NICK: Vanessa? What—what’s going on?
She cocks her head in a movement reminiscent of a bird getting a better look at the grub it’s about to eat.
VANESSA: Shouldn’t have let go, Nicky.
TRINA: Oh my God.
JEREMY: We have to help her.
He steps toward the edge of the road. Anthony catches him, holds him back.
JEREMY: We can’t just leave her out there.
ANTHONY: The rules—
JEREMY: Fuck the rules!
VANESSA: Yes. Fuck the rules. Go help her, Jeremy. I’ll come with you.
She smiles. Nick is shaking his head, a moan in the back of his throat. He whirls toward the Vanessa struggling toward them. She is perhaps fifteen feet away now, but she falls to her knees, her remaining hand braced against the ground.
NICK: Vanessa! Come on. Get up. Keep moving. Vanessa, come on.
He reaches out toward her. She looks up, dazed, and for a moment she doesn’t seem to see him. Then her eyes focus.
VANESSA: There’s no point. She’s not strong enough.
JEREMY: Shut up!
The Vanessa on the road smiles blandly. No one seems willing to move any closer to her, even Jeremy, his whole body alive with fury. The injured girl lets out a wordless scream and pushes herself back up to her feet, stumbling faster now, her hand outstretched for Nick’s.
VANESSA: Oh? That won’t do.
The imposter strides toward the edge of the road, heading for the injured girl. Nick shouts and lunges to intercept her. The camera swings away and misses the moment of contact. We have only the screams and shouts of the others to guess at what happens next.
JEREMY: Damn it!
ANTHONY: Grab her!
MIRANDA: No!
The camera stabilizes as silence falls. The scene is so still it could be a tableau. Nick stands stock-still at the edge of the road. Beside the road, a few inches from the safety of the stone path. His outline wavers, black smoke curling from it.
The injured Vanessa is huddled at the base of a tree just out of reach, arm still stretched out toward him. The imposter stands between them, clear of the others where they gather at the edge of the road.
MEL: Nick?
SARA: Pull him back on!
Mel grabs Nick’s arm—or tries to. Her fingers close around his upper arm and keep closing, cloth and flesh and bone crumpling under her touch like ash still holding the shape of a log. Mel screams, snatching her hand back.
MEL: Oh fuck oh fuck oh—
SARA: What did she do to him? Nick! Talk to me. Come on. You have to get back on the road.
VANESSA: He can’t answer. But don’t worry. You won’t have long to be upset. In a few minutes, you won’t remember him at all. Or any of this.
She bends down, and gently removes the glasses from the injured Vanessa’s face.
VANESSA: You’re distressingly flawed, you know.
She slips the glasses on. And then she grips the girl’s face in one hand, covering it with her palm, fingertips sinking into her skin. Vanessa bucks, screaming, as black rot spreads from her double’s fingers, crawling over her skin, eating away at her with incredible speed. One moment she is arching off the ground, her entire body and voice united in terror and pain, and then she seems to crumble in on herself, turning to ash that scatters on an unseen wind.
The girl is gone; her double remains.
JEREMY: I’m going to kill you.
VANESSA: You’re not. You’re already forgetting why you’re angry.
Jeremy’s expression spasms. The others have oddly vacant looks on their faces, fear giving way to consternation. Nick’s outline blurs more, wavering; he is being undone. More slowly than Vanessa, but steadily, without mercy.
SARA: She’s making us forget.
Her tone is deadened. She blinks.
SARA: She’s making us forget. We’re not going to remember she’s not really Vanessa. We have to—
She can’t seem to finish the thought. She rakes at her hair, slaps herself. Vanessa laughs. Mel whimpers, holding her head in both hands.
SARA: We have to do something!
She yanks open the zipper on her bag and shoves the flashlight into it, pulling out a camera instead. She turns it on with shaking hands, focuses it on Nick. His head turns toward her, the movement barely perceptible. He mouths something. It might be her name. The flash goes off.
The darkness crawls over Nick’s skin. Vanessa steps up to him. She puts a hand on his chest, rises to her tiptoes, and kisses him on the cheek.
He dissolves. She steps through the flurry of ash as every crow in the forest takes off in a storm of wings. No one moves. They stare, unfocused, into the forest. Except for Miranda, who watches the imposter, her anger electric. But she doesn’t interfere as Vanessa steps back onto the road and points.
VANESSA: Look, a crow.
They raise their flashlights, illuminating the last remaining crow.
CROW: Oh God. Oh God, what is that?
The crow screams again, and then flings itself into the air.
MEL: This is fucked up.
VANESSA: It was just a bird.
At the edge of the frame, Vanessa looks at Miranda, and presses a finger to her lips.
The phone swings as Kyle lowers it. The video ends.
INTERVIEW
SARA DONOGHUE
May 9, 2017
Sara’s hand is pressed to her mouth so hard that the skin around it blanches. Ashford closes the laptop.
ASHFORD: Miss Donoghue?
SARA: No. No, that can’t be—no, that’s not—
Her words devolve into incoherence, and she moans, rocking forward. Then she shoves back from the table, shooting to her feet. Her chair clatters to the ground. The table skids five inches, feet screeching on the concrete floor, and Ashford jerks out of his chair to avoid being struck. Abby steps forward, drawing the syringe from her pocket, but Ashford holds out a restraining hand and she stops, eyes fixed on Sara.
Sara covers her face with her hands and huddles with one shoulder against the wall, her breathing ragged.
SARA: We left him.
ASHFORD: Nick Dessen?
SARA: Nick. We left—we forgot him. We . . . how did we forget him?
ASHFORD: Do you remember him now?
Sara’s hands drop. She frowns, looking past Ashford, eyes unfocused.
SARA: I—no. Yes. I’m not sure. I remember something, but . . . She took him from us. And Vanessa—oh God. Poor Vanessa.
She scrubs tears from her cheeks. Then she sees Abby, still with the syringe out, though her arm hangs relaxed at her side.
SARA: What the hell is that?
ASHFORD: Just a mild sedative. We weren’t certain how you would respond. Sometimes this sort of thing provokes . . . adverse reactions.
SARA: What kind of adverse reactions?
ASHFORD: Seizures. Self-harm. Sudden violence.
Sara laughs nervously. She picks her chair up and takes her seat, sneaking another glance at Abby.
ABBY: We good?
ASHFORD: Yes, Miss Ryder, I believe that will be all.
She nods and exits, shutting the door behind her with a click.
SARA: So I was right. About Vanessa.
ASHFORD: It would seem so. Whatever she was, it was not your friend. Miss Donoghue, if you’d like to take a break . . .
SARA: No. I want to keep going. I want to get this over with.
ASHFORD: If you’re sure.
13
WE WALK THROUGH a thick mass of trees. They crowd each other and the road, and the morning light barely filters down to dapple the ground. Something feels off about the forest. False and thin. It takes me a few minutes
of walking to realize that the morning has brought no burst of birdsong, no movement among the trees. As if every breathing thing has been snuffed out, or fled.
Water glints between the trees up ahead, silvery and sharp. An iron gate blocks our way.
“Whose turn?” Anthony asks.
“Does it matter?” Mel replies. She steps forward, rummaging in her pocket, and shoves her key into the lock. “Gate number three,” she says in a game-show-host voice. “Step right in, ladies and gentlefolk.”
We step through the gate and past a thick stand of the evergreens. They thin so suddenly it makes me lurch. Only a few feet in front of us the road stops. Or rather, it vanishes—disappearing beneath the impossibly smooth surface of the water, which stretches as far as I can see in every direction. A few scattered trees stand here and there; the water must not be very deep, then, but it’s impossible to be sure. The light hits it and reflects everything—sky and trees and the six of us standing at its edge—a perfect mirror.
“That can’t be right,” Anthony says. He gives me a bewildered look. “It can’t just end. How can we keep going?”
A flutter of panic passes from Anthony to the others, like a ripple in the air. If we tip over into it now, I don’t know if we can recover. I don’t have time to think or consider or debate; someone needs to act, now, while we still can. So I step forward, into the water.
My feet sink ankle deep, and the surface of the road is waiting for me. When I slide my foot back I can feel the short slope, dipping below the surface of the reflective water, but after that initial drop it feels level. I take another sloshing step. The water laps against my ankles, cool but not cold, its mirrored surface opaque. I can’t even see my own feet, or anything below the surface, even where my shadow blocks the sun.
“The road’s still here,” I say, trying not to sound too relieved.
Jeremy sits down at the edge of the water and starts pulling his shoes off. I raise an eyebrow. “What? I don’t want to walk the rest of the way in wet shoes,” he says. “Besides, it’ll be easier to feel where the road is with bare feet. Unless you want to accidentally step off the edge, and find out what happens when you break the rules.”
I shudder, a feeling like guilt and grief snaking through me. “Good idea,” I say, regretting my soggy hiking boots already. I splash back to dry land and join the others in stripping to my bare feet, rolling my wet jeans up to mid-calf.
We set out in pairs—instinct by now, to stay within arm’s reach of each other. I find myself glancing behind us, checking for the tide of shadow that took Miranda. But there is only the forest behind us, and the trees scattered here and there in the water, spikes of dark green against the silver blue. In the distance—it’s hard to be certain exactly how far—the air fills with a pale mist, obscuring the horizon and any sense of how far we have to go. Instead of making the water seem smaller, it makes it feel as if it stretches for an eternity.
We inch along, taking tentative steps, feeling for solid ground before we move forward. Once my foot lands on nothing, just deep water, and only Anthony’s grip on my elbow, hauling me back, saves me from pitching forward into the unnaturally still water.
After that, we take shifts at the front. It’s safer to follow along behind, in the footsteps of the two in front. For a long time, we are silent—yet every noise we make seems amplified, echoing off the lake. The slosh of the water, every inhale and exhale. The road isn’t wide here, and Anthony’s shoulder bumps against mine from time to time.
“I know why you did it,” he says quietly. In the silence, it’s like a shout, but while Trina’s shoulders stiffen, and Kyle stumbles a step, no one turns around. Jeremy, up at the front with Mel, probably doesn’t hear—and he’s the one most likely to argue. I keep my eyes fixed on the back of Mel’s wild curls, the curve of her neck.
“Why do you think I did it?” I ask.
“I mean that I get why you thought that Vanessa might be . . . I don’t know. Bad,” he says. “I noticed it, too. I should have said something. I was trying to keep track to make sure everyone had a partner, and that’s when I realized that she didn’t, at the first gate. But I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want us turning on each other. Not when . . .” He looks uncomfortable.
“When I’m the one we know was alone in the dark,” I say. Or rather, not alone—which was worse.
“I was alone, too,” Anthony points out. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that if Vanessa was—compromised, somehow—that I could be, too?”
“Or me. Or all of us,” I say, refusing to consider it. Becca might have been the brightest star in our constellation, but Anthony was the most constant.
“I don’t know if you did the right thing. But I think you did,” Anthony says. “And I’ve got your back.” He smiles crookedly at me as we wade through the water.
“Thanks,” I say, my heart giving a double beat. “That means a lot to me.”
“Hey, guys?” Mel calls back. She and Jeremy have halted. “Look.” She points. In the distance, near where the mist swallows up the water, is a woman. Long red-brown hair hangs tangled around her shoulders, a red-and-black plaid shirt is tied around her hips. She shuffles and lurches as she walks, dragging a waterlogged messenger bag behind her. She’s coming toward us. Not directly, but if we keep walking, her path will intersect with ours. She gives no sign that she’s seen us.
“What do we do?” Mel asks.
There it is again. Panic. So many ways we haven’t even discovered yet that this road could destroy us, but that one worries me the most. “It’s okay,” I say first, trying to come up with a reason why that’s true. “She doesn’t look . . .” I pause. “She looks more like Isaac. Like us.”
She’s still moving toward us. Lurch and drag. What happens if she reaches us? Is she even on the road? Is she going to come straight toward us, and if she does, do we run? Do we move aside? Or is she just another traveler like us?
“Let’s get closer,” I say. “Get a better look. If we have to run, we run, but if we can go forward instead of back—”
“Yeah. Not sure we want to try backtracking,” Anthony agrees. Even Jeremy nods.
“I’ll take lead,” Jeremy says.
“Me, too,” Anthony chimes in.
“Our brave protectors,” Trina says, but with only a hint of sarcasm.
We reshuffle. Mel and I are in the middle, but I press forward ahead of her—still in reach if we have to grab hold of each other, but closer to Jeremy and Anthony. For a while there’s only sloshing. The young woman’s features grow clearer as she approaches. She has a long nose and prominent cheekbones dusted liberally with freckles. She wears glasses with black rims and a T-shirt that hangs oddly on her. Her mouth gapes open slightly, like she’s breathing hard.
“Hey,” I say. She’s twenty feet away now, and the angle of the road has shifted so that we’re facing each other. She’ll reach us soon. Anthony and Jeremy have stopped. At my back I can feel the tension of the others deciding whether to run.
It’ll be hard to get past her, if it comes to that. The road’s too narrow. But I don’t want to find out what happens if we try to go back.
She’s closer, and closer still. She’s going to walk right into us, and still she stares straight through us, her drag-shuffle steps never breaking their stilted rhythm.
“Hey!” I say again, loudly this time. “Who are you? Do you need help? Are you—”
Suddenly she veers to the side, her body canting as she follows the curve of the road.
Not the road. Her road. She walks parallel to us, feet slushing and sloshing through the water, and as she draws level with us, Mel lets out a scream.
Most of her back is gone. Huge furrows rip through her flesh, gouging through skin and bone and tissue from the side of her ribs to the gleaming, exposed column of her spine. There’s no blood. No blood—but her organs gli
sten inside the cavity of her torso, obscenely exposed. Another gash rakes along the base of her skull.
She cannot be alive. And yet she’s breathing. I can hear it, a labored but steady sound. And still she’s walking, one foot in front of the other, the bag dragging along behind her.
“She must be one of the others,” Kyle says, voice too loud and too fast. “One of the ones who was with Isaac, right? She must—”
“One way to find out,” Jeremy says, and before I can stop him, before anyone can stop him, he pushes past me, drawing up beside the shuffling woman, and steps out to her.
One foot. The other still planted firmly on the road, and Mel and Trina and I all grab for him, wrapping our hands around his arm as if we expect him to be wrenched away. But his other foot hits solid ground, and he leans out, snags the strap of her bag, and yanks.
The strap catches. She swings around at the tug and stands swaying, arm extended. Jeremy swears and unwinds the strap from her wrist. It comes free and we jerk him back. He holds the messenger bag to his chest, panting, wide-eyed, like he can’t believe what he just did.
Neither can the rest of us.
The woman hasn’t moved. Her hand is still outstretched, not quite pointing. Her eyes focus. It’s a slow process, her pupils contracting, her gaze lifting centimeter by centimeter until she’s staring at Jeremy. She gives a tiny gasp, a hiccup of sound. Her index finger rises, pointing straight at him. And then she whispers, sharp and urgent, “It’s coming.”
Crows burst from the trees. Dozens, hundreds hidden within the shadowed limbs of each one, and now they stream screaming into the sky. And thundering through that cacophony is a sound, a horrendous, bone-shaking sound like boulders being sheared apart.
“Go,” I say, but I didn’t have to. We’re already moving, a stuttering, stumbling run as we push forward as fast as we can, our feet greedy for the unseen road beneath our feet. The crows wheel and clamor in the sky, and that sound comes again. Did I say it is like stone? It’s more like metal, steel girders twisting out of shape.
Rules for Vanishing Page 12