CHAPTER 9
“People who truly killed once are far more likely to kill again.”
—Not Sleepless in Seattle
Our group takes the left side. We need to cross in front of the dance floor again to get there, and the contrast between the times when I had to squeeze myself through sweaty swaying bodies and now does not escape me. There are four of us creeping around a space that is meant to hold two hundred.
We don’t talk as we walk close to the booths, forming a tight diamond shape with Wes at the front and Campbell at the back.
Conversation doesn’t factor high when you’re trying to avoid the attention of a killer, and I hope everyone is using the silence to keep an ear out for some preview that we’re going to meet this psycho face to face.
The departing footsteps of the other group echo behind us and I try not to let my attention go with them, straining instead to hear sounds coming from the dimly lit alcoves ahead of us—shuffling shoes, scraping metal, a nondiegetic ominous tone that would signal impending danger.
It takes a lot of effort to keep my trembling fingers tight around the neck of my bottle when we’re halfway across the room.
The cool, dim white light that shone down on the stairs bathes the entire open space of the dance floor.
A glimmer catches my eye, and I shoot a glance up to a disco ball on the ceiling.
Intermittent gusts of air from the vents keep it moving, even if it is at a glacial pace, and faint diamonds of light spray across the mezzanine level above our heads.
The slow, unhurried revolution should be calming, but it isn’t.
Who’s to say the killer isn’t going to switch the light off and we’ll be stuck with no way of shielding ourselves?
It was a possibility with eight people escaping the basement, but it becomes a lot more concerning now that we’ve halved our numbers.
We make it back to the stairs, and I try not to think about what—and who—still lies beneath our feet. But trying not to think about the bodies in the bar just makes me think about the very real possibility of finding even more bodies up here.
We round the brick wall and come to another hallway. The gas lamps, intended to foster a seductive, panty-dropping effect, look eerie tracing the wall, especially when the alcoves set into them on our left makes the crimson hallway look like toothless gums.
The first alcove contains deep-set booths, more velvet curtains, and a mini chandelier that is still and glistening.
Once Wes has checked it for a threat, we continue down the corridor.
As we’re heading for the second alcove my heel gets caught in the strands of the plush carpet.
The tangled red threads threaten to drag me into the mouth of the seating niche, and flashes of Ripley in Aliens and Katie in Paranormal Activity cross my mind as I lose my balance.
I grab the frame of the alcove, pulling myself away from the knot that’s latched on to my heel, and try not to stab myself with the Kahlúa bottle as I swallow a gasp that wants to escape upon my death drop.
The “clumsy girl” trope has never been my favorite in rom-coms, and in a slasher, unsteady feet is a sign you’re not going to make it to the sequel.
Wes, Laurie, and Campbell all freeze, as I land/sit/fall onto the cushioned seat, so practiced in keeping quiet at this point that their only reaction is a collective flinch.
Once I’ve accepted I haven’t fallen onto some hidden buzzsaw and nothing is going to descend from the ceiling and drill through my stomach, I push off the surface of the couch, balancing on my elbows, and notice…
I’m sparkling.
The bare parts of my body that hit the couch are covered in red glitter. The last-minute cleaners really did do a terrible job.
“Fuck,” I spit.
Wes checks the space around us and then steps into the alcove.
“Are you all right?”
Glitter stays with you forever. So, no. If silver sparkles were glistening across my bare shoulders instead of red, this would be the perfect moment to turn to him with a tortured look on my face and announce that “This is the skin of a killer.” But then again, we’re trying to get away from an actual killer, so I tamp down any impulse to make a Twilight reference.
“Yeah.” I hand my Kahlúa bottle over to him and slip my shoes off, fastening the straps around each other and hanging them in the crook of my elbow; they’re heavy and the heels are pointy, and that’s enough of a criterion to make them a weapon.
When I’m on my feet, I immediately feel more grounded, more capable.
Confident I can stay upright and outrun the killer…
maybe even throw my shoes at him to slow him down.
“Huh…” I hear Wes let out an amused exhale, and when I glance up at him, he looks like he did at the beginning of our date. Surprised, pleasantly so.
“What?”
“You’re…” He grins. “Short.”
“I’m not that short.”
I get to work trying to brush as much of the cherry-red sparkles from my arms as I can. The sweat and blood makes them stick, and then it’s on my hands, and I can feel it falling onto the tops of my feet. Fuck.
“You’re shorter than me.”
I’m eye level with the center of his chest, but I don’t think that would be a new experience for him. He’s taller than Campbell. Laurie, too. But it’s my height that makes his eyes seem to sparkle with amusement as I hold out my hand for my weapon.
“Is that a problem?”
“Not at all.” He still looks amused, and I pin him with a warning look.
“If you say I’m cute, it won’t be the killer you have to worry about.”
He places the bottle back in my palm, his fingers lingering against my wrist, and for a moment I think I could forget we’re trying to escape if he touched me like that again.
If he touched me like that on other parts of my body, but slower, firmer, for longer.
Especially when he says, “I don’t think you’re cute, Jamie… ”
His eyes dart down to my bare feet and then slowly draw a path all the way back up to meet mine before he adds, “Not at all.”
The way he holds my stare afterward has the potential to make my knees weak and send me back onto the booth again. Okay, so we both don’t think the other is cute. Good to know.
I’d like to ask what other words he’d use to describe me, but I’m aware Campbell and Laurie are standing guard since I had my graceful collapse, and we are most definitely still being chased by a psycho.
So I gesture out to the corridor and walk past him, situating myself back in formation with Laurie and hoping he can’t spot the blush on my face.
He walks out a moment later and heads to the front of the group, leading us to the neighboring alcove and conducting the same check he performed on the first one.
Laurie catches my eye while we wait, and though she doesn’t open her mouth, her facial expressions are loud enough that I can confidently translate the dip and fall of her eyebrows—and my subsequent silent responses—as thus:
What was that?
Nothing.
Nothing? Stop eye fucking him!
I am not!
Oh, really? You’re not?
No.
You liar.
But you love me.
God knows why.
By the end of the conversation, we’re wearing matching tight-lipped smiles.
I glance behind me and it’s clear Campbell has witnessed the whole exchange and hasn’t been able to understand any of it.
Before, he was nervous. Now he’s confused.
It’s not a good mix and he looks extra twitchy.
More like Norman Bates before he goes full “Mother.” Like he’s one sudden sound away from bolting.
We reach the third alcove, and something isn’t right. Wes stops a few feet away, and when he points to it with the chair leg, glancing back as if to confirm it’s not just his mind playing tricks on him, I nod. I see it, too.
The curtains closest to the hallway are bulkier than the others we’ve seen.
Lumpier. And while the flickering effect of the gas lamps against the sheen of the velvet makes all the curtains look like they’re undulating, this one is definitely moving.
Like blood pulsing through an artery, and the more whoever is hidden behind it realizes we aren’t walking past their hiding spot, the faster it pulses.
It’s most likely one of the daters, but we can’t be sure it’s not him.
The killer. I know I’m making a lot of assumptions about whoever is doing this being a man, but in my defense, it is a more male-dominated activity.
Mass murder. Not to say the killer can’t be a woman.
Fictional female killers like Baby Firefly or Mary Lou Maloney could go toe-to-toe with the most iconic male Big Bads. But when it comes to real life?
Women are usually just better emotional regulators.
There’s a cord hanging down near the doorway, and when Wes steps forward to reach for it, looking over his shoulder to make sure we’re all ready, I move into the space next to him and hold my broken bottle out.
I don’t even think about it, and when I’m there, there is a part of me that wants to back right out again.
But I also can’t let Wes be alone in the line of fire if a knife is going to appear from behind the curtain.
It’s not just because I lied to Laurie, and I was definitely eye fucking him a few minutes ago; it’s because I know this night would be much worse without him.
He tries to get me to move back with some sharp head movements, but I ignore them and gesture for him to open the curtain already.
Laurie has her back against mine to watch the corridor.
Campbell is useless. When Wes sees he’s fighting a losing battle, his jaw tenses in defeat and he swaps the wood to his other hand, reaching for the cord.
After one more shared look, he holds up an index finger to start the count.
One.
Two.
Three.
He pulls the cord, and the curtain draws back as sharply as an inhale.
She doesn’t scream. She just lets out one of those chest-shattering gasps until she sees there’s four equally terrified people staring back at her.
Once she realizes we have no intention of killing her, she glances down at the broken bottle I’ve held up between us and just looks…
unimpressed. Resting bitch face fully activated and name tag still in place.
Billie.
After the stink-eye episode at cocktail hour, I couldn’t figure out if she was Kat Stratford standoffish or Jo Stockton shy.
Dressed in all black, with her silky brown hair fastened into a low, effortless chignon, and her lips a matte shade of merlot, she looks chic and unattainable.
Like she’s walked in off the street by mistake and stuck around on the off chance things might get interesting.
I wonder if this is what she had in mind.
I drop my bottle down to my side—maybe that’s why she looks so defensive—and ask, “Are you okay?”
Because even though we’re in the middle of a horror movie, it’s the polite thing to ask.
Her thick, perfectly shaped eyebrows smack together in two concave swoops, and her voice has a derisive quality when she replies, “No. I’m fucking hiding from a murderer. What is wrong with you?”
Well, fuck me for being concerned. Kat Stratford it is.
Her gaze flits between the four of us, her lips pursed and her almost black eyes wary as she says, “I barely got out of there. Everyone went apeshit after what happened to”—she looks back at me—“your date.”
“Do you know where anyone else is?” Wes asks, and after a drawn-out apathetic stare in his direction, she shakes her head.
“As soon as we got up the stairs and the doors wouldn’t open, everyone just scattered. It was like turning on a light in a kitchen infested with roaches. I ran this way and hid… Then I heard the scream.”
I see Laurie wince in my periphery. I bet the sound is as easy for her to conjure up as it is for me.
“Did you see who did it?” Laurie asks.
Her eyes snap to Laurie and narrow.
“Did I see who did it? I was a little busy running for my life.” Her tone is acidic, and it’s a small comfort to know she talks to everyone like that. She looks between us again. “What are you guys doing?”
“Looking for a way out.”
“Good.” Billie pushes the curtain to the side and steps out from the hiding spot.
A few tendrils of chestnut hair fall loose around her face, and when she reaches up to bat them away, I spy blood across the top of her sweater.
It’s the same kind of blood spray Colette had.
I didn’t think it was possible, but her expression hardens even further when she notices me looking.
“I got hit when I was at the door,” she says, even though I didn’t ask. “How many… fatalities were there?”
Wes answers. “Four downstairs. One on this level.”
She lets out a deep, extended sigh, her eyes falling to my dress, nostrils flaring like she’s caught a whiff of a bad smell.
I get the feeling Billie is not a girl’s girl, but then her gaze flicks up to stare hard at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and I think this is the moment she cries.
This is the moment we might see a small crack in the armor, a little humanity within the ice.
Instead, she just shrugs.
“The night is still young, I guess.”