Last Girl Standing

by Lisa Jackson

  Zora tried the door, and it opened beneath her hand. She stepped in, but stopped when Delta didn’t follow.

  “I don’t want to bleed all over their house. Go on in. Find out what’s going on.”

  “I . . . smoked some dope. Do you think they’ll know?” Zora quavered.

  “God, Zora. Please . . . just get help.”

  Delta felt like crumpling down and crying. Her foot throbbed, but it was her heart that hurt the most.

  Zora tiptoed into the bowels of the house, and Delta limped to an outdoor chair. Her body was buzzing, and she was aware of time passing in a visceral way. Her fear grew as a real crisis loomed. Was Tanner okay? Why had he done that? It was like he’d lifted his middle finger at all of them.

  “Delta.”

  She gasped in surprise when the voice sounded from the darkness.

  Ellie O’Brien emerged into the squares of light blasting from the house onto the patio. She was wet and shaking uncontrollably.

  Delta immediately felt a surge of rage. “You jumped in the water, too!”

  “Where is everybody?”

  “What happened down there? Why did you do that?” Delta asked at the same time. “You got out? Where’s Tanner? And the rest of them.”

  “They went down the rapids. I . . . pulled myself out before that. Miss Billings helped me. Freddie jumped in, though, and he went down the rapids. Bailey was running after Carmen, and she slipped . . .”

  “What? It’s freaking dark,” Delta yelled. “McCrae said to call the police.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. Do you think that’s where Coach Sutton is? At Grimm’s Pond? Waiting for them?”

  Grimm’s Pond. Delta thought of the deceptively calm waters after the rapids.

  “Is that blood?” Ellie asked. Between words, her teeth chattered.

  “Go inside and warm up.”

  “What happened to your foot?”

  What do you care? “I cut it.” Delta’s responses were shorter and shorter. If she didn’t get answers soon, she would start screaming and never be able to stop.

  ‘Where’s Amanda?”

  “I don’t know! Zora’s inside, trying to find out. I think they’re all gone. Probably at Grimm’s Pond. Oh, God . . . oh, God . . .”

  “Coach has a cell phone. He’s bound to be calling someone.”

  At that moment, the phone inside the Forsythe home began ringing. “Get . . . get that,” Delta stuttered, but Ellie was already running inside. Her clothes were stuck to her, and her hair was lank and wet. Like Zora, she disappeared, and then the ringing stopped. Delta’s ears roared in the silence that followed. She couldn’t think.

  She held her breath, heart pounding. It was all a bad dream. Had to be.

  Nothing really terrible was going to happen. It couldn’t. Terrible things happened to other people, not the Five Firsts and not their friends.

  Delta heard a desperate shriek from inside the house, and her blood chilled. Zora. What?

  Now Zora was screaming and crying, and Delta stumbled to the door, uncaring about the blood smearing on the floor or the pain as she stepped inside, her heart nearly shattering her rib cage. She staggered forward through the house. Zora was clinging to a stunned and frozen Ellie, who was holding the Forsythes’ handheld receiver to the landline at the end of her limp arm.

  “What?” Delta cried. “What?”

  The receiver slipped from Ellie’s hand.

  “Is it Tanner?” Delta shrieked. “It’s Tanner? Oh, God! God!”

  “It’s Carmen. Amanda said . . .” Ellie broke off, gulped.

  “What?”

  Zora’s crying intensified.

  “She’s dead. Drowned . . . ,” said Ellie.

  Zora’s crying turned to a shriek.

  Delta threw her hands over her ears. Discombobulated, she couldn’t adjust that quickly. “Tanner?”

  “The rest of them have been rescued. Freddie broke his leg in the rapids. I don’t know . . . some other stuff happened.”

  She should feel something. Anything . . . anything but this terrible numbness. “Where’s Bailey?”

  Ellie shook her head. “They’re all at Grimm’s Pond, I think.”

  And that’s when Delta heard the distant sirens. The police . . . rescue vehicles, approaching.

  * * *

  Bailey sat shivering, wrapped in a blanket on the rocky shore on the west side of Grimm’s Pond. Her father was beside her. A kaleidoscope of red and blue and white lights swirled around them. Quin was soaked to the skin from jumping in and saving Tanner and Freddie, who both were being pulled under. McCrae was there, hauling out Brad Sumpter, while Justin Penske staggered to the shore on his own power. Woody Deavers had tried to help McCrae, but ended up slamming into a rocky outcropping and breaking a few ribs. He’d managed to crawl to shore and was being taken to the hospital. Tanner, whose head was bleeding, and Freddie, whose leg had been turned at an unnatural angle with a jagged white end of bone sticking through that had made Bailey feel light-headed, were being looked at. More gurneys were being readied.

  On the shelf pathway, Bailey had raced past Miss Billings, who’d tried to stop her. She’d damn near jumped into the river at that point, but had gone on ahead, trying to find Carmen, as Miss Billings helped Ellie out of the water right before she’d reached the beginning of the rapids. Bailey had seen Carmen’s head and had hurried to reach her. One foot slipped, and she lost her balance and was thrown into the strong current, rushed away, tumbled through the rapids, not sure what was up and what was down, unable to help Carmen, and then unable to save herself. She gulped air between downward dunks and spins in the water. Her knee hit a rock with great force, and she was glad it wasn’t her head. She was spit out into Grimm’s Pond, grabbed by the undertow, and then suddenly hauled out of the water by Mr. Timmons, an unlikely rescuer. He and Anne Reade had still been at the house when McCrae and Amanda showed up, and the four of them had jumped in vehicles, and all raced to Grimm’s Pond.

  Bailey was waiting for her friend to reappear. When it didn’t happen, she prayed Miss Billings had grabbed Carmen like she’d grabbed Ellie. Neither of them had showed up at Grimm’s Pond yet, though Bailey kept an eagle eye on the end of the shelf path, where she expected them both to appear. Unless they went back to Amanda’s.

  She watched Tanner and Freddie being strapped onto two gurneys and lifted into the back of the ambulance. She glanced down at her knee, which was swollen and purple. Brad Sumpter had a trickle of blood rolling down his temple but otherwise seemed okay. Justin Penske was unscathed, though his freckles stood out on his white face.

  Coach Sutton had returned and was talking to the half-drowned classmates. Bailey could tell he was upset and worried and fighting anger. They’d done exactly what he’d ordered them not to and were lucky to be alive. Quin had splashed into the water to help her classmates out, and his uniform was soaked and sticking to his skin. McCrae, Amanda, Mr. Timmons, and Ms. Reade were double-checking with Sumpter and Penske and a couple of other guys who’d refused an ambulance, making sure they were all right.

  But where was Carmen? Where was she?

  Bailey prayed and prayed she was okay. She was a strong swimmer. She’d gone under during the rapids, but she’d popped up once; Bailey had seen her. She could just be navigating her way down.

  Miss Billings reached the group gathered at the pond and was also given a blanket. “Where’s Carmen? Is she all right?” she asked, stumbling into the shallow end of the pond where the shelf pathway ended. Her hair and shirt were soaked.

  Bailey’s heart nearly stopped, and everyone looked around at each other.

  “She isn’t here,” Amanda said. She was standing by the ambulance, trying to catch a ride with Tanner. The EMT denied her as he slammed the doors.

  McCrae demanded, “Did anyone see her?”

  “I did.” Counselor Billings looked stricken. “I tried to pull her out of the water, but she . . . let go. I fell in trying to get her out an
d hung onto a rock.” Her eyes desperately searched the group, focusing on Bailey. “She said, ‘Bailey’ . . .”

  Oh, God . . . oh, God . . . Carmen went after me!

  Bailey leaned over and lost the contents of her stomach. Quin came up to her and put a supporting hand on her back as she retched.

  Penske had been huddled in blankets on the rocky shore with the others, but now he stood up. “Where’s Delta?” he asked sharply.

  “They’re at the campsite, or maybe at the house by now,” Amanda said. “Maybe Carmen turned back and is with them.”

  “No.” Counselor Billings shook her head, one hand covering her mouth. She looked about to cry.

  “I’m going to the hospital,” Amanda announced. “Drive me back to my car?” she asked McCrae.

  “I can take you,” Mr. Timmons said. He looked to Ms. Reade. “Do you want to stay, or . . . ?”

  “I’ll come with you,” she said, and the three of them started to leave.

  “We’ll find her,” Quin assured Bailey.

  She nodded.

  And then someone shouted. One of the guys standing by the shore. He was pointing.

  Something was floating down the river into the pond.

  A body.

  “Oh, Jesus . . .” McCrae ran splashing into the water, Quin right behind him.

  Carmen.

  Bailey stood up as if electrified. No! She threw off the blanket and ran forward. Her knee collapsed as she slipped on the round stones beneath her bare feet, and she fell forward, scraping her hands.

  She’s all right. She’s all right.

  I saw something . . .

  No, she’s all right. She’s . . .

  McCrae got hold of Carmen’s arm and gently pulled her toward him before she could get sucked into the main body of the pond. Her skin was blue. Her eyes open.

  She’s okay . . . she’s really all right . . .

  “Bailey, get back,” her dad said, his voice raspy with emotion.

  “ No . . . no . . . no . . .”

  It was McCrae who got between Bailey and the body while Quin and Coach collected Carmen. Bailey tried to get around him, using all her force to scramble away from McCrae’s grip.

  “She’s gone, Bailey,” he said. “She’s gone.”

  “No, no. That’s not true. She’s—”

  “She’s gone,” he said solemnly.

  Some rational part of her mind heard him, but she completely shut it down.

  I saw something . . .

  “What did you see?”

  “What?” Quin asked. He was beside her now, and she was shaking, quaking, and cold, so cold.

  “She saw something, Dad. Something she shouldn’t have. And it killed her.”

  He regarded her with real alarm. “Sweetheart, this was a tragic accident.”

  They were all looking at her now. Miss Billings’s face was drawn and ravaged. McCrae was assessing her as if she’d grown another head. Penske came her way, frowning. Coach Sutton looked like he wanted to say something, but he just ran his hand over his face.

  “I’m going to take you home,” Quin said.

  Later, much later, when she surfaced painfully from the numb horror of seeing her best friend’s lifeless form and staring eyes, Bailey pulled out her journal, a book she’d barely written two words in since she’d gotten it as a gift from her wayward mother at the beginning of the school year.

  What had Carmen said?

  I saw something . . . I saw them . . . they didn’t know I was there . . .

  She’d mentioned Tanner, too.

  Tanner was with . . .

  Bailey wrote his name in block letters—TANNER—and circled them. Fresh tears filled her eyes.

  “What did Tanner do?” Bailey asked aloud.

  Chapter 6

  Last day of school.

  Ellie looked at herself in the gilded princess mirror above her dresser, part of the furniture her parents had bought for her when she was six years old, the whole set of which she now fervently hated.

  But that was of little consequence now.

  She unzipped the makeup container with shaking fingers. It was empty save for the toilet-paper-wrapped pregnancy wand she’d peed on. She hadn’t had the courage to look at it and had nearly jumped out of her skin when the twins had rattled the bathroom door, yelling that they needed to go right now!

  She’d yelled right back, telling them to use the bathroom upstairs, and had quickly wrapped the wand in yards of toilet paper and shoved it in the makeup container she’d brought from her bedroom just for this purpose.

  Her bedroom door didn’t have a lock, so she’d shoved the extra dining room chair that had migrated to her room underneath the doorknob. Hopefully it would slow down the twins, or anyone else, long enough for her to have this one, single moment of privacy.

  Her hands trembled. Her period was late, and she was never late. Never.

  She’d gotten her wish. Not Tanner, but McCrae. She’d followed him and some of the other guys into the woods and chugged some vodka. She’d been offered a joint, but smoking anything sent her into coughing jags that doubled her over. McCrae was feeling no pain when she took his hand and led him a ways away, deeper into the woods. She kissed him, and he said something like, “I don’t think this is a good idea,” though he hadn’t resisted. He had, in fact, leaned into the kiss and parted her lips with his tongue. Ellie had French-kissed before, but this time it felt like a jolt to her senses. She’d made a vow to have sex with either Tanner or McCrae, but had only half-meant it. Still, she’d watched both of them with an eagle eye throughout that terrible day, kind of dreaming about having Tanner mostly. But Tanner got really wasted, and there were so many of the girls, especially the Five Firsts—God, how she hated that label!—watching him, trying to be close to him, just flat-out, fucking adoring him. She couldn’t be one of those girls.

  And then she’d seen McCrae’s washboard stomach, and something felt like it sprang loose inside her. Like she was melting. Okay. He wasn’t Tanner Stahd, but he was damn good-looking and was going places. Tanner was, too, obviously. He was going to be a doctor, maybe a surgeon, like his father. McCrae’s dad was a businessman and involved in real estate deals, and McCrae . . . Chris, she reminded herself. She couldn’t call him McCrae if they were, like, a couple. Anyway, she thought Chris was likely to follow his father into the business.

  McCrae had sobered up really fast, and by the time he’d come back from Grimm’s Pond, he’d been calm and in control. What they’d shared wasn’t even in the glint of a sideways look to her after the shock of Carmen’s death. He’d just made sure she and Delta and Zora had someone picking them up, or that they were emotionally stable enough to drive.

  She shivered and carefully unwrapped the wand.

  Mrs. Christopher McCrae. Oh, God, she wanted it.

  Please ...

  Only one pink line. She blinked. Looked again . . .

  Negative.

  Ellie plopped down on her bed, staring at the single pink line in consternation. Not pregnant.

  Well . . . shit.

  She should be jumping for joy. Delirious with relief. Instead, she was kind of crushed.

  “Ellie?”

  Quickly, she shoved the wand back into the makeup case and zipped it up. “What?” she demanded angrily. “Can’t I have any privacy?”

  “Well, hurry up. We want to take pictures.”

  Her mother sounded joyous. It was a big day. Graduation was tomorrow. And then it would all be over.

  Ellie shoved the makeup kit into the middle-sized suitcase of her set and locked it with its three-digit code, three zeros. She should have changed it when she got the set but never had. Now she didn’t have time, but she knew no one else would dig into her closet, and it didn’t matter anyway. She wasn’t pregnant. It had all been for nothing. Later, after graduation, she would get rid of the evidence.

  The picture taking took about fifteen minutes, and then Ellie was being driven to school by
Oliver. She hated being with him, so she huddled in the passenger seat and stared out the window like she did on any morning he drove her in.

  “Last day, huh?” he said.

  She didn’t respond.

  “How’s everybody doing now. Better?”

  Again, she didn’t respond, though this question appeared to be more from the heart. Since Carmen’s death and the others’ various injuries, the whole school had been in a state of shock. Certainly, the senior class had.

  Ellie thought back to that night. Coming home to Mom and Oliver. Mom bursting into tears when she saw Ellie’s damp, bedraggled form. She’d tried to convince herself, apparently, that her brainiac daughter hadn’t been one of those “dope-smoking degenerates,” as Oliver put it, that Ellie had been at work like she’d said when all the terrible things went down at the party. But it was clear by how Ellie had acted that her mother’s hope was unfounded. Carmen Proffitt’s death was a terrible tragedy, yet Ellie had sensed that the real tragedy for her mother and stepfather was that Ellie’d been any part of the debacle at all.

  But through all the grounding, and “talking to,” and general disappointment from her mother and Oliver, and the overall shock and horror of losing a classmate, Ellie had carried the memory of having sex with McCrae as a kind of talisman against misery. She would think back to those moments over and over again. He might hardly remember them, but she did. And yes, though there had been some discomfort in the feel of the grass and small sticks against her back as she and McCrae—Chris—rolled around on the ground for a while before he undid his jeans and she took the moment to pull hers down and kick them away.

  “Ellie . . . ,” he’d said, sounding way too sober. Sensing he was about to change his mind, she’d yanked her bathing suit bottoms off as well and pulled him down atop her.

  Unbelievable now. Especially with the events afterward. She’d been shocked when Tanner yelled he was going back in the water. And a bit rejected when McCrae, who’d hovered kind of near her after they’d returned to the party from their secret tryst, seeming torn about how to behave, had suddenly charged after Tanner along with the other guys. She hadn’t wanted to go back down to the beach, but very quickly she realized she’d be the last one left if she didn’t. She’d clambered down to the spit and stood on the shore awhile, her gaze searching out McCrae, but also Tanner, who’d turned out to be the real problem.