by T J Payne
Fuck Caleb.
Fuck Lilith.
Fuck this wedding.
“They’re on the stage,” Amy said, her voice now flat and angry. “They’re distracted.”
Everyone looked at her. Her point?
“We rush them.”
Candice was the first to react. “What?!”
But Amy had already started marching to the door, the steak knife — their only non-gym related weapon — clutched firmly in her hand. “I’m not gonna sit here and wait for my arm to explode. I’m gonna grab them. I’m gonna hold them. And I’m gonna force them to make this place let us go.”
She turned to gauge her family’s reaction.
Mariko nodded in agreement. With a bench press bar clutched tightly, she followed after Amy.
Candice and Roger did too.
Amy turned toward the door.
With renewed focus, she stepped into the hallway.
The moment she did, a scream filled her ears.
She leapt to the side just as a woman — her gown drenched in blood — leapt out from behind the door frame and wildly swung an axe downward at Amy, its blade gliding inches from Amy’s chest, right at the exact position where she had stood only a moment before.
The woman shrieked loudly, a constant wail that seemed to have been built up and stored deep within her over the course of the preceding hours. She must have been standing there, waiting to attack someone, anyone this entire time. That was probably why so few people tried to seek refuge in the gym — they came around the corner and must have seen this woman lying in wait.
The axe blade slammed into the floor.
The woman wasted no time in lifting it and swinging again, this time in Roger’s direction. The woman didn’t seem to know how to swing an axe; she had probably never done it before in her life. Her movements were just wild, chaotic flails with a heavy object.
Mariko pushed Roger out of the way.
The axe blade struck the wooden door frame of the gym and lodged in tight.
The woman released the axe handle and drew a steak knife from somewhere within her dress. With another scream, she threw herself toward Candice, stabbing with the knife as she did.
By now, Amy had regained her footing. She spun around and grabbed the woman by the hair, yanking her backward.
The woman flailed the knife in Amy’s direction. With Amy clutching her hair tightly, the woman twisted and shrieked like a trapped animal. Amy dodged her slashes long enough to steady herself and then she slammed the woman’s head into the mirrored wall.
Cracks spider-webbed across the mirror from the impact. The woman slid to the ground. A deep moan rolled out of her lips.
But as Amy stood over her, she could see the woman’s chest rising and falling.
The woman was still alive.
Amy bent down and grabbed the knife from the woman’s limp hand. She held it out for her mother.
“You do it, Mom.”
“Do what?”
“Kill her.”
“Amy!”
She looked at her mom. “Just do it. She’s right here. If you don’t, someone else will.”
“This isn’t us, Amy.”
“She would’ve killed us, Mom!”
Candice stood her ground and shook her head.
Amy turned to her dad. She held the knife out for him, but he put up his hands and waved her off. “I’m not getting in the middle of this.”
“For fuck’s sake, people!” Amy said. Next she looked at Mariko. But Mariko also stepped away.
“Come on, Ames. Let’s get to the ballroom.”
“Someone kill this bitch!” Amy said. “Take the pass. Get out. Go home.”
“We’re all on the same team, Amy,” Candice said.
“We’re locked up with psychopaths, Mom.”
“We don’t have to become one.”
“Yes, we do.”
“Amy Holgate, you listen to me, and you listen to me now,” her mom said in that voice of hers. “I have no ill will toward any of these people. It’s Caleb and that bride of his who put us here and I’d like to find out why. They’re the only ones I care to see pay the price.”
“Mom, the rules are—”
“Screw their rules. Screw their game. We’re not who they think we are.”
With that, Candice stepped past Amy and hurried off down the hall. Her dad followed closely behind. Even Mariko cast one final Come on, let’s go glance at Amy before quietly jogging away.
Amy hesitated. She looked down at the woman by her feet.
Amy clutched her knife tightly.
The woman had collapsed into somewhat of a sitting position, resting her back against the mirrored walls. Her head lolled to the side so that her cheek rested on her shoulder.
This left her neck exposed.
Vulnerable.
Amy looked around the gym. There were surely cameras in the walls, perhaps even in the light fixtures.
Someone had to be watching her.
Someone could see her plunge the knife into the woman’s throat.
If the rules were to be trusted, someone would open a door and let her go wait out the night with Lilith’s grandma.
It would be fast. A quick flick of the wrist.
Amy looked down at the woman and her exposed neck. She tried to place the woman. Was she from the bride’s side or the groom’s? Family, friend, or coworker? She vaguely recalled seeing the woman during the reception. Some other table with some other people with whom Amy hadn’t interacted at all.
Blood had splattered all over the woman’s dress and face. Lots of blood. There didn’t seem to be any cut marks or injuries on the woman. This blood must have all come from somebody else.
An image flashed in Amy’s mind — the woman sitting at a table with a short, bearded man who had a friendly smile. They seemed to be husband and wife. Amy remembered catching a glimpse of that man charging toward Lilith and getting stabbed in the chest.
The woman’s hands were a deep maroon, probably stained trying to stop her husband from bleeding out.
Amy cursed under her breath as she tried to push the sympathetic image from her mind, but it was lodged in tight. She couldn’t escape it.
With a sigh, Amy stood.
She turned and ran after her family.
CHAPTER 19
Amy caught up to her family as they ran down the grand staircase.
They tried to keep their footsteps soft, which was easy for Amy and Mariko who had long ago ditched their heels and were running barefoot. Roger’s shoes and thick soles, meanwhile, clomped on the stone staircase.
They slowed as they reached the lobby.
The front entrance remained open. Amy could see a few bodies in the dark beyond — people who had sacrificed their arm to escape and only made it so far. Perhaps a guest or two made it further, but the thickness of the night obscured any evidence of it.
Amy turned away from the door and kept running.
They entered the ballroom’s foyer. Amy glanced around, feeling exposed. There were no places to hide in this room and the bright lights exposed them to the world.
They crept toward the ballroom doors.
The song neared its end.
Amy crouched by the door and peered in.
She couldn’t see much. Unlike the rest of The Venue, the lights in the ballroom were off.
Except for the stage.
A fixed spotlight bounced its light off a revolving disco ball, sending sparkling, magical reflections out onto the stage. The light swirled around the massive three-tiered cake in front of the stage. Its white frosting and pink trim glistened.
Caleb twirled Lilith in circles. Then he brought her toward him in a firm embrace and they swayed in each other’s arms.
“They don’t have any weapons,” Amy whispered, although she could see that their bows and arrows, as well as a small assortment of melee weapons, were stacked on a rectangular hors d’oeuvres table beside the stage.
; In the darkness, Amy could barely make out the faint outlines of people seated at the tables, watching the dance. But this audience didn’t move. They slumped in their seats. One of the silhouettes seemed to lack a head.
The song began its crescendo to the final chorus.
“Wait for them to kiss,” Amy whispered. “Dad and I will take Caleb. Mariko and Mom start with Lilith. Whoever ties down theirs first, helps the other.”
Her family nodded and gripped their meager weapons — weight bars and steak knives. They could probably grab a real weapon from the hors d’oeuvres table, but that was on the far side of the stage. They’d lose the element of surprise. Groping along the dark ballroom floor for a weapon didn’t seem smart either.
There wasn’t much time to look, think, or strategize. The song was about to end and the lights might go up at any moment. Amy concluded that this was their best shot — sneak up quickly and quietly, then tackle them by surprise. Four on two. Not bad odds.
Caleb spun Lilith one final time.
“Get ready,” Amy said.
Caleb gathered his bride in his arm and dipped her low.
“Let’s go.”
Staying crouched in the darkness, Amy ran toward the stage. Her family followed close behind.
Keeping her steps quick, light, and silent, she galloped across the ballroom. Her toes felt the cold hardness of the tile floor, until her foot almost slipped out from under her as it slid across a warm, thick liquid.
Blood. It must be blood.
She could barely see the floor in the dim light. The black-and-white checkered tile had a way of masking the pools that had formed. She hoped she wouldn’t trip. She hoped she wouldn’t set her bare foot down on a broken wine glass or discarded throwing star.
Despite her fears, she felt her adrenaline kick in. Her speed increased.
Within moments, she pushed past the front row of spectators — knocking their limp bodies to the ground — and leapt onto the stage.
As Amy mounted the steps, Caleb, still dipping Lilith, leaned in and touched his lips to his bride’s. His eyes closed. His entire world seemed to vanish in that moment, leaving him unaware of anything other than the woman he held in his arms.
And in that pause, Amy bounded across the stage. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder and used her momentum to pull him off his feet, tackling him violently to the ground.
He dropped Lilith as he fell.
Amy had planned to bring Caleb down and press her knife to his throat before he could respond, but in the tangle of the fall, she found her hand pinned beneath Caleb’s body. He tried to scramble to his feet. All Amy could do was wrap her arms around him from behind and hold him to the floor.
“Dad, help!”
Lilith was already back up. She ran toward the weapons table.
“Stop her!” Amy shouted. She hadn’t realized how far ahead she had run from her family. Only a few yards, but it felt like much more.
Mariko, who was a few strides in front of Amy’s parents, bounded onto the stage and swung the heavy bench-press bar at Lilith’s head. Lilith spun around in time to dodge the swing, grabbing the bar as she did. She yanked on it, pulling Mariko in close. In a quick move, she elbowed Mariko in the face.
Mariko fell backwards. She tried to maintain her grip on the bar, but with a confident, twisting maneuver, Lilith wrenched it from Mariko’s hands. With the bar all to herself, Lilith twirled it once over her head, building momentum as she swung it hard.
“Mom! Look out!”
Candice had run onto the stage, barreling toward Lilith.
Lilith timed her swing perfectly.
The metal bar slammed into Candice. Its force sent her off her feet.
Amy could only watch as the bar indented into her mother’s head, causing the vessels in her eyes to burst and instantly roll over red.
In mid-air, as she fell, Candice became a rag doll. Her limbs went limp. All fight and all life faded from her in that brief moment in which she fell off the stage, disappearing from Amy’s sight. With the spotlight and disco ball shining brightly on the dance floor, a dense blackness filled the rest of the ballroom. It was as if that blackness reached up and took Candice, carrying her off.
Amy couldn’t see her land, but Amy knew. She knew her mother was dead.
Elsewhere, Mariko had gotten back to her feet. She wrapped her arms around Lilith and held her from behind. Lilith tried to twist free, but Mariko held on tight. Finally, Lilith pushed off with her foot and threw all her weight to the side, sending both her and Mariko tumbling off the stage where they followed Candice’s body to the darkened floor, out of sight.
“Sweetie!” Caleb shouted after Lilith as Amy held him down. He got his arm loose from Amy’s grasp and began to push her off him. He didn’t seem to actually be fighting her; he was scrambling to get to his wife, to hold and protect her.
As Amy began to lose her grip, Roger rushed over and punched Caleb hard on the side of his face. Caleb’s head recoiled and smacked into the stage floor. That seemed to stun him. He stopped resisting. His head swayed side-to-side and Amy could see that his pupils were struggling to focus. Amy didn’t think her father had ever thrown a punch in his life, yet it was a good, solid hit.
Roger then pulled off his belt and wrapped it around Caleb’s wrists.
“Amy, his legs!” Roger said, quickly yanking the tie off his neck and tossing it to Amy.
Amy looped her father’s necktie around Caleb’s ankles, wrapping it tightly before binding it off with whatever knots Amy could manufacture. It wasn’t perfect, but Amy hoped it would be good enough to hold him.
Fffffft! A flutter of air kissed the back of Amy’s neck.
It was an arrow flying past her head.
She turned.
The bright lights of the stage made it so she could barely make out Lilith’s silhouette standing among the tables, holding up her bow. Her shadowy figure aimed directly at Amy.
“Mariko!” Amy shouted.
No reply came.
Ffffft! Amy barely ducked as the second arrow whizzed by her face.
“Let’s go! Get him out of here!” she shouted to her dad.
Roger didn’t need any encouragement. He threw Caleb over his shoulder and began to run.
Amy followed right behind.
They descended from the stage and entered what felt like the relative safety of the ballroom’s darkness. They ran past tables and chairs. At one point, Amy’s bare foot came down solidly not on hard floor, but on a fleshy surface that gave way beneath her weight. Her heel had stomped through a rib cage.
She almost lost her balance, but a decade of dance, and a million miniscule muscle corrections, kept her moving forward.
Ffffft!
Ffffft!
Ffffft!
She couldn’t see them. She couldn’t even feel them. She only heard the sound of the arrows slicing through the ballroom’s stale atmosphere. She had no idea how close they were. The arrows flew by in a flurry; Lilith apparently was not at all worried about accidentally hitting Caleb.
Amy pushed against the back of her dad, propelling him toward the door. The rectangle of light. Escape. It grew bigger. Brighter. They were near to freedom.
Ffffft!
They ran through the door and out into the foyer.
Roger’s muscles finally tensed up and he fell to his knees, dropping Caleb into a heap on the floor. There was no time to wait, though.
Amy pulled her father back to his feet. “Grab his ankles. I’ll get his arms,” she said.
Together they heaved Caleb off the ground.
Amy looked around. The bright foyer left them exposed. No place to hide. No place to interrogate Caleb, to threaten him, to hold him hostage. The moment Lilith walked out that door, she’d have a clear shot.
“The chapel,” Amy said.
The entrance was at the end of the hall. They staggered forward, Caleb’s weight seeming to multiply with each step they took. His midsection sagged to
ward the ground and Amy soon felt her grip tire. But they carried on.
He didn’t fight. He didn’t squirm or shout out.
At one point, Amy assumed he must be unconscious, but when she looked down at his face, she saw him staring right back at her. A small smile danced on his lips as he watched her struggle with his weight.
“Sorry about your mom,” he said through that grin. “And your friend.”
Mariko. Amy didn’t even know what happened to her. She didn’t see in the chaos.
Without responding, she threw her shoulder into the chapel door. It swung open, and they ran inside, carrying their new prisoner.
Amy was going to end this. No matter what it took.
She was done fucking around.
CHAPTER 20
Mariko took a mean head-butt to the face when she tried to hold Lilith from behind. The blow broke Mariko’s grip and sent her reeling backwards. Just as she managed to steady herself, Lilith punched her square on the jaw.
It sent Mariko sprawling to the ground.
The world went black for a moment.
When her sight returned, it was as though she was looking through a gray fog. A cold breeze caressed Mariko’s face, pulling her back to consciousness.
By the time her fogginess cleared, she realized Lilith stood a few feet from her, but Lilith’s attention was elsewhere as she fired off arrows into the dark ballroom.
Mariko couldn’t see Lilith’s target, but she knew who it must be.
Lilith nocked another arrow and drew her string taunt. She held it, taking her time to aim. The dark outlines of Roger and Amy shone clearly against the lit doorway as they ran toward the foyer.
Lilith held her breath, leading her target slightly.
Mariko pulled herself to her feet. She threw herself forward into Lilith, knocking her off-balance. The arrow sailed off toward the wall, striking against a piece of mounted weaponry with a loud clank.
Lilith wasted no time in spinning around and placing Mariko in a headlock.
Mariko’s throat compressed beneath Lilith’s strong arm. Mariko flailed her hands behind her, trying to get a finger in Lilith’s eye. Anything to break Lilith’s grip.
