Chapter 1The Car Full of the Dead

The holiday weekend was officially over, and I was driving my family back to the city.

My phone wouldn't stop buzzing in the cup holder. Kitty, sitting in the passenger seat, finally glanced over and asked what was going on.

I put it on speaker. The panicked, breathless voice of my childhood best friend filled the car. He told me my parents, my wife, and my daughter had all been slaughtered in our home. He said the scene was a slaughterhouse. Most of their organs were gone, and Kitty... Kitty had been decapitated.

I chuckled, thinking it was a sick joke, and told him to lay off the booze. After all, my family was sitting right here in the car with me, alive and well.

A second later, a video popped up on my screen.

It showed my parents and my little girl lying in a massive pool of blood. And right there on the floor was Kitty. Her limbs were severed, her head nowhere to be found.

A bucket of ice water washed over my spine. My hands violently jerked the steering wheel, forcing the SUV onto the emergency shoulder.

* * *

"Ahhh!"

The grotesque, mangled image of that severed head flashed behind my eyes.

I screamed, violently shoving Kitty away as she leaned in to check the screen.

"Don't come near me!" I roared.

The shove sent her crashing against the passenger window. Her hair fell wildly over her face as she whipped around, her eyes blazing with fury.

"Harry, have you lost your damn mind? Did you just put your hands on me?"

Before her words even settled, a heavy smack landed on the back of my head. My mom leaned forward from the backseat, her face tight with anger.

"Exactly, Harry! What the hell is wrong with you? Is this how we raised you? You never, ever lay a hand on your wife. Now speak. What kind of psychotic break are you having?"

I couldn't hear them. My brain was trapped in the loop of that video.

Crimson blood dripping down the familiar oak staircase.

Mom and Dad's lifeless bodies sprawled across the steps, soaking in their own gore.

My little Anna, a hunting knife buried in her chest, lying right in front of them.

And Kitty. Unrecognizable. Her head severed from her body, tossed somewhere out of frame.

Impossible.

I refused to believe it.

It had to be a deepfake. A sick, twisted prank. They were right here in the car, breathing, yelling at me. How could they be butchered on a staircase?

I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting the suffocating panic, and forced them open again.

The horrific video was still playing on my screen.

Joshua sent another clip. This one was outside my house. Dozens of cops in shoe covers and latex gloves were swarming the lawn.

His voice notes kept playing automatically.

[Where are you, man? You need to get back here. It's a freaking nightmare. There's blood everywhere.]

[They can't even find Kitty's head.]

[Who the hell did you cross, Harry? Whoever it was, they didn't plan on leaving anyone breathing.]

Before I could even process the words, another message chimed in a minute later.

[No, wait. Don't come back. Whoever did this wants your whole bloodline wiped out. If you come back, you're a dead man. Run, Harry. Drive as far away as you can and never look back.]