Survive the Night

12

When the lights blinked on, Michael looked around the staircase like an escaped convict who'd been spotted by a searchlight. He could see from midway down the steps the eloquent chandelier smiling broadly and the shiny marble floor looking newly swept; the room looked even shinier and larger now without the middle rug that had been puked on and thrown out. It looked like a different house entirely; no more were the shadows gripping on Michael's shoulders, nor the lingering feeling that someone was watching. There was, of course, still the problem of the smell. And that he couldn't shake. He almost turned back upstairs to confess everything, now that the light had come on, but decided against it when he saw Bleak appear from the library. His hands were buried firmly in his pockets, his head bowed under his draping black hood.

Michael moved swiftly off the steps and hid behind the stairway as Bleak neared him. Had he seen him? Probably not. But just to be sure, Mike slinked deeper into the only shadow big enough to conceal him. Bleak was oblivious as he kicked up the steps, his hands still tucked away and his elbow drifting up the curved railing. It made a sound like sliding ice. Michael waited until the sound was gone and came back out into the hall. He turned left before reaching the kitchen and walked down the steps leading to the wine cellar.

He had to be stealthy, because Sasha had almost caught him crying down there once already. He'd been coming down each time his friends were asleep, but now that "time" wasn't on their agendas anymore, their sleeping arrangements were sporatic and unpredictable. He took this opportunity since everyone was drunk and asleep in Winston's room.

He pinched his nose as he entered the pitch-black cellar. Closing the metal door, he clicked on the light. He almost didn't expect it to work; yet it did.

There she is, he thought. Just like she had been for the past two weeks. The wine cellar was just the way the group had last seen it, except that, in place of empty bottles, a rotting body lay on the table. He could taste the awful smell in his mouth, as if it were planting seeds on the bumps of his tongue and sprouting rotten fruit. It was an oddly sweet smell, and that notion sickened him most of all. Michael reached for the key in his pocket and placed it on the table. The silver key sat right below the corpse's thigh. He'd done this same procedure countless times in the past few days. All to no avail.

A voice in my head, he thought. That's why I'm here. It was true; Michael had heard a voice calling to him the hour just before Wendy died. That voice had read his heart's desire, and had urged him to a task. Who are you? Michael had asked the voice in his head. Abner, it had answered.

He wondered now how Abner could have spoken to him and appeared to Victoria at just about the same time. He let the question go, because his reward was worth it. And since the silver key had been in the kitchen cabinet exactly as Abner had said it would, he knew he wasn't imagining the voice. In the end, Wendy was just collateral, and he knew that the others would be pleased with his decision. Except Bleak, of course. He did a bad thing for a good reason, he convinced himself.

"It's done," he said to the air, or to the voice in his head, growing impatient. He could hear little maggots moving within the bloated body that lay there. Eating. Feasting. "I've waited long enough. Now..." he drifted off. What exactly was he expecting?

"I locked Wendy inside the room just like you said," he whispered. As he said the words, the guilt of what he'd done began to weigh on him again. "Keep your promise," he begged. "Her life for Wendy's. Please," he begged. "Don't make me tell them."

In that moment, the corpse's finger twitched almost unnoticeably. Michael jerked forward, nervously, but didn't see any physical difference in the corpse's body. The corpse's hair was still falling off, her skin peeled away to the tight bone. Her eroded thighs looked incongruent against her neat cheerleading skirt.