“Why were you hiding under the deck?”

  She laughed again and came another step closer. “My cat ran under there. I was trying to catch him.”

  “Your cat?”

  Her smile widened. “Uh-huh.”

  Unless something had changed recently, her story didn’t seem plausible. Samantha used to come over and gossip with his mother over tea in the sitting room. He’d lurk around the corner and listen to them. Their talk often turned salacious when they thought he was upstairs in his room. Listening to the hot neighbor lady talk to his mother about sex always made him feel an urgent need to jerk off. It also made him feel a little weird due to his mother’s involvement. But sex wasn’t all the women talked about. They chattered endlessly about lots of mundane things. One thing he’d learned long ago was that Samantha Raimi was allergic to cats.

  Samantha was another couple steps closer now.

  Wesley pushed the door handle down. He felt the door come away from the frame and move incrementally inward. In another second or two, he told himself, he’d slip inside, slam the door shut, and lock it.

  “That’s a lie. You don’t have a cat.”

  She chuckled and arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Is that so?”

  He nodded. “You’re allergic.”

  She waggled an admonishing finger at him. “You’re a naughty boy, young Wesley. You know eavesdropping is rude.”

  He frowned. “Wait … you knew about that?”

  “Of course. I also know you used to sneak around outside my house at night and peep in through my windows. Oh, don’t look so embarrassed. I got off on letting you watch me undress. You know something, Wesley? I always sort of thought I’d be the one to deflower you. I knew you had trouble connecting with kids your age and thought maybe I could make things easier for you. Give you some confidence. I just never got around to it, unfortunately. But it’s not too late. How would you like to have some fun with me?”

  Wesley pushed the door open another couple inches, but continued to linger on the deck. “Did you try to get into the house?”

  She laughed.

  She was only a few feet away now, close enough to reach out and grab him. “Would you like to put your cock in my mouth, Wesley? I bet you would.”

  She started untying the sash of her kimono.

  Wesley pushed the door open another few inches and took his first tentative half-step backward. “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  She pulled open the kimono and he was able to see the bare torso beneath. He’d never been this close to a set of naked breasts and hers were massive. They were porn star breasts. The sight of them was nearly enough to short-circuit his brain and blind him to the danger the woman presented. In the next instant, however, he realized blood was smeared all over the exposed skin.

  Her smile shifted, becoming more of a sneer.

  “Satan wants your soul, Wesley, and I’m here to take it.”

  She rushed at him.

  He gasped in shock and staggered backward, trying desperately to get the door shut before she could get inside. Unfortunately, he’d hesitated too long. She was already most of the way in by the time he slammed the door against her. Now she was pinned between the edge of the door and doorframe. He kept one hand on the door handle and tried to shove her back out with his other hand, but failed to budge her. His terror mounted and he screamed at her to go away. She laughed and raked her long nails across his face, drawing blood. Not just one time but multiple times, bringing forth more blood with each scrape of her nails across his vulnerable skin. And she kept laughing. His blood dripped from her fingernails to the floor.

  Finally, he could take no more. He let go of the door handle and staggered back several feet, barely managing to stay upright as he came to a lurching halt and stared at his assailant through a curtain of blood. She had stopped laughing. He was no longer screaming at her. The voice of Count Gravemore was audible from the living room. He recited one of his morbid puns and did that trademark madman cackle.

  Samantha came into the house and calmly closed the door. She shrugged off her kimono and stood fully naked before him. There was more blood smeared all over her body than he’d originally thought.

  She looked like she’d bathed in it.

  “Did you kill somebody?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “For Satan.”

  He grunted. “Right. Okay. How long have you been a total fucking maniac?”

  She smiled. “I know you won’t believe this, but I’m not crazy. Satan has ordered his followers to kill all the virgins in this town. Or at least as many as possible by midnight. And I always do as my master commands.”

  “How do you know I’m still a virgin?”

  “I can see it. Your skin … it shimmers.”

  Wesley nodded slowly and wiped blood from his eyes as he started surreptitiously assessing the best potential exit routes. Her denials were meaningless. The lady definitely had a whole bucket of screws loose. He couldn’t go out to the deck for the obvious reason that Samantha was in the way. There was no easy way out through the living room or the adjacent bathroom. There were windows in that direction, but they would take time to open. Too much time. That left the front door and the door to the garage. To get to the latter, he’d have to go through the kitchen and down a hall to the laundry room. The door to the garage was next to the laundry room. He could probably get there before Samantha could catch up to him, but the garage door was closed. Once inside, he’d have to turn on the light, hit the button to open it, and wait as it rolled slowly upward. Not a real option at all.

  He turned and made a break for the front door.

  Wesley was scared, but he thought he had a better than decent chance of getting away without absorbing further injury. She was dangerous, but she had no weapons. He was younger and faster. Escape was all but guaranteed. He dashed through an archway and into the foyer. He was almost to the front door when he felt something smash against the back of his head, driving him to his knees. Something else hit the floor with a clang. She’d grabbed something from the kitchen and thrown it at him. The heavy cast-iron coffee pot, maybe.

  Before he could even attempt getting to his feet, she caught up to him and kicked him hard in the small of his back. He screeched in pain and flopped forward, his chin hitting the floor tiles hard enough to make him bite all the way through the tip of his tongue. Blood filled his mouth as he rolled onto his back and stared up at Samantha looming over him. She vaulted herself into the air above him and used her descending bare foot to piledrive his head into the floor. Wesley heard his skull fracture and knew he was doomed. She stood over him and stomped her foot down again, breaking his nose.

  The foot went up and came down again.

  Went up and came down again.

  Samantha stomped and stomped until Wesley Campbell was dead. One of the last things he heard as consciousness slipped away was Count Gravemore’s maniacal laughter once again emanating from the living room.

  ELEVEN

  The door to the supply closet was unlocked. This was fortunate, because the wild-eyed girl in the Cradle of Filth shirt was nearly close enough to take a lethal whack at them with her machete. A locked door would’ve meant certain, imminent death for one or both of them.

  After getting the door open, Seth managed to drag Caitlin inside and slam it shut again just as the crazy girl was starting to swing the machete. Hearing the tip of the blade scrape against the outside of the door, he grimaced at the narrowness of the close call. If he’d been a fraction of a second slower, his blood and guts would be leaking out on the floor right now.

  The sense of relief he felt was short-lived. He threw his weight against the door when it began to swing inward, making it thump emphatically back into the frame. The crazy girl screamed and started thwacking at the door with the machete. She told him to open up or he’d be sorry, advice he opted to ignore. He had a hunch he’d be a lot sorrier if he did as she said. The repeated scraping sounds from the other side of the door had his nerves jangling. He’d never been in a situation where he had to fight to stay alive. Not in real life. In video games, he’d done it thousands of times, back in the days before his parents had taken away his Xbox. This was nothing like anything he’d experienced in Call of Duty. He was shaking nonstop and had tears in his eyes. He’d never felt anything close to the terror he was feeling now, not even when his father was administering a disciplinary beating. He doubted his father would ever get mad enough at him to kill him. At least not on purpose.

  This girl with the machete, on the other hand, absolutely would kill him, given even the slightest opportunity. He understood this as clearly as he’d ever understood anything. There could never be any reasoning with a person in a state of murderous frenzy. There was one other thing he also understood with great clarity. No matter how down he felt about the current state of his life, he wanted to live. To just survive and get beyond this terrible day. If he could manage that, anything might happen. His future, with all its boundless possibilities, would still be in front of him.

  The girl ceased hacking at the door with the machete and started kicking it. Seth put his back against the door and got his feet braced more firmly against the floor. He reached out with his right hand, groping in the dark for the doorknob. After a few fumbling seconds, he found it and quickly determined it locked only from the outside. He’d have to keep his weight against the door in order to keep the crazy girl from getting inside the closet.

  Realizing this made an already uncomfortable situation feel close to untenable. What if the crazy girl’s male companion joined her in trying to kick in the door? Holding the girl back was difficult enough. The door moved a fraction of an inch inward every time she kicked it. The guy with her was bigger and probably a lot stronger. Working together, they would probably manage to force their way in eventually.

  Any real chance of survival would require some help from Caitlin. He could hear her hanging back somewhere in the closet, quietly whimpering and sniffling. She seemed content to allow him to serve as her final barrier between temporary safety and certain death. Not the greatest plan ever. Thinking about how he’d acted so selflessly to save her, he felt a twitch of resentment.

  It was time for her to step up.

  “Caitlin?”

  He raised his voice.

  “Caitlin!”

  She let out a frightened little squeak and replied in a small voice. “What?”

  The crazy girl stopped kicking the door and threw her weight against it. Seth had to stiffen his back and redouble the physical effort necessary to keep her out. “If you want to live, you’re gonna need to help me. Try to find the light switch in here.”

  Caitlin sniffled. “Okay.”

  He heard her start to come toward him as the crazy girl threw her weight against the door again. She was moving with the expected tentativeness of someone moving around in an unfamiliar room in the dark. At one point she bumped into some shelving and caused some cleaning products to fall off a shelf and land with a clatter on the floor. She yelped in surprise but kept feeling her way toward him. He held his breath as he sensed her getting to within a few feet of him. Despite the dire situation, this was still his dream girl, the one he fantasized about while lying in bed at night. So now he felt nervous in addition to terrified. He heard her hand slap against the wall to his left as she started feeling around for the light switch.

  Not finding it there, she brushed against him as she sought to continue her search along the section of wall to his right. For a fleeting moment, her breasts were pressed against his chest. He could feel her breath on his face. An inappropriate urge to lean in for a kiss came and went as the crazy girl flung herself against the other side of the door yet again. She was screeching at them and her frenzied state was only intensifying. Most of what she was saying was rendered incoherent by the shrillness of those screeches, but every once in a while Seth could make out a word or two.

  The one repeated most often was “Caitlin”.

  “Do you know that crazy bitch?”

  The closet abruptly filled with bright light, forcing Seth to squint for a moment. Then he turned his head to the right and saw Caitlin staring at him with a grim expression.

  “She’s my sister. We’re … estranged.”

  The surprise he felt at this revelation was enough to render him temporarily incapable of response. He remembered his initial impression of something subtly familiar in the crazy girl’s features. At first he figured he’d simply seen her somewhere before, but now he realized that impression of familiarity was actually some part of his mind perceiving the family resemblance between Caitlin and her crazy sister.

  Seth’s belated response was, “Wow.”

  Caitlin grunted. “Yeah. Hard to believe, right?”

  “You can say that again. Holy shit.”

  Some moments elapsed before Seth realized Caitlin’s sister had stopped trying to force her way into the closet. He had no doubt this was only a temporary respite. She would start up again soon, probably with the help of her accomplice. Eventually they would get in and that would be the end of Seth and Caitlin. Unless, of course, they could successfully fortify the door and hold out in here until the police arrived. He was about to say something to this effect when a voice spoke from the other side of the door.

  “Caitlin? Can you hear me?”

  It was the crazy girl again, but she sounded calmer now, speaking in a normal tone rather than screeching at them. Other sounds could now be heard drifting in from the basement. Moaning and sobbing. Pitiful pleas for mercy. And something else. A wet, meaty sound, one that made Seth think of a butcher cutting into a side of beef with a cleaver. His stomach fluttered queasily when he realized what he was hearing. The crazy girl’s companion was hacking away at the dwindling number of surviving youth group members. He heard people scream and then fall silent as the machete sliced down yet again.

  Caitlin wiped tears from her face and sniffled again. “I hear you.”

  The crazy girl laughed in a softly insidious way. “There’s no way you’re getting out of here. You know that, right? There’s no one left to save you or raise the alarm. You’re trapped. But if you let me in, I promise I’ll make it quick. You won’t suffer.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Let me in and I’ll tell you.”

  Caitlin grunted. “I don’t think so.”

  “Let me in, you sanctimonious little bitch,” the crazy girl said, her tone rising sharply again. She thumped the base of a fist against the door, making Seth flinch after the all-too-brief lull. “Let me in so I can see what you look like on the fucking inside.”

  She laughed and thumped her fist against the door again.

  The closet’s interior was roughly the size of a standard bathroom in an average suburban home. Maybe just a shade bigger than that. There were two sets of metal shelves against the back wall and another set against the wall to Seth’s left. Along with the expected cleaning supplies, stacks of bibles, prayer manuals, and other religious instruction texts lined the gunmetal gray shelves. Caitlin had been cowering in that corner to the left before coming forward at Seth’s request. The shelving unit to the left was the one she’d bumped against. That this bit of incidental content had been enough to send bottles of Windex and Clorox tumbling to the floor suggested the shelving units weren’t bracketed to the walls.

  The crazy girl kicked the door.

  Seth grimaced and locked eyes with Caitlin. “You’re gonna have to do something for me. Come here a minute.”

  After a brief hesitation, she did as he asked, approaching him as her lunatic sister displayed signs of building toward a frenzy again, kicking the door and occasionally hacking at it with the machete. He beckoned her even closer and she obliged. Her eyes widened when he put his mouth to her ear and whispered his plan to her.

  She pulled back a step and stared at him with a dubious expression. Then her gaze flicked over to the shelving units against the back wall and back to him. “Those look heavy. I don’t think I can do it.”

  Seth shook his head. “But you can. All you have to do is give that one right there a good, hard shove. Gravity will do the rest.”

  In eyeballing the distance between the door and the back wall, Seth estimated the top part of the shelving unit would fall against the door at roughly waist-level, forming an effective wedge against anyone trying to force their way inside. He had a high level of confidence that this would work. The complicating factor was time. The crazy girl’s lanky male accomplice would surely soon join her in attempting to knock the door open. He knew he wouldn’t be able to withstand their combined effort.

  Seth mouthed the word “please”.

  Caitlin shrugged. “I’ll try.”

  She went over to the back wall and reached a hand behind the indicated shelving unit. Before doing as he’d asked, she looked at him again, doubt still etched in her pretty features. “You won’t be able to get out of the way in time.”

  He smiled. “Sure I will. I’ll duck down at the last fucking second. Just go ahead and do it, okay?”

  She nodded, her expression somber but determined now. “Okay.”

  She gave the shelving unit a shove and it started to topple forward. Books and magazines fell to the concrete floor in piles. Right as Seth was about to hit the deck, the crazy girl jabbed the machete in under the door. The tip of the blade punched through the back of his shoe and sliced into the heel of his right foot.

  Seth screamed and fell forward.

  TWELVE

  Micah stood in the center of the basement with the blood-caked machete hanging limp in his hand. He turned in a slow circle, struck almost numb with horror by the sheer scope of what he’d done. There was nowhere he could look without seeing gaudy, bright red splashes of blood or dismembered body pieces.

  They were all dead now, except for the two hiding in the closet. Two bodies in these latest additions to their ledger of the dead belonged to Sindie, but the rest were all his. One, two, three, four, five of them. Five lives he’d snuffed out in a blind panic. With Sindie fixated on the two in the closet, it’d been left to him to exercise a brutal and bloody form of crowd control.

 

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