For Nevermore Season 1

in the cell too scared to pace, entirely out of her mind, and unable to wrap her head around the fact that Randy was a serial killer — was the serial killer who’d been abducting and murdering women in Aurora Falls. How could neither she nor Josie have known they were living with a monster? Noella had always suspected Randy was capable of violence, but nothing like this. She never thought he was evil .
    Noella never suspected a thing, and now she, and Tori, would pay for her ignorance.
    After a half hour of self-pity and cursing herself to worthlessness, something clicked inside Noella. A still, inner voice of stony calm:
    You must get ahold of yourself.
    You can find a way out of this.
    You will survive.
    Noella wasn’t sure if it was her subconscious speaking, or maybe just wishful thinking, but the effect was the same. She felt a strength she’d not felt in years – a quiet confidence that she could, and would, find a way out.
    The trick would be recognizing the opportunity when it came and not second guessing herself. Second guesses might mean death. Then again, so might acting too soon.
    Randy’s footsteps were suddenly back, echoing through the dungeon as his boots thumped down the stairs and into the basement. There was a loud thunk as he set something on the ground just outside the doors. Noella felt an icy chill, and wondered what he’d brought with him, but had just two seconds to think before his shadow draped her vision, and his face filled the slot of her door.
    Noella tried to keep the dread from crawling up her spine and spreading to her brain. If it made it to her mind, her limbs were sure to follow. She had to stay alert, and ready.
    Surprisingly, Randy had not bound her with handcuffs or leg restraints. Perhaps he didn’t think she’d fight. Or maybe he thought such restraints meant little to a girl who had somehow attacked an armed robber without so much as touching him. Or maybe he just didn’t think she’d do much damage from the other side of the door.
    “I want you to tell me everything again.” Randy said, his voice scraping like sandpaper.
    “I already told you everything,” Noella insisted. How many times was he going to question her? What was he trying to figure out? Was he trying to catch her in a lie or hoping she’d say something she’d previously forgotten? Why did he need more information?
    “Just tell me,” he said, his voice surprisingly calm.
    Noella went through her entire story again — starting with the dreams of Katie, and then Melissa, and then ending with how she saw Tori in the dungeon.
    “Who did you tell?”
    “Just Tori,” Noella insisted yet again .
    But then she remembered also telling Josie and Jen, and wondered if telling Randy would make him more or less likely to kill her. If more people knew, maybe he’d let her go. Or maybe he’d feel even more trapped, increasing the odds that he’d murder them all. Noella felt trapped between the claws of truth and the barbs of a lie. Never in her life had one answer laid so much on the line.
    She waited too long to answer, and Randy must have sensed her hesitancy. “You told someone else, didn’t you?”
    The walls felt like they were closing in around her as Noella’s mind raced, searching for the best thing to say.
    “Who else?!” Randy screamed, his voice raw, sending his calm from a moment before into memory. “Tell me!”
    “Nobody!” Noella cried, her mouth finding the lie before her brain could object.
    Randy was silent for a long moment, his eyes gleaming in the dark as he stared into her soul, as though reading her thoughts. “Liar,” he said, his voice calm again. “You’re lying.”
    “I swear,” she pleaded, “I’m telling you the truth.”
    “No. No, you’re not. But you will.”
    Noella’s stomach flopped in acid like a dying fish.
    What does that mean?
    Randy turned, then stepped away from her door. Noella ran to the slit in her door and looked through just as he bent to pick something up.
    A chainsaw.
    Oh God!
    He opened the redheaded woman’s door, and Noella heard the sound of muffled screaming. Randy turned the chainsaw on.
    Oh God no!
    “Wait!” Noella screamed, praying he’d hear her over the chainsaw’s rattle before he hurt the woman in the cell.
    “Randy!!!!”
    The chainsaw roared, then stopped. The woman was still crying — still alive.
    “I’ll tell you everything,” Noella sobbed.
    A moment of silence stretched forever as Noella waited for Randy