E I G H T
Knife to the Back
THE HALLWAYS OF Riverside Creek Boathouse had never seemed quieter than this very minute. The corridors were deserted, somehow allowing a small breeze of air to flow through even with all the windows slammed and locked shut. There was a creak in the wood whenever one of our feet landed on the old floorboards, but other than that, the place was eerily silent.
The quietness was something I was not familiar to. I am used to the thundering parties, heart racing raves, and euphoric dances. Being trapped in a deserted building situated in the middle of nowhere was definitely something to be nervous about.
"Is this not weird to any of you?" Minnie whispered under her breath, her hand latched onto Bella's own ones.
No one dared to reply, allowing the silence to hang in the air like a cloud of smoke, covering all three of us as our eyes darted back and forth. In contrast to the past few hours which was bursting with life, the hour now seemed dull, absolutely boring, even, as my own scrutinizing eyes scanned each nook and cranny before taking a quick glance at the time.
The one hour grace had long passed, the clock now at 1:34 as we continued to venture past each similar looking corridor. The place was just an enormous labyrinth, leaving every aisle looking like the last which confused me to no end.
How was I supposed to fight an all-powerful being when I couldn't even navigate myself out of this haunted house?
No one said a word, but it was agreed that all three of us were far too lost within the house to find a possible safe way out. After all, we had not even cracked the first riddle, leaving only our legs to guide us solely based on pure instincts.
As each second ticked by without anything even the least harmful appearing, Bella seemed to doubt the piece of paper even further. By now, she was about to burst into a fit of laughter, and if we were in any other situation, she would have pointed a finger straight into my face before laughing 'I told you so!' with a mocking tone to her voice. After all, it was difficult to catch the usually 'all-knowing' me in my own game.
Although for once, I doubt that I am imagining things. My mind might be a slur right now, but they always did say that when your mind isn't well, learn to trust your heart. Whether or not Bella wanted to believe in these celestial beings, I for one know that they are real.
"Don't look so smug, Bella. I know that they are real and I know that we are doomed if they come after us." I snapped, slightly annoyed that one of my best friends did not believe me while the other was still slightly skeptical.
"Nothing has happened to us, Addison, and we've been past like three thousand different hallways already!" Bella seemed victorious, the corners of her lips turned up into a smile as she waved her hand nonchalantly as if dismissing my statement.
"We've only been walking for ten minutes, Bella. If something had already happened to us, you can definitely say that we have the worst luck in the world." Minnie quipped.
"I'm telling you, this riddle is real." Stopping in my tracks, I frowned. "Listen, I've seen some really weird things tonight and it's not just a masked killer on the rampage. I saw a cloaked figure literally sucking the life out of a poor man. He seemed to literally be drained, muscles reduced to nothingness. And the creature floats above the ground like a grim reaper. It was haunting."
"Now you're just hallucinating."
"It's not a joke. The creature was black in color, had bones without flesh and it brought on this ridiculous cold that froze the walls and the ground. It looked straight at me right after he was done killing that man." I shivered at the memory.
"If what you say is true, then how are you alive right now?" Bella asked. She folded her arms across her chest, a single eyebrow raised questioningly. "See? It's not possible that this horrible creature that you just oh so vividly described would possibly set you free or give you a head start to run and fight for a chance at survival. The world doesn't work that way."
"It does if the creature is not from our world." Minnie squeaked.
Bella rolled her eyes, shaking her head in disapproval.
Just as the brunette was about to speak, however, a loud cry of fear thundered past the walls, echoing into the dark abyss as Minnie curled even further towards Bella in complete utter fear. The short scream was loud, meaning that we were closer to the source than predicted. Furthermore, the sound was made as if it had been cut off mid-scream, and this fact alone sent a shiver right down my spine as I stood rooted to the ground with fear threading through my bones.
"What was that?" Bella's uncertain voice whispered from behind me, a tone in which she only used when truly threatened by fear. And that, my friends, was a rarity.
Footsteps followed the scream, its thud echoing against the wooden floorboards as it moved further and further away from where we were standing, much to my relief. Suspecting that the footsteps belonged to that of the killer, I bit my lip, careful not to make a single sound or draw any attention to where we were.
When I was entirely sure that the killer was gone, I slowly let out a breath in which I didn't even know that I had held, sighing softly to ease the thundering of my heart before nodding her head towards the sound of the voice.
'Let's go,' I mouthed soundlessly, before making my way past wall after wall, curving each corridor as I searched for the woman that had been silenced just seconds before. Then again, it could have obviously been a man as well but the voice sounded vaguely familiar to a girl I used to know.
Finding the victim wasn't as hard as one would probably imagine. In fact, all we had to do was to follow the metallic smell of blood that perfumed the walls of the boathouse. With each second that passed, the place seemed more and more like a haunted building from horror stories. And I will, in fact, not look forward to being a character of a rather gruesome one.
However, finding the victim dead on the floor was difficult to stomach.
The only time in which I could say I had seen a dead body before this tragedy of a party was that one time my grandfather had passed on. Other than that, it would be in horror movies I would undoubtedly binge-watch for Halloween every single year. To actually see someone else lying on the floor breathing her last was a whole new different story. At this point of time, I've already seen three victims within the span of twenty-four hours. I wonder how many people can actually say that.
"Holy shit," Bella mumbled from behind, a hand placed on my shoulder as she edged closer to take a better look. "Is that who I think it is?"
"Oh no."
"Porsha," I confirmed, nodding painfully.
I could feel a bile rising to my throat as I glanced at the girl on the ground. Ignoring the giant hole right through the girl's back, I took a deep breath before placing two fingers right by Porsha's neck where her blood vessels are.
"Dead. She just died and there wasn't anything we could have done about it."
It was needless for me to declare her death. There was a huge wound right down the middle of her back, slashing her flesh open that it exposed the white bone beneath the layer of skin. A traitorous knife – the murder weapon – was plunged deep into her muscle, passing through all the layers of skin and nerves and allowing blood to quite literally spurt out like a damn waterfall. The girl was practically swimming in a pool of her own blood, face laid sideways and eyes staring unforgivingly ahead even while it was glossed over. Her body was laid stiffly against the ground, limbs distorted in wild positions that seemed all too unnatural.
Even a blind man would know that the girl was way past the gates of hell itself. The raw metallic and coppery scent of blood were heavy in the air, mixing with the cold winds and spreading like a vial of ink dropped into clear water. The smell was so bad that my eyes watered slightly. It required me to reach up to wipe a stray tear away with a gag.
But it was not that my friends could not tell that Porsha was just about as dead as a doornail. Perhaps I just did not want to face the reality of the situation. For all I know, it could just be that I did not want to admit that Porsha Ginevra, no matter how slimy of a girl and how disgusting of a friend she was, was actually really dead to the world and gone in the mind.
After all, we had grown up together, spending almost two decades as best friends before a single guy and the power of hierarchy had pulled us apart. No matter how deep the betrayal, I had never wanted Porsha six feet under. Maybe I just wanted her to have a taste of her own medicine, that's all. To feel what I felt when she took Lucius away and began to talk trash about me behind my back, revealing all my secrets that I had entrusted to her to the world.
How ironic it was that I wished that, though. Porsha had betrayed me, stabbing me in the back like how a friend, much less a best friend, should never have done. And now quite literally, she was suffering the fate of her own medicine that she served to me just a few days back.
A stab to the back.
I did not know whether I should thank the culprit for his or her actions or avenge my ex-best friend. Probably the former, since the killer must have been highly capable in order to get past her claws for a set of fingernails.
"Come on, Addison. We have to keep moving. Who knows if the killer is still out there and waiting for its next victim?" The grip on my shoulder tightened, pulling me away as my eyes never left the dead body. Bella's voice was urgent, desperate, even. She was scared and for all the right reasons. "She's dead. There was nothing we could've done to help her."
Yes, there was.
"Come on, Addy. What's done is done. We can never turn back the clock no matter how much we wish to be able to do so. What is important now is that we fight for our lives and stay alive to get out of here. We have to stick together and work as a team to solve this mystery."
Without a word, I took a deep breath to calm myself, shooting my two best friends a small grim smile before moving further down the corridor. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but glance back one more time at Porsha's dead body.
Her eyes were still staring in our direction, glazed over and smoked like a fish served on a platter. Death was not pretty on her no matter how beautiful her outer appearance had been. Yet, it caught up to her still, no matter how she tried to outrun it.
I shouldn't be so affected. We weren't friends anymore, after all. And yet, I felt sick to the gut to almost witness Porsha's murder. Her death showed a clear definitive sign, though.
It showed that even though Bella did not want to believe that there were evil beings on a killing rampage, there undoubtedly was a serial killer in the building, and he was still thirsty for more blood.
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