“Listen,” he says, “get in your car, and drive to the nearest police precinct. They just built one on Charlotte, between a pawn shop and that pizza joint next to the abandoned Goodwill. It’s right before White Bridge. They can keep you safe there.”
“Uh-huh,” I reply.
“Don’t dismiss me. And do not—listen—do not try to solve this on your own. You’ve already placed yourself in enough danger.”
“It seems like the danger has sought me out.”
“Get somewhere safe. Actually, how’s about this: I’ll come to you. The responding officers can check in at The Hermitage. It’s downtown, lots of lights. I’ll be over to 51st in a few minutes. Don’t move. Maybe lock yourself in somewhere safe.”
My phone bleeps. I check the screen.
It’s a message from an unknown number. I think I know who.
“Sure thing,” I reply, and then I hang up.
I can see from the message format that it’s a video and not a text. Somehow, I don’t even need to see it in order to understand what’s going on.
It is perfectly framed—like something out of Kubrick—and dead set in the middle is one Gillian Meitner. The image is mostly silhouette, but I can tell it’s her. She’s in her room, on her computer, with her back facing the frame.
And then a message from the anonymous source appears.
> DID YOU HONESTLY THINK YOU COULD BAIT ME INTO ATTACKING YOU? NICE TRY.
A silent beat, and another.
> HOPE THE COPS FIND AUDREY. I PUT HER SOMEPLACE SPECIAL.
> HA HA.
Then, a text from Gillian. Two simple words, no doubt typed by Allred himself.
> Help me.
The irony is, he’s drawing me out of the darkness. He’s taunting me. This is his end game, and the only way to beat it is to stay home.
I’m out of the door before I can get my shoes on right.
23
I leave the car running and get out to see that Gillian’s place is completely dark. No lights on at all. Just like I imagined. She lives on an affluent street, but her place, hidden away on a private drive in the midst of trees older even than her family name. It sits back from the road, and you have to climb stairs steeper than the ones in Percy Warner to get to the front door.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and because my nerves are shot, I can’t help but check. I need to know who is on the other end.
I almost pray that it’s a wrong number. Anyone else might break my nerve.
Detective Ciccotelli’s number flashes on my display.
My stomach twists into a tight little knot. There is no way this conversation goes better than the last one I had with him.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“I’m at home.”
“No you’re not. I’m at your house. Where are you?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because we just checked with The Hermitage. Audrey Winstead isn’t there.”
“Oh.”
“So, where are you?”
“Right now? I feel like I'm in Hell.”
“Which Hell, specifically?”
I see something in Gillian’s house that sends my heart into my esophagus, so I hold the phone close to my mouth and say, “I’ve got to go, detective. Thank you.”
I can hear him protesting on the receiver when I end the call.
Maybe he will find me. Maybe not.
But either way, this is ending right now.
I make it inside and close the door quietly. I half expect a bloody scene to greet me, but no, the dark is my only companion so far.
Holding my breath, I head into the house’s inner sanctum.
There is a chef’s knife the size and length of my forearm in a block on the main island in the kitchen. I slide it free and then retreat to the darkest corner of the house. I need to catch my breath, because I feel like I’m going to scream.
I try not to think of that last scene in Silence of the Lambs.
Once my eyes can make out the details amidst the darkness, I step tentatively into the residence proper. A guiding beacon draws me through the house, pulling me toward a final destination.
It begins very small, like the aural equivalent of a pinhole of light. It is a single sound, reaching through the empty darkness and tickling my inner ear. Years of isolation have prepared me for this.
I can’t quite make out the sound, at first. It is too small, too minuscule, to discern among the natural sounds of my environment and the hum inside my head.
But it does exist. That much I know.
My mind goes wild with the possibilities.
I’m halfway up the stairs leading to the second floor when I make out the sound. As it becomes clear, my stomach drops.
It’s a voice. At first, I’m convinced it’s Gillian begging for her life, but that’s mere projection. A few more seconds tell me it’s not Gillian at all.
Can’t be, I think.
It’s—Madeline St. Clair.
The voice seems odd somehow, and I can’t quite wrap my head around it.
I am at a loss.
I try to think of how this could happen. Body switch? Faked death?
“Gillian?”
My voice echoes in the darkness. I can’t focus on what I should be doing, only on the force that is inexplicably pulling me forward. The tractor beam from an alien spacecraft, the supernatural tug of a possessed person.
I am Regan from The Exorcist.
I am Jack Torrance from The Shining.
There is only the mystery now, and I have to bring it to a halting conclusion, even if it means my life. I come to this on my own, as a matter of course, because this will never end. As long as I live, it will follow and haunt me, so I might as well see what lies in Room 217.
Once I reach the second floor, it all becomes clear.
The bedroom at the end of the hall is dark, but the scene is punctuated with dizzying flashes of light. Like a techno club with only two sad and frustrated patrons.
“Gillian?”
Though her name is on my mind and on my lips, I don’t suspect I will receive an answer. Unless it’s from Timothy Allred himself.
Walking on stiff legs, I reach the doorway. The doorway.
The room is illuminated by a single, bare light bulb from the desk lamp beside the computer, as well as the flashing computer screen.
It doesn’t take long for me to realize what’s happened.
Gillian is propped in front of her desktop. Slumped, really, is the word I'm looking for. Her shoulders sag, and her head is tilted to one side like a badly-propped doll.
The sobs escaping my throat seem to come from a very distant place, somewhere outside my body and down the hall behind me. But no, it is me. I am the one screaming, and yet inside my head, there is a crazy sort of calm. I need to see this through to the end.
I reach Gillian’s desk and spin her chair gently, as if waking her from a nap.
Her head flops to one side, and that’s when I see the blood. She’s been spared the postmortem indignity of having her face blown off—like Madeline—but it’s still not pretty.
I scream, but rather than run from the room screaming, which is what I imagine ninety percent of people would do, I shut the door behind me and turn the lock.
Because something else has grabbed my attention, and I need to see what it’s all about. If Allred has plotted this out for me to view, then I am duty bound to witness it.
There is a video. At first, I can see nothing and can only infer that it is, in fact, moving pictures. A blurry set of images wavering shakily on-screen.
But then I recognize the house. It’s Everett Coughlin’s place, and I don’t need to know the date or the context to understand that this is the night. It is happening right now, and it is like seeing your own life from a completely different angle.
I can’t help but notice the video’s on a loop, picking up from right around the point where my old VHS—the one someone left in my hous
e—actually crapped out.
I get another chance to see how the night—and the life of Everett Coughlin—ends.
There is the rustling sound of the camera being passed off, and then the frame whirls around. Madeline can be seen walking away from the camera, and just as she reaches the edge of the driveway, she turns and glances once over her shoulder.
The look of shame is evident on her face.
It is the last moment of her life as it was, as everything transforms into what it would eventually become. In this fleeting passage of time, she is still Madeline St. Clair, heir apparent to Nashville’s upper echelon. The golden apple was just bound to become hers. In a few minutes, though, that will all change, and she will become one of the famed and loathed Suicide Blondes, forever associated with the death of a misunderstood kid in a wooded neighborhood in Nashville.
And then, something...changes. Madeline disappears from the frame, and the camera’s attention returns to the Coughlin household.
It becomes something else entirely. The opening scene of that old horror movie, Halloween, maybe. We are forced to see the world through the eyes of Audrey Winstead, and it is a chilling thing, indeed.
The camera stops, and the attentive listener can hear the sound of Audrey breathing. It’s not tired breathing or stressed breathing. It’s...excitement. The kind of inhale one takes before walking into a job interview or asking the cute guy at the office on a date.
Very quickly, it becomes evident why that is.
The camera returns to the house, and the lens focuses in on the scene playing out just on the other side of the garage door. The room is filled with exhaust, and so it is impossible to see anything but a blanket of white. It could almost be called a letdown, if the future hadn’t already supplied the audience with certainty about the night’s events.
From behind the camcorder, she says, “Mads, I hope you know what this proves, that it shows I am your best friend. No one else would do this for you. No one else would take this step. I—love you.”
Then, with a flourish, Audrey spins the camera around and points the lens at herself. Her eyes, wild with the rush of a newfound mission, are the eyes of a madwoman.
She says directly into the camera, “If something goes wrong, and I get caught...in the middle of it, I hope this video finds you so you can know exactly why. Okay. Okay. All right. This is it.”
Audrey cautiously shuffles along the side of the house and makes her way to the door, where—miraculously—it opens.
“I don’t think his parents are home,” she says aloud, maybe to herself and maybe to the audience members.
I glance once over my shoulder, just to make sure the door is still closed and locked, and then I continue watching. I can’t not see it through. Timothy Allred will have to appear and hack me to pieces to prevent me from learning about my legacy.
By the time I get back into the video, Audrey is standing outside the door leading into the Everetts’ garage.
She reaches down with one hand and, turning the lock, says, “Here goes nothing.”
Out of context, it is perfectly ridiculous, but in the heat of this unalterable moment, it is chilling. Not half as chilling as what comes next, I’m sure, but pretty close.
Inside the exhaust-filled room, Audrey finds a pale and desperate Everett lying on his back, moaning deep in the back of his throat.
Apparently, he’s second-guessing his plan.
There is nothing I can do. I want for him to get up and flee, to stagger into the kitchen and call 911, but this is it. This is the reality of it all.
And it is much more morbid than I could have ever dreamed.
“Who are you?” he asks from his spot on the concrete.
It actually draws a laugh from Audrey, who says, “I’m your dream girl.”
Never dropping the camera. Never breaking character.
She has gone full-on Squeaky Fromme.
She whispers to herself, “I’d do anything for you, Madeline.”
Everett’s eyes, dark against his sickly pale face, grow confused. “Who is Madeline?”
And that’s all I can watch. As I scramble to find the mouse so I can stop this bloodcurdling scene, on-screen it gets worse. The camera drops to the concrete, but it faces at such an angle that viewers can still see Audrey mount Everett Coughlin and place the edge of one forearm against his throat.
He tries to fight back, but he’s incapable. The exhaust and whatever he’s ingested have rendered him mostly paralyzed. He flaps one arm against Audrey’s side, which doesn’t amount to much of a defense.
Through teary eyes, though, he utters a single plea: “Help.”
Audrey leans down, sporting a grim smile. “This is me helping you, freak,” she says, before leaning forward with the whole of her weight.
Then, the video stops.
It’s over.
It’s done.
The screen goes black, and I find myself staring into darkness.
Only, it isn’t completely dark.
A white mask floats in the blackness across from me, where the door to the room’s only closet has opened up.
He has been watching the entire time. The video was the preamble; now the real show begins, and I am the headliner.
“Timothy,” I say, trying to get a reaction, but nothing happens. Only the sight of that fright mask glowing against the backdrop is evident.
The figure doesn’t move, doesn’t react, but the zombie thing’s face smiles malevolently back at me.
I am momentarily distracted from the mask by the sight of something else in this pitch black room. The light from somewhere glints off the barrel of the gun my tormentor is holding. It’s the same weapon that took Madeline’s life—And Colton’s and maybe even Gillian’s too.
“You were right, Timothy,” I continue. “We were bitches. We fucked up, and we did some fucked up things. But you have to admit it, now—at least to yourself—that we weren’t the ones, me and Gillian. It was Madeline and Audrey. They were the ringleaders, and we were just the fall girls. Gillian did the tech stuff, and I was just stupid enough to believe I could ever be friends with them. That’s my crime.”
I take a tentative step backward, slight enough that someone in the dark shouldn’t be able to notice it, but enough that it will bring me to the room’s only exit.
“You see,” I continue, “for the longest time, I thought I was too poor to be friends with them. I thought they only kept me around for pity’s sake, or to make fun of me behind my back. I learned that it was all of that, combined with the fact they needed a scapegoat when they couldn’t wiggle out of it.”
Another step.
“I take all the blame for my part in it. I admit it. I tried to stop it, but I didn’t do enough, and he’s dead. But so are multiple other people, people who weren’t involved.”
Another step. A deep breath. A long pause. I can almost feel the door handle.
The figure matches my step this time, showing me that he notices. The mask continues to grin, and I am oddly mesmerized by its presence.
“But you do not have to do this.”
I blink.
The figure seems to jerk, and then the gun raises as the masked tormentor fires a single shot. I duck just in time, and I listen for something behind me to explode, to be destroyed, but nothing happens. The shot must have gone way wide.
I scream—it’s the only feasible reaction—and run straight for the masked figure. I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get there, but I know I’m going to do something.
He lowers the gun, and I expect to get shot, but nothing happens. I’m moving too fast, maybe, and then the next thing I know, I’m plowing into this figure.
I scream again, but this time the act is entirely more triumphal in nature. I am not dead, and somehow I’ve managed to wind up on top.
Allred has lost weight since the last time I saw him. He was never a big guy, but prison must have really taken it out of him, because he feels small and bo
ny.
I just know I can take him. I bring one hand back to punch him, to put this whole thing to rest, but in the darkness I get confused by a pain that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. It starts on the back of my head and moves quickly to every synapse in my body.
Blinking does nothing to prevent the blanket of unconsciousness that overtakes me, and soon I am in another world entirely.
24
Groggily, I open my eyes. The pain reaches like bony fingers through my body and squeezes the nerve endings and open wounds.
Looking around, I see I’m now in a living, waking nightmare.
I am on the floor in the middle of a garage—dare I say, the garage—and there is a fine, cloudy white substance to my left.
Car exhaust. It is just pumping from the tailpipe of a nearby vehicle.
The first thing I notice about myself, beyond the pain, is my hands. They’ve been tied behind me. Above me. I am bound to the driver’s side door of an old car, one that seems familiar but one I don’t quite recognize.
Then, it hits me: it is the exact type of car Everett Coughlin drove back in high school.
For a moment, I’m caught in the moment, wondering who in the hell would take the time to track down a car like that, with such specific details, when I realize it’s not a car like the one Everett drove back in high school.
It is the car Everett drove back in high school.
It is covered in dust, and though it is, in fact, running, it doesn’t sound like it will be doing so for very much longer.
I try to find my feet—they’re somewhere beneath me—but I can’t. Nothing seems to work. Whatever I was given, it’s still ping-ponging around in my system, and I feel like I’m in a living watercolor. Everything is blurry. The shapes don’t quite make sense.
But one thing does.
Timothy Allred is in here, too.
“It took a while to get that puppy up and running,” he says. “New battery. New spark plugs. But eventually it turned over. The wonders of German engineering, am I right?”
He’s standing just in front of me, close enough that I have to tilt my head sideways to see his face. The man is nothing special to look at, but the wild, frenetic energy in his eyes is enough to make me want to turn away.
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