Chapter 8
The reception hall is perched on a hill, so I can see light through the windows, passing shadows, but nothing inside. The music gets louder as we round the building. There are a few people gathered out front on the wide steps, drinks in hand, chatting, blissfully oblivious that the bride is dead.
Stephanie is dead.
I just watched her die.
“Is that Willa? Oh my God! Hi!” It’s Vicky Moldando—her disconcertingly beautiful fake plastic face frozen in a sort of smirk.
If she notices we’re breathless and bloody, her expression won’t allow her to show it.
“I was so sorry to hear about you and Ravi. What happened? He gave you such a gorgeous rock. I love a cushion—”
“Where is Jason?” Danny asks. “Have you seen Jason?”
“Relax. Someone just went to go find him and Steph. I said they’re probably, you know, consummating. Lost track of time.” She chokes on her giggle. “Um…is that blood?”
We don’t get the chance to answer her question.
A woman nearby starts to wail, this ghastly cry of pure anguish that gets the attention of everyone outside. There’s a moment of confusion as we spin around, trying to figure out why she’s screaming.
She points into the darkness. A man wanders out from the shadows. He’s a guest, but I don’t recognize him. He doesn’t have any eyes.
“Everyone inside!” Danny shouts as the man collapses on the lawn. His suit jacket is soaked through crimson.
I’d never thought about what violence sounds like.
I would have assumed it was loud and succinct, like a gunshot or an explosion.
But it’s not like that at all. It’s not one thing.
It’s chaos. The disorder of nature: what was inside, out; what was whole, in pieces; what was clean, dirty; what was good—all that was good—irrevocably defiled.
The reaction to that disorder: more disorder.
There’s nothing succinct about it.
It lasts so long. It goes on for-fucking-ever. All I will ever hear from this moment on is this screaming.
The doors to the reception hall are open, and people swarm to get inside, flailing and shoving and shouting. There’s a blockage. Not everyone can get through all at once. Vicky, weighing her options, decides to take off in the opposite direction, dash across the lawn.
It’s the wrong decision.
The masked figure is there, emerging calmly from the cover of night, unhurried.
I should look away. Or try to stop it. But there is no stopping it.
What can I do? The masked figure grabs Vicky by her magnificent salon blond hair and wrenches her toward us, into the brightness emanating from the reception hall.
At the foot of the steps, the body of the eyeless man now lies horribly still.
“Willa!” Danny wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me back. My spine wilts, head lolls, my body suddenly forgetting how to support its own weight.
Vicky screams at a pitch that liquefies my brain.
I look up.
She’s being held up by her hair. Her feet are off the ground, stilettos kicking the air.
She reaches back, clawing at her assailant with her acrylics.
It’s no use. I can hear the throaty wheezing noise.
The laughter. His laughter. He’s laughing at her the same way he laughed at me.
He keeps laughing even after she gets loose, her extensions ripping out of her head and allowing her to drop.
She lands awkwardly on bent ankles. She does her best to hobble away.
“Willa.” Danny tightens his grip on me, and I know I should be cooperating, be moving, be something other than deadweight, but I can’t. I’m detained by terror. I can’t see this, what’s about to happen, but I can’t not see it.
Vicky’s twisted ankles give out. She’s face down in the dirt.
She attempts to crawl forward on her elbows but he’s already on top of her.
He tosses her extensions aside and wraps a giant gloved hand around her forehead, then drags his knife across her throat.
Once. Twice. Her head tips so far back that now I know what’s inside of a neck.
Danny spins me around and pushes me through the doors. He shuts them behind us. Locks them.
I trip into the reception. It’s stunning. It’s art. Long dining tables set parallel to the checkered marble dance floor. Taper candles, flower arrangements, lace runners, neutral tones, fairy lights. The ceiling is high with exposed wooden beams wrapped in flowering vines.
It’s whiplash—how can I accept what I’m seeing now after what I just saw? How can I experience beauty with my best friend’s blood on my dress?
There’s a table across the dance floor with two seats. A massive marquee heart sign glows pink behind it. It was meant for Steph and Jace, for them to sit there together. How can it be that they’ll never be together again? This doesn’t make sense.
“Willa?” It’s Evan. He comes toward me, Wyatt behind him with his hands firm on Ev’s shoulders.
I’m so relieved to see them alive. I scan the room.
Cassie and Luke are crouched down, her eyes shut tight, his alert, wide open.
I look for Ravi. The candlelight casts shadows that I don’t trust, turning everyone here into a stranger.
Turning everyone here into a killer. Into a threat.
“Willa, are you okay? You’re bleeding.”
“It’s not my blood,” I say, toppling into him. “It’s not my blood. It’s…”
“What happened? Where did you go?” He’s angry with me. Evan’s so angry. So confused. So frightened. I’ve never seen him this way. We’re embracing but we’re not here. It’s not us anymore. We’re doppelgangers. We’ve been body snatched by versions of us who know the worst fear possible.
“Jason? Jason!” Danny calls, full of false hope. “Hey! Anyone seen Jason? Where’s Jason?”
“He’s with Steph,” Evan says. “She went to change.”
Danny buries his face in his hands, folding into himself. “No, no, no, no, no, no…”
“What the hell is going on?” someone shouts.
There’s a DJ booth, but the DJ is MIA, so there’s no one to stop the soundtrack of background music, the base layer of noise that acts as a significant contributor to the turmoil.
Everyone has to raise their voices to be heard over the music, over the screaming and crying, but I’m trying to listen, listen carefully, because that monster is still out there and he wants to kill us.
“Is anyone’s phone working?” I’m hoarse. I’m not loud enough. I try again. “Is anyone’s phone working?”
Evan and Wyatt both get their phones out. I watch others follow suit. I watch them all try in vain. A man in the back stands on a chair.
“I’ve got one bar,” he says. “Everyone, quiet!”
No one is quiet.
Evan pulls away from me and takes a cautious step toward the doors. They’re rattling. The knobs spin.
“Don’t,” I tell him.
Wyatt holds him back. “I’ll go.”
“No! Wyatt. No one’s opening those fucking doors.”
“It could be Steph and Jace,” Wyatt says. “It’s okay, Willa. I’m a big guy. Let me handle it.”
“It’s not them!” I didn’t mean to say it, didn’t mean for it to come out. But it’s out. It’s hanging there. It’s in the world. This world. This world that tastes of blood and saline and smells of sweat and death.
“Willa,” Evan says. “If that’s not your blood, whose blood is it?”
I can’t answer him. I can’t. I won’t.
“Whose blood is it?” he repeats.
“The call keeps dropping,” says the man on the chair. “Anyone else?”
“There’s a kitchen, right? Probably a back office. A landline,” I say. “We need to—”
“We need to get out of here,” someone screams. “There’s a strange man running around with a knife!”
More shouting. Commotion. Confusion.
Another voice cutting through. “Who drove here? Who has a car? We took the shuttle.”
“We have a car,” Wyatt says. “We’ll take as many people as we can and get help.”
“You’re not leaving,” I say. “It’s too dangerous out there.”
“And it’s perfectly safe in here?” Evan says. “We’ll go together. As a group.”
Luke stands and gets Cassie to her feet. She’s in a daze. “What kind of person would attack a wedding?”
“It’s not a person,” I say.
“Not a person? Then what is it?” Evan asks.
“They’re…they’re something else. Something worse. I can’t explain it. Where’s…” I turn, searching for Danny. He’s on the floor, his back to the wall, knees up, face hidden. “Danny…”
He lifts his head, and his eyes are wet with tears. “Do you think he could still be out there? Jason?”
“We can’t stay here. We need a plan, and we need to make it fast,” Wyatt says.
So brave. So ignorant of what we’re up against. This isn’t just some guy with a knife.
This is somebody with a knife and an entire fucking tool belt of potential weapons, and I’m willing to bet he intends to use every single one.
This is somebody who took the time to make a mask.
Somebody who gets off on inciting fear, on violence.
Maybe I’ve been watching too many horror movies, but I think it’d be pretty goddamn stupid to not recognize that I’m in one right now.
This isn’t just some random wanderer with a few screws loose or a disillusioned Kaczynski type trying to make the news, make a point.
This is a supervillain.
This is who took Steph’s eyes.
Calculated and homicidal and soulless, killing for sport.
“We have a car, too,” Luke says, stepping forward. Cassie pulls him back.
“No,” she says. “Don’t you dare.”
“Babe—”
Their inevitable argument is interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream. A woman in the corner points to one of the windows. “There’s someone out there!”
“We’re aware,” Evan says.
The music cuts out, and everyone twists toward the DJ booth.
It’s Ravi. He’s got the microphone.
“Everyone, listen. Please,” he says, his voice calm and steady.
He’s always been good in a crisis. Small stressors take him out, but he can lock in for the big stuff.
I think it provokes his need for control.
“I understand that you’re scared, but let’s take a breath.
Whatever we do next, we have to do it together, all right?
We’re going to help one another out of this. ”
Look at him, playing the hero.
“First thing I’m going to need is for you to move away from the windows. The front door is locked, but I’m going to ask Luke and Wyatt to check the back because there’s likely another door out through the kitchen.”
“No!” Cassie says. “Luke.”
“I got this.” He winks, trying to lighten the mood, but it only makes her cry.
“If anyone else wants to volunteer to go with Luke and Wyatt, I do think a bigger group would be better.”
“I’ll go,” Danny says, standing. He sniffles, wipes his nose with his sleeve.
Panic sears through my chest. Part of me wants to stay here with Ravi, to keep listening to the sound of his voice—because it’s so familiar, so known to me, and there’s a cellular-level comfort in that—but the thought of separating from Danny has me completely distraught.
He was with me when this all started. There’s no immediate future I can fathom without him at my side.
He said he wouldn’t leave me. I don’t want to leave him.
An attachment has been forged in this fire.
“Me, too,” I say. “I’m going. We need to see if there’s a phone back there.”
Ravi looks at me, makes eye contact for the first time all night. For the first time in weeks. Months.
He blinks. He doesn’t react when Danny takes my hand.
“Then let’s go,” Evan says.
Cass sighs. “If you’re all going then I’m fucking going.”
“Thank you,” Ravi says. “While they check to make sure all the doors are secure, we’re going to keep up our attempts to make emergency contact. Text, call, email. Something will get through. We’ll get help. We’re going to stay together, stay calm, and I’m here to talk you through it.”
“Come on,” Danny says, keeping me close as the group crosses the dance floor.
Right now, we’re all supposed to be dancing to some classic, cheesy wedding music.
Forming a circle around Steph and Jace. Jace is a notoriously bad dancer who loves nothing more than to dance.
A lesser partner would be embarrassed by his moves, but Steph always hypes him up because she thinks it’s the funniest thing.
Her face lights up watching him, swaying at a safe distance to avoid a rogue elbow, manic limb strikes.
“This isn’t right,” I mutter to myself. I feel like I’m wearing clothes that don’t fit. There’s a chafing. I swear the air is wrong. Everything about this is wrong.
I pass by the DJ booth. By Ravi, who continues to reassure the crowd. He doesn’t look at me. This could be the last time that I ever see him, that he sees me, but he doesn’t look my way.
Tanya sits behind the booth, trembling and whispering indistinctly, her legs tucked to one side, her hair pulled in front of her face like a shield. I miss her being the worst thing to happen to me today.
There’s a doorway at the back of the space that leads to a dim hall.
“He could be hiding,” Cass says. “We could be heading right for him.”
“He?” Evan asks. “How do we know it’s a man?”
“Statistics.”
“He’s wearing a mask. It’s…it’s unsettling,” I say. “I don’t want you to be caught off guard.”
“Not sure there’s any preventing that,” Wyatt says, stepping ahead of us to be first into the hall. Evan follows. Luke. Cassie.
“Hold on,” Danny says. They don’t hear him. Or they do but don’t listen. They press on, leaving just the two of us. “Shit. Shit.”
He runs his hands through his hair. His eyes are swollen from crying. I miss his arrogance. If I could heal him, turn him back into who he was before all of this, I would in an instant. Wouldn’t that be nice? A fairy-tale kiss and poof. His crooked smile, not a care in the fucking world.
“Willa? Danny? You guys coming?” Luke calls from the hallway.
Danny drops his hands, shakes out his arms, rolls his shoulders back.
“Together?” I ask him.
He looks at me, and there’s a hint of that crooked grin. “Deal.”