The Liar of Red Valley

by Walter Goodwater

  But then, through the open window, she heard the sound of high-pitched laughter echoing down the driveway.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Oh shit oh shit oh shit. The Laughing Boys.

  Sadie wanted to run but her legs wouldn’t move. No, no. With everything else she’d been doing, she’d forgotten about the Laughing Boy. Though the headlights were nearly blinding, she thought she could see wisps of demonic blue light floating out there in the night. Coming closer. There were a lot of them. And they weren’t coming to ask nicely.

  You have to go. Now.

  Finally moving, she ran back to the kitchen and gathered up the old ledgers and shoved them deep into her backpack. She thought about running for her mom’s car, but that would mean going toward the Laughing Boys, and they’d blocked the driveway anyway.

  She’d have to run.

  The laughter was coming through the walls now. And the voices.

  “Come on out!”

  “We won’t hurt you! Just give us what we want!”

  “Yes we will! Make her hurt. Make her scream!”

  “We want to taste her agony!”

  She burst out the back door into the night. The Laughing Boys were still all out front and didn’t see her break for the trees. There was no moon and she could barely see the uneven ground, but that didn’t slow her.

  She hadn’t made it far before her foot caught on something hidden in the darkness and she fell hard. Pain shot up her leg from a turned ankle, but she bit it down until her eyes watered.

  “We know you’re in there!” came a voice from near the house.

  “We’re going to make you hurt, stupid little girl!”

  Sadie lay motionless in the dry leaves. The Laughing Boys had the house surrounded now. There were at least a dozen of them, maybe more. Some had baseball bats, some knives, others just closed fists. Their strange laughter filled the night. What would happen when they didn’t find her or the ledgers? Would they leave?

  She heard broken glass. They were inside.

  She needed to move, to get away while they were distracted. But when she slowly got to her feet, her ankle screamed at her and her vision swam. She had to rest against one of the trees to keep from losing her balance.

  “Where is she?”

  “Find her! Find her! We want to play!”

  Something crashed inside the house. More glass shattered.

  Sadie limped around to the trees on the side of the house. She knew these well; she’d played among them her whole life. She couldn’t get away fast enough, but she could hide. As everything she owned was smashed up inside her house, she found the tree she was looking for. She started to climb. It hurt—it hurt like hell—but even with her twisted ankle, she was able to find her footing.

  The tree’s rough bark felt good as it bit into her hands. She tried not to think about the pain or the fear and just focus on that bark and on climbing just a little higher.

  When there was nowhere left to go, she settled into the crook of two large branches, where she’d sat many times as a girl. It used to be smooth here, worn down by her frequent visits. But no more. She wiped away a few tears and pressed into the tree, wishing herself invisible.

  “She’s gone!”

  “I told you we should sneak up on her.”

  “Find her! Kill her!”

  Sadie could see some of the Laughing Boys through the living room windows. They tore pictures off the walls. They shattered the plates in the cupboards with their bats. They kicked holes in the drywall.

  Others were still outside. They’d already smashed the windshield on her mom’s car and slashed the tires. One was carving his name on the hood with a knife.

  A tall Laughing Boy with long blond hair and a denim vest studded with silver spikes came out the front door and stood on the porch. His black combat boots thumped heavily on the wood. The others seemed to give him a wide berth as his otherworldly eyes scanned the night. For a moment, Sadie felt the blue cold gaze on her hiding place, but thankfully it didn’t linger.

  Danny, who’d come to her house that night, came out just behind the blond boy. He’d been terrifying when she found him hiding in the dark, but now he looked small and meek.

  “Are you out there?” the blond Laughing Boy called. “I know you are.”

  “We can smell you!” said his demon.

  “It’s fine, Kyle,” Danny said. “She’s gone.”

  “You asked for our help, Danny,” said Kyle. “We’re helping.”

  “I just wanted the book. We don’t have to break everything.”

  “Break everything! Break it all!” added his demon.

  A particularly giddy Laughing Boy came out, holding something high over his head. Sadie squinted. Oh, fuck.

  It was her ledger. She’d been reading it on her bed and forgotten about it when the Laughing Boys showed up. She’d grabbed the old books, but left hers behind.

  Kyle grabbed the book and flipped through it, then tossed it to Danny. “That what you’re looking for, Danny my man?”

  Sadie squeezed her eyes closed. The pain was hot in her leg and anger hot in her chest. That was her ledger. So little of what she had in life was truly hers. She lived in her mom’s house, drove her mom’s car, even wore some of her mom’s old clothes. But that ledger was hers, dammit. It was her blood on its first Lie.

  Danny shook his head. “This ain’t it.”

  “Danny, Danny, Danny,” Kyle said, sounding disappointed.

  “It’s the wrong one. The Lie was in her mom’s book. It looked different, had a different cover. And these Lies are all new ones.”

  Danny knew what her mom’s ledger looked like?

  Kyle came down a step and shouted into the night. “I know you can hear me, little girl. Our brother here just wants your mom’s book. He just wants to keep a secret safe, that’s all. You can appreciate that, I’m sure. Come on out so we can discuss this like the proper civilized people we are.”

  Sadie doubted they’d be understanding if she explained she had no fucking clue where her mom’s ledger went, or why everybody was so interested in it. These things had come up here looking for blood.

  “Very well,” Kyle called. He grabbed the ledger from Danny’s hands and tossed it back into the house. To the others, he said, “Light it.”

  The demons’ laughter polluted the night with wicked, vile glee. A few of the Laughing Boys ran back to their cars, returning a few moments later with oily gas cans.

  No, Sadie thought. No, no, no.

  They first doused the car, but then began pouring the gasoline all around her house. They poured on the carpet inside, on the walls, in the sink. On her entire life.

  When the gas cans were empty, Kyle gathered up his companions. “She might be running for it. You, take one of the trucks back down the hill, make sure she isn’t following the road. The rest of you, fan out in these trees. She won’t get far.”

  “We’ll find her. Oh, yes. We’ll find her.”

  “We’ll eat her face!”

  “We’ll eat her soul!”

  Kyle turned back toward the house. He pulled a cheap lighter from his vest. With a click, he produced a small orange flame.

  “No one fucks with us,” he said as he held the lighter up. “No one.”

  Then he threw it into the gasoline vapors.

  The fire caught fast and quick. Flames lapped hungrily at the plastic siding on her house and spread all along the front. The porch resisted for a moment, then began to burn. Smoke rose into the sky and wild red light lit up the night.

  Sadie nearly suffocated on the scream stuck in her throat. Her fingers bit into the tree’s bark. Her whole life had been spent in that house. Every memory she had of her childhood was in there. Everything she had of her mom’s was in there too. It was like watching her die all over again.

  The Laughing Boys began to spread out into the oak trees. Sadie hugged the tree tighter and tried to be invisible even as the growing fire illuminated everythin
g. Two of the blue-eyed junkies walked right under her. One held an aluminum baseball bat, the other a machete. Their demons cackled and tittered like this was the best night of their lives, all the while whispering what they were going to do to her if they found her. Sadie couldn’t even breathe. And all she could think about was her ledger. For a moment, she considered just leaving it. Could she just make another? Or would her power burn up with it? But her resolve didn’t waver long. She had to get it back. She had to save something from that house or she might just lose her mind.

  From her vantage point, she saw no more Laughing Boys. They’d all disappeared into the forest. There were acres to cover between the house and the nearest neighbor; there was no way to quickly search it all.

  Just stay here. They can’t find you here. Wait until morning.

  But that would be too late. Everything would be ash by then.

  She made her way down the tree as quickly as silence and her ankle would allow. The fire was only growing hotter; she didn’t have long. She tried to land mostly on her good foot but the impact still shot spikes of pain from her ankle to her eyes.

  Forget it, she told herself. Waiting wasn’t an option. Pain wasn’t an option. She had to move.

  She limped across the driveway, not even looking at the smoldering ruin of her mom’s car. She could feel the fire hot on her face now. The meager azaleas they planted last month next to the porch had already been consumed. Through the windows, she could see the walls she’d drawn on with crayon as a kid starting to blacken and crack. The open front door was a wall of angry fire. But beyond, just at the end of the hallway leading to the bedrooms, she saw where her ledger had fallen. It was still safe, but she couldn’t get to it from here.

  She hurried around the side of the house to her bedroom window. She could smell gasoline, but it hadn’t caught yet. She could see a yellow flicker inside. She pushed up on the glass, but it didn’t budge. Her mom had always harped on her to close and latch her window when she left. Don’t make it so easy for intruders, she’d said.

  Nearby, Sadie saw the stack of firewood they kept for the stove during the winter. She pulled off the tarp and brushed away the spider-webs. Somewhere in the dark night, she heard someone shouting, but it was too far away to hear clearly. She grabbed a decent sized hunk of split wood and struggled back over to her window. She hefted the log with both hands and smashed it into the window.

  The log bounced off and out of her hands. She tried to catch it, put too much weight on her ankle, and fell, screaming. She clamped her lips down and when that didn’t work, buried her face in the dead grass and roared pain, grief, and fury into the ground.

  Then she forced herself to her feet, picked up the log, and hammered at the window until the glass exploded inward. She dragged the wood along the frame to clear away the jagged edges, then grabbed the inside sill and pulled herself inside.

  Her room was full of choking smoke. The fire was just outside the door and creeping closer with every passing moment. The whole house shuddered like a dying animal. Sadie knocked broken glass from her palms on her jeans and nearly fell onto her bed. She rolled off the side and onto the carpet. She stayed low, under the smoke, and peeked out into the hallway. The fire was coming, but there was her ledger, near the doorway. She scrambled for it on all fours and smacked away a few embers that had started to smolder on the cover.

  Got it. Almost there. Almost out.

  Sadie hurried back to the bedroom away from the approaching flames. She let herself down out of the window gingerly and avoided making her ankle any angrier. Just keep moving. She had her ledger, so she just had to get away from the house before the Laughing Boys returned. She was miles from town, but she’d figure that part out later. Now she just had to move.

  When she turned away from the fire back toward the trees, the blond Laughing Boy—Kyle—was there, watching.

  “So rude,” Kyle said with a leering grin. “We knocked on your door, but you didn’t invite us in.”

  “Just a rude little girl,” said his demon, laughing. “A rude little girl who needs to be taught some manners.”

  “I don’t know you,” Sadie said. “I never did anything to you.”

  The Laughing Boy chuckled and shook his head. “I would have thought the Liar would be better at lying.” He took a step toward her. She wanted to move away, but could feel the flames hot on the back of her neck and knew there was no retreat that way. “Danny asked you nicely. He just wanted to keep a little secret, but you had to be a bitch about it.”

  “I’m the Liar,” she said. “Being a bitch about secrets is my job.”

  “Ooh, such a serious face,” Kyle said. “It isn’t very pretty. Give us a smile.”

  “Go to hell.”

  The Laughing Boy’s smile melted. “I should have known you couldn’t be reasonable. What a shame.”

  “Cut out her tongue. Let her choke on her own blood!”

  The fire danced in the Laughing Boy’s glowing blue eyes. His fingers twitched.

  Sadie lunged for the split log she’d used to break the window just as the Laughing Boy lunged for her. She got the wood up to swing like a club, but then he was on her. He grabbed at the log with abnormally long fingers, tipped in hooked claws. She pulled back, but felt it slipping through her grasp. The fire was hot on her back and the Laughing Boy’s breath hot on her face. He smirked at her and pulled her closer.

  “I’m going to make you—”

  She didn’t let him finish. Now that she was inside his reach, she planted her good foot and drove her other knee up and hard into his balls. His horrible demonic eyes went wide in surprise and gut-wrenching agony and his hand dropped away from the log to cradle his groin.

  Sadie brought the log down on his head with every ounce of fury in her body. The impact jarred the log out of her hands, but Kyle went down. It was enough.

  Her ankle burned hotter than her crumbling house, but still she ran. Smoke and terror stung her eyes and blurred her vision but still she ran. She had nowhere left to go, but still she ran.

  Until those hooked claws caught her.

  They sunk into her backpack and nearly pulled her off her feet. The blond Laughing Boy, his face half covered in blood, shouted something unintelligible in both his and his demon’s voice together, and went to yank her to the ground.

  But just as he did, Sadie slipped the straps off her shoulders. Suddenly finding no resistance, he stumbled and tripped backward onto the front porch.

  And into the flames.

  He screamed. Sadie ran.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sadie stopped running when her legs gave out. She slid into broken branches and brittle leaves. Behind her, the orange glow that had once been her childhood home was as distant as dawn. Her heart threatened to break her ribs. Sweat and tears dripped off her chin.

  Her ledger, her ancestors’ ledgers—and all the money she had in the world—had been in that bag. Everything she had that mattered.

  What am I going to do now? How can I even—No, she interrupted her own thoughts and tightened her hands to fists. She’d lost everything, but she was alive. For now. She needed to focus on staying that way.

  The night was dark but it was not quiet. Laughter echoed all around her, some far off, some far too close.

  A booming voice full of pain exploded into the smoke and star-filled sky. “Find her! Find that bitch and bring her to me!”

  Howls of predator joy and hunger burst out in response. The laughter of madmen rang out and sank under Sadie’s skin, into her brain, into her soul. She forced her eyes away from the fire’s light—she needed to adjust to the darkness if she wanted to survive the next few minutes—and scanned her surroundings. She thought she knew where she was, but everything felt foreign now, even trees she’d played near her whole life. If she was right, then there was a creek a little farther down the hill. There was no water left, hadn’t been since the drought started, but there might be some cover there.

  She
moved slowly, pausing every few steps to listen for approaching laughter. Every leaf broken under her shoe sounded like a gunshot. Behind her, the fire seemed to be getting brighter. At first, she thought she might have misjudged where on their property she was, but after a few aching moments, the ground opened up to a dry rocky creek bed. It was hard to tell in the dark, but Sadie thought she remembered the drop being only a few feet.

  “Anybody see her?” The voice came from her right and much closer than she expected.

  “I can’t see anything out here.” That one was from her left and a little farther away. They had her surrounded. “I don’t know how long Kyle expects us to stumble around in the dark. I can’t even see my own hand.”

  “He sounds pissed,” said the first one. Sadie heard a branch break under his foot.

  “He always sounds pissed.”

  “He sounds worse than usual.”

  “Just keep looking.”

  The Laughing Boys’ demons snickered. Sadie held her breath until her lungs burned. Her heartbeat throbbed in her busted ankle. She heard more steps from the closest Laughing Boy; he was getting nearer. There was no time and nowhere to run. As silently as she could, she eased down into the dry creek. A rock tumbled and she froze.

  “You hear that?”

  “Oh, yes. I heard it. I heard it!”

  The other Laughing Boy answered from back up the hill. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  Sadie let her hand move slowly down to her jeans pocket. She hadn’t lost everything, not yet. Her pocketknife was still there, the only thing left she had of her mother’s. She slid it out. Another step, some muted swearing, more laughter. She eased the blade free from the handle.

  I’ll kill you. The thought scared Sadie, but she held onto it, hard and sharp like the knife. She didn’t want their long fingers on her and she’d do what she had to. She could see his outline now, a black space that blotted out the stars beyond. He wasn’t looking at her. Her hand tightened around the knife.