Tiffany
Tiffany gaped at the empty knife block, which only moments ago had seemed like a godsend. The paring knife suddenly seemed small and laughable in her slender, manicured hand.
“You didn’t take it?” Tiffany said to Patrick, hopefully.
Patrick shook his head. “I haven’t touched it since we got here.”
“Wait a minute,” said Jason. “What’s this doing here?”
He bent down and picked up a hat off the floor under the shadow of the counters. A broad-brimmed hat, slightly dented on one side.
A ranger’s hat.
The bubble of dread that had been expanding behind Tiffany’s ribs threatened to burst. Carrie’s eyes grew so wide the whites were nearly visible in the dim light. “Russ took the knife—” she started.
“And dropped his hat,” Tiffany finished. Panic rose up in her throat, scorching like she’d drunk too many cosmos on an emptystomach. She wished she hadn’t smoked Freddy’s weed, because she didn’t know what was cannabis-induced paranoia and what was good old-fashioned terror. Regardless of whether her fear was authentic or not, she had to get the fuck out of there.
“We should go,” Carrie said in a small voice, and it was the first thing she’d said since she’d arrived that Tiffany could get behind.
No one felt like packing snacks after that.
Jason put the hat down and Tiffany followed him out of the kitchen, her thoughts swinging wildly in a dozen different directions. Patrick had promised this weekend was going to be perfect. She’d believed him, because she trusted his obsessive attention to detail. More fool her. This weekend was the very opposite of perfect. Her new Keds were ruined and tendrils of her hair had escaped her ponytail and clung damply to her face. The bikini was a mistake; it held water like a sponge and was cold and heavy against her clammy skin.
She kept her head turned away from where Ranger Russ had fallen. She’d never been good with blood. If she didn’t look, maybe he could still be lying there. As opposed to, say, hiding behind the curtains with the missing knife like the Slasher. She pictured hulking Russ, his ranger’s uniform stained scarlet, and the shining blade flashing again and again like the killer’s knife inPsycho.
Pretty blondes like her never did well in Hitchcock films.
Once Tiffany was outside, however, she almost wished she were back in the cabin. Her flashlight beam pierced the darkness but eventually dropped off, devoured by the night. And then there were the noises. The rain had thankfully stopped, but that had lifted the curtain on a symphony of eerie nighttime sounds. Rustling leaves and breezes sweeping through trees. The blood in Tiffany’s ears, roaring like the crowd at a homecoming game. She’d never realized how much sound a quiet night could make, because she’d always been laughing and chatting and, frankly, dead drunk every time the Jumpscare Society had come to theSlashercabin.
Tiffany forced her straining lungs to breathe as the six of themstood awkwardly in the driveway. She eyed Russ’s SUV longingly. “I suppose no one knows how to hot-wire a car?”
“Surprisingly, no,” said Jen.
Patrick took his phone out of his pocket and checked it for the hundredth time. “We can’t even google it.”
Tiffany checked her phone, too, fighting tears even though she knew it would have no service. Was Clive worrying because he hadn’t heard from her in hours? Were her Instagram followers concerned because she hadn’t posted anything since modeling her new bikini before she’d left for the cabin? Her phone wasn’t just a connection to safety, but a connection to her friends and admirers. Without that tether, what did she have? She was a tree falling in the forest without anyone to hear it, except this ragtag group of old high school friends and her stubborn ex.
And possibly a park ranger with a knife and a grudge.
“Michael would probably know,” Carrie said, in that plaintive goody-two-shoes voice that made Tiffany sick. A voice that said,I’m so helpless.Tiffany could never figure out if it was an intentional affectation, or if Carrie’s overbearing mother had weakened her spine. “He was so brave, trying to protect us.”
Tiffany hid a snort. Mikey had tried to protect Carrie, not the rest of them. Because he’d thought Russ was her ex and wanted to get into her pants, as per usual. If Carrie only knew what Mikey had done in the past toprotecther—
Well, if Mikey succeeded in winning her over, those sneaky little rats deserved each other.
Jason smiled grimly. “That’s further incentive to find him.”
“Okay, gang. It’s pretty simple.” Patrick held up his compass. “The cabin is south, by the lake. Jen and I will head northwest, Freddy and Carrie, you head northeast. Jason and Tiffany, you can check around the lakeshore. He might’ve headed for the cottages to the east. We’ll meet back here in an hour.”
“And then we can go? Whether or not we find Mikey?” Freddy said.
“And then we can go,” Jason said.
Jen twirled her knife with alarming skill and tugged on Patrick’s sleeve. “Come along, Velma,” she said.
“Be safe,” Jason said to Patrick, probably as troubled as Tiffany was by the gusto with which Jen was wielding her knife. Then he cleared his throat and said, more loudly, “Be safe, everyone.”
Patrick nodded and he and Jen tromped off, their dark figures slipping between the trees.
