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I felt numb as I watched Ryan continue to give her mouth-to-mouth. I heard the sounds of sirens but nothing seemed real to me as I watched paramedics rush to her and check her vital signs. It seemed surreal when I saw them put her on a stretcher but when they started to lift her into the back of the ambulance, I broke out of my stupor.
“Wait!” I cried. “I need to go with her!”
I moved to hoist myself up into the ambulance but the paramedic stopped me. He was kind but firm. “I’m sorry but you’ll have to drive separately to the hospital. We have no time to waste. We’ll be using the sirens.”
I didn’t protest, not wanting to do anything to delay them. I looked at Simon, feeling numb when he put his arm around me. “Come on. Let’s go back to the apartment to get a car. We should tell the others too.”
I don’t know how I made the walk back home, but the moment we stepped in front of Grant and Marcus’ apartment, my insides caved in. “What the hell do I say?” I whispered. Simon wiped away the tears that I hadn’t realized were streaming down my face.
“Whatever you think is right,” he said gently.
Ryan was standing silently behind us and he didn’t have anything to add. I rang the doorbell with a trembling finger, the moments as I waited for the door to open feeling like a death sentence. I didn’t know whether or not to tell the t
ruth with Marcus there. He knew nothing about vardogers and the last thing I wanted to do was pull him into this nightmare. That wouldn’t change what had happened to Jenny. That wouldn’t determine whether she lived or died.
Marcus looked groggy as he opened the door. “What’s going on?” he asked tiredly. His gaze turned alert when he saw our expressions. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Jenny,” I said shakily. “She was just taken to the hospital by an ambulance. She was found in the pool at the student gym.”
Marcus blinked at me, as if he was trying to determine if this was a dream. He shook his head with a frown. “You must be mistaken. There’s no reason for Jenny to be at the pool in the middle of the night.”
“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t stop myself from sobbing even though I had told myself to be strong. “It’s her. We need to go to the hospital.”
“What are you guys doing here in the middle of the night?” Grant had emerged from his bedroom and was squinting at us under the bright lights of their living room. I stepped inside along with Simon and Ryan, past Marcus who was just staring at us stupefied.
“Jenny’s had an accident,” I said simply, not wanting to go into it in detail. “She’s on her way to the hospital in an ambulance.”
Grant’s face whitened but he glanced at Marcus before speaking. He seemed to choose his next words carefully. “How did it happen? Do you know?”
“She was found in the pool,” Simon said when I didn’t answer right away. I didn’t know what to say. “We can discuss this later. Right now we should leave for the hospital.”
Grant nodded, seeming to understand we couldn’t discuss anything in detail right now. He went to go wake up Sarah, and I wasn’t surprised by her reaction. There was a lot of sobbing and asking of questions, but we shelved answering any of them until later.
We went to the hospital in two separate cars; Simon and I went in Ryan’s car and Grant drove his with Marcus and Sarah.
“What are you going to tell them?” Ryan asked from the backseat. Simon was driving since he knew the way to the hospital.
“I don’t know,” I whispered, staring out the window. “That’s the least of my worries right now.”
Ryan leaned forward. “You won’t just have Sarah, Grant and Marcus to answer to. The police will question us too. We have to get our stories straight.”
I wanted to yell at him, to tell him to shut up. I didn’t want to think about any of that when all I could think about was Jenny. But as much as I wanted to, I didn’t. I could tell by Simon’s white knuckles on the steering wheel that he was feeling the same thing, but he also knew it was inevitable.
“You left her a message on her voicemail so we have to work that into the story,” Ryan said. He was silent for a few moments before he spoke again. “The only way I can think of spinning this is by saying you had a dream about Jenny drowning in the pool. We can say you had a premonition. I’m sure the police have heard crazier things. You called her to see if she was okay, but when she didn’t answer you got even more worried so you decided to check the pool. Simon and I went with you because we didn’t want you to go on your own. When we got there, she was already floating in the pool.”
I wanted to throw up as I listened to Ryan, but I had no better story to give. The thought of lying about the circumstances of what had happened to Jenny was repugnant, but they would think we were crazy if we told them the truth. They would already think we were crazy with the story of the premonition, but not enough to lock us up.
“Fine,” I whispered, not turning to look at him. Simon glanced at me and then took my hand in his, gripping tight. I felt numb to his touch. The only thing that felt real was the fear running through my body.
We were told to go to the waiting room when we arrived at the hospital. We sat there nervously, silent until Marcus spoke up.
“We should call her parents,” he said, his voice strained. His eyes were red and I wondered how much he had cried on the drive over to the hospital.
“What do we tell them?” Sarah asked in a panic. “We don’t even know yet if she’s alright.”
The doctor chose that moment to approach us. “Are you friends of Jenny McAllister?”
“Yes,” I said, bracing myself for the news.
