I'm sorry about the confusion from the last chapter, I accidentally posted the first chapter instead of the fifth one. If you haven't read the actual chapter, it's posted now. If you have read it, then go ahead and read this one.
Emma parked in front of the hospital and a shiver went down my spine. It was even scarier being there in real life than thinking it in my head. The three of us stayed close as we broke in, knocking down a couple boards to creep inside.
"This place is the epitome of creep-city," I whispered, afraid to give away that we were in there.
Audrey looked back at me from her camera, making a "highlight reel" for Noah to watch later. She already made a joke about him "being a kid at Disneyland" and "having to put him on a leash" if we'd brought him. It sounded funny, but she wasn't lying.
"Okay, so what do you guys think?" Emma asked nervously, looking around the hospital with the light from her phone.
"I don't know about you all, but second thoughts are definitely taking place in my brain," I said, still staying close to the two of them.
"Look, this guy killed Riley at the police station and Nina at her house, and I know for a fact that he was outside my house the other night," Emma argued, her voice getting stronger with each word. "If he wanted to kill me, he's had plenty of chances."
"That's sketchy logic," Audrey reasoned, then added, "But it almost makes sense…"
She reached into her backpack and pulled out something rectangular and black. I didn't realize what it was until she pressed the side and it buzzed to life. I screeched and grabbed Emma's arm –Audrey had a damn Taser on her!
"You have a stun gun?" Emma asked in surprise.
She tossed it to her and said, "If your psycho friend shows up, push the button and jam it into his junk."
"Sounds effective," Emma reasoned. Then she looked at us with raised brows, "What about the two of you?"
She pulled out a crowbar and baseball bat, offering me either. I grinned and took the bat, I had a few years of softball under my belt. I could probably take someone out with this bat if they got close enough… Plus I felt like a badass holding it.
"This place is huge!" Emma exclaimed after we'd been looking around for a couple minutes.
"Maybe we should split up…" Audrey said, looking at us with raised brows.
"Are you serious? That's literally the dumbest idea in the entire world!" I shouted, rounding on her with Emma in tow.
"Relax, I was just messing around," Audrey said, holding up her hands in surrender. "Jeez."
We were wandering deeper into the bowels of the hospital and the hair on the back of my neck was standing on end. This place didn't feel right, it also didn't feel right that we were following a clue left in a yearbook sent to Emma from someone who was terrorizing her.
"If Tyler was the one who sent you that yearbook, we're following a dead man's trail," Audrey said.
"Or a live man's trap," Emma added.
"Who's to say it's a man? A woman could torture and kill just as easily as a man could," I said, trying to be the voice of reason.
"I mean, it was a man's voice that called me…" Emma said, sounding a lot less sure of herself.
"A voice like this?" a stranger said from behind us.
Emma reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me to her as we whirled around. Audrey had her phone up to her mouth, she must've been the one talking.
"$1.99 voice changer app, we used it for Rachel's zombie movie," she replied, holding the phone so we could see the screen. "It could literally be anybody."
We turned the corner and saw a long hallway. It was basically every hallway you see in scary movies ever, the kind that make your nerves spring into action and your heart start pounding. I tightened my grip on the baseball bat and followed the others down it, pushing down every instinct that told me otherwise.
There were pieces of plastic hanging over old doorways, swaying with a wind I didn't feel. An acrid, horrible smell started burning my nose and I saw the other two flinching. It was good to know I wasn't the only one smelling it, that would mean I'd officially gone crazy. Despite the smell, we pushed through the curtain it was coming from and stopped dead in our tracks.
"Oh, God," Audrey groaned, covering her nose with her hand. "Is that a pig?"
"Oh my god, I'm never eating bacon again," I whined, pinching my nose but the smell was too deep inside to block out.
For some reason, Audrey and Emma thought it was a good idea to go further into the room with the dead pig. The last thing I wanted was to be left alone anywhere inside so I hurried behind them. Eventually I didn't smell the pig anymore, but I knew it was there and missing its heart and head.
"My mom got a heart in a box," Emma said, eyeing the empty inside of the pig. "This is where it's from, it has to be."
The sight of the pig was starting to turn my stomach so I turned away. There were x-rays on the thing and the lights were turned on like someone had been here. This place had been set up because the murderer knew Emma would follow the clue he sent her.
I looked at the file folders sitting on the table and saw they were filled out. "Guys, these are Brandon James' x-rays. This must be where they tried to fix him!"
"The masks were custom made for Brandon's face after each one of the surgeries," Audrey read from one of the many sheets of papers.
"There's more than one?" I asked, chewing on my bottom lip nervously.
I heard a thumping noise behind us and jumped, freezing in my tracks. My hands were sweating and it was made gripping the bat hard. Audrey raised her crowbar and Emma readied herself to aim low and push the button on the stun-gun. We all looked at each other and nodded, walking together toward the noise.
We pushed open the plastic and slammed into a body, making everyone in the room scream in surprise. There was so much adrenaline, I don't remember what happened until I saw Noah lying on the ground. The little idiot must've followed us here, the others were stupid to think he wouldn't.
"Did you just try to tase my man parts?!" Noah shrieked, looking up at us with raised brows.
Audrey offered him her hand and pulled him up, but I refused to meet his eyes. Angry or not, he had no right to shout at me like he did. I was still raw from losing my mom, but that didn't mean I had to grieve the way he thought I should.
"What are you doing here, Noah?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest in frustration.
"Does that really require an explanation?" he asked, seemingly confused by my presence but ignoring it. "You know I wanna make this guy pay as much as you do."
"Hey, don't blame them," Audrey replied, immediately stepping in front of me and Emma. "Blame me, it's my fault we didn't ask you."
"Holy Christmas. Oh, I knew it," Noah exclaimed, pushing pas us and back into the creepy surgery room. "It's a genuine killer's lair!"
"That's a thing?" Emma asked curiously.
"Oh god, don't get him started on his serial killer fetish!" I groaned, but I knew he was already too far gone to stop now.
"A lair is an extension of the killer's psychosis," he said, walking around and investigating as he lectured us on things we'd never thought about. "The root cellar in Psycho, Kevin Spacey's apartment in Seven, Hannibal Lector's kitchen! I mean, every fictional killer has one."
"So he's been living here?" Emma asked, lifting a book and coughing when dust fluttered around her face.
"I highly doubt it, this all looks staged," Noah answered. "I mean, you see lairs on TV, not in real life."
If I wasn't upset with him, I would think he was cute. He literally looked like a little kid on Christmas morning, no matter how twisted that was. His eyes were bright and he actually looked happy instead of devastated like he was earlier.
"Take Pretty Little Liars for example, they're always chock-full of bloody clues and creepy unrealistic icons," he rattled on as the rest of us looked for our own bloody clues. "I mean, seriously, how would A get her hands on four Victorian dolls that look just like the main characters? Where do you shop for that?"
"Evil American Girl Doll store?" Audrey supplied with a shrug of her shoulders.
Emma left the room with us close behind her. "I can't believe the three of you came here without me!"
Audrey pulled back the plastic curtain and gestured for us to go ahead. "Yeah, you're right. After you guys."
We walked into a room full of metal shelves, stuffed to the brim with random boxes. There was all kinds of stuff strewn around, stuff I didn't expect to be in an old hospital. I guess that was what Noah mean about the place being staged.
"This is Rachel's," Audrey whispered.
"This is Nina's necklace."
"This is Riley's keychain," Noah added. "The bastard took souvenirs."
"Uh, guys, I know that's important, but I think I found the missing yearbook pictures," I said, staring at the ceiling.
There were pictures hanging on fishing hooks that looked like they had blood spatter on them. Emma's was hanging in the middle and it had a pocket knife shoved through the center. It was very obvious Emma's death was the endgame for the killer.
"I think we should go, this place's charm is wearing off," Audrey said, rubbing her shoulders like she was cold. "I'm kind of freaking out."
"Guys, this is Nina's laptop!" Emma cried from behind us. "The police have been looking for it everywhere."
The three of us rushed over to her and saw that she already had it open. There were folders along the desktop that had all her friends' names on them. That was sketchy; something told me they weren't filled with pictures of the people…
"Whoa," Audrey whispered. "Folders for all her friends?"
"Maybe they have pictures in them?" I asked, but my voice was more disbelieving than hopeful.
"Was she friends with the Mayor? Principal Showalter? The sheriff?" Noah questioned, reading all the labels on the folders.
"Nina, what the hell were you doing?" Emma whispered, more to herself than the rest of us.
She clicked on one of the folders, but a box popped up asking for a password. "They're encrypted. I could get them open, but I'd need some time."
Audrey clicked something on her camera and showed us the SD card. Of course, that was such a smart idea! She could copy all the folders over to the card and give Noah time to investigate them. I made friends with evil freakin' geniuses!
"Wait, hold on," Emma said, grabbing Audrey's wrist when she made to put the card in the computer. "This is evidence, maybe we should let the police handle this."
"Yes, because they handled the Riley situation so well," Noah quipped sarcastically.
"Em, there's a folder with your name on it. Aren't you the least bit curious?" Audrey asked, trying to convince her this was the right idea.
"I just feel like this is all a test and when I fail, people die," she cried, rubbing her temples in frustration. "I don't know what to do!"
She and Audrey were debating what the right thing to do was when I heard a faint metal clacking sound. I grabbed Noah's hand in my free one as my heart started to pound in my chest. He was about to ask what was wrong when the metallic clanking got louder.
"Guys, someone's coming," Noah whispered, trying to be quiet and not attract any more attention.
Audrey put the card in the computer and started copying the files over to it. I've saved stuff before and it was always over in a couple seconds, but apparently the SD card hadn't got the memo. It was taking forever and the footsteps were getting closer. I'm sure I was cutting off the circulation to Noah's hand by now, but he wasn't making me let go yet.
"Guys, perimeter alert!" Noah hissed quietly. "We've got to be gone already."
Another tense couple of seconds passed by with a lot of hushed whispers. A door opened somewhere way too close to be comfortable and the SD card finally finished. Noah pulled me out of the room with the girls hot on our heels. Suddenly Audrey said she saw Brandon James' mask sitting on a shelf and Emma decided we should take it because it might have DNA on it.
"Oh my god!"
There was a human head on the shelf under the mask and it was now rolling across the floor. According to Emma, it belonged to Tyler –making us all realize he wasn't the killer. His head was basically mummified by now, not giving him enough time to send the yearbook and kill Riley and Rachel.
"There's no way that kid killed anybody. He looks like he just took a nap in a sarcophagus," I said, still gripping Noah's hand like a lifeline.
We all ran through the hospital, the killer's footsteps echoing behind us. No matter how careful we were when we came in, going back out was almost impossible. It was too chaotic to remember the way we came in and retrace our steps. Luckily, Emma regained herself and shouted about a back exit, all of us doing as she said.
We emerged out of the hospital to find it surrounded by police. The sheriff saw us and immediately barked for us to follow him. He started lecturing us on how we'd made the hospital "potentially inadmissible" along with all the evidence inside of it.
Apparently, an "anonymous" tip came in about us all being there. I'm sure it was the same person who sent the yearbook and chased us around. Whoever did all this was playing with us, they were making it personal now.
Through the sheriff's lecture, we learned they already swept the place and found nothing. He became instantly interested when Emma started telling him about the yearbook with the pictures missing. Emma also guilt tripped him about not being the most faithful at helping and made the sheriff back down a bit. He confiscated Audrey's camera, sans SD card, and let us all go.
"Uh, want to catch a ride home with us?" Noah asked, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. "And also want to forgive me for acting like a complete ass?"
"Hey, grief affects us all in different ways, right?" I asked, smiling at him as we headed to his car. "But if you ever yell at me and make me cry again, we're done. Comprende?"
He held up his hands in surrender before opening his arms to me. I wrapped mine around his waist and pressed my face against the crook of his neck. Even when we were inside, he was trying his best to make sure I got out. He wasn't worried about the other girls –just me. That had to mean something…right?
"I don't know about the two of you, but I'm dying to find out what's on this SD card," Audrey said after we got inside the car. "Okay, bad choice of words, but I think they got my point across."
"Same," I agreed. "I'm coming with to the store to look this up, by the way. Don't even think about ditching me!"
Audrey turned around and winked at me. "Wouldn't dream of it, Virgin."
I made a face at her and smiled when she laughed happily. Noah joined in and soon the entire car was filled with vivacious laughter. It lasted until he pulled into the lot and we were all clutching our stomachs. Maybe it was a bit of hysteria, but it was what we all needed after the week we've had.
We sat on the couch with the SD card in Noah's laptop for almost an hour. The damn password wasn't as easy to guess as we all thought it'd be. I was already laying backward on the couch with my arm over my face in frustration.
"Try, 'thunderbitch'," Audrey suggested a couple minutes later.
Noah typed it in, but the box popped back up and made us all groan in disappointment.
"I can get around this," he finally said, making both of us hit him with pillows. "What? I was just trying to us an amuse-bouche!"
Noah was in his element a couple seconds later. He typed things in and clicked things I never thought possible, making it look like a movie. Audrey made a remark about it "almost looking cool" and I nodded my head in agreement. He wasn't joking when he said he had an elevated IQ the other day. He could do this for the government and make serious bank one day.
"We're cooking, we're cooking with gas!" he exclaimed, immediately losing all his cool points. "We're in!"
"You are Jedi," Audrey complimented. "What is it?"
Noah clicked on the icon and a video popped up. It took a couple seconds to buffer, but when it did, I immediately felt dirty. Emma and Will appeared on the screen, sitting on her bed kissing. It was very obviously not meant for anyone's eyes other than theirs –especially not Nina's. Why the hell did she have it?
"Turn it off!" I shrieked, hitting Noah's shoulder repeatedly.
"No, Noah, turn it off!" Audrey agreed, hitting his other shoulder like I was.
"Uh, I'm trying! I'm trying!" he shouted, but I ignored it this time –it was needed.
The video finally went away just as Emma's shirt was coming off. Then another box appeared and said uploading on it. The video was uploading! A sex tape of Emma, possibly her first time, was being uploaded somewhere.
"Uploading? Uploading where?" Audrey asked the dead air around us.
"It's a hidden executable," Noah replied hectically. "I can't stop it! The file's just been shared with the listserv."
"Listserv? What listserv?"
My phone vibrated along with both of theirs and answered the question. Everyone in Lakewood just got an unedited, NSFW video of Emma and Will having sex and we'd accidentally leaked it.
Y'all are perfect! Thanks for reading!