Sixteen Minutes to Midnight

Chapter 6

Who can say they didn't see it coming? Raise your hands. Nobody's hands are raised? Well, that's no surprise.

There was a loud scream from the basement, shortly after Dmitri left. We huddled together around dim  candles as the rain poured around us, walking towards the basement like a funeral procession. But none of us were surprised. Some of us were shocked, and Donna was on the verge of tears once more. So many deaths in one day. Another one wouldn't make a damned difference anymore. Not anymore.

We reached the boiler room and one by one, we solemnly descended the staircase. At the bottom of the staircase was the lifeless body of Naomi. Her abdomen had one deep laceration that extended almost halfway through her chest, and then curved upwards and gradually got thinner. If you looked at her body from the side, the incision looked like a devious smile. But she didn't die smiling, she died with her mouth open.

"Argh, I knew we shouldn't have let her go alone!" shouted Darren, hammering the wall. Dmitri stood there silently and muttered a quiet prayer, abiding to his last respects for the newly deceased. Then he turned away and looked at me. "So what's your take on how she died?"

I hacked and turned away from the body. It was disgusting. The blood seeped across the floor, a dark shade of red, and coagulated to form a sticky substantial mess. I blinked my eyes, and pinched my nose because the smell was so strong, and then breathed in before replying.

"My initial impression is that she didn't die from falling down the staircase."

"No duh," said Sandra, "look at that huge cut that hacked her open. It goes all the way across, there's no way you can survive something like that."

"Yeah, well what caused it?" asked Darren.

"Maybe she fell on something sharp. Like a sawblade. She fell down the staircase and onto the sawblade. Could have been an accident. Maybe the murderer switched off the lights so someone would come down the staircase, fall, and impale themselves on something he or she had planted there. So it looks like an accident, but really isn't?"

Renault gritted his teeth. "When I find who's going around killing everybody, you can guarantee that I'm going to disembowel them...not just for Jeanne. For everybody this bastard's killed. I'll make him pay! Damn you, coward! Show yourself! Anita tried to calm his down but he had gotten enraged, and Renault was very scary when he was angry.

"Fix the lights!" he yelled at Dmitri, who proceeded to walk over to the switchboard and inspect it. "Ah," reported Dmitri, "somebody switched the lights off. Look, this whole row of switches is turned off." He flicked his hand up, and the switches clicked up one by one. With each click, a light flickered on, then another and another until finally the house was enveloped in the veil of light once more.

We ascended the staircase and made our way back into the corridor and towards the dining room. Darren beckoned for us to stop, and I turned around.

"Hey, what's this?" he said, suddenly bending over. He picked up a piece of paper and quietly read it. "It seems to be some sort of declaration. From the murderer, you think?"

"Let's see," I said. He passed it to me and I checked it out. It was written in a similar vein to the previous note but its contents were different.

"There are 16 people on this island," I read aloud, "Gerald is dead. Carlyle is dead. Wilbur is dead. Jeanne is dead. Naomi is dead. Darren is alive. Sandra is alive. Gilbert is alive. Shannon is alive. Anita is alive. Renault is alive. Glen is alive. Donna is alive. Dmitri is alive. Alonzo is alive. Craig is alive. These words are the truth. Eleven minutes remain....why would anyone want to write something like this?"

"Beats me," said Darren.

Renault scowled. "Whoever thinks they're so cocky...wait a sec, 16 people on this island? Didn't you say there were 17?"

"I suggested there might have been 17, but if what the murderer says is true, then he must be one of us."

"Or maybe," said Anita, "he is trying to rile us up. We mustn't let him get to us. He is trying to break us, but we can't let him." Shannon nodded, along with her husband. "Yes," she added, "this time we should try to stick together."

"Ah!" exclaimed Sandra suddenly. "There are 16 people on this island...that's true! After all, one of the bodies isn't on the island...Mr. Carlyle's of course. So there are technically 16 people left, and one of them must be the murderer."

"Hmmm...yes, that makes sense," said Dmitri.

"Non," said Alonzo, "the murderer wrote down the names of everybody on the island. You read out the list, oui?"

"Yeah, but that's just a list. It doesn't neccessarily represent everybody on the island, right? Nowhere does it state that those sixteen are necessarily THE SIXTEEN on the island. Just the names of sixteen people. In this case, everybody's except the murderer's," I responded. That seemed like the most logical thing.

"I still don't understand how Naomi died," said Renault, "what exactly happened down there?"

"She fell on something sharp? So it cut through her," I replied.

"Yes, but didn't you notice how the wound curved upwards, towards her neck? And it didn't fully cut through her. Also, it spanned the entire width of her chest, so it must have been something long...ah! What if she fell onto a serrated wire or something like that? That would make sense."

"I guess," I said, "that would make sense."

"Anyway, we should all move into the rooms now. Some of us can sleep in Gerald's bedroom, after all it is the most secure. We can lock the door with the chain and the latch, so even if the murderer has the key, they still can't fully open the door," noted Gilibert restlessly.

We made our way upstairs, and into the room. It wasn't big enough for all of this, so we decided to split into two groups. Eight of us slept in this room, while the three servants remained downstairs in their quarters. No one was to leave their room at any time. The windows were to be locked and secured, and we devised a system of shifts so that two people were always awake at any time. In just one day, our numbers had whittled down by five. Eleven of us remained.

It wasn't like the murderer would try anything tonight, after all.

My consciousness drifted asleep to the sound of the clock striking twelve.