I woke to the sound of yelling.
Bolting upright, I nearly knocked Lilly off of the bed. I could hear Amelia screaming something, but I couldn't quite make out what she was saying. But by the time I got outside, I understood.
Christine and Matthew were gone.
My first thought was that they'd simply snuck off during the night, while their minds were still functioning normally enough for them to believe they could make it out. But the fact that Amelia was still here contradicted that idea, suggesting her friends hadn't left voluntarily.
Lilly was right behind me and tried to calm Amelia, while I headed for the little shack where the three of them had been staying. I walked around the building, looking closely at the ground as I went. The footprints were easy to spot. There were three sets, and I didn't need to be a detective to see there had been a scuffle. The half-dead grass was dotted with flecks of blood. The tracks headed off into the woods and I followed them, but I didn't have to go far. If not for being a Zombie, I probably would've thrown up.
Matthew and Christine were each sitting upright with their backs against separate trees—mouths gagged—arms pulled back behind the trunks and tied with rope. Their throats had been slit from ear to ear. Blood covered everything—the bodies, the ground, the surrounding vegetation. I'd never seen so much of the stuff in one place. But the worst part was their eyes. They'd died with them open, staring up in horror as the killer had taken their lives. He'd written the word "GUILTY" on each of their foreheads with a permanent marker.
Realizing that GW could still be in the immediate vicinity, I turned and hurried back toward camp. We were all in immediate danger, including my wife and son. As I walked out of the trees, I could hear Amelia talking about how she'd woken up and found her friends gone, and how they'd never just run off and leave her.
All eyes turned to me as approached. Everyone was present. "I know where Matthew and Christine are," I said, glancing nervously around the perimeter of the camp.
"Where?" Amelia asked, looking suddenly hopeful.
I hung my head and sighed, "They're back up in the trees," I said, pointing in the direction where I'd found them. "Dead."
A huge commotion erupted. I held my hands up to quieten them down.
"What happened, Jack?" my mom asked.
"Trust me—you don't want details. There's nothing we can do."
"My friends are dead and you want me to just forget about them?!" Amelia said, her voice shrill. She stepped around me and started toward the tree-line in the direction of the bodies.
I grabbed her arm. "Look, I'm sorry about your friends," I said, keeping my voice as even as I could. "But there's nothing you can do. And believe me, it won't make you feel better to see what's been done to them. Right now, we have to figure out how we're going to survive."
She gave me a hard look, then pulled away. I thought she was going to continue into the woods, but instead, she spun around, said a few choice words, and stormed off toward her building. I started to go after her, but Steven stepped in front of me.
"I'll get her, Jack."
He followed Amelia, and I turned back to the others. "We can't stay here," I said, "Whoever this person is, he's now made it clear that he won't just wait around while we starve or try to escape. He's going to pick us off, one or two at a time."
"You think we'll be safer out there?" Jon asked.
"No," I answered honestly. "But at least if we're trying to escape, we have a chance. Here," I gestured around us, "we'll just be waiting around to see who gets it next. I got lucky with that boar. How long until we're going hungry again? Hungry and sluggish. No, we should make plans to leave very soon."
"So you think we should take our chances on the logging trail?" Megan asked.
"I do."
"He's right," Isaac said. "If we stick around, we're just target practice."
"Then what's our next move, Jack?" Jon asked. "Are we just going to walk out of here in broad daylight, knowing that lunatic is probably watching us as we speak?"
It was one of those times when I really wished someone else would have a brilliant idea instead of always relying on me to figure things out. But I already had an answer.
"We need to gather up anything useful that we want to take with us," I said. "We'll cram into as few of these buildings as we can tonight. Then, we'll leave before first light. Hopefully we'll get a good head start before the killer even knows we're gone. Just remember—no one goes anywhere alone or unarmed."
"Unarmed?" Melanie spoke up. "What should we carry, Jack? Pointy sticks?"
Rob put his arm around his wife and gave me an apologetic look.
She was right, though—we weren't exactly well-armed. "We'll have to do the best we can. Barricade the doors and windows. Sleep in shifts. Then, just before sunrise, we'll head out."
"And after that?" Jon asked.
"We take our chances on the logging trail."
"That didn't work out so well for Roger," Isaac said.
"We'll stick to the woods just off of the trail," I said. "One person stays close enough to see the trail. Everyone else stays deeper in the trees. If we're lucky, that should at least keep us from being such visible targets."
"And if we're not?" Jon asked.
I didn't say anything. I was pretty sure I didn't need to.
"Hey," Isaac said, looking around. "Shouldn't Steven have gotten back with Amelia by now?"
I cursed and bolted toward Amelia's building. A few seconds later I burst into the shack, but it was empty. It only had one room and a bathroom, and since I knew the two of them wouldn't be in the bathroom together, I didn't bother checking. I ran out and circled the outside.
Nothing.
I shouted their names.
Nothing.
For the next hour, we searched in pairs, never venturing more than a few yards into the surrounding forest. I took the area near the bodies so no one else would have to see them, but we didn't find any trace of Amelia or Steven. There was the possibility that Amelia had stormed off and Steven had followed until they'd both gotten hopelessly lost, but I wasn't willing to take a chance by going deeper into the woods. I hated the thought of leaving Steven out there, but my gut instinct told me he was already dead . . . and Amelia too.
Finally, I called everyone back. Everyone was freaking out over what had happened, but the best thing we could do for Steven, Amelia, and ourselves, was try to keep our senses about us as best we could. And that meant keeping ourselves nourished as best we could. I heated up the leftover meat from the previous night and passed it around. This was a far more subdued meal than before. We were all aware that there were extra portions, but none of us wanted to touch them.
Once we finished, we split up into the two sturdiest buildings and agreed to be ready to leave just before dawn. Six went one way, and the rest of us went the other. Rob and Melanie took first shift for my group, but it took a long time for Lilly and I to go to sleep. I wondered if it was taking Mom and Kieran just as long. They were going to take the middle-of-the-night shift, while Lilly and I would take the last one. We figured that would be better, so we'd have plenty of time to make sure Les was all ready to go when it came time to move out.
When Mom finally woke me, I'd probably only slept a couple hours, Lilly a bit more. Mom and Kieran took the bed while Lilly and I headed to the windows to keep watch. The fire in the center of the camp was still going well enough that it wasn't pitch black. We'd chosen this particular building not just for its size, but also because all the windows had already been boarded up. All we'd had to do was take a single board out so we could see. On the other side of the fire was the house where the rest of the group was staying. I couldn't see anyone at the windows over there, but I knew someone was watching.
"Do you think he's out there?" Lilly's voice was barely loud enough to hear.
"Probably." I knew better than to try to lie to her. "But he won't risk breaking in. There are too many of us for him to take on at once."
"Who do you think he is?"
"I don't know," I said. "When we were looking over the notes back home, I thought it might've been one of Garret's supporters, someone we'd missed." A shadow caught my eye, but when I looked closer, it was gone. "Whoever's doing this, though, had to go outside of Osborne to get some of us, and I don't remember hearing about anyone traveling. Do you?"
"No," she said. "But are we sure it's just one person? What if it's a group of people?"
"I don't think so," I said. "If it was a group, why wouldn't they have just waited at each of the snares to pick us off when we came back? No—I think GW had to move from one to the next because it's only him."
"That makes sense," she agreed. "At least I hope you're right. Because if there's more than one person, we don't have a chance."
I agreed with her, but didn't say it out loud. I wasn't going to lie, but I also didn't want to admit that the odds of us making it out of this place were slim to none.
"Jack, did you see that?" she asked suddenly. "I could've sworn I saw something move."
"Where?"
"There." She pointed and I followed her finger, squinting into the darkness, trying to see what she saw. But there was nothing. Only shadows cast by the dying fire light.
"I don't see anything."
She sighed. "Sorry, I'm just so jumpy right now."
I set my spear against the wall and reached out to pull her toward me. "Just a little bit longer and we'll be on our way home," I said. She leaned against me and I kissed the top of her head. "We're going to make it out of her, Lilly. I swear it."
"Promise me something," she said.
"Anything."
"If something happens to me . . ."
I didn't like where this was going.
"Promise me you'll get Les out." She turned to face me and, even in the dim light, I could see her eyes blazing. "I don't care if you have to leave our friends or even your mother behind; promise me you'll make sure our son lives."
"Nothing's going to happen—"
"Promise me!" Her voice rose sharply.
"Okay, I promise."
There wasn't really anything else to say, so we fell back into silence and stared out of the narrow gaps in the windows. It seemed that it was just starting to get a little lighter out when something caught my eye—a flicker of color. At first, I thought it was the fire flaring up again, like they sometimes do when an ember hits a pocket of air. Then I realized it was too bright to be the small fire in the middle of camp. But it was definitely a fire.
"Mom!" I shouted, letting go of Lilly's hand. "Kieran!"
"Jack?" Lilly was startled and disoriented by my outburst. "What is it?"
"Fire!" I shouted, as both in answer to her question and to tell the others. "Hurry! The other building is on fire!"
Lilly swore.
"Stay with Les," I said.
"Jack . . ." she started to protest.
I grabbed her hand. "What if he started the fire as a distraction to get to Les?"
"I won't stay in here alone."
She was right; that was too dangerous, and we were wasting time. "Okay, get Les and come with us, but don't put him down."
She nodded and hurried over to where Les was sleeping, while I quickly woke Rob and Melanie. Mom and Kieran seemed half-asleep, but they were immediately on their feet and followed me outside. The air was cold, and it helped us focus.
In the short time it had taken me to get everyone up and out, the fire had grown enough that I could clearly see that it was coming from the right side of the building the others were in. I ran toward it, even as Rob was shouting at me that we needed water. But we weren't going to put this out—our only hope was to get our friends out as quickly as possible.
"Benjamin!" I yelled as I neared the building. "Megan!"
I heard someone inside yelling but couldn't tell who it was. I ran to the door, pausing as I remembered something from childhood—in a fire, always check a door before opening it. I touched the doorknob and winced. It was already too hot on the other side.
"Jack?"
"Isaac?" I recognized my friend's voice. "You guys have to get out of there."
"The door is blocked." He coughed. "The windows too."
"Break them down!" I moved away from the door and over to a window where I couldn't see the fire. I grabbed one of the boards and hissed in pain as heat burned my fingers. I pulled as hard as I could, trying to yank it off of the window. I could hear some of the others now, but wished I couldn't. I tried to block the sounds, to focus all of my strength. Tears streamed down my face and my eyes burned from the smoke.
The world took on a surreal, nightmarish quality.
I heard Mom, Kieran, and Rob behind me, throwing a few buckets of water onto the building, and trying to break down the door and other windows.
Splinters dug into my fingers.
Les and Lilly were crying.
My muscles ached and protested as I pulled on the planks, trying to loosen them.
I screamed and kicked at the walls, ignoring the flames that were starting to flick out between the cracks.
Loud creaking and cracking sounds echoed, and my foot finally broke through.
"Isaac!" I yelled, coughing and choking as smoke poured from the hole I'd made. I clawed frantically, trying to make it bigger. "I'm coming!"
Suddenly, I felt arms wrap around me from behind, pulling me back.
I fought against them, thinking it must be GW, trying to keep me from saving my friends.
"You can't!" Kieran shouted in my ear.
"It's no use!" Rob yelled from the other side, as the two of them dragged me away from the raging inferno.
I still struggled, trying to free myself from their grasp. I didn't understand why they weren't letting me go in. I had to save them. Kyle. Kevin. Jon. Megan. Benjamin. Isaac. They were my friends. People who had stood by me. Isaac had trusted me, Benjamin hadn't cared that I'd been a Zombie.
"Let me go!" I shouted.
"You can't help them now, Jack," a weeping voice said in my ear. "Remember what you promised me about Les."
Lilly's voice did what the others hadn't been able to. I stopped fighting.
The entire place was engulfed in flames. The roof collapsed. It wasn't until then that I realized there were no more sounds coming from inside.
Kieran and Rob let go of me and went to console Mom and Melanie. I dropped to my knees. The heat from the flames scorched my face but I couldn't look away. Behind the fire, the sun was starting to rise, but still, I didn't move. Then Lilly came up behind me and knelt by my side. I felt little arms around my neck and reached out. Les clung to me as Lilly buried her face against my chest.
I heard the others crying behind me, but now that my eyes had stopped watering from the smoke, I didn't seem to have any tears left. In a matter of minutes, six people I'd known for years, were gone. My friends, dead. And I had been powerless to stop it.
"Jack." Lilly's voice was still thick with tears. "We have to go."
I nodded but didn't move. Of course we needed to go, but how could we? How could we just leave our friends here?
"We need to leave, Jack." Lilly pulled away from me and stood. "You promised."
That finally got through to me, and I looked up at her. She was right. My arms tightened around Les. I'd promised that I would get our son to safety, no matter what. My heart ached for my friends, and I knew the real grieving would come later, but right now, I didn't have time to mourn. We needed to move quickly.
I stood and turned around. The other four had resolute expressions on their faces, their sadness pushed aside, buried for the moment in steadfast resolve and determination.
"Grab your stuff," I said. "We're leaving."he/Ш