Ashes, Ashes

13 - Survival Horror

The others rushed to see what Richard was yelling about, and I trailed behind them, not wanting to see it again but knowing I had to. I yanked a blanket from one of the beds on my way out, bundling it awkwardly in my arms. 

I waited outside, leaning against the wall and trying to focus on my breathing -- inhale, hold, exhale, nice and steady, keep it cool, don't puke again -- and listened to the sounds of shock and horror and disgust as the three of them cycled through them. 

"What the hell -- " 

"How -- " 

"What -- " 

Nobody could articulate a complete thought, and I could sympathize. The hangover had not relinquished its vice grip on my brain, and now I saw Liza's spread-eagle body and glistening intestines every time I closed my eyes. 

Dawn was pacing in the snow, back and forth like a trapped lioness, winding herself up into hysteria. Richard was fumbling with a cigarette, trying and failing to get it lit. 

"Should we, like...move her?" Abby asked, joining me in leaning against the wall. She laid her hands on her knees and bent double, her dark hair falling into her face. She looked like she might faint. "I don't know..what are we supposed to do? Logan, what do we do?"

Why was she asking me? I wasn't in charge here. I definitely didn't want to be. Somehow, though, sharing the horror helped to ease the weight of it, and I found that maybe I was ready to step up and take ownership of this awful thing after all. And nobody else was stepping up. 

"There's...there's no point trying to move...her," I said, and it sounded true when I said it; it sounded right. I tried to quiet that other voice, the one in the back of my head that was calling 911, the one that would be making that phone call forever, a perpetual loop of panic and regret and questioning. 

There just wasn't any time to be thinking about it now. I had to focus on the here-and-now. Laurel was dead, part of the past, and she had to stay there. 

"Let's just. Let's cover her up, and...block off the door, I guess, so no animals can get at her." 

Dawn made a desperate, low sound of horror, freezing in her tracks to cover her face. 

"Animals," Abby echoed, weakly. "Do you think that's what...like. Maybe she got mauled by a mountain lion or...something?" 

I hadn't thought that, but now that she said it, it did seem plausible. I tried to play through the scenario in my mind. There certainly were cougars and bears up here. Coyotes, too, but a coyote couldn't do...that. But a bear, maybe. An especially hungry, large animal might have been able to tear open her stomach and...

I swallowed hard. 

"Inside the bathroom?" Richard said, and his voice was rough and smokey, a jagged rasp. "You're telling me you think some big mountain lion followed her into the bathroom just to rip her up and leave her there for us to find?"

"Well what do you think happened, genius?" 

"Let's face the facts." He took a long drag from his cigarette. The cherry glowed. He held up a hand, ticking off points on his fingers. "Liza is dead, carved up like a Christmas turkey. We're missing an axe from the woodpile. Parker is mysteriously gone, along with the car and our cell phones." 

Dawn stopped in her tracks, growing tense as she turned to look at him. "And?"

"And, gee, I wonder if those three things are connected?" Richard's voice was laced with a savage irony. 

"Let's not jump to any conclusions," I said, more because Dawn looked like she was about to start throwing punches than because I thought Richard was wrong. 

What he was saying did make sense. Parker was missing, along with our only way to get out of here or get any help. It seemed more than a little suspicious. 

Suddenly, a memory from the night before popped into my head: That's not the way Laurel told that story. 

A shudder rolled through me. I felt the hair on my arms stand on end. Back up the mental tape. Play through a new scenario. 

Liza and Parker bump into each other. She confronts him about...what he and Richard had been fighting over. He gets mad. Crime of passion? He was pretty wasted last night; all of us were. Maybe...maybe. 

It seemed more likely than any other explanation, and suddenly I couldn't meet Dawn's eye because I was thinking what I figured all of us were thinking in that minute: Her husband was a killer. 

He's not the only one, said a nasty voice in the back of my head. Killing your friends? Plenty of that go to around out here. 

But that was different. 

Laurel Williams would have died no matter what I did. And she had wanted my help. She had demanded it, actually, had threatened, and if I hadn't helped she would have done something worse. I had been saving her, really, not...not carving somebody up and leaving them out in the open like this. 

I forced the door shut in my head, refusing to think about it. 

"Let's cover her up," I said, again, reiterating my earlier plan. I tugged at the end of the blanket I'd brought outside, now trailing in the snow. "And then we go back inside and warm up and try to think up a plan, okay?" 

Richard grumbled his agreement and tossed away what was left of his cigarette, coming to grab the other end of the blanket and help me drape it over the body. Neither of us wanted to linger in there too long.