by Jenna Lehne
“Oh God,” I moan. Lined up behind the van, are four identical, blanket covered bodies. I don’t want to look under the fluorescent sheets, but I have to. I shuffle toward the first body. I peel it back. Hayley stares up at me. Her eyes are open and bulging out of her head. Her lips and chin are tinged blue. She isn’t the smiling demon I left at the cabin….she’s just my friend. I cover her and reach for the next body before I completely lose my shit. Oliver is next to Hayley. The top of his head is a bloody, obliterated mess. His skull is almost completely flat. Grey brain matter leaks down the sides of his face.
Henry is next. The entire center of his face is a desecrated mess. Chunks of nasal bone stick out of oozing pits where his eyes used to be. I quickly cover him back up and puke up a mouthful of bile a few feet away from his head. I don’t want to look at the last body, but I need to. With shaking hands, I pull back the final sheet. Teddy lies on the pavement, his head is twisted cruelly to the side, eyes wide open. A wide puncture starts under his jaw and exits at his cheek. The wound gapes so much that I can nearly see through it.
I fall back on my butt and let out more of a scream than a cry. Who would have done this? Who would’ve loaded my friend’s bodies and dragged them down that forsaken mountain? I stare up through the trees and scream, “What do you want from me?” I stand up and frantically wave at my friends. “Isn’t this enough? Couldn’t you have left their bodies in peace?”
A radio crackles from somewhere down the road. A deep voice says, “Meredith? I think I found her.”
I turn around just in time to see a cop walking up the road toward me.
And then everything goes black.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I hear radio static from a distance and feet stomping against the asphalt. I try to open my eyes but I can’t. My consciousness is just out of reach – close enough to brush my fingers against but too far away to grasp.
Cool fingers press against my throat. The cop says, “I’ve got a pulse but it’s weak and thready. How far out are those busses?”
“They’re about five minutes out,” a woman says. “Here, help me spread this out.”
A thick blanket is draped over my chest but that’s it. I imagine there’s not much anyone can do for me now anyway.
“Thanks again for not laughing when I blew chunks,” the man says. “When we pulled that kid’s face off the metal stake I just about lost it. I didn’t stand a chance when I got brains on my foot.”
“It’s okay, Trevor,” Meredith says. “This is one of the worst car wrecks I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe this girl made it back here. I thought she was cougar chow for sure.”
“How did you even know she was out there?” Trevor asks.
“I found six phones but only five bodies,” she says quietly.
My fuzzy mind tries to process what she’s saying. We all brought our phones to the cabin. Teddy wouldn’t have packed ours with the gear because neither of them worked after the accident. I don’t understand why someone would bring their bodies here, let alone bring our broken, busted phones. I try desperately to ask my questions aloud but nothing in my body is working anymore. Each breath is struggle, like I’m trapped underneath the lake’s surface, breathing through a straw.
Sirens wail in the distance.
“Finally,” Trevor says. “I put the call in almost an hour ago. If any of the others were alive, I’m not sure they would be now.”
“Hey now,” Meredith says. “The paramedics can’t help the traffic. Apparently it’s stacked up pretty bad at the base of the mountain.”
“I know,” Trevor says. “I just feel so bad for these kids. Maybe if we got here sooner we could have - ”
“We could have done nothing,” Meredith says matter-of-factly. “They were all dead before we got here. God forgive me for saying it, but given the level of carnage, they’re better off that way.”
No they’re not! I scream in my head.
Tires crunch gravel as the ambulance skids to halt from somewhere behind us.
“We’re over here,” Meredith calls. “We’ve got a live one.”
Another male voice starts firing off rapid questions. “Was she conscious when you found her? What are the extent of her injuries? Is anyone else alive?”
“She collapsed as soon as my partner found her. She has severe trauma to her right shoulder and left wrist, as well as lacerations to all exposed skin,” Meredith says. “All others died on scene.”
An oxygen mask is slipped over my face. Breathing becomes the tiniest bit easier but it brings the pain radiating through my body into razor-sharp focus.
“Jesus,” a third male says, this one’s voice tinged with a British accent. “It’s a miracle she survived. Who called in the accident?”
“A neighbor that lives just up the mountain heard the explosion and sent her husband down to check things out. He was the one that pulled the girl from the river. He found the blond male still alive but he died shortly before we arrived,” Meredith says. “My partner took his statement and drove him home.”
Wrong. She has it all wrong. Teddy died in the woods. Hayley died in the lake.
“Brian, let’s move her on three,” the paramedic says. He counts down and together they hoist me onto a hard, plastic board.
Pain shoots through my stomach like lightning. I groan but it comes out like a squeak.
“Shh,” Meredith whispers. She pushes my damp hair off my face. “We’ve got you, honey.”
“Does anyone know what the date is?” Trevor asks nervously. “I can’t remember my middle name let alone anything else.”
“It’s Friday, the fifth,” she replies.
No. It’s Monday. The accident was Friday.
“And the time?” Trevor asks.
“Jesus, kid,” she says. “You have a watch.”
No, I need to hear the time. Say the fucking time.
“Right.” Trevor sighs. “I’m just going to write 4:30 on the report since no one witnessed the event.”
4:30. We were already walking up the mountain by 4:30. What the fuck is going on?
An intense wave of vertigo flattens any hope of a logical thought. I feel like I’m going to throw up even though I can’t summon the strength to clench the muscles needed. Fortunately, my body has other plans. Hot bile races up my throat and then back down it, completely clogging my airway.
“Shit, get her on her side!” Brian shouts. “Mark, grab the suction.”
Warm liquid copper pours out of my mouth. Someone shoves a suction tube down my throat and saves the day, one slurping, sucking noise at a time.
“She’s hemorrhaging,” Brian says. “We need to get her out of here. Now.”
“We’ll never make it through that traffic,” Mark says.
“Then we’ll take the fucking ditches,” Brian says. “Help me with the stretcher.”
Metal clangs and clatters behind me. I’m hoisted in the air, along with the backboard, and settled onto a stretcher.
“What about the rest of them?” Trevor asks. “We can’t just leave them here.”
“The other rigs are heading back up once they unload at the nearby hospitals,” Brian says. “We’ll radio them and let you know how far out they are.”
Another encompassing wave of dizziness takes over, but this one doesn’t make me sick. Instead it makes me feel as light as air. Too light, even. Like I’m floating. I twist my neck and to my surprise, I can actually move my entire body. Even more surprising is when I look down and find myself hovering over my own body. My face – my other face – is bruised and covered in welts and scratches. My hair is a wet, snarled mess. My shoulder is caked with so much blood you can’t even see my skin. The rest of me is covered in the same orange blanket that shrouds my friends. Someone giggles behind me.
“Here she comes,” an excited girl says.
“Don’t get too worked up, babe,” a boy says. “She might not stay.”
“Sure she will,” she says. “I’m her best f
riend. We don’t go anywhere without each other.”
I settle back onto the ground next to the stretcher. Someone grabs my hand and tugs me away from the rushing paramedics.
“Hey, stranger.” Peyton – beautiful, unscathed Peyton – beams at me. “What took you so long?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Peyton?” I grab her sun-warmed shoulders and yank her toward me in a spine-crushing hug. “What’s going on?”
“It’s kind of…complicated,” she says into my neck.
I let go of her and quickly hug Henry. “How is this possible?”
Henry shrugs. “It’s not, really.”
“It is depending on what religion you are,” Oliver, gloriously round-headed Oliver, pipes up from the box of a gorgeous pick-up truck.
Hayley waves frantically at me with a smile on her face.
I let out the tiniest hint of the hysteria building inside of me. “Can one you just tell me what’s going on?”
“Daisy Grace.” Teddy, fully restored to his former glory, gently shoulders Henry out of the way and takes my hand. “Will you take a walk with me?”
I let him take my hand and pull me away from my friends. I’m shocked at how solid he feels, considering I was floating just a minute ago. We walk down the quiet highway, our palms pressing against each other. I can’t stop staring at Teddy. He’s looks completely fine aside from an odd haze that seems to shimmer around him. I squint and his image shifts from my sunny surfer boy to the cold, mangled boy I left in the woods. I stop walking and try to keep the horror from my face.
Teddy turns around and looks at my face. “Oh, I should’ve warned you about that.”
“So you’re still.…”
“Dead?” Teddy asks. “Yeah. We all are. Except for you.”
As if on cue, Brian climbs on top of the stretcher and starts a round of chest compressions.
Teddy steers me away from the ambulance and line of bodies.
“I still don’t understand why your bodies are all here,” I say. “Why isn’t everyone else at the cabin? Why aren’t you back in the woods?”
“What do you mean?” Teddy asks. “We never made it to the cabin. Or the woods.”
“What are you talking about?” I half-shout at him. “We spent the entire fucking weekend there.”
“No, we didn’t.” Teddy shakes his head slowly. “We all died in the accident.”
I pull my hand out of Teddy’s and grab my head to keep it from spinning. “No no no. We were there. There was a demon of fear. He killed everyone. Hayley drowned. Oliver fell off the roof. Henry stabbed himself in the eye. Peyton burned to death. You got attacked by a bear.”
Teddy pulls me into his arms. “Hayley drowned in the stream. Oliver died the minute he hit the windshield. Henry was impaled by a chunk of guardrail. Peyton was thrown from the van and burned to death in the explosion. A rogue piece of windshield caught me under the jaw, broke my neck, and came out of my cheek. We all died here.”
“Did I dream the whole thing?”
“It was probably a hallucination,” Teddy says. “It looks like you’re in pretty rough shape.”
“Grab the AED!” Brian shouts.
We watch in silence as Brian and Mark cut through my shirt and place sticky pads on either side of my chest.
“What happens now?” I ask.
“Now,” a gravely voice says from behind me. It’s a cleaner, younger version of the man who picked us up after the accident. “You decide whether you live or die. If you die, you’ll climb in that truck and I’ll take up to your lake house. You and your friends will stay there for the rest of…well…who knows how long.”
“But what about Korku?” I ask.
“He’s not real,” Teddy whispers in my ear.
“Murphy! Let’s go!” Peyton climbs into the back of the truck. “We want to go swimming.”
“Nothing and nobody is going to get you up there.” The man jerks his chin up the mountain. “Everyday is going to be like the first day of a long weekend.”
Teddy grins. “Sounds like paradise, eh?”
I watch as electric currents race through my chest and lift my back off the stretcher.
“Let’s give her another shot,” Mark says.
“Give her a minute,” Brian says.
“And if I stay?” I ask.
“If you live, they’ll still go wherever their version of paradise is,” the man says.
“And I’ll be all alone?”
“You’ll be with your family, but you won’t see any of your friends again,” he says softly. “It’s a big decision.”
“Murphy, the lake is waiting for us,” Oliver says. “We can’t keep her waiting!”
The man leaves Teddy and I alone.
“It’s up to you.” Teddy leans down and brushes his mouth against mine. “I won’t let anyone take the decision away from you again.”
“How do I decide?”
Suddenly, I’m sucked back into my body. My eyes spring open. I cough around another mouthful of blood. I gasp for air but it forces the blood even further down my throat. Black spots prickle through my vision. Teddy is standing next to me but I can’t feel him touching my hand.
Live or die?
My entire life has come down to a decision window of sixty seconds, or less given how much everything hurts. I close my eyes and think about my parents and the triplets. About waking up to their tear-stained but eternally grateful faces. About going to school and seeing my friends.
No.
My friends won’t be there.
A spasm rackets through me. My lungs feel like they’re going to burst. My head pounds like its seconds away from exploding. I lock eyes with Teddy. I silently beg him to make the decision for me.
Take me to the lake or force me to live.
“You have to be the one.” Teddy leans down and kisses my forehead. “I’ll see you soon, Daisy Grace.”
“We’re losing her!’ Brian shouts.
A thousand bolts of lightning rush through my chest and spiral through my limbs. I scream but I can’t hear it. Darkness closes in. I’ve run out of time to decide and Teddy won’t do it for me. The last thing I hear is the sound of the stretcher wheels scraping the ambulance floor.
A bright light penetrates my eyelids.
I open my eyes slowly, look around, and smile.
THE END
