Song of the chapter is Where Your Secrets Hide by Klergy

-28-
-Himanshu Arora-
-Present-

_____________

Wentworth Woods
1 December, 2019
4:18 pm

I heard a soft whimper behind me and as I turned, I found Ronnie , her face static , almost frozen as though she had seen a ghost.

She was looking at her feet. I followed her line of sight and found what she was gazing at.

A long trail of dry blood made it's way under the autumn leaves, making it's way ahead of us. I immediately jerked up and shined the flashlight at the trail.

" Is that-?" I asked.

Veronica moved closer to me. I could feel her shivering badly.

" I think it is." She replied, her lips quivering.

I gulped and shone the flashlight at the trail. We started following the trail which led us to walk a couple of steps towards north. The trail seemed to be never ending. We passed a couple of more pines until the trail finally ended. I shone the flashlight at the spot where it ended and then I saw what caused it to stop.

The light from the flashlight travelled up with my hands, revealing an abandoned cabin.

I breathed heavily. " Is this....?"

" His hideout." Veronica breathed. " This is the place where he killed her."

The wood was rotten on the sides and the windows were smashed. There was a single rocking chair on the porch that seemed so out of the place from the rest of the cabin. The rocking chair didn't look nearly as old as the cabin.

" Alright, let's go." Veronica said, her voice a mix of excitement and fear.

" Wait-....are you sure? What if someone's inside?" I asked, hating the pathetic sound of my voice.

Veronica looked at me , her eyes showcasing her inner fear. "Moose,.... we've come this far. We can't back down now. And besides.... I don't think the killer would just be sitting here , waiting for us. It's our only chance."

I glanced at her and then back at the house and then back at her.
" You're right. Let's go."

She gave me a tight lipped smile and proceeded to walk up the porch steps. I followed behind her.

She slowly opened the cabin door. It creaked slightly as she took a step inside. I entered after her and shone my flashlight around. The cabin was downright creepy. Old posters and flyers hung from the dirty walls of the cabin. Several papers were lying around in the ground. It smelled rotten inside. All of a sudden I missed the sweet smell of mud before rain poured.

A staircase was pushed to the right side of the entrance hall, united to a wall that had wallpaper peeling from it.

" This isn't as creepy as I thought it would be." I lied. Veronica glanced at me.

" This place doesn't give me any vibes of civilization. There's no trace of somebody living here." Veronica said , calmly.

" What do you suggest we do?" I asked her, shining my flashlight at one of the posters on the wall. This one was a map of Delmore. Why did this killer have a map of Delmore fixed to his wall at the age of GPS navigation?

" We need to search the entire house. There must be something hidden in here." Veronica said, her voice confident and loud. " I know that this is probably gonna sound like a bad idea and probably the dumbest one in such a situation, but we need to split up."

I didn't flinch as I expected myself to.  Instead I sighed from my nose, almost like I was expecting her to suggest the idea. We could both feel how sinister and ominous this all is, but we had to do this.

" I'll take downstairs." I mumbled, walking up to her. " Be careful up there, okay? We don't know this house. I'll stay down here in case somebody comes."

She nodded and walked past me, to go up the stairs but suddenly stopped and looked back at me.
I walked up to her. " What happened?"

Out of the blue, she wrapped her arms around me. My body stiffened in response, of course it did, but soon I wrapped my arms around her waist. We stayed like this for a while , just breathing each other in and feeling the unnatural beating of our hearts. We were both scared and that was the indication of it. But in each other's embrace, the world felt slightly less scary.

" See you in a little bit." She said, detaching from our warm embrace.

I nodded as she walked upstairs. I breathed a sigh, trying hard to hide the blush creeping up my face. I shone my flashlight around at the other parts of the hallway. The place was covered in spider webs and dusty cabinets . I walked over to the wooden wall, the one near the staircase. The floorboards creaked under my steps. The house was rattling with agony.

" What the-"

I don't finish the sentence. I was entranced by the sight in front of me. There was blood on the wall, with which someone had spelled the alphabets S and Y.

" Ronnie! Come down here! I found something." I yelled. Footsteps were heard coming downstairs. The floorboards creaked loudly as she came and stood beside me.

" Look." I said and shone my flashlight at the bloody alphabets.

She took a step towards the wall and almost touched the wall but retreated soon after. " Moose , what the hell does this mean?"

" I don't know.... it might be.... someone's initials. Look there's a dot in between." I said, shining my light at the slightest drop of blood between the two letters.

" Could be....but who's initials are these?" Veronica pondered. Her brows creased, " S.Y...S.Y....no...I can't recall anyone by those initials."

" Well....maybe it's the initials of the...." I didn't want to say it.

" The killer?" Veronica asked slowly. I nodded slightly.

Veronica shook her head, " It doesn't make sense , Moose. Why would the killer write their own initials on the wall? Why would he make it that obvious?"

I gulped. " Well....what if it isn't written by the killer?"

" What do you mean?"

" Look at the letters, Ronnie....they are jagged.... whoever wrote it didn't do a very neat job. So.... there's a possibility that....the person who wrote this....wanted to leave behind a clue....so that if somebody found this place , they would find this." I said.

Veronica's face changed colour and a deep frown settled on her lips. " Do you think Alishka could have....?"

" It's a possibility." I replied.

Veronica sighed. I watched as her eyes started glistening. She closed her eyes in despair.

" I know... how you're feeling." I said and touched her arm slightly. " Even though she was a bitch to us.....she shouldn't have died this way. She didn't deserved this. No one does."

She nodded slowly and took out her phone. " Let me take a picture of this... maybe Kartik or Saina might know someone with these initials."

I gave her a nod and walked past her to look around. There was a possibility that Alishka might have left more clues like this. And if that was the case, then we had to find those too.

I shone my flashlight around the other walls, looking out for more such clues when my eye caught another glimpse of darkening crimson on the wall next to the entrance door. I moved closer to take a better look.

There, on the wall, were two more letters. Both covered in blood.

" N....S." I spelled out.

" Ronnie , there's another-" I turned back and found Ronnie, frozen to the ground, her eyes fixated to a parchment of paper that she held in her hand.

I immediately made my way to her and looked over her shoulder. " Ronnie , what is it?"

She didn't say a word and just handed me the paper. Confused, I glanced at it.

It was a list. The list contained 9 names. The first name was crossed off.

Alishka Malhotra

Kartik Malhotra

Saina Arora

Himanshu Arora

Veronica D' Rosario

Ahaan Jaiswal

Siya Natekar

Zoya Afreen

Avinash Mittal

My hands trembled. Alishka's name was crossed off on the list and she was dead. Which meant that this was the list of people who the killer wanted to wipe out of existence.

I gulped as I looked at Veronica, who looked equally as terrified.

" Moose," she choked and pointed at the end of the list.

It was then that I noticed there was a cross next to Avinash's name. My mind went blank for a moment.

"Ronnie...does this mean...?" I didn't want to ask the question.

" Yes, Moose...Avinash might be in danger."