Hunted: A Suspense Collection

by J. L. Drake

  “Screw it,” I said, wrapping my towel around me tightly.

  I opened up the bathroom door, letting the steam roll out. Jonathan wasn’t guarding the door as promised. I stood there, temporarily dumbfounded by his absence. I stared straight ahead at the radiator. Jonathan wasn’t the only one missing. Zach was no longer cuffed to the radiator.

  Chapter 63

  Our prisoner was gone, his shackles lying limply on the floor next to the massive blood stain beneath where he’d been lying when I stabbed him. I stood there, frozen, unsure of what to do. How did he get away? And where the hell was Jonathan?

  It suddenly occurred to me that I was in serious danger. I didn’t know how or what exactly was going on, but I knew it was something bad. Since there was no way I was walking downstairs into the darkness below, I ran back in the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind me. I locked it securely, backing up from the door.

  I held my breath, listening for sounds downstairs or any sort of clue as to where Jonathan and Zach had gone. I didn’t hear any sounds of struggle. I crept forward and pressed my ear to the door; I closed my eyes, trying to hear something, anything…

  Fear began to overtake my body, and I felt short of breath. The next thing I knew I was panting, and the sound of my own heartbeat pounded in my ears, making me want to scream. Only a few minutes ago, I’d felt completely safe, knowing that Zach was securely fastened to the radiator, and Jonathan was waiting at the door.

  I pressed my ear to the door again, listening to the silence.

  “I hear you breathing,” said a voice on the other side of the door. I jumped back, struggling to suck in breaths, but I couldn’t get my lungs to fill. That voice…

  The voice did not belong to Jonathan or Zach. It didn’t even belong to a man. The voice on the other side of the door belonged to someone I knew very well. A voice long gone, but never forgotten. It was Claire.

  Chapter 64

  “You didn’t really think I was dead, did ya?” said the voice, letting out a low, gurgled chuckle. The tone of the voice sounded deeper and different, but I still knew it was Claire. What in God’s name was going on? Was I truly losing my mind?

  For a moment, I wondered if I was still in that apartment in Albuquerque, hiding in that closet, tweaked out on meth. Maybe everything else had just been some long, drawn out trip…maybe I was completely insane and always had been.

  Shut up! screamed a voice from inside me. You aren’t crazy and you aren’t high this time. “What’s going on, Claire? I don’t understand,” I said, still standing back from the door. My hands were shaking uncontrollably, and I dropped my towel to the ground.

  “Open the door and I’ll tell you everything,” Claire said, a sickening sweetness to her tone. I instantly knew she was lying. I knew that something evil was going on here.

  I briefly considered that maybe she was a ghost, back from the grave to haunt me. After all, she was supposedly buried in the floor of the basement…but I knew that wasn’t the case. I didn’t believe in ghosts or monsters. There were too many real monsters in this world to waste time worrying about supernatural ones.

  This voice on the other side of the door was an older version of Claire, and it sounded less sincere. The realization that Claire was alive, standing on the other side of this door, was finally sinking into my psyche.

  “Open the door or we’re going to break it down, Wendi,” came another voice from the other side. It was another female. I already knew who it was: Jennifer.

  “Well, you’re just going to have to break it down then,” I said, stepping back and bracing for the attack.

  But there was no response. I stood there, waiting for something to happen, but all I could hear was silence. I looked around the bathroom, trying to find something I could use as a weapon. The towel bar was already broken from my skirmish with Zach the other day. The only thing I could think to grab was a rubber plunger I’d seen sitting next to the toilet. I grabbed the plunger, clutching its useless handle. I held it out in front of me, waiting for them to break down the door. But nothing happened.

  I backed up farther and farther from the door, waiting for the bathroom door to burst open. But suddenly, the linen closet behind me swung open, and someone yanked me inside of it.

  Chapter 65

  Everything happened so quickly that I couldn’t make sense of it all. Someone yanked me inside the linen closet from behind, and now I was being pulled down through a hole. I tried to grab onto something, but I was falling fast and hard, and nothing could slow me down.

  I hit a rock hard surface, my body banging roughly against it as I let out a loud oomph sound. My head was spinning, but I looked around, realizing I was in the cellar of my rental house. How in the hell did I get down here? I wondered, struggling to stand up. I felt dizzy and confused.

  Someone kicked me square in the chest, knocking me back to the floor. Zach’s face loomed over me, twisted with hatred and anger. I was still naked from taking a shower, and he stared down at my nude body with a look of pure disgust. Despite the pain from his kick, I attempted to cover my breasts and private area.

  “We grew up in this house, remember? We know all sorts of things you don’t know about it,” he declared, cackling maniacally.

  “Yeah, like how our brother built a trap door in the basement that led up to the linen closet,” Jennifer said smugly from behind him. I looked around for Claire but I didn’t see her. Had I imagined her voice at the door?

  It was the first time I’d seen Jennifer—aka Jeanna—since she’d let me go so long ago. She looked older now, with wrinkles forming at the corners of her mouth and eyes. But those evil eyes…there was no mistaking it, it was her—that evil bitch I’d never forget…

  “Do you know why James built that trap door to the bathroom?” Jennifer asked, smiling down at me smugly. This bitch was crazy. But I already knew that, didn’t I?

  I shook my head no, my teeth chattering from the cold and sheer terror. “Because he wanted to find a way to sneak in there with me because we were in love,” she boasted, staring down at me evilly.

  “You were in love with your own brother?” I asked, choking out the words. Now it was her turn to kick me.

  Her foot connected with my ribs, and I rolled onto my opposite side, howling in pain. I was certain that several of my ribs were broken. “James and I weren’t brother and sister. My father had me before he ever met Ruth, and James had already been born, you stupid bitch!” she screamed defensively. The calm demeanor I remembered was gone.

  I wanted to retort with a nasty remark, but I didn’t want her to kick me again. My sides exploded with pain. Yes, something was definitely broken.

  “Did you really think James cared about you? He didn’t even tell you his real name! What did he tell you his name was, bitch?” When I didn’t respond, she nailed me in the ribs with her foot again.

  “Joey. He said his name was Joey,” I choked, gasping for breath and clutching my bare side. “You were just a mark, a sucker…I let you live because he asked me to and because I thought you were just like the rest, but then he…” She looked away, her face contorting with angst. It was the most emotion I’d ever seen her display.

  “When he jumped off the roof, he was holding that stupid necklace he’d given you in his hand. You’re the reason he jumped, you stupid cunt! He was supposed to love me, not you!” she screamed. Suddenly, she was on top of me, punching me in the face over and over again. I put my hands up defensively, trying to fend her off, and I struggled to push up with my feet, lifting her weight off me.

  But it was no use. She was much bigger and stronger, and my ribs ached painfully. “And after I let you go, you still had the nerve to show back up here. Did you think we wouldn’t recognize you? How stupid can you be?” When I didn’t answer she went on with her questions. “Were you coming back for him? Well, were you?” she screamed, bending down to grab a fistful of my hair. She pulled on it so hard that my vision went white and I screamed in a
gony.

  “Get off of her. You look like a fool,” said a female voice from across the room. One of my eyes was swelling shut, but with the good one I could see the image of my former best friend perfectly. Claire was standing across the room, near one of the spots where Jonathan had been digging. “I’m glad that’s not me,” she said, looking down at the hole where the bones were dug up. She kicked at the dirt and bones, smiling strangely.

  Zach pulled Jennifer off of me, and I laid there on my back, staring at my old best friend. “How, Claire? Why? I don’t understand—”

  “You never understood anything about me, Wendi. I used to really like you, I really did. But blood is thicker than water, and I can’t turn my back on family,” she said with a careless shrug.

  “What family?” I asked, tears rolling down my cheeks. The tears burned the skin on my cut, swollen face. Claire let out a cute, dainty laugh. It sounded just like the same laugh that echoed through the hallways of my house when she came over for sleepovers.

  “You were my friend, Claire…”

  “But they are my family,” Claire said, pointing at Zach and Jennifer. “Didn’t you ever wonder why I always wanted to stay at your house? Why I never invited you over? Jennifer is my cousin. Hank is my mother’s brother. This has always been a family-run business, for generations! I was born into this, baby…”

  “But you don’t have to stay a part of it, Claire! You aren’t like these people!” I yelled, holding my hand out pitifully toward my friend. I reached for her, my old best friend, the one I’d loved so much…but she looked at me with disgust and it reminded me of that other side of her, the one I’d only seen a few times.

  “I still don’t understand. We met Zach and James at the mall. They introduced themselves as Zeke and Joey, remember? I still don’t believe any of this…” I moaned, rolling back over onto my side. I couldn’t look at her anymore. “I watched you die, Claire…” I said, choking on my own sobs.

  “You saw what you wanted, Wendi. It was all for show. My Aunt Betsy, the woman you saw dragging me across the room—we had it all planned out. If you thought I was dead, we knew you would be too scared to tell because you didn’t want to get killed yourself or get your parents killed. We needed you to take us seriously, and keep your damn mouth shut. Plus, you never would have left that place if you knew I was still there. After you saw me downstairs through the vent, I had to play it off like I was a prisoner too.”

  Her words were like daggers, stabbing over and over again, piercing straight through the heart of me. I suddenly had a flash of memory—of Claire and her sister, Samantha, putting on Halloween makeup. They always wanted to dress up as something scary, and they both had a knack for making their faces look gory and realistically terrifying. You see what you want to see…I thought about her lying there, those lifeless eyes looking up through the grate, smears of blood and smudges of purple bruising on her face. Her face was destroyed. Bright red blood, like the color of paint. It was all fake…a big show, and I was the spectator. And Claire was enjoying every moment of it, then at the house, and here right now, I realized. As I looked at her standing over me, I realized she was still smiling. She enjoyed watching me suffer.

  I thought about Zach, tied to the radiator that first night, saying, “You don’t even know, do you?” as I begged him to tell me who killed my friend. He’d known all along that my friend was alive. What a sick, twisted trick. And the joke was on me, I realized, traumatized by this revelation.

  I thought about the “Have You Seen This Girl?” flier, and all those online articles. Claire’s name was mentioned in none of them. Not only was she alive all this time, but she never went missing in the first place. She probably confirmed the police reports that I’d run away. I imagined her standing next to my family, pleading for me to come home and giving them her condolences. I imagined her walking the halls at school, sulking because she lost her best friend and eating up the attention she received from it. I hated her more than I hated Jennifer, or any of the men that raped me. Unlike them, she was supposed to love me. She was my best friend.

  Claire went on, “Just like my cousins, I helped recruit the girls. I never thought you would end up being one of our marks, but I didn’t have a choice. None of us did. Maybe somewhere, way down deep, I felt a little regret, but I’m over that now. You weren’t supposed to live, but Jennifer listened to James and she let you go, and we all almost went to prison because of it. You never should have come back to Flocksdale, Wendi…”

  “Come on, guys! We need to get this over with!” shouted a voice from up above. Claire’s sister, Samantha, came padding down the basement steps, peering at us mid-step.

  “Now we really do have to put an end to this. This is the end, Wendi. You and your little cop boyfriend, we’re going to put you in these holes and cover you up like all of the rest, and no one will ever find you,” Claire said, clapping her hands together with glee. As her palms smacked together, I stared at her arms, still covered in those macramé bracelets. All this time, I had wondered what those letters spelled, and now I had a chance to find out. I squinted at the tiny beads with my one good eye. Seven letters. G-A-R-R-E-T-T. Garrett, a family name. The family from hell, I realized angrily.

  “You should’ve just stayed gone, you silly bitch,” Jennifer said, walking toward me slowly. She had a shovel in her hands.

  “Wait! Where’s Jonathan?” I screamed, suddenly fearing for his safety.

  “I knocked him out with his own shovel. He didn’t even see it coming. He was so focused on guarding you and keeping an eye on Zach that he never expected me to come charging up those steps,” Claire said, smiling creepily.

  I started to ask how they got inside the house, but then I realized that was a stupid question. They got the key from my landlord, Ruth. All this time, I thought I could lock up the doors and keep the monsters out. But they had a way in all along…my landlord, Ruth…another member of this horrible, macabre family.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll put Jonathan in the hole on top of you after we’ve killed you both. You’ll be together forever,” Claire said, moving toward where I was lying on the floor.

  Jennifer still stood over me, gripping the shovel tightly in her hands. She swung it back, preparing to bring it down on my head.

  Chapter 66

  “Wait!” I screamed, holding my hands up over my head helplessly. “He didn’t jump, Jennifer! That was all a lie!” I shouted desperately. I don’t know where that came from; maybe I’d gotten so used to being a liar all of my life, that lies just flowed out of me naturally. Jennifer lowered the shovel a few inches, scrunching up her face thoughtfully.

  “What are you talking about now, you stupid idiot?” she shouted, the shovel still gripped in her hands.

  “I’ve been holding Zach prisoner here for days. He’s been ratting out all of you to Officer Milby. He told us that he pushed James off the roof, and he planted the necklace to make everybody think it was a suicide! James never would have jumped, Jennifer. He didn’t love me. He told me that he didn’t love me. He said he was in love with someone else. He must have been talking about you!”

  Everything was quiet for several seconds. I was grasping at straws here, and I knew it. Jennifer looked at me like I was crazy, but then she hesitated, her face contorting as her emotions changed. I could tell she was considering the validity of my claims. I honestly had no idea what happened to James that day. He could have been high and fallen, just like his mother claimed. But since he’d really been holding that necklace, then it probably was suicide over his guilt…but none of that mattered now because I had a story to sell. Even if it sounded unlikely, I knew she wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe that she was the one he loved, not me.

  I decided my best bet was to just keep talking. “Zach was going to roll over on you and everybody. He was working with Officer Milby, helping him build a case against you guys and the rest of the family! Why do you think the local police haven’t arrested h
im yet? Because he’s their source of information! He’s the one you should be after, not me!” I shouted.

  I glanced nervously over to where Zach was standing. He was staring at me with a frightening snarl on his face as he took in my words. Suddenly, he came charging right toward me, and I knew he was going to kill me this time.

  Chapter 67

  I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, waiting for him to strangle me. This was it. They were finally going to put an end to my miserable, angst-ridden life.

  But then I heard a loud clunk, and my eyes fluttered open confusedly. I saw Zach hit the floor with a thud. Jennifer had hit him over the head with the shovel. Zach groaned, pushing up to his knees groggily, but then she hit him again and again and again. Blood spurted from his mouth and nose, and then I heard the loud crack of his skull breaking.

  Despite the pain, I managed to pull myself up to my feet. Even though I had temporarily distracted Jennifer, I knew they were still going to kill me. But getting rid of Zach gave me a better chance of surviving, because after all, three were easier to fight off than four. Adrenaline was racing through my body. I wasn’t sure who I should go for first, but since Claire didn’t have a weapon in her hand, I charged toward Jennifer first.

  She was still hovering over Zach’s body when I slammed into her, and she didn’t even see it coming. I knocked her to the ground then went racing for the basement steps. Claire wasn’t injured and she was much faster than me. I heard her screaming obscenities behind me. I was at the top of the stairs when Samantha appeared. She shoved me backwards, and then Claire reached for me from behind. The force of the shove caused my weight to slam into Claire, and we both went tumbling down the stairs, banging our bodies against the hard wooden steps. I was lucky enough to land on top.