7 Souls

by Barnabas Miller; Jordan Orlando

  The door was locked from the inside.

  I locked it, she thought. Why? What was out there?

  Fear and dread spread through her; her skin broke out in goose bumps as she stared at the door’s latch, trying to recall how she’d gotten here; what had happened in that missing hour she couldn’t remember.

  “Mommy … Mommy …”

  That same sobbing voice.

  Mary mustered her nerve and took a deep breath and snapped the latch and pulled the door open. She pivoted out into the corridor, staring past Ellen’s bedroom door and the door to Dad’s old study, out into the front vestibule.

  Mary screamed.

  She couldn’t help it. The scream burst out of her uncontrollably. She gasped for breath, raising her fists to her mouth, trembling in terror at what she saw.

  Dylan Summer was lying on the floor, flat on his back.

  A bright red lake of blood was spreading from his body.

  Mary had never seen so much blood—she nearly screamed again, watching the pool spread like melting snow from boots you’d just taken off.

  Dylan’s face was scarlet, wrenched in a grimace of agony, tears running sideways down his stubbled cheeks. He was still dressed in his ruined charcoal gray suit (from our date, she remembered dazedly) and the thick overcoat he’d grabbed at his apartment an hour or so earlier in this endless dark drama of an evening.

  Mary’s mother was crouched over Dylan, dressed in her customary nightgown and dressing gown, stroking Dylan’s sweat-soaked forehead. The hems of Mom’s clothes were stained red with blood.

  “Mommy …,” Dylan moaned in agony. “Mommy, help me….”

  He’s delirious, Mary realized, stumbling toward them, willing herself not to scream again. He’s dying; he’s delirious.

  “The ambulance is coming,” Mrs. Shayne told Dylan soothingly. Mary noticed that Mom was holding the handset of their cordless phone—the same one Mary had always monopolized, that Ellen used to complain she was always using to call her friends, back before they had cell phones. “I’ve called nine-one-one; I told them gunshot—they’re on their way.”

  Gunshot?

  The word hit Mary like a battering ram. She remembered Mason, the shirtless meth head Joon had left the party with hours before—the hot boy with the perfect torso and the automatic pistol that had dropped to the floor and gone off like a firecracker—and the crib upstate, the deserted farmhouse. Mary finally managed to break out of her paralysis and stumble down the corridor toward them. The pool of blood seemed to grow with each passing second.

  “It’s Ellen’s friend Dylan,” Mom told her, in the same flat tone she used all the time. She had raised her head and was looking at Mary calmly, as if her being there made all the sense in the world. “He’s been shot—a burglar or something like that. I always knew this would happen, living in this neighborhood….”

  “But what happened?” Mary fought the urge to vomit as she came closer, trying not to stare at the blood. The metallic smell was hitting her nostrils now, making her eyes water. Dylan was staring at the ceiling, whimpering, his eyes unfocused, as Mom stroked his forehead. “What’s he doing here, Mom?”

  “I was asleep,” Mom answered. “I heard the shot and came out here and saw him, so I called the cops. That’s all I know.”

  Some distant part of Mary’s brain was impressed with her mother’s behavior. She’d never seen her in a crisis—a real crisis—and she’d always assumed that Mom would fall apart, running or hiding in blind panic.

  But you know better than that, Mary corrected herself. She wasn’t always like that. Before Dad died, Mom had been exactly the person you’d want near you when something went wrong.

  “Ow, ow, ow …,” Dylan moaned. “Mommy, I’m dying; I’m really dying….”

  Oh, Jesus, Dylan, Mary thought, staring at his clenched jaw muscles, watching his hands tremble in agony. She realized that she was probably very close to going into shock, so she forced her eyes away from the bloody view.

  In her pocket—the loose pocket of Dylan’s jeans—her BlackBerry vibrated.

  Mary had no idea who was calling her now, at two in the morning. But when she pulled out the phone and looked at its display, she nearly fainted with relief:

  SHAYNE, ELLEN

  Mary took a deep breath and hit the Talk button.

  “Hello?”

  “Mary?” Ellen’s voice was hard to hear; there was some kind of interference on the line. “Is that you? Is that really you? Thank God—”

  “It’s me,” Mary whispered. “Where are you?”

  “Still at the party,” Ellen told her. The alarm and fear in her voice was unmistakable, even through the bad connection. “It’s still going. Listen, what happened? I haven’t been able to reach you or Amy for, like, hours. Did you find Joon?”

  I sure did, Mary thought miserably. I found her and I couldn’t save her. Mary stared at Dylan’s body and the blood, like bright red poster paint, on her mother’s nightclothes. Dylan’s chest was moving up and down rapidly as his breathing hitched.

  “Mary?” Ellen sounded even more worried. “Are you there?”

  I’ve got to tell her, Mary thought. There’s no way around it.

  “I don’t—” Mary was crying. “Listen, I can’t—Amy’s gone. Amy’s gone and Joon’s gone—”

  “What? What do you mean, gone? What happened to them? Did you find that place up—”

  “Dylan’s been shot,” Mary blurted out. The tears were flowing freely down her cheeks and dripping onto the borrowed sweater. “He’s here, in our apartment—he’s been shot. There’s an ambulance coming, but I don’t—”

  “What?” Ellen’s whisper was barely audible. “Shot like with a gun?”

  “He’s still alive,” Mary yelled. “Ellen, listen—he’s still alive. Mom called an ambulance.”

  “What happened?” Ellen screamed. “What did you—what happened? What did you get him into?”

  “I don’t know,” Mary whispered.

  “What the hell do you mean, you don’t know?” Both sisters were sobbing. “Oh my God, no—”

  “I don’t know who did it,” Mary went on. “I didn’t see it; I didn’t hear it—Mom didn’t see it either. Ellen, listen; he’s still alive. There’s totally still a chance—”

  “I’m coming home,” Ellen whimpered. “I’ll get a cab—I’ll be there in—”

  “No!” Mary shouted, alarmed. That was absolutely the last thing she wanted Ellen to do. “Ellen, no! You’ve got to promise me you’ll stay right where you are!”

  “But Dylan—”

  “Stay there!” Mary was terrified that Ellen wouldn’t listen; that she’d leave the safety of the Peninsula Hotel. “Stay right where you are and I’ll be there as soon as I can get a cab. Promise me, Ellen!”

  “But—”

  “Promise me!” Mary wiped tears from her cheeks with her wrist. He’s not going to make it, she thought hopelessly, staring at Dylan, who was shivering on the floor. He’s not going to live. “Please, Ellen. I love you.”

  But Ellen hadn’t heard that last part. The line was dead.

  “No,” Dylan whispered, grabbing her ankle as she tried to move past him. “No, don’t—don’t go …”

  “I have to,” she told him. “I have to.”

  THE TAXICAB SPED EAST along Central Park South, lurching painfully to a halt at each red light that burned through the windshield like a demon’s eye and then speeding forward as the light changed. Mary had told the driver to hurry, to move as fast as he could—that it was life and death—and he had taken her seriously, racing down Broadway at nearly sixty miles an hour. Mary curled up on the torn vinyl of the backseat, staring at the passing buildings and overlit closed stores and random, middle-of-the-night passersby. The rain had stopped. The streets were shining beneath the streetlights, soaked in rain that reminded her of the blood pool beneath Dylan’s shaking, trembling body.

  The ambulance still hadn’t arrived when Mary gr
abbed three twenties out of Mom’s top dresser drawer (not the first time she’d done this) and galloped down the stairs and out of the building, screaming for a taxi. She’d tried to call Ellen back, but hadn’t gotten through—she’d heard the beginning of Ellen’s impossibly chipper outgoing voice-mail message four or five times, like a communiqué from another world, one without guns and ropes and screams and blood and death.

  “You wanted the Peninsula, right?” the driver called out. “The Fifth Avenue entrance? I have to circle around.”

  “Fine,” Mary responded hopelessly. Just get me there—get me to Ellen, because she’s the only one left.

  Who was she kidding? There was no way to avoid the real story of the day, was there? It was a chain of disaster … a chain that started and ended with her, the one and only birthday girl, Mary Shayne.

  Amy was gone, missing; vanished after she’d selflessly agreed to drive Mary out of the city on her ill-fated, desperate attempt to save Joon.

  Joon was gone. Because that couldn’t have been her, outside Dylan’s window, Mary had to conclude. I was dreaming—I was seeing things. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.

  Especially since I fainted just a few minutes later.

  So Joon had taken that wrong turn that every New York girl dreads taking. She’d left with the wrong guy, and he’d taken her on a one-way trip to the dark side.

  Dylan, asking her out; getting punk’d along with her; taking it like a man, then showing up out of the blue and trying to save her; rescuing her like an action hero in the movies and taking a bullet in the chest for his trouble.

  Amy, Joon, Dylan … all gone. And it’s all my fault, isn’t it?

  “Peninsula Hotel,” the driver announced, slowing the cab as it approached the gigantic limestone columns of the hotel’s vast, ornate facade, which was lit up like an inferno with blinding yellow floodlights.

  Mary tossed two twenties at the driver and slammed the taxicab door. She stared up at the looming hotel, the cold night wind blasting through Dylan’s sweater and freezing her arms and chest.

  I’m in hell, Mary thought, pushing her way through the thick brass-framed doors and crossing the carpeted lobby, heading for the elevators. I might as well be dead, because I’m already in hell—I’ve been in hell since I woke up today.

  The concierge recognized her, as always, tipping his cap and waving her by. The elevator doors slid shut and the chimes bonged as the elevator rose, and Mary remembered the last time she’d ridden this elevator upward, with Dylan beside her—Dylan, who’d volunteered to come with her to get her stuff from Patrick’s suite, who’d shown up out of nowhere to help her, who was now dying on her bare wooden floor.

  All for me, she thought miserably as her ears popped and the elevator arrived and the doors slid open. Everyone, all of them—all loving me, helping me, doing everything they can for me, all through the seventeen years of my life.

  And what had she ever done for them?

  For a second time that night, Mary wished she was dead. It was a calm, measured feeling, and she welcomed it like you’d welcome getting kicked out of a class you were failing, or getting ejected from the big game—the way she’d seen happen with her jock friends—when you weren’t playing well, when you were jeopardizing the team.

  WALKING DOWN THE CORRIDOR toward Patrick’s suite, Mary sensed that something was wrong. There weren’t any party noises—although, she realized, she hadn’t heard any sounds behind Ellen’s voice, either. It was late; the guests had probably scattered to find ragers somewhere else.

  But that wasn’t it.

  The door to Patrick’s suite was half open—and inside, everything was dark.

  Mary put her fingers on the glossy surface of the door and pushed. The suite was pitch black and deserted. The only light came from the wide picture window—the blazing golden fire of Fifth Avenue, shining through the glass like a dream city.

  The room was trashed. Broken champagne bottles, splintered furniture, discarded cups and plates, cigarette butts and overturned ashtrays littered the floor. The room stank of alcohol and tobacco and pot smoke.

  Mary gasped in shock, raising her hands to her mouth. A word was spray-painted on the wall, its huge, jagged black letters spreading across the silk wallpaper.

  GOODBYE

  It took all of Mary’s courage to step into the hotel suite—to keep herself from running blindly in the other direction.

  “Hello …?” she called out. Her voice echoed in the empty room. “Ellen …?”

  Nothing.

  Mary’s eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, and she saw something familiar on the ruined carpet in the center of the room.

  Ellen’s cell phone. Open and upside down, resting on the carpet. Its tiny screen was glowing.

  “Ellen?” she called out again, starting to cry. Still nothing.

  And then Mary realized that she could see something else. A thin band of light, along the floor, off to the far right—along the bottom of Patrick’s bedroom door.

  Someone’s in there.

  A strange sensation was coursing over her—a feeling she couldn’t name—and she realized that she wasn’t frightened anymore. Not really. The feeling was like a cold, calm certainty, a sense of inevitability.

  I’m not going to run. I’m going to go through that door.

  Apparently, her feet had already decided. She was crossing the trash-strewn carpet.

  She pushed the door open.

  Patrick’s bedroom was empty. The bed had been stripped; all of Patrick’s belongings were gone. No Ellen, no Patrick.

  The last two, Mary thought, still swimming in the unfamiliar sensation of certainty, the strange deliberate calm that washed through her and made all the fear drain away. She had reached her limit; she simply couldn’t run anymore, couldn’t be afraid anymore. Now the last two are gone.

  The ceiling spotlights were on. The wide, deep room—where she’d spent so many lazy weekend mornings devouring eggs Benedict that Patrick had gotten her from room service or lying back on the soft bed as Patrick leaned to kiss her—was empty, bare, deserted.

  In the center of the bed, on top of the bare mattress, lay a polished wooden box. Mary walked toward it, her feet moving with the same strange, calm feeling of inevitability.

  She watched her feet cross the soft carpet; she watched her hands reach for the box and pull it forward, the expensive wood scratching the mattress as she slid it close and opened the lid.

  The inside of the box was lined in bright red velvet. A single square sheet of thick yellow paper lay just under the lid. When she picked that up, she saw what was underneath—the spotlights gleamed on the smooth metal like summer sunlight caressing a car’s chrome.

  A gun.

  A beautifully polished handgun.

  Mary watched her hand pull the gun from the box, her wrist straining at the surprising heft, the sheer weight of the weapon. She watched her other hand extract the paper and unfold it.

  And she recognized it. The giant man in her vision had held out a gleaming square of paper—and now she had it, in real life. It was the same piece of paper; she was sure of it. An unrecognizable symbol was drawn in red ink at the top of the page—a stylized, asymmetrical line drawing of an almond-shaped eye. Staring at the eye, Mary felt a strange sensation, almost like she was dreaming or sleepwalking.

  It’s just a drawing; it’s not moving, she told herself dazedly, but she found that hard to believe as she stared at the red ink. The eye looked like it was moving—or, rather, it felt like it was moving, if that was possible; like it was staring back at her, returning her gaze, filling her with a strange, otherworldly calm. There was writing on the page below the eye—three lines of handwritten block text in the same clean red ink—and Mary tore her gaze away from the mesmerizing, calming gaze of the almond-shaped eye and read the words that had been scrawled below.

  WHOM DO YOU HATE THE MOST?

  WHAT WOULD YOU DO ABOUT IT IF YOU COULD?


  TODAY IS THE DAY.

  Mary read the lines over and over, absolutely fascinated. It seemed to her in that moment that she’d never read anything in her life that made as much sense as these three lines. Finally, after all her troubles, after everything that had happened since she’d awakened, here was an answer. Finally, she knew what to do.

  A blast of ear-splittingly loud music filled the air right then; somehow, it didn’t surprise her as snarling fuzz guitar blasted from the room’s hidden speakers—the ones she and Patrick had always been politely asked to lower by the hotel staff when Patrick was smoking his glass bong and turning up the Nickelback. The words seemed to fill her vision, expanding like commandments on a stone tablet, removing all responsibility, taking away all the pain, the need to think and react, the need to do anything but obey. The strange calm spread over her as she lifted the gun—SMITH & WESSON, she read the words engraved on its thick barrel—and pulled back the slide, just like she’d seen in the movies so many times.

  GOODBYE, the jagged writing on the wall had said; Mary felt tears tickling her cheeks as she turned the gun around, staring down its barrel like it was a tunnel to oblivion. All she had to do was pull the trigger and it would all be over—the pain and blood and fear and death and tears and agony would be over.

  The deafening music was still blasting.

  Mary’s fingers trembled as she raised the gun to her head.

  Goodbye, she thought.

  She couldn’t do it.

  She couldn’t make herself pull the trigger. Come on, she thought desperately, the heavy gun trembling in her hand. But somehow, she thought of Ellen right then—the pain in Ellen’s voice when she’d told her Dylan was shot. Ellen mourning Dylan; Ellen and Mary and their mother mourning their father.

  No.

  Mary cried out as she forced her arm to drop, forced her fingers to open. The gun thumped to the carpet at her feet. I can’t do it, she thought wildly as the tears flowed freely down her face.

  She stood there staring at the empty box on the bare mattress and the note in her hand, when a tremendous blow knocked into her from behind.

  Mary gasped in pain as she was driven forward onto the bed, her face pressed against the mattress. Somebody had tackled her and was now lying on top of her, a heavy weight that she couldn’t possibly escape. She felt cold metal pressed against the back of her head and she knew what it was; she had something like one second—the final second of her life—to feel and recognize the pressure of the gun barrel against the back of her skull before a blinding explosion filled the world with silent light and she was dead.