Page 50 of The Staircase in the Woods

Lore kept on:

“Marshie told Grady she liked him, and—and he made fun of her. Jesus. Said she was ugly. Had a butterface. Fucking prick. She said she’s gonna kill herself and even talked about how she’s gonna do it, she’s gonna end it all, and then—these brown spots, I think they’re blood—wait, what the fuck?”

Then, two things happened simultaneously—

First, the image of the knife, oldtimer.jpg, glitched hard. The image broke into RGB pixels, distorting it so deeply that barely any of the original photo could still be seen.

Second, Hamish screamed.

31

Here’s Marshie

Lore knew what it was like to be called ugly. When she hit it big on the game scene, they were already judging her—she wasn’t hot enough, she was too much the cyberpunk tomboy, too much the uppity half-a-dyke, her tits were too big, her face was too “severe”—her only value to those shit-heel online mutants was how fuckable she was to them, but aye, there was the rub, because if she was too fuckable, or even fuckable at all, that’d be a whole different problem. Hell, they called her a slut already, as if she’d fucked and sucked her way into the industry. Truth was, they didn’t want her in this space at all, not as anything other than some bouncy booth babe. A model, atoy,a poseable sex doll. Anything else just meant she was intruding.

Anything else meant she wasstealingopportunities fromlesser men.

It was in this way she understood—and hated—the girl, Marshie.

Marshie, you stupid thing. Putting all of yourself in some stupid boy’s hands so that he could either lift you up or break you down.

That’s what was going through her head as she read the girl’s diary. She started to tell Owen what she was reading, even though he looked shell-shocked enough that she wasn’t even sure he was paying attention. Staring as he was at the computer screen. And Hamish and Nick were just fighting again, and it was hard to tune them out—

“This is your fault,” Hamish said to Nick.

“My fault.Myfault?”

“You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, man. Matty went upthose stairs and we didn’t have to follow, but what do you do? Spend the next thirty years chasing his ghost, trying to find a way for us to join him in Hell. Stupid parents always asking,If your friend jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff, too?but I guess it isn’t that stupid of a question because your answer would beyeah, shit yeah, and if I can’t jump off that cliff just find me a new one to jump off of, and I’ll trick my other friends into jumping right alongside of me.”

Nick sneered as he brought his voice low, almost to a growl. “Weak.Weak. That’s what you are, Hamish Moore.W-E-A-Kweak. Weak like watered-down liquor, like decaf coffee. Everything you were is gone now, isn’t it? You’re in yourdiet sodaera, a fading photograph of who you once were. I can’t even see you in there. You changed that day. We all did. Andthatis what this was about. Fixing it. Finding not just Matty but…”

His voice died in his mouth.

Hamish leaned in, baring his teeth. “You didn’t fix shit,bro. This doesn’t feel fixed to me. This feels fucked. Extra fucked. And you—” Hamish seemed to notice Nick was barely listening. Instead, he was looking down. Toward the floor.

Toward Hamish’s feet.

Lore looked over, still reading aloud from the diary. “She said she’s gonna kill herself and even talked about how she’s gonna do it, she’s gonna end it all, and then—these brown spots, I think they’re blood—” But as she was talking about blood, so were Nick and Hamish.

“What?” Hamish asked, sounding irritated.

“You’re…bleeding,” Nick said.

“What? I’m—”

Sure enough, she saw a pool of blood spreading out from between Ham’s feet. The blinking Christmas lights danced in the red-black puddle, like fairies trapped in syrup.

“Wait, what the fuck?” Lore said.

Hamish, half panicking, said, “I—I don’t think that’s from me.”

A hand shot out from under the bed, grabbing Hamish’s ankle.

Hamish screamed as he yanked his leg free and nearly fell over as he pivoted hard in a clumsy leap off the bed.

The hand, messy with red, smacked at the carpet, leaving bloody handprints across the floor. The fingers grabbed at the fibers and were joined by a second hand that did the same. They gripped andpulled—

Nick was yelling now, too, screaming, “Jesus fucking fuck!” as he backpedaled off the bed. Owen jumped out of the chair, pressing himself into the corner of the room, watching transfixed as a young woman dragged herself out from under the bed. All parts of her slick with gore, the blood a fresh wet mask, a second skin, crimson in the lights but thick with strings of black clot. T-shirt and pajama pants soaked through, too. She rose to her feet, shaking. Blood dripping.

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