Page 108 of What Happened to Lucy Vale
Where are you?
Suddenly there was a scream, a sharp wail—from our left, from our right, from behind us.
We broke rank. We shook loose from our assigned positions, forgetting what we had been instructed, and followed the thread of sound.
It was Olivia Howard, gasping, standing with both hands over her mouth.
“Look. Look at what they’ve done to her,” she was saying as we approached, crowding past the volunteers trying to herd us back in line, saying,It’s okay, it’s nothing, it’s just a deer.
Actually it was a fawn. A carcass. Long limbs, eyes open, blackened with swarming insects. Its stomach was missing, gutted by sharp teeth. Probably coyotes. Maybe a bobcat.
We were annoyed at Olivia, and told her so. Why had she screamed like that?
It was a deer, for Christ’s sake. Had she ever seen roadkill before? Hadn’t she been to Alex Spinnaker’s house and seen the deer hooves used to mount a rifle? It was one thing to be a Wiccan and a vegan. It was another to make her problems everyone else’s.
We thought she’d actually found something. When we heard the scream, we thought for a single electric second that she’d found Lucy Vale.
“Of course I didn’t find Lucy Vale,” Olivia fired back. She seemed annoyed. “You really think we’re going to find Lucy? You think she just—what?—wandered off? For no reason?”
Maybe. Maybe not. The state park was vast. The trails were poorly kept and wandered off like lapsed sentences into the obscuring underbrush. As the afternoon wore on, we began to understand why Deputy Stern had counseled us to always stay in our places, to keep one another in sight, to move slowly in a single line, like a human tide. The pine trees thickened. Great-bellied clouds cast a pall over the sun. We lost our sense of direction. If it wasn’t for the hollow of the creek bed, gouging an enormous rut between the trees, we might have been circling.
We paused every so often to sip from water bottles, even though we weren’t thirsty. Our fingers numbed from cold. We could barely thumb messages to each other.
@badprincess:anything over by you guys?
@bassicrhythm:just more trees
@lululemonaide:I’m freezing
@lululemonaide:how long do we have to stay out here?
@mememeup:shit
@mememeup:shit
@badprincess:??
@mememeup:give me a minute
@mememeup:I’m pretty sure they found something ...
@badprincess:oh my god
@hannahbanana:please tell me it’s not Lucy
In the distance, we heard the sharp rap of a dog barking. The sound was quickly silenced. The command to hold where we were shuddered down the line. We idled in groups, checking our phones, anxious about service, which for many of us had winnowed down to a single bar.
@badprincess:what’s happening??
@skyediva:ugh my battery is low. Any news??
@mememeup:idk
@mememeup:There are deputies heading down to the creek
@mememeup:They’re looking at something
@ktcakes888:something?? Or someone??
