The Last Girl: A gripping psychological thriller with a killer twist Read online

  His words are distant and muffled under the loud blaring in my ears. I think I need medication, but for what exactly? Hearing voices?

  Major Red’s accusation seems plausible, but so are my suspicions. I can tell him about my daughter, but he would definitely think I’m crazy then. I could tell him about Toot, but what if Toot is so important to him, would he end up killing me or something?

  I am overwhelmed with the terrible feeling of wanting to disappear. Kill me, bury me, send me to hell, and reincarnate me as a new person into another world with a less complicated life, away from the island.

  “Stop that blare!” I shout at Major Red.

  “What blare?” he shouts back, tense and irritated.

  “This sound. Can’t you hear it?”

  “I hear nothing unusual, Miss June.”

  “It’s that blare I keep hearing. I heard it when Ashlyn and I were at the Furnace. She heard too. It’s like a loud horn.”

  “I hear no horns,” Major Red says. “What kind of horn is so loud you need to cover your ears? Be reasonable and admit you’re sick. You need to go back to Ward Four.”

  Like a withering migraine, the loud blare fades into oblivion. It’s a bit sudden, I have to admit. Is it time to admit something is wrong with me? No, this can’t be. My gut feeling tells me I have to hang on.

  When I open my eyes, Major Red is gripping the phone and dialing. “I’m sending you back to Dr. Suffolk. He has to tell me if you’re faking your amnesia, and those sounds you hear, or not.”

  My guard is down. I’m so tired. It’s not a bad idea to see Dr. Suffolk again. I wait in my seat until soldiers arrive and I surrender. They seem gentle with me this time. I guess I’ve become so pathetic to them.

  Walking along, I replay Major Red’s reasoning in my head. One word stands out all of a sudden, and I pull away from the soldiers again. “Did you say there was a swastika on my gun?”

  “Please go, Miss June,” he says. “Talking hasn’t solved anything.”

  “Answer me,” I demand. “My gun had an inverted cross on it, one that belonged to some weird sect from the eighties or something.”

  Major Red smokes his pipe again, leaning back in his chair. “An inverted cross?”

  “Yes.” I approach the desk again. “Pull the gun from the drawer. I will show you. You were the one who pointed it out.”

  “I did point it out.” He nonchalantly pulls out the gun and throws it on the table in front of me. “Look for yourself.”

  His confidence scares me. I’m sure it was an inverted cross. My hands tremble a little as I reach for the gun. This is going to be a deal breaker. My sanity is on the line here. I pull the gun up and look at the inverted cross, except it isn’t. It’s a swastika.

  53

  Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean

  Karl Dixon watched the plane wreckage from the passenger seat of the chopper. He is unable to fathom what could have happened. Plane parts floated everywhere. The raging ocean and wind had scattered them all over the water, so much so that he was almost sure this rescue mission was already a failure.

  He was using fog-proof binoculars—purged of air and filled with dry nitrogen that did not condense on internal surfaces during rapid temperature changes—to get a better look. The results weren’t spectacular, though. Thick fog like this rendered even “fog-proof” binoculars useless sometimes.

  Several other choppers hovered nearby. An immense crew of rescuers had just arrived, but Dixon couldn’t see all of them due to the fog.

  “The nose and cockpit exploded,” an officer told Dixon from below. “Passengers are floating everywhere. Most seats are dislocated, if not burned or sunk. Looks like the plane’s tail sunk perpendicularly, like the Titanic.”

  “How far below?” Dixon asked.

  “Hard to tell now. It’s almost impossible to send anyone down there. You should come here and see the ocean spitting piss onto us.”

  “Did our remote-operated vehicles arrive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Try a side-scan sonar and laser line-scanning to find passengers.”

  “Copy that. I’ll report pictures of survivors we find for identification.”

  “I doubt you will find any,” Dixon said. “I’ve seen tons of crashes. Nothing like that. Certainly, not in this kind of weather.”

  “You think it’s a terrorist attack?”

  “No doubt about it,” Dixon says. “And the only way we know for sure is to get to the tail before it sinks into the bottom of the ocean.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re asking,” the officer said. “I’d prefer to concentrate on one mission. Either I find passengers or coordinate with the boys from the FBI and investigate a terrorist attack.”

  Dixon disconnected. He needed a moment to think it over. He knew Floyd wanted a list of passengers to report to the press and families. The press had been pushing for answers on CNN, FOX, and the BBC since yesterday. Al Jazeera had asked for the passenger list, claiming there had been two important investors from Qatar on board, flying from London to New York. Floyd had always cared about the deceased’s families. So typical and naive of him. Dixon figured the old man thought that confirming a relative’s death as fast as possible was the least they deserved.

  But Dixon had seen this enough times to know it was a fuckup either way. The only outcome that families wanted was to hear their loved ones were alive, which was almost never the case.

  Even if their loved ones survived, they were usually disabled and wished they had died. Dixon always thought he was the right man for Floyd’s job, but he ended up in this horrible position, taking orders from a dreamy man who believed in miracles that never happened. People thought he was saving lives, but all he did was report dead people, empathetically. He hated Floyd for pushing him out in this risky weather.

  He clicked his radio on. “Tell you what, put the terrorist investigation on hold.”

  “So it’s a rescue mission. Copy that. Anything else?”

  “Actually, yes. I want you to send the rescue divers down.”

  “But they wouldn’t make it in this weather.”

  “Floyd says we have to send them,” Dixon said. “It’s his call if they die. I am following orders.”

  Dixon rested the radio on his lap and then rubbed his chin. Normally, he would have consulted Floyd. All the old man had said was to find survivors. He had no idea divers would die if sent into the water now. Dixon didn’t care. He didn’t like Floyd, and it was time the old man retired in disgrace.

  54

  I’m stretched out on the couch in the clinic, waiting for Dr. Suffolk. My thoughts have been haunting me since I left Major Red’s office, but they’re useless now. I’ve come to a fork in the road where I don’t know what to think or which path of clues to follow.

  Dr. Suffolk stands tall over me while I am on the couch. It’s judgment day. Now or never. We’re going to know who I really am right here and now. I want to know, so badly. Not like last time, when I seemed reluctant and worried.

  “How are you, June?” Dr. Suffolk says, tilting his head as if staring at a skewed picture on the wall. “You’re certainly no ordinary patient.”

  “Of course I’m not,” I mumble. “None of your patients are sole survivors with amnesia, carrying a gun with a swastika.”

  “Witty and beautiful.” He smiles and sits opposite me. Though his ease is appreciated, I find it fake and out of context. Nothing is beautiful about me. “Everything is going to be all right. Don’t worry.”

  “That’s what you told me the last time.”

  “I can’t win with you, can I?” He chuckles and glances at a dossier with my name on it. “Look, I’m not going to look at your test results—not yet. I’m not going to question any of your actions, either. You know why?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Because I’m your doctor. I don’t care about your attitude outside, nor do I care about what you’ve done. I want to help you remember who you are.”
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  It sounds good, but I am not sure if I can trust him anymore. Even though my heart tells me he is a good man, I’m the most paranoid girl on the planet right now. I am afraid, even of myself—my real self.

  However, I realize the handsome doctor is my only chance. I prop up on my elbows and whisper. “Dr. Suffolk, if you really want to help me, tell me what this place is.”

  I lock eyes with him.

  He says, “You want to know what this island is?”

  “Yes, please.” I get closer, smelling his scent, stretching my neck, and tolerating the ache in my exhausted body like a champ.

  Dr. Suffolk gets closer too. Our faces are a few breaths apart. He has beautiful eyes. “This place, June”—he swallows—“is none of what you think.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means all you have to do is breathe.” He glances sideways and back to me. “Just breathe.”

  I sigh and lie back in frustration. I’m sure he is lying to me. I rest my hands on my chest as if I am a mummy, dead and gone. “I’m ready for your hypnosis. Shall we begin?”

  “That’s a good start,” Dr. Suffolk says. “But not yet.”

  “I thought this was all you and Major Red want, to know who I am, if I am a terrorist or a spy sent to discover the secrets on this island.” I roll my eyes.

  He laughs. “Reason is: I can see you’re afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Yes, June. You’re afraid to know who you are. You think it’s not obvious, but it is.”

  I make sure I’m still staring at the ceiling, so my eyes won’t give away that he is spot on.

  “It’s common among amnesia patients,” he says in that soft and caring voice. Does he use it on all his patients? “As more time passes without remembering who you are, you’re building a new persona, which you’re starting to fall in love with, so much that you begin to fear you’re not the good person you’ve convinced yourself you are.”

  The man reads my mind. I don’t know how. “What makes you think my new persona is good?”

  “Are you kidding me? You left your room in your horrible medical condition, convinced a nurse of a conspiracy going on here, then escaped soldiers and managed to cross the river to the Furnace, all in the name of doing the right thing. You’ve definitely built not only a good persona, but a heroic one.”

  “I’m not a hero.” I shrug. “I’m just a mother looking for her daughter.”

  Dr. Suffolk says nothing, long enough to force me to look at him. I’m surprised he is expressionless.

  “Did you hear what I just said?”

  “That you’re not a hero? Yes.”

  “That wasn’t just it. I said I have a daughter and need to find her.”

  “Okay, what else did you say?”

  I said I have a goddamn daughter. What the fuck is wrong with you?

  Dr. Suffolk tilts his head, waiting for me to answer him. The words I speak about my daughter seem to be all in my head. He does not hear them.

  I feel like I want to sink deep into this couch and be buried forever. Two more times I try to tell him about my daughter, and he can’t hear me, as if I’m saying nothing.

  “So let’s begin, anyway,” Dr. Suffolk finally says. “I’m going to ask you a few questions with no hypnosis. Questions that will hopefully refresh your memory.”

  I nod, staring at the ceiling, realizing I might have not looked at him at all. What’s happening to me?

  55

  Dr. Alan Suffolk has been asking me questions—that’s if I’m not insane and imagining things.

  Some questions are simple, some complicated. I’m actually starting to feel better. It’s a relief to look back at the events that have happened since I arrived on this island. It’s like popping outside my stuffed head for a breath of fresh air.

  I reveal all that’s happened like a movie in slow motion. I even tell him about the oily messages I received, risking that he may still be an enemy. I tell him about Toot, but he doesn’t seem interested. I tell him about my daughter again, and still it’s like he is unable to hear this part. I could scream and kick all I want, but it’s like it never happens. I’m starting to realize that it’s me who never tells him about her. I’m afraid it’s all in my mind. I’m afraid my brain thinks my daughter would be in danger if I told Dr. Suffolk.

  Dr. Suffolk believes most of the incidents to be hallucinations, induced by an after-plane-crash effect. Again, he recites this theory about how it’s not easy being a sole survivor. How there is a whole new science about it. Except then he adds a disheartening fact about how I may spend the rest of my life with these hallucinations. He won’t be able to know for sure until I remember the events of the crash.

  Lastly, he compliments my energy levels after the crash. Most sole survivors tend to be introverted and silent for long periods. All bullshit and nonsense that I don’t want to hear.

  But then he says, “Now, about those baby cries you heard.” He rubs his chin. “I have a few questions for you. Please try to be open-minded as I ask them.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Do you think you may have kids?”

  A hysterical laugh of madness forms on my lips. I tell him I have a daughter, and of course he doesn’t hear me. I give in until he speaks again, as helpless and insane as it sounds.

  “The reason I ask is because of the cries you keep hearing,” Dr. Suffolk says. “So try to pressure your mind for answers. It’s unlikely that you will remember, but the feeling of having a child may hit you.”

  I answer him again, but he doesn’t react.

  “An infant, maybe?” he offers. “One who kept you awake nights?”

  I close my eyes. He isn’t going to hear me. Let him talk. Maybe this is going somewhere.

  “An infant in a crib?” he says. “Could that be it? Your brain has confused memories with hallucinations?”

  My heart pounds faster. Could it be that the doctor is right? Am I imagining cries. And a crib? I feel my closed eyelids twitching, Dr. Suffolk’s voice in my head.

  “Maybe you want to be a mother, June, and have daydreamed about the baby crying in the next room.”

  I feel like I’m sinking deeper into my couch now, into a place that could be my memories. Every girl wants to be a mother at some point, I suppose. I try to focus on scattered images of my past. The more I squeeze the thought, the more I realize how it resonates with me. I find myself walking in a dark hall. A place not on this island. And there it is. The baby crying. I follow the sound, knocking on too many locked doors. Then I find one open. It’s a child’s room. But the room is dark. I can’t see as good as I need to. But it’s not hard to locate the source of the cries.

  A baby.

  In a crib.

  Slowly, I step toward it, reaching out. I’m about to look into it and see the crying infant. Here I come. I think the doctor is right.

  Suddenly, the floor beneath me cracks and I scream, free-falling. All the way down, I can still hear the baby’s cries. If I focus, I might save it. But then I realize I am illogically strapped to a chair at the bottom of that circular place again. The sound of water is all around, but it’s not the ocean. It’s the plane. I think I’m in the bottom of a well, or a fissure in the earth. I’m not on a plane. The loud blare is definitely the horn of a car. A Jeep, actually. I think so. The looming figure is all over me again. His foul scent is the smell of the oil itself. The oil from the car that’s blaring. The oil on the messages.

  I jolt up straight on the couch, in tears, with nothing to save me from my troubled mind but Dr. Suffolk’s arms.

  “I think I’ve never been on a plane,” I whisper in his ear.

  “You’ll be all right.” He holds me tight and says, “Breathe, June. All you have to do is breathe.”

  56

  Mercy Medical Center, New York

  Floyd’s phone rang while he was eating lunch in his wife’s room. It was Dixon.

  “Two hundred and thirt
y passengers were on the plane. It’s a massacre down here.”

  “In this weather, I’m not surprised,” Floyd said. “Any survivors?”

  “None so far.”

  “How many passengers did you find.”

  “All but twenty-seven. We’ll try and match their identities, but trust me, some are only fragments of what they used to be. We’ll do it when we’re back in New York.”

  “No. You’ll identify the corpses now.” Floyd put down his fork and stared at the passengers’ families on TV. “We have to ease the families’ pain. Waiting and not knowing is a horrible thing.” His eyes shifted to his wife.

  “Floyd. You’re not being rational. We’ve already lost one of our divers. The longer we stay here, the more of my crew I will lose.”

  Floyd’s jaw twitched. All his life, this had always been the hardest decision. Sacrificing one of his men to save civilians, or cherishing his men, whom he’d trained for years, and sacrifice the civilian. If interviewed on national TV, he’d be obliged to say civilians were above all others. Which was a great lie. These men, soldiers, divers, or pilots had families as well. Floyd would’ve normally ordered his men back for one simple reason: the possibility of a survivor was infinitesimally slim.

  “Sir?” Dixon said impatiently.

  Floyd was silent, unable to decide, his eyes fixated on his comatose wife.

  “There is no need for our men to die,” Dixon said. “This rescue mission is dead. There will be no survivors. It’s impossible.”

  Floyd said nothing, still staring at his wife. He realized Dixon was right. But he also realized that giving up hope on the survivors meant he’d have to give up hope on his wife as well.

  Floyd simply didn’t answer.