Chapter 47
There’s nothing to arm ourselves with in the main building; no convenient knives, or baseball bats, or mallets.
We move the couch, and then I describe the impromptu plan to Armin:
“They should all be in the cabins. The cabins are on the left. We have to run, and get them one by one.”
Martina interjects:
“And if someone is standing outside, waiting for us to come out so they can beat us to death?”
There’s a thin layer of dry sarcasm, bitter bravado to hide the quaking underneath. It almost works, and I kind of respect her for it.
I’ve done the same thing myself.
“I don’t know, Martina,” I say. “Then I guess we run, and whoever gets to the car takes off.”
I hear her muttering something; I don’t care to hear what it is.
I look at Armin, and he nods. His face is set in a grim mask, his shoulders tense.
“I’m really sorry about this.” I don’t have the words to apologize for what I’ve gotten both of us into.
I’m sorry.
You were right.
Thank you.
None of it seems enough. There aren’t enough words, nor is there enough time.
I just hope we’ll have more.
He manages a tense smile.
“Just like you, Isobel, to get me pulled into some kind of messed-up horror movie.” He tries for a joke. I appreciate the effort.
“Okay.” I breathe in deep. “Let’s go.”
I pull the door open.
The storm is still brutalizing the landscape. I’m too scared to feel the cold; I see no one, and so I take off running again, my muscles aching and my feet screaming at me. I hear the others behind me, and I see the cabins as vague, unformed shapes, with dark windows and blurry edges.
I don’t allow myself to think that we might be too late.
I can’t let myself imagine that we might find them all in there, just like we found Sandra.
I just focus on the cabins, and on the people inside them. The women who didn’t deserve this.
Pernilla, and Katarina, and Clara, and Leyla.
I might not like all of them. They might not like me. But I owe this to them. I owe it to try.
When I get closer, I hear, from a distance, a voice, hoarse and shrill:
“… anyone hear me? Hello! Hello! Come on! COME ON, I KNOW ONE OF YOU FUCKERS MUST BE ABLE TO HEAR ME, JUST COME AND—”
It’s Clara’s cabin, and when I run up to the door, I see that it’s vibrating; someone is pounding on it.
“Clara?” I yell through the door. “Clara, open the door!”
“It’s not Clara.” I hear Leyla from behind the wood, unmistakable relief in her voice. The pounding stops. “I can’t open it. It’s locked.”
“What do you mean, it’s locked?” I ask.
Armin and Martina are only a few steps behind me, and Martina runs past Armin, pushing at the door handle.
The door stays closed.
“I don’t know what happened,” Leyla shouts from behind the door. “Clara passed out, and she won’t wake up, and when I tried to go get help the door wouldn’t open.”
Martina fumbles with her jacket before pulling out an overfull key chain. She sorts through it with pale-white fingers, her nail polish now chipped and flaking, before pushing a key into the lock.
She turns it. The door swings open.
Leyla is standing behind the door, her short hair wild and messy, her eyes edged with red.
Clara is lying on the bed. Her face is small and slack, the sheets under her messy; one of her arms is wedged under her slumped-over body.
“What’s going on?” Leyla asks, grasping at me, as I look past her to the woman on the bed.
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “Something bad. Something really bad. We’re trying to get everyone out of here.”
Armin pushes past both me and Martina, and he kneels by the bed, puts two fingers to the side of her neck and his ear to her face.
Leyla turns and asks:
“Who is that? What is he doing?”
“Is she alive?” I ask Armin.
Martina has closed the door behind us and gone over to the window, peering out of it, staring at the dark, brooding eye of the pond.
Armin nods. “She’s alive.”
The relief makes me feel like I’m choking. Or dreaming.
“Her pulse is slow, but it’s steady, and she’s breathing,” he adds.
I turn back to Leyla and ask:
“What happened to her?”
I see Leyla’s eyes filling with tears.
“I came back here with her, and she wasn’t feeling well.” She wipes the tears away, quickly and roughly, with the back of her hand.
“I got her on the bed, and I got her a glass of water, tried to get her to stay awake. I thought it was just shock. But then she just … passed out. And I couldn’t wake her up again.
And when I went for the door, I couldn’t get it open.
I’ve been screaming for help, and trying to wake her up, but no one could hear me.
And she…” Leyla clamps her mouth shut, squeezes her eyes together, and shakes her head.
“She must have taken some of those pills you gave her.” I turn to Martina, and I can’t keep the judgment out of my voice.
“Pills?” Leyla asks.
“You can’t blame me for this.” Martina sounds offended. “They’re sleeping aids. I gave her very clear instructions on how to take them. I didn’t tell her to dose herself in the middle of the day!”
“You shouldn’t be giving out pills at all!” I can’t keep from yelling. “You’re a psychologist, not a drug dealer!”
“I have a PhD in psychiatry!” Martina yells back. “Those were legal prescriptions!”
“Yeah, sure they were,” I say. “I’m sure the board would love to hear that you’ve been handing out sleeping pills like candy to your vulnerable patients without oversight.”
“You’ve been giving her pills?” Leyla shouts.
“They are legal sleeping aids! They are meant for—”
I interrupt Martina. “Why was the door locked? Did you tell the caretakers to lock us in?”
“Of course not!” Martina sounds shocked. “Why would I do that?”
Armin stands up from beside the bed. “I think she’s stable,” he says.
“How would you know that?” Martina shoots off at him. “Are you a doctor?”
“I’m a dentist.” His face is tight. “So I’ve worked with patients under anesthesia. And I’m trained in CPR and basic life support.”
Some small, buried, petty part of me is thrilled to see the dislike written all over his face.
Martina rolls her eyes, but I ignore her. Instead, I turn to Armin, and ask, in a low voice: “Do you think you can carry her?”
He looks down at Clara, and swallows; I see the muscles in his jaw tensing.
“Carry, maybe,” he responds, equally quietly. “But get her over the fence … I’m not sure.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Leyla interjects. “And who is this guy? What is a dentist doing here?”
“He’s my friend,” I explain. “He came to check on me. He was worried about me.”
For a brief moment, something wiggles in the depths of my mind, some spark trying to light, connection attempting to be made, but then it’s gone again. I have no time for brooding.
“I’ve got a car outside the gates,” Armin adds. “We’re trying to get everyone in it and get you all away from here.”
“Why?” Leyla asks.
She looks around the room, at our grim, silent faces. Martina turns her face away, and she lands on me.
“Something happened. Didn’t it? Something worse.” It’s not a question.
Leyla stares me down.
“We found a…” I can’t make myself say the word body. I can’t reduce her to that. “We found Sandra.”
Leyla doesn’t shout, or slap her hand over her mouth; instead, her whole body goes very still.
“Accident?” is all she says.
I shake my head.
There’s a beat, a moment of silence.
Then Leyla turns to gaze at Clara.
“I’ll help carry her. I think we can get her over the gates together.” She rolls her eyes, and adds:
“I’m stronger than I seem.”
“I’m not questioning that,” Armin hurries to say.
Leyla leans down and pushes the hair out of Clara’s face, and a light bulb goes off in my head.
“Oh,” I say.
Leyla shoots me a look.
“So that’s why she was out there last night.” I’m speaking mostly to myself. “She was coming back from … okay.”
The question flies out before I can stop myself:
“Why was her lip bleeding last night?”
Leyla turns to Clara, her face softening infinitesimally.
“She fell on the way back,” she says. “Bit her lip. She was trying to be sneaky. Wasn’t looking where she was going.”
“What?” Martina asks. Then she catches me looking between Leyla and Clara, and she says:
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Fraternization is not allowed between patients!”
“Fuck off, Doctor,” Leyla tells her. “I think we’ve got bigger problems right now.”
“Leyla is right,” I interject. “We’ve got to get moving. We have to get to the other cabins.”
“I’ll stay with Clara. You go round up the others.” Leyla’s face is grim and determined.
I nod.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go. I don’t know how much time we’ve got, but…”
I don’t get to finish the sentence.
Instead, the door swings open, and Anna half falls in through it, panting and crying. She slams it shut behind her, and when she scrambles away from it, I see that her pink rain jacket is gone, her hair streaming with water.
“Please.” Her voice breaks. “I don’t know what’s happening. She’s gone crazy.”