Chapter 22
The screams stop the moment I burst through the door—cutting off abruptly instead of slowly fading away.
There’s no sign of anyone out in the living room.
It must have stopped storming while I was in the bathroom, because everything is completely silent.
In the moonlit darkness, all I can make out are the bloody hand and footprints I’d left behind.
I glance up at the staircase I just came from, but there’s no one crumpled over or stomping their way down.
Still, I can’t shake the feeling that something is off.
Then I realize with a gulp that the front door to the cabin is wide open.
I thought I’d heard Carla head out onto the deck, but maybe I was wrong.
But if she did go through the front door, why leave it open?
I approach the door slowly. The front steps are slick and slippery, but there’s nothing falling from the sky except for the occasional droplet from the gutters overhead.
I quickly scan for any signs of Carla from the entryway, avoiding stepping outside and risking slipping in the darkness.
There’s no sign of her anywhere though, so I quickly shut the door and lock it.
When I turn back around, I see it. Blood smeared on the glass of the sliding door.
A sight so jarring I don’t even realize I’m shaking until I attempt to head to the kitchen and stumble to my knees.
Picking myself back up as quickly as I can, I grasp along the kitchen counter until I find the knife block, pull on the largest handle, and inch toward the sliding door.
I may not have trusted myself with a knife earlier, but this is different.
Before, I was worried about overreacting.
But I’ve seen now how ready and willing these people are to hurt me. Now, I know I need protection.
Now, I’m not afraid to fight back.
It’s just the animal blood, I tell myself the closer I get to the deck. Carla must’ve smudged the glass when she went outside.
When I first peek through the door, the deck looks empty. I open the slider, take a tentative step outside, and feel a familiar slippery warmth beneath my toes, different from the puddles of rain dotted around the deck.
Turns out, someone is out here.
Carla is crumpled on the ground, face upturned toward the sky. Her skin is as pale as the moonlight illuminating her, a single trail of blood trickling out of her slightly open mouth.
A thousand words sit on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t choke out any of them. Not even a scream. Instead, my body moves on instinct as I drop the knife, kneel down beside her, and try to gently shake her by the shoulders.
“Carla?” I choke out when she doesn’t respond to my touch, her eyes staring blankly. Her hand falls limply off where it was cradled against her chest, revealing a large gaping wound cut straight down the center of her body.
I inhale sharply, resisting the urge to be sick again. I reach for her wrist this time, gently pressing against the thin skin as I look for any sign of a pulse that I know deep down won’t be there.
This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening runs on repeat in my head, overlapping and getting louder and louder until my racing thoughts are the only thing I can hear.
This can’t be happening again.
Cries for help escape me without any conscious effort, my body going into pure survival mode.
We have no way to call for an ambulance.
No way to turn on the lights and try to patch up the wounds ourselves.
Forget waiting for Timothy—we need to leave now.
I’m not sure if there’s anything left that we can do for Carla, but the longer we stay here, the farther gone she is.
“Help!” I cry out, fingers scrambling to try to pull my phone out of my pocket—to at least give us some light to see just how badly Carla’s been injured.
I’m able to pry it out, but my hands are shaking too badly, my fingers too slippery from the fresh blood to grip it properly, and it goes tumbling onto the floor.
I keep shouting for help as I run my hand along the deck, looking for my phone. As soon as my fingers touch something solid they close around it without another thought, pain instantly rushing through me as I realize I grabbed the blade of the kitchen knife.
“Dammit,” I mumble as I shove the knife aside, and finally find my phone.
After placing it on the ground beside me face up so I can use the light to see, I hold my injured hand against my chest. The wound isn’t deep, but the pain is searing. Blinding like the worst kind of paper cut. I wince as I wrap the edge of my flannel around it, doing my best to stop the bleeding.
Thundering footsteps approach from inside the cabin.
Kai and Kiki come barreling out through the sliding door together, panicked and frantic.
Sweat dots Kai’s brow as he rushes over to my side, glass crunching beneath his sneakers as he kneels down beside me.
We never cleaned up the vase from earlier. The whole deck is still a minefield.
“Are you—”
He’s cut off by Kiki letting out a high-pitched scream much like the one that led me out to the deck in the first place.
She collapses beside Carla, eyes wide as she runs her hand along her blood-smeared cheeks.
Her lower lip quivers, her hands trembling as she closes hers around Carla’s and lifts it up toward her chest. But Kiki isn’t able to maintain her grip.
Carla’s limp hand falls back down with a heavy, sickening thunk.
“You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay,” Kiki repeats as fast as she can, like if she says it enough times it might finally come true.
She whips off her hoodie to dab at the blood on Carla’s cheeks, dragging it down her collarbone and toward her chest, where she finally sees the wide-open wound.
She lets out another, even louder scream.
Kai is frozen beside me, half-kneeling and shaking like a leaf as he stares wide-eyed at his sister and her dead best friend. His lips part, and in between jagged huffs of breath he lets out a series of clipped, unfinished murmurs that sound like what happened.
I don’t know, I want to say but can’t. Tears stream down my cheeks, my own arms shaking from the force of keeping myself propped up as I watch Kiki fold herself over Carla’s body, wailing into the crook of her neck.
We should leave. We should run away while we still can—get in the car and drive far away from this place. But we’re all frozen in place.
Slowly, Kiki hoists herself back up. She attempts to wrap her hoodie against Carla’s chest as if to stop the bleeding, but her bleeding has already stopped.
They’re soaked in it, both of them. Kiki’s hands shake so violently they’re practically vibrating as she runs a hand along Carla’s arm, feeling for something when she knocks against the knife I’d pushed away moments before they arrived.
Her eyes widen as she realizes what she’s looking at, her sobs cutting short as she follows the trail of blood behind it.
A trail that leads directly to me.
“You,” she snarls. And then I start to see what she sees: Her best friend, mauled and covered in blood. A knife with a stained blade. Me, the girl Carla just played a twisted prank on, sitting only a few feet away.
“I di—”
Kiki doesn’t let me finish. In the flash of a second, she grabs the knife off the ground, holds it high above her head, and screams at the top of her lungs—coming straight for me.