UNDER THE BLADE
Matt Serafini
COPYRIGHT 2014 BY MATT SERAFINI
ONE
The killer was coming back.
Melanie heard impatient footfalls pacing just beyond the cabin wall.
Across the room, Bill’s body lay sprawled across the floor, face down in a thousand glass fragments—hurled through the casement window five minutes earlier.
Melanie had thought fast, leaving her seat beside the fireplace and pushing two bookcases in front of the shattered sill, reinforcing them with all the furniture in the cabin’s living room—a crude blockade of couches, chairs and lamps. Forcing through it would require more strength than she hoped the killer had.
She pulled her head closer to her knees and winced each time the madman’s fists fell on the door. He grunted like an animal as he knocked.
The corner of the room was a sea of spilled cassette tapes and smashed boombox pieces that surrounded her. They’d fallen from the shelves during her impromptu barricade. Across the way, Bill stared indifferently—his one visible eye vacant and popped wide. A hammer buried so deep in his neck that only half the handle jutted up through the torn flesh and broken cartilage.
He wasn’t the only victim. Melanie stumbled across the first bodies an hour earlier, when everyone failed to show up for their nightly poker roundtable. She’d gone walking down to the female counselor’s bunk and found Jennifer there—strung up on the inside of the door like a rabbit and suspended off the floor with thick manila rope, rugged gashes sliced across her neck.
A thick pool of blood grew at her feet, collecting every drop from her leaking body.
In a sprint back to the counselor’s cabin, Jennifer’s killer had presented himself. A misshapen silhouette of a man, buoyed by an unnatural form, pulled open the door and filled the frame. Melanie about-faced and bolted up the trail toward Mr. Dugan’s office, screaming for help the whole way.
At her back, fast and heavy steps gave chase.
Mr. Dugan’s office hadn’t been locked, and Melanie bolted the door closed after slamming it. The camp owner failed to respond to her frantic pleas.
Lightning bursts brought the only illumination, and she had to time her moves with every flash.
There was a phone on the kitchen wall but there was no dial tone when she lifted it—probably went out the same time as the camp’s power.
At that point, only Jennifer was gone and there hadn’t been time to mourn the murder of her best friend. Instead, she hoped Bill, Lindsey, Tyler and Becky were out there somewhere.
But they weren’t.
While scrambling for a weapon, she’d discovered Lindsey and Tyler’s naked bodies impaled together atop Mr. Dugan’s bed. A pitchfork went straight down into Tyler’s back and pushed through Lindsey’s chest. In those sporadic lightning crashes, she noticed Tyler’s head wet with blood, the back half of his skull completely recessed.
This grisly set piece brought the realization that everyone else had been butchered.
And the man responsible was outside, looking to come in.
The door had burst open, raining splinters across the room. In another eruption of lightning, the not-quite human lumbered in from the pouring rain. Melanie retreated to the rear of the cabin and pushed through the back door that had thankfully been there. She ran hard through the mud; her feet felt like they were sloshing through molasses on the way to the main cabin.
And here she was—fishing a small hunting knife out from beneath a pile of tapes as the doorknob jiggled.
Melanie brushed a strand of her curly red hair aside and pressed her fingers against her palms, hoping to steady her nerves.
But it was pointless.
Time slowed to a crawl as she willed Mr. Dugan’s return. The camp’s owner would be marked for death the second his Jeep lights broke the dark. And if she unlocked the door, or moved the barricade aside to get out through the window to warn him, all the killer needed to do was choose which of them died first.
The cabin was safe for the time being. The remaining windows were either too small to fit through, or so awkwardly sized that squeezing in would create one hell of a struggle. If the killer tried doing that, she’d have plenty of time to bury a knife in his skull.
The front door was shut and reinforced with a buntline hitch sailor’s knot tied from the knob to the cabin’s rafter. Melanie hadn’t recalled her sleepaway camp know-how in years, but it rushed back on instinct the second it was needed. To prevent a breach of the back door, she’d spent the last of her energy sliding the kitchen’s old lead refrigerator across the floor to block it.
At last, the damn doorknob stopped jittering and the footfalls slipped away in the night, out of earshot. She brushed aside a Winger cassette as she stretched out, trying to shake away the crippling tension.
The maniac’s retreat might’ve brought momentary relief, but her apprehension worsened. Where had he gone and why? Was Mr. Dugan back? Had someone come out here to check on them? That was doubtful, considering they’d spent the last two months fixing this place up without a single person happening by. If anything, the killer could wait her out, knowing full well she would cave before he did. She flexed her hearing but there was only the rain.
If Mr. Dugan was back, he needed to be warned. She got to her feet and hoped to hear his Jeep’s familiar axle squeak approaching. Without it, she had no intention of rushing out there.
These woods belonged to him, and she wouldn’t stand a chance on unfamiliar terrain and in a torrential downpour. She didn’t think she stood a chance at all, really. How could a seventeen-year-old fend off a mammoth-sized psycho?
Melanie walked around the cabin and pushed aside just enough of each curtain to look for arrival signs. Water sluiced against the glass, limiting her line of sight to almost nothing. Mr. Dugan never came. Her hopes fell on Becky next. Hers was the only body still unfound. It was a big campground and she might’ve been hiding somewhere out there—same as her.
It was likely that she had been in the mess hall’s kitchen when the power cut out. Girl was a phenomenal cook—always experimenting in her off time. Just this afternoon, Bill pulled three trout from the lake and Becky put them on the grill with some parsley, basil, and rosemary. Simple, but her decision to improvise some lemon/Worcestershire butter sauce made it one of the best things she’d ever eaten. If there was even a chance she was still there—
I can’t go outside. I won’t.
Melanie felt ashamed of that cowardice, but had no trouble justifying it. For all she knew, the killer was waiting just beyond the door. Ready to pounce. Did it make sense to try to get to the mess because Becky might be alive? And if she was, he might’ve been on his way there now.
I’m not moving from here, goddammit.
“I’m sorry, Bill,” she said. Her pitch was frail. Her hands tugged at his ankles, dragging him across the room. A trail of dark crimson followed them into the corner. His Motley Crüe Girls, Girls, Girls shirt had been torn to shreds from multiple stab wounds to the stomach. She hadn’t noticed them before, suddenly remembering that they’d made plans to catch the Crüe next time they were in the area.
She shook off the memory and told herself that she could grieve only at the end of this. For now, Bill needed to be out of sight for sanity’s sake. Only way to survive was to keep calm.
With a whimper, she turned him over and pushed the body as far into the corner as it would go, draping a heavy blanket over his length. Her eyes were wet and it was getting tougher to breathe.
“You’re going to be fine,” she whispered, not believing her own encouragement.
The place was locked down nice and tight. And Mr. Dugan would be back at some point. Maybe he’d decided to stay at Sherry Peters
on’s—a local widower in town who ran the diner. Word around Forest Grove was that they had been carrying on for the last few years.
But Mr. Dugan seemed to like Becky’s company, too. On more than one occasion, she’d offered him a private home cooked meal in his own cabin. It happened so often that Bill had been sure they were sleeping together.
Men and their variety, Melanie remembered thinking, wondering if Bill had ever fantasized about the other girls. As if any of that mattered now. Her eyes drifted to the limp sheet in the corner stained with crimson.
She dropped to her knees, the knife clanging beside her, crying.
They were gone. Jen—her best friend and confidant. Theirs was the kind of friendship at seventeen that already offered a lifetime of great memories. And Bill—her summer steady. An innocent fling in bloom. Their desire to go all the way was bolstered by mutual reticence. She had been surprised to learn that Bill hadn’t ever done it before. He was okay with that, too, saying that he wanted it to be with someone special. This was right before he took her hand and said, “you’re special.” Cheeseball sincerity had been his specialty.
The floor groaned beneath her pale thighs, and a sharp click snapped through the cabin’s silence. Behind her, steady creaking. She didn’t want to look but turned around anyway. The throw rug rose up off the floor and then slipped away to reveal a cellar trapdoor lifting upward—a dirty and blood-caked hand pushed up on the square latch.
The killer rose from the darkness and for the first time, she saw him against the dancing firelight.
It’s him, she thought through wide and bulging eyes. He can’t be real!
He was a campfire tale in the flesh, but no one had really bought the stories. The town drunk once accosted them outside of the gas station, swearing they’d meet their ends at the hands of Cyrus Hoyt. “Hoyt’ll hack you up. That’s what he does.”
A surreptitious campfire fable recounted Hoyt’s modus operandi. Melanie had found it scrawled in graffiti on the side of the boy’s bunk one morning and barely had time to read it before Dugan barked orders for a prime and re-paint:
He comes by firelight but you won’t see him
He waits in the dark and you’ll never hear him
Don’t know you’re dead until he has you
Cyrus Hoyt hacks through bone to kill you
Bill had asked Mr. Dugan about it at dinner once. “Don’t worry about that bullshit,” he’d said. “That’s just a story some of the townspeople came up with when two kids disappeared back in the 70s. Mothers and fathers didn’t want to take responsibility for their piss poor parenting, invented a story instead.”
The story took a heavy step forward. His head was obscured by a welder’s mask, a featureless steel plate covering his face. The dark and dirtied lens shade hid his eyes, while his breathing was both muffled and amplified beneath it.
He wore what looked like military garb: a thick and tattered surplus coat along with pants that were either black or caked with so much filth that it was impossible to tell otherwise. A gigantic hunting knife with lots of hungry, serrated teeth on one side was tucked into a fist. He studied her, cocking his head from one side to the next.
He lifted his head upward, almost daring her to make the first move.
Melanie felt like a cornered animal. Her hands fumbled for the knife as she was struck by a sudden realization: I trapped myself in here.
There was absolutely no time to undo any of the barricades and the front door taunted her from over the killer’s shoulder.
His heavy work boots inched forward and Melanie got to her feet, knife in hand.
The killer raised the blade high above his mask. He was much taller—well over six feet—and wouldn’t have a problem landing the stab.
Melanie realized she’d been backing up and felt the cabin wall against her. Nowhere to run.
He was close and there were wet bloodstains on his jacket—runny remnants of her friends. Even the welder’s mask was stained with streaks of them. A few hardened chunks of gore clung to the steel and he stunk of perspiration, refuse and rot.
The urge to vomit was powerful, but she stifled it while the fireplace lit an actual fire under her ass. Then she remembered the poker. It should still be atop the burning log she’d thrown onto the blaze earlier.
He was a few feet away and his breathing sounded excitable. The blade danced in the firelight, hanging high overhead.
Melanie flung her own knife outward, straight at his face. It bounced off the killer’s mask but caught him with enough surprise to halt his approach. Momentarily.
All the time she needed to drop to the floor, her arm fanning out and pulling the poker from the fire.
The killer came forward, his knife threatening to cut through her pastel “Camp Forest Grove” t-shirt on its way to her innards.
She had a split second advantage and used it to stab his thigh. The poker sizzled and slipped through his leg. He let out a muffled wail and tumbled back, covering his smoldering wound with a shaky hand.
Then she scrambled to her feet, scooping up the knife and running for the door. The little blade cut sharp and tore through the rope on the knob as she pushed through and into the rain. Too scared to look over her shoulder.
No chance of escaping in a car, since Bill’s keys were likely still in his pocket. She could’ve kicked herself for forgetting to check. Jen’s keys were in the girls’ cabin, but she wasn’t going back there either. There wasn’t any time to search. Not with a killer on the loose.
The entire campground was mud, making it impossible to conceal her tracks. The only thing to do was make erratic movements and hope that Cyrus Hoyt lost her trail.
She trudged across the hostile terrain until the kitchen was close, and then debated her next move between gasps of air. It wasn’t worth the risk of being trapped inside another cabin, especially if there were more secret entrances she didn’t know about.
Instead, she snaked around the building and moved to the forest’s edge, just enough to lead her tracks in that direction. Then she skirted the muddied grounds while doubling back toward the lake. He might come across her trail to the water, but if he searched the kitchen or forest first, it would buy her all the time she needed.
The waterfront was quiet and a thin layer of fog rose up off Lake Forest Grove like strands of white wool. Three canoes sat grounded on the shore and she dropped the knife into the nearest one before setting the others adrift. She waded back to the straggler and got inside, paddling for deeper water.
Melanie didn’t stop until the camp was out of sight, and even then, she kept going. The waterfront disappeared in the foggy shroud and as the rain stopped, she breathed a cautious sigh of relief.
It was easy to imagine him rampaging from building to building, rage mounting along with the realization that he’d been outsmarted. Eventually, he would check the beach. And what would he think upon discovering all three canoes missing?
Her heart sank with that realization. She’d taken away his ability to give chase, but by drawing an arrow in the sand.
Now she watched the other side of the lake in depression. Hoyt knew the area well and could already be on his way to the other side. What if he drove? Or at least, knew where to wait. She wiped tears from her eyes and half-expected to see him suddenly standing among the watery fronds. Waiting with open and bloody arms.
Melanie felt more exposed than ever. Every paddle dip felt like a radar ping. And it was only a matter of time before Hoyt locked on. Her best bet was to get to shore and run. The killer might’ve been wounded, but that wasn’t going to keep him away. And if he figured out that she’d escaped in a canoe, he’d be guessing as to where she’d gone.
The fog was good for that, at least.
She decided to change direction slightly, banking to the right and cutting a swath diagonally across the lake.
That’s when she spotted one of the other canoes.
Impossible! How did it drift out this far?
&n
bsp; It was floating off to her right, just a few yards behind her. Moving closer somehow.
Melanie pushed the oar down through the water, but the errant canoe continued drifting forward. Her elbow muscles tightened and she pedaled harder.
The empty canoe slammed against hers, knocking her forward. The oar slipped from her grip and she shrieked. Her hands launched toward the water, reaching for it. But it was already gone.
“Shit,” she said, and thought about swimming the rest of the way.
The hull exploded beneath her feet.
The canoe’s side splintered to pieces as an axe swiped across the floor. Melanie was fast, kicking her legs up to avoid the slice. The boat filled with water almost instantly, and Melanie’s off-kilter body sent it capsizing into the blue.
Into the arms of the killer.
Olive-drab sleeves wrapped around her waist and pulled her deep into the recess.
She cried out and choked on the sudden intake of water. Her arms flailed and her hand gripped the bottom of the welder’s plate, yanking the mask off his head.
His bear-grip tightened into a squeeze and the mask fell from her hand, slipping away into the gloom. Melanie’s mouth was clamped and that meant inevitable drowning as soon as she needed to breathe. Her stomach and chest constricted, giving way to crushing pain beneath his flexing forearms. She felt the rough and misshapen features of his face while he struggled to choke her out.
She jammed her thumb straight into his eye.
He screamed out—a soggy and high-pitched yowl—before releasing her.
Melanie floated to the surface and gulped for air as soon as she broke through. Then she swam. Land wasn’t far—maybe ten feet—and she managed to pull herself ashore, crawling through the mud like an animal. Too tired to stand.
Without a weapon, all she could do was hope the killer wasn’t following. That he’d been wounded enough to abandon pursuit. Town was probably five miles away and she could clear that in an hour, if only she could stand.
Have to get up.
Under The Blade Page 1
