Chapter Twenty-Eight – Mabel
My head pounds when I come to, and I groan as I slowly sit up. The moonlight overhead is the only bit of light around; my eyes are already adjusted to the darkness, so when I see that I’m faced with a grove of old trees, I realize I’m nowhere near The Drip. I try to remember what happened, how I got here, why my head hurts so much, but everything is fuzzy.
A hard voice speaks behind me, “Get up.” A man’s voice, one I don’t recognize, but the way he says the words lets me know that I don’t have a choice in the matter. Whoever he is, he knocked me out and brought me here—and you don’t bring a girl to the woods alone to be nice to her.
The opposite, really.
I work on standing, preparing myself for the worst. When I turn around, through the darkness I lay eyes on a man I saw earlier, in The Drip. Right after my dad came, he was in line. Another middle-aged man that did not have Penny’s stamp of hotness. I remember he ordered a large black coffee and went to sit in the corner… and he stayed there for over an hour, slowly sipping that coffee like he had nowhere else to be.
Not out of the norm for people in The Drip, I’ve learned over the past two weeks, so I didn’t think anything of it. But now… now I know this man didn’t come to The Drip for its coffee.
He came for me.
The sky above us has not a single cloud, an abnormally clear night, and it allows me enough light to study the stranger’s face. I don’t know him. He doesn’t look familiar in the least, but the way he glares at me, with such hatred, makes me think he knows who I am.
And I don’t mean he knows my name. Anyone who walks into The Drip knows I’m Mabel. I have a stupid name tag and everything. No, with his glaring and the unforgiving expression on his face, he has to know who I really am.
We stare at each other for a minute, maybe two. If eyes could be knives, I’d be long dead. I know I should run, but my feet are rooted in place. I’m not tied up, but I might as well be; I’m frozen.
The one who breaks the silence of the night is the stranger, and his voice drips venom with each word: “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
I don’t say a word, but I do manage to shake my head once. Inside my chest, my heart pounds rapidly. My blood warms me even though the night is cold and dark, but I am a deer frozen in the headlights of this stranger’s powerful hatred.
“Robert Hayes.”
The air is practically knocked out of my lungs when he says his name, and I nearly fall backwards; I barely resist the pull of gravity.
Robert Hayes. I don’t know him, but I know his son. Knew, I guess I should say. Robbie Hayes was named after his father, apparently, and now that I know who this man is, I can see some familial resemblance.
Robbie was my top tormentor for years. It was unrelenting, but he was charming enough to never earn the ire of teachers or other school faculty. He was the first name I told Jordan when we made our list.
My list.
Robbie Hayes. When everything was still fresh, when I blamed myself for it all, in the darkest parts of the night, I was glad Robbie was dead—and those moments only amplified the guilt I felt in the daylight.
I blink, and suddenly I’m thrown back in time.
How long has it been? Feels like hours. Hours spent here, huddling in the computer lab with the other kids in my class. We thought it was a joke until we heard the first few shots. Then we heard more, and time itself ceased to matter.
The only thing I could focus on was my breathing, how loud it sounded. How, even now, I couldn’t make myself be quiet. You never knew how loudly you breathe until you’re thrust into a moment when even the slightest noise could mean life or death.
In this case, death is more apropos.
An eternity passes, and for a while, hope surges around us. Maybe the police got here. Maybe something stopped the shooter. Maybe we’ll all make it out of here alive—but those are just silly, childish dreams, dreams that have no place in a hell like this.
Other kids are messaging their parents, their friends, telling them they love them, relaying what’s happening. I know I should do the same, but I can’t. I’m frozen, too terrified to move. All I can do is clutch my phone and sit there with my knees pulled into my chest and wish this was just some horrible dream.
What I don’t know then is that sometimes life can be a thousand times worse than any dream you can conjure up.
My phone lights up, and my eyes fall to the screen. Jordan messaged me, asking if I was safe, and even though I don’t feel like moving, I can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as I respond to him and tell him that, yes, I am safe.
His next message comes instantly: Where are you?
I don’t even think about it. I tell him. The computer lab. I try to think of which class Jordan is in now, but I can’t. My thoughts are a jumbled mess, and I just can’t think straight, not at a time like this.
I wait for another message from him, but I don’t get any. It turns into radio silence, and my heart beats faster now for a different reason. What if the shooter found Jordan’s class? What if he’s trying to break in? I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Jordan. My brother is my life.
The minutes feel like hours. I can’t pay attention to anything. The silence is deafening, and it seems like it’ll stretch on and on, never breaking—but I think we’d all gladly take the silence over the loud sounds of gunshots.
But then something unthinkable happens. The doors to the library around the corner start to shake, as if someone’s trying to get inside. Other students gasp and huddle together, and the teacher tries to silence them.
Bam, bam, bam. Not gunshots, but the sound of someone kicking an old, wooden door. The sound echoes in the space, chilling me to my core.
It’s not long before the shooter gets in. This school is old, everything’s a bit rickety. The doors fly open with a loud bang. It feels like my heart is going to pop out of my chest, the pressure inside unimaginable. I can’t seem to catch my breath; I’m too terrified to send my brother or my parents a goodbye.
The computer lab is off to the side of the library section, where all the books are, so it takes a few moments for us to see the shooter as he rounds the corner, carrying a big gun.
The last face I expect to see is my brother’s, but that’s exactly who it is. The shooter is Jordan. The words don’t sound quite right in my head, and I manage to speak even though my voice is broken: “Jordan?”
And then my brother, my best friend, the only person in the world who knows about all the crap I go through on a daily basis, grins at me and raises that gun, pointing it at the students behind me.
At Robbie in the corner with his friends—my number one.
Jordan pulls the trigger, and the sound reverberates through my core, a million times worse than nails on a chalkboard. The bang, the terrified gasps that come after as the bullets surely finds their mark; I can’t turn around. I can’t look, but judging by the smug expression on Jordan’s face, he got him.
“That one’s for you, sis—” Before Jordan can say a single word more, another loud bang rings out, but this one isn’t from Jordan’s gun.
This one is from a different gun, and it finds its home instantly in the center of Jordan’s head. Blood and brain splatter as a hole appears on his forehead, blood oozing from the wound as he drops his assault weapon.
What chills me the most is the smile Jordan continues to wear, even as his corpse falls to the ground, deader than dead.
That day is a day I will never forget. It has haunted me and my dreams more often than it hasn’t. What Jordan did, the lives he took, the way he smiled, so sinister and gleeful as if he really was doing it for me; it’s the stuff of nightmares.
I made the list with him. I told him we were in the computer lab. He even said it was for me. So, as much as Dr. Wolf and my dad might want to blame my feelings on survivor’s guilt, they’re wrong. It really is just plain guilt. If I wouldn’t have played along, all those people might still be alive.
It’s a thought that rings in my head over and over as I stare at Robert Hayes, the father of the boy who tormented me for years.
The recognition must flicker across my face, because the man says, “How about my son? Do you remember him?” The question is laced with hate and desperation, the makings of a dangerous man.
Remember? Does he think I forgot? It’s asinine enough I want to laugh, but my throat is so tight it’s damn near closed up. Besides, this isn’t a situation to laugh about.
My voice is quiet when I whisper, “I do.”
Robert Hayes smirks, an ugly expression, and a bitter chuckle escapes him. “You sure as hell didn’t look like it in that damn coffee shop. You looked like you forgot what your sick brother did to my boy. Smiling and laughing with that girl—what gives you the right to still be here while my boy is gone? It isn’t fair!”
The breath I let out is a heavy one, and I whisper, “No, it’s not fair.”
His gaze narrows in the moonlight, and he snarls, “I’m glad we can agree on that. Your fucking brother got what he deserved, but you?” He reaches for something on his chest: a strap, and he lifts it up and over his head, swinging something around.
A hunting rifle.
He rests the stock against his shoulder. “It wasn’t just your brother. Everyone heard it. My son is dead because of you—you don’t get to move on. You don’t get to act like everything is fine when you took my world from me.”
I close my eyes. Of course. He wants to kill me. I can’t blame him. No, as a father I’m sure he saw everything good about his son and nothing bad… just like my dad and Jordan. All parents are blinded by the love they feel.
So was I. I may have entertained Jordan’s killer fantasies, but I never actually thought he’d do anything. I never thought…
When I open my eyes, I say, “So you brought me here to shoot me.”
“To kill you,” he corrects me. “And to hunt you.” He gives me a smile, and it’s a wicked one at that. “So why don’t you turn around and try to outrun me, little girl?”
That’s the thing about hunting. Hunters don’t have to be right up on their prey to hit their mark. With that rifle, he could easily shoot me from a good distance; running would basically be pointless.
What hunters enjoy is the chase. The hunt. That’s what Robert Hayes wants. He wants to enjoy this. The man wants me to run for my life, in fear all the while, and for the last thing I feel to be sheer, utter terror. It’s what I deserve, isn’t it?
Whether I run or not… it doesn’t really matter. He’ll get me either way.
If this would have happened months ago, I would’ve ran with no hesitation, but things have changed. I’ve changed. It’d be a lie to say I moved on completely, but I’m not the same girl I was when I was haunted by what Jordan did and my part in it.
And this new me isn’t going to run.
“No,” I say, shocking him.
“No?” Robert Hayes scoffs, adjusting his hold on his hunting rifle. “What the fuck do you mean, no? If I say to run, you’re going to run—”
This time I’m firmer when I say, “No. I’m not going to run. If you want to kill me, then you’re going to do it right now, and you’re going to have to look at my face while you do it—not my back.”
I can tell he’s not too happy with my insistence. He wants to argue; I’ve ruined his game. He probably wants to chase me for a while, get a nice good thrill going, and then end it whenever he’s had enough—AKA whenever he thinks I’m terrified enough. To stand there and look at his face and tell him that I’m not playing his game? Ruins the entire thing.
And he’s pissed.
Robert Hayes bares his teeth at me in an ugly gesture, but he eventually says, “Fine. If that’s what you want, I don’t care. As long as tonight ends with you getting the same treatment your brother got.” He points his large rifle at me, and with a mere five feet between us, it’s point-blank range. If he fires, there isn’t a single shred of hope that he’ll miss or it won’t be fatal.
I’m seconds away from death. I’m literally staring at it over the barrel of the rifle, and the thing is, I’m not scared anymore. I don’t want to die—of course I don’t. I have so much left to live for, something I didn’t realize until recently—but I’m done hiding, done running. I’m taking a stand, here and now.
My last thoughts are of Tristan and how much I love him.