Last Ones Standing

Three of us. Three out of eight of us. Three of us were left, each clutching weapons. I stood against the wall, glancing between the other two. Matt was in the middle of the room, wielding a walking stick. Rebecca was close to the door. She had a knife. I was stuck with a frying pan.

Rebecca started backing toward the door.

"Stop!" shouted Matt. He moved closer to Rebecca. "I am not letting either of you out of my sight until I know which of you is the killer."

"Are you kidding me?" shouted Rebecca. "I just want to get away. I know one of you is a lunatic, and I don't want to stick around to see who's going to stab me in the back."

"Well, you'd know about stabbing, wouldn't you? You've got the knife. And we both saw what happened to Sam." Matt's fingers turned white as he gripped the stick. "Throat cut. How could you do that to your boyfriend?"

"It wasn't me!" Rebecca slashed the air with her knife. "I wouldn't do that! I love him! And you know I only grabbed a knife after we found him. Besides, don't you always carry a pocket knife? Where is that now I wonder?"

I eyed the window at the far side of the room. We were on the second floor, but there were lots of bushes around the house. If I could open the door while they were distracted, I could get away. I stepped away tentatively.

Matt didn't notice; he was too busy shouting. "I didn't bring a knife today! I didn't even bring a wallet! I wasn't even supposed to come, Sue asked me at the last minute."

"Sue. Sue, who died before I even got the chance to talk to her tonight? That's convenient." Rebecca held the knife in front of her with both hands, poised to spring. "I thought you two didn't get along very well. Maybe you argued. Maybe you lashed out. Maybe you panicked. Maybe you decided the rest of us knew too much."

I inched closer to the window. Getting it open would be the hard part, but if I got through fast enough I could get a running start. Assuming I didn't twist my ankle.

"No!" bellowed Matt. I froze, but he was still staring at Rebecca, so I kept moving. "I mean, sure we argued about politics all the time, but we were both friends with Sasha. She figured Sasha would be happy to see me for the party. After all --"

Matt swung the stick at Rebecca's hands, but she dodged further away. They both stared at each other, panting slightly.

At that second, I stepped on a creaky board. Paralyzed by fear, I watched both my friends turn toward me.

"You know," said Matt softly, "you've been very quiet this whole time."

I could feel the blood drain from my face. I tried to speak, but my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

Rebecca frowned, and moved next to Matt. "You have got to be kidding me," she shouted. "You? YOU? Of course it was you! You had only just got back from the "bathroom" when we found Sue! You were cooking, you could have gotten a knife without anyone seeing! It makes sense now!"

Why couldn't I speak? All sorts of answers were running through my head. I left for the bathroom -- because I needed to use the bathroom! I wasn't gone long enough to kill anyone! Everyone was in the kitchen at some point! Why would I even want to kill anyone! Hadn't I been the first one to try to call the police? But none of that made it out of my mouth, as Matt and Rebecca slowly advanced toward me.

Instead, what I felt welling up was a laugh. Pure, dark laughter at the absurdity of us fighting, at the impossibility of what had happened to my friends, one by one. I willed myself not to, but my sense of humor was pitch black and bone dry at the best of times. I knew I wouldn't be able to hold it in much longer, and laughing at all this would seal my death warrant.

I lunged for the window. I had even gotten it open when I was yanked onto the floor. I instinctively crossed my arms in front of my face, but it didn't do much against the blows and the stabs.

I was still conscious when they stood back, but only just. I struggled to stay conscious, even drag myself away, but it was all I could do to keep my eyes open as my head buzzed.

"It's over," said Rebbecca, her voice clear but strangely hard to hear. "It has to be over."

"Yes," said Matt. "It's not like it was one of us."

The last thing I saw was the flash of the knife and the swing of the stick. The last thing I heard was two bodies hitting the floor at the same time.