by Brian Rowe
“Come on, Brin,” he said. “Don’t leave me out here in the cold.”
She didn’t answer. He waited a full minute before knocking a second time, this time a little louder.
Ash waited. Again, no answer. He squinted his eyes and looked through the small window next to the door to see that the kitchen light was on. He chuckled and stepped back.
“She’s home,” he said. “Why is she making this so difficult?”
He almost rang the doorbell, but decided against it, given that her mom might already be in bed.
He started walking around the house, toward the back of her bedroom window. He hadn’t crawled through her window in a long time—it would be a nostalgic trip to the past.
As he crept through the bushes, finding the side gate and entering the backyard, Ash thought about the simpler times with Brin, before high school, before her dad died.
“Oh my God,” Ash said as he softly shut the side gate. “That was a year ago. Today.”
Ash still freaked out every time he thought about Brin’s father Kristopher. The man had been the healthiest adult person he’d ever known. Kristopher loved his daughter, and loved being a part of her life—much more than Brin’s mother Tessa ever did—and nearly every weekend, Ash found himself on an adventure with Brin and her dad. Sometimes Tessa joined; sometimes she didn’t. Either way, they would all have a blast, going skiing or hiking or boating. The guy could even make golf fun.
What made Kristopher’s death so tragic was that it was so sudden. In the middle of a lecture he was giving at the University of Nevada, Reno, he started feeling chest pains. He collapsed soon after and was taken to Washoe Medical Center, where he died within the hour. Brin, nor her mother, received enough warning to see him in time. It turned out Brin’s dad died of an aortic dissection, the result of a previously undiagnosed heart defect. The man was never sick, was always filled with energy, then dropped dead faster than you could snap your fingers.
Brin loved her dad, with all her heart, and hadn’t been the same since. Ash tried to be there for her in those following weeks and months, but Brin had preferred her solitude, until finally breaking out of her shell last summer and allowing him back into her life. He’d missed her a lot, and in the last few months she finally returned to her normal self. But it was still tough, even for Ash. It was one of those unthinkable tragedies in life no one could see coming, making it that much harder for everyone to move on and be happy.
Ash slinked around the side of the house, through the large dirt mounds that were originally meant for plants, and through a small bed of grass that had momentarily turned snow white, before he reached Brin’s upstairs bedroom window. He grabbed a ladder on the right side of the patio and set it against the house. Brin’s bedroom light was on. He didn’t want to be a creeper, but he also knew that if he looked inside to see Brin naked, she would ultimately forgive him, because they were friends. And besides, he had seen her naked before. When she was six.
“Brin?” Ash said as he reached the top of the ladder and tapped on the window. “Are you in there?”
He stood up as high as he could and peered into the room. Her bedside lamp was on, but he didn’t see her anywhere.
“Hello?” He didn’t tap on the window this time. He knocked.
He didn’t have to wait for a response this time. The bedroom door shot open.
“Who’s there?” a voice said. It wasn’t Brin.
Ash tried not to scream. Brin’s mom entered the bedroom and darted her eyes at the window.
Ash charged back down the ladder, falling back against some patio chairs, and started racing back toward the front of the house. He wasn’t sure if Brin was home or not, but he knew it was a bad idea for Tessa to know he was snooping around her backyard.
He closed the front gate and walked up to the front door to try knocking again. But that Tessa was fast. She opened the door before Ash’s fist could even reach it.
“Oh!” Tessa brought her hand to her heart. “Oh, Ash, you scared me.”
“Hello Mrs. S.”
She laughed and took a deep breath. “You’re never gonna call me Tessa, are you?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“All right, fine. Come in. Get out of the cold.”
“Thank you.”
Ash stepped inside Brin’s two-story house, which featured Brin’s bedroom upstairs on one side, and her mom’s master bedroom on the other. Downstairs was everything else, including a small kitchen, a generously sized living room, and a door that led to an unoccupied basement.
“I’m so happy to see you,” Tessa said.
“Yeah? Why is that?”
“Well, it’s after ten o’clock, and I was getting scared. I haven’t seen Brin all day.”
He stared at her, confused. “She didn’t come home?”
“Unfortunately not,” she said. Ash didn’t realize the truth right away, but now it was a certainty. Brin hadn’t returned from Bodie, and Tessa hadn’t a clue where her daughter was. “Did she come with you, or…”
“Oh… uhh…” Ash didn’t want to worry her. It was time for a big, fat lie. “Mrs. S, she’s staying over at my place tonight, if that’s OK. She came over to watch a movie after her film shoot, and she’s been really depressed and sad all evening. I think it’s about her dad. I’m just trying to be a good friend.”
Tessa smiled. “No, Ash. You’re a great friend. I’m glad my daughter has someone like you in her life.”
He nodded. “Oh… well, thanks.” Awkward silence ensued, giving Ash the go-ahead to make his getaway. “Anyway, I should probably be getting back.”
Ash turned around, but Tessa wasn’t finished with him yet. He could see her suspicious gaze burning a hole through the back of his skull.
“Ash?”
“Yes?”
“Why didn’t you just call?”
Ash turned toward Brin’s mom. “Excuse me?”
“You drove all the way here to tell me Brin’s at your house?”
Ash didn’t know what to say. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He searched his brain for something that would make sense, but he came up with nothing.
But before the truth could spill out of him, Tessa’s suspicious demeanor changed back to a more jovial one.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I know.”
Ash loudly gulped. “You know?”
Tessa walked upstairs to Brin’s bedroom. Ash watched from the entrance hall with confusion, until Tessa returned with Brin’s special green pillow.
“Leave it to my daughter to make you drive all the way over here for that damn pillow she loves,” she said.
Ash took a deep breath. He had forgotten. Brin was allergic to the fabric of certain pillows, and whenever she slept somewhere besides her own home, she had to bring her own pillow along.
“Yeah, well, she practically begged me to come get it.”
“It’s fine,” Tessa said. “If you didn’t get it, she’d break out in hives throughout the night, and then I’d have to deal with it tomorrow.”
“Oh, yeah. It’s pretty gross.” Ash remembered. It was extremely gross.
She handed him the pillow. “Can you have her call me in the morning? I’d really like to talk to her.”
“Oh, yes. Of course.” Ash nodded and headed for the front door. “Goodnight, Mrs. S.”
“Good night, Ash. Thanks again for your help.”
Ash shut the door behind him and stepped back out into the cold. He eyed his car in the distance, as well as the dark, empty street.
Ash looked up at the sky. The snowfall had stopped.
“Brin…” He felt a pain in his gut, then in his forehead. “Brin… where the hell are you?”
Chapter Twenty-One
It wasn’t easy to slip in and out of that schoolhouse window. When Brin’s right foot got stuck, she found herself hanging above the dusty old carpet, with old flimsy boxes set up below to break her fall. She kicked, twice, before gravity
brought her down to the ground with a loud thud.
“Oww,” she said.
“Brin?” Dylan said from the other side of the rectangular room. He and Anaya were sitting close together in the back left corner. Anaya remained on the ground, while Dylan stood up and raced toward her.
“Yeah, it’s me,” she said.
“Oh my God, it’s so good to see you,” he said, smiling. He hugged her. “Are you here to save us?”
“I… uhh…” She didn’t know what to say. “Help’s on the way.”
“Yeah? Where’s Chace?’
“It’s a long story.”
They both heard a low chuckle in the distance. Anaya, her face buried in the viewfinder of the HD camera, shook her head. “Don’t be an idiot, Dylan. Of course she didn’t bring help.”
Dylan turned around. “What do you mean?”
“We’re over twenty miles from the nearest town. Brin wasn’t gone long enough. She didn’t accomplish a damn thing.”
“That’s not true,” Brin said, walking toward the center of the schoolhouse. The windows and ceiling were draped with cobwebs, and dirt covered the sneeze-inducing carpet. “Chace went on ahead. He’s gonna be back soon with help from the Bridgeport police—”
“That’s a load of bullshit,” Anaya said. “Something happened, didn’t it?”
“Nothing happened. I decided to come back.”
“Yeah, right.”
Dylan kept moving his head back and forth between Brin and Anaya. “Well, what is it? Someone tell me the truth!”
Brin glanced at Dylan. He looked ready to cry. Then she turned back to Anaya. She had the camera practically glued to her face.
“Anaya, will you put the camera down?” Brin said. “I’ve got something I need to tell you both.”
“So… tell.”
“I will if you come over here. Put the camera away.”
“Put the camera away?” Anaya glared at Brin. “This camera is the reason we all came here. It’s the reason for this entire mess! I’m guarding this camera with everything I have.”
“What? Do you think I’m gonna do something to it?”
“You might.”
“Set it down, Anaya. We’ve got bigger problems here than you guys know.”
“Like what?”
“Like…” Brin sighed. Anaya still wouldn’t look her way. “Just… please…”
Anaya still wouldn’t look away from the camera viewfinder. “Hold on. I’m watching the last shot we did. You know… the one that killed Sawyer.”
Brin took a step forward. “But Anaya, he’s…”
“He’s what, Brin?”
“I just saw him outside,” Brin said. “I don’t want to make any promises. But I think he might be alive.”
Anaya finally brought the camera down to her side. She pushed her hands against the wall and stood up, wiping the dirt off her jeans.
“I saw him outside,” Brin continued, “for a moment, before he fell into the hole. Before he disappeared.”
“Before he fell into a what?” Anaya started marching forward. She pushed Brin, unexpectedly. “Are you messing with me? You think it’s funny to mock Sawyer? You think it’s funny that a member of our group is dead? It’s gonna be impossible for us to get an A on this movie now!” Anaya scratched her chin. “Unless… maybe we can get a sympathy vote…”
Dylan loudly cleared his throat. “Uhh, listen… I don’t care about anything right now except for getting the hell out of here! And we’re not really close to that at the moment. You know why? Because we’re standing in an abandoned schoolhouse in the middle of freakin’ nowhere!”
Brin turned around. Dylan appeared on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “It’s safe in here, Dylan. For now, at least.” She turned back to Anaya. “Where’s the front door? I want to make sure it’s locked tight.”
Anaya pointed. The front door had a large chain strapped around the knobs. It looked secure. She walked up to it.
Brin passed by the children’s desks, some of which still had old textbooks and homework papers sprawled out on top. The chalkboard at the back of the room was surprisingly absent of dust and grime, like someone had come in to clean it recently. She ran her finger along the desk closest to the front door. So much black soot shot up into the air that Brin sneezed.
“Gesundheit,” Dylan said.
“Thanks.”
Brin turned around. Dylan stood awkwardly, his arms crossed, a scared little frown on his face. Anaya had already made her way back down to the ground, her focus turned once again to the video camera.
Brin didn’t care any longer about the movie they’d shot today; she hadn’t really cared about it to begin with. But she felt like the question needed to be asked anyway: “How does it look?”
Anaya brought her head up. “What’d you say?”
“The footage,” Brin said. “Does it look OK?”
Anaya peered back down into the viewfinder. “It looks terrible.”
“Terrible?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I was hoping for the best. But honestly? It’s shit.”
Brin tugged on the front door. More soot shot up into her face, but she didn’t sneeze this time. The door was locked tight. The only way in or out was through that tiny window she entered in the back, and two large glass windows—shut tight, thank God—to the left of the door.
She turned around and set her hands on her sides. “What do you mean it’s shit?”
“Nothing’s salvageable,” Anaya said, a look on her face that suggested she wanted to throw up. “The lighting’s bad, the framing’s all wrong. It’s partly my fault. But it’s partly yours, too. I’m sorry to say it, Brin… but you’re the worst actress on the face of the earth.”
Brin took a step forward. “Are you telling me… that we came out all this way… for nothing?”
The girl nodded. “There’s no way this is gonna get us an A. This is a C at best. We need to do better. We need to start over. Maybe we can try filming in Virginia City? I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard it looks like a town from another era—”
Anaya wasn’t able to finish her sentence. Brin ran over to the corner of the room, grabbed the camera from Anaya’s hands, and tossed it to the dirt ground before Anaya had a chance to dive for it.
“My camera!”
“It’s not your camera!” Brin shouted. “It’s the school’s camera!”
“You broke it!”
“I didn’t break it.”
“Yes you did!”
Brin leaned over and grabbed Anaya by her massive shoulders. She started to shake her. Then she slapped her.
“What the… what the hell…”
“Snap out of it!” Brin shouted. “Forget your stupid movie! Don’t you understand? People are dying!”
“What?” Dylan said from the other side of the room. “Who’s dying?”
Anaya hadn’t paid attention to Brin’s startling statement, though. She stayed focused on another issue. “You just slapped me in the face,” Anaya said, her skin turning red, most obviously in her fatty cheeks. “You just physically assaulted me, you stupid bitch!”
Brin’s eyes went wide as Anaya leapt forward and landed like a wrestler on top of her chest. Brin managed to slip out from under her, but Anaya grabbed her and pulled her back. The two started rolling around on the ground, Anaya slapping Brin, Brin pulling Anaya’s stringy hair. The dust started flying everywhere.
Anaya slammed her leg down against Brin’s abdomen.
“I can’t…” Brin said. “Anaya… I can’t breathe…”
“Tough luck!” the girl shouted.
“Stop it!” Dylan shouted, racing up to the two, his hands pressed against both their faces in an attempt to stop the illogical fight. But that didn’t stop them—they both pushed against Dylan’s chest at the same time and knocked him down to the ground.
“I never wanted you here,” Anaya said with disgust. “I never wanted you in my movie!”
“I never wanted you in my group,” Brin said. She tugged harder at Anaya’s hair, and the girl screamed. Brin had never been in a chick fight before. Now seemed like a better time than any.
“You’re so full of yourself. You’re so stupid!”
“You’re stupid!” Brin shouted. “You’re a big stupid pig is what you are!”
“Take that back!”
“No!”
“Take it back, bitch!”
“NO!” Brin leapt on top of Anaya and slapped her twice in the face.
Anaya slugged Brin in the boob and pushed her to the side. “This was never your movie to make,” Anaya said. “You can never be the leader, you understand me? I’m the leader, and you’re forever in the background. You’re nothing. To no one. And I’m just the only one who can say it!”
Brin wanted to cry. “Why are you so mean? You don’t even know me!”
“I know you well enough,” Anaya said. “You’re just like the rest of them.”
“Like the rest? Like the rest of who?”
“Uhh, guys,” Dylan said, rubbing the back of his aching head. He pointed toward the window.
“I see it in your faces,” Anaya said. “Every one of you who look at me. All you see is the big, dumb fat girl. Well you know what? There’s a whole lot more to me than what meets the eye. You just aren’t looking hard enough!”
“Anaya,” Brin said, “I’ve never seen you as a dumb fat girl.”
“Brin… Anaya…” Dylan tried, unsuccessfully, to get their attentions. “You guys might want to see this.”
They continued to ignore him. “Then how have you seen me, Brin?” Anaya stared at the girl with animosity.
“I’ve seen you as the epitome of selfishness. I don’t care that you’re fat. I care that you’re a horrible person. You’re horrible to everyone who crosses your path. Whether they want to hate on you, or try to be your friend. It’s pathetic. You’re pathetic!”
“Shup up! Take that back!”
“GUYS!” Dylan shouted as loud as he could. “LOOK!”
Brin noticed it first. She turned to her right to see the soft red glow hitting the dusty bookshelves on the right side of the room. Then she saw the glow touching the left side of her hand.