by Riley Sager
Tina did allow one last look at that, instantly regretting it, for it made her think about Joe. She had been ordered not to think about him.
Yet she did. All the time. Leaving wouldn’t change that.
She had also been ordered not to think about that night. About the terrible things that happened. All those dead kids. But how could she not? It was the reason the place was closing. The very reason she and the others were being marched out.
Some of the orderlies came by to watch them leave. Matt Cromley was there, that perm-headed prick. He had put his hand down Tina’s pants so many times she lost count. She glared at him as she passed. He gave her a wink and licked his lips.
Parked outside was a van that would take them to the bus station. After that, no one gave a damn where they went as long as it wasn’t there.
As Tina climbed aboard, Nurse Hattie handed her a large envelope. Inside was the name of a social-services agency that would help her find employment, her medical records, all necessary prescriptions, and cash that Tina knew would last only about a measly two weeks.
Nurse Hattie put a hand on her shoulder and smiled. “Have a great life, Tina. Go make somethin’ of yourself.”
TWO YEARS AFTER PINE COTTAGE
There was no one home. Tina kept telling herself that as she knocked again on the sun-bleached door. There was no one home, and she should just leave.
But she couldn’t leave. She was down to her last dollar.
Tina tried to make a go of it, and for a while she had. Thanks to that nice lady at social services she had a job, even though it was bagging groceries at a gritty-floored supermarket, and a place to live at a boardinghouse built for people like her. But all those health-code violations killed the store, which meant she couldn’t pay for the boardinghouse. Those unemployment checks barely covered food and bus fare.
So now she was back in Hazleton, still knocking on the door of a duplex she hadn’t seen in four years, praying no one would answer it. When someone did, she almost ran away. She’d rather die of starvation than be there. But she willed her legs to remain on that worn welcome mat.
The woman who opened the door was fatter than when Tina last saw her. An ass as wide as a love seat. She held a baby on her hip—a writhing, crying, red-faced little shit in a drooping diaper. Tina took one look at it and her heart sank. Another kid. That poor, doomed thing.
“Hi, Momma,” Tina said. “I’m home.”
Her mother looked at her as if she were a stranger. She sucked in her fat cheeks, lips puckering.
“This ain’t your home,” she said. “You made sure of that.”
Tina’s heart seized up, even though this was exactly what she had expected. Her mother never believed that Earl did those things to her. The touching and the fondling and the sliding under her covers at three in the morning. Shh, he’d say, with beer stench on his breath. Don’t tell your momma.
“Please, Momma,” Tina said. “I need help.”
The baby fussed even more. Tina wondered if the kid had been told about his half sister. She wondered if she’d ever been mentioned.
A man’s voice cut through the cries, coming from the living room. Tina had no idea who he was. “Who’s at the door?”
Tina’s mother stared at her. “No one important.”
THREE YEARS AFTER PINE COTTAGE
The bar was packed for a Tuesday night. All the stools were filled. Tables too. Nothing like two-dollar beers to bring in the barely functioning alcoholics. The crowd kept Tina hopping her entire shift as heaps of empty mugs and ketchup-smeared plates came her way. She washed them all, her hands submerged in the water so long her fingers had become shriveled and bleached.
When her shift was over, she whipped off her hairnet and shucked her apron, stuffing them into the laundry bin by the kitchen’s back door. She then headed into the bar itself, claiming the employee-eligible free drink that was supposed to make up for how the owner skimped on wages.
Lyle was tending bar that night. Tina liked him more than the others. He had a handlebar mustache, a sexy overbite, and thick, hairy forearms. He poured her drink without even asking what she wanted.
“And a Wild Turkey for Miss Tina,” he said, also pouring one for himself.
They clinked glasses.
“Cheers,” Tina said before downing the whiskey in a single gulp.
She ordered another. Lyle gave it to her for free, even though she told him she had enough cash to pay for it. She sipped this one, sitting at the far end of the bar, people-watching. The crowd was a nondescript blur—an interchangeable display of big hair, beer guts, and gin blossoms. Tina vaguely recognized most of them.
Then she saw someone she truly did recognize. He was slid into a back booth and getting grabby with a redhead who clearly didn’t want to be grabbed. It had been a few years, but he looked exactly the same. Not even his laughable man perm had changed.
Matt Cromley.
The orderly who had groped her and Heather and God knows how many other women at Blackthorn. Seeing him after all these years unlocked the box in Tina’s mind where the bad memories were stored. It made her think of all the times he had yanked her into that utility closet, plunging his hand down her pants while hissing, You’re not going to tell anyone, you hear? I can make things bad for you, you know. Real bad.
The only person she told was Joe. It made him so mad he offered to stab the slime ball, which is what had landed him at Blackthorn in the first place. Some community college shithead had kept bullying him. Joe fought back by driving a steak knife into his side.
Tina declined the offer. Only now she wished she had taken him up on it. Pricks like Matt Cromley shouldn’t be allowed to go unpunished.
That’s why Tina downed her drink. She slipped into the kitchen for a few supplies. Then she sidled up to his booth, gave him a siren’s smile, and said, “Hey, stranger.”
Ten minutes later, they were standing in a patch of weeds behind the bar, one of Matt’s hands already snaked down the front of her jeans, the other furiously stroking that minuscule prick of his.
“You like that, don’t you?” he groaned. “Like the way Matty Boy makes you feel?”
Tina nodded, although in truth his touch made her want to puke. But she endured it. She knew it wouldn’t last long.
“How many girls did you do this to?” she said. “Back at Blackthorn?”
“I dunno.” He was practically panting, his voice rough in her ears. “Ten or eleven or twelve.”
Tina’s body went rigid. “This is for them.”
She shoved an elbow into his stomach, which made him double over and back away, taking his cold, slimy hand with him. She then whirled around and punched him. Repeatedly. Quick, sharp jabs right to his nose. Soon he was on his knees, holding his hands to his nose to try to halt the blood spurting out of it.
Tina kicked him. In the stomach. In his ribs. In his groin.
Once he was flat on his back and rolling in pain, Tina shoved a dishrag from the kitchen into his mouth. She yanked off his jeans and underwear. She tore at his shirt, ripping the seams until it was nothing but shreds stuck to his shoulders. Then she tied rope she had found under the kitchen sink around his wrists and ankles. Once he was good and secure, Tina whipped out the black dry-erase marker swiped from the whiteboard that listed the daily drink specials. Cap between her teeth, she jerked the marker open and scrawled three words across Matt Cromley’s naked torso.
MOLESTER. PERVERT. SCUM.
She took his clothes with her when she left.
NINE YEARS AFTER PINE COTTAGE
It was October, which meant she was thinking about Joe. It always happened when fall rolled around. Even nine years later that crisp chill in the air took her mind back to him in his sand-colored sweater, sneaking down the hall. Wait for me! she had whispered frantically at the back door, trying to catch up to him.
Each year, she thought it would be different, that the memories would fade. But now, though, she suspected they were a permanent part of her. Just like the tattoo on her wrist.
During her smoke break behind the diner, Tina rubbed her thumb across the tattoo, feeling the dark smoothness of the letters.
SURVIVOR
It had been six years since she got it. Long before she’d found her way north to Bangor. She got it in a fit of inspiration after writing all over Matt Cromley’s pink and pudgy body. She didn’t regret it one bit. It made her feel strong, even though she later worried that some customers would be put off by it and tip her less. Instead, most folks gave her more. The pity tippers. Thanks to them, she had been able to buy a car. It was nothing but a thirdhand Ford Escort, but she didn’t care. Wheels were wheels.
Inside the diner, the lunch crowd was starting to trickle in. Tina recognized the majority of the customers. She’d been around long enough to know who they were and what they wanted. Only one customer was a stranger—a goth kid draped in black. The way he kept staring at her creeped her out. When she went to take his order, she said, “Do I know you?”
The kid looked up at her. “No, but I know you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re that girl,” he said, eyes locked on her tattoo. “That girl who almost got herself killed at that hotel all those years back.”
Tina snapped her gum. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.” The kid lowered his voice to a whisper. “I won’t tell anyone you’re Samantha Boyd.”
When her shift was through, Tina went straight to the library and its bank of outdated computers. Sitting among the elderly and Internet-deprived, she Googled the name Samantha Boyd.
They didn’t look so alike that they could be mistaken for twins. She was a bit thinner than Samantha, and their eyes weren’t quite the same. But the resemblance was there. It could be even stronger if Tina made her hair as dark as that goth kid’s.
She thought of Joe again. It couldn’t be helped. A search of his name brought up the same picture that had been printed everywhere after the Pine Cottage murders. And wherever Joe’s picture appeared, one of that girl always followed.
Quincy Carpenter. The survivor.
Tina stared at Quincy’s picture. Then at Joe’s. Then back to Samantha Boyd, her dark-haired doppelgänger.
In the back of her brain, something clicked. A plan.
NINE YEARS AND ELEVEN MONTHS AFTER PINE COTTAGE
Tina hauled her knapsack from the trunk of her Escort, assuring herself that she could actually pull this off. She’d planned this for almost a year now. She’d done her homework. She’d memorized her lines.
She was ready.
With the knapsack thrown over her shoulder, Tina marched up the flagstone walkway and rang the doorbell. When a kind-eyed blonde opened it, Tina knew exactly who she was looking at.
“Lisa Milner?” she said. “It’s me, Samantha.”
“Samantha Boyd?” Lisa replied, surprise thickening her voice.
Tina nodded. “I prefer Sam.”
38.
I’m awake, only my eyes don’t know it yet. The lids refuse to lift no matter how much I contort my face. I try to raise my hands and force the eyelids open with a finger. I can’t. My hands are lead, resting in my lap.
“I know you can hear me,” Tina says. “Can you talk?”
“Yes.” The word can’t even qualify as a whisper. “What—”
It’s all I can manage. My thoughts are equally as weak. Snails plowing through a field of mud.
“It’ll wear off,” Tina says.
It already is. A little. Feeling creeps back into my body. Enough for me to know I’m sitting up, something strapped diagonally across my chest. A seat belt. I’m in a car.
Tina sits to my left. I feel her presence. I hear the leathery squeak of the steering wheel in her hands even though the car isn’t moving and the engine is silent. We’re parked.
I try to move, twisting against the seat belt.
“Why—”
“Relax,” Tina says. “Save your strength. You’re going to need it soon.”
I continue to writhe in the seat. I reach for the door handle. My heavy fingers merely claw at the air.
“You could have made this easy, Quinn,” Tina says. “Trust me, I wanted it to be easy. I wanted it to last a day. Two, tops. I show up, make nice, and then have you tell me everything you remember about Pine Cottage. In and out.”
My fingers finally connect with the door handle. Somehow I’m able to pull it. The door falls open and a rush of woodsy October air hits my face. I lean toward it, trying to roll myself out the door, but the seat belt stops me. My hazy mind forgot about it. Not that it matters. Even if I was free of both seat belt and car, there’s no way I could escape. Not with most of my body feeling like marble.
“Whoa there,” Tina says as she pulls me back into the seat. When she reaches across my lap to close the door, I swat at her arm. The blows are so weak I might as well be petting her.
“This doesn’t need to be hard, babe,” she says. “I just need the truth. What do you remember about Pine Cottage?”
“Nothing,” I say, my tongue loosening. I’m even able to speak a full sentence. “I don’t remember anything.”
“You keep saying that. But I just can’t believe you. Lisa remembered everything. It was in her book. Sam did too. She told that interviewer all about it.”
My mind continues to pick up speed. My mouth follows suit. “How long have you pretended to be her?”
“Not long. A month or so. Only once I realized I could get away with it.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed to know how much you knew, Quinn,” she says. “After all this time, I had to know. But I needed help. And since I knew you and Lisa wouldn’t otherwise give me the fucking time of day, I pretended to be Sam. I knew it was risky and that it might not work. But I also knew it would get your attention. Especially Lisa. She did everything she could to help me find out more about Pine Cottage. I told her it would help you. I said getting you to remember would aid the healing process. She bought it for a few days before she started having second thoughts.”
“But you kept at it,” I say. “You called my mother.”
Tina doesn’t sound surprised that I know this. “Yeah, once I realized Lisa wasn’t going to do it. Then she kicked me out.”
“Because she found out who you really are,” I say, all this talking giving me strength. Energy stirs within my body. My hands are lighter. So are my legs. I can speak without thinking about it.
“She found my driver’s license. Did some digging.”
“Is that why you killed her?”
Tina pounds the steering wheel so hard the whole car shudders. “I didn’t kill her, Quincy! I liked her, for God’s sake. I felt like shit when she learned the truth.”
“But you came to me anyway.”
“I almost didn’t. It didn’t seem like the best idea.” A laugh bursts out of her, inappropriate and thick with irony. “Turns out I was right.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Information.”
“About what?”
“Joe Hannen,” Tina says.
The name is a lightning strike, zapping me awake. My eyes flicker open, pink-orange light catching in my lashes. Sunset. A strip of dying light crosses over the dashboard, collecting and reflecting off something Tina has placed there.
A knife. The one from my kitchen.
“Go ahead and try to grab it,” Tina warns. “I guarantee I’m faster.”
I lift my gaze from the knife to the windshield above it, dirty with wiper streaks and splotches left by wet leaves. Through the grime, I see trees, a gravel drive, a run-down cabin
with cracked windows flanking a moss-flecked door.
“No,” I say, clenching my eyes shut again. “No, no, no.”
I keep saying it, hoping enough repetitions will make it not true. That it’s just a nightmare I’ll soon wake from.
But it’s no nightmare. It’s real. I know it as soon as I reopen my eyes.
Tina has brought me back to Pine Cottage.
39.
Time hasn’t been kind to the place, which sags under the weight of decay and neglect. It looks less like a building than something foul that’s emerged from the forest floor. A fungus. A poison. Leaves blanket the roof and surround the fieldstone chimney, which rises jaggedly like a rotten tooth. The cabin’s exterior, weathered to a dull gray, is pockmarked with moss and dying plant sprouts that curl from nooks in the wood. Although the sign still hangs over the door, one of its nails has rusted away, slanting the words.
“I’m not going in there!” Hysteria colors my every word, which pop out in panicked squeaks. “You can’t make me go in there!”
“You don’t have to,” Tina says, much calmer than I. “Just tell me the truth.”
“I already told you what I know!”
She turns to me, elbow resting on the steering wheel. “Quinn, no one believes you can’t remember anything. I read that transcript. Those cops think you’re lying.”
“Coop believes me,” I say.
“Only because he wanted to fuck you.”
“Please believe me when I say I don’t remember anything,” I beg. “I swear to God, I don’t.”
