*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧—chapter eighteen: dead girl in the pool

August 22, 2021
Hackett's Quarry
Upstate New York, New York

THE GROUP OF SEVEN TURNS AROUND TO FACE THE POOL HOUSE. "What the fuck?" Dylan questions as they all see someone running past the building. Cassidy couldn't really get a good look at the person from here, but it was a blonde dressed in all black clothing. The only other blonde he knew was—

Laura Kearney, Cassidy thinks, turning to face the others as they glance at each other nervously.

"Did she shoot at us?" Kaitlyn asks.

"No, she shot at something at the pool," Cassidy says quietly, watching as the blonde vaults the brick wall and leaves the pool area, not seeming to notice the group of teens out at the middle of the cabin area.

"Who's there?!" Ryan calls out threateningly, raising his gun.

There's no response. The blonde had already disappeared from sight.

Abi and Nick take off toward the pool house, leaving Cassidy, Sawyer, Kaitlyn, Ryan, and Dylan by the benches and the big oak tree.

"Who was she?" Dylan asks, coming to standing beside Kaitlyn and Cassidy.

"Should we follow her?" Kaitlyn asks, looking at the others.

"I don't think that's a good idea..." Sawyer starts to say, but stops when she sees Cassidy start to head off toward the pool house.

Cassidy keeps walking until he reaches the bricked walls. He vaults the part not surrounded by chain link fencing and enters the outdoor pool area. The others soon enter after him.

Kaitlyn lets out a gasp as she stares at the pool before looking up at Dylan. "Aw, shit, Dylan! What is that...?!"

Dylan doesn't answer, staring at the water. The entire group is silent.

The clear water was stained red with crimson, the moonlight illuminating the water. A body floats up to the surface, face down in the water, limbs sprawled out.

Abi backs up from the edge of the pool, startling as she bumps into Nick. Nick places an arm around her in comfort. The red-haired girl wraps her arms around Nick, pressing her head against his chest as he rubs her back in comfort.

"Is she, like, one of those hunter dudes?" Kaitlyn asks curiously, looking toward the others.

"I don't... No, she's..." Cassidy trails off, stepping closer to the edge of the pool. He recognizes the black bra and black underwear on the person, and he already feels tears starting to pool in his eyes. "No... No, no, no, no..."

Ryan shakes his head, staring at the dead body in the pool. "I don't think so."

"You okay?" Kaitlyn asks him, a look of concern on her face as she looks at him.

"I don't know who that other girl was," Ryan admits. "I've never seen her before."

"Me neither... But her?" Kaitlyn jerked her head in the direction of the corpse in the pool.

"Yeah." Ryan nods, swallowing nervously as he glances over to Cassidy. The Hackett boy was silent, staring down at the pool with a saddened expression crossing his face. Ryan looks back up at Kaitlyn. "That's Kaylee Hackett," he says quietly, motioning toward the dead girl in the pool as he shakes his head in disbelief.

Cassidy moves away from the pool and over to the brick wall, slamming his fists against the fence as he sobs. The night was already going wrong in every way but this was much, much worse. He buries his face in his arms as he leans against the face, tears falling down his cheeks and dripping from his chin, falling onto his shirt.

The others give him looks of concern. Ryan would have went over to comfort him if Sawyer hadn't already made her way over there.

"Mr. H's daughter?" Kaitlyn questions, looking at Ryan once again. "I thought she went home with her brothers."

"Kaylee," Ryan replies, confirming. "Yeah. I thought so too." Grief overtakes him and he turns away from the pool, not wanting the others to see him upset.

Kaylee Hackett. The two boys' best friend. Cassidy's favorite cousin. Shot with silver bullets. Dead. Just like that. Never coming back.

The pain. The loss. It was something neither Cassidy nor Ryan had experienced before. It was as if someone had ripped their hearts out from their chests, put them on a silver platter, and fed them to sharks.

Sobs racked Cassidy's body, his lungs, throat, and heart aching. Sawyer wraps her arms around him in comfort and he just sobs into her chest, too overwhelmed with grief to say anything.

He felt numb as he stays there, Sawyer tracing circles along his back as he just sniffs, wiping at his nose with his hands. Cassidy doesn't pull away from her just yet, the embrace so comforting that he didn't want it to end.

But all good things come to an end.

"Nick..." Abi spoke in almost a whisper, the slightest hint of fear in her voice. Cassidy pulls away from Sawyer, eyes trailing over to Nick and Abi. The Blyg girl had already let go of the Furcillo boy, but he had his arms wrapped protectively around her, not letting go. His chin was resting atop her head as he peers down at her, breathing in her scent.

"You smell so good."

Cassidy and Sawyer look at Kaitlyn, who nods as she turns to face Abi and Nick.

"You all right there, bud?" she speaks up, the question lingering in the air for a moment before she continues. "Maybe dial it back a bit, huh?"

Nick loosens his grip on Abi, turning to face Kaitlyn. His eyes had changed from chocolate brown to a sickening yellow color. There was hostility in his eyes as he glares at the Ka girl. His top lip twitches before he says anything.

"Fuck off, Kaitlyn." His threat was clear as he pulls Abi back toward him as he inhales her scent again.

"Nick... What are you...?" Abi asks, trying to pull away from him, but he wasn't letting go. "Hey—"

"I want to taste you..." He tightens his grip on her. "Come here..."

"What the hell—? Get off—" Abi says, struggling to pull away from Nick. She raises her hands, pushing them against the boy's chest.

"Watch out—" By the time Kaitlyn spoke, it was too late.

"I said get off!" With one hard shove from Abi, Nick loses his footing, white sneakers slipping on the concrete as he falls backwards into the pool.

There's a loud splash and Nick sinks below the surface of the water. Abi steps toward the edge of the pool, peering into the dark depths of the water.

"Nick?"

When Nick resurfaces, he's coughing up water. But not long after, he's screaming and shouting at the top of his lungs, flailing his arms about as if he couldn't swim. As if the water was hurting him.

"I- I just wanted him to stop..." Abi says quietly, a slight hint of panic in her voice.

"Nick!" Ryan yells, heading over to the edge of the pool. "Dude!" He reaches down and grabs Nick, hauling the boy out of the water. "I got you... I got you..."

"Hey, hey, it's okay. You're okay," Kaitlyn reassures Abi, who still has a panicked look in her eyes as she looks at Nick. Ryan lets go of Nick once he drags him out and brings him onto the mostly dry surface of the concrete pool deck.

"What did I do...?" Abi asks with concern. Ryan tells her he doesn't know, and in response, she kneels beside Nick, placing a hand on his arm. Upon contact, Abi flinches, standing back up as she backs away. "He's so cold...!"

"Okay, l-let's get him in the pool house. Dry him off," Ryan instructs, and he and Abi get to work helping Nick up off of the ground.

As they left the pool area and heading into the pool house, Cassidy glances back toward the pool. It was weird leaving a dead body in there, but it wasn't like any of them could do anything about it.

As Cassidy walks up the steps to the pool house, he notices a tarot card resting on the ledge of the brick wall. He picks it up and flips it over.

TAROT CARD FOUND
8 OF ??
STRENGTH

He grabs his father by the throat and slams him against the wall. As he applies pressure, the sheriff gasps for air, trying to pry his son's hands from around his throat. But he doesn't let go. Squeezing harder, bones crack and he lets go, dropping the now dead body his father on the hardwood floor.

He quickly slips the card into his pocket before heading inside. Once everyone was inside, Cassidy shuts the door to the pool house before heading off with Ryan to find a heater to help warm Nick up. Sawyer went to go find towels to prop Nick's head up so that when he laid down, he wouldn't be uncomfortable.

When Nick went to lay down, Abi stayed by his side, sitting on the floor beside him, and talking to him quietly. Cassidy and Sawyer stayed on the other side of the room with Ryan, Kaitlyn, and Dylan, who were seated by the window. Kaitlyn was seated in a chair in front of Dylan, who was seated on the floor. Ryan was seated on the wooden bench with the other two.

Kaitlyn gets up from her chair, reaching for Dylan's arm to check on the bandages and the wound itself. But when she goes to grab it, Dylan hisses in pain, trying to move away from her.

"Quit moving so much!" Kaitlyn scolds him, holding his arm to check it, before sitting back down. "It's pretty clean from what I could tell. I mean, it's not bleeding. But, you need to see a doctor." Dylan grimaces in discomfort, holding his injured arm with his right hand. Kaitlyn sighs, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a black pill bottle. She takes the cap off and hands it to him. "Look, this is all I got left from the nurse's station."

"Ooh," Dylan says sarcastically, reaching over to take the bottle from her. "Fun." He downs the pills and sets the now empty bottle on the floor.

"You better hope we find you some real help before they wear off," Kaitlyn says before turning to look at Ryan and Cassidy. "We need to be keeping a record of everything that happens, for the police."

"Yeah..." Dylan gives the two boys a sympathetic look before saying quietly to Kaitlyn, "dead girl in the pool needs some explaining, huh." But the two boys still heard him.

"Dylan..."

"Ugh. Easy, man."

Dylan mouths sorry to them as he gives them an apologetic look.

"I mean, like, photos, whatever we can," Kaitlyn clarifies. "I've got a funny feeling the cops are not gonna wanna believe any of this crazy shit unless we got some hard proof."

"From now on..." Ryan says, adding his input, "if you got your phone, and you see something, take a photo or video or whatever."

"Yeah," they all agree.

"Speaking of proof," Cassidy says, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "I found this earlier when I was with Abi and Emma helping them get their bags from the cabin." He shows them the picture of the empty glass vial he had found in the tree earlier. The one that smelled bad, like old blood. Now that I think about it, that might've been werewolf blood. But why was it there of all places? Unless Uncle Bobby and Pappy put it there? And how long was it there for?

"Keep taking pictures of stuff like that, yeah? The evidence is vital," Kaitlyn says as Cassidy puts his phone back in his pocket.

"Yeah," Cassidy replies, nodding.

"You okay over there, Abi?" Kaitlyn asks, looking over at where Abi and Nick where on the other side of the pool house. "Look- Why don't you look around and see if you can find anything else to help make Nick more comfortable?"

"I'll come with," Cassidy offers, getting up from the bench and heading over to the other side of the pool house.

"Thank you," Abi says, nodding to him.

The two of them walk through the pool house. Abi checks the toilet stalls and the showers. Cassidy checks the shelves by the wall. As he walks around them, he notices a familiar Polaroid photo pinned to a bulletin board.

"I remember this..." He says to himself quietly, gazing at the photo. It was from a while ago, he doesn't exactly remember the year, but Ryan had his camera and had taken a photo with him, Kaylee, Gabriel, and Caleb. "We were all happy then, before things went south..." I wonder where Caleb and Gabe are right now...

He turns away from the board and heads over to the showers. There's a locker right outside of them against the wall. He opens it, only to find a spooky drawing that some kid had made but left here. It was a depiction of a woman in the woods. The Hag of Hackett's Quarry. "Those ghost stories really got to those kids, huh." He takes a picture of the drawing with his phone before putting the drawing back in the locker.

Closing it, he checks the showers for anything that could be of use. It was unlikely, though. But when he checks, he finds a tarot card in the second shower.

TAROT CARD FOUND
9 OF ??
THE MAGICIAN

A cure to the curse. An antidote to fix things and stop this nightmare of a night once and for all. That was what he put in this syringe. Curated from his own findings. If he could inject Silas with it, he could free his friends, what remained of his family, and Silas himself from the curse. Rid them of their afflictions.

He slips the card into his pocket and leaves the shower, heading back out to the main area of the pool house. He walks back over to the bulletin board to look at the picture one more time. Footsteps sound behind him and he turns around to see the red-haired walk over to him, holding some towels.

"I found extra towels," she starts, not really knowing what to say. She sees the picture on the board and looks at him, frowning. "Hey, um, I'm sorry about Kaylee..."

"No, it's okay..." he says, shaking his head. "It's just... It's hard to process, you know, 'cos..." He trails off, shifting nervously on his feet.

Abi nods in understanding, sensing that Cassidy didn't want to talk about Kaylee anymore due to what happened. She gives him a small smile before turning around and heading back over to Nick.

"Yo, something is not right with that boy," he hears Kaitlyn say as he walks back over to the corner where the other four were by the window.

"Dude is real sick," Dylan agrees.

"Did you see how he freaked out in the water?" Ryan asks.

"I thought he could swim, but it didn't seem that way..." Sawyer adds, furrowing her eyes.

"Yeah, no, that was a bit concernin'..." Cassidy says, sparing a glance toward Nick.

"Yeah, he was like a... was like a fish out of water. Right?" Dylan questions, brows furrowed as he spoke. He didn't know if what he was saying made any sense.

"Uh... sure," Ryan replies.

Kaitlyn glances back toward Nick before speaking. "You know... something was weird when I tried to clean his wounds, too. At the Lodge."

Cassidy furrows his brows. "What do you mean?"

"Well, all of his clothes were all bloody, but... I couldn't find where he was bit. Or scratched. Or whatever. He just kept moving around. Like he didn't want me to see how badly he was hurt."

"Huh," Ryan leans back against the window.

"That's weird," Sawyer says.

"Very," Cassidy agrees, lips pressed to a thin line.

"Rabies?" Dylan questions.

"He's not frothing at the mouth," Ryan replies, looking at him.

Kaitlyn scoffs, "I think Abi would beg to differ."

"Point."

"And isn't aquaphobia a symptom of rabies?"

"Hydrophobia," Ryan corrects her. "Yeah. But, I think it's more about a fear of drinking. Not just getting wet. This was like..."

"Like my cat in a bathtub," Dylan finishes, looking between the four of them.

Cassidy laughs, shaking his head at the thought of Dylan's cat freaking out while trying to get put in a bathtub full of water.

But the Hackett boy soon falls silent, Abi's voice reaching the other side of the room.

"This isn't you... This— This isn't you! I—" Abi gasps as Nick reaches forward and grabs her arms tightly, before picking her up and throwing her across the room. The red-haired girl collides with the locker on the other side of the room, crumpling to the floor. Cassidy, Sawyer, Ryan, Dylan, and Kaitlyn sprang up from their seats.

"Whoa!"

"Whoa, Abi!" Kaitlyn exclaims.

"Abi—everything okay?" Ryan asks.

"Whoa... Holy shit..." Dylan mutters.

"What the fuck—?" Cassidy says as he glances toward Nick. The Furcillo boy's eyes were no longer a sickening yellow, but instead pure obsidian black. He's squatting on the floor and it wasn't long before he stood up. Abi had gotten up a few seconds before him, but his eyes never left hers. A vicious smirk spreads on his face, and Cassidy can see a multitude of black veins spreading along Nick's skin. Holy shit... He's turning.

Abi grabs the shotgun propped up against the wall and raises it as she aims it at Nick. She pulls the trigger.

A shot rings out and Nick collapses on the floor, clutching his arm as he writhes and cries out in pain, the noises soon morphing into growls and snarls.

"No!" Abi cries out, shaking her head as Nick starts to get up slowly, still in pain. "NO!"

As soon as Nick stands up fully, an explosion of blood follows, painting the inside of the pool house red. Where he was once standing was an vicious, but ugly monster. Its gray skin was coated in blood. It rears up on its elongated limbs, staring at the group of teens with bright white eyes, before leaping across the room and launching itself through the window, shattering glass. A raspy howl from outside filled the air not even a moment later.

"I killed him. I killed him." Abi is now seated on the floor, knees pulled close to her chest. Her breathing was raspy and uneven as she sat there, a worried look in her eyes as she glances between her friends.

They were all covered head to toe in blood, and Cassidy felt absolutely disgusting.

"I mean... dead people don't usually jump out of windows and run into the forest..." Kaitlyn says, trailing off.

"Abi... he was gonna hurt you. You were only defending yourself," Ryan reassures.

"I don't— I don't know that for sure—"

"I do."

"He would've killed you if you hadn't shot him," Cassidy says.

Abi stares down at the floor, shaking her head in disbelief. "No... no..."

"It was you or him," Ryan says. "And, well... that," he gestures toward the window for emphasis, "definitely wasn't him."

"Man... this is so fucked," Dylan replies, shaking his head.

What follows is the pounding of a fist on the locked door of the pool house. Ryan moves toward the window to look out and see who was there, before backing up and raising his gun at the door.

"Hey!" he shouts.

"Oh, shit!" Dylan mumbles as he stands up, staring at the door.

Cassidy moves to stand beside him and Ryan. He had gone to reach for his shotgun when he realized it wasn't on his back. "Shit..." he mutters. "I fuckin' left my gun and the shells outside!"

"We'll get them later," Sawyer reassures, nodding to him. "Okay?"

"Okay," Cassidy replies, looking back towards the door.

The pounding on the door continues and a female voice calls out from the other side,

"Where the fuck is Chris Hackett?!"

"Who's there?" Ryan calls out again, not moving away from the door.

"I need your help. Please," the voice responds.

"Who are you?" Ryan asks.

"My name is Laura Kearney."

I knew it. I fuckin' knew it, Cassidy thinks, now glaring at the door. I'm gonna fuckin' kill her. She killed Kaylee.

"So?" Ryan says back.

"So, let me in. It's not safe out here."

"Uh, yeah, there's a crazy woman with a gun killing people!"

"I'm not killing people!"

"Laura Kearney..." Dylan says, muttering under his breath as he paces in front of the door. "Holy shit, you—" He stops, gesturing toward the door as he speaks. "Laura Kearney. You're Laura Kearney?"

"Yes...?" comes Laura's response.

"You were supposed to be working— Uh... helping out in the nurse's office, right?" Dylan continues. "And you never showed up. You and the guy... What's his name?"

"Max?" Laura and Cassidy say at the same time.

"Yes, Max, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh... Mr. Hackett said that you had changed your mind last minute." Dylan then turns to face the others, specifically Ryan, who had not removed his gaze from the door. "I think— I think that we should listen to her. Inside," he whispers.

"Are you fuckin' crazy?" Cassidy hisses, glaring at Dylan. "We ain't lettin' a murderer in here!"

"I don't know," Ryan cuts him off as he looks at Dylan. "I don't trust her."

"Dude, it's dangerous out there," Dylan says.

"Yeah—she's dangerous."

Dylan disagrees, shaking his head. "Whatever, man, you're not in charge," he says as he goes to open the door.

"Dude?" Ryan exclaims. "Fuck, Dylan..."

"Hello!" Dylan greets the person standing on the other side of the door when he pulls it open.

On the other side was, in fact, Laura Kearney.

author's note
not only am i sobbing
bc rip kaylee </3, but
i am also laughing
bc of nick oh my
fucking god THOSE
SCENES BRO 😭😭

these scenes get me
every time LMAO

anyways, LAURA
IS HERE!!

07.31.22