by Adan Ramie
Bethany whispered her prayers and watched them all from the corner of the room where she sat with her legs modestly curled under her on the floor. She had no blood on her because she refused to get anywhere near the body.
Veronica rubbed absently at a few dots of blood on her long-sleeved blouse, then left it and went back to staring out at everyone from atop the empty desk with one leg lazily swinging back and forth beneath her.
Sara came out, sidestepped around Nick, and went to Riley. Nick took a step toward the bathroom, then stopped and looked at Sara, who had wrapped herself in a fluffy towel from the bathroom.
He pointed behind him at the television set. “If you want to wear my coat, you can. There’s no blood on it,” he said to Sara, then walked into the bathroom and started scrubbing at the blood on his shirt with the cold water from the tap.
Sara stared at his back for a long beat, then looked down at herself and glanced across the room at the coat. She looked at Riley.
Riley was aware of everything around her, but she couldn’t bring herself to act as an agent in her own life. She wished for nothing more than to be led around like a big, purposeless doll until they were all out of the mess they had found themselves in.
Sara squeezed Riley’s hand, then got up and walked to the coat. She glanced behind her at Nick, found him looking down at his shirt with his back to her, then quickly turned away and let the towel drop.
She wrapped herself in the coat and buttoned it up as well as she could. Her thin undershirt peeked through from under the large coat, but the thickness of it covered everything she needed covered to stay modest. She walked back and sat down next to Riley.
“How are you?” Sara asked her.
Riley stared at Jolie. “Better than her. Better than Cindy. I’m alive.”
“That’s a good way to look at it. Things could be worse,” Sara said with a forced smile. Riley turned her head to meet Sara’s eyes. “Can I do anything for you?”
“Help me get out of here,” Riley whispered.
“We all want to go home,” Sara said. She took Riley’s hand in hers and rubbed her fingertips across Riley’s palm. “We have to stick together until the storm passes and we can get out of here.”
“Maybe we were wrong,” Riley said after a moment. “Maybe we could have gotten out. Maybe we can still get out.”
“No, I don’t think so. I definitely know we don’t want to do that now,” Nick said as he exited the bathroom. “We found a window we could look out a few floors up. The streets are completely flooded.”
“It doesn’t flood here,” Veronica said. “For it to flood, too many factors would have to line up. It would have to be predestination.”
He made a face and snorted at her with clear derision. “Maybe if you had gone with us instead of being passed out from whatever dope you were eating like candy corn, you would have been able to see it for yourself.”
Veronica blinked slowly, then reached her hand into her pocket. She pulled out one of her little plastic baggies, poured two pills out onto her palm, then stared at him as she took them dry like a seasoned pro. He sneered. She peered back at him without a trace of shame on her face.
“You’re pathetic, you know that? You’re a disease.”
“At least I don’t sniff out broken people to exploit for my personal profit.”
“No, because that involves work, and we all know you avoid that at all costs.”
“You should talk, carnival barker,” she said, but her drugged voice wasn’t convincing.
Riley looked from Veronica to Nick, then pushed herself to her feet. Sara scrambled to stand beside her and took her hand again.
“What are you doing?” Nick asked.
Riley gestured at him, then Veronica. “We can’t sit here and wait for something to happen or one of us to go crazy. We need to do something.”
“I don’t know what you heard, but we’re stuck here. The doors are locked from the outside, and even if they weren’t, the streets are flooded with who knows what,” Nick said. “We need to keep our heads and stay here until it blows over.”
“You want us to stay here while someone is stalking around killing us one by one?” Sara asked.
Riley nodded. “I’m not doing that. I lived through a nightmare before, and I’m not about to put myself in the position to die this time.”
“What do you propose we do?” he asked. He looked from her to Sara, then to Veronica, and finally landed his eyes on Bethany. “How are we going to get out of here and stay alive?”
“How can we stay here and stay alive?” Riley asked.
“Like I said,” Nick growled. “We keep our eyes on each other. We stay together. No one leaves and we all stay alive.”
“What will we do when we all need to sleep?” Bethany asked, and everyone else turned their eyes to her. “Who is going to watch over us? Jolie?” Then she was whispering again. “May my plea come before you, rescue me according to your promise…”
They all looked at Jolie’s still form on the bed. Riley watched as Bethany turned immediately back to staring at her feet and started praying quietly again. Veronica closed her eyes with a muttered “whatever”.
Nick leaned his body weight against the dresser upon which the television set rested.
“It’s easy. We can take turns sleeping.”
“I have dibs on first sleep,” Veronica muttered, her eyes still closed.
“I wish I could say I was surprised,” Sara said.
Riley squeezed Sara’s hand and shook her head in warning. Sara dropped her eyes and blushed. Riley turned back to Nick. “There are five of us. How do you propose we take turns?”
“Three people need to be awake at any given time,” he said. “That way, if any of us is responsible for what’s going on, that person can’t form an alliance with another single person. There will always be someone else to keep them honest.”
“Does anyone volunteer to sleep while Veronica does?”
Sara squeezed Riley’s hand. “You should sleep. You have been through the most today out of any of us.”
“What about you?” Riley asked her.
She couldn’t help but imagine what Cindy must have looked like crumpled in front of Nick’s door in a puddle of her own blood. Sara had found her that way.
Sara turned to look at Nick with a curled lip and a dead-eyed stare. “I’ll keep watch.”
“Bethany?” Nick asked.
“I can’t sleep,” Bethany said. “I’ll never sleep as long as we’re stuck together here.” She kept her eyes on Sara.
“Great,” Veronica said. “Cheerleader, go to sleep. Pervert, Psycho, and Bible Studies, shut up.”
Riley gave Sara one last questioning look. Sara nodded and smiled at her, then rolled up the towel she had been wearing as a shirt into a roughly pillow-shaped ball and handed it over.
“I’ll be right beside you,” Sara said. “I won’t leave you.”
She settled in as Riley laid down in a fetal ball in the corner. The last thing Riley saw before she closed her eyes was Sara smiling down at her with a faraway look in her eyes.
CHAPTER
16
It seemed like only seconds had passed when Riley felt herself being shaken awake. For a second, her brain couldn’t process all that had happened before, and Riley had no idea where she was.
Then she sat up and spotted Jolie on the bed, Jolie’s bloodless, dead body lying prone and stiff on the cheap hotel sheets, and it all came crashing back.
Her stomach rolled.
“Riley, are you awake?” Sara asked softly.
Riley sat up with Sara’s help and looked around the room. For once, Veronica’s eyes were wide open and staring at her. She didn’t like the way that gaze crawled up and down her like it was appraising her for worthiness, so she turned to look at Bethany. Her eyes were bloodshot, but her eyelids drooped, and the incessant moving of her hands had stopped.
Nick leaned against the wall beside the tele
vision table chewing on something that, according to his face, was disgusting.
“Coffee grounds,” he said by way of greeting, and bared his teeth at her. They were dotted with black grit, and Riley grimaced. He closed his mouth but smiled, and it softened his face.
Riley turned to Sara. “Is it your turn to sleep yet? You look tired.”
“Bethany and I will sleep at the same time,” Sara said, watching Bethany in the corner. “She feels safer that way.”
Riley nodded. All in all, it was the best solution. She handed over the towel pillow and as Sara took it, her fingertips grazed Riley’s. Riley felt a tingle zip up her fingers into her wrists and down her arms into her chest. It pooled there by her heart. She smiled. Sara got comfortable in the warm spot on the carpet where Riley had slept and closed her eyes.
“Keep an eye on them for me,” she murmured, and Riley watched as her body went from tense to relaxed.
Riley leaned against the wall and stared at Nick. A few feet away, Veronica unraveled her long body from the desk and landed on the carpet with barely a sound. She walked past Riley without touching her or Sara, then into the bathroom. She started to close the door behind her, but Nick got to his feet.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “You’re not closing that door.”
Sara stirred, but didn’t wake. Bethany shot up onto her feet as if she wasn’t asleep to begin with. She clutched at the sash on her dress.
“What’s happening?” she asked in a harsh whisper.
Nick settled back down when Veronica let go of the door.
“Sorry, warden. I have to pee, and I didn’t want your weird ass watching me. Murder porn weirdo,” she muttered.
Nick ducked his head into his chest. “Make it quick or I’ll send one of them in after you.”
Riley listened as Veronica peed, spun the toilet paper roll on its holder, and closed the toilet. Then she rinsed her hands and the clink of metal against metal told her Veronica dried her hands. Then the willowy woman walked out of the bathroom and back to her desk. Nick raised his head and shot her a glare of fierce dislike.
“I guess you’ll have to watch someone else to get it hard tonight,” Veronica said with a smirk.
“That’s enough,” Riley whispered. “They’re trying to sleep. If you can’t be awake and quiet, maybe you should go back to sleep yourself.”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” Veronica asked, but she lowered her voice. “You want it to be you and the voyeur awake because you like him. Will you both get off picking each of us off in our sleep or are you just gonna watch him?”
“Don’t be so vile,” Riley snapped.
Sara grunted and turned over in her sleep. Riley squatted and laid a hand on Sara’s side to settle her. She glared at Veronica, a silent dare with her eyes to say another word. Veronica didn’t take the bait and the room went quiet.
They stayed that way for about another half hour, then Nick squinted up at the clock on the wall and cleared his throat.
“Time’s up,” he croaked.
Riley gently shook Sara to wake her. Sara’s eyes fluttered open wide in fear, then landed on Riley and softened. She smiled.
“It’s time to switch,” Riley whispered.
Sara sat up as Bethany did the same on the other side of the room. Bethany grimaced at Veronica, who had kicked her with the toe of one shoe, then rubbed the back of her head and groaned.
“Your turn to sleep,” Riley told Nick. “Then we need to go check on the storm. Maybe it’s over. Maybe the water has gone down, and we can break a window somewhere to get out.”
He shrugged. “Wake me up in twenty minutes. Then we can check.” He looked hard at Riley, then, apparently sensing something in her eyes, nodded. “Twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes,” Riley repeated.
Sara tossed over the towel. He snatched it out of the air, balled it back up tightly, then settled it under his head. He watched Sara and Riley until his eyes drifted closed.
CHAPTER
17
Twenty minutes later, they were a reluctant scout party. Bethany clung to Veronica’s arm, Nick led the pack, and Sara and Riley held onto each other as if they let go, they would never find each other again.
They went back to the room they had found before, the one with the broken window latch, and Nick pushed it open with a grunt of effort.
Outside the hotel, the storm winds blew fiercely, more strongly than any storm Riley had ever seen before, but the rain had stopped. The street below them was invisible, buried under a raging river of dark, moving water.
Riley had seen something like it before on a river tour at night. It looked slow, but sometimes the surface lied, she knew. The current could be strong enough to pull you under if you didn’t know what you were doing. And she had never been one who was comfortable with the outdoors.
“See?” Nick said softly. “It isn’t safe out there. We’re better off inside away from the elements.”
“You think a killer inside is safer than water outside?” Veronica asked. Her eyes had glazed again, and Riley wondered when she had missed her popping more pills.
“Nothing has happened since we kept each other in our sights,” Sara shot back. “Maybe he’s right.”
“He could be lying,” Bethany said. She stepped behind Veronica so that she was the last one in the group and furthest from the window. “Behold, the wicked man travails with evil. He conceives trouble and births falsehood.”
Nick stepped back from the window and held out his hands to it in a gesture of welcome. “Want to jump out into what is probably toxic, fast-moving water filled with the debris of one of the biggest cities of the United States? Be my guest.”
“Get close enough, and he’ll push you,” Veronica said. She smirked. “That’s an interesting new tactic. Smart thinking for a perv.”
“Stop calling me a pervert,” Nick hissed. He turned on her. “If I’m a pervert for setting up the convention, then you’re worse for agreeing to be on the panels and letting me put you up in a nice hotel for the weekend. Does that make you a prostitute? Or a glutton for abuse?”
“That’s punishment,” she shot back.
He seethed and she smirked back at him, her eyelids half-closed, as if she were having a funny dream instead of stuck inside a hotel during a living nightmare. Riley pulled her hand from Sara’s and stepped between Veronica and Nick.
“There’s no reason to fight. Anyone who wants to try to get out into that in the dark can go ahead. We can all even walk them down.”
She waited a long beat, but no one said another word about it. She sighed. “I don’t think we need to go back to that room with Jolie, though. We can’t keep staying in the stale air with her. It can’t be healthy.”
“What do you suggest?” Nick asked, his voice almost pleasant again.
Riley studied the bags under his eyes, then turned to Veronica. “Do you have any ideas?”
“You want to play leader? Be my guest. But that means you have to think for yourself and lead.”
Riley looked to Bethany, but she shook her head. She turned to Sara.
“We should probably see if any of the water is coming in,” Sara said slowly. “If it is, there’s no telling what else could be coming in with it.”
“Oh, no,” Bethany moaned. “Lord, we rejoice when we are weak, but you are strong, and our prayer is for your perfection…”
Sara slipped her hand in Riley’s and stepped between her and Nick. “Come on. I’m not afraid. We can even go first.”
“Why? Is this a trap?” Bethany asked. Her voice was frenzied and dipped in and out of octaves.
“If you think it’s a trap, why don’t you go first?” Sara asked. She sounded almost bored, and Riley quirked an eyebrow at her. Sara shrugged.
“I’m not going first so you can push me down the stairs!” Bethany shrieked.
Nick covered the ear closest to her. Veronica chuckled.
“Fine,” Veronica said. “
I’ll go first, but if something happens to me, you can blame it on the psycho,” she said, and pointed at Sara with her middle finger. “She’s had it in for all of us since she met us.” She looked right at Riley. “Be careful, Cheerleader. They kill their mates after they copulate.”
Riley gave her a dirty look. Veronica smirked at her, then turned around and started heading down the hallway. The rest of the group followed with Sara and Riley directly behind her, Nick behind them, and Bethany at the back.
They turned the corner and Veronica stepped around the blood pool left behind from Jolie’s attack. Riley tried not to look at it, and Sara gawked at it like a child.
Riley pulled her faster so they could get past it and catch up to Veronica, who seemed to suddenly be moving faster than the rest of them.
“What’s the rush?” Sara growled when they caught up to her.
“Do you want to sit around and stare at a dead body? I don’t. I prefer to move on before I get the stink on me.”
She rounded the next corner ahead of them, and Sara broke away from Riley to catch up to her. There was a thump, a cry of surprise, and a series of thuds.
Riley raced to catch up to them and only escaped falling through the open door to the stairwell because Sara’s arm caught her in the ribs. She sucked in a breath of surprise, then her eyes lit on the form at the bottom of the stairs.
“Sara, what happened?” Riley asked in a whisper.
“She tried to trip me!” Sara said, her voice rising in a pitch to almost match Bethany’s shrieking cry from behind them.
Nick stepped up behind them, grabbed them both by the shoulders, and pushed them behind him. Then he walked carefully down the stairs, holding onto the handrail for support, and crouched down beside Veronica. He looked at her a moment before feeling at her neck with his fingers.