The girl is slumped face down in the sawdust, both legs kicked out behind her at an angle that makes Norah’s stomach hurt.
A thick pool of blood has stained the ground red in a wide, irregular blotch that’s been absorbed by the sawdust. The girl’s head is at the epicenter of the thick red puddle. Layers of some kind of tape keep her legs bound together up to her waist. One arm hangs limply at her side, a long gash just visible through unraveling strands of dark, wet tape. The other arm is pulled taut behind her back, bound to her legs.
And then Norah notices the corset. It’s covered in sawdust, with neon purple ribs.
It’s Maren.
Norah wants to swipe the flashlight off. To turn away. To run.
But in the darkness beyond Maren, the mewling, sick-sounding moans have reached a fever pitch.
It takes a moment before Norah realizes, unable to turn away from what looks like Maren’s body but can’t be Maren’s body, that the screams are coming from behind her now, too. Louder, and hardly muffled at all.
It’s Taylor.
Norah swings the flashlight to the left as she grabs Taylor’s arm, clinging to the numbness in her chest like a life raft. “You have to stop,” she chokes. “Taylor, you have to stop right now.”
Taylor clamps her mouth shut, turning the scream into a soft, keening moan that matches the others.
“Oh my god,” Ben is repeating in a quiet monotone. He suddenly grabs the phone flashlight out of her hand, shining it to the far left again.
When Norah follows the beam, she sees the source of the moans.
There are two more boys and a girl, staggered along the wall on their sides, facing her.
Jamie. Aaron. And the freckle-faced kid.
Like Maren, their arms and legs have been bound tightly together with tape, then tied behind them. As the light shines on them, they thrash harder in the sawdust, their movements desperate, but only in inches, as their legs stay fixed together like grotesque mermaid tails while their hands remain pinned behind their backs.
A thick layer of black tape has been wrapped around each of their heads just below the nostrils. The tape has been wrapped around Jamie’s long auburn hair at the nape of her neck. Strands of hair stick out in sections at unnatural angles. She looks like a disheveled doll in a drawer.
“Call the police. Right now,” Norah rasps, trying to hold Ben’s phone’s flashlight steady while she reaches back inside her pocket for her own cell phone.
Five percent battery. Norah swings the flashlight around to Taylor, who has started to shake, her eyes fixed on Maren's black and purple corset. “Taylor. Taylor, please. Do you have your phone? Mine’s almost dead.”
Dead.
The word comes out before she can stop it, and even though it is just a word, the room seems to shrink around it. She can smell the blood, now that she knows what it is. The moans fade as her vision begins to swim, the silence deafening in her ears. She can see the dots dancing across her field of vision again, can feel the nausea rising again.
Norah blinks, forcing herself to take a breath. Whoever did this isn’t likely to be gone for very long.
“Taylor,” she says again, swinging the flashlight back toward Jamie, Aaron, and Freckle Face along the wall, then down at Taylor’s feet—away from Maren’s body on the ground. “Taylor, look at me. Do you have your phone?”
Taylor gasps and nods, fumbling in her sweatshirt pocket then holding the metallic phone in front of her like an offering in the dim beam of light.
“Good. Go outside and call 9-1-1. Me and Ben—” she gestures into the darkness with the flashlight, shining it on Ben, “we’re going to untie them. Do it now, Taylor. Hurry.”
To her relief, Taylor stumbles backward, the lit screen of her phone dimly lighting her way. Norah watches to see that she has the phone to her ear as she hovers in the doorway. Then she turns toward Ben, who is still standing behind her.
He’s breathing so hard she can feel the puffs of air break against her cheek as she grabs his wrist. “I’m going to put your phone light on the floor—there—so we can see,” she says as she crouches to prop the phone up against a wooden bench. It casts a thin beam of light in the direction of Jamie and the boys, who have stopped struggling so much. They are squinting expectantly, desperately in the dim light. “Now hurry, help me untie them.”
Just do the next thing, Norah tells herself as she kneels in the sawdust beside Jamie with her long auburn hair. She hesitates for a moment, looking at Jamie’s unblinking eyes and flared nostrils, beads of sweat reflected in the beam of the flashlight. The whites of her eyes are tinged red, and Norah forces herself to look back at the tape. She needs to untie the legs first.
So they can run.
Norah is dimly aware of what Taylor is saying as she stammers into the phone just outside the doorway. She keeps her hand cupped around her ear and holds the phone close, to hide any light.
Norah can’t hear everything, but just knowing that Taylor has the police on the line is enough to bring the blood slowly filtering back to her numb fingers. She works faster, less clumsily, as she unwinds yet another layer of tape from Jamie’s legs.
With each layer she peels off, Jamie tenses as if this time she’ll finally feel the last strip of tape burn the bare skin of her legs.
Beside her, Ben is feverishly pulling at the tape on Aaron’s legs.
It’s difficult to see as their shadows bob in the bare light. But finally—finally—Norah sees pale skin as she rips at the last strip of black tape on one leg.
But as she unwinds the last strip, wincing at the angry red welts that pop up on Jamie’s skin, she sees that Jamie’s feet are bound with some kind of thin rope, too.
Just do the next thing, Norah thinks again, scanning around wildly, willing her mind to think of a way to cut the rope.
Suddenly, Taylor is standing above her.
“They’re coming, Jamie,” she says in a choked whisper, sliding her cell back into her pocket.
Norah tenses. “Why did you hang up? Stay on the phone with the police—call them back,” she says more harshly than she’d intended.
Taylor lets out a sound that is half hiccup, half moan. “I’m on 4G, it’s eating my battery up. They—they asked how much battery I had left. They told me to put it in low power mode in case we needed to call them back again. I’m down to 10 percent.”
She kneels down beside Norah. “They’re coming, Jamie,” she repeats. Jamie has begun to cry. “Norah almost has you. I’m going to help him,” Taylor says, sliding beside the freckle-faced boy on the floor. Then she hurries to pull the first strip of duct tape on his legs.
Jamie shakes her head, her tear-streaked eyes bloodshot and wild, muffled screams falling mute against the duct tape that has been wound at least a dozen times around her jaw and hair.
Norah closes her eyes, her fingers still clawing at the thin, dense rope that is so tight it’s cutting into the skin on Jamie’s legs. Think. Think now. She scans the dark room, looking for something she can use to cut, or at least fray, the rope.
Behind her, in the shadows, she sees the edge of the wooden bench. “Hang on,” she whispers to Jamie, rising to her feet and grabbing the phone that is propped against the bench. “I need to find—”
She sees what she’s looking for: a long, thick nail poking halfway out of one of the bench legs that wobbles. She can hear Ben and Taylor still ripping at the duct tape in the dark, fumbling and frantic.
She pulls on the nail.
It doesn’t budge.
She pulls harder, digging her fingers into the nailhead and leaning backward as she braces her feet against the other bench legs. After a few seconds, she feels it come loose in her hand with a rusty scritch.
The bench topples to the left, landing with a soft thud.
On top of Maren.
Norah’s stomach lurches, and she fights the urge to right the bench. To stroke Maren’s hair. To remove her tape and ties too.
They�
��ll untie her when they get here, she tells herself as she swallows a painful lump in her throat, willing the dispatcher to hurry, praying that Taylor knew what to say.
Fingers throbbing, Norah props the phone flashlight back up against the toppled bench, feeling for the long nail’s sharp point. Will it work? It has to. How soon until the police arrive? Will it be soon enough? Should they all be here, inside like this? Should she send Taylor—or Ben—back through the maze? Is it safer inside or out? Are they better off together? How is she somehow in charge here? How long would it take for all of them to run back through the maze? What about the road?
She feels herself start to shut down, to float away in the haze. Just the next thing, she tells herself again, taking the nail in one hand and digging it into the thin rope. She jiggles the sharp end around as fast as she can, trying—and failing—to stay away from the skin on Jamie’s legs.
The rope is so thin, dense, and tight that it’s all but impossible. Jamie starts to cry harder, and red spots of blood appear as the nail misses the thin target of the rope. It’s hard to tell if Norah is making any progress at all. “I’m so sorry Jamie, just a little more,” she chokes out, feeling for the knots in the rope instead.
“I’m down to the rope too,” Ben whispers next to her, and she feels his hand tap her shoulder.
Norah keeps her eyes on the yellow rope. Strand by strand. Knot by knot. It has to give way at some point if she keeps going. “The bench,” she whispers, “a few feet to your left.” She brushes the coils of ripped-off black tape away from Jamie’s legs, so she can see better. The rope is attached to her other foot, too.
Behind her, Norah hears the low thud of the bench leg wobble on the ground. Then the sound of another nail ripping into the rope as Ben digs. She hears Taylor, who is still working at the duct tape, whispering assurances to the freckle-faced boy.
Norah manages to get through a second knot. She’s maybe halfway through one section of rope. Just one. She listens with one ear for the sound of sirens, the sound of a police intercom. Every few seconds, she glances back at the dark rectangle of doorway looming behind her that might slowly open any second.
How much time has gone by? Has it been a minute since Taylor made the call? Five minutes? Twenty?
Norah suddenly pictures the man she saw slipping inside the canvas tent and feels a wave of nausea as she tries to bring his face into focus.
Was it him?
Her thoughts feel both runny and sharp. And hovering on the fuzzy edges is the knowledge that whoever did this is probably the same person who killed Brandon.
Norah pushes the thought back to the periphery. There’s no space for it right now. She quickly scoots to her right through the sawdust, feeling for the toppled bench to extract another nail for Taylor.
Just the next thing.
Norah finds another nail and pulls, ignoring the sound of the bench as it hits a soft landing again. She no longer feels the sting of the metal as it digs into her index finger and thumb.
Jamie has stopped struggling. The thin, barely audible keening sounds still come from her taped mouth have stopped too. She’s lying with her face in the sawdust now, her auburn hair draped and dusty around her. Norah knows she is alive because of the rise and fall of her back as she leans into the ropes. But that’s it.
Norah glances back at the doorway again, swiping at a sweaty lock of bangs that has fallen into her eyes.
The police are on their way, she reminds herself, adding to her mantra as she feels another knot strain and give. They’re on their way.
CHAPTER 43
When he reaches the edge of the fields beyond the outer maze, he stops.
The door to the mill is open, a narrow black rectangle silhouetted against the murky fields behind it.
As he cautiously approaches the side of the mill, he can hear them. There is quick shuffling. Then the faint scratch of the tape being removed.
He listens, waiting for more information.
As if in response, the radio screen blinks to light, a soft green, as the quiet static indicates a new call coming in.
Taking a few steps back into the hardscrabble fields, he slowly turns up the volume, holding the speaker cupped close.
“Charlie? Copy, now. We have a call in from Rupert PD dispatch …”
The voice trails off into static, and he closes his eyes, tasting the flavor of the voice.
Urgent. But asking for reassurance.
The static increases in volume. “A girl called. Says there’s people hurt, maybe dead, in the old mill outside the maze where the gallows used to be.”
He lets his finger trace the red CALL button, making room for the possibilities to expand, feeling the balance of control tilt up and down, like a weighted scale.
When the scales settle, he presses the CALL button. He knows his own voice will be as static and mechanical as the one on the other end.
“We’ve got a situation here, all right,” he says. “I’ve got a twenty on the mill now,” he adds, pleased by the gruffness and annoyance in his low voice. “Teenagers got into the staff tent and took some props, fake blood. Scared a couple of kids in the maze half to death, though it was pretty funny.”
Just enough detail. Not too much. He lets the static burble through the air for just a moment, then continues. “You still on with PD? I’ve got it all covered.”
He leaves it at that. Then waits. The scales tip up and down, up and down, as the seconds draw out.
The possibilities are slipping, tilting.
The screen blinks green.
More static.
“Thank god. Yeah, we’re still on the line. I’ll let them know. Thanks, Charlie”
He presses the CALL button one more time. “I’ll bring ’em up front, and you can decide how you want to deal with this. Give me fifteen.”
“Ok, Charlie.”
Charlie. He smiles wider, tasting the relief in the man’s voice on the other end of the radio.
The radio screen goes black and stays black.
He closes his eyes one more time, still weighing the scales, feeling them tip back in his favor.
Keeping the radio held aloft in one hand, he walks back toward the mill, not bothering to hide his crunching footfalls anymore.
He only has about fifteen minutes, give or take, before someone begins to wonder why no one has re-emerged from the corn maze.
But fifteen minutes will be plenty of time.
He pauses at the edge of the dark mill, then pulls the sweaty beard over the top of his head and stuffs it into the pocket of his coat next to the mask.
It won’t matter if they see his face now.
CHAPTER 44
“Police!”
The word feels like a light switch. Suddenly Norah’s fingers, which have been mechanically, frantically, and somehow still gently ripping at the knots in the unforgiving rope begin to tremble violently as the relief floods her system.
To her left, she hears a muffled double-plink as Taylor and Ben drop their nails into the sawdust, scurrying to their feet.
“We’re here,” Taylor croaks, clearing her throat quickly and then trying again. “We’re in here!”
The heavy footsteps stop, and the green light from a radio appears in the doorway.
Norah shoves her hands into her pockets, feeling the tremors travel up and down her arms and legs. She’s never felt relief like this. She swallows the thick lump that has suddenly risen in her throat.
She’s not sure how long it would have taken them to get through all the rope, all the knots. The only way was to fray them, strand by strand.
It was taking too long. How long, she can’t say. It feels like mere minutes have passed, but surely it was longer.
It doesn’t matter. This is the end, she tells herself, biting down on her lip to keep it from shaking too. Everything is going to be okay. She saved them. She did what she couldn’t do for Brandon.
Norah tries again to remember how long it has been since
Taylor called the police. It feels like it’s been only minutes. But Norah is all too familiar with how time can distort.
At her feet, Jamie is suddenly thrashing again, wailing through her taped mouth. Norah feels a pang of guilt that Jamie is still in the same position she found her. Bound, mouth taped, gagged.
But help—real help—is here.
“Shh, he’ll be able to get the ropes off, Jamie,” Norah soothes, shoving her shaking hands into her hoodie pockets and trying to calm down.
To her right, at the edge of the phone’s flashlight beam, the boys are straining at their ropes too, whipping their heads back as far as the tape will allow, to look at the man crossing the threshold at the doorway.
Norah waits for the officer’s flashlight beam—a real flashlight—to cut through the darkness. But even the small green square on the radio suddenly goes dark. She can just make out the officer’s silhouette as he takes a few steps closer.
“I need all of you against the wall, quick as you can. The other officers are fanning out. We think whoever did this is still close by.”
As Norah stumbles to her feet, the familiar buzzing fills her ears, and she hopes that she is not about to pass out. It’s over, she tells herself again.
She watches as Taylor scoots against the wall, reaching out with one hand to gently stroke Jamie’s auburn hair. With the way Jamie is positioned, Taylor can just touch her feet.
Jamie is still thrashing. So are Aaron and the other boy.
Something is wrong.
Norah feels it deep in her gut even as she tries to tell herself that everything is going to be okay now.
Jamie kicks at Taylor’s hand, hard enough that Taylor draws her fingers back, glancing at Norah in confusion.
Norah looks at the officer, who is holding one hand aloft, gesturing for Norah and Ben to move toward the wall.
He hasn’t said a word about the three people who are hogtied on the floor.
“It’s okay. It’s okay now,” Norah chokes out in a whisper as she moves toward the wall. Again, she has the thought that the officer has arrived very quickly. Too quickly. She can’t be sure, but if she had to guess it’s only been maybe five minutes since Taylor called the police.
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