by T J Payne
“I tried to have fun,” she said. “I tried to be happy.”
“But?”
She sighed. “But I feel nothing. Just like always. Nothing.”
He grasped her hand in his, hoping that the tenderness of his touch would force her to finally look him in the eye. “But what we have isn’t ‘nothing.’ And it doesn’t matter if we die right now, or if we go out there and kill them all. What we have transcends tonight. What we have is special. It’s a bond. It’s an understanding. It’s love. True, deep, honest love. And as long as you’ve lived a life that’s felt love, then it’s been a life worth living.”
At long last, her eyes shifted from whatever spot on the ceiling she had been staring at and she looked at him. But yet, she didn’t truly look at him. Her gaze seemed to pass straight through him.
“No,” she said. “I never loved you. I just needed your money because I couldn’t afford this wedding myself.” Her face was blank as she said it. Emotionless.
“Wait, what?”
She peeled his hand off of hers and rose from the bed. “Never mind. Let’s go kill some people.”
With mechanical, weary movements, Lilith slung her quiver over her shoulder, picked up her bow, and dutifully ambled to the balcony door.
“Be a good boy and grab some of these chairs and throw them on the balcony staircase. I don’t want anyone to easily charge up at me,” she said.
She never looked back at him as she walked off.
Caleb just stared.
Lilith flung open the door. The noise of music and shouting from the ballroom flooded into the suite. Lilith nocked an arrow and immediately fired it off into the crowd down below. She quickly fired another and then another.
Each arrow seemed to awaken her.
“Get up and help me.”
Caleb didn’t move. He wanted to resist. To stand up to her. To delve deeper into the things she had just said to him.
She never loved me?
Has anyone ever loved me?
“What the fuck, Caleb?!” she screamed as she took aim and released another arrow.
Her voice seemed to reach deep inside Caleb and grab hold of a magical cord. It yanked him from the bed. He soon found himself hurrying around the bridal suite, grabbing heavy wooden chairs and flinging them onto the balcony staircase to build an obstacle for the guests advancing up the steps.
CHAPTER 31
It didn’t take Amy long to find the service staircase that led to the bridal suite. There were only so many doors in the underground portion of The Venue, and Amy had gotten a decent orientation of the layout from her time in the Control Room.
She climbed the stairs and emerged at a short hallway.
With revolver in hand, she marched to the large wooden door at the end of the hall.
She could hear shouting from the other side. A commotion. She figured it must be Caleb and Lilith’s last stand.
The world had slowed for Amy, or maybe her mind was simply making decisions quicker than it ever had in her life, because she opened the door without hesitating. Part of her recognized that it would be wiser to proceed slowly, if at all. She knew she could hide in the stairwell and probably wait this whole thing out. Just a few hours ago, that’s exactly what she would have done.
But she just didn’t care anymore.
She only wanted to end this night. She wanted to end Caleb and Lilith’s wedding.
The door swung open. Amy could see across the room to the balcony.
Lilith stood near the balcony doorway, swinging her long, spiked hammer weapon at someone. Caleb fought by her side, firing off arrows into whatever crowd appeared to be charging up the spiral stairs from the ballroom. Neither of them looked toward Amy.
Amy’s finger tickled the trigger of her gun. She didn’t have any real weapons training. Just one trip to a shooting range. She had shot the Control Room operators point-blank, but she didn’t trust that she could shoot two moving, fighting people from a distance.
Before she had even made a conscious plan, she found herself silently jogging across the bridal suite, extending the gun out in front of her.
She was going to race over to the balcony. She was going to push the barrel against Lilith’s head. She was going to send a bullet into Lilith’s brain. Then Caleb’s brain. And she was going to do it from a distance where she was sure she wouldn’t miss.
But as Amy closed within five feet… four feet… three feet… Caleb turned his head. He looked directly at her.
“Amy?” he said. His voice was light and high, seemingly happy to see that she was still alive.
Lilith heard Caleb’s voice and spun around suddenly, swinging out her long-handled hammer in Amy’s direction. Amy dodged backwards, but the hammer slammed into the gun, knocking it from Amy’s hand.
Lilith advanced quickly, sparing no moment. She swung the hammer again at Amy’s head. Amy managed to lean away from it, stepping backwards into the room.
With ferocious but confident swings, Lilith pressed forward, forcing Amy to keep stumbling backwards. There was such power in the strikes that Amy knew she couldn’t block them. Lilith’s motions were too focused and too purposeful for Amy to dodge to the side.
All Amy could do was back away from the swooping weapon.
Each swing threatened to shatter Amy’s arms. Or skull.
It all happened too fast. Before Amy’s mind could catch up with her retreating feet, she found her back pressed against the wall.
There was nowhere to run.
No way to evade the next strike.
She glimpsed Lilith’s blistered face. The charring had pulled Lilith’s mouth into a sneer. One of her eyes had clouded over and didn’t seem to work, but her other eye stared back at Amy with an emotionless, dead gaze.
Strangely, Amy realized that she, herself, felt nothing in this moment. No fear, no sadness, no regret. In that fraction of a second, the two women looked at each other with a shared emptiness.
“Say hi to your folks,” Lilith deadpanned.
Then Lilith raised the hammer for one final blow to Amy’s head…
Amy didn’t shut her eyes. She didn’t quiver or plead. Her body lost all strength. It was time to die.
Lilith’s body lurched.
The hammer didn’t swing. Instead, it stayed there in the air. All of Lilith’s muscles seemed to have frozen in place.
Amy looked up at her.
Lilith’s good eye went wide with shock. Her throat gulped a few gasps of air.
Amy tilted her head down. Toward Lilith’s stomach. The tip of an arrow protruded through the bride’s abdomen. Redness flowed out from that tip. Like a flood spreading across the land, the redness bloomed out and consumed the white lace of Lilith’s dress.
Lilith staggered forward a step, her good eye looking down at her stomach and trying to make sense of the arrow that had appeared. But then her eye narrowed again, seemingly willing itself to focus on one final victim. One final kill. She looked at Amy.
Amy saw the hammer reel back again, preparing to strike.
Without even thinking, Amy reached into the pocket of her dress. Her fingers tightened around the handle of the scissors she had found in the Control Room. In a quick motion, she pulled the scissors from her pocket and thrust them forward.
The blades jabbed into Lilith’s good eye.
The hammer dropped from Lilith’s hand. She released a hellish shriek as she stumbled backwards.
Amy didn’t let her get away. She grabbed Lilith’s arm.
“To have and to hold,” Amy said.
She pulled Lilith in close.
“Until death do you go fuck yourself.”
With that, Amy slammed her palm into the handles of the scissors, sending their blades piercing deep into Lilith’s skull.
Lilith stopped flailing.
She stopped fighting.
She tumbled backwards and crumpled down onto the ground.
Amy watched her body twitch for a moment.
Caleb stood there, his bow string still slack from the final arrow that he had shot into his wife’s back.
He looked at Amy and smiled.
For the briefest moment, Amy saw the smiling face of that boy she knew.
But a crowd of people soon blocked Amy’s view. They charged up onto the balcony and tackled Caleb to the ground. Amy saw flashes of several knives sliding in and out of Caleb’s back and neck. He screamed. Or, at least, Amy thought she heard him scream. There was so much noise from the crowd that it flooded her senses.
More people ran into the bridal suite from the balcony. They grabbed Lilith and began to stab and hack at her. No one cared that she was already dead. That wasn’t going to stop this party.
Amy looked away.
She took a breath and stepped past the group. She walked out onto the balcony, moving past Caleb without even looking down at him. She didn’t want to know if he was still alive as a woman began to saw through his ribcage to get to his heart.
CHAPTER 32
Amy stepped off the balcony stairs and onto the ballroom floor.
With the announcement from the DJ booth that the bride and groom had retired for the night, a sense of euphoria overtook the crowd.
As the music cranked up louder, the party went into full swing.
The Event Planner was, evidently, still alive. A circle of six guests had formed around her. They smiled as they waved their blades in her face, tauntingly.
“Please… it was a job,” the Event Planner pleaded, rising to her feet. “Please. Please.”
Amy watched.
No one stated the rules of the game, but everyone seemed to be of the same mind. One at a time, the guests stabbed her. Always in non-fatal places and always being respectful of the next person’s turn. When the Event Planner tried to fall, whoever was standing behind her at the time held her up so the stabbing could continue.
The game developed a rhythm. Their stabbing and slashing followed along with the song playing out over the speakers. The DJ booth had been taken over by Lilith’s sister, Trina. She danced and swayed to the music.
Someone had broken into the bar (Amy thought she spied a young couple posing in the photo booth with the bartender’s corpse) and several people were chugging brands of tequila and whiskey that Amy had never heard of before.
As Amy wandered through the ballroom, she only saw four people not engaging in the party. Evidently someone had found and released the guests who had earned their freedom. Lilith’s grandma, Coach Sanborn, Angela the sorority sister, and Lilith’s cousin Chelsea stood against the wall, their eyes wide as they stared at the scene. Amy didn’t know if their memories had been erased yet. She didn’t even know if that was possible, as Caleb had promised it was.
But by the horrified looks on their faces, the three definitely didn’t understand the circumstances of the celebration.
When Amy walked by them, all she could think to do was to nod her head and say, “Sup.”
None of them responded.
Amy continued walking.
She glanced up just in time to see Caleb and Lilith’s bodies flung from the balcony. They hovered in the air for a moment, much like Lilith’s bouquet, before they plunged down and smashed into the tables below.
Some people went over and lifted them up, holding up their corpses in a dance.
Amy stared at Caleb’s face as his body flopped around from side to side. She felt no joy in the moment. No sadness. No nothing.
She stood there for several seconds, trying to will her emotions to resurface. They had settled somewhere near her feet, perhaps even lower, but try as she might, she couldn’t bring her feelings back.
She thought of her parents. She thought of Lilith killing her mom and then her dad. She thought of how her old friend trapped her family here — not for any good reason, but because of a twisted narrative he had stewed over for decades. She realized how unfair it all was. She realized how angry she should be.
But tears didn’t come. Neither did rage nor laughter.
Amy walked on. She wanted to find Mariko’s body, although she didn’t know why. It was just something to do.
There was no sign of Mariko in the ballroom. Not in the photobooth, not by the bar, not on the stage.
She had seen Mariko on the monitors, leading the initial charge into the staff hallway. But by the second charge, the tables had blocked her view. She saw the wave of gunfire, though. If Mariko wasn’t out dancing with the others, then Amy knew where she must be.
With a heavy step, Amy turned and walked back toward the stage. Toward the door that led to the security room where Amy had escaped with the bouquet.
She pushed open the door and stepped in.
Amy walked through the blood-smeared glass door and into the hallway.
She stepped over bodies.
It wasn’t that long ago that having her blood drawn made her queasy. Now, she barely blinked as she kicked a pile of some staff member’s teeth out of the way. They bounced across the floor with a satisfying rattle sound.
A fear began to settle into her, if one could call it “fear.” Much like her other emotions, fear had become an abstract, academic thought. However she wanted to define it, she “feared” that perhaps Lilith had won. Maybe her goal hadn’t been to kill all the people in their lives. Perhaps her goal was to kill the part of those people that Lilith herself lacked.
Because Amy now felt nothing. Perhaps she had become Lilith. Perhaps they all had.
The thought made Amy shrug.
It failed to rile her up and it failed to depress her.
She simply turned the corner and kept wandering down the hall.
It was then that she heard a footstep. A rustling sound that echoed down the otherwise empty corridor.
Amy felt no panic. She simply bent down and picked up the nearest weapon — a dull machete —then stood ready to fight the person if they happened to not be friendly.
She stood still; her grip on the machete’s handle was firm. Her eyes focused on where the hallway wrapped around a blind corner. From the other side of that corner, Amy could hear deep breaths and a staggering, weakened gait.
The person stepped into view.
Separated by ten feet, the two of them stood and looked at each other.
Amy saw that blood-splattered sea-green dress. That messy black hair. That pale, bloodless face and eyes that struggled to focus. That missing left arm.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Mariko said. A little smile played on her lips as though she believed that this was all just a dream.
She rested her weight against the wall. It was as if she had saved up every last ounce of energy so that she could mutter those words.
Mariko slid down to the ground and let her eyes close.
Amy dropped the machete. She ran the final ten feet down the hall and knelt at Mariko’s side. Holding Mariko’s head in her arms, Amy began to sob. She had no control over the tears. They flowed through her and from her in waves.
All she could think to do to anchor herself, to not get swept away in these emotions, was to put her hand on Mariko’s chest.
She felt Mariko’s pulse.
Her heart was still beating.
Mariko was unconscious.
But as long as she was alive, so was Amy.
CHAPTER 33
It was mid-morning, and Johann was already bored for the day.
His summer vacation had been dragging on and there wasn’t much to do in his little town. He was on his way to the house of his friend, Karin. Maybe they would watch cartoons today. Or maybe they would work on that tree fort they had designed. Something, anything, to occupy the hours.
Karin’s family lived outside of town. It was a bit of a bike ride, but it was better than hanging around his own house by himself. Being around Karin always made the summers more fun for Johann.
But as Johann neared Karin’s home, he heard the limos.
/> Even by the age of twelve, he knew that when the limos passed, he was to stop everything and look away. He wasn’t to see the drivers, the passengers, or even the color of the limos or the number of doors on their sides.
The same rules applied to the windowless vans that rolled through the town some days, often filled with cleaning workers in blue coveralls. Johann shouldn’t have known that cleaners were in the vans, but word got around. An older brother or someone’s uncle would get a job on the mountain. They didn’t speak of what they did up there, but they were paid more for a day’s work than Johann’s father made in a month.
Johann hoped that one day he would be lucky enough to land such a job.
Maybe Karin could get a job there too. He knew they hired women as well as men. Then he and Karin could still hang out during the summers, even as adults.
As the limos turned the corner, Johann stopped his bike and stepped to the side of the road, looking down at his feet as he had been taught.
The limos were moving faster than usual. Their engines louder. Usually they breezed through town with a smoothness that seemed to barely disturb the leaves on the trees. Today, they roared.
The limos drove past him and then screeched to a stop.
Were they stopping for him?
What did he do?
The doors on the limos opened.
Men and women screamed at him. Their words blurred together. Not that Johann understood what they were saying. He thought it might be English, which he only recognized from the movies.
He knew he should leave. Whatever was happening with the limos was bad.
Refusing to look up at the shouting adults, he lifted his leg over his bike and began to pedal away. It was then that a hand grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him off his seat.
The hand spun him around and soon he was face-to-face with a woman. Her eyes were crazed and her dress was covered in blood.
She shouted something in his face. A word that he understood as “doktor.”