Page 29 of Don’t Watch Alone

Chapter twenty-five

Blaiz

The flashing red and blue lights flash across the parking lot, turning the mall into a faltering hellscape.

The walls are covered with dark shapes that jump and crawl, twitching like they are alive.

I am sitting on the curb with a sticky, blood-stained plastic blanket.

My hands won’t stop shaking. I can smell myself; it smells like copper, and something sour. I have a metallic taste in my mouth.

Officers flood the lot, similar to ants drawn to a dead body. Crackling and popping noises come from their radios. One barks an order. Another laughs a bit too loud. None of them look at me for long. When they do, their eyes look away, like I’m not a person anymore, just part of the crime scene.

Through the broken glass doors, I see them. Christian first. Robert next. On stretchers they go by, pale, with their jaws hanging open. The strobe lights make their faces seem unnatural, like badly sculpted wax dummies. My stomach gets queasy, but I can’t look away. I did that.

A cop crouches down next to me. His voice is quiet, cautious, as though I could break.

“Can you tell us what happened in there?”

I try. My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. The screaming I did in that mall has left my throat incredibly sore.

I heard another voice behind me.

“She slaughtered them. Or it could be self-defense… or maybe we’ve got a psycho on our hands. Who knows?!”

They think I can’t hear them. My fingernails bite into my palms. Maybe they can see the blood under them. Maybe they can smell the rage, the sickness, the thing that crawled out of me in there.

An EMT presses a bandage to my shoulder where the crowbar caught me. I barely feel it. My eyes are fixed on the mall’s huge entrance, a dark, endless void, like a mouth that swallowed me and regurgitated someone unrecognizable.

I know I’ll never walk away from tonight. It’ll reproduce in me, emerge when I shut my eyes. I will see their grins, terror, and desperate pleas. I’ll feel my arms swinging, again and again, because I couldn’t stop. Because some fucked-up part of me didn’t want to.

I’m not a hero. I’m just the one who survived.

My throat burns as I finally force the words out to one of the cops. “My friends… they’re all dead. All of them. Those two psychos you dragged out on stretchers, they murdered them. They tried to kill me too.” My chest heaves, and I can barely catch my breath.

The cop’s face hardens. “How many bodies are in there?”

“I… I don’t know.” My voice cracks. “Gus, the security guard, is in the security office. My boss… I don’t even know if he was here tonight. My friends—Jade, Derrick, Drew, Eva—they’re all dead. Those sick fucks butchered them. And Tony…” The name comes out of me. “The love of my life… he’s gone!”

The grief overwhelms me, and I break down crying. My body shakes so violently the cop signals for the EMTs. They get me onto a stretcher, wrapping me in a blanket that reeks. My ears ring from the sirens and shouting, and I start to feel a moment of dizziness.

Then I see someone walking out of the mall. My entire body freezes, and my heart stops. Who the hell is that?

“Freeze! Put your hands up!” an officer yells with his gun drawn.

The figure lifts his hands. Under the harsh lights, I recognize him. “That’s Greg!” I scream. “He’s my boss… the owner of the mall and Electric Avenue!”

His knees give way, and Greg falls forward, landing on the pavement. One of the EMTs rushes to him and helps him to the back of my ambulance.

“Where the hell were you?“ I utter, my voice trembling with rage.

He rubs his face. “I was… in my office, drinking my coffee. Then I heard them… those guys. They were laughing, talking about murd ering someone in the elevator. I…” He swallows hard.

“I hid under my desk. I saw one of them holding… a hand. A real one. Not a fake one either. I bolted from under my desk and hid in the bathroom until it was over.”

I stare at him, disbelief boiling into rage. “You could’ve helped me, you coward! I could’ve been slaughtered with the rest of them!” Tears sting my eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, looking anywhere but at me.

“Sorry? That’s all you’ve got?” My voice quivers with rage. “You know what, Greg? Shove your fucking job up your ass!”

If I wasn’t strapped to this damn stretcher, I’d walk away from him. Instead, I turn my head, refusing to even look at him. A cop leads him off, leaving me with nothing but the cold night and the weight of everything I’ve lost.

But my thoughts won’t stop going in circles. None of this makes sense. Why would Christian and Robert kill Mary? And what were the chances that Gus; the friendly security guard who just happened to move across the hall from me, would be tied up in this nightmare?

Nothing adds up. And as the ambulance doors close, I can’t get rid of the persistent, sickening feeling that I’m missing something, and that this night isn’t done tormenting me.