Chapter 76: The Stranger at the Door

Chapter 76: Chapter 76: The Stranger at the Door

Silence answered her, punctuated by the bang of another cabinet door closing hard.

"Zoey?"

A second later, Zoey reappeared in Iris’s bedroom doorway, gripping a wooden baseball bat with both hands. She held it across her chest, her knuckles pale, her expression was one of fierce, misplaced determination.

Iris stared at the piece of wood, then up at her friend’s face. "What exactly is the plan there? Please tell me you aren’t planning on defending us against supernatural beings with a wooden bat."

Zoey adjusted her grip, shifting her weight into a wide athletic stance right beside the bed frame.

"If anyone—and I mean anyone—tries to break through that front door tonight and tries any fucking shit with me," she declared, her eyes wide and fiery,

"I am caving their skull in. Werewolf, alpha, vampire, billionaire CEO, demon, rogue security guard... I do not care. They are going to learn that this apartment is a non-viable target. And whoever comes through that door is going to regret choosing this apartment."

Iris looked from the bat to Zoey’s solemn expression, feeling a bizarre, nervous hysterical bubble rising in her chest. "Zoey, if they have supernatural strength and healing, I don’t think a piece of wood is going to do much."

"You don’t know the density of this wood," Zoey argued defensively, squinting at the brand logo on the barrel.

"I’m pretty sure biology beats wood, Zoey," Iris said flatly, crossing her arms. "In every myth, movie, and piece of folklore, they heal in seconds. You could give them a concussion, and by the time you take a second swing, the bone has already knit back together and there wouldn’t even be a bruise."

Zoey lowered the bat an inch, stared at the bat as if it had personally betrayed her. Her eyes then widened in sudden, horrifying recollection. "Oh shit."

"What?" Iris asked.

Zoey’s throat bobbed as she looked up. "I once threatened Jason with this exact bat two weeks ago."

Iris remembered the morning vividly—Jason standing in front of their apartment door, refusing to let Iris go and demanding to know the identity of the man that Iris slept with, until Zoey had dragged the bat out of the closet and threatened to shatter his skull with it.

"I stood right on our porch, looked him dead in the eye, and told him I’d crack his head open like a melon," Zoey whispered, slowly lowering the head of the bat until it rested against the rug. "Iris... If Jason had decided to retaliate then..." She shuddered violently, pressing a hand to her forehead.

"I would have been a smudge on the wall before I even finished the swing... And he could have also snapped my neck with two fingers and i would have been a faint memory,with you buying sympathy arrangements for my funeral."

Iris couldn’t help it; a sudden, breathless chuckle escaped her lips—a sharp, involuntary release of pure tension. She swung her legs off the bed, stood up, and crossed the small distance between them. "Well, at least you’ve had a learning experience."

Zoey gave her a wounded look. "What can I say? That’s what friendship is for, apparently. Keeping me alive just long enough to realize how terrible my decisions are."

Iris reached for the bat. "Give it here. You can’t fight a werewolf with this."

"I know. And no, am not giving it out."Zoey protested weakly, holding on.

"Why are you holding it?"

"I need it!" Zoey insisted, though her grip loosened. "Holding it gives me a false sense of security, and right now, false security is the only thing keeping my heart rate below two hundred."

Iris looked at her friend’s wide, genuinely terrified eyes, the humor fading into a shared, quiet understanding. She let go of the wood, allowing Zoey to keep her makeshift shield, and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"I understand. We just need to stay calm," Iris murmured, trying to project a confidence she didn’t remotely possess. "Nobody suspects why you were at the estate for sure, and nobody knows that I told you anything. For now....we’re just two college students in a quiet apartment."

They stood there together, the absurd baseball bat held between them, a fragile defense against an impossible world.

"Let’s just try to be optimistic," Iris suggested softly.

Zoey raised an eyebrow. "About what?"

"That nobody is coming here to kill us."

Zoey raised a single eyebrow. "Is that your official risk assessment?"

"Yes. We are uninteresting targets."

"Right." Zoey gave her a skeptical look.

"I mean it," Iris added, her voice dropping as if repeating it enough times would make it truth. "Things like that don’t escalate into violence in real life. Monsters don’t just show up on suburban doorsteps and suddenly start killing people. Those things only happen in movies." Iris added, trying to convince herself.

The words had barely left her mouth when the sharp, electronic chime of the front doorbell echoed through the apartment.

DING-DONG.

The sound cut through the silence like a physical blow. Both girls froze instantly, their breath catching in their throats, their eyes locking onto each other in absolute, paralyzed terror.

For one agonizing second, neither of them moved a muscle.

Then—"AAAAAH!" A shared, sharp scream ripped from both their throats simultaneously.

Zoey nearly dropped the bat, her hands fumbling wildly as she caught it inches from the floor, while Iris lunged forward, grabbing a fistful of Zoey’s shirt. They spun together, staring wide-eyed out the bedroom doorway toward the dark, short hallway that led to the front foyer.

DING-DONG.

The second chime was longer, deliberate, ringing clearly through the small apartment.

Neither girl dared to draw a breath. Zoey slowly raised the wooden bat back over her right shoulder, her hands trembling so violently the metal ring on her finger rattled against the wood. Iris’s fingers dug deeper into Zoey’s sleeve, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

The bell rang a third time, and the silence that followed somehow felt more dangerous than the sound itself...