Mason didn’t know Scarlet’s number and he didn’t have a mobile. He stopped off at his dorm room and got a flashlight. It had begun to drizzle when he stepped outside again. No one saw him as he crossed the quad and disappeared into the back woods.
Mason reached the base of Black Oak Bluff about fifteen minutes after he ended the call with Scarlet. A good ten of those minutes were the most frightening of his life. With only the narrow tunnel of his flashlight as his guide, Mason’s hearing went on high alert. The rustle of leaves, a gust of wind, even the sound of his own footsteps terrified him. When the trail hit an incline, he knew he was getting close.
* * *
—
Scarlet had been waiting for Owen at a high point on the Black Oak Bluff trail for over an hour. It was dark and scary and she wanted to leave, but she’d already made the precarious hike up the narrow trail. She was beginning to sober up. With sobriety came the realization that she was unlikely to change anything between Owen and Luna. And still, she waited, because she didn’t want to walk the path alone again. It was an unseasonably warm night for early March, but it was still too cold to be just standing around in the woods. When it began to drizzle, Scarlet finally decided to turn back. She had to pee something fierce, though, and didn’t think she’d make it down to the trailhead without bursting. There was a tree on the edge of the drop. She hiked up her dress, pulled down her tights, and leaned against it. As she was relieving herself, a light flashed over her.
“What the fuck,” she said.
Startled, she scrambled to cover herself. Her foot lost purchase and she plunged down the twenty-foot drop.
* * *
—
Mason heard the scream and the sickening crack of skull on stone. He stumbled down to the bottom of the trail, waving the flashlight around the base of the cliff. When he saw the angle of Scarlet’s head, he knew she was gone. He tried to say her name, but he could barely speak. He thought he might vomit. Then, he thought he heard something in the woods. He tried to remember what bears did at night. Do they sleep or do they stalk their prey? He didn’t know. He was pretty sure there had been bear sightings nearby. He didn’t want to be attacked by a bear. He was hearing things. Some things were real, others were marijuana-induced embellishments. He followed the trail back to the main footpath that looped around campus.
He purged at the side of the footpath. Guts unburdened, Mason got his bearings, remembered the pay phone outside Bancroft Library. He jogged the path for twenty yards. He felt sick again. He picked up the phone. There was no dial tone. He rummaged through his pockets for coins. After depositing a quarter, he saw the OUT OF ORDER sign. He shouted a few expletives and fought back tears. He ran back to Bing Hall and used the back entrance to avoid any revelers. He climbed the stairs to the second floor. Some guy who didn’t live on that floor was on the pay phone.
Mason climbed the stairs to the third floor. He picked up the pay phone. Then a girl whose name he didn’t know asked him why he wasn’t using the phone on his floor. Mason put the phone back on the cradle and walked away without a word. He returned to his room on the second floor and sat on the edge of his bed. He took off his muddy shoes and stuffed them in the back of his closet.
Mason tried to remember where there were other pay phones on campus. His plan to call 911 and leave an anonymous message kept being thwarted. Maybe that was a sign. He’d already played out what would happen if he phoned the police and gave them his name.
The cops would bring him in for an interview. He’d be nervous and act suspicious, because that’s how he acted when he was nervous. They’d ask about Scarlet’s fall. Did he cause the fall? Maybe he did. What if they gave him a lie-detector test? If they asked him if he killed Scarlet Hayes, he couldn’t say no. He wouldn’t pass the test. What if the police pinned it on him? They’d probably charge him with manslaughter. Mason smoked more weed to calm down. A mistake, no doubt. The particular strain of weed that he’d gotten from his dealer in Kingston made him extra paranoid. He had given Scarlet a few buds just last week. What if she had it on her or they found it in her room?
He’d be sweating under the lights of a police interrogation. Feeling guilty and therefore looking guilty. Accusations. Charges. A trial. He wasn’t thinking clearly. He knew that. He needed sleep; then he’d be able to figure out what to do. He had a few Valium that he’d stolen from his mother’s medicine cabinet. He took two pills. He figured with all the pot he smoked, he had a high tolerance. That was not the case.
Mason slept for ten hours. When he finally woke, Scarlet had been missing all night. He heard Amber and Bobbi stalking the halls, asking if anyone had seen her. They knocked on his door. He answered.
“Have you seen Scarlet?” Amber asked.
Mason shook his head.
“Let us know if you see her,” Bobbi said.
“Okay,” Mason said.
They were staring at him, their eyes boring into his soul. He wanted to close the door, but he didn’t want to act odd or suspicious.
“Mason, can I be honest with you?” Amber said.
Mason braced himself for an accusation. “Uh, okay.”
“You need to smoke less weed,” Amber said.
Mason was so relieved he almost laughed.
“She’s right,” said Bobbi.
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Mason said.
November 2019
Mason thought he’d feel unburdened when he finally told Luna the thing they’d been keeping from her for years. Instead, he experienced an oppressive exhaustion.
“You watched Scarlet fall to her death and didn’t tell anyone?” Luna asked.
“Not the police,” said Mason. “I told Casey the next day. She went into town and made a call from a pay phone so they’d find Scarlet’s body.”
“Are you sure she was dead?”
“Yes. I swear, if I thought there was any chance she was alive, I would have…done something.”