Page 57 of We’re All Going to Die Tonight!

Chapter 30

Marlene

October 17

2:20 a.m.

When you’re having a panic attack, look around you. Find five things you can see. Four things you can touch. Three things you can hear. Two things you can smell. One thing you can taste.

I see a man standing in front of the trees. His back is to me. He’s tall and shrouded in darkness. Residual droplets of rain strike him from above. His hands are big enough to wrap around my throat.

Was that five or six?

I can touch the bark of the tree that I am hiding in, the hollowed-out center that’s keeping me from him. It scratches my knees, my elbows. There’s blood or snot running out of my nose. It mixes with my tears.

I can hear my own breathing, though I’m trying to keep it quiet. My pounding heart’s something else. So loud it feels like they could hear it from the highway, so I count it as two things instead of one.

There’s the smell of earth, the scent of rain. A boy in eighth grade tried to tell me once that rain doesn’t have a smell, but it’s permeating everything around me now. Rain and earth and—

Blood.

That’s what I taste. Metallic and sharp.

And one more for sight.

The man’s eyes as he turns and spots me, whites gleaming in the night.

Chapter 31

Caulder

October 17

2:26 a.m.

I don’t trust Ms. Dorman—I don’t buy her story about going outside for cell reception—but I also don’t think she’s the killer. For one thing, she’s pretty fucking small, and I doubt she would’ve been a match for Lucas or Mr. Jay. For another, Emerson said he was attacked by a guy. Though I guess she and Coach could’ve tag-teamed it. But that really doesn’t seem like him, and I feel like I’d know after almost four years on the team with him.

Still, there’s too much that Ms. Dorman’s not telling us. After we give her the full rundown of what’s happened, she purses her lips. She makes us swear not to leave the kitchen while she grabs something from her room, returning with her purse right after. She pulls a charger out of it, then plugs her phone into an outlet, eyeing it periodically as if watching it will make it magically have service.

“We need to be prepared,” she says when she sees me looking. “Mr. McCullough may try to call.”

“If he was going to the Death Van, why isn’t he back yet?” I ask. “It feels like it shouldn’t have taken this long.”

“He’ll be back,” she says. “Just wait. He’ll be back, and then we’ll sort all this out.” She says it with the frantic tone of someone trying to convince themselves of something. Avery and I exchange a look.

“I’m going to sit in the living room,” Avery says, and Ms. Dorman’s eyes dart to her, then to the couch visible from our stools.

“Fine,” she says. “But nowhere else.”

Avery nods and heads to the couch, sitting as far away from the kitchen as she can get, her back to Ms. Dorman. I follow her and sit in a chair nearby, also facing away from the kitchen.

“What do you think is going on?” Avery asks, her voice low. “What happened to Lucas?”

Anxiety tightens my shoulders. I don’t know what happened to Lucas, and my thoughts keep flipping from “walking around is better than unconscious” to “if he really was fine, why wouldn’t he come find us?” Then there’s the fact that Emerson disappeared, too.

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “All of this…It’s fucking weird. And I don’t like that Coach isn’t here yet.”

She nods. “You don’t like it because you’re worried he…ended up like Mr. Jay? Or you don’t like it because he could’ve been the one to do…that to Mr. Jay?”