Page 68 of We’re All Going to Die Tonight!

“Only three,” he mumbles, replacing it in his pocket. “Can’t wait until fucking four.”

“Emerson, what are you talking about?” I ask, glancing behind me at Mr. McCullough. “We need to get you back to the house.”

“I need to get to the road,” he says, as if he can’t hear me. Shit. Is this a symptom of blood loss or something?

“Get me to the road!” Emerson shouts, throwing his body toward me and grabbing me by the shoulders. “I’m going to fucking die out here if you don’t!”

I jump back, terrified of the anger in his eyes. And more than the anger, the pain.

“Just stay still,” I tell him. “We’ll carry you back. Just stay still—”

But he doesn’t. Instead, he takes off at a run in the other direction, and I don’t know how the hell he can move so fast on that leg.

He trips over something on the ground, then catches himself and disappears into the darkness. I grab Mr. McCullough’s flashlight from him and shine it where Emerson just tripped, and there’s something in the mud. At first glance, I can’t make out what I’m looking at, then I realize I’m looking at a bloody jacket.

I head toward it, bend down, push a rock and the leaves to the side, and hold it up so I can be sure. And I was right. This is the jacket, the same jacket that I watched Marlene pull on when she left earlier.

And now, here it is. Stained with blood. Probably her blood.

“It’s Marlene’s,” I say, feeling so dead inside that I might as well be in the dirt myself.

“You’re sure?” Mr. McCullough asks. “You’re sure that Marlene was wearing that?”

I don’t have words, so I nod. I’m going to throw up. I examine the rest of the jacket, and it’s slashed up completely. And there’s more blood. God, why is there so much blood?

I steel myself, looking around. Because if this is here, I know what else we’re going to find.

Her body.

“Do you think she got away?” Mr. McCullough asks, though the doubt in his voice is obvious. Of course she didn’t get away. If the killer is the same guy who attacked Emerson and Lucas, they must have had fifty pounds on her easily, and at least a foot and a half.

“Ms. Dorman was right,” I say, each syllable raw in my throat. “We made a mistake coming out here. We should never have left them alone.”

Avery’s face swims in my vision, and it feels like I could break right down the middle.

I’m making every decision wrong.

If it were another day, maybe, Mr. McCullough might have comfort for me. He might tell me I’m just a kid and that I couldn’t have done anything to stop this.

But he doesn’t say anything. Not about this. He simply turns in the direction we were just walking in and speaks in a sad, final sort of tone.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go back. This…You’re right. This is a bad idea.”

Chapter 38

Avery

October 17

3:04 a.m.

Kaitlyn’s words about Mr. Jay hang in the air between us long after she speaks them. I want to tell her I’m so, so sorry for Hadley. I want to tell her I also wanted Jay dead. But with Ms. Dorman here, I can’t risk saying those words out loud—especially not with how Ms. Dorman’s looking at Kaitlyn now. Like she thinks she’s now trapped herself with an actual killer.

But there’s Javi, and Ms. Dorman must know that Kaitlyn would never, ever kill Javi. She loves him too much. Killing him—killing the person who was always by her side, even when others weren’t—doesn’t make any sense. I’m still mulling this over when a scream tears through the silence.

Ice fills my body, and Ms. Dorman jumps out of the chair, her hands flying up like a stop sign to keep both Kaitlyn and me from getting up. It has the same effect that her cold glare in class does: It freezes us in place, even as the scream continues to echo in my head. I can’t say whose it was, only that it came from outside.

“Maybe it’s a ghost,” Kaitlyn says, shifting in her spot on the couch. “Mr. Jay’s returned to haunt us from the beyond.”