"So what happens now?" Mike asked, looking directly at Ke$ha.
She looked down, comparing the contrast of her heels to the linoleum.
"They had no where to run, no where to hide. They couldn't sit in the house anymore. They second they broke off from Vivian and Jane they became sitting ducks."
Mike scribbled something on his notepad. Ke$ha tried to take a peek, but was given a stern look by Mike.
"So they're live bait now?"
"Pretty much. All the killer had to do was put them in the right place at the right time. You saw what happened to Claire and Alex."
"But I thought the killer couldn't find Claire's body."
"As far as they know, she's dead."
After Vivian had left to go find Mark and Lauri in the house after seeing the killers leave, Jan sat alone in the brush. The sound of screeching tires jostled him, and he peeked out of the shrubs.
His Escalade pulled up to the house, it's white body giving off a ghostly glow in the moonlight. The tires stopped, and the lights dimmed. Two figures got out of the car, whispering to each other.
They headed in the direction of the house, opening the side door.
"Shit" Jan mumbled, running his hands through his dark hair.
One of the figures jerked its head around.
"What?" the other snorted from the doorway.
"Nothing" the figure coolly replied.
After the door slammed, Jan crept out of the bushes. Making sure not to make too much noise, he crawled his way towards the forest. Once far enough, he burst into a sprint, following the dim guide lights set up around the large wooded area.
Lauri and Mark heard the front door open. Nestled in there hiding spot, neither of them had moved since the figure had last come in to check on them, nearly fifteen minutes ago.
"They're back in" Mark whispered to Lauri, slightly shifting behind the clothing.
"They came in the front. If they come towards us, we'll know."
They heard a loud clack.
"It's got the gun" Mark whimpered.
"Shhh! Someones coming" Lauri hissed from her burrow.
The door flew open.
Lauri stopped breathing, her heart bursting through her chest.
Mark had frozen solid, his breath becoming thin with every inhalation.
"Mark? Lauri?" a familiar voice cooed.
"Michelle?" Lauri questioned from her hiding spot.
"I heard you talking," she whispered from the doorway. "They're in the house."
"They're?" Mark replied, unmoving.
"There's two sets of footsteps" Michelle said, leaning to her left.
Lauri gulped loudly.
"I sent Steven and Jane into the woods to go find Claire and Alex. They haven't come back. I came into the house to look for a hiding place but then I heard the door open and booked it over here. They're on the opposite side of the house now."
Lauri and Mark had shifted out of their respective hideouts, slinking out of the closet and into the hallway with Michelle.
"We need to get to the forest, and fast" Mark muttered, thinking about a way to get out of the house.
"Why the forest?" Lauri retorted. "That's probably the least safe place right now."
"We can't be in the same place as the killer" he said, gesturing Lauri to think about why she would question his plan.
"This house is huge" she responded, motioning towards the three floors above them.
"Still-"
Mark froze mid sentence.
The door at the end of the hallway creaked open.
A dark figure stood behind it, a shotgun to its side.
"Move" Michelle said, shoving mark in to motion.
The three barreled down the hall, dodging tables and lamps. Michelle's dark hair bounced behind her, and she would stop and check every few seconds to see how far behind the figure was.
"Keep running" she yelled as the figure picked up speed.
They shot into the study at the end of the hall, and Michelle slammed the door shut and locked it, pushing a large oak chair in front of it.
"We have five seconds to get out of here before he blows the door open and kills us all" Michelle said, looking around for places to escape.
Lauri looked directly at the bay window.
Picking up a candlestick set on top of the table, she swung her arms. The window cracked, but refused to shatter.
"Remember how Vivian's parents made this house foolproof?" Mark exclaimed, looking at the door, the rattling outside becoming louder and louder.
Michelle moved another chair over the door, securing it tighter.
"We're only stalling him at this point. If we don't find a way out we're dead meat"
"We know!" Lauri shouted. "We know if we don't get out were going to die. Stop focusing on that and focus on getting the hell out of here!"
Michelle withdrew, looking around the room for heavy objects.
Mark paused in front of the table.
"Wait" he said, looking at Lauri.
"Remember when you pushed Miranda out of the window?"
Lauri winced.
"She was heavy enough to break the glass. Michelle's too light, but I'm relative to Miranda."
Mark stood in front of the window.
"It's only a ten foot drop at worst."
The door began banging louder, and the light from the hallway could been seen through a developing crack in the doorframe.
"What are you waiting for?!" Mark screamed.
With all of her strength, Lauri gave him a momentous shove.
The glass shattered under the pressure, and Mark went spiraling downwards. He landed with a loud 'thud' in the mossy grass.
"Go" Lauri motioned to Michelle. She shook her head.
"I can't do it!" she cried, looking at the drop.
"It's not even ten feet. Move it" Lauri urged, her voice becoming more impatient as time ticked by.
Another loud smash emitted from the door. The figure had managed to stick its hands inside of the doorway.
Relying on her instincts, Lauri grabbed Michelle's arm.
She pulled her frail body, throwing herself and her friend out of the window.
Michelle let out a scream as they plummeted, and Lauri felt a sharp pain in her back.
Mark was waiting at the edge of the forest. Michelle sprung up, spiriting towards him with Lauri in tow.
"He got me," Lauri muttered, holding her shoulder in pain.
The bullet had grazed her skin, splitting it open on her shoulder blade. Blood seeped through her torn clothing.
"We'll fix it later. We have to move."
The figure appeared in the window. Michelle screamed as the group sprinted into the woods, the killer letting out a warning shot before receding back into the house.
Steven and Jane stood in front of a running stream, the water trickling through the rocks and moss, echoing off of the hollow trees.
"We're definitely lost" Steven said, looking around the area. They were surrounded by tall oak trees and large interwoven braches of vines, obscuring the moonlight, making sight that much harder.
"I know where we are" Jane replied, musing through her past.
"Where are we?" Steven asked, looking at her.
"I had my first kiss here"
"That's…great?" Steven retorted, unsure of how this was relevant to their position.
"Sorry" Jane said, snapping out of her daydream state.
"We're about half a mile to the clearing, only catch is, I don't know which direction to go in."
"Great"
"I know one way drops us off at the water, which will take us to the house."
"Weren't we just there?" Steven questioned, looking down into the brush.
"Going back to the house isn't a bad thing. It's best we be there for a sense of bearing."
"What else?"
"Another way takes us back to the path that leads to the front yard, which is probably the worst place to be, seeing as it's well lit and open." Jane motioned towards the distance, the faint lights from the entryway appearing far off through the tangled vines.
"The alternate way takes you to the path that leads to the help house. The lights are too far off and dim right now to show through the branches, but it's out there somewhere. That's probably our safest bet since I doubt the killer would be checking back there."
"There's one more."
"The last one takes us to the clearing."
"What's that?"
"It's just this big, large, open area smack dab in the middle of the forest. It serves no purpose, really. There's a fire pit there, and whenever Viv would throw a big party we'd all head out there."
"Do you think it's a possibility that the killer is someone that went to one of these parties?"
A twig snapped nearby. Jane jolted up, grabbing Steven.
"It's me," a familiar voice whispered from the darkness.
"Viv?"
"Hey" Vivian said, appearing out of the darkness, into the moonlight.
"Where the fuck were you?" Jane asked, stunned at her sudden appearance.
"I was with Jan for a while. Then I ran into the house to find Lauri, but the killer had grabbed the shotgun, and was firing shots at Lauri and Steven, I think."
"No…" Steven said aloud, staring blankly into the distance.
"What?" Vivian asked, while Jane shrugged.
"Michelle went back to the house" Steven said, disbelief cross his face.
"Holy shit" Vivian mouthed. "That means…"
"The killer shot her" Jane finished.
A tear fell from Vivian's eye.
"I thought you hated her?" Steven said, tears fogging his vision.
"She was still my friend" Vivian gulped, holding in her feelings.
Jan managed to make it to the clearing. He stopped at the edge to catch his breath, hiding himself behind a large tree.
He heard a gaggle of footsteps, and Michelle, Lauri, and Mark barreled into the wooded area.
"Psst!" Jan hissed from the sideline.
Michelle jumped up, looking around.
"Over here!" Jan whispered louder. Michelle turned her flashlight on, the beam illuminating his face.
"Where were you?" Lauri questioned, Michelle's grey tee tied to her shoulder.
"I was initially hiding by the front of the house, but I ran up here after I heard the Escalade pull in" Jan replied, looking around the clearing.
"The Escalade?" Mark questioned, a puzzled look crossing his face.
"Yeah. Somebody stole my keys and took it for a joyride. I heard the sound coming from here."
Another bundle of footsteps rang through the forest, and Jane, Steven, and Vivian appeared in the moonlight.
"Looks like the whole gangs back together" Steven joked, while Lauri smacked him in the arm.
"Yeah, the whole gang minus Alex and Claire" Vivian snapped back.
"Did anyone find them?" Jane questioned, looking around the group with hope.
"No," most of them reluctantly replied.
"Maybe they were the ones in the Escalade?" Steven suggested.
"No," Jan answered. "It was the killers."
"How are you sure?" Jane asked.
"Because I saw them" Jan sniped.
Michelle used her flashlight to illuminate the ground of the clearing.
"Are those tire tracks?" she questioned, lighting up a set of indentations in the ground.
"Yeah…" Lauri mumbled, looking at the patterned marks.
Before any of them could react, Jane let out a shrill scream. Her flashlight had found the most gruesome thing in the clearing.
"No…" Steven whispered, looking at the body in front of them.
Alex's body lay crumped up; his neck slashed open, dried blood pooled around him.
Michelle began to cry, and Vivian consoled her, tears streaming down her face.
The group took a moment to process what they were seeing before Jan spoke up.
"If Alex is dead, the probably means-"
A rustle came from the far side of the clearing, and a figure began crawling it's way towards them. Michelle shrieked and tripped backwards, and the group froze in terror.
A bloodied figure rose from the ground, shakily approaching them.
It walked into the moonlight, it's bloodstained shoes appearing, following it's torso, and finally it's face.
It was Claire.
The figures sat in the outline, looking out of the bushes, out onto the clearing.
They had slid away from the group to discuss their problem at hand, the others taking no notice, assuming it was just to console each other.
"Looks like we made a slight error" the other suggested.
"A slight error?" the figure hissed from the brush.
"The point was to get rid of them as soon as possible, hence the 'killing two birds with one stone' logic" it snapped.
"I'm sorry!" the other deflected. "I hit her head on, she should be dead."
"Well she's not!" it screamed. "This means we have to take the extra time to clean up one more body and kill one more kid. We have less than twenty eight hours to get rid of the rest of them, do you realize how hard that's going to be?"
"You're underestimating me," the other said, pulling out a blade from it's back pocket.
"Quick and easy is the way to go" it muttered, driving the knife into the soil.