Page 43 of Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

“Hey, are you okay?” Lily asked, noticing my distress. Straightening up, she placed her hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Where’s Evelyn?”

“She went to the bathroom.”

I jumped to my feet, too jittery to stay seated. I needed to get out of here before Nate killed more people.

“Where are you going?” Lily asked when I made a beeline for the door, but I didn’t look back.

Escaping down the narrow hallway, I stumbled into the walls, a console table barely catching my fall, threatening to topple over as the spin dial phone on top crashed to the floor. My vision blurred, shadows creeping in at the edges. The drugs were still in my system, slowing me down. I didn’t have control over my body.

Straightening back up, I steadied myself with a hand on the wall, my fingers pushing into the air bubbles beneath the flowery, off-pink wallpaper. Up ahead, moonlight streamed in through the cracked open door, and I focused on it as I took wobbly steps closer. The chill from outside crawled across the floorboards to wrap around my ankles like icy tendrils of ivy. I needed to get out of here.

Slipping outside into the night air and activating the sensor light beside the door, I stumbled across the porch and down the front steps.

The grass sparkled with a dusting of frost beneath the moonlight, and my breaths puffed out in a white cloud. The cold barely registered, thanks to the drugs and alcohol floating through my system.

Breathing in the scent of pine and sea breeze, I stumbled along, not knowing where to go or how to find a road out here, but it didn’t matter.

As I turned the corner, I paused.

Max’s rusty truck loomed in the darkness, outlined by the trees. I hurried toward it, threw open the door, and climbed inside.

It was a bad fucking idea to drive in this state, but I needed to get away, needed to get to safety, far fucking away from Nate. And then phone the police. It didn’t matter anymore if Nate told them about that night. The only thing that mattered was to keep the others safe—even Alice and Harper.

The cold, cracked leather bit into my bare thighs as I shut the creaky door.

Then it dawned on me… Max had the keys.

And he was in the fucking sea.

“Shit…” My voice trembled in the darkness as I looked back at the dimly lit, derelict house.

Tufts of grass lined the property, obscuring the cellar’s windows. The green shutters had faded with time and the paint had flaked in places. Out here in the darkness, beneath the moon’s eerie glow, it looked ominous.

A chill crawled down my spine and I looked back at the steering wheel, at the dice dangling from the rearview mirror?—

The window to my left exploded, causing me to scream aloud and throw myself down on the bench seat, my arms flying up to shield my face as glass rained over me. The door creaked open, and big, punishing hands grabbed my ankles and pulled me down the seat with a hard yank.

Curling my fingers around the gearstick, I let out a guttural scream, but it was useless. My digits slipped one by one, and I was hauled out from the truck and onto the cold grass.

Nate’s dark eyes resembled an endless void of death as he grabbed my hair and dragged me across the frosty ground.

Burning pain seared through my scalp and I screamed, clawing at his wrist and kicking my legs to get away, but he was too strong.

“Did you think you could escape your own nightmare, little killer? Did you think I’d let you get away? I’ve told you already”—his tight grip on my hair wouldn’t let up—“you’ll leave here in a body bag.”

When he released my hair at the edge of the lawn, I scurried to my feet and set off running toward the woods. My throbbing heart threatened to claw through my chest and my lungs burned as tears poured unhindered down my cheeks. I pumped my legs harder, pushing myself farther. Survival was the only thing on my mind as his footsteps pounded. Ducking beneath a branch, I escaped into the woods at the edge of the property.

Nate’s cruel, chill-inducing laughter rang out behind me. “You’re making this so much fun for me.”

The trees morphed in shape, their branches twisting and reaching for me while I stumbled deeper into the night. The drugs played tricks on my mind; I knew it, but I still cried out in fear when increasingly sinister, distorted laughter sounded from all around me, bouncing off the fir trees.

I stumbled over an exposed root and fell onto the moist ground. Pine needles and dirt clung to my sweaty palms as I pushed myself back up.

Hobbling forward, I peered behind me, gaze flicking all around for the predator at my back. Silence greeted me, taunting me like it enjoyed the sound of my thudding, panicked heart. I could feel Nate; he was here somewhere.

Watching.

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