Three days later, everyone except for Mike sits around Jessica's hospital bed. Despite her rather pissed off pleas, the doctors won't release her for another few days on account of her broken ribs, concussion, punctured lung, and the staph infection she got in all of her wounds from trekking through the rusty mines. In her mind, the painkillers are the only perk of being cooped up in this place.
"How are you feeling, Jess?" Matt questions from his spot on her hospital dresser. "Any better?"
"The pain's okay," she replies nonchalantly, even though having three broken ribs really fucking hurts. The physical pain, however, dulls in comparison to the mental kind. "It's easier to breathe, the docs say that my lung is healing up nicely."
"That's good," Ashley says quietly, rubbing the tape over her broken nose absentmindedly from her spot next to Chris on the little green hospital couch. "A week is probably plenty of time for broken ribs to heal, especially if they're just leaving them alone. I'm sure they'll let you out of here soon."
"Not soon enough," Jessica mutters, fiddling with the paper medical bracelet around her wrist. "And where the hell is Mike? We all told him to be here at noon and it's almost twelve thirty." Ever since that night at the lodge, she's been a little wound up as to where he goes. She doesn't want to be controlling, honestly, but with his darn plan of going back to the lodge even being a remote possibility thanks to his stupid, but charmingly charismatic bargaining skills, she's worried that one day the rangers will come by and tell her that he was killed exploring the lodge's basement.
"I'm sure he's fine," Emily replies.
"Did I say I was worried?" Jessica all but snaps. After a long pause, she adds a weak, "Sorry." After what happened down in the mines, her and Emily have been trying to be somewhat nicer to each other, what with almost dying and all. Some days it proves to be a bit difficult, though.
"Maybe he's talking to the detective in charge of our case," Sam offers hopefully, even though Jess can tell she doubts that's the case. "It's been three days, the fire department has to be close to figuring out if the basement's stable."
"Unless all of the firemen got eaten by horrific creatures," Emily retorts. Upon seeing the expressions of everyone in the room, she adds, "I want Josh to be alive just as much as you guys, but that mountain was full of those things. We barely survived one night, how the hell could Josh possibly survive seven?"
Before the weight of that thought can set in too deep, Mike waltzes into the room. In one hand he holds a very old and familiar looking journal and in the other he catches the container of hospital jello Jess throws irately at him. He tosses the jello back to her playfully and then holds up the book in his hand, as if that explains where he's been all morning.
"Where have you been?" Jessica demands.
"Woah, babe, chill out. I was looking into this," he replies. She stares at the book with an unwavering expression as he hands it to her. "We found it in the old hotel that night. I was going through it to see if I could find something that might help us."
"Help us with what?" Sam questions as Jess flips through the book. She doesn't slow down to read the text, only glancing at the titles of the pages and the words underlined. When she comes to a hand drawn picture of the thing that attacked her, her heart begins to beat a little faster and she shuts the book quickly. You're fine, she tells herself. It can't hurt you anymore.
"For when we go down into the basement, and trust me, we will. The detective needs us to navigate down there," Mike replies assuredly. "I was looking to see if the wendigos had any more weaknesses besides fire. Shotguns seem to slow them down, which I know from unfortunate personal experience, but that's about all I could find. The old guy stabbed one of them, but it didn't do much. He wasn't even sure if the sunlight hurts them. There are a couple of theories in there, but evidently the only sure fire way to kill them is with fire."
"Was there anything else in there?" Chris questions.
"Yeah, lots. That old dude had been studying and trying to kill them for years. He had all that paperwork from the psychiatrists in 1952 at the asylum. Those notes had all the details of their transformation and his journal has everything that he knew about killing them, or rather keeping them hostage. That was a real pleasant surprise when I was exploring the sanatorium. I took the notes from 1952 with me when I was there too, thought they might come in handy."
"What does that matter?" Emily demands. "Who cares how they became monsters, that's what they are now. There's no changing that. They're going to kill you whether you know their backstory or not."
"You don't want to know what those things are?" Matt inquires, surprised.
"No, I don't. I've learned all I care to up close and personal with them and I sure as hell don't want to revisit it. I'll be happy never thinking about them or that stupid mountain ever again," Emily answers, crossing her arms.
"You don't think you'll run into those things again, do you?" Ashley asks tentatively, glancing at Chris worriedly. "You told the detective you had to go down there in the daytime, right?"
"Look, I just went through this stuff as a precaution," Mike interrupts. "I thought it'd be good for us to maybe have some kind of backup plan in case we run into those things when we explore the basement. I didn't mean to upset anyone, alright?" He takes the book from Jessica and tucks it in his waistband. "See, there. The big bad book is gone. Let's all relax."
"We're all on edge, let's just take a second to breathe," Sam agrees, taking a deep, exaggerated breath. "What happened to us up on that mountain was inexplicably horrifying. It's hard to talk about or even think about, but we were all there and we all know what each other went through. We need to keep it together. If not for our own sakes, then for everyone else's."
Mike's cell phone rings and he glances from the caller ID to the group. "It's the detective in charge of the case," he announces, pressing the green accept button. As his figure disappears out into the hall, some part of Jessica hopes that the detective is calling to tell him that the basement won't ever be stable enough to investigate. She doesn't want to give up on Josh or accept that he's dead, but she barely made it out after a few hours with those things. From her experience, seven days would be impossible. And she can't bear the thought of losing Mike, they'd already been through so much together. To lose him now and to those things would just be cruel.
After several moments and a few barely heard argumentative words later, Mike comes back into the room and everyone stares at him, as if the whole room is holding its breath awaiting his news.
"The detective said that the basement has been deemed stable," Mike informs them with a grin. He turns to Sam and Chris and says, "We're going to be leaving in half an hour. The detective's going to pick us up in front of the hospital and then we'll take the helicopter up to the mountain again."
"He's just letting you go?" Jess questions, genuinely surprised at having her fears confirmed. "They don't even know what's down there; for all they know our so-called 'killer' could be down there."
"The mines and tunnels to and from the old hotel don't have any blueprints. I told him before that we'd help him piece together what happened if he let us go down there and get closure. That wasn't good enough right up until the moment he needed people who had been down there to navigate and as I reminded him, finding others to do it would cost time. Time that Josh doesn't have. So, he agreed, reluctantly." Mike turns back to Sam and Chris, then says, "He also told me to remind you that you don't have to do this."
"Yes we do," Sam replies firmly as Jessica crosses her arms. It might seem selfish that she doesn't want her boyfriend out looking for Josh, who she really does hope survived somehow, but she can't lose anyone or anything else to this nightmare.
"If Josh is out there, we have to find him," Chris agrees.
"Be careful you guys," Ashley offers. "I want Josh to come back home too, but I don't want you getting lost down there with him, okay?" Chris nods and Ashley hugs him briefly, as if it might be their last time.
Mike comes in close to Jessica and she wraps her arms around his neck, knowing that there's no changing his mind once it's made up. "I want you to know I think this is absolutely crazy. Going back there is practically a death wish." Mike chuckles and she sighs heftily. "But if you must go up there, be safe. Don't go grabbing monsters by their teeth, alright?"
"I promise I won't go out grabbing monsters by the balls," Mike agrees, giving her a brief peck on the lips. "Rest up, I'll be back here before you know it and then maybe we can have that romantic date after all." She lets her arms drop from around his neck and his hand lingers on hers briefly before he finally lets go.
"Alright," Chris begins from the doorway, as if pumping himself up. "Let's go find Josh."