The Merciless

by Danielle Vega

  “Riley?” I leave the living room and head to the staircase. “Riley, are you there?”

  I wrap my trembling fingers around the banister. As I climb each stair, they creak beneath my rubber boots. Brooklyn could be hiding inside any of these rooms, carving up Riley’s body with her pocketknife like she did Grace. Waiting for me.

  My hands shake. I stop in front of the first door and wrap my fingers around the doorknob. I’m allowed to be afraid, I remind myself, taking a deep breath of the hot, stale hallway air. I’m just not allowed to run away.

  I push the door open.

  It’s just a coat closet, empty and dark. My shoulders slump, relieved. I reach forward and tug on the metal chain hanging from the ceiling.

  The light switches on, glinting off the fresh, bloody handprints covering the walls. The porcelain doll from the attic hangs from the ceiling, a thick rope knotted around its neck. Fire blackened most of her face and burned off her hair. Stuffing pokes through the ripped seams at her arms. Her eye sockets are empty, the cloudy glass eyes long gone.

  “Shout to the . . . Shout to the . . . Shout to the . . .”

  The music blares to life, startling me. I choke back a scream, searching the closet until I see the pink CD player on the top shelf. I stand on tiptoes and yank it down, letting it crash to the floor. Dropping to my knees, I rip open the deck and pull out the CD, flinging it back into the closet. I stand and slam the door shut again, heart racing. I squeeze my eyes closed, collapsing against the wall behind me. It’s just a CD player, I tell myself.

  I make my way down the hallway one room at a time. I open every single door, steeling myself for what I’ll find behind it. I’m greeted with more destruction: a bathroom filled with shredded toilet paper, a guest bedroom empty except for a few broken pieces of furniture.

  I save Riley’s bedroom for last.

  I approach it slowly, like I’d approach a rabid dog or wild animal. I turn the knob all the way around, so the lock won’t click when I open it. Then I lean my head against the wood, listening. Silence. At first. Then I hear whispering.

  “Riley?” My voice shakes. I push the door all the way open and stumble into the room, preparing myself for what Brooklyn’s done.

  But Riley’s room is perfect: no broken furniture or shattered windows, no blood on the walls. I cross to her vanity table and flick on her lamp. Golden light spills over the scarves and glass bottles lining her vanity table, sending broken fragments of colored light flickering over the wood. It illuminates Riley’s porcelain doll’s glassy, lifeless eyes and the collage of photographs covering Riley’s mirror.

  I pause in front of the mirror, running a finger along a photograph’s edge. It’s a picture of Riley, Grace, and Alexis at the lake house, all of them carefree and happy. When Riley first invited me into her room, I remember wanting my photograph to make it to her mirror collage, wedged between snapshots of Grace and Riley. Now that doesn’t seem possible.

  I unpeel the picture from the mirror, studying Grace’s and Alexis’s faces. There’s something hideous about their smiles, especially when I think of how they ended up. It’s like the world played a cruel joke on them. Still, I slip the photograph into my pocket. Better to remember them like this, the way they were.

  I hear it again—whispering.

  I slide the photograph into my back pocket and start to turn. Out of the corner of my eye I see Riley’s bed reflected in her mirror. I freeze. Someone’s there, lying beneath the comforter.

  “Riley?” The tension building in my chest suddenly releases. I exhale and race across the room. “Jesus, Riley, I’ve been yelling for you. Are you okay?”

  I fumble for the blanket’s edge and pull it back.

  Alexis’s dead body flops onto its side. The few remaining wispy blond strands of hair attached to her skull flutter away from her face. Blackened flesh bubbles like tar around the hole where her nose is supposed to be, and crispy red flecks of skin stick to the pillowcase. Skin peels away from her cheeks, letting bone and muscle poke through.

  Bile rises in my throat, but I can’t look away. Alexis’s teeth remain intact, but blackened, and fire ate away her lips, leaving her mouth in a permanent snarl. Even her eyes are gone. All that’s left are two sunken, empty sockets.

  The sound starts again. It’s not whispering, not exactly. It sounds more like dull clicking, like fingernails snapping. I freeze, and my stomach turns.

  Alexis’s mouth drops open.

  “Holy shit.” I stumble backward, staring. Something moves deep in Alexis’s throat. It twitches in the darkness, and a tiny, hairy leg stretches over her teeth.

  The cockroach crawls across Alexis’s tongue and spills onto her chest. A second clings to the roof of her mouth, antennae twitching. It watches me with glassy black eyes.

  Dozens of cockroaches pour out of her mouth and scurry down her body. They nestle into the charred remains of her clothes and dig into her blond hair. A few burrow into her ears. They crawl on top of one another, gushing out of Alexis’s nose and mouth and cracks in her skull. An antenna appears in the tissue of her cheek as a cockroach digs through the remaining rotten, weak flesh on her face.

  The clicking grows until it’s too loud for me to hear anything else. A cockroach creeps over Alexis’s burned stub of a chin and hisses. Tissue-thin wings unfold from its back.

  I scream until my throat goes raw. I back away from Alexis, trip over a pillow, and drop to my knees. The cockroaches multiply, blanketing the bed. They drip onto the floor in a brown scaly mass. I try to push myself away, but I’m too late. Cockroaches skitter up my fingers and legs. Their tiny legs dig into my arms. They plow into my hair and slip below my clothes. One crawls along the neck of my T-shirt, then falls into my bra, antennae twitching against my skin. Another creeps along the side of my face and hisses in my ear.

  I push myself to my feet and race for the door. The floor lamp flickers, sending two-foot-long shadows of cockroaches over the walls. I glance over my shoulder. The insects climb over the lampshade, wings fluttering. They’re everywhere now: crawling up the walls and covering the floor. A thick layer of roaches swarms the window, blocking out the moonlight.

  I rip the door open and race into the hallway, slamming it behind me. Cockroaches click and hiss behind the wood, and I see their flickering shadows in the inch of space between the door and the carpet. I back up against the opposite wall. My skin itches. I feel them crawling over my body, slipping down my T-shirt, clinging to the back of my neck. I swat at my arms and legs, but my hands come away clean. I close my eyes, exhaling, and collapse against the wall.

  Something drips onto my nose. My eyes shoot back open.

  The ceiling swells with blood. Thick, tacky drops trickle down on me, coating my hair and shoulders, speckling my face. I push myself away from the wall, and my boots slip on the blood splattered across the hallway as I run for the stairs. I grab the banister to steady myself. A cockroach crawls over my fingers and I scream, shaking it off.

  The air moves behind me, and the clicking, hissing cockroaches fall silent. All the hair on the back of my neck sticks straight up.

  Someone’s there, in the hallway. I can feel her. I imagine Alexis climbing out of Riley’s bed, sooty, ashy skin crumbling from her face with every step she takes.

  I don’t look back over my shoulder. I don’t want to know if I’m right.

  I take the steps to the first floor two at a time. The ceiling rains blood, and swarms of cockroaches crawl over my rubber boots. The weight of the staircase shifts beneath my feet. I feel that thing behind me, feel it closing in, reaching its raw, burning red hands out to grab me.

  I leap down the last three steps and stumble into the foyer, landing on all fours. Glass shards wedge into my knees and bite the palms of my hands. I push myself back to my feet and scramble out the front door, onto the porch.

  The sky sti
ll burns with eerie light, like it’s on fire. It’s demon light. The devil’s light.

  I don’t stop running until I reach the curb, and then I collapse against Riley’s mailbox, panting for breath. I glance back at the house, steeling myself for what’s about to burst through the front door.

  But the house just sits there silently, its windows dark. Blood doesn’t ooze beneath the front door; cockroaches don’t swarm the porch. The perfectly trimmed bushes rustle in the stale air, then go still.

  As I run from the house, the curtain at Riley’s window flutters, like it’s saying goodbye.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I stumble through Riley’s neighborhood, lost as to what to do next. Every towering house lining the street looks exactly like the one next to it, and I picture that each one is filled with the same horrors. I wrap my arms around my chest, trying not to shiver. I still have to find Riley. If that’s what Brooklyn did to her house, I can’t imagine what she has in mind for Riley herself.

  Helplessness washes over me. I crouch on the street curb and lower my chin to my hands, trying to keep myself calm. I don’t know Riley well enough to know where she’d go instead of home. To Josh’s place, maybe? But no, Alexis said they broke up. My throat tightens as I realize that all of Riley’s other friends are dead.

  I lean forward, and something in my pocket crunches. I cringe, thinking of the cockroaches. I reach into my pocket and pull out a crumpled piece of paper.

  It’s the photograph of Riley and her friends at the lake house. I consider it for a long moment. Alexis wears a white bikini, her smooth, perfect skin tanned to a deep golden brown. Riley sits next to her, her hair tied back with a silk scarf. They all look so perfect. Like people from a magazine.

  Riley said she went to the lake house when she wanted to be alone. It’s near Lake Whitney, half an hour away by car. Too far to walk. I need a ride.

  I consider trying to take Mom’s car, then dismiss the idea almost immediately. With the paramedics and Grace’s body, our driveway is probably still a mob scene.

  I slip my cell phone out of my sweatshirt pocket, quickly pulling up Charlie’s number. I picture Charlie’s bright red truck, and my thumb hovers nervously over the screen.

  Finally, I work up the nerve to send him a text: can u pick me up? its an emergency.

  I give him Riley’s address and hit send. Then I wait. Less than a minute later, the phone vibrates in my hand.

  Be there in 10.

  I weave my hands together anxiously. Every passing second feels like the difference between saving Riley’s life and letting her die.

  “Hurry,” I whisper under my breath. I slip the phone into my pocket and walk to the porch. I tug my sweatshirt over my hands and crouch on the top step, drawing my knees up to my chest.

  Luckily, it doesn’t take ten minutes for Charlie’s red truck to roll down the street and slow to a stop in front of Riley’s house. Charlie throws the door open and jumps out without cutting the engine. He’s wearing faded jeans and a sweatshirt, and his hair sticks up in all directions.

  “Sofia? What is it? Are you okay?” He stops in front of me and reaches for my shoulder, but I immediately pull away. I feel dirty, like all the horrors of this weekend are streaked across my face. Like he’ll know what I’ve done just by looking at me.

  “I need to borrow your car.”

  “What?” Charlie frowns, and the dimple disappears from his cheek.

  “It’s a long story. But I need to go somewhere. Now.”

  He leans in and kisses me on the forehead. Just a couple of days ago this would have made my stomach flip, but now it feels like something I’ve stolen. I don’t deserve a guy like Charlie.

  “You can tell me the long story on the drive,” he says. “I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”

  I start to shake my head before he’s even finished speaking. Hurt flashes across his face.

  “Look,” I say. “You can’t come. I can’t explain why right now, but you just . . . you can’t.”

  Charlie’s frown deepens. “Sofia, if you’re in some kind of trouble, I want to help.”

  “You can’t.” This comes out sounding more frantic than I intend for it to, but I can’t help it. I’m running out of time. “Charlie, you’re a really nice guy, but you’re better off without me.”

  Charlie laughs and reaches for me again. “That’s not true.”

  I lean away from him, pressing against his truck. “It is true,” I say, slipping my fingers into the door latch. “I’ve done terrible things. You’d hate me if you knew. You’ll probably hate me for this, too, but it’s for the best.”

  Charlie shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”

  I don’t answer. Instead, I open the car door behind my back and slip into the front seat, pulling the door closed. Before he can reach for the latch himself, I hit the lock.

  “Sorry!” I yell. Charlie bangs against the glass, and the muffled fwump fwump echoes through the truck.

  “Sofia!” he shouts, but his voice sounds far away. I shift the truck into drive. If I see how betrayed he looks, I know I won’t be able to do this. I close my eyes when I hit the gas and keep them closed when the truck lurches forward.

  By the time I open them again, my vision is clouded with tears, and I wouldn’t be able to see his face anyway.

  • • •

  I look up Lake Whitney on my cell while I drive, and follow the directions to a misty flat park surrounded by dense woods. I slow Charlie’s truck as the road narrows and curves into the trees. The moon peeks over the distant hills and reflects off the steely lake, turning the trees gray and silver through the fog.

  Houses line the waterfront, and just as I start to worry that I’ll never find Riley in time, the road curves again, ending in front of a private beach and a thick cove of fir trees. Beyond the tops of the trees, I see a dark, slate-colored roof and chimney. I shift the truck into park and push the door open, but I leave the engine running, like Charlie did. Riley and I might have to make a quick getaway. Shoving my hands in my sweatshirt pockets, I hurry down the rocky gravel driveway.

  I immediately recognize Riley’s family’s lake house from the photograph. It’s a low, sprawling cabin made of weathered gray wood. Floor-to-ceiling windows cover one entire side of the house, showing a darkened room filled with sleek, modern furniture. A narrow wooden dock stretches far out into the lake. I picture Riley and Alexis spreading their beach towels across the wood and slow to a walk. I’m sure this is the right place. But it looks empty.

  Then something moves on the porch, and I turn, narrowing my eyes.

  Riley’s huddled beneath a blanket on one of the wooden chairs, holding a cup of tea. She flinches when she sees me walking toward her, then sets the teacup on the ground and stands. The blanket drops from her shoulders.

  “Sofia.” Her voice cracks when she says my name. “Oh my god. I thought . . .”

  She lets the end of her sentence trail off, but I know what she was going to say. She thought I’d died in that house with Brooklyn. She thought the fire had killed me.

  “We have to go.” I don’t mean for my voice to sound flat and angry, but it does. As relieved as I am that Riley’s not hurt, I can’t just forget what happened last night—the fact that she left me to burn, the things she did to Brooklyn and to me.

  She studies my face, and something inside her cracks. Tears pour down her cheeks.

  “Sofia, things got really out of control,” she says. “I don’t know what . . .”

  The truck’s engine sputters, interrupting her. I step forward and grab her arm.

  “We can talk about all that later,” I tell her, glancing nervously over my shoulder. “But right now we have to get out of here.”

  Riley frowns. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Grace,” I say. “She’s dead.”r />
  Riley’s eyes widen in horror. She takes a step back. “No.”

  “It was Brooklyn,” I continue. “You were right about her all along. She’s evil. She killed Grace, and now she’s coming after you.”

  Riley lifts a hand to her mouth. The quiet unnerves me, and goose bumps rise on the back of my neck. I wrap my arms around my chest.

  That’s when I realize—the car engine. I don’t hear it anymore.

  “Oh, god,” I whisper. I turn around and take a few steps back over the rocky driveway. Riley’s feet crunch over the gravel behind me. When I see the spot in front of the beach where Charlie’s truck is still parked, I freeze.

  Brooklyn leans against the hood, tossing the car keys from hand to hand. When she sees me, she smiles.

  “Hey, Sofia,” she says. “Catch.”

  And she throws the keys into the lake.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Brooklyn steps away from the truck. Her smile is all teeth, and the longer I stare at it, the more it looks like a grimace. Brooklyn ripped the skin off Riley’s face with those teeth. My knees buckle, and I nearly fall to the ground right there.

  “Oh, god.” Riley releases her breathe in a hiss. “Brooklyn.”

  Brooklyn wrinkles her nose. Her feet crunch over the gravel. “Hey, lover. Miss me?”

  “Brooklyn, think about this,” I beg, but she steps past me like I’m not there. A hammer sticks out of the waistband of her jeans. My stomach turns. No one blocks my path to the dirt road now. I could run to the main street and flag down a car. It was what Riley did to me in that burning house. It would be poetic, almost. The muscles in my legs tense to run.

  Flames crackle beneath Brooklyn’s toes. With every step she takes, she leaves a curl of fire behind her. It burns blue at first, but then the fire crawls over the white gravel in the driveway and its edges burn orange and red.

  Any hope I had of running vanishes with the growing flames. I had to know, on some level, that Brooklyn was capable of this. I saw what she did with the candle in the attic, but I let myself believe it was coincidence, luck. Now I stare at the fire, watching it curl into the air and lick the ground. It’s evil—she’s evil. There’s nowhere I can run to escape her. No matter where I go, Brooklyn will find me.