The Only One Left by Riley Sager

SIXTEEN

I wake with a scream caught in my throat. Swallowing hard, I gulp it down before it can be released into the darkened bedroom. Then I sit up and do a little shimmy, trying to shake off another humdinger of a nightmare that prompted the near scream.

My mother again.

Standing over my sleeping form.

Stuffing pills into my mouth until I begin to choke.

The nightmare was so vivid that I shove an index finger into my mouth, feeling for pills that couldn’t possibly be there.

That’s when I hear it.

A creak.

The same kind I heard last night, coming from the same location.

Lenora’s room.

The sound of a second creak pulls me out of bed. All thoughts of the nightmare I’d just had evaporate as I tiptoe to the door between our rooms. Now I’m only concerned about one thing: discovering what the hell is making those noises.

Standing at the door, I look down at my feet. The thin strip of moonlight coming from under the door runs across the floor, an inch from my toes.

A shadow joins it.

Eclipsing the moonlight as it passes the other side of the door.

I gasp, twist the doorknob, and throw open the door.

There’s no one else in Lenora’s room. Just her, flat-backed and fast asleep in her bed.

I think of the gray blur I saw at her window earlier, momentarily forgotten in the events that followed. Me almost tumbling over the terrace railing. The long talk with Carter. An even longer typing session with Lenora. But I’m certain someone was moving around inside this room, then and now.

I approach the bed and kneel by Lenora’s side, checking to see if she really is asleep and not just pretending like I suspect she was when I burst into the room hours earlier. I wave my hand in front of her face, eliciting no reaction. Definitely no flinch signaling she’s aware I’m doing it. I then touch her left wrist to check her pulse. It’s slow, steady.

“Lenora?” I whisper anyway. “Was that you?”

She doesn’t answer me, of course. She can’t. Just like she can’t walk. Even if she could, Lenora is seventy-one. There’s no way she’d be fast enough to hop into bed as soon as I opened the door. A person half her age wouldn’t be able to do that.

Since it wasn’t Lenora and there’s no one else in the room, I know I should blame my imagination. It’s late, I’m exhausted, and it’s possible the house is messing with my mind. But those noises were real. So were the shadow at the door and the blur at the window.

I didn’t imagine them.

I heard them and saw them and know there must be a logical reason for them.

It will all make sense in the morning.

That’s something else my mother used to tell me, back when I was struggling to deal with all the pain and pressure of adolescence. Go to bed. Get a good night’s sleep. It will all make sense in the morning. Usually, she was right. Even when things still didn’t completely make sense, I often felt better in the morning.

This time, though, the advice is dead wrong.

Nothing makes sense when I wake a few hours later with the rising sun poking my retinas and the mattress slid a few inches lower than when I went to sleep. Exhaustion grips me as I get out of bed and start my morning routine.

Showering in a tilted tub.

Brushing my teeth over a tilted sink.

Putting on a uniform that belonged to someone who fled this place.

Before going downstairs, I look in on Lenora, pausing at the door before throwing it open. Like a suspicious lover. Or a distrustful father. Trying to catch her in the act. Of what, I have no idea. Other than typing, she mostly just observes, which is what she does now, giving me a quizzical look from the bed.

The first thing I do is check the desk.

The typewriter is exactly where I placed it during the night.

The page in the carriage, however, sits next to it, typed side up, as if someone had been reading it.

But unlike yesterday, I’m certain I left that paper in the typewriter. I remember seeing the page flutter as I carried the typewriter back to the desk.

I turn to Lenora. “Someone was in here during the night. I’m right, aren’t I?”

She gives me another one of those vague nods that I’m still learning to interpret. This time, I again know it’s to bring the typewriter to the bed. After I do, I place her hand on the keys and let her answer.

you didnt sleep well

I have trouble discerning her tone. Without punctuation, it looks like a statement, meaning Lenora knows I didn’t sleep well. With a question mark—missing because it requires me to press the shift key—it becomes more innocent. A query, likely prompted by the dark circles under my eyes.

Lenora gazes at me, waiting for an answer. Her expression—expectant and confused—tells me it’s the latter.

“I didn’t,” I say.

She starts moving her hand across the keyboard again, eventually typing out a familiar word.

a humdinger

This time, I can tell it’s a question by Lenora’s brows, which arch inquisitively. I nod my head and smile.

“Yes. But even before that, I couldn’t sleep.”

More typing.

the wind

Still more typing.

makes strange noises

I take a step back and give Lenora a look. “How do you know I heard noises?”

Because she caused them.

The thought pushes into my brain like a drill bit. Sudden, unnerving, and unwanted.

Also, ridiculous.

No, it was someone else.

And Lenora’s lying to me.

Probably not for the first time.

It occurs to me that much of what she’s typed so far could be, if not a lie, then at least a bending of the truth. Shaping the story in a way that suits her best. I did it myself when talking to Mrs. Baker upon my arrival. I could have said it was my mother who overdosed on pills. Instead, I told her it was merely a patient. Not a lie, exactly, but also not the full truth. Not by a long shot. I suspect Lenora’s been doing the same.

And I’m getting tired of it.

“I know someone was in here last night,” I say. “Now tell me who it was or no more typing. And certainly no more telling your story.”

Lenora studies me, trying to decide if I’m bluffing. Good luck with that. I don’t even know how serious I am. While I suspect I’m as eager to hear the full story as she is to write it, I’m also hesitant. Again, it might not be the whole truth. And if it is, I might not want to know it.

Apparently, I look more decisive than I feel, because Lenora starts typing again.

someones been here

I enjoy a moment of vindication. I knew it wasn’t my imagination!

“But not just last night, right? The night before as well.”

many nights

Jolted with alarm, I say, “Then who is it? Who’s been in your room?”

Still hesitant, Lenora sizes me up again. Then she resumes typing with pronounced reluctance. It takes her a full minute to press eight keys. When she’s done, I rip the page from the typewriter. Marking the white paper in ink as black as night is a single name.

virginia