Midnight Games(5)

“Hey, you love us,” Shark replies. “If we didn’t come here every night, what would you do?”

Ryland grins. “Enjoy the peace and quiet?”

The front door swings open. We all turn. A girl steps into the neon red light at the entrance.

The red light shimmers and wraps around her like a cloak.

And behind the curtain of red, I see . . . I see another figure. A dark figure rising above the girl.

I lean over the table and squint into the eerie light. It’s a bird. A giant blackbird. It raises its wings and beats them hard, as if fighting off the red light.

I see one blue eye. The eye seems to be staring into the bar, staring straight at me!

I know it.

I recognize that bird from somewhere.

And I open my mouth in a scream I can’t stop.





5

Ada jumps up. She shakes me by the shoulders. “Nate—what’s wrong? What is it?”

The girl takes a few steps into the bar. Behind her, the bird vanishes.

It just disappears into the red neon. The last thing I see is its blue eye.

I take a deep breath and hold it. I watch the girl approach. Did she know that bird was hovering above her? I don’t think so.

Ada squeezes my shoulders. “You’re trembling,” she says. “What made you scream like that?”

Everyone stares at me.

I keep my eyes on the girl. “I . . . I guess I freaked because of that girl,” I tell them.

I don’t want them to know I’m suddenly seeing strange, one-eyed blackbirds.

“The girl looks so much like Jamie,” I say. “I . . . I thought I was seeing double.”

Jamie laughs. “Of course she looks like me. What’s your problem, Nate?” She gives me a gentle shove. “It’s my cousin Dana. Remember I told you about her?”

My heart is still pounding.

Up at the front, Ryland is telling Jamie’s cousin to kiss the plaque on the wall. She hesitates. She waves at Jamie. Then she leans forward and gives the plaque a peck.

“Remember?” Jamie whispers. “Dana is going to live with me and my family. For the rest of senior year.”

I’m starting to feel normal again. But I can’t lose the picture of that staring blackbird, floating in the red neon above Dana’s head.

“She looks so much like you,” I tell Jamie. “Isn’t she the one you don’t like?”

“Sshhh.” Jamie shoves me again. “Here she comes.” She turns to the others. “Be nice to her, guys. She’s had a horrible year.”

Dana steps up to the table. She has Jamie’s wavy, black hair and her round, high forehead and dark eyes. When she smiles, she has Jamie’s smile.

“Hi, everyone,” she says.

“You made it. I didn’t know if you were coming or not,” Jamie tells her.

Shark pulls over a chair. “I’m Shark,” he says. “That’s Lewis, and that ugly dude is my friend Nate.”

Everyone laughs.

Dana pulls out the chair and starts to sit down.

“Nice to meet you,” she says. “I’m Dana Fear.”





PART TWO





6

My name is Dana Fear, and I’m seventeen. A week after I moved in with my cousin Jamie Richards, she threw a party to introduce me to her friends. That was very nice of her.

Jamie hasn’t always been nice to me.

We didn’t get along when we were kids. My first memories are of Jamie pulling my hair and not letting me play with her dolls.

She had shelves and shelves of dolls, I remember. And a big, clean room, with bunk beds so she could have sleepovers. And she had a huge closet filled with toys and games and videos.

My room at home was about the size of her closet. My family was poor, and we lived in a tiny, falling-down house on the edge of the Fear Street Woods.

Jamie’s family never visited our house. We always went to her house. Her father was a lawyer or something, and my parents were always talking about how rich they were.

They lived in a big, stone house in North Hills, the fancy part of Shadyside. I remember the long driveway that curved around to the back. They had a barbecue grill with a tall chimney built right into their patio, and their own tennis court.

Funny, the things you remember from your childhood.

I remember standing with Jamie on her tennis court one day. She spilled out a big, wire basket of tennis balls. They rolled all over, and she ordered me to pick them up.

I ran around the court, gathering up tennis balls. And when I filled the basket, she spilled them all out again.

She thought that was a riot. She tossed back her head and laughed. I thought she was really mean.

When I was ten, my family moved away from Shadyside, and I didn’t see Jamie for the longest time.

Last year, I heard about her accident. I didn’t know the details. I heard she was at the old Fear Mansion when it was torn down, and she and her friend Lewis fell into the hole for the new foundation. A mountain of dirt started to fall in on them, and they were almost buried alive.