The Wish (Nightmare Hall) Read Free Page A

into the back of the front seat and then bounced backward, as Julie’s had.
    The car, pinioned by the tree branch in the windshield, skidded sideways just once, and then came to a rest, sideways in the road.
    Behind it, Kyle’s truck shrieked to a halt.

Chapter 3
    N O ONE IN THE car moved. No one made a sound. Gabe and Julie were unconscious, and the backseat passengers had been stunned into a frozen silence.
    Tiny spots of black and orange whirled around Alex’s head. She shook it, trying to erase the spots. Her ears rang, and she couldn’t remember where she was. What was she doing in this car? Shouldn’t she be home in bed?
    Oh. She didn’t live at home anymore. She lived on campus. With twins.
    The girl sitting beside her…Alex decided this girl was probably one of the twins…sat up with a groan and called out a name.
    Julie. The name she called was Julie. Her sister, Alex thought. Her twin sister. The driver…the girl whose face wasn’t there anymore. Her head was lying on the steering wheel, but her eyes were closed and everything else was all smeared together in a sort of bright red mess.
    When the twin in the backseat got no response, her voice rose to a scream.
    The boy beside Alex, cursing softly, struggled with his seat belt.
    A boy’s face appeared at the front window on the passenger’s side. Alex had no idea who he was. Someone called out, “Kyle! Get us out of here!” So she thought the boy’s name must be Kyle. Did she know someone named Kyle? She couldn’t remember.
    The black and orange spots continued to spin, like a constellation, around Alex’s head.
    A different face appeared at the driver’s window. Now there were two people on the outside of the car, both struggling to open a door. A girl joined them. She, too, wrestled with the door handles.
    Feeling detached, as if none of this had anything to do with her, Alex thought, That girl will get us out. She looks strong enough to open just about anything.
    There were three people struggling to get the car doors open. None was having any luck. The doors remained solidly jammed.
    “I want out of this car right now!” Alex said aloud.
    The twin on her right was sobbing.
    It was a two-door car, and the half-windows in the back didn’t open at all. When the boy beside Alex finally got free of his seat belt, he got up and pushed past her to attempt to open the front window. But the windows were electric, sealed shut.
    His arm brushed against the head of the injured boy in the front seat, and the boy moaned.
    Groaning in defeat, the boy who had tried to open the window flopped back into his seat and put his head in his hands. “God,” he said, “is that gasoline I smell?”
    Alex pretended she didn’t smell a thing. The girl beside her was already hysterical. What would she do if she thought the car might catch on fire at any second?
    But Alex did smell gasoline. Were they all going to be burned alive?
    Someone was shouting…one of the boys outside the car had pressed his face against the window and was hollering something. Alex thought his face looked really funny, all smashed against the glass like that, like a pumpkin discarded after Halloween.
    “Kiki called the fire department!” she heard.
    Who was Kiki?
    “The firemen will get you out,” the mouth in the mashed face continued. “Hang in there. They’re bringing an ambulance, too.” Then the mouth added, “Is Jenny okay?”
    Jenny? The twin, sobbing hysterically. Jenny was definitely not okay.
    The Jenny who was not okay leaned over the front seat and began to shake the driver, trying to awaken her.
    Alex snapped out of her fog to grab Jenny’s arm. “Stop that right now!” she cried. “Don’t touch her! She could have a neck injury, or a spinal thing. You’re not ever supposed to move anyone when they’ve been in an accident.”
    The words surprised…astonished her. An accident? Is that what was happening? They had had an accident?
    How had it happened?
    Why had it