Three Truths and a Lie

by Brent Hartinger

  I tried to make sense of what he was saying. “She almost killed you, left you to die, and then you deliberately went on to become friends with her?”

  He looked back at me and smiled again. His teeth glowed white in the dark.

  “And you never told her?” I said.

  “Why would I tell her? The whole point was to wait.”

  “For what?”

  “For the perfect moment.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “You mean you pretended to be her friend all these years, just so you’d have a chance for a weekend like this? For a chance to make her pay?”

  “You said it yourself,” he said. “What do we really have in common? You never liked Mia. Truth is, I never liked her either. You know what really got me? That she was alone that night. It might’ve been different if she’d been out driving with friends—if they’d scared or shamed her into leaving the scene. I can almost understand that. But she was alone. Her decision to leave me was entirely her own. What kind of person does that?”

  His words dripped down over me, covering me, sliding down my face, into the neck of my shirt, down my back, all the way down to my underwear. But they weren’t like water, or even piss. They were like sap, viscous and sticky, coating me, hardening into amber. How could I have been with someone for three months and not have seen this? What kind of split personality did he have? Did he ever care about me at all?

  “You’ll never get away with this,” I said, realizing what a cliché it was even as I said it. “Two people are dead. You don’t think the police will come out here and look for evidence?”

  “There’s no evidence that will tie anything to me. There is evidence that will tie it to a mysterious someone else. I planted it. I’ll have to injure myself before the police come. I’ll need a real reason for all this blood.”

  Was he telling the truth? It was obvious that he’d been several steps ahead of me the whole time. Liam was more dominant, more certain of himself, than even I knew. He truly was unstoppable.

  “But . . . ,” I said. “How could you even know we’d come out here? It was Galen’s idea to come to this cabin. And it was my idea to go away in the first place!”

  “People are easier to manipulate than you think,” Liam said. “But mostly it was just a question of being adaptable. Of changing to fit the circumstances.”

  I tried to think, but the sap was seeping into my brain now. Even my thoughts were sticky.

  “Okay,” I said, forcing words out. “I understand why you killed Mia. But why Galen? He never did anything to you.” And why me?

  He shrugged. “To make her pay. She really loved him, you know. But also because he was a real prick.” So that part of it wasn’t a lie—the part about Galen teasing Liam, and Liam hating him in return. Liam said, “And you’re also thinking, ‘What about me?’”

  Even now, we were thinking the same thoughts.

  “You know,” he said, “I was going to let you live.”

  Was? I thought.

  “You seemed so genuinely upset by Mia’s story. By what she had done.”

  “I was,” I said. “I am! It’s horrible what she did to you!” At this point, I was going to tell Liam whatever he wanted to hear. But how much had he heard the night before? Had he understood how much I’d started to see things from Mia’s point of view?

  “But.”

  “What?” I said. I heard the panic in my voice, even only speaking that single word.

  “Don’t you see? I gave you a chance to see if you were any different. And it turns out you weren’t.”

  “A chance? What are you talking about?”

  “Ten minutes ago. Back on the trail. If you’d tried to save me, I was going to let you live. If you’d started to carry me to the highway, I was going to come to and we would’ve continued on, and you never would’ve known the truth.”

  “I thought you were dead. You looked dead!”

  “Did you check my pulse? Even I can’t stop my own heart. But you didn’t even check. You assumed I was dead and ran like the coward you are. Which proved to me that you’re no different than Mia. That you’re just as weak. You were alone too, so it was a test of the real you. But you failed. When things get tough, when push comes to shove, you only think of yourself.”

  “Liam, I love you, and I thought you loved me. That wasn’t all a lie. I know it wasn’t.”

  “No,” he said. “It wasn’t all a lie.”

  “Then let’s work this out. No one knows what happened up here except you and me. You say there’s no evidence that you did this? You think I’m going to tell on you? I won’t!”

  He stared at me, thinking. “You’d do that for me?”

  “Yes!” I said. “I would! I will!”

  “But Rob, I don’t believe you. Unfortunately, you’re not a very good liar. Remember the game?”

  “I’ll do better! You can teach me how to lie better!”

  “But how do I know you’d keep your word? How do I know you wouldn’t tell the police everything?”

  “I wouldn’t! I promise!”

  “Except I already know you’re lying. That’s how bad a liar you are. Besides, I already gave you a chance to do something for me, back there on the trail, and you blew it.”

  “I didn’t know!” I said. “I’m sorry. Give me another chance.”

  “That’s the thing about character tests, Rob. They only work when you don’t know you’re being tested. Otherwise they’re meaningless. They can be faked. You can lie your way through.”

  So that was it? Liam had already made up his mind? He was going to kill me anyway?

  “You’re forgetting something,” I said.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “I’m still the one with the gun.” Unlike the flashlight, I’d kept a tight grip on the weapon as I ran through the woods. I was still holding it in my hand, thick and heavy.

  I pointed it at Liam and flicked the switch to unhook the safety. I’d never held a gun before, but it was obvious how to unlock it, so intuitive.

  Liam’s eyes widened in the dark. They were even whiter than his teeth.

  “If you really think you can shoot me in cold blood, then do it,” he said. “But you forget I’ve spent the last three months with you. I know you, Rob. How you think. I know you can’t do it.”

  Liam thought he was so good at reading my mind? He wasn’t, not at all.

  I pulled the trigger.

  The gun clicked. It didn’t shoot.

  I fired again. Empty.

  Liam laughed. “Did you really think I wouldn’t take the bullets out of the magazine? It was easy enough back in the cabin when you were getting dressed. And now I’ve given you another test, just like you asked, and you failed it. You proved once again how much like Mia you are. And you also proved that everything you said to me now was a lie.”

  What could I say? Liam was absolutely right.

  He was still laughing. He sounded different now, like a completely different person, like someone I’d never even met. He’d said our relationship hadn’t been a complete lie, but it had. Nothing but an endless stream of lies and only one single truth, right now at the very end.

  Liam lifted a stick or a baton. He’d had it at his side, in his left hand. Liam was left-handed. I’d known that, of course: he and Mia were both left-handed, but it had never occurred to me to suspect Liam.

  It was a Taser wand. I could see the two small electrodes at the very end. He must have snuck it in with him this weekend.

  He took a step forward. “I’m not sure what to do with your body,” he said. “How to explain what happened here in the woods. But I’ll think of something.”

  “You’re really going to kill me?” Even after everything, I couldn’t quite believe it.

  “Yes,” he said, and it didn’t take any skill at all to know he was finally telling me the whole, complete truth.

  21

  I turned and ran. The mud squished un
der my feet. For Liam to get me, he first needed to touch me with that Taser. So I knew he’d follow.

  And he did. Mud sloshed behind me.

  But I wasn’t planning on running from him. The second he started after me, I stopped and turned on him. Brilliant mastermind or not, he hadn’t been expecting that.

  I came at him on his right side, the one where he wasn’t holding the Taser. He wasn’t expecting that either.

  He gasped in surprise as I grabbed him and threw him to the ground. His head just missed one of the freshly cut stumps. This close to the ground, the smell of pine and sap was overwhelming.

  “Stop!” he said. “No!”

  He squirmed, but I held on, pinning him down. We were both slick with blood, and as we wrestled, it mixed together, like blood brothers. Except it wasn’t really like that, since it was all the same blood, his blood. The Taser wand was attached to his wrist with a cord, but I held his hand down, my knee pressed right into his little spiderweb tattoo.

  Still he fought back. Liam and I were the same size, but he was stronger, more sure of himself, the dominant one. I was determined to overpower him, but I wasn’t even fifty percent sure I could.

  We fought. He yanked his hand out from under my knee, and I felt us roll, then he was on top of me. We kept fighting, and it reminded me of the sex we’d had earlier in the cabin. Like then, we flexed and grunted and twisted. Sweat dripped off both of us, and I could smell his musk, heady and intoxicating.

  But this wasn’t sex. It was the opposite of sex. Sex was about life. This was about death.

  We kept wrestling, both of us groaning, and suddenly I found myself sitting on his chest again. He may have been the dominant one, but I was winning this fight. I was stronger, at least at that moment. I guess I wanted it more.

  Liam squirmed underneath me again, writhing and gasping. But somehow I pinned both his hands with my knees.

  My hands encircled his neck and I began to squeeze.

  I said before I’m not proud of what I did on the road, leaving Liam behind like that. I’m not proud of what I did here either. Could I have grabbed the Taser and subdued him? Given him a chance to surrender? Maybe I could have. But the truth is I didn’t even try. So maybe Liam was right about me. Maybe I did think of myself first.

  With my hands around his neck, I squeezed the life right out of him. It wasn’t like with Mia where I could actually see the light disappear from her eyes. It was too dark for that. But I could feel Liam dying, like his soul was struggling along with his body, desperate to stay inside, but it was slowly being pulled out, like a snail out of its shell.

  At the start of this story, I decided to tell you the whole truth about what happened that weekend, no matter how shocking or embarrassing.

  So I guess I have to tell you that at the exact moment when Liam died, when he fell limp for good, when whatever soul he had finally left his body . . .

  I liked it.

  The truth is I’d never felt so powerful in my whole entire life. Liam was stoppable after all, and I’d been the one to do it.

  But it was still self-defense. If anyone had ever deserved to die more than Liam, I’m not sure who.

  I felt him below me, lifeless. Once before, he’d fooled me with limp muscles and a glassy-eyed look. I thought I’d known what death looked like, but I hadn’t. But this time it was no act. I felt for his pulse. He really was dead.

  I stood up, dizzy. My headache was back, even worse than before, but I ignored it. At first I looked away from him, from his body. But I didn’t leave. I had to see him one last time, the person I’d been so sure was the other half of me.

  I stared at him for so long I lost track of time. At some point, the moon finally broke through the clouds. Liam looked so familiar and yet so alien, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he was dead. He and I weren’t the same. We never had been.

  We couldn’t have been more different.

  Eventually I turned away. But I could still smell his musk on me, stronger than ever. I knew I’d be smelling it for a long time to come.

  I staggered through that clear-cut, toward the highway, past stumps bleeding sap and through pools and streams of clouded water. There must have been mud in my shoes rubbing against my skin, and I’m sure the water was cold, but I have no memory of any of that.

  Before long, the clear-cut ended, and I came to another patch of forest. I slogged on through that too, over soggy ferns and angry thorns, all of which I ignored. And then there was another clear-cut, and another patch of rain forest, and on and on, back and forth, all through the night.

  Eventually I came to the highway, and I flagged a passing car. The driver called the police on his cell phone.

  It wasn’t for at least another hour after that, until I was finally in the hospital in Marot, that I relaxed, even a little. But Liam was dead, and I was safe.

  It was all finally over, and I alone had survived.

  22

  I’d finished my story.

  The doctor stared at me, but I honestly couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I was in a single bed, and he was sitting in a chair facing me. The air smelled like disinfectant from the floors and bleach from the sheets. I wasn’t wearing a hospital gown. It was more like a pair of pajamas.

  “That’s quite a story,” he said.

  “You’re telling me,” I said. “If it hadn’t happened to me, I’m not sure I’d believe it.”

  “Really?”

  “Would you? If it happened to you, I mean?” I scratched my nose.

  “Tell me something,” the doctor said softly.

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re left-handed too, aren’t you?”

  I had to think about that for a second, but then I realized that yes, I was left-handed.

  “So?” I said.

  “That’s quite a coincidence, don’t you think? Everyone except for Galen being left-handed?”

  “I guess so. But what difference does that make?” I looked around the room. It didn’t look like an ordinary hospital. It was more like a dormitory, except the door had a small window. “Where am I anyway? I don’t remember this place.”

  “It’s a place for you to get better,” he said. “Liam.”

  “What?” I said, confused. “My name’s not Liam. It’s Rob.” I laughed. “Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said?”

  “Yes, I’ve been listening. I’ve been listening very closely. You’ve told me the same story for eight days in a row. I’ve heard it all again and again.”

  “No, you haven’t!” I said. I felt groggy. Had I been drugged? Even if I hadn’t, I’d gone through an incredibly traumatic experience. Anyone would be confused after something like that. Still, what he said about my having told the story before did have the ring of truth. “Have you?” I asked.

  The doctor nodded. “I have, Liam.”

  “Why do you keep calling me that?” I said, irritated. “That’s not my name.”

  “But it is.”

  “No, I’m Rob. Rob Gear.”

  “Like that brand of camouflage gear in the sporting goods store?”

  “What? No. That was just a coincidence.”

  “Rob Gear isn’t your name. Your name is Liam Linard.”

  I laughed again, even if it didn’t seem quite so funny this time. Plus, the laughter sounded familiar somehow. Where had I heard it before?

  “Then who is Rob Gear?” I said.

  “Rob Gear doesn’t exist. He never did. You made him up.”

  “Of course Rob exists! He’s me. Are you saying I don’t exist?”

  “I’m saying you’re not Rob. There is no Rob. You’re Liam Linard, and you spent the weekend two weeks ago at a cabin in the rain forest with your best friend, Mia, and her boyfriend, Galen. And you killed them both. But after you’d done it, while you were still out in those woods, you created some kind of alter ego. I don’t know when exactly—maybe it was right after you killed Mia or maybe it was a little later�
��but you told the police and everyone at the hospital that your name was Rob Gear, that you’d been a victim of Liam’s, along with the others. You were quite convincing. It took a long time, and a lot of people, to piece it all together.”

  I leaned back, and the bed squeaked. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would I lie? Think it through.”

  “Tell me this then,” the doctor said. “If everything happened the way you said it did . . .”

  If? I honestly didn’t understand why the doctor didn’t believe me.

  “Why do you have that tattoo?” the doctor finished.

  “What?” I said.

  “On your wrist.”

  I was curious, but both my hands were in my lap now, facing down. I didn’t move them. But I felt a tingle, a little itch, right where Liam, Mia, and Galen had all gotten their tattoos.

  “Go on,” the doctor said. “Take a look.”

  I turned my wrist over. Sure enough, I had a tattoo now. It was a little spiderweb, exactly like the ones the others had gotten. What in the world? How had that gotten there?

  “I thought you said you didn’t get a tattoo,” the doctor said. “So how did that get there?”

  I had to think. How had it gotten there? We definitely left the tattoo parlor before I had a chance to get one.

  “Liam!” I said at last. “He must’ve done it to me at some point during the night.”

  “And you didn’t wake up?” the doctor said. “And you never noticed it until right now?”

  The tattoo itched more intensely now. It almost burned, but I didn’t dare scratch it. I turned my hand over again and buried it in the sheets.

  “Did Liam put you up to this?” I said at last. “Is he behind all this?” I squirmed again, but this time the bed didn’t squeak. It didn’t even move. I must have jogged it up against the wall.