“Please try to stay calm. We’re going to check the other two rooms and get help,” I told her. I could still hear her whimpering as we approached the last two doors. One of them was empty, but the last room—that awful room with the boarded up window where I’d spent my last night with Sam—was locked. A light shone from under the door.
“Stand back,” Lou said, then kicked the door open forcefully. There was a young boy standing, shackle-less, in front of the boarded up window. He turned around slowly. It felt like I was looking through a tunnel again…
It was Sam.
Chapter
Sixty-One
I stared at Sam, dumbfounded, but quickly removed the gun from the back of my pants. I cranked the slide, aimed it straight for his head. “Why aren’t you dead?” I asked, since there was nothing else to say in this situation.
“Marianna, please…” Alive-Sam said, stepping toward me.
“Get back!” I screamed, waving the gun around, my best attempt at seeming threatening. He placed his hands up, surrendering.
“Okay. Just please let me explain. Don’t shoot me, for Christ’s sake.”
“Shoot you again, you mean? Since someone already blew your brains out and I’ve been the one sitting in an institution accused of it? What the hell is going on, Sam?” I asked, my voice shaking as tears appeared in the corners of my eyes.
“It was all a set up…” Sam started.
“No! I saw the picture! A policeman brought me your crime scene photo. I was traumatized, you asshole!” I shouted. I was tempted to punch him instead of using the gun. The feel of my fists on his face sounded fabulous.
“Your mom and step-dad staged the scene. My parents were in on it, too! They even had a funeral for me! Everyone in this town is so fucked up…”
“But why? Why?” I demanded.
“They thought you knew too much. The trip to New Orleans, going to see Wendi…they had to get you out of the picture, so they framed you and sent you to the asylum instead. I suspect that most of the patients over there are people who got in the way of the evil residents of Flocksdale…”
I thought about Suzie Q, who claimed she was innocent, and Matilda, with her story of killing her own mother in self-defense. “Now they’re holding me prisoner too. You have to believe me, Marianna! And he’s in on it!” Sam declared, pointing an accusatory finger at Lou.
My mouth fell open in surprise. I turned the gun on Lou, my hands still shaking uncontrollably.
“Oh, that’s bullshit, and you know it! I told you not to trust this guy, Marianna! I’m the one here helping you, aren’t I?” Lou pleaded.
My thoughts racing, I ordered Lou to go stand by Sam. I kept my back to the doorway, ready to run if need be. Did I really have it in me to shoot either of them, even if they came running toward me? No, I wasn’t sure I had the guts for it.
“Why did you have my mother’s cell phone?” I directed my question toward Sam. His eyebrows furrowed.
“I didn’t. It really was your mom, all along. Only we were right…she wasn’t in New Orleans. She was claiming some of her victims. George was supposed to kill you while she was gone, but he never got a chance. I think he must have ditched the phone, and that’s why we heard it ringing in here,” he said, pointing toward the boarded up window/room/whatever the hell it was.
“I love you, Marianna. Please. Kill this guy,” Sam said, jabbing a thumb at Lou. Despite having a gun pointed at him, Lou chuckled.
“You are certifiably nuts, Sam. Seriously. Come on, Marianna. Let’s go call the police so all these fuckers can go to jail,” Lou offered.
I stared back and forth between them. If I thought I had to choose between them before when they both liked me, it had nothing on this. Who could I trust? I aimed the gun back and forth, from Sam to Lou. They both stared at me, pleading for me to believe them. Should I trust Lou or Sam?
“My vote is neither,” said a voice from behind me. Lexi wrapped a piece of rope around my neck.
Chapter
Sixty-Two
I was dragged across the floor by my neck. I kicked and screamed, desperately clutching the rope around my throat. My vision was spotty. Unable to take a breath, within minutes, I lost consciousness.
Chapter
Sixty-Three
Boards breaking—that’s what I heard when I opened my eyes. My vision still blurry, I tried to move. I was lying on my back in the same bedroom where I’d confronted Sam and Lou. I remembered Lexi…and the rope, squeezing the life out of me.
“Sorry I tried to run you over,” Lexi said, pressing a foot to my chest. She nudged me back to a lying position. She was grinning maniacally.
“You don’t look too sorry, bitch,” I said bitterly. I expected her to kick me for the name-calling, but she was too busy staring at Lou and Sam.
They were removing the boards from the window. “You’ll have a couple friends up there, don’t worry,” Lexi said, smiling back at me. With the boards gone, I could finally see this mysterious window. There was a window-like opening, but no pane of glass.
“All right, let’s get her inside,” Sam said casually. He barely glanced at me as he moved around the room, setting down tools and shuffling boards.
“Sam?” I whimpered. Hearing his name, he smiled down at me.
“If I’d have had a crowbar that day, you would have been up there a long time ago,” he said coldly.
My heart dropped. Everyone I’d ever loved was either a killer or dead. “You should’ve stuck with me. I’d have figured out a more creative way to kill you,” Lou commented. I wasn’t looking at Lou’s face…I was staring at his Reebok shoes. The shoes of a clown…
“Always a competition between you boys. Idiots,” Lexi mumbled.
The boys helped her pull me to my feet. I tried to fight, but I felt so crummy and weak. My limbs were like spaghetti noodles. Plus, it didn’t help that three strong people were shoving me through the hole.
It was a tiny dank room the size of a small closet. It appeared to be empty. “Friends are upstairs,” Sam said, motioning to a tiny square opening in the top of the closet/room. An attic space above.
“Pull the string, dummy,” Lexi said. They stood in the pseudo-window frame, waiting for me to do it. Reluctantly, I pulled the string, jumping back as a rickety ladder slipped down in front of me.
“Go on up. Tell them we said hi,” Sam prompted. No way was I going up there willingly. It looked like the staircase from hell. Lou reached through the opening and pointed the gun at my head.
“Go,” he demanded.
So I did. I had no other choice.
Chapter
Sixty-Four
As it turns out, my “friends” upstairs were two dead girls. They’d been up here for a while, their sunken skin shallow and gray.
Despite the degree of decomposition, I could tell they were twins. The Bromy twins that Wendi was talking about…the ones everyone had assumed ran away. The smell was so bad it burned the inside of my nostrils and eyelids. I gagged, moving as far as space would allow in the cramped, low-ceiling attic.
I could hear Lou and Sam replacing the boards downstairs. I sat on the floor between stacks of dusty boxes, my knees tucked up to my chin. I tried not to look across from me at the decaying twins.
They were sitting side by side, like they were simply waiting for death to come when they died. Maybe they just starved to death, I wondered fearfully. I didn’t know which was worse. Being murdered, or left to starve on my own.
I got up, sifting through boxes, looking for something I could use to fight back or escape. I felt so helpless. What was the point? I was going to die in this place—this real-life House of Horrors.
One of the boxes was filled with driver’s licenses, jewelry, and hair accessories. Shuddering, I moved away from it. Memorabilia from victims, I knew.
I unfolded the lid of another box. I nearly dove across the room as I came face-to-face with that hideous clown mask. It lay limply in the box. I sco
oted back over to it, quickly sealing its lid.
I looked around desperately, finally noticing a tiny, circular window on the wall. Shocked to see it there, I shoved a box beneath it, stepping up to look through the miniature space. The tiny hole was so obscure, I doubted anyone could see it from the outside unless they were looking hard. I’d certainly never noticed it. It was barely big enough to look through with both eyes, and it was the tiniest window I’d ever seen in my life.
The pane was covered in a layer of grime and dust. I used my own spit to clean it. Even if I could fit through it, and I couldn’t, there were a set of bars covering the tiny opening on the outside.
So, I could look out toward the river but it didn’t do me any good, as far as escaping. I was overcome by a sense of impending doom. I was only seventeen. Too damn young to die!
My mother and stepdad. My friends. I wanted to murder them all. “Sick fucking freaks,” I hissed angrily.
I cleaned the miniature window some more, then pressed my face against it. I immediately spotted an orange ball of light across the river! The asylum was on fire!
I gasped. Oh no, Wendi! I cried against the glass. So, Mom and George had killed her and all the patients there to shut them up. I must admit—a teensy little part of me had hoped Wendi would come rescue me. But that would never happen now. Even if Wendi had managed to survive, she would assume I’d left town, just like she told me to. Why, oh why, didn’t I just listen? I could be halfway to Tennessee by now!
I pounded at the glass with my fist. It was made of thick Plexiglas—to prevent it from breaking, I supposed. If I could just break it, maybe I could shout out and someone somewhere would hear me. But I knew that was unlikely. I’d be screaming into the wind, the river my only listener.
I decided to try anyway. I’d search for something to crack the Plexiglas. But before I could move, I saw something unbelievable. I had to literally rub my eyes and look again at the scene.
An army was crossing the old walking bridge. Not an army, but Wendi. She was leading a gang of girls behind her! She was coming!
Chapter
Sixty-Five
Matilda, Suzie Q, and a handful of others I recognized from the asylum followed Wendi Wise. They were coming to the House of Horrors!
I eventually lost sight of them. Were they in the house already? I jumped to my feet and started screaming so loud I didn’t sound human. “Help! I'm up here!” I shouted again and again. I tried to push the attic door back down, but they’d sealed the entrance somehow.
Oh god! What if she didn’t hear me? I screamed against the attic hatch, begging and pleading to be saved.
I couldn’t hear anything downstairs. Finally, I went back to the tiny hole of a window. I stopped breathing. I saw one of the girls who had been chained in one of the bedrooms. Wendi was getting all of the victims out! She was rescuing them!
But now she was holding a can of gasoline. She was pouring it around the perimeter of the house. I pressed my face to the glass, screaming in terror. She was going to burn down the House of Horrors with me in it!
I saw her appear and reappear, lining the house with gas. I felt myself accepting death. Oh, god…I didn’t want to burn alive! Not like this, please…
But then something crazy happened. A small flicker. A gut instinct…
Wendi froze. She looked up, her eyes meeting mine. She stared at my little face in the tiny window. It was like she had seen a ghost, because the color in her face drained. She was white as a ghost herself.
Wendi dropped the gasoline and took off running. With my black wig and makeup, I wondered if she thought shesaw herself up here. I pounded the glass, screaming her name.
Chapter
Sixty-Six
After Wendi rescued me, I cried in her arms and she held me like a newborn baby. “Your mom and George are dead. I’m so sorry…”
“I know…It’s okay. I know the truth now. Maybe, deep down, I’ve known it all along,” I told her sadly.
I felt numb, stuck between wanting to mourn for my mother and being thankful she was dead. I missed the version of her I wanted and the mother I’d always pretended she was.
Wendi and the others had managed to take down Lexi, Lou, and Sam. I certainly wouldn’t mourn their loss.
“You want to light the match?” Wendi asked me. We were standing outside by the river, staring up at the House of Horrors—the horror of her past and the dreaded pain of my present. Matilda, Suzie Q, and all the other victims stood on the lawn watching us. They were silent. “No, I’ll let you do it,” I told Wendi softly.
We watched the fire rise and spread, engulfing that awful place. It licked up around the sides, making the shingles wavy and bright. I enjoyed seeing it burn.
“Should we go before the police get here?” I asked fretfully. Wendi shook her head, her eyes glued to the flames.
“The first time Jonathan tore it down, I didn’t want to watch. But this time…I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Epilogue
After burning down six more houses Wendi claimed were involved in the crimes, we took off in the van. All of us—the lost girls, we called ourselves. I was determined not to look back as we pulled away from Flocksdale, but I surprised myself by shouting for Wendi to stop. “We need to hurry! The fire is spreading!” Suzie Q shouted from the backseat. I looked back. She was right. The entire town of Flocksdale was burning to the ground. Good riddance.
I jumped out of the passenger seat. The welcome sign had been repainted. All I had on me was a smudgy tube of eyeliner. I drew a thick black line through ‘Welcome to’, and added a new word. As we pulled away, I smiled at the sign in the rearview: ‘Fuck Flocksdale’.
The End
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to the following people…
First and foremost, thank you to all my readers! You guys make it possible for me to keep writing, and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart…
Mom—now that I’m a grown-up and have my own family to take care of, I don’t get to spend much time alone with you. My favorite part of our trip to New Orleans wasn’t the amazing food, sights, or sounds…it was the opportunity to spend so much one-on-one time with my mother. When I was a kid, I took you for granted, but now I relish in those moments…our trip is what initially inspired this second book in the series, so thank you for taking me. I love you.
Vicki—you are always the first person to read my books, even when they’re in that terrible, first-draft stage. If it wasn’t for your love for Have You Seen This Girl? (actually, it was nameless when you first read it!), I probably would have trunked it and never wrote this second story. Thank you for always having my back, pushing me to be a confident writer, and for inspiring me every day.
Tristian, Dexter, and Violet—every book I ever write will be for you, and I hope you know that. I’m sorry I don’t let you build bridges with my books the way you want to. Someday you’ll understand that I’m saving them for you. You guys are my whole world, and you are my greatest inspiration when it comes to writing. I wish my eyes were like shutters on a camera, and I could snap photos of you guys all day long so I’d never miss a moment…
Shannon—for working so hard every day to take care of our family, and for standing by my side through thick and thin. And for buying more copies of my books than should be allowed! As long as I have you for a fan, I’ll keep writing! I love you so much.
Limitless Publishing—for letting me continue Wendi’s story, and for believing in me as a writer. I’m so glad I’ve found a home with Team Limitless. You guys have treated me with the utmost respect and kindness. Thank you, thank you, thank you…
Lori Whitwam—for helping me during the pre-editing process, and for calling me out on my bad writing habits.
Toni Rakestraw—for being an amazing editor. You are patient, kind, and gifted. You make editing so painless. You fix all my mistakes and fill in the holes for me. Thank you so much.
Ashley Byla
nd at Redbird Designs and Jennifer O’Neill—for coming up with such a beautiful concept and design for my cover. I love seeing my characters come to life on the cover!
Lydia Harbaugh and Crystal Harms—for all your amazing help with promoting my books! You guys are lifesavers.
My fellow Limitless authors—you guys have turned out to be some of my best friends. Your friendship and support means the world to me!
About the Author
Besides my family, my greatest love in life is books. Reading them, writing them, holding them, smelling them…well, you get the idea. I’ve always loved to read, and some of my earliest childhood memories are me, tucked away in my room, lost in a good book. I received a five dollar allowance each week, and I always—always—spent it on books. My love affair with writing started early, but it mostly involved journaling and writing silly poems. Several years ago, I didn’t have a book to read so I decided on a whim to write my own story, something I’d like to read. It turned out to be harder than I thought, but from that point on I was hooked. My first and second books were released by Sarah Book Publishing: This Is Not About Love and Grayson’s Ridge. I’m a total genre-hopper. Basically, I like to write what I like to read: a little bit of everything! I reside in Floyds Knobs, Indiana with my husband, three children, and massive collection of books. I have a degree in psychology and worked as a counselor.
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/CarissaAnnLynchauthor
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/carissaannlynch
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/11204582.Carissa_Lynch
House of the Lost Girls (Flocksdale Files Book 2) Page 14