Page 93 of Things We Do in the Dark
Dead girl, on the sofa.
Joey squeezed her eyes shut. Counted to three. Opened them again. The scene hadn’t changed. There, lying on the sofa, head resting on a throw pillow, right leg dangling off the edge, left arm splayed above her head, was a girl wearing torn sweatpants, torso exposed.
Mae.
At least… Joey thought it was Mae. Her T-shirt was sliced open vertically from collar to hem, and it fell open like an unbuttoned blouse to expose the cuts and slashes all over her stomach and across her breasts, some long, some short, some shallow, some deep.
And her face… oh God, oh Jesus, herface. It was cut so badly that even from eight feet away, Joey could see bone. Whoever had done this to her hadn’t just wanted to kill her. He wanted to desecrate her. This was the work of a sociopath, someone in a deep rage, with no impulse control, and a propensity for violence.
Like Vinny.
Like Ruby.
Joey blinked and saw Charles Baxter. Then she blinked again and saw Mae. A scream welled up in her throat, but before it could materialize, Mae moaned.
Joey gasped so hard, the air scraped her throat.Holy shit. Mae was alive. Snapping out of her shock, Joey rushed toward the sofa.
“Mae,” she said, leaning over her friend. “Mae, I’m here. Can you hear me? It’s Joey.”
Mae breathed out a sound. It was wet and gurgly.
“Mae, I’m going to call 911, okay? We’re going to get you to a hospital.” Joey looked around wildly for the phone she had dropped. She spotted it near the bookcase, but it was split in half from hitting the hard linoleum-covered cement of the basement floor. She picked it up anyway and pressed the buttons, but there was no dial tone.Fuck.
The other handset was on the opposite side of the room, sitting on the end table closer to Mae’s head. She strode toward it, but as she picked it up, she saw immediately that it hadn’t been placed correctly on the charger. That phone was dead, too.Fuck. This could not be happening.
Mae moaned again.
“Hang on, Mae,” Joey said, desperately looking around for her friend’s cell phone. She’d heard it ring; it was here somewhere.
She spotted Mae’s purse on the floor behind the end table, its contents scattered all over the floor. In the midst of the mess, she saw the red Nokia and grabbed it, pressing the button to make a call. Nothing happened. She checked the screen. There was no cell reception.
“Fuck this fucking basement!” Joey shrieked, resisting the urge to hurl the phone across the room. It had a signal before, because itrang, goddammit. She waved the cell phone around, trying to see if she could catch a signal in a different part of the room. Then she tried dialing 911 anyway, but after she hit send, there was only silence. She checked the screen again. The cell phone had gone dead.
“This cannot be fucking happening,” Joey said with a sob.
On the sofa, Mae moaned again.
The upstairs tenants had a phone, of course… but then she remembered they were gone for the holidays, and she did not have a key to their part of the house. This was absolute bullshit. She’d have to leave Mae here and go get help. It was three a.m. She’d have to bang on the neighbors’ doors until someone woke up.
“Mae, hang on, okay?” Joey said, wrapping her bathrobe tighter around herself. “I have to go find a phone. I’ll be right back.”
Mae said something indecipherable. And then, with great difficulty, she said, “No. Joey… no.No.”
Joey walked back to her friend and kneeled, feeling the blood on the floor squish into her bare knees. It was horrific to be this close, to see the damage Vinny had done to Mae’s face and chest. If he had been determined to destroy something beautiful, he had succeeded. If not for her eyes, Mae would be unrecognizable. Joey took her friend’s hand and squeezed it. It was limp and alarmingly cold.
“Mae, I have to get you help.”
Mae’s eyes were glassy, but they were focused on Joey’s face. “No,” she said again. “Don’t… don’t leave…”
“Mae, I have to find a phone,” Joey said, trying not to cry so she could talk. “I’ll only be gone a minute. I promise I’ll come right back. You just have to hang on.”
“No,” Mae said. “Stay… with me. Please, Joey.Please.”
Joey watched as her friend inhaled, then exhaled. And then, her eyes still open, Mae died.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The decision to burn Mae’s body took three seconds.
