Chapter Seventeen
She saw the bundle of hope dessipate and be replaced with hopelessness in those brown eyes of hers as she stared into her red ones.
Cassandra pushed the rod deeper, Sophia's words slowly becoming impossible to make out as blood trickled from her quivering lips; and she held on to Cassandra's shoulder, squeezing it as if her life depended on it.
Then she abruptly pulled out the rod and watched as Sophia fell to the ground. Cassandra then looked at her hand and that was when she seemed to notice; it was as if she was seeing the rod for the first time, the blood making it sticky in her hand.
She instantly dropped the rod like it was a piece of hot coal and repeatedly wiped her hand in her dress as though that would clear her of the horror she had just caused.
A low moan caused her to look up from what she thought was cleaning the blood off her hands to see Sophia shivering on the ground, holding her lower abdomen where she had been wounded which did nothing to stop the continuous flow of blood.
"Sophia," she breathed, and rushed to her side. She placed her shaking hand on Sophia's over the wound and tried to push down as strong as she could.
She sobbed while trying to apologise. "I am so sorry," She sniffled. "I don't know what came over me. I don't hurt people, I never hurt people." Sophia made an attempt to speak, her words inaudible.
Cassandra shushed her. "No, don't say anything, I'm going to get you out of here. Just wait, I'm going to find a way."
Sophia violently shook her head and tugged strongly on Cassandra's dress when she was about getting up. She gestured for Cassandra to come closer and when she did, she spoke as much as her dying self would allow." L...lea...ve. L...leav...ve now."
Cassandra straightened herself in time to see Sophia's eyes roll to the back of her head. She couldn't move, staring into space, Sophia's lifeless body laying in her arms. She moved away from her body and shuffled into a corner and burying her face in her arms, she wept like a baby. She was a murderer, she had finally murdered someone in cold blood, and it wasn't even her fault. Her body shook all over from fear and disgust.
She looked up, back at Sophia's body seconds later and instantly felt a pang in her chest. The body was taunting her. Sophia's last words echoed in her brain. "L...lea...ve. L...leav...ve now." Leave now. Sophia was telling her to leave the cabin.
She took a deep breath and thought about covering Sophia's eyes but decided against it. There was no guarantee that she would have the guts to get out of that place if she touched the body again and if she'd even be alive any longer if she wasted a second there.
Without wasting much time Cassandra scrambled up to her feet and hurried up the stairs out of the basement, down the hallway. In her haste she didn't see the pair of legs sticking in front of her at the end of the hallway and tripped on them.
She shrieked, her elbows and knees scraping the floor in her fall. She looked to see what had caused it and her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach. Philip was lying the way they had left him but without his head, a pool of blood forming around him.
Cassandra swallowed and bit on her fingers in an attempt to stay silent. The basement door slowly creeped open and Cassandra snapped her neck in its direction to see Sophia's perfectly tanned leg stick out. Tearing her eyes away she dashed towards the door, threw it open and run out into the rain.
With the moon hidden behind the clouds, everything around was in pitch darkness and waiting for moon to reappear was definitely not an option so Cassandra kept on running as fast as her tired legs could carry her.
Not seeing where she was headed, she bumped into unseen trees and tripped on a plant and plummeted to the muddy ground. The mud was thick and inhibited her as she crawled out of it. Up again, she resumed her escape. She went on for a few minutes and her breaths began to come in short gasps but she refused to stop. There was no way she was dying like the others. The rain began to fall heavily and although it hampered her movement, it washed away the mud from her face and made it easier for her to see. She stepped into a clearing and immediately recognized her cousin's car in the dark.
In her attempt to get to it, she stumbled on something and fell on the ground, which thankfully, was not very muddy.
A ray of moonlight shone through the clouds and Cassandra lifted her head from the ground to stare into Shawn's lifeless eyes.
She froze unable to turn her gaze away. Her mouth suddenly became dry and her brain went into overdrive. She gathered courage to inspect his body, when she noticed that his feet had indeed been cut off.
She quickly looked away and blinked right at a hand, Shawn's, mangled and blue, the flesh peeling off. She heaved and forced herself to get up, then stumbled away from the sight.
She continued to run in the dark, desperate to get away from all of that blood and dismembered bodies. As far away as she could. She fell and scraped her already bleeding legs, but she didn't notice and got right up, forging on.
She run into another clearing and her heart leaped in a small victory. Her smile fell when she saw what was ahead of her. Shawn's body and his hand. Just as she'd seen them moments ago.
She quickly turned away and took another path, her adrenaline and speed increased. After a few jumps and falls, she turned up at another clearing.
Shawn greeted her again, with the same mouth open in half-scream. It went on for a few more times; always with her ending at the same spot she had began from, Shawn's corpse.
She was going round in circles