Survive the Night

by Danielle Vega

  “I’m good.” I leap to the other side, bracing myself for the impact. Water splashes over me. I sink like a rock and push myself off the floor, bobbing back to the surface. Shana’s right—it’s much deeper on this side. With my head above the water, I have to stretch my legs out all the way to reach the floor. And even then, only my toes skim the thick metal train tracks.

  I wipe the water from my eyes and try to examine the space. It’s too dark to see much, but the ceiling arches above us, and chipped paint covers the walls. I can just make out a few faded signs on the walls, but it’s too dark to read what they say. Once upon a time, this must’ve been an actual subway station. A platform rises out of the water like an island in the middle of the ocean. I see a staircase twisting up into the darkness. Hope rises inside me.

  “It’s abandoned, I think,” Shana says. Her head pokes out of the water next to me, her pink hair plastered to her skull. “A ghost station.”

  “You think there’s a way out?” I ask. She shrugs, her shoulders rising and falling below the surface of the water. All I hear is her ragged, tired breathing.

  “Casey,” she says. “I’m—”

  Someone splashes into the water next to us, interrupting her. A hand grazes my leg, and I scream, leaping to the side. Woody’s head pops through the surface.

  “Sam’s coming,” he says, spitting a stream of water through his teeth.

  I step up to the wall and press my hand against the bricks. I turn my face toward the opening, waiting for Sam. I feel the slightest brush against my pinkie. I freeze.

  Fear makes my body numb. I squint into the darkness, trying to separate the shapes from the shadows. But everything is black.

  “It can’t be here,” I whisper to myself. We climbed a wall. We’re in a separate station now. It isn’t possible. But I move my hand over the wall, just to be sure.

  I feel bricks and mold and dirt. The wall is slimy beneath my fingertips, but the slime doesn’t bother me anymore. My breathing returns to normal.

  Then my fingers brush against something cool and slick. Every nerve in my body flares.

  “No,” I whisper, groping at the wall. It feels like a fire hose. I pray that it’s not what I think it is, that I’m being paranoid. But then it flinches, and something sharp scrapes against my palm. A claw.

  I recoil in horror. Sam jumps from the ledge, and a shallow wave crashes into me. He surfaces, his breathing ragged.

  He glances at the opening and shudders. “I saw something.”

  “There’s a tentacle,” I say, pointing to the wall. Something heavy and wet slaps against the bricks, cutting me off. I can’t even feel the cold water sloshing around my chest.

  “The tunnels are infested.” Shana gasps. “We have to get out of the water.”

  I force myself to move, and we all swim toward the platform. Sam reaches it first and lifts himself out of the water in one easy motion. I lag behind. A dull ache throbs beneath my kneecap, dragging me down.

  A sound like a suction cup unsticking echoes from the wall behind me. Claws click against the bricks. My terror hardens into adrenaline. I grit my teeth, pushing through the pain.

  Sam turns, grabbing the nearest arm he can reach—Shana’s. He pulls her out of the water, and suddenly she’s gasping on the platform next to him.

  A splash bounces off the walls. I whip around, peering into the darkness. My breath comes in ragged, terrified gasps.

  “Come on,” Sam shouts, motioning for me and Woody. We’re still a few feet away from the platform.

  “Hurry,” Woody says. He’s ahead of me, but he stops to let me catch up. I try to push myself, but my knee throbs, and the water pushes against me.

  I lurch toward the platform, gasping. I see something flicker out of the corner of my eye, and I whirl around. The water behind me ripples. Then goes still.

  “Casey,” Woody yells. “Come on.”

  “Right.” I turn back around and reach for Sam, but my hand slips out of his. I fall backward, crashing into Woody. Water splashes against the far wall.

  “Shit,” I mutter. I’m shaking so badly I can hardly stand. Woody pushes me upright again.

  “Concentrate,” he says, his voice steady. “Don’t be scared.”

  I breathe deep and reach for Sam again. This time I get a good, solid grip on his hand. He pulls, but I’m not as tiny as Shana is, and he’s not strong enough to deadlift me out of the water. I try to find a foothold on the platform, but my bare feet slip off the side.

  I hear another splash in the water—closer this time. I swear under my breath and squeeze Sam’s hand. His fingers are wet and his eyes widen as I start to slip away.

  “Don’t let go,” he says, tightening his grip. I hear something in the water, and my hands start to tremble.

  “Come on, Case,” Woody says from behind me. He grabs my leg and pushes me onto the platform.

  For a long moment I lie there, gasping for breath. I still feel the greasy water all around me, clinging to my skin like a living thing. Sam grabs for Woody, but he’s not strong enough to pull him out of the water on his own, and Woody doesn’t have Sam’s upper-body strength. He can’t pull himself out, either.

  “Shit,” Woody groans. The muscles in his arms tighten as he pulls. I push myself to my knees and crawl back to the edge. I’m reaching for Woody’s arm when I see it.

  The water behind him swells, then forms a crease. I stiffen. Something’s there.

  I push myself to my feet and grab Woody’s arm.

  “Hurry,” I say. Woody’s arm is wet and hard to keep hold of. The ripple in the water moves closer. I see something white flicker just below the surface. Next to me, Sam flinches.

  “Casey,” he murmurs.

  “I see it,” I hiss back. The blood drains from Woody’s face.

  “What?” he asks, his voice shaking. “What do you see?”

  “It’s nothing.” I readjust my grip and repeat what Woody said to me just seconds ago. “Concentrate . . .”

  Woody opens his mouth. “I—”

  A tentacle whips out of the water and pierces Woody’s back. I hear a heavy, wet sound. Like raw meat hitting a wall. Woody groans, and his mouth forms a perfect circle.

  “No!” I scream. Blood oozes over Woody’s teeth. In the darkness, it looks black. He tries to exhale, and specks of blood fly at my face and cheeks. It feels warm and tacky on my skin.

  I cringe but hold tight to Woody’s arm. His hand goes slack in mine. A crunching sound echoes around us. Woody’s body starts to quiver. Blood darkens the front of his T-shirt and spreads across his torso.

  A sob escapes my lips. I watch in horror as sharp gray claws burst through Woody’s chest. They carve through muscle and flesh, and crush his bones as easily as if they were toothpicks.

  Blood pours from Woody’s open mouth, falling over his chin and neck. The tentacle whips out through the hole in his chest. Claws flare away from it and dig into Woody’s skin like a grappling hook.

  Woody gasps, trying to speak. The tentacle wrenches his body below the water before he can utter his last words.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “NO!” I DROP TO MY KNEES AND CRAWL TO THE EDGE of the platform. The surface ripples. I search the black water for Woody’s blond hair and bright Hawaiian shirt but see nothing. He’s gone.

  A dark, hopeless feeling seeps through my skin and into my bones. Julie’s gone. Aya’s gone. And now Woody. My breathing comes fast. Ragged. We still haven’t found a way out. We’re trapped down here with this . . . thing.

  I thrust my hand into my pocket and pull out the Tylenol bottle. The pills rattle around inside. The sounds makes my heart beat faster. There’s no reason to be good anymore. No reason to try. This is the end.

  I wedge my thumb below the lid and pop the bottle cap off. The plastic disk drops into the water, floating on the s
urface for a second before it sinks into the black. I tip the bottle into my hand.

  Strong arms wrap around me and pull me away from the edge.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Sam yells. I think he’s talking about the pills, but then he pushes me to the center of the platform, casting an anxious glance back at the water. “You want to get yourself killed?”

  Yes, I think. I close my eyes and imagine how easy it would be to give up. No more running. No more trying to escape. No more watching my friends get ripped apart. I shake the pill bottle, and a single oxycodone rolls onto my palm.

  It’s so small. Just a tiny white pill. But it means so much.

  A sob bubbles up in my throat. Giving up won’t solve anything. I close my fingers around the pill, then fling it into the water. I throw the bottle in after it.

  “I should have helped him.” Even as I say the words, I picture the tentacle ripping through Woody’s chest, the blood spurting from his mouth.

  “You think I’d still be standing here if there was any way to help him?” Sam says. His eyebrows furrow and a muscle in his jaw tightens. “He was my best . . .”

  Sam’s voice hitches. I’ve never heard Sam cry before. The sound makes my chest hurt. He kicks the column Shana’s leaning against, and concrete crumbles to the ground.

  “Oh, God,” Shana murmurs, lowering her face to her hands. Her shoulders shake with silent sobs. Sam swears, his face crumpling. Guilt washes over me.

  “I should have let him climb up first,” I say. Sam’s head snaps up.

  “Don’t say that.” He wipes his cheek with the back of his hand, his eyes red and swollen. “Woody wouldn’t have wanted that.”

  Woody would have wanted to live, I think. Nervous energy buzzes up my arms. I start to pace in small, tight circles. Two steps in one direction. Two steps in the other. There’s nothing we can do. Nowhere we’re safe. I pull my hands through my hair, my fingertips brushing the peach fuzz on the side of my head.

  We’re going to die down here.

  “We can’t just stand here,” I say. “That thing . . . that thing will . . .” I press my hand over my mouth.

  “Casey.” Sam pulls me to his chest and wraps his arms around my shoulders. But I don’t want to be comforted. I try to step away, and he holds me tighter. I slam my fist against his chest, but he still doesn’t let go.

  “Don’t,” I say. My chest rises and falls, rapidly, and I dissolve into tears. The sobs tear through my body, making me weak. I collapse against Sam, giving in.

  It feels so good to cry. All the fear and anger I’d been clinging to rushes out of my body, leaving me hollow and empty. I don’t have the energy to be afraid anymore. I don’t have the energy for anything.

  Sam moves his hand in circles over my back. “We’re going to get out of here,” he promises. “No one else is going to die.”

  I sniffle. “How can you know that?”

  “Because I won’t let it happen.”

  His voice sounds so certain. I almost believe him. I breathe in and out, and in again, and blink my eyes dry. No more crying, I tell myself.

  “I think I’m okay now.” I pull away from Sam and wipe the last tears from my cheeks. Wet curls fall over his forehead. A fringe of dark lashes rim his light brown eyes.

  His voice floats through my memory. You’re acting like you don’t remember what happened. I thought he was talking about the day he broke up with me, but he wasn’t. He was talking about the black spot in my memory.

  “Sam,” I whisper. I steel myself, trying to be brave. If we’re going to die down here, I have to know about that night. “Tell me what happened the night before I went to rehab.”

  Sam frowns, studying me. “You don’t remember any of it?”

  “I remember getting ready to go out,” I tell him, seeing the moment clearly in my mind. I’m standing in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom, fixing my hair. I take a pill for my leg—just one. I don’t want to get high, just ease the pain in my knee.

  Then the image flickers. Everything goes black. I press against the darkness in my memory, trying to figure out what happens next. But there’s nothing.

  “After that, all I remember is waking up in the hospital,” I tell him. A flush creeps over my face, and I look down at my bare feet, embarrassed. “I thought I had a bad reaction to the pill. But my parents thought I OD’d.”

  My breath catches in my throat. I’ve never had the nerve to ask the next question, but I force myself to say the words now. I can’t die not knowing. “Why did they think that?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Shana lean forward, listening.

  “Your mom called me that night at, like, four in the morning,” Sam explains. “She was all freaked out because you didn’t come home.”

  “So you came to find me?” I ask.

  Sam shrugs. “Yeah, well, I knew where you guys liked to go. But I checked all the usual spots and you weren’t there. Then Julie told me to stop by Sid’s. She said you and Shana had been buying from him a lot.”

  I cringe, picturing Sam in his mom’s station wagon. It doesn’t really surprise me that we ended up at Sid’s that night. I let Shana talk me into the harder stuff after Sam dumped me. And Sid sold it to us cheap.

  “I thought Julie was crazy,” Sam continues. “As bad as things got, I never thought you’d be stupid enough to hang around someone like Sid. But I went by his van, and you were passed out in back. There was . . . vomit all dried on your cheeks. You weren’t moving. I thought you were dead, but then Shana tried to give you a shot of tequila and you started choking. God, I’ve never been so relieved.”

  “Stop.” The word cracks in my mouth. I hug myself, shivering. I was wrong. I don’t want to know what happened. I think of Rachel’s cloudy eyes and Tori Anne’s rotting teeth. I think of all the girls I heard screaming in the night.

  I thought I wasn’t like them. But I’m exactly like them. An addict. A junkie. Sam catches my eye, and his jaw tightens.

  “That was the worst night of my life,” he says.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. Chills race down my arms. I hate that Sam was the one who found me. All this time I’ve been wondering how I ended up down here. How Shana did this to me.

  But I put myself here. All this is my fault.

  “God, I’m so sorry,” I say again. Sam grabs my shoulders.

  “I didn’t let you die then,” Sam says, looking into my eyes. “I won’t let it happen now.”

  He turns, abruptly, and walks to the edge of the platform. He leans over the side, searching. I stare at his back.

  “Casey?”

  I turn at the sound of Shana’s voice. She’s huddled near a pillar in the middle of the platform, as far from the edge as she can get. Her blond-and-pink hair hangs over her face in wet clumps, and she has her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped protectively around them. Her shoulders tremble, but I don’t know whether she’s crying or shaking. I walk over to her.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “I guess.” A tear slips over her cheek, but she brushes it away—angry. She glances at the water. “What do you think it is?”

  I stare hard at the surface of the water, looking for any movement, any ripple. But it stays still, hiding the horrors below. “I don’t know,” I say. “A monster, I guess.”

  “Where did it come from?”

  Terror thrums through me, but it’s faint, like an echo. “Maybe it blew in with the hurricane,” I say, but I don’t know whether I really believe that. All that matters is that it’s here. It exists.

  Shana shudders and glances at me sideways. “Must suck. Being stuck down here with the two people you hate most.”

  “I don’t hate you, Shana,” I say, sitting down next to her.

  “Why not? I’d hate me.” She nods at Sam. “Especially
after hearing that.”

  “Shana . . .”

  “No, really.” She draws in a breath. “I was there, Casey. I saw how messed up you were and I didn’t do shit. I gave you a shot of tequila.”

  I stare down at my toes. “I know,” I whisper.

  “You should hate me. You should want to know why I did those things. You should scream at me!”

  I clench my eyes shut, trying to cool the anger bubbling below my skin. “I took the pills, Shana. I knew exactly who you were and I hung out with you anyway. Because I thought you were exciting. Because I was bored with my old life, I guess.” I sigh, and curl my toes into the concrete. “You didn’t ruin me. I ruined myself.”

  Shana stares at her waterlogged boots. “If it wasn’t for me you never would have ended up in rehab. Ever since we’ve been down here, I’ve thought about things a lot. Things I’ve done. I’ve been . . . I’ve been really messed up, Casey. I wanted you to be really messed up, too.”

  I stare at Shana. I think about asking her whether she was the one who slipped the oxycodone into my Tylenol bottle, and a flare of anger rises inside me—then dies almost immediately. It doesn’t matter whether she did it or not. If I wasn’t an addict, the oxy wouldn’t have tempted me.

  “You were trying to sabotage me.”

  “No. It’s not like that.” Shana squeezes her eyes together. “Or maybe I was. I don’t know. I just wanted you to be bad, too. Perfect Casey Myrtle. If you were drinking and using, then maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe I wasn’t so bad.” She’s quiet for a long moment. I think she’s done talking, but then she glances up at me again.

  “About what happened with Sam . . .” she says.

  “Don’t,” I say. I’m not ready to talk about Sam.

  “I didn’t want to hurt you,” Shana continues. Her voice cracks. “I just wanted to know what it felt like to have someone like that want me.”

  “Lots of guys want you, Shana,” I say.

  Shana laughs, but there’s no warmth in the sound. “Yeah. Lots of guys want to hook up with me. Or they want me to get them some X, or tell them who my dealer is. But Sam’s not like that. When he was with you, he just wanted you. I always wished someone would look at me like that.”