Rules for Vanishing

by Kate Alice Marshall

  We don’t speak. The decision is made. We take the footpath, the other road. In the distance, the beast bellows, the sound of metal shearing. The beast has Jeremy’s scent once more; the hunt resumes.

  Tufts of errant grass crunch under my feet, brittle and dry. Wind slices past me. Fifty feet, thirty, twenty. The knife glints. Kyle wraps his hands around Grace’s wrist, but he’s always been small, always been fragile. Mel would lift him up when he was twelve years old, old enough to be embarrassed by it, and spin him around with a whoop. The knife dips lower, toward his torso. I imagine his skin blooming with mushrooms.

  Jeremy and I are matched step for step; we reach Grace at the same moment. I dive in low, grabbing her arm and pulling it away, pulling the knife off course. Jeremy grabs her by the shoulders and yanks her back.

  The knife arcs through the air. It opens a line of pain across my chest. I raise a hand to ward her off as she swings wildly, throwing her weight toward me. Jeremy gets an arm around her neck, hauling her backward.

  The beast bellows. It strides toward us from beyond the house. No mist to cloak it now—we can see its body, densely furred, dark sable at the head and shoulders fading to white. It has the torso of a man but the legs of a stag, and its hands end in jagged black claws. Its four amber eyes are open, and it strides toward us.

  “I had no choice,” Grace shouts, struggling in Jeremy’s grip. “I had to reach her, don’t you understand? Can’t you hear it? Can’t you hear her calling? I need to get to her. You have to let me go. You have to—” She’s still straining to bring the knife to bear. Jeremy tries to control her arm, but her wild panic makes her strong. The knife bites across his palm; he yells.

  The beast is two steps away. We can’t outrun it. I meet Jeremy’s eyes. We can’t stop her. She’ll kill us, and she’ll convince herself she was in the right. We have to defend ourselves.

  I step forward, grabbing hold of Grace’s arm. Together, we throw her from the road.

  She flails for balance. She keeps her feet under her, but her momentum carries her off the edge of the road. Onto the grass, the empty field, not even the false road to anchor her. She stands stock-still, mouth gaping open, then shut. Sooty blackness crawls over her skin like a slow frost, and smoke curls from her.

  The beast reaches us. For a moment, it pauses. It looks down at us, and in its eyes is an intelligence, however alien, but no anger, no hostility. Only something akin to pity.

  It reaches out a clawed hand. Everything on this road has found some cruel way to undo us. Our trust. Our perception. There is something merciful, something kind, in the swift flick of that claw as it carves through Grace’s chest.

  Zoe, wandering the false roads, persisted. Grace comes apart, as ash and soot. Not sated, the beast turns to me.

  Someone is screaming my name. I never find out who. The tip of one black claw settles softly against my chest, where I am already bleeding. I shut my eyes and breathe out.

  Something slams into me from the side. I hit the ground and roll. Jeremy stands over me, hands still out. “Run, damn it!” he shouts.

  The creature bellows. The sound is heat and rage, shaking the air. It seizes him, claws closing around his lower body, and wrenches him into the air. And then it brings him down. Hard.

  His body cracks against the road. His limbs flop. His head lolls, blood sheeting over his face—I can’t tell from where. The beast tosses him. Casually, like you’d flick a bit of meat off the end of your knife. His body hits the ground, tumbles like a broken doll.

  The beast turns again to me.

  “—and beneath it writhes and scrapes its bulk against the rocks, and there is no light, and in the sinner’s hand the cup—”

  I tried not to write the words. I’m sorry.

  It’s Trina’s voice, but not Trina’s voice. The words slither out of her. Her smoke-shrouded eyes are fixed on the beast, her hands spread with palms up as she advances step by step. She doesn’t even have the book anymore; it lies on the ground behind her.

  Smoke pours from the flesh of the beast—and from Trina’s palms. She is no longer shaping the words; they are shaping her tongue and lips and mouth to force themselves into being.

  Black tendril-like bands detach from the beast’s torso, its chest, dissolving into smoke as they peel free, as if the words are flensing the flesh from it, strip by strip. It staggers back, lowing, a sound that makes my joints ache with the vibration. Still the words come, a torrent, and still Trina advances.

  The beast retreats again. Trina gulps, the flow of words stopping for a moment. She shakes with the effort of containing them—and the beast, recovering, advances.

  “Stop,” I yell at Trina, but she’s already speaking again. The beast bellows as its skin writhes away from its torso, and this time it turns, fleeing—striding away with great steps as smoke coils and curls from its massive shoulders, its ravaged chest.

  Trina stands, swaying, the words pouring out of her. Her eyes are clouded over completely with smoke. I grab her wrists; her skin scorches, but I hold fast.

  “Trina, stop,” I say, my words lost under hers. “Trina, it’s gone. It’s running.”

  She sucks in a ragged breath, and for a moment her eyes clear. She looks at me, desperate and afraid, and shapes four words of her own. “I can’t stop it,” she whispers, and then they begin again. The rolling rhythm of the words, looping and repeating, her voice layered over with other voices, echoes and whispers. Her eyes fill up with smoke again, and her fingers begin to turn a sooty gray.

  Kyle stands frozen, gape-mouthed, shaking his head in a movement so small it is almost a tremble, the fluttering wing of a dying bird.

  “No. No, stop. Trina, please. Please, it’s killing you,” I say, knowing it’s true, feeling the shift beneath my hands as her skin becomes insubstantial. “Stop! This was my choice! I decided! I was the one who chose! I was the one—”

  She sucks in one final, sharp breath between her teeth. Her head kicks back, her gray-drowned eyes fixed on the empty sky—and she comes undone. It is as if she is unweaving, coming apart in strips, in ribbons, her face dissected cleanly, her body already hollow but for the smoke.

  I try to hold on. But there is nothing to hold on to.

  “I chose,” I say. My hands are empty. The air is empty before me. I chose to run. I chose to die. But I’m still here. And she isn’t.

  Jeremy lies faceup, eyes staring. A crown of blood below his head. The geometry of his body is wrong. I cannot look too closely. I do not need more than a glance to know he’s dead.

  Footsteps behind me. Kyle. The others slow as they arrive, mute in the face of what’s happened.

  “How can she be gone?” he asks. I can’t look at him. I can’t look at Jeremy. I shut my eyes instead. “You saved her. In the village. You saved her yesterday, how can she be gone today?”

  It’s a child’s logic, and neither of us is a child, but the wrongness of it lies open like a wound.

  “She should have let me die,” I say.

  I can’t stay here. I walk. Past Jeremy, down the road, toward the water that wrinkles beyond the shore.

  “Sara,” Mel calls.

  “Let her go,” Anthony says. He still knows me better than anyone, I think.

  The ground drops away down a hill; I follow it, follow the road. More switchbacks, an easy descent. The gate lies halfway down the hill, and I walk until I reach it. I sit facing it, facing the setting sun over the water. It is already half-set, and the light that spills from it is red-hued.

  Two crows land on the gate. They ruffle their feathers, watch me with dark and glinting eyes.

  And then I’m not*

  INTERVIEW

  SARA DONOGHUE

  May 9, 2017

  ASHFORD: Sara?

  Sara idly traces the crook of her elbow with her fingers—the spot, hidden by her
shirt, where the hash marks are written on her skin.

  SARA: Mm.

  ASHFORD: Sara, you said that you were going to tell us about Miranda.

  SARA: That’s right. I can write it down, if you like. I think it will be easier that way. Can I do that? Can you add it to the rest?

  ASHFORD: We can do that.

  SARA: Good. Good. I want to tell you, you know.

  ASHFORD: I know. This isn’t your fault, Sara.

  SARA: Yes it is. Of course it is.

  She reaches out for the pen and paper he offers, and begins to write. She writes only a few lines, and then she sits back. Ashford reaches out, a question on his face. She makes no objection, and he pulls the paper toward him. He looks down. His lips purse slightly, then flatten into a thin, hard line.

  The door opens. Abby steps through.

  ABBY: What did she say?

  ASHFORD: We can discuss this outside.

  She turns to Sara.

  ABBY: What did she say to you?

  She grabs the paper. Reads quickly. For an instant, she is completely still, eyes wide.

  ASHFORD: Abby . . .

  Abby lunges for Sara. Ashford is on his feet in an instant, catching her by the shoulder, holding her back as Sara first laughs, then lets out a sob and buries her face in her hands. He presses the page from the legal pad into Abby’s hands.

  ASHFORD: This is just another piece of evidence for the file. Go add it to the rest. And take a walk.

  She seethes.

  ASHFORD: Abby. You know what this is. Don’t let it affect you like this.

  She grabs the page and strides out, slamming the door behind her. Ashford rubs a hand across his jaw.

  ASHFORD: I’m sorry about that.

  Sara makes a noncommittal noise, straightening up. She looks, if anything, puzzled. She picks at her sleeve.

  ASHFORD: I think we’re all feeling the strain.

  SARA: I’m okay.

  ASHFORD: You’ve been through a lot today.

  SARA: I’ve just been talking to you.

  ASHFORD: That’s right. We’re just talking. And I think we’re most of the way there. Almost to the end of the road, as it were. Do you need anything?

  SARA: I guess I’m pretty hungry. Dr. Ashford?

  ASHFORD: Yes?

  SARA: Are you ever going to tell me why the door is locked? If I wanted to leave, would you let me?

  ASHFORD: What do you think, Sara? Why would I be keeping you in here against your will?

  She frowns.

  SARA: There’s no reason. Is there?

  ASHFORD: I’d like you to be able to answer that for yourself.

  She bites her lip.

  SARA: Dr. Ashford, where’s my sister? Is Becca here? Is she with you?

  Ashford hesitates.

  ASHFORD: I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to see your sister right now, Sara.

  SARA: Why not?

  ASHFORD: As I said, I think it’s better if you remember for yourself.

  SARA: I did something, didn’t I?

  ASHFORD: That’s what we’re here to find out. Let’s keep going, shall we?

  SARA: Weren’t you going to ask me about Miranda?

  Ashford looks pained.

  ASHFORD: Later. For now, just . . . walk us through the lighthouse.

  EXHIBIT J

  Note written by Sara Donoghue

  Writing is barely recognizable as Sara Donoghue’s handwriting. The note is sloppy, spilling over the lines on the page.

  Miranda Ryder died choking on her own blood. She died alone and afraid and she knew that no one was coming for her and she knew that her sister was a useless, pathetic nobody who couldn’t save her.

  ShE DIeD BEcAuSE OF YoU

  PART IV

  THE GIRL

  EXHIBIT K

  Newspaper clipping from the Briar Glen Beacon

  November 1, 1983

  Satanic rituals or a prank gone wrong? The residents of Briar Glen were treated to quite the sight last night when a troop of girls dressed as the infamous Lucy Gallows cavorted through the town, leaving an odd litany of graffiti messages in their wake. With recent disappearances blamed on the popular “game” connected to the same legend, some residents were on edge, but the girls were identified as the cheerleading squad at our own Briar Glen High School. Senior Jenny Hudson organized the Halloween parade.

  When asked what inspired the antics, Hudson said, “I’ve been having dreams about her. She’s waiting at the end of the road. She’s been waiting a long time. I hear her whispering. She’s calling. More and more.”

  Junior Candace Thompson had a less dramatic take. “We just thought it would be fun and spooky. Halloween pranks are traditional, right?”

  22

  MEL AND KYLE come to get me. I have run ahead of the reality of what happened, but now I walk back with them to face it.

  We cannot do anything to honor Jeremy. We can’t bury him. We have no shroud to drape over his body, but Anthony has covered him as best he can with his coat. Becca sits cross-legged nearby, hands limp in her lap, staring at nothing. I force myself to walk to where Jeremy lies, where Anthony stands beside him.

  He was never my friend. I didn’t even like him—I thought he was a jerk. And he was. But he went with us onto the road, when he didn’t have to. And Trina—maybe she was running from what she’d done, when she stepped onto the road. But I don’t think so. I think if everyone else had run away, she would have been the last one there, ready to face anything to be a good friend.

  “We should—we should say something,” Anthony says. He stands with his hands tucked into his pockets, his head bowed.

  “Why?” Kyle demands. “Is saying something going to change any of this?”

  “Jeremy was a hero,” Anthony says, pressing on regardless. “He was—he was a good person. Trina, too. They were both good people.”

  “Stop,” I say. Anthony’s head jerks up. His look is questioning, wounded. The air is brittle around us. “You can’t make it matter by saying a few nice words.”

  “Sara—” Mel steps forward.

  Kyle shakes his head. Tears well in his eyes and rake down his cheeks, but he doesn’t seem to notice them. “She’s right. Two people just died to save me. How does that math work?” he demands.

  “It’s not an equation,” Mel snaps.

  “Either one of them would have done it again. In a heartbeat.” Anthony swallows. “And that does mean something.”

  “Only if we survive,” Kyle says. His voice is bitter and without hope. “Only if we get home.”

  “You will.” The words surprise me, coming from my own mouth. “You all will. I won’t let anyone else die.”

  “We all will, you mean,” Mel says. I don’t answer.

  “The road won’t let us go easily,” Becca says.

  “I didn’t say it would be easy, I said I would do it,” I say. I walk back to the preacher’s book, lying inert on the road. I pick it up. The cover is leather, softened with age. The words whisper to me, promise and pull.

  I throw the book as far as I can into the field. It lands somewhere in the grass, far out of reach, and the whispers fade reluctantly. I shiver and turn away.

  “Let’s go,” I say.

  “Wait,” Anthony says. “We can’t just leave Jeremy. What if he—what if he ends up like Zoe?”

  “We’ll take him through the gate,” I say. “That’s what ended things for Zoe. We’ll bring him through the next gate, and then we’ll keep moving. Make it matter.”

  Becca stands. She brushes her hands off on her jeans and walks to me. Nods once. There could be a hundred layers of meaning in that nod, but I’m too tired to catch a single one of them.

  I help wr
ap Jeremy’s bloodied body in Anthony’s coat, and between us and Mel, we carry him, slowly, toward the shore, leaving Trina—the memory of her—behind. There is nothing we can say to make what happened okay. There is nothing we can say to make it hurt less. We can only watch Jeremy’s body turn to smoke and ash as we approach the next gate, and add their names to the litany of the dead.

  * * *

  —

  I open the gate this time. I wait to see if there is any strange sensation as I push the key into the lock. Some tingle the others missed or didn’t mention. But there is only the scrape of the key in the lock and faint resistance as it turns—and then, softly, a whisper, hardly more than a breath against my ear. Find her. I shiver.

  Beyond the gate, the road turns to gravel, and then melds seamlessly with the rock and then sand of the shore. The whole beach is the road, I realize, and it curves like a hand clutching the water. The sea smells of salt and fish-rot. Ropy kelp clumps here and there at the edge of the water, shoved a few inches farther, then dragged back by the breaking of the swells. White specks and lines interrupt the gray sand: the skeletons of birds, delicate wings outstretched, ribs crushed down against the gray. Hundreds of them, as far as I can see in either direction, until the beach curls out of view behind black, toothy rocks.

  A short walk to the left, a spit of land protrudes into the sea. The waves crash to either side of it, sending plumes of spray that meet over the highest point. If the tide rose, it might swallow the land and leave the nub at the end with its pale, narrow lighthouse an island—but I am not certain there is a tide here. There is no moon to replace the fading sun. We get our flashlights out again, though there’s still enough light to navigate by. None of us want to be caught unawares by the dark.

  “The lighthouse?” I ask. “Or—do we go down the beach?” I look to Becca. She bites her lip.