Time moves differently when you measure days by light and dark. Tracking hours is more than Ollie can handle, so he judges time of day by brightness. Daylight burns, so he rests when the sun is out. Like a wilderness vampire, Sheridan says, and Ollie manages to laugh.
Sometimes, Aidan slips a water bottle under his neck. Other times, he tells Ollie to sleep upright. Devin dabs his forehead at night with a damp cloth, and soon, his vision creeps back. He sees the silver of Sheridan’s hair first, the sun gleaming from the crack in Aidan’s glasses second, the black of Devin’s eyes third. He manages to keep down a few bites of rice and jerky and it feels like progress.
By the third day, Ollie is more or less himself. Dizzy, confused, and seconds from collapse, but himself.
He’s scooping oatmeal straight from the pot when Sheridan slaps her journal closed. For days, she’s approached the end of Josiah Templeton’s time in the woods. Wordlessly, all eyes land on her, waiting for the final review.
“Well?” Devin asks.
Sheridan’s frown telegraphs a bad ending for their friend. In a forest like this, completely alone, Ollie can’t imagine what a good ending would even look like.
“It was all a dream,” Sheridan drawls. When no one laughs, she straightens. “You want me to read it? Warning, it’s a bummer.”
When everyone nods, Sheridan clears her throat.
“I don’t know why I’m writing anymore, given what I’ve planned. I guess, at a certain point, I stopped thinking of this journal as something for myself and started using it as a letter. I don’t know what will last if I do this right, but if someone finds my journal, I hope it helps them do what I couldn’t.
“I thought finding this cabin would save me, but it’s become more of a tomb. I haven’t written in days because I don’t have words to explain how miserable I am. I brought what food I could carry from Magruder Point, but I’m only a few days from running out again. I’m a horrible hunter, and even if I weren’t, I haven’t seen an animal in weeks. I should keep moving, but honestly, I’m tired.
“The mimic comes to me every night.
“I don’t know if it can’t get into the cabin or if it simply chooses not to. It has tried many shapes these last few days, and I think each one whittles a bit more of me away. At first, it was my brother asking me to come meet his baby. His baby! It could be lying just to hurt me, but I wept myself to sleep thinking I might die without hearing my real nephew’s laugh. It tried my mother next. Her voice was even softer than I remembered. She follows me from outside the house, mirroring my movements, coming up to the windows in the dark to comfort me. Even when I cover my ears, I can’t help remembering how soft her hands used to be. The mimic has worn the faces of people I love and people I hate. Lately, it’s been wearing the face of my wife.
“Maria.
“If they somehow get this journal to you, I hope you know you’re the one I’ve craved the most out here. I’ve missed you more and more every day, so it’s fitting that the mimic has chosen to haunt me with a pale shadow of you. I know I should keep looking for rescue, but I think I miss you too much to leave you. If I’m meant to die out here, I want your face to be the last thing I see. Fire destroys the mimics. I’m praying it destroys me, too.
“It’s beautiful outside tonight. The lake glitters under a wide moon, the sky near-red and hazy with dying light. I hear the mimic in the grass again. Its breath sounds more and more like yours as night comes. I’m sorry I didn’t have the strength to find you again, Maria.
“I think tonight I’ll invite my creature inside.”
The camp falls quiet.
“Okay,” Devin says finally. “Guess we know what happened to the cabin.”
Ollie heard most of the words, but his head is full of cotton. He blinks into the too-bright sun and it rings in his ears. When he snaps his gaze away, it lands on Hannah.
Though a part of him has spent the last few days aware she was with them, staunchly not talking, something new comes over him seeing her now. The pain in his head throbs, but that isn’t the worst of it. When he looks at her, his understanding of the last days—weeks, even—in these woods begins to unravel.
Static buzzes in Ollie’s head as he forces himself to stand. He thinks he hears Aidan’s meek voice warning him to stay down, but he tunes it out. He grasps a handful of sticks and plunges them into the campfire. The campsite spins on its axis and Ollie has to close his eyes to stay balanced. He stumbles forward, catches his breath, and jabs the burning sticks at Hannah.
She recoils. “What are you doing?”
“We’re not dying out here,” Ollie says. “You should start talking.”
“Ollie,” Devin says, rushing to his side. “If you touch her with that, she’ll—”
“Die, right?” Ollie says. “Like the real Hannah?”
“I…” Hannah starts, pressed hard to the tree. “I told you what I need if you want answers.”
“Okay, well, I’m not promising you anything,” Ollie says. “But I heard you say you can tell if someone means the things they say. If you don’t tell us what happened to Hannah, I’ll use this right now. I don’t care if it kills you.”
“Ollie,” Devin snaps, gripping his arm.
Ollie’s face burns. Through a ragged breath, he asks, “Do I mean it?”
Hannah swallows.
“She’s dead.”
It’s like someone has pulled the stopper from their clearing. The campsite exhales, deflates, and it’s all Ollie can do not to fall to his knees. He knew it already, knew it the way some truths are bone-deep. But hearing her admit it in words is too much.
Through gritted teeth, he asks, “Because you killed her?”
Not-Hannah hesitates. “Yes.”
Even Sheridan winces. Ollie should ask more questions, but now it feels like unburying her. It’s all wrong. He wants to know how long ago they lost her, and he’s ashamed he didn’t notice sooner. His grip on the sticks is shaky as the flames begin to sear down to his hand.
“When?”
“Three weeks.”
Ollie tries to think back that far and it’s like his memory hits a wall. It’s not possible. They can’t have been without her that long. He would have known. No, he’s sure she’s lying to hurt him. It must’ve been a few days ago. Ollie tries to recall any nights Hannah was on watch by herself.
“The night I left camp…” Aidan speaks up from behind them. When Ollie turns to face him, Aidan looks down. “If it’s exactly three weeks, it would’ve been the night I went to find the trail. When we got lost.”
“Oh.”
“Yes,” Hannah says coolly. “After I moved you back to the trail.”
Devin sinks, sitting with her head in her hands. Sheridan pulls her knees to her chest, similarly horrified. Ollie tries to understand it, but he can’t. The brush that surrounds their campsite rustles quietly, bright green and light with summer. It’s too warm for him to feel this cold. None of it feels real.
“Why?” he asks.
“I didn’t want to be Aidan. I wanted to be Hannah.”
When no one speaks, she shakes her head.
“I spent hours watching you all before I decided. Most of us have been watching. We only have a small window of time to make a choice. Most of them wanted the strongest body or the brightest future. They were determined to become one of your adults, and that became a bloodbath.”
“A bloodbath?” Aidan echoes numbly.
“How do you…” Devin starts, voice froggy with disgust, “… become someone?”
“You ask.”
Ollie snatches the makeshift blindfold from Hannah’s eyes. She blinks in the sunlight, focusing on the fire. Her nose wrinkles and the expression is so human it throws Ollie off-balance.
“I’m answering your questions,” Hannah says, eyeing the fire. “You can put that down now.”
“No,” Ollie snaps.
“Be careful.” Hannah smiles sweetly. “The things you’ve seen are just a fraction of what I can do.”
“Then why are you trying to become someone else?” Devin asks.
“I have to,” Hannah says. “It’s the only point of being alive.”
Ollie doesn’t lower his arm. “Why did you choose her?”
Hannah meets his gaze, but Ollie isn’t afraid. Maybe it’s because he’s still recovering from his brain being rattled around like a Ping-Pong ball, but he isn’t scared of what this creature will do to him. All he feels is burning, suffocating anger.
“She was closest to giving up,” Hannah says. “She was easiest.”
“No,” Ollie snaps. “That’s not true. She was getting better. She—”
Hannah tilts her face to Sheridan. “It’d be pretty fucking stupid to believe the family that sent you here and didn’t even write to see how you’re doing still loves you.”
Sheridan stiffens at that.
“That’s what you do?” Ollie asks. “You break a person down until they don’t want to live anymore, then you take their place? Why?”
Something close to remorse twitches in Hannah’s expression. “I don’t want to answer questions about this part anymore. You want to get out of this forest and so do I. Let me help you escape.”
Ollie shakes his head. “I don’t get it.”
“You crossed into our territory,” Hannah snaps. It’s the first time she’s shown them true anger. The first time she seems to feel anything, for that matter. “I do what I need to survive, just like the rest of you.”
Ollie means to say more, but Sheridan perks up, surfacing like she’s just come out of a dream. She motions them all away from Hannah, toward a small patch of dirt near the creek. Ollie helps Aidan to join them, and once they’re settled, Sheridan pulls her map from her backpack and splays it across the dirt. She traces a finger back along their trail before tapping a spot near the beginning of the hike.
“It wasn’t like this at the beginning, was it?” Sheridan asks, more to herself than anyone else. “All the weird quiet spots and mimic attacks. That didn’t start night one.”
Ollie narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“She says we crossed into their territory. Josiah said he thought he crossed a barrier at some point, too.” Sheridan runs a hand through her hair. She looks at Devin. “When did things start getting weird?”
Devin’s eyes widen, and it suddenly hits Ollie, too. They crossed into the mimics’ territory. Sheridan is right.
“The river,” Devin and Ollie say at once.
“The coaches disappeared the night we crossed the river,” Aidan says. “Do you think the river was the boundary?”
At once, they turn to Hannah. There’s something like sympathy in her eyes, which makes Ollie’s stomach turn. The piece of him that wants to march back up to her and demand more answers wars with the part that never wants to look at her again.
“If we cross the river again,” Sheridan asks, “will we be out of your territory?”
Hannah considers. “Yes.”
Ollie sighs. The river winds its way all over their map. As they’ve hiked, their trail has more or less run parallel to the water the whole way. They’ve been hiking the border of mimic territory this whole time, then. They were always only a mile or so from safety.
“And if we cross the river,” Sheridan continues, “will mimics be able to follow us across?”
Again, Hannah considers. “I’ve never tried.”
Ollie grimaces. It occurs to him that, if they really are just skirting along the edge of mimic territory, things could be much worse. They need to get out of these woods fast. To Sheridan, he says, “We should try.”
They pore over the map for a long time, but one thing seems abundantly clear: not all four of them will make it across the river. Not in their condition, and not if the mimics think they’re losing their chance at a body. The closest place to cross is at least three miles from camp, which Aidan certainly won’t be able to do on his ankle. And though he’s starting to feel clearer, the dizziness and haze in Ollie’s skull make the hike feel impossible for him, too. He swallows hard, resigned.
For the third time since this nightmare began, they’ll need to split up.