The Unfortunates

by Kim Liggett

  “How about you, V?”

  I look at them, every single one of them, and I know this is it. My chance to come clean. “Court.” I swallow hard. “I have a court appearance on Monday.”

  “Why?” Shy asks, her back stiffening.

  It takes everything I have to keep going, but I have to do this. I don’t know where to start … so I just start from the beginning.

  “Christmas break. I went to Lewis Banner’s party. His parents had already left for Greenbrier. It was out of control, as usual. A lot of drinking, weed, just blowing off steam. I mean, it’s our last year of high school. And, according to our parents, the best time of our lives. I went looking for Lewis. I just wanted to tell him some people from Trinity were breaking into his parents’ wine cellar. I went upstairs, found him in his room … with Catherine.” I bite down on the inside of my cheek. “My girlfriend at the time.”

  “Ooh, that’s gotta hurt.” Darryl scrunches up his face.

  “Maybe they were just talking,” Maria says.

  “Trust me. They weren’t talking.”

  “Trifling.” Kit shakes his head.

  “Did you hit the guy?” Darryl asks.

  “That’s the thing…” I try to swallow, but it feels like my throat is caked with dust. “I just stood there. I didn’t know what to do. I stormed out, got in my car—if you could call that thing a car. Range Rover, with all the best safety features money can buy. More like a tank.” My eyes dart around the circle, but I can’t look them directly in the eyes. “I was buzzed, but I was fine to drive. At least I thought I was fine. I mean, I’d done it a bunch of times before. We all had.”

  “Did you get pulled over?” Maria asks.

  “I wish.” I stare at the imaginary fire between us. “I wish that happened. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just needed a little space.” I rock forward, trying to find my breath. “The thing is, yeah, I was embarrassed, but after I got about a mile away, I felt more relieved than anything else. I didn’t really feel angry. I guess I just needed to seem mad … to save face. Which says a lot about my life, how numb I was to everything.”

  “How long were you dating her?” Shy asks.

  “Years.” I meet her gaze. “Ever since she asked me to Freshman Fling. It was always expected in a way.”

  “What … like an arranged marriage?”

  “I guess.” I give a halfhearted shrug. “The Tavish and Gray families have a long history.”

  “So what happened when you went back to the party?” Maria asks.

  “I never made it back.” I let out a shivering breath. “It had just started to snow. It wasn’t cold enough to stick, but it made everything glimmer in the moonlight. I saw headlights up ahead … but they didn’t see me. I guess I forgot to put mine on. They had this old Buick. No air bags. Some of them weren’t even wearing seat belts. Just one inch over the line. One inch. That’s all it was.” I close my eyes for a moment so I can get this out. “I smashed into their left headlight and they went spinning. Flipped over. My air bags exploded on all sides. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe. But I could hear it. Screeching tires, crushing metal, screams … and then nothing. But it wasn’t nothing.” I blink back tears.

  “I remember grabbing my phone, getting out of the car. The snow falling gently all around me, sticking to my eyelashes. I remember the sound of my footsteps. The dull pulsing light from one of their taillights. The smell of hot oil sizzling as it dripped onto the icy pavement. A whisper. And the next thing I knew, my father’s lawyer was leading me back to the car, buckling me back in, giving me charcoal tablets, telling me You don’t remember anything. When I glanced up at him, I didn’t even recognize him. He looked like one of those soldiers stumbling out of the front lines from an old war movie. The sheer horror on his face. This is someone I’ve known my whole life. And he looked at me like I was a monster.

  “The ambulance didn’t even put on the sirens. They just took them away in bags. Like meat.” The back of my throat burns at the memory.

  “It’s strange … you look at a pole, a DEER CROSSING sign, a gearshift, a windshield … they’re just objects. But when you hit something with that much force, everything becomes a weapon.” I wipe my sweaty palms against my pants.

  “They should’ve taken me away in cuffs. Charged me with something … anything.” I raise my head. “But I’m the son of Senator Grant Tavish the fourth. And things like that don’t happen to Tavishes. By the time I got to the hospital to get checked out, my lawyer had already negotiated the terms behind closed doors. Three months’ suspended license and weekly drug tests. Barely a slap on the wrist. I got away with murder.” I clench my jaw. “It’s ironic that in order to avoid hurting Lewis, giving him a quick pop in the jaw, I went out and killed a carful of people.”

  “Is that why you think someone followed you down here?” Shy asks. “For revenge?”

  I nod. “There were death threats, news stories with ‘affluenza’ all over them. A couple of strange things happened, but it was more of a feeling. My parents did their best to protect me. No internet, no one was allowed to speak of the incident in front of me. All I had to do was show up for court on Monday and say those four words—I don’t remember anything—and all of this would be taken care of. Erased.”

  I shake my head. “But as hard as they tried to make me forget, all I could do was remember.” I glance up toward the ceiling. “Little bits and pieces came filtering in. I remember everything up until I was standing in front of the other car. I still don’t understand how the lawyer got there before the police. But maybe I just don’t want to remember. Maybe I’ve buried it so deep that I never will.” I pull the recovery bag tighter around me. “Betray my family or betray myself. Those were my choices. But I had something else in mind.” I swallow back the bile threatening to come up.

  “I planned it for months, every little detail, to make it look like an accident. But when the collapse happened—”

  “That’s why you had the knife in your hand?” Shy says.

  I look up at her, at all of them, which makes it hurt even worse. “I was so close to cutting that rope,” I whisper.

  Shy leans forward. “What made you change your mind?”

  “I saw you.” I take in a trembling breath. “I didn’t want you to die because of me … because of my mistakes. But more than that … I know it’s time to face this.”

  Shy slips her hand into mine. Her fingers are ice cold, but I don’t flinch. I don’t dare to move.

  No one says Don’t worry … It’s not your fault … It could’ve been any one of us.

  It’s not forgiveness but acknowledgment that this actually happened. And that’s all I ever wanted.

  Tears sting my eyes as I close my hand around hers and hold on tight—tighter than I’ve ever held on to anything in my entire life. Here in the dark, it feels like she’s the only thing keeping me grounded. Keeping me sane.

  20

  I WAKE up in pure darkness. It’s so dark that I can’t even tell if my eyes are open or shut. I have to put my finger in my eye so I can tell. Which sounds crazy, but this kind of dark, this kind of nothingness, does things to you. I don’t know how long we’ve been asleep; it’s impossible to keep track of time down here. I counted two hundred and sixteen drips before I dozed off. I think I dreamed, but of what, I’m not sure. It felt like I had nightmares, but what could possibly be more bleak than this?

  Kit’s batteries must’ve burned out again. I want to switch them out before he wakes up, but when I turn on my headlamp I notice that Shy is still holding my hand. I don’t want to move; I’m afraid she might wake up, come to her senses, and let go.

  I’ve been trying not to look at her too much, but she really is stunning. Especially in the dim light, the shadows sinking into the hollows of her cheekbones. She has this tense, determined look on her face when she’s awake, but here, in sleep, she’s completely relaxed … vulnerable. Her mouth is soft; her eyelashes are long and dark. I want
to run my thumb over that little spot between her eyes that’s always furrowed up, but that would be way too creepy under even the most normal of circumstances.

  When her eyes flutter open, I quickly look away, but I’m pretty sure she caught me.

  I turn my attention to Kit’s flashlight, but it’s nowhere to be found. Neither is Kit.

  Shy notices my gaze and sits up. “Kit?” she calls out as she tries to smooth down her hair.

  Maria and Darryl stir awake.

  “He’s probably just taking a leak,” Darryl says as he squints down the tunnel.

  “Kit? You there?” Maria calls out.

  “Dude.” Darryl sighs. “If you’re messing with us, you can cut it out. Not the time or the place.”

  I put my hand down on the damp stone to push myself up, and when I go to grab my pack, I see that my palm is streaked with red. At first I think it’s just a trick of the light, but then Maria peers over my shoulder. “Are you bleeding?”

  “I don’t think so,” I say as she inspects my hand. But when I point the light toward the ground, we see a trail of deep red leading down the dark tunnel.

  “I swear to God, Kit…” Shy squares herself in front of the tunnel. “If this is another one of your jokes, I’m going to kill you.”

  As we move forward in one huddled mass, following the trail, the cave feels a little colder … a little darker.

  “Maybe he got a bloody nose,” Maria says.

  But when the deep red drops turn into one long, continuous swath, I know it’s something more than that. It looks like either he dragged himself down the cave … or something dragged him.

  The trail opens up to a cathedral-size cavern covered in long, calcified spikes shooting up from the floor in every direction, like hundreds of jagged teeth.

  I’m panning my headlamp over the strange formations when Shy grabs my chin with her trembling hand, steering the light back toward the left, illuminating a pair of dead eyes.

  Immediately, I start dry heaving, my gut reacting before I can even register what I’m seeing.

  Darryl staggers back; Maria holds on to him.

  But Shy just stands there, like a statue, that same hollow look on her face. It makes me wonder what she’s seen in her life.

  Using all my strength, I force myself to look up. There, suspended in midair, facing the ceiling, Kit is splayed out, a stalagmite protruding from his chest as if he’s been skewered like a piece of meat.

  “This can’t be real,” Darryl says as he grabs his skull. “We’re still asleep, right?”

  As much as I want to pretend it’s all in our heads, I can smell death in the air. I know that smell.

  “Kit,” Shy whispers, her breath shallow in her chest. “How could this have happened?”

  I’m searching the cavern, my brain, for any kind of clue, but my head is spinning. “There has to be a logical explanation,” I manage to get out.

  “Give me one logical explanation,” Maria says, a sharp edge to her voice.

  “We all felt something … We all heard the noises,” Darryl says. “What if there really is someone down here with us? Stalking us?”

  “If that’s true, it’s him they’re after. Not us.” Maria begins to pace. “Or maybe he’s the one who did this,” she says, backing away from me. “Think about it … We know he’s a killer. Maybe he felt bad about his little confession and now he wants us dead before we can tell anyone. Maybe we’re next.”

  I open my mouth to tell her I would never hurt Kit or any one of them, but nothing comes out. I can’t even breathe. Is that what she really thinks of me … what they all think of me?

  Darryl grabs onto Maria, pulling her in for a hug. “You didn’t mean that. Grant’s our friend. He would never do anything like that.”

  “Kit was our friend.” Maria’s shoulders begin to shake.

  Darryl shoots me a look of apology, but I can’t bear to meet his eyes.

  “The worst thing we can do down here is panic and start turning on each other,” Shy says in a low, measured voice, but she never takes her eyes off Kit’s body.

  “He probably stumbled in here to take a leak and got confused,” Darryl says. “Maybe he tripped.”

  “Tripped backwards onto one of these spears?” Maria pulls away from him, her anger flaring back up. “There’s no way that could’ve happened if he just stumbled back.” She kicks one of the stalagmites, sending it crashing to the floor. It sounds like bones being shattered. “There was force … It’s like someone picked him up off the ground and dropped him.”

  I shine my headlamp up the side of the cavern, to the towering ceiling—

  There’s a flash of movement. Whatever it is … it’s big.

  Feeling the blood drain from my face, I stagger back, but the form moves with me. I brace my hand in front of Shy to protect her, when I realize it’s only my shadow. “Jesus.” I let out a heavy breath.

  “Could he have tried to climb?” Darryl asks.

  “I’m going to find out.” Gripping onto a slick jag of rock, I start to ascend, but Shy pulls me back.

  “We can’t risk something happening to you, too.”

  I stare up at the ceiling. “If he got high enough, lost his grip and fell back … It’s possible … The velocity could’ve driven the stalagmite right through him.”

  “Why?” Maria wipes the tears from her face with the back of her hand. “Why would he do that?”

  “To get out,” Shy says. “Who knows what he thought he saw up there … or what he thought he was running from. The dark … the rapture … maybe it got to him.” She looks up at me, and I can see how scared and heartbroken she is, but she’s desperately trying to hold it together … for all of us. “Whatever happened, this was an accident. A tragic accident,” she says. “Nothing more.”

  “What do we do?” I ask, staring back at Kit’s body.

  Shy takes a deep breath. “We have to keep going.”

  “Okay,” I say as I start digging through my pack. “We can use the heat bag to make a stretcher and—”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “We have to leave him.”

  “We can’t,” I argue, my blood running cold at the prospect. “We can’t leave him like that,” I say as I approach his body, trying to figure out how to get him down. “At the very least we have to—”

  “Don’t touch him.” Maria steps in front of me. “The police will need to see how he died. Make sure there wasn’t foul play.”

  “And dude, there’s no way we can carry someone out of here.” Darryl’s shoulders slump. “We don’t even know if we can get ourselves out of here.”

  “But Kit—”

  “This isn’t Kit anymore,” Shy says, her dark eyes piercing through the dim light. “Kit was full of life. The best thing we can do for him is remember him … the way he was. The way he wanted to be.”

  As I take a step back, I accidentally kick something with my boot. It’s a flashlight. Property of Kit Jackson. I turn it on. A fresh wave of pain washes over me when I see it come to life.

  “He didn’t like the dark,” I whisper as I gently place it on his chest, the light creating a soft halo around him.

  I know it’s a waste of resources, but no one argues about it. Not even Maria.

  As we walk away from the cavern, deeper into the belly of this living tomb, I watch the glow from Kit’s flashlight grow dimmer and dimmer.

  In the beginning, I thought of this cave as a benevolent presence, one that meant us no harm, but the more time I spend down here, the more I’m beginning to fear that I had it all wrong.

  Maybe this cave doesn’t want us to get out of here alive.

  21

  FOR the longest time, we don’t say anything.

  What can we possibly say?

  Our friend just died in the most horrific way possible and we have no idea how it happened … how he felt in the end … what was going through his mind.

  I’ve taken the lead since we found Kit. They say it’s b
ecause I have the best light, but I know it’s because they don’t completely trust me. And maybe they shouldn’t. I’m the only outsider here. I wouldn’t be surprised if I looked back to find them gone. I wouldn’t blame them a bit if they decided to bail. Maria’s right. If there is someone down here, it’s me they’re after. Not them.

  I look down at my hands, wondering if I could’ve had anything to do with Kit’s death. There’s no blood beneath my nails, no sign of a struggle, but my hands seem to be opening and closing slower now. Maybe it’s all in my head, or hypothermia setting in. All I know is that we’re starting to unravel.

  During our breaks, we turn off all the lights. Mostly it’s to conserve batteries, but I think the main reason is we just can’t look at each other anymore. Not after what happened. Darryl’s spending more time talking to himself, or the walls, than he’s talking to the others. Every time Maria looks at me I wonder if she’s going to hack me into a million pieces. And Shy’s quiet. At times, she gets so still that I wonder if she’s even breathing.

  Sometimes I think I can hear Kit laughing—or not really laughing, but the smile in his voice. It’s hard to believe we were just talking about all the things we wanted to do when we get out of here … but maybe that was a long time ago. It’s impossible to get a grip on time when there’s only darkness.

  I’m straining to remember anything that might help us get out of here, but my brain feels like it’s submerged under heavy water. And once you stop remembering, once you block out the past, there’s no hope of a future. I know that too well. If I let myself slip back into that numbness, I’m doomed.

  Forcing my thoughts to go back to that night, I remember the responding officer’s face. I remember every line, every freckle, his icy blue eyes trying to stare the truth out of me. How can I remember that and not remember what happened after I got out of the car? How did my lawyer get there first? The memory feels so close, like it’s right in front of me, but I can’t find it.