The Last Day of Emily Lindsey

by Nic Joseph

  “The door’s ope—”

  “Let me out!” With that, Matilda pulled out a knife from her pocket.

  Emily jerked back. “What are you doing?”

  “They told me you were dangerous,” Matilda said, her eyes wild. “Let me out of here.”

  “Like I just told you, the door is open.”

  Matilda fumbled with the door and opened it. Emily sighed, reaching over to grab her purse and the car key before stepping out to follow her. Matilda had walked around the back of the car and was heading to the main road. Emily hoped that whoever was following them was long gone by now.

  “Matilda!” she called out, running after the woman, but she wouldn’t stop. “I’m just trying to help you. How come you can’t see that?”

  The woman kept walking, her small frame stumbling along, and Emily had to stop herself from grabbing her and dragging her back to the car.

  “Look, just give yourself up. Come with me now. We’ll go to the police. I know where the house is. You’ll never get everyone out in time, and you’re going down with them. You can say that you didn’t know anything. You can say that you just moved there. Nobody will know! There are no records.”

  She was just a few feet behind her now, and Matilda had slowed down, but she still wasn’t stopping. Emily clenched her fists and stepped closer. “You’ve been lying this long. What’s the harm in telling one more lie?”

  Now Matilda stopped, and Emily felt a strong flood of satisfaction wash over her.

  “I get it—you needed me to join. You wanted me to join because you thought it would make you normal. Me joining would validate that for you. That’s why you started wearing your hair like me, acting like me. You’re obsessed with me! You wanted me to join so badly that you made up this whole lie about you having just been pulled in. But that’s not true, is it?”

  Matilda still didn’t move. She stared forward, her shoulders hunched over.

  “You’ve been here much longer than that. You didn’t think I’d find out, or at least not this soon, right? You’ve been here your entire life. You were one of the five who were supposed to escape. What did they call you back then, Lill?”

  Still no response.

  “What happened to you after all of those years? You started drinking the Kool-Aid, right? What, you blocked what they did out of your mind because you thought you were helping people? Helping women? That’s why you’re so obsessed with helping me?” Emily reached into her pocket and pulled out the crumpled Post-it Note. “See, what you don’t know is that I’ve started meeting the other five. I met Amanda, and I met a man named Max Smith who was once known as Jack Smith. And soon I’ll meet the rest. I’ll talk to them all. I’m sorry, Matilda, but you’re going to jail. The question is not if. It’s for how long.”

  She paused with the Post-it Note still outstretched as the woman in front of her stayed perfectly still.

  “Your whole life has been a lie. You stayed behind to save those kids, and then you became a murderer. Saving me wasn’t going to change that. Nothing would.”

  Emily took a step closer and put a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

  “Matilda?”

  Matilda turned slowly and reached for the Post-it Note. She scanned it slowly before crumpling it and pushing it into her pocket.

  And then she moved, whipping around fully, as she pulled her hunting knife out and raised it high above her head.

  The fury, sadness, and pain in her eyes were the very last things Emily saw.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Then

  The children bolted down the long hallway toward the exit. They didn’t know what they’d find at the end of it, but it had to be better than what they were leaving behind.

  Jack was at the front of the group, leading the way. He looked back over his shoulder as the others followed him, stumbling along. Brat and Gumball held on to each other while they ran. Perry was a few steps behind them. Lill was in the back, and she was moving more slowly than the rest, still seemingly in a daze.

  When he reached the end of the hall and stood in front of the door, Jack turned back. He waited as the twins caught up to him. He frowned as he realized that Lill was slowing down.

  “Lill, come on,” Jack said as Perry reached his side, breathing heavily. “Come on, we have to go.”

  But Jack could see that something wasn’t quite right.

  Lill looked…different. Whereas the others looked scared and almost in a panic to get away, the expression on Lill’s face was hard to define. She seemed to be moving in slow motion, jogging toward them. As they all stopped and watched her, Lill slowed down even more, and then she was walking toward them, not making eye contact.

  “Lill,” Jack said, taking a step away from the group and toward her. “Come on,” he said, reaching out a hand to her. She’d always acted like a big sister to everyone, so to see her like this was disconcerting for Jack. She seemed to float slowly toward them, her gaze not focused on anything in particular.

  “Come on!” Brat said. “They’re heading downstairs. They’re going to notice that we’re missing any moment now, if they haven’t already. We have to get out of here.”

  Suddenly, Lill stopped, and she stared straight ahead, her chest moving up and down.

  Jack knew that he was going to have to help her the rest of the way. “Hey,” he said softly as he walked up to her. “Are you ready to go? I know you’re scared, but we have to get out of here. This is our only chance.”

  Lill’s eyes had filled with tears, and she finally looked down at the younger boy. “Mother Deena,” she said.

  Jack swallowed. “Yeah, I know you’ll miss her—”

  “I have to say goodbye to her.”

  Jack didn’t know what to say. He wanted to remind Lill that Deena had been in the auditorium, too. She’d seen what was happening, and she hadn’t tried to stop it. But he didn’t know if that was a good idea.

  “You don’t have time to say goodbye to her,” Jack said, putting his hand on Lill’s arm. “I’m sorry, but we can’t go back down there. We have to go out that way.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m sorry about Mother Breanna. I know how you feel. I get it. I just…I need to say goodbye to her. It will only take a second. She won’t know I’m saying goodbye, but maybe I can meet her in the nursery.”

  “We don’t have time!” Brat said as she gripped her sister’s hand. Gumball didn’t say anything, and Shy Perry looked down at his feet. “Come on, Lill. We have to go now.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll be right back. Please. It will only take a couple of minutes.”

  With that, she stepped away from Jack and walked quickly toward the stairwell.

  “Lill,” Jack called out, but she opened the door and stepped inside.

  “I can’t believe she left!” Brat said. “What are we supposed to do? Go after her?”

  “The more of us that go down, the more of us that might get caught,” Gumball said.

  “We have to wait for her,” Shy Perry said, and everyone looked at him. “Right?”

  “Right,” Jack said. “We wait.”

  • • •

  Lill ran down the stairs, skipping steps as she raced past the eighth floor.

  She couldn’t believe what they’d just seen.

  Frank had placed both hands over the sleeping infant’s nose, and the entire room had watched as he held it there. The baby woke and fidgeted for a few minutes, and then stopped.

  When they lifted him away and wrapped him in a sheet, it was clear that he was dead.

  She felt sick, and she leaned forward and threw up in a corner of the stairwell. She took a few deep breaths and then straightened up and kept going.

  She couldn’t actually talk to Mother Deena; she knew that. But she had to say goodbye somehow. She stepped onto the third floor
and headed back toward the nursery. She walked into the small room where she sometimes slept and grabbed her notebook off the night table. She picked up a pen and started to write.

  Dear Mother Deena…

  She told her what she’d seen and how she had to leave. She told her that she loved her and that she needed to get away. She told her that she was sorry and that this was the right thing for her to do. She didn’t know what she would find outside, but she couldn’t stay here any longer. And she needed Mother Deena to go, too.

  First chance you get, leave this place.

  She was folding the note when she heard a noise.

  She looked up, and there was a figure standing there in the doorway.

  Ellis.

  “Hey,” he whispered, looking around.

  “What are you doing up here?” Lill asked, using one hand to wipe at the tears on her face.

  “I just came to say hi,” he said.

  “You’re not supposed to be up here.”

  “Kinda funny you saying that,” he said. He pointed at the note in her hand. “What’s that?”

  Lill struggled with what to say. How to convince him that she had to go, and he had to, too. Ellis always followed the rules; how could she get him to believe her?

  She stepped forward.

  “It’s for Mother Deena,” she said. “I… We have to leave this place.”

  “What?” he asked harshly. “What are you talking about?”

  “A few of us are upstairs. We found a way out,” she said. “Come with us. You don’t know what they’re doing here. We saw Frank…”

  Ellis reached forward and grabbed the letter from her hands. Opening it, he scanned it quickly before folding it back. He shook his head. “Lill,” he said. “What are you doing? What are you thinking?”

  “I—”

  “Do you know how much trouble you’re in? All of you. How many are up there?”

  “Four,” she said.

  “Who?”

  He seemed angry, and Lill couldn’t tell if it was at her or about what he’d just learned. Did he believe her?

  “Jack, Perry, and the twins.”

  He seemed to mull it over for a moment, and then his expression changed. And the soft-spoken boy, the one who’d followed her in adoration, disappeared.

  “You can’t go, Lill.”

  “What?”

  “You can’t go. I need you. I…I love you.”

  “Ellis,” she said, stepping forward and grabbing his arms. “Come with me. You’ll never understand what I saw—”

  “I was there,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I was there. Frank asked me to come. He wanted me to see the ceremony. He explained to me why they have to do it. You don’t understand, Lill. He’s doing it to protect this place.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “You don’t understand how we are,” he said. “Boys. Men. We’re responsible for so much of the pain and misery that takes place in our world. It’s our nature. Women—you all are not like that. Don’t you understand? He has to keep the balance. He has to limit the number of men in our community. It’s the only way it works. Women are the key, and there can only be a few special men here to guide them. And I’m one of them.”

  He said this proudly, and Lill shivered where she stood, the look on his face haunting and sickening. For the first time in her life, Lill saw her home for what it really was, and she wanted to leave. Now.

  “I’m going,” she said. “If you don’t want to come with me, you don’t have to. But this is not okay.”

  She moved to step past him, and he grabbed her arm roughly.

  “If you leave, I will wake every adult, and we will come after you. All five of you. There’s no way you’ll get out of here. They’ll catch you. They always do. And you’ll all be punished.”

  Lill could barely breathe, and she cried out as the grip on her arm tightened.

  “Or you can stay with me, like you’re supposed to. We are supposed to be together, Lill. You know it just as much as I do. If you stay, I won’t say anything. The others will get away. Frank never liked Jack anyway, he told me. He just wanted his mom. So let them go, and stay with me. Please.”

  It wasn’t an offer, but he made it sound like one, and Lill felt as if she were suffocating. The sobs escaped her lips, and she stared at him, unable to process what he was saying. But then he made it crystal clear.

  “Either you stay and they go, or all of you stay,” he said. “It’s up to you, Lill.”

  Her shoulders slumped. She stepped near the door and looked across the hall at the dark nursery where the infants and toddlers were sleeping. She thought about one boy in particular—a one-year-old with dark eyes and a sweet giggle that sounded like a hiccup.

  “If I say okay,” she said, “you have to let me send up Steve. Please. Let him go.”

  Ellis didn’t say anything for a moment. “Fine,” he said, shrugging. “Anything else?”

  “What if they send someone back for me? Jack isn’t just going to leave me here. They’ll go out, and they’ll find someone to come back for me.”

  “You’re right,” Ellis said, nodding. “That’s the other thing. You’re going to tell them not to do that.”

  “What?”

  He lifted the note that she’d written for Mother Deena and ripped it in half. “You’re going to tell them not to,” he repeated. “Time for you to write another note.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Now

  When will you know that something is wrong?

  A51…

  When will you get help?

  When is enough truly enough?

  A51G…

  I was hurting, but I couldn’t figure out why.

  I was sitting at my kitchen table, Nell and Frank on either side of me, and I could see the love, frustration, sadness, and fear on their faces.

  “It’s time for you to get help,” Nell said.

  There was a 3 in there.

  A351G…

  “When will you stop ignoring what’s right in front of your face?” Mike asked.

  I was hurting—sad that I’d made them feel this way, that I’d disappointed them—and yet finally understanding that they were never going to leave me.

  They were never going to send me back.

  They’d sit beside me and hurt with me for the rest of my life, if that was what it took.

  Mike and Nell were still watching me, but suddenly, their faces began to blur.

  “Mom?” I said, but I couldn’t see anymore, just a jumble of figures, numbers, and letters. Like the first time I’d had a vision in school, when the numbers on the test in front of me suddenly heaped into a pile. The figures danced in front of my eyes, blocking me from my parents, and I blinked to clear them.

  A351GH.

  I blinked again, and the world turned upside down. I was no longer in my kitchen but lying flat on my back on warm concrete, staring up at the sky, which was blocked by the faces of people looking down on me.

  One of the faces got closer, and I recognized Gayla. She leaned close, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, her voice a million miles away, too far to be coming out of her mouth, which was only a few inches from my face. “Steven, are you okay?”

  I was lying in a pile of my own limbs at the bottom of the stairs, my chin wet from my own saliva, my arm bent beneath me, my legs on fire.

  As I shifted my body and rolled over onto my side, the pain was overwhelming, and yet I knew instantly that nothing was broken. Physically, I was indeed okay.

  But not in any other way.

  “Steve?” Gayla said again.

  “No,” I finally croaked out, my eyes filling with tears, and for some reason, I think
she knew what I meant immediately. “I’m not okay.”

  “Okay,” she said quickly, nodding, her gaze on mine. She looked up at the people hovering around us. “Can you all give him some room, please? Do you need a bus?”

  “No, just help me up.”

  She reached out a hand to pull me up.

  I winced as I stood up. “I need to call Brick,” I said. “I can’t continue to put you in a position where my actions jeopardize your safety.”

  “You know anyone could have been pushed down those stairs, right?” she said.

  “Maybe, maybe not—”

  “But I get it. You have some things to work out. Can you at least do it after we catch these guys?”

  I frowned. “They got away,” I said. “I let them get away.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, they did. But not for long. We got the plate, and I called it in. Derrick and his team already traced it to an address about an hour away from here.”

  “Oh wow,” I said. “Somebody actually got the plate?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You. You were saying it over and over again while you were laid out there.” She let out a small laugh when she saw my face. “Come on, let’s go. I think we should talk to Brick. He might see things a little bit differently now.”

  • • •

  Detective King and his team worked fast.

  Ignoring my protests, Gayla took me by the hospital where they decided that a fractured wrist was the worst of my injuries.

  “If you experience any headaches or other lasting pain, you need to come back in,” the doctor said as I stood up. He put a hand on my arm. “I mean it.”

  I nodded, and we flew out the door.

  By the time we made it to the station, Derrick’s teams had already swept the three addresses linked to Ellis Davies, the man who owned the black sedan.

  The first location was an empty apartment in the middle of town.

  The second was a small county store.

  But it was at the third—a four-bedroom house about an hour from the square—that they found the car.

  Five men, twelve women, and twenty-two minors. All living in the current Friends of Frank headquarters. The pictures were nauseating. Small cots sandwiched together in the junk-filled home. As we stood in the middle of the station, Derrick filled us in.