by Cara Martin
“Downstairs!” Tanvi exclaims, her eyes stricken with growing horror because the worst things can happen in seconds.
Luke hollers something raggedly from the master bedroom. We sprint for the stairs, a tapping noise from the ceiling trailing close behind. I don’t look up. No one does. See no evil, hear no evil, run like someone’s life depends on it.
Tanvi stumbles on the final step, finding her footing before the rotten wood can hurl her to the ground. The three of us land safely on the first floor, Luke’s unintelligible words fading behind us. Something hits my right calf, thudding to the wooden floor.
Bolting for the living room, sudden warmth seeps into my fingers and face. Like flipping from January to August in a handful of seconds. Curled up on her side alone in the middle of the room, Lauren has her eyes closed, her lips parted, and her mouth relaxed. Her hair spirals wildly out against the pillow scrunched under her head.
“Lauren!” Tanvi’s strides are long and swift. She crouches beside her cousin, one of her hands sweeping firmly along Lauren’s arm. “Lauren, what are you doing?”
Motionless, Lauren looks as innocent as a fairy-tale heroine waiting for the magic moment to wake. While she sleeps, she’s the kid I met at Christmas. While she sleeps, there’s no reason to fear her.
“Lauren!” Tanvi’s fingers caress her cousin’s cheek, her voice urgent but her touch gentle. “Come on. Time to get up. We’re leaving.”
Cal stoops next to her, adding his voice. “Lauren, wake up. We gotta get out of this place.”
Standing by the fireplace, I watch Tanvi’s and Cal’s increasingly desperate efforts to rouse her — shouting hoarsely, sprinkling her face with water, attempting to sit her up. Nothing works. Lauren flops in their arms. Living, breathing dead weight.
“We’ll have to carry her,” I say.
“He’s right,” Cal agrees firmly. “I can carry her out.”
And I can’t, not for long or with any speed. My ribs groan in frustration. I don’t need him reminding me of all the things I’m not.
“We need to get the van keys,” he continues. “They’re probably upstairs with John.”
I gnaw at the inside of my lip and shake my head. “It doesn’t matter if they are. Someone scorched the van. I saw it for myself.” I watch Tanvi’s heart sink as she digests the information. The revelation pulls at her cheeks and jaw.
Then I glance down at Lauren, wondering if some part of her is listening. “We need the gun.” John’s weapon wasn’t in the blanket along with him, we would’ve seen it. There’s only one gun left within our reach. I should’ve grabbed it upstairs when I had the chance.
Snaking my hand around one of the remaining lanterns, I jet into the hall, shouting out ahead of me, “Luke, we’re leaving!” My left foot collides angrily with the hairbrush on the floor. I kick it into the darkness. The brush coasts smoothly away, like a puck on unblemished ice, mocking me with its feigned innocence.
Cal appears in the living room doorway at the sound of the brush skimming along the corridor. “What was that?” he asks.
“Nothing important.” I train my eyes on the decaying staircase, its fringes blurred by predatory shadows. When something has to be done, there’s no route around it. I picture myself ascending the staircase with one hand on the banister and then returning moments later with the gun held tightly in my other hand. If I can see it, the vision can come true. It’s no different from running hills. “If he doesn’t come down in a second, I’m going up for the gun,” I add.
My breath is shallow with doubt.
People don’t lose their lives or minds running hills. Shin splints and Achilles tendonitis don’t lay you out in the grass behind the carriage house with blood oozing from your eyes and fingertips.
Cal doesn’t tell me he’ll come upstairs with me. We both know he has to stay close to Tanvi and Lauren.
“Don’t come after me if I’m not down in a few minutes, all right? Send someone back after you get out of here.” I stare at Cal hard, watching him nod.
“You’ll come down,” he tells me. “You’re a runner, right? Be quick, and you’ll be okay.”
I nod in appreciation. He’s a good guy. It doesn’t make things easier when it comes to whatever’s going on between him and Tanvi, but it makes it hard to hate him.
My right hand outstretched to meet the banister, I head for the stairs and don’t look back.
15
HALFWAY UP THE STAIRCASE, an unexpected sense of calm washes over me, exhaustion burning through the nerve endings of my fear. I don’t want to die here. I’ll fight however I can. Those are the choices I can make; everything else isn’t up to me.
Listening for noises from above, I call out to Luke again.
Silence crackles from the second floor.
My running shoes thump against the steps, the lantern steady in my left hand. For a second my eyes threaten to betray me, a hazy figure beginning to form in my peripheral vision.
A scream pierces the air. As solid and sharp as an incisor breaking skin. Tanvi in trouble.
I race back down, my legs moving in slow motion, heart galloping as if it can make up the shortfall.
Landing back on the ground floor, time stutters back to a normal pace. A thousand milliseconds to a second. Sixty seconds per minute.
Flinging myself into the living room, I see Cal sprawled dazedly on the floor near the doorway, as if someone cold-cocked him and laid him out. Tanvi’s a couple of feet from the wheelchair, her body twisting turbulently and her fists punching air, her long hair fanned back behind her, running upward into the air like a reverse waterfall.
Lauren sleeps on, seemingly oblivious to Tanvi’s screams. I careen past her, reaching for Tanvi’s hair, trying to wrestle it free. Something pushes my hands away, shoves its block-like weight into my shoulders, forcing me backwards.
I stumble and charge at it again, tripping over Lauren’s feet. My chin knocks straight into Tanvi’s shoulder. We begin to fall together, the grip on her hair holding her up for a moment before it releases, allowing her to drop to the floor.
She falls on top of me, most of her weight landing on my arm, but enough of it compressing my chest to make me whimper. Rolling away from me, Tanvi’s hands fly to her hair. I stay crumpled on the floor, catching my breath, corralling the fresh pain into a corner of my mind where it can’t control me.
Cal regains consciousness, his eyes bleary and his hands on either side of him as he sits up, processing the scene.
“Fuck the gun,” Tanvi rasps, clasping her hair tightly against the side of her neck. “We’re going now, without it.”
I blink quickly, eyes deceiving me as the shadowy figure from beside me on the stairs glides into the living room and solidifies into flesh.
Pushing my weight onto my elbows, I stare the form down. It can’t be him. Only the house weaving its deceptions. My dad must be thousands of miles from here, drinking tequila on the beach.
“I don’t want to leave him here,” Luke says in a low voice, not a vision or trick after all. Just a case of mistaken identity. One of Luke’s sleeves is torn, his black clothing is caked with dust from his chandelier scuffle, and his neck wound glimmers resentfully in the lantern light. “But I’m not staying. There were voices upstairs in the room with me. Not even whispering — straight out talking, arguing.” Luke’s left hand compulsively rubs his abdomen, washing with unseen soap. The gun protrudes from his right hand, aimed at the floor.
Rushing to his feet, Cal declares, “We thought you’d disappeared.” He lurches to Tanvi’s side, throwing his arm around her and pressing a kiss firmly into her hair. “We’re getting out. Something attacked us.”
Luke’s grip on the gun tightens. “What did you see?”
“Nothing.” Tanvi’s eyes are stern but frantic, like images of people who have survived natural disasters. The sa
me shock sits firmly behind my eye sockets, like a heel grinding your head into the floor. “But it’s here.”
I stagger to my full height. “What time is it? How long until morning?”
Luke shakes his head. “My phone’s dead. Battery drained to nothing a while back, and I don’t know what happened to the others’ phones, but we dumped all of yours where we picked you up.”
“It doesn’t matter what time it is, Misha.” Tanvi’s gaze bulldozes into me, threatening to knock me off balance. “We go now.”
I turn toward Luke. “You have a gun — at least give her your knife.”
How can we fight what we can’t see coming? It’s impossible. And so far none of the guns have made any difference. But cops put on bulletproof vests every day, knowing someone could shoot them in the head. You do what you can.
Luke’s neck tilts, his head slanting in contemplation. Then he treads decisively toward Tanvi, hand diving into his pocket and re-appearing with his pocketknife. “I’d give you the gun, only I’m probably the only one here who has ever used one outside of a video game.”
Tanvi’s eyes sharp-focus on the weapon in his other hand. “It’s a Glock, right? So no safety. Just pull the trigger.” Regardless, she pockets the offered knife, nodding in thanks.
“Got anything else we can use?” Cal jokes numbly.
My gut cries out for tramadol, my eyes winging around the room — past the folding chairs, LED lanterns, ghoulish broken wheelchair, and wooden cross — and zoning in on the first aid kit. Someone left it next to the stack of paper cups beside the fireplace. I pad unsteadily toward it, wrestling another tablet from the kit, popping it between my lips, and pouring a flood of water down after it.
Cal scoops Lauren into his arms without breaking a sweat. Luke, Tanvi, and I each take a lantern. The four of us file swiftly out the front door, Luke hesitating before closing it behind him. Descending the porch steps, I think of John helpless upstairs — his face painfully ordinary — and Mark lifeless a stone’s throw away. They should never have brought us here, and they’ve paid for it in full.
But what’s happened in this place isn’t solely about retribution. If it were, Lauren wouldn’t be suffering too. She’s only ten years old. She doesn’t deserve any of this.
Tanvi gasps as she stares at the burnt-out van. Our journey home would’ve been simple if the van had been left alone. Somebody doesn’t want it that way.
“We follow the driveway until we hit the main road,” Luke instructs. “I’m guessing it’s a forty-minute walk.”
“Where are we?” Cal asks him, nearing the van.
Luke’s face creases in regret or embarrassment. We’re walking out of here together by choice, but that’s not how most of us arrived. “Middlesbrough. Near Side Road Four. Lot of land out here, not a lot of people.”
Only an hour outside of Tealing. If we’re lucky, someone will motor by shortly after we hit the side road and call a cruiser for us. We could be home before the sun’s high in the sky, all of this relegated to a bad memory.
“When we get there —” Luke begins.
The pain in my abdomen gnaws away at my jagged bones, waiting for the tramadol to take effect. Breathing hurts, walking hurts. The very act of living is laced with pain. The last thing I should do is crouch, but I can’t help myself. An idea jiggles at my mind the way a burglar jiggles doorknobs, looking for someone stupid enough to have left their door unlocked. I drop to the ground, groaning and struggling to see under the van. Wet grass dampens the bottom of my jeans, my hand straining to hold out the lantern while the rest of my body struggles to maintain its balance.
“What is it?” Tanvi asks over her shoulder.
Turning back, she squats next to me, her head tilted within inches of the grass. Focusing her lantern light alongside mine, Tanvi’s neck jerks, her body jolting and her legs scrambling backwards away from the vehicle, like she can’t un-see what’s beneath the van quickly enough. Her right hand plunges into the grass, keeping her from toppling over.
Contorting my body past my pain threshold to angle in closer, I’m seconds behind her, eyes scarred by the mass of charred flesh they slammed into. A human-shaped chunk of steak grilled beyond usefulness, until it was little more than blackened bones.
My body skitters away, half-slipping and half-flying to my knees, and then my feet, my jeans soaked from the kneecaps down.
“No,” Luke groans from behind me, where he squatted in the grass without me being aware of it.
The anguish whipping through his throat burns my eardrums.
No one should see the human body destroyed with such contempt.
It’s inhuman. Unforgiveable and unforgettable.
“Is it him?” Cal sputters, the only one who can’t see the body for himself because his arms are filled with Lauren. “The fourth guy who was with you?”
“Let’s go,” Tanvi cries, because the truth is no one could say. The body’s unidentifiable.
Shaken and silent, we clump together in the center of the Shantallow drive — a skinny dirt road infested with sprigs of scraggly grass and patches of weeds. The unforgiving black sky hangs low and heavy over our heads, rumbling belligerently as we leave the van in our wake. Rangy trees close in on us while we walk, lanterns held out against the darkness, my mind poisoned by the things I’ve seen.
Was the burnt body an accident? The torching of the van intentional, but the murder a mistake?
Matthew might have been hiding, trying to save himself from Mark’s fate. Why didn’t whoever or whatever killed them finish off John too? Why did they let us go?
The hideous questions seep into quicksand inside my skull, playing on a loop, toxins infiltrating an artery. The image of the body under the van will never disappear, never really fade, only drill down deeper, finding dark corners to hide in.
Tanvi’s head swings dazedly in my direction, her eyes touching down on mine. Don’t think, her gaze says. Keep walking.
Her attention flips to Lauren in Cal’s arms. She looks at home there, at ease like a three-year-old toted from the back seat of a family car to her bedroom without ever waking up.
“When we were here before it wasn’t anything like this,” Luke says, breaking the quiet. “There was no one — nothing — here. It seemed perfect, somewhere we’d never be found. The place hadn’t been disturbed in a long time. We saw some beer bottles in the shed, coated with decades worth of dust. That was it.”
“What were you going to do if you didn’t get paid?” Cal asks.
“John said their grandparents would pay.” Luke’s eyes drop to Lauren. “Said he had no doubts, and that they could afford it.” His eyes tumble further, into the inky dirt and snaking grass at his feet. “Wasn’t right. I’m not saying otherwise. But it was nothing personal, and it was never supposed to be like this.”
Clearing his throat, he continues. “Listen, when we get to the side road, I’m going to go my own separate way. You all will do what you gotta do, I understand that.” His gaze hangs on me the longest. “I know the area will be crawling with cops once someone picks you up. But I have to try to get clear if I can.”
Neither Tanvi nor I respond. The serious unfinished business I have with this guy — my questions about whether I triggered this entire hideous, sorry night — have to wait for some other time. I temporarily fold my extra guilt into a shape tiny enough that I can carry it without slowing me down.
Cal mashes his lips together, chewing over his thoughts. “We should be quiet,” he mutters. “We don’t know what’s out here with us.”
From then on we walk in silence. There should be nocturnal animals foraging in the nearby trees and underbrush, twigs snapping as they go. Crickets chirping. Owls calling to each other, sounding as otherworldly as ghosts lamenting their passing. But we hear nothing except our own movements. My ears ring with the absence of sound. Even the
wind has stopped dead.
The hot, stagnant air feels shabby and claustrophobic against my skin. My fingers sweat against the lantern handle. Strangely, my gut feels virtually unscathed, although only a few minutes have passed since I swallowed the second dose of tramadol.
Substances shot into a vein take effect quickly. No liver metabolizing required.
I’ve never taken anything stronger than Aspirin or Advil. Never been high. I’m not now, either. Just intact. Nearly back to how I felt physically before the gospel writers broke my nose and punched a set of dents and cracks into my rib cage.
Adrenalin doing me a favor. Or maybe we’ve been out here longer than I think. Without any way of telling time, it’s hard to know. The sky isn’t dropping clues. The moon and stars don’t like this place any better than we do; they’re staying away. No sign of sunlight on the horizon, either.
The trees crowd in nearer with every step, their leafy canopy eclipsing the dim light leaking in through cloud cover and the dirt road beneath us dissolving into feral land. “Are we going the right way?” I ask, panning to Luke with my lantern.
“Can’t be,” Tanvi says, puzzled. “The van wouldn’t have been able to pass this way.”
Luke hesitates in his tracks. We all do, casting our gazes agitatedly back to the direction we’ve come from. The tall, close-knit trees assembled behind us are indistinguishable from the way that lies ahead, offering only enough room to forge a footpath through. How did we get this deep into the woods without noticing?
“We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.” Luke twists to survey the surrounding forest, Cal adjusting Lauren’s weight in his arms and a malignant realization breaking the surface of my consciousness.
Behind us in the all-encompassing darkness, one body has begun to decompose, another lies blackened and faceless, its identity erased, and a third’s heart still beats, not knowing it’s been abandoned. Three victims of Shantallow. All strangers to me before tonight.
But the most familiar aspects of the night — the ones I’ve seen time after time in my dreams — are undeniable. Tanvi and me. In the woods. Terror rolling us off in waves, threatening to drag us under and bury our bodies someplace they’ll never be found. In the nightmares we were always alone. Paused in a clearing, preparing to run.