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Her throat tightened as she swung the dying beam of her flashlight over the room. Donner’s area was a wreck. With a small pizza box long empty, a pack of cigarettes only partially hidden under his pillow.
Nerves stretched to the breaking point, she crept into the hallway again and heard the music once more.
“Glories stream from heaven afar . . .”
Coming from the CD player downstairs.
Heart in her throat, Kara inched to the servants’ stairs again, avoiding the huge carved staircase that curved up from the massive entry and living area. Instead, she crept noiselessly down the back steps to the kitchen, where no lights burned. The only illumination came from outside, where moonglow reflected on the snow. Quietly she slipped past the freestanding island, then under an archway to the dining area, where a massive table stretched from the butler’s pantry to the French doors leading outside. Through the paned windows, she saw a thick mantle of snow on the veranda beyond which the lake glimmered, partially obscured by sparse stands of snow-crusted firs and pines.
Inside, the table had been set for the next day, crystal glasses glinting red with light from the remaining embers of the fire Daddy had lit in the fireplace earlier. She’d watched him stack wood that he’d taken from the built-in cupboard near the firebox and light old newspaper and kindling until flames caught and crackled. The smell of smoke was stronger here and something else . . . something odd, sweetly metallic. In front of the big window, the Christmas tree stood at an angle, white lights blinking, branches broken.
Not like it had been.
The back of Kara’s neck twitched.
And then she noticed the walls.
The dark spots that drizzled downward.
Red.
Thick.
Blood!
Staining the walls in scarlet rivulets that pooled almost purple on the floor.
She let out a scream and her stomach threatened to hurl. She took two steps into the living room and screamed again. There, lying on Mama’s white carpet, was her brother Donner, his throat slashed, his skin pale as milk, his blond hair streaked red, his eyes staring upward and unblinking. She stepped backward and her heel rammed into something soft, only to turn and find Sam Junior, curled up, his hair matted red with blood, his mouth open, eyes open and vacant. “Noooo!” She screamed again, gasping and sobbing, her stomach cramping.
She dropped the scissors and flashlight and started to turn when she noticed Jonas, partially hidden by the Christmas tree, his face and shirt covered in blood, a hank of black hair falling over his face. Eyes open.
Hyperventilating, she stared at him and screamed when she saw him blink.
He was alive?
But how?
“K-k-k-k-k-a . . . karrrra . . .” he said, his voice a garbled whisper.
She could only stare at his blood-smeared face.
“Get . . . he . . . he . . . get . . . help . . .” He tried to lever himself up but fell back. “Go . . . run . . .” he whispered, his words sounding wet. His eyes rolled up in his head and she backed away, her feet slipping on the blood that seemed everywhere—on the walls, on the floor, sprayed to the ceiling.
“Marlie!” she yelled. Where the hell was she? “Marlie!” Choking out her sister’s name, she stumbled from the room and forced herself to the short hallway that led to her parents’ bedroom.
Sobbing wildly, Kara gasped for breath as she pushed open the door and saw the horror within. “No!” she cried, breaking down completely. “No, no, no!” Both of her parents were in their bed, Mama in her silk pajamas and her father in only his boxer shorts. Both of her parents were covered in the blood that stained the sheets and spattered the bedstead and wall. Mama’s blond hair was mussed, her eyes glassy and set, and Daddy’s face was a scary bluish color, blood sliding from his gaping mouth. Over his naked torso, huge, ugly gashes exposed his flesh, and blood matted the curling hair of his chest.
In a daze, she backed out of the room.
Dead.
They were all dead.
Except Jonas.
She started back to the living room, to her brother, when she thought of the phone.
She had to call and get help.
