In the Shadows

by Jill Nolan

  If he thought he compelled me to forget, he must be suspicious of why I’m so terrified of him. He said as much himself. But now that he’s kidnapped me, locked me in his fucking trunk, and threatened me again, I have an actual reason to fear him. This makes him look guilty, this reinforces my “assumption” that this was him. So, I don’t have to pretend not to fear him. I don’t even think that’s possible, anyway. Besides, I have a pretty good reason, based on all the people I’ve seen him kill, to think it was him.

  He has the power to compel people, but it must not have worked on me. Could I be resistant to that power? Or maybe it was too much to make me forget something that terrible? Has he compelled me to forget something before? Maybe he just didn’t focus enough this time or screwed it up?

  What happens if he finds out that I do remember? What if all he has to do is try it again, and I would forget everything? I shudder at the thought of forgetting the horror he’s committed, of going back to what we were before.

  All I know is that I can’t forget this. I can’t forget what he did.

  Chapter 34

  I tense as we slow down, wondering what new horror is in store for me. It feels like we’re driving on a dirt road. We’ve been driving for hours, and I have no idea how many hours, just that they were long and torturous. My body feels cramped from being in a curled position for so long. I had tried to kick out the brake lights again when he was on the highway. He exited and tied my hands to my feet like he warned he would.

  I had no distractions from my dark thoughts. I tried to push myself into a numb state, throwing up mental walls, inside which nothing existed, not even me. But pain and flashbacks were constantly breaking through, reverberating throughout my body like pinball with razor blades.

  Maybe it would be better if Mason could make me forget. I don’t want to remember it; I don’t want to relive it. I want those pictures out of my head, this anguish out of my heart.

  After a while on the dirt road, we glide to a stop. The car turns off, the car door opens and closes, footsteps fade away, another door is opened, and then quiet.

  He left me in the trunk. How long is he going to leave me here?

  I stay still, listening to silence, until a loud pounding sound starts up. What is he doing?

  After somewhere around ten minutes, the trunk finally opens. I grit my teeth as he leans over me, working on untying the knots.

  When I'm free, he backs away, and I nervously sit up, taking in my surroundings. I’m staring at the long gravel driveway, the area to the right is an open yard containing a large pond, and forest seems to cover the rest of the area.

  Mason moves to help me out.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  He backs away, and I climb out of the trunk, feeling less than agile. When I walk around the car, I realize we’re outside a small log cabin. Is this place his? Where are we? Why did he bring me here?

  Unfortunately, based on how long the driveway is and the fact that he brought me here, my guess is that it’s a lot more secluded than my property in the Dells.

  “Where are we?”

  “North.”

  “What town?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Why doesn't he want me to know where we are?

  "Why did you bring me here? You tied me up in the trunk for hours."

  "I'm sorry. You didn't give me much choice. You'll be safe here; no one knows about this place."

  Great. That sounds like the opposite of safe.

  “Come on," he says, walking toward the door.

  Inside is pretty similar to the outside: lots of wood, sparsely decoration, and a few fur rugs. We walk through a small living room that's sparsely decorated. The kitchen along with a small table make up the other half of the room. We take a left down a short hallway.

  "Bathroom," he says pointing towards a door on the right.

  I step in the small bathroom, locking the door behind me. I quickly relieve myself, while staring at the window that I could escape through. When I grab for toilet paper, I realize that my hands are filthy, covered with blood and grime.

  I make sure to scrub my hands clean, all the while thinking about escape. This would be the worst time to run. He'd expect it. I'd be caught immediately. I need to make him think I won't run and wait for the most opportune moment. Preferably one that allows me to get his keys and take his car. The thought of running through the dark woods again... I'd like to avoid that at all costs if I can. We're 'North', which could mean these forests stretch for miles. He wouldn't have brought me somewhere populated, that's for sure.

  I should at least make sure the window works. I keep the sink on as I work on quietly sliding the window up, but it feels like it's stuck. Thinking it's locked, I try flipping the latch the opposite way, but it still won't budge. I search for another lock I may have missed, and I notice a few little holes in the wood frame along the bottom. I run my fingers over them.

  Nail holes.

  He nailed the window shut. Goddammit!

  I'll just have to find another way. I try to hold on to the little hope I have left, because I know he's not stupid. Escaping won't be easy.

  I turn off the water and take a deep breath before stepping out of the bathroom. I wrap my arms around myself as I stand in front of Mason, looking at his chest, because I can't bear to look in his eyes.

  "I need to check on that wound." He points to my upper arm, where there's a slash in my shirt, and wet blood on most of the sleeve, running down the length of my arm.

  "I’ll do it. Just get me something to clean it with."

  "Just lift up your sleeve so I can see how bad it is."

  "No, it’s fine."

  "Show me." I can tell by his growl that if I don't do what he says, he's going to rip the shirt off me. I gingerly unstick the sleeve from the cut beneath, the partially dried blood acting as glue. I wince as I detach it from my skin, little by little. A few tears have run down my cheek by the time I finish.

  We both look at the cut. It doesn't look pretty: one deep red gash diagonally across my upper arm around four inches long. The skin around it is red and puffy and covered with dark crusted blood mixed with fresh blood.

  “You have no idea how this happened?”

  “No.” I say to the floor. "I need stitches."

  "I'll glue it shut. It'll work just as well as stitches." He runs his hands through his hair. "You’ll need to wash all that blood off first."

  As he goes into the bathroom to gather whatever he thinks I'll need, I quietly make my way back into the living room. My eyes frantically search out his keys, hoping for the possibility that he just threw them on a table when he came in. No such luck.

  "Everything you need is in here," he says.

  I don't acknowledge him as I walk past him and lock the bathroom door behind me.

  I stare at myself in the mirror. I have another black eye. This one is nowhere near as bad as the last one, but it still hurts quite a bit. Not as much as the ugly wound on my arm.

  I carefully slide off the rest of my clothes, grabbing the saline solution Mason gave me and heading into the shower. I wash all the blood and dirt from my body, cleaning the deep cut by letting water pool in my hands and then pouring it lightly down my shoulder. I pour the saline solution over my small cuts first. It doesn't feel great, but it's certainly not as painful as hydrogen peroxide or isopropanol. Still, I have to mentally prepare myself to pour it over my arm. When I finally force my own hand, I have to grit my teeth against the pain of the saline solution rushing over the wound. I do it again and again, whimpering by the time I'm done, but not really from the physical pain.

  I slide down in the tub, wrapping my arms around my legs. The water runs over me, washing away my tears as the stream down my face. I try to keep my sobbing quiet, because I don't want Mason to hear; I don't want him to try to come in. I just want to sit here, miserable and in pain and never get up again.

  Eventually, I cry myself out, and I pick myself back up.

&nbs
p; ◆◆◆

  "What’s the first thing you remember about last night?"

  I ignore the question as he continues working on my arm. I wince as places the final bandage, relieved that the whole process is over, especially the painful gluing part.

  “Keegan, talk to me,” he pleads.

  “I need to sleep.”

  He's staring at me. I know he wants me to make eye contact, but I won't. “Okay. Here, take these first, for the pain.”

  I do as he says, not caring what he’s given me, just wanting some of the pain to fade.

  He leads me into a small room across from the only bathroom, taken up mostly by a queen size bed, along with one dresser and a fireplace. This must be the only bedroom. There is a couch in the living room. I'm sure he'll sleep there. Not because he's a gentleman, but because I doubt he’d let me in a room with a door to the outside.

  “Here, you can change into these.” I make sure to hold my towel up as I take the shirt and sweatpants he gives me. He pulls out boxer briefs, shrugging as he hands them to me. “You'll have to make due with these." I look down at them. Well, at least they're the tight style. Boxers wouldn’t have been much different than going commando, and I don't like going commando.

  "This is my bed?" My prison.

  “This is my bed that we can share.”

  "I'll take the couch, then."

  "You're not taking on the couch. We’ve been sleeping together for weeks.”

  “I'm not sleeping in the same bed as you." I can't help but practically scream it. I try to calm myself down, to not start crying again.

  He exhales. "Alright. The bed is all yours then."

  I nod and wait for him to leave. The first thing I do after he closes the door behind him is check the two windows in the room, only to find them both nailed shut.

  Chapter 35

  The first thing I do when I wake up is cry. I can’t stop thinking about it, seeing it, over and over. I feel each of the lives he took in front of me like a knife to the gut. It’s already getting old, all this crying, because no matter how much I cry, it doesn't get it any easier. The loss is still there, the knife inside me twisting each time I think back on last night.

  I don’t understand how Mason could do this to me, to my friends. And how he could act like it wasn’t him, like I didn’t witness every terrible thing he did to my friends.

  You will remember nothing of tonight.

  Am I really not supposed to know what happened? I wish I didn’t remember. I feel like I’ll go crazy with all of these images in my head.

  And now he's keeping me here, in the middle of nowhere with the windows nailed shut. Will this be my life from now on? Is he going to keep me here forever?

  I don’t want to think about it anymore. I don’t want to think about any of it.

  I curl back up on the bed, careful not to disturb my arm like I did last night. It feels like a dream now, but I distinctly remember waking up screaming in pain. The cut hadn’t reopened, but it was throbbing excruciatingly, placing me in some kind of half-asleep agony.

  Mason seemed worried, but even as I screamed and moaned and cried in pain, he refused to take me to a hospital. He just gave me some weak pain pills that took so long to take any effect.

  They seem to have worn off again, that throbbing ache coming back, though not nearly as bad. I can manage it, so I just focus on the pain while I stare out the window, trying not to think about anything.

  I hear the door open, and Mason walks around the bed, coming into view. I don’t react to him, just continue my numb staring, watching how the tall grass moves in the wind, watching how the strands move back and forth slightly.

  “Are you hungry? I made eggs.”

  I don't reply. My consciousness drifts to my stomach, evaluating it, and I realize that I am hungry. But I don't care about food now. I just want him to leave, anything that gets him to leave.

  “I tried to make them how you like them, semi-scrambled with feta cheese and spinach."

  He sets a place of food and a water down on the bedside table. "Do you need more pain meds?”

  I don't respond to this either, even though the answer is also yes.

  "I got something stronger. Still over-the-counter. Do you want it or not?" He asks gently, holding out a pill in one hand.

  "Just put it on the table," I snap. He does, but he doesn't leave.

  “I need you to tell me what you remember about last night. Start at the beginning of the day.”

  I get the urge to throw the plate full of food at his head. Why is he torturing me by asking me this? I don’t even know at which point I’m supposed to “not remember”, but it seems like he’s going to keep asking until I tell him.

  "I remember morning as usual and hanging out with Allison during the day. It's a blank after that." I opt for the option that means I have to talk less.

  “And you remember nothing odd before you blacked out?”

  “I didn’t black out.”

  "How do you know?"

  "Because I didn't drink that much."

  "Could you have been drugged?"

  "Doubtful."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know. Fine. Maybe I was drugged." Anything to get this conversation over with and get him the hell out of here.

  "Do you remember anything odd?”

  "No."

  "You really think I did this?"

  "I don't know."

  "Why don't you know?"

  "I don't know who else it could have been. And then you took me, you locked me in your trunk, and you won’t take me to the hospital, and you won’t let me leave."

  "When I got to your cabin, I saw you dirty and bleeding, running through a yard-full of dead bodies. You tried to shoot me. You were hysterical, and I had no idea what happened, but it seemed like you were in danger. You wouldn't come with me willingly… I did what I had to." He squats down in front of me so our eyes are level. "Keegan, you have to know I would never do something like this." He says it so sincerely. He's a good actor, I'll give him that.

  "I don't know that. Maybe if you let me go, let the police handle this, and I could let my parents know I'm alive—" I choke on the last word. My parents... What are they going through, thinking I could be lying dead somewhere in the woods?

  I grit my teeth, not wanting to cry in front of him...again. "It's not like I would tell the police anything about you. You've threatened me enough to know that your secret is safe with me."

  "I'm not worried about my fucking secret. I'm worried about you. I'm worried that the police won't be able to keep you safe, not like I can." Yeah, he’s not worried about his secret now, after he killed everyone else who knew.

  "I don't feel fucking safe."

  "I'm sorry, but I didn't do this. It's not fair for you to put this on me, just because I'm the only monster you know. There's a lot out there a lot worse than me. I will figure out what happened, and I will take care of whoever did this, whatever hurt you. And then you can go home, okay?"

  I want to yell a million things at him, and I want to never talk to him again. I want to beat the shit out of him, and I want to break down forever, letting my mind loose and drifting into insanity. Anything to escape this torment.

  Chapter 36

  I wake up from a nap when I hear voices. Someone else is here.

  I shoot out of bed, quietly sneak out the door, and peak around the corner to see Mason and Cody talking. I press myself against the wall, around the corner and out of sight.

  "—couldn’t get anywhere near it. I’ll have to try again tonight. How is she?" Cody asks. Does he know what happened? What is he going to “try again”?

  "She’s in bad shape. I don’t know how to help her; she won’t talk to me, doesn’t want to be anywhere near me. She thinks I did this, but she says last night is just a blank spot." So, Mason must have told him something, but maybe not the truth.

  “Let me try talking to her." Will he help me once he knows the truth? Or does he al
ready know and is trying to help his brother?

  "Alright.”

  “Listen, you need to get that girl home soon. They need to know she's alive; there's a huge search for her." Hope swells in my chest. He’ll help me get out of here. He has to.

  “I need to protect her.”

  “How long do you plan on ‘protecting her’ here, against her will?”

  “As long as I need to."

  "Right, I'm sure that's exactly what she needs to hear right now."

  "I'm not going to tell her that."

  "You just did... She's been listening." I freeze when I hear this, debating if I should try to run back to the bedroom.

  "You didn't feel the need to warn me?" Mason growls.

  "I thought it might be good for her to listen in. Keegan, you may as well come out now." He can't be positive I'm here. I should just get back in the—

  Cody's head peeks around the corner.

  "How're you doing?" he asks, sounding so sincere and sympathetic. I throw my arms around him. I realize I’ve been craving comfort, but I’ve been unable to turn to the only other person here.

  What if Mason freaks out again? Will he kill Cody just for hugging me? I open my eyes to find Mason staring at us, his expression unreadable.

  "Let's sit down, okay? Mason, give us a few minutes?"

  “I’ll be outside.”

  As soon as he's out the door, I grab Cody's arm, “It was him, Mason did it, he killed them all. You have to get me out of here.” I try to keep my voice low. I hear how frantic I sound and hope he doesn’t think I’m crazy.

  “Woah, slow down. Tell me what happened.”

  “MASON KILLED THEM. Please, just get me out of here!”

  “Mason didn’t do this. Tell me exactly what happened, so we can figure this out.”

  Is he in on it? Or does he just not want to believe his brother capable of this? “I will in the car. First, we need to leave.”

  “Just tell me one thing: when did this happen? What time?”

  “I don’t know! Around ten maybe.”

  “Me and him were visiting our parents last night. We didn’t get back until after midnight. Mason didn’t do this. He couldn’t have.”