They parked behind The Hamlet, as close as they possibly could. Marsden was sleeping, totally silent and dark, with no one around to witness them. Thankfully. If this had happened during the day, they would already be in prison cells. Tim had said that Edmund shouldn’t drive because of the shock, but after a quick look around, it seemed Edmund was still the best choice. Everyone else was still over the limit—somehow, Edmund thought he’d never been more sober, and he was going to drive at least ten miles under the speed limit anyway. So, he drove.
In contrast to what had just happened, the drive was uneventful.
That sound. When she hit the road.
Edmund tried not to think about it. Tim said that he would go in and talk to Amber, that he would explain the situation to her and make her see reason. He seemed confident, deflecting any “What if you can’t?” comments from Robert and any “What if she calls the police?” questions from Pru. He just said that he could and that she wouldn’t. He got out of the passenger side door and disappeared into the dark.
He was gone for a long time. Edmund kept his hands on the steering wheel, knowing that if he loosened his grip, they would just shake uncontrollably. Even as it was, his hands were twitching.
He felt like he was dead—like he had somehow been the person who had died at the side of the road. And then he realized he didn’t feel like he’d died. He just wished he had.
No one talked in the car. No one even breathed loudly. Edmund shut his eyes and felt like he was alone—because in many ways he was. He should have felt love for the others. The others who were standing with him through this ordeal. But for some reason, he didn’t feel love. He felt afraid of them. All of them. And maybe Tim most of all.
The radio clicked into life and Edmund opened his eyes. Robert had reached from the back and turned it on. Rock music blared out for a couple of bars before Pru reached forward and wordlessly and mercifully shut it off. Robert didn’t protest. The entire exchange was mute, but meant more words than they could ever speak.
After what seemed like hours, Tim came out of the night and opened the passenger door. “Let’s go.”
They all got out of the car, Edmund last, and he looked up to see another figure emerging from the darkness.
Amber.
She didn’t look scared. She didn’t look apprehensive. She looked positively indifferent. She said nothing, just joined them.
Tim opened the trunk, giving a slight grimace at the scene he was presented with. Like Edmund, maybe he was hoping that the woman would evaporate, become a collective hallucination. But no, she was still there.
Amber took out her keys and unlocked The Hamlet’s doors—in the side where they received their deliveries. She propped the large door open as Tim and Robert carried the woman inside, draped over with blankets, so it was impossible to discern what they were carrying. They carried her through, Amber and Rachel flicking on light switches in front of them. Just as Rachel was about to flick the lights on in the main bar, Amber barked, “No,” furiously. Rachel recoiled slightly. “We’ll take her to the basement. We can put on all the lights down there, and not worry. Maybe even get the fire on.” Rachel nodded, but still seemed fazed at the instruction from a relative outsider. Edmund, trailing behind with the suitcase in his arms and Pru muttering behind him under her breath, had never seen anyone snap at Rachel before, had never even seen a bad word said to her, so seeing this was a shock.
Instead of turning on the light, Rachel fumbled with her phone flashlight and pointed it down the sharp staircase. Tim and Robert slowly picked their way down, Tim having to go down backward. Edmund didn’t know how many times all of them had drunkenly slipped up or down the stairs, so he couldn’t help admire how assuredly he did it. Soon enough Tim was at the bottom and Robert followed, and then the rest of them. Amber followed last, making sure the basement door was shut and secure.
Rachel turned on the lights in the basement. Tim and Robert scrabbled around the tables—someone had reorganized the basement since they had left, so the tables were separated again—and placed the body in front of the fireplace on the rug. The two of them straightened up, and Robert yelped. There was a large bloodstain on his coat. He struggled to get it off and threw it on the floor next to her.
“Jesus,” Robert said.
Amber got to the bottom of the stairs and saw the woman for the first time. Edmund watched her, curiously. At the sight of the woman, anyone else would’ve recoiled, thrown up, fainted. But Amber didn’t do that. Amber just looked with curiosity, her eyes flickering in the light. And then, the strangest thing, she smiled.
Edmund looked away in disgust.
“Can we get the fire on?” Tim said, ignoring him. “I’m freezing.”
“I’ll do it,” Rachel said, fiddling with the fire. Soon flames were starting up.
They all just stood around the body, not knowing what to really do. Blood was already soaking through the blankets onto the rug, but stopped there. The rug was incredibly thick, so would stop any leakage.
Amber had retreated to the far corner, watching as if she were a curious bystander. It was clear she was going to offer nothing to the conversation, but she wasn’t going to put up any roadblocks either.
“Right,” Pru said. “So what the hell do we do now?”
“We need to find some way of, um, disposing of her,” Tim said unassuredly. Edmund thought once again about how simply these phrases were coming to his friend’s mouth. Maybe there was another side to Tim that no one ever saw. Yes, he always liked a problem to solve, but could that really apply to this incredibly morbid situation too? How bad did the problems have to get before he tapped out?
“Christ, Tim,” Pru said, obviously agreeing with Edmund, “can you say that any less creepily? Like get rid of her, or make her disappear, or... No, you know what—they’re all equally bad.”
Tim didn’t react. “I’m just being real,” he said, in that same cold voice he’d adopted since the crash. “I’m seeing what is in front of us, and I’m thinking about how we can resolve the situation. We can’t turn back the clock. We can’t undo this. It happened, and as a result of our actions—” despite his fear, Edmund felt a kinship to him when he said “our” “—this woman is dead. This woman, who happened to be alive and be on that road at the time our car was too. Our world has changed, whatever happens now. We can never go back to a time before it happened. Nothing we ever do is ever going to make this different. Our world has changed. I’m just trying to make it a little brighter.”
“But what can we do?” Edmund said. “How can we ever be the same again? Because—she’s dead. She’s bloody dead. I did that.” Edmund started to sob again.
“No,” Robert said, his face stony. “We did that. We all did.”
“Let’s go upstairs,” Tim said, “we’ll go in one of the back rooms, get Edmund a drink, and we’ll talk about what happens next.”
Rachel nodded. “We’re not going to get very far when our eyes will always go to her—the body, I mean.”
“This is so crazy,” Pru said. “I’m dreaming, right. This is some messed-up nightmare.”
Edmund was staring at the woman. This picture—the one he was seeing—would be imprinted on his mind forever. Her lying there in front of the fire. Blood starting to clot from the wound on her forehead. Her legs bent out of shape.
“Edmund,” someone was saying. Tim.
He looked around. Everyone was staring at him, looking concerned. They should be bloody concerned. He had—Oh God.
“Edmund,” Tim said again, “let’s go upstairs. Away from all this. And let’s think.”
All he wanted to do was to get away from the body. So he nodded. But some part of him wanted to stay too. This is what you did, a voice inside him chirped. This is what you did, and you want to run away? What gives you the right?
Edmund ignored the voice, and let himself be led upstairs by Tim. Pru, Robert and Rachel followed behind. Amber was the last to go up. She heard the door close behind the others and she went to the body. She looked at the woman with something like admiration. “How does it feel?” she whispered, wishing the woman could answer. “How does it feel to be broken? How does it feel to be without hope?” She reached over and threw another log on the fire, replacing the fireguard in front. As she passed, she drew her wrists over the woman’s eyes, which flickered in a small and imperceptible motion. “How does it feel to be dead?”
Amber shrugged. “Sucks to be you.” And smiled.
She took the stairs two at a time and paused at the door at the top—the basement was laid out so when you were at the very top, you couldn’t see down into it anymore.
A rustle. Amber listened, not even sure if she had heard it, or if it was just another noise made by the crackling fire. She waited a few more moments, heard nothing else and shut the door.
In front of the fire, no one noticed that the woman’s eyes had opened.
Her right index finger twitched.