Sixteen Minutes to Midnight

Chapter 15

My legs pounded, and my head throbbed. I felt the blood rise up to my skin, and pores of sweat dripped down my forehead. I was hungry, I was tired, I was being chased by a murderer and I was damn well not in the mood. But maybe I could stall for time until I thought of a proper way to deal with things.

I swivelled around and suddenly changed direction, charging towards Craig. He fired a shot, and it hit me in the shoulder. I yelped, but continued to barrel towards him. Then I leaped and knocked the gun out of his hand, and it slid across the grass and came to rest in a clump of mushrooms.

He grinned and darted towards it, but I shoved him to one side and we both toppled over. I wrestled on top of him, tried to push him down, but he was strong and he managed to force his way on top. He breathed out heavliy, and sploshes of rain dripped down onto his back, and rolled off onto my face.

"Caleb!" I yelled.

"Craig," he smiled back, "do you want to know how I did it? How I meticulously slaughtered each and every one of you wretched creeps? You can be the only person to ever know. It'll be a secret that stays with you till your grave. A deadly secret."

"I already know! You killed your father years ago and then you posed as him-" I tried to push him off but he didn't budge, "and over the course of six months you planned how to kill us all. You even built a secret chamber underground, didn't you?"

"Ha!! Craig, you think you know it all but you really don't." His hands were clasped around my neck, but he relaxed them a bit. "Relax for a while and I'll tell you the whole truth. You see, it all began a year ago, long before you all had ever come into the equation. It all starts with that will - the damned thing."

He breathed out.

"I was supposed to inherit the will, did you know that? It should have been me! But it wasn't. It was Donna! DONNA! The one who left Father to go find a job in the city. I was the loyal child! I stayed with him, and it should have been me who carried on the Montgomery name with pride. But it wasn't."

"So you killed your father? What a selfish litle dick you are," I spluttered.

"True, so I did. But not just me. See, the servants never really liked him. So we all planned a sort of coup, as it were, to get rid of him permanently. We prepared the fire, made it look like an accident and everything and then as my coup de grace, I donned the mantle of Father. Instead, 'Caleb' died, and Gerald lived on as his mental state continued to worsen to the point of no return. Or so the story goes. Then I 'fired' them, so that no one else would ever know."

"You planned it all along? That's....god, that's sick, it really is. And you sicken me. By donning the identity of Father, you could be given full rein of the mansion, and no one would question how Caleb died - if, after all, your 'mental state had crumbled', as you said. It was a perfect facade, wasn't it?"

"You catch on quick!" he cackled, "indeed it was. And from then on, I could plan everything. I stumbled across Father's panic room one day while cleaning the boat shack, and then I modified it for my own needs."

"And then you invited us all? You knew the storm was coming, didn't you? It gave you all the time you needed to kill us off, one by one. Good god, you psycho!" I struggled to get up, but he held me down, glaring at me through those cold, dead eyes.

"But of course! You all interfered with the dealings of the will, said you all wanted a part of it, and so I decided, why not? Let them squabble. I'll just kill em all off! It was, after all, the only way to keep it solely for myself. I would have to live out the rest of my life as a deranged old man, but one day I could just fake my own death, adopt a new identity, and live the rest of my life in comfort. It was a perfect plan...and it's almost complete."