Laura

by Amy Cross

  And then I realize I forgot my goddamn phone.

  Muttering a few curses under my breath, I turn and hurry back toward the house. I've still got time to catch my train, but it'll be more of a rush. As I get to the front door, I reach into my pocket for my key, before realizing that of course I left it on the mantelpiece inside. Sighing, I head over to the window and raise my hand to knock, before seeing that the others seem to be engaged in a very serious conversation. Elliot, Victoria, Lynn, Nick and Jonathan are sitting around the coffee table talking, and I think they might even be arguing.

  Still not quite knocking, I lean a little closer to the window.

  “Don't you dare say that!” I hear Jonathan saying to Lynn. “If you try that, there'll be consequences!”

  “Are you threatening me?” she replies, her eyes filled with anger.

  “I think we should stop talking about it and just move on,” Nick mutters, “and later, we can -”

  Suddenly he looks straight at me, and then the others all turn as well.

  “I forgot my phone!” I call out, unable to shake the feeling that I've accidentally stumbled into the middle of something I wasn't supposed to see. I wait, and finally Elliot heads through to the hallway. A moment later, the front door opens.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask.

  “Of course,” he replies, forcing a smile. “We were just surprised to see you again so soon. That's all. Where did you leave your phone?”

  “I think it's in the kitchen.”

  “Hang on.”

  I wait as he heads back inside, and then a moment later he comes back out and hands the phone to me.

  “Thanks,” I say, still feeling as if there's something I'm not being told. “So were you guys arguing just now? Did some kind of -”

  “Of course not,” he says, interrupting me as he checks his watch. “Aren't you running a little late? You don't want to miss your train.”

  “No,” I reply, realizing that he's right. “I guess... I guess I'll see you around.”

  “Sure. Totally.”

  He hesitates, before stepping back inside and swinging the door shut, leaving me standing alone in the front garden. I know I should hurry to the station, but instead I step back over to the window and look inside, only to find that the others are all staring out at me, as if they're waiting to make sure that I've left.

  I offer a brief wave, and a couple of them wave back at me, and then I turn and walk away. Deep down, I'm worried that they were keeping something from me, but at the same time I quickly tell myself that I'm probably just being paranoid. After all, I know those guys better than I know anyone else in the world, and we've always shared everything. By the time I reach the station, I've already put all those concerns out of my mind, and instead I'm focusing on the fact that I'm going to miss them so much.

  There are tears in my eyes as I wait for the train, but I console myself by remembering that I'll see them all again soon. This doesn't have to be the end. It can just be a new beginning.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Today

  “Elliot!” I shout, scrambling across the rocks as rain continues to come crashing down all around me. Slipping, I feel another sharp pain in my ankle, but I quickly force myself back up and switch my flashlight on, casting the beam through the darkness ahead but seeing only the yawning mouth of the cave. “Elliot, are you in here?”

  Finally I get out of the rain, and I stop for a moment to lean against the wall. I'm out of breath after running all the way here from the hotel, and my hands are trembling as I take the phone from my pocket. I guess sheer adrenaline allowed me to push through the pain in my ankle, although the pain is starting to come back again now. As I bring up Elliot's number and tap to call him, all I can think is that I really, really hope he's not here. The waves have died down and I think the tide has begun to turn, but it's still dangerous.

  Why would he come down here alone and in the dark? It doesn't even make sense for cautious, timid Elliot to do something so reckless.

  I wait as the call connects.

  A moment later, I hear his ringtone coming from somewhere up ahead, and I can just about make out a light flashing in the depths of the cave.

  “Elliot!” I yell, climbing over another set of rocks as I try to reach him. “Why did you leave in the middle of the night?”

  He doesn't answer, and it takes me several minutes to get close to the flashing phone. When the call cuts itself off, I tap his number again, and I continue to follow the flashing light until finally I slither down another large rock and land with a thud in a small pool of freezing water. My ankle is throbbing again, and I have to pause for a moment to catch my breath.

  “Elliot!” I shout.

  Nothing.

  Just the sound of his phone ringing in the distance.

  Once the worst of the pain has begun to die down, I start climbing once more. Scrambling over rock after rock, I'm starting to feel as if I'll never find him. Finally, however, I spot his phone flashing at the bottom of a small incline, and I carefully make my way down to take a closer look. The call cuts off just as I'm about to reach out and take the phone, leaving me with only the flashlight to guide my way. Kneeling in the darkness, I set the flashlight down and dial the number again, and this time the phone rings just a few feet ahead of me.

  The flashing screen picks out the edge of a skeletal face.

  I freeze, watching as the skull is bathed in a repetitive, hazy flashing light. Finally, the phone stops ringing and darkness returns, and I pick up my flashlight with a trembling hand.

  Shining the beam ahead, I see the skull once more.

  “Laura?” I whisper, crawling forward and then stopping again as I realize that I've finally found her.

  The body is on its back, on a narrow rocky shelf. Some of the meat has rotted away, but some still clings to the side of her face and worms are wriggling through the flesh. There are gaps all over her chest, and when I shine the flashlight directly at her ribs I can just about make out something crab-like scurrying out of sight inside the cavity. Clearly several different species have made their home in Laura's rotting carcass, and after a moment I find myself staring at her skull. The jawbone has fallen down a little, leaving her looking as if she's crying out in death, and there looks to be a crack running around the edge of her left eye socket. Strands of matted wet hair are still stuck to the remains of her scalp, and her hands are resting neatly at her sides.

  “Oh God,” I stammer, wincing as I shift my weight and try to crawl closer. “What -”

  Suddenly I lose my grip and slither down, crashing into an icy pool of water that instantly submerges me all the way up to my chest. Struggling to stay on my feet, I feel the freezing water soaking through my clothes and chilling my skin, but I don't start climbing out, not yet. Instead, I wade closer to the dead body until finally I'm staring at her face-to-face.

  Ten years.

  She's been down here like this for ten years.

  “No,” I whisper, as tears start running down my face. “Laura, please...”

  “It wasn't hard to find her in the end,” Elliot says suddenly.

  Startled, I turn and raise my flashlight, and I see that Elliot is sitting cross-legged on another ledge just a little way deeper into the cave.

  “We were almost on top of her before,” he continues, shivering slightly as he continues to stare at the body. “It's strange, but I remembered exactly where she was. Funny, huh?”

  “We have to call someone!” I tell him.

  I wait for a reply, but he simply continues to stare down at us.

  “Elliot?”

  “I think it's too late to help her now,” he says finally.

  “But we have to get her out of here!” I point out. “Elliot, we -”

  Stopping suddenly, I realize that something he said a moment ago made no sense.

  “What do you mean,” I say cautiously, “you remembered where she was?”

  “I don't even know
how I ended up here tonight,” he replies. “I was trying to sleep in the hotel room. You'd finally dropped off, but my mind was racing. Then I started to imagine myself getting up and coming down here alone, except suddenly I realized I actually was here. I think somehow she reached into my dreams when I fell asleep, and...”

  His voice trails off.

  “I had a dream that she was in the room with us,” I tell him.

  “I think she probably was in the room. She seems to get around a lot.” He hesitates, before climbing off the rock and taking a step closer. “There are things living in her,” he points out. “I don't know how we're going to get her out of here.”

  “I'm not sure that's what she wants,” I reply. “In the dream, she said she didn't care where she was buried. She said something about wanting people to pay for what they did.”

  I wait for him to reply, but he's still staring at the body and I swear he seems to be almost shaking with fear.

  “We should have come to help her that night,” I continue, shivering as I turn back to look at the skeletal face. “I guess that's why she's angry.”

  I fall silent for a moment.

  “We did come to help her,” Elliot says suddenly.

  “I don't think this counts,” I tell him. “We're a little too -”

  “Ten years ago, we came to help her,” he continues, interrupting me. “Well, you didn't, but I did.”

  I stare at him for a moment. “What?” I ask finally.

  “She called and we ignored her,” he explains. “That part, you already know. But after the call, I kept thinking about what she'd said. We were all out partying, going from one club to another, so it wasn't hard for me to sneak away. I just thought I should do the right thing and double-check that she was okay. I came down here, I came right into this cave. The tide was coming in, it was treacherous, and then just as I was about to leave...”

  “What?” I ask. “What did you see?”

  “She was crying out. Screaming her head off, sobbing, begging for help. I had a flashlight on my phone, and I was just about able to see her face down here. She was shouting my name, telling me she was trapped, asking me to get her out or to call someone. I tried to climb down and reach her, but I couldn't make it, and I guess I froze for a moment. I didn't know what to do. And that's when she -”

  Suddenly there's a faint bumping sound nearby, and we both turn to look into the shadows.

  “That's when she what?” I ask, turning back to Elliot.

  He watches the shadows for a moment longer, before turning to me.

  “I think she misunderstood,” he continues. “When I froze, I think she thought I'd decided to let her drown. The tide was rushing in, she only had a few minutes left. I wasn't going to leave her, I swear, but she thought that was my plan. So she started screaming at me, telling me that if I didn't help her, she'd find a way out and make us all pay. She said she had photos of the night you and I kissed, and she said she had pictures of you and Tommy, and she said she'd make sure everyone saw it all. She said she had more, she swore she had dirt on all of us, and she told me it'd all come out if I didn't help her. You have to understand, Sophie, she said she'd hurt us all! She said she'd hurt you! I couldn't her do it. I didn't care about the rest of us, but I couldn't let her humiliate you.”

  I wait for him to continue, but now he's staring at the corpse again.

  “So then what did you do?” I ask.

  “I didn't do anything.”

  “But you must have been -”

  “I didn't do anything!” he says again, more firmly this time, with tears in his eyes. “I just stood up on that rock over there, shining my flashlight down at her, and I watched as the tide filled the pool. It was quite quick, really.”

  Staring at him, I realize with a slowly growing sense of nausea that he's telling the truth.

  “You watched her drown?” I ask.

  “I didn't do anything!” he stammers. “I didn't make her fall down there! I didn't make her hurt herself so she couldn't get out! I didn't make the tide come in!”

  “But you watched her drown?” I ask again.

  “I couldn't save her. There was no time to go for help, I was -”

  “You could have come down here and tried to lift her out!”

  “I wouldn't have been able to do anything in time.”

  “You could have tried!” I hiss, shocked by his admission. “You might have managed something!”

  “I know,” he replies, “but... I guess I didn't want to admit the truth to myself at the time. Or until right now. I guess deep down, I just thought it'd be easier if she wasn't around anymore. She'd threatened to make us all pay, Sophie. What I did, I did because it seemed like -”

  Suddenly he turns and looks over his shoulder.

  “Did you hear that?” he asks.

  “You killed her,” I stammer.

  “No!” He turns back to me. “I didn't kill her! I didn't touch her! I didn't do anything to her at all!”

  “You watched her drown!” I yell.

  “It still wasn't my fault.”

  “You could have saved her!”

  “You didn't even bother coming at all!” he shouts angrily. “None of you did! You were all partying too hard! I was the only one of the six of us who gave enough of a crap to actually come down here and check on her!”

  “And then you watched her die!”

  “At least I -”

  Sighing, he looks over his shoulder again.

  “Did you hear that?” he asks, before turning to look the other way. “She's here, isn't she? This is what she wanted! She wanted the truth to come out! She was always an evil little bitch. Until tonight, I thought maybe she'd escaped somehow, that maybe against all the odds I was wrong and she'd survived. But now I see the truth. She died, and now she wants to make us all pay.”

  “You could have tried to save her,” I sob. “You could have the right thing!”

  “I didn't do anything to her,” he replies, holding his trembling hands up so I can see them. “I didn't do a goddamn thing! And the others agreed, they all told me it wasn't my fault!”

  “The others?” I wait for him to continue. “Did they all know the truth?”

  “I had to tell someone,” he explains, “so I told Jonathan. He brought Victoria in to talk about it, and then Nick and Lynn found out. I made them swear not to tell you, Sophie. I couldn't bear the thought of you thinking I was a bad person. And the others all told me that I hadn't done anything wrong, that I should just shut up and pretend I'd never gone to find her. By then I'd already faked the burglary at the house, hoping to make it seem as though Laura was still alive. That was dumb, and the others helped me to see that. They calmed me down, and they made me realize that I hadn't really done anything wrong at all. How can you do anything wrong, if you haven't done anything at all?”

  “You stood and watched her drown,” I point out, shocked by the twisted logic of his repeated denials. “Maybe you could have saved her, maybe not, but you could at least have tried!”

  “No, I -”

  “You could have tried, you bastard!” I shout, unable to hold back a moment longer. “You could have come down here and at least tried!”

  “There was no point.”

  “And she killed the others because of that?” I stammer, starting to wade through the pool of water so I can climb out. “It wasn't because we didn't come to help her, was it? It was because you did come, and then you left her to die!”

  “I think she killed the others because they helped me pretend it never happened,” he replies. “It's the only explanation.”

  “I didn't know about any of this!” I sob, reaching up to grab one of the wet rocks. “Why did she come for -”

  “Sophie, get out of the pool!” he shouts suddenly, reaching down to help me.

  “Don't touch me!” I hiss, pushing his hand away and trying to climb up alone.

  “Sophie, hurry!”

  “I don't -”


  “Sophie, move!”

  He grabs my hand, but I pull away and fall back, crashing down into the water. Despite the pain in my ankle, I manage to stand again, shivering as cold water washes over me. Something brushes my shoulder, but I immediately start trying to climb again, although I hesitate when I see the horror in Elliot's eyes. He's staring at something right behind me, and slowly I start turning.

  The skeletal figure has moved from the rocky shelf. Laura's rotten, bloated corpse is standing behind me, staring at me as a thick white grub wriggles in her left eye socket. A few thin strands of flesh are still clinging to her cheekbones and around her mouth, and after a moment I realize that a faint smile is slowly spreading across her dead face.

  “No,” I stammer, “I -”

  Before I can finish, she screams and lunges at me, grabbing my shoulders and forcing her weight against me. Unable to fight back, I plunge back down into the icy water. I try to scream, but all that comes from my mouth is a torrent of bubbles as I push furiously against Laura's rotten chest. I can feel my fingers pressing between her ribs, but she's forcing me deeper and deeper into the dark, freezing water. When I try to scream again, I feel a skeletal hand pressing against the side of my face, and this time I start swallowing some of the foul water. At the same time, another bony hand wraps its fingers around my throat, and I feel my limbs suddenly becoming much heavier as a skeletal face presses against my left cheek.

  I try one final time to push her away, but a moment later I bump against the bottom of the pool.

  I can't fight her.

  Suddenly there's a crashing sound and I see something plunging into the water above us. A figure swims down and grabs my shoulder, hauling me up even as the bony hands try to drag me down. For a moment I'm caught between the two figures, until finally my legs slip free and I manage to haul myself up. I break the surface and immediately gasp for air, but Elliot is already dragging me to the rocks and pulling me out of the water.