June 25th, 2022
It was the same argument they'd been having for months.
"Look, after you're done with college, maybe we can move further upstate. Or Maine?"
"I thought we've already talked about this," Laura said exasperatedly. "You know I've wanted to move to the West Coast my whole life. "
The dark road flickered past in broken fragments of moonlight and the dim light of Max's headlights. This stretch of the pavement wasn't as well kept as the rest of the drive, and the bumpy ride acted like a sifter against her flagging confidence. So much for getting to camp tonight.
"Well, yeah, but we could always move for just a shorter gap?" Max suggested. "I mean, it would be nice to get out of the house, get our own place."
She felt his eyes on her. The frustration that had been building up bled away, making the pit of dread in her chest all the more obvious.
Things hadn't been going… great lately. Something had come between them over this last semester, and though the promise of summer had kept her head above water, it was obviously a mirage rather than the safe harbor she'd hoped.
Hackett's Quarry was looking like their best shot. Some summer camp in the middle of bumfuck nowhere didn't sound like the most romantic place to be, no. But it would provide them a chance to reconnect beyond the quick trips on weekends and school holidays.
It would give her a chance to make up her mind.
"I really don't want to spend the extra cash for a downpayment and safety deposit on a place that we won't stay for more than a year," she said.
"More than a year? " He asked incredulously, raising a brow.
"Um, yeah?"
"And then, what?"
For fuck's sake.
"Then literally anywhere but here," she said irritatedly.
"I just- I just don't understand why you don't want to stay in New York!"
Laura bit back the urge to scream.
"Honestly, Max? If you have to ask, then I don't think you really know me at all."
The car fell with a tense silence that she almost regretted being the cause of . Almost.
Max's free hand, the one that used to rest on her thigh when they drove to ice cream dates and the theater near their old high school, now fumbled awkwardly in his lap. For a moment, it looked like he was going to reach out, but thought better of it.
"I just didn't realize you wanted to get out of here so soon after graduating."
"Well, that's just one scenario, right?" she said softly, casting a glance over. "Once you hear back from St. Lawrence, we'll have a better idea of what the future holds."
Shadows flitted across his face like a flock of birds. He fell unusually silent, and the only sound between them was the light pattering of his freckled fingertips against the steering wheel.
The sudden break was a good opportunity to get a better focus on the map. Which…
"Max," Laura started.
His voice cracked with a dryness that hadn't been present before. "What?"
"We're totally lost."
June ?, 2022
Terror.
It drips through her veins like molasses, sickly sweet and heavy against the utter confusion and displacement beating in her chest.
Laura tries to move, to no avail. Everything is weighed down by an unnatural gravity. Her hands don't feel like her own.
Actually, shit. She can't even feel her hands.
A groan tries to tumble its way out, but she chokes out a rasp instead. Fuck, that hurt.
Where is she? Did she hit her head in the cellar…?
Where's Max?
It takes everything within her, but she opens her eyes—
—and comes face to face with a pair of scuffed black shoes.
The sound of a radio crackles above. "T. Are you still on the Loop?"
"No, I had to check on something at the station," a familiar voice replies. "I'm heading back out right now. Over."
He begins to walk away, and a renewed sense of desperation brings newfound awareness to her bones.
"M..ax," she tries. Something's very wrong.
The footsteps pause.
"Where's Max?" she adds roughly.
No response. Whoever it was continues on, and the sound of their heavy footfall quickly drifts away with the finality of a slammed door.
...
The next time she wakes, it is with an acrid taste in her throat and a deep, unsettling realization: she's in a cell.
That much is certain- the pale light of morning calls into contrast the metal of her cage. Cold, unforgiving ground bites into her cheek. Beneath the lingering touch of whatever caused her to pass out, her body aches in a steady, dull thrum.
"Shit," she groans.
"Morning, ma'am."
She freezes. Ma'am. No fucking way.
Laura pushes herself up on unsteady hands, peering up at a face she thought she'd never see again.
"...Officer?"
He's set up camp on a chair in front of her cell, looking right at home in the gloom. Even in daylight, the shadows cling to him.
This is the creepy cop that got them back on the road again last night, the one who insisted on wiping her dirty face with a handkerchief, the one who…
Who what? The space behind her eyes throbs.
"Sir, is Max alright? The man you saw me with last night?"
The sheriff sneers back. "Shut up."
" Please , I need to know-"
The keys jingle at his side when he leans forward, "Shut. Up. Do you understand where you are?"
Oh, fuck you .
"On a disgusting floor?" she asks sweetly.
"In police custody," he continues on with an air of long-suffering. "Meaning, you're not the one asking questions, here."
The chill of fear settles in her chest. This is not the time to have an attitude, chastises a voice that sounds like her mother. This wasn't the time nor place to suddenly lose a brain cell and start a fight with a cop.
Especially one that's locked her up.
"I'm sorry, sir," she replies, pushing for an edge of genuinity.
He assesses her for a moment, and whatever he finds, she only hopes it's in her favor.
Finally, "Name."
She pauses. "Laura Kearney."
"Really?" he asks, brow cocked.
"Um, yes?"
"That's not what your damn license says."
"I go by my mother's maiden name."
His eyes are impossibly dark. Laura does not flinch. She refuses to.
"Did I ask for your mother's maiden name?"
Okay, fair. "My legal name is Brandt."
"Why did you use Kearney, then?"
"My father is a murderer," Laura says evenly.
He narrows his eyes at her, marking something in the notepad in his lap.
There's no point in hiding it. Anyone and everyone around Oneida county, hell, the whole fucking state would recognize the name if they paid any attention to the news. Maybe they wouldn't remember why they've heard it before, but, well. That's what the internet is for.
And he's a fucking cop. If he didn't know it before, he sure would've figured it out sooner rather than later.
"What's the name of your traveling companion?"
There doesn't seem to be any point to asking for basic questions if he's already checked through their bags, but whatever. "Max Brinly. Look, can I just know if he's alright?"
He ignores her. "Why were you out at Hackett's Quarry last night?"
"We're camp counselors, like we said."
"Oh, bullshit," he says with blatant impatience. "Counselors aren't due until today."
"We know! We figured we'd just… show up early, go to camp."
"And why didn't you go to the Harbinger's Motel like I told you to?"
"Because we're fucking broke!" Laura snapped. The permanent glower on his face deepened, and she quickly backtracked. "No, look, I'm sorry. I'm just, really freaking out here because I can't remember anything after we showed up at camp. Please… I need to know that Max is okay ."
By this point, her head is throbbing and she winces, digging her palms into her temple. The wooden chair creaks as the officer shifts in his seat. The silence between them grows.
"What's the last thing you remember?" he asks with a different edge to his voice.
'Are you sure you called?'
'Yeah…. Well, I left a voicemail.'
"The… camp was dark. Everything was locked down." She ignores the muttered, "No shit," and digs past the dread beginning to pool in the back of her mind.
"So you broke in?" he asks, brow raised.
That's right, the cellar.
'Max, there's someone down here!'
"Oh my god…" Laura trails off breathlessly. "Oh my god, someone was trapped."
He stiffens, leaning in closer.
"Someone…?"
They got the cellar doors open. She's always took no small amount of pride in being self-sufficient. That's why she went downstairs first.
"You saw someone, ma'am?" he presses over her racing thoughts.
There wasn't anything out of the ordinary, if she ignored that it was the second time that night that she clearly hallucinated a person. Nobody was there. Just a creepy old storage room, and a bloody collar…
'Hey… It's been kind of a night, you know? Let's just get to the motel. We can come back here first thin-'
His words had been cut short with a gurgle. She had barely processed the grotesque silhouette before it lunged again, cleaving Max's head off his shoulders in one swipe. It hit the dirty, cracked cement with a dull thump.
"No, he's not," she forces out. The words land barely past her lips.
Across from her, the officer sits painfully still. She crawls forward, straining against the bars.
"He's not dead. Is Max dead? Is he dead? "
His eyes confirm it.
"No, no, no- what the fuck! "
Laura twists to the left and violently retches, pure bile hitting the stone with a wet slap. Droplets splash up and latch onto her skin. The pure agony and regret is an ache so great that she curls in on herself. Her memory floods back in a detached symphony. Screams and gunshots, if only, if only, playing over in a distorted melody.
If only she didn't sign them up to be counselors at a shitty summer camp, if only she didn't insist that they go and check things out in the weird storm cellar. If they just went to the hotel.
Max would still be here. A sob lodges itself in her throat, clogged with spit and bitterness.
If, if, if.
Max is- was good. He didn't deserve that. No one did.
The sheriff remains silent throughout her breakdown, which is how she forgets he's even there until he stands.
"Ma'am, I'm going to need you to put your hands through the bars."
She looks up, blinking uncomprehendingly.
"Ms. Kearney," he says, and there's something in his tone that's softened from before. "Stand up."
Like a predator, his eyes don't leave hers. This isn't over yet, Laura, she tells herself. Get up.
Only as she's standing does she realize how stiff her clothes are, crusted over in things she refuses to consider. A sharp pain throbs up her stomach at the thought.
He cuffs her swiftly, unlocking the cell door and locking it behind him. There isn't much space for her to go, but she still backs up till her knees hit the edge of her cell cot. With a grunt, he crouches and produces the same white handkerchief he used on her the night before, swiping up what little content her stomach expelled.
She puked yesterday, too. She remembers now. After it happened.
Fuck .
Her grief-stricken mind dimly notes how tall the man before her is. Crouching over a puddle of bile, lips pursing in disgust, his head still almost reaches her chest. This whole situation is so insane, it's almost laughable if it weren't paved with devastation. She exhales a shaky breath.
The Sheriff of North Kill eyes her, then. "C'mon," he says as he gets back up to his feet, pocketing the soiled handkerchief. "Let's get you cleaned up."
The water's warm, at least. That was unexpected.
The thin bar of soap handed to her beyond the divider wall will definitely dry her skin out, but it cuts through the grime like a knife. Her fingernails are caked in soap from her claw-like grip, and she fiercely scrubs down every inch of skin and scalp several times over till her skin is pink and raw.
Get rid of last night. Erase it from her body. She watches with detached fascination as blood and dirt, her second skin, flows gently down the drain.
There he goes. It's a terrible, morbid thought that still rings true, and she bites her lip hard enough to draw blood. Max is gone, and her life is irrevocably changed. The cop must think she has something to do with it; otherwise, why is she in a holding cell?
She squeezes her eyes shut against the second onslaught of tears that threaten to erupt. No more. She's in a dangerous spot and literally has no one on her side, save for Max's sister and parents.
The shower abruptly shuts off. A towel emerges from the other side of the divider. "Dry yourself," he calls over unnecessarily.
She takes it and gingerly dries down, her already-angry flesh tingling painfully against the rough fabric. It feels good, though. The pain grounds her. A plain t-shirt and sweatpants, plus clean undergarments are slid beyond the wall, and she puts them on gratefully.
He takes her by the arm and down the hall they go, past the warm tones of brick and back through nondescript gray walls. She keeps her ears peeled for any sound other than their own footsteps. Nothing. Where the fuck is everybody else? This whole precinct is like a ghost town. Is it soundproofed?
She's not sure what to expect, but him immediately walking away after she's locked back in her cell is not it.
"Wait!"
He turns back, the ever-present annoyance already clouding his face. "What?"
"Does Max's family…know? Can I speak to them?" she asks softly.
Instead of looking her in the eye, his gaze lands over her shoulder. "No."
"They don't know?"
He clenches his jaw. "There's a process to this."
They might have to see his body to ID it. The thought makes her sick, so Laura swallows it back.
"When do I get my phone call?" she asks quietly.
He scoffs with a light shake of the head. "Unbelievable."
"What?" she asks incredulously. "Aren't there, like, protocols?"
"Here's what you need to know," he says so abruptly that she can't help but lean back. He juts a finger in her face. "You've stepped in some Grade A cosmic bullshit, and the only thing you need to worry about is making sure you do exactly as I say."
Her eyes can't possibly get any wider with disbelief. Though everything in her wants to recoil, Laura stands her ground.
"But, Sheriff…" she glances down at the sheriff's badge for the first time. Alarm bells surge in her mind. "...Hackett? Wait, like, Chris Hackett?"
He follows her eyes down to his lapel, eyes darting back to her own. Neither speak.
"Who… are you? What's going on?"
He turns on his heel and walks away.
"Wait!" she yells after him. "You can't just keep me here! What the fuck is going on here?!"
"Frankly, ma'am," he calls over his shoulder, "you have no idea."