She crouched behind the door in the unbroken darkness.
When her legs began to cramp, she paced the corners quietly, listening for any sound, anything besides the soft padding of her own feet.
It was going to feel so good to hurt him.
Heads bled. They bled a lot. She remembered that from health class.
She wouldn’t stay around to see it. She’d heave the lantern, and then she’d run. She’d charge out that door and down that hall and it didn’t matter where she came out. She would keep running and running forever. The police would need to travel to Canada to question her about this guy and his bloody, goopy brains spilled across the dungeon floor.
The North Pole, maybe.
CHAPTER 12
The air was thick with the smell of mini doughnuts and popcorn. People hollered and laughed, their conversations punctuated with midway sounds—a bell clanging as someone’s hammer made the puck fly all the way to the top of the High Striker, the whirring delirium of the Skee-Ball machines, the ring toss carny’s singsong voice as he ordered people to “step right up and win” a giant stuffed gorilla.
We were ready to play on the main stage.
The Girls, coming to you live.
It’d been my idea to form the band. The drums had been my refuge since second grade. Before that, I was a gray kid. You know the kind, invisible unless they get in your way. Then the phone call came. I’d been digging in the backyard sandbox, burying treasure that I dredged right back up. In the background came the telephone ring specific to our house, followed by Mom’s muffled voice, and then the back door opened. Mom appeared, the handset cradled to her chest, a kerchief over her hair. She was wearing coral lipstick even though she had no plans to leave the house.
“Heather,” she called out, “Mr.Ruppke needs someone to play drums in band. You want to play drums?”
“Sure.”
That’d been that.
I joined band and then orchestra, even strapped on the snares for summer marching crew. I was happy with whatever music I was asked to play until I stumbled across Fanny onAmerican Bandstandon August 3, 1974. Watching those four women—fourwomen—play rock and roll like they had every right, smashing and smiling through “I’ve Had It”? Well, there was no going back. I grew desperate for a band, a real one all my own.
Brenda had the voice and Maureen the garage, and the rest came together like chocolate and peanut butter. Brenda’s parents donated a musty roll of lime-green shag carpeting, and I brought all my posters, Fanny and the Runaways and Suzi Quatro, enough to line the garage walls. Once we got our instruments and lava lamps set up and lit some nag champa, it became a cozy club. The Girls was meant to be a temporary name. So stupid it was clever, you know? But we’d never gotten around to changing it.
And here we were, the Girls, about to play our first live gig.
I stared out at a crowd who had come to see Johnny Holm play and was likely wondering what the hell three girls were doing onstage. My knees were visibly quavering.Knockity knock knock.Maureen cradled her bass and Brenda held her guitar, but I was seated at the Johnny Holm drummer’s gear because there wouldn’t be enough time to tear down mine and put up his between sets. The drummer had been nice when he’d shown me how to adjust his seat, everyone had been kind, yet I was so terrified that I felt like the color white held together with electricity. If anyone looked at me sideways, I’d split into a million zinging atoms, never to be whole again.
Brenda was testing her pedals, her hair brushed glossy, ears bright with the peacock earrings her mom had let her borrow for the big show. Maureen looked fearless peering over the crowd. She wore new earrings tonight, too, gold balls the size of grapes hanging off dangling chains. They looked expensive. We hadn’t been able to get ahold of her forpractice earlier, so it’d just been Brenda and me in the garage, worried if Maureen would even show up tonight.
But of course she had. She was hungry for these people to love her, and they would once they heard us play. After what I’d seen last night, I’d expected her to be off today, weepy maybe, but she acted just like her regular self, casual and confident, and she was dressed like a million bucks. She wore her brown corduroy hip-hugger bell-bottoms with the tiny orange-and-yellow blossoms embroidered all over them. She’d paired her pants with a white peasant blouse, its drawstring neckline loose enough to hang off her naked shoulder. She’d feathered her hair like Farrah, and the stage lights made the green streaks look so cool.
Maureen was a rock star. Brenda, too, in her vibrant orange T-shirt, H.A.S.H. jeans with the star on the butt, and Candie’s leather-and-wood platform sandals. She’d shown up with mood rings for each of us, presented them to us solemnly.
“For luck,” she’d said. “Aim for deep blue. It means all is right with the world.”
I slid mine on. It immediately turned a sick yellow.
“Give it a minute,” Maureen said, laughing and smacking my arm before Brenda pulled all three of us into a hug.
We released each other, went to our instruments, were waiting for our cue to play.
I stared over the crowd, still feeling the warmth of Brenda and Maureen on my chest. As scared as I was, I could feel the pulse of the moment. With dusk falling, the twinkling lights of the midway made it look like Las Vegas out there. These people might not have come to see us, but we were going to give them a show.
A hard rap on the stage pulled my attention. I realized I’d been staring up at the Ferris wheel, mouth open and dry. I snapped it shut and looked over at Jerome Nillson in full uniform. Maureen, Brenda, and I had seenSmokey and the Banditat the Cinema 70 earlier this summer, and on our way out of the theater after, Maureen swore that if JackieGleason and Burt Reynolds got dropped in a blender together, what you poured out would look exactly like Sheriff Nillson.
Brenda and I had giggled so hard, mostly because it was true.
My dad stood next to Sheriff Nillson, beaming at me like I was about to discover the cure for cancer. The BCA agent, the Irish-looking one, stood behind them, his expression grim.
“We’re so pleased you’ll be performing,” Sheriff Nillson called loudly, pulling his hand back from the stage. “Local girls. Good stuff. You make Pantown proud.”
