Bottle 12: The Truth Revealed

Back at the cabin, the group gathered around the table, the bottles of wine laid out before them. Each label bore a different label and word.

"What is this?" Lori asked, her voice trembling. Her gaze darted from one bottle to the next, her confusion mirroring the growing unease in the room.

Abby picked up the first bottle that said “Jamie”, inspecting the label and the word etched on its label. "These bottles; each one of them; they’re tied to us," she murmured. “But this one; the one that says ‘Jamie;’ that bottle is super light.” She twisted the cap off the bottle; her movements deliberate and poured its contents into a glass. What emerged was not wine, but a paper tightly rolled up. She unfolded it, her eyes narrowing as she read the words to herself.

"Jamie dying was just an accident." She exclaimed.

The room fell silent. Each person exchanged stunned glances, the weight of the revelation pressing down on them. Abby’s grip tightened on the slip of paper as she opened another bottle, revealing a similar note: "Enjoy the wine and a weekend of thriller movies."

"How is this an accident?” Traci questioned.  Her voice barely audible. "None of what we discovered sounds like an accident. None of it at all."

Abby removed the bottles one by one and at the bottom of the crate were a bunch of old VHS tapes. Each tape had the same word as a correlating bottle.

One by one, they looked at the bottles, each containing a single word and that word correlated with a VHS tape.

Carrie

Scream

Exorcist

Poltergeist

Nosferatu

Hostel

Saw

Shining

Abby stood; the last note clutched in her hand. Her voice was steady but heavy with emotion. "He didn’t mean for any of this to happen. The cork... the switched labels it was an elaborate gift. Jamie was trying to give us a bottle of wine and a VHS tape, look!” she said excitedly “our names on the bottle and VHS tapes. Eve got I Know What You Did Last Summer. Look! Your name is on a list and correlates with a movie.

“I told you I didn’t do anything” Eve exclaimed.

Abby continued “Sara got Psycho. I got Cat People. Lori got the Exorcist. Traci got Poltergeist. Nina got Scream. Jamie had the labels from the VHS tapes turned into wine labels for the bottle and had each of our names etched on the punt of the bottle.

"So, that’s why the cork did not match the label of 2001.” Eve shouted out, her excitement breaking through.

“So that’s why the cork did not have any glass attached to it.” Sara explained.

“What do you mean?” Eve questioned.

“Well, if Traci dropped a bottle with the cork in it, then the glass shattering would have been the thing that released the pressure in the bottle and therefore the cork would have had the glass neck still wrapped around it. But, because the cork already went flying, by the time Traci picked up the bottle”

“On my way in” Traci interrupted.

“Yes, on her way in” Sara added. “By the time Traci picked up the bottle, the cork had already released from the bottle therefore having no glass around it. Then, when Traci dropped the bottle, it shattered but the cork was already gone.”

“Why didn’t he just tell us about the bottles?” Nina asked.

Abby’s gaze softened. "Because he wanted to give us a gift and maybe watch a few films. Especially scary films here a desolate lake house. Jamie loved puzzles. He probably thought this would be fun.”

Lori’s voice trembled. "But the blood... the corkscrew... the notes in the bottles. How do you explain that?"

Abby turned toward the fire, her expression contemplative. " The blood..." She hesitated, piecing it together. "That must’ve been from Jamie himself from something unrelated. A red herring per se. But that was Jamie’s corkscrew in the kitchen, wasn’t it?”

“The waiter’s key” Traci quickly corrected her.

“Yes, the waiter’s key. Maybe when he brought it downstairs from his bag, he poked himself which dropped blood on the floor and was left on the corkscrew, because maybe he didn’t even know he got stuck?” Abby explained. “Check his finger.”

“Yep, on his right index finger, there is dried blood” Nina reported.

Abby continued, “I bet the force of the cork hitting his temple likely caused an injury that bled internally and there was nothing we could have done.”

“Jamie always said those corks can go flying at 65miles per hour in some instances.” Traci added.

Abby continued “He went to open the bottle, we all walked away, he sat the bottle down”

“And BAM!” Lori interjected.

“Yes, and bam” Abby said with less enthusiasm. “The cork dislodged, hitting the side of his head.”

"So, it really was just an accident?" Nina said, her voice breaking the silence. "He tried to do something nice, and it killed him."

“Stop it” Sara stated.

Abby nodded, her heart aching. "Jamie loved to play games. And, unfortunately, this one went totally wrong..." She trailed off, staring at the notes spread across the table. "It was just a terrible accident."

The group sat in stunned silence; the nightmare they’d been living unraveling before them. The tension and suspicion that had built up over the past hour began to dissolve, replaced by a profound sadness.

"Why didn’t we see it sooner?" Sara asked, her voice cracking. "We spent all this time thinking the worst. About him. About each other."

Abby placed a comforting hand on Sara’s shoulder. "Because fear does that to people. It clouds judgment. Jamie picked horror movies here, in the middle of nowhere. And unfortunately, it really did become a horror movie for all of us.”

Outside, the moonlight broke through the trees, casting the cabin in a warm, white glow. The fire had burned down to embers, its warmth a faint reminder of the long night they had endured. One by one, the group began to pick up the pieces, their grief mingling with a newfound sense of clarity.

Abby stood by the window, watching as the Police and EMS arrived. She clutched the last words tightly in her soul, Jamie’s final message echoing in her mind: ‘It wasn’t an accident.’ But she now questioned whether he may have said, ‘It was an accident.’ Though the truth had been uncovered, its weight would stay with them forever, a reminder of the fragility of life and the importance of forgiveness.

Epilogue

Months later, the group gathered again, this time in a bustling beer and wine shop which was hours away from the cabin and within a mile of their southern-most office. The atmosphere was lighter, yet a shadow lingered in their shared glances and quiet moments. They hadn’t planned to meet anytime soon, but Jamie’s memory pulled them back together.

Abby held her Chardonnay, her mind drifting to the bottles, the messages, and the overwhelming grief that had bound them all together that night. Despite their efforts to move on, something still nagged at her—a thread left untied.

"It’s strange," Traci said, breaking the silence. "I thought finding out the truth would bring closure. But I still feel like we’re missing something."

"You’re not alone," Lori admitted. "I can’t stop thinking about those messages we read. Jamie knew something we didn’t. The blood, the corkscrew? None of it makes sense to me.”

Abby exhaled deeply, setting her spoon down. "I’ve been thinking about that too. Jamie was very meticulous. Every detail mattered to him. If he swapped the labels, and we think he had a reason. What if there’s more to this than we realized?"

Eve frowned. "Abby, we went over everything. The messages, the bottles, the blood. We pieced it together. It was an accident. He even said it himself.”

"Maybe" Abby conceded. "But doesn’t it bother you that I am not entirely sure he didn’t say that it wasn’t an accident? Lori said herself that she heard Jamie state that it wasn’t an accident.”

“I swear that is what I heard” Lori reiterated.

The table fell silent. Each of them wrestled with the question, their unease resurfacing.

"You think someone else was involved?" Sara asked cautiously. "That maybe... Jamie knew?"

Abby shook her head. "I don’t know. But I keep wondering if we were supposed to find more."

As they sat in contemplative silence, a male server, dressed in a suit, greased up hair, approached the team, placing a bottle of wine on the table. The label was plain, but a familiar inscription caught Abby’s eye: "Trust the wine"

Her heart stopped. She exchanged a wide-eyed look with the others before picking up the bottle. A small card was attached, bearing a single line of text: "The truth will set you free."

The group froze, the weight of the message sinking in. Abby’s grip tightened on the bottle as a cold realization settled over her. They hadn’t reached the end of the story—only the beginning of another chapter.