When Grant stood up, Lena tried to focus on the present, even though she was pretty sure she’d hit the booze a little too hard back at the house.
She weakly grabbed Grant’s hand, trying to pull it toward the fire, but she felt leaden and powerless.
With his free hand, Grant grabbed a handful of her hair and threw her away from the fire. She skidded across the dewy grass, suddenly afraid, trying to stand up. If she could stand up, she’d take off running. Didn’t know or care where. Coming here had been a mistake. Even if Lucas was here, she now felt certain Grant had done something to him. If she could just stand up.
Edward leaped toward Grant but he backed up, turned around, and was suddenly gone.
She envied him. That was supposed to be her taking off into the night. Now they were trapped here and Grant was the one able to go out into the world and spread whatever toxicity had bloomed within him.
Lena tried to pull herself up into a sitting position but couldn’t even manage to do that.
“Hey,” she said softly, not feeling like she could raise her voice above a certain level. “I don’t feel so good.”
Now she thought maybe even her eyes were fucking with her because it looked like Shawn was lying on the ground beside the fire and Edward was nowhere to be seen.
She pulled herself onto all fours. The house had to have a landline, at least. Maybe she could make it up there and call for help.
She looked toward the house. For a moment, it wasn’t the house at all. It was an old, moth-eaten tent with some camouflaging draped over it. Then the house came into wobbly focus, findable only because of the meager light shining through the sliding doors.
Her brain was a jumbled mess. Who was she going to call help for? At first she thought she needed to call about Grant. She’d failed at her duties and he’d run off to god knows where to do god knows what but now she thought maybe she wasn’t doing so hot either and also . . . something else. Something about Lucas maybe?
If she made it to a phone she wasn’t sure if she should call an ambulance or the cops.
Then it felt like the night entered her head and everything went black.
FIFTEEN
Edward half expected Grant to lunge at him to get to Shawn, then Lena grabbed his hand and tried to tug him toward the fire. Grant forcefully shoved her away and Edward felt his anger rise.
“Not cool, dude,” he said, but Grant was already running away.
He thought about following him before deciding there wasn’t really a point. Years of smoking hadn’t been great to his lungs and he still felt like he hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in about five years. Besides, how seriously did he want to take that Debbie shit? He thought that what Grant probably needed more than anything was attention. By running after him like some kind of panicked protector, he’d just be giving him what he wanted.
Edward turned to Shawn. “What do you think?” He was going to conclude with “Should we go after him?” but Shawn wasn’t listening. He lay limply beside the fire.
“Fucking hell,” Edward said.
He bent and grabbed Shawn around the ankles, pulling him a more comfortable distance from the fire.
Then he turned toward Lena, who he’d last seen crawling toward the house.
“Lena!” He’d lost her in the darkness.
He began walking in her general direction, already suspecting what had happened. One couldn’t exist in the club scene for as long as he had without getting slipped something or taking a bad hit. The heaviness in his body was not just from fatigue and overindulgence. The farther he moved away from the fire, the hotter he felt, sweat dampening his hair and his t-shirt. Whatever was happening was not good. He needed to get to a phone and call an ambulance. He had no idea what Grant could have dosed them with and it frightened him to think Grant might not know either. It was probably something he’d swiped from the clinic. Edward had seen too many people dragged out of clubs and stadiums, many of them never even making it to the hospital, for him to not panic about this.
He tried to move quickly but it wasn’t possible. The faster he tried to move, the more it felt like his body was fighting him.
Getting close to the pool, he wondered if it would help to revive him if he threw himself in.
No, he thought, that’s a terrible idea. You’d probably end up drowning. And, wait, had there even been any water in the pool? It was July. Why wasn’t there any water in the pool?
Then his legs simply stopped working.
His thoughts went crazily back to that night twenty-five years ago, Shawn taking his first dose of shrooms and obsessing on his legs the entire time.
Then he had an even crazier thought. What if that was what Grant had slipped them? What if he’d somehow obtained and hung on to those mushrooms from that long ago summer? Would they simply turn to dust or would their toxicity increase, becoming almost lethal? What would that do to a person?
He dropped to his knees and imagined an executioner hovering above him, ready to lower the axe or the sword. Then he glanced at the blue of the pool before his eyelids grew too heavy and he felt himself freefalling onto the dewy grass.
This, he thought. This is what it feels like to stop.
SIXTEEN
Consciousness slowly came back to Shawn. He tried to stretch but felt paralyzed. He let his chin fall to his chest and quickly surveyed his body. Not paralyzed. Bound by thick ropes. Things just kept getting worse.
He glanced up to see Grant sitting naked in a folding chair, his legs crossed, glancing nervously around the room. A chubby man in a woman’s wig and a dress sat next to him. Shawn searched for ropes binding this other person. He didn’t see any, but the guy was sitting real weird and Shawn tried to figure out what wasn’t right about him.
Shawn lowered his head again before glancing up and around. He didn’t want Grant knowing he was conscious. As he thought, the others were around him, also bound. Still no sign of Lexi. He didn’t know if he was sad or grateful she wasn’t there. He now found himself hoping the note and the departure were a hundred percent authentic. If so, it meant she’d gotten out. If the note was somehow a fake and she hadn’t really left but wasn’t here . . . he didn’t want to think about what had happened to her.
He needed to think about what he was going to do. Presumably, he and the others had been bound by Grant. Probably in a hurry to finish the task before any of them could come to. Assuming Grant’s story about him being institutionalized was true, Shawn couldn’t imagine he’d had a lot of time to study knot tying. Even if he could have researched it, Shawn didn’t imagine people in mental health facilities were allowed to play with rope. Between the three of them—four, if you counted the guy in the wig, who wasn’t even restrained—one of them would probably be able to get out.
Unless they didn’t have time to get out.
What was Grant’s plan for them?
Did he plan to hurt them?
Kill them?
It just seemed ludicrous to Shawn. Of course, the whole day had seemed progressively ludicrous.
He again glanced at Grant, still looking wild-eyed around the room.
Where were they?
It seemed like some kind of basement.
He stored the mental image of Grant and picked it apart with his eyes closed.
He hadn’t seen any kind of weapon.
Maybe that was a temporary relief.
Grant had already drugged them though, so Shawn was pretty sure their well-being wasn’t at the top of his list of priorities.
One thing was certain: escape needed to be at the top of their list of priorities. Not Grant’s well-being. They needed to get away. Deal with Grant later. Or, better yet, let the police deal with Grant.
He glanced back up at the man in the wig. Shawn knew why he was sitting so weird. The realization sent a spear of terror through him.
“You fucking piece of shit.”
It sounded like Lena was awake.
SEVENTEEN
&nb
sp; Grant sprung out of the chair. Lena found her eyes drawn to his dangling cock and thought it looked like he was semi-erect.
“Guys,” he said, gesturing to the man in the wig to his left, “I want you to meet Debbie.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Shawn said. “That’s a man in a wig, Grant. And what the hell have you done to him?”
Not just any man, Lena thought.
“Lucas?” she asked.
The man’s eyes lit up and her heart sank a little as she saw the complete lack of recognition in his eyes. Not that she would have recognized him if she’d passed him on the street. He was, after all, twenty-five years older and hadn’t aged well. The beard was gone. With the wig, she couldn’t tell how much of his hair was gone. He’d put on at least a hundred pounds over the years. And Shawn was right. Grant—or somebody—had done something horrible to him. His appendages were purple and twisted and lumpy, his arms hanging limply at his sides, his legs thrown out at odd angles.
“Do you know what’s going on?” he asked.
“Silence, Debbie!” Grant shouted.
“I’m not Debbie! What the fuck are you talking about? Who’s Debbie?”
Grant clutched his head and turned in circles.
“No, no, no, no . . . you’re right. You’re not Debbie. Debbie is in me. You put her there.”
Grant snatched the wig from Lucas’s head and flung it to the floor.
“You don’t remember, do you?” Lena asked.
“Lady, I don’t . . . I’ve met a lot of people in my life, okay? This guy just broke in and he won’t tell me what he wants and I have to go pick up my kids tomorrow and I just . . .” Lucas was blubbering now. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt, okay? I keep telling him he can take whatever he wants and get out but he . . . I don’t know what he wants. Do you know what he wants? Did Natalie put you up to this?”
Lena looked at Grant, still standing with his hands clutching his head.
“I want to put Debbie back in him. That’s where she belongs. We get Debbie back in him and then . . . take care of it.”
Lucas swiveled his head around his shoulders and jerked in the chair, the effort turning his face bright red with pain. “What the fuck is he talking about?”
“You don’t remember us, do you? You don’t remember fucking me.”
Lucas stopped his fit and tried to study her.
“Look,” he said. “I had a pretty wild youth, okay? I never stayed any place too long and I fucked a lot of girls. I’m not proud of the way I acted back then and I’d like to think I’ve changed. I . . . I’m sorry if I hurt you. What’s your name?”
“Lena,” she said. “It used to be Lena Hurst when you knew me.”
She could see him searching his memory.
“Lena . . .” he said. “From here?”
She nodded slowly.
He looked around at the others. “I knew all of you? We partied, right? I’m sorry if I don’t remember your names. What do you want? Money?”
“This isn’t about that,” Grant said. “This isn’t memory lane. This is about me and you and Debbie.”
“Then why are they here,” Lucas said. “Let them go and we can settle this somehow. I can get you help.” He gestured toward Edward. “That guy needs help right now, I’m telling you.”
Lena leaned as far forward as she could, looked around Shawn, who now also looked to his left.
“Edward?” Lena said.
“Edward!” Shawn said loudly. “Wake up!”
“Grant,” Lena said. “You need to do something. He doesn’t look right.”
Grant groaned in frustration, moved across the floor, grabbed the back of Edward’s chair, and dragged him out of sight.
Lena could only crane her head so far. She heard Shawn grunt as he frantically fought against his ropes. Lucas breathed shallow, ragged breaths.
Grant again came back to his place in front of them. “There. All taken care of.”
Lena said, “I meant you should probably get some sort of medical attention or something.”
“I said it’s all taken care of,” Grant said.
“If he dies,” Shawn said, “it’s on your hands.”
“We’re all going to die. You know that. It’s out of anyone’s hands.”
“Grant,” Lena said, “think about what you’re doing.”
“I’ve had to think about it long enough. And I’ve had to live with it.”
“You’re sick,” Lena said. “You need help. We all want to help you.”
Grant moved close to Lena, crouched down in front of her, and placed his hands on her thighs.
“Have you ever heard of someone staging his own intervention?” he said.
Lena was silent.
“Have you?”
“No,” she said.
“That’s what I thought. Me either. This is supposed to be an exorcism . . . for all of us. I’m not the only one who needs help.”
Grant didn’t move away. He stayed where he was, looking into her eyes as though prowling every low point she’d ever sunk to. It was like he’d been there. Like he knew.
Then he said softly, “We all know there’s only one way to stop the pain.”
“This is not Grant I’m talking to,” she said. “It’s Debbie. Grant, if you’re in there, you need to listen to me. You need someone to hurt you. Or you need to hurt yourself. You know that’s how you keep Debbie under control.”
She watched Grant’s mouth twist under his beard. He finally lifted his hands off her thighs and placed them on her shoulders, shoving her chair back.
Lena lifted her head so it didn’t take the brunt of the force and braced herself for the loud clap of metal on concrete.
She didn’t know if the chair bent or folded slightly in on itself but, once she relaxed her muscles after the impact, she felt a bit of slack in the ropes.
EIGHTEEN
Grant smashed his fist into his face, the sound sickening Shawn. Grant bent forward, blood dripping from his nose. Part of Shawn wanted to yell at Grant to stop but what if it were true? He doubted there was a demon named Debbie occupying Grant but what if he really did have to hurt himself to get back to an even semi-reasonable state? If that worked, then maybe they could get him to untie them and they could get away. Get Edward some help. Get Grant some help.
So he decided to watch without saying anything.
Lena lay on her back, still, and Shawn hoped she wasn’t seriously hurt too.
Grant’s feet slapped across the floor as he ran headfirst into one of the concrete walls. He staggered back and dropped to the floor. He writhed and flopped around, becoming some kind of odd percussive instrument in the otherwise quiet room with the slapping of his flesh and the hollow bonk of his head.
No, Shawn wasn’t going to ask him to stop.
But he wasn’t going to encourage him either.
“What the fuck is happening!” Lucas shouted, his eyes wide with terror.
Unless Grant did return to some semblance of himself, the best thing that could happen would be for him to knock himself out. Give the others some time to try and work out of their ropes. Beyond the ropes, he supposed, it was possible they were locked inside wherever they were. If that were the case, there would have to be a key somewhere, since Grant was down here with them.
Grant was covered in blood and red blotches that would probably turn into bruises, blending into the existing canvas of older cuts and scratches and bruises. He choked himself and kicked his legs.
Lucas quivered in his chair, his face red, thinning hair sweat-plastered to his skull, practically foaming at the mouth.
And why shouldn’t he be? Shawn thought. He was the one who had everything to lose from this. He was the one who was the most in the dark about what was happening.
Shawn couldn’t keep watching Grant. His tolerance for violence was extremely low and he didn’t think one person could possibly impose this much on himself.
He shut his eyes and lowered his head
, but the sound of Grant throwing himself around the floor conjured images worse than actually watching.
He tried tuning out the sounds but it was impossible. They became more like a score to his thoughts that he let wander because anything was better than watching the horror show in front of him. He’d been good at losing himself to his thoughts for as long as he could remember. It helped him dial down the volume of his surroundings. It was one of the reasons he had written in high school. He grew up in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and, while many would see that as a symbol of wide-open freedom, to him, it was a prison. Coming home to a sad, depressed mother, an alcoholic, abusive father, and two older sisters who were, to be perfectly blunt, basically sociopaths. Hard to fault them, given their role models. So, early on, Shawn would lose himself to his mind. Later, once he and his friends had cars, he could escape. And when he left for college, he never went back.
What his brain now seized upon was the car accident. He’d always thought of it as just that—an accident. For a while after, he would wonder about it, but Grant wasn’t really around to ask and, eventually, Shawn just forgot about it. Wrote it off to mechanical failure.
He’d been sitting in the front passenger seat. The radio wasn’t on, like they were bored with everything or couldn’t be bothered to try and find something they all agreed on.
Grant’s old car cruised down one of the country roads near Shawn’s house. Grant hadn’t seemed distressed or anything. There weren’t any other cars on the road. His car was suddenly on the shoulder and everyone in the car was screaming “Grant!” and then he was cutting the wheel and sailing driver’s side first into a tree.
Thankfully, the tree wasn’t larger and the car cut it in half but the impact was still enough to shatter most of the windows and throw them around the car. Everyone except Grant had been wearing a seatbelt.
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