My Best Friend's Exorcism(16)

That’s when a man called her name.

“Abby,” a voice said from inside the house.

It came out of the darkness—no weird sound effects, nothing scary, just a normal man, saying her name in a normal voice.

Her hands went cold; something snapped inside her brain and Abby ran. She panicked, she stumbled, she ran face-first into a tree because someone was right behind her and any minute she would feel him grab her T-shirt and drag her back to that dark house. So she kept running.

Abby steered toward the lighter part of the woods, spinning off tree trunks, tripping over logs, stumbling through bushes. She ran as thorns hacked at her shins, as branches whipped at her eyes, as something caught her hair and yanked her backward. But she kept running and she felt her hair rip at the roots. Up ahead, the darkness was thinning. She could see where the trees ended. She was close. A whine rose up in her throat, and a light smashed into her face.

“Whoa!” Margaret said.

Abby fell out of the woods and landed on her hands and knees. Margaret and Glee were standing in the waist-high field. They were far from the river, farther than Abby had realized.

“Behind me!” she said, pushing herself up off the cold grass.

Margaret whipped her light off Abby’s face and ran it over the wall of tree trunks that were dirty and small and not scary at all in the flashlight beam.

“Did you see someone?” Margaret asked.

“Where’s Gretchen?” Glee asked.

“She’s not with y’all?” Abby asked, panting.

“Shit,” Margaret said.

Margaret and Glee started walking up and down the edge of the woods, shining their light into the trees, calling Gretchen’s name. Abby realized that she only had Gretchen’s shorts in her hand. She must’ve dropped the T-shirt somewhere in the woods, and that made her feel inexplicably sad, like she’d broken something expensive that couldn’t be replaced. But there was no way she was going back to find it. There was no way she was going back in those woods for any reason whatsoever.

After a while her panic passed, and soon she started to walk the treeline with Glee and Margaret. And then they thought maybe Gretchen was at the house, and Abby didn’t want to split up, so all three of them went back but it was empty. They picked at pasta salad, and smoked, and tried to figure out if they should call the police. Then they found batteries for two more flashlights and went back outside.

“Gretchen!” they called, walking the property. “Gretchen? Greeeetch-ennnnn!”

When the sky started to soften and every step was like walking through concrete they decided to bite the bullet. They had to call the police.

“I’m so fucked,” Margaret said.

“She might be dead,” Abby said. “Or kidnapped.”

“It could be a cult,” Glee suggested. “Like Satan worshippers.”

“Shut the fuck up, Glee,” Margaret moaned. “Before I ruin my life, we’re going to search the woods.”

Even with dawn turning everything gray, Abby couldn’t handle the idea of going back into the woods.

“No way,” she said. “We should call the police. Someone might have taken her.”

“Who?” Margaret asked, switching off her flashlight. It was light enough to see their faces without it. “Who would want her? No one fucking took her. Before we call the police and I’m grounded for the rest of my life, we’re going to look one last time.”

Margaret had a way of making you feel like a stupid baby, so Abby meekly followed her and Glee out of the safe, open field and back into the maze of trees.

“We’re not going to a party,” Margaret said. “Spread out.”

“This is how they always get in trouble on Scooby-Doo,” Glee said, but she obeyed and, reluctantly, so did Abby. The three of them spread out through the woods, but Abby kept her flashlight on, even as the sky lightened. At first she tried to stay near the treeline, but the thought of Margaret cursing her out for being a coward, coupled with the thought of Gretchen lying injured and unconscious somewhere, forced her to go deep. The loblolly and palmetto trunks kept her from walking in a straight line, lured her in, turned her around, pulled her farther from the treeline. When they finally led her to the concrete bunker again, she wanted to scream.

Instead she took a deep breath and forced herself to be cool. In the grimy morning light the blockhouse looked depressing, covered in graffiti where kids had carved their initials and weird symbols that might be pictures of perverted sex: “Eat Fuk Preps,” “The Uncalled Four,” and “Nuke the Killer Whales.” Abby felt the pressure of someone watching her, and she spun around.

Nothing but tree trunks. She turned back to the building and saw a pale figure standing in the window, staring at her. It had shadowy holes for eyes and a ragged black rip for a mouth. Abby’s flashlight thumped to the ground.

“What time is it?” Gretchen asked.

Her throat was scratchy, her voice was raw. Then she disappeared from the window and came around the side of the house, stark naked except for her sneakers, smeared up to her thighs with scales of pluff mud, filth streaked over the rest of her body, hands black, leaves in her hair. She stepped into the light and the rising sun was reflected in her eyes. For a moment they were cold silver discs.

“Where were you?” Abby asked.