“Tim?” I croak, my throat drier than a desert.
No response. Did I get his name wrong? No, it was definitely Tim.
Is he asleep or is he unconscious?
If it’s the latter, I need to help him.
I force my eyes open again, and another scream sounds in the room.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. The blood is definitely coming from the man in bed with me.
Dark red, brownish stains are splattered all over the padded headboard of the bed and on the walls.
Tim is lying face down, his pillow covering his head. What the fuck happened?
Before I can think about it rationally, I lift the pillow.
I open my mouth and try to scream again, but this time no sound comes out as I struggle to keep breathing.
His head is missing. The pillow is soaked in dark, viscous blood, and Tim’s body ends with his neck.
My muscles move almost of their own accord, and it feels like an out-of-body experience.
I hug the bloody pillow to my chest, scooting away from Tim’s headless body and in doing so I kick something.
I lift the sheets before I can think about what could be under the bloody sheets, and this time my voice comes back in another scream.
It’s a head.
There’s a human head under the sheets by my feet. There’s so much blood that I can’t make out any features on it. Despite my pounding headache and the nausea, I can use enough logic to add up the severed head by my feet to the headless body by my side.
I gotta call 911. Get an ambulance and… no. Not an ambulance. There’s no need for any medical training to know that Tim is beyond help. I need to call the police.
A thought hits me with the violence of a freight train. Whoever did this to Tim could still be in the house.
Maybe Tim isn’t the only one who’s dead. I need to find my phone, and I need it now. I might be in danger if the killer is still in here.
I rush out of bed, but my legs don’t support me, and I go crashing down onto the wooden floor of Tim’s bedroom.
Something cold and sharp clatters by my side, and that’s when I see it. I almost landed on a long, bloody blade. My body pushed it a couple of feet away and I clambered on all fours tocheck it out. It’s some kind of machete and there’s blood all over it. I pick it up and immediately drop it as another wave of nausea hits me. I dry heave at the thought that this must be what killed Tim.
If that’s the case though, maybe the killer isn’t still in the Gamma house slaying all its other occupants?
I press my closed fists against my temples to calm the pounding in my head. How could I possibly have slept through my hookup being murdered? I only had one drink; there’s no way that should have affected me that much, unless…
Unless someone put something in my drink. My eyes land on Tim’s headless form and for a second I glare at him. Did he roofie me?
That would explain the gaps in my memory, and it would also explain why I didn’t wake up when he was being murdered.
It doesn’t make sense though. Why roofie me if I had been flirting with him from the get go? My intentions were crystal clear, and I only really had maybe two sips of my drink downstairs, finishing the vodka cranberry in my solo cup only when we came upstairs.
I shudder at the thought that someone was here, watching us sleep, and then they killed him.
They could have killed me too. I’m lucky to be alive.
I need to find my phone and call the cops, and I need to get out of this bloody t-shirt and find my dress.
My phone is on the floor, next to the murder weapon, and as I crawl to it, I spot my dress on the other side of the bed by Tim’s side. He must have dropped it there when he undressed me last night.