Hide(24)

* * *



—

Jaden and beautiful Ava come back together.

Clipboard Christian after them.

Then the writer, Ian.

LeGrand.

Rebecca, the walking toothpaste commercial.

“Brandon, Atrius, Sydney, Rosiee,” Ava lists, ticking off who still hasn’t come back. Mack catches herself holding her breath, straining to see into the darkness. She shouldn’t care who gets out. All it means is she didn’t. But she wants to thank Rosiee for sticking up for her this morning. And Brandon’s smile will ease some of the lingering fear and panic in her chest. He’s the happiest to be here. She wants to have that close by. Try to borrow some of his warmth.

Somewhere in the night, she hears the soft but unmistakable hiss of a can of spray paint. “Atrius is still in,” she says. She’s ambivalent about that, except it means one of two people she actually likes is out. Or both.

Brandon lopes into the camp, grinning. “Oh man, today was wild. Or boring. I can’t tell which.”

“Sydney and Rosiee,” Ava says.

Linda nods, distracted. She keeps fiddling with the food placement on the table. “Well, good night, then.” She hurries away. Mack wonders why Linda doesn’t stay like she did the first night, or why it’s only Linda who interacts with them. She seems like an odd representative for a sporting goods company.

Brandon begins piling firewood into a stone pit outside the pavilion area. “Does anyone mind a fire? If they don’t give us goodbyes, we should celebrate each other, at least. I found a bag of marshmallows!”

Beautiful Ava joins him. After a few false starts, they get the wood to catch. They all gather around the fire. Even the antisocial writer and LeGrand sit nearby. Rebecca giggles, showing all her straight white teeth, as her marshmallow slides off her stick and into the fire.

“Colgate or Crest?” Ava whispers to Mack, and Mack tries to hide her snorting laugh.

“Should we do a game?” Brandon asks.

“Two truths and a lie!” beautiful Ava immediately declares.

“God, no.” Ava stands and heads to the shower. Mack wants to, too, but following Ava into the showers feels too intimate. She’ll wait until Ava’s done.

Jaden leans forward so his face is illuminated, gold and gleaming. “Let’s do scary stories. I’ll go first. Have any of you heard of the infamous Hide-and-Seek Massacre?”

The fire is so hot on Mack’s face, her back is cold. She can feel the night there, all the darkness pausing, leaning in to listen like everyone around the fire. This isn’t real. None of it is real.

“You’re making that up,” beautiful Ava says, scowling.

“I’m not. My ex-girlfriend was obsessed with true-crime podcasts.”

“What’s a podcast?” LeGrand asks, his voice soft.

“Where did you even come from, Mars? Shut up and let me tell the story.”



* * *



—

He tells it almost right.



* * *



—

So this guy. Has a wife, two daughters, another on the way. Can’t keep a job long-term for the life of him. Real chip on his shoulder. Drunk. Mean.

(He made the best pancakes, light and fluffy with little chocolate chip faces.)

His latest firing is the last straw for the wife. She tells him if he can’t swallow his pride and keep a job, she’s leaving. Moving back in with her parents.

(Grandma and Grandpa’s house was always too warm, the air dry and scratchy. It made her sneeze. Once she got a bloody nose there that lasted so long they almost took her to the emergency room.)

So the guy tells his wife he has a new job. Invites everyone in the family over to celebrate. The adults are all sitting in the family room. He tells his daughters they’re going to play hide-and-seek, and to go hide until he finds them.

(It was their favorite game. They hadn’t played it with him in so long. Everyone seemed happier. More relaxed. It felt like…maybe they were safe. Mack laughed too loud, chased Maddie around in circles. When he told them again to go hide, there was that warning edge to his voice, so they did.)

As soon as he finished counting—

(Speculation. No one could know exactly when it happened.)

—he took a knife and slit the throat of his father-in-law. Stabbed his mother-in-law in the chest. And then, after his wife had watched her parents die, he stabbed her in the stomach. The screaming made the younger daughter come out of her hiding spot. He killed her. Carved her right up. Then he started looking for the last daughter. But he messed up. His wife wasn’t dead, just dying. She crawled out of the house, but she only made it to the porch before finally dying. So the dad spends the night—the whole night—looking for his remaining daughter. Finally, at dawn, a jogger sees the dead woman on the porch and calls the police. When he hears the sirens, the dad cuts his own throat and bleeds out on the floor, not five feet away from the little girl’s hiding place. The police were on the scene for two hours before she finally came out and asked if the game was over. The lucky survivor.

(It wasn’t luck. And Maddie didn’t come out because of the screams. They both knew to stay put when Mom and Dad were screaming. No, Maddie got found. Mack saw that part. She only heard the rest.)