by Adan Ramie
“Then why don’t you want anyone to know where we are?” Veronica asked.
Riley watched Jolie’s face as she responded, because she was wondering the same. If they weren’t in danger, if they were simply being paranoid, why was she so upset?
“You don’t live through what I went through and not learn a thing or two about being cautious.”
She went back to her chair and sat down heavily. She looked from Veronica to Riley and back. “That night was like walking through Hell. All those girls I had spent most of my childhood with were dead, and I couldn’t do anything to help them. I had to survive.”
“Did you know him or was he a random freak who wanted to peep?” Veronica asked.
Jolie nodded. “He was. Some people thought he was one of the girls’ boyfriends, but no one could remember ever seeing him before. There were only about a half dozen of us who stayed over the holidays. My friend, Michele, didn’t want to go see her dad. It was his holiday for visitation, but he was a jerk who liked to knock her around, so she told us she wasn’t going to go. We stayed with her so she wouldn’t be alone.”
Riley rubbed her hands along her arms and tried not to picture the bloody scene. She thought about Cindy and her easy laugh, about Bethany’s silence and Sara’s gruff exterior. They were all masks they put on to cover up the visible and invisible scars they wore, but they were more pleasant than looking their tragedies straight in the face.
“Why did you live?” Veronica asked.
Riley didn’t think it wasn’t an accusation; she could hear the honest curiosity in Veronica’s voice. It was the same question Riley asked herself every day, and probably the same all of them asked themselves after their individual terrors were over.
Why me?
Jolie sighed, pushed out of her chair, and walked past Riley to the door. She opened the door slightly, looked out for a long moment, then closed the door again.
“Why did I live? To tell the truth, I got lucky. Maybe someone or something was looking out for me. I got up out of bed to go for a snack at the right time, and I had the sense to hide when everything was going down. I don’t know. Why did you live?”
“I didn’t feel like partying that night.” Riley watched Veronica sink into the chair like she was made of gelatin, then look up at Jolie with defiant eyes. “I was always up for anything. I took everything my boyfriend gave me, and I took it by the handful, but that night, I had been throwing up on and off for a few days and I didn’t feel like it, so I pretended to take it.”
“Pregnant?” Jolie asked.
Veronica pulled the sides of her mouth up, but it still looked like a frown. “I didn’t know it at the time, but I found out after that I had been growing that idiot’s twisted embryo.”
Riley couldn’t help herself; the words were out before she had time to question them. “The baby?”
Veronica smiled at her. It was the same spaced out smile from before, but there was a depth to it that Riley only saw after the revelation. “When they found all of us, everyone else went to the morgue, but they brought me to the hospital. They did a lot of tests, I guess. My parents found out about the kid and decided it was a little extra something I couldn’t deal with after every one of my friends died all at once. Funny, though, how they didn’t ask me.”
“That’s horrible. Why would they do that?” Riley asked.
Veronica shrugged, then dipped her hand down into her pocket and pulled out a little clear plastic bag. She poured a pill out onto her hand, stared at it, then tipped out another. She swallowed them both dry and the bag sealed went back into her pocket.
“I was devastated, really, until I found out the whole thing was my boyfriend’s fault.”
“Why?” Jolie asked, her voice softer than it had been before.
Veronica smirked, but Riley could see the pain in her eyes. “He got the pills from some asshole I told him not to deal with anymore, because he was a creep, but he didn’t believe me.” She ran her tongue over her teeth under her closed lips. “I was right. That douchebag killed them all on purpose, and he killed himself, too, and if I had taken the pill, he would have killed me.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Riley said.
She wanted to get up and hug Veronica, but the idea of leaving her seat made her feel lightheaded. She tried to imagine what it would have been like if it had been her friends that died that day instead of her family. What her life might have been like. What her brother’s life might have been like had he lived to hit puberty, be a pimply teenager, go to college, and have a life of his own.
The thought made her sad. In the distance, she heard a muffled voice, but she couldn’t make it out. Better to be safe and leave it than sorry that she checked it out; she knew that from her own dark night of the soul years before.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and unlocked the screen. It showed no bars. She looked to Jolie, who did the same, and showed her that hers wasn’t connected, either. No WiFi or mobile signal was within connecting distance. Veronica proved the same after a struggle with her tight pockets.
“So, are we going to do something or sit around and wait for a man we barely know to save us?” Jolie asked.
“Is that what we’re doing?” Veronica asked. She smiled and it was like they hadn’t just had the conversation about her murdered friends.
Jolie stood up and Riley followed. She rubbed her sweaty palms on the thighs of her jeans and looked at the closed door and at the lock that was the only thing separating them from the audience of men with questionable motives.
“Let’s do this,” Jolie said, then held out her hands to help Veronica back onto her feet. “Come on. We can’t go without you, space cadet. Who else would tell us our future? Nostradamus?”
“You don’t need me to go with you,” Veronica said, but let herself be dragged to her feet. She shook her head like a sleepy dog and her too-long bangs flapped into her eyes. “Where can we go to get away from our destiny?”
“Stop your catastrophizing, Veronica. We will go where we need to go. In my opinion, anywhere is better than staying holed up in a tiny room waiting for someone else to dictate our lives,” Jolie said.
Riley agreed, but didn’t say so. She stared at the door. Jolie gave her a questioning look, and Riley blushed. “I’m nervous.”
“Good. You should be. We are in a dangerous situation. It might be fine, but it might not be, so it would be in our best interests to stay on our toes and keep our eyes open.” Jolie glanced at Veronica. “And watch out for each other.”
“Okay, we can do that,” Riley said. “Where to?”
Jolie cocked her head to the side and looked Riley up and down. “Anyone ever tell you that you are kind of a follower?”
“It’s what I’m good at,” Riley answered. Then without thinking she reached out and unlocked the door. She pulled it open and stepped out. “But if you want me to be a leader, I can try. Follow me.”
CHAPTER
9
The meeting room where they had minutes before been sitting on a panel was deserted. Trash and debris were left behind, a hat here or a jacket there sitting on or hanging from chairs, but altogether, it was the kind of empty that echoed.
Riley shivered but kept going. The last thing she wanted was another lecture from Jolie about being a follower, even if she knew that her choosing to move ahead was as much following Jolie as if she were hanging on her coattails. The difference didn’t matter anymore.
“Where do you think everyone went?” Veronica asked from behind her.
Riley pushed forward into the room and toward the door that would lead them out into the hallway into the hotel lobby. Once they were there, Riley was confident they could get back to their rooms, pack up, and get on the shuttle that Nick said would be waiting for them.
She could hear Jolie and Veronica behind her, hear their breathing and their footfalls, and she ignored the crawling sensation on the back of her neck that told her to run. They weren’t in p
ursuit of her... even if it felt like it.
When she pushed open the door to the lobby, she stopped cold. Jolie bumped into her and Veronica swayed against her.
“What’s the problem, Riley?” Jolie asked.
“It’s so quiet.” The wind whistled outside to prove her wrong, and Riley’s face flushed. “In here,” she added to spite the weather. “It’s quiet in here without the stupid storm.”
“Where is everyone?” Jolie asked.
The three women walked out of the hallway and into the deserted lobby. No one was there, not even someone behind the desk, and Riley’s heart quivered in her chest. She rubbed a hand along her breastbone and kept walking. At the desk, she picked up the phone.
“Dead. And I bet all the other phones are dead, too.”
From across the lobby, Riley heard a door close, and she turned, holding the phone receiver in her hand as if it were a weapon. She expected a horde of men – the kind of men who emailed her every day wanting to take a piece of her – but there was only one man followed closely by two women.
“Nick!” Riley cried out. She dropped the phone and ran to him. “Where is everyone?”
He shook his head, and when he did, Riley saw the low light above them reflected off a droplet of something on his face. She reached out and ran a finger across it, and when she brought it back to her face, her breakfast traveled up her esophagus and into her mouth. She barely turned away from him before it came up and onto the carpet.
“Riley, what’s wrong?” he asked. He reached out to her, but she pushed his hand away and backed up.
“Blood. There’s blood on your face!” she said, ignoring the sour taste of her mouth and the churning in her stomach. “Why is there blood on your face?” she asked, holding up her hand as proof.
His hand came up to his face and his mouth dropped open. He swiped the hand across his cheek. Looked at it, then looked at her. “This is not what you think.”
“That’s a lame thing to say. If it isn’t what we think, what is it, then?” Jolie said, finally stepping forward in front of Riley and Veronica.
His shoulders slumped again. “It’s Cindy. She’s gone.”
“She cut herself getting out?” Jolie asked.
“No.”
Riley stepped back as she realized what he was saying. “You’re saying she’s dead. Cindy’s dead. Cindy’s dead and you’re covered in her blood!”
Nick bowed his head and Riley’s eyes focused on the two women behind him. Bethany’s face was blank, but Sara’s was contorted with anguish. Riley reached out, and Sara ran to her, buried her face in Riley’s hair, and sobbed loudly into her neck.
“There was so much blood,” she cried. “I haven’t seen that much blood since…”
Riley took her hand and her skin slipped across Sara’s skin. There was blood on her hands. They were all three covered in blood that had barely started to congeal. Fresh blood.
“What happened?” Riley hissed at Sara.
“We were trying to find someone to tell us what was going on. I talked to the guy, Nick’s contact, and he said they were loading shuttles, and I turned around to tell Cindy, but she was gone. I guess she went to try to find Nick.”
“I didn’t see her. I was making sure the attendees all got to their cars,” he said softly.
Riley scrubbed at Sara’s hands with her shirt to get most of the wet blood off her. “We can get through this. We’re going to make it.”
“I found her,” Sara whispered. “I found her in front of Nick’s door. Someone killed her. They bashed in her skull and I slipped in her blood and now it will never wash off.”
CHAPTER
10
The shuttles were gone. The convention attendees, the few employees, and the shuttle drivers were all gone. The seven of them – six, without Cindy – were the only ones left.
“Evacuated,” Nick said. “Everyone’s gone and there are no phones.”
“May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble, may the name of the God of Jacob protect you, may He send you help from the sanctuary and sustain you from Zion,” Bethany whispered, her eyes on the ceiling beyond the long coil of braided hair piled on her head and cascading down her neck.
Riley could see Bethany wasn’t paying attention to them anymore and wondered what it would be like to have something like that kind of faith to hold onto in times of trouble. She had not been a religious person before her family died, and her life since hadn’t lent to much belief in a higher power.
“We’ll need to leave on foot, then. No big deal. I could do it in my sleep,” Jolie said. She settled Veronica against the wall, made sure she wouldn’t fall, then walked toward the front doors.
“You can try,” Nick said, but didn’t move to help her.
Jolie pushed at the doors, but they didn’t open. She shoved harder. Nothing. Then she leaned her shoulder against the doors, planted her feet, and shoved with a grunt, but though her feet slipped under her on the worn carpet, the doors didn’t budge.
She took a few steps back, got going faster, and rammed her shoulder against the door. Nothing happened. She swore and stared at the doors.
“What the hell?” Jolie asked.
“They were going to lock it down,” Nick said quietly.
Jolie turned to him. “What do you mean, ‘lock it down’?”
“The hotel,” he said, and lifted his head to look at her. “That guy – Evan – he said when everyone was out, he was going to lock the hotel down. Something about insurance.”
“Tell me you’re joking, Nick. I need to hear you say it. Are you being a jerk right now to lighten the mood or something equally stupid?” Jolie asked.
Veronica’s words from earlier repeated in Riley’s head. Maybe something really was coming after them. If they had all survived when they weren’t supposed to, and they all congregated in the same building, maybe Death would be able to find them.
“I know you aren’t serious,” Sara said. It was the first she had spoken since the group reunited. Riley reached out and took her hand. Sara turned to face her. “We aren’t locked in here. We can’t be.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Riley said. She squeezed Sara’s hand between hers and tried to remember the thing that always calmed her brother down when he was upset. She smiled. “Take a deep breath, okay, Sara?”
“Okay,” Sara agreed, and sucked in a shallow, shaky breath. She blew it out in a trembling cry. “We’re going to die in here, aren’t we, Riley? We’re going to die.”
“We aren’t going to die,” Riley said. “Listen to me. Sara? Sara, are you listening?” Sara turned to look at her with tears dripping down her cheeks. “It’s only a storm. What happened to Cindy happened before everyone in the audience left. But now we’re here alone, locked in tight, like being tucked in for bed.”
“You think we’re safe?” Sara asked.
“I do.” Riley smiled.
She didn’t think it, not at all, but despite Sara’s earlier posturing, she could tell the girl was really a young, scared kid. When she sat and thought about it, she figured she could barely be in her early twenties.
“All we have to do is wait until the storm blows over.”
“It was supposed to skip us,” Jolie said from her spot by the front door. “We weren’t supposed to see any of this. A little rain, maybe; a little wind, probably. There wasn’t supposed to be an evacuation or a loss of power. No being stuck in a crappy hotel with a support group in the making.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “We need to find a way out of here before we rip each other to shreds.”
Riley remembered what she said earlier. “You know what, Jolie? You’re not helping. If you don’t have something helpful to say, you need to sit down and be quiet. We need to think of a plan. Does anyone have any ideas?”
She turned to Sara, smiled, then looked to Bethany. She was older than her, probably older than any of them, but she was more checked out than Sara and Veronica combined. She kept whispering
her prayer with her eyes cast to what she thought was Heaven.
Riley looked at Jolie, but the brashness was gone from her, and she was deflated and quiet. She looked to Veronica and found she was nearly catatonic. Finally, she looked at Nick. He looked worried. His brow was furrowed, his smile was gone, and his face was haggard.
“No one?” she asked. Everyone looked at her, so she made up her mind and stood up. “Okay, then. Let’s go upstairs.”
“Why upstairs? Why not stay here where everyone can see each other, and we can see outside?” Jolie asked. “We can wait for the storm to clear, then get out.”
“For one,” Riley said, “there’s snack food in the rooms. There are also beds, bathrooms, and closed spaces.”
“Closed spaces?” Sara squeaked. “Why do we want closed spaces? Isn’t that going to trap us in?”
Riley reached out a hand to her. “No, we won’t be trapped. We want closed spaces where there’s only one way in and out, so we can see anyone who comes or goes. That’s a safe place to be in when you don’t know who to trust. Will you come with me?”
Sara stared at her hard, and for a moment, Riley thought she knew what she must have looked like before her family’s murder. Before all the pain had warped her and turned her into a hard, little control freak. Back when she was an innocent kid. Then Sara grabbed Riley’s hand and allowed herself to be pulled up onto her feet.
Riley smiled, feeling confident for the first time since she left her apartment. “All right. Who’s coming with us?”
“We have to stick together,” Sara said, squeezing Riley’s hand and sounding braver than she had since she found Cindy. “If we don’t, we won’t make it. Right, Riley? If we stay in here, it won’t get us.”
Riley’s skin went prickly, and she turned slowly to look at Sara. She smiled. “Don’t worry. The storm can’t get to us in here.”
“Not the storm,” Sara said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“The thing that killed my family.”