Finishing The Hat

A moment of silence breaks in the basement of the cabin. The girls look at each other in disbelief. They are too stunned to speak, but their faces tell their stories to each other, when all the sudden Cármen’s phone vibrates. She received a text message. “It’s from an unknown number”, she shares with the girls. They all gather around her to see what is happening. “Remember me”, Cármen mumbles. She’s reading the preview from her lockscreen. “Well, what are you waiting for, open it!”, Gabbie quickly adds. The girls look at each other in fear. “Are you sure?”, Cármen asks. Gabbie nods. Cármen’s hands are shaking, she taps the message on her phone. Her phone scans her face and unlocks. “Look, there’s a link”, Gabbie yells. “Quiet! Who knows who’s upstairs, they have Monica”, Angéla whispers. Cármen’s index finger is pointing towards the link, but she’s too afraid to tap the link. “Girls, we need to think this through. It’s a YouTube link, what will we find here? Remember me? This is cryptic. Who knows what kind of video we will see”, Cármen tells the girls with a shaking voice.

Gabbie stands up and now stands in front of the girls. “Listen, we need to do something. It is either trying to escape from here, or watch the video. This cabin is no good. I’ve been here before. I have no idea where my family is, but we need to figure it out. And now, now Monica is gone? Come on, we need to do something, please”, Gabbie tells the girls in a whispering voice. Cármen and Angéla nod. Gabbie returns to the girls who sit on the floor of the basement. Cármen clicks the link and it opens the YouTube link. It’s a live stream of some kind. Gabbie quickly realizes what they’re watching and gasps. “What? What is this?”, Angéla asks in fear, but Gabbie remains silent. “Gabs?”, Cármen asks. Gabbie remains quiet, she stares at the phone screen in complete trance. It takes her a minute to return back to the group with her focus. “This is here, girls“, she tells the group while getting up. “What do you mean? Where are you going?“, Angéla asks. “Stay put, don’t say a word”, Gabbie replies while walking towards the old furnace at the end of the basement. When she reaches the furnace, she suddenly stands still. The girls look at Gabbie and don’t know what to do. “Now, look back at your phone and tell me what you see“, Gabbie tells the girls with her whispering voice. The girls look back at Cármen’s phone and gasp, they see Gabbie on the live stream.

Suddenly Cármen’s phone vibrates again, an incoming video call from the same number as the text message. “Gabbie, quick, come, incoming call”, Cármen whispers. Gabbie runs back to the girls and together they answer the call. It’s dark but they can hear someone walking around. Suddenly a light turns on. Monica! She’s tied up to a chair, just like Angéla back in the abandoned factory. “Girls, this is upstairs. This is in the cabin, I recognize the curtains behind her”, Gabbie whispers while pointing at Cármen’s phone screen. A hand covers the camera, a female hand. It’s dark for a couple of seconds before the hand gets slowly removed from the camera. “Well, well, well…”, an old cracking voice tells them. “No!”, Gabbie yells while jumping up. She recognizes the voice within a second. The woman who video calls them laughs and breaks out into coughing. After a few seconds she appears in the video, behind the tied up Monica. It’s Margret. “Remember me, girls? I’ve got something that belongs to you”, Margret tells the girls with a big smile on her face. One hand on Monica’s shoulder, and a big kitchen knife in the other. “You must feel right at home, again, Gabbie, dontcha?”, Margret adds. “You bitch! Let go of Monica, I will kill you!”, Gabbie yells. “Now, now… That is just big talk, you scared little girl”, Margret replies. Gabbie instantly gets shivers all over her body. ‘Scared little girl’. Exactly the same words as the two men who kept her and her family hostage in the exact same cabin. She quickly realizes this was all their plan, to lure her back into the cabin.

Gabbie’s heart is pounding in her chest. Her hands clench into fists as she stares at the phone screen, ready to scream at Margret again. But before she can utter another word, the screen suddenly goes black. A loud thud echoes from directly above their heads, followed by the sound of footsteps heavy on the wooden floorboards. “Gabbie, what’s happening?”, Cármen whispers, frantically scooting backward on her butt across the dusty basement floor until her back hits the cold brick wall. Before Gabbie can answer, the heavy metal cellar door at the top of the stairs creaks open. A silhouette appears at the top, slowly descending the steps one by one.

Margret steps into the dim light of the basement, holding the large kitchen knife loosely by her side. Gabbie quickly pushes herself up onto her knees, shielding Cármen as best as she can. “Stay back!”, Gabbie snarls, her voice shaking with rage. “Touch us and I swear…”. Margret stops at the bottom of the stairs, but she doesn’t attack. Instead, a slow, mocking smile spreads across her face as she steps aside. Another figure walks down the cellar stairs, completely calm and composed. Cármen gasps from the floor.

It’s Monica.

There are no ropes around her wrists. No bruises on her skin. She isn’t crying, nor is she afraid. She casually twirls a set of brass keys around her index finger before turning around to lock the basement door behind her with a sharp, heavy click. “Monica?”, Cármen stammers, still sitting frozen on the ground, her voice barely audible. “You’re… you’re okay? How did you get away?”. Monica doesn’t answer right away. She walks right past Margret, who steps back respectfully, and stops just a few feet away from the girls on the floor. She reaches out her hand toward Cármen.

“I’ll take my phone back now,” Monica says, her voice flat and completely devoid of emotion. Cármen is too stunned to move, but Monica simply bends down and snatches the phone from her trembling hands. With a quick swipe, Monica closes the video stream app. “The live stream… the tied-up video… it was all pre-recorded, wasn’t it?”, Gabbie asks, the realization hitting her like a freight train. Her eyes dart between Margret and Monica. “The text messages, the cryptic links… you set this all up”. “Give the girl a medal”, Monica sighs, placing her hands on her hips with an amused smirk. “Do you have any idea how exhausting it was to act terrified all day? To lead you two exactly where we needed you?”. “Why?”, Cármen cries out from the floor, tears welling up in her eyes. “Monica, we came here for you! We thought you were in danger! We’re your friends!”.

Monica slowly crouches down in front of the girls, leaning in until she is at eye level with them. The warm, supportive friend they knew is completely gone, replaced by a cold, sharp glare. She tilts her head slightly, her smile vanishing into a dark, icy expression.

“Did you really think I was on your side?”