by Kieran Scott
This isn’t real. This isn’t really happening. Is it? Penelope had killed Ted?
“And … and Zach?” Callie’s voice broke.
Penelope rolled her eyes. “He was calling the police. I had to stop him. Besides, after what he did to us in the woods? He deserved it. And I couldn’t let him go back to town and tell everyone it was me, could I? Jeremy will keep my secret. I know he will. Deep down in his heart, he still loves me. But Zach. Whatever. Like the world needs another pathetic former football star.”
Callie’s brain was falling all over itself trying to make sense of what she was hearing, of the cold, calculating look on the face of the friend she thought she’d known. If Penelope had shot Ted and Zach in cold blood, did that mean … ? But she couldn’t have. Not Lissa. Lissa was Pen’s best friend. They were never apart. They loved each other.
“Penelope, you didn’t …” Callie breathed. “How could you—”
“Come on, Callie. Let’s not drag this out,” Penelope said. “At least you won’t have to struggle. Lissa struggled. She struggled a lot.”
And there it was. The truth. Penelope had killed Lissa. She’d somehow lured her into the woods and strangled her. The very thought of the planning that must have gone into it, of the two of them struggling, of Lissa’s confusion and desperation and fear, made Callie’s vision go dim. She couldn’t take in a full breath and her gasps were ragged, pathetic. Tears streamed down her face. She was about to die. Her best friend was going to kill her.
“How could you do this?” Callie cried, holding her hands up in front of her. “How could you kill Lissa?”
She backed toward the patio door behind her, her mind reeling, knowing that the bodies on the floor lay between her and freedom.
Penelope shrugged. “She lied to us, Callie. She said she cared about us more than she cared about Ted. And then I watched her. I watched her sneak out of the tent and go to him. She waited until she thought we were asleep, and then she turned her back on us. She was nothing but a liar in the end, cheating on her boyfriend. She deserved exactly what she got.”
Callie glanced over her shoulder as she backed toward the door. She had to lift one foot to step between Ted’s lifeless legs.
“Please don’t hurt me,” Callie said as calmly as possible. “I didn’t do anything. I’d never do anything to hurt you.”
Penelope laughed, leaning forward with one hand to her thigh as she kept the other steady, holding on to the gun as if she’d held one every day of her life.
“Are you serious? You stole the love of my life!” Penelope seethed. “Did you really think you could take him from me and I wouldn’t care? That I wouldn’t ever do anything about it? Wait. Of course you did. Because that’s who I am. Who I always was. The doormat. The sweet yes girl. Lissa’s little sidekick. Well, not anymore. I’ll never play her sidekick again. And after today, after I kill you, I’ll never be disrespected again, either.”
“Nobody disrespects you,” Callie protested, trying to puzzle a way out of this. Trying to imagine what she could say to make her unhinged friend see logic.
“Everybody disrespects me!” Penelope roared, making Callie jump. “You, Jeremy, Lissa, Zach, Ted, everyone at school, my parents, my doctors. No one thinks I can handle myself. No one understands that I am who I am and I’m not going to change, no matter what therapies they send me to, no matter what drugs they pump into me. There’s nothing wrong with being yourself, right? Isn’t that what they’re always telling us? Well, then why can’t I just be me?”
Callie’s brain was on fire. Penelope wasn’t making any sense. Drugs? Therapy? Doctors? Who in the world was this person?
“Penelope, you don’t have to do this,” Callie said desperately. “It’s not too late.”
Penelope’s face turned to stone.
“It is for one of us.” And then she pulled the trigger. The shot was so loud Callie felt her heart actually stop. Then the window frame in the door behind her shattered and she bolted up the stairs.
Callie tore down the hall, the house around her reduced to a blur of colors. Outside, she had noticed a balcony off a room near the left side of the house. If she could make it there, she might be able to climb down the side and run for it. It was her only hope.
“Callie, come on!” Penelope called after her as thunder rattled the windowpanes. “Do you really think you can get away from me? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
Callie slammed a door and dove into a small alcove that held a tiny built-in bookshelf and a little window seat for reading. She glimpsed down the hall and saw Penelope take the bait, opening the first door and walking slowly inside. The second Pen was out of sight, Callie raced for the end of the hall, her breath rasping and shallow.
She found herself in a big white master bedroom with the balcony off the side. Sitting on the bedside table was a cordless phone. She grabbed it in her sweaty hands and made for the glass door, dialing 911 with shaking fingers. At least Pen hadn’t figured out how to cut the phone lines.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Someone’s shooting at me,” Callie rasped into the phone, cupping her hand around the mouthpiece. “My friend. My friend Penelope is shooting at me. She killed my friends and now she’s coming after me.”
Callie had to choke back a sob. Lissa. Zach. Ted. All of them so full of life, with families and friends and so much ahead of them. And now they were gone. Why? How did this make any sense?
“What’s your location, miss?”
Callie slipped out the door and onto the balcony. The rain instantly soaked her all over again as the sky flashed white with lightning. The question sank her heart into her toes as she gazed out at the endless trees, as if there would be a street sign or a billboard flashing her exact coordinates.
“I don’t know,” she breathed.
The crack of thunder was deafening. The storm had moved in fast and was now right overhead.
“I’m sorry?”
“I don’t know where I am,” Callie whined, casting around for a weapon. There were two lounge chairs and a table. Nothing else. Callie staggered to the guardrail and looked down. The ground seemed miles away. Callie began to shiver uncontrollably.
“I’ve been hiking with friends. I’m at a cabin in the woods, but I don’t know where. We passed Mercer Pond at some point, but it was a few days ago. And there was a mudslide. We hiked north of an old mudslide,” she added, recalling Ted’s comments.
Ted. Poor Ted. And what about Jeremy? Jeremy. Was he really alive?
Callie heard the bedroom door open. She raced to the wall and pressed back against it, shaking from head to toe.
“I can try to triangulate your location. Can you keep the line open?” the woman on the phone said.
“I’ll try,” Callie whispered, tears springing to her eyes. “Please help me. Please come find me.”
“What’s your name, miss?”
“Callie,” she whispered. “Callie Valasquez.”
“You’re one of the missing hikers. The rangers are out looking for you.”
Callie felt a burst of hope. Then, ever so slowly, the glass door opened and that hope was gone. Callie bit her lip and tossed the phone over the guardrail into the underbrush below, knowing that if Penelope saw her with it, she’d cut the call short. She could only pray that the phone wouldn’t shut itself off when it hit the ground—that the rain wouldn’t short it out somehow.
By some insane stroke of luck, Penelope was looking the other way as she stepped out onto the balcony. Callie held her breath, grabbed the door, and yanked it toward her. As Penelope turned around, Callie let out a guttural cry and slammed the door as hard as she could into her friend’s skull. It made a sickening but satisfying crack. Penelope reeled back, stunned, and dropped the gun. For a second, Callie was so shocked by her own bravery, her own strength, that she couldn’t move. Then she snapped to and dove for the weapon, but it slid across the wet wood planks, out of her grasp.
As Ca
llie pushed herself up to her hands and knees, Penelope shook her head and focused her eyes. Callie crawled for the gun, tears coursing down her face, but Penelope lunged for it. Callie saw that she’d never get there first, but then a plan quickly formed in her mind, playing out in slow motion like some sort of primal instinct kicking in. She swung her leg around and kicked Penelope’s hand as hard as she could. Her foot hit the barrel of the gun, and the weapon spun on its side over the slick water-dotted wooden slats, heading for the edge of the balcony.
“No!” Penelope shouted, struggling to her feet.
But she was too late. The gun perfectly threaded the needle between two guardrail posts, teetered for a second, and then fell. The second it was out of sight, Callie felt some of the pressure in her chest release. It had worked! Now it was just her and Penelope. Not that the odds were all that comforting. Lissa had been far stronger than Pen, after all.
Penelope ran to look over the side. When she turned around again, her face was a grotesque mask of fury. Tangles of rain-matted hair hung over her eyes and her nostrils flared. Slowly, she brought her hand to her forehead and touched the gash the door had left there. When she saw the blood on her fingertips, her lips flattened into a thin, straight, trembling line.
“I am so going to kill you.”
Callie sprinted back through the door to the hallway. Penelope raced after her and Callie suddenly realized what had been off about her before, when she’d led Callie upstairs for a supposed shower. Her ankle. Her ankle was fine. She wasn’t hurt at all. For a whole day, Callie had supported and half dragged the girl through the woods, and Penelope had been faking her injury the entire time. Had she been planning this all along? Had she known that when they finally got here, she was going to kill Callie—the very person who’d just done everything in her power to help her?
She’s crazy, Callie realized fleetingly as she ran for her life. Penelope is out of her mind.
She whipped open door after door behind her, trying to stop Penelope’s progress. As she reached the top of the main staircase, she heard Penelope finally catch her toe on one of the corners and fall down. Callie sprinted down the stairs, stumbling once and almost knocking her head against the hardwood, but she found her feet and careered toward the door. She toppled every piece of furniture behind her on her way out the front, hoping against hope that the police had figured out where she was—that they would be here soon.
Outside, the rain came down in sheets. Thunder rumbled, a long, sustained growl. Callie stumbled past Lissa’s body to the muddy muck of the driveway. There was no place to go. No place to hide.
Callie trembled as she realized she had to do the unthinkable. She had to go back into the woods.
She could hear Penelope stumbling after her inside. It was now or never. Callie took off for the trees, branches and acorns and rocks stabbing at the bare soles of her feet. There was a small shed in the distance and she sprinted for it, thinking there might be some sort of tool inside that she could use as a weapon. She was halfway there—could see the intricate carving of a tree on the shed door—when she tripped. Her face hit the ground first and she saw actual stars float across her vision. For a second she couldn’t breathe, and it was a second too long. Suddenly, a pair of hands came down on her shoulders. Her scream was drowned out by a burst of violent thunder.
“Callie! It’s me!” Jeremy hissed. “Can you move?”
Callie coughed, her lungs expanding with oxygen and relief all at once. She nodded, and Jeremy pulled her to her feet, helping her around the side of the shed. Spent, Callie sank down with her back up against the wall. Jeremy peeked around the corner, then sat next to her.
“I don’t see her,” he said. He had a nasty bump on his forehead from where he’d landed face-first on the kitchen floor. And Callie imagined he had another bump on the back of his head where Penelope had struck him. But otherwise he was in one piece.
Callie clung to him. “You’re okay. Thank God you’re okay!”
“I’m so sorry,” Jeremy said, hugging her close. His T-shirt was so wet she could see his skin right through it. “I’m so sorry. I thought she was better. I thought … I never thought this could happen.”
Callie pulled back, looking Jeremy in the eye. Drops of rain clung to his lashes. “What do you mean? Better from what?”
Jeremy swallowed hard and peeked out from their hiding spot again. He settled back, looking up at the sky for a moment, blinking against the rain.
“After Penelope and I broke up last year, she was … institutionalized for a month,” he said breathlessly.
“What? No. She went to France with her parents.”
“Not true.” Jeremy shook his head. His lips were bright red, his skin white. He was shivering, his teeth beginning to chatter. “That’s just what she told everyone. Everyone but me. My family knew because my mom is such good friends with her mom. Pen just kind of snapped. They diagnosed her with a whole list of mental illnesses. Apparently this stuff runs in her family. She can be really paranoid. That’s why she was so freaked out about her phone. When she said it was her security blanket, she meant it. They took it away from her in the hospital and it freaked her out to be so cut off. Ever since then, if she feels too separated from the outside world, it really gets to her.”
“Omigod,” Callie said, pressing her hand over her mouth. Suddenly Penelope’s ramblings about doctors made perfect sense. “How did I not know this? She always seemed so sweet.”
“She is sweet. Most of the time. But then she goes into these rages …” Jeremy trailed off. “As long as she’s on her meds, she’s fine. But if she goes off them …” He shook his head. “I never thought she could be violent, though. I never thought she could kill someone.”
Callie couldn’t believe this was happening. She’d known a couple kids back in Chicago who were taking medication for anxiety or depression. But it was clear that whatever Penelope was dealing with was much more severe and complicated.
Suddenly a flood of realization hit Callie so hard she bent forward at the waist. “The stream! Remember how she flipped out after she emptied her backpack at the stream? Maybe her meds were in there and fell out when you guys hit the water!”
Jeremy’s eyes widened. “Then she’s been off them for five days.” He kicked at the ground and cursed under his breath. “It makes sense now. The headaches, the staring into the distance, her random paranoia. They’re side effects of coming off the drugs.”
Callie was in shock. “She killed Lissa, Jeremy. Penelope murdered her best friend. And then she shot Ted and Zach like it was nothing.”
“I know. I saw her do it right before she knocked me out.” Jeremy squeezed his eyes closed and pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
“How could you not tell me about her psychological issues?” Callie demanded, feeling a flash of anger.
“I tried to. I was going to. That first night under the stars, and then the other day when Lissa interrupted us,” he said. “But before that I thought … I mean, I didn’t want to gossip about her. She’s sick, Callie. I wanted to respect her privacy.”
Callie closed her eyes and banged her head back against the shed. She understood. She even thought his silence was kind of admirable. But she still wished he hadn’t kept Penelope’s secret.
“I’m so sorry, Callie. I should’ve told you not to come on this trip. But I figured if her parents were letting her go, then she must be all right.”
“It’s not your fault,” Callie said finally, reaching for his free hand. “She should have known better than to come out here where anything could happen. She should have realized.”
“Callie! Jeremy!” Penelope’s voice was reed thin in the rain. “Where are you two lovebirds?”
Callie’s fingers gripped Jeremy’s arm as lightning flashed again. “She’s going to kill us. She’s going to kill us both.”
“I have a plan,” Jeremy whispered, sitting up straighter. “I’ll go out there and let her see me�
�”
“Jeremy, no—” Callie’s protest was drowned by the thunder.
“Just hear me out,” he said. “I’ll let her see me and then take off into the woods. I might not be as crazy as her, but I’m a lot faster. Once we’re gone, you go back inside and find something you can use as a weapon. Something to knock her out like a wine bottle or something. I’ll lead her back to the living room. When we get there, you jump out and whack her over the back of the head. The closer you get to the base of her skull, the better it’ll work.”
“How do you know that?” Callie asked.
“I might not have gone to survival camp, but taking AP bio and criminology as a sophomore has its pluses.”
“Jeremy! Callie!”
Callie’s heart hit her throat. “She’s getting closer.”
“I’m gonna go,” Jeremy said, holding on to her hands.
“Are you sure about this?” Callie whispered. “That we should split up?”
“We can do this. Just give me three minutes.” Jeremy leaned in to kiss her, his lips cold. Even in all the insanity, Callie’s breath caught in her throat. “Callie? I’m so sorry for everything. I love you.”
It was the first time he’d said it to her, and she hated Penelope even more for making it happen this way.
Callie squeezed his hands, looking into his eyes. “I love you, too.”
Then he stood up, ripping his hands out of hers, and stepped into the open. He didn’t call out to Penelope. He was smart. Calling out to her would have been too obvious. He simply waited until she spotted him, then took off into the trees.
Just like that, Callie was totally alone.
Callie closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and counted to ten Mississippis before pushing herself up and cautiously stepping out into the open. She glanced once in the direction where Jeremy had disappeared. Everything was still.