by Lisa McMann
“No!” she shouts in the dark room, shoving the memory aside. She has to save Nico—she has to. She brushes her fingers over the desk, teasingly, around the space where the graffiti changes, before she places her hand over it, absorbing its medicine. In the dark she can’t read what it says, but the whispers tell her everything.
Harsh and wild, full of venom, the voice demands. The graffiti sears, electrocutes her fingers.
Find me before they kill me!
Deep in the woods beyond Cryer’s Pass.
Hurry! Save my soul!
Kendall gasps and whips her hand away, her fingers still burning. “Nico,” she says to the harsh voice, “why are you talking to me like that?”
But there is no answer.
And he is in danger.
Kendall knows she must go.
She stumbles back downstairs, out the cellar door, and down the road. All of Cryer’s Cross is asleep. Her nightgown whips around her body, the wind piercing through the thin fabric. Her feet are cold, bare inside her boots, and she begins to run, guided by newfound instinct, the voice inside her buzzing approval. She holds her bag of tools close to her chest. When she passes Hector’s ranch, she turns to cut the corner, out of sight of his house, and then she heads down the path she took on horseback with Jacián. She follows the path for a short way until it branches, and then she takes the other branch and runs, runs as fast as she can, stumbling, teeth chattering, skin burning and itching from the wind. Her legs ache, unaccustomed to running in her boots.
After what seems like an hour at a solid jog, Kendall reaches Cryer’s Pass, a road for quads and horses that winds up the ridge. Her side aches. Instead of taking the pass, she turns abruptly into the woods, still running, jumping over bushes and roots and vines until she trips and goes sprawling, landing on her bag. The hedge clippers pierce through the canvas and gouge a hole in her upper arm. She sits a moment, stunned, catching her breath, but there’s no time to look at it, no time to stop the bleeding. Kendall gets back to her feet and staggers through the woods. “Nico!” she shouts. “Nico, where are you?”
She starts to run again, but soon running becomes impossible, so she presses on slowly, awkwardly, painfully, through brush and forest so thick that she nearly has to climb trees and swing from vines to get through. “Nico!” she screams. The voice in her head grows stronger. Find me before he kills me! Thirty-five, one hundred!
Her legs and arms sting from scratches. She stumbles and catches herself, weak from not eating, strong from the voices that possess her. When she can go no farther, she pulls the clippers from the bag and starts tearing at ivy and branches, clipping and pulling them out of her way. She finds a spot that gives way. Squeezes and chops and pushes and clamps the clippers together until they clang against something metal. “Nico!” she screams. “Nico!”
WE
The heat, the life. Thirty-five, one hundred. Your heartbeat pounds in Our ears. “Come now!” We cry out, a piece of Us within you now. This victim, the most troublesome. Here. Now. Ready to redeem, release another lost soul. Thirty-five?
No.
ONE HUNDRED.
TWENTY-FOUR
She stumbles as she tries to slide through the slit she made in the ivy and vines between rusted iron rungs. She makes it through, finally, and scrambles to her feet, looking around in the eerie night glow.
There are fewer trees here. Smaller ones. And it’s not quite so overgrown. With the light of a half-moon, Kendall makes out a large crumbling building away to her left, and a small broken-down shack nearer to her. She pulls out her flashlight and shines it around. She’s in a sort of courtyard, but it’s completely sealed off, even from the buildings, by an iron fence. Fog pockets rest in the valleys just beyond the yard. A bird squawks and settles. She hears the creaking of the trees, the rustling of other animals.
To the right, two dozen white markers stand in the ground. Kendall staggers, feeling herself being pulled toward them by the power of the voice inside her. She resists at first, confused, but then her body jerks into obedience. Her legs are heavy. She drags herself drunkenly across the dirt and brush.
The voice commands her. “Start digging,” she whispers, startled, echoing it. “Start digging? Where? Where?” She pulls the shovel from her bag, and it leads her to the middle of the courtyard, where the crosses stand. “Nico!” she screams. “Where are you?” She has lost all control of her body. She pushes twigs and leaves aside with her boots, clearing a space.
Then she lifts the shovel and slams the point of it into the dirt in front of one of the markers. Her cold hands ache from the impact ricocheting off her bones, it seems, but she lifts and slams again, breaking the ground, beginning to dig, unable to stop herself. She piles the dirt carefully next to the hole and strikes again.
After a few minutes her punctured arm really hurts. Her hands shake. “Nico!” she calls out again. Her voice rings out, unanswered. She starts crying now, and screams louder for him, over and over as she piles the dirt high. Her back aches. She shivers, teeth rattling, and plunges the shovel into the hard dirt again. Again. Again.
* * *
When she hits bone, scooping a piece out with her shovel, she knows she has dug far enough. She knows now what she has to do, what the voice is forcing her to do in order to save Nico. She falls to her knees, hoarse but still screaming out his name. “I’m here to save you!” she cries. “Nico, help me!”
She sits down in the shallow grave she just dug. Reaches for the piles of dirt, drawing her arms around them and pulling them over her. Covering her feet and legs.
She watches herself in horror. Part of her can’t believe she’s doing it, and part of her can’t get it done fast enough.
She is burying herself alive.
And she can’t stop.
Slowly and methodically, simultaneously horrified and glorified by the process, she covers her body with dirt. She begins to chant. “Help me. Save my soul. Help me. Save my soul.” Her chants turn to cries as she covers her thighs, her midsection. The dirt insulates her, warms her. Calms her shaking, but not her cries. She lies back and covers her chest. Her neck. She screams for Nico. Screams until her voice becomes muffled by the layer of dirt she pushes over her own face. All that remains aboveground is her hand.
And then—as the half-moon dips behind the broken-down building—all, everyone, everything is quiet once again in the graveyard of the Cryer’s Reform School for Delinquent Boys.
A trapped soul waits for redemption.
It waits. And waits.
For her to take her last breath.
TWENTY-FIVE
It is still dark when the dirt stirs.
Kendall, struggling for air, feels something edging at her mind. She knows something feels terribly wrong about all of this. She knows from the voices that she must go through all of this to save Nico, but where is he? And how could this possibly help him? Her OCD brain churns, and the single thought slips in. This is wrong. This is wrong. She starts to count now. Counts the heartbeats, counts the pebbles in her mouth, counts the minutes as they pass. Some of the fog in her head clears. Enough. Just enough. Enough to struggle.
The grasp, the hold of the voice weakens. Just enough. And with Kendall’s one remaining free arm, she pushes the layer of dirt from her face, spits out the gravel from her mouth, and gives one last rasping cry before she passes out. “Jacián.”
The voice in her head—not Nico’s, never Nico’s—cries out as if in pain.
TWENTY-SIX
In the morning it rains.
The water washes dirt from her eyes.
The voice remains, crying out to her, but she knows now that it’s not Nico. She fights the voice with her own weapon, her own tool. The whirring thoughts are welcomed. She holds the power.
She can’t move at first. The rain makes the grave cover like a straitjacket, like wide belts holding her in. She can only turn her head. Cough the dirt out.
In the rainy morning light she sees more
clearly now. Thinks more clearly. The markers, white crosses. The bones her boots are touching are old. This place, so forlorn. Abandoned. Stuck in a different time. The only sound is rain on leaves, rain on dirt, rain on skin.
All the events of the previous day start coming back to her as she surfaces and takes back control of her senses. Clears the fuzz in her brain. “Oh my God!” she cries out. “What is happening?” She panics and begins to struggle. The horror of what nearly happened, the claustrophobia, being submerged in wet dirt, gives her the superhuman strength she needs to push out from under it. She grips the side of the grave and pulls, heaves herself to her stomach, coughing.
Her throat hurts and she’s freezing, filthy, covered in scratches and bruises. She lifts her head and looks around the overgrown yard, seeing all the crosses now.
Twenty-four of them.
Lined up in four equal quadrants.
With aisles between each section.
In the two spots next to Kendall, the dirt is somewhat fresher. Raised up. She looks closer and sees a decomposing hand sticking out from one and bones from the other. She crawls to the one closest and starts digging.
Long brown hair comes away in her hand—it’s not Nico. Could it be Tiffany?
Kendall becomes increasingly aware of the stench in the graveyard.
She dry heaves off to the side, and crawls over to the other grave. Looks at the decomposing hand, wipes her eyes and looks again. The tissue wavers before her eyes. And then she sees why.
Maggots.
She turns, gagging from the sight and smell, gagging again from all the dirt drying out her throat.
She begins digging with what little strength she has left, her fingers bleeding. “Please no, please no, please no,” she cries softly, over and over.
She scrapes the dirt away. Brushes it from his black, bloated face, his white-blond hair confirming her worst fear.
“No!” Her cry rasps from deep inside her chest. She falls away onto her back, sobbing, until she has nothing else left. She rolls as far away as she can before she’s too exhausted to move.
She lies there, quiet, no longer feeling cold or pain. No longer caring.
Nico is dead.
As the rain slows and the hours tick forward into evening, there is a noise.
“Kendall!” she hears. It seems so far away.
She is delusional. Too weak to shout. “Nico?” She rasps. Rain puddles around her. Everything is dark.
Someone picks her up, wraps a coat around her, carries her like a baby. She hears more voices far away, exclaiming in horror.
They move quickly. A branch slaps her face, and she startles.
“Shit, sorry,” he says.
“Jacián,” she whispers. Her chest sears in pain with every breath. She struggles in his arms.
“Sit tight. We’ve got a ways to go.”
“They’re dead.”
“Yes.” He jiggles her as he breaks into a jog, leaving the thickest woods behind. And eventually, back on the path at Cryer’s Pass, he hoists her up onto his four-runner and glides in next to her, holding her around the shoulders, helping her sit up. Takes off toward the ranch. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s going to be bumpy here for a bit.”
“How did you find me?” She leans into him, too cold to shiver. Too tired to open her eyes. Her throat feels like she swallowed broken glass.
He pulls the coat tightly around her and holds her as he drives. His mouth is close, warm near her ear. “They called the search first thing this morning when your parents noticed you were gone, around five. Soon after, everybody rolled into town. We’re getting too good at this.” He adjusts his grip on Kendall’s shoulder and steps on the gas as they approach a clearing.
“I remembered what you said about the desk,” he continues. “Yeah, it was weird, but I would have tried anything at that point. I’m so pissed at myself for not . . . Oh hell, never mind.” He scowls, but she doesn’t see it. “So, anyway, I went to school to look for clues. Old Mr. Greenwood let me in. I sat at the desk, read all the graffiti. In the middle it said ‘Deep in the woods beyond Cryer’s Pass.’ I almost didn’t think it would mean anything because the carvings looked so old, but I mentioned it to my grandfather, and he almost fainted. He called the sheriff and old Mr. Greenwood. They took the truck out here, but it got caught in the vines trying to drive over. So we’re going this way.”
His voice sounds far away, and the voice of the desk doesn’t leave her. Everything in her brain is mud. “Don’t let them bury me,” she says.
“Oh, Kendall.” His voice breaks. “Did somebody do this to you? Did anyone touch you?”
She shakes her head. “No. It’s just the voices. They made me . . . do things. . . .” She lets a sob escape, and then explodes into a racking cough.
“Voices? You mean . . . ,” he says slowly, “you heard something, when you touched the desk?”
“Yes, the voices.” Kendall grips her throat as it burns.
“Shh . . . You can explain once we get you to the hospital.”
They reach Hector’s ranch, and Jacián pulls the quad up next to the barn. He carries Kendall to his truck, starts it up to get the heat flowing, and then picks up the barn phone to make a quick call to Kendall’s parents.
“I’ve got her. She’s alive. I’m taking her to Bozeman Hospital. It’s faster than waiting on an ambulance. Is that okay? . . . Good. She’s talking, but she’s been out in the rain all night and day.”
He listens for a moment and then says, “See you there.”
He rushes into the truck and takes off down the road, the heater on full blast. He slides Kendall over to him and cradles his arm around her. Halfway to Bozeman she’s shivering. Jacián says that’s a good sign.
He pulls up to the emergency room and carries her inside, grabbing an empty wheelchair and the first person in scrubs that he sees. “Hey, man, she’s freezing. Soaking wet,” he says, setting Kendall down in the wheelchair. The orderly hesitates, glances at the waiting room and then at Kendall’s blue lips, and takes her away. Someone at the desk hands Jacián a clipboard with forms on it. He stares at it blankly. Carries it to the entrance to meet Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher. Tells them everything he knows as they fill out the paperwork.
For a moment Jacián just stands there looking down the long, bustling hallway, thinking, catching his breath before it all catches up to him. And then he turns and goes out to park the truck.
And to get a grip on things before he loses it.
TWENTY-SEVEN
It’s pneumonia, probably some dirt inhaled into her lungs, and the cold rain didn’t help. Kendall spends the first day with a high fever, in and out of consciousness. Not caring what is happening, only mourning around the edges of reality. Her best friend in all the world, the boy who knew her best, the guy who wanted to be a nurse so he could help people feel better, is dead. And he died in a horrible way.
Part of her knew he had to be dead. When Eli said it at the Obregons’ party, she believed he was probably right. But the desk . . . his voice. It’s still killing her.
When she wakes up, her mother is there, reading by the bed, her half-glasses near the tip of her nose. There’s another bed in the room, but it’s empty.
“Hey, Mom,” Kendall says in a gravelly voice, and cringes. There are oxygen tubes in her nostrils, and her throat is raw, burning. An IV is attached to one arm, and stitches poke from the other where the clippers stabbed her. Her legs and arms, even her stomach is covered with scratches and bruises.
Mrs. Fletcher sits up quickly, puts her book on the table, and a smile spreads across her face. “Kendall,” she says. “How’s my girl?”
Kendall points to her throat and makes a sad face.
Mrs. Fletcher reaches for a glass of water and feeds the straw into Kendall’s mouth.
Kendall sucks on the straw, feeling the cool water soothe her throat.
“Do you want a pen and some paper?” Mrs. Fletcher rummages through her purse.<
br />
Kendall doesn’t have any energy to write, but then she nods anyway. Why not? Turns out she has a few burning questions, once she’s fully awake.
“Nico died,” she writes.
Mrs. Fletcher presses her fingers to her lips as she thinks about how to say things. “They’re both . . . dead. Did you know that?”
Kendall nods. Tears well up in her eyes. She knew it, but hearing her mother say it out loud makes it feel true.
“They’re exhuming the bodies for autopsy. The Quinns and the Cruzes are going to have proper burials and a memorial service in the cemetery behind the church in a few days. And now everybody’s trying to find out who murdered them, who buried them there. And why. Honey,” Mrs. Fletcher says in earnest, her voice filled with worry and dread, “do you remember who did this to you? How did you . . . he . . .” She can’t say it. “The police are going to talk to you again.” Her voice breaks, and she grabs a tissue.
Kendall isn’t sure what to say. She writes on her notepad, “I don’t really remember anything.” She doesn’t like lying, but if she tells the truth, she knows they’ll put her away.
Mrs. Fletcher reaches down and hugs Kendall tightly. “It’s okay, baby. Just tell the police what you remember and that’s all you have to do.”
Kendall nods.
When Sheriff Greenwood comes, he brings a small entourage with him—old Mr. Greenwood and Hector Morales, who stand outside the door to her room, not looking in.
“I brought you some visitors if you’re up for it,” the sheriff says to Kendall.
Kendall nods.
“Mrs. Fletcher, can I speak to you in private?”
“Of course.” Mrs. Fletcher gives Kendall’s knee a comforting squeeze through the blankets. Then she follows the sheriff.