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Wells Jaha was on a mission when he got to school Friday morning. It was Halloween weekend, the weather was perfect outside, and he was finally going to be making the film he had been working hard on for months. The script was written, the crew would be standing by, but first, he had to make sure he still had his leads.
As he walked into Homeroom, he stopped short at the empty desk in the second row. It was only empty because the blonde who usually sat there was in the seat at the front of the class—his seat. Wells ignored the curly-haired boy in the back row as he passed him, still angry at his decision, and tapped his blonde best friend on the shoulder.
“Hey, Griffin, what are you doing in my seat?”
“Mom and Dad are fighting again, Jaha,” Raven Reyes whispered fiercely to him from a few desks over. She was facing him and the blonde, but as soon as she had spoken, she slid further into her seat, and turned toward the front of the class, her dark ponytail whipping as she went. Despite her quick acknowledgment, and then even quicker dismissal of him, Wells resisted the urge to try to catch a whiff of the smell of her shampoo. He really had to work on this crush thing he had on her if Raven was going to be helping him with his movie this weekend. He smiled fondly, then looked back at his best friend. They both gave the other a pointed look.
“It’s safer if we have a buffer, I promise,” Clarke Griffin said, her piercing blue eyes pleading up at him, and he let them guide him down into the desk behind her without protest.
“You still haven’t patched it up with him?” Wells asked in disbelief.
Clarke and Bellamy had been together their whole short-lived lives, from diapers in the sandbox to the end of their adolescent school days. As long as Wells could remember, he had been there for it all, through the ups and downs, highs and lows of a love he was sure would last forever. He’d even been there over the summer at camp when Clarke spent all night talking and kissing a girl named Lexa. It had taken weeks for the truth to all come out, Bellamy had literally just forgiven her, but he decided that he couldn’t be with her. Wells didn’t really believe him and he sure wasn’t ready to let it all go like his best friends seemed to be.
“I tried. It’s over,” Clarke sighed heavily like the words were painful to say and they definitely stung to hear.
Before Wells could say anything else, their teacher strode in and demanded the attention of the class. Marcus Kane was one of Wells’ favorites, but he was no-nonsense today. Wells tuned out as the teacher droned on over morning announcements and safety protocols for the weekend. Being in the center of the class now made it easier for his ears to pick up on more than authority and academics. He was closer to the riffraff that resided in the back of the class.
“Hey, Bellamy, can I borrow your laptop charger?” John Murphy’s voice drifted over the sound of paper airplanes whizzing by overhead and chairs scraping on the floor mingled with the jokes and gossip of his classmates.
Wells whirled around so fast that he was out of his seat and in Murphy’s thin face before he realized the words coming out of his mouth. “They’re not divorced, Murphy, it’s just a trial separation, and if you think Bellamy Blake even has a laptop with him today, when we all know Clarke gives him all her notes and lets him cheat off her during tests…then you got another thing coming, buddy, so back off!”
“Jaha! Murphy! Not another word, gentleman.” The teacher looked flabbergasted at Wells’ outburst, but Wells knew he could not even begin to understand the teen drama that was playing out in front of him.
“Pfft, it’s like Kane’s forgotten the agony of being strangled by your soulmate’s betrayal,” Wells said, shaking his head in disapproval.
“I’d let Bellamy choke me before I’d ever hurt him. Give me your laptop charger, Murphy,” Clarke demanded quietly.
“I don’t have one!” Murphy spoke louder than he meant to in frustration and their teacher’s attention shot over in his direction.
“Detention! That’s your fifth one, Mr. Murphy, which means you will be joining Principal Jaha over the weekend to help with a special little project.”
“I didn’t think seniors still got detention,” Bellamy said in surprise, sitting up straighter in his seat and taking a pencil out from behind his ear. Kane was like a father to Bellamy, and he usually let him and his friend group slide in his classroom, but his tone caused the whole class to be silent.
“I told you to be a buffer, not get in the middle of this!” Clarke hissed as Wells settled back into his seat. He tried to look sheepish as Clarke looked over his shoulder and smiled warmly at the goofball behind him. He felt a nervousness in the pit of his stomach. He shot back up to whisper in her ear.
“You know, I need you guys…both of you…and you promised me...you’ll be there tonight, right? Please?”
“Wells Jaha, I did not spend my last six weekends painting backdrops and creating props for your Horror film for me not to show up tonight.”
“I know, Clarke, but…” Wells rolled his eyes to the side where Clarke could see Bellamy. The two locked eyes, the unspoken conversation that always flowed so freely between them made Wells’ heart physically ache, and then Clarke looked away.
“Seven sharp, right?” Bellamy’s deep voice floated by him. Clarke moved her head slightly, and then he spoke directly to Wells. “We’ll be there.”
“Okay, well, don’t forget your costumes,” Wells called over his shoulder, nodding his head at them both and then Raven. He focused on the clock over the door. They had six more hours until the end of the day and then he could set his plan in motion.
“Alright, class, settle down for real this time. Let me take attendance…”
—————
“You know this is going to be a disaster, don’t you?” Raven said, perched on the hood of her Camaro. She had arrived back at school just as Wells was parking his Beamer. He pulled on a dark flannel over his white tank and walked over to her. The dark green of her sports jacket looked good against the chrome of her car.
“Come on, Reyes, have a little faith.” He smiled brightly at her, but when he caught her smiling back at him he began to fiddle with the camera around his neck, trying to find the right setting that would complement the fading light. He lifted the camera to his eye and zoomed in on the cars across the parking lot.
He found the perfect shot. He would have to set them to slow motion later, but Clarke and Bellamy were both walking parallel to one another up to the front of the school where Wells and Raven were waiting. Bellamy’s perfectly coiffed hair blew freely in the wind. It looked longer than usual, the curls hung loosely at the edge of the collar of his leather jacket. The red flannel tied around his waist was a nice touch. Clarke looked lost in thought as she pranced daintily in a pair of white sneakers and paint-splattered overalls, while she threw her crimped hair over her shoulder absentmindedly.
“Did you cut your bangs for this?” Raven exclaimed and jumped off her car, ruining Wells’ shot, to meet Clarke.
“I think it was called ‘fringe’ in the ‘90s, babe,” Clarke ran her fingers quickly back and forth over the short tuft of hair now covering her forehead. The two girls embraced and chatted about their outfits excluding the boys that stood awkwardly beside them.
“Jaha.”
“Blake.”
“So we’re making a movie?”
“Yep…I’ll go over everything once we get inside. I’m just waiting for Monty and Jasper.”
“They're already here…somewhere…with Octavia.”
“Great! Let’s get this thing rolling then!” Clarke threw her arm over Wells and Raven steering them toward the school.
“Leave your phones!” Wells commanded. The other three teenagers stopped in their tracks and Clarke sucked in a big breath. “We’re making a film set in the 1990s. I cannot have any modern technology caught on camera!”
They all groaned, but relented, tossing their phones in the backseat of Raven’s racer wordlessly. Once Wells was satisfied, he signaled them all to walk through the gates that separated the parking lot from the rest of the school, and then snapped the lock pad into place.
“If you lock the gate, how are we supposed to get out?” Raven questioned him. The school was a fortress. The school buildings were fenced in, separate from the parking lot and the ball fields. Inside was a maze, courtyards, and breezeways crisscrossed from the cafeteria to the gym to the auditorium.
“My dad will be here to let us out. You didn’t think they’d let us stay here unsupervised, did you?”
When no one said anything else, they headed inside to the location of the first scene that Wells wanted to shoot.
He had an old camcorder set up in the annex. It was a newer addition to the front offices, set off in a little alcove that had just the right artificial lighting without putting any extra work into it. He had found the camcorder in the library along with a few other helpful things.
Murphy was leaning up against the far wall in front of the camcorder’s lens. He had been making faces until Wells and his friends stepped into the annex. Wells called out to him, “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for your father to show up. I’ve been searching the whole damn school for the past hour but I can’t find him anywhere.” Murphy just wanted to serve his time and get out of there. The school was creepy when it was empty. He glanced over at Bellamy, a smirk tugging up on his face at the sight of him. “Why are you freaks dressed like that?”
Wells didn’t answer his question as he looked him over, but he smiled wickedly at the boy. Murphy always wore leather and his hair was cut like a boy band member’s. He would fit right into Wells’ movie.
“I’m sorry to say this, and I do feel bad, but Murphy has to be the first to die,” Wells announced and put a hand down firmly in the middle of Murphy’s back to spook him.
“Wh—wha-a-t—what?” Murphy sputtered.
“Well, it’s certainly not going to be any of us,” Clarke chuckled at him, playing along with Wells’ jest, and the rest of them joined in. Even Wells let out a deep belly laugh at the thought of killing off his main characters before any of the action had begun.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but you don’t scare me, nothing scares me, and Bellamy doesn't belong to your best friend anymore, and if I want to borrow a laptop charger from him, I will! So what are you going to do about it?” The lights flickered off at Murphy’s threat and Raven let out a shrill scream in the pitch blackness.
A loud thwack hit the hard floor, followed by a repeated thump that echoed in the distance. No one breathed a word. The sounds drew closer.
“Alright, Jaha, you're in charge here. What's that?” Raven’s voice was beside Wells. He could feel her fingers curling over his bicep and the tips of her hair brushed his arm. He wanted to bask in this moment for as long as he could, but he had a part to play.
“That's the sound of our beating hearts, it signifies our heightened fears, and the fact that something horrible is about to walk down the hall, right now!” Wells’ voice rose over the rhythm of the beating until the lights popped back on.
“Ja-ha, ja-ha-ha, ja-ha-haha-ha-ha!” Jasper Jordan strode gleefully down the corridor as he made the Jaha Call. Monty Green and Octavia Blake stalked behind him, pushing all of their heavy equipment into the annex that was growing smaller by the minute. The others breathed a sigh of relief at the new trio.
“Aw, man! Where’s your dad?” Jasper looked around the room dejected by the absence of the senior Jaha. He dropped the basketball he had been dribbling in the hallway and let it roll to where Murphy was lying.
“With your mom,” Monty retorted. Jasper and Monty both held up their hand and clapped it with their other one. Octavia pushed past them, totally over their jovial nature, and stepped into Wells’ space.
“I was promised fifty bucks for this.” Bellamy’s little sister held out her hand expectantly. He looked over at Bellamy, but he just shook his head and waved his hand at them. Wells sighed and reached into his back pocket for his wallet. It was hard to find good help around here.
Raven screamed, again, noticing Murphy slumped over on the floor.
“Is he dead?” Bellamy asked. Jasper walked towards him, toed his body with his boot, and kicked his basketball away from him when he didn’t make a noise.
“I dunno,” Jasper shrugged.
“Okay, I need more space!” Wells clapped his hands, ignoring the body. “Everybody file out and I’ll get some B-Roll with it.” He ordered the group to the lobby. Clarke and Bellamy brought up the rear. From the angle of the camera, it looked like they were almost holding hands.
“Welcome to Arkadia High, where you are all going to die—,” a distorted voice sounded over the intercom. It rang up into the dome of the lobby, bouncing off of the curved sapphire walls. Raven and Octavia stopped setting up the lights in the corners from the sudden fright.
“That is going to sound so low budget, guys,” Wells teased as he passed Monty and Jasper, letting them think they had rigged the PA system. Jasper shrugged and shared a confused look with Monty.
Now that everyone was clearly spooked, it was finally time for Wells to go over the script of his movie.
“After the Final Girl survives, she is haunted by the spirit of her dead boyfriend. She goes to investigate the paranormal activity where he was murdered,” Wells read aloud from his script trying to make his voice deeper like Bellamy’s.
“Dun-dun-dun,” Jasper and Monty chanted in unison.
“So we’re going to do this out of order. Clarke is playing Josephine Lightbourne. Bellamy will be Gabriel Santiago. Raven, I need you kind of in the background for most of the shots. Just filler.” Raven gave him a sharp look. “Pretty, pretty filler, though.”
The abrupt squall of the payphone next to Octavia caused Monty to jump into Jasper’s arms and yelp in surprise. Raven took offense at his outburst and screamed above his pitch. Octavia rolled her eyes and picked up the phone from the receiver after the second ring like it was a typical Friday night for her and she was expecting a call.
“Hello?”
“Do you like scary movies? What’s your favorite?” A creepy voice could be heard throughout the lobby.
“Ooh, okay, my brother wouldn’t let me watch anything scary until like last year so let’s see, hmmm…”
While Octavia was thinking up a scary movie, the line went dead.
“There’s just a sharp buzz,” Octavia stated bewilderedly as she cradled the phone tightly to her ear.
“That’s the dial tone, but you have to put a coin in if you want to make a call…,” Clarke told her and she looked over at her ex. Bellamy reached into his pocket, but before he could produce the few coins needed to make a call, Octavia had ripped off the cord from the box in anger. She held it up to her brother. “Oopsie?”
“Great, we're doomed.”
“Who invited the freshman, anyways?”
”Dun-dun-dun.”
They all groaned and complained at the same time, the noises echoing off the walls until one of them was ready to explode.
“Damn it, Wells! Are we going to make your stupid movie or what?” Bellamy shouted over the others’ fuss.
“You were stupid to break up with Clarke!” Wells yelled back.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Bellamy paused.
“Did any of this happen when you two were together?”
“No.”
“You've killed us, you've killed us all.”
Wells walked away from his friends, out the doors of the lobby into the cool autumn night. The moon was hanging brightly in the sky over the courtyard, the stars were twinkling fervently against the chill, but Wells ignored it all. He kept walking towards the library even when he heard the others following behind him.
“We should probably stay together, Wells,” Clarke called to him. “Horror Movies 101!”
Inside the library, the group split apart but stayed within sight of one another. Wells made a circle around the perimeter of the stacks checking for anything--or anyone--out of the ordinary, still fuming a little over his and Bellamy’s argument. Raven and Octavia cruised the magazine aisles, while Monty and Jasper found a corner away from the smoke detectors so they could light up. Clarke wanted to follow her best friend, but Bellamy grabbed her arm to stop her.
“Hey, let him cool off for a bit. You know how he gets over us.”
“He’s taking the breakup worse than we are.” Bellamy snorted but nodded his head in agreement with her. He slid his hand down Clarke’s elbow down to her wrist and interlaced their fingers together. She let him lead her to the History section at the back of the library. Wells felt like an intruder, as he slowly made his way through the Classic Greek Literature section a row over. He knew that this was their spot, but he watched and listened anyway.
They sat down on the floor together. Bellamy crossed his ankles and Clarke tucked her legs underneath herself so they were side-by-side, but yet not quite touching. A puzzle with its pieces just out of reach from their perfect slots.
“We should probably go over some of those lines he wrote for us,” Bellamy said and pulled out the script from his back pocket.
“I don’t get it. Why is this happening?” Clarke whispered and tears welled up in her big blue eyes. A panic was picked up in Bellamy’s and he quickly angled his body to comfort her.
“Hey, hey….shhh--shush…It’s been a little intense tonight, but it’s okay. Wells and his dad are just trying to make us look scared on camera. You know Jaha is going to use this film to get into Hogwarts or whatever fancy school his dad wants him to go to…and you know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” Bellamy paused and corrected himself, “We wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
He leaned down and placed a reverent kiss at her temple.
“Oh, you big lug,” Clarke sniffled and pushed him off her. “Thanks, Bell.”
“Not that we’ve even seen any sign of his old man, not even once tonight…I’m beginning to think he isn’t around and you know what…”
Wells walked off before he could hear his best friends finish their discussion. There were heated voices coming from the front of the library by the magazines now.
“Look at this!” Octavia slammed a newspaper down on the table where Raven was flipping through last year’s Car and Driver.
“What do I care about an old school newspaper?”
“Check the date!”
“February—“
“February 27th, 1998! Ninety-eight!” Octavia cut her off. She had a wild look in her eyes as she scanned the front page.
“I don’t get it…”
“God, Reyes, you sure are out of use for someone who’s supposed to be so smart.”
“You mean, I’m obtuse?” Raven deadpanned.
“Look at the headline! And the picture!” The young Blake pointed at the old paper. Raven read the black and white words once and then twice again, trying to make sense of what she was reading. The picture didn’t help clear up any of her confusion.
“Josie was the lone survivor of the Arkadia Massacre. Witnesses say she returned to school with a look of pure distraught as she clung to the microchip necklace that had belonged to her boyfriend, Gabriel. The couple had been voted most likely to be together forever and it looked like someone was determined to make sure that superlative remained true?!”
“Oh my God! I have to tell Clarke and Bellamy!” Raven stood up and went for the stacks. Octavia tried to get her to take the newspaper with her, but before she could hand it to her, Raven was being pummeled by a shower of books from the Biology section.
“Raven!”
Wells wasn’t the first one to reach her, but by the time he did, it was too late. Clarke held her limp hand under the pile of books. “She was coming to warn us about something!”
“We gotta get out of here!” Jasper decided now was the time to wig out. He and Monty let out a scream and then took off in the direction of the auditorium. Octavia snatched the school newspaper from the table and took off after them. Wells could do nothing but follow and pray Bellamy and Clarke would too.
It was pure chaos as everyone ran into the auditorium. Clarke’s set pieces created a labyrinth more confusing than the halls of Arkadia High. They ran through the aisles of seats, jumped over cardboard cutouts, and Wells would swear later on that he passed a full-on school bus parked backstage. The intercom was crackling to life and the demented song from before played over and over, “Welcome to Arkadia High…fall right in…there’ll be fun for everyone!”
“Why are you doing this to us?” Bellamy called out into the empty theater. The spotlight turned on at the sound of his voice. He and Clarke were frozen in the center of the stage, her hand in his.
A shadow moved from behind the control booth and music shut off. Wells took a deep breath as he stepped into the path of the beam.
“Wells…?” Clarke lifted her free hand up to block the harsh light. Wells came into view. Someone gasped, probably Jasper.
“You guys have been with each other forever...and if you're not now, then I guess I don’t know what that means...and it makes me angry that there's nothing I can do to fix that.”
“Wells, you're not responsible for this.”
“This isn't your fault.”
“But it is! This whole night is my fault. I thought I could make you two see that you belonged together.” His words sent a chill through the large room and the stage light blew out. Yellow sparks rained down over Bellamy and Clarke. Bellamy threw his arms over her head to protect her and they fell to the ground.
“No!” Wells pleaded helplessly. He dropped his camera. It fell from his hands to his side, held on by the straps around his neck, but it felt like a chain sinking to the bottom of the depths. The light was still blinking green.
“How could you have possibly caused what happened tonight?” Octavia shouted with a stack of newspapers tucked under her arm. She was standing in an empty row, not exactly afraid of the roof caving in like Jasper and Monty seemed to be as they cowered in the chairs beside her.
“I had help, obviously. I’m fifty dollars short, aren’t I?”
“It wasn’t us! And it wasn’t Principal Jaha or Murphy or Raven. And none of us were ‘in on it.’ Not all of this,” she gestured around her.
“You can come out now…Dad, Rey, Murp—hy?” His voice cracked in fear—and uncertainty. His father had been on this plan, as was Raven even though she doubted it would work, and Murphy had been recruited to help during his detention. Where were they now? Were they really dead? What did Little Blake know?
“It was Josephine and Gabriel! They weren’t just characters you created for your movie. They were real students who went to this school in 1998. Josie killed herself, driven mad by the haunting of her dead lover. Together they haunt the halls of Arkadia. Forever and ever and ever and ever...”
Her voice echoed around the amphitheater. She held up the newspaper to show a black-and-white photograph of a good looking couple on the front page. It was a blonde girl in overalls embracing a boy with slicked back hair in leather. They looked identical to Clarke and Bellamy tonight.
“Maybe there’s no such thing as soulmates, Wells.” It was Clarke’s voice in the dark.
“Or forever!” And then Bellamy’s.
Wells’ best friends were fine. They were back on their feet. A soft glow was emanating from the stage somewhere lighting them up. They would be okay, but the look on their faces was enough to destroy him. It was really over.
Clarke twirled a piece of her crimped hair around her index finger and then held up her hands as a sign of surrender for everyone to see that they were splattered with red paint from the backdrops she had painted. Her canvas was still wet, her story not yet finished. Wells brought his hands up to his face, but even in the dim light, he knew that his hands were covered in blood.
“What have I done?”