Oh god, the abandoned cars with the out-of-state license plates.
Victims?
Ethan spoke, firm and authoritative. “There is a cure. We discovered it just before you attacked.”
Gerald stilled. “You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not, and if you kill us, you’ll never know, you’ll be forced to live in this hell forever.”
Gerald’s peeling face turned to look at me. “You have a cure?”
“Yes! Please, let us go, let us free you.”
The cries of the townsfolk grew closer. “There. Up ahead.”
The mob was here, limping and sliding and gaining on us. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would jump out of my chest. In all the jobs we’d done, we’d never been in this position, never come this close to being eaten.
Gerald released us. “God have mercy on my soul. Please, do what you can. Save us. I’ll do what I can to stall them. Go!”
We didn’t need telling twice.
5
LOST AND FOUND
It was only when the tree came into sight that I realised I had no idea how I was going to do this. I came to a halt and looked to Ethan.
“Just…talk to it,” he said, backing up.
“Where are you going?”
He backed up further.
“Get into the shade of the tree, you should be safe. I’m gonna provide a distraction.”
It was then I realised that all the time we’d been here, Ethan hadn’t used his magic. Well, aside from floating out of the window. He could have zapped Gerald, but he hadn’t. Then it dawned on me. “You can’t use it against them, can you?”
He swallowed. “No.”
“When did you realise?”
“When Gerald attacked us.”
“Shit. You can’t do this. You can’t be the distraction. What if they catch you?”
He grinned, flashing me that adorable dimple. “You better work fast so they don’t.”
He turned and ran back toward the mob.
I wanted to run after him, to grab him and bring him back. My eyes stung with the heat of tears and I blinked them back. It was all on me now.
I stepped up to the tree and placed my hand on the trunk. “Please,” I said, injecting every ounce of desperation I was feeling into my voice. The world spun out of control and the sun blazed in my face.
I blinked at the tree, winced at the heat on my skin.
I was dreaming again. I had to be, which meant…
“Pretty lady come back.”
I tensed. It was behind me. I could feel it. I knew what it looked like, but I needed to stay calm. I couldn’t let it see how freaked out I was, which meant no screaming. I exhaled, fixed a smile on my face and turned to face it.
The Kapre stood a couple of feet away, its huge bulk towering over me, casting me in shadow.
“Hello, my name is Daria.”
“Pretty Daria.”
“Um…thank you. Listen, I have a favour to ask.”
He cocked his head. “You want not be lost?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but decided to go with it. “Well, that would be nice, eventually, but there’s something else I need your help with.”
“Vimilie help pretty lady.”
Vimilie, it was called Vimilie. “I’m glad, that’s wonderful. Could you please release the townsfolk? Let them move on?”
His heavy brow crinkled in confusion. “Me no understand. What people? There is no people here ’cept you.”
What did he mean?
“Vimilie been lonely for so long. Vimilie been alone for so long. Vimilie had friend once. Freddie. Freddie talk to Vimilie, then Freddie gone. Everyone gone.”
Freddie. He knew Freddie. “Was that before or after he died?” I asked.
Vimilie’s face darkened. “Freddie my friend before he die. He die and then they all die.”
It didn’t make sense. “How did Freddie die, Vimilie?”
Vimilie’s lip curled. “They hang him from Vimilie’s tree, they hang him and Vimilie see. They kill him for a lie. He not hurt anyone, they find little girl an hour later, she fine. They blame Freddie, they kill him. Strange, odd Freddie. Then the light come and they all die, they gone.” He swept his hand about him toward the town, lit by the sun and empty.
This town, his town, where there were no dead people.
The pieces were beginning to fall into place.
“No people here, but people in next town. Vimilie lead them there, make them leave their metal boxes, not make them lost. Vimilie chase them out so they be safe, some run wrong way, Vimilie try and save them, but they fall into Deadtown. Vimilie not follow there.”
“You stay here, in the light, not go back to the dead place.”
I finally understood. There were two towns; this town, where Vimilie lived, and another where the dead were, layered on top of each other. Could it be that the magic surge had split reality? Could it be that the reason they were lost was because of what they had done to Freddie?
I wasn’t a big believer in God and the afterlife, but I’d seen crazier things.
Vimilie cocked his head as if listening to something. Something only he could hear.
“What’s going on?” Oh god, had the mob caught Ethan? “Listen, Vimilie, please, can you help me? Can you please get my friend out of there, bring him here?”
“Daria have friend?”
“Yes.” I nodded vigorously.
“Vimilie and Daria be friends.”
Anything. “Yes.”
He grinned, showcasing those horrific teeth and then blurred out of existence.
I wrung my hands and paced back and forth. If anything bad had happened to Ethan I’d never forgive myself.
“Daria?”
I spun round to see Ethan rushing toward me, and then I was enveloped in a hug so tight I couldn’t breathe. Ethan was hugging me. Touching me on purpose. My body began to grow warm and tingly.
He released me abruptly.
I staggered back a step and Ethan did the same. His hands were balled into fists at his side.
“I’m glad you’re alright,” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah, me too. I mean, I’m glad you’re alright too.”
He nodded curtly and turned to Vimilie.
I guess the bonding was over.
The Kapre inclined his head, showcasing his teeth. “You be safe here, with me.”
Ethan and I exchanged looks. Oh dear, it looked like it thought we would be staying, and Ethan looked like he was about to correct the assumption. I locked eyes with him and shook my head.
The creature was obviously lonely, and I didn’t believe he would maliciously harm us. He had, in his own way, loved Freddie, and he’d helped many of the people trapped in the Pocket to find their way out. He’d scared them in the right direction, his intentions had been honourable, and couldn’t be held accountable for the ones who had run the wrong way despite his efforts.
“Vimilie, do you know why we came here?” I asked.
Vimilie shook his head.
“We came to try and save the dead people. It’s what we do, help people, stop bad things and creatures and stuff, and there are so many people out there that need our help. So, you see, if we stay here all those people are going to suffer. As much as we’d love to stay, it would be selfish.” I paused, watching the play of emotion on his broad, flat face.
“You go?”
“We have to, do you understand?”
He dropped his chin. “Vimilie understand.”
My stomach felt hollow and awful. The poor thing, he was trapped here, just as the dead were. We couldn’t help the dead, and after what they had done and continued to do, I wasn’t sure they deserved our help. But Vimilie…there must be something we could do for him.
I caught Ethan’s eye, trying to communicate my thoughts. He said I had an expressive face, did he understand what I wanted him to try and do? Was there a way to free Vimilie?
Ethan licked his
lips. “Vimilie, we can’t free you, not completely. I assume you’ve been a part of this tree for a long time. Without it I’m not sure how long you’d survive.”
“This is my heart,” Vimilie said, his voice gruff with emotion.
“I know,” Ethan said, “but there is a way that you could step away from your heart from time to time.”
Vimilie looked up, his eyes bright with hope. “Tell me.”
“If you gave us a piece of your heart, we may be able to take a piece of you with us. It means we could summon you to other places, places away from here. You could have some freedom.”
“Summon? Vimilie not anyone’s slave.” His eyes flashed as he straightened to his full height.
“Whoa.” I raised my hands. “Look, summon is probably a bad word. We just wanted to help you, give you a respite from the loneliness. You don’t have to take us up on the offer.” I kept my tone soft and soothing, and after a few seconds his body relaxed.
He studied me from under those heavy brows of his. When he spoke again, his tone was equally as soft, but filled with hesitation.
“Daria take Vimilie’s heart.”
The intensity of his regard made my mouth go dry. “Um…okay, yeah. I can do that.”
“Promise me, only Daria keep my heart.” This was addressed to Ethan and this time his tone was not soft. It was as unyielding as steel.
Ethan nodded. “I promise.”
Vimilie strode up to his tree and placed his hand against the trunk. The point where his hand met bark blurred and then he was arm-deep inside it. When he withdrew it he was clutching a staff, smooth with a small bulge at one end. All the better to knock you out with, my dear.
He extended his arm, holding out the staff for me to take. I reached out to grasp the wood and gasped as a tingle shot up my arm. Vimilie released it and I was carrying the full weight of the staff. This was a part of him. A part of his heart, and he’d given it to me to me to keep safe. I didn’t know how to feel about that.
I swallowed. “I promise I’ll take excellent care of it.”
Vimilie smiled showcasing lethal teeth, and then glanced up at the sky. “Go now. Deadtown is coming.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that, and I wasn’t eager to find out.
Vimilie blurred into his tree as the sky began to darken.
Ethan and I legged it.
6
HELLO TECH!
A real motel with internet connection.
Bliss.
Ethan was in the shower. He’d graciously let me have one first, and I was clean and fresh and feeling almost normal. We’d decided that Deadtown was a lost cause, but there was no way we were walking away without doing something. People needed to be warned about that Pocket, and so we’d set up a few signs to alert unsuspecting travellers.
I just hoped it worked.
I’d been eager for a respite, a tiny break to get over all the excitement and process what had happened. Ethan had touched me, more than once. He’d held my hand when we’d been running from the dead people. He’d hugged me when Vimilie had pulled him out of Deadtown. It was the first time he’d deliberately made physical contact with me.
I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It was something I’d need to file away for later examination because we already had a new case, and this one was shaping up to be a really weird one. But, even stranger than the case was the fact that Ethan had already filled me in.
Maybe I wasn’t just bait any longer.
I tapped words into the search engine, eager to begin research.
The shower shut off.
I sighed. Time to try and not watch Ethan get dressed.
The End
About Debbie
Debbie Cassidy is a British author from a little village in Bedfordshire. She nurtures a love of coffee and cinnamon swirls, oh, and she can never say no to a freshly baked donut. Mother of three, housewife and multi-tasking guru, Debbie is ready to accept her superwoman status as soon as someone decides to award it to her.
After writing co-authored work under the pen name Amos Cassidy for seven years, Debbie decided to branch out, and released her solo debut, Forest of Demons, with Kindle Press in May 2016. Since then, Debbie has penned four more novels under her own name, which will be releasing over the next year with many more exciting projects to come.
You can find Debbie hanging out on her personal website.
Another Freebie from Debbie
The monster under the bed is real, the shadow in the wardrobe is alive, and Kenna Carter is Fearless... Click on the cover to grab the FREE short story today!
Visions Among Frost
Alicia Rades
1
A shriek echoed throughout the house, and my body tensed.
Emma clapped her hands over her ears for show. “Geez. Betsy really needs to take it down a notch.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “If she keeps that up, the neighbors are going to think we’re filming a horror movie.”
“Or worse,” Katie joked from across the room. She sat in Betsy’s recliner and scrolled through her phone while Emma and I waited on the couch for the rest of our volleyball teammates to arrive.
A flash of blue flew by the entrance to the living room as Betsy ran down the hall to answer the front door. “Jenna!” Betsy cried in excitement. The two exchanged words in such high-pitched voices that I couldn’t understand what either of them said. I guessed it to be some sort of best friends’ code language.
I raised my eyebrows at Emma. “We’re not that bad, are we?”
She crinkled her nose, which made her look like a chipmunk. “Nobody is as bad as those two, Crystal.”
I breathed a fake sigh of relief. “Thank God.”
Almost as soon as Betsy welcomed Jenna inside, the doorbell rang again, setting off another round of excited shrieks from girls across the house. Almost our entire volleyball team was coming for our end-of-summer sleepover. Even the new girl, Alyssa, had agreed to come.
The moment Alyssa crossed my mind, she peeked her head into the living room and gave a shy smile. We’d only met her the first day of practice a few weeks ago, but she was already morphing into a vital member of our team. She’d played volleyball at her old school and was better than everyone in the junior class—all except Emma.
“Come on in!” Emma said, scooting closer to me and patting the cushion at the end of the couch.
“Thanks.” Alyssa’s smile grew wider, but it still read uncertainty. She dropped her purple backpack next to the couch and sat beside Emma. She opened her mouth to say more, but before she could, Jenna hurried into the room, a look of excitement on her face.
“Who wants Jell-O shots?” Jenna asked in a sing-song voice, wiggling a transparent container in my direction. The red Jell-O jiggled but maintained its shape.
I gaped at her, but Emma was the one to speak. “You’re kidding, right?”
Jenna rolled her eyes before plopping down on the carpet and opening the container. “Of course I’m kidding. They’re just Jell-O Jigglers. My mom made them.” She popped one of the red squares into her mouth and shoved the container toward Emma. With a full mouth, she asked, “Want one?”
Emma twisted up her nose again, but she took one anyway.
“Hey, Jenna,” Katie called, straightening up in her chair. “Ever heard of a thing called manners?”
Jenna narrowed her eyes in Katie’s direction. “I’ll shove one of these down your throat, and then we can talk about manners.”
Katie held up her palms in surrender. “Whoa. You sure those aren’t spiked with anything?”
The two continued their friendly banter, and I pressed my lips together, afraid that if I laughed they’d try to get me involved.
More and more girls filtered into the house, some heading to the kitchen right away to drop off the snacks they brought along, while others set their bags in the living room. We chose Betsy’s house for the sleepover because hers had the biggest living room, but once we cramme
d eighteen JV and Varsity players into it, it didn’t seem so big anymore.
“Okay, okay,” Betsy called once everyone had arrived. Slowly, the chatter in the room faded, but it was only after three more attempts by Betsy that everyone heard her. “Simmer down,” she scolded in the silence, as if she hadn’t been the obnoxious one earlier. “There are snacks in the kitchen. Feel free to gorge yourselves. The bathroom is down the hall and to your right. Please avoid going upstairs because my parents are up there. If it’s an emergency, there’s a bathroom at the top of the stairs. Capiche?”
Everyone nodded. Laughter played out from a few girls in the opposite corner of the room.
“Okay. Who wants to kick off the night with a game?” Betsy asked.
Jenna hopped up from her spot on the floor and headed over to a cabinet set against the far wall.
“Truth or dare?” someone suggested.
“Maybe later,” Betsy said with a sly smile. “But first, Jenna and I had something better in mind.”
Conversations rose again as Jenna shuffled through the cabinet. She pulled out a box, presumably a board game, but when she turned and I caught a glimpse of the game’s title, the sense of comfort I’d felt moments ago shattered. My eyes grew wide, and my breath left my chest.
“No!” The word slipped out of my mouth before I could stop myself.
Jenna shot me a questioning look. “It’s just for fun, Crystal. You of all people should know that.”
My jaw hung slack. What could she possibly mean by that?
“Yeah,” Betsy agreed. “Doesn’t your mom sell these in her shop? There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
A few girls across the room rose to their knees to get a better look while Jenna pulled the contents out of the box.
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