5
Emaline
I blink my eyes twice before accurately registeringwho I’m looking at. “Harley?”
“Hi,” she smiles and plants my bag beside me. “Sorry about that. We had to get you out of the way in case they saw you.”
“I’m sorry. What? You’re going explain to me what you’re talking about because we just woke up here in this…place of death and…” fear shudders through my body. “Are we your prisoners?”
“Oh?” she chuckles, covering her mouth in embarrassment. “No. No, Emaline, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.”
“What’s the right end of the stick? Where I’m sitting, it looks like we’re being held against our will,” I argue, checking on Rosie, who’s shivering. “I need to get her somewhere warm.”
“I’ll get her a blanket,” Harley says as one of the men peers down at us. Half his face is cast in shadow, but I know exactly who he is. Aaron’s friend from the football team goes to the gym with him. I can’t keep up with them all, but he’s another jock from a wealthy family with plenty of privileges.
A thought repulsive strikes me that Aaron might be in on this - whatever this is, so I was right in going incognito and not telling them that we’re at their stupid party. Jock’s are so predictable. But what happens now?
I press my hand against Rosie’s cheek and notice her teeth jittering. “So cold,” she whispers, hugging her knees tightly.
“I’m so sorry I brought you here, Rosie,” I reasoned, rubbing her to warm her up a little.
“It was a b-blast,” she stutters, making me chuckle that she can still crack geek jokes even under these odd circumstances. “I’m creating memories I will savor forever right at this very moment. Imagine telling my bookish kids if I ever meet the man of my dreams and have kids, or maybe I’ll have ghost kids. Anyway, I imagine telling them this story of when their book nerd mom went to a jock party in a mask and got kidnapped and held in a…what is this place?”
I’m reluctant to inform her that there are dead bodies only a couple of feet away or, more accurately, eroding skeletons, or maybe it’s just powered bones in these graves. Anyway, it’s unwise to tell her.
“Oh no,” she sobs, pointing her finger toward a stone coffin, “that’s not what I think it is.”
“It’s a table,” I lie.
“Wait. We’re not where I think we are?” she says, glancing about, then her gaze fixes on the jock friend of Aaron’s who watches us from the shadows. “Isn’t that Kieran?”
“Kieran? Oh, is that his name?” I’m trying not to make a big deal about being held captive by the cheerleading and football squads.
“You know, for someone who pretends to know nothing about football, you sure seem to know who the team members are,” I point out, trying to keep her alert and awake by constantly chatting with her.
“One must partake in research to know who our enemies are,” she answers, even though they’re hardly enemies if they don’t know we exist. Well…apart from the Leroux boys, who I have become even more suspicious of.
“Fair enough,” I answer, pushing my glasses back on my nose as Harley strides up to us with a checked picnic blanket that smells like dust and gas as if it’s been stuffed in the boot of a car for half a century.
She graces us with a warm smile, and I don’t return her gratitude, which is difficult because I usually pride myself on my manners. But, no, she won’t get a smile or niceties from me now.
“Here,” Harley says, draping the blanket around Rosie’s shoulders.
“So, will you tell us why we’re here?” I ask her just before she walks away.
“Ah,” she glances at Kieran, who obviously is the ringleader in this little heist. “Maybe later.”
“Later?” I shrill, and my voice echoes, bouncing against the stone walls. You can’t keep us here. Our family will worry about us.” The Leroux boys, specifically Xavier and Aaron, cross my mind, and I wonder when they’ll notice me gone. It’s still night, I think, although I can’t tell down here. I reach for my bag, seize my phone, message them, and check the time.
“If you’re looking for your phone, we took them out of your bags and switched them off. We keep them over there,” points to the Butcher’s Block where Kieran and that other man are now sitting.
“Why?” Rosie frowns and angrily shirks off the blanket as if it’s now made of poison, but I drape it back over her shoulders for fear that she’ll fall into a hypothermic state.
“I can’t tell you yet,” she says in a hushed voice. “And I can’t let you leave yet, either. There is no reception down here anyway, so even if I did return your phones, you wouldn’t be able to contact anyone.”
“You contradict yourself,” Rosie spits, her shivering has died down from her hot rage of being held captive. I’m enjoying this side of my bookish bestie.
“I’m sorry?” Harley cocks her head in horror that someone should dare challenge her.
“You said we had the wrong end of the stick. We believe we’re being held captive, and you say we have the wrong end of the stick, which means we haven’t been held captive, yet you won’t give us our phones back or let us leave. So, what do you call that if it’s not being held captive.”
Harley’s eyes narrow. “She’s a fiery one, this one,” she says to me as if Rosie is not even present, which is very rude.
“So, I am discovering,” I reply, “happily. And she has every right to be annoyed, excuse me.”
It isn’t until Harley has walked back to the Butcher’s Block that Rosie says, “That’s Kody.”
“Who?” I ask. “No, let me guess. Another star footballer in Aaron Leroux’s college team.” I sigh. The weight of the situation is wearing me down.
“Correct.” Her eyes follow the line from where we’re sitting to the corridor. “Is that the way out?”
“Yes, but the door is hard to open, and I can’t tell if anyone is guarding it,” I explain. “I know what you’re thinking, Rose, but look at the size of those two men. How far do you think we’ll get before they tackle us to the ground and maybe inflict even punishment than just forcing us to dwell in a room of dead things? And I’m not just talking about the graves because I swear, I saw a dead mouse, too.”
“Wait. You said that was a table,” she hits, pointing to the coffin. “I knew you were lying, so I wouldn’t freak out.” A weird, soulful whine exudes from her mouth as she looks at the ground surrounding her in a panic. “Dead mouse? Oh man, this is the worst place in the world.”
Her reaction slightly flummoxes me. “You think a dead mouse is worse than a dead person?”
“No, I think a living person, i.e., them,” she points to our captives. “is worse than a dead mouse. And I do not want to think about what is inside that stone coffin.”
“How long do you think we’ve been down here?” I ask; my fingers twitch because they miss my phone. I realize that I might be addicted to mindless scrolling and internet searching. Phones are also a handy distraction tool for introverts like me who pretend to be reading an important message to avoid a conversation with someone nearby.
“Um, maybe an hour,” she mumbles, watching the threesome by the Butcher’s Block speaking quietly.
“An hour? Are you sure? I’m certain we’ve been here for at least three,” I sigh, wondering if we could make a run for it now while they’re chatting about pizza or whatever jocks and cheerleaders talks about.
“Nah, not that long,” she groans, making the classic back-of-the-exhausted throat growl I’ve become accustomed to over the years. I need to use the bathroom.”
I gasp. “Great idea. Why didn’t I think of that? There’s no way a bathroom is down here, so they’d have to take us to the broken church.”
“Okay,” she says, climbing to her feet and shrugging the blanket from her shoulders. “I’ll go and ask for directions to the bathroom to see what they’ll say.”
They tense up when they see her walking toward them, which I find peculiar as we’re hardly a threat. I consider making a run for it while they’re distracted, but I can’t leave Rosie here on her own. Besides, I can’t get past the thought of that heavy, thick door that is hard to open and narrow, low-ceiling stairs that will slow me down.
After a short conversation, Rosie walks back to me. “They’re taking me up to the land of the living,” she bends down to grab her bag and whispers, “Run for it.”
“No, I can’t leave you behind,” I tell her, unsurprised that I was thinking what I was thinking.
“Don’t even think about it,” a booming voice roars behind Rosie, and I startle. Kieran either overheard our conversation or assumed that we were considering an escape.
“And you say we’re not being held captive?” I hiss at him.
“You’re not,” he argues back
“Then why are we here?” I seethe in agitation. “To keep the dead company?”
“For your safety,” he replies, astounding me. I wasn’t expecting that answer.
“Sure,” Rosie rolls her eyes in disbelief. “And Mary had a little lamb.”
He screws his face up. “Mary did have a little lamb. The fuck. Look, you can’t leave until we’ve gotten word that it’s safe to go.”
“From who?” I ask, unsure if I should believe him, but they’ve told us this, whether true or not.
“I can’t say who we’re waiting to hear from,” he informs us, his face set into a permanent scowl. Maybe the crypt’s décor upsets his equilibrium, or perhaps he got a whiff of the dead mouse.
“No, I mean. Who are you allegedly protecting us from?” I ask as a pang of pain strikes my jaw from grinding my teeth from stress.
He exhales and glances at Harley and Kody, who are closely watching him to see his next move. “Shit to do with your sister.”
Rosie’s mouth gapes while the blood drains from my face, making me feel heady and weird, and my skin prickles as if someone had just walked over my grave. I swallow over a lump in my throat before asking, “My sister? You know where she is?”
“Yeah, well, no,” he answers sullenly, rubbing his unshaven chin. She was sitting in that exact spot you were sitting in only about…an hour ago. I…” He takes a deep breath and roughs his hair up in anguish. I don’t know where she is now.
“What happened to her?” I demand an answer. “What happened to her?”
He raises his hand at me, which only makes me angrier. “Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down,” I shrill, scaring myself with the loudness of my voice. “Where is she?”
“They took her,” he finally admits.
“Who?” Rosie and I say together.
Kody’s phone rings and calls to Kieran to “Hold up. It’s them.”
“What’s going on?” I place my hands on my cheeks as my heart pummels violently.
Kody swipes off, looking a little jaded. “She’s in hospital. Had an accident.”
“Brielle? Please, tell me. Are we talking about my sister, Brielle?” I beg them to clarify so I can hear the words. Let me hear that they’ve found her.
“Yes,” Kody answers. “Your sister Brielle is in the hospital after a car accident.”
A nauseating cocktail of anger, sadness, grief, and elation floods my body, and I struggle to contain it all. “I have to go. Now. I have to go.”
Kieran looks uncomfortable. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea yet. They’re still out there, and it’s easier to barricade this space than out in the open.”
A loud screeching sound of the heavy door opening stops everyone in their tracks. “Get back,” Kieran instructs us, and we shrink back into the shadows.
Footsteps follow as Kody and Kieran prepare to jump whoever is coming. I catch Rosie’s eye and whisper, “Once they’re distracted by the visitor, I’m going to run for it.”
She nods. “I’ll be right behind you.”
My heart pounds so heavily as my breath hitches in my chest. My sister. They’ve found my sister. Where the heck has she been? Car accident. Oh gosh, she’s had a car accident. I hope she’s okay.
“What the fuck?” Kody yells as the visitor makes an appearance. “Get out. This is a private space.”
It appears to be a guy who has probably come down here to do something naughty. But the guy isn’t budging, and since he’s a tad drunk and hostile, he starts arguing with Kody and Kieran.
“This is our opportunity,” I tell her. We hold hands and run down the corridor toward the stairs under panicked voices screaming at us to stop.
We reach the end of the corridor and race up the stairs, stooping low so we don’t bang our heads. Thankfully, the door has been left partially open. I’m panting so much, yet I’ve never moved so swiftly or had such determination.
The cool, fresh air strikes our faces as we race out into the open space of the graveyard. It’s so dark, but we follow the fairy lights draped over the church to guide us. A strange deja vu sensation of quick footsteps and my name whispered in the night air—just like before when we came here.
Rosie trips and falls, and her hand slips from my grasp as I plow right into a body made of steel and fall to my knees.