Page 64 of The Unknown

“You tell us,” Heather says. “Maybe she wanted evidence just in case something happened while you two were alone.”

“Nothing would have happened,” Ronan says, daring a glance my way. “Susie’s not my type.”

On-screen, Susie says, “Just because we’re stuck on an island doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun. I won’t tell anyone.” Her voice lowers to a purr. “We can film it, if you want. Something to remember me by. You ever do that before?”

Both versions of Ronan, on-screen and off-, flinch. Real-life Ronan says nothing. Recorded Ronan turns and walks out of frame, leaving Susie alone and pouting on the bed. There’s the sound of the door opening, followed by a weighted pause.

“I’m going to forget this happened,” Ronan says. “But, Susie, I’m serious, if you ever fucking try this again, consider your no-talent ass fired.”

Still on the bed, Susie lets out a frustrated groan as the door slams shut. After a few seconds of staring at the ceiling, she slides out of bedand approaches the camcorder, her expression oddly calm. She reaches out, her hand filling the frame before everything goes black.

In the parlor, Ronan pushes away from the table and stands. “I told you,” he says, talking to all of us but looking only at me. “I told you nothing happened.”

I don’t know what to say.Sorryseems so inadequate. No, I didn’t accuse Ronan of doing something to Susie. Yet that doesn’t keep me from feeling both shitty and sad. All the trust the two of us had built up in the past few days is now gone, and unlikely to return.

“That still doesn’t explain why Susie’s camcorder was in the woods,” Julianne says. “You said you found it on the altar, right?”

“It’s a rock,” Heather clarifies.

“It says ‘altar’ in the script.”

“Which isn’t the same as real life.”

In Daisy’s diary, it’s Ruth Hume Semple who refers to it as an altar, while admitting that’s merely a guess. And while I agree with Heather that it’s likely just a big rock, I also experienced its weirdness firsthand.

“Whatever you want to call it, that camcorder was found there,” Julianne says, pointing to the camera now on the table. Only Violet remains seated in front of it, staring at the black screen like a woman hypnotized. “So either Susie put it there or someone else took it from her cottage.”

Heather levels her gaze at Ronan. “You were the only one who possibly could have known about it.”

“I swear to you, I had no idea I was being recorded,” Ronan says.

I think about the advice Violet gave me yesterday about always knowing where the camera is placed.Note its location on the first take. After that, pretend it’s not there.What we just watched was clearly a single-take affair. If Ronan was aware of the camcorder’s presence, he did an amazing job of pretending he wasn’t.

At the table, Violet fiddles with one of the camcorder’s buttons. She gasps as the screen again blinks to life.

“I think there’s another video,” she says.

We all crowd around her, eyes on the screen, which for a moment shows nothing but swirling darkness that could be sky, could be earth. The tip of a sneaker pops into the bottom of the frame, its brief appearance clarifying things. We’re on the move, someone holding the camcorder tilted toward the ground.

The camera steadies, giving us a view of trees straight ahead, their trunks pale and eerie in the moonlight. We’re in the woods, still moving, ducking low-hanging branches. Suddenly everything blurs as the camera does a half spin, stopping on a low angle of Susie herself. At some point, she’d changed from her nightgown into her island costume. The same blouse and, I assume, skirt that now hang in the oak.

She films herself from the most unflattering angle. A view straight up her nostrils. Like that famous shot fromThe Blair Witch Project, only with less snot. The fear, though, is the same.

“Okay, so I’m pretty sure I saw something pass outside my cottage,” she says, her voice a tremulous wisp. “I came out here to follow it and now—” She lets out a single, scared whimper. “Now I think I’m lost.”

There’s another dizzying half spin as she points the camcorder back toward the woods. Bugs drift across the frame like dust particles. One lands on the lens, monstrously huge, before Susie swats it away.

“I’m so confused. I don’t know if I came this way”—the camera lurches to the left—“or that way.”

Now there’s a move to the right, after which the camcorder remains completely still. At first, I think the picture has frozen. But then I notice the bugs, still zipping past the lens. Which means it’s Susie who was frozen when this was being recorded.

“There’s something out here,” she whispers. “I can hear it.”

We all lean forward, straining to hear what she does as the camera slowly pans across the woods. There’s nothing there. Just trees and bugs and a ground covered by dead leaves and undergrowth.

Then we hear it.

A single, suspicious crunch.