Chapter Thirty:

Time and Other Lies

"Okay, how do I do this again?" Hannah held the dice in her hand like she was afraid they would explode. "This is so weird."

Josh rolled his eyes and shoved the book across the table towards his sister. "It's in there."

"Just tell me. Don't make me look it up," She whined, pouting. "It'll be way faster."

Scooting her chair over, Sam flipped through the book until she found the right section. "Right here. We're doing it this way… you roll four dice and then you drop the lowest one. The total of the other three, you write down. Then, once you have six number, you pick where you want each to go." She pulled on her purple flannel and buttoned it. Beth had teased her about bringing it, but Sam had been to Chris's house before. His mom loved her air conditioner way more than any reasonable person and it always seemed to be at least fifteen degrees cooler inside than it should be.

"I think I'm going to be a wizard," Beth said thoughtfully, scrolling down a page on her phone. "I found a cool setup."

Her brother threw a pencil at her. "No power gaming."

She raised her eyebrows at him, unamused. "I have no idea what that means."

"It's exactly what it sounds like. You are not allowed to research and find some crazy way to build your character so that you're way more powerful than the rest of us. It's cheating." She raised her eyebrows at him and he amended his statement. "Okay, it's not technically cheating, but it is cheap."

Beth laughed. "Seriously? That doesn't even sound like something I'd do. You know who does sound like?"

"Who?"

"She means you, bro," Chris said, grinning broadly. "She's right, too. What are you playing?"

Josh slouched back in his chair, looking surly. "A monk."

"Uh… what kind of monk?"

"There are 'kinds' of monks?" Sam inquired, glancing up from her character sheet.

"A…" Josh's voice dropped and he mumbled something that Sam didn't catch.

"A what?"

"A tetori monk."

Chris cackled and shook his head. "Fuck no you're not. DM veto. Pick a different class."

"Seriously?"

"Yep. Pick something else."

"I can't be a monk at all? That's bullshit, dude." Josh sighed and rummaged in his bag for a new character sheet. "Fine. I'll be a sorc—"

"No."

Josh groaned and let his head fall to bang on the table. "You're killing me!"

Beth threw the pencil back at him. It glanced off his shoulder and he made a muffled noise of protest. "'No powergaming,' right?" She smirked at him. "That's what you get for bringing it up. Chris might not have realized what you were trying to do if you hadn't decided to get all smug about it."

Frustrated, Hannah shoved the book away from her again. "I'm not doing this. It's too dorky. I have a reputation to maintain."

"What reputation? Your reputation as a wilting wallflower?" Sam almost teased her about the tattoo booking she'd made, but closed her mouth on the joke. If she said anything, it'd lead to all kinds of questions and possibly mockery from the boys and Hannah would rightfully yell at her.

Hannah stuck her tongue out at Sam and folded her arms over her chest. "Seriously though. I'm not. There are way too many rules and dice and things. I have other things I'd rather be doing."

"Han, it'll be fun. Please?"

"I'll watch. How about that?"

Looking up from the book he'd retrieved from across the table, Josh frowned. "Is that going to affect how likely we are to survive this campaign?" When he caught Beth's curious look, he explained. "Cochise here is rather fond of incredibly high difficulty levels in his combat. And, like any true DM, has a sadistic streak you might not be expecting."

"I've played boardgames with him. He's fine."

"Oh no," Josh chuckled ominously. "That's a totally different thing. We just agreed to give Chris god-powers over us. We're probably going to die."

His sister shook her head and waved her hand dismissively. "We are not going to die. That wouldn't be any fun."

"Have you heard the term 'TPK'? No? It stands for 'Total Party Kill.' Chris has managed to do it in two of the three games where he's DM-ed."

Chris looked hurt. He pressed his hand to his chest and pouted at Josh. "I didn't do it on purpose. Really, it's your fault. You decided to go charging in against an archdemon you weren't even supposed to fight. That's on you."

Raising her hand, Sam cleared her throat. "Um… can I ask that you maybe not do that? It's my first time playing. Having everyone die horribly kind of sucks."

Josh licked chip dust from his fingers and grinned at her. "Oh, it's too late for that kind of request. We're all doomed." His eyes sparkled with mischief in the lamplight and he winked, then closed his eyes and began to quietly pray. "May Our Lady of the Nat 20s hold us in her open hands and bless our dice. May our DM not kill us all and may we still be friends when this is all over so that we can go to R&A Bakery for donuts and coffee."

Even with his eyes closed, his face was alive with quiet amusement. Josh was always like that – always going and going, almost like he was onstage, though he hadn't performed since being in the Pied Piper play his 2nd grade teacher had put on.

The room was very quiet in the wake of the monster's departure.

And Josh's eyes were closed, his face utterly expressionless.

"TPK," she mumbled.

Sam wanted to be able to think he was sleeping. Wasn't that a thing in stories? 'He looked like he was only sleeping.' Or they really would be sleeping but they 'slept like the dead' and if she just shook him hard enough, he'd wake up.

But Melinda was already shaking him, her face buried in the stained, damp puffy vest that still covered his chest. The woman's knuckles were white as she clutched at him, her shoulders heaving. Her sobs were muffled by the material, her blood staining his clothing further. Blood still leaked slowly from the gash Sam had made on his arm, red and sticky in the light from her headlamp.

She couldn't tear herself away, racking her brain for something she could have done differently or something she could do now. There had to be a way to fix this. There had to. She couldn't have come all this way for it to end like this. Chris had died. Mike might die. Fuck, Mike might already be dead. All the others might be, back at their various posts. And where were Beth and Hannah? All she wanted was to see them again, to feel their cold fingers on her, proof that they were real and not just the product of her shattered mind.

A warm hand touched her back and she jumped. Matt, his face creased with concern and his eyes red, pulled her in for a hug. She let him do it, numb. After a moment, she pulled away and he released her. "Is…" she struggled to pull names and words together in her head. "Is Hank okay?"

"I'm alive," the man croaked from across the room, his voice weak. She glanced over to where he was leaning against a pile of chairs. He began to pull himself to his feet, then fell back, wincing. "I'll be okay. The others?"

Matt looked to Sam again. "Do you want me to—"

"I'll go," she murmured, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. "I need to go. I can't stay here." She couldn't look at Josh's body. She just couldn't. It felt like she was going to collapse; they'd come all this way and suffered so much for nothing. He was gone.

He nodded and moved away from her, crossing to Melinda's side. "I'll stay here. Call if you need me."

Nodding to him, she headed back, bracing herself for the absolute worst. They were all going to be dead. She was sure of it. Still, she felt weirdly numb. As she walked into the service room, she nearly tripped, her feet catching in a tangle of tools that had fallen or been thrown across the floor. "Hello?"

"Sam?"

She spun, searching for the source of the voice. Ashley was half-buried under rags and bottles and crates that had fallen from one of the shelves. "Shit. Ash, are you okay? Are you pinned?"

The girl smiled weakly. "I don't think so. It just seemed easier to lie still. Rest for a minute." She jerked her head towards the club room. "Go see the others. I'm not sure if they're okay. Mike went to go check it out."

"Mike's alive?" Sam blinked at the redhead, not quite believing it. She had been so sure. "He's—really?"

Ashley nodded, coughing hard. When it subsided, she jerked her shoulders in an approximation of a shrug. "It didn't seem that interested in us. We tried to attack it, but it just sort of forced its way past. It shoved me over and knocked over the shelf and it attacked Mike because he hit it with the bat, but once it had us out of the way, it just kind of went on ahead. I think it was more worried about whatever you were doing." Her face was hopeful. "Did it work? Did you save him?"

The lump in Sam's throat was too big to speak around. She just squeezed Ashley's hand and shook her head slightly. Ashley's eyes widened but she didn't protest as Sam stood and headed on.

The acrid stench of singed leather hit her hard and her eyes began to smart as she scanned the room quickly. Mike was kneeling beside a prone figure, his head pressed against their chest. Sam hurried around a fallen table and stopped, closing her eyes and trying to breathe. Emily was down and bleeding. A long gash had caught her down the jaw, cutting into her collarbone and chest. It was hard to tell from just a glance whether it was as bad as it looked. She forced herself to open her eyes again and ask. "Is she alive?"

Mike glanced at her and nodded. "Yeah. Just unconscious I think."

"The gash?" Jess's voice shook. She was leaning heavily on one of the chairs, the flamethrower on the floor beside her. Though she was upright, she seemed unstable, blood trickling down from her hairline and her entire body trembling.

"I don't think it's that bad." Mike caught Jess's look and repeated himself, more firmly. "It's not that bad. It just looks bad, Jess, I promise. I think she'll be okay."

"But she's unconscious—"

"So were you, and you survived, right? Come on, it's Em. She's tougher than she looks. And she already looks pretty tough."

Jess tried to laugh and broke off into a coughing fit. Sam rushed over to support her, slipping her arm around Jess's waist. "What happened?"

She gestured vaguely. "It busted through after a while. Threw the shelf across…" More coughs racked her body and she let Sam hold her up. "I was going to… the flamethrower… but then I thought about the books and how we're inside and… I hesitated too long. It wanted…" Sam had never seen Jess look so ragged, even when she'd been brought down from the mountain by the rescue crew. "It used our voices. All of us. It was Chris. It was… I heard Josh scream like a monster as it… as it…" She looked at Mike again. "She's really breathing? Really? Sam, she… we… we never really got to…"

The other blonde girl turned in, letting her head fall down to Sam's shoulder. Desperate sobs tore through her, though she didn't think there were any tears. Sam could understand that. She didn't think she had any tears left herself. She put her arms around Jess, hoping it was comforting. Josh's blank, lifeless face still loomed large in her mind and she couldn't think of anything adequate to say. Looking over at where Mike was one-handedly trying to take Em's pulse, she shuddered.

She'd never gotten to say goodbye to Beth. Not the way she would have wanted—though, of course, she had never wanted to say goodbye at all. Sam had wondered about Jess and Emily's falling out for a long time. No one argued with that much passion unless they cared deeply about each other, no matter what form that care took. She held Jess a little tighter. "She's going to wake up. This isn't over, okay?"

Even though she couldn't put the feeling into the words that she wanted, it seemed to help. Jess's sobs gradually settled and she broke away, staggering back to the chair she'd been using for support. She collapsed into it and looked up at Sam bleakly, rubbing her eyes. "I saw the thing leave. I don't know why, but… is Josh…" Jess couldn't seem to settle on a word. "Okay?"

Mike's eyes were on her too and the weight of their anticipation felt heavy on her shoulders. Mutely, she shook her head.

"So is he still turning into one of those things? We can try again, right?" One look at Jess's face told Sam that the girl knew it was a pointless question, but there was still the tiniest edge of hope to her voice.

Sam shook her head again. Mike's face, already serious and exhausted, looked like it had aged another ten years. "I'm sorry, Sam," Jess whispered, letting her face fall into her hands. "Nothing. All of this, for nothing."

She had to pull it together. She had to do… something. Anything. The thing might be gone, but it could come back. And even if it didn't, they had injured people here. They couldn't just wait. They didn't have the luxury of grief. Sam ran her hands over her face and felt something wet smear on her skin. Looking down at her fingers, she saw they were red with blood, but she had no idea whose it was. It could be any of them at this point. Blood siblings, right? Family.

And she refused to lose any more family.

If she'd had it in her, she might have laughed at that. As if she'd had any say over losing people so far.

"Okay. Um… Okay. We have to—fuck." The last word was only a whisper. She couldn't do this.

"Guys?" Matt came in cautiously, Ashley following just behind. Compared to the others, Ashley didn't look that bad physically. A bit bruised and dirty, but otherwise hale. His voice broke as he saw the girl on the ground. "Emily!"

Mike moved away to give him space, standing slowly. He wavered and Sam remembered how much blood he'd lost. God, they really had to get out of here. She tried to get her brain in gear. "We have to leave. We have to get out of here while we still can." But even muttering the words to herself wasn't helping.

A tentative hand on her arm broke her out of her frustration. "How broken was the helicopter?" Ashley asked her.

"Wrecked," Jess said tiredly. "It's not usable."

"No, but… Most of them have radios, right? Was the cab damaged? Or just the top part… I don't know what they call it."

Sam shook her head. "No, just the blades. Oh shit. Do you think—"

The redhead gave a half-shrug, half-nod. "I think that we can't hike down. It's the best shot."

"Is Hank still out?" Sam asked Matt quickly.

"He woke up. He's talking to Melinda. She's—" He seemed to think better of the comment and swallowed hard. "He's not in great shape, though. I think he might have fractured something. He's having trouble standing."

Well, then that was something she could do. Sam felt a surge of energy rush through her. Just having a plan of any kind was better than floating around, unmoored. She nodded decisively. "Okay then. I'm going to go for the radio." A sudden rush of protests and exclamations overlapped each other as Mike, Jess, and Matt all tried to stop her at once, but she held up a hand and they stopped. She couldn't look at Mike, afraid he would shake her resolve, so she looked to Matt instead. "You and I are the least injured. Someone should stay here who can move people and we both know that if we're picking one person for that, it's you. I'll go quick and try to call for help. Stay here. Barricade the door again if you can. I don't know if it'll come back, but it's probably worth it anyway. I'll be back soon."

As she headed for the door, Mike grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. "Sam, don't—"

"I have to do this." She glanced at his ruined arm and then away again. His fingers caught her chin and pulled her face up, just as he had back in the tunnels when she'd begged him to be honest with her. The skin under his eyes looked bruised. She let her fingertips skim over his stubbled cheek in a wordless apology. If there was more time, there might have been things to say, but the clock was ticking for all of them. "It'll be okay. I'm fast. Just, you know, don't die?" It had been intended as a joke, but it came out as a plea.

Before he could say anything else, she ran out the door.

It was easier than she'd expected to find her way back to familiar corridors of the old hotel. For all that Hank had led them through countless random passageways and around corners, the area had clearly seen so little use in the last years that it was easy to see where people had been. They'd left quite a trail and it was easy to see how the thing had managed to find them. Disturbed dust, scuffed footprints, the occasional blood, shoved furniture… they really hadn't been subtle.

This felt like a dream.

It wouldn't have been the first time. True or impossible? She really didn't know anymore. Only two months ago she would have sworn anything with monsters was impossible. How did you get here, Sam?

She paused, leaning against a molding plaster wall and letting herself breathe for a moment. She didn't want to remember how she got here. It was too easy to do, to see her obvious mistakes. Chris's voice, cocky and excited, echoed through her head: "Boom! Butterfly effect."

If she hadn't let Chris go with Josh to do the distraction—

If she hadn't thought attacking the monster would give the boys an opportunity to run—

If she had realized how Josh would react to Mike—

If she had told Melinda the truth from the beginning—

If she hadn't fallen for Josh's everything-is-fine act—

If she'd gone with Beth when she'd run into the woods—

If she had just found Hannah before the prank—

Something cold and wet pressed itself into her palm and she yelped, jumping away from the wall and out of her looping, desperate thoughts. She threw her arms up—though that seemed like an almost laughably useless gesture—and heard a soft whimper. Looking down, she saw round eyes and a doggy grin. "Oh," she breathed, her heart's desperate pounding beginning to slow again. "Hi."

Wolfie cocked its head to the side and looked up at her, waiting.

"I… I have no idea what you want, fella. Sorry." But having the wolf there was comforting all the same. She remembered Mike talking about him, about how he'd saved Mike more than once. Sam crouched down and held out her hand. The wolf shoved its head against her fingers and she scratched behind its ears wonderingly. "Pretty sure you're not supposed to be this okay with a human, buddy. It's probably not very good for you." Its fur was coarse and thick and felt grimy, though that was probably normal. She remembered reading about people trying to domesticate wild animals and how it inevitably went horribly wrong, but death by wolf seemed like an almost enjoyable demise at this point.

She took a deep breath and straightened. "Want to come with me?"

The wolf trotted along next to her as she passed the saferoom and headed once more for the basement. She wanted to see Hannah or Beth, but at the same time she found herself grateful when she didn't. She couldn't bear to face Melinda; she really couldn't face the girls. It was her fault. It had to have been. There was some piece she'd missed, something she had been too distracted to realize, and now Josh was dead.

There was no sign of the monster, either. Outside the lodge, the clouds had cleared, the moon bright and shining in the sky. After the stale, blood-scented atmosphere of the old hotel, the cold, clear winter air was a sweet blessing against her face. The wolf sat at attention as she climbed awkwardly into the helicopter's cockpit and fumbled with the radio.

Her heart was in her throat as she tried to get it working. If they didn't have this, she really didn't know what they were going to do. For a desperately long minute, there was nothing but static. Then it cleared. "Emergency services, Blackwood County, over." The strange voice was like music to her ears.

"Hello?" Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat and tried again, speaking louder. "Hello, this is Samantha Giddings. We need an emergency extraction from Blackwood Mountain."

Bits of the wilderness survival guide she'd read came back to her.

Be sure to give as exact a location as is possible. Stay calm. If you are unable to provide an address or coordinates, describe any major landmarks or other identifying criteria.

Explain the nature of the emergency so that rescuers have the appropriate preparation.

Remember to stay calm and speak clearly.

She kept going, counting quickly in her head. "We have two seriously wounded people and several others. We need help as soon as possible. We're at the ruins of the Washington lodge."

"Copy that." The speaker hesitated and she wondered if they were rubbing the bridge of their nose in frustration at yet another emergency call to the lodge. But then— "Is Hank Durand up there? He was heading up with Melinda Washington."

"He is. He's with us. I'm radioing from his helicopter, but it was…" Destroyed by monsters. "Messed up by the storm."

The person sounded relieved. "Copy that. We'll send a helicopter for you now, while the weather is good. Reports show more storms coming. Please stay in a visible area. If possible, find a light source to help us locate you quickly."

Sam clutched the knob of the radio with white fingers and nodded. "Uh… Yes. Okay. Please hurry."

The wolf made a noise and she glanced over, then her blood went cold. It was on its feet, staring off into the trees, its hackles raised. It growled again, low in its throat. Beyond it, crouched in the shadow of a huge, gnarled pine, was the wendigo.

It was watching her.

-o-

It was almost pitch black in the room. Thick curtains were drawn across the windows, cutting off what little light was available from outside. The room, a bedroom, was meticulously clean. The bed was made, the dark green bedspread smooth. Unlike the rest of the rooms on the second floor, this one seemed to have almost entirely escaped the effects of the explosion, likely due to its location. A large, overly ornate mirror was propped on a dresser, held in place by a collection of mismatched bookends.

It was also silent in his head. Truly silent, for the first time in a long time.

"Hi," said a soft voice.

Josh tore his gaze away from his reflection in the mirror—his features seemed strange, almost unfamiliar to his own eyes—and glanced towards the door. His sisters stood next to each other, hand in hand in simple white shifts. "Come and play with us. Forever and ever and ever," he said dully. He couldn't even muster the energy to do the voice. After taking Sam's pills for a while, he'd stopped seeing them. Or rather, he only ever saw them like this: clean and simple in their plain garments and unadorned faces. It was a marked improvement from rotting, melting, monstrous horrors, so he wasn't going to complain.

He looked back to his reflection. He looked… normal. His mouth was back to the way it used to be, although his lips had an odd tint to them. Those familiar dark circles were under his eyes, both of which were familiar again: dark brown and deep-set, with whites that were actually white, not stained red with broken blood vessels. He stuck his tongue out and it was the usual human length once again, rather than being long and pointed.

"It's weird, isn't it?" Hannah's voice came from just behind him, but he didn't jump. Nothing that could happen now could scare him really. The last thing he really remembered was telling them that Chris had died. Then there were vague, blurry memories of screaming and crying and pain, but that described so much of his life recently that he couldn't place them more specifically. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to.

A strange numbness was settling over him. It almost reminded him of being on lithium, back when his doctors had thought he was bipolar. He felt flattened out, like a flower pressed between the pages of a book. He continued to stare at himself blankly. This was what he wanted, right? Cured? Dead? Both? Neither? It didn't matter, ultimately. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. His lips shaped the words, but he didn't speak them aloud. Was it blasphemy to utter the words of a prayer you didn't believe? Or if you were only quoting a favorite movie, was it okay?

He would say that film was his religion if he didn't know that would make him an intolerable douche. Although, really, he was fairly certain he was an intolerable douche anyway.

A slender hand rested on his shoulder and Hannah leaned forward, into the view of the mirror. "That's the strangest part. You don't look like you anymore, although you also look more like you than ever." She tipped her head to the side thoughtfully. "I never expected mirrors to work for us."

"Talking in riddles, huh?" Beth sat on the other side of him, though the bed didn't shift from her presence.

"It's a monster thing," Hannah said with a small smile. "Be glad you don't understand. After all, you're the only one here who didn't fuck up royally."

There was a soft laugh at that. "Sure. Only because I died before I could. And, by the way, chasing you out into the woods with no backup counts as fucking up."

"Not royally, though."

"Fine. Not royally. Still."

Somehow their voices made him feel more human, driving away the grey haze of confusion and dull light. He wondered he had transcended psychosis into an entirely new plane, but he managed a small smile regardless. "So what now?"

The three of them sat in silence, looking into the mirror: two identical faces flanking his. No one had an answer to that question.