Chapter Twelve:

Never Far Behind

Finally sagging back to lean against the wall, Jess spread her hands in defeat. "Fine. I give up. That door will not give."

"I told you so."

She laughed. "Yeah, you did. Fair point. So now what?"

"We go upstairs, I guess," Emily took a drink from the canteen and tossed it to Jess. "That must be where the wolf went anyway. We should try to figure out where it went. It obviously wanted us to come here."

"Let's not take directions from a wild animal next time."

"I told you so on that one too."

Jess rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes. You are Mistress Emily, the All-Knowing One. I am totally amazed and in awe of your skills. Let's get this show on the road."

They ascended the stairs. Their construction seemed sturdier than the old hotel, though maybe that was simply due to the wear and tear they'd seen. Neither could remember much about what Mike had said about the layout, except that, apparently, if you saw moving body parts, you weren't supposed to touch them. Which seemed like common sense, but Jess had never had the heart to tell Mike that to his face.

Dim light filtered through the grimy windows. Jess checked her watch; it was nearing sundown. They'd been underground for a long time, sleeping sporadically. She swore quietly to herself. If Mike and Sam were still at the lodge, they'd been waiting a long time. Not good. Jess pulled the radio off her belt and clicked it on. Now that they were aboveground, they might be able to get a better connection.

She lifted it to her mouth, but Emily shushed her before she could speak. A long, slow scraping echoed out from a long, grand-looking hallway across from them: a sound like metal screeching on tile. The girls stopped, staring out into the darkness. The sound paused for a moment, then continued, growing slightly louder.

"Um…" Jess reached out and grabbed Emily's hand. "What is that?"

Emily sounded annoyed. "Like I know?" But her grip tightened on Jess's hand all the same. Whatever it was, it was moving towards them.

And then, as suddenly as they'd started, the screeching sounds stopped. Jessica shot a look to Emily, who shrugged helplessly. "No idea."

Em took a step forward, squinting into the darkness. Everything was perfectly still, with no sign of the wolf or anything else. In Jess's hand the radio buzzed to life and she jumped. It crackled with static and she bit her lip, heart thudding. "H—hello?" she asked into it, voice shaking. "Sam?"

Only static met her question.

"Turn it off, Jess. It's creeping me out."

"It might be someone trying to reach us though. Sam or Matt maybe."

Emily glared at her. "Seriously. Have you ever seen a horror movie? Fuck. Static is always bad news. Always."

Opening her mouth to retort, Jess froze as a voice came through the static. It was barely able to be understood, but it was clearly someone speaking.

"What? Please repeat," Jess said into the phone, ignoring Emily's warning look.

"—shh-ahh-shhh-rre—" The static was thick. Then, abruptly, it cleared. "Run," whispered a female voice.

The hallway was freezing. From down the hall, in the rapidly deepening shadows, came a long, low metal screech, something dragging along the tile ground towards them.

"Run," the radio whispered.

They ran.

Jess tried to shove the radio back onto her belt, but missed it as she dodged across rubble from a collapsed wall. The radio clattered to the ground and she skidded to a stop, sending gravel flying. She looked around frantically, trying to see where it had fallen.

"No, Jess. Come on!"

"The radio!"

"Fuck the radio! We can't use it if we're dead!"

Behind them, the sound faded slightly, then came back, louder. Jess glanced back. An iron bedframe slid out of the darkness into a pool of dim light. It was rusting and had no mattress, its feet screeching on the floor from its weight as it moved.

"What the fuck?" she said, staring at it. It was maybe 20 feet back. Jess gasped as a nearby bench shot forward towards them, as if someone incredibly strong had given it a shove.

"Why are you staring at it? Come on!" Emily grabbed her wrist and tugged. "I don't know why furniture is chasing us and I don't want to find out."

They hurdled broken chunks of concrete and rush through a section that might once have been a central hob but was now a blackened disaster. Mike really had done a number on this place. The unburned portion of a sign over a doorway read "—istration" and they ran in and came to a sliding stop. There was no way the bed would be able to cross the uneven ground and rubble.

"Are we safe?" Jess gasped, looking around wildly.

Emily shot her a dirty look. "I know you're not a natural blonde. You don't have to act that stupid. I don't think we're safe anywhere up here."

"Whatever bitch. Just because you're scared…" Em always did that: turn aggressive when she was upset. It was incredibly annoying, and yet oddly reassuring.

"I'm not scared."

"You are way more scared than me."

Something fell in the darkness with a clatter that seemed to echo all around them and they both jumped. Jess pulled out her flashlight again and flicked it on, shining it out into the darkness. The sun had nearly completely faded and the beam was bright. Beside her, Emily retrieved hers as well.

Beyond the broken floor, next to the bench and illuminated in the flashlight's beam, Hannah was crying. Her skin was abnormally, unhealthily pallid, her hair long and black and stringy around her face. She was on her hands and knees, her shoulders heaving. Jess could hear her whimpering softly.

"H-Hannah?" Jess whispered, voice breaking. "Em, do you see Hannah?" Emily squeaked. Emily never squeaked. Holy shit. Jess tried to think of what to do. "Hannah, is that you?"

Like a failing movie projector, Hannah's entire body flickered and vanished.

"You saw that, right?" Jessica reached blindly for Em's hand and her fingers closed on her arm. She looked around wildly, shining her light everywhere it could reach. Nothing. "That was Hannah."

The other girl cleared her throat and shook her head firmly. "No. No way. It's another one of Josh's prank things. Like how he faked the ghost in the lodge. It's just a holdover."

"Then why didn't Mike see it when he was in here?"

"Because Mike is a moron who wouldn't notice a snake if it bit him on the dick." Emily's voice was tight, strained. "We should get out of here. We can get outside, right? Go to the lodge and find the others."

"No, Em, wait. What if that really is Hannah?"

"Like a ghost?" She scoffed and squared her shoulders. "Not a chance. I'm going to go grab the radio. We got all freaked out for nothing."

Jess tried to stop her but Emily dodged her hands. "Don't. Don't, Em."

"Stay here. I'll be right back." Before Jess could protest further, Emily began to pick her way back towards where they'd been. She was barely visible against the darkness, her flashlight lighting up her way. Pausing for only a moment, she turned a corner and vanished from sight.

A sob echoed out of the hallway behind Jess, reverberating loudly through the empty rooms. "Emily?" she called, softly. "Emily, did you hear that?"

No answer came back from the other girl. Jessica turned, shining her light around the wing she was in. It looked like it had once been offices, but now they were largely ruined. Doors stood open or hung broken off their hinges at crazy angles, casting bizarre shadows. Another whimpering sob carried out of the dark, from somewhere further down.

There was a flickering of color in her light as she moved it across an empty room and she moved it back. Hannah was kneeling, her arms wrapped around her torso. She lifted her head as Jess's light lingered on her. Tears streaked dirt or makeup down her face and her eyes were shadowed. "Jessica?" The voice was Hannah's, though her lips didn't move. "Jessica, please... help me. Help me, please. Please."

Jess took a step forward, unthinkingly. The flashlight wavered and Hannah vanished again. Rushing into the room, Jess shone the light around frantically. Nothing. The room was completely empty.

"Jessica? Where did you go? Jess, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I won't go near him again. I promise. Please help me." Hannah's desperate, despairing voice carried through the dead air of the sanitarium and Jess ran back into the hall.

"Hannah?" She turned towards toward the voice. It was coming from the further down the hallway, away from where they'd run from.

The missing girl screamed, voice breaking painfully before it subsided into whimpers again. Jess cast a glance back towards where Emily had vanished, then, grimacing, headed towards the crying noises. This was stupid. She knew it. This was very, very, very stupid. The kind of stupid thing that lost Mike fingers and Emily was going to kill her for doing this and—

"Jessica? Please…"

She knew Hannah's voice. They might not have been close, or even really friends, but they'd been in school together since Jess had moved to town in 5th grade. "Hannah? Where are you?"

"I'm lost, Jessica. I don't know where I am."

"I—what do you see?" Her footsteps were loud, even as she tried to move carefully. The ground was all rubble and gravel and broken glass. It was getting colder. Probably because the sun was down, she told herself. That was all. The corridor smelled like rusted metal, the scent growing stronger as she walked.

Another broken sob echoed around her. "Just darkness. Darkness and walls. Where am I? Jess, help me. Find me."

"I'm trying," Jess whispered, tears stinging her eyes. It wasn't hard to belief that Hannah's ghost would linger. The idea that, after everything, she was alone here in this desolate place… "I'm sorry, Hannah. I'm coming." She hesitated at a turn in the hallway, listening hard, then turned right, towards the sound of Hannah's faint crying.

Back up the passage, across a broken entryway and down another hall, Emily's flashlight beam found the radio.

"Fucking finally," she muttered, passing her flashlight to her injured arm and scooping the radio off the ground. It crackled slightly as she picked it up and she pushed the button. "Sam? Matt? Is anyone there?"

It buzzed with static and she groaned. She hadn't been kidding; she loathed static. It was the worst part of every haunted house, every horror movie. Something about the noisy non-noise just set her teeth on edge. And there was always a scene or a room with static. It was such a staple of horror that she could practically predict when it was coming. At least here it made some kind of sense. Radios got static. That was just a thing they had, right?

A garbled voice came through. "Repeat?" Em said, sighing. "Please repeat?" God, she had caught so much shit from Matt for how she'd used the radio before. Too much babbling, too much panic. Whatever. If it was better to be terse, then terse she would be. She was good at that.

The voice spoke again, but she couldn't make out any words. She smacked the radio against her thigh a few times, more out of anger than out of any belief it would make it work better. "Repeat," she said again.

"…keep…" said the same female voice from before, the one that had told them to run. "…Jess…"

Her heart thudded painfully. "What? Jess? What are you talking about? Please repeat. You're breaking up and I—" She forced herself to stop. Okay, maybe she wasn't great at being terse. At least not on the radio.

The static cleared completely. With perfect clarity, she heard the woman's voice: "Emily. Find Jess."

The buzzing, crackling static returned, full-force. She hurriedly clicked the radio off. The sun was completely down now and besides her flashlight's beam, the only other illumination was the thin, silvery glow of the moon off the snow outside. It fell through the windows in regular patterns along the floor. The sudden silence was oppressive.

She shook herself. She was imagining things, letting the atmosphere and the stupid static get in her head. The woman had sounded familiar, but it wasn't Sam. It was nothing. God, she hated it here. "Jess?" she called back, as loudly as she dared. "I got the radio!"

There was no answer.

"Fuck," Emily muttered, turning to pick her way back to where she'd left the other girl. It took longer to get back when she wasn't in a dead, desperate sprint. After banging her shin on a piece of rebar jutting from a broken block, she had to admit that it was amazing they'd even gotten to the administration wing without either of them tripping or getting otherwise injured. They'd run through this in the dark.

She passed under the broken Administration sign and looked around. There was no one there. "Are you fucking kidding me?" Emily growled low in her throat. "I swear to god, Jess, if get yourself killed, I will personally go get a damn Ouija board just so I can tell you what a stupid fucking moron you are." She raised her voice. "Jess? Jessica?" Her own words came back to her, dimly.

A shriek tore through the still air of the sanatorium. She'd heard someone scream like that before. Not Jess, though. "Hello?" Emily spun in a circle, trying to figure out where the scream had come from. The shriek subsided into a moan and then a whimper from somewhere down the hallway.

"Shit." It wasn't Hannah. It couldn't be Hannah, for very, very obvious reasons. Which mean there was someone else up here. Someone who needed help. She should find Jess. Maybe that's where Jess went. She always was a bleeding heart.

Emily shook herself and took off down the hall towards the scream. "I am such a fucking idiot." She paused where the hallway met another corridor, trying to place where she'd heard it coming from. "Hello?" she asked the darkness, shining her light in both directions. Then she frowned, shrugged, and turned left.

-o-

There was a piece of notebook paper on the scratched wooden desk, torn roughly from its metal spiral. On it, near the top and used to keep it weighted down, was a child's hairclip: the kind with glittering butterfly wings bouncing slightly on thin wire coils. In slightly shaky black ballpoint pen the letter read:

Dear Chris,

I should have talked to you. I'm sorry I didn't. But you would have tried to talk me out of it again and I just can't take that right now, so I had to go without talking. I hope you aren't too mad. I know you'll be mad at me. I understand. But I still have to go.

I guess what it comes down to is that… I think you're wrong. I think Dr. Jocelyn is wrong. I think the cops were wrong. I think that what I remember—what I know that you remember—is real. And like Dr. Jocelyn kept saying: focusing on fantasies about what happened won't help me heal. I had more dreams with more butterflies and our friends are in danger. They really are. And I'm not going to wait here until we never hear from them again. I can't keep living in this fantasy that there isn't something still out there. I can't live with myself if I try. I know I can't. Josh is still out there. Or he was. And now our friends are out there too. I owe it to them. I owe it to Beth and Hannah. I have to go back.

I love

Please forgive me.

Ashley

The letter was crumpled up and thrown on the ground. It bounced slightly and came to rest just under the bed. The mattress groaned as the letter's reader sat heavily and put his head in his hands.

-o-

The further they went, the more convinced Sam was that they were getting lost. One turn rolled into the next and the next. Only once did they run across one of their own chalk markers, which was reassuring. And on another corner, shortly after that, was…

"Look! Mike, look! Green and blue. That's Jess and Emily!" She grabbed his hand and dragged him over to shine the light more directly on it. "They must have made it through the rockslide! They were down here."

He laughed in sheer relief and kissed the chalk arrows. His lips came away lightly colored and Sam grinned. "Gross. You're going to get cave mono."

"Cave mono?"

"Well you've already had the normal kind, so…"

"I did not! I never got mono. That was a rumor. You know I just had pneumonia." He pouted at her and she giggled, brushing the chalk off his lips roughly.

"Mike Munroe. Making out with a mine. You've sunk so low…" It felt so fucking good to laugh. Even the tiniest sign of good news was a relief. "Should we—?" She glanced down the passage the arrows were pointing. It seemed to be heading away from the center of the mine, more towards the lodge's basement.

Mike shook his head. "They'll find the note. We should keep going. We know he's down here."

They continued on. The mines echoed with faint dripping and the occasional soft sound of vermin scurrying by. Turning at a sharp corner, Sam stopped abruptly. Mike bumped into her from behind and swore quietly, stepping to the side, then fell silent.

They had found it. They had found the location in the dream. And there, next to the elevator shaft, just as there had been before, was someone lying on the ground. There was no caution in her this time. "Josh!" Sam threw herself forward, narrowly evading Mike's arms as he tried to catch her.

"Sam, no! He's not stable!"

"I don't care," she shot back at him, rushing forward. It was so familiar: the most distinctive déjà vu she'd ever experienced. Things were different. Of course, things were different. She wasn't in workout gear. She was in hiking boots and Mike was actually here.

Josh was babbling something. As she closed the distance between them, she could make it out. "…just a dream. Another dream. Not real. Not real. If it was real, I hurt her and I would never hurt Sam. Not Sam. Not my Sammy. Not really. Before it was a game. This isn't a game. We could play a game. Anyone have an Uno deck?" He lifted his head to look at her, then shook it slowly. She slowed to a walk a few feet away and raised her hands, trying to look both confident and unthreatening. Her hand ached in its bandage.

"Since you aren't real, my dearest Miss Giddings, would you warn me before you dislocate your jaw, please?" He chuckled weakly. Sam swallowed hard. It was almost exactly the line he'd given in her dream. "Or if you're planning to melt this time, try not to get it on my clothes. They're designer, you see."

Steady footsteps on the ground behind her reminded her she wasn't alone this time. Mike touched the small of her back gently. "It's okay, Sam. Breathe."

"You're alive," she said, breath rushing from her body with the words. "You know who I am."

"You're not real, Sam. Just like Beth and Hannah and—oh hello there, Mister Munroe—my mother and my father and Alan and Patches and Punch and Judy."

"I'm real."

He shook his head again, curling into a tighter ball. "Not real, not real, not real, not real," he muttered.

Sam glanced at Mike and pulled the pills from her pocket. Mike nodded grimly. "Let's do it."

"So I'm not real then," she said, hating herself for the words. "That means I can come over and you won't hurt me, right? You won't be able to. There's nothing for you to be scared of."

"Not scared!" The emaciated man shoved himself up straight against the post. "Can't be scared. I'm a Washington. Washington men are never afraid."

"I need you to take this for me." Sam stepped away from Mike and crouched down next to Josh. She held out a pill in her open palm, hand shaking.

He stared at it, then her, then grabbed her wrist. Flinching, Sam held his gaze. "I can touch you." The words were slurred slightly, made awkward by the long, razor-sharp teeth on half of his face. The other half looked remarkably normal. She tried to focus on that part and ignore the rest.

"Doesn't mean I'm real, does it?" This was a sick fucking thing to do to him, but she wasn't sure how else she could get him to take the pill. She wasn't even sure it would help, but it didn't matter. She clung to the fragile hope that it might bring him out of this haze, at least a little. "Just take the pill, Josh. You have nothing to lose."

"Red pill or the blue pill, yeah? Never liked that movie." Maintaining that same eye contact, he lowered his head to her hand. Behind them, Sam heard Mike shift on the rocky ground and prayed he would stay still. She held her breath as Josh plucked the pill out of her palm like a horse taking a sugar cube. Tipping his head back, he swallowed it dry, then opened his mouth wide to show her his tongue. "Gotta make sure Josh took his meds like a good little patient. They used to check my mouth, you know. Make sure. Can't trust Josh Washington. No one can." He released her and collapsed back.

All her instincts screamed at her to throw herself away from him but she forced herself to breathe evenly and stand. Calm. She had to stay calm. It was all too easy to remember his mad, blown pupils.

"Sammy?" Josh closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the post. "Sam, how did you get here?"

She smiled. This time, she could answer that. Now that she was here, she could feel the reality of it with heavy certainty. "Hiked."

"Hiked?" His voice was incredulous.

"Well… Got a ride, then a plane, then a taxi, then another ride, another plane, a bus, and then hiking."

"What did you give me?"

Sam's smile faded. "Just try to rest, Josh. Please."

"I'm good at that. Resting. All I do these days."

And just like the dream, Mike was there when she turned. He reached out and she took his hand with her uninjured one. Squeezing gently, he gestured to her backpack. "Shall we settle in here?"

"I'd rather try to get him out of here."

"I don't think we can. Not yet." He sighed. "Let's wait here for a while. You can look through the book and I'll watch him. I—Do you think he'd let us tie him up?"

"No he would not!" Josh announced loudly.

Sam shrugged. "He seems harmless enough right now. If we just watch him really closely, then…" She trailed off. 'Then we can stop him if he tries something,' really meant 'kill him' and she couldn't say it. From the look on his face, Mike knew exactly what she was thinking. He gave her a little smile. Maybe it was meant to be reassuring, but his eyes were pained.

She pulled the journal out of her bag and settled down against a beam near Josh and tried to focus on finding something to help.

-o-

"Melinda? You were right. Kid's name is Matt. Room is under the name 'Emily Davis.'"

"Shitting fuck-balls ass-fucking hell—um... Sorry."

"Hey, I get it. Just never heard you swear before. Heh."

"I'm on my way. Keep an eye on him, please? If you see the others, try to keep them off the mountain. I'll be there as soon as I can. I will go up there and drag them back myself if I have to."

"Sure thing. Godspeed."

-o-

Some pages of the book were nearly illegible, while others seemed carefully printed. Several large sections were gathered with paper clips and there were a number of dogeared pages. It was easy to flip through, although the pages felt oddly fragile within their hardy leather binding. Here and there were notes written in Ashley's distinctive hand, using purple ink.

One page said:

Because the Wendigo is mutated from a human, it knows how to hunt us. It can perfectly mimic its prey. You must remain sharp and disciplined.

I have killed 6 Wendigos. Knives or bullets will not harm them. Use a flamethrower. It is the best weapon. Fire envelops them, burns away their skin and makes them weak.

But try NOT to kill them.

Killing a Wendigo should be the last resort. Death releases the Wendigo spirit into the air.

I have contained them. I used traps to catch them into cages. The traps were baited with human limbs from those who had no further use for them.

Ashley had shoved a folded half-page of notebook paper next to that page. It said:

Wendigos? He knew what he was talking about with their habits and stuff (Em didn't turn from the bite, fire, etc.) but stuff doesn't line up. Eastern Algonquin? Cree? Alberta? Plains vs. mountains and stuff. I guess the name doesn't really make a difference, since if they're real they can kill us no matter what we call them, but it still feels weird. Proof none of it happened? Was the guy just nuts? Faulty info?

Another page was nearly destroyed, where a lot of water had made contact with the paper. The ink was smeared and faded. It was clear that there were words there once, but what they had been was anyone's guess. The only person who would know was a month in the grave. Only one spot was still legible, near the bottom left corner. Ashley had circled this spot several times and added exclamation points. It said:

[…] a cure […]

A few flips later, on an otherwise empty page:

Blood calls to blood.

That's all he told me.

Blood calls to blood.

What good does that do me? I have the monster blood, but it's not enough. He said it was their humanity that mattered. So if it's blood I need, they're all fucked. None of them have anyone left alive they're related to. Not that I could hope to find.

The following was written in over-large black letters, the period of the sentence driven into the page with enough force to puncture the paper:

They don't deserve it.

Below it, Ashley had added a note of her own. But did they have a choice?

There was a folded piece of paper shoved into the back cover. It was a tracking confirmation slip, but the interesting part was on the back. In the same handwriting from the rest of the journal, it said:

Jackson Hole, Missouri. Dennis Ladme. Could be related to Dalton O'Reilly but won't talk to me.

Another dead end.

Ashley's last note: Does that mean he needed a blood relative?

-o-

Interesting.

The girl gave the boy something. She said she thought it would help. Help, of course, was a relative term. It quite liked the boy. He was entertaining on his more active days, babbling and fighting with himself.

It ran its fingers over the surface of the scavenged radio. The static had been new, as had the new voice.

It liked new voices.

It didn't get many of them these days.

Its collection could keep growing, if things kept up as they were.

The girl was reading, the boy was sleeping, and the other boy was pacing and doing things that were of no interest. It shrank back against the wall, its long fingers and toes finding crevices that let it climb.

It would eat. Something less satisfying than the options in front of it, but it would be back. It wanted them. Oh, it wanted them. But it would wait.

Perhaps it would check in on the other little girls.

So many options.

And so, so much time.