Ruin's Lot

by ID Johnson

  Ruin’s Lot

  Reaper’s Hollow Book 1

  ID Johnson

  For my dear friend Alexa who was taken too soon. We miss you every day, sweet friend!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Ruin’s Promise Chapter One

  Ruin’s Promise Chapter Two

  A Note from the Author

  Also by ID Johnson

  Chapter 1

  Silence is golden, until it isn’t. The forest was dark, and even though Jim stood just on the edge of it, the fact that not a single, solitary animal seemed to be stirring was even more frightening than the other sound, the one he’d heard a few moments ago that had led him out of his nice warm bed to come and investigate.

  Wearing his old flannel robe over his pajama pants and T-shirt, he’d managed to stick his feet into his slippers as he climbed from bed even though he felt as if he was still half asleep. His wife was sound asleep, although he didn’t know how the terrible shriek hadn’t woken her. He’d been in the middle of a dream, a good one, involving Tawny Kitaen—the Whitesnake version, not the reality star mess she’d become—when a noise like none he’d ever heard before had him shooting straight up, knocking the blankets off, and nearly dumping the glass of water he’d left precariously poised on the edge of his nightstand.

  He’d turned to Barbara to see if she’d heard it, too, but she was snoring. If the kids upstairs had noticed the noise, he’d hear footsteps soon, and after a moment, he didn’t. Just as he’d begun to think it had somehow been part of his dream, he’d heard it again. It sounded like a scream, the blood-curdling kind you might hear in an Elm Street movie, and if Jim had any sense of direction, it seemed to be coming from the woods right behind their house.

  Without thinking too long about what he was doing, Jim accepted the compulsion to go and investigate, something he wouldn’t normally do on his own in the middle of the night, but the sound seemed urgent, beckoning, and despite the fact that the early September air was chilly this time of night in Upstate New York, he’d gone, like a sailor following a song to shore.

  The woods were dense, the trees old and tangled, their branches often looking more like the crooked, spindly fingers of witches than the sort of twigs one might imagine on a crisp fall morning. Their leaves never seemed to change to any of the brilliant autumn colors New England was noted for, rather changing from a muddy green to brittle brown. His five acres bumped up against this section of forest which eventually turned into Rockefeller State Park, a beautiful tract of land that ran all the way down by Tarrytown, a few miles away. But here, the trees had morphed into something less inviting than the common area that was always full of bikers, joggers, and children playing in the leaves.

  Here, the trees looked so menacing, his teenage children refused to mow the grass right up to the tree line, even on the riding mower, because they said they “felt weird” or like the trees were “staring at them.” He’d chalked it up to nosey neighbors, even though the next house was nearly a quarter of a mile away, and told them to get on with it. But as he’d made this midnight trek to investigate the scream, he’d noticed the grass was significantly higher out here, until he reached the outskirts of the woods where the tree branches stretched their gangly digits out over his property line, where the ground quickly turned from greenish brown grass fighting the last of the sun’s summer rays and into the dirt and debris of the forest floor.

  Despite the knowledge that the forest trees were covered in vines with thorns more than an inch long in places, Jim carried on, only allowing himself to wonder what exactly he was doing in the far reaches of his mind. He did hesitate before crossing over, taking that first step from the alleged safety of his own property into the thick black of the forest.

  The silence was eerie. He should be hearing something, shouldn’t he? Night animals scurrying about? Birds settling in the trees? Insects approaching to see if he might make a juicy nighttime snack? Even the flicker of bats’ wings would’ve been more comforting than the sound of nothing, but Jim began to make his way slowly through the trees, peering off in the distance, trying to make out anything that might reveal where the noise had come from.

  A thin fog began to form as he continued to wind his way through the craggily trees. He couldn’t see the ground in front of him through the darkness, and now that the wispy fog also collected around him, he had to feel his way through. Branches reached out and scratched at him, catching on his clothes, and at one point, he realized his face was bleeding. He reached up to wipe a trickle of blood on the sleeve of his robe.

  A sharp pain dug into his right foot, and he pulled it up off of the ground, hopping on his left until he stumbled into a tree. Leaning against its trunk, he grasped his foot with both hands. Though he could hardly see in the dim light, he realized he’d stepped on one of the thorns he’d warned his children about dozens of times. He reached down and grabbed ahold of its thicker end and pulled. As he twisted and wrenched it from his injured foot, he let out a groan of agony. It had to have been embedded into his foot at least an inch, impaling his thin slipper to the sole of his foot. Once he had it out, he noticed a gush of blood oozing through the hole, coating his fingers so that they were sticky. He tossed the thorn away and looked back the direction he had come from. Well off in the distance, he could see the outline of his house. The intelligent thing to do would be to head home, bandage up his foot, and go back to sleep. He’d have to get ready for work in a few hours. Instead, he turned back toward the interior of the forest, and as if beckoned by an unknown force, he continued on his journey.

  It had been at least ten, maybe fifteen minutes since he’d heard the second scream, the one that had compelled him to start this chase. And even though there was nothing else present that should’ve made him continue on this futile journey, his feet continued to take him deeper into the forest, despite the searing pain in his right foot and the uncomfortable squishing feeling of his own blood slogging around in his slipper. Barbara was going to be furious when she realized he’d ruined another pair.

  Deep in the woods now, and not even sure which direction he’d come from, Jim cast another longing glance behind him. No longer able to see past the tangle of limbs that weaved together, hemming him in, he turned back in the direction he’d been headed, and took a few steps forward through the fog.

  An outline caught his attention off in the distance, maybe twenty feet in front of him. It appeared to be a silhouette of some sort, posed between two trees. The trunks curved in opposite directions, creating a frame, and now the moon, which had been slow to make an appearance, began to illuminate the shape of a person standing in the shadows between the twisted trunks.

  Jim hesitated, coming to a complete stop and peering at the form. It was unmoving, and Jim imagined, had he been standing next to it, he would’ve been dwarfed by its height. Something about it made him curious, so he slowly began to come closer, watching carefully for any sign of life.

  The figure still did not move, though the closer he came, the more aware Jim became of what he was looking at. It appeared to be a man, a tall one, with some sort of stick in his hand. He wore a long black cloak, which pooled at his feet, creating a carpet of ink along the forest floor. His hood was up, covering his face completely, leavin
g only a hollow space where it should’ve been that somehow seemed even darker than the black cloak surrounding it.

  Jim should’ve been terrified, but he was still compelled to walk forward. He needed to discover who this person was; was this the same entity that had screamed into the still night, or was he the cause of someone else’s distress?

  The moon shifted, and through the thick clouds, a new beam forced its way through, colliding with the metal on the top of the staff the figure held in his right hand. A glint of light illuminated the object as moonbeam contacted metal, and Jim realized it was a scythe. The ebony figure standing in between scraggly trees in the middle of the night was holding a deadly blade.

  Jim continued to approach.

  As he reached a distance of less than two paces, he peered into the blackness where the face should’ve been. He could still see nothing, even at this close range. “Who are you?” Jim whispered into the darkness.

  The voice that replied was not frightening as Jim had imagined it would be. It was pleasant and soft; it wrapped itself around his mind and soaked into his consciousness, perhaps without ever even having entered his ears. “You know who I am.”

  “Show me.” Jim’s voice was calmer than he expected it to be since the realization of who he was looking at was beginning to set in. His feet stood firmly in place.

  At first, Jim thought perhaps the figure would not comply, but after a moment, the slightest bit of motion implied he’d reached up to brush back his hood. The moon shifted again, and Jim stared in shock at a face like none he’d ever seen before. With no time to react, no time to suddenly become frightened, Jim stared into emerald green eyes, and when the blow came, he didn’t feel a thing.

  Chapter 2

  Ru Robertson ran around her quaint two-bedroom house, attempting to get to work on time without actually starting a fire, a feat that was somehow more complicated than most would’ve expected. Today was the day teachers reported back for duty, and with a new school year looming in just a couple of weeks, Ru was both excited and anxious. Both of those emotions tended to stir up a hornets’ nest within her, and if she wasn’t careful, she was going to wreck another straightening iron or toaster.

  She had one earring in and was struggling with the other as she approached the kitchen, thinking perhaps it would be more economical to skip the toast and just grab a breakfast shake, although there was a chance she could take out the refrigerator, something she’d only done once before, but she didn’t know how much she was willing to risk. It was usually small appliances that died at her hands, not the more industrial sized ones, although her mom insisted she was the cause of at least one hot water heater expiring, flooding the first floor of their home when she was seven. It had taken her months of chores in retribution. The refrigerator she’d destroyed had also been her mother’s. Ru didn’t like to think about that. Now, pausing before her own fridge, Ru wasn’t sure she should take the chance.

  “Meow,” her cat, Piper, called, perhaps in encouragement, or maybe she was just hoping for some milk to wash down her Meow Mix. The cat rubbed up against Ru’s legs, her orange and white fur tickling her bare skin.

  Giggling, Ru bent and stroked her soft head and ran her hand down her back, thankful her curse only seemed to affect inanimate objects. “Good morning, little kitty.” Piper began to purr. “Are you having a good day?” The cat turned and licked Ru’s hand, and while she’d much prefer to stay there in the kitchen and love on her cat all day, like she had much of the last two months, summer was over, and it was time to get back to work.

  Grabbing a pot holder out of a nearby drawer, Ru pulled open the refrigerator door and was relieved that no sparks flew. She grabbed a premade breakfast shake and her lunchbox, which she’d packed the night before. With one more look around, she discarded the pot holder and picked up her keys. Luckily, her Enclave had remote start, which had turned out to be a great alternative to actually trying to start a car manually. Even though she was still required to turn the key in the ignition slightly and shift, she’d had much fewer problems ruining her starters since she’d gone to this more hands-off approach.

  “I’ll see you this afternoon,” she promised Piper, and then, slipping on her ballet flats, which she’d left strategically by the door, she grabbed her purse and her teaching bag and headed for the car. She knew one day soon, she’d likely have four or five other various bags slung over her shoulder and was grateful that this time of year was still free of papers to grade and parent emails to answer.

  She made sure the front door was locked and walked the few steps to the driveway where her car was already humming. The small two-bedroom house wasn’t much, but on a relatively new teacher’s salary, she was glad she could afford a place of her own at all. Ru slid into the driver’s seat and cautiously turned the key just enough for the car to recognize she was there. Nothing unusual happened, and she let out a loud sigh before shifting into reverse and backing down her short driveway.

  The drive to Thomas Elementary was only about ten minutes long and usually through light traffic. Today, the teachers didn’t have to report until 8:00, though on a typical school day with children, they would have to be there by 7:00, which meant almost no traffic at all since the students wouldn’t arrive until 7:30 and many residents dropped their children off on their way to work. Reaper’s Hollow was a small town, and most of the people who lived there worked somewhere else, some of them even commuting the nearly forty miles to New York City every day.

  Ru tried to keep calm as she navigated toward the school. The new school year was always exciting. She was anxious to catch up with her teammates, only one of whom she considered a true friend and kept up with during the summer. Candice Stein had been teaching for a couple of years longer than Ru, and when she’d first taken the job teaching fourth grade four years ago, Candice had been her mentor. The principal, Sherry Long, was just about the most supportive person Ru could ever dream of working for, and she’d paired Candice and Ru that first year predicting, “a match made in heaven.” She’d been right, and the two had happily worked together ever since. Now that Ru was beginning her fourth year, she felt much more capable of contributing to the team and had collected lots of ideas to share at their team meeting that day. She hoped to make it in a little early so she could run some copies for her teammates.

  There were only four fourth grade teachers since Thomas Elementary was fairly small. They would be getting a new teammate this year, Mrs. Long had advised them, as one of the teachers from the previous year had decided to stay home with her baby. Ru still hadn’t heard who the new person was, which made her a little anxious. She hoped that they could be friends. The balance of power on the team fluctuated haphazardly between Ru and Candice and their nemesis, Ms. Jane Owen, three-time teacher of the year. If the fourth person took to Ms. Owen readily, it could end up being a bad year for Ru and Candice.

  Ru was never sure exactly what it was that made Jane dislike her, but it had been evident from the very beginning that she was on the veteran teacher’s list. Perhaps it had been the incident in the cafeteria that first week when Ms. Owen had sat a student by himself until the lunch line died down so he could be last. Unknowingly, Ru allowed him to join the end of the line before the other teacher was ready. That was the first time Ru had felt the wrath of Ms. Owen, and from that point on, she tried to avoid it. Being labelled “incompetent” and “novice” from the beginning had done very little for her self-esteem. Over the years, she’d grown a bit more accustomed to Jane’s tongue lashings when they occurred, but that didn’t make them any more pleasant. One might think having grown up in a similar environment might make it easier, and perhaps it had to an extent, but Ru had always been overly sensitive, despite her mother’s solid attempts to ridicule it out of her.

  Pulling into the parking lot, Ru saw only a handful of other cars and hoped that meant she’d be able to access one of the two copy machines before there was a line. Mrs. Long had asked them all to be there
by 8:00, but the first staff meeting of the year wouldn’t start until 10:00, which would give them a couple of hours to start getting their classrooms situated.

  Ru found her usual parking spot next to a side entrance and grabbed her belongings, careful when she shut the car off and pulled the key out not to do any damage. Her electronic key card had also given her fits for the last three years, and she’d had to have it replaced so many times that she’d been the only teacher issued an actual key as back up, just in case. She prayed her badge would actually scan today so she didn’t have to go have the secretary, Mrs. Fitz, log her in. That was always an uncomfortable situation, almost as bad as forgetting to take one’s attendance.

  She approached the side door, the one closest to her classroom, and scanned her badge. A few seconds later, she heard a little click and whispered, “Thank goodness,” as she pulled the heavy, blue, metal door open. The hallway was dark, but she didn’t dare approach any of the light switches for fear she’d blow a bulb. Hopefully, her classroom lights were still on and the motion sensor would work when she walked in.

  Room 393 was just a couple of doors down. Once again, Ru prayed her badge would work. She ran the plastic in front of the scanner several times before the red light finally turned green and her classroom door unlatched. She pushed it open and stumbled inside. The lights did not come on, and with a sigh of frustration, Ru crossed to her desk and let all of her bags fall on top before she went back to confront the light switch. She flipped it on quickly, and even though there was a slight pop and the scent of ozone, the lights flickered on. “Another obstacle down,” Ru said. Before she forgot, she grabbed a piece of Scotch tape off of her desk and taped the light switch up. She’d have to teach her kids to leave the lights on when they left the classroom, the exact opposite of the rule most teachers enforced.