Chapter 1
The party was in full swing ten minutes before midnight. Bodies slicked with sweat, grinding against one another as the bass of the music shook the student house, threatening to shatter the windows. University kids screamed along to the lyrics in unison, a sense of community only drunk twenty-year-old strangers could create on a Friday night after midterms. The chaotic energy was intoxicating, the sense of freedom airy and light in the otherwise suffocating house.
Saoirse stumbled through the array of costumes, determined to make it to the bathroom before the contents of her stomach made it onto the make-shift dance floor. Unable to tell if it was the push of bodies or her near black-out state, she clumsily dodged an angel wing to the eye, instead falling backwards into a six-foot gnome. The man shoved her away with a grunt, propelling her forward off the dance floor and into the dimly lit hallway closer to her destination. Ignoring the line and stepping on half-emptied solo cups, she barely snuck past the people waiting, slamming the bathroom door shut and bending over the toilet. Acid burned her throat as a night full of vodka shots and wine ejected from her stomach.
The room reeked, the smell of piss and stale beer was permanently coated on the walls. The stench made her stomach roll, and another round of vomiting was induced. Once she was confident her belly was empty, the post-nausea cramping began, but Saoirse didn’t care. She was determined to continue her good night, hoping to end it with a good lay.
She wiped her face with toilet paper, recoiling at the mess she had made, making a point to ignore the banging at the door, desperate partygoers trying to get their turn in the bathroom.
With a quick look in the streaky mirror, she noticed her eyeliner had smudged, and her flower headband was crooked on top of her dark curls. In her drunken state, Saoirse giggled at her messy self, fixing up the makeup and costume, making it a point to push the top of her green sequined dress down to show off her less-than-impressive cleavage.
With a sigh and internal push of confidence, Saoirse was once again ready to take on the abyss of bodies, eager to find her friends and the dark-haired devil she had been flirting with for the duration of the night. As she reached for the door handle, sticky with unknown substances, she heard a rapid-fire echo of pops ring throughout the house.
Thinking it was a song change, she eased the door open, but before she could take a single step into the dark hallway, a storm of people clad in an array of Halloween costumes ran past her in a stampede of vibrant colours, shoving her back into the bathroom. Stumbling over herself, Saoirse’s heels snagged the bathroom mat, sending her backwards headfirst into the porcelain sink. Her head made a sickening crunch on the edge of it, her neck snapping forward with enough force that she could feel her teeth cut cleanly through her tongue, blood filling her mouth instantly, as ceramic and bone met, sharp pain instantly bloomed from the base of her neck deep into her skull. Landing awkwardly on the floor, she lay there a moment, stunned, eyes blurring in and out of focus realizing quickly she was unable to move any of her limbs.
She could tell she was fighting for consciousness as the world around her, although already dim due to her shitty bathroom lighting, faded black before slowly coming back into focus. Not knowing how long she lay there, the world continued going dark on and off in a steady tempo until eventually the sound of more shots forced her body back to the present panic and dread coating her body in a cold sweat.
Between the screams of people outside and the continuously growing ache in her head, Saoirse knew she needed to get out of there. She wasn’t completely sure what was happening beyond the flims,y wouldn’t do, or but the building dread in her stomach had her on high alert. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was almost positive that someone had a gun and all they had to do was walk in and find her completely vulnerable and susceptible to attack. She could feel the room spinning, blood pounding in her ears, and her heartbeat faster than a rabbit’s. Panic seized all of her muscles as she tried to rationalize what was actually going on.
She hadn’t even had the chance to move before the handle of the door turned slowly. Everything in that moment fell silent as she watched, horror-stricken, as the door opened. Her breaths were shallow and her eyes glassy as a large figure stepped into the tiny bathroom. A man–it had to have been a man due to his tall height and broad shoulders–towered over her, wearing a black zip-up hoodie. His face was nearly completely hidden from view, nose and mouth covered by a bandana. She realized quickly that it was soaked in what looked like very real, human blood. Out of her peripheral vision, Saoirse swore she saw the glint of a dark metal object in his hand, but refused to blink or breathe, her body paralyzed in a state of shock. Without hesitation, the man stepped around the door to where she was sprawled on the ground and kicked her foot with so much force that it took every instinct not to scream and cry out.
She stared in horror as he lifted a large boot and sent it forcefully down towards her foot. Saoirse felt a bone crunch in her ankle as he stomped on it, causing her body to uncontrollably convulse. Tears welled in her eyes as she fought every instinct to scream, the pain radiating up into her knee. With her lungs begging for air, Saoirse refused to break eye contact with the attacker, noting dark brown pupils reflecting the shitty light of the bathroom. It was all Saoirse could make out of him, but she was certain he was the attacker and assumed the glint she saw must have been a gun. Just as her lungs felt like they were going to pop, their capacity to hold breath at their limit, the man abruptly turned on his heel and stormed out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Saoirse took a deep breath of air, gulping life back into her lungs, and silent sobs tore from her throat as tears flowed down her face like twin waterfalls. In that moment, she could only assume and hope that the man didn’t know the layout of the house and would move farther in, away from the bathroom and the closest exit to her.
After what felt like an eternity, all sound came back at once. The deep base of the music from the living room echoed off the walls, mixing with the screams and moans of people either injured, dying or trying to escape the dark horror house. With ringing ears, Saoirse attempted to sit up, her head spinning, nausea was quickly building in her already empty stomach, and bile was threatening to come up. More shots could be heard deeper into the house, potentially from the second floor, although Saoirse couldn’t be too sure. Between the throb in her head and other loud noises leaking through the walls, she put all of her focus, straining to make sure the shots were far enough away from her. Adrenaline coursed through her veins as shot after shot and scream after scream could be heard, pushing her to get to safety and away from the massacre happening.
The music still played loudly in the background, creating a deafening atmosphere that would have been disorienting for someone sober and uninjured. Without hesitation, Saoirse crouched down low, dragging her body to the door. She pressed her ear to the door,r trying to calm her breathing, ng unsure if she heard anyone beyond it. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to have full confidence that there wasn’t someone standing beyond the door ready to put a bullet through her head,ead Saoirse took a deep breath, forcing herself to crack the door open. She took a sigh of relief at the empty hallway in front of her and braced herself. Shoving her body out of the bathroom using her hands and elbows was a feat, and she couldn’t decipher what the dark liquid coating the ground and walls was, unable to tell if it was blood or alcohol. Panic rose in her chest, heartbeat quickening and sweat dripping down her spine as she continued to push herself out into the hall, desperate to get out.
The radiating pain in her ankle made it hard to move, but she gritted her teeth and pushed herself onto her knees with a grunt. The world began to spin again, her eyes unable to focus on anything as the continuous throb rocked her skull in agonizing time with the rhythm of the music and ricocheting echoes of gunshots. They sounded like they were getting closer again, fear pushing her forward, but dread coated her veins as she looked out towards the hall. She wasn’t even halfway to the front door. She wasn’t going to make it out.
She quickened her pace, crawling along the hallway using her hands and the wall to help guide her. She was nearly unable to see with her bleary eyes, the panic and head injury keeping her in a constant, semiconscious state. She could feel her left foot dragging limp at an awkward angle behind her, pain like a thousand sharp knives shot up her ankle with each slow move she made.
Trying her hardest to focus on the entrance to the living room-turned-dance-floor, Saoirse didn’t notice when her right hand sank into a sticky, warm, soft substance. Glancing down, she could just make out someone’s shredded flesh string through her fingers like long pasta noodles. The metallic smell of blood was harsh and fresh as it hit her nose. She tried so desperately to ignore the vomit rising in her throat as the reality of what she had put her hand in sank in. Saoirse pushed onward, only to fall into an unmoving body sprawled across the hallway.
Loud shots ricocheted off the wall behind her, forcing her forward once again. She tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her gut as her knee made a squelching sound as it moved through what she knew was someone’s head. She would feel teeth graze her leg where someone’s mouth was, she stumbled on her hands and knees, feeling nothing but mush where the nose and eyes should have been. She couldn’t stop the bile this time, retching onto what must have been the brains of whatever person the body once was.
Thumps louder than the deafening volume of the music could be heard on the stairs going to the second floor, assuming it was the attacker coming back down, Saoirse forced herself up onto shaky feet with a whimper. Her hand caught on broken glass, the feel of blood instantly pooling down her fingers, dripping loudly onto the floor. Using the wall as support, she limped as quickly as she could through the living room, trying to ignore the moans of people dying and bodies sprawled everywhere. Despite the urge to go towards those she could hear whimpering in need of help, the fear and panic kept her moving, desperate to get out. The stench of dying people and the feeling of the blood-slicked floor made it difficult, but with the small amount of energy she had left, Saoirse made it to the front door, flinging it open wildly.
Before she could even step out onto the covered porch, she slammed into a solid body, the force of the encounter made her broken ankle give out, and she tumbled to the floor with a pained scream. The shots were getting closer, meaning the person she hit could not be the shooter.
The exhaustion and pain were making it difficult to get up, the porch light illuminating a bloodied hand reaching down. Without hesitation, she grabbed onto the arm, and the person helped her up. Between the constant blur of her eyes, unable to focus and the blood covering the man in front of her–whether it was his blood, hers or someone else’s, she couldn’t tell–she didn’t have time to make out what her saviour looked like. Without hesitation, Saoirse leaned into a solid chest needing help, and together they hobbled down the stairs and into the darkness of the night away from the horrors that were still ongoing behind her. Saoirse had no idea where her friends were, if they even made it out of the house at all, but she could hear sirens in the distance, and a small trickle of relief began to seep into her veins. Before she could even thank her saviour her adrenaline supply that got her out of the house ran dry, and darkness took over.
