7 Souls (14 page)

He’s smart
, she thought.
He’s really smart—remember that, if you’re going to try to fake him out
.

“Thanks,” Mary said. She got past him as fast as she could, nearly tripping on the blanket—again—as she hurried through the living room and furtively grabbed her BlackBerry from the couch. The bathroom was right next to Dylan’s front door; she could see a pair of jeans and a T-shirt folded on the closed toilet seat, with a pair of sneakers placed on top of them. “Just give me a minute,” she called out, getting in the bathroom as fast as she could and swinging the door shut.

M
ARY UNLATCHED THE BATHROOM
door as quietly as she could, gently pulled it open and peered out. She had stripped off her ruined clothes, dropping her underwear and the sodden green rags that had once been a $2,300 dress onto the cold tiles, and pulled on the jeans and T-shirt, bareback, no underwear. Nothing fit, at all—she’d had to roll up the cuffs and cinch the jeans around her small waist with the belt Dylan had provided. Finally, she pulled the shapeless, lumpy-looking sweater over herself and slipped her feet into the sneakers. Her BlackBerry and keys slid easily into the oversize jeans pocket. She had given herself just twenty seconds to splash water on her face and pull her hair back, tying it in a rough knot, before opening the door.

Peering through the crack, she could see Dylan’s back as he stooped over his coffee table zipping up an overnight bag. He’d put on his big winter coat—another one was draped on the couch, obviously intended for her.

Now or never
.

Mary pulled the bathroom door all the way open, wincing at the creaking hinges. She walked as gently as she could, not breathing as she approached the front door. She could hear Dylan packing behind her as she gently twisted the brass knobs on the locks, trying to keep them from snapping. Incredibly, he hadn’t noticed—he was moving back toward the kitchen as she threw the final lock and pulled on the door.

It wouldn’t move.

Come on, come on
, Mary thought frantically as she strained against whatever maddening force—warped wood or sticky old paint—was holding the door closed. Finally the door gave with a loud pop and a low-pitched creak as she pulled it open. Her heart racing, she slipped her body sideways and, with the latches catching on Dylan’s sweater, she pulled herself out into the stairwell and eased the door shut.

Mary actually thought she was going to make it. It was ten or twelve feet along the filthy metal railing to the top of the stairs.
Then three flights down
, if she remembered right. But she didn’t get far at all.

The sneakers weren’t laced and didn’t fit right. She stumbled and fell forward against the stairwell railing, nearly bashing her face against the banister. Dylan’s door burst open and he ran out after her. She wailed in fear, her soles slipping on the tiled floor as she desperately tried to pull herself upright.

Too late; no use. Dylan was right there—he reached down and grabbed her, snagging his arm around her waist.

“No!”
Mary panted. Black spots began to fill her vision.
“No, no, no—”

“Where are you going?” Dylan was fighting to keep his grip on her. She bucked and twisted. Everything was growing dim. “Why are you running away?”

No, no, no—

She was fainting—there was no question about it. The world was fading, turning black, like the end of a movie. She kept struggling, but her arms and legs would barely move; she was getting weaker and weaker.

“Mary?”

Dylan’s voice, from miles and miles away. The darkness was washing over her like tar, drowning her in oblivion.

Stay awake … stay awake …

It was hopeless. She tried to rally her strength, but there wasn’t anything left. Mary felt her eyelids fluttering and then—

7
2:05
A.M.

S
HE BLINKED, STARING UP
at the ceiling. She was stretched out on her own narrow bed, along the west wall of her bedroom, the wall her father had painted pink and gold when she was five years old and that had never been repainted. The overhead light was on, an ancient fixture with three bare sixty-watt bulbs that burned her eyes, making her squint at the glare as they always did. The same bedroom ceiling she’d stared at hatefully for years, with the long crack down the south edge and the triangular patch of cracked plaster that had crumbled and fallen, revealing the lathing underneath.

What—

Waking up from a dream was always like this, particularly when it was a frightening dream—the cold sweat coated you and the final scenes of the dream flashed in your mind like lightning, fierce and brilliant but fading, vanishing into the mist as the cold light of the real world entered your waking eyes.

I was dreaming. I was dreaming—a horrible, horrible dream
.

And here I am in my own bed
.

Mary’s bedroom—right next to Ellen’s along the narrow corridor—had a tiny window with a dim view of the building’s air shaft. She barely got any natural light; their apartment was too far down from the air shaft’s apex. That was why the overhead light was usually on—in fact, she tended to fall asleep with it on, particularly when she came home tipsy. Mary couldn’t count how many times she’d stumbled in here with her ears ringing, the room spinning, and kicked off her high heels and collapsed onto the bed, passing out in her clothes with the lights on. She’d always wake up early in the morning, around dawn, dehydrated, her head aching painfully, with the same pitch-black view out the window, long before the first dim indigo traces of morning light fell down the air shaft into her tiny room.

What a crazy dream
, Mary thought. She stared at the familiar ceiling, at the cracks and the exposed lathing and the triad of lightbulbs emitting their harsh glow, trying to remember the details.

My birthday
, Mary remembered.
My birthday, and nobody cared; Patrick broke up with me and … somebody … asked me out, and then it got worse and worse, running and driving and a
haunted house, Amy screaming and Joon dying and coming back as a ghost who wasn’t a ghost…
.

Mary had never had a nightmare like that before. It had been so real, so terrifying, so filled with vivid sensations: the freezing cold and the night wind and the blasting sound track of blaring songs and grinding gears as the car she was in pitched and swerved, brakes squealing as it spun through the rain and lurched ahead, on the run, speeding out of danger, or into danger. More than any other dream she’d ever had, there was the terrifying way that it had all lingered on the edge of sense; how everything that happened
almost
fit together into normal daylight logic but just missed somehow, veering instead into the surreal landscape of fever dreams and fantasies.

But I’m awake now
, Mary thought, arching her back and stretching luxuriously.
In my own bed, and I’m safe
. She couldn’t quite remember how she’d gotten here, what had happened the night before, but that was hardly new to her.
I was partying somewhere, out with my friends
.

It’ll occur to me soon. It’ll all come back
.

Mary propped herself up on her elbows, grunting with the effort, and looked around at the room—and then stopped moving.

What the hell?

She stared down at herself, at her clothes.

Why am I dressed like this?

The clothes were completely unfamiliar. A gigantic pair of men’s Levi’s, cinched comically around her waist with a battered black leather belt fastened on its tightest hole. No socks. White tennis sneakers so large that the heels extended back an inch and a half from her ankles. A threadbare cotton T-shirt beneath an oversize, lumpy wool sweater.

Mary looked around the room. Same old shambles—the bulletin board with the tacked-up
Vogue
clippings of ensembles she liked; the clutter of schoolbooks and old CDs and club invitations and perfume bottles and gift bags covering her desk; the framed Monet print her father had given her long ago.

Mary frowned, rising to sit on the edge of the bed. The floor was littered with clothes—tops and dresses and pants—still on their hangers.

In the center of the floor, casting triple shadows beneath the harsh overhead lights, a crumpled beige coverall, like a cleaning woman would wear.

Oh
.

Looking behind herself, Mary saw her clock radio. Its digital readout said 2:06.

It’s dark out
, she confirmed, looking at the blackness beyond her window’s narrow frame.
It’s two in the morning
.

It was coming back all at once, like a blurred image coming into focus, bringing a familiar feeling of dread and fatigue and sadness and pain and confusion.

I wasn’t dreaming
.

But the alternative didn’t make any sense. These were Dylan’s clothes; she had clasped hands with Joon through his open kitchen window and followed her advice, taking Dylan’s clothes and sneaking out the front door, trying to get away.

But she hadn’t made it.

Dylan had caught her, literally.

And that was where it had ended.

And now here she was, in her bedroom.

The same night? It has to be the same night, doesn’t it?

But what
happened
to me? Why can’t I remember?

She could hear something—a muffled human sound, faint and obscure, coming through the closed bedroom door.

Crying. Somebody was crying out there.

Quietly, Mary got to her feet, advancing toward her door, trying to keep the big sneakers from squeaking on her worn-out floorboards, kicking clothes out of the way. She cocked her head to one side, straining to hear. The crying voice was
male
, she realized, feeling a sudden flood of adrenaline. Somebody was out there, in the corridor or the living room, crying.

“Mommy,” the voice cried. “Mommy, Mommy …”

Mary didn’t recognize the voice at all. Her anxiety was growing. She struggled with the doorknob, rattling the door against its warped frame, the brass knob slipping maddeningly in her fingers, refusing to turn.

Who locked me in here? How did I end up locked in my bedroom?

And then she realized what the problem was. Below the knob, the thumbscrew of the door’s latch was flipped sideways.

The door was locked from the
inside
.

I locked it
, she thought.
Why? What was out there?

Fear and dread spread through her; her skin broke out in goose bumps as she stared at the door’s latch, trying to recall how she’d gotten here; what had happened in that missing hour she couldn’t remember.

“Mommy … Mommy …”

That same sobbing voice.

Mary mustered her nerve and took a deep breath and snapped the latch and pulled the door open. She pivoted out into the corridor, staring past Ellen’s bedroom door and the door to Dad’s old study, out into the front vestibule.

Mary screamed.

She couldn’t help it. The scream burst out of her uncontrollably. She gasped for breath, raising her fists to her mouth, trembling in terror at what she saw.

Dylan Summer was lying on the floor, flat on his back.

A bright red lake of blood was spreading from his body.

Mary had never seen so much blood—she nearly screamed again, watching the pool spread like melting snow from boots you’d just taken off.

Dylan’s face was scarlet, wrenched in a grimace of agony, tears running sideways down his stubbled cheeks. He was still dressed in his ruined charcoal gray suit
(from our date
, she remembered dazedly) and the thick overcoat he’d grabbed at his apartment an hour or so earlier in this endless dark drama of an evening.

Mary’s mother was crouched over Dylan, dressed in her customary nightgown and dressing gown, stroking Dylan’s sweat-soaked forehead. The hems of Mom’s clothes were stained red with blood.

“Mommy …,” Dylan moaned in agony. “Mommy, help me….”

He’s delirious
, Mary realized, stumbling toward them, willing herself not to scream again.
He’s dying; he’s delirious
.

“The ambulance is coming,” Mrs. Shayne told Dylan soothingly. Mary noticed that Mom was holding the handset of their cordless phone—the same one Mary had always monopolized, that Ellen used to complain she was always using to call her friends, back before they had cell phones. “I’ve called nine-one-one; I told them gunshot—they’re on their way.”

Gunshot?

The word hit Mary like a battering ram. She remembered Mason, the shirtless meth head Joon had left the party with hours before—the hot boy with the perfect torso and the automatic pistol that had dropped to the floor and gone off like a firecracker—and the crib upstate, the deserted farmhouse. Mary finally managed to break out of her paralysis and stumble down the corridor toward them. The pool of blood seemed to grow with each passing second.

“It’s Ellen’s friend Dylan,” Mom told her, in the same flat tone she used all the time. She had raised her head and was looking at Mary calmly, as if her being there made all the sense in the world. “He’s been shot—a burglar or something like that. I always knew this would happen, living in this neighborhood….”

“But what
happened?”
Mary fought the urge to vomit as she came closer, trying not to stare at the blood. The metallic smell was hitting her nostrils now, making her eyes water. Dylan was staring at the ceiling, whimpering, his eyes unfocused, as Mom stroked his forehead. “What’s he
doing
here, Mom?”

“I was asleep,” Mom answered. “I heard the shot and came out here and saw him, so I called the cops. That’s all I know.”

Some distant part of Mary’s brain was impressed with her mother’s behavior. She’d never seen her in a crisis—a
real
crisis—and she’d always assumed that Mom would fall apart, running or hiding in blind panic.

But you know better than that
, Mary corrected herself.
She wasn’t always like that
. Before Dad died, Mom had been
exactly
the person you’d want near you when something went wrong.

“Ow, ow, ow …,” Dylan moaned. “Mommy, I’m dying; I’m really dying….”

Oh, Jesus, Dylan
, Mary thought, staring at his clenched jaw muscles, watching his hands tremble in agony. She realized that she was probably very close to going into shock, so she forced her eyes away from the bloody view.

In her pocket—the loose pocket of Dylan’s jeans—her BlackBerry vibrated.

Mary had no idea who was calling her
now
, at two in the morning. But when she pulled out the phone and looked at its display, she nearly fainted with relief:

SHAYNE, ELLEN

Mary took a deep breath and hit the Talk button.

“Hello?”

“Mary?”
Ellen’s voice was hard to hear; there was some kind of interference on the line. “Is that you? Is that really you? Thank God—”

“It’s me,” Mary whispered. “Where are you?”

“Still at the party,” Ellen told her. The alarm and fear in her voice was unmistakable, even through the bad connection. “It’s still going. Listen, what happened? I haven’t been able to reach you or Amy for, like,
hours
. Did you find Joon?”

I sure did
, Mary thought miserably.
I found her and I couldn’t save her
. Mary stared at Dylan’s body and the blood, like bright red poster paint, on her mother’s nightclothes. Dylan’s chest was moving up and down rapidly as his breathing hitched.

“Mary?” Ellen sounded even more worried. “Are you there?”

I’ve got to tell her
, Mary thought.
There’s no way around it
.

“I don’t—” Mary was crying. “Listen, I can’t—Amy’s gone. Amy’s gone and Joon’s gone—”

“What?
What do you mean, gone? What
happened
to them? Did you find that place up—”

“Dylan’s been shot,” Mary blurted out. The tears were flowing freely down her cheeks and dripping onto the borrowed sweater. “He’s here, in our apartment—he’s been shot. There’s an ambulance coming, but I don’t—”

“What?”
Ellen’s whisper was barely audible. “Shot like with a gun?”

“He’s still alive,” Mary yelled.
“Ellen, listen—he’s still alive
. Mom called an ambulance.”

“What happened?”
Ellen screamed. “What did you—what happened? What did you get him into?”

“I don’t know,” Mary whispered.

“What the hell do you mean, you don’t know?” Both sisters were sobbing. “Oh my God, no—”

“I don’t know who did it,” Mary went on. “I didn’t see it; I didn’t hear it—Mom didn’t see it either. Ellen, listen; he’s still alive. There’s totally still a chance—”

“I’m coming home,” Ellen whimpered. “I’ll get a cab—I’ll be there in—”

“No!”
Mary shouted, alarmed. That was absolutely the last thing she wanted Ellen to do. “Ellen, no! You’ve got to promise me you’ll stay
right where you are!”

“But Dylan—”

“Stay there!”
Mary was terrified that Ellen wouldn’t listen; that she’d leave the safety of the Peninsula Hotel. “Stay right where you are and I’ll be there as
soon
as I can get a cab.
Promise
me, Ellen!”

“But—”

“Promise me!” Mary wiped tears from her cheeks with her wrist.
He’s not going to make it
, she thought hopelessly, staring at Dylan, who was shivering on the floor.
He’s not going to live. “Please
, Ellen. I love you.”

But Ellen hadn’t heard that last part. The line was dead.