Chapter 7
“What? What do you mean it’s not the same guy?”
“It’s a new guy.” I’m still laughing, even as the birds take flight, circle overhead. “It’s a different guy. This guy…this guy has red glowing eyes. And fucking ravens. Probably no utility belt of weapons, though. So, there’s that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s worse. Maybe he’s got a musket.”
“Do you know him? Is he a magician or some shit?” he asks. “What’s going on with these birds? We should get out of here.”
He takes off, pulling me along behind him. It’s easier to keep up in my flats.
Don’t leave me, I’d said.
I’m not going to leave you, he promised me, and he kept his promise. But that was then. Last night. Or tonight, the first time I lived it.
I knew it. I knew something bad was going to happen.
“I don’t think I was dreaming,” I mutter to myself. “Or maybe I’m still dreaming? Maybe I’m in a coma.”
“Huh?” Danny heads toward the reception hall. “What should we do? Is that just some random guy? A wedding crasher? I hate that I’m saying this, but should we call the cops?”
As we get closer, I can hear thumping bass rattling the windows—everyone inside probably on the dance floor jumping and spinning and singing along to whatever crowd-pleasing, wedding-friendly Billboard hit is currently blaring through the speakers.
They’re completely ignorant of the turn the night is about to take, and I’m so jealous.
The lights flicker.
Above us, the cawing ravens seem to take up the whole sky. There’s no discerning their dark feathers from the dark of night. The stars have all retreated, forsaking the moon—a waning crescent, white as a fang.
Danny can call the cops if he wants. It won’t make a difference. It might have last time, but not this time.
I like it better when there’s something supernatural, Luke said earlier. More Freddy than Jason.
The unkindness descends on the reception hall, covering the roof. The lights flicker again, then go out. The music cuts. No more thumping bass. Even the birds fall silent.
I turn around to see if he’s still there—the Top Hat phantom with the red eyes.
“I’m calling,” Danny says, letting go of my hand so he can dial. But before he can complete the call, a raven dives down and pecks at him. He fumbles his phone. “Ah!”
He presses his hand to his chest. There’s a wide gash beneath his knuckles, blood everywhere. Seconds, that’s all it takes. Seconds. His shirt is soaked. He’s pale and dripping.
“Here.” I drop my bag, rip along the hem of my dress, tie the strip of fabric tight around his injured hand. He winces. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. Thanks. Thank you, Willa.
” He looks at me, and there’s an affection that wasn’t there moments ago.
It’s the shift. The transformation from a live in the present, not looking for anything serious type to a if we survive this, I swear I’ll change my ways type.
He’s looking at me now like I’m his lifeline.
I recognize the desperation from my own reflection.
I know I can’t save him. I know he can’t save me. But hope is a highly addictive substance.
“What do we do?” he asks.
“Um…” I spent the entire day either dismissing my nightmare experience or anticipating a different adversary.
I have no fucking idea what to do. I’m not even sure if this is real or a dream within a dream or if I’m having a complete psychotic meltdown.
“I don’t think we should do anything. I think we should just see what happens. ”
“We should…Hold on. What? Do nothing?” He runs his uninjured hand through his hair. “Shit.”
The doors of the reception hall open, and Wyatt steps out. His suit jacket and tie are both off, his shirt unbuttoned to reveal his glorious forest of chest hair. His cheeks are red, and I can see his pit stains from here. Like Jace, Wyatt is a fully committed dancer.
The ravens perch on the awning over the door. Wyatt can’t see them yet.
He turns around, talking to someone inside.
“Not sure,” he says. “Around back, maybe?”
“I would think there’d be a generator.” It’s Ravi. He appears beside Wyatt. His foot hits the first step.
“Stop!” I yell. “Don’t! Don’t move.”
“Willa?” Ravi looks at me. He finally looks at me. Then at Danny. Then back at me. I forgot to check the mirror; I probably look crazy. It’s probably obvious what I’ve been up to. Ravi inhales sharply and nods. Does he know? Can he tell?
In studying his reaction, I’ve deserted the urgency of the situation, wasted my opportunity to explain what’s happening. To warn them.
Ravi and Wyatt step down onto the lawn. A raven lands in front of them, spreads it wings and caws.
“What the…” Ravi recoils.
“Is that a raven?” Wyatt asks.
“Go inside!” I scream. “Listen to me! Please! Go!”
“Shit,” Danny mumbles. He’s already bled through my makeshift bandage.
Another raven caws, and it spins Ravi right around. He stares up at the awning, at the roof, at the hundreds of other birds.
“Ah. Willa,” Danny says. “This is bad, right?”
He reaches out his hand, peeling back the blood-soaked fabric. The wound is bubbling, now sooty black. It’s spreading up his arm in a dark, feather-like pattern.
“My car keys are at the cabin.” I try to keep my voice steady, maintain my composure, not let on how horrified I am by the state of his injury. “I’m going to run and get them, and then I’m going to drive you to the nearest hospital, all right?”
“I’m coming with you,” he says, tucking his hand into his suit jacket. “You shouldn’t go alone.”
“Yeah, okay.” I look over to where Ravi stands perfectly still, Wyatt behind him inching back toward the steps of the reception hall. I’m afraid if I yell, it’ll spook the birds. “Ravi. Go inside. Please. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”
He’s not listening to me. He’s staring at the birds, attempting to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense. I know him. He’s preoccupied trying to assign logic. Transfixed.
“Wyatt,” I say. “Inside!”
The raven on the ground takes flight, instigating a mass exodus. I look up. There is no more night. Only feathers.
“Go! Please!”
Wyatt darts forward, grabs Ravi by the arm, and drags him up the stairs into the reception hall, then closes the doors behind them.
“Come on,” Danny says, heading toward the cabins, back in the direction we came from. He’s not moving particularly fast, not running—he takes these long, stumbling strides.
He’s sick. He’s unwell.
“I should call you an ambulance.”
“We’re almost there,” he says.
I can see the cabins, but they feel miles away.
Behind us, the cawing starts up again. It’s such an awful sound. Throaty and mean. It’s so loud that when another noise cuts through, the shock of it throws off my balance and I roll my ankle, knock into Danny, who cries out in pain.
Crack.
I look over my shoulder and see that the birds have surrounded the reception hall, the white building swarming with black ravens. They’re looking in the windows. No. They’re pecking at the windows. They’re pecking at the glass. Lunging. They’re trying to get inside.
Danny whimpers beside me. “My arm. It’s burning. It feels like it’s burning.”
I turn to him. “Just hang on a little longer, all right? I’ll get you help. Just a little longer.”
“Tick, tock. Tick, tock.” A voice worse than the caw of a thousand ravens, than glass shattering, than the screams of everyone I love.
He’s behind us. He’s behind us. He’s right behind us, his gaze searing into my back.
“Danny, run!”
I grab his good arm and sling it over my shoulder, and I try to carry him but he’s too heavy, and slow, and I can only really put weight on one foot, and I’m on the verge of losing hope when I remember what Steph said about the latch of her cabin door not working.
“Here,” I tell Danny, pulling him up the steps to Steph and Jace’s cabin, the closest one. I shove him through the door and close it behind us. “Hold it.”
Danny turns around and stares at the door. His eyes have glazed over. They’re darker than I remember. His pupils are dilated.
“Hold it! The latch is broken. We need something to keep it shut. I’m going to push some furniture in front. Just one sec.”
He gives a vacant nod and walks up to the door, presses against it.
There’s a dresser in the bedroom that’s heavy but manageable.
I slide it into the living room using pure adrenaline.
Danny backs away, and I shove the dresser up against the door, then tip it onto its side, so it’s taller than it is wide.
I close all the curtains, not that it matters. That thing knows we’re in here.
If he wants a way in, he’ll find one.
It occurs to me that this is exactly what happened last time. This is exactly how I got myself killed last time.
“Fuck.” I take a breath. “I’m sorry. It’s going to be all right. It’s not the same this time. It’s different. It’s not going to end the same.”
“Okay,” Danny says. All color has drained from his face. The black of his pupils leaks into the whites of his eyes.
“Danny…”
He collapses to the floor. He doesn’t catch himself.
His suit jacket falls open, and I can see now that his hand is rotting.
His fingers are gray and shriveled, covered in open sores.
Around the cut is swollen, dark, and iridescent.
The feather-like pattern has spread past his wrist, his forearm, up into where his sleeve is folded, the extent of the damage hidden from me.
I manage to prop him up against the back of the couch. He’s trembling, clearly in pain. I don’t know what to do.
“Willa. Hey,” he says. “Sorry about earlier. I don’t know why I’m such an asshole. Let’s go to Tokyo. I want to take you to Tokyo.”
“You’re not an asshole. I just got ahead of myself. I’m not a live-in-the-present type. My head is always in the past or the future. Idealizing.”
He looks at me, his eyes marbling gray, unrecognizable. His lips quiver. He’s scared. “I don’t want to be in the present anymore. Not right now.”
“Tokyo, then. Let’s do it. Let’s go. Fuck it. First-class. Where will we stay?”
He smiles. His gums ooze this thick, obsidian substance that I don’t think is blood. It has a smell. It’s putrid. It leaks out of his mouth and dribbles down his chin.
“Danny. I’m going to call for that ambulance now, all right?”
I ignore the movement in my peripheral vision. The jolt of the dresser. Someone’s trying to get in.
The strange, ghostly man in the top hat. I hear him. The faint tick of his pocket watch.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
I realize I can’t call 911 because I don’t have my phone. It’s in my bag, which I dropped when I bandaged Danny’s wound.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
“Do you hear that?” he asks me. “Do you hear it?”
“I don’t hear anything,” I lie. “It’s fine. You’re going to be fine. This isn’t…It’s not happening.”
It’s not happening because it can’t be happening. Just like last night didn’t happen. It’s not real. How could any of this be real?
“Willa,” Danny whispers. “Willa, I can’t feel my arm. And I can’t see. Everything’s dark.”
“You’re going to wake up, and none of this will have happened. You won’t even remember. I don’t think. I might but you won’t. You’ll be fine. I swear.”
The whine of hinges. The dresser rattling.
Someone’s here. Someone’s in the doorway.
“Willa?”
It’s Ravi.