Crisis Lurks: Who Is the Real Culprit Behind Her Death

When we returned to the living room, the rain was coming down harder than ever, and the thunderclaps were almost constant, making everyone on edge.

By now, Mike had kept us confined in the villa for most of the day.

While Chaz and the others seemed to handle it okay, Sam was becoming restless. He got up, pacing back and forth, venting his frustration.

“What’s going on here? Are we prisoners now? If Zoe knew how you were treating her friends, she’d come back from the dead just to haunt you!”

As if on cue, all the lights in the house suddenly went out, plunging the room into darkness.

Almost immediately, another crack of thunder shook the windows.

The timing was so sudden that Sam screamed and threw himself into Chaz’s arms.

“Don’t scream, Sam,” I tried to calm him down.

“Tara...” Casey clung to me, her voice trembling. “Did you hear that? That sound…”

“What sound?” I asked, straining to listen.

In the pauses between the thunder, I could just make out a faint, rhythmic thudding.

It sounded like footsteps – someone was slowly descending wooden stairs, one step at a time.

But we were all in the living room. The only person upstairs was… Zoe.

Could it be Zoe?

She was dead, though!

The footsteps grew louder, closer, moving from the third floor to the second.

A chill ran down my spine, and I felt the sweat break out on my back.

Could a dead person walk?

“Who-who’s there?” Sam shrieked, his voice breaking from fear.

Casey’s grip on me tightened, her body shaking. Evelyn said nothing, but I could feel her cold hand gripping my arm. Everyone was terrified.

The air felt colder, and the tension in the room was suffocating.

Then, without warning, Mike stood up, grabbing a baseball bat from the corner.

“Damn it! Who’s trying to freak us out? I’m not playing around!” he shouted and stormed upstairs.

None of us dared move for a long moment.

Finally, Evelyn seemed to gather her courage. “I’ll go check it out.”

“I-I’ll come too,” I stammered, grabbing her hand.

We started toward the stairs, but as I tried to stand, my legs buckled, and I fell hard to the floor.

Evelyn helped me up, and we made our way upstairs.

But when we reached the second floor, there was no sign of Mike.

That’s when Evelyn cursed under her breath and dashed toward the rooftop.

Sure enough, we found Mike there, standing over Zoe’s body.

In the faint light from his phone, Zoe’s lifeless face looked even more ghastly, almost as though she might open her eyes at any second and flash us a sinister smile.

The sight made all of us shiver.

“Bastard! What are you doing to Zoe?” Chaz bellowed, charging at Mike and grabbing him by the collar.

Mike, caught off guard, struggled as his phone’s light flickered, casting an eerie glow over Zoe’s partially undressed body.

She’d already been undressed!

“You fucking pervert!” Sam shouted, his voice full of fury.

Mike cut him off sharply, “Look at the wound on her chest!”

“What wound?”

Following his words, I focused on Zoe’s left chest.

Sure enough, there was a stitched wound right over her heart.

Mike’s eyes swept across the room, his voice chilling. “The victim didn’t drown. She was stabbed in the heart. Someone cleaned the blood from her clothes and stitched up the wound. Which one of you did it?”

Mike’s words hit me like a bolt of lightning.

The only one among us capable of treating such a wound was…

My heart sank as a dreadful suspicion began to form.