A dripping sound. My ears were so fine-tuned that the sound made my heart jump. A steady, slow drip. Had I turned off the tap properly?
But I knew it wasn’t the sink. The splatter didn’t echo, it fell in small, thick pats and from a greater distance. If it wasn’t the tap, what was dripping?
I looked at my door. It was so close. I could run into the room and lock it. I could prop the bed up against the door for security, pull the covers over my head and pray for sleep. Or I could swallow my pride and run into Dex and Jenn’s room like a child who has had a bad dream.
Or I could turn around. And see that there was nothing to be afraid of. Then my fears would be put to bed and I would follow.
I tensed up and very, very slowly, turned around on the spot.
I expected that if anyone was behind me, they would be way back in the kitchen.
This was not true.
There was someone…
Right behind me.
I was face to face with a…being…covered in graying skin that puckered in the shadows. Their chest had caved in to a red abyss. Their neck looked like a piece of fraying string cheese and could barely hold up their head, which was gruesomely flattened, wider than it was long, like it was smashed in by something heavy, leaving part of it open and exposed, a mixture of brain matter, blood and bone. The blood flowed freely off this gaping wound and fell onto the ground in sticky, wet splotches. The sick source of that rhythmic pattering.
The eye closest to the wound was destroyed, only a hole of gray goo remained, and the other eye fixed itself on me sharply. It was a female eye, puffy, with running makeup underneath. She almost looked like she could be crying, but…
She smiled at me. And it sounded like wasps buzzing.
I finally screamed.
Despite taking self-defense classes, Karate, bootcamp, my instinct wasn’t to stay and fight. It was to get the fuck away from it. With nothing in my head but absolute horror, I turned and tried to run back to my room. My socks lost traction and slipped out from under me and I was down on the floor with a frightening thud, lying at the feet of a buzzing dead girl.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to my editor Bob Helle (you’ll get on Team Dex one day), to my friends, family and “my book club” for their support and to all the book bloggers who have taken the time to read and review the Experiment in Terror Series. I love you all and your encouragement keeps my chin up and my best foot forward.