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

  57

  “You’ll be fine.” Dr. Suffolk is still squeezing me in his strong arms, now gently brushing his hand through my hair. “Just keep breathing.”

  “I think I’m going crazy.” I hiccup into his shoulder.

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to pressure yourself.”

  “It sucks not knowing who I am.”

  “None of us really do.” He breathes out one of his light chuckles. “I’ve been trying to know me for almost forty years now.”

  I find myself chuckling too. He sure has a way of looking at the world.

  “Memories are nothing but names and incidents that could have been twisted and turned into circumstances beyond our grasp,” he says. “You don’t choose your parents or name, for instance. Yet you have to live with them. Who we really are and how our lives came to be are two different things.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  “Why not?” He holds my head between his hands, staring into my eyes. “You have no memory of who you are, but you know you were brave enough to survive a plane crash.”

  “I’m starting to think Major Red is right. I was never on that plane.”

  “So what? You survived something. Every day alive is a gift, proving you’ve survived the one before.”

  Words like these make me want to totally trust him. But if I do, I will need to believe all the lies Major Red told me as well. I’m going to overlook the fact that I’m unable to tell him anything about my daughter for now. But what about all those women burned in the Furnace? I find it hard to believe that people on the island are the good guys, like Dr. Suffolk wants me to believe.

  “Can I trust you, Dr. Suffolk?”

  “I’d like to believe that,” he says. “Sometimes I don’t trust myself.”

  I’m astonished at his vulnerability. Is it real? An act? Or is he just a good doctor doing his best?

  “I have so many questions, so much fear—so much that I’ve lost track of what I really want to accomplish here.” I say.

  “Don’t we all?”

  “Yes, yes.” I plant a gentle finger on his mouth. His smoothness is starting to annoy me. “But I need a theory or an idea about what’s going on.”

  “Why? It’ll be over when the storm subsides. We’ll know all we know about the plane in the news, and you will know who you are and go home.”

  I’ve not thought about it this way. In my mind, the storm will never come to an end. Besides, if a hurricane is really on the way, we’ll be gone forever.

  “Listen.” I collect my thoughts again. “I’m not asking much. I want to tell you about my daughter.”

  Dr. Suffolk leans back. His face dims a little. It’s like he is staring into a lost memory while looking at me. As if I’m not there.

  “Did you hear what I just said?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And?”

  Dr. Suffolk stands up, walks toward the window, and looks out at the trickling rain. “I’m waiting,” he says.

  “Waiting for what, Dr. Suffolk?”

  “For the question you want to ask me.”

  The anger and frustration build inside me. I can feel heat rising in my throat. “Fuck this!” I stand up and stamp my foot. “How can you not be hearing this?”

  Dr. Suffolk doesn’t look back. Now I’m not sure if my outburst of emotion was real. Does he not hear my cussing, or is he ignoring me?

  “The rain outside is my only friend sometimes,” he says. “It reminds me that I’m not alone in this room.”

  “What did you say?” Tears trickle from my eyes. My life is utter madness. I’m not even sure he said that. I’m not even sure I exist.

  This has to stop.

  This has to stop.

  This has to…

  “June?” Dr. Suffolk says, still staring at the window. “What’s your question? What did you want to ask me?”

  58

  Mercy Medical Center, New York

  Floyd had finally made up his mind. It was a long shot, but now he felt good about it. “Identify all corpses now, in the field,” he told Dixon. “Don’t call me back without the names of the missing twenty-seven passengers.”

  “But—”

  “I will take responsibility.”

  “What good will it serve me when you take the blame after my rescue team dies?” Dixon asked.

  “They signed up for this,” Floyd said. “They know the drill. We all signed up for this.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Dixon said. “Why don’t you get your fucking FBI ass down here and die with us, instead of nursing your fucked-up wife!”

  Silence saturated the air after Dixon’s rant. Floyd wasn’t the type to burst out in rage. His steadiness and stability had made him the man he was today. This wasn’t the time to get back at Dixon and curse at him, nor was it the time to tell him about the three bullets Floyd took in the field, one close to his heart, to remind Dixon of the dangers he’d confronted throughout his career.

  The one thing Floyd could fire back for was Dixon doubting the recovery of August—not that Floyd actually believed his wife would regain consciousness, but he didn’t want to hear it. In times when facts cut like a knife through him, hope was the steel shield under his skin. Hope, even false, made the world go on.

  Floyd also considered Dixon’s dilemma. Many people signed up for jobs without imagining the consequences. Then, when the shit hit the fan, they folded under the pressure. Be it a doctor, a rescue team, or even a mother giving birth to a child, the responsibilities they eventually faced were the true test of life. Dixon didn’t have that. He’d been a victim of his ego, unable to live under the radar, saving lives every day without someone praising him in the news. Saving lives was the noblest job, yet the most underrated.

  Floyd’s reply to Dixon was short and simple: “It’s an order, Dixon. God be with you.”

  Dixon had hung up already, knowing how devoted Floyd was. The old man put his cell phone on the table, doubting himself for a moment. It’d always been like that when making a decision. People wanted to think that men like him were rock-solid-sure about their decisions. It was far from it. Each decision was usually a choice between two evils in Floyd’s world, including the option to pull the plug on his wife or not.

  He stood up, walked over to his wife, and held her hand. He bowed down, planted a kiss on her cold forehead, and whispered, “Tell me I’m doing the right thing, August.”

  When she was alive, August had said that his job wasn’t about saving many lives. Just one life was a victory. She’d concluded that saving lives wasn’t always feasible. In major accidents, people died. One saved brought hope back into the heart of the masses. That was all they needed.

  Like always, August didn’t reply, assure him with calm words. She didn’t even sigh or blink, like doctors claimed would happen someday. Nothing about her changed, and Floyd hoped to God that Dixon was wrong about her situation.

  Floyd turned and faced the silent TV. He’d put it on mute earlier, but now raised the volume. He listened to the latest news about the plane crash. Most of it was fabricated and untrue. He hated news channels with their over-the-top stories and speculation. Everything had to have a meaning behind it. Everything had to be a conspiracy. One channel claimed this was a terrorist attack—something Dixon would suggest. The channel said there had been terrorists on the plane. Women, they said. The suicidal type.

  Bullshit.

  Floyd knew for a fact that none of this was true. No investigation had taken place yet. They hadn’t even released a list of passengers. Besides, why was it hard to believe that a plane had crashed in such terrible, unexpected weather?

  Another channel caught his attention, though. He watched the families at the airport, demanding to know if their loved ones were alive. He couldn’t imagine the pain they were suffering. It made him realize he couldn’t pull the plug on August. He had been in so much pain, and yet she hadn’t really died yet.

  With the remote in his
hand, he sat down and listened to families pleading with the authorities to save their loved ones on Atlantic flight number 1001.

  59

  I’m in the bottom of that fissure in the earth again. Now I’m sure it’s not the plane’s broken tail. It’s like a huge well or something; the sound of rushing water is everywhere. The water is underneath me, but I can’t crane my stiffened neck enough to see.

  The stinking smell of oil is everywhere. Oil from some old Jeep, I suppose. And, of course, the blare of the horn is a continuous, cacophonous torture in my ears. If it stops, I think I can call for help. But it never stops.

  My body is still weak. I can’t move it. My hand is squeezed under someone’s body, and I can’t pull free. My left arm hurts like hell. I’m not sure if I can’t feel my legs or if the pain is too strong to comprehend. An accident has definitely occurred somewhere, but how, I have no idea.

  I close my eyes and try to listen beyond the loud blare, but it’s futile. Above me, in the far distance, beyond that opening in the fissure, I can faintly see the sun. Shy and obedient behind the darkening mist. I wonder if it’s not the sun but fire. And again, I can’t tell.

  All the way down, the walls are dark silhouettes upon darker silhouettes. I can’t tell what they’re made from. Whether they’re natural or man-made.

  Down here, I’m strapped to some seat. I suppose this is a car seat? It’s a plausible idea. The belt runs diagonally from my shoulder down to my hip, not around my waist, like in a plane.

  How did this happen? How did a plane become a car?

  None of that really matters. It’s the fear in my heart that’s killing me. That fucking feeling of needing to save my daughter. It’s so strong that I can’t deny it. How can I be insane and feel such strong emotion?

  “Baby?” I call for my girl, ashamed I don’t know her name. Ashamed of leaving her behind. Ashamed of things I can’t understand.

  A drop of oil splashes down on my face. There is no mistake about it. Then another. I try to glimpse its color as it falls but can’t do it in this darkness.

  My throat tightens when I understand what the oil means. It’s always related to that looming, dark figure. It has arrived. I can smell its preposterous stink. God, it scares me so much that I think I’m peeing myself now.

  “Who are you?” I shiver.

  “You know who I am,” it replies. Low and dull and mocking. The embodiment of evil.

  “I don’t. What do you want?”

  “I want what I’ve always had.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Do I know you?”

  “You’ve always known me.”

  “You’re Manfred Toot?”

  “Whatever you’d like to call me, I’m fine with it,” it says. The looming veil of darkness blocks my view of the sky above.

  “Get away from me!”

  It keeps getting closer. “Can you hear the baby crying?”

  “I can’t.” I try to unstrap myself by twisting my body.

  “Beautiful cries,” it says. “Let’s make babies, you little whore.”

  The words make me want to vomit. What did he just say?

  Then he drops a bomb on me: “Let’s make Nazi babies.”

  60

  Kicking and punching, I wake up screaming in a bed that I have never seen before. This certainly isn’t Dr. Suffolk’s clinic. It looks like yet another hospital room, but a much more advanced one than in Ward Four.

  The tiles on the floor look like a chessboard. I haven’t set foot on them yet, but they look cold. Actually, it’s the whole room that’s too cold. The four bare walls surrounding me are pale blue. Machines are set against two of them. Nothing special, except the one thing that jolts me off the bed immediately.

  It’s the fact that the bed I’m on is set in the middle of the room, like an operating table.

  With a hand on my chest, I keep staring at it. A set of fluorescent lights are fixed above it. Lines of metallic instruments are set on a tray next to it. This is definitely an operating room.

  I suppose I fainted in Dr. Suffolk’s clinic and they brought me here. Why an operating room? Where is Dr. Suffolk?

  I run to the door, which is pale blue like the walls, only visible because of its white frame and a white box with a keypad.

  Trying to pull or push open the door doesn’t do the trick. I am locked up again, like in Ward Four, only this room feels like a place for illegal experiments—or maybe I’ve watched too many movies.

  An unusual calmness comes over me, though. Maybe because I’ve been through so much shit on this island. It’s not the first time I’ve woken up to a shocking surprise. All that comes to mind is that the charming Dr. Suffolk deceived me like everyone else—for the second time, actually. I’m wondering if appearing to not hear me speak about my daughter was a trick.

  From the corner of my eye, I see a window. Weird to find one in an operating room, but what hasn’t been weird lately?

  The window, though two-sided, is long and thin but I think I can still make it outside. My slow footsteps slap my bare feet on the chessboard tiles. It’s not the nicest of sounds, but it feels like a dread-filled soundtrack to what I’m about to see through the window.

  I find it easy to open. Weird again. All I have to do is twist the handle, but then I realize that only side opens. The other is rather locked. I miscalculated the size, now wondering if I can unlock the other part to widen my way out. I peek through the open part. It’s an unexpected view outside, inducing optimism and pessimism at the same time.

  Almost all the wards are visible, but from the back. That would be the optimistic part—realizing that I am probably on the west side of the island now. The pessimistic part is the question that presents itself: why was I brought here, and what is this building?

  Is this the Crib? It doesn’t look like it, but I can’t tell without leaving the room.

  Below me, the entrance to the building is vacant and calm, as if no one lives here. I can’t see anyone nearby, either. Just a few soldiers guarding the wards in the distance. None of them guards this place.

  I search for a bathroom. I spot it and hurl myself inside.

  I’m standing in front of a mirror again. Here I am, wearing another hospital gown.

  This one is green… just like… Wait… Fuck… No!

  Beads of sweat form on my forehead.

  My reflection shows me wearing something that confirms my fears. It shatters my reality so much that I don’t trust the mirror and turn to see it on my flesh.

  Shit.

  I’m wearing a metallic wristband, like the women in the Furnace.

  This can’t be happening.

  I try to pull it off, but I can’t. It needs a key to unlock it, I guess. It’s heavy, too. I lift my arm to take a closer look.

  What are you looking for?

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  There is a name on the wristband, just like every other woman I saw burned. It’s carved in capital letters.

  I read it:

  JUNE WEST.

  Then, a little lower, in red marker:

  Ready.

  61

  Mercy Medical Center, New York

  The news pleased Floyd. Dixon had done a good job. Some of the found corpses were matched to identities on the list of passengers. Not just that. The brave divers had managed to find most of the twenty-seven passengers in the plane’s tail at the bottom of the ocean. Most passengers had been strapped to their seats, unable to free themselves. Whatever had happened to the plane was quick enough that no one could do anything. A few passengers had managed to free themselves, though. They’d been found, either floating upon wreckage or underwater.

  Dixon’s men were exceptionally fast. Even Floyd hadn’t expected results that quick.

  “How many haven’t you found?” Floyd asked Dixon on the phone.

  “Three,” Dixon shouted, the sound of the chopper deafening behind him. “If my list is accurate, they’re all girls. Ages between twenty-fiv
e and forty.”

  “Young women,” Floyd said, wishing they were alive. “Great job, Dixon. I’ll be waiting for the last three girls.”

  “I was thinking you can populate the list now,” Dixon suggested. “Didn’t you want the families not to be left in the dark?”

  “Yes, but I need some time. I can’t risk three families going crazy not knowing. What if the three girls are dead? I can’t play with their feelings and let them think they’re alive and then prove otherwise. The list needs to be completed. At least try. If not, I’ll have to populate it. Also, a little more time will allow us—”

  Dixon murmured something that Floyd couldn’t hear with all the noises behind him.

  “Don’t give up yet, Dixon,” Floyd said. “You and your men did a heroic job. It’s always the last mile that counts. Three girls, and your job is done. God bless.”

  “I still think we should abort,” Dixon said. “Three girls don’t mean anything. The list isn’t accurate, as well. We’re counting corpses, not human beings. Some of the families will know their loved ones are dead, but we’ll never be able to identify them. I have half torsos here, Floyd.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “I can check off the three girls as found. As dead. No one will know. It’ll be between me and you.”

  “And repeat the mistakes of TWA in 1996, when we messed up the names of passengers and caused those families all that pain?”

  “You messed up on 9/11,” Dixon argued. “That was your fault. Still, everyone thinks you’re a hero.”

  “I panicked. It was an unusual plane crash. We hadn’t been trained for such a catastrophe then. But flight 1001 is what you and your men trained for at the NTSB. Sure, it’s almost a suicide mission in this weather, but it’s our job.”

  “My men will die.”

  “They’re my men, too.”

  “Last three girls don’t matter, Floyd.”