Murder-You-Vote

Chapter Eight

Audrey had held herself together as best she could while talking to the others, turning on an understanding, but almost irritatingly managerial, voice with a small, internal click. The sound of it annoyed her, but she'd gone on, seeing no spark of recognition or annoyance on anyone else's face.

Still she'd made sure to take deep breaths before speaking. She'd been optimistic and level-headed in turns and she'd tried to keep everyone as calm as possible. It had been a simple, unfortunate accident. And while it was true that it would likely be awhile before emergency services could get to them, they still had every resource they could ask for. They just needed to stay calm and wait to be dug out.

And then as soon as everyone stopped looking like they might faint, she'd bolted, hauling her oversized, soft-hearted emotions to her room and behind closed doors. It was stupid, she knew that it was. She was making a bad situation about herself and she needed to stop. It didn't matter that this was all unfair to Audrey personally. It was unfair to everyone in the lodge, and most unfair to Kenna. Audrey needed to remain calm and competent as ever and make sure no one decided to turn this whole rotten scene into a remake of Clue.

But that, it seemed to Audrey, as she sat curled up in the same ball she'd slumped into as soon as she'd put the chain on the door, was the most unfair part of all. That she did have to remain so calm and so confident when all she wanted was to cry about the fact that she'd somehow lost this girl she'd only begun to really hope for a chance to flirt with this week. That on her vacation from being the voice of reason, she was again forced into that position, this time having to carry her irrational mourning with her.

She took some deep breaths, straightening her back against the door, breathing with her diaphragm, soothing out the quick, sobbing breaths she'd been taking only moments before. As the crying calmed down and she felt her face cool, she started trying to get herself back on an even keel. 

Nothing about this was okay. She needed to accept that. It wasn't okay that Kenna was out there being buried by snowfall while she was in here in the comfort of her heated room. It wasn't okay that everyone here had come hoping for romance and were now having to deal with the corpse of the woman who should have been leading them in speed dating sessions. It wasn't okay that Audrey would almost certainly have to maintain some sense of calm and rationality in this situation while grappling with her own blighted emotions for Kenna, but there was no choice.

Right now, she needed to get out of her cold, wet clothes, take a shower to warm up, and then go downstairs for some cocoa so she could see how the others were doing. It was right that she had left the group to calm down. It was not right to hole up in her room refusing to be of any help or comfort at all, especially when she'd been one of the two people at the scene.

More than any of that, though, she wanted to check on Zach. She was worried about him, as wonderful and good to her as he'd been when they'd found Kenna's body, she thought maybe he was having some similar feelings. The two of them probably owed each other a good, long chat.

Audrey stood, noticing for the first time that although the room was warm, she was shaking. Her pants were freezing and as she unlaced her boots and stepped out of them she realized that the lodge was almost completely silent. She couldn't hear anyone talking downstairs, or even anyone moving around in the room beside her. It would have been nice, had the images of blood stained snow, crowning Kenna's head like some grim halo, not been swimming back to the surface every few seconds. Right now it just seemed eerie. She needed to get warmed up and get back downstairs. She didn't much like being alone.

Audrey hung her wet clothes in the closet, not sure quite what else to do with them for the time being, and went in to her bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind her. She realized how mistrustful this movement was, that the outer door was locked and there was no one coming in, but still. She didn't trust the quiet here, somehow. It seemed to her something feral roaming the halls instead of the natural silence accompanying all that snow. It had more depth. Like quartz crystal where you'd expected a pane of glass.

Once she turned the shower on she felt immediately better. The steam warmed her and the sound eased her frazzled mind and she felt, for the first time, that she could believe what she'd told the others. No, this was not a good situation. But it was going to be okay. A police officer or an ambulance would be here as soon as it could. Until then, they just had to hang tight.

She squirted soap onto her bright orange washcloth. As the bathroom filled with the smell of lavender and spearmint, she felt the last bit of her composure click into place. All the messy emotions tucked out of sight, she started to hum to herself, enjoying the warmth and the smell and the wonderful sound of her own voice echoing in this small room.

Better. Much, much better.

As she was rinsing conditioner out of her hair, noticing for the first time that it nearly fell to her ribs now, she saw movement on the other side of the clear shower curtain. She paused, hand in midair, and stared, seeing nothing but the sink and the toilet through the fogged plastic. Still, it was a few moments before she went back to rinsing her hair.

It had been big, that's what troubled her. The size of a large, hulking person. But her eyes had been closed just before and the room was hot and damp now. It had probably just been her sinuses playing tricks on her eyes. Nothing to worry about. Besides, she needed to get out of the shower and rejoin the others anyway. She finished her shower routine faster than usual, barely rinsing her face before turning the water off and reaching for a towel.

She was scared. She admitted this to herself. She didn't like it, but she was. And every little noise or movement was going to scare her for a while. That was okay. That was probably normal. She'd been witness to a death. It was normal to be tense after.

Audrey brought the towel to her face, pushed it back over her hair, bent over and twisted her mane into it. She stood.

Three inches from her face, a space no greater than the width of the lip on the bathtub, was a shadow figure standing over her, its shoulders bent down to look into her face.

She fell back, groping for the edge of the tub behind her, her fingers getting no traction on the slick surface as she cowered, too scared to fully look at the thing staring down at her.

She glanced up just once, only glimpsing it as she slid fully down into the tub, her bare back skidding and shrieking down the inside of the shower. No, it wasn't a shadow. This was thicker, and seemed to swarm forward like whatever it was should have sounded like an enormous cloud of flies.

But it didn't.

It sounded like nothing at all.

She backed into the far corner of the shower, trying to get away from the strange conglomeration of dark, amorphous shapes. She couldn't hear her own halting movements, her own breathing, but the realization was detached from her conscious mind, which was determined only to make her body very, very small.

Curled into the fetal position, she turned her back as the shadow seemed to envelop her. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to make the darkness standing over her where she sat naked and crying in the shower just part of the scenery. Just part of the darkness that happened when she closed her eyes very, very tight.

And then it was gone. It felt like someone had opened the door to the bathroom and let the entire experience out with the steam. She could see that the room had gotten brighter, even around her fists, and she pulled her hands down, hyperventilating as she did.

She looked around her and could see only thatshe'd managed to pull the towel bar off the wall. She groped for a bath sheetand wrapped herself up, tripping over the side of the tub as she went tumblingback into her room, shutting the door to the bathroom firmly behind her.