My head spins and I felt like maybe I would pass out. I couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol making me feel like this, or because it was so hot inside the house with all of the bodies surrounding around me, making it even more humid than what it was outside. I can’t even find Indy or Bradley in this place.
I need air.
I look around for the nearest exit, and then make my way through the bodies. The nausea is now building up and I make it out the back door before I can make a mess on the carpet. I hang over the railing of the back veranda and vomited into the bushes. I hear someone near me being gross out and walks away with her friend.
What a perfect time to end the New Year being sick in someone’s backyard.
I stand up straight, only to feel a pounding in my head. Why did I even agree to come to this party with my friends? I mean, I’m not a party kind of person and I especially didn’t drink. How many beers did I even have tonight? Two? Three? I don’t even remember anymore. All I’m glad is that I’m spending the night with Indy and Bradley, because if I return home and my parents see how intoxicated I am, I will be grounded. And being grounded for the first day of the New Year is not what I wanted. It also wouldn’t convince my parents to allow me to go to another party after I beg them to let me go to my first New Year’s party with my friends.
I sit down on the veranda swing, placing my can of beer that was half full on the deck beside me, and cradle my head in my hands. I rub my temples, but it doesn’t help with the pain.
“Leela? Are you out here?”
I look up when I hear Indy’s voice, my head spinning. “I’m here.”
Indy sits down beside me. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
I shake my head. “I have already vomited in the bushes.”
“Stay here. I will get you a glass of water.”
She gets up and walks inside. She returns with a glass of water in her hand, along with her twin brother trailing behind her. Indy hands me the glass. I take it from her and thank her. She sits down.
Bradley stands near his sister. “Indy said you weren’t well.”
I take a big gulp of the water. “I think I had too much to drink.”
“How much?”
I shrug. “I don’t remember. Two? Maybe three?”
“Well don’t have any more tonight. We want you to stay alert for midnight. Everyone is going to gather around the TV for the countdown in half an hour.”
I glance around me. There was like maybe fifty or more people at this party. “How on earth is everyone going to fit in the lounge room?”
Indy shrugs. “I guess we will find a way even if we all can’t stand in the lounge room.”
I feel my phone vibrating in the pocket of my jeans. I pull it out to find a message from my dad to let me know that my mother had just gone into labour and he was taking her to the hospital.
I glance up at my friends, the news my baby brother will be born tomorrow takes away the pounding pain in my head for a moment. With a smile on my face, I say, “Guys, my mother has just gone into labour.”
“Awesome.” Indy high-fives me. Bradley does the same.
“So how does it feel to know that tomorrow you will no longer be an only child?” Bradley asks me.
“Exciting,” I answer. “Especially because Theo is this miracle baby that they have always wanted before they decided to adopt me. I’m very happy for them.”
“Once we countdown to midnight we can always head over to the hospital,” Indy suggests.
I shake my head. If my parents see the state I am in right now, they will kill me. And the last thing I wanted was to stress Mum out with worried with what I have been up to tonight. Thankfully Dad told me in the message that I didn’t need to come to the hospital tonight. “My Dad said I can come to the hospital in the morning. He doesn’t want me to come right now. Besides, if they knew I have been drinking tonight, they will kill me for sure.”
Indy thinks about this for a second. “Good point. At least you can sleep it off at our place tonight.”
“What about your parents? Wouldn’t they be mad if they know you two have been drinking?”
“Nope, because they are somewhere on Sydney Harbour getting ready to watch the fireworks soon,” Bradley answers for himself and his sister. “They would never know we have been drinking.”
A firecracker goes off nearby, making me jump and caused the pounding in my head worse than it already is. I glance up to see the firecracker explode in the sky from a nearby property. It’s quick, colours of red and blue brightening up the sky.
That’s when I notice the drive-in theatre on the hill nearby. We were only a couple of metres away from the drive-in and I could just see the white screen in the darkness, a light from maybe lantern or flashlight bouncing off the screen. It was definitely not coming from the street lights on the road that passes by it.
Faulkner Hills Drive-In had been closed for almost two years. Well, abandoned is more like it. I remember the many nights when my parents would take me to see some of the family movies played there. Friday nights were my favourites because it was the night when they would show the old classics. I even had my first kiss there when I was fourteen – by Bradley who admitted he had a crush on me for a long time, but I politely let him down and told him I only saw him as a friend. The drive-in was special to every one of us. Our drive-in was the only one within miles.
The closure of the theatre was because of Anne Jones, a nineteen old girl who was murdered and her body was dumped there. Her murder was never solved.
So when I saw the strange light shining on the white screen, I wondered if someone was even there. The place was closed off completely to the public, even though there were still some people who sneak in. The place is full of graffiti and smashed windows in the concession stands.
“Hey, is something going on at the drive-in tonight?” I ask my friends.
Bradley and Indy scan their necks to look at the drive-in.
“Haven’t you heard?” Bradley says as he and his sister turn back to me. “The drive-in is haunted.”
I stare at him, unsure if he was for real or joshing. I burst into laughter a few seconds later. “Very funny, Bradley.”
“No, it’s true,” Indy says. “Apparently there has been strange activity happening around there for a couple of weeks.”
I raise my eyebrows. “What kind of strange activity?”
“Some of the people who lives near the theatre says they have been seeing lights coming from maybe a flashlight or a lantern, bouncing off the screen. Someone even said they saw a figure on the screen where the light shines on it.”
“People think it’s Anne Jones’ spirit haunting the drive-in,” Bradley says.
I really couldn’t stop laughing, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the alcohol or not. “You guys must be really drunk right now because there is no way that place is haunted. Ghosts aren’t real.”
“Of course they are,” Indy says.
I stand up, ignoring the dizziness when I do. “You know what? Let’s forget I even said anything about what I saw at the drive-in. It’s probably the alcohol that is making me see things. Let’s go inside and get ready for the countdown.”
My friends didn’t complain as they follow me inside. Someone had shut the stereo off and a few party goers had already gathered in the lounge room. The television was on displaying the entertainment going on at Sydney Harbour. Some band I have never heard of was playing music that in my honest opinion was horrible. The clock in the top left hand corner of the screen reads fifteen more minutes to midnight.
Indy stands close to me while her brother goes to stand with some of his friends. She asks me how I was feeling since she handed me some water. I still didn’t feel right with my head spinning. I just want this countdown to hurry so we can get out of here and head home where I can sleep.
As it gets closer and closer to midnight, more people gathered into the room. It didn’t help with how humid it was. I was sure I was going to pass out again.
The clock on the screen turns to 11:59. The hosts for the New Years’ Eve Party down at the harbour starts the countdown as the numbers display on a screen near the Harbour Bridge.
“Ten... nine... eight,” everyone in the room starts chanting along with the people on the television. “... five... four... three... two... one... HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
The room bursts into cheers, couples share New Year kisses with each other, and the television bursts into colours as the fireworks goes off on the harbour. Outside fireworks were going off with big bangs, along with neighbour dogs barking over the noise.
Indy takes my hand and drags me outside to the backyard as we watched the fireworks light up the sky.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I take it out to check the message I received from my dad, wishing me a happy New Year and to update on my mother who was still in labour.
When the fireworks die down, Indy embraces me into a tight hug.
“Happy New Year, Leela.”
“Happy New Year to you too, Indy.”
We headed back inside to fetch her brother so we could head home. As I walk up the steps of the veranda, I glance over my shoulder at the drive-in. Whatever I saw there earlier was gone. I wonder if the things my friends said was true or I was just imagining things.
YOU ARE READING
Finding Reed
Teen Fiction"Haven't you heard?" Bradley says as he and his sister turn back to me. "The drive-in is haunted." Rumour has it that the old Faulkner Hills Drive-in is haunted after a murder had taken place there almost two years ago. Leela doesn't believe in thos...
