#ppsf24

“I’m glad you told me to wear these boots for a few weeks at home first,” Chloe said, taking hold of Beca’s hand as she helped her step down a particularly craggy rock. “I think a blister out here would finish me off.”

“Yeah,” Beca said. “I remember Sheila learning that lesson the hard way. I honestly thought her and my Dad were gonna divorce right there and then.”

“How is Sheila?” Chloe asked. 

Beca shrugged. “I dunno. Better, I think, now that we’re doing this. She didn’t like him just being stuck on a shelf.” As if on instinct, Beca reached a hand around to press against the front of her pack, pushing against the tightly packed interior, trying to feel for the small, hard, object that was wrapped safely in the centre. It hardly weighed a thing, but was the heaviest item she carried.

“I don’t think you’ve lost him,” Chloe said. 

“No, I know,” Beca said, removing her hand. “But it’d be so embarrassing if we got all the way up there and it turns out I left him on a tree-stump near the parking lot.”

Chloe laughed and took hold of Beca’s hand again, this time for no other reason than just to hold it. 

“We’d have to just grab him on our way back and tell Sheila we did it.”

It was Beca’s turn to chuckle now. “Damn, lying to a widow about where her husband’s ashes are scattered? Pretty dark.”

“Better than having to do this hike again,” Chloe replied, squeezing Beca’s hand to let her know she was joking. “Are we much further from where you wanted to set up camp?”

“I don’t think so,” Beca said, removing the map from the plastic pouch hung around her neck. She knew where on the map they needed to be, and had a pretty good idea of where they currently were. “Maybe another hour and a half? We should have enough time to get everything set up before dark.”

Chloe nodded and they carried on following the trail. 

Beca had done this hike more times than she could count. At one time in her life, she’d have been able to do it blindfolded, her feet knowing where to step without any input from her brain.

Now, however, it had been almost a decade since she’d last been here, and she found herself checking the map more often than she really needed to. The whole place felt totally unchanged and yet completely different at the same time. It was like she was viewing it from another angle. Through a different lens. It felt like something was missing.

It dawned on Beca that something was missing.

For the first time in her life, she was walking this trail without her Dad walking beside her.

She tugged on the straps of her bag again, feeling them dig into her already sore shoulders, and she focused on that pain because if she didn’t she’d start crying. 

-

Despite being a little out of practice, Beca managed to set up their tent without much trouble. It was as if her hands knew what to do even if she didn’t quite remember the steps. 

“I love watching you be all outdoorsy,” Chloe said, as Beca slid tent poles through eyelets and hammered stakes into the ground. 

“Oh yeah?” Beca asked. “Is this turning you on?”

Chloe laughed. “A little.”

“If I’d known that’s all it took, I’d have taken you camping sooner.”

That night they ate a dinner of ramen cooked on their gas stove, and they watched the stars begin to appear above their heads. 

Beca lit a small fire to keep them warm, and they huddled together under one blanket, sharing a small cup of spiked hot chocolate. 

“Thank you for doing this with me,” Beca said, her head on Chloe’s shoulder.

“Of course,” Chloe replied, her head resting on top of Beca’s. “You don’t have to thank me.”

“I know this isn’t your kind of thing.”

“Maybe not,” Chloe said. “But I’m glad I’m here with you.”

They kissed, finished their hot chocolate, and Chloe crawled into their tent while Beca put out the fire. 

Far off in the trees, she heard a branch snap. 

A deer, she told herself. Just a deer.

She joined Chloe in the tent and zipped it up after her with a little more urgency than necessary. 

Their solar-charged camping lamp was shoved in the corner of the small tent, turned to its dimmest settings. 

“Can we keep it on?” Chloe asked, climbing into her sleeping bag. “It’s, like, insanely dark out here.”

“Of course,” Beca said, unable to shake the feeling of unease that, with the lamp on, their tent would shine like a beacon in this pitch black forest. 

Beca didn’t realise how tired she was until she was wrapped in her own warm and comfortable sleeping bag. 

“Night Chlo’,” she mumbled, suddenly unable to keep her eyes open. 

“Night Bec,” Chloe replied. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

-

By the time Chloe woke up the next morning, Beca was already up and preparing their breakfast of oatmeal and sweet, strong, coffee. 

“Morning,” Chloe said, kissing the top of Beca’s head before joining her on the log they had used as a seat the night before. 

“Morning,” Beca replied. “Sleep well?”

“Not bad. Better than you, anyway.”

Beca frowned and turned her attention away from the oatmeal so she could look at Chloe. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you were up all night, shuffling around the tent. Were you looking for something? And I’m pretty sure I asked you to keep the light on.”

“I did,” Beca said. “I never touched it.”

“Well then the battery must have died, because I woke up at like 2 am and it was basically pitch black. I could just see your… shape, sitting at the entrance to the tent.”

“Chlo’ the lamp was still on when I woke up. I slept like a log last night, I was exhausted. Unless I’ve suddenly started sleepwalking at the ripe age of 32, I didn’t move a muscle.”

“Huh,” Chloe said, frowning too. “I was sure…” Chloe shook her head, dispelling the memory of the night before and already reframing it in her mind. “I must have dreamt it.”

“You get some weird noises in the forest,” Beca said, returning her attention to their breakfast. “It can play tricks on you.”

“That must be it.”

After they ate and packed up, they were ready to begin their second day of the hike. If all went well, they’d reach their second camp spot by dinner, and their final destination tomorrow afternoon. 

This used to be a hike that Beca and her Dad did in two days, but because it was Chloe’s first time, she’d planned a slower pace which meant a couple more nights in the wilderness. Not that Beca minded, she’d always preferred a slower pace to her Dad’s break-neck speed, and it meant more nights spent camping, which she loved. But their time together had always been limited, and she needed to be back at the pre-approved custody drop-off spot by Sunday night. 

“You’re quiet today,” Chloe said, her voice breaking the silence that had accompanied them for the last two hours of their hike.

“Sorry,” Beca said. “I’m in my head a little.”

Chloe swapped the stick she’d been using to walk with to her left hand, and took hold of Beca’s with her right. “Don’t be sorry. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“Yeah,” Beca said. “I’m fine. It’s just… It’s weird doing this without him.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Chloe said. 

Beca sucked in a breath and puffed out her cheeks as she blew it out.

She hated this feeling, the one she got right before she was about to cry. 

“Bec.”

“I know,” Beca said, clearing her throat. She knew what Chloe was going to say, she’d said it to her what felt like hundreds of times since her dad had passed. She was going to tell her that it was okay to cry. That it was healthy even. That Beca shouldn’t bottle up her emotions. And Beca knew that was true - logically knew that she shouldn’t be holding everything in like a shook-up soda can - but every part of her told her it was wrong. 

Beca kept her tears at bay and they lapsed into silence again. 

For hours they walked, Beca ahead of Chloe by inches. She couldn’t see her, but she could feel her, a millimetre behind her left shoulder. A shadow in her peripherals. 

She could hear Chloe’s footsteps just behind her, in sync with her own, close enough that if Beca stopped, Chloe would bump into her. Her left hand swung back as she walked and occasionally brushed against the textured surface of Chloe’s sweater.

Then Chloe took hold of her right hand.

Beca jumped - almost yelled out - and spun on her heels.

No one there.

Her heart was beating so fast and there was a sound like rushing water in her ears.

“Beca? What is it?”

Beca swallowed, her eyes scanning the trees behind them. She shook her head.

“I thought-” Beca cut herself off, alarmed and ashamed to hear the shake in her voice. “I thought you were behind me. I…” She swallowed again, her mouth dry, her tongue feeling thick. “I just got a fright. I thought you were on my left, not my right.”

Beca clenched her left hand and then shook it out. She had felt something brush against it. Had heard something walking right behind her. 

But she didn’t want to scare Chloe - didn’t want to scare herself anymore than she had - so she told herself she’d imagined it. She rubbed the back of her left hand against the sweater she wore under her raincoat, trying to clear away the residual feeling of having touched something unknown. 

“Let’s stop for a break,” Chloe said, still eyeing Beca with concern. “We have time, right?”

Not here, Beca thought.

“Yeah,” Beca said, not wanting to turn around and put her back to whatever that was, but also not wanting to stay in this spot for another second. “We can stop, but let’s cover a little more ground first.” She turned and carried on walking the trail, unable to shift the feeling that they were being watched, but refusing to turn and confirm it.

Whatever it was, she knew she didn’t want to see it.

You sound crazy, Beca thought. 

Chloe could tell something had deeply rattled Beca, so she didn’t argue and instead jogged to catch up. She decided not to take hold of her hand again, and tried to remain in her line of sight as best as she could.

After what Chloe would call a 30 minute speed-walk, Beca finally slowed and they stopped to take a break.

They took off their packs and Chloe almost cried with relief at the feeling, her aching shoulders and back practically singing now the weight had been removed.

Beca poured them each a coffee from the thermos she’d filled that morning, and they drank it with some cheese and crackers. 

Chloe rubbed at the knot in her shoulder as she looked up at the bright white sky that was peeking through the canopy of the trees. 

“I’m not walking you too fast, am I?” Beca asked, relieved her voice sounded normal again. 

“No,” Chloe replied. “I mean, that last 30 minutes was basically a run, but other than that it’s been fine.”

Beca nodded. “You’ll tell me if it gets too hard?”

“Of course,” Chloe said. Something about Beca had hardened in the last few hours, and Chloe couldn’t work out how or why. It gave her a pit of worry in her stomach, the kind she got when she thought someone might be mad at her. “I’m not, like, slowing you down or anything, am I?”

“No,” Beca said, her eyes widening in surprise. “No, you’re doing great. We’re making good time.”

She sounded sincere, and Chloe felt the tension in her loosen a little. “Good,” Chloe said. She could have left it at that, but Chloe was never one for holding back. She couldn’t swallow her feelings the same way that Beca could. “Sorry,” she said. “I just… I don’t know, I feel like you might be mad at me or something.”

Beca looked even more surprised. “Why would I be mad at you?”

Chloe shrugged. “The atmosphere’s been kinda tense, I dunno.”

“I mean, we’re here to scatter my dad’s ashes, Chlo’, I’m not sure what kind of atmosphere you were expecting.”

Chloe cringed and felt her cheeks begin to burn with embarrassment. “You’re right, I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.” 

She turned away and began busying herself with checking her bag.

“I’m not mad at you,” Beca said, her voice softer than it had been a moment ago. “I’m, like, trying to process a lot of feelings right now, and when that happens I go quiet. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” Chloe said, turning back around so she could take both of Beca’s hands in hers. “You didn’t do anything wrong, you don’t need to be sorry. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now, what kind of memories being back here is bringing up, you are 100% allowed to be in your own head. I just needed to make sure I wasn’t doing anything to make it harder for you.”

Beca nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “And you never make anything harder, Chloe. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without you. Any of it.”

Chloe tugged Beca closer and wrapped her up in a tight hug. “Whatever you’re feeling, or trying to work through, I hope you know that you don’t have to do it in your head. If you want to talk, or even just think out loud, then you can. I can talk it through with you or just be a sounding board. But only if you want to. We can walk in silence, or talk about something completely different. Whatever you need, Bec.”

Chloe felt Beca nod against her, and she held her against her chest until Beca ended the hug. 

They packed up, their backs groaning as the weight of the packs settled against their shoulders again, and they carried on walking.

The silence between them remained, and Chloe couldn’t think of any way to break it. 

She knew Beca needed it, but she hated it. 

Hated it because she was starting to feel on edge.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched.

-

Dinner that night was spaghetti in sauce with some kind of mystery meat. Chloe had grimaced as Beca had squeezed it out of the vacuum-sealed packet, but once it had been heated on the stove Chloe’s mouth had watered at just the smell of it.

“It’s not scientifically possible that spaghetti from a bag should taste this good,” Chloe said, trying to scrape up every last bit of sauce.

“I know,” Beca said, her mouth almost smiling. 

Beca hadn’t been able to shake the darkness that had been growing in her chest since that morning, and it had only gotten heavier as the day wore on. Each step caused a rock to harden in her chest, and now it was almost nightfall, she felt like she was made of stone. 

Chloe cleaned up their plates while Beca lit another small fire, and they were soon huddled up together as night fell quickly.

“Is this the part where you tell me a ghost story?” Chloe asked, desperate for Beca to get out of her head. 

Beca let out a laugh that was little more than a puff of air through her nose. “I don’t think I know any.”

The silence fell across them again. Beca stared into the fire, and Chloe felt like she was sitting beside a statue.

Then Beca moved suddenly, startling Chloe. She reached into her pack and pulled out the bottle of whisky she’d used in their hot chocolate the night before. 

“Bec?”

“I’ve thought of one,” she said, pouring them each a small measure. She’d brought it with them so they could toast her Dad when his ashes were scattered - something that she realised was approaching closer and closer and that she wasn’t sure she was ready for - she hadn’t intended on them drinking it the rest of the nights. But the whisky had warmed her the night before, had temporarily eased the aches in her back and legs, and had allowed sleep to come more easily. Besides, she figured she might need a drink to tell the story she was about to share.

She took a sip and stored the bottle away again.

“You’ve got a ghost story?”

“Not a ghost story,” Beca said. “But a campfire kind of story.”

“Okay,” Chloe said, pulling the blanket tighter around their shoulders. She wasn’t sure a scary story in the middle of the woods was a good idea, but anything was better than silence at this point.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I got lost in the woods?”

“No,” Chloe said, frowning. “Wait, is this a true story?”

Beca nodded. “I must have told you,” she said. “It’s how I got this.” She pointed to the scar on her cheek.

On instinct, Chloe reached out to touch it. She had asked Beca about it before, had even joked that it must mean they were meant to be together, since the scar formed an almost perfect “C” on her cheek. 

“You told me you got it hiking, not that you got lost,” Chloe said, her cold fingers tracing the edge of it. 

The light coming from the fire had blinded Beca to the rest of the forest, and the darkness stretched out around them on all sides. Even the stars were hidden by clouds. They were a solo pin-point of light in a vast sea of nothingness. Beca felt like if Chloe let go of her arm, she would float away into space.

Beca took another sip of whisky. 

“I was four,” she said. “Out hiking with my Mom and Dad. Before the divorce. The last time we did anything like that as a family. My Dad asked me to grab some sticks for firewood. I was right beside him. My Mom was in the tent, and he turned to ask her something. When he turned back I was gone.” Beca took another drink. “They found me three days later in a Walmart parking lot, the next state over.”

Chloe felt herself go cold. “What the hell?” She asked, her voice little more than a whisper. “What happened?”

“Not a fucking clue,” Beca said. “I don’t remember anything about it.”

“Nothing?” 

“I remember looking down for a stick, and then I remember this old couple in the parking lot asking where my parents were.”

“Jesus, Bec,” Chloe said. “Did you just wander off?”

Beca took another drink, her eyes burning from the heat of the fire that she refused to look away from. She couldn’t look away, because then she’d have to look into the darkness. Into the forest. She didn’t want to look.

“I was four, I couldn’t have walked that far on my own, not in three days,” Beca said, a hint of strain in her voice. She was suddenly wondering why she had decided to tell this story. She hadn’t thought about it in years. “I didn’t have any shoes on when they found me. No coat or hat or anything. There’s no way I could have survived on my own.” Beca cleared her throat, and took another drink. “They think someone took me.”

If Chloe had felt herself go cold before, it was nothing to how she felt now. She practically shivered. 

“Were you hurt when they found you?” Chloe asked, terrified of the answer Beca was about to give.

“No,” Beca replied. “I was fine. Healthy, even. I should have been malnourished or dehydrated or something. I was perfectly fine, except for this.” Beca touched the scar on her cheek. She cleared her throat. “They asked me what happened for months afterwards, but at the time I didn’t have the words to tell them, and by the time I did, I didn’t remember.”

“Beca, this is insane, I can’t believe I’ve known you for over ten years and I’ve never heard this story. You really don’t remember a thing?”

Beca closed her eyes. “I remember being cold, and I remember…” It came back to her sometimes in her nightmares. The wooden structure. Incongruous to its surroundings, like it had been cut out of a home depot catalogue and pasted into the forest. “It was like a hut.”

A stick snapped in the distance and Chloe jumped, and a nervous laugh followed. 

“We moved basically immediately after. Mom said she felt like everyone was watching her. Judging her. She was the bad Mom who let her kid get snatched from under her nose. They divorced not long after that. Mom blamed Dad, Dad blamed himself. I’ve never been back in that forest. It took me years before I’d even agree to go hiking with my Dad again.” Beca went to take another drink. The cup was empty, and the last few drops splashed against her chin. “I didn’t speak for a full year. I… Jesus, I haven’t thought about this in so long, I thought…”

“Thought what?”

“Thought I was over it. Thought it was like a funny, mildly interesting story. The time I got lost in the woods.” She let out a laugh that sounded strange. Panicked. “What the fuck?”

“Bec, it’s okay,” Chloe said, trying not to catch the panic rising in her girlfriend. She knew it was contagious, this kind of fear, and one of them had to be calm. “You’re okay.”

“They checked me over at the hospital,” Beca said, her voice shaking as every horrible memory from that time came flooding back. “You know, just in case. And he hadn’t. I hadn’t been… But, fuck, I was four. I was four and they were checking… fuck.”

It was all rushing back to her faster than she could process it. She wanted to be sick. 

This is why she kept things inside. Pushed them down and turned herself to stone.

“Did you speak to anyone after? Like a therapist or someone? Someone to help you process it?”

“Like 10 of them,” Beca said. “But all they did was try and get me to remember. Asked me to draw it if I couldn’t say it. The police tried that too. Said I needed to help them out because what if this guy snatches up another little girl, and she doesn’t get as lucky? But there was nothing in there. Nothing to draw. Just a black space. They never found him. No evidence there was ever anyone with me. This was back in the 90s, but they had basic security cameras in the parking lot, and there’s footage of me just walking into the parking lot alone. No shoes. No strange man pushing me out of a car and speeding off.”

“Man?”

“An assumption,” Beca said. “An assumption everyone else made too.”

In the light of the fire, Chloe could see Beca’s hands were shaking. She took hold of them, and Beca jumped at the contact.

“Baby, I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Chloe said, her thumb brushing over Beca’s knuckles as she squeezed her hand.

“I don’t… I don’t know why I thought about it after all these years,” Beca said, the panic leaving her voice as the heaviness returned. “I don’t know why I told you.”

“I’m glad you did,” Chloe said. “You know how I feel about bottling things up.”

Beca gave a soft grunt of a laugh. “Yeah,” she said. 

“You’ve been in your head all day,” Chloe said. “You’re back camping and hiking for the first time in a long time, I’m not surprised that memory came back.”

“I wish it hadn’t,” Beca said, rubbing her free hand against her forehead. 

“I know,” Chloe said. “Let’s go to bed. You’ll feel better after some rest.”

Beca didn’t think that was true, but she knew Chloe was only trying to help so she didn’t argue. 

A night of rest wasn’t going to undo this thing that had happened to her almost 30 years ago. It wouldn’t break up the rocks that had been settling in her chest all day. It wouldn’t change the fact that her dad was little more than a pile of ash stashed in her bag, instead of the living breathing man that should be here.

She tried to give Chloe something close to a reassuring smile, but her mouth barely moved. It was as if this was turning to stone too. Her face a frozen expression of grief and pain. 

“You go on ahead,” Beca said. “I’ll take care of the fire.”

Chloe went into the tent to set up their beds for the night, and Beca was alone in the woods.

Except, she knew she wasn’t alone. That feeling of being watched had never left Beca since it arrived, and she was acutely aware that by standing in the light of the fire, it could see her, but she couldn’t see it. It could be a foot away and she’d have no idea.

Before the fear could take hold and root her to the spot, she began putting out the fire, and then backed into the tent rather than turning around. 

“All good?” Chloe asked, already curled up in her sleeping bag.

“Mhm,” Beca replied. “Light staying on?”

“Please,” Chloe said. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” Beca said, getting herself ready for bed before climbing into her own sleeping bag. “Weird day.”

“Yeah,” Chloe agreed. 

“I’m sorry,” Beca said.

“What for?”

“Being all… You know. Moody. Brooding. Whatever.” 

“You don’t need to apologise for that,” Chloe said. 

“Still. I’m not myself. Not fun to be around right now.”

“You don’t have to be,” Chloe said. “You’re grieving. Get some rest, Bec. I can tell you’re tired because you’re not even talking in complete sentences.”

Chloe was right. Beca was exhausted and not just from their hike. 

“‘Kay,” Beca said. “Night. Love you.”

“Love you too, baby.”

The sound of rustling in their tent woke Chloe up again that night. 

It was dark. Darker than anything Chloe had ever experienced. 

It was as if the darkness was a physical presence, and not just the absence of light. She could feel it pressing all around her. Smothering her. 

Chloe wanted to ask Beca if she was okay - because who else would be rustling around in their tent - but she found she couldn’t. She was scared that if she opened her mouth the darkness would pour in and she’d drown in it. 

Then she heard another sound which made her blood run cold. 

Beca was crying. Sobbing. Right beside her on the ground. 

Which meant there was something else inside their tent. 

A fear like Chloe had never felt before gripped her so tightly she was afraid she’d shatter. 

She wanted to cry. To tell Beca to be quiet. To do something about this intruder that might wish them harm. 

But she couldn’t. 

All she could do was squeeze her eyes shut and hold her breath and pray that it would go away. That whoever or whatever it was would leave them alone. 

Beca continued to sob beside her, and Chloe realised this was the first time she’d ever really heard her girlfriend cry. She wanted to cry too but she swallowed the urge. 

“Please,” Beca whimpered, her breath shuddering between each painful sob. “Please, I want to go home. I want to go home.”

Her voice sounded so much smaller than usual. So much younger. She sounded like the lost little girl in the story Beca had told earlier that night. 

Beca’s story came back to Chloe like a bad dream she’d tried to forget. 

In her mind, she could see her huddled. Shivering. Looking up at… something. Something her four-year-old brain didn’t understand. Something she couldn’t put into words, but she knew enough to be afraid. 

All Chloe wanted to do was reach out and comfort her, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t move because she could still hear this thing in their tent. 

Behind her closed eyes, Chloe could see light. A dim glow that had returned to the tent. 

She almost opened her eyes.

Almost. 

Then she heard another rustle, and she knew they still weren’t alone. It was still there with them. 

Chloe could feel it watching them. 

It had turned the lamp back on. It wanted Chloe to look but she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. 

It was silent save for the soft whimpering still coming from her girlfriend. So silent that she couldn’t hear the sounds of the rest of the forest anymore. No animals scurrying or owls hooting, or the wind rustling through the trees.

She could feel its eyes burning into her and she could feel herself beginning to shake as she realised something else.

She’d heard those noises the night before and had attributed them to Beca. 

Now she knew better.

This thing had been in their tent last night too. 

Had likely been following them this whole time.

That feeling she’d had of being watched wasn’t just her mind playing tricks on her. 

The silence dragged on with the feeling of pressure in their tent growing and growing. Chloe felt like she was waiting for a jump-scare in a movie. 

Then she heard the whine of the zipper being pulled, and felt a rush of cold air blow through the entrance to the tent. She heard the zipper again and the soft retreating footsteps of whatever it was. 

They were alone again, Chloe could feel it, but she still couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes. 

In her head she counted to ten. Twenty. Thirty. 

“I want to go home,” Beca cried again. “I want my Daddy.”

It was enough to finally force Chloe’s eyes open, and she felt a brief flood of relief to discover they were in fact alone again. 

Beca was curled on her side, knees pulled into her chest, body shaking with each cry for home and for her dad. 

From her spot beside her, Chloe could see that the scar on Beca’s cheek was bleeding. The scar was over 20-years-old, long faded and barely visible, but was somehow bleeding like a fresh wound.

Chloe tried for the rest of the night to wake her, but she couldn’t. Beca remained trapped in the nightmare where she was a lost little girl, begging to go home.

All Chloe could do was hold Beca in her arms. She assumed sleep would never come, but at the sound of the birds and the sight of soft light beginning to filter through their tent, she finally did. 

-

Chloe was alone when she woke up only a few hours later.

She scrambled up and out of her sleeping bag and was relieved to see Beca sitting just outside the entrance of their tent.

The cold air bit at her exposed arms and legs, but she didn’t return to the tent to get dressed. 

Beca was hunched over their camping stove, but was staring off into the trees. Chloe could smell the burning oatmeal in the pan and hurried forward to take it off the heat. 

Beca didn’t even react to her presence. Her eyes were slightly puffy from the hours she’d spent crying the night before, and the cut on her cheek was beginning to scab over. 

Chloe thought she looked empty. Lost.

“Beca,” she said, taking a seat beside her, the wooden log cold and wet against her bare skin. She took hold of Beca’s arm.

Beca gave a grunt in response, but didn’t look away from the trees.

“Bec, last night…” She trailed off, unable to find the words she needed to explain what had happened. “I don’t think we’re safe here. I think we need to go home.” Even as she said it, the knot of worry tightened in her stomach. They were at least two days' walk away from where they had parked up, which meant two more nights out here in the forest. 

Beca still didn’t speak, and Chloe’s panic increased.

“Something came into our tent last night. I don’t know if it was an animal or-” she cut herself off as she remembered that whatever it was had messed with their light. Had zipped and unzipped the entrance to their tent multiple times. “Something was in our tent,” she repeated. “And it was in our tent the night before. And it followed us all day yesterday, and I think you know that. I think you felt it too.”

Beca nodded, slowly.

It wasn’t words, but it was something. It was an acknowledgement. 

“So we should go, right? Like pack up and hightail it out of here? I can walk faster,” Chloe said, the speed of her voice quickening as a sense of urgency filled her. “You and your dad used to do this hike in two days, right? Well just walk at that pace and I’ll keep up, or-” Chloe’s words were coming faster. Tripping over each other in a rush to get out of her mouth. “Or we go a different way. Just whatever will get us out of this forest the fastest. We can Uber to the car when we’re back to civilization.”

Beca nodded again, her eyes never leaving the trees. Chloe was too afraid to follow the direction they were focused on.

“Baby, please say something. I’m really fucking freaked out right now.”

Beca swallowed and a tear crept down her cheek, stopping when it reached the raised scab that was still a scar only hours ago. 

“I’m sorry,” Beca said. “I don’t… I don’t know what’s happening.”

“I know,” Chloe said. “I don’t either, but I need you right now. I don’t know what I’m doing out here, and I need you to help me get us out of here. I need…” She trailed off. She had almost told Beca she needed her to snap out of it, but that seemed too harsh.

But then she thought, fuck it.

She needed to be harsh.

She needed to be harsh because she couldn’t get them out of this forest alone.

Because she refused to die out here.

“I need you to snap out of this,” Chloe said, her voice sterner than it had been a moment ago. “Something weird is happening out here, and I need you to fight it. You can’t give up, Bec. We need to get out of here.”

Beca cleared her throat and finally tore her eyes away from the trees. 

“I know,” she said. “I know, I’m sorry.” She pulled out the map, and tapped on a spot. “That’s where we’re headed,” she said, pointing at the place where she intended to scatter her Dad’s ashes. “From there we’ll cut down here.” She traced her finger down a length of what Chloe assumed to be woodland. “A harder path than the way we came, but shorter. There are multiple places to join the trail, and this should lead us to one of them.”

“Have you done it before?” Chloe asked.

“No,” Beca admitted. “But we could be out of here by tonight if we take it.”

Chloe nodded. The unknown was frightening to her, but the way they came didn’t feel much better. “Then that’s what we’ll do. I trust you.”

Chloe dressed and they packed up their camp in record speed.

The oatmeal had been beyond saving, so they each ate a protein bar as they walked.

The pace Beca set was punishing, but Chloe kept up. Everything hurt from her feet to her shoulders, but she didn’t complain. She would not slow them down.

The thing still followed them.

They both knew it, could both feel it, but they refused to turn and look.

Up ahead, they saw the gradual incline of a hill, and for the first time that day, Beca thought about why they were even here in the first place. 

She thought about her dad.

She thought about what she would soon be doing.

These weren’t the circumstances she’d wanted when she’d suggested the idea to Chloe a month ago.

She’d wanted time. Peace. She’d wanted to be able to say a few words. Have a drink. Cry, maybe.

Beca knew now she wouldn’t get that. She knew she was foolish to even still be doing it. 

But she also knew she had to. It was her last chance. 

Once she got out, she would never set foot in this place again, or anywhere like it. 

Because what she knew now was the man that had taken her all those years ago had never been a man.

It was a Thing. An It. Something not human. Something that had followed her to the other side of the country.. 

After all these years, it had found her.

Or had it always known where she was? Had it just been waiting for the right moment?

Had it been following and watching on every hike she’d taken with her dad?

Beca shuddered as the ground sloped upwards beneath her feet. 

It didn’t make any sense, but logic and reason were starting to feel like foreign concepts. 

None of it had ever made sense.

How do you snatch a child from right under her parents’ noses? How does she end up in a parking lot miles and miles away from where she started?

Chloe walked beside her, her right hand holding Beca’s left, as their pace slowed as they climbed the hill.

The thing followed on Beca’s right. Its footsteps out of time with her own.

It wanted her to know it was there. 

Chloe was beginning to pant beside her.

“We can stop soon,” Beca said, her own breathing just as laboured.

Chloe didn’t want to - she could feel it beside them too - but she knew they needed to. 

They crested the top of the hill, and the forest stretched out beneath them.

It seemed to go on forever, and Chloe felt that panic grip her again.

How would they ever get out of this?

“There,” Beca said, pointing in the direction they had to head next, her head down to look at her compass. “Down that way.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” Beca said, pulling the map out to double check. 

“Okay,” Chloe said. She unclipped the strap across her chest and let her pack drop to the floor. The relief was immediate but the pain still lingered. 

Beca did the same, though she was a little more careful about lowering her bag to the floor. 

This thing that followed kept its distance.

Like it understood this was a moment Beca needed to have before whatever came next. 

She reached into her pack and pulled out the urn that contained what was left of her Dad.

She straightened up and took a deep breath.

“This isn’t how I wanted to do this,” she said, speaking to the urn. To her Dad. “I had a whole speech prepared, but I think we have to keep it short. The gist is, you deserve to stay in your favourite place forever. To be with nature, in this forest you loved so much. I… I miss you. I love you.”

Beca opened the urn and tipped out the ashes and they were picked up by the wind. 

She had expected to feel lighter, but she didn’t. She didn’t know how she felt, but they didn’t have time to dissect it right now.

“Ready?” Beca asked. She couldn’t bring herself to glance over her shoulder at Chloe, in case it wasn’t Chloe that was looking back at her. She kept her eyes focused on the direction they were heading as she hauled her pack back onto her bag.

“Yeah,” Chloe replied, doing the same. She handed Beca another protein bar. “Let’s get out of here.”

-

Hours and hours passed and they had no idea if they were even close to getting out.

The trail Beca had chosen for them had been significantly more overgrown than expected.

The terrain was rough, uneven, and dangerous. A lot had been completely impassable and had required them to alter their course to go around it. 

Beca had tried to maintain their pace but it was proving reckless. One wrong step could result in a twisted ankle or worse, and that could put them in serious danger under normal circumstances.

The sun was getting lower in the sky, and Beca was forced to bring them to a stop.

They would have to endure one more night in this place.

“I’m sorry,” Beca said, her breathing heavy as they finally conceded defeat. “I didn’t realise how bad it would be.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Chloe replied. “We didn’t have a lot of choices.”

They set up their tent even though they knew it offered them no protection from the thing that still stalked them, and they huddled inside it together without any intention of sleeping.

“As soon as it’s light we head out again,” Beca said, checking the map for what felt like the hundredth time. “I think we went too far south, we need to be more west.”

“Eat something,” Chloe said, handing her one of the vacuum sealed packages Beca had brought, and keeping one for herself.

They ate them cold, and in silence, hunger gnawing at their stomachs even after the last of the food had been squeezed into their mouths. 

“We’re going to be okay, right?” Chloe asked, shuffling closer and linking her arm through Beca’s.

“Yeah,” Beca said, without conviction. “Of course.”

Darkness was falling fast, and only their dim, flickering, camping lamp provided them with any kind of light. 

“I was going to propose,” Beca said, her voice breaking a long silence between them. “Before my dad… Then I thought maybe I’d do it when we got home from this trip.”

There was defeat in Beca’s voice and it made Chloe feel helpless. 

“When you ask me when we get home, I’ll say yes,” Chloe said. “I’ll even act surprised.”

“What if I asked you now? Would you say yes now?”

Chloe wanted to cry. “Are you asking now?”

“Yeah,” Beca said. “I think I am.”

“You have to actually ask me,” Chloe said, tears coming quickly now. 

Beca laughed and sniffed and cleared her throat. “Chloe Beale, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” Chloe replied, her voice hiccuping as she half laughed and half cried. “But you have to promise me we aren’t going camping for our honeymoon.”

“After this, I’m never going camping again.” 

Beca hurried to wipe her eyes before kissing Chloe for what felt like the last time. 

Darkness had truly fallen now, and she knew their time was short. 

“The ring is in the bottom drawer of my desk. The one with the lock. Key is taped to the back of our photo,” she said. 

Her brief moment of joy was now being replaced by the fear that had followed them all day. 

It was coming. 

She could hear the snapping of sticks in the distance as it made its way over to them. 

“You can give it to me yourself when we get home,” Chloe replied. She could feel it too. Could feel the fear radiating out of Beca as the lamp in their tent began to flicker and die. 

They were plunged into darkness. 

The only thing they could hear was their own ragged breaths. 

“Beca. I love you.”

Beca didn’t reply, because she was already gone. 

-

The darkness lifted so slowly, Beca thought maybe she was just imagining it. Maybe her eyes were finally adjusting after so long in the pitch black. 

But then it got brighter. 

She thought it was the sunrise, but she knew that morning was still hours away. 

What was that old saying her grandmother had said about a red sky at night?

She reached for Chloe’s hand, but Chloe wasn’t there. 

There was no use delaying the inevitable. 

Beca unzipped the tent and stepped out into the blood red sky. 

The ground was cold beneath her bare feet, the wind bit at her now completely naked body, and her breath fogged in front of her face.

This wasn’t the same forest she’d been in only hours before. 

Before her was a clearing free from trees, and in the middle was that wooden structure from her nightmare. 

Beca began to sob.

No no no no no no no

God

Please

Her feet moved of their own accord towards the hut, and the door creaked open to welcome her inside. 

It was so cold. 

The red light filtered through the single window above the door and she could make out the shape of a creature crouched in the shadows.

The door slammed shut.

No no no 

It stood. Its presence filled the space.

It was taller than the height of the hut, and it had to hunch over as it stood.

Its body was too long. The back of its head was flat against the ceiling as it looked down at her.

Red eyes and a smiling mouth with too many teeth. Ram-like horns and hooved feet. Thick matted black hair.

Beca began to tremble.

In her mind she begged and pleaded and prayed but not a sound left her mouth.

She was mute with terror, the same way she’d been as a little girl.

The cabin smelled of the cold. Of rotten leaves and neglect. Of animal waste and rotting meat.

Please god oh please please I want to go home please let me go home

This creature looming over her made no sound. It simply stared.

Like it was deciding what to do with her.

Beca knew she was in the presence of something ancient and terrible.

It was older than anyone alive. Older than the country it lived in. Older than the Gods.

She also knew that this creature was dying.

It was the last of its kind.

And Beca was here to fulfil a promise she’d made when she was four years old.

No words had been spoken but Beca had understood that when she’d left this hut as a child, that she would be expected to return. She would be expected to help.

And Beca had wordlessly agreed.

Yes. Anything. I want to go home. I want my Mommy and Daddy.

It had even left its mark so it would be able to find her again.

It’s why Beca had flat out refused to go hiking again as a child, until every part of the experience had been lost from her memories.

She knew now what would be required of her.

Without telling her body to do it, Beca backed up until she hit a wall, and then she slid down it.

Not this not this not this not this

Her mind screamed and tears rolled down her cheeks, mixing with the fresh blood now dripping from her scarred cheek.

No no no no no no no no no

The creature began to fall apart.

Its horns crumbled into dust. 

Its eyes melted in their sockets and ran down its snout like tears.

Its fur fell away in clumps.

Its skin and flesh sloughed off its yellowing brittle bones.

It was nothing but a pile of bones and teeth and viscera. 

Beca was not comforted by this, and she began to cry harder as she saw movement in that pile.

I don’t want this not this not this please please Jesus fuck please

She remained silent and completely paralyzed as what was left of this monster began crawling towards her.

She couldn’t move an inch. She couldn’t fight. She couldn’t scream. All she could do was watch.

-

Chloe was pacing her apartment, a cut chewed into her lip, a headache pushing against the backs of her eyes.

“Chloe, can you sit down and eat something?” Aubrey asked, her own head pounding as she watched her best friend pace backwards and forwards. “I know you think we’re going to hear something today, but-”

“It’s been three days,” Chloe snapped. “She’s been gone for three days and the last time she was taken she turned up three days later.”

“I know,” Aubrey said, trying to keep her voice calm. Trying to sound rational. “You told me what she told you. Even if that is what’s going on here, pacing a hole in the floor won’t make the phone ring any faster.”

“I can’t sit still,” Chloe said. “If it lets her go…” Chloe trailed off. It had to let her go. The alternative was unthinkable. “When it lets her go, I need to be ready. Who knows where she’ll end up, so I’ll need to be ready to leave at a moment-”

Chloe’s phone ringing and buzzing from the countertop cut her off.

“I can’t,” Chloe said, suddenly frozen in place. “Aubrey, please, I can’t.”

Aubrey nodded and answered.

“Chloe Beale’s phone, Aubrey Posen speaking,” Aubrey said, in her best lawyer voice. “Oh my god are you serious? You found her?!” Aubrey’s eyes were wide as she looked at Chloe. “Wait, she’s where? How did she - you know what, never mind, we’ll get there as soon as we can.”

Chloe felt relief flood through her like someone had opened a valve of it in her brain.

Beca was alive.

“Oh,” Aubrey said, her shoulders dropping. Chloe’s stomach dropped with them. “I’m sorry I think you have the wrong person, Beca isn’t… You’re sure? Like 1000% positive because if I tell her fiance this and you’re wrong I swear I will sue you to… Okay. Shit. Okay. Um, thank you detective. I’ll speak to Chloe now and we’ll… Yeah, we’ll get there as soon as we can.”

“Well?!” Chloe demanded as soon as Aubrey put the phone down. 

“Chloe, sit down.”

“I’m not-”

“Sit down.”

Aubrey’s voice left no room for augment. Chloe sat down at the kitchen table. She fiddled with her engagement ring, twisting it around her finger as she waited for Aubrey to speak.

“She’s alive,” Aubrey said. “They found her in a Walmart parking lot and they took her to a nearby hospital. The detective is going to text the address.” 

“Is she okay?”

“She’s in labour.”

Chloe blinked. Thought for a second she was having some kind of stroke. Or maybe a hallucination from lack of sleep. 

Then her shoulders sank the same way Aubrey’s had. “It’s not her,” Chloe said. “Beca wasn’t pregnant.”

“Chloe-”

“Beca wouldn’t have cheated on me. And even if she did, even if she was somehow miraculously pregnant, she was certainly not pregnant enough to be in labour.”

“She’s asking for you,” Aubrey said. “That’s what the detective said.”

“‘Bree, this is impossible,” Chloe said, her voice breaking. 

“So is a lot of the stuff you’ve told me in the past 72 hours,” Aubrey said. “Maybe the detective is wrong. Maybe something else is going on here. But we have to find out, right?”

Chloe nodded. “Let’s go.”

-

They arrived at the hospital the next afternoon, after an overnight flight and long drive in a rental car.

The detective met them at the entrance.

“Ms Beale? Ms Posen? I’m Detective Farrow. Please follow me.”

“How is she?” Chloe asked, her hands shaking as she followed the detective through the winding halls of the hospital.

“Okay, considering,” he said. “Still in labour, though I hear it won’t be much longer. Seems like the baby was waiting for you before making its entrance.”

There’s no baby, Chloe thought.

“When can we see her?” Aubrey asked.

“Not sure, not my circus so to speak. Down to the doctors,” he said. “You should have given the police and mountain rescue folks a heads up about her being pregnant by the way.”

“She wasn’t pregnant.”

“You thought she was just gaining weight or something?”

“Look,” Chloe snapped, pulling out her phone. “Here is a picture I took of her two days before she went missing.”

The detective frowned as he looked at the photo. 

“Huh,” he said. “I’ll be damned. Late bloomer, I guess, in the stomach department.”

Chloe was starting to get annoyed with this guy.

“Can you find someone I can talk to about my fiance?” She asked. 

He opened his mouth to speak, but there was a series of shouts coming from a room up ahead. He turned, his hand resting on his gun.

A man in scrubs came stumbling out of the room looking horrified. Chloe saw the name Mitchell scrawled on the whiteboard outside the door.

Her feet started moving before her mind could make sense of what was happening, and Aubrey’s hand closed around her arm, pulling her to a stop.

“Everything okay, doc?” The detective asked.

The doctor shook his head, practically tripping over himself to get away from the room.

“Has something happened to Beca?” Chloe asked, her voice shaking. “To the baby?”

“That… That’s no fucking baby,” he said.

The screams and shouts continued coming out of Beca’s room and more doctors and nurses began fleeing.

Chloe pulled her arm free of Aubrey’s grasp and she ran for the door.

She took a deep breath before she pushed it open.

In the days that would follow, a smartly dressed man would arrive and introduce himself as being a part of the FBI. 

Beca and Chloe neither checked nor cared if his credentials were real.

He promised he would help, but only if Beca could tell him exactly what happened.

Beca couldn’t, and he would leave seemingly disappointed.

That same night, a nurse would tell Beca, with a straight face, that her baby had died. They could see her mouth twist at the word ‘baby’. 

Beca had no reaction, and Chloe was secretly relieved.

Beca would tell Chloe months later that she thought the FBI guy took it. She would tell her that she hoped it wasn’t suffering, but that she also hoped it was dead.

But that was all to come. 

Right now, Chloe had to confront the horror she had just walked in on.

Beca was on the bed, staring blankly out of the window to her right, her legs still in stirrups.

The room was empty of medical staff, and Chloe could hear the dripping sound of blood hitting the floor as it ran from in between Beca’s legs.

They hadn’t even covered her up before they fled.

Chloe’s hands were on her mouth as her eyes travelled up Beca’s body.

On Beca’s chest was something small. Hairy. Horned and hoofed. Chloe could make out the red of its eyes as its razor sharp teeth bit and tore at Beca’s breast.

It lapped up the blood that flowed.

Chloe swallowed. 

“Beca?”

Beca’s head turned. Her eyes were hazy. Glazed over. Lost. 

Somewhere in there, Chloe could see her fiance begging for help.

She rubbed the sleeve of her sweater against the camera, trying to clear off some of the dust, and she heard that familiar grinding sound from turning the thumb wheel. The sound was so familiar it made her want to cry, and she turned it a few more times. There wasn’t any film in the camera so Beca could wind it for as long as she wanted. 

How many times had she heard that during their college years? 

That along with the high pitched whine of the flash getting ready, and the dull clunk the shutter made when the photo was taken. 

The button on top was shiny, permanently oily from years of use, and Beca could see other spots on the camera where Chloe’s fingers had left their mark. 

It was things like this that always hit Beca the hardest. The physical, tangible things left behind. The hair in her hairbrush, fingerprint smudges on the remote control, a smear of lipstick left on a glass that Beca couldn’t bring herself to clean. Echoes of the person who used to be there, like footprints left behind in the snow. 

No, not snow. Snow was fleeting. Temporary. These were like the footprints left behind on the moon. They would be there until someone got rid of them. 

“Mom? What are you doing up there?” Riley called from the bottom of the ladder that led up to the attic. Beca jumped and almost dropped the camera. She hadn’t heard her daughter come back from school. 

“Just looking for something,” Beca replied. 

“Looking for what?”

“Your Mom’s Christmas ornaments from when she was a kid.”

“Oh.” There was a pause. “It’s October.”

“I’m well aware,” Beca said. She pulled her gaze away from Chloe’s old camera and cast her eyes around the rest of the dark and dusty attic. There were at least a dozen boxes still to search through. “You can come and help if you want.”

“Ew, gross, it’s like spider central up there. Probably full of ghosts too.”

Our whole house is full of ghosts, Beca thought. “I’m sure there aren’t any ghosts up here. Definitely spiders though.”

“Are you going to be able to get down on your own?”

“Yes,” Beca replied. “I got up here, I’m sure I can get down again.”

“Then I’ll pass,” Riley said. 

Beca carefully replaced Chloe’s camera back in the shoebox where she found it. She decided she’d look for the decorations another time and, with the shoebox held securely in one hand, she descended the ladder. She wobbled slightly, her leg cramping up, and she felt Riley’s steadying hand on her back. 

“Careful,” Riley said. “Have you been crying?”

“No,” Beca replied. She wasn’t sure if it was a lie or not. Crying used to feel like such a big deal to her. It used to be something she did rarely, and she’d found the whole act embarrassing. Now it happened so frequently she hardly noticed. “It’s dusty as hell up there.”

“Did you find them?”

Beca shook her head. “They’re up there somewhere but I can look later.”

“Why do you want them?” Riley asked, watching as Beca struggled to lift the ladder so she could push it back through the hatch. Riley, already a head taller than her Mom at 15-years-old and much more physically capable, took it from her and slid it back into place with ease. The hatch closed behind it.

“Thanks,” Beca said. She was past the point of getting frustrated with her new-found physical limitations. She was just grateful she had a kid that was willing to help her do the things that she couldn't since the accident. “Your Grandma called, she asked if she could have them back. Your Mom made them when she was a kid.”

Riley nodded, and then her eyes fell on the green shoebox in Beca’s hand. “What’s that?”

“Oh, just your Mom’s old camera from when we were in college,” Beca said, opening the box to show her. 

Riley pulled a face as she picked it up. “Did you guys go to college in the 60s?”

“No, smart-ass,” Beca said. “It was old-school back then, it’s basically an antique now. Be careful with it.”

“I will,” Riley said. She turned it over in her hands. “It doesn’t even have a screen, how did you know what you were taking a picture of?”

“You looked through there,” Beca said, tapping the viewfinder. 

Riley held it up to her eye. “How did you know if the picture came out good?”

“You didn’t,” Beca said. “You just had to hope for the best and wait until it got printed. Half of the photos of me as a baby had my dad’s finger covering the lens.” She pointed to the button on top of the camera. “Press that to take a photo, then you’d wind that underneath if you wanted to take another one. That number at the top is how many shots you had left on the roll of film, and this button turned the flash on.”

“Cool,” Riley said, looking it over. “What else is in the box?” 

“Some rolls of film,” Beca said, opening the box again and showing Riley the small canisters. “Your Mom mustn’t have gotten them developed.”

“How come?”

“Beats me,” Beca said with a shrug. “Maybe she meant to but just never got around to it.”

She thought she had all the time in the world. We all did.

“Oh,” Riley said. “Could we get them developed?”

“Uh, maybe,” Beca said, looking into the box again, counting five canisters of film. “It can be a little expensive.” Riley’s face fell slightly. “I’m not saying no,” Beca said, quickly. “Let me look into it.”

“It would be nice to see them,” Riley said, putting the camera carefully back in the box. “Kinda like seeing the world through Mom’s eyes.”

“Yeah,” Beca said. “I’d like to see them too. I just need to-”

“Check the budget spreadsheet. I know,” Riley said, rolling her eyes but grinning. 

“Mock all you want,” Beca said, trying not to smile. “But you’ll be grateful for that spreadsheet when we’re eating turkey and not drywall for Thanksgiving.” The budget spreadsheet had become something of a running joke between them in the last year. Their finances had taken such a hit following everything that had happened, and Beca had found herself scrimping and scraping just to be able to make ends meet. She’d turned it into a joke because she hadn’t wanted Riley to know how dire things really were. 

“I hate turkey anyway,” Riley said, heading for her bedroom. “It’s too dry.”

“And drywall isn’t?”

“Good point,” Riley replied. “I don’t know why we aren’t just going to Grandma’s this year like usual.”

“Your Grandma…” Hates me. Still blames me. Can’t forgive me. Won’t forgive me. “She said she isn’t doing Thanksgiving this year.” Not a lot to be thankful for when your only daughter is dead.

“That’s what she said last year,” Riley said, her voice now carrying from her bedroom. Beca would lose her soon to her video games, and she couldn’t really blame her. She wished she had a different world she could escape to. 

“Last year…” Beca trailed off. Last year was a write-off. Last year was insurmountable grief and pain.

“I know,” Riley said, not needing Beca to complete her sentence. “I just thought she might want her family around this year.”

I’m not her family, Beca thought. Not anymore. 

Beca had hoped Chloe’s Mom would have seen past her dislike of her in order to maintain her relationship with her granddaughter, but it was looking like that wasn’t the case. 

“She might change her mind,” Beca said. “But for now, it looks like it’ll be just us and a dry-ass turkey.”

“Yum,” Riley said. Beca heard the familiar sounds of her daughter’s computer booting up and left her to it.

“I’ll be in my office if you need anything,” she said, before turning and leaving the hallway.

Beca put the shoebox down on her desk and wiggled her mouse to wake up her computer.

She dealt with some emails from work and pulled up her budget spreadsheet. 

Things were tight but she had a little breathing room.

She’d intended to add any extra money to her savings, but she couldn’t deny that getting these rolls of film developed was appealing.

She wondered why Chloe never had. It struck her as odd that there were multiple rolls that had just been left. Shoved in a shoebox with her beloved camera and never touched again. 

She vaguely remembered Chloe telling her that the rolls of film had gotten too expensive which is why she’d stopped using the camera, but she didn’t know why she’d stopped getting the photographs printed.

That night they ate leftover spaghetti in front of the TV, and Beca told Riley she would get the rolls of film developed.

The look of excitement on her daughter’s face was worth the money, but it still didn’t stop her baulking slightly when the CVS employee told her her total was $85 for the five rolls of film.

“Come pick them up in 10 days,” he said.

Beca felt slightly sick as she left the store, and was texting her boss about overtime before she’d even reached the bus stop.

During the 10 days it took for the photographs to be developed, Beca found herself back up in the attic searching for those Christmas decorations. She finally found them, hidden in a box stuffed in the corner behind Chloe’s old dressmakers’ dummy that she’d gotten in her theatre costume phase. Beca had been avoiding that corner because the dummy had always freaked her out, and it made her jump every time she turned the light on in the attic. 

She’d also found an old envelope of photographs that Chloe must have gotten developed but had never put into albums. This was something else Beca found strange.

Chloe had always put her photos into albums. She treated each one as if it were the prized exhibit at an art gallery, even if the photo wasn’t of anything particularly interesting. Why would she have left these ones up here?

Beca grabbed them too, and carried both down the ladder. As she was climbing down her left leg cramped, as it so often did these days, and she slipped and fell down the last three steps. 

It wasn’t a high fall, but it knocked the wind out of her as her back hit the floor. 

The Christmas ornaments managed to stay inside the box, but the envelope of photos flew open and the pictures were scattered across the landing. 

Beca took a second to catch her breath and let her heart rate settle.

You’re okay. You just got a shock. 

Beca could still conjure up Chloe’s voice in her head, and that was the voice she used when she needed reassuring or comforting. It made her feel less alone somehow.

She knew Riley would be home soon, and Beca didn’t want her to find her like this, so she forced herself to sit up.

She checked the contents of the box and was relieved to find everything still intact before she grabbed the photographs and stuffed them back into the envelope. She dropped both the box and the envelope in her office, and then fought with the attic ladder until it finally clicked into place and she could push them up and away. She hoped she wouldn’t be back there for a while.

She was stiff and aching and a little rattled, and what she really wanted to do was lie down for an hour, but instead she pulled out her phone and sent a text to Chloe’s Mom to let her know she’d found the decorations, and that she could come pick them up whenever she wanted. 

Janet Beale replied almost immediately to say she was in the neighbourhood and would be straight over. 

It didn't give Beca much time to mentally prepare, but at least it would get it over with.

Beca didn’t need to ask why Janet was in her neighbourhood. The cemetery where Chloe was buried was only a 30 minute drive from where Beca lived, and Janet was there more often than not. 

Before long, Beca’s phone buzzed with a message to say that Janet was outside, and Beca grabbed the box from her office and walked out of her house and towards the car. Her leg was still stiff and sore from the hour she’d spent searching the cramped attic, and her limp as she walked was more pronounced than usual. 

“Here,” Beca said. Janet took it from her without a word of thanks. “Um, so did you want to come in for a coffee? Riley will be home from school soon, and I know she’d love to see you.”

“No,” Janet replied, placing the box carefully in the passenger seat. 

Beca sighed. “Look, you hate me, I get it. I’m not my biggest fan either. But Riley hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s your granddaughter, don’t punish her for something she didn’t do.”

“I said no.”

“I’m not asking you to forgive me, I’m asking-”

“Forgive?!” Janet all but spat at her. “I will never forgive you. My only daughter is dead because of you.”

“It was an accident,” Beca said, her throat tightening. 

“I know that,” Janet said. “And I don’t care. You were the one driving. And maybe Riley is innocent but she looks too much like you, and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand to look at you when Chloe should be here instead.”

Beca had nothing else to say to her, so she turned and left, swallowing her anger and feeling it scald her throat. 

The anger and hurt were building so quickly that if she didn’t get away from her she feared she’d explode in a fit of rage and tears. 

Janet’s words were cruel, but what hurt her the most was that she was right. 

Chloe should be here instead of her. It had been Beca’s fault. 

She’d taken her eyes off the road for just a second too long and then…

Beca shook her head, trying to clear away the thoughts and memories.

She couldn’t do this again. 

The police, the doctors, her therapist, even Riley, they’d all told Beca it wasn’t her fault. 

A freak accident. 

But if her eyes had been on the road…

The sound of the front door opening caused Beca to jump. 

“Mom? Was that Grandma's car I saw pulling away?”

“Yeah,” Beca said, quickly dabbing at her eyes before she turned around. “She came for those ornaments.”

Riley nodded. “She didn’t want to hang on and say hi to me?”

“She had somewhere to be,” Beca said.

Riley rolled her eyes, and it took Beca’s breath away how much she looked like her in that moment. She could almost understand why Janet couldn’t look at her. 

“Sure,” Riley said. 

“Riley…” Beca trailed off. She didn’t know what to say. 

“I don’t know why you’re lying to protect her,” Riley said. “I get it, she doesn’t want to see me. We’re not really family.”

“You’re still her family, she just-”

“But I’m not though, am I? Not by blood.”

“And since when has that ever mattered?” 

“It clearly matters to grandm- to Janet,” Riley said. She was trying to sound unbothered, but Beca could hear the hurt in her voice. “It’s fine, I get it. Mom isn’t here anymore so she doesn’t have to pretend to care.”

“Riley, your Grandma’s just hurting-”

“I’m hurting!” Riley snapped, cutting her off. “You’re hurting. We’re all fucking hurting.”

Riley stomped off to her room without another word, and Beca let her go. She didn’t know what to say to her anyway. 

Back in her office Beca finally had a moment to look through the photographs she’d found in the attic, and it became immediately clear to her why these ones had never made it into the albums. 

The first one was of Chloe’s Mom and Dad, taken at their 25th wedding anniversary party, only a few weeks before her Dad had died. 

The entire envelope of photos were ones that had been taken at that party. Beca figured Chloe must have taken to get them developed in the time between their party and his death, and then upon receiving them back had shoved them in the attic.

It looked like the photos hadn’t come out particularly well either. Each one had weird black marks that partially obscured the subjects of the pictures. The only ones that had come out clean were ones that didn’t have any people in them, like the photo of the cake. 

Beca smiled sadly as she thumbed through the rest of the photos. There was one of Chloe standing between her Mom and Dad, all of them beaming at the camera, and Beca couldn’t help but feel even more for Janet. She had lost two of the people in that photo. The two who were meant to be with her until the end. 

Her eyes filled with tears as she saw a photo of Stacie - who had worked with Chloe’s Dad at the accountancy firm and so had naturally gotten an invite to the party - grinning and raising a glass to the camera. 

Beca hastily wiped her eyes and moved onto the next photograph.  

It was one of her that Chloe must have taken without her realising. In the photo, Beca was smiling, talking to one of Chloe’s kid nephews, Freddie. 

Neither of them knew it yet, but Beca was pregnant in this photo. They would take the test that night and their joy would be unmatched by anything that had happened in their lives so far. 

Their joy wouldn’t last long, as Chloe would lose her dad only weeks later, and she would spiral downwards harder and faster than Beca would have thought possible. 

It was only the birth of their daughter that brought Chloe back to her. 

Beca shook her head and tried to chase away the bad memories. Tried to replace them with the good ones. 

It was a difficult task, and one that she wasn’t really up to, so she did what she always did when things got hard. She pulled on her headphones, turned the volume up to an uncomfortable level, and worked until she could barely keep her eyes open.

She slept badly that night, tossing and turning as in her dreams she relived the worst night of her life.

“I love you.” 

Chloe’s voice had caught Beca off guard, and she frowned and glanced away from the road.

“I love you too,” Beca replied, confused.

This was something they said to each other constantly, so it was the tone in Chloe’s voice more than her words that had caused Beca to look away from the road.

It was a tone she’d never heard from Chloe before. It sounded like defeat.

“You guys will be okay,” Chloe said. 

“Chlo’, what are you talking about?”

“Without me. You know, when I go, you’ll be okay.”

Beca’s hands had tightened on the steering wheel.

“Are you…” Beca swallowed, her throat tightening. “Are you leaving me? Leaving us?”

“No,” Chloe replied. She reached across and squeezed Beca’s hand that had been resting on the gear stick. “Of course not.” She didn’t even sound shocked that Beca had thought that. Her voice just carried the same tone of resignation. 

“What’s going on?”

“When I die, you and Riley will be okay,” Chloe said. “Eventually, you guys will be okay. You have to be.”

“You aren’t going to die.”

“Beca, where have we just come from?”

A funeral, Beca thought. One of our best friend’s funerals. 

“You aren’t going to die,” Beca repeated, her eyes leaving the road again. “Stacie… She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That doesn’t mean that you-”

“Beca!”

“Mom!”

Beca jolted awake and shot out of bed before her mind had even caught up that she was awake. Her head was filled with the sound of screams and crunching metal and it didn’t fade until she reached her daughter’s bedroom.

Riley was thrashing in her bed, crying and calling out, and Beca wasted no time in pulling her into her arms.

“Hey, you’re okay,” Beca said, struggling to keep hold as Riley fought against her. “It’s just a dream.”

“Mom?”

“I’m here.”

Riley opened her eyes, and Beca knew by the look on her face that she wasn’t the Mom that Riley was crying out for.

It felt like a thousand knives being stabbed into her chest, but she refused to let the pain show on her face.

“I know,” Beca said. “I dream about it too.”

Riley hadn’t been in the car - and if Beca believed in God she would have thanked him for that every day - but she had heard enough of what happened that it had plagued her dreams ever since.

A deer in the road that Beca had swerved too late to avoid hitting. 

Its body crashing through the windscreen, antlers piercing Chloe’s stomach and then ripping it open as it fought to free itself. 

When it ran off it left a trail of Chloe’s blood that glistened on the road like oil. 

A freak accident that Beca would never stop blaming herself for. 

“It isn’t fair,” Riley sobbed into Beca’s chest. 

“I know,” Beca repeated. “I’m so sorry.”

Riley cried until the early hours of the morning, and it became clear neither of them would be going back to sleep. 

As Beca adjusted their position on the bed she felt something shiny under Riley’s pillow.

“What’s this?” Beca asked, pulling out a photograph.

“Oh, I found it on the landing,” Riley said, sounding a little embarrassed to have been caught with it under her pillow. “I hope it’s okay that I kept it.”

“Yeah, of course it is,” Beca said, squinting to make it out in the cool early morning light. “I must have dropped it, I found some of your Mom’s photos in the attic earlier.”

The photo was of her and Chloe from the night of that engagement party. They were sitting side-by-side at a table, Chloe’s arm around Beca’s shoulder as they smiled up at the camera. Beca remembers Chloe asking her dad to take it as he passed by.

“You guys look really young in it,” Riley said, looking at the photo too. “But there are these weird marks, look.” She turned on her lamp, and Beca blinked at the sudden brightness of the room. “There, can you see them?”

Beca could, it was the same dark marks that had been on all the other photos.

“There must have been something wrong with the roll of film, the other pictures had them too,” Beca said.

“Look at the one on Mom, though,” Riley said. “It’s kinda freaky where it is.”

Beca looked again. The dark mark was over her stomach. She had to close her eyes as the room before her was replaced with the sight of her wife dying in the car. Her hands over her stomach, blood spilling through her fingers and from her mouth as she’d tried to comfort Beca.

“It’s okay.”

“No…”

“Weird, right?”

“Yeah,” Beca said, feeling suddenly light headed. “Weird.”

She put the photo on Riley’s nightstand, not wanting to look at it for another second. 

“Fuck, Chloe, what do I do? I don’t know what to do! I don’t have any fucking service!” 

The road they were on was deserted, and it was close to 1 am. 

Beca could tell her leg was broken just by looking at it, but she knew she’d need to get out of the car and get help. She’d have to find someone.

“Wait here,” Beca said, as if Chloe had any other choice. “Just… Just hold on, okay? I’m gonna get help.” She managed to force the door open, but just trying to move her leg had caused lightning bolts of pain to shoot through her, and she cried out in agony and frustration.

“Beca, stop,” Chloe’s voice was weak. “Please. Please don’t leave me.”

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“I won’t. I promise, I won’t. But you have to hold on. Help will come and… I can’t lose you, Chloe. Riley can’t lose you.”

“Yeah. Sorry I’m just… I miss your Mom a lot.”

“Me too.”

“Tell our girl that I love her.”

“Chloe-”

“Promise me.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Riley said, knowing that Beca was lost in her memories of that night. “I know Grandma thinks it was, but it wasn’t.”

“I know,” Beca said. It wasn’t Riley’s job to comfort her, so she fought every urge she had to contradict her. 

“Do you?”

Beca sighed and pressed a kiss to her daughter’s head. “Get some rest. No school tomorrow so you can sleep in.”

Rather than returning to her room, where Chloe’s absence was felt the strongest, Beca went back to her office. Her tired eyes fell on the envelope of photos she’d gone through earlier, and she started to look through them again.

There was nothing she could do to distract her, so she decided to embrace the pain.

She looked back at that first photo of Chloe and her parents. Her eyes found those black marks again.

One over Chloe’s stomach. One over her dad’s chest. One over Janet’s left eye. 

Beca blinked and felt something cold run down her back.

Chloe’s dad had died from a heart attack.

Suddenly feeling wide awake, Beca began looking through the other photos.

Every picture had that black mark.

It was always over Chloe’s stomach.

Always over her dad’s heart.

Always over her mom’s eye.

Beca shook her head.

This was crazy. 

She was just overtired and emotional.

It was a coincidence.

A fault with the roll of film.

Beca stuffed the photos back in the envelope and shoved them into her bottom desk drawer.

She left the office and went back to her bedroom, and her eyes fell on the photo on her nightstand.

It was her and Chloe on their wedding day and she smiled in relief at the sight of it.

It was completely unmarked, as she knew it would be.

Chloe looked radiant in her white dress, and not a spot of it was marred by a black shadow.

There, Beca told herself. Just a coincidence.

She climbed into bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

-

A few days later, Beca got the text that the photos were ready to be collected.

Beca was tempted to leave them in the CVS.

Even though she’d checked every photo she had of Chloe around the house and had found no foreboding black marks obscuring Chloe’s stomach - she still had a feeling of dread in her chest as she thought about collecting those photos.

But she told herself she was being paranoid. 

Plus she had spent a lot of money on them, and Riley was excited to see them. 

“Mitchell-Beale, did you say?” The employee asked, looking her up on the computer system.

“Yeah,” Beca said.

“Five rolls?”

“That’s right,” Beca replied.

“Yeah, got ‘em here,” he said. “Unfortunately there’s some quality issues with the prints.”

“What do you mean?”

“Black marks on the photos,” he said, handing over five envelopes. “Not our fault, mind. Issue with the film itself. Likely wasn’t stored correctly.”

Beca felt her blood run cold, and she almost dropped them. “Black marks?”

He shrugged. “Happens sometimes when the film is kept for this long. Like I said, it wasn’t our fault so I can’t offer you a discount or anything. You can see the marks on the negatives, so might even be a camera issue. I can show you if you want proof.”

“No,” Beca said. “No, it’s fine.” She didn’t want proof. She didn’t want to look at all. “Thank you.”

She turned and left, and fought every urge she had to toss the photos in the trash as she made her way back to the bus stop.

As soon as she got home, she went into her office and stashed the photos with the ones already hidden away in her bottom drawer.

She didn’t want to look. Not yet.

When Riley got home from soccer practice that evening, she asked if Beca had picked up the pictures and Beca lied and said she hadn’t.

The photographs remained hidden in her desk for another three days.

On that third day she got a phone call from Chloe’s older brother. 

“Hey Beca,” he said. There was such a heaviness in his voice that made Beca’s heart sink.

“Hi Travis, what’s up?”

“Sorry to call you out of the blue like this, but I just thought I should let you know that my Mom passed away.”

Beca almost dropped the phone. “Oh God, Trav, I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks,” he said. “She had a stroke last night and she passed a few hours ago. I know things were… you know, difficult between you, but I wanted to let you know before Riley heard it from someone else.”

“No I understand, thank you for calling. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“No,” he said. “Thanks though. I’ll, um, I’ll speak to you later.”

“Yeah, take care dude. If you need anything just…”

“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.”

Beca ended the call and returned to the living room where she and Riley had been watching a movie.

“Hey,” Beca said. “Can you pause it?”

“Who was on the phone?” Riley asked, hitting pause on the movie.

“Your Uncle Travis,” Beca said. “I’m sorry Riley, I have some sad news.”

Riley’s face fell. “Grandma?”

“Yeah,” Beca said. “She passed away a few hours ago, I’m really sorry.”

Riley let out a huff and her jaw clenched. Beca could tell she was trying not to cry.

“It’s okay to feel sad about this,” Beca said. “I know things with her have been complicated since we lost your Mom, but you’re allowed to miss her and feel sad about her.”

Riley swallowed but wouldn’t look at Beca. “Can I go?”

“Yeah,” Beca said, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “Of course.”

Riley stood to leave but hovered at the doorway. “How did she die?”

“Travis said she had a stroke.”

Riley nodded. “Are you sad about it?”

“Of course,” Beca said. “Before everything that happened with your Mom, your Grandma and I were close. It’s sad that the last conversation we had wasn’t a very nice one.”

Riley nodded again and one tear fell, quickly followed by a second. Riley hurried to wipe them away before she disappeared up the stairs and Beca heard her bedroom door slam.

Beca shut off the TV and followed her daughter up the stairs. She should have turned right and went to comfort her, but she didn’t. She turned left and went into her office. It was as if the photos had a magnetic pull, and Beca reached into the drawer and pulled them out without another thought. 

She started with the original envelope, the one she’d looked through a hundred times already, and easily found the picture of Chloe with her Mom and Dad. 

The three ghosts smiled at her, each wearing their cause of death like a badge. 

A heart attack. A penetrating injury to the abdomen. A stroke. 

Beca’s hands were shaking as she stared down at the photo. 

Had Chloe known? Is this why she’d hidden these photos away? Refused to get the others developed? Is this why she’d stopped using the camera?

By getting the remaining ones developed, had Beca set something in motion now that couldn’t be undone?

She stared at the photo because she couldn’t bring herself to look away. 

She didn’t want to look through the rest because she knew what she’d see. 

There were photos of her in this envelope. Photos with her own black mark. Her own cause of death. 

Would looking at the photo set the ball rolling and bring about her own untimely death? Or would knowing allow her to avoid it? 

Beca thought about the resignation in Chloe’s voice as they had driven back from the funeral. 

Chloe knew. 

Maybe Chloe thought that if she hid the photos away, if she stopped using the camera, stopped getting the photos developed, it would stop the deaths from happening. 

But then Stacie…

Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. A stray bullet from a robbery gone wrong. 

We’re all doomed from the start. 

She looked at the envelopes containing the photos that no one but the CVS guy had seen. 

Inside were photos of her friends. Her family. She remembered Chloe’s camera clicking away during Bellas rehearsals and parties and graduation. 

Everyone she had ever loved were in these photographs. 

Even Riley.

Beca remembered now, not long after Riley was born, Travis had come over with Freddie and the six-year-old had gotten bored almost immediately.

Beca had been exhausted and sore and had taken a second to let her eyes close while Chloe held up Riley to introduce him to her brother.

Freddie had been wandering around their house and had happened upon the camera in Chloe’s nightstand.

It looked similar to the digital one his dad had - the Beales were big into photography - and he had rushed back to the room to show everyone what his dad had taught him.

“Say cheese!” He yelled, startling Beca from her nap, only for her to be temporarily blinded by the flash of the camera. 

Beca remembers thinking at the time that the look of grief on Chloe’s face had been a little bit of an overreaction, but now she knew better.

Later that night Chloe must have taken the camera along with the last of the undeveloped films and stashed them in the attic. 

She moved onto the next photo and saw it was the one of Stacie, her glass held up as if cheersing the camera. 

The black mark was a dot on her neck, right in the spot the bullet had caught her. 

Yeah, this was crazy, but it was real. 

She knew if she moved to the next picture, she would see her own mark. Her own death. 

“Mom?”

Beca jumped and the photos were suddenly scattered everywhere. 

“Sorry,” Riley said. “Hey, you got the photos back?”

“Yeah,” Beca said, willing her heart rate to return to normal. “They came out all weird,” she said, hoping to keep Riley from wanting to look. “All obscured. The guy at the photo store said there was some damage to the film. I guess they aren’t meant to be kept in a shoebox in a dusty attic for 15 years.” She hurried to pick the ones up from the floor and, while she was there, she shoved the other envelopes back in her bottom drawer. 

“Why are your hands shaking?”

“I don’t know, I’m tired I guess,” Beca said. 

“These don’t look too bad,” Riley said, picking one photo up from the floor. 

“This was from the batch your Mom had gotten printed years ago. They were taken during your grandpa and grandma’s wedding anniversary party,” Beca said. 

“Oh,” Riley said, looking down at the photo. “It’s weird. Everyone in this picture is dead.”

“Yeah,” Beca. “It’s sad.”

Riley didn’t say anything for a while, she just kept staring at the photo. 

Please don’t ask about the marks.

Please don’t make that connection.

“Mom, do you believe in heaven?”

“I… I don’t think so,” Beca answered honestly. The question had caught her off guard. “I don’t really know. Why?”

Riley shrugged. “It’s just… I’m sad about grandma, but there’s something… I dunno, not nice but…” Riley huffed. “Mom has her parents with her again. Grandma has her daughter and her husband back. I dunno, it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Beca said, tucking a strand of her daughter’s dark hair behind her ear. “It’s comforting. The thought that we might one day get to see the people we’ve lost again, it’s… it’s enough to give you the strength you need to carry on.”

Riley nodded. “People keep dying,” she said. 

“I know,” Beca replied, thinking of Chloe, Stacie, and Chloe’s parents. She thought about her own Mom whom she’d lost when she was young, and about the stack of photos in her bottom drawer which would show her the deaths of everyone she loved who was still alive. “It isn’t fair.”

Beca decided she didn’t want to look at the rest of the photos. 

Death was inevitable after all, and she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life looking at her loved ones and picturing how they would die. 

She didn’t want to know where Riley’s black mark was, and she hoped she’d never have to find out. 

She thought about Chloe again. If she hadn’t made the connection between the marks on the photographs and the deaths of her Dad and Stacie, would she still be here?

If Chloe hadn’t been talking about dying in the car, would Beca’s eyes have stayed on the road?

Would she have avoided the deer?

Would Chloe be alive? 

Her mind was reeling with a thousand what ifs, and she hadn’t realised that Riley had picked another photo up from her lap. 

“Who’s this?” She asked.

Beca looked without thinking, and she saw the photo of herself talking to Chloe’s nephew. 

She saw the black mark at the back of her head, almost like a halo.

Beca’s throat tightened, and her hand went to the back of her head on instinct.

There it was. That’s how she’d die. 

Was it a tumour? Aneurysm? Stroke? Head injury? The possibilities seemed endless. 

“Mom?”

Beca cleared her throat, and prayed her voice would be steady when she spoke. “Your cousin Freddie. You know, Travis’ son.”

“Oh,” Riley said. “Red hair, I should have guessed.”

Beca looked away. She didn’t want to see Freddie’s mark. She didn’t want to look at her own anymore. 

“You’re acting weird,” Riley said. 

“I feel weird,” Beca said.

“Because of grandma?”

“Yeah. And your Mom, and aunt Stacie, and my mom and…” Beca trailed off. “I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed at the minute.”

“I get it. We don’t have to look at the rest if you’re not ready,” Riley said, handing the photograph back.

“Thank you, Ri, I appreciate that,” Beca said. 

She gave Riley a hug and a kiss on the head, and they each headed for their separate bedrooms.

Sometime around 1 am, Riley gave a tentative knock on Beca’s door before she pushed it open and crawled into bed beside her.

“I had a bad dream,” she mumbled, curling into Beca’s side who had lifted her arm on instinct.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Beca asked, fighting the drooping of her eyes so she could make sure her daughter was okay.

“I dreamt you were falling,” Riley said. “We both were but I couldn’t reach you.” She hugged her Mom tighter and Beca rubbed a hand up and down her back. “People keep dying.”

-

The photographs sat in the bottom of Beca’s and remained untouched and unseen, but they occupied every one of Beca’s thoughts for the next few weeks.

It was almost an obsession. 

The not knowing but knowing there was something to know was driving her crazy.

Instead of working she would stare at that drawer, imagining the black marks over everyone she loved, and wondering who she would lose next.

She wished she’d never found the camera or those photographs.

She wished she could rewind time to the point where Janet had called and asked for the decorations. She wished she’d lied and said that Chloe threw them out years ago.

She wished she could go back further. 

She wished she’d kept her eyes on the road that night. 

Wished Stacie had gone to the store a different night, so her friend would still be here and they’d never have been driving down a country road and 1 am in the first place.

But she couldn’t. 

She couldn’t change any of it. 

There was no rewind button. No un-do.

Beca reached into the bottom drawer and pulled out the photographs.

She thought about burning them, but couldn’t find it in herself to do it.

It felt wrong. Like burning a piece of Chloe, and the lives they’d lived before having their child. 

With difficulty, she pulled the cord that pulled down the ladders to the attic.

She’d do what Chloe had done all those years ago, and she’d stash them.

A voice in her head told her it wasn’t enough, but it’s all she felt capable of right now.

She told herself in the future she’d get rid of them for sure, but for now this was all she could handle.

As she climbed the ladder, she wondered if maybe she should speak to her doctor? See if she could order an MRI or some other kind of head scan, just in case there was something already there, waiting until it was too before showing itself.

She flicked the switch to light up the attic and -

BANG!

- the bulb blew.

For the third time in as many weeks, she jumped and the envelopes of photos were scattered.

Shit.

She tried to gather them as quickly as she could without looking and stuff them back into their respective envelopes.

One had made it a little further than the others.

The only light in the attic was being filtered through the hatch from the hall, and Beca could only just make out the white shapes on the photograph. It was as if the subjects of the photo were a bunch of ghosts.

They are, Beca thought. All photos are pictures of ghosts. Ghosts of who we were at that exact moment. 

As she picked the photo up she realised the photo was just overexposed, like someone had used the flash up close.

The red eyes of the people unnerved her, but not as much as the realisation of what this photo was.

Travis, Chloe, Beca, and their new baby girl.

The one photo Beca had really not wanted to see.

Beca was in the background and not nearly as white as the others due to being further from the flash. She was sitting on the couch with a look of exhausted bewilderment on her face. The black mark spread out behind the back of her head.

Chloe was completely white. Her red eyes her only real distinguishing feature. Those and the black mark on her stomach.

Travis was a little further back, and Beca could just about make out his ginger beard that hid his grimace at the flash. His eyes were shut and there was a black mark over his heart.

Just like his dad, Beca thought, sadly.

And even though she wanted - desperately - to look away, her eyes moved to tiny baby Riley of their own accord.

In her despair, she took a step back as if she could escape the knowledge she’d just gained.

The police would call it a freak accident. Something they’re sure they wouldn’t be able to repeat if they tried.

It all happened so fast, but Beca lived each second as if it lasted a lifetime.

She had stepped into nothing, her foot dropping through the open hatch door, and she had fallen six feet from the attic to the floor below.

On her way down her leg had gotten caught in the rungs of the ladder and caused Beca to flip so that she fell head first instead of feet.

Her head hit the floor with a crack and there she lay, looking up at the ceiling as blood began to pool around her head.

“I should have burned those fucking pictures,” came a familiar voice.

Beca couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. The ceiling above her began to distort. The colours swirling together until her eyes couldn’t focus anymore. 

“I know you’re scared, but it's okay.”

Chloe?

“Sort of,” Chloe’s voice replied. “More like a projection. The synapses of your brain firing off one last time.”

Riley?

“Will find you when she gets home from school. But she’ll be okay, eventually.”

No. No, she’s lost too much already. She can’t lose me too. I need more time.

“We get the time we get. It was always going to end this way.”

I’m not ready.

“Neither was I. I’m sorry, Bec. I’m sorry it has to be like this.”

Chloe… Please…

“You’re already gone, Beca.”

-

“Riley, are you sure you want to do this?” Travis asked his niece as they stood outside her old front door. “It’s still your house, it isn’t going anywhere, you don’t have to do this so soon.”

“Mom was in the attic for something,” Riley said. “And maybe it was something important.”

Travis sighed. He knew Riley was looking for meaning. Something to say that her Mom’s death wasn't just some random terrible accident, just like his sister’s had been. “Okay, kiddo,” he said, and he gestured for her to go inside.

It had been a no-brainer for him to agree to taking Riley in when he’d heard about his sister-in-law’s death. He was her godfather after all, but they did give him an out if he wanted to take it.

The thought of his niece ending up in foster care after losing both parents in 18 months was too much to handle though, and he’d gladly agreed to take her in.

Riley climbed the familiar staircase, careful to keep her eyes trained down so she didn’t glimpse the photographs hung in the hall. She didn’t want to see those snapshots of her former happy life.

When she reached the landing, her eyes shot back up. 

Her Mom had lain on the floor for over an hour before Riley had found her. The blood had soaked deep into the floor, down between the gaps in the wood. Even though it had been cleaned up, Riley knew it was there. Knew it would always be there. 

She tugged on the cord and the ladders slid down. She climbed up into the attic, and she switched on the torch on her phone.

She found it immediately, lying face up on the floor.

A photograph.

Riley picked up the thing that had cost her Mom her life, and felt herself deflate.

She wasn’t sure what she’d been hoping for, but this overexposed picture of her parents, her uncle, and a baby, wasn’t it.

Oh, Riley thought, that must be me. I look creepy as shit.

Her eyes in the photo were bright red, and there was a thin black line running across her neck.

Riley’s hand touched her neck on instinct.

“You went for a run yesterday,” Beca replied. “I thought you were meant to take breaks?”

“It’s fine, it’s not like I’m running a marathon or something. I’ll just do 5K.”

“She says like it’s nothing,” Beca said, shaking her head. “You said your ankle was hurting.”

“I didn’t,” Chloe replied, pulling her hair into a tight bun. 

“You said it felt spongy,” Beca countered, cringing at the thought. 

“I mean…” Chloe tilted her head and lifted up her leg, rotating her foot. “It feels a little weird, but it doesn’t hurt.”

“Don’t you think that’s maybe a sign you should have a day off? If you wanna work out so bad, I can think of something for us to do.”

Chloe laughed. “And who says I can’t do both?” she said. “You aren’t going to talk me out of this, so are you gonna go back to sleep?”

“That depends, are you gonna stretch before you go?”

“I always do,” Chloe said. 

“I think I can stay up for a little longer,” Beca replied, settling back into bed. “Wouldn’t want to miss the show.”

“You’re a dork.”

“Uh huh. Less talky, more stretchy.”

Chloe disappeared into the bathroom once her stretches were done, and Beca began dozing again almost immediately. 

She was woken up by the feeling of Chloe pressing a soft kiss to her cheek.

“I’ll be back soon,” she said. 

Beca caught hold of her wrist and pulled her back for a kiss on the lips. 

“Is everything okay with you?” Beca asked. “Like, really okay?”

“Yes,” Chloe replied. “Getting outside and exercising is all part of the plan. It’s good for me, it helps clear my head.”

“I know,” Beca said. “And I’m glad you have something to help you do that now, I just…” she trailed off, her brain still half asleep. “You’ve been running like every day this week. I’m worried about you, that’s all.”

“You don’t need to worry,” Chloe replied. “I’m fine.”

“And you’d tell me if things got bad again?” 

“Of course,” Chloe said. She kissed Beca again. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Beca said, finally releasing Chloe’s wrist and sinking back into her pillows.

-

After a five minute warm up walk, Chloe’s pace picked up and she started running. 

When she had left the house, it had been the perfect October morning for a run. Clear skies, bright sun, and a crispness to the air that Chloe knew would become welcome as soon she started running.

But by the time the walk had ended, the clear skies had been replaced by grey, and a mist had started rolling in off the sea. 

Chloe didn’t mind though. She’d never run in fog before, and liked the idea of doing something new today. 

They hadn’t lived in this little seaside town long, but Chloe had already established a 5K route. It started in the park and then continued down a stretch of path covered either side by trees and grass. At the end of the path was a road that, once crossed, would lead her to a promenade along the seafront. From there was the pier - which she ran up and then down - and then it was onto the more uneven sand-covered tracks which led all the way to the beginnings of the cliffs. The sea on one side, and the grass-topped dunes on the other. From there it was back to the sidewalk and a straight run home. 

The playlist Beca had curated for her was a perfect mix of musicals and pop to help keep her tempo up, and at this moment Chappell Roan was singing Red Wine Supernova over the sound of the waves crashing in the distance.

Chloe wasn’t sure if she’d ever felt better. 

She knew Beca was worried, but Beca didn’t need to be worried. 

Chloe was better now. She was good. She was outside and exercising and that darkness that had begun consuming her in New York was gone. 

She didn’t even think about it anymore. 

The path took a sharp right and Chloe followed it down the hill and beneath the canopy of trees. 

The leaves had begun falling in the last few weeks, and the normally clear path was now almost completely covered in hues of orange, yellow, and green. Beneath her feet, the leaves were slick and slimy, almost pounded flat against the path, like they had been painted on. She slowed her pace, careful not to slip, and followed the path down and around until she reached and crossed the road. 

The move to this town had been Beca’s idea.

“Are you an old timey doctor sending me off to convalesce by the sea?”

“Yes,” Beca said. “You have a case of the melancholies so we need the sea air to blast it out. I was thinking of getting some leeches too, since you have sad blood.”

“You’re a dork.”

Beca had suggested this place because it was quiet and calm, and no one was likely to know or care who Beca was. 

She had blamed herself and her overnight rise to fame for the resurgence in Chloe’s anxiety and depression. 

Chloe hadn’t agreed - this had been something she’d dealt with since she was a young teen after all - but she couldn’t deny that the sudden appearance of paparazzi everywhere they went, and seeing her wife’s name plastered over every gossipy news site, had made it worse. 

The final straw had been an article Chloe had seen written about herself, with a picture of her and Aubrey holding hands outside a bar. The headline implied cheating, and her social media had been flooded with hate messages only hours after it had been posted. Chloe had been told to kill herself no less than 52 times. 

She had counted.

Like tally-marks in a column, she had counted.

“Beca, I swear I didn’t-”

“Please don’t finish that sentence. Jesus, you do not need to justify holding your best friend’s hand to me.”

The wind had picked up slightly by the time she had hit the promenade, and Chloe was grateful for it. 

It slowed her pace, made her work harder, and cleared out any spiralling thoughts she might have hypothetically been dwelling on.  

She smiled at an old man walking his dog, and gave a nod to the runner coming in the opposite direction. 

She was good.

She was feeling good.

She increased her pace again, and felt the ache in her legs.

Good.

This was good. 

She had gotten into running in college but had fallen out of the habit in the years they’d lived in New York.

At a suggestion from her therapist she’d started up again in this new town, and the bug had quickly taken hold.

The fog was thicker now, and she couldn’t quite judge how far along the promenade she was, but she knew she was approaching her favourite part of the run.

The pier.

It was a mile long stone structure, and at the very end was a lighthouse. One side had a wall that came up to Chloe’s hips, and the other was completely open. It was wide enough for four people to walk comfortably side-by-side, but there was still the thrill of danger that, with one wrong foot too close to the edge, you could slip off and into the sea below. 

There was a moment when running along it that Chloe looked forward to every time. When the beaches on either side would fall away into the sea, and there would be nothing but open ocean around her. 

Chloe loved it. It felt like the whole world dropped away from her leaving nothing but the pier beneath her feet and the infinite ocean stretching out all around her. 

It was addictive, this feeling of breaking free and escaping. 

Today it would be different, she knew. The fog - which had steadily gotten thicker - made it impossible to see the pier stretching out ahead of her, and the ocean either side was completely hidden too. 

Never mind, she thought. I can do it again tomorrow. 

She took a sharp left and began the run up the pier. 

It was a strange feeling, running in the fog. Chloe likened it to running on a treadmill. There was no sense that she was making progress. No idea how far she had come or how far she had left to go. It was like running in a dream. In a void. 

The fog closed around her and, without the usual warning tone that let her know her earphones had died, her music stopped. 

“Shit,” Chloe muttered aloud. 

She was sure she’d charged her earphones the night before. She was sure she’d checked them that morning. 

She didn’t want to stop running to investigate, so she decided to just endure the rest of the run in silence, or as silent as it could be being so close to the sea. 

It was then that, without the music to drown it out, Chloe realised that she couldn’t actually hear the sea. 

She had done this walk with Beca a number of times, and you could always hear the sea. It crashed against the rocks at the base of the pier, and was often louder than their conversations. 

Chloe couldn’t hear any seagulls either, which was also strange. Chloe couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t heard one squawking.

Then Chloe realised she couldn’t hear anything at all.

Not the sea. Not the birds. Not the occasional bark of a dog, or a parent calling to their child. Nothing. 

It’s early on a Sunday morning, Chloe reasoned with herself. Everyone is probably still in bed. 

Even the birds? Came another voice in Chloe’s head. 

Chloe shook her head, and kept up her pace. 

Her ankle had started feeling weird again, and there was a slight twinge in the side of her knee. 

Maybe Beca was right. Maybe I’m pushing too hard and I need to take a break. 

There was a sharp pain in her back. An old injury she had sustained building IKEA furniture when she and Beca had first moved to New York all those years ago. She aggravated it sometimes by sleeping in a weird position, or spending too long sitting in one spot, and now it seems she’d done it by running. 

Annoyed with herself, and with how the run was turning out in general, Chloe decided that once she got off the pier, she would keep running forward, instead of left and down towards the cliff. She would cut the run off early. Go home and take a shower and then crawl back into bed with Beca. 

She judged she had maybe another few minutes left before the pier would end and she’d run around the lighthouse and then back the way she came. 

She kept running, the only sound coming from her feet hitting the ground. 

She waited to see the lighthouse loom into view. 

She’d expected to see flashes from it long before now. It should have been on, warning the ships of the rocks and shore ahead. 

But there was nothing. 

Just the endless grey of the fog. 

Assuming her pace had been much slower than she’d thought, Chloe checked her watch. 

She didn’t like doing this in a run, because it made her too aware of her speed, her form, and how long she had left to go. She liked to just run and then check out her stats when she got home. 

Now, however, she wanted to know how fast she was running. How long she’d been on this pier. 

But her watch didn’t show that. 

It didn’t show anything, not even the time. 

The screen was a jumble of shapes and colours, as if she was trying to read the time in a dream. 

Great, first my earphones and now this. 

With the intention of pulling out her phone from her running belt, Chloe slowed to a walk and then eventually a stop. 

The fog closed in around her, and suddenly Chloe felt white hot pain. 

It was everywhere, all over her body, and it startled Chloe so much she let out a scream. 

The only feeling she could relate the pain to was when she’d once ran along the beach on a windy day, and had been blasted by sand that had been picked up by the wind. Except now the sand felt closer to glass. 

Chloe looked at her arm and saw pinpricks of blood begin to bloom on her skin. 

Run, an urgent voice in her head said. Run! 

She turned on her heel and started running again, back in the direction of home, and the pain on her skin eased. 

What the fuck is happening?

-

There was no way to know how long she’d been running, but it was long enough to know she should have been home a long time ago yet here she was still on the pier.

She didn’t dare slow down but she knew this pace wasn’t sustainable for much longer. Every part of her was aching, and her exposed arms were covered in a coating of dried blood and tiny cuts.

Blood had begun blossoming through the toes of her white running sneakers, and her heels felt like they had been rubbed down to the bone.

Surely she would reach the end of the pier soon.

Her breathing was laboured and there was a painful stitch in her side. Tears had been falling steadily down her cheeks for what felt like the last hour.

She didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to get home.

She wished she’d stayed in bed that morning.

Was Beca worriedly pacing their home right now?

Was she out looking for her? Calling her name into the fog?

Chloe felt a jolt of fear at the thought of her wandering out onto the pier and getting trapped just like Chloe had.

She tried to pick up her pace - to force her legs to move faster - but her body simply refused to cooperate. She had no energy left to spend.

Her left foot hit the ground and then her ankle rolled.

She hit the ground hard.

Elbows and knees hit first, the impact reverberating through her arms and legs. Beneath her leggings, the skin on her knees tore. Her chin scraped against sandy concrete.

And the fog closed in to rip up the rest of her skin.

This is how I go, she thought. A literal death by a thousand cuts.

She curled herself into a ball, eyes squeezed shut to protect them, and she thought of Beca.

Thought of how she’d looked that morning, half-asleep yet still beautiful. A crease of worry between her eyebrows that had been there for a long time now.

Ever since that night.

The night that prompted Beca’s sudden hiatus from work and eventually their move.

Chloe remembered the whirr of Beca’s printer that she had borrowed for the occasion as she printed off all 52 comments telling her to kill herself.

She read them through again, organised them in a neat pile, and placed them under the note she’d written her wife.

Chloe remembered pills. The smear of her blood against the side of their bathtub.

The sound Beca made that she wished would get out of her head.

Maybe I died that night, Chloe thought, as the tiny shards of glass reopened the barely healed scars on her arms. Maybe this is hell.

She tried to move, tried to stretch out her arm to push herself back to her knees, but it was difficult. Her hand slipped against the sand beneath it - a new graze to add to the collection - and she fell again. She stretched her arm out to try again, but felt open space where the ground should have been.

I must be near the edge.

It dawned on her that this was her way out. A faster end than being sliced up by a million shards of glass. 

Who knew how long that would take?

All she needed to do was roll to her right, and she would crash against the rocks at the base of the pier.

If that didn’t finish her off, the sea definitely would.

She felt… disappointed.

She really had wanted to get better.

She didn’t want to hurt Beca like this. Not again.

No, there had to be another way.

It would be easier to stop.

No.

Just one more roll and you’ll be free.

No.

No more pain. No more guilt. You’re allowed to stop fighting when it gets this hard.

“No!”

Chloe yelled the word until her voice was hoarse. The fog filled her mouth and cut into her tongue and throat but she didn’t stop yelling.

She spat out a mouthful of blood.

She had fought hard to get here and she wasn’t giving up now. 

If the sea was to her right, that must mean the wall was to her left. 

Maybe there were two ways off this pier, and she didn’t have to choose the way that ended her life.

Instead of rolling right, she rolled left. Again and again and again until she hit the 2 foot wall. 

She kept her eyes closed as she began pulling herself up the wall.

Her hands gripped the top, and she pulled herself into a standing position. She knew she must be leaving bloody smears against the stones. Once upright, she tried to lift a shaking leg over the wall, but it wouldn’t go high enough.  

She moved her hands until they were gripping the other edge of the wall and she pulled herself over, not caring she was about to drop head first into sand and rocks and tufts of razor sharp grass.

Her music came back on in a deafening blast as Chloe hit the ground on the other side of the wall.

One earphone was gone, and through that ear she could hear the sea and birds and sounds of life.

She started to cry.

Tears ran down her cheeks and mingled with the hundreds of tiny cuts on her face.

The pain was blinding, but she didn’t care.

She didn’t care because she was alive.

Chloe opened her eyes and saw the fog was gone. Her body was awash with dried and fresh blood and the cuts stung in the cold October wind.

She lifted her arm to check the time.

The screen of her watch was cracked, but she could see it was only 7:35 am.

She started to laugh but it quickly turned back into a sob.

She pulled herself up on shaky legs and began a slow walk back home.

Beca was in the kitchen when she got back.

“Oh hey, you’re back earl- Oh my god!”

The mug she was holding hit the ground and shattered, but Beca didn’t even notice because she was already hurrying towards her wife.

When Chloe spoke, her voice was rough as sandpaper.