One by One

by Freida McFadden

I can tell you my secret right now: At the end of this week, only one of us will make it home alive.

But she’s not married. So she gets to do whatever she wants without another person criticizing her every move.

Then again, there’s another reason why I want to go on this trip. And anyway, the reservation is nonrefundable.

Heat causes molecules to disperse, so each breath takes in less oxygen.

Belladonna berries look very much like blueberries. They’re shiny black, about half an inch in size, and they’re sweet. The berries are highly toxic. They cause delirium and hallucinations, and they disrupt the body’s ability to regulate its sweating, heart rate, and breathing. Eventually, seizures and cardiovascular failure will occur. Early humans made poisonous arrows using belladonna. In an adult, fifteen to twenty berries are enough to kill you. A child could die from two or three.

Thanks to my mom, I know everything there is to know about poison berries.

Noah has his phone in his hand. My eyes light up when I notice he has a single bar. But then he shakes his head. “No service,” he says.

“That’s why mosquitoes bite you so often,” Warner says. “Mosquitoes love type O blood.”

Even so, I’m very tired. The sky is overcast, but I can still see the moon above. It’s a full moon, and there’s something almost hypnotic about it. My eyes start drifting closed. Until… I hear a howl.

I’m not sure why I called for Noah rather than Jack. I would have thought my instinct would be to call for Jack. After all, Jack doesn’t hate me. And he’s the one with the Boy Scout experience. But when I opened my mouth, my husband’s name was the one that came out.

Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should live another day I pray the Lord to guide my way. Amen.

“The night Michelle disappeared,” Noah says, “Warner saw him go into the forest with Michelle.”

But as I walk back to the campsite, I can’t shake the horrible feeling that I might not make it home from this trip alive.

There were six of us when we started. And one by one, each of us has disappeared.