It’s Otter’s day off, but Austin instinctively expects to run into him as he and Monty make their way through the hospital lobby, to the elevator, and up four floors. In a way, he almost wishes Otter, or even Landis, was here. Not to help investigate, but so he’d have someone to talk to about the very likely possibility that this is all the product of whatever the lake demon was trying to do in the mines by cutting off Rabbit’s foot. Monty was there, sure, but she stakes her faith in hard evidence and fact, not blood magic and the words of supernatural entities.
“Two kids on this floor,” she says as the elevator doors slide open to let them off. “Figured we’d start with the least injured ones first, give the others a little more time to rest.”
“You want to take one, and I’ll take the other?” Austin asks.
“Sure.” Monty tosses him one of the files she’s holding. Austin glances at the name and room number on the Post-It on the front. Jersey Rusk. Room 406. “Be careful. Don’t get in any knife fights.”
There’s a smile playing around her lips. Austin scowls.
“They’re just kids. I’ll be fine.”
He scans the room numbers along the wall, zeroing in on 406 and approaching the open doorway. It’s funny - he could swear this is the same room he woke up in after the mine incident, but maybe all the rooms on this floor are laid out the same way. Hospitals do that, right? Stepping inside feels unnatural, like he’s seeing it from an angle he’s not supposed to. Like he’s still supposed to be the one in the bed, bandaged, half-conscious, hooked up to an IV. Austin stops short inside the doorway to take a deep breath.
You can do this. Just don’t freak out. Yeah, something is in the mines that killed seven kids and hurt God knows how many others, but you’re gonna deal with that when the time comes. And the faster you ask your questions and the faster you get out of here, the faster that time will actually come.
Austin clears his throat. “Jersey, right?”
The teenager in the bed looks up at him. They’re small, with brown skin and a nimbus of pink hair that sticks out at all sorts of angles. They raise their eyebrows at Austin, their expression a little confused, but don’t say anything. Austin walks a little farther into the room, nudging the door shut as he does so.
“You’re Jersey Rusk, right?” he tries again. “I’m Austin Jones, I work with the Sheriff’s department, I just wanted to ask you some -”
“They’re mute,” a voice from behind him says.
Austin nearly jumps out of his skin, but forces himself to turn around and ignore the way his heart is hammering itself against his ribs. He’s expecting something more sinister than what he finds - another teenager, much taller than Jersey, long limbs folded up into a visitor’s chair in a way that looks almost painful. Auburn hair is draped over his face in a way that conceals pretty much everything above his nose, but he pushes it aside to look at Austin.
“Jersey, I mean,” the teenager in the chair continues. “They’re mute. They can’t answer you.”
“Oh,” Austin says, feeling stupid. He turns back towards Jersey, scanning their neck for signs of injury. Did the thing in the mines do that to them? Or -
“They were born like that,” the teenager in the chair says. Austin feels a mortified blush start to spread outwards from his nose. “I’m Easton, by the way. I was there. At the party.”
Austin already feels out of his depth. He takes the chair next to Easton’s and angles it so he can see both Easton and Jersey while he talks to the two of them. Easton doesn’t have any injuries that Austin can see, nor a hospital bracelet. Jersey has bandages on their arms, but they look fully conscious, and aren’t visibly in pain. Monty did say this was the floor with the least injured kids, but Austin hadn’t been sure what to prepare for. He wonders what the kids on the other floors of the hospital look like.
“You weren’t hurt at all?” he asks Easton.
Easton shakes his head. “Nah. I felt the ground start to shake and I ran for it. Got out ahead of everyone else, heard the screams, and went back in for Jersey.”
“You went back in?”
“What else was I gonna do, stand there with my thumb up my ass?” Easton looks indignant, but his face very quickly drops into an expression of horrified realization. “I mean, uh, no offense, officer.”
Austin has to try very hard not to smile. “I’m not really an officer. Just a consultant.”
“Oh. Well, anyway, I found Jersey on the ground, picked them up, and made a run for it. Only, by that time, everybody was trying to get out of the mine shaft, so it was all backed up. I thought we were gonna die in there, either by whatever got Al and the others, or just by getting crushed in all the commotion, you know? But everyone started moving eventually, and by the time we got out, the ambulances were already there to get people. And Jersey was bleeding, so I walked with them to one.”
Austin barely remembers to scratch down notes in the file. He’s still stuck on the fact that Easton escaped whatever is in the mine, turned around, and went right back inside. Austin feels a little sick just thinking about stepping back into those tunnels.
“You’re lucky to have such a brave friend,” he says, looking over at Jersey.
Jersey smiles wryly, and signs something to Easton, who lets out a short, deep laugh. Austin looks between the two, trying to read something into the interaction, and comes up empty. Jersey signs something else, and Easton laughs again.
“They said I’m not brave, just stupid,” Easton clarifies, letting Austin in on the joke. Austin half-laughs, exhaling through his nose.
“Uh, Jersey,” he says, still thinking through what he wants to say next, “can I ask - did you see what was attacking people in the mine shaft? Were you close to it at all?”
Jersey’s smile fades gradually. They begin to sign to Easton again, a little slower, their eyebrows furrowing whenever they stop - to try and retrieve a word, Austin assumes, or figure out a description. Easton watches them intently. His eyes are gone behind his bangs again, but his posture is rigid, and Austin can tell he’s trying to make sense of what Jersey is saying before he starts to translate.
“They say, uh, they got knocked down when people started to run, and it got pretty dark pretty fast, because everyone was taking their phones and flashlights with them. They were kinda deep in one of the side tunnels, where a bunch of people had been hanging out talking, and they could -” Easton pauses, frowning. “You could hear it? Really?”
Jersey nods.
“They could hear - whatever was in there, they could hear it, uh,” Easton lowers his voice. “Eating the other kids. We think. Or at least just attacking them. We weren’t allowed to see the bodies, but - they’re dead, right? The seven people who were missing?”
Austin isn’t sure he’s allowed to release that information. He swallows, his mouth dry, and nods anyway.
“Well, Jersey heard this thing killing them. And it didn’t sound good,” Easton says. He casts a glance at the closed door before leaning in towards Austin. “So you’re a secret agent or something, right? What’s really in there? Something like that big animal that was attacking tourists a few years ago? Some kinda alien technology?”
“I’m not a secret agent,” Austin says, not entirely convincingly, and stands up from his chair.
“Horseshit. You’re working with the Sheriff, and you don’t look anything like a real cop. What are you, FBI? CIA? Some kind of Men In Black type deal?”
Austin almost rolls his eyes, and stops himself. “Nothing that exciting. I’m a paranormal investigator. I talk to ghosts, mostly.”
Jersey jumps a little in the bed and starts signing excitedly. Easton’s mouth forms a small, surprised “O”.
“What! That is the coolest thing I’ve ever heard! How do you -”
“Thanks for helping me out,” Austin cuts him off, heading for the door before they can ask him anything else.
He pauses with his hand on the doorknob. The sick, squirming feeling in the pit of his stomach is still there. Seven high schoolers. Dead. All because no one thought to check if the lake demon really had brought something back in the mines. All because I couldn’t spare a moment to go out there and look - because I was too scared of what I’d find there, even after two years. Seven kids are dead and this whole thing is on me.
“See you later,” he tells Jersey and Easton before slipping back into the hallway.
“Bye!” Easton calls after him. Austin glances over his shoulder and sees Jersey waving. From a distance, he can’t tell if they’re smiling or not. They look even smaller in their hospital bed than they did up close.
They’re probably good kids, he tells himself.
Monty is waiting for him in the hallway, leaning against the wall, her arms folded over her chest as per usual. She looks even more tired than before.
“Find out anything interesting?” she asks.
“Yeah. Whatever’s in the mine isn’t human.” Austin hands Jersey’s file back to her. “But I kind of knew that already. I’m sure it’s whatever the thing that possessed Otter was trying to summon. I just have to figure out what that is, exactly.”
“How are you going to do that?” Monty asks, following him back down the hallway, towards the elevators.
Austin punches the floor down button with a finger. “I’m going to go see if the town historian has any ideas. Do you mind finishing up here by yourself?”
“Of course not. Just,” Monty stops short, and looks at the ground as they get into the elevator. “Be safe. And if you do go to the mine, don’t go alone.”
“I won’t,” Austin says. The elevator doors slide shut noiselessly. “I promise.”
the interaction with jersey and easton is great but my favorite part of this update is monty making a joke about austin getting stabbed a lot. absolute queen