A door creaks behind her. Jessie spins in time to see the bathroom door opening. Trapped, she has no choice but to step deeper into the bedroom. She presses her back to the wall behind the door, praying she’s lost in shadow.

A few moments later, Tom enters. He walks casually over to the bed. Jessie hears him chuckle. “You need help, man?”

“Fuck you, this chick is strong.”

“Didn’t your mom ever tell you not to play with your food?”

“I know, I know,” Brad says, breathless from struggling with Blake. “But I kind of like this one.”

Jessie notices that Brad has one hand over Blake’s mouth, the other gripping her wrist for all he’s worth as she struggles to gouge out his eyes.

“Yeah, I gotta shut her up. We don’t want Jess waking up. At least not yet.”

Tom nods, then pulls something free from his belt. Jessie strains to see—a flash of metal catches moonlight. Eyes wide with terror, Blake turns her head toward Tom. For a moment, Jessie thinks maybe she spots her standing beside the open door, a phantom of a best friend stuck in helpless shadow.

Then Tom punches Blake in the side. Pulls back, punches her again.

No … not punches, Jessie thinks, the shock rising like a wave, dousing her slow wits, her disrupted logic. Not punching.

Stabbing.

“Jesus, dude! I wasn’t done,” Brad snaps, a petulant toddler, his hand still clamped over Blake’s mouth as she screams into his palm, her eyes fluttering as the mattress beneath her turns black with blood.

Tom takes a step back, like he’s winding up, then plunges the bloody knife down into Blake’s chest. There’s an audible snap, like the breaking of bone, as it enters her heart.

Not thinking, not caring, Jessie steps out of the shadows. “Stop!”

Both men turn to look at her. Tom, his pale face spattered with Blake’s blood, stares wide-eyed, mouth hung open in an almost comical pose of stunned disbelief. Brad, twisted awkwardly while still straddling Jessie’s best friend, scowls at her, his black eyes filled with fury.

“Hey,” Tom says, shockingly genial, lifting the hand not holding the knife in a sort of pathetic wave. “You’re up.”

Jessie’s brain registers pieces of the scene, split-second moments that coincide with the pounding of her heart.

… thump …

Blake’s blank, empty eyes, staring at the ceiling.

… thump …

Blake’s torso covered in blood, the punctured side pumping her life onto the mattress.

… thump …

Brad sliding off her corpse, facing Jessie, teeth bared.

… thump …

Tom, almost smiling at it all, as if amused—amusement that turns to alarm when Brad breaks for Jessie.

“Dude, don’t kill her yet!”

Jessie can’t move. Can’t think. In a matter of seconds this man will put his hands on her throat, drag her to the floor.

And then he’ll … and then … and then ….

Brad takes two strides before the heel of one blood-soaked foot slips on the refinished hardwood. His leg shoots out from under him, and his arms swing wildly before his other ankle twists and his body crashes, like a thrown doll, to the floor.

“Holy shit, man!” Tom screams, then howls in laughter.

Jessie’s subconscious shrieks a command:

GO!

“No,” Jessie mumbles, eyes falling on the impossible murdered body of her friend. “Please ….”

RUN! RUN OR YOU’LL DIE!

Jessie watches numbly as Brad gets to his knees. “Shit shit shit …”

And that’s enough.

She bolts out the door and into the hallway. It’s dark, but she sees a clear lane to the stairs ahead. The house’s front door, she knows, is directly at the bottom. It might be locked, bolted, but she must try.

She takes two steps when a hand catches her ankle.

“Gotcha!”

Jessie falls so hard and fast that her chin bounces off the hardwood floor. Stars burst in her head and her vision swoons. She feels the weight of Brad—like a giant crab—climbing up the backs of her legs. She twists her body, tightens a fist, and swings with everything she has into his leering face. There’s an audible snap as she connects with his nose. He screams, reaches for his face as blood spills over his lips and chin.

“FUUUCK!” he roars, and Jessie bucks, heaving him off.

Loud footsteps pound toward them. Tom.

Panicked and out of time to reach the stairs—which now feel a mile away—Jessie jumps to her feet and pushes through the door of her own room. She spins, slams the door. Not bothering to look for a lock, she turns to the dresser a few feet away and, with a primal scream of rage and fear, yanks it toward her. The dresser topples onto its side, haphazardly blocking the only entrance.

And the only exit.

A second later a body crashes into the door and bangs against the dresser, which only shifts a few inches. A shriek of frustration from the hallway gets Jessie moving again. She spins, furiously examines the room, but knows there’s nothing. No weapon to protect her. No way to stop them from coming in.

She has only seconds.

The silver-tinted window facing the lake stares back at her, the illuminated square contrasting with the surrounding dark, as if offering her a clue in a demented game of life and death.

Jessie runs to the window, grabs the old, rust-speckled handles at the bottom of the sash and jerks upward.

The window doesn’t budge.

There’s a crash behind her as the door slams once more into the dresser. She doesn’t turn around, doesn’t want to see Brad’s blood-slick body squeezing through the gap between the wall and the half-open door. She moves her hands to eye-level and spots an old sash lock, firmly secured. Her fingers fumble with the mechanism, slide the lock open. She reaches down once more, grips the handles, and pulls.