The hinges of the cabin's front door creaked as Venice closed it behind herself. Once it clicked shut, the sound of the music was muffled by the thick wood. The heat from the fireplace was muffled entirely, a fact she was quickly made aware of.

As soon as that evening chill hit her, Venice had second thoughts. It felt a lot colder than November. Her breath was visible in the moonlight. The faint breeze against her bare neck felt like a frozen noose.

But she was willing to tough it out. She was gonna get them so good. Sydney had her cocaine AND a man. It was only fair that Venice be allowed to get some kicks of her own.

Venice crept through the snow. She tried to be quiet, but the cold compelled a certain quickness in her steps, and she tried to balance the two appropriately.

In her haste, she bumped into something warm in the dark. “Aah!” cried a voice.

“Paris?” whispered Venice. “Is that you?”

“Ohhh,” gasped Paris. She took a breath. “It's just you, Venice. Yeah...Yeah, it's me.”

“What are you doing out here?” asked Henry.

“Ssh! I'm gonna spook Sydney and Wikman!” shushed Venice. “Wanna come?”

“No way. We're heading in,” said Henry. “Have fun. Don't freeze to death.”

“Your loss.”

Crunches of footsteps in snow moved past her and faded, indicating the two had left. Venice was alone.

She saw the campfire up ahead, and the tent beyond it. Almost there.

Then, she heard a thick snap to her left. A dead branch breaking. She froze, and glanced in the direction of the sound.

All she could see was tree trunks, painted a dim, moving orange by the campfire, and the enigmatic black spaces in between them.

…........

Sydney's and Wikman's tongues tangled. Him on the bottom and her on top, her hands roamed over his bare chest, felt his strong pecs.

The definition of a hunk. She felt like she was a tiny little person on a mountain of manliness. She brimmed with desire.

And so did he. She knew he was enraptured by her. She could tell by the way he touched her, the way he kissed her. Plus, from the place and manner in which she was straddling him, Wikman was telegraphing another sign of his excitement that was impossible to ignore. His passion increased her passion. It felt good to invoke such desire in someone. It made her feel powerful.

She wanted a hit. Bad.

Sydney separated her lips from his. “Hang on a second,” she told Wikman. Without leaving the mountain, she reached for her purse, found the strap, and pulled it closer. She reached inside, extracted her beloved Ice Breakers container. She popped it open.

“What's that?” asked Wikman. He was a bit drunk. His speech was not at its most decipherable. Sydney tapped some of the cocaine out onto her mirror. The razor's chops were like falling guillotine blades. “Oh...shit, is that what I think it is?”

Sydney poured the crushed powder onto Wikman's strong chest. “Probably,” she said. There was an almost frightening hunger in her eyes. “Now just hold still, baby. Don't move.”

She pressed the razor to his flesh, scraped the cocaine into thin lines as carefully as she could. “Whoa, hold on,” he slurred. “Carefu-Ow!”

“Oh no, I'm sorry. Did I get you? I told you not to move,” said Sydney dreamily. She lowered her face to him. She took the hit, then dragged her tongue across his fresh wound.

“What the fuck?” asked Wikman blearily. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Take it easy, babe,” said Sydney, looking up at him. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth, and she wiped it away as she held out the container to him. “You can do one off me next.”

Wikman opened his mouth to respond, but was silenced by a sudden movement from Sydney. She lifted her head, and her ecstatic, bacchanalian expression became one of concern. “Wait, did you hear that?”

“Hear what-”

“Sshh!”

Wikman shushed. He listened.

Somewhere outside the tent came the sound of movement in the woods. Something rustling in the bushes. Footsteps.

“What is that?” whispered Sydney.

“I dunno,” said Wikman. “Maybe an animal?”

They listened to it for a moment. The noise stopped. Neither of them dared to move.

Sydney rolled off him and started to put her bra back on. She shivered in the cold air. “Go see what it is,” she whispered.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Are you serious? No way,” he said.

“Just poke your head out,” said Sydney. “Just look and see. Please?”

Wikman grunted and sat up. He pulled on his shirt and crawled to the tent door. The zipper gave a shrill yelp as he pulled it open.

He looked out. There was nothing the light of the campfire revealed.

Sydney wrapped her sleeping bag around herself. “See anything?” she asked.

“Nah,” Wikman replied. He gave an excited grin. “I think I'm gonna go look.”

“What?” asked Sydney, annoyed. “No, stay here.”

“But it might be one of those Satanists!” said Wikman eagerly. “I don't know about you, but I'm feeling like kicking some ass!”

Soaring high, Sydney actually kind of did feel like she could go for that. But she could think of better ways to expend her energy. She made her voice seductive. “Come on, weren't we...in the middle of something?”

Wikman ignored it. “This won't take long. Trust me.” With that, he disappeared.

Sydney sat there for a moment, staring at the open tent door, surprised he'd actually resisted her wiles and left. She sighed and took her mirror out again. This time, it was just to check her hair and makeup.

She hoped he'd hurry back. She wanted to do it while she was still high. With the taste of his coppery blood still in her mouth. It was best that way. Sober sex...it just wasn't as good. It didn't do it for her, not anymore. She needed that peak, that climax, that couldn't be attained with a mind shackled to Earth.

A few minutes passed, and Wikman didn't return. Sydney grew impatient. She supposed she could always just take another hit...But it seemed a shame to waste this moment. After throwing her shirt and pants on, she crawled out of the tent.

An owl hooted as Sydney stood and looked around. A chill shook her, and she crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“Babe?” she called. The forest swallowed her words. There was no response.

Sydney walked in the direction of the campfire. She stopped beside it and stood in its warming presence, continuing to look around as she held her palms over it. “Babe? You around here?”

She didn't hear anything at all. Even the rustling movement she and Wikman heard had stopped.

A boy as bulky as Wikman should be making his own noises in the woods, Sydney realized. Had he already wandered that far into them, that she couldn't hear him? “Babe, come on back!” Her voice was raised this time.

A wind began to pick up. As it did, the forest became alive with sounds and movement. Pounds of snow falling noisily off branches, powder blowing across the ground, hitting brush and tree trunks. It hit Sydney like cold needles and sizzled into the fire, which was leaning out of the pit.

Sydney shivered. “Wikman, come on! I'm going back in the tent!”

Then, she heard footsteps at the edge of the clearing. A body moving through the brush.

“Babe?” Sydney looked in the direction of the sound. She saw no sign of life except her own long, dancing shadow from the campfire behind her, stretching across the orange-lit snow.

She walked to the line of trees. “Babe, come on. Let's go. You're pissing me off.”

When she reached the trees, she looked around. There was nobody there.

Suddenly, hands grabbing her shoulders. “Aaaah!” she screamed.

Sydney spun around, heart pounding. She found herself face to face with Venice.

She gave an annoyed sigh and shoved the girl. “Venice, god dammit! Don't you have anything better to do?!”

Venice stumbled backwards from her shove. She didn't say anything. She didn't snicker at Sydney or tell her she should have seen the look on her face. She didn't do anything except stand there, with the fire at her back.

Sydney felt a creeping sensation that something was wrong. “Venice?” She looked at Venice's body. Something was wrong, wasn't it? It didn't look quite right. And her face...it was Venice, that was obvious, but something about it seemed off...

She walked over to teammate. “Venice, are you okay?” she asked uncertainly.

Something was wrong indeed. When she looked into Venice's eyes, her brain could tell something was wrong, even with the influence of cocaine coursing through it. But it wasn't sure what.

Venice still hadn't spoken. “Venice...?” Sydney raised a hand to her cheek.

Then, she screamed.

She yanked her hand away, fingers bloody.

Venice's face fell to the forest floor.

A mask of skin. Venice's face. Venice's face. Her teammate's face. Her friend's face. Sydney's mind couldn't comprehend it.

She looked at the face beneath the mask. Beneath a layer of Venice's blood...was Chase.

“What, you...” stammered Sydney, stepping backward. “Who...Why do you have...Venice...You...Is she...”

“Her dead,” confirmed Chase. “Just like Beck. All bad girls die too.”

Beck. What was she talking about? Rebecca? Then, Sydney recognized her. “You're...You're one of the cheerleaders. Oh fuck. Look, this is a...I'm not who...” She could tell by Chase's unwavering expression, the malice that glowed in her eyes, that there was nothing she could say. Sydney turned to the forest and started to run. “W-Wikman! Help! Help!” She cried.

She only made it a few steps before a shot of pain ripped through her calf. A burning, penetrating pain, worse than anything she'd ever felt. Her leg failed, and she fell to the snow.

Crying, moaning, she pushed herself up, looked at her wound. A curved piece of metal was embedded in her calf. One of the tent spikes.

It was glowing orange. Steam was rising around it in the cold air. The cheerleader had heated it in the campfire.

Sydney tried to grab it and pull it out. All she managed to accomplish was to burn her hand. She cried out again. Her breaths were quick and ragged, hyperventilating. Her mind was jumbled war of thoughts and images. Pain. Venice. Rebecca. The cheerleader. Death. Death...imminent.

Chase calmly walked over to her. Sydney looked up at her with mascara running down her cheeks. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I...I'm sorry...”

Chase's arm stabbed upward, a glowing tent stake gripped in her gloved hand.

Shunk. Into Sydney's nose. Into her brain.

A flash of burning, penetrating pain, deep in her skull...and then her ability to process pain was no more. Sydney moaned wordlessly, senselessly. Her eyelids fluttered.

Chase let go of the spike. Sydney slumped to the snow, the spike still buried deep in her bleeding nostril. Her left hand twitched involuntarily, wrist rotating and fingers closing and opening around nothing. Chase stood, silently, ominously, and watched her die, feeling nothing.

Her voice was the first of Sydney's straggling functions to cease, the senseless babbling dwindling into nothingness. Her hands followed, fingers going still. Finally, her restless eyes closed, and the girl was completely dead. A gust of wind powdered her pretty corpse with snow.

“Holy...”

Chase looked up. Wikman was standing about fifty feet away, staring at Sydney with wide, horrified eyes. “What...That's...No, that's a joke...Sydney...”

He turned his eyes to Chase, just in time to see the cheerleader fling another tent stake at him. Like a laser, the glowing flechette lanced toward him in the darkness.

All of Wikman's talk of wanting to wrestle with the Satanists, to give them what was coming to them...it was sincere. That is to say, when he expressed these thoughts, he thought he honestly meant it. But standing face to face with this murderer, having seen what she'd just done...Wikman's only instinct was to flee. And flee he did.

He ducked under the flying stake, heard it stab into the tree behind him just above his head. He sprinted toward the cabin, not looking back.

Chase watched him go.

There was no need to tire herself out. She had all night.

She walked to the tree, and with one forceful yank, wrenched the stake out of it.