As she drives back into town, she actually keeps her promise to Frank and forgets about the lab, at least for the moment. She even forgets about Frank. What she can't stop thinking about is the hole in the barn's wall, in the wrong place, but there. The trapdoor, in the wrong place, but there.
What if… she dug in the wrong place?
It's dark, but now that the idea took hold, there's not going to be any sleep until she checks, anyway. She lights a cig and rolls the window down. The ocean breathes in the smoke and breathes out salt. Arcadia Bay Avenue is an artery of a beached whale. The red blood cells of taillights are too few, moving too slowly. It is about to die.
She glimpses a teal uniform behind the counter as she passes the diner. Joyce, back to pulling a night shift. Means David's home alone. Means Chloe Price is not going home for the night.
At the junkyard, she shuts off the engine and sits in the dark.
"Great," Rachel says. "It's a pile of trash."
"An awesome pile of trash," Chloe replies, exhaling smoke into the ceiling.
She can hear the ocean, and the trees whisper, and there's a cricket and a squirrel and a bird or two birds and some piece of loose garbage rings against something else every 1.5 seconds. Other things creak and slap. Compared to the farmhouse, the junkyard is teeming with life. There's no way...
No fucking way.
She tosses the dead cigarette and turns on the flashlight on her phone. Starting from the original dig site, which is frighteningly wide and deep (maybe it's the trick of the light), she begins to sweep the ground for other fresh disturbances.
"Beer and guns? Nice combo," Max says.
"You can handle it," says Chloe Price. "Now go find us five bottles? Pretty please?"
"I have to find dirty-ass bottles while you chill? Not fair."
"I have to prep the range, crybaby."
"And what exactly are you doing to prep the range? Standing there posing with the gun?"
"Well… I've also been tripping hard about where you got this rewind power…"
"From God. Or the gods. So, bow."
"We can make the world bow… Are you ready for that?"
"No way. I still don't even know how my power works or for how long…"
"Dude, you fuck shit up, you rewind, you fix it. Drop the mic. Boom."
"Spin, rinse and repeat… I'm just altering time and space. Oh yeah, and history. No biggie."
"You already altered history by saving my life, smartass. Let's see what else you can do…"
It sounds like Max and Chloe, or at least it sounds like Chloe and what Chloe thinks Max would sound like at 18, but otherwise the whole flashback is too stupid to ever happen. I have to prep the range, Jesus.
She goes from the hole in the ground to where the ghost doe posed for Max's photo, to where Max sat down to take a break from gathering the goddamn bottles, to where Chloe somehow carried unconscious Max to the hood of an old car, to where Max didn't shoot Frank. She walks slowly, sweeping the ground with the beam, sweeping her memories and visions, like some demented version of the Arcadia Bay lighthouse. The beam casts shadows that are creepy as shit, making every pile of garbage seem like it's moving, like something is about to crawl from under it.
"All we need is some horror movie music," she says, catching herself before adding, "Right, Rache?"
Then she does say it out loud.
"Right, Rache?"
Old habits die hard. Chloe Price and her imaginary friends. The only real friends she's ever had. Always coming back to comfort her when everyone else bails.
It's stupid, but better than no friends at all, right? Except Steph is flying in tomorrow, and also except she's not looking for imaginary relationships right now. What she actually prays for, is help. A sign. A communication. Not from beyond, because Rachel isn't dead (nevermind what she's sweeping the grounds for). Maybe… telepathy, or some shit. She always felt like they had that connection. Not that they could read each other's thoughts, exactly. More like, that they didn't need to. But maybe now they do.
So if you can hear me, Rachel Amber, Chloe thinks real loud, I could use some guidance. Counseling. Therapy, even. If you're in trouble, let me know where to look. And if you left… then... just give me a sign you're OK.
"Just tell me you're OK," she whispers.
She turns off the flashlight and waits.
The stars are out suddenly, about a billion of them. They tug at her, making her rise to her tiptoes. Her clothes flap, but gravity chains hold. The sky spins slowly above the crowns of trees, above all the junkyard sounds. It's really peaceful, and beautiful, but none of it feels like a sign that Rachel is OK. What it all makes her feel is stupid, and alone.
"Well," she says, "that genius plan didn't work."
She hesitates for another two seconds, turns the light back on, checks the battery - it's at 37 percent - and begins to sweep again.
"Ms. Price," a voice jolts her out of a daydream, familiar and annoying.
It's Wells, of course, glaring down at her from the top of the stairway.
"You are well-aware you can't park here. Do I need to call the police for you to move your… vehicle?"
She's parked at the curb. Nobody aside from that asshole seems to mind.
Chloe is about to let him know the lay of the land and what she's "Wells" aware of, but at that moment Rachel appears, sweeps past the principal, down the steps and into the waiting truck. Smiling sweetly, Chloe releases a fluttering blow kiss birdie and pulls away. Rachel, meanwhile, is struggling to keep a straight, innocent face. Two seconds later she's laughing.
"Oh, Price. That was a long-ass year."
"I don't know… Seemed pretty short to me."
"OK, delinquent. School's out for both of us now. Wanna just keep driving?"
"Sure… we have enough gas to get to the gas station maybe…"
"That's fine. Leave the truck at Arcadia Gas. We'll walk from there."
"OK, princess. Except you're not even healed yet. Low on blood and you still got stitches."
"Again you with the cold feet. "
"Hey, I just don't want to be stuck dragging you when you pass out from exhaustion."
"Are you sure that's all it is, Chloe?"
"What? You think I'm backing out? You know I wouldn't. It's just…"
"What?"
"Well, you got everything planned out. You know what you want to do, who you want to be. And I… don't."
"What, being Rachel Amber's bodyguard, chauffeur and companion isn't good enough for you, Price?"
"The job does have an appeal…"
"Well, it's there if you want it. But the point is, you don't have to want it or have it all planned out. You can figure it out on the road. Away from here."
The flashback is over. There's a boat in its place, with its own cargo of memories all the way up to the water line. What else is in the hold?
She props up the familiar pallet and climbs. The ship creaks and whines. There's the old pirate blanket crumpled to starboard, an ashtray full of butts to port side, bottles, cans, a pizza box. The boat was occasionally shack five yards away from shack. She searches and finds nothing but an old bra - Rachel's - which makes her cackle like a mad witch in the night.
It's time for a break.
She spreads the blanket and lights up a smoke and lies on her back. The boat creaks rhythmically. The stars wink. The smoke makes it seems like she's floating. Makes her forget everything.
Some time later, a meteorite shoots across the sky, breaking the spell. Chloe makes a wish without thinking.
She gets to her feet, letting a memory seep out through the cracks in the deck. It's a fake one. It's a memory of Max lifting an improbably large plank to get on board from the nearby bluff. She flashes the light over the bluff, but it's a bit too far for the beam to make anything out.
The side path that leads up to the bluff begins back by the gangster-mobile she had used as the backdrop for her "range." She weaves her way up there by the light of the flashlight. It's the very edge of the junkyard. In fact, the bluff was probably supposed to be a sort of a natural fence between American Rust and the woods, but the junk spilled over, as it does. There's an old fire pit and all kinds of hazardous shit, but most importantly, there's the plank. It looks even bigger than in her hallucination. It probably weighs a shit ton. There's no way Max would be able to lift it, much less throw it across the gap.
The beam skips and shivers along the wood, then freezes. Actually, it stops tracing the plank, but the shivering and skipping intensifies. What Chloe tries to keep with intermittent success inside the circle of light is a quarter-inch-long corner of bent leather sticking out from under the plank. It's literally the size of the tip of her pinky.
She moves the phone to her right hand and digs a finger into the earth under the plank until she hooks it behind the piece of leather and pulls, making more of it come out into the light. It's a brown leather strap, and it's causing the air to catch in the back of her throat.
She drops the phone in the dirt, holds the strap with one hand and hooks the other under the plank. The plank gives, but not enough. It's heavy as hell. She lets go of the strap for now, grabs the plank with both hands and digs her heels in. It rises a bit more.
"Fucking help!" She growls.
Slowly, the plank flips over the side.
She sits down, panting, and gropes for the phone. The light is noticeably dimmer, but bright enough to illuminate what was hidden. A fresh shallow hole in the earth, and in it, a brown leather backpack. The nicest backpack Chloe has ever seen. Rachel's backpack.
She grabs the bag and forces herself to get up. Back through the maze, towards the truck. Once inside the cabin, under the light of the same blue light bulb she had found around here about three years earlier, she puts the bag on the seat. Rachel's seat.
"The belt should be in here," she thinks.
She opens the bag - leather so soft to the touch - and looks inside. A photo catches her eye. It's Rachel and her dad, in hiking gear in the woods. Rachel must be like 10. She looks so happy.
Chloe was happy like that when she was 10, too. 14 is when it all went to shits.
She puts the photo back. Here's the belt, now.
Holding her breath, her heart pounding in her ears, she lifts the flap and extracts things one by one.
Wuthering Heights, Chemistry, a pair of notebooks, laptop, hair brush, a pouch of makeup, a red binder with Rachel along the spine.
No fucking way.
She powers through the fear and nausea, and cracks the red clam open. She recalls the binder as she does. She's seen it a thousand times. Rachel's portfolio. All of the better photos she had posed for. Nothing like the creepy shit she'd seen in her drug dream.
She would love to sit there for about a year looking at Rachel's pics, but she's got more important things to do. Time could be of the essence. Rachel could be…
No.
She pushes the binder off and rummages in the bag. There's nothing else in it. Nothing useful out of it, either. The laptop is locked. She unzips the makeup pouch. Inside, there's the usual garbage. She squeezes the bag in her hands and freezes.
There's something in the side pocket. Something rigid. She pops the button on the flap and sits there, staring at the leather-cord-wrapped handle.
It's her knife.
