Page 25 of Kiss Slay Replay

They’re gone.

All that’s left is…is gore. Sockets. Red. Leaking. Pulsing. Writhing. Raw. Wrong.

“What’s happening?” Danny asks, trying to get into the cabin. He can’t fit through the doorway; there’s not enough space for him. “Willa?”

Steph opens her mouth to speak but no sound escapes.

“We need an ambulance,” I shout. “We need…Call an ambulance. Help! We need help!”

“I’m trying!”

Steph’s cold hands find mine. I see now that she’s bleeding from the stomach. The wound is messy, and I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid to put pressure on it because I think there’s more than blood coming out of it.

“I don’t…ah…Help…Help! This can’t…this can’t be happening. Please. Help!”

“Willa? Willa, can you open the door?”

“I can’t move her! She’s bleeding.”

“What? Oh…Oh shit. Oh shit…” I look up, and Danny’s head is through the doorway. I watch him take it in. What’s happened to Steph. To our sweet, beautiful, perfect Steph. To the bride.

He pulls back, disappears. I hear him get sick.

“This isn’t real,” I whisper. “This can’t…it can’t be real.”

Steph’s hands slip away. I lean closer to her. I’m not sure if she’s breathing. I should check her pulse. I should do something other than just sit here, fucking useless. I can barely even look at her. At what’s been done to her.

I’m losing her. She’s right in front of me and I’m losing her.

“Steph, you can’t leave me. You just…you can’t.” We’re back at the ceremony, just over an hour ago, and I’m watching her smile, the warmth of it like sunshine only better, purely good, free of ultraviolet radiation. We’re back in our dorm freshman year, and she’s teaching me how to French braid, so patient even when I fuck up my hundredth try. We’re getting drunk at a matinee, we’re stumbling out onto the street, and I see it for the first time—the mischievous glimmer in her eyes that she gets whenever she has too much to drink, what Cassie would later coin as the “Steph sparkle.”

There’s no more sparkle. Her eyes are gone. Gone, gone, gone.

She is gone. She’s not moving. I hover a trembling hand over her nose, her mouth, and feel nothing. No breath.

I’m screaming again—this guttural cry I didn’t know I was capable of.

“Willa?” Danny tries to get inside the cabin again. He bangs on the doorframe. “Willa! Get out!”

“What?”

“Willa, run!”

All the lights are out, but somehow it gets even darker. Colder. There’s a shadow moving in this darkness. Behind me. Above me.

I am being observed.

Black mud-caked boots step beside me. My gaze travels up against my will. Black coveralls stained in blood. Black utility gloves. Black tactical utility belt. Black balaclava. Duct tape over the mouth with a red smile drawn on, zipper teeth. There’s black mesh over their real eyes, but they have the fake ones duct-taped to the mask just above. There are three of the eyes now. Before there were only two. They’re multiplying.

They tower over me holding a giant, bloody bowie knife. It’s not their only weapon. There are others in the belt. More knives. A hammer. Pliers.

Blood from the knife drips onto my forehead. Drip…Drip…

The figure makes this deep, throaty wheezing sound. I think they’re laughing.

“Willa!” Danny shouts.

The sound of his voice snaps me out of my horrified gaping. I bolt for the door, toppling over Steph’s lifeless body.