Finally, I could see them. Only a few mismatched rows of trees stood between me and my friends. They both looked in my direction as they tried to peer through the foliage to get a look at what was headed their way.

Ray caught sight of me first. His faced screwed up into a mask of worry.

“Sophia? What’s going on?” He called out right as I broke through into the clearing. I collapsed onto my hands and knees as I tried my best to catch my breath.

Samuel’s screams ceased and left nothing but unearthly silence.

“What was that?” Kerrie’s voice tremored.

“Samuel.”

“What do you mean,” Ray was on his way to me, but stopped mid-stride as I lunged at Kerrie’s legs to stop her from leaving the clearing.

“Let go!” She kicked and flailed at me as she tried to get me to let go of her jean clad legs. I grabbed onto her belt and pulled her down to the forest floor next to me.

“Kerrie, no,” I snapped.

“I have to go,” Two large tears ran down her pink cheeks.

“What if something happens to you, too?” Ray dropped to his knees and pulled Kerrie to him. He hated it when girls cried. “We need to figure this out before anything else.”

As soon as all the fight was gone from Kerrie’s body, Ray ended the embrace and scooted between us to put a hand on my shoulder as well.

“Now—Soph. What happened?”

I did my best to recount the details, monster and all for Ray and Kerrie. As soon as I made mention of the monster, Kerrie lifted her head and brushed back her dirty blonde hair that she’d been hiding behind to glare at me. every subsequent mention of it made her eyes narrow further into slits.

Ray, however, having dealt with my ranting on the subject before seemed worried.

“She’s fucking lost it,” Kerrie shirked her shoulder out of Ray’s grasp and stood. “Monsters? Come on.”

“It wasn’t just me—Samuel saw it, too!”

“Then your crazy is catching,” Kerrie stepped back and folded her arms. Her eyes kept flitting between me and the woods at my back.

“Don’t, Kerrie—you don’t know what’s back there,” I warned. Truth be told, I had no idea what was back there, but my gut told me it wasn’t good.

“The important part, guys, is what happened to Samuel,” Ray looked between the two of us. his expression killed any further squabbling as he channeled Frank. “You said you heard something in the woods?”

“Yeah,” I nodded and took another gulp of chilly air. “It was headed right at Samuel when I ran past.”

“And you just left him there.” Kerrie’s voice was flat.

“I didn’t want to—he told me to keep going—and, fuck it—Kerrie, I’m terrified! I’m not going to make award winning decisions right now.”

“Insane people usually don’t.”

“Ker,” Ray pointed at her. “Fuckin’ quit.”

A twig snapped close by and caught our attention. My head whipped back in the direction I had come from. Running didn’t seem like an option. My legs were on fire and my feet ached. If I had to more at more than a hobble, it would be as a last resort.

“The fuck,” Ray stood and squared his shoulders as he scanned the woods for the source of the noise.

I followed his gaze and just barely caught a glimpse of a tanned hand as it moved out from behind a tree to toss something metallic into the clearing. The object landed heavily without bouncing and skidded to a stop a few inches from Ray’s feet.

The noise in the woods receded. I was pretty sure the person who’s hand I saw had left, but we all waited a few moments until the sound of movement stopped.

My eyes widened at the sight of Samuel’s camera. It stared at me from it’s place on the slick leaves of the clearing. I could tell it was still on because of the lens popped out, and the recording light was still on.

There was a shiny red fingerprint on the curved front of the camera. My heart sank. The last time I saw that shade of red was when we found Matty, and I didn’t think I could go through that again. Not now. Anytime would be too soon, but not even a week after? No.

“Is that?” Ray choked.

“Yup,” I breathed.

Ray snatched the camera off the ground and turned it in his hands to press the record button again to stop the video.

“Seven minutes and forty-two seconds,” he whispered.

“Oh god,” I nearly puked in my mouth.

“What?” Kerrie stepped forward and peered over out shoulders at the camera.

“That means it was recording while Samuel was screaming.” Ray answered for me.

“Fuck,” she put a hand on his shoulder, “don’t watch it.”

“Well, why else would whoever did this give us the camera?” Ray flipped through the menu of recorded files and found the last one on the memory card.

“Uhm, to fuck us up royally? What if that is Samuel dying on there?”

“There has to be a reason they want us to see,” Ray insisted as he looked back over his shoulder at his childhood friend.

“He’s right. What if there’s a clue and we can figure out who did this. This fucker probably killed Matty, too.”

“Then this should go to the police, like, now,” Kerrie reached into her shallow jeans pocket to grab her phone.

A twig nearby cracked. We all froze.

After a few moments of silence, I looked up at Kerrie:

“I don’t think we’re alone, and I don’t think the cops are an option.”

Kerrie let out a shaky breath and nodded, “okay, no cops.”

“Right,” Ray stared off in the direction of where the snap came from, his vision locked on the slight open space between the tops of the bushes and the bottoms of the tree canopy.

“Let’s just do this,” I swallowed loudly.

“Okay,” Ray pushed the play button on the small interface. The camera took a second to load and then we were looking at Samuel screaming on the forest floor with me in the background running at the camera.

The exchange of us as he told me to leave him was next, which sickeningly enough made me feel a bit better—I had video evidence to back me up on that, at least.

What pulled a horrified gasp from the three of us was a few moments after I ran past, the mysterious noise in the woods pushed through the bushes and stared down at Samuel with dark, shining eyes. These were the eyes of someone who was interested in a dying baby bird, not someone who was out to help.

The man that stood over Samuel was dressed in a disheveled long sleeve work shirt that probably hadn’t been changed in weeks, and a pair of blood-stained khakis. His hair was greasy and unkempt, and he had a thick layer of stubble on his face.

He turned and looked off into he woods behind him, and from the bit of his jaw that I could see, he was talking to someone—but I couldn’t hear a word. I guess the camera couldn’t pick it up. The man then looked directly at the camera and smiled.

He walked up to the camera and the view changed as it was lifted off the ground and into the air. Samuel was still on the ground, writhing in pain during all this, which was being ignored by the man.

The camera picked up a noise—I wasn’t sure what it was, but it was oddly familiar in a way. I could have sworn I’d heard it before. All I knew for sure was that it brought a new swell of panic to Samuel who’s screams intensified at whatever just happened out of the camera’s view.

“What the fuck? What are you doing?” Samuel’s face was beet red from screaming.

“You know,” the man responded in a tone that was unnervingly calm. It was quiet, like the voice one would attribute to someone like an accountant or a generally nerdy profession. It wasn’t what I would figure the voice of a killer to be like.

The camera began to move as the man walked up to Samuel who desperately tried to get away from where he was. He pulled at the soft earth with his hands and pushed with his good leg, belly to the ground. He did his best to get the hell out of dodge before the man could get anywhere near him.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a way that Samuel could have achieved his goal. in a few quick steps from the man, he stood over Samuel as he stared down at the back of my friend’s deep purple sweater.

Then it all became clear what the noise was as the shining tip of a knife slid its way into the view of the camera with Samuel none-the-wiser as he screamed into the dirt.

“Two,” the man spoke just loud enough for the camera to pick up before he plunged the knife down into Samuel’s back. It could have just been the angle of the camera, but the knife looked huge. Almost Betty’s size. The force put behind it buried the knife almost to the hilt. Samuel’s screams turned to terror as he tried to turn to see the man that stood over him.

The knife hit again, and again. each time it sunk into Samuel he cried out in pain and fear as he continued to try and crawl away. After one more swing of the knife to the small of his back, though, his legs gave up.

All the while the man muttered indistinctly to himself. Though close to the camera’s microphone, he might as well have been speaking Latin. The only thing my ears registered clearly were Samuel’s cries for help.

The deep purple of his sweater was now a muted berry color thanks to the mass of penetration wounds, his cries were weaker now. Each yelp was full of sputtering and gurgling as blood filled his lungs.

We continued to watch as the knife was driven into Samuel over and over. The man mercilessly cut Samuel to ribbons despite his pleas for the killer to stop. This went on for another couple minutes before one last gurgling cough. Samuel stilled and his body relaxed.

The killer wiped the blade off on Samuel’s jeans and must have stowed it because the next thing we saw was the killer’s face now from arm’s length.

His deadened expression was only different due to being covered in blood splatter. He took a breath, let out a sign and spoke:

“Sorry for your loss. I had to. You’ll understand.”

“Turn it off.” I ordered.

Ray obliged and hit the power button. The lens popped back into the body of the camera and stilled.

I looked over at Ray through a haze of disbelief and tears. My hand slid into his and he squeezed it so tight I thought my fingers might break. There weren’t enough tears to express the loss I was feeling right now.

Despite his penchant for making out with anything with breasts, Samuel was a sweet, reserved guy who genuinely cared for his friends…and he was gone.

“What the fuck,” Kerrie whispered from behind us. I heard her collapse backward onto the hard earth. “No, not him,” she breathed.

Oh shit.

I turned to look back at Kerrie who stared blankly off the way I had entered the clearing. Her expression was a blank as the killer’s, save for the twitch of her chin as she fought to keep her tears within her.

“Kerrie, you…”

I was about to ask her if she was okay but stopped. Of course, she wasn’t okay. None of us were okay. I still wanted to say something to my friend that just a few days earlier had divulged her tentative feelings for Samuel. Now I couldn’t find anything that fit.

Kerrie just shook her head in response. Knelt next to her and placed a heavy hand on her knee. Even though it was all I could do to keep myself together—she had lost three people close to her now, and she needed my support.

We were all silent. On my part, as I looked between the camera that held our friend’s last moments and the two that were still among the living, I waited for someone to say something.

By the looks on their faces, they wanted someone else to make a move. All of us paralyzed by fear.

Finally, Ray spoke, but it wasn’t what I was expecting to come out of him. Instead it was another question. One that I never expected to send chills down my spine:

“What’s that smell?”

I paled as the putrid stench of the monster washed over us. my exhaustion left me as a new wave of adrenaline hit my system. I shot up from my prone position and spun as I looked for the smell’s source.

“What is it?” Kerrie had the back of a hand to her nose as she did her best to keep the rancid stench out.

“You know the monster you keep telling me doesn’t exist?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, you’re smelling it right now,” I took a few steps closer to the edge of the clearing close to the road. A bush a few feet away rattled in response. I smiled wryly as I backed up. Now I knew where it was.

“That’s impossible,” Kerrie’s voice wavered as she tried not to wretch.

“I don’t see anything,” Ray responded. From the volume of his statement I could tell he was on his feet and faced in my direction.

“It doesn’t want us to see it,” my hand shook as I pointed to the area of space, I was sure it occupied. “But it’s there.”

A rattle from the South of the clearing behind Kerrie and Ray all made us jump. They backed up closer to where I was, all the while, their heads whipped between the two areas the sounds came from.

“Then what’s that?”

Good point.

As far as I knew, it was just the monster occupying a new area of space, but another rustle to my left told me otherwise. Either there were multiples of them—which I didn’t think possible, or it was something or someone else.

The entire time I considered the option of multiple creatures, the rustling in the bushes grew louder. They violently shook as whatever was tin them got ready to come out.

“No clue.”

“Well how the hell do we get out of here?” Kerrie whimpered.

“We run. Old school,” I breathed hoping whatever it was couldn’t hear me.

“No one gets left behind, no matter what,” Ray added.

Kerrie and I both made noises of agreement. There was no way I could do that again. it was hard enough the first time and I already felt enough guilt.

“Ready?” Kerrie pulled her purse off her shoulder and into her hand, ready to drop it as soon as one of us gave the word.

“Go!”

I launched myself into the woods. My knees instantly screamed at me to stop it—it was way too soon for me to be on the run again. I pulled the straps of my backpack to loosen them so I could drop the weight and move quicker. The fabric of the straps stuck to the thick material of my flannel and took the over shirt with it on the way to the ground.

The cold bit my arms as I ran. I did my best to keep up with Ray and Kerrie who were ahead of me. Neither of them were still recovering from a mad sprint just minutes before, so they fared better. Their arms pumped and their heels almost hit their asses as they booked it to the old school.

There was movement behind me, but it was a way off. It was nowhere near as close as it had been during the first leg of the chase, so that gave me some hope I wouldn’t end up on the receiving end of a knife.

Leaves kicked up from the feet of my friends hit me in the face as we weaved through and between the trees and bushes on our way to the school. I had to constantly swipe them from my face to continue and be able to see. Dust got in my eye and took a good portion of my visibility with it.

I swore as I let out a breath and changed direction. I was going to head up the dirt path that lead directly to the gate of the school.

I should have let Ray and Kerrie know, but I didn’t think. I just didn’t want to get blinded by rogue dust particles on my way to safety, and not being behind them was a good start to that end.

I hit the path and turned left back in the direction of the school. My right eye wept as it tried to clear the dirt from itself, but I couldn’t stop to aid the process. There was no telling where danger would be coming from at this point.

The debris free path aided my pace greatly. I came up on the gate fast, and as a bonus I could keep some sort of tabs on Ray and Kerrie by the crashing I heard in the trees ahead of me. They were incredibly close to the gate and I began to see the bushes move as they neared the edge of the woods along the path.

Kerrie lifted the gate to get the post out of the hole it sat in, but only enough to get it to move. The metal scraped along the dirt which ruined the mystery of our location. When the gate was open far enough for Ray to slip through, he pushed from the other side to give me enough room to just keep on. That was the best I could hope for right now, because I knew if I stopped, I wouldn’t be able to keep going.

I bounded through the mouth of the gate and onto the cracked black top. My boots slapped hard against the asphalt. I could hear the ‘thwacks’ of Ray and Kerrie from behind me as I crossed the parking lot to the ominous black doorway at the front of the school.

The building’s broken windows peered down at me as I neared. Bits of charred windowsill, soot and graffiti marred the outside of the otherwise unmolested building.

I took the steps to the entrance two at a time a burst through the open doorway. The debris and clutter on the floor of the hall caused me to skid as I put on the breaks. I scraped my hand as I tried not to fall while I ground to a full stop.

Ray and Kerrie were hot on my heels and had issues slowing down. Ray opted to baseball slide past me into the half wall where the office was, and Kerrie simply used the wall next to him to do the stop for her.

“Where do we go?” My question was choppy due to my deep heaving breaths.

“I have an idea,” Ray scrambled to his feet and brushed off the side of his DCU pants. He reached for my hand and set off down the hall to the cafeteria. The doors were wide open and showcased crispy tables and the lunch line opposite the entrance of the room.

It took all my willpower to continue along with Ray’s quick steps. My legs were done. It felt like I had simultaneously pulled all my muscles. I knew if I lived to see tomorrow that the next day would be worse.

“What’s the grand plan?” Kerrie whispered from behind us.

“You’ll see,” Ray hissed back and checked over his shoulder for any sign of something behind us.

We walked through the wreckage of the lunch room and let Ray guide us to the swinging double doors that enclosed the kitchen. I gazed at the dingy pots and pans as we walked to the back of the room to two giant steel doors.

“Oh, good thinking,” Kerrie knocked on one of the doors. It sounded solid enough, but I didn’t want to put it to the test and rather just hoped the monster or whatever else could have followed us wouldn’t figure out the plan.

“Now, which one,” Ray opened the door closest to the lunch room. He pulled on the metal handle with both hands to pop the seal that had been created from over a decade’s worth of inactivity.

The door swung open silently and in an instant, we were hit with a smell that rivaled that of the creature. Ray gagged and slammed it shut again.

Kerrie and I looked at each other, both of our faces read ‘maybe-this-isn’t-such-a-good-idea-after-all’. Still, since it was the only idea brought to the table, we didn’t have room to complain.

Ray went to the other door and repeated the process. Again we were hit with a smell, but this was more mold and rotten vegetables instead of meat. Not pleasant by any means, but better. He opened the door wider and we took a long look inside the fridge who’s walls were lined with shelves covered in clear bins of fuzzy mold where there should have been produce.

“This is disgusting,” Kerrie retched.

“its this, the meat locker, or a knife,” Ray put a hand on Kerrie’s back and guided her into the walk-in. I followed without complaint. I had smelled worse than this before.

The empty back wall of the fridge was cold against my back though this place hadn’t had power in years. I slid myself down the floor smack dab in the center of the wall and watched as Ray shut us in using the emergency handle on the inside of the door.

The room went pitch black and I didn’t have my backpack, so my phone was missing in action. I heard someone shuffle their way to me, so I pulled my legs in to make myself as small as possible, so no one would trip over me and smash face first into a bucket of mold.

“Hold on,” Ray muttered. I could hear him rummage around in his pockets and that was when I realized that though Kerrie and I had kept our phone in our bags, Ray’s was always in his pocket.

The dim light of Ray’s RAZ3R illuminated the walk-in.

“Holy shit—call the fucking cops!” Kerrie hissed from next to me and she dropped down to the floor.

“What do you think I’m doing,” he snapped back. I could hear the phone’s volume decrease as he repeatedly pressed the corresponding button. I appreciated that. It’d be stupid of us to be caught now because of his phone rang.

I wanted to tell him to calm down, but that seemed like a bad idea. His face was screwed up into an expression I couldn’t read. He looked downright terrifying lit up by the small screen in his hand. I didn’t want that ire pointed at me.

“No signal in here,” he whispered.

“Fuck,” Kerrie spat and dropped her face into her hands.

Ray faced his phone in our direction so he could see where to walk. He dropped down on my left against the wall so I was sandwiched between them, and closed his phone, letting darkness envelope us again.

“We’ll wait it out.”

“If it is a monster, what makes you think we can wait it out?”

“Even monsters have to sleep…right?” His voice grew louder as he turned to ask me a question I hadn’t thought about. Whenever I had seen the thing, it was wide awake, and from my nightly visits, my guess was it slept during the day…but that didn’t explain today.

But it wasn’t around all the time. That didn’t necessarily mean sleep, but it went somewhere other than where I was for a little while.

The muffled sound of swinging doors hit my ear before I could answer. We tensed in unison. I burrowed myself into Ray’s shoulder for support, and Kerrie in turn leaned against me.

The quiet sound of shoes against the tile of the kitchen floor stuck in my ears. The only thing I could think was that the killer had been the other noise in the woods and had chased us along with the creature.

Hot spots of tears dripped onto my sleeve as Kerrie cried silently. I reached out a hand and wrapped my arm back around her to pull her close.

The steps stopped close to the door of the walk-in and my breath caught in my throat. If I were looking for someone, I’d check anywhere they could fit…so the fridge and freezer would be the obvious place to check. But still, as we sat and waited to be discovered…nothing.

“Do you know where they are?” The killer’s voice was recognizable through the thick metal door. I squeezed my eyes shut and listened hard. “Well what good are you, then?”

Huh? Who is he talking to?

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“Who is he talking to?” Kerrie whispered and was immediately shushed by Ray.

I shrugged to answer her. I hadn’t a clue who he would be talking to, but it wasn’t a partner. If who he was talking to another person, we would be able to hear them as well. No. this was something else entirely.

There was a certain inflection in the killer’s voice that reminded me of myself when I spoke to my monster. It was a mixture of fear and irritation. It dropped from every syllable—I knew that tone well.

I remembered how my monster said it fed off negative emotions. Who better to follow around than a psycho freak killer?

As much as I wanted to share my new theory with Ray and Kerrie I didn’t dare speak. I could hear the killer as he moved about the kitchen and opened cupboards as he searched.

Then the whistling started. It was the Toreador song. I knew it from my musical history class I took the previous year. The way it echoed through the kitchen made it sound like there were multiple people out there. Even as it hit the steel door of the walk-in, in made goosebumps rise on my skin.

It seemed like it took forever for the killer to check the kitchen. Ray didn’t have his phone out so there was no way to tell time, but was long enough for my ass to doze off.

Still he never came for the walk-ins, and I couldn’t figure out how we hadn’t been found yet. it was like he knew we were there but wasn’t ready to finish us off. Like he was waiting for our fear to reach a fever pitch and ripen us before he took those last steps.

All the while he whistled. The same tune over and over. It drilled into my brain and gave me chills at the same time. It was the sound of my worst nightmares brought to life.

“They’re not here,” the killer finally spoke again. “This is going to take all night.”

I tilted my head so my ear was closer to the door. I wanted to see if I could hear whoever the killer was talking to.

“Why don’t you help?” The killer asked. After a small pause, he continued:

“You’re always hungry.”

The sound of clanging pots and pans made the three of us jump. I didn’t know which unnerved me more: the killer becoming emotional now, or him having been deadpan while he slaughtered Samuel.

The whistling started up again but was further away now. He must be off to check the rest of the school. Kerrie’s shoulders relaxed a bit from under my arm. Now that he was out of the next room, I think we all felt like we could breathe.

We spent the next several hours sat in silence as we waited for the sound of our impending doom. The Toreador would fade in and out of our scope of hearing as the killer swept the building. There was never a span of time long enough we felt safe enough to make a break for it.

Then silence.

We sat there, all of us leaned forward on our haunches as we did our best to listen for any sort of noise from outside our little box of safety. Finally, when my back started to ache from sitting in the same position for so long, I turned to Ray and whispered:

“What time is it?”

Ray reached deep into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Kerrie leaned around me to get a look at the screen as it powered back to life. The sudden light, dim as it was, was almost too much for my eyes.

After they adjusted I could see the big bold letters next to the clock on his home screen:

Two a.m. Thirty missed calls.

Already? We’ve been here for seven hours?

“Fuck. We need to get the hell out of here,” Ray murmured.

“How? He keeps coming back!” Kerrie stretched her legs out in front of her and rubbed her quads.

“It’s been a while since he’s been here,” Ray responded. “I think he’s gone.”

“Well we have to get out of here eventually,” I cut in. “We need to get home. The cops need to know about Samuel.”

“I think now’s the time,” Ray gathered his legs under him and readied himself to stand. I put a hand on his bent knee and rubbed the thick material of his pants with my thumb.

“You sure?”

“No, but like you said—we need to get out of here. Your house is the closest. We should all head there,” he straightened fully and groaned as he did so. Ray shook his legs to wake them up, and took the first few shaky steps to the door.

Kerrie and I followed after we made sure our deadened legs wouldn’t give up on us half-way to the exit of the walk-in. mine were killing me from a mixture of running and the cramped position we had put ourselves in for the past seven months.

I hobbled to Ray whose phone was still out to give us some light to move by. My steps were jerky and stilted, but I didn’t feel like I was going to collapse just yet.

When we were all gathered by the door, Ray put a hand on the emergency handle and pocketed his phone again. Bathed in darkness once more, I could hear the small ‘tings’ of his nails as they hit the stainless steel while he debated on opening the door.

“Right. When the door opens, we book it down the path to Sophie’s.” Ray’s tone left no room to argue, so I just nodded into the dark, though he couldn’t see me.

Ray pulled the handle and pushed the door open. It silently swung to reveal the darkened kitchen, illuminated only by way of the cafeteria windows. He stepped out gingerly and looked around. By the way his jaw was set I could tell he was waiting for something to happen.

Kerrie and I followed in tandem. We did our best to stay right on Ray’s heels. We kept from calling out our position with light steps as to not scrape the scraps of tile against the floor.

We moved like this through the school all the way to the front door. Any sort of noise, our own fault or not, was cause for us to stop while we tried to figure out if it was the killer, or the creature. I barely took a breath until I could see the black outside the door frame.

The frosty air of the outside hit us and instantly wracked me with a violent shiver. I really felt the lack of a shirt, now and wasn’t quite ready to run, yet. though my legs had a much-needed rest they were still sore and rubbery from earlier…but when Ray trotted off, I followed dutifully down the steps and into the parking lot.

We didn’t really pick up pace after that. There didn’t seem to be a need to. Wherever the killer was, or the monster was—it wasn’t here. There were normal forest noises as we jogged down the path to the highway, but nothing more than that.

I was relieved when we reached the highway. Though it was dead at this time of night, for some reason I felt safer as we crossed over to the other side of the two lanes to get to my neighborhood.

We continued at a light jog until we got to the end of the street that connected to mine. Red and blue lights reflected off the stop sign on the corner and my heart sank. I never thought I would be the kind of person to wish harm on a stranger, but I hoped it was a neighbor’s house and not mine.

I broke into a full sprint as I tried to get the quickest answer possibly. I narrowly avoided a fall as I rounded the corner and saw the Sheriff’s SUV outside my house. The twins were sat in the back of the open hatch and my heart sunk further.

Where the fuck is Janice?

I sped off to the SUV as fast as my jelly legs would carry me. My aim was right at Bruce and Jayden. They saw me approach and their sleepy eyes lit up. Bruce reached for a hug, and Jayden copied him. I crashed into their open arms and nearly knocked the three of us back into the cargo hold.

“Sophie! Where were you?”

“Mommy was upset!”

“I’ll explain later,” I soothed and kissed them both on the top of their heads. “I gotta go deal with Mom and Sheriff Doonan.”

“Okay,” Bruce looked sad.

“You’ll be back, though, right?”

“For sure,” I gave them another tight squeeze before I let go and went to the house.

The front door was open, and Deputy Gomez stood guard. When he saw me, his shoulders drooped, and his brow furrowed. He turned his head to his radio and spoke into it: “Sophia just showed up—she has Ray Vena and Kerrie Jeffers with her.”

I paused at the bottom of the porch steps and waited. From the flurry of activity inside, I could tell I probably wasn’t welcome in, especially since the boys were outside.

Sheriff Doonan appeared at the door, her blonde hair shone in the porch light. Her lips were turned into a sharp scowl. She looked us up and down and sighed heavily:

“What have you three been up to, now? You realize your parents and I have been looking for you all night, right?”

I looked to Ray and Kerrie. I didn’t know how to begin to describe what happened today. They looked at me and shrugged.

Fucking great.

“Where’s Samuel Peppard? Hattie’s having a coronary,” Doonan prodded.

I don’t know if it was the mention of Samuel, or the fact that I had run more today than I ever had in my life, but my legs gave out and I fell to the concrete path onto my left side and burst into tears.

“Samuel’s dead,” I forced the words out of me, worried if I didn’t say it then I wouldn’t be able to say it at all. It was different saying things to Kerrie and Ray—they were there. They saw the footage and we were in it together.

The Sheriff? She was just a part of the aftermath. She was an outsider who’s only job was to clean up the killer’s mess.

“What?” The Sherriff’s tone changed to disbelief.

“He’s dead,” Kerrie sniffled—she was on the road to lose it, too.

“He’s in the woods to the North of the path to the old school,” Ray interjected. “His camera is in a clearing to the South of the path. There’s a video on there of…of the murder.”

“When did this happen?”

“About six or so,” Ray continued answering questions. I was amid a full-on break down, wailing on the nearly icy concrete, and Kerrie wasn’t far behind. Ray and the Sheriff had to raise their voices over my loud crying and Kerrie’s increasingly jagged breaths.

“What? Why on God’s green earth am I just hearing about this, now?”

“Because the guy that killed Samuel came after us,” Ray responded. “We’ve been hiding in the walk-in fridge at the old high school all night.”

“Christ,” the porch creaked. I looked up to see that Doonan had rested her full weight on one of the pillars for the porch. She seemed as exhausted as I felt. In the past few weeks, Green Glen had seen more death than it had in years.

Doonan spoke into her shoulder mounted radio and sent a call for units to respond to the area Ray told her about. It was hard to hear her advise that forensics would be necessary, and to let Salem know to head on down, now.

“Why are you guys here,” I asked finally. I felt like I had a grasp on my sobbing, though I still had tears in my eyes.

“A man broke in. Janice found him talking to the boys when she woke up to get a drink. He pushed her down the stairs on his way out. She’s fine. Just a sprained wrist and bad attitude.”

“What did he look like?”

“From what Janice said, some unshaven guy in a dirty dress shirt and khakis.” Doonan read the details from a notepad.

“That’s the guy that killed Samuel,” Ray tried to pull me to my feet now that I was a bit more even.

“That’s the guy on the video we saw—if you find the camera—you’ll see what he looks like!”

“Wait—he shows his face?” Doonan relayed the new information over the radio, ill-concealed excitement in her voice. On one hand it bothered me how she got a kick out of this, but on the other, I understood. She had a lead, now.

I nodded in response while my stomach churned. That creep had been in my house with the boys and Janice. He probably stopped in to look for me, but I couldn’t figure out why he left the twins and Janice alive.

Maybe he isn’t scared of being identified?

The thought hit my brain and sent me into a fresh panic. If he’s not scared to show his face, that means he’s well hidden and hard to find. Or, if he’s not, he’s close to being done with whatever his mission is and he doesn’t care if Doonan gets close.

“I need to speak to Janice.” My knees cartoonishly knocked together where I stood, but I had to know what happened while we’d been hiding.

“She’s in the den,” Doonan moved so I could climb the steps and go inside.

I made it to the carpet of the den without issue and saw Janice sat on the couch, a mug of tea in had as she stared blank faced at the TV. She looked like a wreck, and I felt like shit for my part of why the killer had been here.

The couch cushion to her left sank under my weight. I relished the feeling of softness under me for the first time in nearly a day. It bordered on magical and I nearly lost track of what I was here to do.

“Janice?” I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. She shirked it off and stared down into her mug.

“Why have you brought this on us?”

“What do you mean? I didn’t do anything to this guy—I don’t know why he’s coming after my friends and I!”

“This man was here looking for you—I found him in the boy’s room. He was talking to them, trying to get them to ‘play a game’. Lord knows what he meant,” Janice visibly shuddered.

“They’re okay, though,” I offered. “They don’t seem bothered, anyway.”

“They’re young and don’t realize how bad tonight was. Just like they’re young and don’t realize what a strain having you here has caused this family. Especially now.”

“Janice—I…I’m not trying to be a strain. I’m always trying to help. I don’t know why this is happening, and I’m sorry it is.” Tears pricked in the corners of my eyes again while I tried not to break down in front of her. I didn’t want to be accused of ‘emotional blackmail’.

“Sorry doesn’t change the fact that someone came into the house looking for you and could have hurt the boys—and did hurt me. Fucker pushed me down the stairs when he ran off.”

“Are you okay?”

“Am I okay? Seriously? No, I’m not okay. My home has been violated and I don’t have a way to fix that…except get rid of the cause.”

“Janice, please don’t. I don’t want to go. The chance of me finding somewhere in Green Glen are like zero!”

“And we’ll all be safer for it.”

The tears that threatened to fall finally did. There wasn’t any way to talk her out of this. She couldn’t even look at me, and I didn’t blame her. I had brought this, willing or not, on her and the boys.

“So what? Should I pack?”

“I already called social services. They’re looking for a place for you, but it’s going to take a few days. They asked if you could stay here while they looked. I guess they’re full up.”

“So, am I on house arrest?”

“Honestly, Sophia, I really don’t care what you do,” Janice finally turned to look at me, her tired eyes boring into mine. She looked exhausted in every sense of the word and I couldn’t blame her for that either.

“I’ll stay out of your way,” I promised. “Just let me know if you need me to do anything.”

Her head bobbed in agreement as I got up to leave. I couldn’t find it in me to argue to stay. It wouldn’t do any good. Despite all the ways I tried to help her and the boys, she finally had the excuse she was looking for to get rid of me without guilt.

“Is it cool if I stay with Ray for a couple days?”

“I really don’t care.”

Great talking to you, Janice.