Blackened

by Tim McWhorter

  “Hey, so,” I said as the detective reached down and picked up the bags of what would now be known as evidence, “about the church…”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” the detective said, smiling and nodding his head as he turned to head out.

  “That would be a no,” I said, shaking my head. I don’t think the detective heard me. If he did, he didn’t show it. One person did hear me, however, and she let me know about it.

  “Luke,” said my mother in that hushed, yet still authoritarian, voice, “I’m sure the police will do the best they can and check out all the possibilities. Give ’em a chance.”

  Either my mother was delusional, or she was simply trying to ease my fears. Fears that she probably shared, but found wiser to keep to herself for the time being. Or, who knows? Maybe she was even right. Maybe the cops could be trusted to serve and protect us, and I was just being paranoid and overly anxious. This whole ordeal had me on edge. It had probably even knocked me down a few rungs in my recovery. A relapse is what they would call it. My team of therapists would probably love the opportunity to get back inside my head and fool around again. Make another payment on those yachts.

  It was when my mother was walking the detective through the foyer, showing him to the door, that my already rough start to the day turned even worse. It was in the way my mother said “oh, hello.” Somehow, without any explanation, I knew exactly what those two words meant.

  I’d been texting Claire all morning with no response.

  A moment later, when my mother returned to the family room, her lips were drawn inward, and Claire followed close behind. Claire’s face was as pale as a wet paper towel, and her stride was unsure.

  “Shit.”

  I think I said it under my breath, but can’t be sure. I was too focused on the redness of Claire’s eyes. I went over and wrapped my arms around her like it would make everything better, even though I knew it wouldn’t. The fact of the matter was, she was in just as much danger as anyone else close to me, and knowing that made me feel like shit. Down deep, I knew she had a right to know. This just wasn’t how I wanted her to find out.

  With a reassuring caress of Claire’s shoulder and a sympathetic smile for me, my mother left the room.

  “Your dad,” Claire said. “He let me in. He was on the phone, so I just stayed there in the foyer.”

  “So, you –”

  “Heard everything,” she finished, her head nodding slightly. “Well, at least the last few minutes or so. But it was enough.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, pulling her in even tighter. The look in her red eyes was how I imagined a baby deer’s would look after just witnessing its mother being sideswiped by a sedan. Uncertain. Scared. Lost.

  “I knew something was wrong yesterday,” she said, face nuzzled against my chest. “Something more than the usual. So I thought I’d see if you wanted to grab coffee before you went to work this morning. I guess … I guess now I know what it was.”

  We stood there for a few moments, a frightened and worried young man trying to console a frightened and worried young woman. But there was something else, too. Despite the fear, or rather because of it, a flicker of anger was sparking inside me, trying to catch flame. Around the time I felt the first shudder run through my girlfriend’s body, it finally caught.

  The flame was lit.

  Chapter 9

  Claire’s parents still lived in New Paris, but since they were on a cruise to Alaska, mine felt it best if she stayed with us for the time being. Especially considering her photo had been included in the threatening note as well. Claire did have an older sister who worked as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., but together, we decided it best not to drag anyone else into this matter if we didn’t need to. “No reason to put any more innocents in harm’s way,” was how my father put it.

  Later that day, while I went to work and tried to concentrate on something other than Barnes and getting my ass killed, my mother and Claire packed up a few things and checked into a nice hotel with decent security on the other side of the city. Far enough to hopefully throw Barnes off our scent, but still close enough to continue life as we knew it. Although the life I’d known had changed dramatically, and for the second time now, I was pretty sure it would never be the same. Thankfully, it was Saturday on a Memorial Day weekend, and with the exception of my having to work a few hours that morning, everyone could just lay low for the next couple of days.

  In typical Ohio fashion, the holiday weekend got off to a soggy start as a wave of rain showers decided to park itself over the city. It was a gloomy day for putting on a happy face, so I didn’t bother. Luckily, the hours passed by quickly thanks to the overflow of cars needing repair in this town. The people of Dayton were rough on their vehicles, and that meant business was good.

  Dallas was working right alongside me, which was nice for a change. He wasn’t a typical boss, at least from my limited experience. We talked. A lot. And he was about as easygoing as I suspected they came. We had already discussed the prospect of me working through the weekend, picking up some of those extra hours he had mentioned the other day. But after hearing about the dream I’d had, Dallas tried to backpedal, thinking my time might be better spent taking care of things on my end.

  I assured him that wasn’t the case.

  “I just need to check it out,” I said, wiping my blackened hands on an already soiled towel. The fabric had once been red, but you never would have guessed it. “See if it’s even still there.”

  “And if it is?” Dallas asked, eyebrows raised. He was eyeing me as he leaned on a lever, lowering a black Ford Ranger back to the ground.

  I just shrugged. It was a good question. What if it was still there? Hell, what if Barnes was there? I didn’t know what I would do. I had dealt with Barnes on his turf once and made it out alive. Was I confident I could do it again? I wasn’t sure. I just knew that the cops weren’t going to check it out, and more than anything right now, I felt a survey on the church was warranted. If Barnes was back to doing what he did best, it was possible he was using the same place that had concealed his activities so well the first time. Not to mention a place where he obviously felt comfortable, in large part due to its seclusion.

  But was he that stupid? Somehow I doubted it, but it meant everything to find out for sure.

  “Well,” Dallas said as he opened the door to the truck and climbed inside so he could back it out, “I sure as shit ain’t letting you go out there by yourself. When were you thinking of going?”

  A flash of light suddenly illuminated the poorly lit garage, followed almost immediately by a crash of thunder. Within a matter of seconds, the raindrops that had been tap dancing on the metal roof for the last hour took an ominous turn. It sounded like an angry mob was trying to break in from up top. The growing din reverberated off the tin walls of the garage, drowning out the radio that always sat in the corner tuned to the classic sounds of the 60s, 70s and 80s.

  “Soon,” I said, speaking up so Dallas was sure to hear. “Actually, the sooner the better. But this time, it has to be daylight out. I’m not going back out there at night again.”

  Then, as if on cue, a cold chill ran down my spine and settled into my lower back.

  “Well, it looks like today would be less than ideal,” Dallas said, just before another well-timed crash of thunder. “What do you say we go out there tomorrow morning and see what we can find?”

  As much as I didn’t like the idea of waiting another twenty-four hours, I didn’t like the idea of going out there in this weather, either. That would be too much like every horror movie I’d ever seen. Not to mention the fact that it was storming just like this last time I stepped foot in that church. Too much déjà vu for my taste. Besides, I disliked the idea of going by myself even more, having already determined that asking my father or mother was out of the question. They would have never gone for it, and possibly even forbidden me to go. And honestly, there wasn’t anyone better I could think of to have at m
y side than an ex-soldier with weapons experience. So if Dallas was willing to go as long as we waited a day, I would gladly oblige.

  “Meet you here around nine?” I asked, pushing the button to raise the overhead door so Dallas could pull the truck out.

  “Sounds like a plan,” he said, glancing up at the clock above the office door, and then giving me a smile. “But, in the meantime, your ass is still mine for another ninety minutes. It would be nice to get some work out of ya for a change.”

  That brought a grin to my face, even if it wasn’t a big one. I have to say, it felt good to have my ass wanted for something other than killing it.

  The rest of my Saturday was spent huddled up in a hotel room playing card games and assuring my mother that I was okay. My father and I would be sharing a room, while Claire stayed with my mother in the one adjoining it. It was my mother who insisted we split up that way, despite the fact that both Claire and I were creeping up on twenty and had even spent the night together on occasion. It wouldn’t be appropriate, my mother said. Even so, we left the connecting door open all day and didn’t close it until we went to bed. But even then it was left open a crack. Just in case. Safety still trumped decency.

  Chapter 10

  “There’s gotta be a McDonald’s around here somewhere,” Dallas muttered, his eyes scanning the passing landscape like a junkie in search of his next fix. “Fuckin’ White Castle or something.”

  We rode in silence for the next half hour, absentmindedly watching acres of trees race past the windows and keeping our eyes peeled for a McDonald’s or a “fuckin’ White Castle.” Occasionally, there would be a group of houses and an abandoned gas station that was now either a tanning salon or pizza-parlor-slash-video-rental place. But that was as close to a fast food restaurant as we’d come across. Little green signs on the side of the road before these areas listed the names of each town. The only remarkable thing about them was the sheer fact that anyone even bothered to call them towns. And here I thought New Paris was small.

  “Anyone else starting to get a little nervous?”

  I had all but forgotten that Claire was in the back seat. She had been so quiet the whole time. But then, we all had. I guess we were all feeling a little uneasy about the church and what, if anything, we might find there. A sense of hushed contemplation had fallen over the interior of Dallas’ beat up Jeep Wrangler. The fact that Claire had come along for the ride only added to my uneasiness, but once I’d tripped up and mentioned my plan to her, she’d insisted. I wasn’t sure if it was out of a sense of protectiveness for me, or if a part of her simply wanted to see the place to satisfy her own morbid curiosity. Once and for all.

  “Nope,” Dallas said, answering Claire’s question despite a mouth full of Chex Mix. His hunger had gotten the better of him, and he had given up on finding fast food along the backwoods roads of western Ohio. Coming across a functioning gas station in Camden, he’d pulled in and loaded up on Spicy Chex Mix, Twizzlers and enough coffee for the three of us, even though Claire and I had both said we didn’t want any when he first asked. It amazed me what passed for breakfast with this guy.

  Unable to offer a good answer to Claire’s question, I simply gave her an encouraging smile and tried to calm her nerves with a false display of bravery. I wasn’t sure she bought it, but the last thing I needed was to let my girlfriend in on the fact that I wasn’t just a little nervous about going back to the church, I was damn near petrified. It wasn’t so much because of the church, or what we might find there. If I had to put money down, I would have bet we wouldn’t find anything. What had me most scared was the prospect of returning from this little trip, and whether I’d need to start all over with the doctors. When I’d said goodbye to them, I thought it had been for good.

  Chapter 11

  Nothing about the trees themselves looked familiar, but the general area did. There were no oddly shaped trunks that someone would have wanted to capture for a wall calendar. None of them stood apart from the others enough to create a landmark that I would have recognized. But together, the trees in this area combined to create that feeling of all-around foreboding that you see in the movies. I simply got an unexplained sensation that something was just a little off about this particular stretch of woods.

  Call it a survivor’s intuition.

  “Slow down,” I said, my eyes absorbing all the green outside my window. It was the first time I’d been around so many trees in more than a year. I felt the Jeep begin to slow at the same pace I felt my heart rate begin to accelerate. Something told me we were getting close, and the butterflies in my stomach came to life like racecars when the starter shouts “gentlemen, start your engines.”

  “You sure this is the road?” Dallas asked, taking in the same surroundings, but not seeing the same thing I saw. “How can you tell?”

  A moment later, I watched the gravel driveway with the large pothole creep slowly past like a casual acquaintance. I felt myself nod, but my eyes were like ball bearings and the driveway, a magnet as we passed by. I found myself turned so far around in my seat that I was eventually able to meet Claire’s anxious stare from the back seat. I held her gaze for a moment before turning back around.

  “We need to go back,” I said, rather calmly. “That was it.”

  “Okay,” Dallas said, his usual boisterousness gone. “But, I don’t see too many other driveways to turn around in.”

  “There won’t be,” I said.

  A hundred yards later, we came to a place in the road where the shoulder didn’t drop away from the asphalt as sharply as the rest. The grey pavement just sort of faded into the strip of gravel along the edge. Dallas slowed the Jeep once again and turned the wheel hard to the right. Leaving the edge of the road produced only a slight jolt before Dallas swung the wheel back around to the left. The gravel being kicked up against the Jeep’s undercarriage made a pinging sound, but if it bothered Dallas, he didn’t show it. Once all four tires were back on the road, he pressed the gas and we headed in the opposite direction. It had all been done in one fluid motion.

  Slowly, as we travelled back toward the driveway, the twin black lampposts that guarded the entrance came into view. I was a little surprised to see them both still standing, though they did seem to lean a bit further than I’d remembered. Thick strands of ambitious green ivy still snaked up their lengths, and the glass of the lanterns was still cloudy. With only one exception, they looked just as I had remembered. The difference was that now, hanging from each post like paper streamers from a parade float, there were strips of faded yellow police tape. Fluttering in the breeze, they were an eerie addition to an already sinister scene.

  “I’d say you’re right. This is definitely the place,” Dallas said, slowly bringing the Jeep to a stop in the middle of the empty road. Claire leaned forward in her seat until she was looking directly over my shoulder.

  “Wow,” she said, her hand finding out just how rigid my shoulder could get. “I’ve always tried to imagine it, but it’s even creepier than I thought.”

  “And that crime scene tape ain’t helpin’,” Dallas said. “Kinda drives it home, huh?”

  Once again, I didn’t answer. Didn’t really even know who he was asking. All I knew was that the doctors had obviously been wrong about my progress, because I must have been clinically insane for coming back here. Like Charles f ’ing Manson insane.

  The large pothole that was filled with water, looking like a small pond the last time I was here, looked exactly the same due to all the rain the day before. I still had no idea how deep it went, and it still stretched across the entire mouth of the driveway. If we were going to continue on, there would be no bypassing it.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem for this old girl,” Dallas said, apparently reading my thoughts.

  And it wasn’t. After a few moments of courage-building, Dallas slowly steered the Jeep into the drive. I wasn’t sure if his hesitation was for my benefit, or his own. Maybe he was giving me a chance to change my mind. E
ither way, I didn’t say a word, and instead braced myself for what loomed ahead. With nothing more than a couple of soft bounces, we navigated through the pothole. Surprisingly, the part of me that was still hesitant about this little excursion was disappointed. The terrain wasn’t going to be an excuse for turning back.

  The canopy of tree limbs that intermingled above us were like a child’s fingers clasped in prayer. They created a tunnel effect, and we made our way through it like we owned the place. As we rolled along slowly, I found that the driveway sort of meandered through the sea of trees more than cut through them, like I had originally imagined. The daylight offered plenty of opportunity for sightseeing. There were some things I hadn’t noticed before, some things I had. And then there were some that I wished I hadn’t.

  On our right, the small mound that concealed the decrepit cemetery Garrett and I had stumbled upon came and went. That night, this was where we discovered the three freshly dug graves, one of them still waiting to be filled. From what the police had told us, I knew that the remains of two of the missing girls had been dug up and retrieved from there during the investigation. What I didn’t know was whether or not the graves had been filled back in. But I didn’t care enough to ask Dallas to stop the Jeep. I didn’t even speak up, or alert either of them to what was on the other side of the otherwise unremarkable hill. I simply allowed it to fade into the void as we drove passed.