This is how so many horror films I’ve watched start out before one of the boneheaded characters is offed by a psychotic murderer. I always laugh and think of how stupid they were for falling for it, but here I am, doing the same shit.
I grab a metal candleholder off the coffee table and tiptoe toward the back of the house. If someone is here, I’m not going to be empty-handed.
And when I round the corner, I see something I haven’t prepared myself for.
A woman stands dead center in the kitchen, apron on, mixing something up in a giant bowl. She screams when she sees me, nearly jumping out of her skin. “Who are you?” she asks, pointing the giant wooden spoon at me. “Get out of here before I call the cops.”
I stare at her, dumbfounded. “This isn’t your house. Who the fuck are you?”
She moves around the small island, dropping the spoon, and grabs the knife she must’ve left there when prepping whatever the hell she’s making in a kitchen that isn’t hers. “Thisismy house.”
“Listen, lady. I don’t know where you think you are, but this isn’t your home,” I tell her as I take steps backward, trying to make my way to the door to run. “This is Wylder’s house.”
She sneers at me, matching me step for step. “I know. He’s my husband,” she says, turning up her nose.
I blink in confusion. “Katie?” I ask, my voice low and unsteady.
“Yes, I’m Wylder’s wife.”
“Ex,” I say, but my feet don’t stop moving.
If she didn’t have a knife in her hand, I’d be a little more challenging, but I’m not about to go toe-to-toe with a knife-wielding nutjob.
“You gave up that title when you married someone else.” I don’t know why I’m engaging with her. I have a feeling it doesn’t matter what I say; she has her own loony version of the story.
“I’m back now. Who are you?” she asks, looking like she stepped out of that Hitchcock movie where the person is stabbed in the shower.
“You’re back?”
She nods. “I am. This is my home. My husband. My kids.”
“Um, you may want to talk to Wylder about that.”
She lunges forward, the knife nicking my arm. I lurch back in pain, pulling my arm against my chest as I scramble backward faster than before. But before I can get too far, the front door bursts open.
“What in the actual fuck,” the loud, booming voice says as my back collides with their front. “Katie, you fucking crazy bitch.”
But then, I’m pushed to the side as Thumper, not Wylder, hurls himself at Katie, grabbing the knife right out of her hand. He doesn’t hesitate a single moment before putting himself in harm’s way to disarm Katie and rescue me from a situation that could’ve very easily ended another way.
“I knew you were fucked up in the head, but I never would’ve pegged you for a knife-wielding killer. Jesus fuck,” he hisses as Katie stares at him, her mouth almost foaming around the corners.
“She stole my family!” Katie screams straight into Thumper’s face.
I hold my arm, watching the entire show taking place right in front of me. Who would’ve ever thought Thumper would’ve saved me? Weird shit happens all the time, and this is a testament to that.
Before Thumper can do anything else, Katie lunges at him, jumping into the air like she’s part of the circus. Before she’s on top of him, he reaches his arm out, clocking her right in the face.
The furniture rattles as Katie hits the floor, knocked out cold from Thumper’s fist.
“Holy fuck,” I whisper.
She had that one coming. I don’t like when men lay hands on a woman, but Katie deserved that. I’m not sure there would have been anything else that could have stopped her from continuing the assault on him—or me, for that matter.
“I didn’t want to do that,” he says to me, like I’m judging him for doing what was necessary.
“I think she lost her mind. She wasn’t going to stop otherwise.”
“Where the fuck is Wylder?”
