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Carrie woke in darkness with loud droning in her ears.

Surfacing to consciousness, remembering.

Her prison door opening.

Her hooded captor charging in, clapping a damp, pungent, sweet-smelling cloth over her face. Twisting, struggling, until she passed out.

Now, awake and still a prisoner, her mouth was taped again, making it hard to breathe through her nose in the stifling heat. The air reeked of rubber, oil and gas. She was on her side, sweating, face pressed into a hard, foul carpet, shoulders aching, hands taped behind her.

The heat.

Back-to-back, crammed in with another body.

Joyce-Anne.

Humming of wheels.

Carrie believed they were locked in a trunk and were moving.

Being transported.

Jostling, Carrie felt Joyce-Anne’s trembling fingers, brushing hers, squeezing hers. Carrie squeezed back, offering comfort, which was acknowledged by a weak groan.

Are we being taken to our deaths?

Their captor’s words echoed in Carrie’s mind.

I will release you into eternity.

And his appearance, wearing the dark hood of an executioner.

I’ve seen that hood before.

In her father’s study, in his textbooks on homicides and serial crimes, she’d seen a sketch of the Zodiac Killer, the unidentified murderer in the San Francisco area over half a century ago, who was never found. He’d worn a black executioner’s hood, according to a surviving victim.

And Carrie’s captor, his voice changer, his robotic menacing speech—that was familiar, too. With her body aching, sweating against Joyce-Anne’s, she started to remember. All of it…the hood…the soulless machinelike voice…unlocking…like changing a channel…recovering memory…

“Meet us…absolute secrecy… It’s about your dad.” But Carrie doesn’t trust them…so before going to the woods, she takes a Glock from Dad’s collection…hides it in the pocket of her big pullover hoodie… Meeting them at the edge of the woods…walking into the forest…only the three of them…

“Why are we here?”

Abby and Erin are anxious.

“A guy at the party swore the body of some girl, a runaway from San Antonio, is here,” Abby tells her.

“Murdered!” Erin says. “I’m trembling a little.”

Traveling deeper, branches tug at Carrie’s sweater.

“Murdered?” Carrie’s tone is full of disbelief. “This is nuts. There’s nothing here.”

“He swore we’d find her in here,” Erin says.

“Just call the police,” Carrie says. “I don’t like this.”

“I know it’s scary,” Abby says.

“So scary,” Erin adds.

“But let’s be brave, witness it first for ourselves?” Abby says.

“Why would you want to do that?”

“If it’s true, then we tell your dad, which is why you’re here as our witness,” Erin says.

“If it’s true,” Abby says, “then we’ll be like heroes, and everyone will want to hang out with us.”

“That’s what this is about? To be more popular?” Carrie halts. “You ever think why this guy would tell you this? If it’s true, why would he tell you? It’s nuts.”

“Well, if he’s lying, nobody knows we got hoaxed. It’s not like they’d believe you, Narc,” Abby says, stopping at the spot where long ago lightning had split a tree, turning it into something of a Wild Pines landmark.

Erin and Abby survey the area.

Nothing. No body.

“Guess it was a joke,” Erin says.

Suddenly, in her broiling stinking prison, Carrie spasmed, the worst memories hurtling to her… it is no joke…there he is, approaching them from behind a tree…wearing the big black executioner’s hood… Abby laughing… “Oh, very funny! You’re the guy from the Halloween party… Ain’t no bodies here…”

Standing before them…a robotic voice crackling… “There will be.”

“What? What is this, really?” Erin says. “It’s a joke.”

Standing…staring…the emotionless voice crackling…“I serve The Other.” His hand, half-hidden behind him…he’s raising his arm…aiming his gun…stepping closer…so fast…

Abby turns to run but he shoots her…she drops to the ground…

Erin screams…and in a swift sweep the killer recovers the shell casing… Erin turns, flees, but he fires and she goes down…

Carrie remembers her gun…clawing for it…running, fumbling…hearing more shots…she drops the gun… Running through the woods…running for her life…the ground under her vanishing…she’s in the air…falling… The river swallows her and she’s flailing…fighting for air in the violent current, bouncing between the rocks…smashing her head… Waking in the hospital…her father looking down at her…

Carrie had found the truth.

Dad got it wrong.

She’d remembered it all.

I didn’t kill Abby and Erin.

It was the hooded monster who killed them.

And now he’s going to kill us.

Tears and sweat rushing down her face, Carrie thought of Emily. She’d lose her mother. She thought of Luke and the pain that would visit him. She thought of her father. She’d never get to say goodbye.

She’d die with the world thinking she was a murderer protected by her father—her dying father.

Sobbing softly, she began praying…

Now and at the hour of our death…