Chapter Thirteen:
Promises
In the mine, it was hard to tell that the storm had hit in earnest. The only signal was a cold draft that seemed to sweep over them in a rush. Sam shuddered and pulled on her coat. She glanced towards the source of the cold. They must be close to an opening. It made her chest hurt to think of how close Josh had been to an exit.
Rubbing her eyes, she picked the book up again. There were still long sections she couldn't seem to get through. The guy's handwriting had varied from bad to completely illegible and she was starting to suspect that some segments were even in code. She wished she could just talk to Ashley directly for five minutes and pick her brain. Ash had always been better at stuff like this. Or even Beth, with her fairy tale analyses. It felt like she was picking apart some weird fairy puzzle, trying to find the magic words that would break the spell. True love's kiss or something. She groaned softly.
As if summoned by the sound, Mike sat down across from her. He drummed his hands nervously on the ground. "So…"
She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"
He jerked his head towards the sleeping Josh. "If this does work, how fast is it? Will it be, like, 'Poof! All crazy gone!'?"
"Don't say crazy."
"You know what I mean." He sighed. "Sorry. Okay. Still though. How fast does it start to work?"
Sam let the journal fall closed in her lap and stretched upwards with a sigh. Her legs tingled slightly from sitting in one position for too long. "I'm not sure. Dr. Hill says it varies from person to person. If it's a good fit for him, it might take weeks to see all the effects. Hopefully though we'll see some more coherence soon. When I looked it up it said that hallucinations and delusions and stuff can start to improve within a few days or a week."
He grunted. "Not ideal, but better than nothing. Did you find anything in the book?"
"Maybe." Sam picked it up and paged through it again, trying to find the bit that had caught her eye—the bit about blood calling blood. She held out the journal and Mike leaned over and took it.
His eyes scanned the page and he frowned. "Not much to go on."
"No. And we don't even know where he got the information. Plus, Ash left some notes and stuff and I guess some things he wrote don't really make sense with actual lore. But it's all we have."
"What do you think it means?"
"I'm not sure. I think it was like some kind of separation thing. He mentions wendigo blood and then there's stuff in the back about him trying to find one of the miner's relatives. So I think it was like magnets or something. Wendigo blood calls the wendigo part and human blood calls the human part." She sighed again. "Not that I have any idea how that would work or even if it's possible. I mean, he wasn't even sure. It doesn't look like he ever found any blood relatives for experiments. There might be other stuff in here, but I'm having trouble getting through it."
Mike flipped through the pages and paused on a particularly scribbled, stained page and laughed. "Yeah, I get that. Maybe if you try again in a while? Let your brain rest for a bit."
She hesitated. "…we need food, too."
He nodded, frowning slightly. "I was just thinking about that. Without my pack, and now with him here…" He shrugged helplessly. "I wonder if the Washingtons have any stores or anything. We'll have to ask Josh when he's up again. Hopefully—"
"Yeah."
There was the soft sound of cloth on dirt as Josh rolled over restlessly. Sam glanced over. His hand twitched and he shook his head in his sleep. He mumbled something under his breath. The only word she could make out was "…cold…" Mike stood and walked over, pulling off his coat. He carefully tucked it over Josh, who relaxed again. He looked at Sam, then away again quickly. "He's been cold for a long time. It's… never mind," he mumbled. "Try to get some sleep, Sam. I'll keep an eye out."
Sam pulled her hat down over her ears and curled up obediently. "Wake me if anything happens," she said warningly and he chuckled.
"Yeah, yeah, Giddings. I'll wake you up if anything happens. If you don't wake up first."
Sam slept restlessly and dreamed. Or at least, she thought she was dreaming. It was more memory than dream, though, which always had the unsettling feeling that she wasn't really asleep, just lost in her own mind. She was staring at the Washingtons' fancy front door. She knocked. Sam had always hated the Washingtons' front bell and avoided it as much as humanly possible. It was overly loud and aggressive and she always felt invasive using it, even when she was expected or there was a lot going on. So instead she rapped her knuckles on the wood as loudly as she could.
No answer.
She pulled out her phone and sent another text: Here. Let me in?
After a moment, the phone buzzed in response. Unlocked.
She tried the handle. It was, indeed, unlocked and she opened it just enough to slip inside. The house was dark; both Melinda and Bob were gone for the next month or so, off shooting on the East Coast somewhere. That was part of why she was here. She couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that something bad would happen if she left Josh alone with his thoughts for too long. "Josh?" she called into the foyer, her voice echoing eerily back to her.
Where are you? The glow of her screen illuminated her face in the big mirror across the way with startling clarity that almost made her jump. She stuck her tongue out at herself.
Upstairs.
Suppressing the urge to roll her eyes at his monosyllabic responses, she kicked off her shoes and climbed the grand staircase. The door to the movie room was open, but there was no sign of life from within. Then she heard a clink of glass on glass and soft swearing from Bob's study. She opened the door to find the room bathed in soft lamplight.
Josh didn't glance up as she came in. Blood welled from a cut on his thumb and he dabbed at it with a tissue.
"What did you do?" Sam rushed over and snatched the tissue from him, pressing it hard against the wound.
"Knife. I was trying to get the wax off the bottle and my hand slipped. It's nothing." He gestured towards the bar with his free hand. A bottle of whiskey that was older than she was sat on the polished oak, shining in the warm light. He caught her disbelieving look and grinned. "An accident, Sammy, I swear."
"Ah. And you were looking to check and see if it was still good?"
"That's me. Certified booze inspector. I care about Dad's tastebuds. I wanted to make sure he wasn't going to poison himself. Not accidentally, at least."
"Hold this there. I'll be right back," she ordered, then ran to the bathroom for a bandage. She taped it down securely and frowned at him. "Josh, you're drinking a lot."
He snorted. "Not really. You're just always around when I am, so it seems that way."
"Really?" Sam raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "So you never drink alone?"
He wouldn't meet her eyes. "Nope."
"Liar."
"Have a drink with me, Sammy. It's already open. I'm getting in trouble either way. It's the good stuff, too. Quality, grade-A poison."
Sighing, Sam shrugged. He was going to drink either way. She knew from experience that it was hard to get him to stop once he had a plan in his head. Maybe if she drank with him, she could distract him with doing something else. They could play a game or go swimming or watch a movie or something. "Fine. Want to play cards? I don't really want to just sit and drink in silence."
They found an unopened deck of cards in a side cabinet and settled in to play Go Fish. As a drinking game, of course—at Josh's insistence.
The last time she'd gotten truly drunk was months ago, at that party Josh had thrown. She'd had Beth then, to make sure she drank lots of water before she went to sleep and keep her from being too hung over. This time she had no such safeguard. She doubted Josh was going to worry about it. Getting hungover was probably at least partially the point. Fuzziness and pain.
She stared down into the glass, watching the amber liquid shift against the perfectly clear ice. That was such a Washington family thing: perfect ice. It was never cloudy or cracked. How did one even do that?
Cool fingertips brushed along her jaw and tipped her head up. Josh was leaning forward, his lips quirked in a slight sad smile. "You're doing that thing again."
"What thing?"
"That thing where you get all locked up in your own head."
Sam laughed. "Really? That's a thing that I do? Have you looked in a mirror lately? You're, like, the king of being all up in his own head."
He nodded gravely. "And, as king, I am aware of the habits of all citizens of In-Their-Head land."
"Weirdo."
Josh dropped his hand and looked away, taking another long swallow. Not to be outdone, Sam took another sip. She could see the appeal of it. It burned along her tongue and down her throat, heat pooling low in her belly. "So this is the good stuff, right?" She grabbed the bottle and held it up to the light. The label was black and embossed with gold. It looked like it was probably more expensive than her car. Hell, it was probably more expensive than her education. Popping the cork out of the top with her thumb, she poured more for herself. She misjudged the distance and the rim chinked against the glass. Her gaze shot up to Josh's, nervously.
He laughed. "Self-conscious and increasingly clumsy? Is wee little Sammy getting drunk?"
With great dignity and maturity, she stuck her tongue out at him. He downed the rest of his glass and looked away again. She snorted and reached forward, touching his jaw just as he'd touched hers. For all that his fingers were cool, his skin was hot, flushed. She could feel a trace of stubble. When was the last time he'd shaved? Or left the house?
His eyes met hers and he sucked in a breath. "Sam?" His voice was barely audible.
"Yeah?"
He closed the distance between them in a moment, his hand coming back up to her face. Slowly, carefully, he kissed her, his lips soft against hers. She froze in shock. He was hot. Too hot. Fever hot. But that wasn't really unusual. Josh always felt like that to her, like a furnace with frigid hands. Liquor buzzed in her veins and her heart pounded wildly in her chest. She could feel him hesitate against her, waiting for some sign that it was okay. It was tempting. It was so tempting.
After a beat, she pulled back.
"Josh, no."
"No?" He looked confused, lost. "I thought… I know with Beth… but you also like men, right?"
She hastened to reassure him. "No! No. It's not that. Yeah, I'm—yeah. But it's… Josh, we're drunk and in mourning. And this… it's just grief, right? I don't want us to do something now that we regret later. You mean too much to me." Standing, she set her glass on the desk. "I should go."
She knew it was cowardly, but she didn't want to wait and hear his response. It was hard enough to leave, even knowing she was doing the right thing. She didn't want to give him a chance to talk her into staying. He could, too. Josh was good at that. She could still feel the ghost of his touch on her cheek, his lips on hers. She left the study quickly, texting Ashley for a ride as she rushed down the stairs to her shoes.
From upstairs, there was a snarling noise and the sound of glass smashing against something hard.
It was only grief that made her want to stay, to find comfort in her friend's hands and mouth and body. It would be a mistake. She should never have come here. If there were tears in her eyes, she ignored them.
From there, the memory dissolved into a more normal dream, if any dream could be called normal these days. She was running in the dark. Running from something that called to her with the voices of the dead, begging prettily for a kiss.
-o-
The storm was much more apparent to a very annoyed Melinda Washington, as she was directly told about it.
"Delayed? For how long?" Melinda had played this game before. The trick was to be just irritated enough to get their attention and force them to deal with you, without crossing over into the realm of 'crazy bitch who I want to spite just because.' It was a fine line to walk, particularly when time was pressing.
The woman behind the counter eyed her, mouth pursed slightly. "I'm sorry, but I don't know, ma'am. With weather like this, it's unlikely that they'd be able to keep the runway clear enough for landing. In that event, the plane would be forced to turn around. So the airline has decided to delay temporarily."
"I'm sorry." Melinda smiled sweetly. "I don't mean to imply that you don't know how to do your job. It's simply urgent that I get there as soon as possible."
It was too far. She realized it the moment the words left her mouth. The woman's eyes narrowed slightly and she returned Melinda's smile. "Oh, I understand completely. I'm sure all the prospective passengers have very important business. Unfortunately, the weather doesn't take your personal affairs into account. We'll provide you with updates as soon as possible."
Melinda growled under her breath as she returned to her seat. A winter storm, sweeping the area, was bad news for more than just her flight. "Fuck," she muttered. Then again, with feeling. "Fuck."
-o-
Ashley rested her head against the glass window, watching the dark countryside roll by. It was uncomfortable. The glass was cold and bumped lightly against her forehead every time the bus's tires hit any irregularity in the road. She should just rest her head back against the seat, but she didn't want to. She didn't want to be lured to sleep by the rumble of the engine, as she always was on long drives. She didn't want to dream.
Snow was starting to fall. It was part of the reason she'd flown in from Salt Lake and then Montana, rather than Seattle. Google was a helpful thing, providing all kinds of weather reports and recommendations. The bus driver had assured her he'd do his best to get her as close as he could, regardless of the weather.
Of course, he probably said that to everyone. She couldn't imagine that driving a long-distance bus in Canada was a thrill ride of easy transport.
She sighed and then winced as the bus hit a pothole and her head banged against the window. Glancing at her backpack, she considered getting her phone out, but instead grabbed her composition notebook. She used to go through at least one every few months, filling them with doodles and rambling thoughts and daydreams. These days it had become less of a diary and more of a log book. Clipping her booklight to the cover and flicking it on, she started to leaf through the notebook, noticing her purple nail polish was chipped beyond all belief. It didn't seem to matter now, though. She was probably just on her way to her death anyway.
Skipping the page full of big block letters ranting about butterflies, she got to the part where she'd taken notes on the Flamethrower Guy's book. Maybe she should have given this to Sam too, but there was too much personal stuff in here. It would have felt to exposing, like she was stripping herself naked for her friend.
And, well, she liked Sam. Just not like that.
"Stupid," Ashley muttered, adjusting her fingerless glove where it caught uncomfortably on one of her rings. "Focus up, Ash. Jeez."
The guy sitting across the aisle shot her a curious look and she flushed, slumping down in her seat and pulling the notebook up to her face. Her eyes focused on the words and she took a deep breath, trying to get into puzzle mode. She'd always loved puzzles as a kid. Her mom hadn't had a ton of money, so instead of paying for ice skating birthday parties or whatever the other girls in class always seemed to do, she'd plan these elaborate parties with all kinds of home-made puzzles and activities. It was her favorite thing. And every birthday morning she'd wake up to a riddle tied up in red ribbon that would lead her to one of her little presents.
"Just like that," she whispered to herself. "This is just another riddle. Like a real-life adventure."
She wished she still had the Flamethrower Guy's book, but she'd taken enough notes that she didn't really need it. His whole selection of weird symbols were copied over, as were some of the long, hard to read segments. It had been oddly comforting in the aftermath of what they'd been through to forge her way through the codes and tangled thoughts of the guy. It had also felt like a tribute of some kind—after all, he'd kept Chris alive. Someone should know what he'd been working on.
And now it had a new kind of vital importance. If her dream had been a prophetic one, as she was sure it was, it meant her friends were in real danger, from something more aggressive and direct than anything nature could throw at them. It also meant that Josh was turning into one of those… things. Whatever they were. Monsters, she supposed, was the only certain word for it. Or maybe he hadn't started to turn yet, but only had the potential.
Or maybe he'd turned and she was too late and they were all already dead.
She shoved that thought away forcefully. If that was the case, there would be no point in dreaming about it, right? They'd never had visions of stuff after it had already happened. Then it would just be a memory anyway.
Ugh. Okay. She forced herself to read her translations again, looking for mistakes or some suggestion of what to do once she got there. The segment about the cure had seemed pointless before, but now…
A goddamned cure? All of this and there's a goddamned cure?
Fuckers don't deserve a cure. They got what's coming to them. Man doesn't eat man. It's an abomination. I'd rather die. Just let the hunger and the cold and the dehydration take me. Even if it didn't turn them into beasts, it would still drive a man mad. At least any man with any kind of conscience at all.
Can't even rightly say the cure is real. Just some nonsense muttered in someone else's stolen voice about blood calling blood and separating the monster from the man again.
I've seen the way their blood jumps from them once you get through their damned hide. Like it wants out of their chest. Especially if there's another of their kind around. Killed the one that got out in the cells the other day and the blood spattered all the way across the hall and into the cell with #4. No right way it should have got that far. Should have just gone on the ground and the wall. That's what would have happened if it had been any kind of normal animal.
But then what's left behind? What keeps the man in them hanging on? They may be tougher than steel, but they're still mortal enough once you get through the skin. What would keep them living?
Wish I had more info but I'm not fool enough to seek it out. Not now, at least. That motherfucker in the mine wants me dead. More than that. It wants to play with me first. I might get more info from it, but it might get my head in the bargain.
That was the end of that passage. Ashley shut the notebook and propped her feet on the back of the seat in front of her. She wished she knew how long ago he'd written that, but he didn't date much. A few entries here or there had scrawled months or years, but the rest was just a timeless ramble. Was the thing in the mine Hannah?
A stolen voice. She shuddered. The cops hadn't believed her on that either. In fact, the woman she'd told that to had given her this pitying look that made her want to scream. She wasn't crazy. She'd heard Jessica down in the mines. Chris had told her that night that he'd had the horrible thought of her getting her head cut off. Obviously she still had her head, but she wondered if it was anything like the vision of Mike losing his fingers. If she'd followed her gut, gone to try to help Jessica when she heard her, would she be rotting in some forgotten corner of the mine now? Or be just bones left after a mimicking monster had eaten her?
Her head came up as a thought occurred to her. She'd had visions of her own on the mountain. It had caught her eye as she'd followed Sam and Emily down the tunnel, Chris limping after her. Her flashlight's beam had caught the bleached wood, the reddish paint. It had been smooth and hard, like petrified wood, although she knew it couldn't have been that old.
Josh. It had shown Josh, his face deformed and full of rage.
Oh god.
She hadn't thought about what it meant, especially afterwards, when Chris and the doctors and her parents and the cops had all seemed so sure he was dead. She should have known. She should have seen this coming. Tears stung her eyes and she rubbed her glove-covered palm over her face.
She opened the notebook again, to re-read the passage about the cure once more. There wasn't a lot she could do. She wasn't fit and stubborn like Sam. She wasn't strong and brave like Mike. She wasn't as determined as Emily or as loyal as Matt or even as confident as Jessica. She didn't know Josh like Chris did or the mountain as well as any of the Washingtons.
But she could do this. She could do puzzles. She pulled out the heavy volume on monsters and mythology she'd brought along and her phone, with its rapidly fading signal. She could research. She could figure this out. And she would get to the mountain with a plan. It might be a stupid plan that was probably going to get her killed, but it would be a plan. There was only one way to make this right, and she was doing it.
-o-
Something was dripping. It sounded loud and Jess flinched every time she heard it, half-expecting something wet and cold to touch her, but nothing did. The moon had gone dark, likely due to increased cloud cover. She passed a room with a broken window and felt a gust of freezing air and imagined she could smell snow.
"Hannah? Are you there?"
There was no answer.
Jess sighed and shoved her hair out of her face. It was coming loose from its braid again. Finally she wedged the flashlight into her belt and pulled the hair tie free to rebraid it. If she'd known she'd be wandering a ruin, she wouldn't have gotten layers put in her hair. Oh well. Coulda shoulda woulda, as her mom would say. She scanned the darkness carefully as she did it. Hannah didn't seem aggressive, at least. That was good.
Maybe she should go back and find Emily. It wouldn't be too hard to pick her way back to where they'd been. The sanatorium wasn't like the mine. It was just a building, with a layout that made at least some kind of sense. Now, for instance, she was clearly in some kind of records room. A narrow staircase leading down was the only way forward.
So go forward or go back—that was the decision. Hannah had led her this way though, Jess was sure of it. She shone the flashlight down the stairs. It turned at a bend and she couldn't see where it went after that. Mike had told her about a whole basement level and she and Emily had seen a tiny portion on their way up from the mines, but she wasn't sure exactly where this led. He'd also mentioned a morgue, which she most emphatically did not want to see.
"Hannah?" she called down the stairs.
A soft sob answered her distantly. It was hard to pinpoint where it was coming from, given the weird ambiance of the room, but it seemed like it was coming from below.
"Shit," Jess muttered. There was her answer. Go forward or go back? Go forward, apparently.
The steps creaked under her feet and she made her way carefully down. It was colder and the walls transitioned from plaster and wood to cement. The stairs turned and proceeded down a bit further, before letting out into a large concrete room. It looked like it was probably supplemental record storage. One wall was lined with old oak filing cabinets that seemed to be in various stages of rotting.
"Han? Are you down here?"
There was no answer. Everything seemed muted at this level, as if the air was thicker. It reminded her of the hostile feeling she'd gotten from the old hotel, like the building itself hated her and wanted her gone. "Hannah? I want to help you, I just… where are you?"
Somewhere off in the dark, something fell with a thump and she jumped. Swallowing hard, she kept going.
As she passed through a door into the next room, something stirred in the dead air. It could have been wind from outside, but it would have had to come down the stairs and instead it came from her right. Curious, she shone the light around, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from.
A soft noise came from the darkness ahead, almost like a person murmuring, but for a moment, Jess decided to ignore it. The air against her face felt fresh and she wanted it. It was like being stuffed up from a cold and then having it finally clear. There was nothing but a wall.
Jess put her hand against it. It was cold, but it felt… she pushed, tentatively, and it shifted. She pushed again, harder. It definitely moved. Frowning, she slid her hand to the side and pushed experimentally, but the concrete didn't budge. She gritted her teeth and put the force of her body into the shove. With a creak and thud, a narrow segment of the wall fell back.
More cold air hit her face and she breathed in deeply. She tucked the flashlight into her belt once more and grabbed the piece she'd moved. It was plywood, cut perfectly to fit into a barren, frameless doorway. Rusted, broken hinges on one side suggested that there was probably an easier way to open it than the brute force method she'd used. Jessica grabbed the edges of the wood, trying to keep from letting any of the splinters drive into her hands, and angled it to pull it out of the way.
Behind it was a small room, more of a closet than anything else. Snow drifted down lazily through a small grating in the ceiling above, leaving a slight white dusting over the floor. She scanned the room carefully. Why had it been hidden away? Had Hannah tried to lead her here? She couldn't imagine that was the case. How would she even have known it was here?
Simple shelves covered one wall, stocked with canned goods that looked older than she was. A filthy plastic tub held a bag of rice that still seemed good as well as a single copy of the The Walrus, dated from a few years back. Jess flipped through it briefly, then shut the tub again. This wasn't as old as the rest of the stuff in the sanatorium. Maybe it had been some kind of storeroom for that guy the others had met—the one who had died protecting Chris.
She turned, slowly, looking for anything else. The light fell on a strange contraption and she paused, then squatted down to get a better look. A large canister, like one that would have been attached to a grill, had straps on it and a second, smaller canister as well. The top had a hose leading to what looked vaguely like a pump at a gas station, only misshapen and oddly stretched.
"Huh." Jess lifted the pump-thing and turning it over. "What the heck are you, fella?" She frowned at it. It reminded her of one of the weird things her dad had put together in the garage, like some kind of makeshift weapon. She considered messing with the gauges and pulling the trigger and shook her head. That was a great way to get yourself blown up. "Okay. I'm coming back for you. Maybe."
She slipped back out of the hidden closet and looked both ways into the darkness. "Hannah?"
No one answered, no figure showed itself.
"Maybe I'm just going nuts," she muttered. "Great."
-o-
"Jessica? Jess! Where the fuck did you go?" Emily wanted to shout at the top of her lungs, but something held her back. She told herself it was that she didn't want to attract wild animals. And weren't voice vibrations sometimes what caused avalanches? She could have sworn she'd read that somewhere. If she was truly being honest with herself, she'd admit it was nerves, but she wasn't willing to concede that just yet.
She wandered down the hallway, shining her light briefly into each room she came across. Most were empty and dull, just desks and cabinets and the occasional bookcase. A few had papers scattered across various surfaces, but she had no desire to go poking through them. She wasn't Michael-fucking-Munroe, superhero detective man. All she wanted to do was find Jess and then find the others. They could get outside from here, she was sure, and then they could just follow the path down to the lodge. It would be cold as hell, but totally doable.
"Jess! God dammit, did you seriously get lost?" She stubbed her toe on a piece of broken tile and swore, shaking her foot. Bitterly, she knocked the broken tile out of the way with the side of her foot and glared at it. "Piece of shit."
The corridor was silent. The snow falling outside seemed to muffle things even further. Far off, down the hall, a door slammed. Emily jumped, then scoffed, shaking herself. Wind. There was always wind, right? The building was so broken, it was amazing there wasn't more noise, not less.
There were no ghosts.
When Emily was eight, her uncle had died. She'd been there, in the hospital room with him at the time. It had been simple, to her young self. He'd stiffened, then he'd relaxed. The constant beeps had stopped, easing off into a steady tone that was masked by her mother crying. He'd just been there. Then he'd been gone. It was straightforward. It was sad, but there was no mystery to it.
It was just her mind playing tricks on her. She was alone and looking for Jess and this place was creepy. That was all. It was guilt and loneliness and exhaustion.
She turned into another room, walking around the busted desk to peer out the window. The glass was so dirty it was hard to see anything. All she could tell was that it was still snowing.
Where was Jess? Had she gotten turned around and just missed her? Absentmindedly she fingered the radio on her belt and debated trying it again, but she really didn't want to hear more static.
A voice whispered over her shoulder: "All alone, Emily. You're all alone."
She held herself stock-still, as if she was facing down the wendigos again. If she didn't move, whatever it was that she was imagining would fade. The voice hummed contentedly and Emily flinched. "Oh Emily, perfect poised Emily… Are you afraid?" The voice, the absolutely-not-familiar voice, sharpened. "You should be."
Ice-cold fingers ghosted along the back of her neck and Emily instinctively threw herself forward. A laugh rang out behind her but she didn't pause, didn't turn. She hurdled the desk and was out the door, sliding slightly as she turned and headed down the corridor at a dead sprint. The laughter followed her, a low, vicious chuckle.
"Leave me alone, you stupid… nothing," Em spat back over her shoulder as she ran. This was stupid. She was running from nothing. There were no ghosts. Hannah wasn't here.
And yet monsters were real. She'd seen them. She had the scars on her shoulder to prove it.
"Fucking dead bitch." She leaped over the rubble again, glancing towards the direction of the stairway they'd first emerged from. No, that wasn't a viable option. It was probably still locked. In fact, now that she was being chased by something that was not a ghost, she realized that probably should have clued her in to something weird going on.
She skidded to a stop in the chapel. It was blown out but she realized now that's what it must be. Mike had done a number on it, but she'd heard his descriptions and it made sense. Central location, Flamethrower Guy's home base or whatever.
"Why are you running, Emily?"
Em glanced back over her shoulder and wished she hadn't. Hannah was ten feet back, clearly illuminated in the flashlight's pale beam. The girl smiled and tipped her head to the side. "All I ever wanted was to be your friend, Emily. Well, that, and to have a chance with the man of my dreams. But you couldn't let me have either, could you? Of course not." There was a flicker and Hannah's figure vanished, then reappeared five feet closer. "Let's be friends, Emily."
She wanted to do something, throw something, but what could you throw at someone incorporeal? Instead, she did the only thing she could think of: she ran.
There was the room that led to the hallway Hannah must have come down, shoving the furniture. She went for it. Her lungs burned, her shoulder ached in its makeshift sling. She wanted Jess. Was Jess already dead? Lying in some busted up room in this god-forsaken place, torn to pieces by whatever Hannah was now?
She bit back a sob, stumbling slightly. Emily Davis did not fucking sob. There was a door. She threw herself at it, trying to open it, but it was bolted, perhaps from the other side. She should have paid more attention to Mike when he talked about this place, but after the incident with the gun, she'd had trouble even looking at him, much less listening to him yammer on when all she wanted was to take a valium and go to sleep forever.
Her light flashed around the hallway, searching for anything, any other way through and forward and away from Hannah. The beam caught the bright white of Hannah's shift at the other end of the hallway and a brief glimpse of her wide smile.
Emily threw herself at the door again and again. Then, finally, it shook in its frame. Desperately, she threw her entire weight into it, slamming her uninjured shoulder against the wood. With a shudder, the door gave, sending a shower of dirt into her face. She coughed, rubbing at her eyes with her sleeve and rushed out, shoving the door shut again behind her.
Muffled from behind the wood, she heard Hannah laugh again.
Emily looked around. She was outside. Or at least, sort of. Chain link and wooden beams made up a kind of hallway leading to another building, one an even bigger ruin than the one she'd just left. Snow was falling heavily, already covering the ground with at least a good inch.
She started forward, lifting an arm to shield her face from the wind and biting cold.
"Oh Emily?"
She didn't want to. She knew it was stupid. But she looked back.
Hannah smiled at her from the door. "I like that you closed the door. It was a nice, if naïve touch."
Ahead was the ruined building. It looked hazardous, even if she could get in. She'd be a sitting duck for this thing to keep taunting. Then Emily spotted a gap in the chain link. A ragged, wide open hole. She could get out and at least she wouldn't be stuck in a confined space. She could keep running, or find something, or… fuck, she didn't know. But anything was better than hanging out here with Hannah smiling at her like that.
She went for it, hoping she wasn't going to eat shit as she ran through the fresh snow. Her sling caught at the ragged edge of the fencing as she dove through the gap and she fell, hard, onto her side. The flashlight went spinning from her hand and landed out of reach.
"You're cute," Hannah said, walking carelessly through the opening towards her. Her feet were bare and filthy, but she seemed unconcerned by the freezing ground. "Adorable, even. I see what he saw in you, I suppose." She lifted her hand, bending and reaching towards Emily.
Em scrambled backwards, away from her and hit her back against something rough and hard. She grabbed at it, using it to help her shove herself onto her feet as Hannah continued to step slowly towards her. With her came the scent of lavender, sweeping forward and over Emily like a wave.
With a snarl that didn't seem to shake her smile somehow, Hannah threw herself forward, both hands raised. Emily shut her eyes instinctively, flinching and waiting for the impact.
Hannah shrieked.
Emily's eyes sprang open again. Hannah was reaching for her, clawing at her, yet her hands seemed slowed somehow. It was like she was underwater, paddling desperately, but unable to move forward. Em watched her in shock. "I—" She shut her mouth and snatched the flashlight off the ground. The beam fell on a strangely shaped object covered in snow. It jutted from the ground, tilting at an odd angle, like an unfinished letter 'F.'
The girl was still struggling, snarling, trying to move forward and yet frozen in place. Emily scanned the ground and realized what she was seeing: graves. The first one she'd seen had been broken, but others were intact. Small, wooden crosses stuck up from the ground like parodies of flowers all around her. She'd even backed into one in her rush to get away from Hannah.
Hannah.
She looked back. Hannah's smile was gone, her face twisted into something ugly and inhuman. Her eyes were too big, her skin too sallow and tight across her skull. "You can't come in, Han. I guess you're not allowed."
It wasn't meant to be a joke, or even sarcasm, but Hannah snarled again, hissing. "You bitch—"
Oh, now that was a word that Emily had heard often. That was a word she knew how to handle. She straightened herself, wincing as her entire body complained. "I might be a bitch, but you're just pathetic. You don't even know how to be a good fucking… whatever the hell you are now. God, Han. Just die already. Oh wait, you did."
Hannah straightened and considered her. Slowly, her smile returned. "You think you're so clever, Emily. You always thought you were so clever. Are you going to stay here forever? It's getting awfully cold."
"I'll be fine."
"Maybe. Maybe you'll live to see dawn. Maybe you'll sneak away while I'm distracted. After all…" Hannah cast her eyes back towards the building they'd come from. Emily's heart pounded and she fought to keep her face calm and disdainful. "…there was someone else with you. Someone who was all too eager to help a poor, lost, dead girl. I got bored of her and came to find you, but, well…" Her tongue darted out to lick her lips and her grin was wide and almost joyful. "So you just stay right here. Sleep tight. Maybe I'll bring Jess back here and make you watch. Or maybe not."
With a flicker, Hannah vanished. The smell went with her. Emily took a deep breath of the lavender-free air gratefully.
"Jess," Emily groaned. "Oh fuck, Jess." She couldn't leave Jess out there alone, prey to Hannah. The beam of her flashlight caught countless fat snowflakes, but no sign of Hannah. With a sigh, she passed the flashlight to her sling-bound arm and bit her lip. "I'm sorry," she muttered to whoever might be listening, then pulled off the hanging piece from the broken cross. She had no idea if it would work, but if had even a small part of the repelling power the rest of the graveyard did, she was damn well taking it with her.
She stepped carefully back through the gap in the chain link, braced for Hannah to appear and pounce on her. That would have been a valid plan. Threaten Jess and then just sit back and wait.
Actually, it wasn't. That was a terrible plan. Unless Hannah didn't know they weren't friends anymore. It only worked if Hannah remembered them as they'd been last year, when Jess had been only too happy to loudly announce that they were "BFFs." It was like Josh's unfulfilled torture scenario they'd found, she realized as she approached the building again. The prank he'd planned didn't work if they hated each other. They'd shown up at the lodge bickering and Josh had been truly upset. It was why he'd sent Jess and Mike off to the cabin and hadn't fought her going back to the cable car to look for her bag.
"A bag I never found again," she muttered bitterly, trudging through the snow with her hand on the wall. She'd loved that thing.
But what it all boiled down to was this: did Hannah have any memory of the last year? Did she remember being a monster?
Was she dealing with the ghost who remembered the taste of flesh? Or was she dealing with the ghost of a girl she'd tormented and, ultimately, gotten killed? Her stomach twisted and she fought down the surge of nausea that always seemed to accompany thoughts of Hannah and Beth's deaths. Hannah may have technically survived the night of that stupid prank with the camera, but really she'd died with Beth. It just took her longer to go.
So which ghost was it? And, really, which one frightened her more?
She took a deep breath and opened the door. Or she would have, but it was locked from the outside. She swore wildly and looked around. She'd have to find another way in. A corner of the chain link was curling up from the ground and she bent to crawl awkwardly through it. Fresh pain shot through her shoulder but she ignored it.
Snow soaked into the knees of her pants and the elbow of her jacket. Her hair caught on the wire and she tugged her head free mercilessly. There was no time to linger. Not when Hannah was going after Jess with purpose. What had she said? "A poor, lost, dead girl." That was the game she was playing. It made sense. Trusting bleeding-heart that she was, Jess would fall for it hook, line, and sinker.
She skirted around the edge of the building, turning off her flashlight so it wouldn't shine through any of the windows and attract Hannah's attention. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. It was easy to follow the wall, but the snow was coming heavily enough that it was hard to make out anything more than ten feet away. For the second time, she wished she'd paid more attention to Mike's description of the place. How had he gotten in? She vaguely remembered something about a window into the basement. That seemed like a terrible plan, but everything about this seemed like a terrible plan, so she wasn't going to complain.
Fine. She was going to complain. Just later. At great length.
Emily glared at the little window. It was like the cable car station all over again, with Matt bugging her to weasel her way in. She wished he was there. She missed him, missed his smile, his steady presence, the way he hadn't demanded anything from her or tried to push her into doing something she didn't want to. "Reminisce later," she scolded herself.
The snow soaked into the butt and thighs of her pants too as she sat down and eased herself through the window. She could deal with cold. It was the damp that bugged her, making her pants cling to her legs and making her skin itch. She dropped as carefully as she could but still hit harder than was pleasant, her bones jarring uncomfortably.
She held herself stock-still for a moment. The darkness in here was different than the dark outside: thicker and richer, with shadows that were all too easy to imagine as Hannah waiting to grab her. Slowly, her eyes adjusted once more. She kept the turned-off flashlight in one hand, the makeshift graveyard club in the other.
She was going to get through here and she was going to find Jess and they were going to get the fuck out of this stupid fucking sanatorium once and for all.
-o-
How in the hell was this lower level more confusing than the upper one? Jess turned in place, trying to orient herself. She should have marked her way with chalk, but it had seemed pointless. It was just a building. It was supposed to follow rules and logic. Yet somehow, she'd gotten all turned around down here. All the rooms were starting to look the same, smell the same, and feel the same.
She picked a doorway and headed for it, shining her light ahead of her. Something flickered across the room and she stopped in her tracks. "Emily? Hannah?"
It flickered again, like an old film reel coming to life, and Hannah appeared. Her shoulders sagged and her head hung low, hair falling around her face in a limp curtain.
"Hannah? I was trying to find you."
"Why?" Hannah lifted her head, her voice cracking. Her eyes were red, as if she'd been crying for a long time. "Why would you look for me?"
"Because I—I'm so sorry for what happened. I know that's not—but I want to help you now. How can I help you?" Hannah turned away slowly, towards the dark beyond. She began to walk away, bare feet making no noise on the floor. "Hannah, wait! Please. How can I help you?"
"I'm lost," the dead girl murmured, her words trembling. "I can't find my way home, Jessica. I can't find my way." Her shoulders shook and she wrapped her arms around herself. Her nails, clearly visible against the white of her shift, were black and torn. This room smelled different than the others. Over the baseline of wet cement and rusted metal and rot was an undeniable layer of lavender. It was disorienting, clearly out of place in this building of death and old memories.
Hannah turned back and reached out a hand towards Jess. "Help me, Jess. Please."
"Of course. What do I do?"