Day Twenty-Six
Raj hadn’t eaten in two days, and had resorted to peeing in the far corner of the closet, as far from Beth as he could. He thought he’d closed her eyes some time last night, but when he woke in the middle of the afternoon, they were open again.
Light was shining through the cracks in the closet doors, but when he rattled them, trying to let some fresh air in, he heard the buzzer engines start up again.
A little after six, he heard something that knocked the breath right out of him: the front door closing. It was faint, but he heard the thump and the jingle of the chain as it rattled against the frame.
“Raj?” called Debbie, and he rushed to the closet door, pressing his ear as close as he dared. “Raj!”
You love her more than me.
He sat down, pulled the bat close, and tried to think things through. He couldn’t decide if he should warn her to run, or beat her head in before she saw him coming. Both seemed reasonable. But he couldn’t afford to be wrong. He had to be right.
“Raj,” she said from right outside the closet door. “Raj, it’s me.”
He held his breath, tightened his grip on the bat.
“Raj, are you in there?”
He said nothing.
She pushed at the doors, but the stereo blocked the way. She started rattling them, trying to knock them free.
“Raj!” she called. “It’s me! It’s okay! Let me in!”
He backed up, right into Beth, and held the bat ready to strike. The doors creaked and rattled and finally opened a crack, then enough that he could see Debbie standing there, mouth agape.
“Oh my god,” she gasped.
He was trembling, bat in tight fists.
“Don’t move,” he warned. “Don’t move.”
“W-what happened?” she said. “Oh my god, what happened?”
“We talked last night,” he said, wiping his dry eyes on his bloodied sleeve, and not showing how much it hurt. “You know damn well what happened. I loved her more than you. Don’t play stupid.”
She stepped back, her face blank. And then, ever so slowly, it changed. To frustration. Anger.
“This isn’t my fault!” she said. “This is you, you sick bastard. This is all you! I can’t believe I took pity on you! You were free of this, and you came back for more!”
“Ha!” Raj laughed, and swung at her, hitting the doors and jolting her back. “I knew it! It was you!”
Debbie pushed her hands against the doors and leaned forward, her face dark with fury. She reminded him of Beth, but somehow scarier. Such a transformation… like two different people in the same body…
“Listen to me, Raj Aubrey,” she yelled. “You don’t get to blame me for anything that happ—”
Her face exploded in blood and bone, spraying Raj and sending him sprawling back onto Beth. Debbie’s head had come apart in the buzzer’s blades, and her arms flailed uselessly before she dropped inward, the heli still embedded in her skull.
Raj grabbed his laptop and shoved her corpse out, kicked the door open further and ran for cover. A buzzer clipped the air behind him, but he made the corner in time, skidded down the hall, and smashed into the front door, trying to grab the knob through all the blood on his hands.
The buzzer raced towards him, shotgun clicking, and he wound back with the bat and threw it with all the fury he had left. He slipped out the door as iSA recovered inside, two sides of silence.