Lucy loved reading mystery novels and usually figured out ‘who dunnit’ long before the book ended. Occasionally, a book like Claude Bouchard’s Vigilante managed to stump her, but she could usually piece everything together.

Lucy started to tick off on her fingers what she knew so far to help her solve this mystery.

She was back in the lab on top of the mountain. There was no doubting that. Whoever changed her clothes, cleaned and dressed her foot knew what they were doing. That person was also fully aware of the danger and had secured the room tighter than Fort Knox. He had also left an escape route, which meant he was helping her and not keeping her prisoner. Lucy knew it could not be Heslin because, well, he was dead. If by some miracle it was a different doctor that Robin had let in the house, then it still couldn’t be Robin’s father because he would have thrown out the broken frame, but he would have kept the picture. Tears threatened to explode from her eyes as she remembered what Heslin had done to Emma. She pushed the vision aside, forcing herself to concentrate. She had watched all her friends die, all except Michael.

“Michael got bitten, so he is probably dead too,” she thought, still fighting back the tears. “So that leaves… no one.”

Lucy was back to square one. But another thought squeezed itself into her mind: Michael had been bitten. She’d seen the wound. But this wasn’t the movies, and these were not real zombies. Sure, they were dead and ate people, and…ok, they were zombies, but there was no proof that getting bit turned you into one. Maybe, just maybe…

“It’s Michael!” she said triumphantly, not realizing how much she was smiling as she hastily slid the tape into the camcorder.

“Michael!” she repeated when she pressed play and his face appeared on the tiny camcorder screen.

As Michael explained how he had tracked her to the café and got her out of there, he did the strangest thing. He started writing on a piece of paper. His talking never ceased, though he wasn’t making much sense, talking mostly in gibberish. Then he held the paper up to the camera.

“Say nothing. Remember the cellar.”

Lucy looked quizzically at the screen as Michael talked about irrelevant things like trees, mountains, birds and crickets. Her mind raced back to the cellar where she and Michael had discovered the room behind the steel door.

“This is not making any sense,” she thought to herself as Michael wrote another message.

He held it to the screen.

“I don’t trust her.”

“Trust who?” she thought.

Again her mind raced back to the cellar but remembered nothing that would give her the slightest clue as to what Michael was talking about. Michael was reciting song lyrics now.

“What are you going on about?” she whispered in her mind.

His cloak and dagger bullshit was starting to play on her nerves, and that was when it hit her – cloak and dagger. Michael was purposely trying to be confusing with what he was saying. But why? Several realizations rushed to her at once: Michael had videotaped his message on a camcorder outside, where it was dangerous and not within the protective walls of the steel lab. Robin could have easily videotaped a message for him; this whole building was a one giant video camera. Lucy looked above the door frame at the shattered camera. Robin might be able to still hear, but she could not see inside the room; she could not see the messages Michael wrote.

Lucy realized that would explain the song lyrics and other nonsense he was now saying. Michael was stalling, allowing Lucy time to figure it out. Her mind raced back to the cellar and their conversation, when a question Michael had asked her jumped back into her memory.

“Can computers lie?”

“This one can!” Lucy repeated the answer soundlessly.

It was then that Lucy realized the effort Michael had gone through to protect her in this room, when all he needed to do was have Robin seal the lab. Michael did not trust Robin. That meant Robin was up to something. Michael knew it, and he was…

“Gone,” she whispered.

Michael had left her here. Her eyes started to tear as she looked at the tiny screen. Michael held up another message:

“Looking for food. Stay in the room.”

She watched Michael lean forward to shut the camera off, but he paused. He stepped back and whispered softly, “I can’t wait to see you in that hot tub.” The screen went black, but Lucy had already left it. She was at the foot of the bed and climbing onto the dresser. At five feet tall she could just barely get her head into the attic. She pivoted cautiously on her perch as she looked around the dimly lit space. She could see the giant hole in the wall which Paul had kicked in, but she could not see Lauren’s body.

“Michael must have moved it,” she thought. And with that thought came another: “Where did he put her? Where are the bodies?”

Lucy climbed back down and lay on the soft bed. She rewound the tape and played it again. A few more drinks of water and Lucy suddenly realized her little bedroom fortress did not have a bathroom. Then she remembered the closet. She went back to the closet, looked at the floor and saw the bucket. Next to it sat a roll of toilet paper.

“Water closet,” Lucy laughed. “Mikey, you have a sick sense of humor.”

CHAPTER 18 – Michael

Lucy awoke with a start. She thought she heard something moving. She tilted her head, concentrating when she heard another clunk. She scurried atop the dresser and started to jump into the attic. As she did, something hard cracked into her head, knocking her backwards. She fell on the bed and bounced sideways but managed to stop herself from tumbling to the floor. She stared at the hole in the ceiling. She watched the outline of a head appear. A few seconds later, the head had somehow flipped, almost acrobatically, and the torso of a man was standing on the dresser, his head still in the rafters. The figure bent its knees and the head looked at her. Lucy finally exhaled the breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

“Michael!” she whispered.

“Hi-ya, Luce,” Michael smiled. “Going somewhere?”

“I heard a noise.”

“Yeah, that was me, sorry. It’s not easy scaling up the side of a building without making some sort of noise. I yelled to you, but you didn’t answer, so I figured you were still asleep.” Michael rubbed his chin, “I think you dislocated my jaw.”

“Sorry,” she apologized as she bounced to her feet and hugged him. A minute later she said, “Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you enjoy the view?” she asked.

“What?”

Lucy pulled the wooly fabric of the sweater. “The view, did you enjoy it?”

“Oh, that,” he said, his face reddening.

“And did you bathe me as well?” she asked, her eyes burning with anger.

He lowered his head without saying a word. He didn’t have to.

Lucy punched him in the arm. “I can’t believe you’d stoop so low as to undress me when I was unconscious! How dare you?” her temper was starting to flare. “Of all the…”

“What did you want me to do, leave you the way you were?”

“Yes!” she snapped back.

“Ok, the next time you are unconscious and covered in blood and filth from zombies, I will leave you just the way you are. That way, while you are sleeping, you can rub your hands in that filth and possibly put them in your mouth!”

Lucy froze.

He continued in a softer voice. “Lucy, I only did what I had to do to protect you. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“No, I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m just being silly.”

“No,” he said. “You are just being Lucy.”

She smiled and asked, “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“You like it when guys look at you, but only as long as you’re in control.”

That stung her more than a slap in the face. But, as usual, Michael was right. She’d lost track of how many times she flaunted herself in front of boys, and men, and enjoyed the attention.