Page 16 of The Birthday Girl

T remaine's boots dragged to a stop at the end of Cottonwood Lane. The porch steps sagged beneath splintered railings, and plywood sheets covered what had once been windows. He pushed the door with two fingers, and it swung inward with a long, low whine that raised the hairs on his neck.

His first breath caught in his throat. It was so sour and thick, he gagged, tasting green-black mold, the sweetness of something dead in the walls, and underneath it all, a coppery tang coated his tongue as if a penny held there too long.

Tremaine stepped inside first, followed by Jimmy, their shoes sinking into damp carpet littered with fragments of plaster. The first thing they noticed was the broken furniture scattered across the floor. Chairs were overturned, and a sofa had been gutted of its stuffing.

Mannequins with cracked faces slumped against the walls, their glass eyes glinting in the weak glow of Jimmy’s phone.

A bloodied chainsaw, fake but convincing, lay in the corner where an actor must have dropped it years ago.

Torn curtains hung from the ceiling, painted with splatters of fake blood that had dried into dark stains.

The farther they moved, the more the house seemed designed to trap them.

A skeletal figure dangled from a noose in the stairwell, its plastic bones yellowed with age.

A hospital gurney blocked part of the hallway, the leather straps still buckled tight as though something might be writhing beneath the sheet that covered it.

Even the wallpaper was diseased, bubbled, and peeling in strips.

Jimmy swept his phone across the room, his grin stretching wide. “Damn, this is crazy. People weren’t lying when they said this place is straight out of a horror flick.”

“Fuck that shit. Stick to the business.” Tremaine glared at him. “Let’s post up by the window, so we can keep an eye on Mercedes and wait for her signal.”

Jimmy chuckled, his curiosity pulling him toward the hallway. “You too paranoid for me. Look at this place. I gotta see what’s upstairs. They used to say they staged people hanging themselves up there. I wonder if those ropes are still on the beams.”

Tremaine rubbed his palm hard against his jeans, nerves driving him crazy.

“Man, you not gon’ shut up about it until you go look, so just go.

I’ll keep watch, and if you not back when she signals, I’ll text you before I head out there.

Just know, if you don’t help hit this lick, you ain’t gettin’ shit. ”

“I hear you.” Jimmy gave a careless salute, edging deeper into the shadows.

Jimmy's sneakers scuffed against the warped floorboards, each step echoing throughout the hollow rooms.

Tremaine's fingers pinched the edge of the curtain to look out. Outside, Mercedes leaned against the streetlight, checking her phone.

Hearing a noise, Tramaine froze. When he looked back at the room, one of the mannequin's heads had tilted three inches to the left, and he could’ve sworn he saw the leather strap on the gurney twitch. His hand flew to his waistband, and sweat beaded on his forehead as he stared into the shadows.

“Jimmy?” he whispered, but there was no answer, only the ticking of a radiator pipe cooling in the gloom.

Upstairs, Jimmy was in paradise. Every door he found was halfway open, and every bathroom mirror was fractured into a spider web of jagged reflections.

The air was fouler there, the mold so thick it was almost sweet.

His flashlight beam landed on a cluster of child-sized mannequins lined along the hallway, each one with a needle-pointed grin painted over its mouth, its lips an impossible shade of red.

Jimmy's smile widened with each step deeper into the hallway. When he tilted his light upward, the beam caught five nooses hanging from the rafters, their fibers blackened with time, still dangling in patient loops above the empty floor.

“Damn,” he whispered to himself, awestruck. “This is wild.”

Jimmy’s sneakers crunched over the shards, his gaze fixed on the ropes swaying from the beams. He never sensed the shadow behind him until it touched him, and by then it was far too late.

A hand sealed over his mouth with a lover’s claim, pressing his lips hard against his teeth.

Jimmy’s breath caught when the killer tilted his head back, baring the soft canvas of his throat.

The blade followed with a kiss of steel, teasing first, then sinking deep with a rhythm that was steady, indulgent, and obscene.

Jimmy bucked, his scream smothered beneath the palm, his mouth flooding with heat and copper.

Blood spilled in thick, eager streams, sliding over his collarbones and soaking his chest like a second skin.

His body jerked desperately, but the arm at his waist pulled him tighter, lifting him onto his toes and holding him as firmly as any embrace.

The knife sang in his flesh, each stroke a savage caress that parted him from the inside out. His legs kicked weakly against the wall, raising curtains of dust that shimmered in the glow of his failing light. The world narrowed to the fire at his neck and the taste of iron on his tongue.

The killer leaned close, their masked cheek pressed to Jimmy’s ear. They inhaled deeply, savoring the stench of fear mingled with the sweet rush of arterial spray. His convulsions were exquisite, sharp bursts of motion that fed the killer’s pulse, the way a violin string vibrates beneath a bow.

They had always wondered what the moment would feel like. Would their body shudder with the same abandon as their victims? Now they knew. It did.

Jimmy’s pulse fluttered weaker, each beat trembling harder than a hoe in church. The strength bled out of him, leaving something purer behind. The killer felt it dissolve through their hands, the final surrender, the exquisite slackening that was as intimate as release.

Their breath came fast, fogging the smooth mask that hid them. The mask was white, featureless, a blank canvas that held no smile, no frown, and no humanity at all. It wasn’t a costume but a perfect erasure, leaving only the act itself, and the bliss of taking a life.

Downstairs, Tremaine let the curtain fall from his fingers. His stomach twisted hard as he stepped back, sweat beading along his hairline. He pulled out his phone, Jimmy’s name swimming on the screen as he fumbled to type.

Before he could send the message, a drift of plaster sifted from the ceiling and landed on his eyelashes. He blinked it away, his neck tilting back toward the darkness above.

Scraaaape.

The sound dragged through the air like something heavy being pulled across bare wood. Then silence. The pipes stopped ticking, the wind outside fell away, and even the dust motes caught in the glow of his phone hung suspended, frozen in the stillness.

Tremaine’s chest seized, his breath trapped inside his lungs as he peered around the room, the shadows taunting and mocking him.

“Jimmy?” His voice was strained as he called out his name, and the only reply was the hollow echo that bounced back at him from the walls.

Tremaine lowered his phone, the glow painting his knuckles in light as he tightened his grip on the device.

Every instinct told him to walk out the front door and never look back, but Jimmy was his woman’s blood.

Mercedes would never forgive him if he left her brother behind, and Tremaine knew he would never forgive himself either.

The scrape echoed again, softer this time, followed by a faint thud that vibrated through the floorboards. Tremaine’s pulse hammered in his ears as he lifted his head toward the stairwell. The skeletal prop swayed on its rope, a hollow clatter of plastic bones breaking the silence.

He stepped forward, boots sinking into the damp carpet with each careful stride. His free hand hovered over the pistol at his waistband, the weight of it both a comfort and a curse.

“Jimmy,” he called again, his words shaky.

Tremaine took another step, then two, then three, until he reached the stairs. He gripped the banister, its wood soft and crumbling beneath his palm. The staircase yawned upward into shadows, and for a moment, Tremaine thought he heard something dripping in a slow, steady patter that wasn’t water.

He swallowed hard, then placed one boot on the first step.

The staircase groaned under his weight as he climbed, each step loud in the suffocating silence.

His hand stayed tight on the banister, splinters digging into his skin, but he refused to let go.

The air thickened with every foot he gained, damp with rot and tinged with that metallic bite he couldn’t ignore.

Halfway up, he paused. Something wet struck the back of his neck, sliding down the collar of his shirt. He wiped at it with his sleeve, then held his arm out under the phone’s light. His stomach dropped. It was red.

His boots carried him faster, the steps groaning like they wanted to betray him. At the top, the hallway stretched long and narrow, lined with doors that hung crooked on broken hinges.

“Jimmy,” he said again, but his voice cracked, breaking into the shadows like glass.

The beam of his phone caught the mannequins. They were child-sized, their mouths painted in broad, impossible grins, as they lined along the hallway. Their painted eyes seemed to follow him as he stepped forward, heart hammering in his ears.

Another drip hit the floorboards ahead. Then another. He raised the light slowly, and what he saw made piss flow down his legs.

Jimmy hung from the ceiling beam, his sneakers dangling inches above the warped wood. A rope dug deep into his throat, stretching his skin as blood flowed from his neck in dark rivers. His body swayed, left, right, left, right, and his eyes bulged wide in the last expression he’d ever wear.