Dark Secrets Box Set

by Angela M Hudson

  “I wish I was.” He offered a comfortable smile.

  “No!” I pushed up and got to my feet. “You need to leave. Now!”

  “Ara, I—”

  “No!” I screamed. “You hurt me. You’re a monster. You don’t get absolution.”

  “I don’t want absolution.” He appeared beside me. “If you just let me talk to you, I can make you understand—”

  “There’s nothing for me to understand.” I looked up into his warm, almost human eyes, my voice becoming unsteady again. “You stay the hell away from me!”

  This time, I felt strong enough to walk past him, to leave him at my back where I couldn’t see what he was plotting. My skin crawled, but I kept going, cringing when a cold breeze picked up and I thought I heard a whispering apology along it.

  I spun around to yell at him, but he was gone.

  The crickets hummed again, starting their chorus’ all over the lakeside, one after the other, spreading word that it was safe—that we were all okay. And standing amidst the dark and cold, right across the road from home, from normality, the fight to hold back tears just took too much effort.

  Convulsing with sobs, I took my phone out and checked the time, half wishing it would ring—that Mike would call and I could tell him everything; tell him who it was that attacked me, tell him how Jason saved me, held me softly, talked to me like David would, then confessed that he… that he…

  The reality hit me heavily then.

  He fell for me?

  9

  The house looked so dark, so empty, despite the front light being on. I prayed silently for Mike to be awake, not wanting to walk in there if the house was void of his warmth, but as I pulled my keys from the lock and pushed the door open, dead silence greeted me.

  I folded over and cried into my hands for a second.

  My bedroom door sat open, the lonely darkness inside reaching out onto the tiles, but all the same, seeming homely and comforting, reminding me I was safe. I was home and, though Mike wasn’t right there in the lounge room, he was at least here—in my house. And I could always wake him. He wouldn’t mind.

  I placed my keys in the bowl on the hall-stand and tiptoed through to the kitchen, finding more dark, more silence, which made my quiet sobs seem so much louder. I didn’t want to wake him if he was sleeping, and though I was upset, the last thing I wanted was for him to run out from his room with that look of concern and ask me why I was crying. I had to tell him. I had to finally tell him who did that to me, who attacked me. But if he asked me, I knew I’d close up and not say anything.

  I walked on my toes a little, holding my nose to stop the sobs coming out as I passed Emily’s room and headed down the hall to Mike’s, a wave of relief easing my soul when I saw the yellow glow coming from under his door.

  Instead of bursting in and falling into his loving arms though, I hesitated, leaning on the wall with my head rolled back, eyes tightly closed. How could I explain this to Mike? How could I tell him that Jason kidnapped and tortured me and that, tonight, he saved me? I couldn’t even comprehend it, so I damn-well couldn’t expect Mike to have anything clever to say about it either. And worse, Jason said he was sorry.

  How dare he? And how dare I sit and listen to that?

  With a nod of certainty, I gripped the door handle. I had to tell Mike. We could be angry at Jason together.

  “Mike…” I pushed the door open. “I need to tell you som—oh my God!” I slammed it shut, covering my face. “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

  Every muscle in my body singed in slow motion, image after image tightening my gut with a nauseating twist. Blonde hair. Soft skin. Mike’s hands. His hands on…

  My hands shook against my lips, racing tears falling between them. I looked up to the wall, the roof, the doorway, not sure where to go or what to do or how to feel.

  “Ara!” His door swung open, and like a deer spotting a hunter, I ran, grabbed my keys, fled past my room, past the porch and to the gate, shutting it behind me as Mike reached the front step, still buttoning his jeans. It took him the same amount of time to get the gate open and reach for my door handle as it took me to hop in my car and slam the lock into place.

  “Ara!” He banged my window. “Baby, wait.”

  “I can’t,” I sobbed, tears streaming over my cheeks, each one an image I wish I hadn’t seen. One for Emily’s naked, golden skin—her legs wrapped tightly around my best friend. Another for his strong hands—the hands that held me safely—cupping her hips, tangling in her soft, blonde hair. And the rest for the death of everything he’d promised me in the future.

  “Baby, please?” His voice broke with panic. “Come back inside.”

  I fumbled with my car keys, hands shaking.

  He tugged at my door handle, his pleas muffled beyond the glass. “Ara, let me talk to you.”

  I shook my head, swallowing the hot, swelling golf ball in my throat.

  “Ara!”

  “Just leave me alone,” I whispered and shoved the car into gear, forcing Mike to either release his hold or be dragged under the tires as I squealed down the street, without looking back.

  * * *

  My mouth was dry. My hands numb on the steering wheel. My heart tight—too tight. So many different emotions raced through me like they’d been randomly selected from a bucket, staying for only a moment before moving aside for the next.

  I just didn’t know what to feel. At one point, I even felt a little excitement—maybe a kind of joy—for Emily and Mike, knowing they’d be so great for each other.

  But that was quickly pushed aside for a round of sheer hatred. For both of them. And though the intense need to cry was so overbearing I’d held my breath for longer than I thought possible, the numbness dominated everything, making it impossible to tip my heart over the edge of any emotion. I felt the tears push up in the corners of my eyes, but they just didn’t spill.

  Everything had just gone so wrong tonight; things had taken a turn down a road I never expected, and it seemed—looking around the dark strip of road ahead of me—I’d done the same.

  The rain came pouring down in waterfalls over my windshield, the wipers barely doing their job. Visibility beyond that was probably not even fifty percent, and since I’d simply turned the wheel whenever I came to an intersection, I’d now found myself on a road with no houses, no cars for the last twenty minutes and, from what I could tell, no turns either.

  I leaned closer to the dash to get a good look out past the darkness and the reflection of my yellow headlights off the rain, but all I could see were trees. Lots of trees. I checked my rear-view, considering a U-turn, then glanced at the flashing fuel light, warning me I had less than enough to make it back as far as I’d come. To add to my problems, I’d run from the house faster than a cat from a broom and hadn’t thought to bring my phone in case I ended up lost in the middle of nowhere, by myself.

  Then again, who would I call?

  Mike? And say what?

  Hey, Mike. I just saw parts of you I’ve never seen before entering parts of Emily I never wanted to see, and I’m completely heartbroken, but… do you think you could come get me because, in my emotional state, I made a stupid mistake and drove my car without thinking, and now I’m lost and scared?

  Yeah, I could see that going down well.

  I could call Dad or Vicki, but that would mean explaining what happened. Then again, Mike probably called Dad already to see if I’d gone there.

  I looked out at the desolate world of trees and possibly dangerous wildlife, wishing I had gone to Dad’s.

  The rain was coming down so hard now I couldn’t see that far up ahead to make out anything but black. There didn’t seem to be any hope of a town or a gas station, so I eased my foot off the accelerator and rolled to a steady stop in the middle of the road.

  Thunder grumbled somewhere out there above the canopy of trees, but though I waited for my fear of storms to resurface, it just didn’t. In many ways, I felt almost sheltered out h
ere—from the storm, anyway. I guess I understood now that storms were not the worst thing a person could face.

  The wipers squeaked in front of me, the gentle glow of my headlights still showing slanted streaks of rain, while the cold in the car settled in around my toes, stiffening them a little. I hugged myself, double-checking the door locks.

  Beside the road, beyond the thin trunks of tall, obviously ancient trees, the chilling feel of peering eyes stood the hairs on my neck to attention. Maybe it was a hungry bear. Maybe a creepy murderer. Maybe a vampire. Then again, if it was a vampire, I’d be safer than if it was a human. I mean, what reason would a human have for being all the way out here on a night like this? Nothing savory, I think.

  My shoulders dropped a little. The only way I was going to find my way home was to get out of my car, into the cold rain and openness of this nowhere, and see if I could make out the stars, hopefully spot Polaris so I could gauge my position.

  I slipped the gearstick to first and rolled slowly to the shoulder of the road, the muddy gravel squelching under my tires. Outside it sounded like a busy street; the wind as the roar of a train, the rain on the roof the patter of a thousand footsteps, and the shelter, the closed-in feeling of the car, like being packed between twenty bodies in a train—too warm, too tight—suffocating.

  The locks came up, the door handle flicked back, and I flung myself from the car, my foot sliding under it in the muddy pool I parked in, making my knees wet and my hands clot in the sludge before I realized I’d fallen down.

  “Gross.” I shook my hand, flicking the giant pod of mud away, then stumbled to my feet again, holding my hands out to the rain to clean them.

  Above me, a tightly-laced canopy shrouded the sky. There was no way I could see through it to find a star or even the moon.

  In my car, the fuel light was still on, and the rain was soaking the dash inside, leaving moist friends behind to stink my car out tomorrow when the heat returned and partially dried it. I kicked the door shut with my heel and wandered into the beam of my headlights, peering beyond the trees for proof of life. But only white lines of thin trees stared back at me for a few hundred feet before the blackness swallowed them.

  Suddenly, I felt very alone. Out here, away from buildings and sidewalks, the rain sounded different—fuller, almost wetter—and as the thunder growled, sweeping wind brushed the branches of the trees like a hand along a fence. It was too cold to walk. Too dark to see. Too dangerous to wait for a car I could flag down and hitch a ride from. The only real option was to get back in my car, all muddy and wet, and try to get some sleep. Hopefully, when the sun came up, a kind stranger with a cellphone might come along or, at worst, I could walk, following the road until I found something—anything.

  On the bright side, at least I was smart enough not to attempt a ‘short cut’ through the forest.

  I folded my arms across my wet body and trudged back toward the car but stopped dead when I saw a sign—just a small rectangle plank of wood on a post, hammered into the ground at the border of the forest. If there was a sign out here, surely there must be people nearby, or at least it might give directions to a bed and breakfast.

  But as I neared the wet, faded sign, my steps slowed. I could barely make out the picture, though it looked like a red circle—like the No Smoking ones—with a dog in the middle. Why wouldn’t dogs be allowed out here?

  I knelt down, touching my thumb to it as if to bring some of the image back. And as I looked with more consideration, realized it wasn’t a dog but a fox.

  There were foxes out here?

  The rain stopped suddenly, silence amplifying the sound of my concern. Did foxes eat stupid young girls who drove to the middle of nowhere in an emotional state?

  I stood up, looking to the base of the trees for any bushes or hedges the foxes might be hiding in. Then again, the sign did say No Foxes, which should mean, if foxes could read, that there wouldn’t be any foxes out here, right?

  But, then again, last I checked, foxes couldn’t…

  My skin crawled with little bumps as a memory sunk in.

  Foxes can’t read.

  My head whipped up. I tilted my nose to the sky, drawing a deeper breath of the fruity rain, tinted with the light scent of pine. And I knew then, with all my heart, that only meters up ahead the road turned completely to dirt and a pair of evergreens would be there to greet me, sentries to a world I once knew only with David.

  “The lake.”

  The rain started again, and I closed my eyes, reveling in the soft caress of the breeze, each breath of it touching my face, having come from a place David once was. I could feel him here, feel his memory in everything around me. And everything I thought I’d forgotten—all the pictures of his face, the feel of his hand in mine—it all came back to me. The trees didn’t seem so tall, the night seemed suddenly brighter and the images of all the things I’d seen tonight fuzzier.

  Everything in me, every ounce of sense I had said don’t walk into those trees, don’t go to that lake, but the call of comfort and familiarity screamed louder, so I walked, heel over toe, balancing each step carefully, looking only at my feet as the bitumen became dirt, well, mud, and the mud slipped between a line of trees.

  And there they were: a pair of evergreens, welcoming me with swaying boughs. The trees thickened here, almost closing the forest in, but aside from the branches all having grown in the time I’d been away, kind of covering the trail beyond, I was still just as sure that this was the entrance to the lake’s path.

  As I ducked into the brush and started down the trail, wiry branches grabbed at me gently—moved by things unseen, maybe touching to see if I was real.

  “Yeah, I missed you, too,” I whispered to the forest.

  The crunchy leaves under me cushioned each of my steps, sinking into the bedding mud, but the rain made slippery footholds at odd moments, making the pitch black harder to navigate while trying to remain upright. I wasn’t sure if I was even on the trail still, or if I’d slowly drifted deeper into the forest.

  I walked with my hands out front, tensely waiting for that cluster of rocks David always steered me around. And as luck would have it, my toes found the rocks, happily introducing my face to the forest floor before sending me in a spin and a butt-skid down the slope, hands scraping an eight-fingered trail behind me. I landed sidelong at the root of a tree, a giant cough squeezing from my lungs on impact.

  “That’s it,” I vowed to myself and the forest. “As soon as I get out of here, I’m bringing a shovel back and I’m going to dig up every last one of those damn rocks!” I slammed my hands into the ground, pushing myself up to sit against the trunk of the tree. Stupid rocks. Stupid forest. Stupid Emily and stupid Mike!

  Everything sucked.

  I hugged my knees and let the anger wear down to sadness again, but a tingling of fear crept along my shoulders instead. It was so dark. I wasn’t sure where the trail was now—could only reach out and feel for the edge. But the surface down here was different; thick with brush and vines, sending panic up my fingertips, through my grazed arms and into my breath.

  What if I was wrong? What if this wasn’t even the same forest, and now I’d just managed to get myself lost in some random middle-of-nowhere place that only hunters came to if they were searching for rabbits?

  Ha, I thought, if they want rabbits, I could just direct them to my house—show them the two I found tonight.

  I laughed at my own joke, seeing them in my mind: Emily and Mike, golden skin, tangled limbs. They were probably all snug and warm in bed together, probably not even worried about me, thinking I’d return home when I cooled off. But I wouldn’t. I looked up at the dark sky. I wasn't sure I’d ever make it out of here. Which, for Emily’s sake, would be a good thing.

  But despite me wanting to scratch her eyes out, she was also so right for Mike—the chocolate to his orange. One sweet, the other good for you, but mix them together and you get the scent of dreams. A scent that would forever brin
g me pain.

  I stood up slowly, driving my hands down the back of my jeans to dig out the clump of mud that slipped in while I was rolling for the depths of my own demise, then started walking again, not really sure if I was headed to what I thought was the lake, or maybe off a steep drop or even back the way I just came.

  Even if this was David’s lake, I wasn't out of the woods, no pun intended, because I could be mistaken for a random human—possibly hunted and killed, since I disregarded the warning signs around the border. I wondered how many humans, probably scared young girls like me, had been taken here and hunted by David’s family. How many had died here; how many tortured ghosts still lingered among these trees?

  But cringe as I may have once, I just didn’t care. In fact, I’d be happy if he showed up right now and killed me. I’d rejoice, die in peace, just to own that one second of seeing his face. And the look, as he realized who he just killed, would be priceless.

  The passing of the rain above had left behind a dense, murky cool—the kind you might feel on one of those tours inside a cave—and the dead calm made my steps seem awfully loud, until they stopped abruptly on the solid shape at my shin, blocking the path. I felt along its barky surface, taking a careful breath: cedar. The cedar tree. Which meant that—I looked ahead, my eyes adjusting to the small glow of light coming down onto the clearing in front of me—up ahead was the lake.

  The rain started again, pouring into the open space, mixing with my tears, hot and cold water.

  I was okay now. I was okay to cry now that I was safe here at our lake. I could almost see him there on the rock—my David—see his silhouette under the moonlight where we used to sit, as if he was really there. I closed my eyes, savoring the image, and when I looked back up, the silhouette evaporated. But all around me, sitting on the cusp of the clay-scented pines, was the sweetly familiar scent of orange and chocolate. I closed my eyes again and drew in the last of the fading memory; his perfect green eyes, the milky-smooth skin of his lips and the way he smiled when he read something on my mind that he had no right to know. All those little memories were fading now, like they’d never been real in the first place; just another fantasy I dreamed up while lying alone in my bed at night trying not to cry.