Page 131 of Play Nice

She takes a few steps back, her head lolling. Daphne and I cross into the room. It’s arctic in here. I can see my breath.

The tulip lamp is on, emitting a dull pink glow. Shadows crawl up the walls. I check to make sure they don’t have eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Leda says, sitting on the bed. She scratches at her splotchy neck. She’s digging her nails in too deep. “I’m sorry…I…I don’t know what came over me.”

“Leda,” Daphne says, kneeling in front of her.

Leda raises a shaky hand, points to the closet. “Up there.”

There’s a sound. A muffled voice. A man’s voice.

“Is that…Roy?” I ask.

Somehow I’d totally forgotten about Roy again. Wow.

From the look on Daphne’s face, she did, too.

She stands and approaches the closet.

“Daffy,” I say. “Hold on.”

She peers inside. She touches the ladder, running her fingers along the rungs. Her back is to me, so I can’t see her face as she angles it up toward the ceiling.

“Wait,” I say, the word catching in my throat. My eyes frantically scan the room, heart pounding in my chest. “Don’t go up there. It’s up there. That’s where it lives.”

“It’s just Roy,” Daphne says, starting up the ladder.

“Leave him!” I say. “Don’t go up there. Daffy. Stop! I’m begging you.”

She pauses, turns to look at me.

“Please. After everything that’s happened, how do you still not believe me?”

“Daphne,” Leda says. “Don’t.”

“So, what?” Daphne asks, stepping down off the ladder and sitting next to Leda on the bed. “We just leave him up there?”

Before we get a chance to answer, a scraping noise infiltrates the space. Wood against wood. The panel moving aside.

I peek into the closet, look up. “Roy?”

The panel shifts, revealing the dangling head of what was once Roy. His eyes are gone. Scratched or gouged out, caked in gore.

I don’t have the chance to scream. He falls, landing with a thud at my feet.

Leda and Daphne eject high-pitched, terrified wails. Leda jumps up on the bed, but Daphne runs toward me, toward Roy. She flips him over.

He lets out this horrendous yowl, then appears to pass out.

But he’s alive. He’s still alive.

“Help me get him out of here!” Daphne says.

I’m wedged in the corner of the closet, mouth open, eyes wide, body useless. He’d been so handsome.

“Fuck. Leda?” Daphne says, coming around and slipping her arms under Roy’s pits. “Help me!”

“This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. None of this is happening,” Leda says, leaping off the bed and flailing toward us. She gets Roy’s legs and, together, my sisters drag him out into the hall.