Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Suspense/Mystery

This is crazy.

First of all, ungodly machine. What the hell is that? Anything with the word "ungodly" in it is not something Oli is willing to go anywhere near, thank you.

And now someone's got to go down there and die?

"Here is how the final voting will work," says Arthur once everyone has taken their seats. He's holding a grey hat in his hand, and he's surveying the group as if he's trying to determine who looks the most expendable. "Each one of you will write down the name of the person that you want to attempt the final task and put it in this hat. I will then draw two names who must face death." He says this rather matter-of-factly, as if he's reciting the flipping stock exchange. "Please, discuss this among yourselves."

Joey is the first to snap out of his shock-induced stupor. "Omigod." He stands up, grabs Justine's wrist, and gently tugs her to her feet. "Okay, come with me."

They head off together. Joey shoots a stare at the rest of the group, as if to warn them against voting for him or his longtime friend.

Oli's head is swimming with a painful combination of confusion, fear, and flat-out disbelief. This is insane. Crazy. Bonkers. What kind of a dinner party do you go to where you vote two of your friends to go into a basement and fight a bloody machine?

That just doesn't happen!

 

Once Joey and Justine are safely out of earshot, the "does Tim deserve to die" argument commences once again. And frankly, Matt is sick of it. He knows the guy. He's his friend. He can't be a murderer.

Lele, on the other hand...

"I kill people for business," Tim protests. "Not for pleasure."

GloZell pipes up, gesturing with her right hand as she talks. "Well, out of all of us, you are the worst one, so..." She shakes her head. "You're going to the devil."

Tim smirks at her as he adjusts his plaid coat. "But I'm the best dressed."

"Okay, with an attitude, too?" Lele, still glaring daggers at everyone within a three-mile radius, has entered the conversation. "No, no, no."

Lele Pons. Claiming someone else has an "attitude." Pot, meet Kettle.

"You guys are very quick to throw stones from over there," says Matt. He makes sure he's looking right at Lele when he says that, so she knows that he's on to her.

She doesn't even blink. "Are we?"

Of course, all this talk of who deserves to die is completely irrelevant as far as Matt's concerned. He's already made his decision. In a way, he made it long before it needed to be made.

Lele.

It's got to be Lele.

Lele needs to go.

 

Eva and Sierra have joined Justine and Joey in a secluded corner of the room, far away from any of the others. Justine's shaking with fear (and a bit of guilt as well—here she is, about to send one of her friends to their death), but she's trying her damnedest not to let it show.

"I think we should form an alliance," Joey whispers, his soothing voice doing wonders for Justine's frazzled nerves.

"Me too." Eva glances around the room for a second before turning her attention back to Joey. "But who do we kick out?"

Sierra giggles. Which is weird, considering that this situation is not something to giggle at, but Justine decides to let it slide. "Someone who's useless."

The second she says that, a certain copper-haired girl pops into Justine's mind.

"Andrea."

 

Justine's right. As much as Joey cares for Andrea, she hasn't really done all that much to help the group. She's been in the shadows, taking a backseat to the other, more proactive YouTubers.

She hasn't put in effort. She's just...well...standing there.

"I'm the one finding all the clues here." Eva's voice is a low hiss. "I cannot die. We'll all die."

"I'm not voting for you," Joey assures her.

Justine's face is an emotionless mask. "Andrea. She's cool and all, but...It's got to be her."

"Okay," murmurs Sierra, staring at the floor. "I think we know what we have to do."

Andrea Brooks does not deserve to die. Of course she doesn't. But...someone's got to, and she hasn't done anything to convince Joey that she should be allowed to live.

He hates himself for thinking that.

 

At this point, Lele's about ready to flip Arthur off. What the hell's with this guy's attitude? "Hum-de-hum, let's all sit down and vote, somebody's going to die, no biggie!"

Screw you, Arthur. And screw your creepy maid friend, too. You can both go die yourselves for all I care.

"Eva." Oli's voice shakes slightly, and Lele can tell that the poor guy does not want to do this. "She was the last person with Shane, and he's dead. And she still hasn't explained..."

"What happened," finishes GloZell. "She just said she was in the bathroom."

"She was not in the bathroom!" Oli scoffs.

GloZell's face is a stone wall of resolution. "Okay, so let's go with her."

Lele shifts uncomfortably in her seat. Yeah, Eva's whole "sneaking off with Shane and then not telling the group where the hell they snuck off to" shtick is a bit fishy, but...no. Not Eva. Eva's been nothing but nice to her the entire time they've been at this creepy-ass house. She's not choosing her.

She considers choosing Tim. The guy's a Mobster, for crying out loud. Sure, Lele's Hustler character might be a bit shady in the morals department, but Tim's character literally kills people. If that's not a crime worthy of death, nothing is.

But now that she thinks about it, she isn't really up for choosing Tim either. He's a pain in the neck, no doubt about it, but—

Oh, dammit, it's time to vote, everyone's going up one at a time and dropping names into the hat like it's a freakin' raffle or something. She can't dilly-dally anymore. She has to choose.

She chooses Matt. Of course she does. He acts all holier-than-thou, he's been giving her dirty looks since dinnertime, and he seems rather...you know...bipolar.

She doesn't like that.

 

Joey doesn't feel safe. How could he? His name could very well go in there. After all, he invited them here; what's to stop them from deciding that this whole mess is his fault? That they'd all be better off without him?

No.

He has to live. For Daniel, for his family, for everything he left behind. He needs to make it back to 2016.

This house chose him. He won't let it consume him.

 

It's Oli's turn at the hat. The pen's between his trembling fingers. He's about to vote one of his friends in to fight an ungodly machine.

He takes a deep breath. You can do this. Just write down three letters. E-V-A. It's not that hard.

But then, she pops into his mind, fear on her face, tears in her throat, begging the group to trust her..."It was not me!"...don't pick me, Oli, please, I don't want to die, I'm scared...

He can't.

He can't do it. Not to her. Not to anyone.

He scribbles on his paper for a bit and then returns to his seat.

 

Seconds after Andrea sits down (she picked Eva, because why not), Arthur picks up the hat and shakes it for several minutes. Just get on with it, Andrea wants to scream at him. Pick a name already.

She can't take the suspense. Especially when lives are on the line.

As Arthur (finally) reaches into the hat, Andrea squeezes Tim's hand. She can't help but remember all the awful things Lele said about him earlier—that he kills people, that he deserves to die. She knows that's not true, of course, but what if someone voted for him? What if it's his name that gets picked out of the hat?

No. She can't lose him. She'd rather die herself.

There's a slip of paper in Arthur's hand now. He's clearing his throat, preparing to read it. Andrea's on the couch, her heart in her mouth, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Andrea."

Oh.

Of course. She's been so worried about Tim, she forgot to worry about her own life. And now, here she is, twenty-nine years old, trapped in a year she doesn't belong in, chosen by her friends to go down in the basement and put her life on the line.

Everyone gasps. All eyes are on her, as if they're expecting a reaction. Some tears. A tantrum. Anything.

She sits there.

She's not angry. She's not depressed. She's not even frightened. She feels...numb. Emotionless. Hollow. As if the sound of her name on Arthur's lips has already killed her.

The ungodly machine. Well. Okay, then. There's worse ways to go.

The real question is...who's going down there with her?

 

Lele feels sorry for Andrea. Honest to God, she does. The Fixer seems like a nice girl, though they haven't really talked much or anything. And of course she doesn't deserve to be killed via "the ungodly machine." (What even is that, by the way? Does anyone actually know?)

But she's got no time to think about that now. Not when Arthur's getting ready to draw the second name.

The butler whisks another piece of paper out from the hat. He unfolds it, smiles, and reads it aloud to the group.

"Lele."

Lele gasps. What? No. It can't be. Not her. They picked her? Who the goddamn hell voted for her?

Was it Matt? It was probably Matt. She knew that boy was up to something.

Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit.

"Omigod," is all Eva has to say about it.

"Wait." Lele's trying to keep her voice calm (which is freakin' hard, since she's got this ridiculously strong urge to curse out the entire pack of them). "So that means I go down in the basement?"

Arthur nods.

Great. So now she's going to be locked in whatever the hell the "ungodly machine" is supposed to be, and if her partner or whoever doesn't save her, she's dead. Wonderful. Just what she always wanted.

Arthur, still acting as if this entire situation is just a normal Saturday for him, turns to Lele's fellow victim. "Andrea?"

"Yes?"

"You get to pick your partner first."

"And the partner solves the problem," says GloZell. "For you."

Lele sighs and rests her head on GloZell's fur-covered shoulder. Okay. Okay. She can do this. All she needs to do is pick the right partner and she'll be fine. She's not going to die. She's not.

But what if—

Shut up!

 

"Hmmmm." Andrea closes her eyes, banishing all thoughts of home from her mind. A partner. She needs a partner. Someone to save her. Or kill her. Either way.

But who?

"I'm going to pick..."

She briefly considers choosing Tim. After all, he is the closest friend she has here, so she knows he'll at least make an effort to save her. But after chasing off a few memories of collabs and inside jokes, she decides against it. If worst comes to worst, she doesn't want him to have to watch her die.

Eva's clever, but she still doesn't trust her. Matt's smart, but he's too cocky. Oli's resourceful, but his expression's clearly screaming God, no, don't pick me. GloZell and Sierra are not even in the running. And Joey...well...he's her friend, but who's to say he isn't in on this nightmare? It is, after all, his house.

That leaves one other guest. Yeah, the Gambler's not the brightest bulb in the drawer, but maybe...

"Justine."

 

"What?" Justine jumps backwards in her seat, her eyes wide with shock. Me? She picked me? All these geniuses, and she goes with—"No, I'm an idiot, you don't want me!"

Everyone starts talking at once. Lele's laughing, Joey's shouting, GloZell's jaw is practically unhinged, and whatever explanation Andrea might have for this completely ridiculous choice is drowned out by the sounds of disbelief.

As for Justine, she's pretty much a puddle, flailing around like she swallowed a jumping bean. She can't believe it. She just can't believe it. Andrea was there during the "letters and words" challenge. She saw how terrible Justine is at solving puzzles. So why the hell would she pick her—her, iJustine, the dumbest dumb blonde to ever dumb—to save her from the bowels of the ungodly machine?

And what's more, Justine voted for Andrea. That's the worst part. She voted for Andrea, and she convinced Joey and Eva and Sierra to vote for her too. And now she's the one responsible for saving her. Is this some twisted form of payback?

She buries her head in Oli's right arm and laughs.

 

"So Andrea picks Justine," shouts Arthur, trying desperately to calm down the shrieking masses.

Justine? Really? Suddenly, Lele's chances of survival are looking a lot better.

Right. So now it's her turn. She's got to pick a partner. Frankly, she could pick Shane's corpse and still have a fighting chance, but since she's got to pick someone who's still alive...

"Okay, I'm picking Eva!"

Eva's a freakin' genius. If she can't save me, no one can.

 

Arthur nods, almost as if he was expecting this. "Lele picks Eva."

Without saying a word to anyone, Eva rises from her seat. She picks up the cog key, hands it to Arthur, and mentally prepares herself for whatever terrifying nightmares might be down there. After all, it's the basement. Anything can happen.

The maid's still there, standing next to Arthur, looking even creepier than usual. Eva ignores her.

She doesn't care what's down there. It doesn't matter. She has a job to do. It's her responsibility to get Lele out of the ungodly machine alive.

She has to get the challenge done. She has to save Lele.

She has to.

 

Lele, Eva, Andrea, and Justine follow Arthur out of the room.

Tim watches them go, his eyes fixed on Andrea's retreating figure. He's not sure if he trusts iJustine to put in one hundred percent to save his friend; he kinda feels like she's part of the reason why Andrea's going into the machine in the first place.

But that doesn't matter. Andrea picked her, so obviously she sees something in her. And by God, Justine better come through and get Andrea back upstairs alive, or else she's gonna land a permanent spot on the Timothy DeLaGhetto Shit List.

She's the last to leave. She's going. She's almost out the door. This could be the last time he ever—

"Andrea!"

She whirls around, her black robes rustling, a hint of regret in her brown eyes. "Timothy?" The name's an uncertain whisper, as if she's still trying to process her situation.

"Hey..." Tim wants to grab her, hug her, save her, get her out of here. But all he can do is choke out, "Come back safe, okay?"

Andrea smiles through her tears. "I...I'll try."

The door slams behind her. Their footsteps fade into the night.

And Tim, for the first time tonight, is honest-to-God terrified.