouldn’t have to feel like such a total loser for the rest of her life every time she got with her friends. ‘Remember Lainey’s first date? Not!’

She shook the voices out of her head. She’d come this far and she wasn’t turning back. Just wait till she told everyone about her date with her football player boyfriend. That he took her to the movies. And dinner! And he didn’t just have a car – he had a BMW! Jeesh! She’d have to figure out a way to get him to take a picture with her with the car on her cell just so she could show everyone, she thought, as she changed into Liza’s prized jeans and a cute Abercrombie T-shirt. She’d wear her sneakers for the walk to the bus stop, then change into Liza’s BCBG booties when she finally got to the high school. She dumped the plastic sandwich bag full of makeup that she’d pilfered from Liza’s dresser into the sink next to hers. If her sister knew she’d raided both her closet and her drawers she’d go postal, so everything had to be back in its proper place by midnight, which was when Liza got off work at the bowling alley. She picked through the pile of compacts and lipsticks, before settling on a brown and green eye-shadow palette. She hesitated for a moment, swirling a finger over the shimmery powders. Besides Halloween and the occasional lip-gloss, Lainey had never really put on makeup before. She hoped she could remember what stuff Molly had used on her face last weekend and in what order she’d used it. She didn’t want to look like a clown.

A half-hour later she stepped out of the bathroom and smack into the janitor, almost landing face first in the oversized yellow mop-bucket he was pushing. They both gasped. Then the janitor looked around frantically, like he’d recognized Lainey from an FBI wanted poster, yelling something that she didn’t need to speak Spanish to understand.

Time to go. She walked as fast as she could without running for the main doors, praying that the rule of no one sticking around the school on Friday afternoons applied to those warm bodies in Administration as well.

It was a good thing she’d worn her sneakers. By the time she made it to Sample, she was completely out of breath and had to run to catch the bus. She settled into a front seat, all the while avoiding the stare of the disheveled old man across from her who was slurping an orange and eyeing her carefully. She wiped her hands on her jeans and quietly asked the driver to let her know when her stop was, then watched out the window as the string of stores, banks and restaurants slipped past in a blur. Places she’d eaten at or shopped at dozens of times, but today, she thought, trying to restrain the smile that threatened to commandeer her whole face, it was like she was seeing them all for the very first time.

From his parking spot in front of the two-storied Allstate office building, he watched as the slight figure with the long chestnut hair stepped off the bus and looked around, like a tourist taking in New York’s Empire State Building for the very first time might – with awe, wonder, and excitement.

No doubt. It was definitely her.

She was pretty, in her tight blue jeans and cute, funky T-shirt, a book bag slung clumsily over her shoulder. She had a really nice figure – not too curvy, not too straight. He didn’t like the Kate Moss waif look, but he also didn’t like a voluptuous hourglass figure, either. Too many girls tried too hard to look like something they were not. First came the padded bras and shaping underwear, then the breast implants, liposuction, nose jobs, botox. What you saw was not necessarily what you got. It was nice to see someone as yet unaffected by the Barbie bullshit spouted in fashion magazines and paraded about on MTV. Someone whose beautiful body was still … pure. He watched anxiously as she stopped in front of the main double doors of the school and hesitated, looking around. He feared for a moment that she might try and go in. Although he didn’t think anyone was still around, he didn’t want to find out he was wrong. That would ruin everything. He felt his heart beat a bit faster. But after a few seconds, she turned and trotted through the deserted parking lot, heading over to the baseball field in the far back of the school to wait.

For him.

His mouth suddenly felt as though he’d swallowed a jar full of cotton balls and he rubbed his hands together to stop them from shaking. It was a bad habit – a quirk was what his mother called it. His hands would shake whenever he got too excited. His quirk always made meeting new people quite difficult. Especially pretty girls.

He looked down at the photo on his lap one last time. Then he slipped it into the glove compartment and started up the engine. The sun had just dipped under the horizon and night was officially here. He looked at the clock. 5:29. Right on time.

So nice, he thought as he pulled out of the parking lot. So very, very nice.

He liked a girl who was punctual.

The bus pulled away from the curb, leaving Lainey behind in a noxious cloud of diesel fumes. Across the street, Coral Springs High loomed imposingly under the umbrella of an enormous ficus tree. She checked her cell. 5:23.

No time to think. No time to dawdle. No turning back.

The football field looked like it was over to the left, so she figured the baseball field was probably in the back of the school. She hurried across the street and cut through the empty parking lot. It looked like no one stuck around here on Friday afternoons, either. Shadows sliced through the trees and across the broken asphalt. In a few minutes the sun would be down. Lainey loved the fall and Halloween and Thanksgiving, but she hated the shorter days. By the time December got here, you were down to what? An hour of daylight after school? She followed the chain-link fence to the back of the school, and there it was. The baseball field. No cars in this parking lot, either. No players on the field. It was as deserted as Sawgrass, which was good. Seeing other teenagers eye her like she was an imposter would drive her nerves completely over the edge.

She sat down on the curb and changed into Liza’s boots, throwing her sneakers into her book bag. Damn! Time to panic. Why’d she bring her stupid Twilight bag? She’d meant to switch to Liza’s old silver knapsack. She put a hand over Robert Pattinson’s handsome face. This could ruin everything. She’d have to keep that covered up or out of sight somehow – if Zach saw it she’d be so embarrassed. He’d definitely know then that she wasn’t sixteen. Maybe she should say her book bag broke this morning and she’d had to borrow her little sister’s from last year? Another couple of lies, including a sibling she didn’t have. A pang of guilt hit her. She’d told so many the last couple of days. It was getting real hard to keep track of them all …

She stood up and walked around the parking lot, trying to force her conscience on to another subject and adjust to Liza’s heels. If the Twilight bag wasn’t a dead giveaway she was a fraud, kissing the movie theater steps sure would do it. She popped a piece of gum in her mouth and put on another coat of berry-flavored lip-gloss, shaking her hands out to stop them from sweating. The very real thought occurred to her then that Zach might try to kiss her tonight.

Her first kiss …

That was it. She flipped open her cell and speed-dialed Molly. Pacing the parking lot, she spun her book-bag strap around and around, until it was all twisted.

It went straight to voicemail.

‘Hey, M, it’s me,’ Lainey began excitedly. ‘You’re probably at piano, but I wished you’d picked up! I have something so – you’ll never freakin’ guess where I am! Never!’

The car had pulled up behind her so quietly, the loose gravel on the asphalt had not even crunched. It was his voice she heard first.

‘Lainey?’

She literally jumped in her sister’s boots. There was no time to finish. No time left to think. The moment was finally right here, right now.

‘I gotta go,’ she whispered quickly into the phone. ‘Look, don’t call me back. I don’t want the phone to ring. I’ll call you in a couple of hours.’

Then she licked her lips to make them shiny, snuck a deep breath and spun around to meet the totally awesome guy she’d literally been dreaming about these past few weeks.

Cindy was finally going to meet her prince. Let the ball begin.

‘Hey!’ she said into the half-open car window, trying to nonchalantly unspin the tangled book bag. It was almost dark and the windows were tinted black, like a limo. It was hard to see inside. ‘I didn’t hear you drive up.’

‘S’up?’ he replied softly. His face was obscured in part by the baseball cap on his head and dark sunglasses, but she caught the flash of his mega-watt smile, and her knees shook just a little. His light blond hair spilled out from under the cap, barely touching his shoulders. Dressed in a tight long-sleeved black T-shirt, and dark jeans, the rest of his body blended like a chameleon with the all-black interior. He waved a hand toward the door. ‘Hop in.’

And so she did.

She slid into the passenger seat, which was buttery soft and smooth, but ice cold. The car smelled like new leather and old smoke. And Paco Rabanne, Todd’s favorite cologne. She pushed that thought right out of her head. Her stepdad was the last person she wanted to be thinking about.

‘Nice car,’ she said with a smile as she closed the door. She bent over and casually tried to rearrange the book bag at her feet so that Robert Pattinson was flipped face-down on the floor. She could shoot herself for forgetting to switch it out.

‘Thanks,’ he replied.

The window slid back up, and he turned up the radio. Lainey recognized the song from the movie Thirteen Going on Thirty. It was Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’.

That’s a weird song, she thought. Who the hell listens to Michael Jackson that wasn’t, like, her parents’ age? She would have expected maybe Linkin Park or The Fray, Zach’s two favorite bands. Maybe he was playing it in the spirit of Halloween – as a build-up to the movie. God, she thought, please, please don’t let him be a geek. Or a weirdo. ‘Zombieland’s playing at a couple of places,’ Lainey said. ‘The next showing is six-ten at Magnolia, which is just up the road. Or we could go to the seven-fifteen at the mall.’ There were a couple of other theaters within driving distance, but those were the two she knew didn’t care if a kindergartner walked by himself into an R movie, as long as he bought himself a ticket.

‘OK.’

… You start to scream, but terror takes the sound before you make it …

Michael Jackson crooned and squealed on the radio. ‘You want to go to the seven-fifteen? Then, um, make a left out of the parking lot. I can take you the way I always go, but I have to be on Atlantic Boulevard to get there.’ She giggled and looked around the dashboard. ‘I hope you have a navigation system on this thing. My friends always say I’m geographically challenged. I have a hard time finding my way back to my locker after lunch.’

Embossed in metal on the steering wheel was a raised, scripted L. Lainey recognized it from Molly’s dad’s car. He had a Lexus.

… Cause this is thriller, Thriller Night! And no one’s gonna save you from the beast about to strike …

She wanted to ask him why he wasn’t driving the BMW, but that sounded shallow. And it was shallow. A Lexus was just as nice. Nicer, maybe. She fidgeted with the mood ring on her finger. She hoped making conversation wasn’t gonna be this hard all night. Molly was the conversationalist, not her.

‘Are you hungry?’ she asked as they pulled out of the lot and made a right on to Rock Island. ‘We can go to the food court at the mall, if you want.’ That would be perfect, she thought. There was a really big chance that she’d see someone from Ramblewood there. Maybe even Melissa or Erica.

‘Sounds good,’ he said softly.

The creepy-sounding old guy started to rap on the radio. Vincent Price, the horror movie king from, like, a thousand years ago.

Darkness falls across the land. The midnight hour is close at hand …

‘I really liked your picture,’ Zach said, but he didn’t look at her. She watched as a single drop of sweat trickled down the side of his neck, disappearing into his shirt.

His arm was on the armrest, his hand dangling casually off the edge. Rough fingers tapped the gear shift. Wiry black hairs sprouted from the flesh above his knuckles. Lainey’s eyes slowly moved up his arm. Coarse black hairs stuck out of his cuff, like spindly spider legs.

She suddenly felt incredibly cold. Prickly goosebumps raced across her flesh. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the car.

Zach was blond.

… And though you fight to stay alive, your body starts to shiver …

He turned into an empty lot where a bunch of power station lines were. Across the street was a park. Molly’s mom had taken her and Molly there once before. It had a nature reserve running through it. The mall was in the other direction.

For no mere mortal can resist the evil of the thriller …

She reached for the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. The king of horror broke out into maniacal laughter. The song was over.

The cloth came across her face with lightning speed even as the car was still moving. The wicked taste burned her eyes and closed her throat. It was hard to breathe. Then he punched her hard in the head. She felt her face smash against the glass. She felt the warm blood trickle from her forehead, running past her eye and down her cheek. She felt her hands fall to the floor, her legs twitch and just stop working, as everything went to black.

The horror king just kept on laughing.

The hall clock started to chime. Debbie LaManna could hear it, even over the blare of the television. Even two rooms away. It chimed every quarter-hour, then dang in the number of hours at the top of every hour. It took five fucking minutes just to get through midnight. She cracked off a smoke ring. The ornate grandfather clock and a bank account with $3,714.22 in it was what her mother had left her nine years ago when she’d died of lung cancer, an oxygen tube strapped to her nose and a pack of Newports in hand. Of course the money was long gone, but damn it if that hideous Mack the Knife moon-face clock was still here – dragged along behind her from husband to husband, apartment to apartment, rental to rental. Toasting each lost hour of her life with a loud, distracting clang. One of these days she was gonna call the Salvation Army to come haul it away.

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