Chapter 4 - The Truth in the Footage
Hook: She pulled the memory card from the camera. What she saw at 3:00 AM made her realize the killer was already inside the house.Corrine didn't think; she reacted.
With a surge of adrenaline, she lunged forward over the center console, throwing her weight entirely onto the driver's back. She wrapped her arms around the alter-Corrine’s neck, pulling backward with all her strength.
"Stop it!" Corrine screamed.
The car veered violently to the left, crossing the yellow lines into the oncoming lane. The alter-Corrine gasped for air, her hands clawing at Corrine’s arms, her foot slipping off the gas pedal. The scalpel fell into the footwell.
The sedan slammed into a plastic construction barrel, sending it flying in a shower of orange sparks. The steering wheel jerked wildly.
"You're going to kill us!" the driver choked out.
"Good!" Corrine yelled, tightening her grip.
With a desperate maneuver, the alter-Corrine slammed her foot onto the brakes.
The sudden deceleration sent Corrine flying forward, her head violently striking the dashboard. A sharp, white-hot pain exploded behind her eyes, and the world went completely black.
When Corrine opened her eyes, the world was blindingly bright.
She flinched, expecting the twisted wreckage of her car or the cold metal of a police handcuff. Instead, she felt soft, cotton sheets beneath her. A rhythmic, digital beep echoed to her left.
She was in a hospital bed.
"Don't try to sit up too fast, Ms. Mercer," a soft, familiar voice said.
Corrine turned her head slowly, agonizingly. A nurse in blue scrubs was adjusting an IV drip. Sitting in a plastic chair by the corner of the room was Daniel. He looked pale, his eyes rimmed with red, his hair disheveled.
"Daniel?" Corrine croaked, her throat feeling like sandpaper.
Daniel bolted upright, rushing to her bedside. He reached out to take her hand, but hesitated, his fingers hovering in the air before dropping to his side. "Corrine. Oh my god. You're awake."
"What... what happened? Where is she?" Corrine looked around frantically, expecting the other version of herself to step out from behind the privacy curtain.
"Where is who, Corrine?" Daniel asked, his voice trembling with a mixture of fear and profound sorrow. "The police found your car at the bottom of an embankment off Route 9. You hit a guardrail. You were alone in the vehicle."
"No! I wasn't alone!" Corrine sat up, ignoring the stabbing pain in her forehead. "She was driving! She looked exactly like me! She had Mom's coat, she had the scalpel—she was coming to kill you, Daniel!"
Daniel closed his eyes, a single tear escaping and rolling down his cheek. He looked at the nurse, who gave him a sympathetic, heavy nod before quietly exiting the room.
"Corrine," Daniel said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "There was no one else in the car. The police checked the airbags. Only the driver's side deployed. They checked the traffic cameras along the highway. There was only one person in the vehicle the entire time."
"No..." Corrine shook her head violently, her chest heaving. "The odometer! The lilies! Basil knew her! Basil sat on the hood for her!"
"The police found a basket of fresh white lilies in your trunk," Daniel said gently, taking her shaking hands in his. "And Corrine... your neighbor's security camera captured you leaving your house at 2:30 AM. You walked out alone. You opened the garage, got into the driver's seat, and drove away."
Corrine felt the room spin. The walls seemed to close in on her, suffocating her. No. It wasn't me. I was in the backseat. I felt the blow to my jaw! She reached up to touch her face. There was a bandage on her forehead, but her jaw was perfectly fine.
"I bought cameras," Corrine whispered, a desperate spark of hope igniting in her chest. "Yesterday. I put up cameras around my house. The dashcam! Daniel, did they find the dashcam memory card?"
Daniel reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, clear plastic bag. Inside was the micro-SD card from her dashcam, retrieved from the glove box before the car was towed. "I went to your house to feed the cat this morning. I saw the cameras you put up. I pulled the card because... because I wanted to know the truth too."
"Plug it in," Corrine begged, pointing to his laptop resting on the bedside table. "Put it in, Daniel. Prove it to me. Prove I'm not crazy."
Daniel hesitated, his face tight with a deep, unspoken dread. But he nodded. He walked over to the laptop, inserted the memory card, and clicked through the video files.
"This is the garage feed from 2:40 AM," Daniel said, turning the screen toward her.
The video was clear, high-definition night vision. The interior of her garage was cast in eerie green and white hues.
At 2:41 AM, the side door opened.
Corrine held her breath.
A figure walked into the garage. It was wearing the vintage trench coat. The hair was pinned back. The figure walked straight to the driver's side door, opened it, and sat down.
There was no one else. No one crawled into the backseat. No one hid under a blanket.
But then, Corrine noticed something that made her heart stop.
In the video, as the figure opened the car door, Basil—who had been sitting on the hood—didn't move toward the driver. Instead, the cat jumped off the hood, walked to the back of the car, and began staring intently at the rear bumper, hissed violently, his fur standing on end.
The camera angle shifted slightly as the car started. As the vehicle backed out of the garage, the infrared light illuminated the backseat through the rear window.
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There was a dark, amorphous shadow sitting in the middle of the backseat. A silhouette that didn't belong to a human. A shape that looked like a terrifying, shifting mass of black smoke, with two faint, glowing white eyes.
And as the car drove out of frame, the shadow in the backseat leaned forward, wrapping its dark tendrils around the driver’s neck.
