House Of Horrors

Chapter 19: The Truth

Chapter 19:

"What the fuck Tristan?!" I finally spit out, frantically trying to reach Cameron. Collin held me back as Cameron grew weaker, making my heart clench painfully in my chest as we met eyes.

"He's on their side Emily, he's here to kill us both," Tristan stated confidently, bending down by Cameron with a disgusted expression on his handsome face.

Tears started to form in the corners of my tired eyes.

"No, I'm not! What are you fucking talking about?" Cameron gasped out, struggling to breathe with the fresh stab wound on his already weak body.

"He's saved my life multiple times," I stated sadly, as I watched the boy, I'd now considered a friend struggle and bleed out on the floor.

"He's lying!" Tristan spat, not even giving my words a chance. His tired green eyes were full of hatred for Cameron; it almost sickened me to see Tristan like that, and to see Cameron like that.

"How do you know?!" I cried out, but Tristan's harsh expression didn't even falter.

"Maybe we should give him a chance to explain..." Kylie piped up, with fresh tears also rolling down her cheeks.

"No. We're done listening to this guy," Tristan said coldly, leaving us to stand in an awkward, confusing silence.

He glanced down carelessly at Cameron, before he abruptly plunged the knife into him once again, only this time it was in his chest. The knife made a disgusting popping sound as it stabbed through his chest plate, and Cameron cried out in pain then went completely silent.

I gasped and once again struggled in Collin's restrictive grip, but it was too late: Cameron already looked dead.

Someone chuckled jovially behind us, and I turned on my heel to catch Ryan stepping out from his hiding spot in the looming shadows.

"Good job Tristan... doing whatever you can to stay alive. Too bad Cameron really wasn't on our side. Too bad I planted that paper just to trick you... to test you," Ryan stated, leaning casually on the wall with his signature smirk.

Tristan appeared shocked, as did everyone else. Collin was so shocked he subconsciously let me go and I instantly ran over to kneel by Cameron's limp body. I set my hand gently on his, which was resting stiffly on his mutilated chest, right over his heart. It was easy this time to ignore the blood as hot, salty tears silently fell from my face.

No heartbeat. He was dead.

"You certainly were a good boy though, weren't you?"

"Tristan! You could have at least heard him out!" Kylie shrieked, staring wide eyed at Cameron's stiff, lifeless body with an expression of horrible realization.

"Like he would tell the truth if he really was a killer! Besides... you saw that paper first!" Tristan argued back, his face burning hot with fresh guilt and shame.

I felt relief to see he was actually expressing remorse for his violent act; that was the Tristan I knew.

"Oh, and one more thing.... Emily. When you were taken to that room, Cameron had a bomb planted in his stomach. Set to go off in about twelve hours and it's been hmm... seven?" Ryan explained, smiling evilly.

I stood up and stepped back, staring at Cameron's lifeless body and dead eyes with one bleak thought on my mind:

There's no way we're getting out of here in four hours, we're practically walking corpses at this point.

"We should go," Collin said simply, as if we were all at a casual dinner party and it was getting late.

He pushed Kylie's stiff figure past Ryan and around the corner, with Tristan and I following silently behind. Ryan didn't say another word, only watched us leave with a twinkle of amusement in his dark, soulless eyes.

"We need to find Jay!" Kylie said, looking back at Collin as if he had all the answers, "We need to find him and get the hell out!"

"What do you think we've been trying to do this whole damn time?" Collin shouted, looking back at Kylie like she was a dumb bimbo. We walked in a tense silence after that, always peeking behind us: absolutely paranoid.

"I last saw Jay in the creepy school hallway," Collin stated sourly, leading us to where he thought that was.

I personally didn't see much of a point in looking for him, considering he was probably already dead like all my friends were. Maybe that was a bleak way of thinking, but this house has undoubtedly traumatized me.

Collin suddenly tripped over something lying on the floor, falling flat on his face, and causing us to abruptly stop walking. I guess it was easy to stop paying attention to where you're walking, when you were busy watching everything around you in a stressed paranoia.

There, on the ground was a bloodied body bag; like the one I saw earlier. That was what Collin had tripped over.

It seemingly had a person inside, but I couldn't recognize who it was from all the coppery blood smeared on the thick plastic.

Collin hurriedly scrambled to get back up to his feet before he stared wide eyed at the mysterious and creepy body bag.

"Open it," I whispered, also staring down at the ominous bag. Tristan and Kylie both snapped their necks to look at me in disturbed shock, but we needed to see inside the body bag:

What if the person we were looking for was in there?

Collin crotched down and tugged hesitantly at the zipper, slowly opening it as the familiar zig zag sound of a zipper echoed throughout the quiet hall. We held our breaths in fearful anticipation, the twisting in my gut made me almost regret telling him to open the bloodied bag.

Suddenly a hand shot out from the plastic and grabbed savagely for Collin's face, scaring us all into a panicked frenzy. Collin screamed bloody murder and clawed at the bruised, blue looking hand.

Our worst nightmare began to come true...

The person started crawling inhumanly out of the bloody body bag.

Tristan ran over and hastily pulled the hand off Collin. His face was covered in blood, but he scrambled back up to his feet. The body in the bag was Jay, I could see that now, and Kylie began screaming from this disturbing realization.

Tristan pulled his knife out and stuck it in Jay's head, but he didn't even seem fazed as he continued to crawl out on his hands and elbows.

'You can't fight the dead with death'.

"Let's get out of here!" Tristan shouted in terror, quickly helping Collin up. I grabbed Kylie's hand and pulled her past Jay, but she tugged back and fell. I almost fell too and let go of her hand. Turning around, I watched Jay grab ahold of her foot.

"Emily help! Please!" she screamed, desperately reaching for me. I grabbed her thin wrists and attempted to pull her free, but I could tell that me yanking at her was painful.

"Collin, Tristan... help!" I yelled out behind me. The boys came running to my side and Tristan kicked Jay in the face. He still wasn't fazed. Kylie screamed louder and started to cry hysterically.

Jay reached up and grabbed the knife handle sticking out from his head, swiftly pulling it out with a disgusting crunching sound. It was disturbing how unfazed he seemed, how inhuman he seemed, especially as he sent the bloody knife right into Kylie's back.

She screamed out in agonizing pain, it was so loud and shrill that it made my ears ring. She was still fighting though, fighting to escape and survive which was a sad, disturbing sight to have to witness. Sure, I'd watched a lot of death already, but a friend killing another friend so brutally was different than watching a murderer or demon kill someone.

Jay dug the knife out of her back and sent it hurling into her neck without hesitation. Her hands instantly went limp in mine, and I hastily dropped them.

Tears formed in my eyes and anger boiled in my stomach. Pulling the knife out of Kylie without a second thought, I stabbed Jay in the eye and released an angry cry. I stabbed his eye again then stabbed the other eye... then sent the bloody knife straight into his forehead.

I stood up, and immediately Tristan began to pull me away by the hand.

This was the end it seemed. There was practically none of us left...