Page 36 of Terror Tuesday

Maybe they’re watching me and laughing. I don’t care. I just want out.

Now.

The doorknob twists.

I scream and sprint toward the exit leading to the next room. My fingers fumble with the keypad, blood or something like it streaking across my palm. The code clicks. I shove the door open, slam it shut behind me, then collapse against it.

Eyes squeezed shut. Breath ragged.

This isn’t a game anymore.

My back presses hard to the door, heart pounding so loud it hurts my ribs. The air in this room is colder—just barely—but it helps me reframe my fears. A little.

When I finally crack my lids open, my breath catches and dies halfway up my throat.

There’s another girl in this room.

Not posed or playful. Not decorative.

She’s sprawled across the stained carpet like something gutted, her torso torn open from hip to rib. Her intestines spill out in loops—bloated and glistening, stinking of blood and something worse.

I gag as the smell hits me next. It’s not like the last room. It’s not copper and hairspray. This is guts and feces. Her sac’s been ruptured, and pieces are gone. The insides turned out like garbage, the body a dumpster. It’s real.

Too real.

Staggering back, one hand covers my mouth to prevent me from vomiting, the other blindly grasping for the next clue. Just get out.Get out!

Behind me, the doorknob rattles again.

Harder this time.

They’re not just jiggling it now—they’re trying to break in. The knob thumps violently in its housing, the frame groaning with pressure. A hit. Perhaps a body thrown against it. Urgently.

My fingers shake as I punch in the last combination, my vision swimming.

Please work!

The door behind me bursts open, and a large shadow fills the frame, but I don’t look at his face. He lumbers toward me, heavy footfalls sinking into the soaked carpet.

With a shriek of angst, I hurl myself through the opposite door just as the code beeps and the lock gives. I slam it shut behind me with a bang, barely turning the handle before throwing all my weight against it.

Everything inside me is pulsing. Ripping through my veins like fire.

And then, I see her.

The final room is empty except for a single platform in the center of the space. A raised slab like a mockery of the Cathedral of Seven Moons—lit by a single spotlight that hums overhead like a fly.

She’s lying on it.

No, not lying.

Laid.

Like an offering.

Naomi…

My best friend.