SNEAK PEEK
CHAPTER ONE: THE NIGHT OF THE MASSACRE
Whitley Adams gripped her steering wheel with slick palms. She drove faster than she should, hurrying toward her destination with a certain urgency, a certain fear, a certain disturbance gripping her heart painfully in her chest. “Can you please come get me?” Her sister’s words flitted through her mind, circling with black wings again and again. “I don’t know what’s going on. I just need you to pick me up. Please.” Their phone call was short lived, but enough to cinch Whitley’s stomach into knots. She’d grabbed her keys, her shoes, and was out the door in a matter of seconds. She told herself it was probably nothing too serious. Nora would have called the police if it was. Not her big sister. Not Whitley. |
College drama, Whitley told herself. She’d seen enough of it herself.
Her sister was attending a girls’ weekend with a select group of friends at one of their family’s vacation houses—a cozy, inconveniently isolated estate along the Oregon coast. An hour-long drive out of town, which meant Whitley’s own Saturday night plans were forfeit. Of course, she’d planned to do nothing, but…
Plans to do nothing are still plans, goddammit…
The narrow road unfolded in her headlights like a dirty black ribbon, winding through a greater darkness ahead, the trees framing her journey with their impenetrable shadows, looming, constricting, guiding her onward like bowling alley bumpers. She thought Nora’s reasons had better be good, or else the hour drive back into town would be fraught with annoyance and plenty else.
And yet Whitley hoped just to be annoyed all the same.
“Can you please come get me…”
Her foot sank a little heavier onto the gas.
Despite these worries tugging at her, she found herself robbed of breath as the winding road spilled her into the estate’s cliffside clearing, and the old Victorian home revealed itself beneath the night sky. Its many windows were warm with light. Its black-shingled peaks and proud turret appeared pale as porcelain in their moonlight milk bath. The paved road transitioned to a driveway of gravel and wild grass, upon which she rolled to a stop a fair distance from the other vehicles parked nearer the house.
For a moment she simply stared in awe.
She pulled her phone from her pocket. She tapped Nora’s contact and placed the call, which promptly began to ring. And ring. And ring…
“Don’t make me get out of the car,” Whitley said, as if the walk to the front door would add so much more to the hour-long journey she’d already made.
When Nora failed to answer, Whitley cursed under her breath, stuffed her phone back into her pocket, and climbed out of the car with the engine still running. She started toward the house. Her shoes crunched the gravel. The surrounding woods whispered and cracked with animal noise. Ahead, the house was alive but eerily still, quiet, save for the soft hush of ocean waves beyond the cliffside. The warm light through the windows gave nothing away. Whitley idly glanced at either of the two vehicles parked near the front porch—a Mercedes and a Tesla. Nora certainly knew how to pick her friends, Whitley thought.
She climbed the sturdy porch steps with reluctant feet, where a series of round garden gnomes were placed neatly on each one from the bottom to the top—a total of six, each with rosy cheeks and squinting eyes and little rustic outfits. Strange, she thought.
At the head of the stairs, she took her first step toward the front door when she noticed it was already open. She hesitated. The door was only open a sliver. Whitley narrowed her gaze, considering, questioning, all in a matter of a mere second. Then suddenly the door opened further, and a figure appeared in the gap.
Whitley felt as though her stomach plummeted from her body to the floor between her feet.
A young woman staggered through the open door, pale as the moonlit house, save for the numerous stab wounds decorating her chest and stomach. She shuffled over the threshold, bare feet sliding onto the swept porch. Without words, without thought, Whitley’s mind reeled in several directions at once. Disbelief. Shock. Terror.
The young woman collapsed at her feet in a butchered pile.
END OF SNEAK PEEK
Her sister was attending a girls’ weekend with a select group of friends at one of their family’s vacation houses—a cozy, inconveniently isolated estate along the Oregon coast. An hour-long drive out of town, which meant Whitley’s own Saturday night plans were forfeit. Of course, she’d planned to do nothing, but…
Plans to do nothing are still plans, goddammit…
The narrow road unfolded in her headlights like a dirty black ribbon, winding through a greater darkness ahead, the trees framing her journey with their impenetrable shadows, looming, constricting, guiding her onward like bowling alley bumpers. She thought Nora’s reasons had better be good, or else the hour drive back into town would be fraught with annoyance and plenty else.
And yet Whitley hoped just to be annoyed all the same.
“Can you please come get me…”
Her foot sank a little heavier onto the gas.
Despite these worries tugging at her, she found herself robbed of breath as the winding road spilled her into the estate’s cliffside clearing, and the old Victorian home revealed itself beneath the night sky. Its many windows were warm with light. Its black-shingled peaks and proud turret appeared pale as porcelain in their moonlight milk bath. The paved road transitioned to a driveway of gravel and wild grass, upon which she rolled to a stop a fair distance from the other vehicles parked nearer the house.
For a moment she simply stared in awe.
She pulled her phone from her pocket. She tapped Nora’s contact and placed the call, which promptly began to ring. And ring. And ring…
“Don’t make me get out of the car,” Whitley said, as if the walk to the front door would add so much more to the hour-long journey she’d already made.
When Nora failed to answer, Whitley cursed under her breath, stuffed her phone back into her pocket, and climbed out of the car with the engine still running. She started toward the house. Her shoes crunched the gravel. The surrounding woods whispered and cracked with animal noise. Ahead, the house was alive but eerily still, quiet, save for the soft hush of ocean waves beyond the cliffside. The warm light through the windows gave nothing away. Whitley idly glanced at either of the two vehicles parked near the front porch—a Mercedes and a Tesla. Nora certainly knew how to pick her friends, Whitley thought.
She climbed the sturdy porch steps with reluctant feet, where a series of round garden gnomes were placed neatly on each one from the bottom to the top—a total of six, each with rosy cheeks and squinting eyes and little rustic outfits. Strange, she thought.
At the head of the stairs, she took her first step toward the front door when she noticed it was already open. She hesitated. The door was only open a sliver. Whitley narrowed her gaze, considering, questioning, all in a matter of a mere second. Then suddenly the door opened further, and a figure appeared in the gap.
Whitley felt as though her stomach plummeted from her body to the floor between her feet.
A young woman staggered through the open door, pale as the moonlit house, save for the numerous stab wounds decorating her chest and stomach. She shuffled over the threshold, bare feet sliding onto the swept porch. Without words, without thought, Whitley’s mind reeled in several directions at once. Disbelief. Shock. Terror.
The young woman collapsed at her feet in a butchered pile.
END OF SNEAK PEEK