Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

Thunder rumbles in the distance, shaking the common room slightly.

"Sweet," Lauren says, rubbing her hands together. "We almost never get thunderstorms on the island."

I stare blankly at the fire, lost in the flames. I feel like it's cleansing my brain, clearing it from everything I saw today. If I had enough strength to put the incident with the cougar and the mycelia inside me away into a box and wrap it up, never to look at it again, I would.

But I don't have any strength left. I lay on that forest floor for quite a long time until I decided there was only one thing left for me to do. I could try and find the logging road and continue my journey, but I started to worry that there would be no help when I got there. What if the camp was empty because of the storm? What if there are people, but they take one look at me and think I'm crazy, only to bring me right back to Madrona?

What if I can never truly leave?

So I walked toward the direction of the wind, where I knew it would be strongest coming off the water, and once I found the shore, I followed it as it undulated around the inlet, waves crashing against the rocks, and I ended up at the lodge.

I went straight to my room, had a shower, spent an hour trying to throw up, then brushed my teeth twenty times and swished a whole bottle of mouthwash. Then I knocked on Justin's door, because I knew he had vodka, and had a couple of shots of that, much to his concern.

Now, I'm kind of drunk, definitely out of it, and terribly scared. Even though I'm surrounded by friends as they laugh and drink hot chocolate or wine by the box, I feel unmoored and distanced.

And, quite frankly, disgusted. I avoided looking at my vomit when I left the woods, so I have no idea if the mycelia were real or not, and the front of my jacket showed nothing but a stain. And I have no clue if the cougar was really there or if the vision was something real, but I don't think it matters.

I think what I saw is the heart of the matter. The cougar was dying, yes, but it also seemed fine. Same goes for the bears. The wolf was half-dead. The baby goat…I don't even know. But Madrona isn't just doing experiments with fungi on their livestock. They're doing it to the wild animals. At first, I thought perhaps the wildlife was eating the Amanita excandesco , but I don't think that's the case. I don't think any of this is a result of eating mushrooms. I think Everly and Michael have been purposely capturing the creatures and using them in their experiments, then turning them out when they don't work out.

Or maybe they are working. Maybe the animals are fitted with cameras; maybe they're monitoring their health when they release them back into the wild.

I doubt it though. I feel like the animals are experiments, drug trials and testing gone wrong, and they are tossed aside, just like they seem to do with everyone else.

"Sydney?" Lauren says, waving a hand in front of my face. "Hello?"

I'm about to answer when suddenly the lights go out.

Someone shrieks.

"Power's out!" Munawar says, getting to his feet and sounding panicked.

"But we're on solar with generators," Rav points out. "Our power can't go out until someone turns it off."

"Someone turned it off," I say blankly. "This has happened before. They're diverting all their power elsewhere."

The lab.

"Alright, well, time to get all our flashlights and candles lit," Lauren says. "Keep the fire going too."

"Yes, boss," Munawar says.

"Come on," Lauren says, pulling me to my feet. "I'm not letting you wander off anymore, and I'm certainly not letting you go to bed in the dark."

I haven't said much tonight. I think Lauren thinks I'm mad at her for what she said about Kincaid, but that's not the case at all. I should thank her for pushing me in the right direction, to remind me to keep my guard up about him, even though all I want is to let it down.

We go up the stairs to my room, and she takes my flashlight out of the drawer, which I've already left on a few times by accident, the batteries too weak now to work properly. Then she takes out a candle and lights it, plus another one on top of my dresser.

"You going to be okay?" she asks me as I sit on the edge of my bed, the smoke from the match wafting across the room.

"Are you tucking me in?"

"No," she says with a wink. "But I'm going to take advantage of having the power out." She wags her brows suggestively, and I know that Rav is on her agenda again.

I also think she wants me to stay put and not go looking for Kincaid. I don't blame her for that. I don't even know what I would say to him. I've said so much to him already, and he always has an answer.

It's in your head , he'll say.

The wild animals I know he's seen.

He probably knows exactly why they are that way.

But me, throwing up mycelia?

Me, seeing the secret lab through the cougar's eyes?

He'll just tell me it's all in my head.

And maybe it is.

Maybe everything is truly in my head.

But I trust myself to figure it all out before he does.

"Take it easy tonight, okay?" Lauren says as she walks to my door. "You've looked better."

"Thanks," I say sarcastically.

She sticks her tongue out at me, but in that last second before the door closes, I see the gravity in her expression, how much she truly worries.

Leaving her behind will be hard.

But it's necessary.

I sit on the side of the bed for a while, watching the candles flicker, my thoughts going nowhere and thinking everything. Then I decide to pick up my diary, flipping through the entries, of which I only remembered to write in every couple of days. Everything I thought and felt is recorded, and reading it reminds me that if anyone were to find this, they would only think I'm crazy. This reads like the rantings of a lunatic, not someone to be taken seriously.

Maybe even I shouldn't take myself seriously.

Still, I pick up my pencil and start writing down everything that happened today, forcing myself to relive it, forcing me to record every detail. I fill pages of it.

Finally, after what feels like hours, I get to my feet and grab the candle, walking it over to the mirror, wanting a good look at myself.

Woof. Lauren wasn't lying when she said I've looked better. My face is as pale as a ghost, purple bags under my eyes, my lips cracked and dry. I stand there, staring at myself, the flickering candles creating light and shadows to dance on my face.

They dance until my appearance changes.

My nails are long and black.

My hair brown.

Then it goes back to blonde again, and Kincaid appears behind me, hands on my shoulders.

I glance down. My shoulders are bare. He's not here.

And when I lift my head again to look in the mirror, there's no one there.

I'm alone, dressed as I was before, my appearance the same as it ever was.

I reach up and touch the tips of my hair just as a cold breeze blows at my back, snuffing out the candles in the room.

Plunging me into darkness.

I shriek and turn around, checking to see if I left the window open a crack.

But instead, I see a figure in my room.

Standing in the corner.

Wearing white.

Oh my god, no.

Not her, not again.

The girl's face is dark in the shadows of her long black hair that hangs to the side like a sheet.

Her neck is broken, at an angle.

It's Farida.

White eyes glow from the darkness, staring at me.

"What do you want?" I whisper. My body starts to tremble all over, my mouth tasting like pennies. Dread seizes my bones, paralyzing me with a sense of helplessness so acute that I might just pass out.

The girl doesn't say anything.

She just stares.

The air in the room thickens, feeling oppressive, filling with smoke from the snuffed candles. I feel like I can't breathe, like I'm suffocating.

Then she takes a step toward me.

A gasp chokes in my throat, and I drop the candle, wax spilling onto the floor.

She takes another step.

She's going to kill me , I think. She's jealous I'm alive, and she's going to kill me.

"Please," I plead. "Please don't hurt me, I'm not your enemy."

She pauses at that.

Then slowly tilts her head to the other side.

CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, goes the vertebrae in her neck, the awful sound filling the room.

I pinch my eyes shut, hoping that maybe she's not real, maybe it's in my head, maybe I can convince my brain to get rid of her. Make her disappear, poof.

I open my eyes.

Her face is inches away, eyes bugging out, mouth stretched impossibly wide in a silent scream.

Fuck!

My own scream chokes me, rattling in my throat.

I almost collapse to the floor.

Then the girl turns away from me, and I feel her arm as it brushes past mine. I feel it. Cold, so fucking cold. And I watch in terror as she walks toward my door. She opens it and looks back at me, her head still at a horrible angle.

She's trying to tell me something. Her eyes go back to normal, and they don't seem as scary anymore. I'm starting to see the real girl underneath.

She steps out into the hall. It's quiet except for the howling wind, and dark, with only the white emergency light on. The power must still be out.

Farida continues to stare at me, perhaps more expectantly than before.

She wants me to follow her.

My heart seizes up at the thought. The storm is still battering the lodge, rain pattering against the roof.

But I put one foot in front of the other.

She nods and keeps walking, going down the stairs.

And so I follow the dead girl once again.

We creep down the stairs and across the common room, where the fire is still roaring, but there isn't a soul in sight, and then she opens the door and steps outside.

I'm immediately met with lashings of rain, my hair flying around.

Farida's nightgown doesn't even move with the breeze. She turns and walks toward the lab.

Oh no.

I stop immediately, too fearful to go on.

But she turns around and gives me a look, one that brims with intensity, and keeps walking.

I have to follow.

I have to know.

I hurry after her, glancing around wildly, expecting to see someone.

But it's just us and the trees and the storm.

She walks to the door to the lab building and opens it, no key card needed.

I'm at her heels, scared to be inside but eager to be out of the storm. She walks down the middle of the learning lab, heading straight to the door at the end.

Just like before, she doesn't need a key card to open it, and she steps inside the stairwell.

Oh Jesus , I think, stepping in behind her until the door closes with a soft click. I stare down at the flickering light at the bottom of the narrow stairs. I'm no longer afraid of the dead girl. I am afraid of this place. The real lab.

"What if Everly is down there?" I whisper to the girl. "Michael?"

She doesn't say anything, just starts walking down the stairs.

Well, fuck. At first, I thought maybe this girl was trying to help me in some way or was trying to get me to help her.

Now I'm wondering if she's leading me into a trap.

I'm still paused at the top of the stairs, too afraid to keep going, when Farida finally looks up at me from the bottom, her hand on the door to the left, the room I've never been in. She raises her finger to her mouth, a strange sight with her head at such a terrible angle, and tells me to be quiet.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I start walking quietly down the stairs, feeling like I want to throw up all over again. Every molecule in my body is frozen in terror, the feeling so palpable that waves of goosebumps constantly wash over my skin.

I'm shaking as I reach the bottom of the stairs, and she turns the handle and opens the door.

The room is dim, with only a light in the corner.

It's an operating lab, just like the one I saw through the cougar's eyes.

There are three tables spread out in the middle, all of them empty. Machines beep softly all around us.

And in the corner of the room, where the single light is, is another table.

This one has a body on it.

Clayton.

He's lying there, strapped to the table. Various machines are hooked up to him: IVs and electrodes and oxygen snake in through his nose. Beside him is a ventilator that is on, the sound of the pump steady, but it isn't attached to him. There are A-fib paddles beside him too, as if he'd just died of cardiac arrest and someone tried to revive him.

I slowly step forward, fear a knot in my throat, and realize that he's not dead at all. His chest is rising slightly. The heart monitor shows a very slow and shallow pulse.

I come closer still, staring at him in horror as I realize that he was shot in the chest, a bloody bandage covering the area.

Even worse is when I look at his face.

His eyes are open, not blinking, staring at the ceiling.

At first, it doesn't look like anything has been done to his head, but then I see the staples along his hairline.

I turn around to look at the ghost, to ask her what I should do.

But the ghost is gone.

The door is closed.

It's just Clayton and me alone in the room.

Sydney , he says.

I gasp and spin around to see him staring at me.

You came , he says.

But his mouth isn't moving.

I can hear him in my head.

"What the fuck?" I breathe.

He attempts a smile, but it's crooked. His eyes start to water.

Suddenly, his face goes blank.

She's coming , he says. Hide.

"What?"

Hide!

I hear someone starting to thump down the stairs, and I look around wildly for a place to hide. Oh fuck, oh fuck.

Holy shit, what do I do?

I go behind the ventilator and crouch down. With the deep shadows away from the light, there's just enough coverage from it and the cloth-covered operating tray beside it.

I'm barely in position when the door beeps, and I have to freeze. I suck in my breath as I hear it open. Quick footsteps follow.

"And how are we doing, Clayton?" asks Everly as she steps closer to the table. Too close. Oh god, what if she can see me? She's only a foot away!

"Are we feeling more up for discussion?" Everly goes on. "Hmmm? Have you learned how to talk again?"

Clayton makes a rumbling noise, his breath wheezing.

"That's it. You can try. It will make things a lot easier for you if we can converse."

"Everly," Clayton whispers, his voice hoarse and faint.

"That's a good boy," she says cheerfully. "Do you know why you're back here, Clayton?"

"No."

"Do you know why we had to shoot you?"

He doesn't say anything but takes in a ragged breath. My brain is filled with the woosh woosh of my heart as I strain to hear him.

"Because you were a bad boy," Everly says. "You knew what would happen if you tried to escape. This is only your fault and no one else's."

Speaking of gaslighting.

"You can make it up to me though," she goes on. "You can speed up the process. I just want to ask you a few questions, and I want you to be truthful with me. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Clayton says after a moment.

"You died a second time," she says. "When you were shot out of that tree. Do you remember?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember dying this time?"

Silence.

So much silence that I fear she can hear my heart. I can barely breathe, and my muscles are starting to shake from holding the crouched position.

"Yes," he says.

"Tell me about it. Tell me what you saw. Tell me about death."

"She knows," he says.

I stiffen.

"Who knows?" Everly says sharply.

Please don't say me, please don't say me.

"Sydney," Clayton hisses. "She knows."

"What does she know? Do you know where she is? I was just in her room. I couldn't find her."

Oh my fucking god.

"I was in the tree, and she saw me get shot," he goes on. "She knows what you're doing to me."

Everly snorts. "She doesn't know shit. She never did. And we had such high hopes for her. But perhaps you'll be our star pupil, Clayton. You've already died twice, and we've used the mycelia to bring you back. That's never happened before."

"Fuck you."

She laughs. "See? Even your personality is starting to come alive. That means nothing was erased. This is a good thing, Clayton. You're doing a good, noble thing. You're sacrificing your lives for science, for the greater good. It's not enough that we can temporarily cure Alzheimer's. We can temporarily cure death."

My eyes widen at the truth of it all.

They're using their fungi to bring back the dead. Those animals in the woods weren't byproducts of the experiment; they were the whole point. That testing didn't go wrong…

It went right.

I gulp, dread sticking to my throat, then freeze, afraid that she heard me.

But the machines drone on, burying the sound.

"Of course, we had to make some adjustments," Everly goes on. "You weren't good enough before, but you are now. We made you better, Clayton. The mycelia can have a mind of their own sometimes, but it just takes some corralling to get them to behave the way we want them to."

Suddenly, her phone beeps, making me jump.

"I have to go," she says tersely. "Try not to go anywhere, okay?"

Then she hurries out of the room. I don't exhale, don't move, until I hear the door slam shut and the sound of her footsteps on the stairs fade.

I let out a whimper and then stagger to my feet, my muscles cramping. I hurry around to Clayton's bedside, staring at him in a different light.

He died.

He was dead.

Now, he's not.

"I'll get you out of here," I say to Clayton, trying to undo the straps that hold him down.

But he shakes his head slightly.

I'm not alive anymore, Sydney , he says inside my head. But you are. You need to get out of here, now, tonight, before you become like me.

"I can't leave you like this," I tell him.

You have to , he says sadly. Or you will die, I promise you this. Please go. She's going to come back any minute, and then you'll be strapped down beside me.

Panic starts to claw through my chest. He's right.

"Answer me something," I say quickly. "Does Kincaid know about this? Is he one of them?"

He stares at me and blinks. Yes.

My heart sinks.

Now, go. She's coming.

I swallow down my sorrow and fear and turn away from Clayton. I run through the lab to the door, opening it and expecting to see Everly on the other side. But it's empty. I quickly rush up the stairs, then through the learning lab. I run along the windows, knowing that no one can see in, especially at night, watching for the signs of flashlights in the storm, but there's nothing.

I open the door to the outside and start running.

Right to Kincaid's boat.