Chapter 44
I freeze.
I feel, more than see, Martina straightening up, sense her about to call out, and I move quicker than I would have thought possible; I push my hand over her mouth, and she makes a small, shocked noise, her breath warm against the palm of my hand.
“No,” I whisper.
She tries to protest, move her face away from my hand, but I look around frantically, searching for a way out of the room.
The window is too high up, and too small. It’s possible Martina could squeeze through it, but there’s no way to get her up there.
The bedrooms. The windows in the staff bedrooms are small, but they might be big enough.
It would be a bit of a jump, but not bad enough to hurt either of us, assuming that we stick the landing.
And Sandra’s bedroom is the closest one to us on the right-hand side; we can sneak in there, wake her up quietly, and get her out with us.
Still keeping my hand over Martina’s mouth, I peek out through the door. I don’t see anyone in the corridor yet, the long, dark tunnel still empty.
Even as I look down it, I feel the taste of adrenaline on my tongue, the tingling of danger under my skin.
We don’t have more than a few seconds. We have to go.
“Turn your flashlight off, and be quiet,” I order Martina, hardly more than an exhalation, and then I remove my hand from her mouth and open the door, quickly but silently.
I can hear footsteps from the small foyer. It’s a wet sound, and a heavy one.
Any moment now, I’ll see them again. That silhouette.
Shadow made flesh, come back to haunt me.
I can’t move too quickly, or they’ll hear me.
I pull Martina with me, praying with every breath she’ll listen, that she won’t decide it’s gone too far, that she’ll recognize what’s happening. With every passing microsecond, I expect to hear her voice behind me.
We’re over here! Who is it?
I let go of her and push down the door handle to Sandra’s room.
It yields.
When the door swings open, I dive in through it, and Martina follows. I turn around and close it behind her. The click sounds like thunder. I can only hope it couldn’t be heard from the foyer.
The room is dark, so very dark. Through the window, the outside looks like a biblical punishment, the forest swaying as one, as though in a trance, some dark and horrible ritual, distorted by the rain over the windowpane.
The whining from the wind pushing its way through the wood sounds like the crying of an infant.
But that’s not what catches my attention.
It’s the smell.
It’s ammonia, and something else. Something thick, and sweet, and horrible. Outside, it was possible to mistake it for illness; in here, it’s everywhere, coating every surface. Unmistakable.
I’d know it even if I hadn’t ever smelled it before. I know it the way I know the smell of air, or water.
No.
Martina has put her hand over her nose, and her eyes are bulging out of her head. I can hear footsteps coming down the corridor now. Slow and steady, with all the time in the world.
I hear it as though I’m underwater.
Because it doesn’t matter anymore.
Now, looking at the bed, I see what I couldn’t see through the window. The figure under the covers looks so very small. Not a person anymore, but a thing.
The covers are pulled up over her head. Only that little tuft of hair sticking out.
But, oh, the unnatural stillness of it.
The silence of it.
I begin to walk over to the bed, but Martina catches me by the arm, shaking her head. Her eyes are full of tears, her face so pale it looks like a mask, her skin like wax.
The steps stop outside the door. I can feel the other breathing outside, as though in sync with my own, with Martina’s.
All of us stuck in this strange unity. The horrible intimacy of expectation.
Then that sound again. They have walked into the storage space.
I tear out of her grip, and Dr. Martina, crying now, tries to shake her head, grab onto me again, but it’s no use.
I have to know. I won’t believe it until I know. Until I’ve seen.
The three steps over to the bed feel like crossing an ocean.
I pull the covers back.
Sandra is lying on her side. Her arms are curled up to her chest. Her hair is half pulled out of her ponytail, and it’s a blessing; the back of her skull is caved in, a sickening break in the smooth curve that should be there.
Her eyes are open.
One eye is staring into nothingness, still stark, and gray, and perfect; almost as though she might turn to me now and laugh, that oh-so-familiar laugh I’ve known all my life, the soundtrack to my childhood. Sharp and crass and mocking.
But sweet, underneath it all. So sweet.
The other one is painted obscenely red.
The blood has pooled under the skin on the side of her face resting against the pillow. I can see the bruised horror of it reaching up toward her cheekbone.
When I reach out to touch her cheek, it’s cold and stiff.
I feel my lips tugging in a smile. This is funny, really. It’s a funny joke. So typical of Sandra. She’s always been such a prankster.
Probably trying to teach me a lesson. She and Martina probably set this up together. What fun they must have had.
Sandra has always treated me like a younger sister. She always thought I was too impulsive, too irresponsible.
This’ll teach her, she must have thought, laughing to herself. It’ll scare her straight.
I grip Sandra’s shoulder, and I start shaking her. She’s such a good actor. I can’t believe she’s managing to lie this still.
Someone grabs ahold of me from behind, both shoulders, crushingly strong, and turns me around, but I struggle against it. I have to make Sandra move. I have to get her to look at me.
If I can just get her to look at me, it will all be fine.
Martina manages to spin me around.
There’s a sound, and it’s coming from me. A deep, guttural groaning, like stone grinding against stone. I didn’t know I could make a sound like that.
Martina’s eyes are huge, and terrified, and deeply, deeply sad.
It’s only when I see her cheeks streaked with tears that I realize mine are too.
“We have to go,” she whispers to me, so close to my face it feels like our lips might touch. “The window.”
“No.” I breathe it like a prayer.
“Isobel,” Martina says, as the sound of rummaging in the next room becomes clear, a living body with violent intent moving around.
“We have to go.”
“But…”
I turn to look at my oldest friend, who will surely, any moment now, reveal this all as a ruse of some kind.
“We have to take her with us,” I whisper. “We can’t leave her here. We have to get her to a hospital. We have to—”
This time, it’s Martina who puts her hand over my mouth. But gently, softly.
She shakes her head.
“She’s gone, Isobel,” she whispers. “And if we don’t get out, we will be too.”
She removes her hand, and she walks over to the window, sliding it open. The sound of the storm comes rushing in, a maelstrom of wind and chill and water. Then she climbs up onto the ledge.
The noises from the other room stop.
“Isobel,” Martina says, no longer bothering to stay quiet, “you have to jump.”
And she jumps out.
I can’t move. I can’t look away from her.
I always thought the dead would look peaceful.
Sandra. Sandra, who’s always been so strong. Physically and mentally. Who never let anything faze her.
Who always laughed the loudest at her own jokes.
Who always hugged me like it was a chore.
Who agreed to help me with this, because it was the right thing to do.
The steps are quicker now. One, two, three, and they’re outside the door.
I hear the doorknob turning. Feel the wind dusting my face with rain.
I imagine Sandra staring at me with that stern look of hers. I hear her voice in my head, clear as new ice.
It’s now or never, babe.
I climb up on the windowsill, and I jump, too, landing painfully on my cut-up feet, my ankle wanting to roll, and the storm wanting to push me over, and instead I run, run after Martina in the rain, and I can’t tell if I’m screaming or if it’s the wind.
I will never unsee that eye. That red, empty eye.
Her name is pounding in my head like the beating of a heart.
Sandra. Sandra. Sandra.
I don’t know where I’m running. I just follow Martina, and I run as fast as I can, despite the wind pushing me back.
There’s nowhere to go. No one is coming.
I can see the cabins in the distance, the main building a dark blur, when I feel someone grasp my arm, nearly tugging it out of the socket, and through the storm I hear my name:
“Isobel!”