Page 26 of Don’t Watch Alone

Chapter twenty-two

Blaiz

At this point in my fucked-up night, I don’t care where Tony ran off to.

The idea of finding him, of somehow dragging him to safety, is nothing but a crumbling piece of hope I left behind hours ago.

All I have now are the images replaying in my head, the worst moments of tonight repeating over and over, and the resentful desire that we had just left him to his own bullshit.

If we had walked out, if we had gone home, everyone would still be alive.

Andy’s voice bothers me. Don’t go to the movies. Stay home. I should have listened. I should have turned the car around, ignored Tony, ignored every stupid instinct that dragged me into this nightmare. Instead, I still came to watch “Don’t Watch Alone”.

I hit Andy. I hit him hard, right across the face, and watched him collapse like a broken doll behind the concession stand.

I used to think he was stalking me, but now I’m not sure if he was the danger.

I thought he was the one who had wanted to kill us.

I didn’t see it until now, until the real nightmare started to show itself.

He wasn’t the threat. He was the only one who knew what was going to happen tonight, and I silenced him.

The heavy weight of guilt steals my breath.

Where the fuck is Gus? He should be here.

He should be walking these halls, keys jangling, and the smell of cheap coffee trailing behind him.

He’s security. He knows every inch of this mall, every hiding spot, every back hallway, and I would give anything to see his stupid uniform right now.

He’s supposed to be my last shot at getting out alive.

I run; my footsteps are pounding against the glossy tiles that reflect the dim neon of the closed stores.

The air has a bad taste—metallic, damp, and faintly rotten, as if something died in the walls and was just left there.

I see motion where none exists and imagine footsteps creeping up behind me, like a stalker getting ready to attack me.

The security office door offers safety as I stumble through it. The room is cold and dark, except for the surveillance wall’s gentle light. No Gus.

Terror and sweat make my fingers clumsy and stiff when I slam the door and twist the lock.

The tiny click is the only sound I can hold on to.

For now, I am trapped instead of running.

I drag myself to the monitors, praying for a plan, for a flash of the killer before he finds me.

Endless screens show a vacant mall: gloomy walkways, closed shops, dark shapes that don’t move.

Dead space. Empty space. Too empty. My eyes land on the camera behind the concession stand, where I left Andy’s crumpled body.

He’s gone.

My insides are taken over by a new, cold sickness. Did he get up? Did the killer drag him off? Did I… did I fucking kill him? I can almost see his blood on my hands, whether it ’s real or not.

Then the monitors die, all at once, the buzzing snapping into silence so sudden it’s like the air itself got cut off. My ears ring with the lack of noise. My heart is the loudest thing imaginable at the moment.

One screen comes back on, and it bursts into life with a cruel, clear picture. In the court’s center stood the masked man, skylight spilling light over his body. In front of him, tied and gagged and struggling in pitiful little jerks, is Tony.

The noise that explodes out of me doesn’t even sound like it’s from a person.

My knees buckle, my back hits the cold wall, and I slide to the floor, my eyes locked on the image like I’m bound to it.

I whisper his name, scream it, beg the screen to give him back, but it’s like trying to talk through water.

The masked man moves around him, like a predator that smells the end coming.

His knife catches the light, meant for one thing only.

I can’t move. I can’t breathe. My whole body is frozen. Every part of me wants to look away, to stop this, to erase this moment from existence. But I’m stuck, held by the nightmare, forced to watch as the only person I have left is sacrificed to the night.

The awful sound, halfway between a scream and a sob, tears at my throat as it rises.

I slam my fists against the cold floor, the metal and tile stinging my knuckles, and the pain barely registers because my whole body feels like it’s splitting in two.

I can’t move. I can’t even take my eyes off the screen.

Tony is right there, right fucking there, on his knees under that dead window sky, just struggling.

His head jerks, his shoulders twist, his muffled screams rattling through my imagination because I can’t hear shit through the silent feed, but I know what he’s saying.

He’s calling for me. He’s begging me. He’s telling me to save him, and I can’t even stand up.

The masked man’s head tilts, a slow, machine-like movement making me queasy.

His knife drags a silver streak through the pale light as he lifts it, like he has all the time in the fucking world to kill him.

He squats down beside Tony, close enough that I can almost feel his breath through the screen, and he reaches out a gloved hand to touch Tony’s face, his shoulder, his hair, like he’s choosing which part of him to destroy first.

I’m breathing hard, and I feel something snapping within my head.

I slam my hand against the nearest monitor, leaving a smear of sweat and blood, and scream, “Leave him the fuck alone!” But the room absorbs my voice completely, and the man on the screen doesn’t even flinch.

He can’t hear me. Or worse, he can—and he doesn’t give a shit.

The camera shakes for a second, like someone touched it, and I swear the masked man turns his head toward it.

Toward me. The mask’s smooth, featureless surface shines in the light; I can feel the pressure of his eyes under that empty covering even through the poor video quality.

He knows I’m watching. He’s letting me watch.

He’s letting me see exactly how hopeless this is.

Tony strains hard against the ropes, his knees sliding across the polished floor, and the masked man drives his boot into his chest to pin him like he’s nothing.

He lifts the knife higher, the tip glinting like a star in a dead sky, and I can’t stop shaking.

My bladder is about to give out. My mind is unraveling at the edges, peeling back into intense panic, and all I can think is that I am watching the person I love the most about to be carved apart, and it’s my fault, all of it, every damn second.

I want to run out there. I want to tear through the dark and throw myself at him and tear his mask off and put the knife in my own chest if it means Tony gets to live.

But my legs are jelly, and I am stuck in this frozen corner of hell, forced to bear witness to the thing that will end me whether I live or not.

My eyes stay locked on the monitor, following Tony’s every move, when a sudden, bone-shaking thump against the shatterproof glass of the booth yanks me out of my thoughts. I jerk so hard my back scrapes the wall, and I turn around quickly, ready for… I don’t even know wh at.

Andy’s face is smashed against the glass, twisted in terror and desperation. His palms slap against the window.

“Please let me in, Blaiz!”

My subconscious responds before my head can understand it.

I flinch, shaking my head hard. I don’t know if I should trust him.

But maybe I should. At this moment I don’t even trust myself.

Just because the cameras are showing Tony cornered by the killer doesn’t mean Andy isn’t part of this too. He could be leading me into a trap.

“Go away!” I shout, my voice breaking against the glass.

His fists pound harder. “Blaiz, please! He’s right beh…”

He stopped speaking all of a sudden. An outline comes out of the hallway behind him. Not the masked figure I saw on the screen, but just as striking. His hand rises, and the dim red glow from the emergency lights plays along the curve of a hooked shape with rough edges.

My scream escapes as the hook plunges into Andy’s back. His eyes bulge, locking onto mine, mirroring shock and agony perfectly. He gargles, and then the hook bursts through his chest, the point peaking out just below his sternum.

Blood splatters against the glass in a violent burst. It runs in thick, dark streaks down the window, blurring Andy’s face as life slips away from his body. He drops, sliding down the glass as if a string was cut, leaving a red smear.

Another scream escapes me, a rough, cutting noise, and hot tears burn my face. Andy’s body twitches once, then goes still.

A strange voice echoes from the intercom above me. “Blaiz, if you don’t want anyone else to die, you need to come out of that office. Now!”

My head quickly turns toward the door. The figure outside wears the same pale, featureless mask as the one pursuing Tony on the video footage. Blood drips from the hook in a slow, steady rhythm. He doesn’t advance. He just stands there and waits.

Then he moves his fists, pounding against the door in a brutal beat that shakes the walls. The glass might hold for now, but not for long.

I look around the small office, searching for anything that could save me. My eyes land on the phone that sits on Gus’s desk. I grab for it, snatching up the receiver. I try to dial 911.

Nothing.

The spiraled cord hangs cleanly cut behind the base.

Either there are two killers working together, or the footage I’ve been watching is a sick pre-recorded game, and Tony is already dead. Either way, I don’t know what to do.

The door shakes again as the killer throws his weight into it. My eyes shoot to the utility closet in the corner. Maybe Gus has a gun in there.

Driven by a rush of adrenaline, I hurried across the floor and pulled the door open.

A heavy body rolls out, hitting the tile. Gus stares up at me with lifeless eyes, and his mouth is frozen in mid-breath. He’s dead.

The security office’s strong door trembles and moans; every forceful hit from the exterior vibrates through the structure and into my body. He’s out there, forcefully giving it his all, with each strike emphasized by a repulsive, deep grunt that sickens me.

“Stop! Please, stop!”

Gus lies sprawled at my feet, eyes wide, blank, staring at the cracked ceiling like he’s still trying to process the last second of his life. He’s not here anymore. He’s just meat between me and the bastard trying to get in.

The frame splinters open with a sharp crack, revealing a narrow line of darkness, or just the barest hint of light. Either way, he’s breaking through. He’s strong, inhumanly strong, and he’s not going to stop until I’m fucking dead.

I spin, scanning the cramped, grimy space for anything I can turn into a weapon. A busted monitor. A chair with one leg. Everything seems useless. My eyes fall on Gus. His pockets. He always had something, some random gadget or tool he’d brag about like it made him invincible.

I kneel, my hand trembling as it presses against the clammy fabric of his pants. I feel nauseous, yet the door banging makes me keep going. The right pocket is empty. The left pocket has cold metal. My fingers close around a long utility knife, ridiculously oversized like everything Gus carried.

The door cracks loudly as its top hinge separates from the doorway. Pulling back fast, it opens a space big enough for an arm; I then spot a dark sleeve, reaching around blindly to grab something.

I slam my whole body into the door, shoulder first, hip following, screaming, “Get back, you son of a bitch!” The impact sends a sharp pain through my body, but I shove again, harder, trying to crush his arm against the frame, trying to force him back.

He grunts, surprised, but his arm moves in deeper, his hand grabs my hair.

As he pulls, dragging my head to the gap of the door, an intense pain explodes across my head. My cheek scrapes the door, and my scream turns to a choked, broken sound. He’s going to pull me through, snap my neck like a doll, and no one will ever even hear it .

But I’ve got the knife.

I clutch the utility knife harder, my hand slick from sweat and Gus’s blood. With a primal scream, I drive the blade upward in a tight, desperate sweep and bury it in the thick meat of his forearm. The knife sinks in with a wet, tearing sound that travels through my fingers.

His scream gives me a small amount of satisfaction. His hand immediately lost its hold. Pulling his arm back, he smears blood across the gap. I stumble backward. His blood is smeared across my face.

The door swings back into position; its top hinge is broken off. I stand paralyzed, panting, with the knife still gripped in my hand. Every muscle in my body is ready to break or run.

Now there is just silence.

He’s gone, or hiding.

One minute. Two. Three. Every second seems endless, my legs trembling under me, and every shadow seems like a threat. He’ll be back. He’s not going to give up. If I wait here, I’m dead .

I look at Gus one last time. He can’t help me anymore. I take a deep breath, the cold steel slick in my fist, and that one, vicious thought gives me the courage I need.

He bleeds. He can fucking bleed.

And I’m not waiting for him to come back either.