His knife.
Recoiling, Norah reaches for Ben’s cell phone lying face down a few yards to her right, the flashlight app still forming a dim halo in the sawdust.
She casts the beam high into the center of the room, away from the man’s body. She’s not ready to see him—or what she has done to him—in the light.
Taylor is standing directly in front of her. Her eyes are wide, and her throat is bleeding in a steady dark path down the front of her neck, mixing with the tears that are running down her cheek. She’s clutching what’s left of her braid with both hands, as if he might suddenly reach for it again.
Norah feels the tears prick at her eyes as she moves forward to hug her, still gripping the nail in one hand and the cell phone in the other. “It’s okay. We’re okay. Run for help.”
As she says it, a green square lights up along the wall with a quiet beeping sound.
His radio.
It’s still clipped onto the man’s front coat pocket. It crackles to life, with barely audible static.
“Go,” she tells Taylor again, louder. “I’ll stay with them.” She nods into the darkness behind them. “Follow the dirt road outside and stay along the field until you find somebody. Bring them back to help. Do you still have your phone?”
When Taylor nods mutely, Norah reaches into her pocket. She tucks the bloody nail against the fleece of her hoodie and reaches for her own phone. “Look, me too. We’ll both call, okay?”
Taylor presses the sleeve of her sweater against her throat. Then she pulls her phone from her front pocket and, before Norah can stop her, she turns the light toward the body a few yards away against the wall.
The man is covered in blood, down to his army fatigues. His eyes are closed. His mouth hangs open in a frozen grimace.
Against his jacket, the radio screen is still bright green. And it’s still buzzing with that just-audible static.
Taylor backs away in horror, hesitating at the open doorway. “Okay,” she chokes in a hoarse whisper, blinking back tears. Then she takes off in a shaky run, throwing the door open wide with a bang. Her footsteps hit the dirt with soft, grainy thuds then disappear in the rustle of the stalks outside.
Jamie, Aaron, and the freckle-faced boy have stopped thrashing.
They’re quiet now.
But in the silence, Norah can still hear the endless screams from the Thicket drifting in fitful whispers over the maze.
CHAPTER 50
Taylor is sure that she has dialed 9-1-1, and she is sure that the call has connected.
But beyond that, all she knows is that she is talking in gasps and spurts as she runs toward the glimmers of light in the distance, keeping the wet, dirty sleeve of her sweatshirt pressed tight against the sticky warmth that is still running in a warm river down her neck.
Her eyes dart in frantic zigzags as runs along the narrow dirt road that flanks the maze.
Between the pounding in her ears and the wind through the stalks, she can barely hear the police dispatcher. Still, she pushes herself faster, willing the burning in her lungs to take precedence over the images of Ben’s lifeless body, the blood-soaked sawdust, and the feeling of his hands—and knife—against her neck.
She knows she should slow down to talk to the dispatcher in full sentences to make sure she has been understood, but that would mean stopping.
And she can’t do that. Not while Jamie and Norah—and Maren—and the two boys are still in the darkness behind her. Not while he is still in the darkness behind her.
“There’s a bunch—of old—junk—a trailer—and some—farm stuff—outside it—” she gasps, unable to remember what she's already said or how many times she’s already said it. It doesn’t matter. She’ll keep repeating everything she knows until help arrives. Or until she reaches the plaza.
She pulls the phone away from her ear to look at the battery. One percent.
As she runs, keeping the phone bouncing between her ear and her shoulder, she can hear the woman on the other end of the line in bits and pieces. The calm voice is urging her to slow down, to rack her brain for any more information. The woman says something about security at the Thicket. Something about a prank.
Taylor does stop then, pressing the phone against her ear. A hard shiver runs through her as the dark wall of corn to her left whips in a gust of wind. “I can’t hear you very well, Did you say ‘prank’? This isn’t a prank. There’s a man in the shack—” Her voice breaks and she can feel the hysteria rising. “He’s dead—but he had a radio. He told us he was a cop.”
The woman responds without missing a beat. “Stay with me, Taylor. Officers are almost there. You should see them from the parking lot any time now. Just stay on the phone with me, okay, and keep moving. Can you tell me about the building one more time?”
It’s then that Taylor finally sees the faint on-and-off blinking of red and blue in the distance ahead of her. The dark, yawning parking lot can’t be more than a few hundred yards away.
“I think I see them,” she chokes out, letting the sweatshirt sleeve fall from her throat and pressing the phone hard to her ear as she starts to run again. She tries to focus on what the woman on the phone is saying next, but it’s nearly impossible to hear.
Veering away from the narrow dirt path, she crashes through a thin scrub of brush, feeling the branches catch threads of her sweatshirt as she runs. The brush gives way to more fields, the stalks half-broken, the ground torn up.
Finally, she reaches the edge of the lot. When she does, Taylor realizes that she can no longer hear the dispatcher in her ear. The phone is dead.
Shoving the phone into her pocket, she keeps her eyes on the blinking lights and forces herself to move faster, despite the pounding in her head and the taste of blood in her mouth. She doesn’t stop until she is standing on the edge of the parking lot.
There are three police cars. One officer is standing beside a brightly lit parked police car, holding a radio. Three others are just visible across the lot, fanning out behind two men in tan uniforms. All of them are heading toward the plaza entrance, toward the other end of the maze.
They’re quickly moving away from her.
Stumbling forward, Taylor screams, as loud and as long as she can.
At first, she is sure that the noise has been lost in the melee that is still coming from the plaza.
Then the officer standing by the vehicle turns toward her.
She moves faster, stumbling through the grass, knowing she’s nearly invisible in the darkness.
When she veers into the first row of cars, where he can finally see her, she watches him take in her appearance. The blood. The braid undone. The gray and green makeup that must be smeared down her face.
His expression is wary. She realizes that he is probably wondering which parts of her are fake.
She screams again, and the officer moves forward, striding toward her while he holds his radio to his mouth.
When he reaches her, she repeats what she told the dispatcher, feeling the words tumble out of her mouth like vomit, unsure what she’s repeating or what makes sense.
She talks around the ache in her throat until she is sure all of the important information is out.
A few minutes later, a woman who arrives with a wailing ambulance places a blanket around her shoulders and guides her out of view of the growing crowd of onlookers. They are gathered around the police lights like moths.
The woman gently helps her onto a white gurney inside the van. There are two other beds beside her, both empty.
The strobing lights and pounding music inside the plaza have stopped. Somewhere beyond the ambulance, someone is talking on a bullhorn, directing everyone out into the dark parking lot and asking them to keep moving.
“What’s the best way for us to reach your mom and dad?” the woman is asking. “If you can stick with me just a little longer, I have a few more questions for you. But we want to make sure someone is—”
“My dad,” she whispers, r
ealizing that she is holding her dead phone clutched in both hands in front of her. “Did you find them yet?” she asks, telling her fingers to let go of the phone and feeling a sudden violent shudder pass through her.
Maren is dead. Ben is dead.
Her hands are shaking harder now, and she drops the phone on the floor of the ambulance before the woman can take it from her.
His knife, his hands were on her neck less than fifteen minutes ago.
Norah stopped him.
Taylor looks down at her sweatshirt for the first time, realizing how much blood is there. There’s no way to tell how much of it is actually hers.
The woman in the ambulance is picking up the phone from the floor. She plugs it into a charger at their feet and waits a moment until the screen glows white. Then she swipes the lock screen while Taylor watches in a daze. “I see a contact for ‘Dad’ in your phone, sweetie. Hold on.”
She doesn’t hear what the woman is saying after that.
All she can hear is the bullhorn and the river of people streaming through the parking lot around them. She hears giggling. Gasps. A shriek. Someone crying. The unmistakable click of photos.
And screaming. Always screaming.
CHAPTER 51
Norah knows it’s completely useless to continue clawing at the thin, impossibly strong ropes on Jamie’s legs.
With the bloody nail still clenched between her fingers, she kneels on the ground between Jamie, Aaron, and the freckle-faced boy. She keeps her eyes fixed on the yellow rope, ignoring the red liquid that covers her hands and the floor.
She wants to run.
But she can’t leave them.
Or him.
Behind her, she can hear the steady, low drone of his radio. It’s still humming, just audible beneath the sound of Norah’s own labored breathing as she digs at the knots in vain.
She nudges her shoulder upward to wipe at the sweat dripping down the side of her face. Then she turns again, to glance at the green square still blinking a few yards away.
The green square hasn’t moved.
Somewhere beyond the maze, she can just hear the tinny bark of a bullhorn.
They’re coming. Really coming.
She says it out loud to make it real, to make up for the fact that she hasn’t managed to set any of the others free yet. “Help will be here any second,” she whispers. Then repeats it louder. “They’ll be here any second.
They don’t have to be quiet anymore.
Soon, there are voices. The dim strobe of flashlights appears and grows brighter. The wail of a siren gets louder, and Norah hears tires skidding on dirt and gravel.
She feels the bubble of hysterical relief rise to the top of her throat as she runs a hand along Jamie’s damp, matted hair, straining her eyes in the dark to see Aaron, who is lying a few feet away in the darkness.
Help is finally here—to take them away. To take him away.
Norah squints as the beams of light coming from outside the mill grow brighter, suddenly flooding the room in a blaze of light and noise. She hears footsteps as the lights circle chaotically before coming to rest on the boys, then Jamie, and then Norah herself.
Norah braces as some of the flashlight beams continue to trail along the floor, finding Maren and Ben.
Her hands clench as the flashlights trail over the red sawdust near the wall. She wills herself not to look away when the man’s body appears.
There’s no question it had to be done. But that doesn’t change the fact that Norah was the one who did it. Or the fact that she wanted to do it.
One EMT helps Norah to her feet as two other EMTs kneel beside Jamie and the boys with a flurry of repetitive snips and murmured reassurances. Finally, Jamie’s hands and then the boys’ raw hands and ankles fall limp and bloody into the sawdust.
The first EMT is saying something, asking Norah questions. But Norah is still watching the flashlight beams that have come to rest in the bloody pool of sawdust, just shy of the gaping black doorway.
The softly burbling, green-lit radio is still clipped to the man’s torn jacket, awash in dark blood.
Beneath the jacket, there is blood. So much blood.
But nothing else.
Norah blinks at the green-lit radio screen, feeling the floor tilt beneath her feet.
Have they already taken him away?
Even as the question materializes, she scans the dark room wildly, knowing that the answer is no. Bile rises in her throat as the relief recedes. She hears someone shout that they’ve found blood in the maze outside.
An officer wearing a black jacket appears through the shifting crush of shadows and flashlight beams. He crouches beside Jamie as an EMT attempts to peel away the tape that’s wrapped around her mouth and head, asking a steady stream of questions before she can even speak.
Jamie whimpers when the EMT barks out a reprimand at the officer, and he reluctantly stands. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters, glancing back at the dark doorway where more beams of light crisscross through the darkness beyond the mill.
The officer turns toward Norah, the contours of his face harsh in the dim beams of the flashlights’ crossfire. She watches in a haze as he gestures toward the far side of the mill, where the bloody jacket and radio lay inanimate in the sawdust, a dark island in a pool of blood. “I know you all have been through hell, but we need to get started as quickly as possible if we’re going to find him. Can you tell me what happened here?”
But even as Norah feels herself nod mutely, she knows she can’t.
CHAPTER 52
December 15th
The cemetery in Rupert is small enough that Taylor can see Maren’s grave from the frozen, nearly empty parking lot.
Jamie doesn’t want to come here yet, despite her counselor’s gentle, persistent encouragement. Taylor understands. Sometimes she doesn’t actually get out of the car. But she can’t stay away. If the Thicket were still open, she’d probably go back there too. Like Norah.
The idea of Maren’s body lying tucked into the earth here makes her feel like she might pass out. But it’s still something.
Ben was buried in Idaho Falls, an hour and a half away. Taylor didn’t go to the funeral, and she hasn’t visited his grave. Her name and face were plastered across SocialBuzz and the news in the weeks after it happened. Who knew what his parents might think of her. Or about Maren, whose photo is the focal point of every article. There is a photo making the rounds where Maren’s face is hidden by the bloody sawdust, her legs splayed in opposite directions behind her, and the ribs of her corset still glowing faintly in the dark of the shack.
Taylor turns off the car engine and wraps her coat tight against the wind that whips her braid painfully into her neck as she steps out of the car. The flowers she’s brought will be dead within a couple of hours.
When she reaches the modest, rounded headstone just beyond the flimsy gate, she stops. Dusted with a scuff of snow but still unfrozen is a handful of pale yellow daffodils.
Taylor glances around the empty cemetery warily, wondering who else was here to see Maren. Her eyes land on a gravestone two rows back, the mound of earth still not level with the ground.
Brandon Lewis. 2005-2019.
The same yellow flowers sit huddled beneath the headstone.
Through blurry eyes, Taylor trudges back to her car, her grief pinwheeling between confusion and gratitude. Then she sees the car door, twenty yards away, open a crack.
The girl’s thick brown hair floats upward, framing her face in a dark halo as she attempts a smile before her expression crumples.
Taylor hesitates, then hurries the short distance to Norah’s beat-up Buick and opens the passenger-side door.
Norah doesn’t say anything. Or ask how she’s doing.
Instead, she lets the tears flow down her cheeks without apologizing while they both look out over the scrubby cemetery, breathing in the lingering smell of daffodils.
CHAPTER 53
He clicks refresh.
Two hundred and ten dollars. Twenty-two bids. Three days left.
Original production, 2018, the listing reads. Exact model used in Thicket killings.
There are twelve more listings just like it on eBay. He clicks to zoom and enlarges the image until the mask’s black eyeholes fill the screen in front of him.
Unconsciously, he touches the dense web of stippled, still-ropy scars running in raised red crisscrosses across his neck, all the way up to his ears and down his sternum.
Despite his thick coat, she’d chipped his collarbone in several places. He can feel the sharp divots when he presses down on the wrecked skin covering his sternum.
Even though she was one strike away from hitting an artery, the memory brings with it a curious mix of exhilaration and loss.
He’d never been bathed in his own blood before.
A baptism, he thinks.
Or an atonement. For misjudging how the scales had tipped.
They have his DNA now. He knows that much. There was enough blood at the scene that some people speculate—even without a body for evidence—that he must be dead.
He feels confident he came close.
He felt it in the way his head spun as he crept through the sawdust in the dark along the wall, quietly extricating himself from the jacket—and the radio. He slipped out the door the girl had left open behind her as she ran.
He remembers the floating feeling and the way his breath came in gasps as he staggered through the outer maze. The numbness in his fingers spread to his arms then down his legs as his heart fought to keep his vital organs alive. As he crawled along the dark brush fringing the grassy lot, the red and blue lights from the emergency vehicles flashed in his peripheral vision, mingling with the dots floating in front of his eyes.
There was, of course, no hospital visit. He stitched the deepest lacerations himself then packed his wounds in gauze and compression bandages, knowing the rest would heal with enough time and a little luck.
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