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“It’s me. Me and Lisa. I can’t seeyou.”
She’s aware of movement in front of her. It’s like the darkness shifts rather than actually seeing an actual figure. A flash of lightning outside makes Lisa clamp her hand over her mouth to muffle a scream. She doesn’t know Penny. It provides her no comfort. But that flash of light was enough for Hillary to see Penny’s face and Penny to see Hillary’s arms so she could reach out and grabthem.
“He killed her,” Penny sobs. “He killedher.”
“Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet. Bequiet.”
The second voice, still not attached to anyone the girls can see, murmurs to itself in a void on the other side of the building, repeating the words like a mantra, like they will protect her. She’s stopped instructing them. She’s only reminding herself.
But Hillary and Lisa don’t care. They’re only thinking of what Penny just said.
“Killed who? What are you talking about?” Hillaryasks.
“Mallory,” Penny says in a gasping whisper almost too quiet to hear. “By thefire.”
“Who? Who did it?” Lisaasks.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t see his face.
“Penny! Diane! Mallory!”
The names barely come through the glass of the windows. Whoever is yelling them must be close. They come again and Penny’s grip tightens on Hillary’s arms until it’s almostpainful.
“That’s Emily. She’s looking for us. She must have checked the cabin and seen we aren’t there,” Penny says, groaning when she hears the three names shouted again, knowing one of them will never be able to respond.
“Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet,” Diane continues towhisper.
Lisa and Hillary wonder where Miranda is, why their counselor isn’t shouting for them. The repetition of the names sounds further away the next time it comes and Penny rushes for the door. Her hand shoves past Lisa to grab the handle.
“Stop,” Hillary hisses. “What are youdoing?”
“I’m going out to her. She’ll keep us safe,” Pennysays.
“No,” Lisa tells her. “We’re not leaving here. Not until daylight or someone comes forus.”
Another crash of thunder nearly drops the girls to their knees. Diane pulls into herself even more, curled up on the floor with her back to the far wall. As long as there is something touching her back, she can stay calm. All she needs to focus on is what’s in front of her.
Footsteps sound on the porch and Penny pushes Lisa out of the way. She pushes the latch out of the way and grabs the handle to open the door. Hope buoys her heart, lifting it up from the depths of where it has beenbobbing.
“Emily!” she cries out, tearing open the door.
The last bit of the name falls from Penny‘s lips and into silence. Lightning makes its brutal, jagged way across the sky, lighting the edges of the silhouette on the porch in a brief flash of purple. It isn‘t Emily. They might hear her still calling out to the campers somewhere in the distance, or it might only be theirmemories.
The masked figure is tall and broad, a man who shouldn’t be here. The drops coming down from the blade held in his hand aren’t rain.
She stumbles backward into Hillary, her hand desperately reaching out and grasping onto Lisa’s wrist. She can’t speak. She can’t even scream. She wants to, but the sound is gone.
“Quiet,” Diane mutters behind them, her face buried in her knees like a child hiding her eyes so the world can’t see her. “Quiet, quiet, quiet.”
Hillary reaches beside her, feeling for anything she can pick up. Her hand wraps around a heavy glass hurricane vase holding an assortment of paintbrushes still damp from being rinsed that afternoon. Putting as much force behind it as she can, she throws the vase at the man in the doorway. The figure ducks away at the last second, leaving the vase to only graze the side of his head rather than smashing his face the way she’d hoped. He lets out a grunt, folding over in reaction to theimpact.
The break in his intense gaze gives the girls the opportunity to try to get away. Penny goes to the back of the room and grabs onto Diane. She tries to drag her to her feet, but Diane resists. She wants to stay there on the floor, curled against the wall, pretending it will protect her.
Hillary yells for Lisa to run and rushes for the door. She isn’t fast enough. The man straightens, sweeping his hatchet through the air in one smooth motion that tears through Hillary’s stomach. He raises the blade again as she crumples to the ground, the sound muffled by the screams of the other girls. Lisa wants to help her. But she knows there’s nothing she can do. The only choice she has is to do what Hillary told her to and run.
The storm raging through the camp disorients Lisa almost as soon as her feet hit the wet ground. She slips again, hitting the ground hard on her knees, but she doesn’t care. She gets up and keeps going, heading into the darkness without knowing for sure which direction she’s moving.
Behind her, she can hear the screams of the girls she left behind. Her heart aches, but she can’t stop. She can’t go back for them. She can only pretend the heavy, thudding sounds are the thunder and the screaming getting quieter is only because she’s run so far away.
