The Last Confession of Autumn Casterly

by Meredith Tate

  “Not sure. Some sort of warehouse?” Nick disappears through the dark doorway. “C’mon, right in here. Just gotta grab my backpack.” His voice and footsteps echo in the empty building, fading into nothing.

  I hesitate outside the doorway. Suddenly I’m regretting not going back for my knife. “Where’d you go?” I squint, but can’t see past the darkened entryway. “Nick?”

  Something smashes into my head. My vision blurs. I stumble, but a hand slaps over my mouth and blocks the scream. Someone shoves me into the building.

  My brain goes into freak-out mode. I writhe and kick but another set of hands has already pinned my arms to my sides.

  I scream into the hand, biting frantically at the flesh, but someone stuffs a piece of cloth into my mouth. “Not so brave now, are you?”

  My heart races. I know what usually happens to girls in these situations. They throw me to the ground, slamming me into the cold concrete so hard my vision blurs.

  I shout for help, but it comes out muffled and incoherent.

  A foot sinks into my stomach, shooting pain through my core. Someone rips my hands up and binds my wrists with something cold and sharp. I struggle and fight but fists and feet plow into me, crushing the wind from my lungs. A muffled, strangled scream tries to escape my throat.

  “Big bad Autumn Casterly.”

  “No one will miss you.”

  “Fuck her up.”

  I curl into myself, but the blows keep coming. Warm blood stains my tongue and seeps onto my face. Another foot slams into my side with a sickening crack. My eyes fog with water.

  I shouldn’t have come here.

  I’m in over my head.

  I’m going to die.

  For half a second, I go numb. A flash of something bursts across my vision. A face, in the distance. It’s familiar, but I can’t see who or what it is. In an instant, it’s gone.

  Pain pulses through every inch of my body. I can’t move. Someone shines a flashlight into my eyes. Five. There are five people standing around me, their silhouettes blurry and warped.

  The last thing I see is someone’s booted foot, smashing down into my face.

  Then there’s nothing.

  IVY

  Friday nights always make me feel like a huge fail. Usually we have pep band, but there’s no football game tonight. According to the CW, weekends are for keggers and hookups (or saving the world, if you’re Kara from Supergirl or that guy from The Flash). I mean, maybe that’s how my sister spends her weekends. Personally, I’ve never been invited to a kegger and I don’t have anyone to hook up with, so Nerd Herd Movie Night is where it’s at.

  “C’mon, just pick something.” Alexa’s tone screams at the end of my rope, and she doesn’t try to hide it. “I swear, we’re all gonna drop dead before you make a decision.”

  A pink tinge spreads across Kevin’s freckled cheeks. “I’m thinking.”

  Usually we pick the cheesiest-looking movie so we have something to make fun of. Sometimes we find gems.

  “Okay, let’s go over your choices.” I pluck a handful of DVDs from Walmart’s five-dollar bin, then dramatically present them, one by one. “First, we have the cinematic masterpiece known as Paul Blart: Mall Cop.”

  “I’ve seen it already,” Sophie says. I give her the shut up shut up shut up or we’ll never get out of here look.

  “Next is the 2015 Oscar sensation Birdman.” I toss the DVD back into the bin. “Which I’m sure would be a barrel of laughs.”

  Jason groans. “Can we just watch Lord of the Rings again?”

  I ignore him. “Finally, we have Princess of Frost, Ice, and Snow, which is the generic Frozen rip-off you never knew you needed.”

  Ahmed takes the case, with a smiling blond cartoon ice princess on the front, and shakes his head. “I mean, they’re not even trying to hide it.”

  “Okay, those are your choices.” I hold them up to Kevin. “And the winner is . . .”

  Sophie and Alexa start a drumroll on the side of the bin.

  “Ooh.” Kevin fishes into the bin and pulls out Tomb Raider. “Found it.”

  “That . . . was not one of our finalists.” Alexa rips the DVD out of his hands. “But whatever, Angelina’s hot, and I’d like to actually watch a movie this century, so let’s go with it.”

  “You know, next week is my turn to pick,” Sophie says, entwining her fingers with Alexa’s. “And I’m picking horror again—last time was fun.”

  My stomach drops.

  Oh, for the love . . .

  Sophie, Alexa, and Ahmed start bickering about what the best classic horror movie is, oblivious to how uncomfortable I am now. I glue my eyes to the floor, the ceiling, the toy aisle, looking literally anywhere that isn’t at Jason. He’s doing the same thing, suddenly fixated on the iPad cases. We both swore we’d never bring up “the incident” again, but it keeps popping up because our friends are idiots.

  The last time Sophie chose the movie, it was summer. She forced us into The Conjuring 2. I don’t do horror movies, no matter how cheesy. No, thank you. I don’t like nightmares.

  So Jason and I sat in Sophie’s bedroom playing Trouble while everyone else stayed downstairs. Even though we kept getting distracted by Sophie’s awesome manga collection, we still finished the game way before the movie ended.

  We were bored, and feeling like assholes, so we decided to play a prank. We crept outside and hid in the bushes under the living room window. Everyone sat on the couch inside, their backs to us. When the movie reached a nerve-racking, pulse-pounding point of tension, we jumped up and banged on the window. I swear, I’ve never heard Alexa scream that loud.

  They locked us outside in retribution. Jase and I were laughing so hard, I could barely breathe. I don’t really know what changed. One minute we were standing there, laughing together, and the next minute it happened.

  “You should kiss me,” I said. I almost couldn’t believe the words flying out of my mouth. I’d liked Jason for months and vowed never to tell him, but there I was, asking for a kiss.

  And just like that, Jason’s lips were on mine. My heart was beating so hard, I could give the band kids on the drumline a run for their money. Everything inside me lit up, so warm and tingly. It felt like an eternity, but it was literally only two seconds before I noticed he’d stopped kissing me back.

  “Shit.” He threaded his fingers behind his head. “I can’t do this.” And he walked away. I think he went back to Sophie’s balcony and sat in a lawn chair, because apparently being alone was more desirable than being with me.

  A pit formed in my chest. I watched his retreating back, every shitty feeling swirling into a tornado inside me. What had happened? Did I suck at kissing that badly? My only prior experience had been with Brandon Myers last fall. We were on the band bus and Maura Williams dared me. It wasn’t the fireworks show Disney had led me to believe. I spent all four seconds thinking that Brandon’s tongue shoving its way into my mouth kind of reminded me of a slithering eel. I remember thinking, Huh, so that’s what it’s like—and then wondering if there was something wrong with me for not liking it more.

  But Jason had kissed a million girls before, and gone farther with some of them. So what was wrong with me?

  A nagging thought wouldn’t stop jabbing me in the brain—Maybe the other girls were prettier and skinnier, like Autumn. Suddenly, Jason’s constant jokes about liking my sister felt a little too close to home. The worst question practically bowled me over—Did I just ruin our friendship?

  The rest of the night was pretty bad. One of those things where something big happens and no one wants to acknowledge it, so it gets twice as awkward because everyone pretends it never happened. I brushed it off because I couldn’t tell him the truth—that I’d had a huge crush on him for the past year, and for a split second, I could’ve exploded in joy because I’d thought maybe, jus
t maybe, he liked me back.

  “I’ll go grab some candy,” I say quickly.

  Jason nods. “I’ll come, too.”

  Well, that’s . . . not what I had in mind.

  “Get me Reese’s Pieces,” Ahmed shouts, loud enough to make everyone in the aisle look at him.

  “I want Junior Mints,” adds Alexa.

  Sophie’s eyes light up. “Oooh. I’ll share yours.”

  “Excuse me. Says who?” Alexa scoffs. “She’ll take her own.”

  “Can I have Mike and Ike’s?” Kevin asks. “I can’t have—”

  “You can’t have stuff with peanuts in it.” I salute him. “We got you.”

  Jason and I amble down the aisles to the ninety-nine-cent candy row. He doesn’t say anything as we walk. Instead of bathing in the uncomfortable silence, I text Patrick to ask what kind of candy he wants. Patrick’s return couldn’t have fallen at a better time. Having him back in my life is exactly what I need.

  Jason’s eyes flick over to me, but he doesn’t say anything.

  We grab our friends’ candy orders and start picking out boxes for ourselves. Jason grabs a king-size Snickers.

  “Hmm.” I peruse the selection. “I feel like Raisinets.”

  “That’s funny. You don’t look like Raisinets.” He grabs the box off the shelf.

  I roll my eyes. “Yes, Jason the jokester, ladies and gentlemen.”

  My phone buzzes with a response from Patrick. Twizzlers? I’ll pay you back!!

  Me: Red or black? There is only one correct answer.

  Patrick: Red. Black licorice is gross.

  I grin. That’s another point for Patrick.

  Jason clears his throat. “Um. So. Maybe we should talk about August.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I force a smile and start walking away.

  “No, seriously.” He catches up to me. “I’m sorry. I was being weird.”

  “That’s you every day.” I fake-push him, slaloming around him like a pro.

  “Come on.” He steps in front of me, blocking my path. “We never talked about it, and I feel like I never . . . explained.”

  “Nope. Shhhh . . .” I put my finger to his lips. “We don’t speak of it. That incident is Voldemort.”

  “Voldemort?”

  “Incident that must not be named.” I shove past him, my heart racing a million miles a minute. We are not having this conversation. I’m not about to lose my best friend because he wants to get all let’s talk about it on me. I can already picture him saying he likes me as a friend, but not like that, blah blah blah. I don’t need that right now. I’ve buried that crush in the deepest pit inside me, never to be unearthed again. That’s where it belongs. Patrick is back in my life now, and Jason is my friend. That’s it.

  “Ivy! Come on. Two seconds. Just hear me out.”

  My face burns hotter than the fires of Mordor. “Seriously, it’s no big deal.” I could melt into a puddle on the floor. “Let’s just drop it.”

  “Ivy . . .”

  We round the corner.

  Alexa, Ahmed, Sophie, and Kevin are all lying down in the middle of the toy aisle, their arms sprawled out above them. Random shoppers give them dirty looks, which go ignored. Sophie makes an exaggerated gagging noise. I want to hug her for the much-needed distraction.

  I raise my brows. “Am I supposed to start clapping?”

  “This is what happens when you take eight bajillion years to get candy,” Alexa says in a monotone from the floor. “People die.”

  Jason rolls his eyes, then continues walking straight at Ahmed, pretending to step on his face.

  “Let’s buy this stuff and get out of here,” I say as my loser-but-lifesaver friends get to their feet. “I’m pretty sure we’ve pissed off half the store.”

  Jason tries to catch my eye as we head to the checkout, but I don’t let him. Instead, I pick up my phone and tell Patrick we’re on our way.

  SATURDAY

  AUTUMN

  The morning sunlight pierces my closed eyelids. I groan, roll off my air mattress half asleep, and slam onto the hardwood floor.

  That wakes me up. I jolt upward, my heart thudding.

  My gaze frantically bounces around the gray walls, chipping paint, blue sheets.

  My room.

  I slap my hand over my heart, catching my breath. Holy shit. A dream.

  I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror—still wearing my jeans and hoodie from yesterday, hair’s a mess, eyeliner’s clumpy under my eyes, but I’m fully intact. My clothes are exactly as I left them. No blood. No broken bones. I’m alive.

  I sink back to the mattress and rest my forehead in my hands. That was the worst nightmare I’ve ever had in my life.

  I don’t even remember coming home and going to bed. How many pills did I take? Fuck, I’ve never gotten so high that I’ve forgotten how I got home. I went to the park, I know that. Then a guy texted me. That must’ve been where the dream started. The memory of the abandoned warehouse floods my brain, and my whole body starts shaking.

  I wrap my arms around myself. It wasn’t real. I’m fine.

  Instinctively, I reach down for Pumpernickel, but he’s not curled in a ball at the foot of my bed. That’s weird.

  Voices from downstairs capture my attention. I exhale a heavy breath. I’m so relieved to be here that my first reaction to Kathy’s scratchy voice isn’t even to tell her to fuck off. I just want breakfast.

  I plow out of my bedroom and into the hall.

  “. . . didn’t come home again last night.” It’s Kathy.

  I take the stairs two at a time, quickly turning to the right when I reach the bottom, and head into the kitchen.

  Dad rubs his forehead, a wisp of steam curling from the coffee mug in front of him. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

  “I just hope she’s okay. It’s nerve-racking when she vanishes like this.”

  Nice alligator tears, Kathy. You don’t give a shit about me.

  “Shove it, Kathy.” I stroll into the kitchen. “You’d love it if I never came home. Don’t lie.”

  Kathy unpeels a banana in her bathrobe, her eyes fixed straight ahead. “She’s a teenager. Sometimes I wonder if we should follow her. Or call the school.” She takes a bite. “Something.”

  “Ignoring me?” I open the fridge and survey my breakfast options. “Real mature.”

  Dad raises his hands, palms out. “If you want to follow her, that’s up to you.”

  “The girl needs help. Remember when she cut all her hair off a few years ago? Normal kids don’t do that, Steve. Don’t you care about her well-being?”

  “Of course I do. She’s my daughter.”

  I raise my voice. “What’s going on?”

  She doesn’t flinch.

  “Okay, this is weirding me out.” I go to grab an orange from the bottom shelf, but my hand comes up empty. Like my fingers closed around air rather than a piece of fruit. The orange still lies on the bottom shelf of the fridge. What the actual fuck?

  “It’s practically once a week now. This has got to stop. She’s too young to be running off who knows where all night.”

  “She’s a legal adult,” Dad says. “What am I supposed to do? Handcuff her to the couch?”

  “She’s a kid, Steve.” Kathy pushes herself up and opens the cabinets. She rummages in the pantry and grabs Pumpernickel’s dog chow. “That poor dog has been waiting on the stairs for her all night.” She pours a cup of food into his blue ceramic dish. I painted Pumpernickel’s name across it in yellow letters when I was eleven.

  “If this is some sort of prank—some stupid lesson or something—it’s not funny,” I say.

  Kathy places the food bowl on the tile. “Pumpernickel! Breakfast!”

  Rattling tags get louder as Pumpernickel scurries into
the kitchen, his tail quivering slightly.

  “Hey, boy.” I bend over and reach out my arms. “I missed you.”

  My dog keeps walking toward me—then right through me.

  I jump back, my heart racing. What the ever-loving fuck?!

  Pumpernickel starts munching his breakfast, oblivious to the fact that I’m standing right here.

  I hold my hands up; they’re solid—at least, they look solid.

  “Dad?” No response. I shake his shoulders. “Dad!” He stares ahead, dazed. “Come on!” Tears burn behind my eyes. “Kathy!” I shove her as hard as I can, but it does nothing. She doesn’t even cringe. “Listen to me! Fuck!” I whirl around and kick the trash can; my foot goes straight through the plastic. The trash can stands upright, unperturbed, still full.

  I flare my hands out. “What’s happening to me?”

  The warehouse. Those guys.

  I slap a hand over my mouth.

  It was real.

  They killed me. They murdered me.

  I’m dead.

  I’m dead.

  I press my hands into my eyes and squeeze them shut.

  The air grows cold and violent, like a hurricane’s sweeping me off my feet. Everything changes.

  Bitter cold seeps through my hoodie from the hard surface under my back. My head feels light—disoriented, dizzy—but it’s almost like I’m . . . lying down?

  The stench of mildew floats around me. My dry tongue searches my mouth, overwhelmed by the metallic taste of blood. It feels overfull, like I swallowed a bag of cotton balls.

  I try to open my eyelids, but a layer of crust cements them shut. I manage to force them open a sliver, and it feels like I’m rubbing glass shards into them. A groan escapes my swollen lips. Some light seeps in, but it’s dim. Thick rope binds my hands together, biting into my flesh.

  Where am I?

  I inhale a shallow, rattling breath and searing pain slices through my chest. I wince, trying to raise my bound hands, but someone tied a rope around my arms and torso, strapping them down. My legs are like anchors, pinned to the floor. A jolt of pain shoots through my side; I clench my jaw to block the yelp.