The Serial Seven

by J. D. Cavan

  “We’re just happy to be here,” Luca said as he shoved some tasty-looking shrimp rolls into his mouth.

  “We’re glad to have you here.” It seemed clear to Charlie that Jamie was very fond of Sarah. He kept taking her hand and she kept holding his arm.

  “Oh, and guess who’s here?” Sarah jumped up and down a little. Luca raised his shoulders and shook his head, continuing to downplay everything, while Jamie nodded and smiled.

  “BKB!” she said, giggling.

  “Who?” Charlie asked.

  “Baby Kid Baby,” Samantha said quickly.

  “He’s Canadian. I know he lives in LA and San Fran now, but born and raised here,” Sarah said.

  “I feel a little stupid, but who’s that?” Charlie asked while Luca rolled his eyes.

  “He started his career as a model—” Jamie started to say before Sarah cut him off.

  “He’s so beautiful!”

  “And now he’s making music, or at least singing music someone is writing for him,” Jamie finished.

  “He’s super popular, and very young too, right?” Samantha said.

  “Yep, he’s only seventeen—oh, look, there he is.” Sarah pointed to him. BKB was surrounded by people, all trying to get his attention. He was tall, taller than Charlie by far, and thin with blond hair and perfect features. He was wearing an amazingly tailored black tux that made Charlie’s valet uniform look utterly ridiculous. He had his sleeves rolled up fashionably and his forearms were fully tattooed. Charlie had to admit, the guy looked cool.

  “Let’s get him over here,” Jamie said as he excused himself.

  “Oh my god, here he comes,” Sarah almost shouted as BKB walked over toward them with Jamie. Charlie noticed Samantha drop her head, trying to pretend she didn’t notice him coming while Sarah just gushed.

  “These are my friends,” Jamie announced.

  “I can’t believe I’m meeting you! I’m so loving your new album,” Sarah said immediately.

  “Gracias, means a lot,” he said disingenuously, then turned toward Samantha. Charlie and Luca introduced themselves, but he seemed disinterested.

  “It’s totes awesome to meet you,” he announced, taking hold of Samantha’s hand and not letting go. He continued to completely ignore everyone else.

  “I’m Samantha.” She held his hand and couldn’t seem to stop smiling.

  “I know you from somewhere?” he asked her.

  Samantha just shook her head back and forth. “Definitely not.”

  “You’re a model, aren’t you? The Saint-Tropez photo shoot two years ago?” Samantha blushed. It was the first time Charlie had ever seen her do that, and a spike of jealous anger ran through him.

  “I’m not a model,” Samantha replied, in this cutesy voice that wasn’t like her at all and made Charlie want to throw up.

  “Not yet!” BKB replied.

  After that they seemed unable to get rid of BKB. They ate some more and decided to go to Jamie’s art exhibit on the other side of the museum. Jamie excused himself and left before they headed over. Charlie walked with Luca and Sarah while Samantha and BKB walked a couple of steps behind them.

  “I can’t believe her,” Luca said under his breath to Charlie.

  “What kind of phony voice was that?” Charlie whispered. “She’s not even acting like herself.”

  “Will both of you cut it! She’s having a ton of fun and getting attention from someone every girl in this place would want. Let her have her moment,” Sarah scolded them.

  They reached Jamie’s show and finally BKB had to go. But before he did he pulled Samantha aside and whispered something in her ear. She quickly came back to the group as they started to check out Jamie’s art, which hung all over the hallways of the south side of the museum. Samantha raced over to Sarah.

  “Well?” Sarah asked her.

  “Get this—he said to contact him if I’m every in Cali,” Samantha said. Sarah grabbed her hands and they started chuckling.

  “I’m sure that’s his big line,” Luca uttered cynically. Charlie couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Shut up,” Samantha said, pushing Charlie and Luca backward in jest.

  Out of nowhere, Sarah gasped. They stopped joking with each other and looked at her. Sarah was standing motionless, gazing at one of Jamie’s paintings on the wall.

  “What is it, Sarah?” Luca asked, then walked over toward her looking concerned. Charlie came over as well and she was white as a ghost.

  “That’s mine,” she mumbled.

  “What?” Samantha asked.

  “That painting, it’s mine.” She was shaking her head back and forth and Charlie could see tears in her eyes. “It was in the house, in my studio. I had been working on it. He took it from me.”

  “Are you sure?” Luca asked and Sarah nodded her head.

  “I’ll kill him,” Luca stated. He looked through the crowd searching for Jamie.

  “No, Luca.” Sarah turned away from her painting. “I just want to leave.”

  “We have to call this scum out right now, if he’s takin’ art from you and claiming it as his!” Luca was losing it.

  “Please, Luca, I feel embarrassed enough. Just leave with me,” Sarah pleaded, tears running down her cheeks as she headed for the museum’s front doors.

  When they reached the front steps it was hard for Charlie to keep up with Sarah. She was hailing a cab in the street and Samantha and Luca were right behind her. Samantha was having a hard time running in her tight dress and heels. A cab finally stopped on the street and Sarah was about to get inside when Charlie heard it. Shots rang out in front of the museum. In a panic, Charlie searched to see where they were coming from as everyone began running and screaming. Bullets whipped past him and he threw himself down to the ground. Luca had pushed Samantha to the pavement and was on top of her while someone pointed to the top of the museum roof, above the enormous pillars, shouting, “Sniper—sniper!”

  Charlie raced toward the cab, then stopped and searched for Sarah. Bullets rained down around him and suddenly, he felt himself get tackled and yanked down. He hit the pavement and slid behind the tire of the cab. It was Sarah who had knocked him down to safety and she was up against the cab now. Charlie dragged himself over toward her and then saw blood all around her.

  “No!” he said.

  “I’m shot, Charlie,” she grunted, blood coming from her shoulder. She had gotten hit trying to save him. The firing ceased, and Luca and Samantha came running up to them.

  “Shit!” Samantha shouted.

  “I’ll get her to a hospital; you two find out who that is!” Luca ordered. Charlie wasn’t sure what the heck Luca was talking about. The scene was total chaos. Samantha grabbed his arm and pulled him back up the steps into the museum as everyone else started to come out. She was able to sneak them past the gates and up the stairs, then up some back steps.

  “What are we doing?” Charlie said as they frantically ran up the steps.

  “Finding the killer!” Samantha replied. Number four, Charlie. These steps lead to the roof, and number four, I’m sure of it!”

  “This is insane,” Charlie huffed as he followed behind her. They reached the top floor, a darkly lit hallway that led to a large metal exit door to the roof.

  “Alright, get ready!” Samantha kicked the door. It sprang open, out into the empty roof and the night air. Suddenly they heard a voice and both of them jumped.

  “What are you doing up here?” It was a police officer, and she had her gun out. The police officer was familiar to him; Charlie had noticed her stationed as security when they had walked in the front doors at the beginning of the night.

  “The killer—where’s the killer?” Samantha demanded.

  “You’re not supposed to be up here,” the officer replied. Charlie looked over at the edge of the roof, his eyes finally adjusting to the night, and he could see a body fallen over and lying on the floor. Samantha pushed past the officer and tore over toward the body.


  The dead figure was dressed in black, including a ski mask over its head. Charlie and Samantha quickly glanced at each other before Samantha ripped it off.

  “I can’t believe it…” she said.

  “It’s Jamie,” Charlie uttered. He couldn’t believe it either.

  “Number four is Jamie?” Samantha questioned. Other police officers rushed up the stairs and through the door to join the officer that had shot and killed Jamie. Charlie grabbed Samantha’s hand and pulled her away from the body, and before the police could question them, they disappeared back down the stairs and out of the museum.

  * * *

  BY THE TIME Charlie and Samantha reached the hospital and raced down the hallway toward Sarah’s room, Luca was walking out of it.

  “She got lucky. Clean shot, in and out, no broken bones,” he said.

  “She’s okay?” Samantha asked, out of breath.

  “They’re stitching her up now and putting a little IV in. She’ll be ready to go in an hour or so.”

  “Thank god,” Charlie said.

  “You’ll never believe it, Luca—the sniper on the roof was Jamie,” Samantha said.

  Luca shook his head back and forth angrily. “He did steal her painting, so I guess I’m not that surprised—nutcase. The police are here; apparently no one else at the museum was hit.”

  “That’s because Jamie was number four, trying to hit one of us,” Samantha said.

  “One of us?” Luca looked at Charlie. “Well, he hit my sister.” There was a pause. “You can go in and see her if you want. I’m going to get the truck and pull it around. We need to get the hell outta here as soon as we can.” Luca disappeared while Charlie pushed the hospital-room door open to find Sarah lying in her bed with her arm in a sling.

  “Hey, how are you?” he asked. Samantha stood by her side.

  “I’m shook up, but they tell me I’m in good shape. I can leave soon.”

  “They didn’t tell.” Charlie said. “That it was Jamie.” Sarah’s face darkened and her eyes looked pained. It was quiet for a moment.

  “I thought he was someone different,” she uttered. There was a knock on the door as it opened.

  “How are you doing?” a doctor said, politely. She was dressed in a white coat and smiled pleasantly as she paged through Sarah’s chart.

  “I’m fine physically—psychologically, not so much,” Sarah replied. “The nurses said I can discharge soon. I’m happy about that.”

  “I don’t think so,” the doctor replied as she checked Sarah’s IV drip. She took a syringe out and squirted some liquid from it into the air. Charlie watched and then moved over next to the doctor. She felt familiar to him. He glanced at Samantha, but she was busy watching the T.V. and the reports coming in on the news of the shooting. As the doctor went to administer the injection in Sarah’s arm, Charlie’s heart started to pound and his head spun. He stepped even closer to her and squinted his eyes, struggling to recall her face—he knew her from somewhere. The needle was about to go into Sarah’s arm when Charlie recognized her.

  He reacted, knocking the syringe out of the fake doctor’s hand. Then he felt something stab into his leg—another needle she’d had in the other hand. She planned to poison them all! Charlie fell backward and yanked the needle out before she had a chance to inject the deadly toxin into him.

  Sarah’s mouth was open as if she was trying to scream but was too frightened. Samantha, looking stunned at first, quickly stepped up to the killer, who now had a third needle in her hand. She jabbed it at Samantha, who shifted her body to avoid it and at the same time landed a hard right hook to the fake doctor’s jaw. She fell backward against the sink and slid down to the floor. It looked like Samantha had knocked her out, but she opened her eyes.

  “It was you—you switched the paintings, and it was you on the roof pretending to be a cop—you who shot at us, not Jamie!” Charlie shouted.

  “Shush…” she put one finger up to his lips and shook his head back and forth in an eerie way. Then she started to change just as the Destroyer had. It was as if her skin peeled away from her body right in front of them, revealing a skeletal mass. Sarah screeched in horror as the thing popped up and hissed. It swung long, deadly looking nails wildly about, which were really the bones of her fingers.

  Charlie got out of the way just as one of her hands whipped past his face and stuck into the wall. Samantha rushed number four, hitting the monster with a punch before she collapsed to the floor, blood spraying from the side of her head.

  “Sam!” Charlie called as he ran over toward her. “No,” he cried. Samantha had been cut. The thing opened its bony mouth wide and screamed. Charlie fell back against the wall as it approached him and pushed himself away from it, sliding along the wall toward the window, searching for anything he could use to protect himself. The killer thing was inches from him, raising its spiked fingers, when Charlie felt something. It was a metal bar clearly used to raise the windows and keep them open. He yanked it out from its holder just as the zombie thing jumped at him. He thrust the end of the bar up and into the head, jamming as hard as he could through the skull. The thing screamed loudly and then crashed to the floor in a horrific spasm.

  Charlie raced over toward Samantha and a rush of blame and guilt came over him, worse then ever. This is all my fault. A nurse and doctors started to come into the room, but Charlie wouldn’t leave Samantha’s side. Her beautiful eyes were closed, but they opened and she looked around the room, then right into Charlie’s eyes.

  “I think I’m okay. I’m alive, I think,” Samantha mumbled, and Charlie felt instant relief. She stood up and touched her face. A nurse and doctor were next to her. “It skinned me.”

  Charlie watched the killer dying on the hospital-room floor, and to his amazement, it wasn’t in zombie-skeleton form anymore. Another doctor had arrived and was trying to revive it, but the bar had gone clean through its head and there was blood everywhere. Number four’s eyes were closed, but Charlie noticed she was trying to say something, so he moved closer to her and put his head down.

  “Careful, Charlie,” Samantha warned. “She’s tricky.”

  Four was mouthing something, almost inaudibly, and Charlie dropped his head down toward her. Her eyes opened and Charlie could see the vacant blackness. It was like trying to look into the darkest sunglasses.

  “We all turn,” it whispered. Charlie shivered; it was the same thing Lang had said to him before he’d died.

  “What does that mean?” Charlie demanded.

  She continued to move her mouth. “You’re going to pay for what you did. It’s not over,” it finally uttered before dying. Charlie stood up and looked at Samantha and Sarah. Of course it’s not over, he thought to himself. If she was number four, there would be numbers five, six, and seven! And pay for what? What had he done?

  * * *

  A COUPLE OF hours later Luca drove the truck back to Sarah’s house and Sarah quickly ran up her steps. They had stayed up all night and the sun was just starting to come up over the horizon. Charlie was exhausted and could tell they were all wiped out. Samantha had gauze taped on her cheek where she’d been cut, and Sarah had her arm in a sling and her shoulder wrapped. They were drawn out, the walking wounded.

  “The door’s still locked,” Sarah called to them as she unlocked it and went inside. Charlie followed her into the back-room studio while Samantha and Luca trailed behind them.

  “Anything else missing?” Charlie asked. He watched Sarah search through her other paintings.

  “No, just that one.”

  “Strange,” Luca said.

  “I wonder how it got in?” Samantha said.

  “It’s eerie. I’ve got a creepy feeling someone’s gone through my stuff,” Sarah said.

  Charlie searched the small room and then an odd feeling came over him. Something didn’t seem right. He continued to look around the room, confused. What is it? he wondered.

  “I’ll go check upstairs,” Luca said before di
sappearing.

  “Wait!” Charlie said. It dawned on him, and he felt his stomach drop. What number four had said to him. Its voice haunted his head… It’s not over.

  “Don’t touch anything,” he told Sarah, who had started to look through her desk drawer. “Luca!” he shouted. “Stop where you are, and don’t move.” Sarah was looking at him with panic in her eyes. “I think the house is rigged with traps.” There was a pause.

  “How do you know that?” Sarah asked, her voice shaking.

  “First sniper fire, then toxic needles, now booby traps,” Charlie replied quickly.

  “This is getting ridiculous,” Luca called, starting down the steps. Then Charlie saw it through the open door of the studio—the thinnest of thin wire, running above the steps Luca stood on. Before he could warn Luca, the top of his head ran into it and tripped it.

  “Duck, Luca!” Charlie screamed. Just as Luca hit the trap, one of the wooden spears shot out across the room and just over Luca’s head. He screeched as he watched the spear whip past his face and stick into the wall, just missing his head.

  “What did I say? Don’t anyone move!” Charlie ordered. Sarah gasped and Samantha froze.

  “I’m gonna have to move at some point; I can’t stay hunched over like this forever,” Luca said, slowly standing up from his awkward crouched position on the stairs.

  “What do we do now?” Samantha asked. “I’ve been through a lot in my life, but this is a new one.”

  “We have to get out of the house,” Charlie said.

  “That would be a good idea,” Luca stated. “If this house is rigged, these zombie killers are pretty smart—”

  “Quiet, Luca,” Samantha snapped.

  “We have to retrace our steps exactly. We got into the house and where we are now without setting any traps off, so we can do it again if we stay on the same path we came in on,” Charlie explained.

  “Good point,” Sarah replied.

  “That’s why we keep him around,” Luca joked.

  “Exactly the way we came in,” Charlie told them. He carefully stepped around the corner of the room and out into the living room. He carefully followed his path, as best he could remember, toward the door. He watched Luca, Samantha and Sarah do the same thing. They all walked softly and calmly toward the front door. Charlie kept his eyes peeled for anything that looked suspicious or appeared out of place, but there seemed to be nothing.