A scream pierced the air, and Clementine jerked awake. The back of her skull thumped against something made of wood. A slow ache spread across her spine, and she realised she’d fallen asleep seated, leaning against the bedside table to stop Cole from forcing the door open. Now it was dark and cold. The rain roared like static on an old TV, turned way up.
She got to her feet, trembling. What was happening?
Another shriek from downstairs: ‘Help! Somebody!’
Clementine hesitated a second longer, then dragged the bedside table aside and opened the bedroom door.
She bit back a shriek. Her husband’s silhouette filled the doorway, exactly where he’d been when she slammed the door hours earlier, as if she’d turned him to stone.
‘What’s going on?’ she heard herself say.
‘Don’t know.’ If he was frightened, he didn’t show it. He tromped down the stairs.
Baffled and frightened, Clementine followed. The screams got louder as they descended, as though they were making their way towards hell.
They reached the hall. At the other end, there was a vivid red smear on the tiles, leading away around the corner towards the kitchen.
‘Oh God,’ Clementine whispered.
Cole just kept walking.
When they emerged from the corridor, they saw where the trail led. Oscar was sprawled next to the oven in a lake of vivid red. Felicity was kneeling over him, still shrieking, both hands clamped around his neck. At first it looked like she was strangling him, but then Clementine saw more blood oozing between her fingers. Someone had slit Oscar’s throat, and she was trying to hold the flesh together.
‘Felicity,’ Cole said.
Her gaze snapped up, her eyes filled with tears. ‘Help him!’ she cried. ‘Please!’
Oscar was clearly beyond help. He had turned white, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Another one of their friends, gone forever.
Minutes earlier, Clementine had never wanted to see Cole again. Now she found herself clinging to him, as though he might be swept away.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘He wanted to save me, but I …’ Retching sobs stole the rest of Felicity’s sentence.
Cole crouched beside her. ‘Felicity. Listen. Do you know who did this?’
‘He told me to run … but when I looked back, Oscar was … he was …’
Clementine looked around the room and spotted an empty slot in the knife block. A trail of bloody smudges that might have been footprints led from the pool around Oscar to the back deck. The door was open, a smear of crimson on the handle. The wind howled outside.
The deck had direct access to Isla’s bedroom.
‘Isla!’ Clementine shouted. She sprinted out the door.
The deck was deserted. Clouds had swallowed the moon, so nothing was visible beyond the safety rail. Clementine could have been on a ship, sailing across a black sea.
She pounded on the sliding door. ‘Isla!’
No answer.
She wrenched the door sideways and entered the darkness of the bedroom. She fumbled around until she found a light switch and flicked it.
The room was empty. She checked in the closet, and under the bed. No sign of Isla—but there were smudges of blood on the floor. The killer had been through here, after slitting Oscar’s throat.
What would the killer need from Isla’s room?
Clementine’s head spun. No, she thought. It’s not possible.
Isla had hated Dom since he leaked the video. She had seemed cold to Oscar all weekend, and had disappeared right before the masked maniac attacked him with the axe.
But she was Clementine’s best friend. She couldn’t be the killer. Could she?
Clementine locked the sliding door and hurried back through the hall to the kitchen. ‘Isla’s gone,’ she heard herself say.
Cole appeared to realise what this meant. ‘I’ll check the front door.’
‘Don’t go out there!’ Clementine called, but he was already out of sight around the corner.
Clementine crouched next to Felicity, trying not to look at Oscar. The blood was everywhere. The coppery smell made Clementine want to vomit.
‘Was it Isla?’ she asked. She couldn’t believe it.
‘What?’ Felicity sounded like she was in shock. She wiped her nose, leaving behind a moustache of blood.
‘No one’s out there,’ Cole said from behind her, and Clementine stiffened. She hadn’t heard him come back in. ‘I’ve locked the front door.’
‘She has a key,’ Clementine reminded him. In her head, she was screaming, We’re so fucked.
‘Okay,’ Cole said. ‘We barricade ourselves upstairs. At dawn, we head down the hill—with protection, this time.’ He took three more knives from the block. He handed one to Felicity, who looked dumbly at it. He held out another for Clementine: a paring knife, small but sharp.
She accepted it, feeling sick. She couldn’t picture herself wielding the blade as a weapon. She’d never so much as slapped someone.
It’s just a deterrent, she told herself. Like a nuclear warhead.
Oscar’s grey eyes were focused on the ceiling, his mouth open like he was trying to warn her about something. Clementine forced herself to touch his face. It was cold, slack. He was gone.
‘Come on.’ Cole led them into the hallway.
When they were halfway along, thunder boomed, and the lights all went out.
‘Shit,’ he muttered. Clementine heard him clicking a switch uselessly.
‘The storm must have knocked down a power line,’ she said.
‘Or Isla found the fuse box,’ Cole said. He still didn’t sound scared. He took Clementine’s hand, and led her up the stairs. She couldn’t shake off the mental image of herself in prison garb, climbing towards the gallows. Two people were dead. Her husband was a sadist. Her best friend was a killer. Everything was wrong.
When she reached the landing at the top of the stairs, she looked back. Felicity was gone.
‘Felicity?’ Clementine whispered, after a few seconds.
The echoes of her voice died away. No response. Her skin crawled.
‘Come on, Clem,’ Cole said.
‘Something’s happened.’
A lock clicked, and the front door groaned open.
Clementine’s breath caught in her throat. Isla’s back, she thought. ‘Felicity! Hurry!’ she hissed.
‘Get in.’ Cole pulled her into the bedroom, then slammed the door.
‘We can’t just leave her!’ Clementine insisted.
‘I’m not dying for her,’ Cole replied. ‘And neither are you.’
Clementine’s heart thudded against her ribs as she watched him drag the lacquered chest of drawers into place, barricading the door again. He made it look easy.
For hours he had begged her to let him into this room. Now he was in.
Clementine’s knuckles were white around the handle of the paring knife. She listened, but downstairs was silent. The house sounded empty. Had the front door been Isla entering, or Felicity leaving? But Felicity wouldn’t go outside, where the killer was.
Unless she knew the killer was inside. Unless she’d realised it wasn’t Isla who cut Oscar’s throat.
He told me to run, she’d said. Had she been talking about Oscar, or the killer?
Clementine’s gaze fell to her husband’s hands. For the first time she noticed the blood on them. ‘How did that happen?’ she heard herself ask.
Cole looked down. ‘Must be from the handle of the back door. I locked it.’
‘Oh.’ Clementine hadn’t seen him do that. She remembered what he’d asked Felicity—not Who did this? but Do you know who did this?
She backed slowly away, hoping Cole wouldn’t notice.
He did. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘You owed Dom money,’ she said.
‘Is now really the time to discuss that?’
‘Did you think killing him would clear the debt?’
‘The money was a gift,’ Cole said calmly. ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’
Clementine could tell he understood perfectly. ‘What did you have against Oscar?’
‘Nothing,’ Cole said. He still hadn’t put down the knife.
‘Other than your crush on his wife.’
Cole’s voice was soothing. ‘I didn’t have a—’
‘But that wasn’t the main reason, was it? You just needed me to open this door. You thought a scream from downstairs would—’
‘It wasn’t me.’ Cole advanced on her. He still looked like her husband, but there was a monster underneath.
‘Stay back!’ Clementine shrieked, brandishing the paring knife.
He stopped. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he repeated, like a robot.
Clementine hadn’t stared so intently into her husband’s eyes since they made their vows. She wanted so badly to believe him.
The knife quivered in her grip.