The Dead and the Dark

by Courtney Gould

  “I wish I could see their faces when they find it.” Paul laughed, part of a conversation Ashley had long since tuned out. He nudged John.

  “I don’t care about their faces. I just want them to admit it,” John said.

  “That, too,” Paul relented.

  Over the last year, all of them had changed. But John Paris had changed the most. Instead of the scrawny pale boy he’d been junior year, he was now six feet tall with shoulders as wide as a horse’s and a square jaw that made him look just like his father. He was colder now, too. He wasn’t the boy who rode ATVs around the hills all summer with Paul and Tristan. He was more serious, like over the course of a single school year he’d turned into an adult. In a few years, he’d either be at Barton Lumber or training to join the police like his dad.

  “Needs more wood,” John said, ignoring Paul completely. He slapped his knee and stood to face Fran. “Wanna help?”

  Fran’s eyes widened. “Oh, yeah. Cool.”

  John smiled at her and they made their way toward the trees, leaving Ashley sitting opposite Bug and Paul. The fire popped and crackled, licks of orange flashing against the velvety night. A pile of firewood was stacked next to it—more than enough to last for hours.

  So they’d been ditched.

  “I’m gonna get a truck,” Paul said, angled toward Bug. Puberty may have blessed John, but it’d done the opposite for Paul. He’d grown at least six inches in the last year, but his limbs were still gangly, eyes sunken so deep they looked bruised. He flashed a toothy smile at Bug and the firelight sank into the deep crevices of his face. “Well, I’m probably getting one.”

  Bug’s eyes remained on the fire. “Awesome.”

  “Yeah. My dad says if I can fix up this old Tacoma he got from the tow lot, I can have it. He’s teaching me how to fix the radiator.”

  “Nice.”

  Paul kept talking, oblivious to the way Bug avoided eye contact. This was usually when Ashley and Tristan would meet eyes and Tristan would shake his head. Ashley would have to bite her lip to stop from laughing. Later, when everyone else had gone home and it was just her and Tristan in the back of her truck under the stars, she would put on her best Paul voice and say, My dad taught me how to change oil the other day. A truck with a fresh oil change? That’s art. And Tristan would laugh until he wheezed. He would pull Ashley against his chest and they would be a tangle of laughs and kisses until her mom called and they had to race back to town before sunrise.

  Ashley pressed fingers to her lips and traced the small smile there. She was sitting at the fire mourning the person she was supposed to be sitting with. She opened her text message window with Tristan—his last message was too bright. Too short.

  T: I can wait.

  She rubbed at her eyes and tried to rope herself back into the conversation.

  Then she saw it.

  At the edge of the trees, just beyond where John and Fran had disappeared, a figure sat on a severed juniper trunk. At first glance, it looked like it could be a shadow. But it didn’t feel like a shadow. Its limbs were too long, chest too still, face too empty. It pulled at her, just like the black lake water had pulled at her. It watched her, unmoving. In the dark, Ashley thought it grew, fusing into the dark between the trees.

  Bug stiffened. “What’s wrong?”

  “Do you see someone?” Ashley asked. “Sitting on the tree.”

  “There’s no one there,” Paul stated, matter-of-fact.

  Bug squinted. “I’m trying to see—”

  The figure stood, but its movement wasn’t right. It was jagged, abrupt, pained. The figure didn’t approach them. It only watched. Ashley felt sweat bead at the nape of her neck. Her chest was cold and tight, heart thumping a slow, fearful march.

  “How do you not see it?” she asked.

  Bug clutched her hoodie closer to her chest. “I’m … what does it look like?”

  “It’s right there.”

  “Ash,” Bug said, quieter, “I don’t see anything.”

  The figure turned away from the campfire and made its way into the trees. There was something familiar about it. It was the same figure she’d seen during the search a few days earlier, but even more familiar. She’d seen its back before—she knew the shape of it. Ashley stared into the empty shadows and it hit her. “Oh my god.”

  “Ashley,” Bug hissed.

  She ran.

  In a few strides she hit the tree line, and then she was in the dark. Everything was different here, like the trees had tugged her out of the world of open water and night skies and into an empty void. There was an electric buzz to the woods. Footsteps pulsed against the packed dirt from all directions. She ran deeper into the dark, clinging to the sound because it meant she wasn’t imagining him.

  He had been here the whole time.

  The trees fell away and she came to a small clearing. Moonlight sifted through the trees, streaking the dirt silver. Ashley leaned against a tree to catch her breath. For a moment, she thought she’d lost him. The footsteps were gone. There was no more wind, no more stars, no more crickets or rustling branches or water lapping lazily at the shore behind her.

  Instead, there was the black silhouette of a cabin, stark against the night.

  And there was breathing.

  It was measured inhales and calm exhales. She recognized the sound from years of comfortable silence—it was Tristan’s breathing. It was as familiar to her as the shape of his back disappearing into the trees. She smelled him here, coating the trees in the scent of diesel fuel and mowed grass. He was here, but the clearing was empty.

  “Tristan,” Ashley croaked.

  Tristan’s breathing changed, quickened like he was afraid. Ashley scrambled to the middle of the clearing, but Tristan was nowhere. She’d seen him by the lake. She heard him here. There was no way she was alone.

  The breathing changed again, faster, rattling like there was something caught in his throat.

  “I…” Tristan’s voice crackled.

  “Tristan?” Ashley fell to her knees and the trees spiraled around her.

  “Ashley.”

  Not Tristan. Ashley looked down at her trembling hands. Dirt crumbled between her fingertips. She whipped around, searching the shadows.

  Behind her, there was a flash of red.

  “Ashley, what’s…?”

  Ashley blinked. A figure emerged from between the trees, but it wasn’t Tristan. Fran knelt next to her and put a hand on her wrist. Her sweatshirt was bunched up, hair mussed like hands had been knotted in it. John stood a few feet behind her with his arms folded over his chest. His red swim trunks glared in the dark.

  “Did you say Tristan?” John asked. “Where is he?”

  Ashley shook her head. Her heart hammered. She sucked in a ragged breath, trying to find her footing.

  “Ashley, Tristan isn’t here.” Fran’s grip on her wrist tightened. She turned to face John. “She’s freaking out. We should take her home.”

  “Where did you see him?” John asked again.

  “John,” Fran snapped. “She’s—”

  Ashley shook her head and it was like the world shifted with her. She wanted to stand—to keep looking for Tristan—but her chest ached. She doubled over into Fran’s arms and cried. Tristan was here, but she couldn’t reach him. Something kept them apart, cold and dark and lonely. Ashley was looking, but she couldn’t reach him.

  She was afraid.

  9

  The Choking Light

  Logan is in the kitchen.

  The lights are off and the kitchen is dark, save for the searing green numbers on the microwave that read 2:34 a.m. The windows stretch from floor to ceiling so that the night spills onto the black tile floor. The San Fernando Valley unfurls into a basin of noise and light outside. It isn’t lonely here like it is on the road. But it’s still empty.

  The front door clicks open.

  He ambles into the kitchen without turning on the lights, stumbling like he’s drunk. He glances
at the microwave and sighs. Even with all the lights outside, he doesn’t see her. He only sees the dark. Sometimes, Logan thinks it’s all he wants to see.

  Alejo is already in bed. She should be in bed, too. Brandon throws open the refrigerator and absently stares inside, looking for something he never finds. The white light from the fridge pours over Logan’s face, but even then, Brandon doesn’t see her. He isn’t looking for her.

  When he spots her, his gasp is small and nervous, the sound fluttering like moth’s wings from the linoleum. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Just getting water,” Logan says. Her words echo like she’s underwater. She is too close to her own voice. “Where were you?”

  Brandon adjusts his glasses. Logan looks at him, but she can’t see his face.

  “Research for work,” Brandon says.

  “What kind of research?”

  “Ah.” Brandon leans against the granite island and folds his arms. The room darkens around them. “It’s pretty late. Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

  “Okay.” Logan slumps. “Good night.”

  But Brandon’s posture changes. He puts an arm against the wall and blocks her from standing. When he speaks, his voice is deeper. It comes from everywhere at once.

  “You know where you sleep.”

  And then the kitchen is gone.

  Logan is lying down. Fear rises up in her like bile. She is lying in a hole so deep the only thing she can see above her is the night sky, black and freckled with starlight.

  Brandon reappears over her.

  “Goodbye, Logan,” he says. He shovels a mound of dirt and tosses it over the hole. The dirt slaps across her face, and—

  * * *

  Logan woke with a gasp.

  Urine-colored light glared through her closed blinds. The motel room was muggy and warm and smelled like mildew. Logan rolled to her side and her sheets stuck to her skin, hair plastered to the back of her neck. She choked until her throat was raw, until her mouth tasted like iron, until the crawling dregs of soil left her cheeks, until she was sure she was awake.

  “Not real,” Logan whispered, tenderly massaging her neck. She touched her comforter, her nightstand, the wall behind her bed, and breathed, “Real.”

  It wasn’t an entirely new nightmare. She’d dreamed of the kitchen a thousand times, but that last part—the burial—was a twist. She massaged her throat, gently reminding herself that here, in the motel room, she could breathe.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  Logan scrambled from her bed and pressed herself to the wall. She pried an opening in the blinds and searched the dark, but she couldn’t quite angle enough to see the door of her room. The motel sign flickered against a thin layer of fog, but otherwise, nothing moved. The parking lot was eerily still.

  “Is anyone awake?” a voice called from outside.

  Logan approached the door and peered through the eyehole. She didn’t recognize the boy on the other side of the door. He shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, wearing a beanie, a flannel, and half-framed glasses that sat too low on his nose. Against her better judgment, Logan opened the motel door. Cool wind snuck under the hem of her sleep shirt.

  “What?” she snapped.

  The boy’s hands were clasped in front of him, fingers twisted into frantic knots. “Sorry. I, uh … you should come look.”

  Logan rolled her eyes. The boy backed up and motioned to the wall between her room and room eight. At first, she couldn’t see it. She rubbed her eyes, blinking away the sleep, and the spray-painted letters shifted into focus.

  The first word was one she’d seen a hundred times in the comment sections under her fathers’ videos. In person, it burned. She approached the slur; it stretched the full width of the wall between their doors, red paint glaring at her. Only four letters, but each one was a punch to the gut. Whoever had left it had the forethought to make it plural.

  The phrase below it was what snatched her breath away. YOU KILLED HIM.

  The door swung open. A pajama-clad Alejo stepped into the threshold and stifled a yawn in the crook of his elbow. Logan’s stomach dropped. She was overcome with the sudden urge to throw herself over the door if it meant he and Brandon didn’t see it, too.

  “What’s going on?” Brandon asked, joining them outside.

  Alejo rubbed his eyes and followed Logan’s gaze to the wall. When he saw it, he said nothing. The night smelled like old garbage and laundry.

  “Bran, I don’t think you should—”

  Brandon adjusted his glasses and stared at the slur. Wordlessly, he ambled back into the motel room, hand perched to cover his face.

  “We should talk to the cops,” Logan said. “People can’t—”

  Alejo turned and put his hands on her shoulders. His expression was impossible to read—concern, fear, anger, pity—and he shook his head. “No. Don’t worry about that. We—Gracia will come help us cover it in the morning. It’s not…”

  “It’s not what?” Logan asked.

  Alejo looked past her at the boy who’d woken them. “Elexis. I almost didn’t recognize you in the dark.”

  The boy nodded. “I’m sorry, Tío. I tried to wake you up first, but—”

  “Thank you for letting us know.” Alejo sucked in a sharp breath. “Why don’t you get back to sleep? We’ll take it from here.”

  Elexis made his way back across the parking lot, ducking into the motel room on the far end of the building. Logan made a mental note of it—if Alejo was his tío, that made Elexis her family, too.

  Logan furrowed her brow. “You were gonna say it’s not a big deal.”

  A hate crime was a big deal, actually. Logan was no expert, but she was pretty sure hate crimes were illegal. She was pretty sure the police were supposed to do something about them.

  Alejo looked over his shoulder, eyes fixed on Brandon, silhouette outlined in the pale light of the motel room. He didn’t seem surprised or angry or even disappointed. He was just … quiet. He looked like he had in her dream, broad and emotionless. Unreadable.

  “No cops,” Alejo said. He pulled her into a hug, cupping her head against his shoulder. “Just us. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

  Somehow, she doubted that.

  10

  From The Beginning

  “Where’s Paris?”

  Ashley slapped her palm on the front desk of the Owyhee County police station, startling Becky Golden out of her usual cheery daze. The station lobby was eerily quiet at nine in the morning, the silence broken only by the hum of an outdated computer and the fridge in the break room.

  The world spun too fast. After Fran and John had taken her home, she hadn’t slept. It was a miracle she hadn’t woken her mother with her restless pacing. It didn’t make sense—she’d seen Tristan in the woods, heard his breathing, been close enough to reach out and touch him. Her voice echoed from the brick walls, reverberating back at her like a slap.

  Becky blinked. “Ashley? Are you okay? You look sick.”

  “I’m fine. Where’s Paris?”

  “At home, probably. I can call him if it’s an emergency.”

  An emergency. Ashley wanted to laugh. She didn’t have words to describe what this was. Emergency definitely didn’t cover it, though. The rasping, gurgling sound of Tristan’s breathing was branded into her. Even after sleep, it was all she could hear. It was beyond an emergency.

  “Tristan was in the woods,” Ashley said. “I think he’s hurt.”

  “Oh my god,” Becky said. She took Ashley’s shaking hand in hers and reached for her desk phone. “Where is he now? At the ranch?”

  “No. I think he’s still out there.”

  “You left him?”

  Ashley wavered. “I … I don’t remember.”

  “You didn’t see where he went?”

  Ashley shook her head. She eyed the mustard-colored countertop. “He was hurt, though. He probably didn’t get far.”

  Becky narrowed her eyes, finger paused on the
dial pad. This was the same Becky Golden who had started out as Barton Ranch’s receptionist. The same Becky Golden who’d sold Ashley her first horse. Who still stopped by the ranch for chardonnay and gossip on a weekly basis. She had been a family friend since before Ashley could walk, but right now she looked at Ashley like she was a stranger.

  “Ashley, I’m a little confused.”

  Ashley cleared her throat. “Me and my friends were across the lake and I saw him. I followed him into the trees, but then it was like he just … wasn’t there. I could still hear him. I don’t know how, but I know he was there.”

  Becky gave her a pitying once-over. Ashley hadn’t bothered to change into clean clothes—her shirt was smattered with dirt, fingertips black with grime, shoes coated in a layer of muck. She was sure she looked crazy. Maybe she was crazy.

  “Ashley,” Becky said softly. “Does Tammy know you’re here?”

  Ashley shook her head.

  Becky leaned in like their conversation was a secret. “I know this has been so hard for you. I have a cousin over in Ontario. He’s a counselor. Maybe you could talk to him about all this.”

  “What?”

  “I thought therapy was only for weirdos, but I tell you, it really helped Tom since he lost his mom.” Becky pulled a sticky note from her desk and scrawled out a phone number. She handed it to Ashley with an over-proud grin. “For when you’re ready.”

  “Wait,” Ashley said. “I don’t need this. I need Paris.”

  Becky sighed.

  “I’m not making it up.”

  “No, of course not.” Becky frowned and brushed a thumb over Ashley’s knuckles. Her skin was soft and smelled like rose lotion. “Grief can do strange things to your head, though.”

  “I wasn’t hallucinating.”

  “Sounds like a ghost,” someone said.

  Ashley traced the voice across the lobby. A girl sat in one of the plastic lobby chairs with a home-improvement magazine sprawled across her lap. Ashley’s eyes widened with the realization that she wasn’t alone. It was the girl from the side of the road the day of Tristan’s vigil—the girl from the gift shop—slouched in her chair like she’d been there for hours, eyebrow curiously quirked.