Page 31 of The Dinner Party

You nod again, your legs wobbling beneath you.

Carson notices that you are on the brink of collapse. He puts an arm around your shoulders and leads you into another of the many rooms, where he sits you down on a plush leather sofa. You hug your body, rocking back and forth. You’re shaking badly, and you’re not sure if you’ll ever be able to stop. You thought for sure that the wolf was going to kill you.

“What now?” you finally ask.

“I think,” he says quietly, “that we should get the hell out of here.”

“What about the police?”

He shakes his head firmly. “Sloan, I don’t have to tell you that some bad shit was going on in the house. The police will show up eventually, but I think it’s better for both of us if we don’t get involved.”

“So you’re saying we should just leave this house with a bunch of dead bodies left behind?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

You study Carson’s face. It’s hard not to trust somebody so incredibly handsome. Also, he is much more familiar with the occupants of this house than you are—it probably wasn’t even his first dinner party. He knows what he’s talking about.

Then again, there are people dead in this house. You have to do something about it. You can’t just leave them behind! Can you?

To call the police, turn to Chapter 55 (page 133)

To leave without calling the police, turn to Chapter 56 (page 134)

55

You have to call the police. Even though you haven’t been 100% law abiding in your life (to say the least), there’s no way you can leave a house full of dead people without contacting the proper authorities.

“This is a mistake,” Carson warns you.

“You might be correct,” you admit, “but it’s the right thing to do.”

He lets out a long sigh. God, he is sexy when he’s exasperated—but given what you went through, it seems likely that hooking up is off the table tonight. “There’s a phone in the sitting room. I’ll take you there.”

Carson leads you to another room, which you guess is the sitting room. It contains a mahogany desk with a cordless phone resting on it. While you pick up the receiver and type in the three digits, Carson wanders out of the room. For whatever reason, he does not want to be present for this call. You wonder if he has some legal problems himself and would prefer to avoid the police.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

You hesitate. Even though you’ve had time to think about what you’re going to say, now that you’re faced with the operator, your mouth goes dry. “Um, I have an emergency.”

“Yes…?”

“I was at a dinner party and this… well, a wolf came in and ate everyone.”

There’s a long silence on the other end of the line. “Is this a joke?”

“No,” you say quickly. “It’s not a joke. It was… well, the wolf didn’t actually eat everyone. He just mauled most of them. But either way, everyone is dead.”

Another long silence. Geez, is it really so hard to believe that a wolf came in and ate like a dozen people?

The operator finally connects you to the police, and you have to repeat the entire story, meeting equal amounts of disbelief. But you eventually convince them it’s not an elaborate prank, and they say they’re sending over a car right away.

After you hang up, the house seems so silent. Too silent. You peek your head outside the sitting room door, and find the hallway to be empty. “Carson?”

No answer.

You step outside, scanning left and right. But there’s no sign of Carson anywhere.

“Carson?” you call out again.