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

  77

  Dr. Suffolk’s smile is gone. So is his beauty. Hands in his pockets, he stares back at me like an interrogator.

  I’m sitting on my bed, all wet, since he denied me a shower or a change of clothes. I’m shivering, teeth chattering. He looks fed up. I watch him pace back and forth.

  Then he stops.

  “June, we have to talk.”

  I hug myself to warm up. “You want to feed me more lies. I know all about this place already.”

  “Know what about this place?”

  “Whatever criminal conspiracy is going on in here. Nazis, pregnant women you burn after they give birth to one man’s seed—”

  “Stop it.”

  “Stop what? I saw everything. I saw Major Red. The evil doctor. The babies. What the fuck are you doing with the babies?”

  “Stop. It.” He grits his teeth.

  I’m not scared. Showing me his other face is a shock, but it will not stop me. Whoever he is, he seems to be following orders from Major Red.

  He kneels and tries to charm me with his smile. It’s not working. “Would you listen to me for a minute?” he says.

  “I’m not stopping you.”

  “Okay.” He sighs. “I will tell you everything.”

  “I don’t need to know everything. Just tell me where my daughter is.”

  “We’ll get to that, in time. Let me ask you a question first.”

  “Enough with this crap—”

  “How come you trusted Ashlyn with your life so quickly?” he says, cutting through my stubbornness. He knows how guilty I feel about Ashlyn.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look at you. You’re scared of everyone on this island,” he says, sounding reasonable and calm. “You’re basically a classic case of amnesia: a person without a memory wondering on which side of the fence they’re on, the good or the bad.” His words grow slower with every sentence, as if he’s hypnotizing me. “It’s normal. It’s human instinct. We all want to know whether we did good or evil by the end of the day. It’s a universal question.”

  “What does this have to do with trusting Ashlyn?”

  “It doesn’t fit your personality,” he says. “Think about it. You trusted no one, but when you met Ashlyn, not only did you trust her, you loved her.”

  “I—”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions. Give it a thought. Dig deeper inside and think about it.”

  “It’s—”

  “Ashlyn was no different from nurses like Mindy. There was a reason you trusted her so fast.”

  “She was naive. Lovable. She was—”

  “Why do you think she wanted you to call her Ash?”

  “What?” I grimace. I haven’t answered his first question. What is he trying to prove? “She liked being called Ash. What kind of question is that—”

  “Did she?”

  “I’m not a liar—”

  “Do you see the correlation between the word Ash and the Furnace?”

  “I don’t like this conversation.”

  “How did Ashlyn die?”

  “Your soldiers shot her.” I’m trying to look away, but he shifts to look me in the eyes.

  “That’s not what you told me in the clinic.”

  “Fuck you.” I look away again.

  “I’m on your side, June.” Dr. Suffolk shifts again to face me. “I’m trying to give you the answers you seek.”

  Looking into his eyes, I can’t see the doctor I met before. His eyes are bland. Emotionless. Unforgiving. “You told me you found Ash burned,” he says. “You said the soldiers burned her in the Furnace.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Try to remember.”

  “I have only a few recent memories. Do you think I don’t remember how my only true friend on this island died?”

  “Why did you call her Ash?”

  “What’s wrong with you? What kind of question is that?”

  “Ash is a word that’s related to furnaces. You burn something and ashes are everywhere,” he says. “Ashlyn, a.k.a. Ash, died burning in the end.”

  “In the end?”

  “The end of your story.”

  “You’re pushing it, Dr. Suffolk.” I stand up and turn away. “I’m not insane.”

  “You know what they call this in fiction?” he says to my back. “Foreshadowing.”

  “Please leave.” My teeth chatter. “I need to take a bath and change clothes.”

  I feel his breath on my neck behind me. “Why did you not ask me what foreshadowing is?”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  He swiftly stands before me again, staring at me, his eyes moist and tender now. “Foreshadowing is a writing device that hints of events that will happen later in a book.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “You wanted to know what’s going on. I’m telling you, June.”

  “Telling me what, exactly?”

  “I’d prefer it if you come to the conclusion yourself.”

  “You’re fucking with my mind, that’s all.”

  “Please,” he says. “Help me help you.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “You need all the help in the world.”

  “Where is my daughter?”

  He ignores the question like always and reaches for my left arm, the bandaged one. I push him away and head for the bathroom. He grabs me by the bandaged arm. Violently. He pulls me closer.

  “My arm hurts.” I let out a painful moan.

  “Yeah?” he says. “If it hurts so much, how come you used it to climb on the ledge outside.”

  I scoff. “I’m a big girl. I tolerated the pain.”

  “I don’t see how.” He squeezes my arm harder.

  The pain inflames my body, so much that I almost buckle. “Ruthless asshole.” I spit on him.

  “I didn’t want to be,” he says. “You wanted answers, and I’m trying my best.”

  “Your best what?” I pull away again.

  This time, the nurses get me. Six of those bitches. They’re all over me. I’m stranded. I’m cold. I’m so pissed off.

  “In your condition, you could have never climbed the ledge outside.” Dr. Suffolk approaches me. “Not with a damaged arm like this.” He begins to undo the bandage while the nurses keep me in place.

  “Are you saying I’ve never climbed the ledge or escaped to the forest?” I ask.

  “Like I said.” He finishes undoing the bandage. “I want you to come to the conclusion yourself.” He points at my arm. “Look, June,” he says. “Look at your arm. Look so you understand why you had it bandaged in the first place.”

  “I didn’t bandage it,” I retort without looking. “I woke up in Ward Nine and found it this way.”

  “You’ve never looked at it before?”

  “Once, when I was on shore.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “I couldn’t see. Blood covered every inch of it.”

  “Then it’s time for you to look. Now!” He points at my arm.

  Slowly, I look.

  I’d be lying if I said what I see makes sense at all, because it does explain a lot of shit. I raise my eyes to meet his. “What is this supposed to mean?”

  “It means there was never a plane crash,” he says. “Never a nurse called Ashlyn, or the Furnace, and certainly there’s never been Nazis.”

  78

  Mercy Medical Center, New York

  Floyd drank some water to soothe his throat. He wasn’t used to reading out loud for so long. It still amazed him how much he enjoyed the book, and he hoped to God that August enjoyed it as much.

  “No wonder you loved this book so much,” he told his wife. “It’s so well written. I can see now why you admired that girl so much.”

  He sat back to continue reading.

  “I mean, the protagonist of the story, she is one hell of a girl,” he said to August. “A German girl who was the sole passenger to survive a pla
ne crash. Her flight was on a commercial airliner that was struck by lightning during a severe thunderstorm and broke in midair.” He tried not to scoff at the author’s over-the-top imagination. With his expertise in the field, he never saw such accidents, but he liked the book. There was no need to spoil the beautiful writing and the well-told fantasy.

  Floyd stared at the rain outside for a moment and smiled. “The girl in the book was seventeen when it happened. She reminds me of you, baby. I imagine you as brave as her when you were young.” He didn’t want to bring up the fact that August couldn’t conceive children. He loved his wife dearly, so much that it had never bothered him.

  He continued, “After the plane crashed, that seventeen-year-old girl was still strapped into her seat. She’d survived the fall with a broken collarbone. God, what a hell of a story. She also had a gash to her right arm, and her right eye was swollen shut. Then she tried to find her mother, who’d been seated next to her. She couldn’t find her.”

  He turned back to face August. “The girl survived for eleven days. Eleven days. My God. She located a small stream and waded through knee-high water downstream from her landing site. Luckily, her father had taught her how to survive such places when she was younger. My kind of father. Good on him.” Floyd let out a long sigh, imagining he’d have taught his girl the same, if he’d ever had one. “She knew that following the stream was her one chance to come across civilization. It also provided water, not only for her survival but for cleaning her wounds. She couldn’t sleep at first because of the insect bites, worried she’d end up infected. Then she found a boat moored near a shelter—it’s fiction, after all.” He rolled his eyes. “Then finally she came across a couple of travelers who finally helped her to a place called”—he opened the book to read—“ah, Tournavista District. Then a local pilot took her to Pucallpa.”

  Floyd closed the book and sighed. “What a story. It’s told with such detail and emotion. I felt like I was there with the girl, rooting for her, wanting her to make the right choices,” he said, staring into nowhere, picturing the story in his mind’s eye. “I know I just read you the story out loud, August. I also know you know this story by heart. I’m only reciting it because the most fascinating part is how she managed to survive. I mean, all the technical details are much appreciated—and she was very lucky. It’s the part about her hallucinations that I find fascinating.”

  Floyd stood and walked to his wife’s bed. He sat next to her, talking as if she were alive and kicking. “The hallucinations, August. Do you hear me?”

  August didn’t show any signs. Nothing about her changed. But he still hoped.

  “Isolated and shocked, the young girl used her mind to save herself. She began seeing hallucinations. Scary things in the woods. Shattered memories attacked her. Instead of going crazy, she turned them into a story. Can you believe that?”

  August didn’t move.

  “What the nurse told me about you needing your mind stimulated might be right,” he said. “It’s like the girl in the story. She used her mind as company. As her best friend. She hallucinated so she could survive. She basically let her mind entertain her. Of course, there were consequences. She ended up mentally unstable for years.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward, whispering, “But it kept her alive, August.”

  Being so close to his wife confused him. Her scent brought up too many memories. Bittersweet memories that could make him cry. He slowly stood and retreated to his chair again. “There is still more in the book. Another survival story, I believe. I’m going to read it to you.” He opened the book and was about to begin reading when a question came to mind. Why was his wife’s favorite book about a girl who used hallucinations for survival?

  “Mr. Floyd?”

  Floyd turned and saw it was Dr. Jessica Hope.

  “I believe you wanted to see me.”

  79

  “I’m insane?” I say to Dr. Suffolk. It’s not a question, as much as an objection.

  “Insanity is different,” he says. “This isn’t insanity.”

  “Then what?”

  “Look at your arm again.”

  “I know what I saw on my arm,” I growl. “I just don’t understand. It all felt so real. Ashlyn was real. The Furnace. Adriana. All of it. Are you real?”

  “I am, June,” he says. “Major Red, too. Some of the events are actually real. It’s just that when your condition worsens, you go deep down into the rabbit hole, and we have to live with it over and over again.”

  “Over and over?”

  “You’ve been in my clinic for three years. This is the third time we’ve had to live up to your made-up story, trying to help you.”

  “We?” I’m embarrassed by the look on the nurses’ faces.

  “It’s okay. We’re here for you.”

  “So I’m just a crazy loon, running around with conspiracy theories in my head?”

  “Don’t call yourself a loon, please. Each time, you have a different story. We try to cope with you.”

  “Why cope? Why not send me back to my ward?”

  “Because we believe you can recover if you face your fears.”

  “That’s a ton of nonsense, what you’ve just said.”

  “It’s not the first time you’ve told us that.”

  “I don’t believe you. Are you trying to tell me each person on the island is playing along so I get better?”

  “In reality, you’ve not met many people,” he says. “In fact, you haven’t left this room in three years.”

  I can’t believe I’m hearing this. My brain refuses to comprehend it.

  “Like I said, when your condition worsens, you go down the rabbit hole.”

  “I just came in from the window outside.” I gesture at my wet clothes. “You were waiting here for me.”

  “Not true,” he says. “You came from the bathroom.” He points at it. “You took a shower with your clothes on. People in your condition do it all the time to wake up. If you open the door, you’ll find the shower is still on.”

  I can’t hear water from where I stand, but I’m not going to check. I know I’m not insane. I know this is a game.

  “Why am I like that, then?”

  Dr. Suffolk shrugs and exchanges brief looks with the nurses. “Something…happened to you when you were a child.”

  “What kind of something?”

  “Let’s not get into it now,” he says. “It will worsen your condition. Besides, you will remember it once you’re better.”

  “And my daughter?”

  “Let’s not bring this up now—”

  “My daughter, Dr. Suffolk,” I demand.

  He takes a long breath then says, “She’s dead.”

  “Fuck you!” I don’t know why I spit this out whenever I’m not ready to accept reality.

  “You lost her when you were younger.”

  “What?”

  “You just don’t want to give up. I feel for you.”

  I’m breathing fast and unevenly, unable to unchain myself from the nurses’ grips. “When did this happen? How old was I? How old was she?”

  “Your daughter was never really born, actually,” he says. “You had an abortion. That’s why your story has a lot of impregnated women in it.”

  “No,” I say. “I know I have a daughter. I know.”

  “Calm down,” Dr. Suffolk says.

  “I have a daughter, and I have to protect her from Manfred Toot.”

  “There is no Toot.”

  “Of course you’d say that.”

  “I can prove it.”

  “Then prove it.”

  “Look at your arm again.”

  “I looked once,” I say. “I saw the wounds. I know what I am. It doesn’t prove Toot doesn’t exist.”

  “They’re not wounds,” Dr. Suffolk says. “They’re needle marks.”

  “I know what the fuck they are.”

  “You’re an addict, June. Always have been, since you were fourteen. You’re disturbed
. Please accept that.”

  “So I did cocaine and flushed my life down the rabbit toilet. I get it.” My voice pitches up. It hurts in my lungs. “I’m the dirt of the earth. I’m scum. But I know I have a daughter. I know there is a Toot who wants to hurt her.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My heart tells me,” I say. “My mother’s heart tells me.”

  “There is no Toot.” He grabs me by the arms, but tenderly. “Listen to me. You’re a cocaine addict. You had an abortion because you were fourteen years old and didn’t want the baby. You feel guilty about it. But it’s all over. Please wake up.”

  I’m stiff like a broom in his hands. “You said you can prove there is no Toot. Then prove it.”

  “Toot is not a name,” he says. “And you know that.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Charlie.”

  “What?”

  “Snow.”

  “Snow?”

  “Rocks or stones.”

  “What the—”

  “Crack, coke, or…toot.”

  I loosen up. It rings true. A blast from the past.

  “A toot of cocaine,” Dr. Suffolk says. “It’s an expression. You’ve blamed yourself for the cocaine addiction for years. Blamed yourself with sleeping around with every bad boy with tattoos. That’s why you created Manfred Toot, a beast that takes lives and impregnated you and killed your child. Your daughter was dead before she was born.”

  Part III

  End

  80

  Mercy Medical Center, New York

  Floyd watched Dr. Jessica Hope check on his wife. She was mid-thirties with an athletic body. A blonde with a sharp nose and chiseled jawline. She wore thick glasses and looked exhausted, but she apparently loved her job. He’d known her for a while and noticed she’d almost never left the hospital.

  “Your wife’s vital signs have improved,” she told him.