Page 24 of We’re All Going to Die Tonight!

Aside from the creepy music, it’s quiet, and the lights are out. We step out into the hallway, and I can’t help but expect everyone to spring out from the dark to scare us.

But no one appears.

“Lucas?” Caulder calls, his voice loud. “Marlene? Kaitlyn? Javi? Emerson?”

“Shhh!” I elbow Caulder. “What about the teachers?”

Caulder listens. “They must still be asleep.”

I wait, holding my breath, but still, the only sound is the stretched warble of the record player. Caulder walks out and down the hall to the living room and gasps. I hurry behind him, to see what he’s seeing. The couches, the rug, are littered with clothes. Shirts, sweatshirts, socks.

“What the fuck?”

Chapter 13

Caulder

October 17

12:42 a.m.

“Is this some kind of joke?”

Avery’s face is paler than usual in the scant light of the house, her eyes wide and her fists clenched at her sides. She looks from me to the living room, where clothes are littered on the ground: Javi’s baseball jacket, Kaitlyn’s pink crewneck, a YouTube-branded windbreaker that Lucas was sent last year, random jeans and lounge pants. A tiny black hoodie that must be Marlene’s.

“I dunno,” I say. “What would be the point of the prank?”

Avery shrugs. “Maybe so we think they were raptured or something?”

“That sounds just dumb enough that Emerson would do it,” I say, considering her theory. “He’s always watching prank videos and telling Lucas he should do them.”

When Emerson joined the team, he was even disappointed because we didn’t do any kind of hazing. He told us about how, at his last school, people had to do a full debate round while drunk in order to be officially accepted—something the teachers obviously didn’t approve of, but it impacted the team’s votes for new players. Still, though. Did he decide this on the fly after he sent me and Avery into the room for the seven-minutes thing? There’s also the fact that I know Javi doesn’t usually do pranks. He hates them, always has. But I don’t mention that to Avery.

“Well, whatever it is, they’re clearly just trying to freak us out,” Avery says. “Should we look for them?”

I nod. “But we should be quiet so we don’t wake the teachers up.”

“Right,” she says. “Well then, I’ll take down here, and you take the upstairs.”

She goes to push past me, but before she can, I reach out and grab her wrist. It’s impulsive. I’m not thinking, or maybe I am thinking, and all my brain seems to be saying is that she’s not going around this dark, creepy-ass house by herself.

She jerks away, looking at my hand on her wrist and back to my eyes before I let her go, stepping back and putting my hands up in surrender.

“Sorry,” I say. “I just…I don’t think we should split up.”

I’m careful not to say I’m worried she could get hurt—she would definitely not respond well to that.

“Excuse me?” she asks, arching an eyebrow.

“Look, it’s clearly just a prank or whatever, but I also don’t think we should be wandering around alone,” I say. “It’s just…weird.”

Behind me, the storm thunders. I appreciate the emphasis. At least, until Avery smirks and tilts her head, looking like she just stumbled on gold.

“Don’t tell me Caulder Grant is still scared of the dark?”

I roll my eyes. “No, Avery. I’m not eight anymore. But I still think it’s better that we stick together. Just in case they, you know. Try to…jump-scare us or something.”

She keeps her gaze locked on me, and I can see she’s considering every angle here. Why I want to stay with her. If she should be insulted. If she should be thankful. At last, she seems to decide to give in and trust me—for once.