The Girl Who Survived: A Riveting Novel of Suspense with a Shocking Twist

Mount Hood, Oregon
Twenty Years Earlier

Kara’s eyes flew open.

She squinted into the darkness.

“Don’t say a word.”

She started to scream.

But a hand came down over her mouth.

Hard.

“Shhh!”

Marlie? Her sister was holding her down, forcing her head back against the pillows?

She started to struggle.

“Stop it! Just listen and don’t say anything!” The warning was whispered against her ear. Hot breath against her skin. “Listen to me.” Her voice was urgent. This was no joke, not the kind of prank Kara had grown up with due to the antics of three older brothers. “Handfuls,” her mother called them. “Delinquents,” her father had said.

Now, though, it was just Marlie, and she was freaked. “Just do what I say,” Marlie warned. “No questions. No arguments. This is serious, Kara-Bear, so don’t make a sound.”

As if she read Kara’s mind, Marlie said, “I can’t explain now, just trust me. You’re a smart girl. That’s what all the teachers say, right? That you’re way ahead of kids your age? So just do as I say, okay? Now, come on.”

Kara shook her head, her hair rustling against her pillow, her eyes adjusting to the thin light. Whatever had scared Marlie so much could be handled. Mama would know what to do.

“You can’t make any noise, okay? Got that?”

Marlie lifted her hand and Kara couldn’t help herself. “What’s—?” she started to whisper and Marlie’s hand returned. Firmer. Pressing Kara back against the sheets.

“Just listen to me!” Marlie insisted through clenched teeth. Her sharp, desperate plea stopped Kara cold. Though Mama, at times, had accused the older girl of being a “drama queen,” this time was different. Marlie was different. Scared to death.

Kara sensed it. She laid still.

“You have to hide. Now.”

“Right now. Do you understand?”

Wide-eyed, Kara nodded.

“And it can’t be here.” Marlie started to take her hand away from Kara’s face.

“Why? Where’s Mama . . . ?” Kara said in a whispered rush. She couldn’t help herself.

“Shit! Stop! Kara, please!” Marlie’s hand was over her younger sister’s mouth again. Harder. Forcing Kara’s head back into her pillow. “No questions! They’ll hear you!”

Kara’s heart was beating crazily. Fear curdled through her blood.

“Just come with me and don’t say a word! I mean it, Kara. There are bad people here. They cannot find you. If they do, they will hurt you, do you understand?” Marlie’s face pressed closer and even in their dark bedroom, Kara saw that Marlie’s blue eyes were round with fear. She was dressed, in jeans and a sweatshirt, her blond hair pulled into a single braid.

Kara shook her head violently.

“Okay. Now, this is the last time,” Marlie warned. “Got it?”

Kara nodded slowly. Scared out of her mind.

“Promise you’ll be quiet.”

Kara swallowed against the growing lump in her throat, but nodded again.

“I love you, Kara-Bear. . . . I’ll come get you. I promise.” Marlie hesitated just a second, then withdrew her hand.

Kara didn’t speak.

“Okay.” Marlie glanced out the window, where moonlight played on the thick blanket of snow, then grabbed Kara’s palm. “Come on!” She tugged, but Kara didn’t need any more encouragement. She scrambled to get out of the tangle of bed clothes. They crept past Marlie’s bed, where even in the darkness Kara could see several neatly stacked piles of clothes piled over the rumpled coverlet. Even Marlie’s boots were on the bed. Now, though, she, like Kara, was barefoot.

Kara’s blood turned to ice. This was wrong. So wrong. She stepped on a toy, probably a Barbie shoe, but held her tongue as Marlie cracked open the door to the hallway.

Along with the scent of wood smoke from the dying fire, the faint sounds of a Christmas carol filtered up from the floor below.

Marlie peered into the darkness.

Taking a deep breath, Marlie squeezed Kara’s hand and whispered, “Let’s go.” She pulled her younger sister into the dark, narrow corridor, past the closed doors of the boys’ rooms toward the far end of the hall, where the stairs curved down to the first floor, light curling eerily up from below, the massive doors to Mama and Daddy’s bedroom just beyond the railing.

For a second, Kara’s heart soared. Marlie was taking her to get Mama and—but no. She stopped at the last door before the staircase leading down, to the door that was always locked, the doorway leading upward to the attic and the warren of unused rooms above.

Kara balked. She wasn’t going up there! No, no, no!

She started to protest when Marlie caught her eye and sent her a look that could cut through steel.

Kara jumped at the noise, her heart hammering.

But it was only the grandfather clock near the front door, striking off the hours, drowning out the music.

“Jesus,” Marlie whispered under her breath and pulled Kara behind her as she slowly mounted the narrow wooden steps.

“Marlie, no,” Kara whispered, feeling the temperature drop with each step.

“We don’t have a choice!” Marlie snapped, her voice still hushed as they reached the third floor.

Rather than snap on a light, she used the flashlight app on her cell phone, its thin beam sliding over draped furniture and boxes, forgotten lamps and stacks of books, open bags of unused clothes. Her family used the extra space for storage, though according to Mama it had once been servants’ quarters. “I wish,” Mama had added, lighting a cigarette as she warned all of her “patchwork family” that the area was forbidden, deemed unsafe. “Don’t go up there, ever. You’re asking for serious grounding if you do. Hear me? Serious.”

Her threat hadn’t stuck, of course.

Of course they’d all sneaked up here and explored.

Though the area was declared off-limits, her brothers were always climbing up here, and Kara had poked around the rabbit warren of connected rooms often enough to know her way around. But tonight, in the darkness, the frigid rooms appeared sinister and evil, the closed door standing like sentinels guarding the narrow corridor.

“Where’s Mama?” she asked again, fighting panic.

Marlie glanced at her and shook her head. She placed a finger to her lips, reminding Kara of the need for silence, then pulled her anxiously along the bare floor of the third story.

This was wrong.

Really wrong.

At the far end of the hallway was another staircase, much narrower and close. Cramped. It wound downward and ended up in the kitchen. For a fleeting second, Kara thought they were going down the back way, which seemed stupid since they’d just ascended, but Marlie had other plans. She stopped just before they reached steps, at the small, cupboard-like entrance to the attic.

Kara’s bad feeling got worse. “What are you do—?”

Marlie pulled a key from the front pocket of her jeans and slipped it into the lock. A second later, the attic door creaked open. “Come on.”

Kara drew back and shook her head. “I don’t want to.” Marlie surely wouldn’t—

“Don’t care.” Forcefully, Marlie pulled her through the tight doorway and yanked the door shut behind them.

“What the hell is this?”

“Don’t swear.”

“But—”

“Look. I’m saving you. Us.” A loud click sounded as she flipped the old switch. Nothing happened.

“Shit,” she muttered as they stood in the darkness.

“Don’t swear,” she threw back. “And saving us from what?”

“Shhh. Quiet. You don’t want to know.”

“Yes! Yes, I do! Tell me!”

“Look, it’s . . . complicated.” Marlie hesitated.

“And scary.”

“Yes, and really scary.” She pulled a small flashlight from her pocket and clicked it on so that they could see the stairs winding upward. The steps were steep and barely wide enough for Kara’s foot, a rickety old staircase winding to the garret under the eaves. It was freezing in the tight space and dark as pitch.

“I’m not going up there.”

“Of course you are. Come on.”

This was bad.

Kara’s skin crawled and though she wanted to argue, she didn’t. The tone of Marlie’s voice, so unlike her, made the ever-rebellious Kara obedient as she was prodded up the stairs. Marlie was holding the small flashlight, its weak beam illuminating the path.

At the top of the stairs, under the sloped ceilings where Kara was certain bats roosted, Marlie stopped, leaving Kara standing on the floorboards of the attic, while she hesitated on one step lower, so they were eye to eye, nose to nose. She shined the flashlight near her face, distorting her features in shadow, causing the small dimple on her chin to shadow and creating an eerie mask much like their brother Jonas’s face when he held a flashlight beneath his face for a macabre effect as he told ghost stories.

But tonight was different.

Tonight wasn’t a game. That much Kara knew.

“You need to stay here and wait for me to come back.”

“No!”

“Just for a little while.”

Kara shook her head. “I want Mama.”

“I know, but I already told you that’s not going to happen.”

“Why?” Panic welled in her heart. “You’re not leaving me here alone.”

“Just for a little while.”

“No!”

“Kara—”

“I’m not staying here. Why would you even say that?” Kara demanded.

“I just have to make sure it’s safe, okay—?”

“No, it’s not okay.”

“Then I’ll come get you. I promise.”

“Safe from what?” Kara cried, freaking. Anytime her siblings added an “I promise,” it was because they weren’t telling the truth. “You said there were bad people here. Who?”

“I-I don’t really know.”

“What’re they doing?”

“I’m not . . . I don’t . . . I’m not sure, but I know this, there’s something . . . something really bad, Kara.”

“What . . . what’s bad?”

“I don’t know.”

“And it’s here.”

“I . . . yes . . . please, just do as I say.”

Kara suspected her sister was dodging the truth. “Where’re Mama and Daddy?”

A beat. “Out.”

“Liar.” Why was Marlie lying to her?

“Kara—”

“What about Jonas and Sam and Donner?” Kara asked frantically. Her older half brothers. They’d all been here earlier. She’d seen them at dinner and after. Donner and Sam had been listening to music and playing video games, maybe even drinking, and Jonas, the loner, had been in his room practicing his ninja moves or whatever it was he always did. Sam had kidded him, calling him Jonas Joe-Judo. Which Jonas hated.

Marlie said, “Everyone’s gone.”

“Gone?” On Christmas Eve? That didn’t seem right. “Then what’re you afraid of?”

Marlie licked her nips nervously. Her voice was the merest of whispers. “As I said, there’s someone here. Someone else. Someone bad.”

“Who? How do you know?” This was crazy. “But you just said everyone was ‘out’ and now . . . You’re scaring me.”

“Good.”

“I want Mama.”

“I told you she’s not here!” Marlie’s voice was still a whisper, but there was an edge to it. Like Mama’s when she got mad or frustrated with Kara’s brothers. “Just listen to me, okay? You’re going to stay here for a little while, until it’s safe, and then I’ll come back and—”

“No!” Marlie was going to leave her here, in the middle of the night, all alone?

“Just for a while,” Marlie was saying again, but Kara was violently shaking her head.

“No, no! You can’t. Don’t leave me!” Frantic, Kara clawed wildly at her sister. Why was Marlie doing this? Why? At seven, she didn’t understand why she was being left. Alone. Here in this dark, horrid attic that smelled like mold and was covered in dust and probably home to spiders and rats and wasps and every other gross thing in the world. “I’m not staying up here alone, Mar—”

“Shh. Keep quiet!” Marlie’s hands tightened over Kara’s forearms.

“Please—”

“Listen!” Marlie’s voice was sharp. A whisper like the warning hiss of a snake.

She gave Kara a shake. Her fingers dug through the long sleeves of Kara’s pajamas.

“Ow!”

“Don’t say a word, Kara-Bear. Keep quiet. You hear me? I’m serious.”

“But you can’t leave me here.” Not in this cold, drafty space situated under the eaves of the cabin’s peaked roof. “I’ll freeze!”

“You won’t.”

This wasn’t right. Kara might be almost eight years old, but she knew this was wrong. All wrong. “You’re lying!”

Marlie gripped her forearm so hard Kara dropped the flashlight and it rolled down the steps. Marlie’s fingernails dug through Kara’s pajamas and pinched her flesh. “Damn it,” she swore. “For once, Kara, just do as you’re told.” And then she was gone, nearly tripping over the flashlight as she fled down the stairs.

Kara took off after her but was a step behind and Marlie reached the door first, slid through and shut it.

Kara grabbed the door handle, but it wouldn’t move.

Fury and fear burned through her as she heard Marlie’s swift footsteps as she hurried away.

No, no, no! “Marlie!” She rattled the door handle and pounded on the door, then as her rage eased a bit, thought better of it. This was no prank. Something was wrong. Seriously wrong. Something . . . evil. She swallowed back her fear and brushed aside the angry tears that had formed in her eyes. Her arms ached in the spots where her sister’s fingers had clenched.

She wanted to scream, to yell, to beat her fists against the door so that someone would hear her, so that she could escape this sloped-ceilinged jail and breathe again.

But she didn’t. Marlie’s words, whispered like the sound of death, ran through her head. “It’s complicated . . . and really scary.”

Shivering, she bit her lip and stared at the door, a dark barrier to the rest of the world. She couldn’t just sit here and wait.

What if the whoever it was Marlie thought had come into the house came up the stairs and found her?

What if he hurt Marlie? What if he killed her? Kara’s heart wrenched.

Again she wished for her mother and father. They would know what to do. But they were gone, according to Marlie, and she wouldn’t lie. Not about that.

Or would she?

Teeth chattering, heart knocking erratically, Kara grabbed the flashlight and stared at the door, shivering and trying to hear something, anything over the wild beating of her heart. Her skin crawled.

She sat on the lowest step, clicking the tiny flashlight on, then off, watching its yellowish beam illuminate the back of the door for a second before she was swallowed in darkness again.

On.

Off.

On.

The light growing fainter each time she turned the flashlight on.

She couldn’t just sit here and wait while the batteries in the flashlight died. What if Marlie never came back?

Kara wanted to rattle the door handle frantically, to scream and flail at the door. She reached for the handle again, her fingers curling over the cold lever. But she stopped herself. It would do no good. And probably cause unwanted attention. No, she had to be smart. She had to find another way to escape.

Determined, she climbed up the rickety steps again to the attic, where a single round window mounted high above and the faint moonlight cast the dimmest of light through the dusty, forgotten boxes piled everywhere, The boxes and crates were marked with words scribbled on them, some of them Kara could read: Books. Clothes. Office. Or marked with names: Sam Jr. Jonas. Donner. Marlie. Her sister and brothers. No box for her, the youngest, the only child of both mother and father. Not yet. She heard the rustle of something, something alive in the far corner. Tiny claws on the wood floor. A squirrel? Or a mouse . . . or a rat?

She shivered and was sorting through the box again when she heard it—a horrid, bloodcurdling scream rising up from a lower floor.

“AAAAHHHHHGGG!”

Kara jumped. Nearly peed herself. She sucked in her breath as the horrid wail echoed through the house.

What was that? Who was that?

Marlie?

Mama?

Or someone else?

The house shook.

Something really big had fallen.

Kara’s mouth turned to dust and she blinked against tears.

Was it a body?

Someone hurt and screaming, then falling?

Marlie?

“Mama,” she mouthed around a sob.

Pulse pounding, fear nearly paralyzing her, she forced herself to sweep the flashlight’s thin beam over the boxes again and spied the one marked Office. It was closed, cardboard flaps folded but gaping. She shone the light inside and saw yellowed papers, an old stapler, envelopes, a tape dispenser and a pair of dusty scissors. She picked up the scissors and a paper clip that held some papers together, then silently made her way down the stairs to the door.

As she’d seen Jonas do at the locked bathroom door when she’d been spying on him, she took the paper clip, straightened it as best she could, and slid it into the small hole beneath the lever. She’d tried it once before on Sam Junior and Donner’s room and it had worked and now . . . she wiggled the tiny wire, working it inside the lock as she strained to hear any other noise coming from the other side of the door.

Come on, come on, she silently said to herself, pulling the wire out once before sliding it back through the hole and twisting gently . . . feeling it move. With a soft click the lock gave way and fighting back her fear, she took a deep breath, held her scissors in one hand, and pushed the door open.