The Only One Left by Riley Sager
ELEVEN
Sleep doesn’t come easy.
Granted, I never sleep well the first few nights with a new patient. Different room. Different bed, some more comfortable than others. Different house, with all its unique nocturnal sounds. At Hope’s End, the dominant night noises are the ocean and the wind—a discordant duet that keeps me awake. The waves are low and steady, crashing into the cliff below with a rhythm that would be soothing if not for the wind, which hits the house in irregular gusts. Each blow rattles the windows and shimmies the walls, which in turn creak and groan, reminding me where I am.
A mansion teetering on the edge of the ocean.
Inside of which is a woman most people assume murdered her family.
A woman who has now offered to tell me everything.
The pattern repeats itself. Thinking about Lenora, being lulled to sleep by the waves, then startled awake by the wind. Every time it hits, I grip the edge of the mattress, certain I can feel the house leaning toward the sea. But then the wind calms, my thoughts roll, the waves continue, and the whole process starts anew.
This goes on until I hear another noise.
Not the wind.
Not the waves.
It sounds like a floorboard, emitting the faintest of creaks.
I sit up and scan the room, looking for—well, I don’t know what to expect. An intruder? A burglar? The mansion beginning its inevitable slide into the Atlantic? But there’s nothing to see. I’m the only person in the room, making me conclude it was just the wind causing Hope’s End to creak in a way I hadn’t yet heard.
I crawl out of bed, crack open the door to my room, and peer into the hallway. Right now, it’s empty. Knowing I could have just missed someone passing by, I step into the hall and listen for the sound of departing footsteps or a door closing.
“Hello?” I say, my voice hushed. “Is someone out here?”
No one answers.
Not another sound is heard.
Until I return to my bedroom.
When the creaking resumes, I realize exactly where it’s coming from.
Lenora’s room.
I press my ear to the door between our rooms, listening for signs of movement. Again, there’s nothing. Just nocturnal silence and a sliver of moonlight from Lenora’s room slipping through the crack between the door and the floor.
The noise sounds again.
This time, I open the door and peek inside.
There’s no one else there. Just Lenora, exactly how I left her—in bed, flat on her back, hands at her sides, the left one beside the call button. The low, slow sound of her breathing tells me she’s still asleep.
As for what caused those creaks, I have no idea. It certainly wasn’t Lenora.
I close the adjoining door and crawl back into bed, where the waves and the wind resume vying for my attention. When I finally fall asleep, I have a nightmare.
A real humdinger.
I’m a girl again, on the metal slide at my elementary school playground. The one I never liked because it got too cold in the winter and scalding hot in the summer. Around me, a group of kids—unseen but unnervingly heard—chant in unison.
At seventeen, Lenora Hope
I remain on the slide, not stuck exactly, but not going fast, either. Instead, I inch down it as the chanting continues.
Hung her sister with a rope
At the bottom of the slide stands my mother, looking the way she did not when I was young but in the final days of her life. A teetering pile of skin and bones in a powder-blue nightgown.
Stabbed her father with a knife
My mother pleads with me, only I can’t hear what she’s saying. Whenever she opens her mouth, instead of words, all I hear is the clack of typewriter keys.
Took her mother’s happy life
Still, I know what she’s saying, almost as if the words are being typed across a blank page.
Please, Kit-Kat.
Please.
I’ll only take one.
I promise.
