Julie sat at the bar, unsure of what to do. Jesse had been laying out a detailed plan for the last ten minutes, and Julie had heard none of it. She kept thinking of Holly and Julia. Where had they disappeared to? How can a person disappear in a confined space and not be found after a thorough search?

“And then we take the cars north. What do you think?” Jesse finished.

“I mean, it sounds feasible. I’m sure we could make it work. Why don’t you present it to the group and get their thoughts?”

“Okay. You seem a bit preoccupied. What’s up?”

“So…okay. What’s up with Holly and Julia? Where did they go?”

“Damn. I forgot about them.” Jesse said, realizing something might be very, very wrong.

“HEY!” She shouted to the group.

Everyone gathered around, expecting news of some sort.

“Has anyone seen Holly or Julia since this morning? Holly went into the back room to eat, and Julia went to the women’s, and neither has been seen since. Does that seem odd to anyone else here?”

Everyone started talking amongst themselves about their last sightings of them.

“Personally, I’m glad they’re gone. Holly started out okay the first night, but by this morning, she was truly evil. She’d openly attack anyone who got within ten feet of her. Yelling and spitting on people. Hit Julie in the eye with a hairbrush and tried to come at Seth with a kitchen knife yesterday for allegedly eating her leftover sandwich. We watched her eat it, then walk into the kitchen and attack him for it. Bitch is nuts.” Becka stated her case very calmly. She didn’t have any reason to fabricate a story about Holly. The two spent time together from time to time.

"Julia was the same way. I had been with her for a little over a year, as you all know. I know you weren't her biggest fans, but when she wasn't around my friends she wasn’t trying to impress people. She really was a sweet, giving person. Until yesterday morning, anyway. We woke up, and I asked if she wanted to take a shower with me, like our usual routine. She looked at me for a moment and said, “Why would I shower with a skank like you?" then walked off into the living room. Didn't even put any clothes on. I was dumbfounded. It only got worse from there. She tried to light Trisha's hair on fire last night, then ripped the pages out of Seth’s book. She and Holly got into a literal fistfight. Bloody noses and all. By this morning, I was done. I never want to see her again. Turns out I might not have to." Maggie was holding back tears of anger, deep sadness, and hurt.

"I think another search of the building is in order, then regroup here." Julie separated everyone into groups, and soon, everyone was off searching their corner of the bar.

#

Jesse, Rob, and Maggie searched through the back room and found no obvious or hidden way for a person to escape without using the back door. The ductwork looked large enough for a small person to climb through, but according to Sal, it was a self-contained unit. If she had gone in there, she might have become stuck or was still hiding inside.

After covering the entire room, they went back to the bar. Julie and Becka were already there.

“The women’s room was just as empty as earlier. We were thinking maybe the ductwork, but Sal said it was all contained within this bar.” Becka updated them.

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“Same with us. We were thinking maybe she went in there and got stuck somewhere.” Rob sounded like he wanted to search the ducts to be sure.

Trisha and Maggie came down the stairs and had the same theory.

Glenn and Elliot were standing in the back of the bar by the pool table. They hadn't said anything about their discoveries nor offered comments on any of the other findings.

“What did you guys find, Glenn? You’re awful damn quiet over there.” Rob hollered over to him.

“I think we need to leave. I think we need to leave now, and I think we need to never come back. You were right about the ducts. I think Holly and Julia were contaminated by whatever it was, and I think it didn’t affect them in the same way. It just made them mean, then violent. Then it made them really mean and violent.”

“What do you mean?” Julie asked.

Glenn turned the light on over the pool table, and the air duct above him had buckled slightly. Blood dripped from the seams and pooled in the center of the table, turning the green felt a deep, dark color. Rob walked over to help Glenn and Elliot, and the three of them pulled the duct apart. Julia fell onto the table. Her throat, eyes, and tongue were torn out. It appeared that Holly had met her in there, and the two had it out. Since Holly only had access to Julia's face and neck, that's where all the damage occurred.

There was no sign of Holly. She could be anywhere, waiting to do the same to any one of them.

#

“That was the single worst thing I have ever seen in my life. How could a human being do that to somebody? It’s horrible. I just can’t wrap my head around it. I know both of them, and I just can’t see either of them behaving like this. They had to be infected with something because that isn’t normal behavior. You don’t go from disliking someone to tearing their eyes out in two goddam days.” Trisha had a point. Why would people escalate a situation so much that it becomes not just deadly but tearing each other apart with bare hands in two days? The logic just wasn’t there.

Julie spoke up. She had been quiet since the body hit the pool table an hour earlier.

“We haven’t heard any movement or breathing in the vents, even with us spread around the place. We know she’s here somewhere, but where? And do we really want to find her?”

“Next question is, why did it affect them specifically, and not the rest of us? What made them so goddamned lucky? It’s not a lifestyle thing because those two are polar opposites. Holly could drink most of us under the table, then do a bunch of coke and go to work for ten hours and be fine. Julia could take three shots and would be vomiting in the pocket of the pool table. I’ve seen her do it. They were nothing alike.”

“That said, if Holly is still on the prowl, we have to get out of here. There has to be a time limit on waiting for the guys to get back with David, and I feel like it’s close to running out.”

“Agreed.” Jesse pitched in. “Even though Mikel is out there, what good would it do us if we both ended up dead? He’d want me to go on, just as I would him.”

“Seth is pretty needy, but once I’m away from him, his head clears, and he can think on his own pretty well. He even told me that if we go to Julie’s, I should leave a note saying we went to Giordano’s. I thought that was smart ‘cause it’s two blocks in the wrong direction!” Becka announced the last bit of subterfuge proudly.

“Okay, let’s vote. By raise of hand, all for going to Julie’s?” Everyone raised a hand but Elliot. “All opposed?”

Elliot kept his hand down, but another hand came out of the broken duct above the pool table.

"What do I do if you leave me here?" Holly sounded close to tears. She also sounded completely insane and angry. After a few seconds, her hand retreated into the ceiling, and then her body slithered out of the tube like a large snake. When she landed on the pool table, her hand splashed down in Julia's blood. She made the most of licking it off her fingers before saying, "So much better dead than alive. Now she's at least useful."

Maggie lost control and ran at her before anyone could hold her back. Holly was planning on this eventuality. She shrank away from Maggie, play-acting scared, and then, at the last second, she lashed out with a closed fist and struck Maggie in her throat. The impact sent Maggie to the floor. The after-effects were far more devastating. She fell backward, her head colliding with the seat of a chair. She felt what she thought were vertebrae breaking in her neck. As she lay there on the floor, her only thought was, why did she have to die at Sal's?