Summary:
Things turn bad when Drake ends up in the hospital b/c of Josh, a mysterious stalker from Drake's past returns, stopping at nothing to get revenge, even murder. Drake falls for a sweet girl, but is scared to let her in his heart b/c of old heartbreaks. R&R!
Disclaimer:
Drake and Josh aren't mine and neither is any part of their amazingly hilarious show. So therefore, I wish no lawsuits, I'm only fourteen years old LOL. Um… cookie dough?
Note to Readers:
This chapter is sliiightly longer than the last few so yay! It's very emotional and the end gets kind of thriller-ish. The next chapter is going to be pretty scary. Bwhahahaaa… I can feel the story coming to a dramatic climax. On one hand I can't wait for it to be finished, so you all can know the WHOLE plot, but on the other hand, it's really sad to have to end a story. –sniffle-- Oh well, that's beside that point. Thanks midnightriot for posting! Your review mad me verrry happy! Anyway, here's the –creepy—chapter twenty four: "Screaming For You". If you've been thinking about cutting your fingernails, lately, no worries, after this chapter you won't need to. –snort--
Story: "Party in a Box"
Chapter: "Screaming For You"; Twenty - Four
Written By: Ginger
Extras:
Italics in "quotation marks" symbolize thoughts of
Drake's.
Italic Bold paragraphs are flash backs.
Italic, Bold, and Underlined refer to the mysterious man during flash backs.
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Drake had now gotten past the initial fear and tenseness of talking to his brother about it all, and the two sat on top of his high mattress, leaning in, in concentration and conversing, as they tried to cover as much ground as they could before they'd have to deal with Meghan. It had been so incredibly hard for Drake to get anything out of his mouth about the situation, at first, but now it was almost as if the words could hardly stay in his throat long enough for him to even think about them, before they came tumbling from his lips.
Even he was amazed at all the memories that started flying back in to his head, which he had long forgotten. He told his brother everything that had happened from the beginning.
"Dad never loved any of us. Mom always used to try and make it seem better than it was, and most of the time, after he would yell or whatever, when I was little, she'd just sit there and hug me. I remember a lot of the time, when he'd leave the house and slam the door behind him after he had a rage, I'd start saying: 'Mom… he doesn't love me, does he?' She used to tell me that he did, and that he was just a little mean—but after I turned 11, I kind of started figuring out for myself that it was something more than that. He started to notice the distance I kept from him, and he it made him mad. So, really, for the longest time, he began to torture me when I was alone… where Mom didn't know, when no one was looking." "Like how?" Josh asked, quickly, with a deep expression of interest scrawled in to the features of his face. "Mind games, yelling, hovering over me, threatening and things of that sort." came the firm answer. "You said he slapped you once. What happened there?" the other brother quipped, in a quiet and serious voice. "Oh, that day was really when I started to hate him. I was eleven and a half. I had been avoiding him for the past few days, and he kind of noticed, like I said. He came up to my room, and jerked open the door. I was lying on my bed, trying to think, and he started talking. I couldn't bear to listen to anymore of it, so I stood up and started to walk off. He called me back to him with a loud shout that scared me, and then he began to bawl me out. I… I was literally on the edge of cussing, but I managed atleast to not do that. So instead, I yelled that I wasn't going to listen to his garbage anymore. Then he just… reared back and slapped me, knocking me to the ground, and he left the house, leaving me alone in it until Mom finally came home. That was really the day the war began. He used to spank me hard all the time when I was younger than that, and sometimes for no reason at all. But then, he realized I had finally grown out of taking the blame from him and it sent him scrambling."
"…Woah. Dude, I—I had no idea ever that your Dad was so brutal to you. I mean, I admit that I wondered what type he was, when nobody ever mentioned him. And I knew how nice Mom was… it always confused me, because I only got to assume. I assumed maybe your real Dad had had an affair and your Mom divorced him because she knew that she didn't want you to have to grow up in that environment. But, now that I know… well, gosh, it just blows my mind that you actually went through all of this." Josh explained, shaking his head and halting for a breath every few words.
"Josh, I'm sorry for never telling you about anything. You're part of my family, now and I should have told you. I hope you're not angry with me." Drake replied, with a sound shake of the head. "Of course I'm not. Upset for you, maybe, but not in the least angry with you." the other teenager replied, with a reassuring smile.
Drake let a little smile slip himself, but still sighed, and tiredly layed back in to a weak heap on top of the thick pillows that were on his bed, behind him. "Are you okay?" Josh asked, after a while of quietness. "I guess. My head hurts though." he said simply, not bothering even to say the customary 'Oh, I'm okay'. "…Really?" the other brother replied, his eyes changing their expression and his eyebrows raising a hair in worry. "Yeah. …Oh! That reminds me! I almost forgot to tell you about what happened on the stairs—or, above the stairs and down the stairs."
"Yes! What did happen?" Josh nodded, trying to ward off his feelings of concern for his beat up brother. A considerable silent followed, but then the boy lost his reluctance and bit of fear in telling his brother what had happened.
"Well…" Drake began, in a weary voice: "I woke up to a really weird sound—a scratching noise. It went on and on and I finally got up to try and wake you. You, being the dork you are, wouldn't get up, though." "Heyy!" Josh growled, glaring and then dropping his expression: "Sorry… go on." "As I was saying--" Drake continued, emphasizing his words: "Well, I couldn't wake you up, so I grabbed my golf club out of the corner of the room and decided to take a quick peek by myself." "Why in the world did you do that?-!" the hazel – eyed boy, across from him exclaimed: "If I wouldn't wake up for anything, then you should have just stayed where you were! Then you wouldn't have had such a terrible fall." "Because it was such a frightening sound that I just had to make it stop. It might have been crazy, but just think about it, Josh—if he had really come to kill me, he might have come in to our room and shot us both. That was really the only thing that made me go out there." Drake explained, bending his brow and blinking sluggishly. "You mean to tell me that on account of worrying over me; you risked your own neck out there, not even knowing what in the world you might happen to run in to in the dark?" Josh replied, in an almost laughing voice. "…Yeah." Drake nodded, shrugging and slowly gathering a depressed look. "Drake Parker, that has to be the stupidest thing you've ever done since I've known you!" Josh snickered, jumping down off of the bed and leaving Drake sitting alone on it, with a mounting feeling of tears. He knew that perhaps wanting his brother to thank him was selfish, but seeing him act so unthankful and arrogant over it made him hurt inside. Suddenly Josh turned and rested his arms on the ledge of the bed, looking up at Drake: "But it's also got to be the most selfless and awesome thing, too."
With a relieved gasp of air, the other boy cracked a thankful smile and choked back his previous tears. "…Anyway, when you got out there, what did you exactly find?" Josh asked, standing still on the floor, a minute later. "Well, at first, nothing. It was very dark, and I couldn't see much. Then, when I was about to go down stairs to check it out, too, I heard something behind me. And a chuckle too. It... it was a creepy, hollow, dead sort of laugh, and it was so deeply pitched and sudden that it almost had me jump out of my skin. Somebody grabbed me, I jerked around, and then… well, that's where it gets hard to remember. I guess it all just happened so fast that now it's blurry in my mind. We struggled, and I started to try and hit him with my golf club, but somehow he managed to stun me and then knock it to the ground and down the stairs, behind me. He backed me up as far as he could to the top step, and then he spoke for the first time." "What did he say to you?" came the almost whispering question. "He said: 'Well, boy, it's come down to the end of the line, now and you see who's still boss? I told you when you were eleven years old that you were going to learn to respect me, and now, no matter how, you're going to respect me anyway.' Then he leaned in maybe only two or three inches from my face and stared at me with fiery, insanely glimmering eyes and whispered: 'Goodbye, Drake.' Before I knew what had happened, he had stepped back and pushed me. I felt myself falling backward and I grabbed his arm, dragging him forward, down the stairs, along with me. When we both tumbled to the bend in the steps, he managed to grab a rung of the railing and stop himself, leaving me to roll on to the bottom. I started to go almost unconscious, but before I half blacked out, I saw him step over me at the landing of the staircase and run through front door. Then you came down and got me up, a few seconds later."
Josh's eyes were dilated in unbelieving horror: "What a… sick, abusive monster. Drake, we… we have to do something about him. What'll we do?" "…I don't know, Josh. But I do know that all of this is coming to a dramatic peak. And sometime, it's bound to start heading downhill." "You're right. But we need to take some kind of action, now." "But Josh—" "Drake's there's no options—such as waiting until later. He tried to kill you. I, for one, am not going to sit around waiting for him to fulfill his dreams." he finally said, some how finding himself back upon the bed and feeling the strained truth in his own voice as he held a firm grip on his brother's shoulders.
"What then? What can we possibly do to beat him?" Drake exclaimed, shrugging off Josh's hands and continuing in a completely over wrought tone: "He's just too powerful. He always has been. He abused me so terribly, and then made everyone think that I was just crazy, instead of him. I tried to beat him, but now I see that he'll always be winning. The game's fixed, and there's nothing we can ever do about it. He'll kill me, but maybe its better that way. You'd have your own room, you wouldn't have to worry about me doing anything crazy anymore, and Meghan would be a ton happier, she has always hated me for hating my real Dad, I guess. Mom and Dad and Anita might take it kind of hard, but in the end, they'd be better off too—then the only time I'd ever bother them is when a friend of theirs dies and they have to walk past the cold marble headstone of my grave in the cemetery." "Drake!" Josh exclaimed in a tearful, gasping almost - yell: "Don't say that! I can't deal with you like this! Please, just… snap out of it for one second! Fight for yourself!" The teenager that he was speaking to, sobbed and looked past his brother, out the window blankly, and finally melted forward, folding himself in to his brother's arms: "I'm too sick of fighting, Josh…" "I know you are, Drake, but fight as hard as you can, with every last ounce of strength that you have left inside of you. For Meghan, and Mom and Dad, and Nita, fight. For yourself, fight." with one last disturbed gasp, Josh whispered the end of his speech in to the boy's ear, in a moving, hushed tone as he shook his head: "For me, fight."
The person in Josh's arms halted his crying after a minute and then suddenly pulled back from him, glancing again out the window beside the bed, taking on an unhinged, almost frightening look in his eyes and on his face, as he stared blankly in to the distance, murmuring: "I can't. There's no point in trying. … If I was there, I wouldn't have so much pain… I would have all of this mess." The tone and words that Drake was using confused Josh entirely and made his heart almost come to a dead stop as he frantically exclaimed: "Where, Drake? …If you were where?" His brother went on as if he hadn't even heard him, with an almost crazed look in his eyes: "I would finally be at peace…" Josh stared at him, wondering what he should do, and wondering what the suddenly eccentric teenager only a few feet away was implying and then, finally, the meaning of the other teen's words struck his mind all at once.
"…Wha—what are you thinking about?" he stuttered, afraid of what the answer would be, yet already guessing it. "I can't tell you…" came the dense reply, as Drake blindly crawled across the bed and stumbled to the floor. "Wait a minute!" Josh called after him, trying to follow him as he awkwardly staggered toward the door and ignored everything he was saying. His brother jumped from the high mattress and bolted across the width of the room, slipping between Drake and the doorway. "What is this about? What in the world has taken a hold of you, Drake?-! You're not going anywhere!" "Yes I am. Let me out." Drake said, in a dazed, slightly angry voice as he began to try and push past Josh, out of the safety of his presence. "No, I won't let you out! Not until you talk to me and tell me what this nonsense is all about and why you're acting this way all of the sudden!" Drake continued as if he was deaf and didn't hear anything but his own demising thoughts. "I said let me out!" he repeated, in a yell, pressing himself against Josh's extended arm, attempting to break past its barrier. "Drake!" a voice suddenly cried from behind Josh, near the stairs.
Both of the boys jumped at the sound of someone else's voice-- in surprise, and Josh being caught off guard, dropped his arm from the doorway, letting Drake slip out in to the hall way for a few steps. The boy that was still near the doorway of their room, followed the other teenager quickly and turned to see Anita standing next to the top of the stairs. The newly broken dawn sunlight fell in an eerie bluish - grey shaft across her and both of the boys stood in a temporary silence, with their faces mirroring their feelings of confusion. She was hunched over a little and was wearing a painful expression. "Anita! What are you doing—" the hazel eyed boy began, being cut off by the girl's sickened voice, as she turned to look at the stupefied boy standing beside him. "Drake… he—he came! He wants to kill us all. It's all over…" with those last, three, strained and tormented words, her eyes closed and she stood straight up for only a moment more before her knees locked and she wilted helplessly on to the floor, in front of the two boys.
"Anita!" Drake mumbled, with fear flashing through his eyes. He tried hard to run to her, but he couldn't seem to manage to move faster than a simple limping walk. Josh, on the other hand, raced forward, dropping to the floor and beginning to shake her by the shoulders. "Anita! Wake up! Nita!" Drake's eyes were large and he stood over the girl and his brother, watching her for a moment before finally dropping down beside her and glancing over at Josh with a terrified and powerless look.
The coherent boy shook her harder, trying to wake her up, by himself after realizing that Drake was much too phased out to help at all. But what happened next, neither of the boys expected. And what happened next marked the beginning of a mad, alarming battle and race against life and death themselves—and a battle no one ever imagined those teen age boys would have to face.
