Whether it was intentional ignorance or my subconscious protecting me, I wasn’t sure, but I had honestly never considered I now slept in a dead man’s bed.
“Police officer?” I croaked, desperately trying to think of literally anything else. “You met with a police officer that day?”
He stopped right in front of me and peered up just so, to meet my eye. “Yes. He came to ask if I’d seen…” Impossibly, his face grayed even more. “Is that what happened to me?” he whispered. “Did I end up like those missing hikers? We were meant to be looking for them, for campfire smoke, or abandoned tents. The officer asked if I’d seen anything. Did I go missing like they did? Did someonemurderme?”
“Oh my God,” I said under my breath.
“Well?” he demanded. “Is that what happened? Was my face plastered on a bunch of missing persons posters? Is that why you knew my name? Did my family wonder if—if I’d ever comehome?” he finished, voice cracking.
I gingerly sat back down on the bed and cupped my head in my hands. “No,” I said lowly, desperately wishing, as awful as it was, that I could say yes. “That’s not what happened to you. Or not what people think happened to you, anyway.”
His brow creased in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
I peered up at him. “Please sit down,” I said, the way they do in movies before telling someone their loved one was dead. Suddenly, I understood it was more for the comfort of the giver of bad news than the receiver.
He sat back in the chair by the fire. “What happened to me?”
I blew out a long breath. He deserved to know. With each word, it became increasingly clear just how wrong and fucked up and awful the situation was, but he deserved to know.
Plus, I needed to gauge his reaction to what I was about to say to be sure whether my horrible realization was true.
“I don’t know any of this for sure,” I started, “but I’ll tell you what I’ve heard. You didn’t check in at roll call one morning.” I stopped, realizing I didn’t know the exact date he went missing. How insulting was it that I couldn’t even tell him that much?
“Someone came out to check on you,” I continued. “They never found you, or your,uh,body. The police were called in, and…”
“And?” he prompted.
“They never released an official statement or anything. I only know what’s been speculated about. But after they came out here, they pronounced all of the missing hikers dead. They suspended the investigation into their murders indefinitely. Noone was ever charged,” I said, hoping he’d understand what I meant without having to say it outright.
He shook his head. “If they didn’t find me, how could they say I was dead or murdered? What did that have to do with the rest of them?”
Right. I’d have to spell it out.
“Everyone thinksyoumurdered them, Charlie. The police must’ve found something that made them think so, to call off the investigation.”
He blinked, stunned into silence.
One heartbeat.
Two.
“Some people thought you ran away,” I continued, needing to fill the silence. I couldn’t stand the slow horror creeping over his features. “Others thought you committed suicide out of shame. They closed down the lookout, and except for trespassers, no one’s been out here since. Until… Well, now. Until me.”
More silence.
“They thinkIkilled those people?” he asked in disbelief.
I nodded.
He stood, and the outline of his body flickered and surged again, like too much and too little electricity ran through him all at once. “But, why? I didn’t hurt anybo—!” he said, voice rising. “I would never hu—how—me?”
I stood too, attempting to calm him. “Hey, I can’t hear you when you get worked up. It’s okay, we can?—”
“IT’S N—OKAY!” he yelled, real tears falling. Several items scattered across my desk rattled, as if lifted and dropped in unison. “I—D—N’T!”
He became increasingly hard to understand, and the lack of communication made him frantic and angry. He reached out and grabbed my shoulder, hard. “YOU HAVE—B—LIEVEME! MY FAMILY—Y SISTER—MOM—THINK I KIL—THEM? THAT’S NOT FAIR! THA—OT FAI?—!”
I took hold of his wrist. “Charlie? Hey, calm down! I can’t hear you when you panic.”
