2.11

CONTENT WARNING: This update contains descriptions of violence and gore.

“Wait!” Grace says, sharply enough to make Landis turn around and almost fall on his ass in the snow. She’s hugging herself to stay warm, and she backs up a few steps, like maybe she’s rethinking her insistence on coming along.

“You don’t want to go?” Landis asks. He isn’t hurt. He had a feeling that he would be going it alone from here on out, anyhow.

“No, I do,” Grace says. “Give me two minutes.”

She runs back into the house, clearing almost all of the porch stairs in one hop. Landis watches from the shore of the lake. He can just barely see Grace’s figure through the frosted-over kitchen window. She’s rummaging around, looking for something. What’s she trying to find? If she wanted a coat, she could have just asked.

It’s only when Grace comes back outside that Landis realizes how much more thought she’s putting into this whole plan than he is. She’s holding what have to be his two largest kitchen knives, one in either hand, and she offers the slightly bigger one to him once she’s at the shore again. Landis takes it, holding it self-consciously in front of him.

She knows that I murdered four of my friends, and she still trusts me with this?

“It’s just in case,” Grace says, reassuring but nonetheless strained. “I don’t know what you’re expecting to find over on that island, but I’d rather be prepared for the worst than be a sitting duck.”

There’s something steely in her eyes that Landis admires. He nods at her.

“Alright.”

He steps onto the ice again, this time fully expecting it to fall to pieces underneath of him. It doesn’t. In fact, it even feels more sturdy than it should, like the lake is keeping itself solid so that he can walk across it. The thought makes the skin on Landis’s arms stand up in goosebumps, but he tries not to entertain it for too long, and waves Grace out onto the surface of the lake.

The ice - thank God - doesn’t break underneath of her, either. And it holds, too. Even so, they walk across it at a careful, crawling pace, skirting around, then past, the jagged hole where Austin must have fallen in. Grace lets out a small, terrified groan every time the ice creaks beneath them, and Landis can’t shush her, because he’s holding back the same noises himself. It’s so easy to believe that the lake is just fucking with them. That it’s only a matter of time before the lake decides enough is enough, and drowns them. It’s not really a question of if, so much as it is a question of when the lake is going to stop being amused with their effort. But they get farther and farther out, without incident.

The sinking feeling in Landis’s stomach only really begins when they’re close enough to see the human figure standing on the island, just in front of the tree line. He can’t tell until he and Grace make it to the snow-covered shore, but once they’re there, it’s apparent that the other person on the island is grinning.

“Austin,” Grace yelps, and rushes past Landis towards the figure, who Landis now notices is dripping wet. Landis grabs her by her sweater with his free hand and yanks her backwards.

“What the hell?” Grace whirls on Landis. Her face is pink from the wind, indignation written plainly all over it. “He could be hurt! He’s probably freezing to death! He doesn’t have a coat-”

She tries to tug away, out of Landis’s grip, but he holds tightly to her sweater.

“Don’t,” he says, too exhausted to sound anything but pleading.

The figure standing in front of them - Austin, or whatever remains of him - opens his mouth and lets out a laugh that reminds Landis more of a body’s joints popping and clicking than anything else.

“Are you really going to listen to him?” Austin asks, his voice a dry rasp. Something watery and black is streaked down his cheeks. Eyeliner, maybe. “You know how many people he’s killed, right? He’s probably just waiting to stab you and bury you in the woods.”

He spreads his arms to indicate the forest behind him, and Grace lets out a little gasp. Austin’s arms and hands are a mess of brown and red, streaks of mud and bloody scratches running from fingertip to elbow. What did the lake make him do? Landis feels his stomach turn over, and swallows down a mouthful of bile and dry blood.

“Don’t listen,” he warns Grace, careful to keep his hold on her.

“Oh, come on, Landis!” Austin laughs again. The sound is a little more natural this time, like the first one was just for practice. “Who’s she going to believe? The police consultant, or the murderer on the run from the cops? The only reason I’m even here is to clean up your mess.”

He’s not wrong. If Landis hadn’t gotten caught and taken to the police station, none of this would have happened - in a way, the lake really is trying to clean up the mess. And so was Austin, if he came all the way out here and tried to get to the bottom of things. But he shouldn’t have. Now there’s just no right way to solve it. Landis wonders if Austin is still in that body somewhere, watching everything unravel. Didn’t Grace say he’s fought monsters before and won? That he’s some kind of exorcist? Why is he just lying down and taking this?

“He’s possessed,” Grace says as it dawns on her. She raises her kitchen knife shakily in Austin’s direction, and takes a few steps towards him, finally yanking her sweater out of Landis’ hand. “Austin, if you’re in there-”

Austin lunges for her before she can get the rest of the sentence out - Landis starts to shout a warning, but it dies in his throat. Grace screams as she’s grabbed by her ponytail and dragged back into the forest, so loud that Landis thinks she’s been stabbed herself. He follows at a sprint and weaves between the trees, trying to stay close enough to see what’s going on. Grace looks okay. Just scared, not bleeding. Thank God. Her hands are empty - she must have just dropped the knife.

“Austin isn’t here, honey,” the lake growls to her through Austin’s blue lips.

“Fuck you,” Grace snaps, and jabs her elbow back into Austin’s ribs. Landis almost cheers. She connects her other elbow with Austin’s stomach before he lets go of her hair and doubles over to wheeze.

When Austin looks back up at her, his eyes are more focused, more present. Even Landis can see it from a yard away. It’s a split-second change - Austin blinks, opens his mouth like he’s trying to say something, and just like that, his eyes are flat and dead again. Like the lake is suppressing something, pushing the real Austin deep down inside instead of casting him out entirely. And judging by the disgusted look of surprise that spreads across Austin’s face once the lake repossesses it, the lake didn’t expect Austin to bubble back to surface so suddenly.

“You bitch!” The screech rips out of Austin’s throat, sounding painful even to Landis, whose tongue is still throbbing from the bite wound in it. He wonders if the lake remembers what pain, real pain, even feels like. Maybe a bigger shock to the system like that and -

“I’ll kill you!”

Austin lunges for Grace again, but she’s already scrambling out of his reach, slipping and sliding around in the snow in her sensible work flats. Landis catches her by the arm as she runs past, and squeezes her reassuringly before she can scream. It works. Grace looks at him, her face grim and determined, and nods once as he puts a finger to his lips and points back towards the shore. If one of them is going to get out of here alive, while the lake is distracted, it should be her. Landis watches anxiously as she course-corrects. Once he’s sure she isn’t going to be overtaken again, he turns back towards the trees.

“We both know she’s not the one you want,” Landis says. He rolls his wrist, the knife suddenly much heavier in his hand. “If you’re going to kill anyone, it might as well be me.”

“You’re right!” Austin says, stepping out in front of him so suddenly that it freezes Landis in his tracks. Austin gives him a shit-eating grin, one eye rolling wildly in its socket while the other stares straight ahead. “But I think I’ll still kill both of you. Maybe I’ll let you watch me torture the bitch while you bleed out. I’m going to cut her open and spill her stinking intestines out all over the ice. And when you’re both dead, I’ll - hhk -”

The knife slides into Austin’s stomach like - well, like a knife through butter. His eyes go wide, and he lets out a horrible, choking gasp, blood and spit spraying out of his mouth onto Landis’ jacket. Landis lets go of the knife. His hands are shaking - Austin’s are too, as he hovers them around the handle of the knife, still gasping, his body seizing as the two startled forces within it

kill him i’ll kill him o gods it burns

(fuck off fuck off FUCK OFF)

vie for space. After what feels like eons, Austin coughs, and turns his face up to Landis again.

“Oh, fuck,” he says weakly, putting a hand over the dark, spreading bloodstain on his shirt. “You really couldn’t think of a better way?”

He drops like a stone in the snow.