Devil's Creek

by Aaron Paul Lazar

  And look at her horsemanship! She sat astride a horse as if she’d been born there, knowing instinctively what to do to get even the toughest equine to comply with her wishes. Grace loved horses, but struggled mightily, with years of weekly riding lessons and multiple falls. She’d even broken her collarbone once. It still hurt when it rained.

  And then there was her little Ford Escort. Stuck in the damned swamp, probably ruined.

  Her sneakers smelled like rotten eggs. They were still a little bit damp, but she’d had no other options. Yes. They reeked. She wanted to crack open a window, but she was too tired and lazy now to move.

  What had Skeeter given her? It was a little yellow pill, and it had relaxed her really well.

  She’d needed it, though, after that monster Harry almost raped her. My God, she shivered. It had been so close. He’d had her naked, had his ugly thing readied and hard, had spread her legs and had positioned the head at her entrance.

  So damned close. She shuddered, and her head throbbed where he’d hit her.

  If Skeeter had been one second later… If she hadn’t screamed and gotten his attention…

  She burst into tears, remembering how the jerk had tied her to his bedpost. She’d had that done to her a few times for fun, and it had been a kick. But hell. Not when she said NO.

  Skeeter glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “You okay, Gracie?”

  She sobbed into a wad of wet tissues. “Not really.”

  “I’m sorry about my father. He’s a freakin’ perv.”

  “For sure.”

  “That’s why my mother left him.”

  “I don’t blame her,” she said, sniffling.

  “What about your folks? Won’t they wonder what happened when they see your car in the swamp?”

  “Yeah. But I want them to worry for a few days. They really pissed me off.”

  “Oh,” he said, scrunching his face with confusion. “I thought you said they were okay. You know, decent folks.”

  She sat up, head reeling. “They are. But they really favor my stupid sister, and I’m sick to death of it.”

  “You mean Portia?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She didn’t seem too snooty in school. Is she a horrible bitch?”

  Grace frowned. “No. Not really.”

  “Oh,” Skeeter said, frowning.

  “Where are we going, anyway?” Grace asked.

  “Toronto. You okay with that?”

  Grace nodded, feeling sleepier than she’d ever felt in her life. “I guess.”

  “I’ve got a friend up there we could crash with, and I have enough dough to last us a few weeks until we figure out what to do permanently.”

  “Okay,” she said, yawning and laying back down. “I’ve gotta call Anderson in the morning. He’ll be worried sick.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “My fiancé,” she whispered before falling into a dead sleep.

  Chapter 47

  At nine on the dot, Anderson called Grace’s phone. Someone answered immediately, but it wasn’t Grace.

  “Hello?” A man’s voice said.

  “Where’s Grace?” Anderson asked. “And who the heck is this?”

  “Sheriff Dunne. And who the hell are you?”

  Anderson hesitated. “A friend from the university. Why do you have Grace’s phone?” All of his feelings from last night flooded back to him. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

  The Sheriff didn’t hesitate. “She’s missing. Her car went off the road yesterday morning, and she hasn’t contacted her folks.”

  “What?”

  “Her parents are trying to locate her. Do you have any idea where she might be?”

  “No. She was supposed to call me last night and didn’t. I got worried. That’s why I called this morning.”

  “And you are… ?”

  “Anderson Rockwell. I’m her theater professor, actually.”

  The Sheriff’s tone turned suspicious. “Really? And she’s supposed to call her teacher on Thanksgiving break? Isn’t that a bit unusual?”

  “No. We’ve become good friends.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Listen. Can I please speak with Dirk Lamont?”

  The Sheriff mumbled something in the background before coming back on the line. “Keep it short. We’re trying to keep this line open.”

  “Professor Rockwell?” Dirk said, with a faint sound of surprise in his voice.

  “Yes. Please call me Anderson, Mr. Lamont.”

  “And you call me Dirk, remember?”

  “Yes. Dirk. Listen, I’d like to help find Grace. I’m getting in the car as we speak, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Of course. We can use all the help we can get.” He spoke offline to his wife. “Daisy. The professor is coming to help.”

  Daisy’s teary voice came through loud and clear. “Good. Tell him to hurry, we need everyone we can get to help us search the swamp and woods. My baby’s out there somewhere.”

  Anderson hung up, fear bubbling inside his stomach. “This can’t be happening.” He turned onto the highway and sped toward Bittersweet Hollow.

  ∞∞∞

  Grace woke in a dark room smelling of cold pizza, unwashed clothes, and the overwhelming reek of her swampy sneakers laying on the floor nearby. She tried to sit up, but couldn’t. The room swam, and although she strained to focus on her environment, she could barely make out the people sprawled around the room on mattresses and blankets.

  What time is it?

  She rubbed her gritty eyes and fell back on the couch.

  What day is it?

  A whirlwind of images suddenly blinded her. She thought some were real, and some were her imagination. But she couldn’t tell the difference.

  She saw a salivating wolf grinning over her, about to force his crooked penis inside her. She squirmed and almost screamed, remembering Skeeter’s father. Next, a balding businessman screwed her from behind, yelling “Geronimo!” when he came. She remembered his beer belly banging into her and the two hundred dollars passed surreptitiously to Skeeter, who then injected her with something that made her happy.

  There were the twin albino teenagers, who’d taken turns with her. She vaguely remembered one forcing his cock into her mouth and the other one pumping into her as if it were his first time. It probably was, she thought dreamily. She’d hated them, but on the other hand, they’d smelled nice, like a hay barn, and this made her yearn for home in the worst way.

  Who were all these people in the room?

  She began to sweat, feeling a deep-seated need hit her, followed by nausea. Oh my God. I’m going to throw up.

  She tried to sit up again, and felt a strong pressure on her bladder. Where the hell was the bathroom?

  A faint light came from the corner. There it was. She vaguely remembered a dirty sink and stiff towels.

  She rolled off the couch and crawled toward the light, noting Skeeter asleep on his back, snoring with his mouth open. He wore white underpants and had a week old beard.

  A sudden thought hit her. He’d been clean-shaven when he rescued her from his father, hadn’t he? How long had she been here?

  She pulled herself up on the doorjamb and stumbled into the bathroom. She peed first, feeling soreness and pain in her private regions. Even her bottom felt sore.

  What the hell?

  When she stood to try to wash her hands, she caught a glimpse of a ragged, bloody-eyed girl in the mirror. Her stomach lurched, and she turned and tried to throw up in the toilet, but nothing came up.

  Dry heaves, her mother used to call it.

  When was the last time she ate anything?

  Another rush of images struck her, more men screwing her. More blow jobs. Plenty of drugs. Days and nights lost.

  She remembered people crowding around her on the cold Toronto streets as Skeeter tried to get men to pay for sex with her.

  She’d fallen to her knees on the cobblestones several days ago, and when she hurrie
dly reached down now to feel the skin on her knees, they were scabbed and painful.

  She sat down on the toilet and cried.

  Anderson. Where are you?

  Chapter 48

  Anderson sat at the Lamont’s kitchen table, his head in his hands. He’d been there for ten days now, sleeping in the bunkhouse and helping with the searches. The police were beginning to think she’d wandered off into the woods and died after sustaining injuries in the crash. But he didn’t believe that.

  He knew she was alive.

  He felt it.

  Grace. Call me.

  The police had interviewed everyone who lived within a few miles of the crash. They’d all claimed to have heard and seen nothing. But just last evening, while filling up his car for another day of driving around and asking questions, he overheard two girls talking about a guy named Skeeter who worked at the gas station. He’d especially perked up when they’d complained about how he suddenly disappeared and hadn’t even called in to work to say he’d be gone.

  He knew Skeeter was the son of the old man who lived in the yellow house, not far from where Grace’s car went into the swamp. He’d heard the cops discussing it with Dirk. But supposedly that kid was well known as a bad boy who frequently went missing for weeks at a time.

  But something niggled at him. If he’d found himself alone and abandoned in that damned swamp, he would have walked toward the closest house. Right? Unless someone had come along and “helped” her. Kidnapped her.

  That thought scared him even more, because how would they know who had been driving past her on that rainy day?

  He decided to do some questioning of his own. And he’d start with that old man in the yellow house. It just seemed the most likely place to which she would have headed.

  Daisy came into the kitchen, her eyes puffy. “Good morning, Anderson.” She sat heavily in a chair beside him and laid her head on her arms. “I don’t know if I can take this much longer. I need to know what happened.” She shuddered with a few sobs.

  “I know how you feel.” He got up and poured a cup of coffee for her, setting it gently on the table beside her.

  She raised teary eyes to his. They searched his for a long moment. “You love her, don’t you?”

  This took him aback. They hadn’t discussed his relationship with Grace at all. He’d purposefully tried to hide his emotions from them, to appear as simply her concerned professor. But after all, this was Grace’s mother. Her strong, beautiful, amazing mother. He realized, in that instant, that he owed it to her to be honest.

  “I didn’t want to complicate things,” he said. He pulled out a chair and sat beside her. “But you’re right. I adore her.”

  Daisy shared a pale smile. “I can tell, honey.”

  He shifted a bit closer and touched her arm. “Daisy? I hope this isn’t too much to tell you, but Grace and I are engaged.”

  “Really? Oh, my goodness.” She caught his gaze and held it, surprising him by not reacting in shock. Reaching over, she gripped his hand. “We’ll find her. Don’t you worry.”

  He leaned over to hug her. “I know we will. I can feel it. She’s alive. And she needs me.”

  She sat up and wiped her eyes. “Don’t say anything to her daddy yet. I mean, about your plans to marry. Okay?”

  “I understand.”

  “He’s probably not ready to welcome a man into her life. Especially one who’s so much older than she is.”

  “I know. It’s a fifteen-year difference. But it just doesn’t matter to us.”

  “I’ve known of plenty of relationships that were years apart, that lasted forever. It’s not a sin. And you’d probably be the most steadying influence she’s ever known, honey.”

  Anderson felt his throat closing with emotion. Somehow, being welcomed into this family by this woman meant more than he’d imagined. “Thank you.” He stood up, leaned down to hug her again, and then began to pace.

  “I think we need to recreate the day,” he said. “Everything that happened. One more time.”

  “But we’ve been over and over it with the police,” she said, her voice tightening. Daisy had taken full responsibility for her daughter’s flight and ultimate disappearance, and Anderson knew she’d never feel right until they found the girl.

  “I know. But let’s do it one more time, okay?”

  He glanced at the clock, which showed six-thirty in the morning. The police wouldn’t be back to extend their search for a few hours. “Let’s talk it though.”

  Daisy nodded, and began to speak in a shaky voice. “It was all my fault. I’d been talking to Dirk about the girls, wondering if we’d ever be able to relax for real with Grace. I said some things I shouldn’t have, like how Portia was so easy. And I asked where we’d gone wrong with Grace.” Her face crumpled. “She heard me. And she was so hurt. So angry. She grabbed her coat and purse and stormed out of the kitchen, without her phone.” Daisy slid the pink phone from her housecoat pocket. “And now she has no way to call us.”

  “She can borrow a phone,” Anderson said. “Or use a pay phone. They still have those in some towns. What happened next?”

  “That was the last we saw of her. She peeled out of the driveway. When she didn’t come home for lunch, I began to worry in earnest. And then the Sheriff called to say someone reported her car in the swamp.”

  “Okay. And you said it was a freezing cold day, right?”

  “Right. Rain that had turned to sleet. Very cold temperatures.”

  “She had her coat. And she must’ve had to step out of the car into the water. So she was cold. Very cold.”

  “There was no blood in the car,” Daisy offered. “I think she had her seatbelt on and I don’t believe she was seriously injured.”

  “Unless she bumped her head,” Anderson said. “But we would have found her by now. We’ve searched that swamp and those fields and woods three times over. I don’t believe she’s out there.” He paced some more. “I believe she either accepted a ride from someone, or walked to the closest house.”

  “The Weatherbys,” Daisy said. “Those horrid people.”

  “Tell me again about that kid who lives there, the one you said she used to hang out with.”

  “Skeeter,” Daisy scowled. “He always was a trouble maker. Into drugs from the beginning, even in junior high. Caught stealing cars. And even got arrested twice with Grace for possession and dealing.”

  Anderson’s face fell. “So they were really close, huh?”

  “Not exactly close, like boyfriend/girlfriend,” she said. “But more like partners in crime.”

  “What’s he done since Grace left for college?”

  “He works at the gas station in town, behind the counter. Got warned off for selling cigarettes to minors, I heard.”

  “I was there last night. I heard one of the clerks talking about him. He didn’t show up for work the day after she went missing. Didn’t collect his last paycheck. Just vanished.”

  “The police don’t think he’s involved,” Daisy said, as if she’d discussed the subject to death already. “They say he’s always going off on his own. Disappears. Then comes back a few weeks or months later. It’s his pattern.”

  “But what if this time, it was different?” Anderson said, locking eyes with her. “What if he took Grace with him?” He looked out the window, as if he could conjure her out of thin air. Shaking his head, he began to walk in circles again. “What if she was so mad about… er… what she overheard, that she just wanted to go away for a while?”

  “He was always into drugs,” Daisy said tearfully. “What if he got her hooked again?”

  “It’s possible,” Anderson said. “But we need more information. We need to find out where the kid goes when he’s ‘away.’” He grabbed his coat from the rack. “I’m going to speak to his father.”

  She jumped up and pulled on his arm. “Anderson. Wait. I’m going with you.”

  In five minutes she returned dressed and brandishing a note wr
itten to Dirk, which she pinned to the refrigerator under a magnet. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 49

  The little Asian man rolled off her and smiled, sweat pouring from his skin. He’d been quick, had jammed himself into her, humped and puffed, and came with a volcanic eruption. He was done in less than three minutes.

  He pulled money from his billfold and threw it on the bed beside her. She rolled to her side and pulled the blanket over herself, seeing colors and patterns where they didn’t exist on the blank walls. For some reason, she didn’t care anymore. Didn’t even think about going home these days. She just wondered when the next fix would come, courtesy of Skeeter.

  “Thank you, Missy.” The man backed away and closed the door to the spare room in the squalid apartment where they had been bunking with Skeeter’s pal, the overweight bartender who loved men. He and Skeeter had done it a few times in the same room she was in, and she’d almost been sick from the graphic images. She didn’t care if men liked men, she just didn’t want to see them doing it right in front of her. But Skeeter liked girls, too. And he’d screwed her a few times in the first few days she was here. But this was the fucking room, as Skeeter called it, where they made the money for drugs.

  Something inside her clawed to get out. Something that spoke in whispers. A voice? A face?

  Who was it?

  She rolled onto her back and felt hunger pangs gnawing in her belly.

  So much need. So much want.

  She wanted a fix. She wanted French fries. She wanted… what was it?

  Anderson.

  His face floated in front of her, smiling and sweet.

  Where was he? Why had he left her?

  ∞∞∞

  They pulled up in front of the peeling yellow house. Anderson put the car in park, switched off the ignition, and stared menacingly at the front door.

  “It’s awfully early,” Daisy said. “He won’t be up.”

  “I don’t care,” Anderson growled. “We’ll wake him.”

  She pulled on his sleeve. “Wait. I just want you to know, Harry Weatherby is a drunk. At least that’s what I remember from a few years back.”