Something about this, about me, about us, feels different and strange.
I start running, but the faster I run the farther away she seems to be.
Then I blink, and the brightness and the blue turn to black.
I open my eyes and start to slow down and find that I’m still on some deserted dirt road in the hills of Solitary.
I didn’t die and wake up in some weird airport. I didn’t see some woman looking like Jocelyn heading out for a party.
I didn’t see any of that. It was just—
It was just like those tunnels and her eyes were as real as the hollowed-out eyes of the man in them.
I keep walking, heading I don’t know where.
I don’t even believe the noise of the truck or the piercing beams of the headlights when they come from behind me.
It’s only when the truck stops and a voice calls out that I realize that I’m not dreaming.
“What’s your name?” the driver asks after he asks if I need a ride.
There are a lot more things in this life that I need besides just a ride.
Do you have a spare case of hope in the back? Maybe just a six-pack will do?
“Chris Buckley.”
The guy seems ordinary enough. Maybe my mom’s age, maybe younger. He’s got a friendly face that seems familiar for some reason. I decide to take his offer. The sports radio station he initially had turned up loud is now down. The cabin smells like Mexican food.
“Where do you live, Chris?”
“Solitary.”
“This is quite a ways from the downtown.”
“Yeah.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
I can’t help thinking about what I just saw in those underground tunnels and about the fact that Mom might be coming home. I see her standing at her sink after taking a shower, and a grisly, aged hand reaching out to grab her legs from the cabinet below.
He’s got a laid-back Southern drawl that relaxes me. “Do you know where you are?”
“Not exactly.”
The man keeps looking at me as if he’s trying to figure out if I’m high or drunk or just stupid.
“I take this way whenever I’m heading to Greenville. It’s a shortcut if you don’t mind the weaving roads. Not a lot of people know about it.”
“So where are we?”
“Technically we’re still in North Carolina, though South Carolina is really close,” the man says. “We’re closer to the older town of Solitary that was burned down years ago. They moved the regular town closer to the tracks, and that’s where it stands now. Not a lot of people know about the original town because it happened years ago. I’m a bit of a historian in my spare time.”
“Do you live in Solitary?”
“No. We live nearby in Lowden. My name’s Jack. So I assume you go to Harrington?”
“Started before Halloween last year. I moved with my mom from the Chicago area.”
“That’s quite the move.”
“Yeah.”
For a second it looks like he’s about to tell me something, then he remains quiet.
“So you going to tell me where your house is?” Jack eventually asks.
“I would if I knew where we were.”
“If I get to the center of town, can you tell me?”
“I can walk from there.”
The guy laughs. “Come on. Looks like you’ve walked enough already. You’re still sweaty.”
I absently wipe my forehead.
“So, you like Harrington?”
“Sure.”
Jack laughs. “That was convincing.”
“It’s more like Harrington doesn’t like me.”
“High school is shorter than you realize. I tell my kids that.”
I nod, but there’s no way I buy it.
“I’m forty-two, and as I get older I see life as these chunks. Blocks of time. Sometimes you just have to get through the block in order to keep moving. That’s what I tell myself when I take odd jobs like the one I just did in Greenville. Strange hours, but it’s money, and nowadays that means a lot.”
I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything.
“Harrington is one of those blocks,” Jack says. “You make it as strong as you possibly can, and then when you’re finally ready, you climb on top of it and step to the next box, whatever that is.”
“So you travel a lot for your work?”
“Yep. Would move if we could, but we can’t. Selling a house is hard these days. And moving to a place means you’ve got something to move to.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Building blocks. That’s what it is. Keep that in mind.”
34. The Camera
The next day, Mom is quite angry. Not because I disappeared last night and almost lost my life. She doesn’t know anything about that thanks to my decision to close that magical trapdoor below her sink. It’s because of Midnight’s upset stomach. And it’s not even that she’s furious about having to clean up a trail of puppy vomit from the couch to the back door. No, she’s furious because of why she needed to clean it up.
The conversation goes like this:
“What have you been feeding her?”
The little tuft of black on the couch obviously doesn’t know we’re talking about her.
“I don’t know.”
“I buy her dog food.”
“A dog wouldn’t eat that generic stuff.”
“So what has she been eating?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I give her hot dogs and stuff.”
“What?”
“I saw it on one of those shows. That’s how you train dogs. You give them little hot dog treats.”
“What show was that?”
“I don’t know.”
She looks in the fridge and discovers the pack of twenty-four hot dogs missing.
“Chris!”
Yeah, so maybe the dog whisperers don’t give their dogs that many hot dog treats.
Hey, if that’s the only drama for the day, I’m happy.
It’s Sunday night, and it’s been a productive day. While Mom went to work and I was given a reason not to do much of anything, I found a hammer and some nails and bolted that door in the cabinet down.
Do you really think that’s going to keep away the boogeyman, you moron?
I don’t answer that voice because there’s no answer I can come up with. I’d need to find a special store dealing with ghosts and spirits in order to answer it.
So you gonna tell Mom?
No. Not quite. Not yet. I will.
I spend the rest of the day searching the cabin. I don’t find anything.
I do, however, decide to finally check out more on Uncle Robert.
It’s about time, Chris.
Yeah.
To be honest, I’d forgotten about the flash drive and the digital camera and the letters I found in my room some time ago. I’ve been borrowing T-shirts like The Pixies one I’m wearing or the Interpol one I’m going to wear tomorrow. I’ve been listening to his music and sleeping in his bed, but I haven’t looked closely at Uncle Robert’s personal stuff.
Tonight I decide it’s time.
I start with the camera. It’s an expensive digital model. I turn it on and find over a hundred photos waiting to be seen.
I see pictures of the cabin as if they were taken when Uncle Robert first moved here. Then I see snapshots of my uncle, first outside on the driveway, then on the deck, then inside. He looks older and heavier than I remember him. He also looks amused in the first few shots, like he’s laughing at whoever is taking them.
The first twenty-five pictures are all like this.
And then I see a shot of my uncle with someone.
The woman. The lady who picked me up in the silver SUV.
She’s holding a hand up in front of her face as if trying to shield it. I still can’t see her eyes, but I know it’s the same woman. She looks attractive, and from the way my
uncle has his arm around her, it looks like he thinks so too. A few shots following are blurry, as if they were taken of someone who didn’t want to be photographed. The lady perhaps? The mysterious woman in hiding? Who was she hiding from?
It dawns on me to look at the dates. I scroll back and see that the photos of my uncle and the woman were taken a couple of years ago.
The next dozen shots are of scenery, landscapes and hills and forests and flowers. I scroll through them quickly until something makes me stop.
There it is, just like it looked the first time I saw it, just like it looks in the magazine page I was given.
Maybe it wasn’t a magazine page.
On the small screen of the digital camera, I can’t be positive that it’s the exact same shot, but I believe it is.
I’m looking at a photo—maybe the photo—of Heartland Trail, the road I took by the church that dead-ends in the woods.
Following it I see more pictures of the woods themselves. There is one that looks like a trail. Another that shows what might be an opening to a cave that looks like a mouth of a giant on its side. Another few shots are dark and blurry, and I can’t make out anything.
Then I see something else that makes me pause.
Hanging off what appears to be the limb of a tree is an upside-down cross. It’s the cross itself that makes me feel deep dread. It resembles two carved-out blocks of wood, carefully whittled down in a very crude fashion. Both pieces appear to be dipped and covered in something dark and shiny, and they’re fastened together by some type of metallic coil.
It looks ancient, this cross. And it looks designed specifically to be hung upside down.
I don’t know much about the occult and people worshiping the Devil, but I know this is one of their symbols.
Maybe it’s the town logo for Solitary, too.
The next few photos are of something that resembles a tall, spiked tree. Since it’s so big and it looks like the pictures were taken at night, they’re too hazy and gray to make sense.
The next twenty or so shots are of the woman, and this time she’s not hiding behind glasses. She’s beautiful.
There are a few more shots of her with my uncle, as if he’s holding up the camera.
I see a couple of shots that appear as if the woman is hiding underneath covers, as though my uncle woke her up holding the camera.
That’s the bedspread on the bed my mom sleeps in.
Then the photos end.
I try to remember that brief car ride I had with her.
The movie star.
I try and remember her words. I was a friend of your uncle.
They appeared to be a little more than friends.
Maybe she knows why Uncle Robert disappeared.
I suddenly wonder if Jared knows about this woman. Crazy, soap-opera-like thoughts go through my mind.
Is this Jared’s mother?
But Jared is older than I am. And this woman doesn’t look anything like him.
I’m too tired and too fried to check through the flash drive. I don’t want to know what’s on it.
But I need to find the woman in these photos and ask her what happened to my uncle.
35. One Puzzle Piece
I wonder how many people around this school know me. Or know of me. The new guy, the guy from Chicago, the kid who started liking Jocelyn, the idiot who wouldn’t listen, the moron who wouldn’t learn. I wonder how many notice the cloud covering me as I walk around. Probably fewer than I think. Probably very few. But I still walk around like Pigpen from Charlie Brown, a dusty mess circling over me.
There are times when I want to just go into an empty room and wait it out. The periods between periods, when you actually have time to talk and notice and interact. Those are the times I hate the most. Sitting in class and trying to listen to the teacher is okay. At least I know what I’m supposed to be doing. At least I know that I’m protected. Maybe, hopefully. But the periods between the periods are the worst.
They’re bad because they remind me of Jocelyn.
I don’t know how this works. Nobody’s told me, and I doubt anybody will. I watch how Mom is coping with everything with Dad, and that’s not a way I want to go. Not that I’d be allowed to drown my sorrows anyway, but I don’t want to escape my memories. I don’t want to let them go. I don’t want to forget what she meant to me.
These hallways don’t necessarily remind me. Instead, they mock. They taunt me and howl with laughter.
This school, just like this town, is twisted. If I were to dig deep, I’m sure I’d find warped and sickly roots.
I just wonder what they’d be attached to.
“So I hear you met my father.”
For a moment I don’t even notice her there. I’m in a bubble, a little place of bliss behind this canvas of blue. It’s a chance to get away from everything else even if I have no business trying to paint.
“What?” I say.
“The other night. He said he picked you up on his way home from work.”
“That was your dad?”
She nods.
I shake my head and laugh. “He didn’t tell me he had a daughter who goes to Harrington.”
“He’s a bit protective. He said he met someone who had just moved here in October, and I knew who it was right away.”
“Tell him thanks again for the ride.”
“What were you doing?”
The other students in the class are talking and painting. Mr. Chestle is laid back in a way that makes you wonder if he smokes a lot of pot on his time off.
“Just walking around.”
“In the middle of a freezing night?”
I just shrug. For a moment she looks as if she’s going to push me for an answer, but she doesn’t. She goes back to painting something that could be displayed in a museum.
“That’s really good,” I say.
But it’s lame. It’s like cutting her off with my car and then slowing down to make sure she’s okay.
“There’s a lot of land to check out around here,” I finally say.
A lot of land to check out? What are you, some kind of surveyor?
“My dad was pretty concerned.”
“Why?”
“The same way he’s concerned for me. He’s overprotective about everything.”
Kelsey continues to paint, holding her brush so naturally it seems like she was born holding it.
“They say that the big cities are dangerous places to go out after sunset, but my father disagrees. I sometimes think he would feel better about living in one of those big cities than around here. At least there, you’re surrounded by people.”
He’s got a good point.
“He just wanted me to let you know to be careful, okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
There’s more to be said, of course. There’s always more to be said. But Kelsey doesn’t seem to be a more-to-be-said kind of girl.
And for the moment, I appreciate that.
We’re in an indoor track that’s forty minutes away from the school. Occasionally we go practice indoors like this, just to get a good workout. I’m bending over, feeling dots twirl around as I try to get back my breath and my bearings. I’ve just completed my first officially timed 300-meter hurdles. I don’t know what my time was, but I know how out of shape I am.
Coach Brinks is behind me and belts my back. Then he curses at me in a way that sounds like an abusive father. This is his way of telling me I did a good job.
“What were they feeding you up there in Chicago?”
I’m still sucking in air, so I don’t say anything.
“You keep that up, and we’re going to be competitive, I’m telling you what.”
He tells me my time, but I don’t pay attention. For a minute I stand and look around the indoor stadium with the mini-track. Thankfully I have my track shoes from my former life to make running a little easier and quicker. The track belongs to a school around Hendersonville.
As the co
ach tells me to work on form and steps and all that wonderful stuff, I see Jared in the stands just sitting and watching me. Not trying to hide, not trying to be subtle. He waves as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.
“Come on, Chicago. We gotta get that suburban flab fit to run in the springtime.”
I shuffle back onto the track and prepare to work on my form.
Of course, when I look back at the stands, Jared is gone.
“Got a ride home?”
The voice comes out of nowhere as I’m walking toward the doors of the high school. I see Jared standing at the edge of a darkened hallway leading into the school.
“I was going in the van back to school.”
“I’ll take you home.”
I see the guys walking out and call after one to tell him I’ve got a ride. Then I wait until they’re gone and follow Jared the other way.
For a while we walk down a shadowy hallway that looks like it’s gone to sleep. I walk a few steps behind him, wondering where he’s taking me, wondering why we couldn’t just go out the front door.
“Come on,” Jared says. “There’s a parking lot to the side of this school.”
“How’d you know I was here?” My words echo in the otherwise still corridor.
“Knowing stuff is easy.”
He finds a door and leads me outside. The cold air is a nice relief against my sweaty skin. I see his truck waiting and get inside.
“Nice work on those hurdles.”
“Thanks.”
“I used to play football myself.”
For a few minutes, Jared talks about his football days. It makes it seem like any ordinary conversation, like any ordinary friendship. My big brother talking to me as he takes me home. Then he changes the topic without any hesitation.
“Any leads? Anything unusual going on?”
“Every day is unusual around here.”
“Give me specifics.”
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