Marcy hurried to the dresser to the left of the bed. She knelt and opened the bottom drawer, brushing aside some puttering-around-the-house raggedy clothes to find the L-shaped lunk of metal concealed at the bottom. The 9mm Glock felt good in her hands, the molded plastic grip seeming to adhere to her flesh like a living thing. She stood up and looked at the sleeping woman. It would be so easy to kill her now and remove one big fucking problem once and for all.
But the others would hear the shot and freak. Maybe run.
She swallowed hard.
“Right.”
She went to the door and opened it smoothly, stepping back into the hallway with as much stealth as she could muster. She was midway to the living room archway when Michael’s cousin stepped into the hallway, saw her holding the gun, and opened his mouth wide.
Marcy raised the gun and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet hit his chest dead center. Redness like a rose petal stained the front of his shirt as his body was propelled backward. Marcy blanked all thought from her mind then. She hurried into the living room and saw that the other boys were on their feet. Two of them were standing near the sofa and screaming at her. The other one, an Asian kid named Kim, was edging toward the front door. Marcy swung the Glock in Kim’s direction and squeezed off two shots. One whizzed by him and punched through drywall. The second drilled a hole through the back of his head. Then she swung the gun back toward the remaining two boys, who were backing away from her now, their faces shiny with tears as they begged for their lives. Marcy squeezed the Glock’s trigger two more times and both boys fell dead to the floor.
Marcy’s ears rang from the boom of the gunshots. The air in the room was thick with the pungent stench of cordite. A long moment later she realized someone was screaming. Her eyes found Ellen, still huddled in the corner, her eyes wide and frightened. Next Marcy heard her hammering heart and a moment later the hard reality of what she’d just done crashed in on her. She’d killed all her friends.
She lowered the gun and went to her sister, knelt next to her and smoothed back her hair with a trembling hand. “I meant what I said, baby sister. Everything’s going to be okay. You’ll see. This…it had to be done. This was a…a cleansing. And maybe the beginning of something new for you and me.”
Ellen sniffled. “You…you’re not going to…kill me?”
Marcy felt something give inside her. She dropped the gun and drew Ellen into her arms as her own eyes filled with tears. “No, no, no, Ellen, don’t you ever think that. I could never hurt you. You’re my baby girl, my only family, and I love you more than anything.”
Ellen sagged against her sister and wailed like a baby for a time. Marcy held her and patted her back, allowing her as long as she needed. Her own tears dried up faster than she expected as her mind turned back to practicalities. They had no close neighbors, so she wasn’t worried about anyone reporting gunfire. Regardless, they were going to have to leave this place. At some point relatives of the dead would report their loved ones missing and sooner or later the law would come sniffing around. And there was no conceivable way to cover up this much carnage or explain away a bunch of missing friends known to spend most of their free time in her company.
Marcy gently eased out of her sister’s embrace and picked up the Glock. “We’re going to be leaving, Ellen. Going on the road.” Seeing that her sister wanted to protest, Marcy put some steel in her voice as she said, “We’re going and that’s that. It’s too late for regrets or second thoughts. We have to go on the run, get some place far away from here. Maybe Florida, way down in the Keys. Wouldn’t that be nice? If we get out of here within the next couple of hours, we might have as much as a day’s head start before the cops start looking for us.”
Ellen chewed on her lower lip and frowned. “But…I didn’t do any of this. Can’t I just stay?”
Marcy’s expression went slack. She stared coldly at her sister for a long moment. Then she put the Glock against Ellen’s temple and said, “You’re going with me. I love you, Ellen, but I can’t leave anyone behind. Do you understand that?”
Ellen was shaking again. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Look around you, Ellen,” Marcy snapped. She eased her finger off the trigger, but kept the Glock’s barrel pressed to Ellen’s head. “I really don’t want to hurt you. I do love you. But I’m not feeling very stable right now and you don’t want to upset me. Do you understand that?”
Ellen nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry. I’ll go with you.”
“Just remember, sister, you put all this in motion when you came running to me with your sob story about the bitch attacking you in the bar.”
Ellen started crying again, her thin shoulders heaving beneath her black blouse.
Marcy lowered the Glock and stood up. “I’m sorry, Ellen, but that’s just the way it is. I need you to see that we’re in this together from the beginning to the very end. Do you see that?”
Ellen continued crying, but she managed a weak nod. “I do.”
“Good.” Marcy didn’t doubt Ellen’s sincerity. She was too scared to lie. “I’m going to take care of some loose ends and clean up. You’ll hear one more shot. You know what that will be.”
Ellen nodded again. “Yeah.”
“And while I’m busy, you’ll need to pack a bag for the road. Make sure to bring as many clothes changes as you can. And any hair care products you have. We’ll be wanting to cut and dye our hair wherever we stop tonight.”
“Okay.”
Marcy held out her free hand and Ellen slipped her own hand into it, allowing her older sister to haul her to her feet. “Come on.”
They walked hand-in-hand out of the living room and into the hallway. Marcy saw Ellen flinch at the sight of the first boy she’d shot. He apparently hadn’t died instantly. There was a trail of blood along the hallway carpet to the place where he’d ultimately expired, just a few feet shy of the kitchen archway. Marcy turned her sister away from the sight and led her in the opposite direction. She relinquished Ellen’s hand when they arrived at her bedroom. Ellen slipped into the room and began rummaging through her closet. Marcy watched her a moment longer. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t have shot Ellen. As sure as she could be given the way this insane day had developed. She did, however, feel a tremendous relief as she watched the younger girl make preparations for departure. An acquiescent Ellen would make the whole process so much smoother.
She turned away from Ellen’s door and continued down to her own bedroom. The door was standing open, as she’d left it. The black-haired woman was still asleep. Marcy drew in a steadying breath and entered the room. She was going to get this over with now. Put the gun to the cunt’s head and pull the trigger. But as she strode into the room she was immediately aware of something not right. The door swung shut behind her and Marcy spun about, raising the gun and applying pressure to the trigger. But her finger froze before squeezing off a shot.
Her mind reeled at the sight of the intruder, a shapely black woman in a slinky black dress. The woman was alive and smiling, but she looked like a walking corpse. Maggots wriggled from the corners of that hideous smile, falling onto the black dress and the bare tops of her bloated breasts.
Marcy took a step backward.
The black woman laughed and more maggots tumbled out. “Yeah. About sums it up, I guess.”
Marcy’s hands were shaking. “Stay away from me!”
The black woman chuckled and took a step toward her. “I’m not afraid of you, Marcy.”
Marcy squeezed the Glock’s trigger. The gun boomed and the bullet punched a hole in the door behind the woman. The black woman didn’t flinch. She never stopped smiling. “I’m not afraid of you, Marcy,” she repeated. “And the reason for that, in case you haven’t already figured it out, is that I’m already dead.”
Marcy was shaking her head and moving backward again. The backs of her legs met the foot of the bed and she stopped. “No. That’s not possible.”
“Oh, it’s possible, all right, thanks to that bitch tied to your bed.”
Marcy frowned. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
The black woman pried the gun from Marcy’s suddenly numb hands and tossed it on the bed. “I was her best friend back when I was alive. But then I died. Which should’ve been the end for me, but she conjured me back to…undeath, I guess you’d call it.”
Marcy was shaking. She turned her head away from the dead woman’s rancid breath. “This is insane. It can’t be happening.”
The black woman slapped her. “But it is. It’s real as a motherfuck. Hell, I’m getting more real by the goddamn minute. You didn’t see me last night, but I was here all the time.”
Marcy couldn’t deal with this. It felt like the very fabric of the world was unraveling. Soon she would go spiraling away into some unfathomable void. Which would kind of be okay at this point.
The black woman grinned again. “And speaking of insane, that was some wild display of batshit crazy you just put on, girl.”
Marcy felt bile rise in her throat. “I shouldn’t have done it. Any of it. Something’s really wrong with me.”
“Don’t you second-guess yourself, baby.” The black woman wrapped her arms around Marcy and pushed her rotting flesh against her. “You did what you had to do, and you know it. Hell, it’s the main reason I’ve decided not to kill you.”
Marcy shivered in the dead woman’s sickeningly intimate embrace. “What do you mean?”
The black woman laughed softly. “We’re all going on a very long trip together. Just us girls on the road. Won’t that be fun?”
“Where are we going?”
“To a bad place, Marcy. A very bad place.” She smiled in a way that might have been intended to reassure, but the effect was offset by the sight of more wriggling maggots. “But along the way we’re going to have big fun and see many wondrous things. You have my word on that.”
Marcy frowned. So much for an escape to a tropical paradise. She felt a vague instinct to fight against this, but she recognized the idea as futile and it quickly withered. And anyway, maybe this was the true unescapable destiny she’d sensed was waiting for her beyond this place. “So when are we leaving?”
The black woman’s smile widened. “Oh, soon. Now give me a kiss.”
Marcy sucked in a breath. Then the dead woman was kissing her.
Maggots fell into her mouth and slid down her throat.
Marcy closed her eyes and prayed for an end to the nightmare.
