by Ira Robinson
Bart stalked to her side and grabbed her shoulder. He spun her around to face him. "This is not the time for you to be stubborn," he said, his eyes shadowed by the brim of his hat.
Sam flailed her arms, knocking his away from her. Stepping backward, she asked, "What do you expect of me, Bart? You saw it on me. It was trying to kill me, and yet you're acting like I am a petulant child." She caught a gleam in his eye. "What aren't you telling me?"
"A woman is dead because you could not leave things be," he shouted, pointing back to the body on the ground. "Did you even think about what might happen to her when you started messing around? Did you?"
His words struck her and she stepped another pace from him. Her arms drooped as her mouth opened with a retort, but he cut her off before she could say anything.
"You never look at the consequences." His hand raised to point at his forehead. "You don't think. Sam always does what Sam wants, and damn what happens to anyone else." His breath chuffed out as his anger rose, reddening his face. "You just can't leave shit alone."
"I won't until I have answers," she said, her own ire overpowering her control. "You can't stop me."
"The answers won't satisfy you," he shouted in return. "They never do."
"That's not for you to decide."
Her eyes fell to the ground, seeking out a hint of the place the necklace might be. It took her only a moment before she bent to pick it up. As her hand wrapped around it, she almost dropped it. A strange heat emanated from it, nearly burning her skin.
But she kept hold of it and turned back to Bart. His eyes lit on the necklace and his brows raised for only a second before he said, "It's always been mine to decide. Like it or not, there's a lot more at stake here than just you." He pointed toward the edge of the house. "Now go!"
She planted her feet firmly. "And if that thing comes after me again? What then?"
"Then I will do what I always have. I'll protect you, whether it's from something trying to hurt you, or from your own damn self."
Chapter 18
Sam switched the car off, but left the keys in the ignition. She rested her head on the seat and closed her eyes for a moment, readying herself for what could be a long wait.
A deep breath later, she opened them again and watched the concrete not far from where she parked, hidden behind a large stand of trees. The small drive she waited on was for yet another farm house, one of the many along the thin road outside of town.
It would do, for now.
There was so much she wanted to express to Bart. What he said, the way he treated her, even after seeing for himself the danger she was in... so many things she needed to get out. Sam held her tongue, but barely. She did not deserve what he did, especially in light of what went on.
As the anger raged in her, as the hurtfulness of how his pigheadedness made her feel, she recognized there would be a better time and place for it. As bad as she felt, she did not want to do it with the body of Odessa mere feet away. She deserved more, too.
As the car cooled in the late afternoon air, a shudder of guilt ran through her. She gripped the steering wheel and squeezed tight.
Odessa's death was on her hands. She knew that. If it had not been for her, the woman would have gone on living her quiet life with her cat and never known the terrors Sam brought to her. The pain written on her face as the bugs crashed into her and tormented her, the way her mouth hung slack as Bart pulled the rope away from her neck, all of it etched into Sam's memory, mixing with the horror show Sam, herself, endured while the thing was on top of her.
Odessa wanted to help her, and she was rewarded with pain and death, a senseless waste of her beautiful life, and it was on Sam.
She held the wheel tighter, biting back the grief and guilt. Not now. Not yet. She couldn't afford it.
The driveway she parked on was partially hidden from the road; tall grasses and the stand of trees blocked the view of her car lingering there, while still giving Sam a chance to see when cars passed. So few used it that any traversing it would be noticeable.
It was also the only street leading into town from here. When Bart went back, she would know.
It was not her anger at him that kept her in place, though that did have a little to do with it. There were things he said to her that made no sense. To Sam, it seemed there was something, some part he was not telling her, that indicated he knew more than he let on.
To begin with, how was he aware she was in trouble? How did he know there was a need for her to be rescued, especially since she gave no indication of where she was going to be? The excuse he made was absurd.
How the hell did he know? Everything else snowballed from there.
He thought she was too conspiratorial, yet he said things that he knew she would not be able to let go of. She craved answers, and all he did was give her more questions that forced her spirit to bite into and not leave them be until they were resolved.
Sam's car remained beneath the stand of trees for a while before two vans, both painted white and without any other markings, passed by on the road. She did not recognize either of them, but they took the long driveway she had recently used, herself, heading to the double story farmhouse owned by Odessa.
Sam did not have time to see the license plates on the vans before they got too far away from her, but her curiosity was piqued by the fact they were both the same, and both went to the home.
They definitely did not belong to anyone on the police force, and the coroner drove an older SUV. From what Sam could tell, these looked rather new.
As they passed deeper into the fields surrounding Odessa's house, she lost sight of them.
She sat up in her seat, releasing the grip she held on the steering wheel, her stomach twisting in anticipation. For an instant, she thought about returning and demanding to know what was going on. But she restrained herself. That would not be smart, not until she knew more.
When twenty minutes passed without any sign of movement, the temptation to change her mind was strong.
Still, Sam held herself from doing it. She could be patient. She had to be. No matter how much she desperately wanted to, crashing whatever party Bart had going on would do nothing for her but get her more trouble.
Sam sat back up once again, her hand darting to the key in the ignition, twisting it to life, when, another twenty minutes later, her tedium was shattered by the reappearance of the vans from the fields.
Ahead of them, the familiar truck Bart had driven for years had the lead as he turned it onto the road and, a few moments after, passed the stand of trees she was parked behind. From what she could tell, he did not even glance her way.
The vans, too, moved along, pacing Bart perfectly.
She waited another moment more before she pulled out, easing her car to the concrete river heading back toward town.
Even with the light of day beginning to dim, and the van she saw ahead of her had its own active, she did not flip the switch on the dash to turn her own headlights on. If the driver looked in their rear view mirror, they would no doubt notice her there, though she was keeping as much of a distance from them as she could without losing sight of them. She did not want to call attention that she was there.
It remained bright enough for her to see, for the time being.
Instead of turning anywhere that would lead them into town, the three vehicles ahead of her kept going, bypassing it entirely. She raised a brow but drove past, as well, holding about a half of a mile away from the last van.
She glanced often at her rear view, making sure no one else was coming behind her, but the road was clear. When the brake lights of the third van came on, she pressed her own, slowing to a crawl while she waited to see what would go on.
They were in a part of Tanglewood she did not usually visit, not unless there was a call. It was dense with forest, as was most of the land around town, and the only things out this way were more farms, the camp ground that straddled the river and two orchards. The road itself tende
d to be unkempt, a place of disagreement between the council and the county; there were always arguments over who should handle it, since it was not considered to be in the bounds of the city.
The three vehicles turned, one after another, on the small dirt road that marked the beginning of the Rosewood Orchard.
Sam's lips pursed. Why would they be coming here? Why would Bart go right from the farm house where Odessa was murdered to, of all places, an orchard that offered little more than fruit?
It was an addition that made no sense to her day and her situation, but a pressure inside of her rose as she yearned to know.
Her tires complained as she turned from the concrete to the dirt, following the trail of dust kicked up by the three who already ventured this way, taking a pace much faster than her own.
Branches of the cultivated timbers swept over the path she was on, making a pretty arch overhead for her to pass through, but they were more decorative than functional. The trees that grew the most fruit were a little further from the trail, separated from each other so they could bear what they could get. It made the light much dimmer than it had been while she was on the main road, and the deeper she drove in, the harder it became for her to see, especially with the dust in the air.
That, too, turned thicker as she went, until she realized it was not just something from the tires of the vans. It was more of a mist or fog, hovering everywhere. It confused her, seeming to come from nowhere specific, and, as it grew heavier, she fretted she would bash into one of the trees if she was not careful.
Only a little further ahead, they began to grow tighter, turning from a spread between each to a tangled mess. Half a mile more, the place lost any resemblance it had to an orchard, becoming wild and unkempt, with thick underbrush mere inches away from the pathway she followed.
She wanted to flip the switch for the headlights. She could see only ten or twenty feet in front of the car, and it grew poorer by the minute, but she did not want to give anyone who might be watching any indication she was there. Her pace became a crawl, scarcely past the idling of the engine.
Had she merely been in the orchard for a few minutes? A glance at the clock on her dash showed her it was so, but it seemed more than an hour since she started following the path of the vans into this dark place. Even longer before her eyes noticed the dirt trail she drove on widened, giving enough space for two vehicles, if necessary, to pass each other by.
The thick undergrowth spread out, pushed back by the larger road, and Sam followed her temptation to press on the gas a little, increasing her speed, though she still could not see very far.
The burst lasted only a short few moments, however. A patch of light, diffuse through the mist, began to creep through the trees ahead and she had to put her foot on the brakes, not knowing what was there. Sam kept her eyes wide, taking in everything she could, but the light did not give much clue as to its source until she drove more.
Sam pushed the brake pedal hard, dragging the car to a stop as the mist faded, like a wall of force held it at bay. One second she was in the middle of it, the next she was clear of it all, and that invisible wall seemed to be around the clearing she suddenly found herself in.
A few lamps on tall posts scattered about the clearing, standing sentry over a cement lot, where a few vehicles were parked. The sky above was turning dark, the early evening light giving way to the stars above.
A few trees were flung here and there, but the area was dominated by the large building in the center of it all. The stone and wood stood in contrast to the newer parking lot, its age apparent despite the dim light cast from the poles.
Ivy trailed up the wall, blocking a lot of the illumination that streamed out of the few windows.
She squinted, but could not make out detail; she was still some distance away from where it sat in the center of the clearing. But the place was old, that much was clear. It looked like nothing else in Tanglewood.
Sam's eyes swept across the area, tagging each vehicle. Near the front of the building was Bart's truck, easily recognizable in the dim light. She could see no sign of Bart, himself, though, nor could she make out the presence of people. If she did not know better, she might think it was abandoned, left to rot with the cars around it to stand witness.
What the hell was this? She had never seen it, nor had she heard anyone else speak about such a thing hidden within the confines of the Rosewood Orchard. Least of all Bart, who apparently not only knew of the place, but was intimately familiar with it.
What business did he have here, coming straight from what transpired at Odessa's farm? Why come here from there? And where were the other two vans that followed?
Of those there was no sign.
Sam wanted to take her foot off the brake, to slam the gas and whip into the parking lot so she could demand an explanation from anyone investigating the disturbance. She fought the urge, even as she gripped the wheel tight. What would she say? What could she say? "Hi, my name is Sam, and you've got my brother in there doing strange things."
She needed answers, some kind of evidence, before she could confront whatever was going on. What did any of what she saw before here have to do with the shadow man, the man in the hat, who had been haunting her.
Maybe nothing at all. It was possibly coincidence, but Sam did not think so. There were too many things leading her to this end.
No, as much as she would like to, she needed to prepare. She had to be able to put it all together, not just for her own sake, but so no one could take the truth from her again.
She kept her eyes on the building as she managed to turn the car around and begin to drive down the long path that led her to the place. When she passed into the woods again, the fog returned, showing there was something about the clearing that swept it away. It may have been the source of it, but she could not be sure.
It was yet one more thing she wanted the answers about, and she would find them, no matter what.
Not even hell itself was going to keep her from learning the truth.
Chapter 19
The car idled softly beneath her as Sam considered her moves.
Evening had fully come on, the light from the sun fading entirely, replaced with the dimness of the moon coming over the trees. Once she was inside the woods, that would be useless to her. The warmth from the vent pushing air from the engine, too, would be gone. That could be a real problem, given the chill outside.
Still, she grabbed a decent jacket from home and hoped it would be fine.
After driving away from Rosewood Orchard earlier that evening, she went back to her house to put together what she guessed she would need. A quick nap was tempting, as well, but by the time she was prepared, it was already getting late. If she slept, she would risk not waking again before morning, and she might miss the opportunity to discover what was really going on at the place she found.
That would not do.
Sam could work through her tiredness; it was not the first time.
Sooner done, sooner won, she thought to herself before turning the car off. She slid the keys into her jacket pocket and reached into the rear seat for her small backpack.
As she stepped from the car, she slung the pack across her back and set the straps over her arms. Sam hardly felt the weight of it, since there was not much within the folds. A sandwich she had quickly made, a couple bottles of water and an extra set of batteries for the flashlight she grabbed from the passenger seat before closing the door were all she hoped she would need.
She wanted her gun again, not relishing the idea of traipsing around in the dark woods at night without anything for protection, but there was little she could do about that.
She would have to be extra vigilant.
Sam exhaled as she took the first steps to cross the road to the woods. The car remained hidden the best she could manage. A small clearing in the trees nearby the orchard entrance afforded it some seclusion from the eyes of anyone who might pass by this late at night. That would li
kely be few.
Bits of hard stone slid beneath her feet as they tromped across the pavement toward the first line of trees that would lead her into the orchard. She kept the flashlight off, for now, but the light from above gave just enough for her to cross without losing her footing.
As soon as she passed into the woods, she clicked the flash on and squinted for a few moments while her eyes adjusted.
The trees were arranged at intervals, each one having their own space away from the rest, so they could have the best light possible during the daytime hours. The ground, too, was kept reasonably clear; the essence of recently mown grass still wafted from the clippings her shoes pushed around.
