By: Kaycee Carter
I washed my face for the third time that morning, trying to erase the worst possible night ever. After 17 years of being inseparable, she was gone. As I stare at my face in the bathroom mirror, streaks of leftover makeup clinging to my face, I see flashes of what happened mere hours before; it all replays in my head, the never-ending cycle of terror.
It all started as a fun lighthearted evening with my best friend Joyce’s birthday party. We have been joined at the hip since we were born. This year she is hosting a murder mystery party at the event center in the woods just outside of town, set in the 50s, with one of those online kits you can buy. It was a popular spot for weddings and charity dinners until a teenager died on the property a year prior. Joyce thinks it will add to the ambiance of the party. I think it’s ridiculous, but I play along for her sake. I was cast as Sharon Nelson, a successful actress who is a recluse from both her family and fans. Sharon made all of her money as an actress but loves to paint. My character card recommends red lipstick for my costume which is obnoxiously bright and messy. I park and get out of my car to see Aubrey and Josh waving at me from the door, which means Carlo and Lorenzo must already be inside, waiting on me.
“Hey Lyss! Hurry up already!” Aubrey shouts at me from across the lawn.
“Yeah, get over here,” Josh yells right after her.
Ever since they started dating, Josh became Aubrey’s ride everywhere. Aubrey’s shy and academic personality contrasts with Josh’s wild and joking one. I jog across the lawn to catch up to them just as Joyce opens the door. Everyone is now inside and looks fantastic in their themed costumes. Carlo looks especially handsome in his suit tonight, even though he is in the corner on his phone. Lorenzo is in the next room over already looking for clues, to no avail I suspect.
“Ay Yo, Josh,” Lorenzo says as he comes over to us in the foyer.
“What’s up, dude?” Josh asks as they hug. They go into the kitchen to find snacks before we start the big dinner. Those two have been practically inseparable since kindergarten, when they first met. Josh is the goof of the group and Lorenzo is more reserved which makes them quite the interesting duo. We all met in 7th grade in Mrs. Clifton’s class and we all just clicked. Our group made it through middle school and just started our junior year together.
“Hey, Alyssa. You look great tonight,” I hear a voice say. It’s Carlo as he walks over from the corner.
“Hey, you look amazing too,” I respond.
Just before he is about to say something, Joyce announces, “Okay, now that everyone is here, we can start.” Once I turn around, I see Joyce give me a little smirk and I blush. I have had a minor crush on Carlo for the longest time and she always teases me about it.
She gathers all of us together in the dining room and we take our seats. There are ornate place settings all around the table with our character cards placed for each of us. I walk around the table to see that Joyce has put me in between her, on my right, Carlo, on my left, and Josh between Aubrey and Lorenzo on the side of the table. She instructs all of us to open our “menus” and has her older sister start bringing out food. Bella is a year older and is leaving later tonight to go to her friend’s house.
“Okay everyone, go around and say who you are and what your character is doing here. Alyssa, you start.” Joyce points at me and I share how I am Sharon Nelson, a recluse who loves to paint. Next is Carlo who is James Carlton, Sharon’s costar in her newest upcoming film, Lorenzo is Robert Truman, our outstanding agent who helped us in our debut film that skyrocketed us to fame, Josh is John Carter the film’s director, and Aubrey is Anne Crawford the costume designer. Joyce is Shirley Holden, a superfan of both Sharon and James. After we all introduce ourselves, we hear the front door slam and we all turn to Joyce.
“Oh, that’s just Bella. She’s going over to one of her friend’s houses tonight. Anyway, let’s do the first activity of the night… a scavenger hunt to look for Sharon’s lost costume! Okay, the teams are: Carlo and Alyssa, Aubrey and me, and of course… Josh and Lorenzo.” Josh and Lorenzo both whoop and slap each other on the back as Carlo and I look at each other and smile.
“So, Carlo and Alyssa will start in the kitchen, Josh and Lorenzo in the ballroom, and Aubrey and me in the pool house. And meet back here in the dining room in 20 minutes. Ready, Go!”
We all start moving toward our assigned destinations and start looking for clues.
“Okay, where do you think we should start?” Carlo asks me as we cross the threshold into the kitchen.
“Umm, I think we should start by the stoves or the walk-in. If that sound good to you?”
“Sure.”
We split up and I head over to the walk-in and open the door.
“Hey Carlo! I think I found-AHHHHH,” I screamed as the lights cut out and the walk-in door thuds closed behind me. I hear a latch fall, I am locked in.
“ALYSSA,” I hear a muffled Carlo calling out for me from the other side of the walk-in door. “WHERE ARE YOU?”
“IN HERE!” I yell.
He hears me and unlocks the door from the outside.
“Are you okay?”
“ Yeah, just a little shaken. Do you know what happened?” I ask him.
“No, I went over to go look around the stoves and all of a sudden the lights shut off.”
“I’ll try to call the others -ring-ring-ring–beep – Ugh no reception.”
“We should try to go back to the dining room and see if the others had the same thought.”
We started back toward the dining room using our phones as flashlights. I walked behind Carlo and grabbed a small paring knife from the chef’s block, just in case. The closer we get the safer I feel as I see four other glowing screens in the entryway of the dining room.
“Hey, are you guys alright?” Josh asks.
“Yeah, we’re okay. I got locked in the walk-in fridge in the kitchen when the lights went out, that’s why it took us a little bit.” I say.
“Woah, glad you’re okay though, Lyss,” Lorenzo tells me.
“Has anyone else tried the reception on their phones?” I ask.
“Yeah-yes-yup” come the jumbled replies as they all talk at once.
“All right, well the least we can do is see if we can get the lights back on,” Aubrey interjects, “Someone should go around to the breaker box by the carport and see if they can get it to turn back on.”
“Me and Alyssa can go,” Joyce volunteers.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Lorenzo asks.
“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” I reassure him.
Joyce and I make our way to the carport outside slowly so as not to trip over anything, once again using our phones as flashlights. Joyce is significantly ahead of me when I see her phone light flicker off.
“JOYCE,” I yell, “ARE YOU GOOD?” I get no response. “JOYCE,” I yell again. I run over to where I saw her light go out. “JOYCE!”
“I’m okay Alyssa, I’m okay!” she tells me.
“Oh my gosh, Joyce! Don’t do that! I thought you got hurt!” I angrily tell her.
“I’m okay, I promise. Let’s just go find the breaker box.”
We walk a little faster and a little closer together this time, as we head toward the breaker box.
“Found it!” Joyce exclaims.
“Okay, let’s just fix it and get back quick. I’m starting to get creeped out with the woods being this close,” I moved over to the breaker box and flipped the one labeled ‘lights’ off then back on again. “There, got it.”
We start to head back a little faster this time.
“Hey Joyce, do you think this has anything to do with the murder last year?”
“What? No, that guy was caught a few months after. Don’t be ridiculous.”
I still am overly cautious as we continue back to the main building. As we get closer, I notice the lights are back on. We can see the rest of the group through the massive bay windows as we get to the back door.
“What took you guys so long?” Aubrey asks us, “We got worried.”
“Don’t worry, Joyce just fell down and scared the crap out of me. Wait – Where’s Carlo?”
“He said he was going to go find the wifi box to hopefully get us some connection to civilization.” Josh tells me.
“How long has he been gone?” I ask.
“Less than ten minutes.” Lorenzo chimes in. Right after that, Carlo popped his head in and announced that he needed some tools to fix the wiring and was going to go get them out of the garage, then promptly left the room.
“Damn it!” Joyce says from across the room.
“What?” I ask.
“My Tiffany’s bracelet fell off when we went out to get the lights back on. I have to go back and get it. My mom gave it to me before she,” she pauses, “left.”
“I’ll come with you.” I volunteer.
“It’s okay, I’ll be back quick.”
“Just at least wait until Carlo gets back then.”
We waited another 10 minutes and he still wasn’t back, so Joyce announced, “I’m going outside to look. It’s been 10 minutes and Carlo is still not back. I promise I will be quick.”
She walks briskly out of the room and exits through the back door to try and retrace her steps. 15 minutes later, while we are all gathered in the dining room, we hear a bloodcurdling scream coming from the direction of the woods. We all look at each other in shock. Gathering myself and with blood pumping, I burst through the back door, sprinting toward the carport to try and find Joyce. In vain. I see Carlo running from the break of the woods toward me.
“I heard the scream and ran into the woods to try and find her, but my phone died and I had to turn back.” he tells me.
I keep searching, about to reach the beginning of the woods when I hear my name yelled from the front door of the main building. I see Carlo trailing me from a ways behind, but it’s Josh who is yelling at me to come inside, how it’s not safe, and that we need to reconvene to figure out what to do. I turn my back to him and cross the threshold into the hidden shadows and secrets of the woods.
As soon as I step into the dark tree line, I realize I forgot my phone and now have no flashlight, but it is too late to turn back. I make my way through the dense woods that suddenly open into a small clearing. I see a small pinprick of light and the closer I get, I see that it’s Joyce’s phone. My head snaps up as I look around and start calling her name.
“You won’t find her here,” a voice behind me says. I stop dead in my tracks. I know that voice- Carlo.
“Carlo? Why?” I ask as I turn around. I study his face and realize it has turned sinister in the glow of his phone.
“ For you. I dated Joyce last year, secretly so as to not cause a rift in the friend group no matter what happened. The group was so close and we didn’t want to screw that relationship up regardless of how we felt about each other.”
“But-”
“Don’t try to cover for her. I soon learned that Joyce had cheated on me, she was constantly lying about where she was, and had no regards for me or my feelings while still stringing me along.”
No, Joyce would never, she is the kindest person ever- but wait- the more I thought about it the more it seemed to make sense. From the beginning of last year, Joyce had become flaky and suspiciously paranoid.
“By the end of the year I had decided to break up with her. I had no regrets for shattering her heart as she had shattered mine,”
No. I thought.
“I had bottled up my feelings around the group to keep you guys in the dark, to keep what good in my life I still had left. Last summer you started to come out of your shell more and I realized that you are the one for me, not Joyce,”
NO, no, no.
“I couldn’t stand the thought of her betraying you like she did to me, so I had to get her out of the way so I could be with you. Tonight was the perfect opportunity, so I drowned her in the lake, in these very woods. But, try in vain you can’t save her, she’s swimming with the fishes now.” He said with a twisted smile.
No. No, no, no, no, no. This is not real.
“Alyssa, we were made for each other. I made sure no one will stand in our way, not even Joyce.”
At that moment I knew I had no other option. I needed to stop him before he did this to me, too. But how? He is stronger and will do anything to keep me close. Wait- he will do anything to keep me close.
“Carlo, I realize now you are the one for me.” I tell him softly. I walk toward him my arms open in an embrace. As his arms are about to circle me, he sees the paring knife from the kitchen I pulled out of my pocket. He is too fast and goes to smack it out of my hand. He misses and hits my head instead, my head is now exploding with pain, as I try to move the knife out of his reach. I hear a gasp and through the mental fog, I realize the knife has made contact with his chest. He falls to the ground with a scream of pain as I black out from the blinding pain in my head. I came to laying on the ground confused at where I was. I sat up and looked to find Calo on the ground and I let out a scream. I jumped up, my head throbbing. Still reeling from what I had done, I stumbled away from Carlo’s body and ran blindly through the woods, not getting far before I fell to the ground, feeling sick. Out of nowhere, I hear my name being called, but I no longer have the energy to call out and let them know where I am. I see someone break out of the shadows but soon recoil to take in the scene and comprehend what just happened. It’s Aubrey. She looks at me and starts talking softly, but I can’t hear anything she is saying, still processing the shock of what just happened. She helps me up off the ground and starts leading me back towards the house. As we break out of the tree line, I see the sunrise. The world moving into another day, as if nothing happened.
