Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER 15

Mr. Lamont produces a revolver from his coat and points it directly at my chest. Whatever hope I was clinging to of a rescue, of getting someone to help us, bleeds out of me.

"Let's take a little walk," he says, unlocking the door with one hand while keeping the gun trained on me and Bezi with the other. He gestures for us to go outside. I hesitate.

"They might still be out there," I say. "Please, Mr. Lamont."

He motions again. "We don't need to worry about them. Move."

Bezi puts her uninjured hand on my back as I walk out the door and down the steps. Mr. Lamont follows close behind. As we walk past the lifeless body of the man in the owl mask, Mr. Lamont grunts. I stop and turn to him as he crouches and removes the mask from the dead man's body. I don't know what I expected to see under the mask, but it's definitely not a balding middle-aged man. The way he flung me around like I was nothing, the way he scaled the roof—it doesn't make sense.

"You have questions," Mr. Lamont says as he tucks the owl mask under his arm. "And I have answers, but we need to move into the Western Lodge first."

Mr. Lamont prods us forward, and we move toward the main lodge. From over my shoulder, there's a splash in the lake, like something heavy has been dropped into it. I glance back.

"Keep moving," Mr. Lamont says.

There's suddenly a flurry of footsteps, and Kyle comes racing down the trail.

"I was looking for you!" Kyle says. "I—" He registers Mr. Lamont and then the gun.

"It's a party," Mr. Lamont says in a flat, emotionless way.

Kyle lets his arms fall to his sides as his mouth forms a little O.

"Fall in line," Mr. Lamont orders.

Kyle raises his hands in front of him. "Please. Please don't hurt me."

Mr. Lamont flicks the gun, gesturing for Kyle to move. He stumbles over to me and stays behind me as we all go into the lodge single file. Mr. Lamont gestures to the couch, and I help Bezi take a seat while Kyle settles next to her. I go to sit down when the tip of my sneaker bumps up against something partially hidden under the couch. It's dark. I'm having trouble seeing, but as my eyes adjust, I realize it's a hand, clenched into a bloody fist, and on the wrist is a bright pink hair tie. I stumble back and fall hard onto the ground. From the floor, I have a clear view of Tasha's and Javier's bloodied faces. Their bodies lie tangled together under the couch.

A scream claws its way up my throat and erupts from behind my lips. My cries split the air, and Mr. Lamont delivers a swift kick to my leg.

"Get up," he growls.

I pull myself onto the couch, and I can feel the soft bulges of Tasha's and Javier's corpses through the thin fabric. Bezi leans against me, sobbing. The orange glow from the fireplace washes the room in a gauzy light, and Mr. Lamont stands backlit by the flames, like a monster emerging from the depths of hell.

"You killed them," I say through a blur of tears. "You're with those people from the woods."

Mr. Lamont narrows his eyes at me. "No. Not with them." He keeps the gun trained on me as he speaks. "Do you know where you are right now?"

I exchange glances with Kyle. "I don't know what you mean," I say.

"Of course you don't," Mr. Lamont says dismissively. "This particular piece of land has been used for generations by those Owl Society folks."

Mr. Lamont points the gun at me and clenches his jaw, then smiles.

"That's what they call themselves," Mr. Lamont says. "They've always been here. They stole this land from the folks who were here before. Been conducting their meetings and rituals in the forest around here ever since. Seeding the land with blood and giving the flesh over to the lake."

My mind goes in circles. "The man in the owl mask told me."

Mr. Lamont tilts his head. "Did he now?" He seems irritated. "He was a regular chatty Cathy with you, huh? I couldn't get him to tell me a damn thing. Did he tell you about the ritual too?" He drags his hand across his gut in the same spot where Porter was sliced open. "Spill the blood on the ground, dump the corpse in the lake, recite the words. Not necessarily in that order." He shakes his head and toes at the floor with the tip of his boot. "They could have anything they want, but the price—the price always has to be paid in blood and in flesh."

"Did you know my mom's boyfriend sent me up here to die?" I asked angrily.

"Of course," he says like it should be obvious. "Sent you up here to be sacrificed. But they wouldn't let it happen." He huffs. "Who does he think he is? He hasn't done the work or put in the time. He hasn't given everything he has to—" He stops short, pursing his lips and grunting angrily. "Doesn't matter now."

"But you're not with them? You're not with the Owl Society?" I ask, setting aside the seething hatred I have for Rob to deal with what's in front of me right at this moment. "Why are you holding us at gunpoint?"

Mr. Lamont looks to each of us as if he's weighing how much he wants to say. He finally sighs and continues but keeps the gun pointed at me. "The Owl Society has run their dubious little social club from the Mirror Lake area for generations. But by the sixties, they got greedy. Stopped letting new folks into the society so they could hold on to the power for themselves. Then one of their leaders up and died, and everybody who was left took what they wanted and left. A few of them sold off the land to turn a quick profit. My father stepped in and bought it but, being the visionary he was, he saw an opportunity." Mr. Lamont shifts the gun from one hand to the other. "My father and the remaining members of the Owl Society made a deal. My daddy would start a camp, bring up vulnerable kids, kids nobody cared about. Kind of like you, Charity."

I'm so taken aback by his abrupt departure from the story that I gasp.

"Your mama doesn't take good care of you, does she?" Mr. Lamont asks. "Don't really call to check up on you. I think that's what Rob saw in you—a girl whose own mama doesn't even care about her. Hell, you could turn up missing and maybe she wouldn't even notice, isn't that right, Final Girl? Is that why you didn't think about calling her first? Because you know she won't care?"

I stare into the fire, and the tears spill down my cheeks. I hate everything he's saying because it's true.

"So my daddy sets up shop," Mr. Lamont continues like he's telling a bedtime story and not like he's spilling the most heinous details of this entire operation. "He builds the camp and lets the Owl Society pick off campers at will. Each body in the lake is a little bit like a toll you pay to get access to something you want, except this isn't a fairy tale. There's no three-wish limit. The only thing keeping them in check was how secretive they were. Too many missing folks would be too obvious." Mr. Lamont smiles coldly. "They kept the money coming and my father never asked questions. He was happy with cold hard cash, but he should have demanded that they share their secrets with him. He could have done so much more. He could have been so much more." His eyes are like voids as he continues rambling. "I went to their lodge out there in those woods. I watched them kill campers, hikers, anyone really. But their incantations weren't anything I recognized. I couldn't decipher them fully, so I did what I could and when the opportunity presented itself, I spilled enough blood to appease whatever ancient power demanded it, and what did I get? Nothing."

I scoot forward on the couch as Javier's call with his grandmother echoes in my head, along with the words of Alex and the gray-haired man. Everything suddenly clicks into place. "The killings at the camp in 1971."

Mr. Lamont's head snaps up, and he slaps his knee, smiling. "You're so good at your role, Charity. Final girls always figure it out, don't they?" He laughs. Actually laughs, and I want to throw up. "I was seventeen. I'd known about the Owl Society my whole life and I thought—well—I thought I could show them that I deserved to be among them. I cut down six people at the camp that summer. Six. Spilled their blood on the earth, fed their corpses to the lake, and said the words I could remember out loud."

Kyle sniffs, and only then do I realize he's crying a river of silent tears.

Mr. Lamont looks down at the ground. "It couldn't give me what I wanted, or maybe I didn't do it right."

"What did you want?" Kyle asks.

Mr. Lamont looks up at him. "My mama died when I was six. I think my daddy put her in that damn lake thinking he'd get something he wanted. All I wanted was to have her back."

Silence engulfs us for a long time before Mr. Lamont speaks again.

"It all went to shit after that," Mr. Lamont says. "The camp closed. The Owl Society members went underground, and I had to wait for my own father to die so that I could take over here. I never really got what I wanted, and neither did he." His voice sounds far away now, like he's remembering something. "Imagine my delight when those Hollywood folks came around asking if they could make a movie here. They didn't even know what happened in '71. They were just scouting for a location, and there I was. I let them shoot their little movie here on the grounds, on the condition that I could give some input. They loved my ideas—a masked killer who grows stronger with every kill!" He slaps his leg and grins. "You saw that freak with the mask. He probably asked for that power, that strength. And there I was, a kid hoping to bring his dead mama back from the grave." His gaze becomes steely again. "We all want something different."

There's a knock. Mr. Lamont smiles and backs up toward the door. He flips the lock and in walks Ms. Keane, a bandage wrapped around her head and carrying a machete a foot long. I jump up, and Mr. Lamont points the gun at me.

"Sit," he barks.

I don't. I stay standing as Ms. Keane nuzzles up to Mr. Lamont. He kisses her on the top of her head, and she locks the door.

"What is this?" Bezi asks.

"What does it look like?" Mr. Lamont asks. "My wife wants in on the fun. It's only right."

"I can't believe you," Kyle mumbles under his breath.

Ms. Keane marches up to him and smacks him so hard, a mist of spittle sprays from Kyle's lips.

"Shut up!" she screams in his face, gripping the handle of her weapon so hard that her knuckles pale. "You've been betraying us this whole time, you selfish little bastard! You dug up that bird and put it on the porch, hoping they'd get scared and leave." She balls her hand into a fist. "You had to hide the keys and cut the tires and I could barely get you to do it without you crying like a baby. You're so goddamn worthless!"

I turn to Kyle and watch as sweat cascades from his forehead, dampening the collar of his shirt. He cowers in front of Ms. Keane.

"You think I don't know that you were hiding out there when these two and that other little brat showed up to our house?" she says angrily. "I knew you were out there! Sneaking around! Betraying your family! You're pathetic!"

Kyle doesn't look at me.

I recall how he disappeared as Ms. Keane held us at gunpoint but he also saved us.

"You—you told me Tasha and Javi left in an ambulance," I stammer as all the terrible pieces start to fit together.

Ms. Keane looks back and forth between us, and a smirk spreads across her wrinkled face. "Oh, how fun. We haven't gotten to the part where you find out that he's our grandson."

"Kyle . . ." I can't even think of what to say. The betrayal is crushing.

He stands and moves behind his grandparents like the coward he is, and I look away from him.

"Time to get moving," Ms. Keane says. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a bundle of zip ties, tossing them to Kyle. "Tie them up."

Kyle doesn't hesitate. He takes the zip ties and restrains Bezi first and then comes to stand in front of me. He loops a zip tie around my wrists and pulls it tight.

"I thought we were friends," I say. "I thought you were helping us."

He looks down at the floor. "I—I was."

Ms. Keane shoves him out of the way and pushes me and Bezi toward the front door. "Shut up."

As she prods us forward, the tip of her weapon grazes my back. There's no chance I can get away from her without her slashing me. As we emerge from the lodge, there's a loud creak as the door to the boathouse yawns open. The blond woman Bezi and I tied up is stumbling out of the little wooden structure, her hair matted and crusty with blood.

She registers Mr. Lamont, and her eyes widen. "Y-you bastard!" she hisses.

Mr. Lamont raises his gun and fires a single shot. The snap echoes through the dark, and the woman collapses in a heap.

Bezi screams, and Ms. Keane shoves her so hard that she falls forward into the dirt. I shoulder-check Ms. Keane, and she stumbles back before charging at me with her machete raised in front of her. I throw my hands up, but Kyle steps between us.

"Grandma!" he shouts. "Just stop!"

"Don't tell me what to do," she snaps. "Not when you've been sneaking around helping these people out. They could have gotten away. We need them, and you risked all of that because of your bleeding heart." She spits on the ground at his feet.

A gurgling sound comes from the blond woman, but after a moment it stops, and she lies too still to be alive anymore.

Mr. Lamont tucks the gun into the waist of his pants and awkwardly shoves the dead woman back into the boathouse and shuts the door. Ms. Keane pushes me and Bezi toward the lake. When we reach the rocky shore, Ms. Keane kicks me in the back of my knee, and my legs fold under me. She does the same thing to Bezi, and soon we're leaning on each other, hands bound, as Mirror Lake's black waters lap against the dock.

Ms. Keane turns to Kyle and narrows her eyes at him. "Go get them."

Kyle skulks off toward the lodge as Mr. Lamont rejoins us and stares out over the water.

"The one in the tunnel," he says, glancing over his shoulder at Ms. Keane. "Did you handle it?"

She nods enthusiastically. "And the one with the arrow in his eye." She claps her hand down on my shoulder. "That was a real good thing you did, sweetie."

I shrug away from her. "So you've been watching us?" I ask, trying to work my wrists around, but the zip tie cuts into my skin with every movement.

"Of course," Mr. Lamont says. "The cameras came in handy. I did see that you found my little stash in the control center." He chuckles. "You can't fault me for wanting to keep a few mementos. It's funny how no one ever connects the dots. A camper goes missing, a hiker goes off the grid, even kids—people care about the kids least of all. And all the while, it was them—the glorious order of the owl—the Owl Society."

"We'll do better than they ever did," Ms. Keane says.

"What?" Bezi asks.

Mr. Lamont looks like he's about to answer when Kyle returns. He's got Tasha's lifeless body draped over his shoulder. Bezi turns her face away, and I bite my tongue so hard that it starts to bleed.

Kyle sets her down on the ground, then leaves, returning a few moments later with Javier's corpse. He lays him next to Tasha, then stands off to the side, his eyes downcast.

"Do it," Mr. Lamont says. "Feed the lake." He begins to chant something in a language I can't recognize. The words flow out of him like he's rehearsed it a million times. Ms. Keane and Kyle grab ahold of Tasha and carry her to the end of the pier, where they toss her body into the murky depths. They walk back and do the same thing to Javier. Mr. Lamont stumbles over the last recitation of the words, then stops and tilts his head back.

"You messed it up," Ms. Keane says angrily.

"Only that last part," Mr. Lamont says. "It still should have worked."

"You're saying it right?" Kyle asks.

Mr. Lamont shoots him a dagger of a glance. "I know what I'm doing! Maybe if they'd have just invited me to be one of them, I wouldn't have to get my information secondhand." He turns to Ms. Keane. "I think the words have to be spoken while the sacrifice is being performed, not after." He leans close to her. "We have these two. The ground is soaked in blood. The lake has been filled with bodies. We can sacrifice these two and be more powerful than any of the Owl Society members could have ever dreamed. We don't need to remake the world the way they wanted. It can just be me and you and whatever we want."

"What about me?" Kyle asks.

Mr. Lamont and Ms. Keane look at him like they've just remembered that he's even there.

"You didn't say anything about me," Kyle says.

"You'll get what's coming to you," Mr. Lamont says. "We have to be careful. Let me and your grandmother do this first; then we'll talk about you."

Kyle presses his lips together. "The ritual can give you anything you want?"

Mr. Lamont stares at him.

"I'd use it to get as far away from the two of you as I could," Kyle says.

Ms. Keane huffs. "Stupid boy."

"You're not stupid," I say, seeing an opportunity to appeal to whatever might be left of Kyle's humanity. "These people don't give a shit about you, and you don't have to do what they want."

Ms. Keane approaches me in a rush and hits me in the back of my head with the butt of the machete. Everything goes black for a moment, and then I'm lying on the rocky shore, watching as Ms. Keane and Kyle hold Bezi down. Mr. Lamont slips the owl mask over his head and bellows the incantation aloud. My vision blurs as I try to turn over, but I feel like I can't move. My body won't do what I want it to.

Ms. Keane hands Mr. Lamont something shiny—her machete.

Bezi screams.

Blood colors the rocks beneath her as I cry out in the dark. I reach for her, but she doesn't reach back. She lies on her back, her eyes wide and empty.

Mr. Lamont rears up, a shudder running through his body. He touches his exposed arms, opens and closes his hands.

"I did it," he whispers. "I did it! Put her body in the lake! Now!"

Suddenly, there are two quick pops, and Mr. Lamont staggers back, clutching his chest where a bloodstain blooms on his dingy white shirt. He falls back. His head and upper torso bob in the water at the lake's edge.

"No!" Ms. Keane screams as she rushes to Mr. Lamont's side. "No! Kyle! What did you do?" She cradles her husband's head, still covered by the owl mask.

Kyle approaches her, and there are two more pops. Ms. Keane's body splashes into the lake next to her husband.

I struggle to pull myself up to sitting, and I'm afraid to reach my bound hands up to touch my head because it feels like a piece of my skull might be missing. I shut my eyes as Kyle's footsteps move around behind me and splash into the lake water. I don't want to open my eyes. I don't want to see Bezi's body on the shore. I can't.

I groan and Kyle is suddenly there, pulling me up to standing. I still don't want to open my eyes. I lean against him.

"Oh, Kyle," I say through my tears. "Bezi. We gotta get help."

I have my cheek pressed against his chest as he mumbles something against my hair, but I can't quite make it out. When I pull back, keeping my eyes down to avoid seeing Bezi, something cold, something wet sticks to the skin at the side of my face. I lift my still-bound hands and paw at my cheek. When I pull my hands away, a scattering of white feathers sticks to my fingertips.

I look up. Kyle's face is cloaked by the soaking wet owl mask. He utters the incantation and, in one quick motion, draws Ms. Keane's machete across my abdomen.

The pain is white hot for a brief moment, and then there's nothing. No feeling as my insides spill out across the rocks. Kyle slips his arms around me and lifts me up.

I see the stars. My heart sputters in my chest.

Footsteps. Wooden beams creaking. My vision blinks on and off. On and off.

There is a splash, and my body is wrapped in a blanket of cold. I gasp, and the cold spills down my throat. I see Kyle standing at the end of the pier as I slip below the surface. The feathered owl mask looks ghostly through the rippling water. The cold is gone now. The pain too. It's just me and the inky waters of Mirror Lake.