by Adam Kunz
Peering in through the little window on the front door, I can’t make out anything. It’s too dark. I take a hold of the handle and try to turn it, but it’s locked. Moving around to the side of the house by way of the wraparound porch, I stop at the door leading into the kitchen. Testing the knob, it turns, and I quietly open it. I step over the threshold and tiptoe a few feet into the kitchen, all the while staying aware of my surroundings.
The house is quiet and everything is still. I pull out the gun and hold it stiffly in my right hand, cupping my left one underneath it for stability. Feeling fortified, I head toward the foyer of the house and the main staircase. I have to restrain my gasp when I see Hattie lying at the bottom of the stairs. Her body is twisted in an awkward position.
I rush over to her side as quietly as I can and feel for a pulse. I pull back when I discover her skin is ice-cold. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s dead.
I aim the gun up the stairs before I take my first step. I try to tread softly on the old wood so as to not make them creak under the pressure. Reaching the second floor, I post up in the corner of the wall adjacent to the stairs. Janice’s room is across the hall. I notice the door is propped wide open. There’s a lamp on in the room, casting the space in the soft glow of its dim light.
My heartbeat quickens as I take a step toward her room. Passing the open door that leads into the bathroom, I quickly point the gun through the doorway while scanning the area inside. When I see no one, I continue moving to Janice’s room.
I draw in a deep, quiet breath when I feel my lungs start to burn from holding one in. Creeping forward, I enter the room and see Phoebe by the window. Her back is to me and she’s tied to a chair. Her body is limp, seeming like it’s only being held upright by the rope around her midsection. A shiver of worry runs through me when I fear she might already be gone.
Before I check on her, I do a quick visual sweep of the room with my gun in ready position. Seeing no sign of Unknown, I quickly turn to shut the door. I shriek when I unexpectedly come face to face with the red reaper mask.
The moment I raise the gun, he grabs my hands and forces me to point it into the air. It goes off and a shower of white dust from the ceiling rains down on us. He grabs my wrist and twists it back, causing the gun to fall to the ground as I cry out in pain.
His fist connects with my chin. I stagger backward, crashing into the bed. Before I can react, he tackles me. He straddles me as I try to struggle free from the chokehold he has on my neck. I pound on his chest in a frantic manner, fighting to take in air. Grabbing his hands, I attempt to pull them from around my neck, but can’t. His grip gets tighter as he shakes me back and forth.
I reach wildly around for anything to hit him with. My hand connects with something and I’m not even sure what it is, I just grab it. Thrusting it toward his head, I see that it’s an alarm clock. As it connects with the side of his face, he groans in pain and his grasp loosens. But he doesn’t let go. I swing again with more force, causing him to fall off the front of the bed onto the ground.
I sit up and scan the floor for the gun. Spotting it, I lunge for it and snatch it up. I leap to my feet and turn, aiming the gun right at the area Unknown landed on the floor.
He stands up and stops, staring at me. I watch him clutch his hands to his side, looking like he’s about to rush me. I pull the trigger, but no bullet fires. I rapidly click the top of the barrel back when he moves toward me.
I scream as I pull the trigger again, bracing for his impact. A loud bang deafens me. Unknown stops in front of me, bringing his hand up to the bullet hole in his shoulder. He turns his focus back to me and starts to lurch forward. I pull the trigger again and slug a bullet right through his chest, sending him falling to the ground.
I release a huge, shaky breath. Slumping against the wall, I try to regain my composure.
“It’s over,” I say. “It’s finally over.”
Unknown lies motionless on the floor. I kick his boot just to make sure he won’t move. When he doesn’t, I kick it again, making absolutely sure.
I have to find out who’s under the mask. I reach down to pull it up, then pause and move back. Hesitation comes over me and I aim the gun to his chest. I’m not taking any chances. Firing another shot, I see his body twitch from the force of the bullet.
I bend down to remove his mask. Pushing it back with the barrel of the gun, I’m shocked to see who’s underneath.
“Kevin?” Anger and sorrow hit me all at once. I kneel down next to him and pound on his chest. “Why?” I scream. I feel so betrayed…so stupid.
A moan from the chair next to me draws my attention to Phoebe. Her head rises up, and she begins looking around aimlessly, clearly dazed. As she starts to struggle, I jump to my feet and move closer to her. She looks so happy to see me. I slowly remove the tape from her mouth so she can speak.
“Dani!” she cries out the moment the tape is removed.
“I’m here, Phoebe. I’ve got you. Have you seen my father?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t remember much. I feel drugged or something.” She pauses for a second, then seems to become hyperaware. “Where is he?”
“He’s dead. Unknown’s dead,” I reply, starting to untie her. “It was Kevin.”
“Kevin? No. No way. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Look,” I say, pointing to Kevin’s body after loosening the final knot in the rope.
“Oh my God! It was Kevin,” she says, covering her mouth in surprise.
A thud sounds from the closet on the opposite side of the room. “What was that?” I ask, standing up quickly.
“Let’s just get out of here, please?”
“Yeah, let’s go,” I respond, turning my attention to her.
The thud sounds again and I spin around to look at the closet door. When I go to move toward it, Phoebe grabs my hand.
“Don’t. Let’s just go, okay?”
“But something’s in there. There’s no more danger. Unknown’s gone,” I point out, shaking free of her hand.
Even with the killer’s body there on the ground, I still approach the closet with some apprehension. Turning the handle, I pull it open.
“Dad!” I shout when I see him propped up in the closet, bound and gagged. His eyes meet mine and they widen with shock. He tries to say something, but it sounds muffled behind the tape over his mouth.
“You should’ve listened to me,” Phoebe says behind me.
“What?”
“I told you not to look in the closet,” she replies.
As I turn to face her, pain blasts through the side of my head. My vision blurs and I stagger into the open closet door, trying to brace myself in order to keep upright. I fall to the ground, fading in and out of consciousness until there’s nothing around me but darkness.
Chapter Thirty Five
I try to open my eyes and survey my surroundings, but all I see are fuzzy slivers. A feeling of dizziness washes over me and my head begins to throb. A sharp pain resonates from my left temple and I moan, still trying to open my eyes. My eyelids feel so heavy. All I can hear is my breathing mixed with a high-pitched ringing in my ears. I attempt to open my eyes again. When I succeed, I find it hard to focus on any one thing. It’s all blurring together.
My body feels restricted, and my range of motion is limited. My arms are pulled behind me, tied together at the wrists. The rope scratches and burns my skin as I try to move.
“Oh, you’re awake?”
The voice fades in and out.
My head slumps back as the dizziness intensifies. The room seems like it’s spinning while I’m sitting still. I try to speak, but my lips are forced together by something covering my mouth. It feels sticky to my lips.
“Daaaaani…Daaaaaani.” I hear the voice again and feel a sharp pain in my neck and scalp as my hair is grabbed and pulled forward. “Dani!”
My eyes shoot open. Although everything is still hazy, I can make out a face right in front of min
e.
“There you are.” The voice sounds calming, yet menacing at the same time.
I focus and the person’s face comes perfectly into view. Anger surges through me when I’m met with Phoebe’s evil grin. I struggle against my confinements, wanting to rip her to shreds for what she’s done. I say a few choice words, but they’re muffled behind the tape.
She laughs. “What’s that you say? You can’t talk? Well, that’s kind of the point. To be honest, hearing your voice feels like someone’s jabbing syringes into my ears,” she says, tapping my cheek with the scythe in her hand.
She traces my chin with the tip of the blade, and I feel her dig it into the tape over my mouth. “Besides, I already know what you’re going to ask me.” She clears her throat. “Why, Phoebe, why?” she whines mockingly before bringing the scythe up to the tip of my nose. “First of all, motives are so two thousand and late. And second,” she begins and moves her mouth close to my ear, “I’m fucking psychotic.”
I just glare at her.
“Well, shit. This isn’t as fun without you yelling at me for what I’ve done to you,” she comments, caressing her cheek with the curved edge of the blade.
I scream as she rips the tape from my mouth. I hang my head, weighed down by the pain, and try to suppress the sting on my lips by tucking them into my mouth and wetting them. When the soreness subsides, I whip my head up and glare at her again.
“Why did you—”
“Uh, uh, uh. I’ve already told you why,” she says interrupting me, pressing the blade to my lips.
I struggle to talk around the curved blade. “I don’t believe you. There has to be a reason!”
“Fine! You want a reason? Here it is. You’re a brother-stealing, friend-abandoning,” she says pointing at Kevin’s body, “cock-teasing, heart-breaking whore of whores!”
“That’s your reason? That’s the reason you killed all those people? Just because of how you felt about me?”
She takes a moment, her expression getting angrier the longer she stalls. “You fucking took the only man I ever loved away from me and sent him packing to California!”
“Parker? But he’s your brother,” I reply, disgusted.
Phoebe leans in close to my ear and yells, “Stepbrother! He’s my stepbrother.” I flinch at the high-pitched squeal of her voice. She backs away and glances at Kevin’s body on the floor and pans back to me. “Oh, and just for the record, Kevin did most of the dirty work. I just provided the inspiration,” she replies smugly, gesturing to me. “You’d be surprised how fucked up love can make you. And he had quite the major league hard-on for you, Dani. But then again, you already know that.”
“You’re such a bitch!”
“Really? Namecalling? That’s a little low, even for you, isn’t it, Dani?” she asks, grabbing me tightly about the chin and mouth with her hand. “Not to mention very stupid, since I’m the one with the knife.” She releases her grip after shoving my head back.
“Why’d you kill Janice? She did nothing.”
Phoebe giggles, making me waver between fear and fury. “Want to know a secret? Janice was a part of this whole thing. She was our little techie. You can thank her for all the deleted texts, and for tapping into the school’s network, allowing us to showcase your little soft core flick with Parker in the computer lab. I guess all that alone time in her room and the library, gave her a lot of opportunities to do research on this new little techno hobby of hers. Unfortunately, that’s when her usefulness ended, and she couldn’t quite cut it anymore. So, we had to do what we had to do.”
“You’re a liar! Janice wouldn’t have ever helped you do this.”
“Of course she would. Think about it, Dani. Just like the rest of us, you fucked her over royally. Not only were you a reason her mom homeschooled her, but you also drew all the attention of the one and only guy she ever liked—Kevin. It seems like you have a habit of being the little whore. She had a grudge against you, my friend, and once her mom drove her to the breaking point, she was all too eager and willing to fuck you over.”
“You won’t get away with this,” I spit out through clenched teeth.
“Oh, Dani. Dani, Dani, Dani. You’re such a naïve, stupid bitch, aren’t you? I will get away with this. You see, Kevin will take the fall for everything. Just like he was supposed to. Of course, he didn’t know that,” she answers with a sneer.
I see my dad stir. He’s lying on the bed and appears to be coming to.
“Oh, goodie. Pops is waking up,” Phoebe says, leaping onto his back. He cries out in pain behind taped lips as she grinds her knees into his spine. Jumping back off the bed, she kneels in front of me and smirks. Holding up the scythe and the gun she drew from my father’s holster, she says, “So, which one do you want for dear old Dad? The slow painful death of the blade, or the quick, possibly painless end by the gun?”
I don’t answer her. Instead, I rear back and spit in her face.
“Scythe it is,” she declares while wiping away the saliva dripping down her face.
Raising the blade into the air, she swipes it across my right leg. Excruciating pain surges through my thigh. Tears come to my eyes as Phoebe brings the scythe up to my face, smearing the blood across my lips and cheek.
Through my waterlogged eyes, I see movement just past Phoebe’s head. I have to fight against showing my awareness of Parker creeping up behind her. He must’ve come straight from the hospital. He’s in his gown with a pair of pants underneath it. Putting his finger to his mouth, he continues to move further into the room. When I turn my eyes back to Phoebe, a questioning look appears on her face.
Shit! Did she notice me look behind her?
She stands up and spins around. Parker cracks her in the face with his fist. She crumples to the floor with a sickening thud.
“For fuck’s sake! It’s my stepsister?” he shouts, panning from her to me.
“Yeah. Hurry—grab the gun from her and untie me,” I reply.
After collecting the gun, Parker cradles my face with his hand while sending me a strained smile. He looks relieved when he sees I have no visible injuries there. His attention shifts to the rope binding my wrists together, and he starts to loosen the knot. When my hands are free, he moves on to the rope around my waist.
“Parker, look out!” I shout.
Phoebe takes a swipe at him with the scythe. He groans in pain as the blade enters his arm. I see the gun drop from his hand. It lands behind the chair with a clunk.
“You always did punch like a bitch,” Phoebe scoffs as Parker backs up to lean against the wall, clutching his wound. She points the blade at me. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, blondie.”
With my hands free, I attempt to grab her, but she deftly maneuvers out of my reach. I scramble to untie myself and hear the struggle behind me. I work even faster to get free.
When I hear Parker’s aching moans, I turn to look at him. Phoebe’s digging the tip of the blade into the injury on his right side, torturing him.
I grab the gun when I’m fully able to move from the chair.
“Get away from him, you bitch!” I shout, limping to my feet while aiming the gun in her direction. I can’t fire because she’s standing right in front of Parker. If I miss, I could hit him. The ache in my leg is almost too much for me to bear. I’m finding it hard to focus on my aim.
Phoebe laughs, taking a hold of Parker and posting up behind him, using his body as a shield. She jabs the scythe deeper into his side to make him cooperate with her. His pained sounds make me flinch. He dwarfs Phoebe as she stays behind him, making a clear shot almost impossible.
“You can’t win, Dani. I wrote the fucking rules myself,” she taunts.
I pull back the top of the barrel, loading a bullet from the clip into the gun, and stabilize it with my left hand. An insane idea enters my mind. I’m scared to do it, but it might be my only choice to save Parker.
“I’m sorry, Parker.”
“Do what you have you d
o,” he replies through clenched teeth.
Phoebe’s eyes grow wide, peeking over Parker’s shoulder. I point the gun at his left arm and pull the trigger. He yells out in pain before dropping to one knee. I pull the top of the barrel once more and point the gun at Phoebe. I try to ignore the pain surging through my leg as I steady my aim. With her directly in my sights, I release the breath I’m holding and pull the trigger.
BANG!
The bullet blows straight into her forehead, sending her flailing toward the window. All I hear is the sound of glass crashing on the floor as she smashes through it, falling outside.
I shuffle over to Parker. He leans up against the wall and holds pressure on where I shot him. Thankfully, it looks like the bullet only grazed his arm.
“I can’t believe you shot me,” he says between gasps of pain.
I place my hand over the one resting on his wound. “I’m so sorry. I had no other choice,” I reply, placing a soft kiss on his cheek.
“I know.” He turns to capture my lips with his before I can move away. His mouth quivers during the embrace, and I can practically feel the amount of pain he’s experiencing. “I’m pretty sure we’re overdue for a trip to the hospital, don’t you think?” he jokes with a weak laugh followed by an achy moan. “And you should probably untie your dad.”
I release a small giggle at his comment while tracing his face with my fingertips. I smile when he musters enough strength to show me his famous grin. Pulling out my phone, I dial 911 and request an ambulance.
The instant I hear my father’s moan, I leave Parker’s side and hobble over to him. I begin to rip through the duct tape that binds his hands, legs, and feet. With him free, I rub my hand along his hair until he opens his eyes.
“Dani?” he asks wearily.
“Yeah, Dad.”
Instead of replying, he smiles at the sound of my voice.
I take in a deep breath, lying in the recovery room while musing over the fact my nightmare is officially over. Parker enters my mind, and I wonder how he’s doing…wherever he is right now. I feel really guilty for shooting him, but I panicked and saw that as my only option at the time.
