Chapter 6
Ryan LeHane was dead, undeniably. James was one of the few who ran toward the waterfall rather than away from it, but once he saw the angle of Ryan’s neck, he turned to direct people away from the scene and back to the trail.
“Go get help!” James shouted at Ryan’s friend as the water poured down on the man. Not that anything could help Ryan now, but someone needed to come for the body. The friend obeyed and took off sobbing through the forest.
“What the fuck just happened?” a tan man in a green plastic vest asked, his fingers buried in his short hair as though he was trying to keep his own head at the proper angle.
“He must have slipped,” said one of the two women that stayed behind. A phone was pressed to her ear. “Does anyone have reception?”
“I thought I saw someone up there with him,” said a guy with his phone camera aimed at the top of the falls.
“Someone should go check,” James said.
“No, someone should not,” said the other woman. “We need to tell someone in charge what happened. Does anyone have a satellite phone?”
Everyone around shook their heads.
“I told his friend to go get someone,” James said, indicating toward Ryan’s corpse.
“Okay, well maybe someone who isn’t losing their mind should go get someone and tell them clearly what happened,” the woman with the phone said.
“Stop filming, what is wrong with you?” Tank Top shouted as the guy with his phone out approached the body for a closer look.
“It’s evidence!”
“It was an accident,” Tank Top insisted.
“Someone should stay with the body,” James said, and then immediately regretted it, because it volunteered him as the person to stay. But he wasn’t alone, because the guy taking video refused to leave.
"Did you see him fall?” he asked James.
“Don’t film me.”
“Look, I didn’t see it happen, so I’m not so convinced that it was an accident.”
James put his hand up to block the camera from getting his face as the man tried to circle him.
“I didn’t see shit,” James lied.
He’d seen everything, which was why he needed to stay, in case the first responders needed a statement. He also felt guilty for taking Ryan’s phone earlier, and he needed to be the mature one now that it really mattered.
A man in a uniform eventually showed up, swinging a flashlight around and calling orders. “Alright, everyone out, this is a restricted area!”
James couldn’t tell by the light of the single remaining torch what kind of uniform the guy was wearing, since the flashlight he held blinded James every time he tried to get a good look.
What James could see clearly was that, whomever he was, he’d been escorted back to the waterfall by Ryan’s friend.
“I want to give a statement,” the videographer said, putting his camera in the uniformed guy’s face. With his free hand, Uniform covered the phone.
“The longer you stand here, the more reason I have to charge you with trespassing in a restricted area.”
“A kid is dead!”
“And his friend is here to give a statement,” James said. “Stop exploiting his death for content, for fuck’s sake.”
The videographer had nothing to say to that.
He put his phone back in his pocket, and James could feel his scowl burning into the back of his skull on the walk through the darkness back to the beach.
He didn’t dwell on it, though, because his mind was busy replaying the fall, and every shadow in the corner of his eye put a hitch in his gait.
By the end of the trail, he was nearly running.
Back in his dorm, James tried calling Steve, but the line rang and rang without ever even going to voicemail.
Steve probably wouldn’t have picked up even if the line did connect.
It was midnight in California, and whether he was asleep or out partying, James didn’t think Steve really wanted to talk.
What would James even have to say? That Steve had been right, something bad did happen and he shouldn’t have come?
James did his best to relax and push the images from the night out of his mind.
It wasn’t his fault. He played no part in LeHane’s death, and even stayed with the body.
Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he should have done more.
Perhaps he felt guilt at having taken the kid’s phone and thrown it in the ocean earlier that day.
It was a stupid, immature thing to do. It was on Ryan’s level.
But that’s just the thing. Ryan LeHane was just a kid, a kid with an internet connection and a following that developed faster than his frontal lobe.
People liked his content, and no one could blame him for wanting to feed the monster of social media celebrity.
James knew what it meant to have the luck of the algorithm, and he did some stupid shit with his own platform.
Nothing as juvenile as Ryan, perhaps, but the kid didn’t deserve to die.
After an hour or so of tossing and turning, James hit the power button on his cell phone and the screen lit up, turning his pupils into pinpricks.
It was six in the morning now, and he expected some sort of announcement.
The festival organizers should have posted something on the app or social media to let people know that someone died.
There was no way they were going to continue with the festival after this; it would be too much of a legal liability.
James tapped the Island Xperience app and looked somewhere for news and announcements but found nothing.
Everything looked exactly the same as the last time he opened it: a page to check out the lineup for the festival acts; a map showed where to get a massage and how to get to the petting zoo; a link for food and beverage locations.
He also saw the button for emergency contact on the island: a simple red medical cross.
He tapped the button and it opened to a phone number.
James considered calling it and decided not to.
Was it really an emergency anymore? At this point calling them felt more like ambulance chasing or rubbernecking.
He closed the app and went to Twitter, almost like muscle memory. Since he was there, he went to the profile for the Island Xperience Festival and saw no recent updates.
That made sense, he supposed, since it was a little tasteless to announce on Twitter that someone died before making an official announcement elsewhere. When he searched their handle, he saw a dozen tweets directed at the festival.
Katy Carson @KopyKaty111
Is there any update on @ryanlalala? @TheIslandXperience
Ayyy its Jonah @p0rkbunzz
@TheIslandXperience wtf is this shit w no medics someone is dead
Elaine @Elainemusik
@TheIslandXperience @ryanlalala is fucking dead
When James searched Ryan LeHane’s handle, he found the same posts tagging his handle and not much else.
Well, looks like people are going to find out somehow and not in the way the festival PR people probably wanted, he thought.
He tried sleeping, but when the sky lightened into a soft purple and then baby blue, he put his shoes back on and left the dorm.
I should have given a statement. It’s weird that I didn’t give a statement, he thought.
James did not know where he intended to go, because the island’s layout lacked any structure and he had no idea where the security tent might be, but when he left the dorms and glanced northward toward the woods—out of respect?
Curiosity?—James saw a security guard standing in the entrance to the trail.
James approached him and told the guard he’d like to make a statement about last night’s incident.
The guard, in his black sunglasses and neon vest, shifted on his feet.
“I have been instructed to let anyone asking to make a statement know that we are investigating it to the maximum extent of our abilities and to also inform them that providing a statement regarding any possible accident in the north part of the island is an offense counter to the agreements of the festival, which explicitly describe the forested area as being off-limits.”
The man paused and stumbled in a couple places of his speech, leading James to wonder whether he knew the meaning of every word.
“Are you trying to tell me that the festival is threatening people who want to make statements about the accident last night?” he asked and instinctively reached for the phone in his pocket.
“I am not saying that.”
“Who is in charge here? I want to make a statement, and I don’t give a shit if it’s in some fine print that no one read.”
“The head of security is busy at the moment,” the guard told him, staring ahead as though standing sentry at Buckingham Palace.
“Attending to the death scene of a festival goer, which I witnessed? I want to make a statement about it and your threats aren’t going to stop me. I want to speak with him.”
The guard sighed and reached up to press the walkie-talkie hooked to the left shoulder of his vest.
“Grant, can you come up front for a second? There’s a guest who wants to speak with you.”
After a moment of lag, the speaker crackled. “Roger.”
Several quiet minutes passed while James waited for Grant and the first guard pretended that he wasn’t there. Finally, another man in a neon vest appeared from the depths of the trees. Grant had dark hair and arms covered in tattoos, one of which he extended to James.
“Hi there, I’m Grant Thomspon, head of security here. What can I do for you?”
James took his hand and squeezed. “I want to make a statement about what happened last night.”
Grant put his hands on his hips but nodded. “I understand. You were in there last night, then?” He threw a thumb behind him.
“I was, and I’ve been informed that it’s a violation of the festival terms or whatever, but after what I saw I don’t really care if I’m asked to leave. I knew Ryan and want to make sure that the details are right on the report.”