5
10:19 P.M.
MARY FIXED HER EYES on the murky view of the Saw Mill River Parkway shining in the bright headlights of Patrick’s brand-new Mercedes-Benz SLK300—a “pre-graduation” present, Mary remembered. It was the first time she’d ridden in this admittedly very sexy roadster, with its gray and chrome flanks and its German steel-panther design, but right now she wished that Trick’s parents had given him a safe car.
They were zipping forward as fast as Amy could drive, but the Friday-night leaving-the-city traffic was still fairly heavy and they kept getting caught behind a series of nearly identical gray SUVs ferrying families to the Berkshires. A light rain was falling, spattering the windshield, and Mary’s seemingly permanent dull headache was magnified by the drone and thump of the miniature wipers and the low-pitched whine of the car’s powerful engine.
“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” Amy repeated. “Why didn’t we call the police? Why didn’t we call the police, like, the minute that girl told—”
“Because the room was full of drugs and booze,” Mary told her doggedly for the second or maybe the third time. Amy’s scatterbrained questions kept making Mary’s stark terror even more unbearable. “Let somebody else deal with all that. Meanwhile, we’re on our way there.”
“Yeah, but—”
We already had the argument—please can we not?
“You can’t go any faster?” Mary complained. The scrap of paper in her hand was suffering from being folded and re-folded—she had tried to force her hands to stay still and stop fidgeting, but it was impossible. Her nerves were firing like a sputtering cable in a manhole, the kind that makes Con Ed show up with hard hats and sirens and cordon off the entire street as an electrical hazard.
“I can’t,” Amy said regretfully. “Stop asking me that. You see the traffic.”
“Sorry.”
Mary could hear the fear in Amy’s voice, and she realized that she must have sounded the same way. They were both frightened; that was no excuse to bother Amy. She was driving, after all—Mary was just a passenger in a borrowed dress.
“What’s that number again?” Amy was leaning forward, peering through the rain that splashed against the clean, brand-new windshield. The dealer’s stickers were still in the back window of the car; it was that new. “The turnoff? The exit?”
“Forty-nine,” Mary repeated, staring at the directions again. “Almost there, I think.”
Ahead of them, the darkened road seemed to narrow. The slow-as-molasses black Volvo SUV in front of them—the car that was causing all the trouble, since there were at least five cars stacked up behind them—flashed its turn signal and Mary rejoiced silently as another Manhattan family and their damn bicycle rack and Dartmouth bumper stickers exited. Now the road was clear, and Amy stamped on the gas—the engine roared like an amplified chain saw as they surged forward.
“What do you think happened to her?” Amy repeated. She’d asked the question five times already. Amy didn’t deal well with stress. Mary had noticed this time and time again, watching her friend panic before math tests (she’d apparently never managed to corral Scott into helping her cram, the way Mary had). Amy’s hands would shake and her voice would tremble and she would freeze up. Not the person you’d necessarily pick when you wanted help responding to a friend’s distress call.
But she’s got her license—and she’s sober, Mary told herself. And, anyway, we’re all friends.
Best friends.
“Exit forty-nine,” Mary called out, pointing through the blurred windshield. “Right there, Amy!”
“I see it,” Amy said, fumbling with the gearshift—the transmission grated and the car shook as her foot slipped on the clutch. It’s not her car, Mary remembered in exasperation. She’s not familiar with it. I hope we don’t crash into a tree.
“Now, pay attention, because it’s, like, right after the turnoff. We have to—”
“You told me,” Amy snapped.
Even as frightened as Mary was, that startled her. Had Amy ever snapped at her? She didn’t think so, not as long as they’d been friends. Amy had to be more frightened than Mary had ever seen before—and Mary had seen her so scared (like when they were caught shoplifting in eighth grade) that she’d been literally unable to move.
They were almost there. The car slowed, its engine moaning and humming like a powerboat motor as Amy got them off the Parkway, following the scrawled instructions. Mary almost reminded Amy of the directions and then firmly clamped her mouth shut. Amy was nervous enough.
There was no sign of life or activity anywhere. Twenty-five minutes north of the city, they might as well have been in the middle of an Appalachian forest. The road was as flat and glossy as a satin ribbon, and flanked by trees that flowed past the car like the black ink that a deep-sea squid sprays into the icy ocean water right before it comes after you and kills you. The sky was invisible; the rain had picked up. The Mercedes’ weak headlights were the only illumination for miles in every direction.
HELP HELP COME HELP ME, the text had said. Mary had called it up again and again on her BlackBerry screen, its shaky yellow glow filling the car like a miner’s lantern each time, but there was absolutely nothing else she could learn from it.
What’s happening? What the hell is happening?
The car slowed and Amy waited at an intersection, looking both ways as patiently and carefully as they had been taught in Drivers Ed. There’s nobody around! Mary wanted to scream. Run the damn stop sign!
“Left turn,” Mary reminded Amy.
“I know.”
“Sorry.”
She was trying not to talk, but she couldn’t help it—the shock and noise of that gunshot was still echoing in her head, forcing her to speculate about what could be happening to Joon at whatever meth lab or underage brothel or whatever bad, bad place she’d been taken. Mary had never realized how quickly you could become absolutely terrified, how the feeling came over you like a big ocean wave with a riptide that knocked you off your feet, plunging you into the cold surf.
“Okay,” Amy said, peering at the odometer, brushing her red hair back from her smooth forehead. “I think we’re there.”
She slowed the car and turned into a muddy, rain-drenched driveway, the tires crunching on gravel and twigs as the engine whined. The windshield wipers whipped back and forth as the driveway tilted upward. They splashed through puddles that sprayed brown water like molten chocolate that gleamed in the headlights and then they coasted downhill and Mary looked out the window and stopped breathing.
Before them lay an empty field—a broad clearing that was just barely visible beneath the wide, flat sky. The light from a nearby town glowed weakly in the distance, silhouetting the faraway trees.
Standing on the near edge of the field, looming over them like a gravestone, was an enormous, sharp-edged black mass. Not a barn—a house. A deserted country house.
The place she’d been seeing—that she’d been dreaming, hallucinating, whatever she had been doing—over and over all day: it was real. They were here, and it was real.
It was like seeing a famous European building or monument for the first time, after spending years looking at postcards. The view out of the Mercedes windshield exactly matched the vision she’d been having. The only difference was the season and the weather—the snow was replaced by damp, trampled dead grass that shone in the headlights, and that awful bloodred evening sky was replaced by the luminous overcast glow beyond the rearview mirror.
But it was the same place.
It’s not possible, she thought weakly. Her pulse pounded in her ears. She felt a sharp pain in her palm and realized she was clenching her fist around the BlackBerry so tightly that her fingernails were cutting into her palm.
“Um—okay,” Amy whispered, her hands still clamped around the steering wheel. She sounded terrified—and Mary, for her own reasons, couldn’t blame her. “Wh-what do we do now?”
“I don’t know.”
Yes you do, a maddening voice in her head insisted. You’ve got to go in there. You’ve got to get out of the car and go in there.
But how could they do that? The house was like a black wedge in front of them; it seemed to absorb the headlights’ glow without reflecting any of it. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around—there wasn’t the slightest sign of human activity.
“You’re sure you got the directions right?” Amy whispered. “Because I don’t see anything.”
“This is the place,” Mary said firmly.
“Are you sure?”
I’ve been seeing it all day, Mary thought. Of course I’m sure.
But there was no way to say that to Amy without sounding like she’d lost her mind. Which, Mary realized, wasn’t too far outside the realm of possibility.
“I’m sure. Cut the engine.”
“No.” Amy hadn’t moved; her hands were trembling, white-knuckled. “No way.”
“You can leave the headlights on,” Mary said gently. “Come on, Amy—we’ve got to.”
Amy took a deep breath and shuddered as she let it out and then killed the engine. The silence made Mary aware that her ears were still ringing from the deafening music at the party. As her hearing adjusted, she realized that the nighttime country around them wasn’t completely silent—she could just make out the gentle patter of the scant raindrops on the untended lawn.
And she could hear something else—something that made her want to curl into a ball on the floor of the car and put her thumb in her mouth and whimper like a baby. She could barely hear the faint murmur of running water. It sounded like a natural stream or brook, not that far away. Just like she’d been imagining all day long.
“What the hell is this?” Amy was nearly hysterical. “There’s nobody here! Where’s that guy? Where’s Joon?”
“I don’t know.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Amy went on, her voice climbing in pitch. “Where’s Joonie? What happened to her, Mary?”
I want this to stop, Mary thought weakly. I want this day to end—I want to go home.
It took all Mary’s courage to open the passenger door—letting in a blade of cold, wet wind that blew the dress away from her bare legs—and step outside. Her heels sank into the gravel and mud, and the dress was instantly drenched.
“Come on.”
“I don’t want to,” Amy whined from behind the wheel. “Don’t make me—I don’t want to.”
“We have to.”
The rain was falling delicately around them, drumming against the car’s steel roof. Mary could see steam rising from the rain-beaded hood. Amy opened her door and climbed out of the car, and Mary led them forward, toward the dark, deserted house.
THE CLOSER THEY GOT to the house, the harder it became to take each step—and not just because of the rocks and gravel that interfered with their high heels. Amy and Mary both stumbled more than once, swaying against each other and barely managing to keep from toppling into the mud.
Mary’s eyes were adjusting to the darkness; she could see the house’s flanks now. Sagging, cracked wide beams spanned its facade. A small, rudimentary porch had fallen away from the house and sunk into the weeds; protruding nails gleamed in the weak glow of the Mercedes’s headlights. Razor strokes of rain kept falling, spattering against Mary’s cheeks and bare shoulders. She was freezing and her hair was drenched, but she could barely feel any of that.
The windows were cracked and missing panes. The front door was standing just slightly ajar.
“We don’t have a flashlight,” Amy whispered.
Too bad, Mary thought. Too bad, because we’ve got to walk up and go through that door. Because this is where Joon is.
Mary led them through the wet grass and weeds, up to the front door. They had to step over the collapsed porch and directly up onto the landing. Mary had taken Amy’s hand, and she felt her pulling back, pulling away. She gave her hand a squeeze and, squinting in the wet gloom, pushed on the front door.
The door slowly pivoted inward, its ancient hinges creaking and squealing. Inside was nothing but darkness.
This is the part where the audience is screaming at me to run away, Mary thought miserably. It was totally true: how many times had she sat in a warm, comfortable room nursing a Stella Artois and watching a television screen where some idiot girl was doing exactly this—opening a door just like this one? And everyone laughed and threw popcorn at the screen and yelled at the stupid girl to turn around; what kind of idiot was she? How could anyone be so stupid, they would all scornfully yell, and the girls would cower under their boyfriends’ arms and hide their faces and squeal in anticipation of what was coming next. Why would that doomed girl in the bad movie keep walking forward? Why would anyone do that?
And yet here I am, Mary thought, doing it.
She made a mental note never to make fun of those horror-movie girls again.
The door creaked all the way open and Mary stepped into the house. It was pitch black, and cool. The smell hit her immediately: a damp, musty, ripe aroma of earth and dead leaves and mold.
Nobody’s been here in years, Mary thought dismally. This is some kind of trick; I don’t care what fucking “visions” I’ve been—
Amy grabbed her bare arm from behind in a sudden, viselike grip that nearly made Mary leap a foot in the air. She could feel her heart racing like a stuttering lawn-mower engine: she had heard it too.
A female voice—moaning in the distance.
Oh my God, Mary thought weakly. She felt light-headed and bit her lower lip because it seemed like the only way to keep herself from fainting. Turning her head sideways, she couldn’t see anything of Amy but a murky shadow. Amy’s grip on her arm got painfully tight, and she could tell that Amy was within an eyelash of succumbing to pure animal terror and running from the house.
She’ll panic and get in the car and drive away, Mary thought crazily. And I’ll be here all alone with the moaning girl.
The whimpering penetrated the silence again, and Mary realized that the sound was coming from outside the house—from directly ahead, where she could now make out another door.
“Come on,” she whispered to Amy, pulling her forward. They nearly collided with a huge black shape—an overturned wooden table. Mary got them around that by feel and then advanced toward the back door. Amy was leaning against her like an invalid, she was so frightened.
Another moan in the distance—and Mary recognized the voice.
Joon.
The back door was wide open; she could see it clearly now, a pale gray rectangle framed in splintered wood. Beyond it, more weeds and a ruined lawn stretched away into the blackness. Mary’s eyes had adjusted enough that the glow of the car’s headlights, shining past the house, let her see clearly—and now it was her turn to get weak in the knees, swaying sideways against the door’s warped, cracked frame.
In the darkness, just past the edge of the tangled, wet, black forest beyond the lawn, a figure was suspended in the air—a human figure, just barely visible, hanging from some kind of rope or chain, twirling slightly in the wind.
As Mary and Amy edged just beyond the doorway, the shadowy hanging figure moved. The moans intensified to high-pitched, frantic whimpering that so frightened Mary she couldn’t think at all for more than ten seconds.
It was Joon—Joon had been tied up and gagged with silver gaffer’s tape and suspended from a rope, out there in the woods behind the house. She could see them—her hanging figure bucked and twisted spastically, the rope creaking, as she squealed and kicked and shook in panic. The rope led upward from her bound wrists, disappearing into the shadows of the thick branches overhead. Mary could clearly see Joon’s black hair tossing and swinging as she moaned and whimpered more and more frantically.
“Oh my God,” Amy whispered. She was crying. “Oh my God—”
“Come on,” Mary said, pulling Amy forward. “Come on, Amy—”
“I can’t.” Amy grabbed Mary’s arm painfully. “I can’t, I can’t go out there.”
“Amy—”
“I can’t,” Amy nearly screamed. “Oh Jesus, don’t make me go out there—”
“Okay,” Mary whispered. She hadn’t taken her eyes from Joon’s shadowy figure. “Okay. But I’m going.”
“No—”
A staccato blast of lightning, a row of flashbulbs igniting, shone through the trees like silent fire.
“Amy, I’ve got to,” Mary hissed desperately. Her entire body was wet and shivering now—she could only imagine what Joon was going through or how long she’d been hanging there in the cold rain, all alone just within the wild edges of that black forest. “I’ve got to.”
Thunder rumbled, giant boulders smashing in the sky.
“Don’t leave me here,” Amy pleaded, crying. “Don’t leave me here alone.”
Then come with me! Mary wanted to scream. But that was impossible. Mary could tell from Amy’s voice, there was just no way she was going to take another step forward. It was like asking her to walk off a cliff.
“Listen to me,” Mary said, taking Amy’s head in her hands. “Listen—I’ll be right back. You just stay right here—don’t move—and I’ll be back. Okay?”
Amy nodded. She wiped tears from her face.
Mary gently disengaged her arm from Amy’s death grip, took a deep breath and then stepped down the porch stairs and out into the cold night air. Mary could see Joon’s face now, behind the tape that gagged her. Joon saw her coming and started whimpering and moaning again. The sound was horrible: it was obvious that Joon was completely beside herself with terror and was trying to scream at the top of her lungs, but the gag made that impossible.
The rush of water was easier to hear now.
“I’m coming!” Mary called out, stumbling forward through the mud. The weeds were waist high, thwacking against her bare thighs as she walked, and both of her heels snapped, the left and then the right. Mary left the shoes in the mud and continued barefoot, shivering as her feet plunged into the cold jelly of mud. “I’m coming, Joon!”
She didn’t see the worst part until she got halfway there—the light was just too feeble, and her view into the forest was murky, obscured by rain. But when she got close enough to see, she gasped and another wave of fear swept over her like a spray from a firehose.
The ground beneath Joon fell away. Where she was hanging, the ground was gone—she was suspended in the air past the edge of what looked like some kind of embankment.
And down below the cliff—far down below, judging by the sound—was the roar of a stream.
Jesus, Mary thought weakly. How am I supposed to get to her? She kept moving forward, but it was slow going—each step meant pulling a foot from the mud’s suction.
“I’m coming, Joon!” Mary yelled. “I’m coming! I’ll be right there!”
Joon was bucking and shaking even more wildly, making the rope she hung from whicker and twang like a plucked guitar string. Her wet hair tossed wildly from side to side. She was frantically shaking her head.
“Mary!”
Amy’s voice behind her—screaming.
The scream went through her like a javelin. It was so loud, so piercing, that it made her ears hurt.
“Mary, help! Help! Hel—”
And then, suddenly, silence.
Mary pivoted, peering backward through the gloom.
She couldn’t see anything. All she heard was the whisper of the rain and the moan of the wind in the trees.
Running back toward the house, she took a bad step and fell flat on her face in the mud, tearing the Nina Ricci dress. A tree root slammed against her shoulder hard enough to make her eyes water. Panting, she rolled sideways and got her numb, cold hands beneath herself to get her body upright.
“Amy!” Mary screamed, sobbing as she stumbled up the stairs and rushed through the splintered, empty doorframe. “Amy!”
This isn’t happening, some part of Mary’s mind was repeating over and over. No, no, no, no—
“Amy!” Mary screamed at the top of her lungs. “Amy, where are you?”
Nothing. No answer. Nothing but the rain.
Amy had vanished.
Where did she go? Oh, sweet Lord Jesus, what happened to her?
Mary retraced her steps out the back door. She followed me outside, Mary thought desperately. I’ve got to go after her—
But she knew better. Amy had been inside the house when she’d screamed and then the scream had been cut off with the terrifying finality of a plug being pulled.
Mary waded through the mud and weeds toward Joon’s dangling body.
“I can’t find Amy!” Mary sobbed, her hoarse throat burning with the strain of screaming. “Joon, hang on—”
Joon was violently shaking her head as Mary moved toward her. Ten feet, fifteen feet—and now she was finally close enough to see the whites of Joon’s wide, panicked eyes. Joon’s squeals and moans had become so frantic that she sounded like an animal caught in a trap. The sound was unbearable.
Amy, Mary thought desperately. What happened to you, Amy?
Mary took one more step and heard a thunderous wet crack and then suddenly the world was spinning … She had half a second to realize that the ground had given out beneath her and that she was falling painfully through sharp twigs and brambles and dead leaves, the edge of the earth slamming painfully into her forearms as she dropped.
“Aaah!” Mary yelled, winded. She’d plunged through a jagged, gaping hole and was caught in the ground up to her chest. Her upper arms were on fire; the pain was overwhelming. Her feet had collided with something deep underground—rocks or tree roots—and her left ankle sang with agony.
She couldn’t move. She was completely, utterly trapped.
Above her, just ahead, she could see Joon wriggling again, moaning through her gag as she stared at her.
“Joon!” Mary screamed. “I’m trapped—I can’t move!”
She whimpered as she strained her body, trying to free herself. It was impossible. She was cemented in the ground as firmly as if a gardener had planted her there.
Joon kept wriggling—and as she did, Mary heard something new—the most horrifying sound she’d heard yet.
The rope was breaking.
Joon’s panicked movements were straining its fibers, and, before Mary saw it start to unravel, she heard the low, wet tearing sound of its filaments splitting and coming apart.
Joon heard it too. She arched her back, straining against her bonds, twisting her head to look upward. Then she started wriggling even more frantically.
“Don’t move, Joon!” Mary screamed. “Jesus, don’t—”
The rope cracked and snapped and tore apart all at once and Mary screamed No, practically breaking her spine trying to wrest herself free from the hole she’d fallen into, and then the rope came apart and Joon fell and there was a fleeting instant—frozen like a photograph—of Joon’s horrified, wide-eyed face blurred beneath her hair, which stood on end as she dropped out of view.
Mary was still screaming, but like in the movies, it was a silent scream—drowned out by the sound of the rain.
And then, after a long, long delay, the most horrifying sound of all—a distant, thunderous splash.
That’s where the stream is, Mary remembered. Way, way down there.
“Joon!” she called out desperately. “Joon, can you hear me?”
Nothing. No answer at all. She was alone, trapped in the wet earth like an animal, freezing, shivering, moaning. Amy was gone, and now Joon was, too.
THERE WAS NO WAY to tell how much time had passed, but the rain had finally stopped. Mary hadn’t blacked out; she’d just stopped thinking. It was easier to stay half-buried in the cold ground and not think and just wait to die. Now she was slowly coming out of it, waking up from whatever shocked stupor she’d drifted into after the rope had broken and Joon had dropped out of sight like somebody tumbling down an elevator shaft.
She could still be down there, Mary thought. Legs broken, bleeding, dying—
But Mary didn’t believe it. No matter how hard she strained, she couldn’t hear anything—nothing after that horrifying cannonball splash that had sounded so distant, so far down below. Mary realized she was crying again, sobbing gently in a way that made her throat hitch painfully. In that moment, Mary wished she was dead.
And then, suddenly, she heard something.
A car was approaching. Somebody was coming.
I’m going to get my wish, she thought. She was sure of it; the dull hum of an engine was getting louder, and, a moment later, she could just make out the dim sweep of headlights through the vast trees around her. There was no question about it: a car was approaching the house.
They’re coming for me, Mary thought. Whoever did this—whoever brought Joon here; whoever took Amy away—they’re coming for me now.
There was nothing she could do. She couldn’t move. Her face stung with dried tears. She was all screamed out; she had nothing left.
The engine got even louder and the headlights swept over the far side of the house, casting crazy shadows against the trees. Then the engine cut and a car door slammed—a loud, metallic bang that made her flinch—and footsteps crunched in the wet gravel, coming toward her, around the house.
Make it quick, Mary found herself praying. Please, God, make it fast—whatever’s about to happen, whatever’s about to happen to me, make it fast.
Heavy footsteps were approaching through the long grass and the weeds. She could only see a tall, thin silhouette, haloed in the damp air.
It’s him, Mary thought. She was numb with terror, remembering her vision—the dark shape that loomed over her, coming closer, like a falling statue. It’s him—the giant man.
Mary heard herself whimpering in fear and was powerless to stop. The figure approached, getting closer and closer, growing taller and taller, looming over her like the sharp, jagged silhouette of a bare tree in the coldest depths of winter, and she found herself praying again: Don’t hurt me—kill me if you’re going to kill me, whoever you are, but don’t hurt me. Don’t make it hurt.
The giant figure stopped right in front of her, a tall, featureless shape like an angel of death, or a giant in a fairy tale, the kind of giant who strides through the dark primeval forest and snatches small children, who are never seen again.
“Please,” Mary whispered, gazing helplessly up at the black silhouette. “Please don’t hurt me—”
The figure leaned forward, reaching out a hand and, suddenly, she saw who it was. It wasn’t a giant at all.
“Come on,” Dylan Summer whispered urgently. “Grab my hand—we’ve got to get out of here right now.”