"And I hate Jell-O!" I scream as I crash the bat down again, smashing into his neck.

  His body barely moves as blood begins to pool in the sand under his head. I raise the bat again, ready to keep swinging until there is nothing but brains and guts and blood under my feet; when a voice stops me. It is soft and soothing, full of love and sunlight and laughter. Nick.

  "Liza. You can stop now. It's over."

  I drop the bat to the ground and turn to him. He’s only on his knees, but I go to him anyway, curling up in his arms and throwing my own around his neck. We sink into the sand together, and I finally let out the tears.

  The police arrive only a few minutes later. Nick’s call to the fire station was suspicious enough for them to try to send help, but they had gone first to the real camp. It took going back through his reports to the police station for them to know where to start looking. Nick stayed with Alex, the bat in hand just in case, while I went back to the house so the police can come there, and the ambulance to the lake set. As I walk back in, I leave every door open. I never wanted to be in this place again, but especially with a closed door. This time I have to be. Once the doors are open, and I have had a moment to make peace with what I’m leaving behind, I go back outside.

  A few minutes later, I sit on the porch of the house across the street. Nick sits beside me on a chair, brought by the police who are swarming the fake neighborhood. We are both wrapped in blankets. Nick asks for coffee and chuckles when he gets it. I don't ask why. I don't care. He can do any weird thing he wants right now, and it will be OK. I am finally back to being me, and I am with him, and that's all that matters.

  He leans toward me, and I nuzzle him.

  “Babe?” he says softly.

  “Hmm?”

  “Did you just beat the hell out of a man and tell him you hate Jell-O?”

  My mouth doesn’t know what to think of the laugh, but I let it try to figure it out.

  The bay doors I never saw are open, and there are police cars everywhere outside. The sun is beginning to light up the real sky, but the projector still shows stars. One of the uniformed women comes up to me and kneels down so she can be at eye level.

  "Ma'am, I am Officer Torrance. Would you mind showing us the things you said were here?" she asks.

  She seems nice, in that way that most police officers do after some trauma. She smiles a half-smile at me, and I look to Nick.

  "You don't have to if you don't want to," Nick says. "I am sure they can find everything based on your descriptions just fine."

  "It's alright," I say. "It's over now. I want to do what I can to finish this so we can go home." I stand and look at the officer. “Please. Call me Liza.”

  Home. I haven’t said that before now, but it feels so good. When all this is over, I can go home, with my husband, my real husband, and take a shower and sleep on my own bed. I don't plan on moving out of it for a week.

  Well, maybe on Christmas morning.

  I follow the officer across the street and through the doors. Police tape has sprung up everywhere, as if it were a real house in a real neighborhood. At least they have all the doors open.

  "Let's start in the guest room," I say.

  When they are done dusting and taking pictures of the guest room, we move on to the study. I don’t mind. I’ve gone numb.

  Chapter Thirty

  Liza

  I walk through the house for the second time in a daze, my vision fogging up and occasionally having to hold on to the wall to stay steady. It’s affecting me more this time than it did the first time, as if I hadn’t really seen it, and now that I’m here again, it’s tumbling down on me.

  The officers keep offering to let me sit, to find me somewhere to rest, but I refuse. I don't want to be in this house any longer than I have to. I show them the crawlspace where the mementos were kept. I explain my dress on the ground and the clothes in the boxes. They take pictures from every conceivable angle, and then one of them with rubber gloves removes everything. They spread them out on the floor and go through each piece. One of them murmurs to the other one, and I catch snippets of the conversation, but I am barely paying attention. I hear the name Mallory once, but I can’t place it. I never met her. She was gone before I came.

  Next, they have me show them the study, and I point out the phone, still stained with my bloody fingerprints. There is a bandage on my arm now, covering the gash that will soon become a scar. Something to remind me of all this years from now when I am old and gray. As if I could ever forget.

  "He had two lines," I say. "One for the house and one for the study."

  "And you never called for help?" one of the officers asks.

  Officer Torrance spins on him and shushes him.

  "I couldn't remember anyone or anything. I was being told who I was, being told that I had these fears. He told me I was too anxious to get on the phone with anyone but him. I believed him."

  Officer Torrance nods and jots something down on her notebook. It reminds me of Dr. Baker. They’ve already promised to go after him as well. He’s just an actor Alex hired to pretend to be my therapist and then pass along the notes to him, but they’ll charge him with fraud and impersonating a doctor. A good lawyer will likely get him off without any real punishment. That’s fine with me. I have no place judging anyone for how Alex manipulated them.

  I have already spoken to three other officers, giving them a testimony of what happened. I guess it was their job to try to find out the truth, even if it meant seeing if I would buckle under questioning, but I still resent him for that one and appreciate Officer Torrance all the more.

  Before long, we are outside, and only Officer Torrance is in front of me.

  "Mrs. Helmsworth. Liza?" she asks, her voice low and soothing. She doesn't want to rattle me or make me feel any more ill at ease, but she has to ask. "There is reason to believe there are bodies on these premises. You said you might know where?"

  I nod, pointing silently to the rose bush in the front of the house. Yes, there is reason to believe there are bodies there. But they aren’t just bodies. They are women. I watched one of them die and lay bleeding while she was buried. That is more reason than they will ever need.

  "There. There is one under there. There is another rose bush around back, too. I would check there as well."

  "Thank you. You can join your husband now. If I have any further questions, I will meet you at the hospital, okay?"

  Forcing a smile, I nod at her. She smiles back and flips her notebook closed, heading back into the house. I make my way to Nick, who is standing now.

  "They are going to take us to the hospital in the ambulance together, OK?" he asks.

  Again, I just nod. I don't have many words left today. I might not for a long time.

  As I step onto the bottom step of the ambulance, I see another one in the distance, back through the crashed in door, and by the lake. EMT's are carrying a stretcher, and there is a body on it. Only the sheet isn’t all the way up, and they are tending to the wounds. Part of me wants to scream at them to stop. To just let him die, to leave him in the water, and let him drown like he tried to do to Nick. To put him inside the house and cement the door closed. To keep using that bat to bash his head until his skull is in a million pieces.

  Instead, I turn my head away and step into the ambulance, sitting next to Nick and wrapping my arms around one of his. My head leans on his shoulder, and we rock gently as we are driven away. Out of the back door, I see the soundstage slowly fade in the distance, and I feel a twinge of relief. I will never step foot in that house again.

  Alex

  Waking up in the hospital was worse than being dead. Alex's head and body ached, and the nurses were decidedly rough and ugly. Rude too. Modern women. No more candy-stripers, just rough women with rough hands, never smiling, never doing their makeup, never taking pride in their appearance. He knew he would never properly heal if he didn’t get to see a pretty face.

  It took weeks to recover enough to even be questioned fully. Much of that was by his own doing, not wanting to bother speaking to them. But he could only pretend to fall asleep or rely on heavy medications for so long before he was forced to face the police. He sat in a bed, shackles keeping him from leaving, as if he could walk anyway, waiting for his skull to mend. They said his brain was exposed, and that he could have died if they hadn't gotten there exactly when they did. Too bad they did. Alex would have rather not lived in this world than not have his life. He had it all for such a short time. Mary, his perfect Mary. His house with the rose bushes. His study.

  They had ruined everything. The plan was to tear it all down when the trial was over. The state was going to take the land, the camp, and all his assets, and distribute them among his victims.

  Absurd, he thought. I have no victims.

  They had sent him a lawyer, some moron with a stiff collar and loud ties. He thought he looked slick in his modern glasses and his spiked hair. He looked like a fool. He would get Alex sent down the river, as his mother used to say. Sent down the river to what, now that was what he wanted to know. To death, he supposed. Or to hell. Not that hell could be much worse than this.

  He flipped on the television out of boredom and turned it off five minutes later. Nothing but sex and loud music and cartoons that aren't appropriate for children. The whole world had gone mad but him. All he wanted to do was live his perfect life, and no one would let him.

  Liza

  The trial took months to start, but once it began, it was even worse than the waiting. Suddenly, I have become a celebrity. ‘The Amnesiac Housewife’ or ‘The Forgotten Girl’ or whatever name each news station wanted to call me so they had something they could presumably trademark. I refuse to give interviews, but Nick does them from time to time. The media is something he understands, and he shields me from it. For that, I am grateful every second. No matter how much he tries, though, the story will always get bent and changed to fit some other person, someone who isn't involved, their version of what happened.

  I feel like I should want to shout from the rooftops to set the story straight. Like I should want to do all the interviews and tell the world what a monster he was, and how the 'perfect life' was a nightmare. But I don't. I don't care what they say anymore, as long as I can sit there on the day the judge hands down his sentence, and I can look into his eyes, that's all I need.

  Today is that day. I am wearing a dress for the first time since I escaped. Every court appearance before now, I intentionally wore slacks. I thought I might never wear a dress again, but when the jury came back after only twenty minutes to find him guilty, I changed my mind. I won't let him ruin anything for me anymore. Not one more minute of my life, not one more decision I make will ever be colored by him ever again.

  I will take him down. I will dismantle him piece by piece. I will ensure he never again hurts another woman or sees the light of day.

  And I will do it all in a dress and red lipstick because I fucking can.

  I sit in the front row while the judge asks Alex to stand. With difficulty, either real or feigned, he does so, leaning on a cane and staring up at the officer. His hair is going gray now, and a stubby beard grows across his face. So different from the polished man he pretended to be. I watch him sag as the judge tells him how long he would be in prison. Life, on top of life. On top of Life. Consecutively.

  Smiling, I stand up. Alex's head turns, and we meet eyes for the first time since my testimony. His mouth gapes open as he looks at me and shakes his head.

  "Go to hell," I say, loud enough for him to hear.

  "We all are," he shouts back at me, his lawyer trying to calm him, "the whole world is. This is not how it's supposed to be. This is not how it’s supposed to be!"

  I don't care to have the last word. I turn, holding Nick's hand, and we walk out of the courtroom. Reporters crowd around me for what must be the thousandth time, but this time when Nick puts his arm up and begins to tell them to go away, I stop him.

  "It's OK," I tell him. "It's time now. It's over."

  I turn to face the throng of cameras and microphones and bright lights. A smile crosses my face, and the words spill out of me.

  "Let me start by telling you how much I hate Jell-O," I begin.

  Epilogue

  Liza

  Two years later…

  Sitting across from Alex again is strange, but I love that this time, I'm the one who's free. At any second, I can stand up and walk out of the room, and he will still be a prisoner. There's a glitter in his eyes when he sees me. I resist the urge to shudder. He doesn't get that part of me anymore. He's not allowed my feelings of vulnerability.

  "It's wonderful to see you, Mary," he says. I start to get up and hear the clang of his handcuffs against the side of the metal table as he tries to reach for me. "Liza," he relents.

  I lower myself back down. In front of me, a tall, muscular guard has taken a step closer and is eyeing Alex suspiciously. They all know why he's here and who I am. None wanted me to come. They worry it will send him spiraling again. But I have to do this. I have to look him in the face and talk to him again now that he has spent twice as long captive as I did.

  "You know the camp belongs to Nick now," I say. "It was given to us in the judgment."

  "And my company," Alex adds ruefully.

  "Most of it," I agree. "The rest was split among the other victims. Those who wanted it, anyway. That movie is never getting made."

  The way his fingers dig into the top of the table and the muscle just beneath his eye twitches makes me smile.

  "What are you doing with the camp?"

  I shrug, leaning back in the chair and letting him simmer.

  "Nick and I have talked about it. We considered burning it to the ground." Alex stiffens. The fear in his eyes makes me smile. "But that wouldn't do anybody any good. We offered some of it to Brian's family and to Mallory Maynard's parents. Neither wanted it. They want nothing to do with it. We'll probably sell it and let a developer turn it into a resort. That way someone gets to enjoy it." I shrug. "But who knows? Maybe we'll open the camp again."

  "I hope you do," he says.

  It's a plea, an attempt to reach for familiarity and connection. I lean toward him.

  "That's the wonderful thing, though," I say. "You'll never know." I start to leave, but then I sit back down. "You were wrong, you know."

  "About what?"

  "You said it had to be treated as sacred ground because there was a body in the woods."

  "Yes. And did they find one?"

  "Yes. But you said they would find a woman. The detectives say they found a man's body. It took them several months to find it, but they think he died in December."

  "Cause of death?" he asks.

  "They couldn't determine it."

  "Identity?"

  "Not released," I say.

  Alex nods.

  "Interesting."

  "So, you can let go of it now. It's not a special place with a sacred past. It's just an old camp where some horrible things happened. You have nothing now, Alex. Not your camp. Not your company. Not your money. Not Mallory, or Rebecca, or me. You have nothing, and you will never have anything again."

  I stand and step away from the table.

  "Will you visit me again?" he asks.

  "No. I have nothing else to say to you."

  I walk out of the prison and meet Nick outside. Filling my lungs with the spicy autumn air feels amazing.

  "Are you alright?" he asks.

  I kiss him long and sweet, taking in the taste of rain.

  "I'm fine," I tell him. "How does hot apple cider sound?"

  He gives a noncommittal shrug and sound.

  "Good, I guess."

  We wrap our arms around each other and start head down the sidewalk toward our car.

  "How about at our own pumpkin patch? Because I've been thinking. We have a lot of land on our hands…"

  Alex

  Turning around and putting his hands back through the slot, Alex let the guard release him from his handcuffs. The cover of the slot slammed shut, leaving him alone in the stone cell. He climbed onto his bed and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

  Poor Julian, he thought.

  He really was a good assistant and a passable actor. Giving him tiny roles won total loyalty. Alex was supposed to meet him in the woods at the real camp that night after he turned over Nick's boat and ensured it sank. Julian would never see him, though. The capsule he'd sprinkled into the drink he left for him took care of that within an hour after he left the soundstage. Alex didn't realize it would take so long for his body to be found. If it had worked out, Julian would have taken all the blame.

  Oh well, at least now he will be remembered. He's the body found at the Cursed Camp.

  But not the one Alex said would be there. He knew there was another one in those woods, one that had been there for fifteen years. But that was a story he would never tell.

  Cedar Grove Gazette: October 9

  In the nearly two years since his arrest and incarceration, convicted serial killer Charles Alexander Whitman has refused to do any interviews. This changed recently after a visit from Liza Helmsworth, the woman who bravely escaped his clutches and was instrumental in his conviction. Helmsworth is said to have visited the prison for a short time last week, during which time she shared the details of the legal judgment against Whitman. In addition to his prison sentence, the judge ordered all of Whitman's assets distributed among those affected by his crimes. As a part of that, Helmsworth and her husband, Nick, a former employee of Whitman, now own his film production company and Camp Pine Trails.