CHAPTER 4:
When Julia finally heard the restroom door close behind the man who had been looking for her before, she huffed in fear. She remained prostrate on the toilet seat, trembling with terror. She had to move. She had to get out of that toilet, or she would not make it. The man was bound to come back and kill her. After a few seconds that seemed like hours, Julia unfolded her trembling legs to put them gently on the ground. Then she suddenly pulled them up. What if the man was waiting just outside the door? What if when she opened the one leading to the main hallway, he was there?
Finally, the young doctor decided to leave the cabin in which she was. If she were to die, it might as well be trying to escape and save her own life. She opened the door as gently as possible and silently observed the toilets which she found strange and different. She felt like she was in another world. At any moment, she could pass out. She wanted to go home. She wanted to cry alone in her corner and hide until she could forget this evening. If she could get away with it...
She made her way subtly to the main door, her heart pounding. She grabbed the handle and pushed the door as gently as possible. She poked her head carefully through the crack and looked right and left. She found only an empty corridor that led directly to the reception hall, from which she could see with horror a dozen people lying face down with their hands on their heads. She had to run away. She had to quickly change rooms. She looked to her left and saw a door. She did not hesitate for a second and stalked over to it. She opened it with fear and haste as she heard more gunshots from farther away. She closed the door behind her, the sounds of gunfire and the cries of the guests now muffled.
She looked up, with her back to the door, and observed a kind of game room plunged into darkness. The light of the moon being the only one present. Some of the shutters were closed. Julia rushed to one of the windows and shot it, but it was closed. She walked to the second and third windows. They are also closed. Julia put her hands on the wall in front of her and tried to catch her breath. Her heart was beating so hard she could not breathe properly. Then she ducked behind a card table. She sat down on the floor. She could not help but think of the young man she had previously met at the bar. It now felt like an eternity. Even in another life. She had felt such a thing when she had met his gaze, that she had been unable to describe it at the time. She would have thought that the evening would continue normally. He seemed to want to come to her but was approached by Chief Inspector Parker. She had only had a small, amused smile, before going to the toilets.
Normally, he should have come to see her. They should have talked and spent the evening together. They would have met and maybe it would have been the start of something? She had not known many men in her life. In general, her scientific mind scared them away. Maybe this time it would have been different… She did not even know his name. And now she would most certainly never know it. He was probably already dead, and she would soon join him...
Julia shook her head. She needed to pull herself together. She had to find an exit. She should not think of her friends who were now probably dead too...
The doctor stood up, her legs still shaking. She looked around, trying to scan the room a little more. She was afraid that the man from earlier would show up in the playroom. After all, it was the one closest to the restroom. If the man returned and did not find her there, he would not take long to guess that she was now in that room.
Julia looked around and tried to get her brain to work. She spotted a cupboard and rushed over to it. Could she be hiding there? She flipped it open and looked inside. There were a few clothes and… She leaned over. She grabbed a kind of piece of wood and lifted it. It was very heavy. She looked at it carefully and saw that it was a bat. A big, heavy baseball bat. She was thinking, eyes fixed on the latter. If she was hiding in the closet and one of the two men—assuming there were only two of them—stumbled into the room, she would have no way of escaping. Surely the best way to stay alive was to move around as much as possible and look for a way out. No one knew who these men were or why they chose to kill. Did they have a goal? Were they targeting certain people or were they just having fun? In which case, nothing could save them except managing to get out of this mansion.
Julia gripped the bat a little tighter and pushed herself against a wall near the door. The first one to pass, she would smash his head.
Note: Julia seems safe for the moment… But what terror… Death awaits her all the same.