No One Here Gets Out Alive (Vengeful Spirits Book 3)

by Val Crowe

  Maybe…

  Was I dead? Because Mundy was gone. I had seen that happen, and I really couldn’t be sure about Rylan. She’d been stabbed and possessed and been through hell. So, maybe we were all dead.

  But this was a really pisspoor afterlife. We were stuck in this campground, and we were all still wounded. What a gyp. Should have figured being dead was just as awful as being alive. Maybe worse. Maybe we never healed these wounds.

  At least I wasn’t alone. My biggest fear was to be trapped in the afterlife alone and raving, my sanity ebbing away with each passing decade.

  I tried again to get to my feet, and this time I managed it. I also tried to will away my pain. If I was dead, then why did I need to feel pain from my wounds? It wasn’t as if pushing through that pain was going to do any worse damage, after all.

  I made my way over to the cabin and there were Rylan and Mundy, wrapped up in a sleeping bag, their faces dirty and bloody. They were leaning up against the wall of the cabin. They smiled at me grimly.

  “Hey,” said Rylan. “I told them you weren’t dead. Dominique thought you were in a coma or something, but I told her you just do that sometimes.”

  “Dominique?” I looked around. “Where is she?”

  “She’s down at the bridge,” said Rylan. “She’s the only one of us who can really walk. She went all the way down there, used my cell phone, called the police and EMTs, and then came back up here to tell us help was on the way.”

  “That was when I woke up,” said Mundy. “Actually, I’d been awake once or twice, but I didn’t see anyone, so I never bothered to waste energy to call out for help.”

  “She lost a lot of blood,” said Rylan.

  I sat down heavily on the porch of the cabin. “So, um, we’re alive?”

  They both laughed.

  “After Dominique delivered the message, she went back down to the bridge to wait,” said Rylan. “Help should be showing up soon.”

  I squinted at Mundy. “You’re really not dead?”

  “She’s a lesbian,” said Rylan, smiling.

  “Right,” I muttered. “Killing lesbians is cliche.”

  “It’s a bad stab wound,” said Mundy. “But I’m not dead. I’m miserable and I almost want to be dead, but I’m alive.”

  I grunted. “I know the feeling.”

  * * *

  Sometime later, the ambulances arrived, and we were all taken out on stretchers. We were all taken to the hospital.

  I wasn’t actually in too bad of shape. The wound on my arm was bad, but it just needed some stitches and rest. I’d be in a sling for a while. I’d been worried it had gotten infected, considering it hadn’t been cleaned at all, but because it had been bleeding freely, I’d escaped that fate.

  Another night’s sleep, and I almost felt like death warmed over.

  I was exhausted and weak. The energy that Negus had taken out of me was more than any other ghost had taken from me before, and I’d been badly drained numerous times.

  But the morning after I’d been brought in, I was deemed well enough to talk to the police.

  It was two of them. A guy with thinning salt and pepper hair and his younger partner, a woman with an obvious red dye-job. She wore bright pink lipstick and called me honey.

  “Honey, don’t be nervous,” she said. “We’re just trying to figure out what happened out there. You think you can tell us about it?”

  I rubbed my face and surveyed them both. Okay, well, I wasn’t really sure what to do. I could tell them the truth, and they would think I was crazy, or I could lie, and risk making them suspect me, because they’d likely talked to the others and my lies wouldn’t match what they’d said.

  Well, there was a chance that both Rylan and Mundy were too hurt to be talking to the police, but they would have definitely spoken to Dominique.

  And I wasn’t even sure that Dominique really knew what had happened. Rylan had been aware the whole time that Negus had taken control of her body, and she told me that she’d explained everything to Dominique, but I was sure that Dominique still had questions. We hadn’t had a chance to talk, her and me.

  That was probably by the authorities’ design, however. We were talking about a lot of murders here. They were going to want to find whoever was responsible. And letting their suspects get together and talk things over, possibly concoct stories, wasn’t conducive to finding the killer.

  How was I supposed to get them to understand the killer was already dead?

  “You know,” I said, “I’m honestly not sure what happened out there.”

  “Okay, honey,” said the redhead. “You’ve been through a lot. I understand. But you were stabbed, and your friends were stabbed, some of them to death. You get a good look at the person who did that to you?”

  “Uh…” I licked my lips. Then I just decided, Fuck it, I’ll answer this as best I can. “He was tall, maybe six foot four. He had broad shoulders and a beard. Yellow teeth. He wore a flannel shirt and jeans.”

  “Good,” said the guy, writing in a notepad. “Your, um, friend, she was a little confused. She tried to tell us that this was the ghost of Macon Symonds.”

  “Oh, she did?” I shrugged at them.

  “We’re pretty sure that whoever this guy is, he’s a nutjob, honey,” said the redhead. “He’s obsessed with the Symonds murders, and he’s dressing up and impersonating the killer.”

  “Yeah, who was Josiah Symonds, not Macon,” said the male cop. “Just another place where your friend is confused.”

  “Right,” I said. Man, was I glad that these cops were feeding me a cover story. It even made sense. “Yeah, I think you guys are right. Whoever did this must have been obsessed with the murders that happened there.”

  “We’re searching for him now, honey,” said the redhead. “Combing the whole mountain. But he’s either run off or he’s holing up somewhere we can’t find him. You don’t know of where he might be, do you? He didn’t drag you into a secret lair or something?”

  “A, um, a lair?” I raised my eyebrows.

  “Well, killers like him, killers who kill more than once, they often do it ritualistically. He might have had a special place he liked to do the murders or he might have a place he keeps trophies or something.”

  “He just stabbed us pretty much wherever he found us,” I said. “It wasn’t like that.”

  The cops exchanged a glance, both looking disappointed.

  Should I tell them that I didn’t think they should waste any more manpower looking for this guy? Nah, there was no way to do that and not sound suspicious.

  “We’d like to try to go through the whole experience if you don’t mind,” said the male cop. “Can you start from the beginning?”

  Right. Okay. I took a deep breath, and I began to recount everything I could, as best as I could. I left out anything that had to do with ghosts or the supernatural, but I couldn’t explain how he’d uprooted a tree. (They helpfully suggested to me that the tree must have been loose already, and that adrenaline had likely caused his spurt of super strength.) And the rest of it, everyone getting stabbed, I recounted that as best I could.

  At the end of the story, I said that I’d passed out, and I didn’t know what had happened to the killer, who must have gotten away when he realized we’d made contact with the authorities.

  All the while, the police scribbled everything down.

  They told me that when I was feeling better, I’d need to come down to the station to make a formal statement. Also, they were going to want me to look at mugshots to see if I could see anyone who looked like the killer. I knew that was a waste of time, but I couldn’t very well say that to them.

  It looked like I might not be leaving town for a while.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I wanted out of the hospital as quickly as possible, because I didn’t exactly have health insurance. I was in a weird situation where I had too much money due to my father’s inheritance, but very little income, due to not really
having a regular job, and thus I couldn’t get the government assistance I probably needed.

  Luckily, one of the nurses told me about a charity that would help negotiate my bills if I called them, so the minute I was back in a hotel room, I did just that.

  Dominique was staying in the same hotel. She came over to my room one evening and we ate room service together and talked about what had happened.

  I kind of thought she’d be, you know, grateful or something, but she was pissed off. “Rylan says you cut me off from the supernatural. She says that’s what that box did.”

  “Where is that box?” I said.

  “Um, it’s in here.” She picked up her arm and pointed to her bicep. “The thing like wormed its way under my skin. Hurt like hell. Now, it’s stuck in there, and I can’t get it out.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, that figures.” That was like what had happened with that necklace that had allowed me to see ghosts.

  “That figures?” she said. “That’s all you have to say?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Why did you make me do that to myself?”

  “Hey, I protected you,” I said. “You’ve spent your whole life threatened by ghosts and specters and other things, and now you’re safe. Plus, bonus, it got rid of your creepy father who was trying to suck me dry and kill me.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “I forgot it was all about you.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I said. “That box was for me. I was supposed to get cut off from the supernatural. All I’ve ever wanted is not to see ghosts.”

  “Well, that’s you,” she said. “My connection to ghosts is the only thing that ever made me special. You took that away from me. And you didn’t even ask me if it was what I wanted.”

  I gaped at her. Was she kidding me? Did she realize what I had sacrificed here? I mean, yeah, I’d been in a rough place back there, what with Macon being after me, and I maybe hadn’t had much of a choice. But that box had been my only way out. And now it was gone. Convincing Negus to get into it had saved all our asses. “Yeah, well, you’re welcome,” I muttered.

  “What?” She stood up from the table in my hotel room where we were eating. “You did not just say that.”

  I folded my arms over my chest.

  “I wish I’d never met you, Deacon Garrison. I wish you’d never contacted me.”

  Honestly? If she hadn’t been up on that mountain, things wouldn’t have been nearly so bad. But she had been, and people died. You’d think she’d at least acknowledge her part in that. You’d think she’d be pleased that she wouldn’t be making people drop dead left and right everywhere she went anymore. But obviously not. I decided not to say anything.

  She shook her head at me. “As soon as the police say we can get out of here, then I’m gone. Don’t ever contact me again.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t.”

  * * *

  My truck had been towed down the mountain and put in lockup, and I was able to get it out after I got out of the hospital. But the Airstream was technically part of the crime scene up there, and I wasn’t allowed to remove it.

  I kept asking the police when I could get it, and they kept telling me to wait a while, and then making me go over my story again and then having me look at even more mugshots.

  I wanted the Airstream because it was home, and because I felt more comfortable there than anywhere else. But also, I was worried about Mads. I hadn’t seen her since she’d told me about the box, and I didn’t know if she was even okay. For some reason, I thought I would have a better chance of getting in touch with her in the Airstream, because it was where we always hung out.

  But since I couldn’t get to the Airstream, I began desperately calling out for her every night in the hotel, and going for walks in the woods at the foot of the mountain, hoping I would find her there.

  The police found me out there walking one day, and I nearly got shot, because they were still looking for the killer they were never going to find. Since I was out there walking, I got the side-eye from everyone, which led to my having to go over my story yet again, for the gazillionth time, and being made to feel as if I was now the only real, live suspect they had for these murders.

  If it hadn’t been for Rylan, Mundy, and Dominique all vouching for me, saying they had been there and seen that I was not the killer, I think they would have arrested me. Even my knife wound was not enough to make them think I was innocent.

  I understood.

  They were a rural police department. They probably hadn’t had a murder in five years or more, and now, here they were, being dumped with five bodies. They wanted to do something. That was their job, after all, to catch bad guys.

  And I knew it was bad from Rylan, who had been talking to the parents and loved ones of the people who’d been killed. They were her friends, and she’d brought them out there for fun. She was a mess over all of it.

  I wished I knew what to say to her, but I didn’t. We talked about it, lots of times, and sometimes she cried. Sometimes, I wanted to cry too, because I also felt responsible. In the end, though, there was nothing I could do. I’d had a chance to take myself out of the equation. If I could have used that box on myself, I would have never strengthened a ghost again. I would have never given anything supernatural more power.

  But…

  Well, I’d had to make a different choice.

  The worst of it all was that the police here were not releasing the bodies to the families and they weren’t letting us go, because it was still an active investigation, and the funerals and memorials were all delayed.

  It was bad enough that it had happened, but the people who were grieving were in an awful limbo. They were still trying to make sense of their loss, but they couldn’t see the bodies of their loved ones. They couldn’t bury them. They couldn’t have funerals. Until they did that, their grieving was arrested, stopped from moving forward.

  Maybe it was the pressure from all the families that caused the police here to waver. I don’t know. But they released the bodies back to the families and opened the crime scene up, and we were all able to go back and collect our belongings. I was able to get the Airstream.

  The minute I got back in the Airstream, I called for Mads.

  But she didn’t show up. I waited for her. I went looking for her in the woods. I did everything I could. She never showed up.

  The police wouldn’t let me stay on the mountain. I had to leave. So, I parked in town, as close to the mountain as I could. I waited.

  And she didn’t up that night.

  Or the next day.

  Finally, I had to drive back to Thornford. A lot of the memorial services were being held there. I needed to be there for Rylan, and I needed to pay my own respects.

  I got back to Thornford. No Mads.

  I didn’t know what had happened. But I had to face the possibility that something awful had happened to her. Either Macon had done it or Negus had. Or she had tried to fight them off and lost. I hoped she was out there still, too weak to make contact. I hoped she’d be back in another ten years or so. But I also knew that I might not be so lucky. She might be gone forever.

  It was pretty tough going in Thornford. Every day there were memorial services, sometimes more than one. Seeing Jonah’s little daughter Emmy, too young to really understand what had happened but sobbing her heart out anyway, was incredibly tough. It gutted me.

  Scout’s mother was sitting next to his casket, a scarf tied around her head, looking gaunt because she was battling cancer. She had lost the only person who was fighting for her. How could the world be so damned awful?

  Alice had a younger sister who couldn’t stop crying. Cat’s mother was stony faced and dry eyed. Their reactions were different, but somehow, both of them were so equally twisted by their grief that I felt destroyed.

  I knew that it wasn’t my hand that had stabbed these people to death. But I also knew that they would still be alive if it wasn’t
for my presence on that mountain. That knowledge sat heavily on me. I didn’t know how to deal with it.

  I’d wanted to get rid of my connection to the supernatural, but I’d blown my chance at that. So, this would happen again. I would cause more pain and more death. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I wanted to talk to someone about it, but I couldn’t seem to find a way to open up to Rylan or Mundy as we all drank in the bar that evening.

  Wade was there too, and I should have been able to tell him anything, but I didn’t think he would understand.

  I wanted Mads. She was the person that I would talk about this kind of stuff with. But Mads was gone.

  That night, I came back to the Airstream, and I started to sob like a baby. I sobbed for Mads, because she was gone, and because I had… okay, I didn’t know exactly what I’d felt for her. She’d been a ghost, but she’d been more important to me than a friend, and there were times when I’d thought that I was in love with her. I mean, yeah, that was fucked up, but…

  She was gone.

  And I didn’t even know what happened.

  So, there I was, crying, nose snotty, drinking bourbon out of the bottle, and drunkenly whispering to the air that I’d do anything to see her again, and…

  There she was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I was sitting at the table in the Airstream. She appeared next to me, sitting there, and it looked like she was crying too.

  “God damn it, Deacon,” she said. “Why do you have to make this so hard?”

  I was so stunned to see her that I stopped crying. I swallowed everything and hiccuped.

  “God damn it,” she said again. “Jesus.”

  I took another drink of bourbon. “You’re… you’re here.”

  “I’ve been trying to stay away.”

  “What?” I slammed the bourbon down on the table. “You mean, all this time, you’ve been fine, and you’ve been hiding from me?”

  She flinched.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Deacon, you were supposed to use that box!”

  “Yeah, but I couldn’t. I had to let Dominique use it. There was no other option.”