Going Under (Book 1 in the Mermaids of Damariscotta Trilogy)

Chapter 12 - Halloween

Harry had let me off my punishment three days early for ‘good behaviour’ just in time for Halloween.  Apparently, Matt hadn’t learned anything about my troubles with Jeremy and insisted that I go with him and our friends to the haunted house Jeremy had created for Ivy to get back at Samara and the Linley sisters.

Neither Harry or myself was happy at the thought of me being in close proximity to Jeremy.  And so we came to a conclusion, since half the cheerleading squad and other students who had a beef with Samara and the Linley’s were all raving on about it, it was decided that I would go but only with Tyler there as back up.  Isla had also promised to watch from the waters and would alert Harry right away if there was anything amiss.

The locket that Isla had found had belonged to my Grandma, Harry had told me.  He was surprised to see it but happy to help me clean it up so that I could wear it myself.  Not because it held pictures of me but because it was hers.

I tucked it out of sight under my Victorian style Halloween dress.  Tyler came to pick me up dressed as Dracula with Shauna in the back dressed as Bo Peep.  Everybody from school seemed to be congregating round the front of some old shack down by the shore that was dressed up and decked all out with spooky Halloween ghosts, skeletons and such.

The strangest thing though was that none of them entered the shack but went to the back door of the fishmongers next door.  There was a large plasma screen newly affixed to the staff room wall and half of the student body was milling around in it.  There were a couple smaller screens fixed to the back wall for those who were sat towards the back.

Most folks had been quite clever and brought their own stools, chairs and foldable garden furniture.  I didn’t recognise Jeremy until he stood up to speak to the crowd in his Beetlejuice costume.  Ivy was sitting a little way away from him in a Posion Ivy costume.

“Right, everyone shut up!” the crowd quietened at once.  “So you all know why you’re here.” Jeremy began followed by a unison of agreements from the crowd.  “Everyone here has been burned by the Linley sisters or Fields in one way or another.  Recently she made a most heinous suggestion about me sister and I so I decided it was time for a little pay back.”

“What have you got in store for them?” called a girl from the back.

“Lots of little terrifying tricks and traps are in store for them.  That’s why no one here should step inside that shack.  Now, my informant tells me that they are on their way so we need to keep the volume down.  The shack is next door, so they’ll probably hear us if we make any sound.”

“So how are we to know exactly what is going on in there?” asked a sceptic behind me.

Ivy picked up the remotes and switched the screens on.  “In each room,” she began, “there is a small camera that will allow us to see and hear everything that happens in there.”

“As you can see,” Jeremy said flicking through channels, “room one looks like any ordinary run of the mill Halloween haunted house.  Nothing amiss, we don’t want to scare them off too early, we need to get them through the double doors.  The ‘dummies’”, Jeremy air quoted pointing to the grotesque looking dummy clowns on either side of the door, “are actually my friends John and Steve.  They will wait for them to pass through the doors before locking them inside.”

“Oh, yeah!” laughed Ash to Tyler’s left.

“They’re coming!” someone said in a loud whisper by the back door.

“Someone kill the lights.” Jeremy said suddenly.  “Sorry, I was hoping to show you all that was in store for them but I guess we’ll just leave it a surprise for now.”