He’d bet his reputation on it.
Thirteen
Trevor Hayes moved up to the edge of the bed, letting his feet hang until they hit the white tile floor. Taylor was a foot away, and they turned toward each other, knees almost touching.
“Tell me everything,” Taylor said again. “Don’t leave anything out.” She was getting excited, but not in a happy way. She could tell she was about to learn some important information about the shadow creature.
The boy ran a hand through his hair before speaking. “My dad left us high and dry a few years ago. He ran an accounting firm in Ohio where we lived, and Mom says he had sex with an employee. When he got caught, he tried to make it right. He spoiled me, bought me things to buy my love back, but I thought he was an asshole.
“Mom didn’t deserve that. She worked hard her whole life, but she was scared to do it on her own. I’m the only kid they had.” Trevor paused and looked up to the light, squinting his eyes. “He fired the woman he cheated with, and she sued his ass off. He lost everything, and Mom left him after finding out the affair had gone on for over two years.”
“That sucks. I’m sorry, Trevor,” Taylor said.
He shrugged and kept sharing his story. “It’s okay. They were never very happy.” He laughed now, as if he’d told a really funny joke. “My mom must be beside herself. She used to come visit me, you know. Every week. She never believed me either. She kept telling me how this place would make me better, how I’d stop seeing things that weren’t there.”
“It must be hard.” Taylor wasn’t sure if telling Trevor what he saw was real would help in any way, but she knew it was the right course of action.
“It isn’t easy. I’ve been here for two years. At first they put me in a normal room with a ceiling light fixture. It still came.” Trevor was shaking now.
Taylor wanted every part of the story. “Go back to the start.”
He sighed again, blinking quickly. “Dad screwed us over, and Mom took what she had hidden away in a separate bank and came out this way, looking for work. She got a job at the dealership in Gilden as a receptionist.” Trevor smiled at this. “She was so happy to get that phone call. She told me we were going to be fine, and that we didn’t need Dad anymore. I’d be able to graduate locally and go to college, and become a lawyer.” He laughed again.
“You still can,” Taylor assured him, and he stopped chuckling to himself.
“She wanted to live in Gilden, close to work, but there wasn’t much out there that she could afford. Only crappy apartments, and she didn’t want us to live in a box, she said. We needed a house and a yard. Maybe we’d get a dog.” He had such hopeful eyes. Taylor didn’t have to ask if they ever got that dog.
He continued after a brief moment. “She found the house in Red Creek cheap. Cheaper than the apartments in Gilden, so we had no choice. I was so happy when we moved there. It was a little crappy, and only days after we moved in, I heard rumors about the town, even our house. Strange sightings around it. The local kids thought it was haunted, and the previous families living there had left after only months, breaking the lease.”
“Who owned it?” Taylor asked.
“We’re not sure. A management company from Gilden oversaw everything, so the owner was anonymous,” Trevor said.
Taylor found that a little fishy. “What happened next?” she asked.
“Nothing. It was great for two or three months. I started school, and at first, it was strange going to such a small place like Red Creek School, but I began to like it. I made some friends, and eighth grade was shaping up to be a wonderful year. Then I started to see it.”
“The shadow?”
“I liked to ride my bike down the path at the end of the block.” Trevor must have seen Taylor’s eyes go wide, because he stopped. “What?”
She wondered how much to tell him. “My dad said bad things happen there. It’s where he was taken. It’s where Jason Benning’s son was abducted. It seems to be a gateway or something.”
“That makes sense, because the first time I rode my bike out there, it was a fall evening. My friends refused to go further out. They said it was cursed by some witches. I didn’t believe any of the crap I heard about Red Creek. It was the stuff from horror movies or books, not real life. It was dusk, the sun low in the horizon, and it was fighting to peek through the sparsely-leafed trees. It’s funny,” Trevor said, “I can still taste the air that night. Does that make sense?”
Taylor thought about how vivid her memories were of that underground cave beneath the orchard. “Perfect sense.”
“I rode the bike over some fallen branches, slipped in some mud, and crashed into a tree. I was okay. I got up, wiped my hands on my jeans, and there it was. In the distance, looming beside a tree.”
“What did it look like?” Taylor asked.
“Like it was shrouded in black mist. It reminded me of a hot chocolate outside in the dead of winter.” Trevor’s hand was stretched out, like he was holding a cup. “It was tall, and I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I was so scared.” He glanced up to the lights along the edges of the ceiling, and stared at them until Taylor wanted to tell him to stop. Then he blinked again and looked away.
“That’s what I saw too,” she assured him.
Trevor’s shoulders relaxed; he was obviously pleased he wasn’t the only one. “You’re not messing with me, are you? This isn’t some kind of sick game you’re playing, right?”
“No, Trevor, not at all. Did he come for you then?” she asked, anxious to hear more about the creature’s movements. It was imperative that she learn about it. If it was still around, that meant something to her now that she’d read the journal. And she thought maybe she’d be able to stop it.
“It disappeared as quickly as it arrived. One minute it was watching me from fifty yards away, the next the black mist poured away until there was nothing left but empty air. I was so scared. I started to run, only to remember I left my bike. I had to double back, and now it was dark out. It was almost as if an hour had passed instead of five minutes. I got the bike and rode like hell home.” Trevor’s voice was getting louder, his breathing labored, almost as if he was pedaling for his life again in that room right then.
“You’re okay, Trevor. Did you tell anyone?” Taylor asked, trying to distract him.
“My mom would have been pissed if she knew I was out in the woods after dark, so I parked my bike and came in, telling her I just came from my friend’s house. I ran to my room, turned on all my lights, and waited for it to come for me,” Trevor said.
“And did it?”
“No. I didn’t see it again for a month or so. I was sure I’d seen something, and had convinced myself of that. Life went back to normal. Mom was doing well at work, and I started playing on the basketball team at school.
“Then, one night when the snow first started to fall, I was walking home after practice and I went into the back yard. The porch light snapped on, and I saw it through the fence, a black form standing in the field just a few feet from our yard. I ran into the house and looked out my window, but it had vanished.” Trevor coughed, startling Taylor. She felt like she was there with him, looking for the figure out his window.
“It kept happening. My mom didn’t believe me. Months of this. Every few days, sometimes a week between, but there it was. All through the winter, I saw it out in the snow, flickering for a few moments at a time, but by the end of the winter, it was there for longer periods of time,” he said.
Taylor considered this. Maybe it had weakened after the Smiths were gone and its nest was burned. The fact that it appeared in and out of sight would support that theory.
“What changed? What happened that brought you from being scared in your room to here in this place?” Taylor motioned to the space around them.
“It came for me.” Trevor took a deep breath, and Taylor was ready for it. She clenched her jaw and leaned toward the boy. “It was spring…”
Taylor shudder
ed. It was spring now. She wondered if that was relevant. Maybe it hibernated. But he’d seen it through the winter, and it hadn’t made any moves for him. Was it projecting? That would make sense.
“The snow was melting, and I hadn’t seen it for weeks, maybe a month. I started to wonder if it was me. Mom was worried and began sending me to see a doctor in Gilden once a week. I told him everything, and I think he worried I was being abused. He asked my mom if there were any men in her life, or if I’d said anything about a man on the block, or a teacher that kept me after class. She asked me all of these questions, and I knew why. I yelled at her that no one was doing anything to me, but she didn’t believe me. She doted on me, driving me to and from school. She almost lost her job because she took so much time off to try to help me.
“It stopped for that month, and I thought I was free. Then it came. Mom was stuck at work, and she called, telling me that she’d ordered pizza, and that I had to pay for it when the guy showed up. The doorbell rang, and I opened it, but there was no pizza delivery man. An old woman walked by, and she locked eyes with me before the shadow moved between us. It lifted from the ground, directly before me, and grabbed my arm. I felt its hand push through me. Ice cold. Wet.”
It had clutched Taylor so firmly and solidly, it had burned. This only reiterated her growing suspicions.
“The pizza guy showed up, his headlights burst the shadow into a million black drops, and I ran. I nearly tripped on the woman standing there, and the pizza guy shouted after me,” Trevor said quietly.
“Where did you go?” Taylor asked, picturing the scene in her mind’s eye.
“I don’t know. They found me hours later at the church. You know, the little one off Main. I was curled in a ball screaming. That’s when they brought me here.” Trevor’s gaze snapped to the door as someone banged on it from the hall.
It opened to reveal Brent pushing past the orderly. “We should get going,” he said, glancing at Trevor.
“Why?” Taylor got to her feet.
“Another kid is reported missing,” Brent said.
“Stop this, Taylor. You have to,” Trevor said. He was pushed to the back of the bed again. All color had drained from his face.
_______________
“You can’t leave Stevie and me here, Paul!” Terri shouted at him outside the SUV in the hotel parking lot. Stevie was scared, remaining inside the vehicle. They didn’t fight often, and it was even rarer for one of them to raise their voices at one another.
“I can’t bring you guys to Red Creek, can I?” He was stressed out. Why would Taylor return there after what happened to her? Paul had spent most of her life reminding her how bad it was for her there, even though he thought the threat was gone now.
“You’ve told me a thousand times that the monster is gone, vanished with the Smiths and their precious orchard. If that’s the case, then you have no reason for not bringing us!” Terri was yelling, and Paul tried to get her to keep her voice lower. The hotel was nice, and he was glad he hadn’t used valet parking, because they were making a big enough scene a half block from the hotel entrance.
When he didn’t reply right away, Terri kept going. “Were you lying to me all those years, Paul? Is it still there?”
“No. I don’t know.” He was getting frazzled. Terri’s make-up was running down her cheeks, and Stevie was in the backseat, moving around like a trapped cat. “I mean… I think it’s gone, but I might be wrong. I can’t risk it.”
“Paul, I’m not saying it again. I’m getting in the car, and we’re going to Red Creek as a family. We’ll get Taylor as a family, and we’ll leave as a family. Got it?” The last two words were quiet, almost lost in the breeze, and Paul pulled her close now that the wind was out of her sails. She cried into his vest, and he stroked her hair.
Against all of his instincts, he agreed to her terms, mostly because he couldn’t stand to see her upset. “Fine. Let’s go.” He led her to the passenger side and opened the door for her. She gave him a weak smile and wiped her face.
Paul could hear her calming down Stevie as he walked around the Range Rover, and when he got in, Stevie tried to talk to him. “Dad. We’re going to find Taylor, right?”
“Of course, kid,” Paul said.
“Is she in trouble?” Stevie asked, and Paul wasn’t sure if he meant danger or trouble from her dad. He decided the answer would be the same.
“No. She’s not in trouble. We’re going to her now.” Paul was already driving away from the hotel, toward Red Creek.
Terri was trying to call their daughter’s phone, but it kept going to voicemail. She texted her too, but got no response.
“If she’s there, Beth has to know something about it,” Terri said, but Paul wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t think Beth would hide something like this from me, do you?” Paul was already hurt that his daughter had gone behind his back like this, but if his own sister was in on it, then he’d be doubly upset.
“We’re going to find out,” Terri said, grabbing Paul’s phone and putting the call on the vehicle’s speaker. “Stevie, just keep quiet, okay? Maybe listen to your headphones.”
Paul glanced in the mirror and saw Stevie put his headphones over his head, but doubted his son turned the volume on. He didn’t blame him either. He was scared because his parents were freaking out and acting erratically.
The phone rang, and his sister answered after two rings. “Paul. What a surprise. I wasn’t expecting…”
“Beth, is she there?” Paul asked, not wanting to bother with the normal niceties. When she didn’t answer right away, he knew the truth. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“She’s such a sweet girl, Paul. She and Izzy are like sisters, and they wanted to see each other. You should see them here. They’re thick as thieves.” Beth’s voice was high-pitched, like a kid explaining their reasoning to a parent.
“That’s no excuse. You know what happened!” Paul had to relax. He was too worked up over the whole scenario. Terri was right. Whatever he’d encountered twelve years ago was gone. Or was it? Tyler had sounded worried on the phone. He’d done a thorough check of the orchard and found nothing. If it had survived, wouldn’t it have killed before now?
“I also know that we’ve lived here for my whole life, and Isabelle is a wonderful nineteen-year-old girl. If I thought there was a reason to be concerned, then why did I stay here when you offered to help us get a place elsewhere a hundred times?” Beth said, getting defensive.
“Maybe you’re right, but I can’t believe she went back,” Paul said. Terri was fixing her make-up in the mirror, and he could tell she was trying to compartmentalize her fears and worry. She always bit her lip when she did so. It was a distraction technique she said worked for her.
“They’re fine.” His sister seemed sure of it.
“Is the boyfriend there?” Paul asked, wincing internally.
“Oh, you know about Brent,” Beth said.
“I do now. Is he an asshole? Tell me the truth,” Paul said, bracing himself.
“From what I’ve seen, he’s kind and considerate. Taylor really seems to like him,” she answered.
“Good. Good.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“Paul, are you driving?” his sister asked.
“What gave it away?” He couldn’t keep the sass out of his voice.
“Oh God, are you coming here?” she asked. Now she was the worried one.
“Is that a bad thing?” Terri asked, chiming in for the first time. Gone was any sign she’d cried at all.
Beth hesitated. “She’s going to be mad at me.”
“I won’t say anything. Her roomie at Bellton gave her away. I won’t even tell her I called you first, deal?” Paul didn’t want to cause any more waves than he had to. Maybe going to Red Creek wasn’t going to be so bad. He could see Darrel, and they got along now. He had a hard time remembering their rocky relationship before twelve years ago. They’d become fast friends, and while they were very
different people, they were bonded for life.
“When are you going to be here?” Beth asked.
“An hour, give or take,” Paul said.
“Okay. I’ll get some groceries. We can have a nice family dinner tonight.” Paul could hear his sister fumbling in her kitchen for a piece of paper. She always made lists before going to the store.
“Sounds great. See you soon,” Paul said, feeling much better about the whole scenario.
Taylor had only wanted to visit her cousin and aunt and uncle for the holiday. Was there anything wrong with that? He’d kept them apart for so long, with the exception of the odd visit to the city from their end. No wonder Taylor had decided to go there. Her school was nearby. Now that he thought about it, he was surprised she hadn’t gone to Red Creek already that year. Maybe she had.
He forgot Beth was still on the line. “See you guys soon. Red or white, Terri?”
It was a game between them. Terri preferred red wine, and Beth didn’t care, and she always got it wrong when bringing a bottle to Manhattan with her.
“Surprise me,” Terri said with a laugh.
The call ended, and Paul felt better.
Stevie grinned at him from the backseat when he checked the rearview, and Paul decided to go with the flow. He wasn’t going to let anything ruin his return to Red Creek. It would only be the second visit he’d made in over thirty years, but he’d be damned if it was going to be anything like last time.
Fourteen
Tom’s shoes were caked in mud, and so were his pants, up to his knees. He didn’t care. Along the trail, he was sure he’d seen signs of sporadic footprints between the nearby condo and the Karlssons’ home a mile and a half up the hill. Nothing definitive, but he was positive someone had come this way.
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