Memento Mori || au
BINGO SPOT → Horror, Action IN COLLABERATION WITH → Ella, Miki, Britt, Brookelynn, Alison WORD COUNT → 9,438 MENTIONS → Veronique Dumont, Emily Echolls, Elisha Echolls (NPC), Braydon Stewart, Iva Zotrova, Julian Lowell, Lana Fitzgerald, Ian Wilde, Natasha Ryley SUMMARY → When eight friends are trapped on a remote mountain retreat and things quickly turn sinister, they start to suspect they aren’t alone. Gripped by fear and with tensions in the group running high, they’re forced to make snap decisions that could mean life or death for everyone involved. Every choice they make in their terrifying search for answers – even the seemingly trivial ones – will decide who stays alive until dawn. TRIGGER WARNINGS → Violence, Death, Gore
CHAPTER ONE-- TEN HOURS UNTIL DAWN
Coming back to Blackwood Mountain was a mistake. The Echolls’ Lodge, nestled deep within the Canadian wilderness and perched at the very top of Blackwood Mountain --miles and miles away from the tiny, shit town at the bottom of the summit-- had always been the winter-time destination for Elizabeth and her friends, but...after what happened last year…
The white, powdery snow fell in buckets, but the ten occupants of the Echolls’ vacation lodge paid no attention to the chill outside the giant, wooden structure. Instead, the bustle of things inside kept their mind off the slight chill that slipped through the cracks despite the roaring fire in the enormous, open living room. Emily Echolls and Julian Lowell sat at the bar in the kitchen, surrounded by empty bottles, their heads dropped to the counter as they snored through their drunken slumbers. Natasha Ryley, Ian Wilde, and Lana Fitzgerald tiptoed around upstairs, ready to put their prank into play. It was sloppily put together --just a little bit of a jump scare to frighten the most gullible person in their group of friends-- but nonetheless, they were prepped and ready to go.
“This is stupid, guys. Leave Veronique alone.”
Ian shook his head. The lot of them were all good and drunk by now, but nevertheless, Braydon Stewart remained the voice of reason, fixing an exasperated gaze on his determined friend.
“Really--what’s the point? You’re just going to freak her out and she’s going to swear at you in French for ten minutes and sulk for the rest of the trip. You really want to deal with a sulking Ronnie?”
“I don’t.” Elizabeth Echolls spoke up firmly from Braydon’s side, her arms crossed over her chest. “You guys are so childish. Ian, I expect it from, but--”
Lana shrugged at Natasha’s side when Elizabeth’s eyes fixed on her. She was drunk enough that she was merely following along with whatever was suggested.
“Relax, Lizzie. Who cares what they do?” Iva Zotrova interjected from where she was sprawled out atop Veronique’s bed, her eye line not lifting from where she was meticulously inspecting her manicured nails. She let out a purposeful yawn, soft and sort of dainty as if to really push the fact that her friends were boring her to tears. “V will play little mouse for an hour or so, but at least we’ll be entertained for a few minutes. I’m dying out here without cell service--let us live a little.”
Elizabeth groaned and Braydon dropped a supportive hand on her shoulder, squeezing her with little force. “Whatever. I’m going to find Elisha. Maybe she can stop you guys from being complete idiots.”
“Probably not,” Natasha offered back with a snort, copying the mock salute that Ian offered their friends that weren’t participating in the harmless prank. Listening to Elizabeth’s grumble of annoyance and watching as Braydon followed the blonde out of the room, she placed the wavy blonde wig that they’d found in the basement (among other various props and costumes from the movies that Edgar Echolls either directed or starred in) on her head, fixing it with minor adjustment.
“We need to make you...whiter. You’re too tan,” Ian commented with pursed lips, his attention pulling from Natasha when Iva spoke from the bed again.
“Try Elisha’s bathroom. That пастообразная сука doesn’t know how to pick foundation.”
“I’m...going to assume that was something not nice,” Lana commented towards the girl and Iva flashed her a toothy, white smile.
“You assumed correctly.”
While Lana trudged over to the side of the bed to chat mindlessly with Iva, Ian took to dragging Natasha out of the room and into Elisha’s, where they found concealer that was about six shades too light for Natasha’s sun-kissed skin.
“Man--you look mad scary, mamacita.” Ian whistled at the girl when they’d finished making her up, trailing behind a scoffing Nat back into the room they’d just departed, where the four of the occupants in the confined space sat in silence, listening for the creak of floorboards and soft, melodic humming that meant Veronique was on her way in. When they heard what they were waiting for they scrambled into their positions, only Iva moving slowly and gracefully to perch herself atop the closed toilet seat with the bathroom door open only a crack so that she’d be able to see Veronique, but not the French girl her.
As soon as the door swung open, Natasha began speaking, her voice brought up a couple octaves to play on a sort of ghostly coo.
“Veroniqueeee…Veroniqueeee…”
They barely heard the whisper of mama? before Veronique spun on her heels, a shriek of shock and terror parting her lips as she sprinted numbly down the stairs and out the front door into the cold night. Ian, Natasha, and Lana gaped after her. Even Iva stood from where she’d been seated, charging out the door and down the stairs, the rest of her friends following. The four of them made it to the porch before they were met by the stunned trio of Elizabeth, Braydon and Elisha.
“What the hell did you guys do?” Elisha yelled, listening to the frantic crunch of sticks under Veronique’s feet grow quieter and quieter as she departed further into the forest. “What the hell?” Urgently, the older Echolls sister darted back into the house to grab her coat, shoving her arms through it in panic before she started out into the snow. “Stay there!” She yelled back to Elizabeth and her friends. The group stood there in stunned silence for a moment before Ian spoke.
“Should we go after them?”
“I kind of think you’re the last person Veronique wants to see right now.” Elizabeth hissed back in return, frantically scanning the dark, winter blown forest line with her eyes. Looking for her friend. Her sister.
A moment later, they heard a shrill scream and a terrifying shriek. Veronique and Elisha were not seen again.
Elizabeth snapped out of her thoughts abruptly, peeling the side of her face from the chilly bus window with a soft sigh. The podcast she’d been listening to had died out into a soft buzzing noise to let her know that they’d entered the dead zone for cell phone service and reception of any kind. She, Emily and Elisha had inquired about twenty times with their father as to whether or not they’d ever put towers up on Blackwood Mountain and every time, Edgar responded with why would I spend a million dollars to get wifi for a place we’re at for six days out of the year maximum? and the girls would always counter with soft grumbles or the rolling of eyes.
When the bus came to a halt, Elizabeth stood, not quite ready to brave the cold again.
“You sure this is your stop, kid?” The driver asked when she’d made it to the stairs. The Lodge sitting at the very top of the mountain wasn’t a structure visited very often--especially since the...disappearances--and Elizabeth had to specifically tell the driver before she climbed aboard the bus that her stop was at Blackwood Pines or else he wouldn’t have stopped.
She nodded, hesitantly climbing down the stairs. The bus, after a few pointed turns, started it’s descent down the mountain, leaving her there to stare at the hanging Blackwood Pines sign all alone. Shifting her backpack on her back, she started forwards down the trail, knowing she’d want to reach the cable car station that would take her up to the very top of the mountain before the weather got any worse. She thought, for a moment that it might have been better to come up the day before when Emily did, but she couldn’t fathom the thought of how awkward the plane, bus ride, and walk up the mountain would have been with them sitting there in uncomfortable silence. Such had been the way with them for the past two years. The loss of their friend and their sister...The not knowing had torn them apart, rather than bringing them together. Elizabeth wondered whether Emily blamed herself for being blacked out during the prank or blamed her for not being able to stop their friends from being absolute idiots. Either way, they hadn’t done much in the way of speaking since that night...one year ago tonight…
Elizabeth remembered being mildly surprised when Emily had thought up the trip at all. And that she’d thought to invite her as well.
When she made it to the first gate, the cable car station sitting behind it, she rattled the gate before noticing a sheet of paper taped off to the side. Gates busted! Climb over! -Julian, the note read and Elizabeth groaned, turning it over to find a brief email conversation between the aforementioned man and her twin sister about directions to the Lodge. Fixing the note back in place, Elizabeth took a couple steps to the side, preparing herself to climb the snow dusted stone wall that ran around the property and opened only by the sole gate. Which was busted, as Julian had so graciously informed via note. She almost found herself irritated that Emily hadn’t let her know when she was on the way up, but remembered the absence of reception on the summit and sighed. She wondered how Emily had fared alone up there for a day on her own. Elizabeth couldn’t have done it. She’d always been uneasy about coming to the Lodge in the wintertime in the first place and had her friends not been accompanying her on their trips up, she certainly wouldn’t have gone on her own. It was too quiet, even with other people around. Almost sinister.
She scrambled over the wall quickly, brushing the snow off her hands after her feet hit the ground again. The trek up to the cable car station after that was quick and easy and she paused at the edge of the building to read a sign that she’d noticed a hundred times before but had never stopped to actually...look at.
Tribes who lived in these mountains believed that butterflies carried dreams and prophecies of possible futures. The color of the butterfly indicated the nature of the prophecy. Black butterflies prophesied the dreamer’s death. Red butterflies warned of dangerous events. Brown butterflies foretold of tragedies affecting friends. Yellow butterflies offered visions to help and guide. White butterflies brought dreams of luck and good fortune.
“Hm,” She hummed quietly, starting again towards the little wooden cabin that the cable car stopped and started at.
A slash of red caught her attention right when she was about to round the cabin to wait at the platform for her ride. In a thick, red substance that had been written over the glass that protected a map of the sprawling Blackwood grounds was written THE PAST IS BEYOND OUR CONTROL.
“Eugch,” She groaned, shivering. “I hope that wasn’t Emily being a fucking edge-lord.” But on second thought, if it wasn’t Emily or her friends, Elizabeth couldn’t quite imagine who would’ve done something like that. There’d only been one suspect in Elisha and Veronique’s disappearance, but that one had been enough considering the mountain was supposed to be abandoned most of the year. A squirrely guy named Victor Wantosana that her father had apparently fired off a movie after some sort of disagreement. Apparently, he’d threatened to burn all of Edgar’s properties to the ground afterwards, but the police never found the man to question him in the disappearances.
She was torn from her thoughts again by a loud buzzing noise, one that made her jump a tad. As she rounded the corner to the platform, she saw a backpack sitting on the bench there, buzzing wildly. Cautiously, she approached the pack and and saw a cellphone hanging half out of the bag. The name Iva Zotrova flashed across the screen and Elizabeth almost dropped the device right after she’d picked it up, startled by a voice from behind her.
“Hey, nosey.”
She spun around to find Julian standing there with a grin on his face, holding his hand out expectantly for his cellphone which had since then stopped vibrating in her palm. She handed the device over, feeling a little warmth flood her cheeks.
“I was trying to avoid an avalanche,” She shot back snarkily. “Why do you have your vibration set to the same strength that my eighty year old grandfather does?”
“Oh, how I’ve missed our little back and forths, Lizzie.” Julian chuckled, bringing a hand up to ruffle the hair on her head, which she straightened back down a second later with a crinkle of her nose directed at the man. Once a close confidant of hers, she hadn’t spoken to Julian for the better part of the last year--she hadn’t spoken to any of her friends, really, aside from Braydon. She remembered sending Julian a curt happy birthday! back in May, but that’d been about it. “C’mon,” he started again, gesturing over his shoulder. “Our ride’s coming. Should be here within the next hour,” He quipped.
“Mm, let’s get out of the cold.” She nodded, waiting for him to pick up his pack before she crossed the platform to the door of the little cabin there. “Oh, right.” She hissed after rattling the locked knob. She reached into the pocket of her winter coat, producing a little silver key after a second. “I totally forgot.”
“Why’s it locked?” Julian asked.
“Mom wanted us to keep it locked,” She shrugged. “I guess they found some people sleeping in here once.” Unlocking the door and ignoring Julian’s mutter of that’s creepy, she swung open the door to the cabin, holding an arm out. “After you.”
“A real gentleman.” Julian drawled and Elizabeth rolled her eyes, following him into the cabin.
“Ugh, I thought the car was closer.” Elizabeth groaned, looking out the small window at the descending cable car. “I guess we gotta wait.”
“It’s a big mountain.” Julian shrugged, eyeing a poster that promoted Blackwood Pines Hotel and Sanatorium uneasily. “And super creepy, too. I can’t believe your dad put a house up here. No matter how rich you guys are.”
“We’re not that rich.”
“Rich enough to buy a mountain,” Julian offered back noncommittally. Elizabeth didn’t respond to that comment, changing the topic with a purse of her lips.
“It’s so beautiful during the day, you know? And in the summer time. But now...It just feels menacing. Like a sleeping giant.”
“You gonna publish?” Julian asked.
“What?”
“Your pretty poem. The Sleeping Giant of Blackwood Pines.”
“Shut up,” She snorted, turning back to the window just as Julian moved to glance at a set of small video monitors, all of them showing static except one that showed the exterior of the Echolls’ Lodge from the front. After a second, Elizabeth spoke again. “Finally. You coming?”
“I mean, I was going to stay here. Catch some Zs,” Julians joked as they started back out to the platform, Elizabeth turning to relock the cabin’s door before they stepped into the cable car together. Both of them dropping down on the same bench, they were quiet as the cable car started with a violent lurch, Elizabeth breaking the silence first.
“I hope this was the right thing to do.”
“What?”
“You know...getting everyone together on the anniversary. Emily seemed really excited to get everyone together again, but she’s just been...A wreck since everything happened, you know?”
Julian paused before speaking. “And how have you been?”
“I mean, the same, but...I’m just holding on day by day...Waiting until they find...them.” She hadn’t said Elisha or Veronique’s names aloud in the year that had passed. It was too hard, she thought, but as hard as it’d been to lose--or to have her sister disappear--Emily had lost both her sister and her girlfriend on the same night. With no way to have stopped it from happening.
Julian nodded numbly. With his mother a police officer, he knew the chances of finding the missing girls had dropped dramatically after the first forty-eight hours of them missing, despite the Echolls’ media coverage and the police’s immediate response. After a year...Julian knew that if Veronique and Elisha were found...it’d be as bodies, more than likely. He’d never say that, though. Especially not to Elizabeth or Emily. He wasn’t a complete fucking asshole.
“You know how Emily and I met in the first place?” Julian finally spoke again, watching the blonde carefully as she turned to lift a brow at him.
“No...How?”
“Okay, so third grade, right?” Elizabeth nodded, thinking. Julian had certainly been around and in their lives a lot longer than most of the rest of their friends. “Em sat in the back of the room and I sat in the front. We didn’t even know each other existed but one day, the kid sitting next to Em started snapping the training bra of the girl in front of him so the teacher made him move to the front--where I was sitting.”
“So?”
“So I got moved to the back!”
“And…”
“And next to Em! That’s how we met and we’ve been friends to this day.”
“A match made in heaven…” Elizabeth cooed, following the words with a snort of amusement. She was glad Julian had been smart enough to change the topic.
“Listen--” Julian began again, waving the girl off. “If it hadn’t been for the fact that Aubrey Walsh hit puberty like three years early and on that day decided to wear a low cut shirt that showed off her training bra...I mean, who knows? You could be sitting in this cable car alone right now. Or talking to some other person entirely.” He paused for effect. “Boom--butterfly effect.”
Braydon sat on the platform of the cable car station rooted at the top of the moutain, watching the creaky metal box slowly climb in height as a couple of new passengers made their way up from the base of the little peak that the Echolls’ lodge rested on. He’d arrived a few hours earlier and in his time spent at the station, had already seen Lana, Ian, and Natasha arrive, which meant that only Elizabeth, Iva, and Julian were still on their way. When he’d greeted his friends earlier, Ian urged him to make the short hike up to the lodge with them, but Braydon declined, claiming he was going to wait behind for the rest of their friends to arrive. Or one, in particular.
A flash of blonde hair caught his eye as the cable car came to a violent halt and as he crossed the platform, he heard banging from inside the little box, his brow lifting as he saw petite hands slamming against the glass.
“Oh, Braydon! Thank god. Hey--We’re stuck in here, can you press that--”
Braydon shoved his finger into the green release button on the cable car’s door before she could finish her request, a smile finding its way onto his face as Elizabeth and Julian stepped out of the hanging box.
“I thought we were goners, man.” Julian joked, sucking in a deep breath. “Another ten minutes in there and I would’ve chewed off my own arm.”
“That’s sick, Julian.” Elizabeth groaned, shaking her head.
“Seriously. It would have been hard, too--I’m all muscle down here.”
Braydon snorted. “Good to see you, bro.”
“Let’s have this reunion next to a fire, yeah?” Elizabeth quipped weakly after Julian and Braydon shared quick hellos. “I’m freezing my buns off out here.”
“Can’t have that.” Julian retorted. “I can think of a few people that might miss those buns.”
Elizabeth shot him a playful glare, not missing a beat when Braydon draped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her in close to offer what additional warmth he could. “She’s right. It’s ridiculously cold. C’mon.”
“I’m gonna hang out here for a minute,” Julian responded, nodding his head a couple times when Braydon and Elizabeth both cocked a brow. “Gonna wait for Iva to come up so she doesn’t have to walk alone.”
CHAPTER TWO - NINE HOURS UNTIL DAWN
“Yo, yo, yo! It’s about time you got up here!”
Elizabeth heard her sister’s excited tone from inside the Lodge and looked up to see her twin hanging out of the upstairs window.
“Is Lowell still waiting for Iva?” Emily spoke up again, her voice carrying around the open space that seperated their yard and the forest. “I swear, he’s so fucking pussy whipped.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes, slipping out from under Braydon’s arm to start inside. “I’m coming in, psycho.”
Strolling into the giant, wooden building brought a wave of nostalgia to flood over her, memories of her time spent there with friends (or just with her sisters when Edgar and Evelyn were looking for a vacation) springing up to remind her of the fact that they were two people short this time around. She tried not to let that thought pull a frown onto her expression, scanning the grand, open living room the second she stepped into it.
Lana and Nat were sprawled out on the couch together, still bundled in their coats and chattering about something that Elizabeth didn’t quite care to try and overhear. Ian was in the kitchen already, rifling through the fridge to see what Emily had brought up rations-wise the day before. She supposed it was good that he wasn’t in the liquor cabinet already, at least.
The three of them offered Elizabeth and Braydon scattered greetings as they noticed them, but didn’t do much to move from where they were. Elizabeth looked up just in time to see Emily strolling down the sprawling staircase in the middle of the room with a pep in her step--Lizzie wasn’t sure whether to be concerned or smile.
“What’s up, baby sis?”
Elizabeth snorted. Born less than a minute before her, Emily was always sure to quip about their age difference.
“Freezing. Did you turn on the heat yet or what?”
Emily shook her head. Elizabeth didn’t know why she was surprised.
“You’ve been here for like...a whole two days. How have you not frozen your ass off yet?” She asked, a brow raising curiously. It was a wonder Emily was alive, she thought bitterly, her own arms tightening around her middle more. Braydon’s hand went to the small of her back and she tried to un-tense.
Emily shrugged. “I’ve been busy setting some stuff up.” Elizabeth looked around, ready to ask what stuff, as the lodge looked the absolute same as it did the last time they...She didn’t. She didn’t want to get into that again.
“Furnace is in the basement. You know how to work it, little sis. Get goin’.”
“Lizzie’s turning the heat on?” Lana started from the couch, her eyes wide in excitement. Elizabeth rolled her eyes. She knew her other friends had been there long before she made the hike up the mountain, but getting Lana to do any physical-esque labor and pulling Natasha out of the same room as Ian was pretty much like pulling teeth, so she wasn’t surprised at all that none of them had already taken a stab at getting the furnace running already.
“How long do you think it’ll take you?” Nat asked and Elizabeth was interrupted by a joke from the kitchen.
“My bet’s on blankets for everyone.” Ian commented and Elizabeth grumbled, her arms uncrossing so that she could clutch Braydon’s hand and drag him in the direction of the basement. She certainly was not going down there alone. She heard her sister speak as she departed.
“Alright, peanut gallery. I have a job for you three. We’ve got a spirit board around here somewhere. Find it.”
CHAPTER THREE - EIGHT HOURS UNTIL DAWN
“So it says here: to communicate with the spirit world you must free your mind of all preconceptions, drop all inhibitions, and generally give yourself over entirely to the will of others, sublimating your every desire to the whims of the spirit-master, which is me--”
“It does not say that,” Natasha interrupted, rolling her eyes at Ian, who was reading from the inside of the box that the Ouija board had come in. Emily shook her head from the other side of the table.
“And all present will remove their garments at my sole discretion--” Ian started again, this time cut off by Emily, whose voice was stern.
“This is serious, Ian.”
“Oh, I’m deadly serious.”
“Let’s just try this,” Emily commented, placing her fingers on the counter between them. Ian and Natasha followed. Lana, who hadn’t even wanted to hunt for the board, had opted out of sitting in on the seance they were about to start into. Something about bad vibes and how her mother had done a movie at one point (directed by Edgar Echolls, conveniently) where a Ouija board had possessed the user to kill all of her friends, so she was so not about to get involved in that spooky stuff. Elizabeth, post she and Braydon’s mission to the basement that had come with a scare from Julian after he and Iva had finally made it up the mountain, had decided to sit the seance out as well, knowing her sister was likely up to no good. Instead, she said she saw a bath in her own crystal ball and was instructed by Emily to not fuck Braydon in her bed. Julian and Iva...Emily didn’t really care what they were up to, but they weren’t sitting in either.
“Okay then, let's see what happens. Nat, since you're a recent convert, why don't you be our medium for today?” Ian commented over to Natasha.
“Okay. Uhhh. Is anyone there...? Helloo...Pick up the phone...spirits...Spirit phone...Ummm...Abracadabra...?”
“Nat…” Emily warned.
“Umm...If you can hear my voice, give us a sign.”
“Yeah,” Ian said. “Like a peace sign. Or a stop sign or something.”
“Are you guys going to take this seriously or not?”
“Okay, okay…” Nat tried again. “Is anyone there? Wherever there is?”
The counter moved between them and Emily looked up from the board to her friends in shock before shooting her gaze back down to catch the letters the open circle was sliding over.
H.
E.
L.
P.
“What the fuck?” Emily gasped. “Help? What does that mean?”
“Are you doing this, Em?”
“No, Ian, I’m fucking not. Help who? What does--”
W.
A.
R.
“War? Wha--It’s not moving fast enough.”
N.
I.
N.
G.
“Warning.” Nat murmured. “Oh, shit. Warning for what?”
“Elisha, is that you?”
“Ian!”
“No, let him!” Emily shuddered. “It’s moving again.”
B.
E.
T.
R.
A.
Y.
E.
D.
“What?”
“Nat, shut up! It’s still going.”
K.
I.
L.
L.
E.
D.
“Killed. Fuck, oh--Fuck.”
“Em, we should stop.”
“No!” Emily gasped. “How did you die? Who killed you?”
L.
I.
B.
R.
“The library!” Nat exclaimed. “Maybe there’s something in there!”
P.
R.
O.
O.
F.
“Proof! Proof in the library, we--”
Natasha was cut off at the spirit board started to shake and the counter flew off the table, causing the three of them to jump back. Emily stood from her seat angrily, shaking her head.
“No, you know what? This is bullshit. Fuck you guys. You’re not funny.”
There was a moment of silence in which Ian and Nat couldn’t do anything but stare at each other in shock before Emily stormed out and they hesitantly followed, finding the hallways empty by the time they pushed out of the empty room they’d been occupying. There was only one place they could think to go and that was unspoken between the two of them as they silently started towards the Echolls’ home library, the silence breaking when Ian finally spoke.
“Do you think that was really Elisha or was Emily joshing us?”
“I don’t know…” Nat started cautiously. “I don’t know if I want it to be Lish or not, but I don’t think Em was fucking with us. She looked pretty freaked out. Speaking of--”
She was cut off as they walked into the library, a few books to her right flying off the shelf to hit her in the shoulder.
“Ow! Fuck!” She bent down, looking at what had fallen. “Why am I being assaulted with Dickens?”
“Wait...Look. Check this out, Nat.” Ian spoke, his gaze fixed on something on the shelf the books had just flown off. “Why’s there a button there?”
“I, uh...I don’t know. Should I push it?”
“Mm, that’s what buttons are for, I guess.”
Natasha hesitantly pressed the little red button, watching in a mixture of shock and awe as the bookcase slid to the side to reveal a little room behind it.
“Panel opens.” Ian started. “Head explodes.”
“Are we, like...In a movie right now or something?” Nat asked in confusion, not daring to step into the room. “Leave it to Edgar Echolls to have secret passages in his vacation home.”
“If we are...I hope it’s a rom-com.” A pause. “Let’s check it out.”
“No, no, no.” Nat snorted. “You go right ahead.”
“Gee, thanks.” Ian grumbled, shaking his head as he started into the little room. “It’s super whack in here, I--” He stopped talking as his eyes landed on a photo of Emily, Elizabeth and Elisha standing together, big smiles on their faces as if they’d been laughing at some sort of joke when the photo was taken. Picking it up hesitantly, he turned it around to find ugly, red scrawl on the back.
I WILL TAKE THEM AND BLEED THEM LIKE PIGS AND RIP THEIR SOFT WHITE SKIN OFF! FUCKING 16 YEARS. 16 YEARS I WAITED FOR THE PRETTY LITTLE ECHOLLS SISTERS.
“What the fuck,” Ian grumbled aloud, and Natasha stepped into the room after him. Ian wasn’t one to swear much and when he did, it was evident to anyone around him that something was severely fucked up. “Look...Look at this.”
What the--Ian, what is that? We...Oh, god. We need to find Emily. Right now.”
CHAPTER FOUR - SEVEN HOURS UNTIL DAWN
Julian woke with a groan, an unignorable chill hitting him as soon as his senses were up and running again. A sharp pain shot through his skull and he tried to remember what he’d been doing before...Before…
As a matter of fact, he couldn’t remember how the fuck he’d ended up...He was outside. In the snow, directly in front of the old shed that he and Iva had passed on their walk up to the Lodge.
Iva. Oh, fuck, Iva. Julian bolted up, ignoring the fact that he was clad in nothing more than his jeans and the thin, long sleeved Henley he’d been wearing since before his flight up to Canada. Where was his jacket? He’d been wearing it before, at the Lodge. More importantly, where was Iva? She’d been with him when he was--when they were--attacked. By some crazy...masked asshole…
He didn’t remember exactly how it’d happened, only that he’d been walking through the house with Iva and in one misguided turn away from her, Iva’d been gone when he turned back around and seconds later, he’d been struck in the face and then...Well, now he was here.
“Iva? Iva?”
“Julian!”
Iva.
Her voice had him turning wildly towards the shed, eyes wide and terror coursing through his heart.
“Iva!”
“Julian, I’m here! Jules, I--Emily? Emily, О Боже, wake up!”
Julian darted into the shed with no concern of himself, following the sound of Iva’s voice into a room cutting off another with a wide, glass window that was dirtied by time and the elements. Behind the glass, he was met with the horrifying sight of Iva and Emily held up against the wall in restraints, a circular saw a few feet back from them at the end of a track that split into two different tracks leading right up to the both of them. He tried the door to his right once, twice, three times before trying to kick it down to no avail, all the while listening to the terrified sounds of his best friend and the woman he loved from behind the thick, impenetrable glass.
“Hello, everyone.”
A distorted voice cut through his attempts to physically knock down the sturdy metal door that separated him from two of the three most important women in his life, filtering through some sort of rigged speaker system that he only noticed upon looking up.
“Tonight we’re going to conduct a little experiment. A sort of test, some might say.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Julian shouted up at nothing, frantically looking back and forth between the two horrified women that were still fighting their bounds.
“Now, for this experiment, we’ll need the cooperation of our two test subjects...Emily and Iva..”
“Holy shit. What the fuck. Oh my god.” Emily was muttering in fear, her voice only high enough for Julian to barely hear it.
“What? What’s happening?” Iva countered with a break to her tone.
“But we’re going to need more than one brave participant…” The mysterious voice continued, “To help decide which subject will live...and which one will die.”
“No, no. О Боже, no! Julian, god, Julian get us the fuck out of here!”
“No! No, you can’t do this! Let us down from here, you fucking psycho!” Emily shouted in return, beginning to spew other swears before she was cut off by the doctored voice once more.
“Now, please...Everyone calm down...It’s all very simple...Julian, you will find a lever placed directly in front of you,” And as promised, Julian looked down to find a lever sicking straight up in front of him, a half circle setting at the bottom to signal that it only went two ways. Towards Iva or towards Emily. “All you have to do...Is choose who you’re going to save. Whoever you care for more...turn the lever in their direction.”
A strangled noise of fear came from Iva as the circular saw fired up, starting to drift slowly down towards the middle of the track. Julian’s own eyes widened in stunned horror and he looked from the lever to Iva and Emily, who were both franctically screaming different things.
“Julian! О Боже, Julian, you can’t let me die! Возлюбленная, please! Fuck, please!”
“Julian, dude...Let’s just--ah--Let’s think about this for a second, man.”
Julian was physically blanched, frozen in the spot. His hand hovered over the lever as he watched the saw continue forward with a deafening screech. What would happen if he did nothing?
“If you do nothing,” The voice spoke, as if reading his mind, “Both will perish.”
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, just...Just…” He tried to cut through the sound of the girls creaming behind the glass, his breathing hitching as he felt himself starting into a panic attack. “Just give me a second...I can’t think straight.”
“Bro, Julian, please,” Emily pleaded, the fear in her eyes like nothing Julian had ever seen on her before. “I don’t wanna go out like this man, and we’ve been through so much! Please!” She paused, only long enough for Iva to screech a what the fuck! out, continuing. “I know...I know we haven’t been the best of friends lately and that I’ve been all fucked up and everything, but I’m getting better, man! I swear!”
Julian’s heart clenched.
“Iva,” He whispered. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I...I’m…” With a ragged sob flying from his lips, he gripped the lever in front of him tightly, tugging it in Emily’s direction. He loved Iva, he really did. He’d never felt for anyone the way he felt for her, but Emily was his best friend. The person that, until the last year, had been by his side since they were in the third grade. The choice was hard and horrible, but the answer was obvious.
“I see…” The voice spoke instantly, and Julian felt his entire body freeze over, the chill in his bones having nothing at all to do with the freezing temperature he stood in, provided by the ominous pounding of the blizzarding snow against the wooden side of the shed. “You have chosen to save Iva.”
“What? Julian, what the fuck!” Emily shouts drowned out his own mutters of what? What, no! I didn’t...I didn’t mean to…, the betrayal in her voice cutting through him like a knife. Iva was silent now, her gaze darting from Julian to Emily in sheer horror, watching as the saw crept closer and closer to Julian’s long time friend. “What the fuck, man! I thought we were friends! I Thought we--Oh my god, what did I do? What did I do, Julian, I--” She was cut off as the saw hit her in the mid-section, tearing at her flesh like it was tissue paper. Gurgled screams pushed past her lips and Iva’s screams mingled in, flooding Julian’s senses as the panic attack he’d been staving off hit him full force. All he could mutter was fuck, fuck, fuck...until Emily stopped screaming and the bottom half of her body fell to the ground below like a bag full of rocks, the saw still spinning into the wooden wall where Emily’s top half still hung above it.
“No, no, no…” He choked out, tears freely falling down his face. Iva had turned away from the carnage at Emily’s first scream and still had her eyes buried into her own shoulder, although she was wet now with the splattered blood of their friend from nearly head to toe. “Don’t look. Iva, don’t…”
With a sickening click, the door to his right swung upon on its own and Julian only hesitated for the shortest of beats while he was still panicking before he darted into the room, running straight for Iva while trying to avoid the sight of...what had moments ago been Emily. “I’m--I’m here, Z. I’ve got you. I’m gonna get you down, baby I--” He unstrapped her from the wall immediately, a huff escaping him when Iva fell into him, sobs wracking through her body as she buried her face into the thin shirt that separated him from the chill around them that he didn’t even feel due to the adrenaline coursing through his veins. “Ah, fuck, we gotta--we gotta get out of here--Shhh, Shh, We have to--” Julian brought his hand to the back of her head and gently pressed his palm against her hair to ensure she wouldn’t lift her head from his chest to see the bloody mess that Emily’s corpse was. Iva clung to him, her arms around his neck, him carrying her bridal style out of the shed as quickly as he could. When he thought nothing else could possibly worsen what had happened, he saw Emily in front of him--or Elizabeth, his mind finally rationalized after a second or two of staring at Lizzie’s plate sized eyes and horrified expression.
“What happened?” She asked, concern lacing her tone. Braydon jogged up a second later, his breathing coming out ragged and strained as if he’d been chasing Elizabeth through the sprint of woods from the Lodge to where Julian was holding a blood-soaked Iva.
“Blood?” Braydon asked and Elizabeth’s gaze snapped from Julian’s somber expression to Iva’s blood splattered body, fear gripping her like a vice.
“Blood?” She repeated. “Who’s blood is that? Who--”
“Em…” Julian choked out.
“Man, what?” Braydon pushed, a mild panic coursing through him as he watched Lizzie’s expression shift to one of genuine terror, the petrifying feeling in the air only intensified by the fact that Iva seemed to refuse to lift her head from Julian’s chest. “Julian…”
“Right in front of us, B...Right in...She’s…”
Elizabeth didn’t wait for him to finish, sprinting into the structure that Julian and Iva had just emerged from to find her sister’s severed body, Emily’s head dropped down limply towards the ground. A shrill scream tore through her throat and she dropped to the frozen floor of the shed, sobbing into her thighs. She didn’t hear the footfalls that meant Braydon or Julian or whoever had followed her in, nor did she register the muffled sounds of someone trying to comfort her or the feeling of cold hands on her back and her arms and her face. Nothing cut through the haze she was in now, images of her sister’s mutilated corpse flooding her thoughts to sit side by side with the assuming images of what might have happened to Elisha a year prior still fresh in her head.
CHAPTER FIVE - SIX HOURS UNTIL DAWN
“How did we end up getting the worst job ever?” Ian asked as they trudged through the snow, Natasha at his side and shivering in the cold. He thought about offering her his jacket but decided against it, assuming that it’d be certain death for him to face the cold with no coat. The snow was falling in buckets now and he knew by the time they reached the radio tower that they’d probably be in it up to their knees.
“Dude, come on…” Nat started, looking over to him with an incredulous expression. “Lizzie’s sister just got fucking killed.”
“Yeah, which is probably why none of us should be out here, bro.”
“You wanna sit up in that Lodge like sitting ducks, knowing that help isn’t coming?” Ian didn’t answer. “I don’t.”
“What about BStew, then? Julian? Iva?”
Natasha groaned over at the young man, seeing the radio tower looming in front of them now that they’d come into a clearing of sorts, the eerie woods at their backs. “Julian and Iva had to watch Emily get deli sliced. You think they’re not traumatized, man? And BStew knows Lizzie better than anyone. He’s gotta stay there with her.”
“Lana?” He tried finally, glancing over to Nat with a raised brow.
“Are you kidding?” She started. “Crazy killer running around in the woods? Lana would get butchered in seconds and we’re trying to keep our numbers up, bro. Stop being such a baby, at least we have a chance.”
“You have a chance,” He muttered as they came up to the base of the tower and were met with an elevator. He thought, ironically, of how much the radio tower reminded him of the Eiffel Tower. Not the real one, of course, but the fake one at King’s Island that he’d gone up once or twice while visiting his mother’s family in the Cincinnati area. This elevator, although, did not remind him of the beautiful glass elevator on the faux Eiffel Tower he knew and loved, but of something more sinister. It was the kind of elevator with the metal doors you had to pry apart and metal grating behind that in which you had to do the same. A steel box of death, he mused. “Dude...Let’s...not, maybe. The only time you see elevators like this is in trendy New York lofts and in horror movies where the sweet old granny you get stuck in the creepy elevator with was Satan all along.” He paused, swallowing. “Does this look like a gentrified Brooklyn loft to you?”
Nat scoffed, pulling apart the metal doors so that she could go to work on the grates alone, waiting until she was finally able to usher Ian inside the elevator to reverse what she’d done. When everything was secure, she stabbed at the button meant to take them up and pressed her hands to the wall next to her to steady herself when the box lurched upwards violently.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the lord is with thee. Blessed are thou--”
“Ian, shut up,” Nat hissed.
After a few seconds of them holding their breaths and clutching what they could of the walls due to the lack of railing or any kind of support in general within the elevator, it came to a shaky stop and Natasha waited with bated breath for a second before freeing them.
“Ugh, it’s so dark,” She muttered, letting her eyes adjust to the change in the room. Windows all around the circular room let in slivers of white, but no real light shone through, just...snow. So much snow.
“Lights?” Ian questioned and Nat resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“Don’t think so, Sherlock. Try something, though.”
Ian nodded, walking up to a printer and jabbing the power button a few times. “Nothin’.”
“Hm. There’s gotta be a fuse box around here somewhere.”
“Find it?”
“I’m going to punch you in the face, Ian.” Nat sighed after the threat, moving around the room with purpose until she finally found the item she was looking for. Opening the metal panel with a lightning bolt painted onto it, she flipped a switch and triumphantly, the lights flickered on and she heard the hum of the printer that Ian had been messing with previously as it started working. “What’s it printing?” She asked quizically, watching as Ian’s expression turned somber and he grabbed one of the papers from the printer’s tray.
“Lish…” He started and Natasha frowned, looking at Elisha’s black and white face with MISSING printed over it in big, bold letters.
“I’m sorry you’re still missing, Lish…” She whispered sadly.
“Yeah, but like...them missing is starting to make hella sense now. Like, I’m sure what happened to Emily ha--”
“Ian,” Nat hissed.
“My bad.”
Not offering the young man another word, Nat made her way over to the radio she’d noticed as soon as the lights went up, tuning it until she finally heard a voice.
“--Hello is someone trying to contact us? This is the park ranger service for Blackwood County. I'm not getting your signal very well. Please speak slowly and clearly, over.”
“Oh, shit! Yes! Yes!” Nat screeched into the little walkie attached to the radio, unable to hide her excitement. “Yes, please, we need help!”
“If you can hear this, please repeat your message as I am unable to understand what you are saying, over.”
Nat sighed in exasperation.
“We're on...Blackwood Mountain...by the ski lodge...there's a killer and he's after us and he's already killed one of our friends. Oh god, please help, you've got to help us!”
Just as Natasha spoke, the security lights at the bottom of the tower that had turned on when they approached the structure initially went on and Nat paused.
“Probably nothing, lil mama.” Ian tried to reassure, although he felt the fear bubbling in him as well. “Deer or something, probably. Tripped the sensor, ya’know?”
Nat didn’t have time to answer, her attention caught by the voice on the radio again.
“I read you, ma'am. Please do not leave your position. We will send out helicopters to get you as soon as the storm has subsided, over.”
“What? When? How long is that going to take?” Nat asked wildly.
“Dawn at the earliest. Not until dawn, over.”
Before Nat could protest, the entire tower lurched and they heard the sickening sound of one of the support beans being cut and all at once they were tossed to the side as the tower began to fall, Nat hitting one of the windows with such a force that it threw her neck to the side hard enough to break it and Ian, after watching Nat’s eyes roll upwards, lost his grip on the beam he’d been clinging to and fell as well, impaled by the fire safety ax he’d almost picked up when the lights turned on. After all, he would have felt safer with an ax.
As Julian woke again, he found himself recalling a particular piece of wisdom that his mother had dropped on him many years ago in the face of whatever sort of child-like struggle he was up against at the time.
When things are bad, they’re only going to get worse until you make them better yourself, niño. The bad keeps coming and coming and coming until you feel like there’s nothing you could possibly do to make things better and then--finalmente! You are stronger than ever in the end because you have faced nothing but struggle.
Basically, when shit knocked you down, shit kept kicking. And shit was kicking, he thought, coming out of the muddied haze from whatever drugs had been used to knock him out. He chided himself, although not as seriously as he should have for having been caught off guard not once, but twice that night. Now, as his vision came back fully and he saw Iva sitting across from him at a long, wooden table, he cursed himself for letting himself be taken by surprise because it meant that she was put in danger. Not once, but twice.
“Jules?” She mumbled weakly, lifting her head to squint over at him. A sickly purple and green ring circled her left eye and Julian shifted desperately where he sat in hopes of reaching her but noticed instead, for the first time, that he was strapped to the chair he was in at the waist and around his ankles.
“Oh, fuck, Iva...What did he do to you?”
“I...I think he hit me.” She whispered back in response and Julian struggled against his restraints more.
“Mierda,” He spat, his brows furrowing as he watched her fully come to. “I’m gonna murder his fucking face off. You hear that, gilipollas? Voy a matarte por lo que le hiciste a mi chica!” Whether he was talking about Emily or Iva at that point, he wasn’t quite sure himself, but he knew yelling wasn’t going to help. And he could see on Iva’s face that it was only scaring the shit out of her more.
“We’re going to die,” She said after a second, her breathing ragged and her eyes widened over at him. “Julian, we’re going to die this time. I’m not--I’m not ready to die, I have things I want to do and things I never said to you and--”
“Iva--baby, please--We’re not going to die, okay? We’re not. Breathe.”
“Julian, fuck off!” She screeched. “Look at us! Emily is fucking dead! Nat and Ian are out there--probably also dead. Elisha and V--It’s not hard to imagine what happened to them after this, I--We’re so fucked. We’re going to die, we’re going to die and it’s not fair because I don’t want to die with you, I...We’re going to die. We’re going to die and we wasted everything.”
“No,” Julian started again firmly, having already winced off her harsh words, entranced by the terrified ones. “No, no...We haven’t wasted anything, okay? Every second I spent with you was the only thing I ever wanted to do with my time, Iva. We’re not going to die and when we get out of here, I’m gonna--”
“Hello, my special little test subjects.”
Julian froze. The voice from before. The Psycho or whatever Braydon had dubbed it. The asshole that killed his best friend.
“Don’t be scared, amor. It’s fine, it’s--”
Before he could finish, their gazes snapped upwards, the sound of a saw starting above them and slowly lowering towards them diverting their attention from each other. Iva didn’t even scream, merely letting go a strangled noise of terror.
“Oh, but she should be scared. You should be scared, Iva, because here’s the twist: Julian’s already made one fatal choice today and now…”
“No,” Julian hissed, the pistol on the table in front of him making a lot more sense now. “No.”
“You must make another. Julian...you can take that gun in front of you and shoot Iva, or you can shoot yourself. Whoever is left, can live! The choice is yours.”
Julian picked the gun up immediately, raising it to shoot at the saw above them. The bullet ricocheted off the spinning blade and shot past them and he listened to the repulsive sound of their crazed attacker chuckling. “Don’t be an idiot, Julian.”
He looked up at the saw again. Looked around wildly. Looked from the gun in his hand up to Iva, who his gaze settled on. He remembered the words of the Psycho earlier, with Emily. If you do nothing, both will perish.
And then he raised the gun to his own head, ignoring Iva’s screams of no! and let his finger hover over the trigger.
CHAPTER SEVEN - FOUR HOURS UNTIL DAWN
“I can’t find Lana anywhere, Lizzie. She was upstairs and said she was going to take a nap, but when I went up to her room, the window was open and there were track marks in the snow on the roof. Like she slid down to the ground or something. She’s not outside, either, I--Lizzie? Are you listening?”
Elizabeth didn’t look up to Braydon. Didn’t shift her gaze from the framed photo she held of her once whole family at all. She’d been like that for an hour or so. Frozen in a state of unconsciousness, despite the fact that she was wide awake. Braydon had told her to follow Lana’s lead and lie down a little earlier, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, either. Not with the image of her twin sister literally sawed in half still dancing around her head. She wasn’t a glutton for punishment and she didn’t want to be faced with those nightmares.
“Lizzie,” Braydon tried again gently, strolling over to the couch that Elizabeth sat on in the main room to drop down next to her, his hand moving to cover hers. She cringed away from him immediately, letting a second pass before her she finally looked up to him with a sort of apologetic expression.
“I’m sorry, Braydon, I--”
Three gunshots in a row cut her off and by instinct, both she and Braydon sprung off the couch, him looking down at her with wide, concerned eyes.
“The basement,” She hissed. “Came from the basement.”
And without listening to any of his protests that she should stay behind, she started towards the basement door, not bothering to think twice about the danger she was probably running into. And danger, she was right to assume, as the sight she was met with made her freeze in place. Iva and Julian, strapped down to chairs across from the long table she used to play poker with her dad and siblings at on vacation against their mother’s wishes, Julian’s arm raised with a gun in his hand, the sights leveled on a masked man who was looking down to his dungaree clad chest--which, if she was assuming correctly, Julian had just shot at. Braydon appeared behind her a second later, his hands wrapping around her arms from behind.
“What the fuck?” Julian hissed, eyes wide.
“What, Julian?” The distorted voice was stomach churning, filled with deep amusement. “You’ve never heard of blanks before?” The masked Psycho turned around and Elizabeth felt her heart stop. “Look at who decided to join the party. Almost have the whole gang here, don’t we? Aw, Little Lizzie, you look kind of...startled. You all look so...scared.” There was a pause before the masked man spoke again. “How does it feel? Do you enjoy feeling terrorized? Humiliated? I mean, panicked? All those emotions that my sister and my girlfriend got to feel once one year ago! Only guess what? They didn't get to laugh it off! No! Nope! No, no, no! They're gone!”
Wait.
“Oh come, come-come-come-come. Why the long faces? Come on! It's good to get the heart racing every now and then, right? And race they did, I mean, every one of you, just pitter-pat, pitter-pat! I hope you appreciated my little phantasmagorical spectacle!”
“What the fu--”
Elizabeth was cut off. Everyone had to have pieced it together at that point, right? Not just her?
“I mean, no detail too small! No opportunity missed! It was such a delight to play the puppet master to all of your Pavlovian panic! And all that gore? I mean, gore, there was gore galore! Fake bodies...I mean, god that shit was expensive! And no retakes! Nope, nope, nope, only double takes! You should have seen your faces. Hook, line and sinker for every little fuckin’ stinker!”
Fake bodies. Retakes. What. The. Fuck.
“What? Don’t gimme those faces. Come on, you guys are all going to thank me when you become internet sensations! Oh, and you better believe this little puppy is going viral ladies and germs. I mean, we got unrequited love. We got...we got blood! I don't think there's enough hard drives in China to count all the view we're gonna get, you guys.”
And just then, the distortion of the voice ceased and the mask lifted, long, brown hair tumbling down from where it’d been shoved inside.
“Emily?”
