Shades of Deception

by Piper Dow

  “Kelly, we have to go,” Wayne appeared at her elbow. His voice was steady but urgent. “I just talked to Dad. I’ll tell you on the way, but we have to go.”

  Her stomach lurched a little. Wayne’s face was tight, his jaw clenched, and his eyes were already looking at the doors.

  “Let me just tell Rick we’re leaving,” she started, but Wayne cut her off.

  “I already did, that’s how I found you. He’s a few shots over his limit, I’m guessing. Really, Kel, let’s go,” he said, tugging her out of line and toward the door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Dad called,” Wayne said. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and hit the remote to unlock the doors. “He said he left you a message. He said we had to come home now, and he would explain everything when we got there.”

  Kelly glanced at her brother as she climbed in on the passenger’s side. She still had her phone in her hand. As Wayne pulled the car out of the lot, she swiped the screen and hit the speaker so that her Dad’s voicemail would play. Reaching forward, she shut the radio off.

  “Kelly, this is Dad,” she heard his voice fill the car, tense and urgent. “I need you and Wayne to come home as quickly as you can. Drive very carefully. Do not speed, do not do anything that would get you into trouble, just come home. I don’t want to scare you, but if it looks like you are being followed, go back to the center of town and send me a text. I’ll get to you as soon as I can. Stay together, no matter what.””

  Kelly looked at Wayne, startled. He had both hands gripping the steering wheel tightly, but was driving the speed limit. She hit replay, and they listened to the message again.

  “Is that what he sounded like when he talked to you?” Kelly asked.

  “I don’t know,” Wayne said, sounding fretful. “It was so loud in there, I was having a hard time hearing him, and I had to yell to ask him to repeat stuff. He said to get you and come straight home, said to drive very carefully, and said he would explain when we get there. Do you think something happened to Mom? Why wouldn’t she call?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, something is definitely up. What about that ‘make sure you’re not being followed’ bit – what’s with that?” Kelly suddenly twisted in her seat to look out the back window and scanned the sidewalks and intersection they were passing. “We’re not, are we? Being followed?”

  “How would I know?” Wayne’s voice climbed higher as it got louder. “This is crazy, Kel!”

  Kelly kept watching the street behind them. Her throat felt tight, and her hands were shaking. She gripped the console and the back of her chair, willing her panic back down. She watched as a white SUV pulled out of the parking lot at the grocery store onto the street behind them. The SUV followed them three blocks, but then turned left into a driveway. Wayne continued driving straight.

  “Go by Jess’ house, instead of Thomas Street. Just in case. Whatever this is, if someone thought we’d come home like usual they could wait for us on Thomas Street. If we go a different way,” Kelly trailed off when Wayne turned his head to look at her.

  His jaw was clenched, and his hands shifted and tightened reflexively on the steering wheel. He nodded curtly in her direction, then turned onto Johnston Drive instead of continuing on Main Street. Kelly turned her head this way and that, looking all around them as they drove around the back way to their house. She could hear her heart pumping in her ears. The car rounded the corner near Jess’ house. Jess’ dad’s car was parked on the road in front of the house, the only vehicle out of place on the street. Wayne glanced at it without comment as they passed, flicking his eyes quickly up to the house and then back to the road in front of them.

  Taking another turn at the next intersection, Kelly peered up and down the street looking for anything that seemed out of place. Mrs. Horstach’s porch light was on three houses down the street. Mr. Ross was walking his dog, Nestle, down the sidewalk. Nestle was busy sniffing around in the fallen leaves that had gathered at the end of the Bailey’s driveway. Lights glowed from windows up and down the street. Things looked normal.

  Turning onto their own street, Kelly’s attention was caught by the glint of the streetlight on the windshield of a minivan pulled over on the side of Thomas Street. She squinted at the vehicle, trying to decide if it was suspicious or not. At a distance of a quarter mile away, she couldn’t be sure. She pointed at the van. Wayne was squinting at it, too.

  “This is crazy,” she whispered. “Let’s just get in the house.”

  Nodding, Wayne pulled the car into the driveway. He drove around to the side of the house where Kelly’s car was parked, pulling up onto the grass next to her car. There wasn’t enough room for four cars in the driveway; usually, he left his parked on the street in front of the house, but Kelly was glad that he’d parked closer to the house. Dad’s call had her spooked.

  They jumped from the car and quickly ran up the steps to the side door. It opened before they reached the top stair and their dad appeared in the doorway. He looked harassed and urged them in quickly. He closed the door almost on Wayne’s heels.

  “You made it without any problems?” He asked tersely.

  “Yes.” “No trouble.” “Dad, what’s going on?” Kelly and Wayne interrupted each other in their eagerness to find out what had happened.

  “Sam called Mom,” Dad started. He motioned the two to follow him into the living room as he continued. “She was talking really strange; not making a lot of sense. She said she was on the bus, she would be at the station by 6:45, and wanted us to come get her.” He neared the coffee table, which was covered with papers – some of them printed, some of them covered in Sam’s neat handwriting. “We got there just after the bus drove off. We looked around and didn’t see Sam, but then Mom saw her cap on the ground near the side of the building – you know the one she wore all summer, with the purple dog on the front? We went around the corner and saw a couple of animals fighting over something on the ground. We got a little closer and saw one of Sam’s red sneakers on the ground. We ran toward them, and the animals ran away, and there was Sam on the ground. Mom’s at the hospital with her now.”

  He was gathering all the papers together as he spoke, stashing them into Sam’s backpack, which was on the floor near the couch. Kelly noticed a duffel bag on the table, and her dad’s gun bag on the floor between the couch and the coffee table.

  “Dad, what else is going on? Why did you tell us to be careful coming home? Why did you think we might be followed?” Kelly could feel her shoulders tense and wiped her sweaty hands on her pants. “Dad?”

  He had walked near the window and was standing off to the side, carefully moving the curtain forward an inch or so so that he could look outside.

  “There was a minivan up on Thomas Street, just parked across the street from Jameson’s house,” said Wayne. “We couldn’t tell if it was weird or not.”

  Kelly sank into one of the chairs, her attention divided between watching her father and looking around the room. In addition to the duffel bag, gun bag, and Sam’s backpack, there were a couple of blankets, Wayne and Kelly’s jackets from the front closet, and Sam’s laptop gathered together.

  “Some of what Sam was saying on the phone to your mom had to do with seeing people change. Mom thought maybe she had taken something, or been slipped something – she sounded like people who are on LSD or acid. At the bus station, she was still conscious when we found her. She kept trying to talk to us, and Mom kept trying to get her to calm down. I finally promised her I would look at what she had brought – her proof she kept saying we needed to see, and she calmed down enough to go in the ambulance.”

  Dad was still looking out the window toward Thomas Street. He glanced back at their faces, then out the window again.

  “Mom went with Sam in the ambulance. I followed them in our car. I had Sam’s backpack, her laptop was in it. That’s all she brought with her. I checked her bag to see if there were any drugs or anything in it that would explain, well, any of this. I fo
und some pictures she had printed out. I – I thought at first she had done something to them, played with them on the computer or something, but some pictures looked like the animals that were attacking her at the bus station. Mom and I saw those – and I know we weren’t on anything.”

  His voice was raw, emotional. He stepped back from the window and covered his face with his hands, pressing his fingertips into his eyes before lowering his hands to his hips.

  “I waited until we were sure that Sam is going to be okay before coming home. Mom stayed with Sam; we didn’t dare leave her alone. I need you both to come with me. I don’t,” he paused, taking a deep breath and exhaling it slowly. “I don’t think it’s safe here. This doesn’t feel like it can be real, but I am not willing to risk taking chances.” He looked at Wayne, then at Kelly. “Sam thinks one of those animals is her roommate Jill’s boyfriend. She thinks he might have killed Jill.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Kelly woke slowly, feeling the ache of sleeping on the floor in her hips, her shoulders, her back. She knew before opening her eyes that it was early; the gray light of the pre-dawn hours had not yet given way to the amber glow of sunrise. Her head was stuffed with the ideas she had read in Sam’s notebook last night, and her dreams had been filled with werewolves and dragons and creepy, greasy men with missing teeth and bad haircuts.

  Kelly opened her eyes and sat up, wincing. She needed coffee, a big coffee. And maybe some Excedrin, too. She pushed her hands through her hair, trying to rub the cobwebs from her mind. Wayne was asleep a few feet away. His lips parted as he breathed out, little “phht” sounds escaping every few breaths. Turning the other way, Kelly saw the sleeping bag her dad had used still spread on the cot, but no Dad.

  She lifted her head quickly, eyes darting around the tiny room. The cot in the corner, the round table with two chairs in front of the window – all were as they had been last night when they arrived, with the addition of Sam’s notebook and laptop laying on the table. Rising to her knees, she could see a piece of paper on the top of Sam’s laptop cover. In one less than graceful movement, Kelly lurched forward to grab the paper from the table.

  “Gone for coffee and breakfast stuff. Do not open the cabin door, do not leave. Will be back soon, Dad.”

  Kelly sighed. Her parents were going to have to knock this cryptic note-writing stuff off. She could feel the panic that had risen in her throat beginning to subside. Running her tongue over her teeth, she pursed her lips in a grimace as she felt morning fug and realized she hadn’t brought her toothbrush with her. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was nearly 5. The lone window in the cabin faced south, a beautiful view in the evenings, but not very helpful this morning. Kelly looked down at Sam’s notebook. The tiny handwriting in the dim lighting would make her headache worse. She grabbed the laptop instead and crossed the room to sit on the cot, leaning against the wall, pulling her legs up and tucking her feet into her dad’s sleeping bag. She flipped the laptop open and hit the power button.

  Waiting for the laptop to load its operating system, Kelly tried to make sense of last night’s events. Mom and Dad went to get Sam from the bus station. They saw Sam’s hat and found her in the alley being bitten by some big coyotes or jackals or something. Dad had tried to describe what they had seen, but his voice would falter, and his eyes kept getting a panicked look. It sounded like Sam was in rough shape – she’d had to have surgery to repair some damage from the bites. Dad got choked up when he tried to tell them that, too.

  They had gathered some clothes and things they might need overnight, then hurried to his truck by the side of the house. Dad had carried Sam’s bag with her laptop in one hand and his handgun in the other, not getting into the truck until they were both in and the gun bag was stowed at Kelly’s feet in the back seat. He pulled out of the driveway without turning on the headlights and drove out the way Wayne had driven home from the party, away from the van on Thomas Street. Only when they had taken a left at the end of the street had he switched the headlights on. Kelly had watched out the back window but hadn’t seen any movement from the other end of the road.

  They had driven longer than was necessary to get to the cabin. Dad took roads that led toward the city at first, then doubled around and took a meandering route to get to the cabin. His eyes were continually flitting between his mirrors and the road. He sat upright, barely touching the seat back. Kelly recognized his long, slow exhales as attempts to stay in control of the situation and bit back her questions. Wayne stayed quiet for so long that Kelly was surprised he was still awake when he finally broke the silence that had overtaken the car.

  “So, um, Dad. What do you think is going on?”

  Dad glanced at Wayne, then back at the rear-view mirror and back at the road. He seemed to be weighing his words.

  “Sam thinks Jill’s boyfriend, Mark, killed Jill and is trying to kill Sam. She thinks that if he followed her home, that none of us are safe. I’m not sure what I believe yet, but I know something attacked her, and if that means there’s even a possibility that you guys are not safe, we need to get some space while we figure things out.” He glanced in the rearview mirror again, but this time at Kelly and not at the road. “We’re probably all fine, and in a few years we’ll end up laughing at this, but for now, let’s just be safer than sorry, okay?”

  Kelly had nodded without saying anything. Wayne had looked back over the seat at her, looking like he wanted to ask more questions, but at her nod, he sighed and turned back to look out the window into the night.

  When they finally reached the cabin, Dad made them wait in the truck while he checked it out first. It was his father’s cabin, but they used it every year for fishing, hunting, and for a few weekends that Mom billed, “getting away from life as we know it.” In addition to a small bathroom, the cabin had just two rooms – the second one had bunk beds stacked along the walls, but after taking off their zombie makeup and spending a couple hours of reading and discussing Sam’s notes last night, they had all fallen asleep in the main room.

  With the laptop booted, Kelly plugged in earbuds, selected a playlist from Sam’s downloaded tunes, and turned her attention to the photos Wayne had moved to the desktop. The first few were of friends at a party Sam had attended. Jill was in three of the pictures. Her long, dark hair framed a face that was thinner than Kelly remembered from last summer. She had used a heavy hand to apply her makeup. Kelly carefully appraised the look, deciding that Jill could pull it off. There was something about her, though –– were her shoulders held too high? Was there a shadow to her smile? Kelly’s brow puckered as she tried to puzzle it out. Of course, she reasoned, it could also just be that a photo represents a split second in time, and she was looking at the images with suspicion already planted.

  Kelly opened the email program, and with a few taps, had attached the photos and Sam’s journal pages to an email and sent it to herself. As long as she was going for suspicious, she might as well go all the way. Her focus moved to the others in the photos. There was a guy with his hands around Jill’s shoulders in two of the pictures. This must be her boyfriend, Mark. He was unshaved, though his beard was sparse. There was a pinched look to his mouth, Kelly thought. His eyes were very dark –– Kelly enlarged the photo on the screen to see if she could see their color, but with the shadows, the best she could do was “dark.” She supposed if they were blue the color would be easier to detect, so mentally labeled them as brown. His dark hair was on the longer side, curling up around his ears and collar. He wore a plaid buttoned front shirt over a black t-shirt, with faded jeans. Kelly could see nothing particularly memorable about him.

  There were a couple of other people in the background of the photos. In one of the pictures, one man appeared to be looking soberly at Jill. There was no smile on his face, unlike the rest of the party-goers, who all seemed to be laughing at something near the picture-taker. Kelly quickly scanned the other pictures from that same date, but he was only in the one.

  K
elly shrunk the party photos and opened the other two pictures that Wayne had saved to the desktop in the photo editing program. She played with color saturations and lighting levels to see if she could identify any editing work, but everything looked original. The photos were dark and grainy, taken in low light with no flash. One showed five figures – one of which looked like it was being dragged on the ground. That figure was wearing the dress Jill had worn in the party photos, although Kelly couldn’t see her face in the picture. Two of the shapes were crouched low and looked like dogs tugging on the body. The other two were standing; their faces were in shadow but did not look like anyone Kelly had ever seen before. In fact, they didn’t look like people at all – their bodies did, but their noses were elongated, and their teeth took up a much bigger area than Kelly had ever seen before.

  The second photo was even more unnerving. Two figures were standing in front of a building, under an amber street lamp. They were smoking, the glow from the ends of their cigarettes visible in their hands. One face, though somewhat cloaked by the cigarette smoke, gave Kelly the impression of a werewolf, but different. The second face was staring toward the camera.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Kel!”

  Kelly started, snapping her head up and looking wildly around. “What? Holy crap, Wayne, don’t scare me like that!” She pulled the earbuds out of her ears.

  “Jeez, Kel, I’ve been trying to get your attention,” Wayne sat at the table and chairs in front of the window. Light streamed into the room –– the sun was clearly past the horizon now. Kelly checked the clock on the laptop. It was nearly 7.