Ageless (3 page)

It was empty. Even so, she didn’t
trust it.

Extending her upper torso into the
hallway, she swung her head to the right and then the left. She
knew that the open doorway two doors down on the left led to the
den, where the others had been playing video games and mixing
drinks. The front door was in the opposite direction. Violet
desperately wanted to go that way. But she couldn’t, not until she
knew for sure. She leaned back against the dining room wall,
closing her eyes and trying to will her brain to think
straight.

She was one girl with a can of
pepper spray. She wasn’t some kind of ninja warrior princess. She
had never even been in a fight in her life. The sensible and
logical thing to do would be to get the hell out of the house and
call for help from a neighbor’s house. Of course, the nearest
neighbor wasn’t close; Mike’s family lived in a gated community
with wide expanses of acreage between the houses. But she felt the
pull of something else, and then Violet suddenly understood why the
heroines in horror movies always went down the stairs or into the
room when they knew they weren’t supposed to.

She was gripped by the desire to
KNOW. That crazy, irrational desire to fully comprehend what had
just happened overwhelmed her. So no matter what, she knew that she
was going to turn left instead of right when she left the dining
room. She was going to go into the den and find out what happened
to the others who had been gathered in the house with her. The risk
that she would suffer the same fate as they did was almost
certainly one hundred percent. But even that knowledge couldn’t
sway her away from what she was going to do. Because if there was
even half of a percentage of a chance that Margo had been spared
somehow and needed her help, Violet would never forgive herself for
abandoning her friend.

Violet was startled to realize how
much she cared about Margo. If it was just the others at the party,
Violet thought that she could have easily turned right and run out
the front door. But it was Margo who held Violet’s feet to the
floor. Margo had been nothing but a terrific friend to her. Margo
had pried Violet out of her introvert shell kicking and screaming,
but it was for Violet’s own good, and she knew that. Margo was her
best friend, and there was no way that Violet was going to leave
without knowing if Margo was okay.

A shuddering deep breath racked her
lungs as she peeled herself away from the wall. Her hands stretched
to the doorway and she peeked out again. Stillness greeted her.
Nothing moved. Her legs were visibly shaking as she wobbled out
into the hallway. Directly across from her a large mirror hung on
the wall, with a small table underneath it. The face that stared
back at her was gaunt and pale. Her violet eyes took up the
majority of her countenance. She made a face at herself to try to
give herself a dose of courage.

She turned left and forced herself to put one foot
in front of another. All too quickly she found herself inches away
from the doorway that led to the den. Again she flattened herself
against the wall. She reviewed in her mind what she remembered
about the room from having seen it briefly earlier when she
arrived.

The entire back wall of the room
was floor to ceiling glass with a sliding glass door that opened
out onto a wide patio. The room looked out over the back of the
wooded part of Mike’s family’s property. She remembered Margo
bragging that Mike’s family owned more property than anyone else in
town. Violet wondered if the intruders had come through that door,
and she was almost certain that had to have been the case;
otherwise, they would have walked right past Violet in the dining
room. Her chair had faced the doorway and she would have noticed
someone passing by.

There was a large stone fireplace
on the far wall and matching leather sofas were set up facing each
other in the middle of the room. A flat-screen TV was over the
mahogany bar on the other side of the room and a foosball table
completed the entertainment area next to the bar. Violet listened
again for any sounds of life coming from the room but heard
nothing. That made her more nervous than anything. Surely she
should be hearing something. If the attack was a robbery, the
intruders should have been pilfering the house by now. But the
eerie noiselessness was unnerving. Some part of Violet wondered if
she was actually at home in her bed and this was all a very bad
dream.

The moment of truth had arrived.
She knew that she couldn’t delay the inevitable any longer. She had
to make the decision to go forward, and Margo’s face sprung into
her mind. She tried to clear her head as best as possible, and then
she swung around to face the open doorway.

Instantly her mind began to reel.
The first thing that hit her was the smell. It was like her nose
had been turned off before, but now that she could smell it, she
couldn’t smell anything else. It was coppery, thick, and pungent.
As her elbow came up to her nose to try to block it, her eyes
focused enough for her to wish that she had gone right for the
front door.

Everywhere she looked, all she
could see was blood. It was smeared all over the walls of the room,
and she could see that it was even dripping from the light fixture
in the middle of the ceiling. Immediately she started to gag, but a
thought spun through her mind. Where were the bodies? With all of
the blood in front of her, there was almost no doubt that the
others were dead, but there was no sign of them.

Her eyes began to water as they
went back out of focus, and she tried to call out to her friend.
“Margo?” She didn’t want to go into the room any further, but she
had to find Margo. She looked down too late as she took a tentative
step, and as her foot hit the puddle of blood inside the doorway it
slipped out from underneath her and with a wild shriek she started
to fall. As she fell backwards, she felt strong arms catch her
under her armpits and yank her back out of the room.

Her body was whirled up and around
and her mind spun again from the sudden movement. She found herself
staring up into two violet eyes that looked familiar, but they were
framed by brown hair, not black. The rest of his face was caught up
in a snarl and his blinding white teeth were sharp and menacing.
Suddenly it was too much for Violet to process. The drugs, the
blood, the massacre, Margo missing, and now this man looking down
at her like he was going to kill her. Too many things swirled
together in an awful pattern. It couldn’t be a
coincidence.

Closing her mind, Violet let herself go and slid
into darkness.

Violet woke up gagging. Her dreams
had been saturated with blood and death. Alone and afraid, she hid
deep within her mind until she couldn’t bear it any longer. As the
whispers of her dreams fell away, she realized that she wasn’t
waking up in her bed in her dorm room. She sat up and took in the
room around her and blinked. It was fit for the inside of a
palace.

The bed that she was in was bigger
than any bed she had ever seen. It had scarlet sheets that kissed
her skin. She looked down and blushed. The nightgown she was
wearing matched the sheets and was cut so low in the front that it
skimmed the tops of her breasts. She hadn’t ever worn anything so
revealing, not even to bed. Usually Violet drowned herself in baggy
T-shirts when she wasn’t wearing the required school uniform. She
pulled the sheet up and tucked it under her armpits as she took in
the rest of the room.

There were two large windows across
the way, and cheery sunlight streamed into the room. A large
antique armoire took up one wall next to the door. As her eyes
skimmed upwards, she saw that the ceiling had a Renaissance-like
mural painted on it.

“I hope you like it. I picked this
room out just for you.”

Violet jumped at the female voice
and turned. In a chair in the far corner, almost tucked behind the
bed, sat Margo. Her memories came rushing back and Violet slid out
of the bed. Her heart pounded as she grabbed Margo into a tight
hug. “I thought you were dead!” she said.

Margo stroked her hair and gave her
a tight squeeze back. Then she disentangled herself from Violet’s
arms and pushed Violet back enough to look her over. “That color is
killer on you. You have to stop dressing like a bag lady,
Vi.”

Instantly crossing her arms over
her chest in embarrassment, Violet started processing Margo’s
words. She took a small step back, her enthusiasm at seeing her
friend suddenly extinguished. “Margo? What’s this about? What
happened?”

Margo grimaced and put her hands
up. “I’m really sorry about what happened at Mike’s place, Violet.
I didn’t know everything that Tesla had gotten herself into, so
things got a little bit...out of hand. It was completely
unexpected.”

A cold feeling swept through
Violet. She remembered that it had been Margo who gave her the
drink; the drink with the drug in it. What had Margo gotten them
into?

“Where are we?” Violet asked as she
slowly backed up against the bed. Her mind raced as she tried to
quickly assess if she could get to the door before
Margo.

“Hear me out, Vi.” Margo said
gently. She tossed her chestnut hair over her shoulder and took a
step toward Violet. When she saw Violet inch backwards again, she
stopped and sighed. “No one is going to hurt you, Vi. You are
totally safe. You are set up here. What is about to happen is going
to be cooler than your wildest dreams.”

Violet started to shiver as Margo’s
words sunk in. She pulled her arms tighter around herself, wishing
she had more to cover her body than the thin nightgown. Margo
looked alarmed as the sound of Violet’s teeth chattering reached
her ears.

“Violet! You are going into shock,”
Margo said as she swept a light afghan off of the back of the chair
and moved quickly to settle it over Violet’s shoulders. Violet
couldn’t resist. “I know you saw more than you should have at
Mike’s house, but you’ve got to trust me. You weren’t supposed to
be part of any of that. I gave you a little something that should
have knocked you out. I didn’t know you’d have some kind of
immunity to it.”

“I th-th-th-thought you were-were
my friend,” Violet managed to get out. Her whole jaw was vibrating.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get that horrific bloody
room out of her mind.

Margo took her firmly by the
shoulders and pulled her across the room into the bright sunlight.
Instantly, Violet’s face felt warmed by the strong sunbeams
streaming into the room and her body’s quaking stopped. She looked
at Margo, and saw that Margo’s pretty face was pulled into a tight
grimace. Violet remembered the man who caught her in the hallway.
Then there was all the blood. Violet started to shake her
head.

Margo took a deep breath as if
collecting herself. “I am your friend, Vi. I want you to know that
everything I’ve ever said to you is true; at least, the intent was
true. But I admit there are some important things that I left out
because it wasn’t time yet. You weren’t ready.”

“And it’s time now?” Violet asked.
“I have to say, Margo, I don’t think I’d ever be ready to see what
I saw because I’m not a crazy person or an ax murderer.”

Margo groaned and started to pace
the room, but Violet noticed that she carefully avoided the patches
of floor that were exposed to the full strength of the sunlight.
Violet didn’t even want to try to make sense of what that meant.
Margo told her once that she didn’t like exposing herself to too
much sun because it was bad for her complexion. Violet had never
really questioned it that Margo never took her up on her invites to
study at the picnic tables in the quad. She had always chalked it
up to Margo not being an outdoorsy type. But she was starting to
look at everything now with new eyes.

“No, it wasn’t supposed to be time
now either,” Margo said. “But I’m not the one that gets to make
those decisions and a few people got a bit overzealous. I was going
to tell you everything right after the term ended.”

“Why then?” Violet asked, afraid of
the answer.

Margo stopped and stared at her.
Violet could see pity in her eyes. “I wanted you to have that last
little bit of a normal life before everything went crazy for you.
Because you are my friend, and it’s what I wish someone would have
done for me.”

Violet didn’t understand what Margo
was telling her; it was like she was talking in code. What she did
understand was that everything Margo had done was in an effort to
manipulate Violet to some end that she didn’t know yet. If what she
saw in that room at Mike’s house was any indication, Violet knew
that she wasn’t going to like it. Somehow her best friend was
involved what whatever had played out there. Violet felt sick
thinking that Margo may have even participated.

Violet was scared. She was in a room in a place that
she had never seen before and she had no idea who may be lurking
outside. She needed time to think. She saw that Margo was watching
her face intently. She took a slow breath. As much as she wanted to
scream and try to find help, she needed to find out where she was
first.

“If you truly are my friend, Margo,
then I’d like you to take me home now,” Violet said carefully. “You
are scaring me.”

Margo shook her head. Violet could
see that she was struggling with what she was saying. “I can’t do
that, Vi. Even if I could, it isn’t safe for you at Bayersfield
right now. Not after what happened at Mike’s. There are too many
people who are sniffing around that are trouble.”