The Last Guests

by J. P. Pomare

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  He drops the mask on Daniel’s chest, turns back to me, his face changes. ‘Nothing. I thought it would be right to … I don’t know.’

  ‘I should help him.’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Not if you think there might be a second man. We need the police. He’s not going to make it, Lina. He’s a goner.’

  I want nothing more than for Cain to grab me, pull me against him. Hug me so tight I’ll never be afraid again, but he’s making sense. Someone else could still be here. Cain is trained for this sort of situation, but he’s groggy and weak. We need to move.

  ‘Come on, let’s go.’ He leads me into the bedroom. Checks around the bed for some clothes. He pulls on shorts and a sweater. Rain is flooding through the hole in the wall onto Grandpa’s old chest.

  ‘He was trying to put me in here,’ Cain says, leaning over, peering in. Adrenaline fills me. A spring tightening, ready to snap.

  ‘Come on, Cain, let’s get out.’

  He leads us downstairs; I’m tucked in behind him, holding the lighter, which is casting a meagre glow. I don’t reach for the phone. I don’t want to see the streams and the comments, I just want to get out. We get to the switchboard and he opens the circuit-breaker, the lights come back on.

  Two people are watching us just outside the door. I leap before I realise it’s only our reflection in the glass. The night is black and the storm continues to pound down.

  We set out through the front door, over the deck into the hard rain.

  TWENTY

  ‘WHO THE HELL was that back there?’ Cain says.

  ‘I have no idea.’ The lie comes instantly. ‘There could have been someone else with him. There were cameras. He showed me … footage from the house, it was live. I saw him dragging you.’

  I follow him down the steps, he’s still unsteady on his feet.

  ‘I saw something,’ I say. ‘It looked like someone was behind him at one stage.’ My head swims. I don’t know what I saw, it was probably a shadow.

  His doubt is palpable. The way his silhouette shakes its head. He doesn’t believe it, or doesn’t want to.

  ‘We need to get away. We need to phone the police.’

  I don’t say what I’m thinking, Someone could be hunting us right now.

  ‘Can you run?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I still feel groggy. We’re just going to work our way up to Wiremu’s.’

  I grab his shoulder, turn him gently. ‘I’m scared, what if there’s another one?’

  Even in the darkness, I see his eyes are wide. ‘We will make it. I only saw one and the only choice we have is to keep moving and stay vigilant.’ He shakes his head.

  I think about those cameras in our house, are they still watching? A chill passes over the skin of my neck. A ghost whisper, Grandad would say.

  Cain squeezes me against him for a moment, there on the gravel in the rain. I know we don’t have time, but it settles my nerves just a little. ‘Stay close,’ he says. ‘I’ve got us covered.’

  He releases me, raises the shotgun so it’s hard against his shoulder and continues moving. I feel the effervescence of adrenaline. Epinephrine stimulating alpha-adrenoreceptors. Narrowing blood vessels, filling muscles with oxygen, enhancing eyesight. My body is prepared for danger, prepared to do what it takes to protect this baby.

  If there is someone else, who could it be? A friend of Daniel’s? Another sicko he met online to help install the cameras? Or … one of the guests. The last guests, the ones who also stayed at the WeStay in Auckland. It occurs to me that it might have been Daniel with a fake account. He stayed in Auckland, installed the cameras then took me there. He must have installed cameras at the lake house too.

  The gravel cracks underfoot, and another gust of wind tears across the lake, rustling the trees. The rain thins now, needles of it carried on the wind. We reach the road, and lightning arcs down somewhere. The crack of thunder is loud over the rain. It nails my bare feet to the tarmac road. We are too exposed here.

  ‘Come on,’ he calls. ‘Let’s keep moving.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘I can’t, I’m scared.’

  ‘Just move,’ he growls, ‘don’t think, just act. We need to get away.’ He steps back, grabs my forearm hard and drags me along. I find my feet again, keep moving along the road, continuing to scan the road’s edge for movement.

  When we get to Wiremu and Melissa’s house, the rain has eased. In the security light at the front door, with the gun, the blood, my wrist in a chaffed ring, we must look like we’re running from the apocalypse. I think once more about Daniel at the house, dead by now and I pulled the trigger. I killed him. I still hear the gurgling sound. I feel the force of the gun when I pulled the trigger. That story Cain told me comes back, soldiers being blooded by killing prisoners. You’re never the same; I’ll never be the same.

  Cain knocks on the door hard. He turns back, gun still in hand and eyes the steps down to the road. The rain continues rinsing the blood from his face. He knocks even harder. Finally, a light turns on inside, footsteps and the door opens.

  It’s Wiremu. ‘What’s happened?’ He swallows, leans closer to peer outside as if searching for someone. ‘You guys okay?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Cain says. ‘We are now.’

  ‘Get inside,’ Wiremu says.

  He turns to let us through, his eyes moving from Cain’s bloody eye to the gun in his hands.

  •

  Cain shakes his head. ‘I don’t know what happened, we were at dinner and next thing I knew someone was giving me a hiding, telling me he’s going to slit my throat.’ I touch his back, rubbing the soaked cotton of his shirt. It seems like weeks ago we were out for dinner, yet it was only tonight.

  We hover inside the door. ‘Let me get you a towel and Melissa can take a look at those nasty gashes.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I can do it.’ It’s above his eye, the deepest cut.

  ‘You’re in shock,’ Wiremu says. He’s right. My hands are violently shaking, a cold damp fatigue is smothering the adrenaline now. ‘Just go get warmed up.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘You’re probably right.’

  I’m wrapped in a towel by the time Melissa comes through, yawning as though this is a common occurrence for a Friday night. She brings a small first-aid kit to the table and begins cleaning Cain’s wounds. I see now beneath the kitchen lights that Cain’s left eye is almost swollen closed, and a small transparent red trail of fluid leaks from his nose.

  ‘It was just the one person?’

  Cain glances towards me, looks uncertain. ‘Just one,’ he says, a small shake of his head. ‘We didn’t see anyone else.’

  ‘Any more rounds in the shotgun?’

  ‘Yeah, a couple,’ Cain says. ‘We only used one.’

  We, but what he really means is me. I pulled the trigger. I’ve killed someone. Wiremu looks up, the creases bracketing his mouth deepen, those weary brown eyes are focused. ‘Doors are locked, I’ll call the coppers and an ambulance.’

  Wiremu makes the call in another room. The clock tells me it’s only 1 am, but that seems impossible. I think of the cameras in the house, what he showed me. Those strangers talking about the scene. PlatoOf21C saved my life. They suggested lifting the fireplace and it worked. It actually worked. I don’t know who or why these people were watching me, but someone actually helped me out of there.

  Wiremu has called an old friend in the Rotorua police directly and he’s still talking when he comes back into the room. ‘Cain reckons the man’s toast, took a round of buckshot to the guts … I’ll keep them here. Thanks.’

  •

  ‘There are cameras in the house,’ I say. The cop was evidently once good-looking. Mid-forties, balding with dark eyes and sharp rockstar cheekbones. He stops marking his notebook and his eyes fix on me.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He showed me his phone, he had set up hidden cameras in our house. It was live
.’

  ‘What do you mean live?’

  ‘Streaming, I think.’ I pause, my mind is fatigued, I can barely express myself. ‘Umm, to people. They were commenting as it was happening.’

  His eyes narrow so they’re almost closed, a look somewhere between scepticism and disgust. He looks down, his breath is audible. ‘Commenting? And these cameras were running?’

  I nod.

  ‘Right,’ he says.

  He stands, take out his phone and steps into another room. I can hear the murmur of his voice. He comes back, pockets his phone and sits down again, beside me.

  ‘And you thought there might have been a second intruder?’ he says. I pause to take a sip of the tea that Melissa had brewed for me. Police are at our house now. I imagine it wrapped up in tape. Floodlights. Hazmat crime scene investigators picking their way through the carnage.

  Ambulance officers are attending to Cain. Given his head injuries and the risk of concussion, he’s going to the hospital soon. I want to go with him. I need to stay with him after tonight. It feels a lot like guilt, like I brought this on us. I can’t shake the growing knot of unease in my gut. It’s my fault.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But maybe I’m mistaken. I don’t know, it was dark. I just thought I saw movement on the camera stream.’

  ‘Okay, and you have no idea who the first man was?’

  I glance through the door into another room where Cain is being treated by ambulance officers and interviewed at the same time. They’re going to figure out who Daniel is without me pointing them in the right direction. ‘It’s hard to know, he was wearing the gas mask, then he was all bloody and it was dark. I could know him, but I can’t be sure without seeing him properly. Something was disguising his voice too.’ It’s not a lie. Not really. It could have been someone else behind that mask.

  I see Cain wince as they apply saline to a cut. After I’ve given my statement, I head to Cain who now has butterfly stitches in the gash above his eye.

  ‘We’re going to take you to Rotorua hospital for observation,’ I overhear the ambulance officer say.

  ‘She’s a paramedic,’ Cain says, pointing in my direction. ‘She will look after me.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘You’d better go. I’ll come with you.’

  Cain closes his eyes for a moment. ‘Alright.’

  The police will look into our pasts for suspects, I suppose. Try to figure out the connection between us and Daniel. I was careful, but there was only so much I could do to cover my tracks. Phone records will link Daniel to me. He might have shown his friends a photo of me. If the police discover the connection, which they surely will, does that mean Cain will find out too? The police will look closely at Cain’s history; I read somewhere that soldiers who testify, particularly against those in their own units, often go into witness protection programs overseas, but some refuse to. Cain didn’t testify against Skelton, but he was going to. Axel was cooperating with investigators as well.

  ‘Mr Phillips,’ the cop says now coming back, addressing Cain, ‘when you’re feeling better we will need to see you to run through a few further details.’

  Cain nods. He’s holding his Pounamu greenstone in his hand, squeezing it on the end of the cord.

  ‘In fact, it would be best if you could both get to the police station in the morning. I’m sure you will have more to add to your statements, assuming you’re okay to leave hospital. If you think of anything else that would aid the investigation, get in touch sooner.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘We will.’

  ‘The spare room is made up,’ Wiremu calls from the kitchen. ‘You’re more than welcome to stay for as long as you need.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to be out here tonight. Cain’s going to the hospital so I’ll go with him.’

  Cain lies down on the stretcher and they let me ride in the back of the ambulance with him. As we start out along the road, I glance through the rear window and see all the floodlights at the house, a pink dawn creasing the horizon across the lake, bringing a deep-sea green out of the surrounding flora. A new day is beginning. There are three police cars, one still twirling those blue and red lights, strobing through the trees. They’re all down there, police swarming the house. I wonder if they know that people are watching them, somewhere out in the world. Anonymous peeping Toms. Then that word comes back to me, what Daniel had said. Peephole.

  Daniel. There’s a new guilt. It has replaced that rotten feeling that came over me whenever I thought about cheating on Cain.

  •

  At the hospital, all the fear and anxiety has flooded from me and in its place is something cold and dark. I killed a man. Realising it, thinking the words to myself, it’s an almost violent bodily response. I’m light-headed. Someone guides me to a seat and I lower myself gently upon it. A glass of water is pushed into my hand. ‘She’s in shock.’

  ‘Give her space to breathe.’

  I look up into the eyes of a nurse.

  ‘I killed someone,’ I say. The words do nothing to assuage the heat of the guilt. They intensify it. The rain comes down harder outside, rinsing the world. The black hole grows within and yet I repeat myself, ‘I killed him.’ And now I will never be the same.

  Peephole

  Live Cam Premium

  Stream: 037B

  Viewers: 319

  They’re in helmets and body armour, rifles raised as they enter the house. The armed offenders squad clear each room, one at a time. The photographers, crime scene specialists arrive now. Police are seen outside in camera 2, standing near the front door, three of them talking between themselves. An ambulance is parked in the background beside all the other emergency services vehicles. A photo flash, the photographer in the hazmat suit is squatting over the spots of blood on the carpet at the base of the stairs. They place a marker down, a yellow tab. Then another and another. Slowly working through the house. Collecting evidence to build a narrative of what happened tonight.

  The viewer numbers are steady at 319. No one is going anywhere, they’re all watching to see what happens next.

  A police officer with strong cheekbones and wide-set eyes rushes in. White protective slips cover his shoes and he’s got medical gloves on. He’s gesturing towards the corners of the room. He snatches a stepladder away from one of the crime scene specialists. He takes it to the corner and climbs up, his face growing as he gets closer to the camera. He’s peering right into it, his brow heavy with two vertical creases drawn up his forehead. The camera shuffles, the image blurring in the steam of his breath. Then the room turns, a sickly twirl as the officer shows the viewers the insides of his nostrils. He’s found the first of the cameras. The image drops out. One by one, over the course of the next few hours, it happens again and again until none of the cameras remain.

  Peephole

  Live Cam Premium

  Stream: 037B

  Viewers: 319

  88HH:

  Wot a fucking show!!

  GeneralMayhem:

  Look at those pigs swarming. They don’t even know.

  Daddyboy:

  Oh well it was fun while it lasted. This sort of shit is going to ruin Peephole. Why can’t we just watch people? why do psychos have to go and ruin our fun? We’ve all paid up and now the service will probably be shut down.

  DRUMPF2024:

  Where is this? Looks like the sun is just rising.

  GeneralMayhem:

  It’s New Zealand, I think. I’ve been watching this stream the last couple of weekends and the sunset times all align with NZ or one of the few islands dotted in the Pacific, but if you see the ferns on Cam 5 it looks like NZ. Plus that looks like the NZ police uniform.

  DRUMPF2024:

  GeneralMayhem, you the killer?

  GeneralMayhem:

  The bitch is the killer.

  DRUMPF2024:

  LMAO

  Fruitdrop:

  LMAO, nice. Daddyboy is right though. Admin is going to tighten things up even mor
e now. Less streams, more attention from police. They’ll find the cameras and it will be all over the media.

  QsentMe:

  Speak of the devil. Look at Cam 4, they’ve already found one.

  GeneralMayhem:

  I was convinced it was staged or some kind of role-play, but she fucking blasted him, right in the guts. He must have been a Peepholer, knew where the cameras were all along.

  DRUMPF2024:

  Do you think they will get banned? Haha.

  Fruitdrop:

  Love it when the good guys win. ; )

  DRUMPF2024:

  OMG. I’ve just realised it’s the girl from the other stream. I knew I’d seen her before. WHAT THE FUCK

  PlatoOf21C:

  I don’t want to see this shit. This is like a fucking horror movie. I just want to watch people, is that so fucking hard?

  Daddyboy:

  Wait, there was another man, right?

  PART TWO

  AFTERMATH

  TWENTY-ONE

  CAIN WAS ASLEEP in his hospital bed when I left with a police officer to answer follow-up questions. He has both ketamine and fentanyl in his system which they’re flushing out. I head back to the lake house to get the car. Photographers in hazmat suits are still inside, and a pair of cops are walking down near the lake’s edge, scanning through the grass. It hurts to be back here, seeing the house in the light of day. That guilt comes again, the scene pressed deep into my brain – scenes that will never leave me. Daniel on the floor, that gurgling sound. The blood.

  The window in the master bedroom is smashed and there’s half-a-dozen exit holes from where the shotgun had blasted through the wall which have let rainwater inside. It’ll take weeks, maybe months, for the insurance claim to be processed, but I see a police officer climbing a ladder to hang tarpaulin over it.