r/DarkTales

By Belle Dougherty

She stared ahead at the glass bottle, trying to resist its siren call as it beckoned her closer.  It told her all the pretty and kind things she needed to hear.  The pretty and kind things her family would never tell her, no matter how much she wished they would.

 

“They may not love you, but I do.”

 

“They might have all left you, but I never will.”

 

“Just pour a glass, you know you’ll feel better.”

 

“It’ll feel like the hug you never got from your mother.”

 

“The hug you always so desperately wanted.”

 

“Just one small glass, come on.”

 

“You know you want it too,” the bottle pleaded, while it told the girl how it could solve all her problems, all she needed to do was accept its help.

 

The girl’s thoughts grew louder and more violent as the bottle pleaded with her, as it begged her to just take a few sips.  She screamed in agony as she squeezed her skull in a desperate attempt to stop the flood of thoughts.

 

“Come on, just drink me, you’ll feel better, you know you will,” the bottle said, while it watched as the girl screamed at the top of her lungs, letting out a shriek of pure emotion.

 

“I just want it to stop!  It never stops!  Why does it never stop?   I’m drowning inside my own head!  I’m drowning!” she screamed in anguish before throwing herself on the floor, breaking down into uncontrollable sobs.

 

“Why do you do this to yourself, come on, just have a glass or two,” the bottle said, luring her closer.

 

“You know it will help, so just come on, let the liquid relief wash over you, my dear.”

“You know you need it.”

 

“You just make me feel worse about myself,” the girl screamed while she punched her thigh with all the strength she could muster.

 

“You do this every time!  You promise relief and comfort, and then you turn around and spit venom at me,” she screamed before she collapsed back into a fit of tears.

“Hey, hey, relax, it will be different this time.  I promise.  You just need to trust me.”

 

“Besides, can it be any worse than what’s in your head right now?”

 

The girl sniffled as the tears finally stopped flowing, she pulled herself up off the floor and sat down at the table staring ahead at the glass bottle.

 

“See, that’s it, that’s a girl, come on, just a few glasses, and all this needless suffering and sorrow will cease.”

 

“You just need to trust me,” the bottle said while she grabbed a glass.

 

The girl sniffled as she poured a glass, the smell of straight ethanol filling the air.

 

“That’s it, just drink up and forget all your worries, my dear,” the bottle said through a grin as it watched.  It watched as she threw back shot after shot of alcohol.

 

Slowly, she began to feel at ease as the screams in her head began to quiet down, all her pain and suffering disappeared.

 

The bottle was right, it did stop the agonizing, never ending thoughts that flooded her head. 

“Maybe this time is different,” she thought to herself while she lay there in the calm, resting her heavy head on the kitchen table.

 

“I knew you’d give in eventually.  You’re nothing but a useless drunk like your mother,” the bottle said through heavy laughter.

 

“You were never going to be anything more than a lousy drunk, you knew that deep down, right?”

 

“You’re just like her,” the bottle said softly, as it egged her on.

 

“Shut up!  I’m nothing like her!”  the girl screamed while tears flowed down her puffy red eyes.

“Oh, please, who do you think you’re kidding?” the bottle said.

 

“Like mother, like daughter.  Look at you, practically nursing that bottle.  You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

 

“You said it’d be different!”  she screamed out breathless through deep, heavy sobs.

 

“And you said you wouldn’t drink again, what’s your point?”  the bottle said with a deep, malicious chuckle.

 

“Your mother said that a lot, too, actually, but in the end, she chose me over you.”

 

“No, that’s not true!”  she screamed out, through deep, frantic gasps for air, fighting back waves of heavy sobbing.

 

“Look at you, you’re disgusting.  Sobbing like a damn child to the point where you can hardly breathe, drenched in alcohol, sprawled out on the damn floor.”

 

 

“You.    Are.   Worthless.”

 

 

The words rang out, filling the silence of the room as those three words echoed on repeat in her head.

 

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!”  she screamed repeatedly through deep, heavy sobs, her head pressed tightly against her kneecaps as she desperately gasped for air.

 

“What’s the matter, sweetie?  Don’t like hearing the truth?”  the bottle said while the girl pulled herself up from the table, grabbed the bottle and stumbled her way through the house to the bathroom.

The girl staggered into the bathroom, ignoring the light switch, leaving the bathroom completely devoid of light.  She pulled open the shower door, turned the knob, and slowly positioned herself on the shower floor, bottle in hand, as the cold water splashed against her warm body.

 

“You’re right, I’m exactly like my mother,” she said quietly through a shuddering breath while she took another sip from the bottle in the pitch dark.

 

“I don’t know why I even try, I should have known better than to try,” she said, while letting out a deep, exhausted sigh.

 

“I should have known better than to hope, I should have known better than to expect anything besides suffering,” she said as her breath hitched while she lay there in silence, her knees still pressed tightly against her face.

 

“I should have known better!”  she screamed out with all the conviction and energy in her being as she grabbed the bottle and smashed it against the bathroom floor, watching as it exploded into a thousand tiny pieces, shooting off in every direction.

 

“I should have known…”  she said softly again before she fell back into tears, sobbing into her knees, lying there alone in the dark.

A few weeks ago, I got a disturbing letter addressed to my family and me. What made the parchment so disturbing it was sent by my wife, who's been missing for years. So when I got a letter from the woman we had grieved over for years, I immediately went to tell my family and friends. At first, they didn't believe me, but once they saw the classic, unique, and well-articulated writing of my wife, Persephone, they were dumbfounded.

My love, I'm sorry for what I have done. I never should've abandoned you and the family. But I want to renew our relationship; I've been living in a city in northern Alaska for the last few years, Gehenna. I know what I did wasn't right, and I know my actions won't be easily forgiven, but I plead with you: come visit. I want to be better, for you and the family.

Love,

Persephone

I know it's unlikely that she's being truthful, or that it's actually her and not a prank by some weirdo who saw my pleas in the news years ago. But it's a chance, and I can't give that up. If I have to go through Hell itself, so be it.

"So, Isaiah, what's the name of the city she's been hiding in?" Claeg probed.

"The letter mentions a place called Gehenna, but from what I can see, there's no city in Alaska named that."

"What? Why didn't you tell us that then? We could've been home and done with this stupid venture hours ago; we wouldn't even have had to be here, but all that matters is you. She's gone; Joshua and you can't change that." Claeg yelled in frustration and pity

The whole van turned towards me; some had their faces set with anger, others with sympathy, and some with pity. They knew nothing of my agony, the things I went through searching for years. I didn't respond to them; there was no use in explaining; they already knew why from one look at me. In the end, they just turned away with pity in their souls, but they continued, obviously expecting nothing from the trip at this point. But I knew there would be something; I could just feel it.

The nature passing by was covered with white, frigid dust; the trees looked dead; everything was devoid of life; the very nature seemed to lose any semblance of soul as we kept going. The very sun seemed to hide from the dreadful aura of the world around us. Even while in the van, I could hear the screaming of the oak and pine trees against the frostbitten wind. I saw no animals; they were either hiding from the deathly cold wind or dared not enter where we are.

I woke up after an hour or so; someone gasped, unnerved: the driver, Jezebel, pointed out a small, prosperous city filled with beautiful Gothic and Renaissance architecture; the world around us seemed to flourish with life and soul as we neared the town, and the snow seemed to run away from the town, like an infection fleeing from the antibodies. A sign sat propped outside the city, carved with the words

Gehenna:

Population one

"Why would a town this large not be on a map, and who makes a mistake of saying any town has one person?" Claeg asked dumbfounded

"This town seems familiar; I could've sworn I learned about this same place years ago in some class." Sophia voiced. She pulled out her phone, trying to find what the town's history was and what the name meant, but as soon as she pressed the search button, the signal disappeared, making her groan loudly. In a moment, we were at the intimidating colossal stone wall and sharp-pointed, Gothic gate. I got ready to get out and yell for someone to open up the gate, but before I could even touch the door handle, the gate creaked open with what sounded like many in agony. Jezebel hesitated before slightly pressing the gas, moving through the opening like a performer through the veil of a stage. The world seemed to brighten as we went into the town, but with the beauty and life came a new feeling: one of dread. We moved up towards the nearby curb parking beside a bakery; I could feel it, something watching us. Something sinister. Something incomprehensible.

"Let's split up and look around; hopefully we can find someone to ask where Persephone is so we can get her and leave." Simon declared, attempting to lead the group.

"If there's anyone actually here," Patrick mumbled under his breath

I heard him; I didn't care enough about his opinion to be angry. Everybody agreed that the best course of action was to slowly move through the main streets and look for someone in the town. She's here; I know she is. I may not know what's here with us, but I'll find her and bring her back, no matter what.

Footsteps, loud ones, pounded through the shallow hallways. They echoed following the sounds of screams, pleads for mercy, and pleads for help. But none were granted. The sound of horror filled the empty space of the lobby, the yellow walls stained with red. The sound of bodies pounding against the walls, the sounds of dreaded screams and then a sickening squelch. The lights were dim but loud with the infernal buzz. Sergeant Rain sprinted through the labyrinth, his feet carrying him with each stride. But with each stride the hallways felt longer.

Rain looked over his shoulder, nothing seemed to be following him. He continued sprinting, the hallways became smaller. He looked over his shoulder a second time, still nothing. Maybe fate had blessed him with favor, or maybe the sense of his security would be his downfall.

Rain's began to collapse out of exhaustion, but something compelled him to keep running. His feet feeling the urgent need to rest and his arms starting to no longer pump; Rain thankfully found an escape. A tunnel.

Rain dove into the tunnel and began his army crawl to the end. But peace would be short-lived. For behind him a monster made of black entwined wires let out a deafening screech. Rain continued to crawl as fast as he could, the creature reached into the tunnel trying to grab the poor man.

Its black bendy hand scratching and writhing inside the tunnel. Rain crawled faster making distance between him and the abomination. He continued to push forward feeling a sense of dread. The monster was relentless, its hand reached further into the tunnel leaving a gash in Rain's leg. Rain crawled as quick as he could, each shift in his weight caused the floor beneath him to thump. Rain continued to crawl and crawl. He kept crawling and crawling, his bleeding gash pulsating and leaking warm blood behind him as he crawled. But the tunnel never seemed to end, the walls around him only seemed to get tighter and tighter. Each side crushing against him as he crawled through.

Rain crawled further into the tunnel desperate to reach the other side....until....the walls were shoving his shoulders into his ears, but Sergeant Rain still wouldn't quit. He kept crawling until the tunnel had swallowed him the darkness consuming him whole. The floor was pressed so hard against his chest he could hardly breathe. The walls and ceiling nearly consuming him.

Rain crawled even further, but by then it was to late, he had crawled to his end. The walls now were so tight they squeezed his chest tight so tight his very sternum could cave in any minute. Rain lay there gasping for air, but the space was so tight, so cramped; his sides couldn't expand to take in fresh air. All Rain breathed in was stale, moldy, rotten air. All Rain could hear was his own heartbeat and the sound of silence. Rain panicked, he thrashed and pushed but the walls had closed in. Rain screamed and pushed harder but he couldn't get himself unstuck, the world was hazy and dark and the walls were moving closer and closer. Closer and closer. Closer and......closer.

(We’ve all had encounters with strangers, more times than others. It is a small world after all, but sometimes continuous encounters can often feel...sinister). 

 

I have met many people in my life but the majority of the time I don’t ever see them again. That was until I met Gerald. I mean don’t get me wrong; Gerald was a nice guy....at first. But sometimes his appearances were often odd, and he had a weird obsession with skin. Gerald would somehow show up at my workplace or when I was in your local Walmart, and I mean you could not miss this guy in a crowd. Gerald was 6ft, about 145 pounds, white, had dark brown eyes, and messy long dark hair.  

I remember when I just decided to give up keeping this guy at arm's length and let him into my life, I would have most likely run into him again. But that was one of the worst decisions I have ever made.  

 

It was a late Friday night; I had just finished my night-prep duties at Michaels Pizza Emporium. The stars weren’t out and the moon was barely even shining. The wind wasn’t even chilly, but honestly, living in Florida you don’t get cold nights. Even if you do, they’re rare. 

I was eating my shift meal under the pavilion; my boss had just left, and I was on my own. I sat there and took a few bites of my sandwich before gulping down some soda. I was beat. About 20 minutes passed when I heard rustling in some bushes not too far from where I was sitting. I turned to look and surprisingly nothing was there. I sat back down thinking it must have been a stray cat or raccoon. 10 minutes passed and I looked up and saw something reflecting off about maybe 15ft away, it was like plastic or glass, it was shiny and it stood about 6ft. I let my eyes adjust, and I could depict a hand holding what seemed to be binoculars. 

The second I stood up the person or....thing ran off. “What the hell”, I thought. Am I being watched? Stalked? I was already disturbed; I sat back down in my seat and tried to understand what had just unfolded. I made it home, thank God, but I still was extremely shaken up. I took a shower and then crawled into bed.  

The next morning, I woke up and found that my skin moisturizers were missing, yep, all 8 bottles. I mean not to brag, but I have a good-looking face, and those products keep it that way. I went downstairs and ate some toast and fruit, afterward I carried on with my morning routine. I was fine until out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow move. I flew around facing the direction I saw the movement from, and I bolted too where I saw it move to. Nervously, I peered around the corner. There was nothing. I walked back to the kitchen keeping my back to the wall, clearly, I didn’t feel safe even in my own home. 

The evening came around and I prepared to leave for my night prep, I grabbed my essentials and walked out of the house. I locked the door and made for my car, only my car had a flat tire. I looked at the tire, and it had been slashed. I thought to myself who was the asshole behind this vandalism. I shook my head and popped open the trunk knowing there would be a spare tire. But when the trunk opened enough to see inside, there was no spare tire. I took my phone out of my pocket and called my friend Jet; he picked up thankfully. I told him I had a flat and my spare had been stolen. Jet told me he would be there to give me a ride momentarily. He said I just needed to wait a few minutes. 

I sat on my porch and looked up in the sky trying to find some stars. Luckily there were a couple, and the moon was glowing a bit. It seemed to put me at ease. Jet pulled around in his red pickup, and I got in, and he drove me to my workplace. 

I had just finished cleaning up the place and shutting it all down when I heard someone knock on the glass, I pulled my head over the counter and looked at the door. Someone was standing there dressed in all black. I walked closer, but they bolted off. I quickly opened the door, and something lay at my feet. It was my 8 moisturizers. And with them a note. The note read, I tried to use them, but my face didn’t like it. Yours is so defined, so sharp, how do you have it like that? I want MINE to be like yours. 

I dropped the note and panicked. The guy who stood outside with those bottles was inside my house! He stole them and now he gave them back with that weird note. It was a compliment but an ominous threat at best. I grabbed my phone and dialed 911. I called the police and told them what had been going on for the past few days. After that they came straight to my house, they had CSI and cops surrounding the place.  

They went into my house and looked around, but then they called me inside, and they said they found something. Something I needed to see.... 

There was another note left on my desk, I opened it and it read. I WANT YOUR SKIN. The words were written in bold all over the paper. I froze and my body went cold; some psycho wanted to steal my skin, MY SKIN. The very skin that’s on my body. I broke out into a cold sweat, I feared for my life. I gave the note to the CSI, and they bagged it up. The cops told me I shouldn’t worry, they told me they keep a guy in my area just to make sure I was safe before the case could close, but even then, I still felt terrified.  

I couldn’t sleep that night, not after.... everything. But the following morning I woke up and continued my morning routines. I checked all my locks and for safety reasons I moved heavy furniture to keep the front door locked and the glass sliding door. I psycho proofed all of it. 

The evening came around and I sat on my bed staring at the clock on my wall. I had my door locked and I wasn’t taking any chances. My house was under a cops watch for what seemed to be months, I called my boss and told him everything. Thankfully he excused my absences and told me I could come back when I wanted. 

One day the police gave me a call, and what they said made my heart drop to my stomach. It wasn’t fear but relief. They told me they ran the fingerprints through and found the guys' identity that left it. To my surprise, it wasn’t anyone I knew or even met; his name was Tyler Rags. I was still confused until they told me the guy they caught had gone by an alias. Gerald Boren. I sat on the phone in horror as they told me that Tyler had been my stalker and was a very well-known serial killer the FBI has been trying to catch for years. The alias that Tyler chose was that of his last victim; Tyler was the Skin Freak of Richards Springs, Denver. I collapsed in my seat in shock that some mysterious stranger I met was a serial killer.  

After they caught Gerald....or Tyler. They gave him the death penalty; he died of the electric chair. It was slow and painful, and he deserved every last bit of it. After he died and after the events with him I never casually made friends with someone I hardly knew anything about. Never did I befriend a stranger until I knew everything about them. 

"Poor Helen," says the young, pretty blonde nurse out of nowhere while filling small paper cups with pills.

"What's so poor about her, Deb?" asks Susan, caught off guard by her sudden interest in the new tenant.

"Well, it's just that her kids just dropped her off here yesterday."

"So? How's that anything different from the rest of them?"

"I don't know. She just seems so much brighter, more lively than the ones we normally get. You should have seen her begging not to be left here. She was ugly crying about helping with the grandkids and housework, but they weren't hearing it. Just turned around and left."

"Maybe it was hard for 'em and they needed to just rip the band aid off. Ya know?"

"Still…"

"Still what? You don't know why she is and you of all people know what happens when they get this age, start losing themselves, it's dangerous to have them around your kids or driving around. You never know when it's gonna happen."

Helen was not used to being pitied or treated as a threat, so this conversation she couldn't help overhearing threw her for a loop. She wondered why they were talking so loud. The paisley armchair she was sitting in wasn't that far away from them in the common room of her new retirement home. Maybe they thought she couldn't hear over the TV at almost full volume or maybe she was almost deaf like the rest of these folks.

Taken out of her book, she looks around at the other old people trying to avoid eye contact with the two attendants. They all look so lifeless, she thought, so ready for something to happen, a phone call or a visit or even a game of bridge to start up, anything to break up the waiting in the sunlit room they all gathered in.

The blonde nurse named Debbie comes around to pass out the afternoon pills, handing out paper cups with the tenants' names on them.

"Miss Palmer? Here's your afternoon dosage. Only a couple of pills for arthritis and blood pressure, correct?"

"Yeah."

"Okay then. Here you are. I hope you enjoy your time with us here, if you need anything be sure to let any of us know."

"Hmpf," she replies and pretends to go back to her book. Debbie hangs around for an awkward moment, before continuing her rounds.

*Condescending Bitch,* they both thought of the other.

Helen begins to try to truly read her book again, a trashy horror paperback with a black cover with only eyes and sharp teeth visible under the author's name. It was generic and an effort to get through in some parts, but she read classics already, some multiple times. She often likes to read schlock when depressed, she tells herself, but deep down she loves it more than Austen and Hemingway.

This room doesn't allow for her focus though, the loud chatter and even louder volume on the TV news keep her from becoming engrossed in her book. It was one of those dreadful 24/7 channels, always breaking news, always bad, interspersed with fluff and opinionated talking heads.

"…has to be done about this wave of crimes across the country. Young parents massacred in their home, torn to shreds. It's unconscionable. The police aren't trying hard enough to solve this, but that's what happens when you defund the police. If only…"

The pundit with all the solutions to every problem continues blathering on until the host interrupts.

"…110 percent with you. We'll be back with Dr. Madison after this."

The commercials are always the same. Some aging irrelevant actor says silver and gold markets are going to crash soon, put your life savings into copper. Sign up for your free investment packet.

*Feel young again with the power of the wolf. Extracts from wolf blood can improve your mobility, vision, and vitality. It even cures heart disease and erectile dysfunction. Call now for an extra month supply free.*

Happy, dancing people at a barbecue with the whole family hides their eczema or arthritis or shingles, but thanks to [insert new drug] here they don't have to.

"We're back with Dr. Madison…"

It's drivel and fear mongering she never would have watched at home. Helen used to spend her days in her garden, reading, and finding new recipes. Her new infatuation was Asian cooking, the style was so different from American and European dishes.

Helen struggles to get out of the worn in chair, flare ups in her knees make her hope the Aleve she took earlier kicks in soon.

"Susan?" Helen says after checking her name tag. "Is there a kitchen here I could use to cook sometimes?"

"Miss Palmer, you don't have to cook for yourself anymore. We take care of all that for you. Your kids spoiled you with the premium package. Besides, all the cooking is done off site. We have a company that delivers hot meals three times a day."

"But I liked to cook. I was experimenting with some Jap…"

"We do have a microwave in our break room if you would like to use it. We did use to have a nice kitchen, but the insurance was too high so corporate took it out."

"Where was it?"

"Have you seen that room with the dining room with the vending machines? The kitchen was connected to that but they turned it into storage."

"That's a shame. I think I'll miss that and my garden I had. The biggest zucchini comin'…"

"You know Helen, if you wanted any food from outside I could get it for you. Just help me with the gas, it's ridiculous right now. Almost $6 a gallon, but I'd be happy to do that for you."

"No, that's alright. I think I'll just go to my room for the night. Thanks anyway."

—-------

"Mom, it's only been 2 months. Give it some more time."

"Dave, I don't like it here."

"I know. You told me on the phone last week."

"But it's true. Everyone just sits around all day watching TV and playing cards. Nobody wants to try anything new. I tried to play Mahjong with some of the girls, but they wouldn't even try it. They said it was a Chink game." She whispers.

"Seriously, maybe don't hang out with them anymore."

"Dave, they are all like that. They just watch the news and old crime procedurals on repeat. If I have to watch another episode of NCIS again, I'll blow my fucking brains out."

"Mom!"

"Please, just let me stay in your guest room. I'll help with the cooking and picking up the kids from school."

"Mom… you know you can't drive anymore. The DMV took your license."

"That girl hit me. In the back."

"I know, Mom."

"Did I tell you one of them tried to extort money from me? I know gas isn't $6."

"Mom. I just can't do this. Work is up my ass. Jeffrey is failing math…"

"I can help him with that. I have a god damned math degree."

"But it's that new math, the common core stuff. I don't even understand it."

"Dave, there is no new math, it's just a diff…"

"Mom, I can't… Georgia doesn't want to."

"Why? I always got along with Georgia."

"No, you didn't."

"Well, I tried to."

"No, you didn't. I have to go, Mom. I have to stop at the grocery store before picking up Daniel from soccer practice. Just try to make the best of it."

Dave closes the door behind him with a loud thunk. Helen ugly cries.

—--------

"That new woman that always reads those garbage books is so uppity," says Harold sitting in front of the TV.

Billy joins in, "I hear ya. She is always looking down on us like her eyes are on top of her head."

"…mauling, this time in California."

"See that Bill. Those hippies really think they have it figured out, but they're no better than anybody else."

"Thank you for coming in again, Dr. Madison. We know you are a busy man, following this wave of mutilations that has the world terrified. The President is holding a press conference later today. What do you think, Doctor?"

"It's shameful. I can't believe our country has fallen into such a sinful state. Most the victims are young people in the prime of their lives. Something has to be done…"

"They need Jesus. That's what they need. Back in the 80's we didn't have any of this. Kids could play outside without worrying about pedos." Harold preaches to the TV.

"Actually, the 80's had some of the worst crime rates in history," Helen inserts from behind the semicircle of chairs around the 70 inch flat screen.

"Well, not in my town they weren't. Where'd you hear that crap from?"

"I read it in a book. It was trying to figure out what happened to the massive crime rates and why they dropped off so suddenly. Turns out legal abortion became available to poor people. When people most likely to be criminals are never born you have less crime."

"Baby killers. You one those hippies, too?"

"God no, I find it detestable. In fact, the book's finding was more about being unwanted is what led to crime, not being poor. It's just that poor babies were more likely to be unwanted... I'm not uppity."

"Huh?"

"I heard you, you sour grump. I just don't want to be here, but I haven't had more than a phone call from my son in 4 months. I guess I'm stuck here."

"We're all in that boat, darling. You get used to it."

"But do you get used to hating your children?"

"Yeah, you do."

"…of the wolf. Be the alpha and feel young again. Call now for…"

"Who is dumb enough to fall for that crap?" Helen snickers at the advertisement.

Billy bursts into laughter and starts nudging Harold on the arm. "She's calling you dumb!"

"Screw you, Billy. That stuff works. I'm moving around better. My joints don't hurt as much anymore. I think I even have new hairs sprouting in my bald spot. Hell, I had my first hard on in a decade. Looking at you, Sister." He says to Helen with a wink.

"Vile man. I should've stayed in my book."

Helen leaves the circle in a huff.

—-----

"NCIS will be right back."

*A Reverse mortgage was the ticket to independence for me in my golden years…*

"You know my friend did one of those, said it worked great for her," Beth says.

"Huh?" Helen replies from her daydreaming. "Oh yeah, I bet so."

"My kids sold my house for me. Used the money to pay for this place, ya know."

"Yeah. Mine, too. Do you miss your house?"

"Sometimes, until I think about all the upkeep. After Bob died, I couldn't handle it anymore and hiring somebody was so expensive. Plus, you can't be too careful, nowadays. Shysters, most of those handymen."

"Uh huh. Can't trust anybody. I had a boy in my neighborhood who would help me with the heavy work, but he went off to college. My son tried to help, but he was so busy."

"Hey ladies," Harold calls while sauntering over. Maybe that wolf extract was working for him, Helen thought. The hair on his head was definitely thicker and he was much more active, more virile. It was hard to ignore.

"Hey Harold," Beth giggles at him sheepishly.

"Ready for our walk?"

"I've been waiting all day. Let's go. Bye Helen. I'll see you tomorrow for bridge."

She begins flipping through channels before giving up and going to bed.

—----------

Helen opens her door to find Harold standing confidently at the threshold.

“What could you possibly be thinking knocking at my door this late?” Helen already knew what he wanted. His hungry eyes were the same ones he's been looking at every woman with for weeks now.

“I was just thinking about a nightcap and saw your light still on, Sister.” He says pushing his way into her room with a bottle of brandy and some glasses.

“Don't you barge into my room, you buffoon. I'm not interested.”

“Come on, Girlie, maybe a drink will knock that stick loose. It can't be comfortable for ya.”

“Girlie? Harold, you get out, now. I'm already exhausted by you. I'm going to sleep.”

Harold closes the distance between them until Helen can feel his breath. “I could join you, I'm a little tired, too.” His voice is quiet and guttural and his hungry eyes are fixed on her. Harold smiles big enough to bare teeth.

“No, I don't… I mean I'm not … I haven't shared a bed with anyone since my husband.” She step back into her night stand. The lamp rattles and almost falls over.

“Are you scared, Sister? Cause none of this fun if you don't want it. I'll leave you be, okay.”

“That would be best, I think.”

Harold takes his bottle and glasses and begins to leave, at the door he stops. “I did have something to talk to you about. I've been thinking about something you said a lot lately. About the unwanted kids and how you kinda maybe hate your son.”

“Hate is a strong word, but what about it?”

“I was thinking that I kinda understand those kids now. I told ya you get used to hating your family, but that's a lie. You don't, really. I keep having these uh… uncomfortable thoughts.”

He stands quiet for a long moment, before really leaving.

“Good Night, Helen.”

“Yeah, night Harold.”

Helen also had some uncomfortable thoughts, but she quickly pushed her excitement away.

Before laying down for the night, she decides to have a sherry to calm her nerves.

—------------

"What do you mean he's gone?" Debbie says, trying to be quiet, outside of Helen's room.

Susan, panicking, says, "He's not there. The room's empty. The window's broken and his clothes are torn to shreds. You think it's one of those attacks?"

"Isn't there like a chewed up corpse left after?"

"I, I guess so. It looks like a freaking bear was tearassing through it, smells like it too."

"I'll go call the police. I hope he's okay, he's been doing so much better lately. Did I tell you he hit on me the other day? I almost went for it, too."

"Really? Debbie, come on, he's like 80."

"A young 80, but I did say almost. Besides, have you been paying attention, it's almost like he was aging in reverse."

Helen heard enough and went back to sleep.

—---‐-

"…this time in our own town. The family was found mutilated in their home this morning. Police are looking into any leads they can find. A manhunt is underway for the victim's grandfather, Harold Messner, who disappeared under suspicious circumstances from Harvest Moon Retirement Home 2 nights ago. Authorities are…"

"I can't believe it, Beth."

"He has been especially vigorous lately. It's possible."

"Gross. He was an oaf, Beth. You're better than that."

Beth gets up as quickly as she can muster. "He tried to warn me about you. Said you were stuck up. I should have listened." She then storms off.

"…power of the wolf. Now formulated for women. Regain your independence. Call now for an extra…"

"Who buys this crap?" Helen spits at the TV while thinking about how much she misses her garden.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Above the conference room table, the thin metal hands of the clock wound their way around the white face of it. Curls of steam rose from untouched coffee mugs, soft afternoon light filtered through the white plastic blinds, and cars rumbled by outside with muted chatter. The woodwork of the room was showing its age today, scuffed, chipped, and scratched from countless years of administrative work going to and fro. The scent of coffee, glue, and copy paper hung on the air around the table, but with the door to the conference room shut, it seemed to thin in favor of the dry smell of dust that lingered despite numerous cleanings. That was Jabo’s Fork in a nutshell; an old thing still chugging along like an antique car, refusing to submit to the effects of time in the shadow of the mountains around it. Yet, like so many small towns, it too had its fair share of problems, and it was this that brough us here as the other people around the conference table stared in shock at the sheriff.

“David, come on.” Mayor Jonathan Hilco blinked at him with the half smile of a man who doesn’t want to believe his ears. “You can’t be serious.”

Across the flat expanse of polished oak, Sheriff Kowalski nodded, no humor in his stoney expression. “I am.”

Lisa Renfield, dressed in her usual pinstriped pantsuit, shook her head at Kowalski in amazement, hands shaking as if she were watching the money disintegrate before her very eyes. “That property is worth millions. Just the price on the house alone could fund the town’s administration budget for an entire year. Besides, every day the park stays closed, we lose even more money. I can’t believe we’re even discussing this.”

“It’s still a crime scene, Lisa.” The sheriff narrowed his dark eyes at her and jabbed a finger at the louvered blinds covering the courthouse windows. “We’ve got four missing people connected to the Watkins property, three of them local residents. For God’s sake, Cindy Fadro went to school with your niece! Erin Martinelli’s father was on the football team with John in high school! If we sell that place we’ll never get a better chance to find out what happened to those girls, and opening up the park around Smoke Point will guarantee contamination. Every two-bit podcaster this side of the Mississippi will be out there, climbing around with their cameras to look for ghosts, while real evidence might get buried or lost thanks to their tramping.”

Leaning forward so that his prodigious belly mounded against the edge of the conference table, Douglas Finberger tried to calm the situation even as his face reddened with similar levels of disbelief. “Let’s not lose our heads here, yeah? Look, David, we’re all saddened about what happened to Ed Watkins and those two girls, but it’s been several months without a single lead or update. We’ve humored you this long in keeping the park closed, but you can’t seriously expect us to throw away this kind of opportunity based on cold cases. After all, you’ve always said your boys needed more funding; think how much equipment and training we could get from the estate sale.”

That’s going to go over well.

Seated to the left of Sheriff Kowalski, I sucked in a breath and waited for the inevitable eruption to follow the county auditor’s remarks. I’d been a deputy sheriff for years in Jacob’s Fork, and had served under David Kowalski since I was a rookie cop. He was a good man, and a strong leader, but he could get easily fired up when confronted with the bureaucratic red tape of local governance. I had been there when our tiny force went through some really tough cases; the drug ring that came in from Boise six years ago, a Kootenai poaching racket that murdered a hunter four years ago, or last year when a crazed gunman from out of state tried to shoot up an elementary school during Valentine’s Day. Most of the time, being a cop in the forgotten stretches of northern Idaho was easy, but these cases were always fresh in the minds of anyone who stayed on Kowalski’s force. For this reason, he’d been pushing more funding for nearly a decade, and always he got the same excuses about the county budget. To bring it up now, after everything that had happened concerning the Wickenshire House, was tantamount to throwing gasoline on a bonfire.

He swiveled his head to blink at the county commissioner, and I thought for a moment Sheriff Kowalski might explode, his face shading red like an overripe tomato. “Are you kidding me, Doug? We can’t sell that place in good faith, not when this might happen again, and opening up the mountain would be like ringing a damn dinner bell. I’ve got Andy Todd watching the mountain, and there are new markers in the woods as far as the Benson Ranch . . .”

“Oh, good lord, not this again.” Lisa slumped back in her chair, cradling her forehead in one hand with a groan of annoyance. “Andrew Todd is hardly a credible source, especially considering where he was the night of the disappearances.”

“. . . which means our suspect is still at large.” The Sheriff talked right over her words and instead directed his attention to our mayor, who looked more uncomfortable by the minute. “Now I say we seize the property as per eminent domain and seal the mountain off for good. I’ve got some dynamite down at the station from when we collapsed that old copper mine, and it will be enough to make sure the access road is completely demolished.”

“This is insane.” Charles Hubour, head of our local chamber of commerce, looked down his long nose at our badges from the opposite end of the table. “You’re going to mothball a six-million-dollar property and an entire public wilderness recreational area which is fully taxpayer funded because of a few piles of bones? You guys have guns, what are you so afraid of?”

Shifting in my chair, I did my best not to let my temper boil alongside the sheriff’s as the room scrutinized me like a bug on a card. I’d been promoted to detective after I apprehended the Valentine’s Day shooter by ramming his car with my own before the ensuing firefight broke out. Kowalski had overseen the promotion himself, and while he was still as tough on me as the day I joined, I knew he’d been proud. My own father left when I was ten, so to me the sheriff was as much a father figure as I ever had. When he let me take the lead on investigating the Wickenshire vanishings last winter, I gave it my all, only to fall short as none of the clues we found led to anything substantial.

I turned that place upside-down. I know I missed something, I just need more time.

“The markers are a health hazard.” Sheriff Kowalski jerked a thumb over one shoulder toward the distant mountains, though I could see his embarrassment at the words, as he and I both knew the real reason why we never removed them. “And more than that, they’re part of the crime scene. If we want to catch whoever is doing this, we need them intact, and there’s no way we can rely on private owners or nosy hikers to keep them there.”

“Oh please, now you’re just grasping at straws.” With a snort, Lisa crossed her arms and stuck her chin out with a waspish tone to her voice. “Honestly, at this point it looks more like covering up evidence to me. Besides, since when did we authorize you to hold onto explosives?”

Something inside of me snapped, and before I knew what I was doing, my mouth was running. “You know what, maybe next time you stop some maniac from gunning down a room full of kindergartners then you can dictate what we have in our arms locker.”

“Enough!” With a slam of his open palm on the table, Mayor Hilco brought the room to silence once more. “The Smoke Point Mountain is part of the public domain; we cannot keep it closed while the people are paying taxes for it. As it is tied to our administration, I’ll officially sign the paperwork to be reopen it by the end of the week.”

Sheriff Kowalski sighed, and I felt my chest deflate. There it was. Our defeat. Over an hour spent in this stuffy room, and none of them had listened to a word we said.

Un-freaking-beleivable.

Pausing for a moment to straighten his tie, the mayor continued. “As zoning laws are technically gray as to where it lies, the Wickenshire Estate is hereby considered an important local landmark of Jacobs Fork, therefore under my jurisdiction. We are not going to destroy any county infrastructure, not in this economic climate.”

The other officials flashed smug, triumphant smiles at us, but Hilco wasn’t finished.

“Instead,” He angled his head our way, and I could see him and the sheriff exchange a knowing look. “It will be remanded to police custody for an additional month, along with the access road leading to it, after which it will be taken into official holding by the county. If, in that time, the sheriff’s office finds anything substantial to lead to a breakthrough in the missing persons cases, the deadline will be extended by another week. Dismissed.”

Squawks of protest came from the other members of the cabinet, but the sheriff rose to his feet with a grim, yet satisfied look on his haggard face, and I followed suit.

“David.” Mayor Hilco raised a hand to stop us as the others filed from the conference room. “Stay. You too, detective.”

Once the door to the room swung shut behind the last exiting bureaucrat, the mayor sat back in his chair with a sigh, then threw a furtive glance toward the door. From his pockets, he fished out a box of cigarettes, slipping one between his lips. He crossed to the end of the room to push one of the windows open, and from outside the quiet bustle of passing cars and chatting pedestrians flowed in.

“Thought you quit?” Without a hint of judgment, Sheriff Kowalski produced a lighter from his shirt pocket and ran the flame under the mayor’s unlit cigarette tip.

He snorted, and Mayor Hilco pulled in a long drag before exhaling so that little plumes of smoke flowed from his nostrils. “As far as my wife knows, I did. You know, I never had a bad smoke. Bad drinks, bad coffee, bad dates, but a smoke was always a smoke. Damn shame the stuff is so bad for you.”

“Yeah, well, so are the burgers at JoAnne’s Diner.” Leaning against the windowsill beside him, Sheriff Kowalski produced his clay pipe and a small tin from his other shirt pocket, out of which came a small bag of loose black tobacco. “I swear, someday they’re gonna write ‘Bacon’ on my autopsy as cause of death. I’d never make it as a rabbi.”

That brought a tired smile to the mayor’s lined face, and he offered me a cigarette, which I politely declined. I wasn’t a smoker, though I had to admit the smell of Sheriff Kowalski’s cherry pipe tobacco made me want to reconsider. It truly was unfortunate how something so pleasant also caused cancer. Much like the town, it didn’t kill you at first, just crept up on you slow, until one day you realized you were stuck on this path as much as the next person. I wondered in abstract if Cindy or Erin were decomposing on some hidden trail or crevice somewhere on the rocky slopes to our north, trapped forever on their own path that we couldn’t find.

After another few quiet drags, Major Hilco let his shoulders slacken, and tugged at the knot in his tie with a weary groan. “Please tell me you boys can find something up there.”

Sheriff Kowalski glanced out the nearby window, his eyes far away in thought. “We’re doing the best we can, Jon. Anything dead’s gonna be dry bones by now. Anything living . . .”

Silence reigned once more, but after a moment, the mayor lifted his eyes to me. “You both have my support, you know that. The park opening was a necessary concession; I want this solved as much as anyone, but it’s been over six months since the fire. I can’t keep the others at bay for much longer. Find something for me to hold over their heads, or we’ll be forced to move on with the property.”

I straightened up, sensing the wight in how he addressed me first. This was still my task, my investigation to see through to the end. They were both relying on me to find new evidence. I couldn’t let the sheriff, or the mayor down, not when so much was at stake.

The families deserve to know what happened.

“I’ll find something.” I nodded, in a bid to inject more confidence into the statement than I truly felt.

“Good man.” Whether he believed me or not, the mayor bobbed his head in a similar gesture of approval and waved us off with a tired sigh. “I’ll be at a commerce summit in the Moose Lodge for the afternoon. Call my personal number if you need anything.”

With this signaling the impromptu meeting to be over, I followed the sheriff as he put out his pipe, the two of us making for the conference room door.

We slipped through the maze of corridors to the stairwell of the county courthouse and finally emerged onto the town square. It was a sunny day for Idaho, golden rays dancing on the courthouse green as we trudged for the sheriff’s pickup.

“Go ahead, say it.” I shook my head at myself as we rounded to our respective doors on the weather-beaten truck, its green and tan paint chipped from thousands of kicked up pebbles on backroads.

Sheriff Kowalski raised an eyebrow that bore faint traces of gray, settling into the driver’s seat and adjusting his faded gray Stetson with the grunts of an aging man. “Say what?”

Leaning an elbow on my own door, I noticed how worn the dark navy sleeves of my coat were. It hadn’t been more than a year since my promotion, and already it seemed like twenty. “That I should have kept my mouth shut. Renfield’s been gunning for a police budget cut for years; I just gave her enough ammo to make that happen.”

To my surprise, a wry grin slid over my boss’s lips, and he chuckled as we rumbled on down main street, a warm southern breeze flowing into the cab. “She can’t do nothing she couldn’t do yesterday, Derrick. If anything, it’s good she got some return fire for once. Ever since she headed that park commission, Renfield’s had stars in her eyes over running for mayor once Hilco leaves. One of these days all them spoiled uptown fools will vote her in and she’ll try to melt our badges for the silver, but it ain’t right now.”

As the streets of Jacob’s Fork rolled by, I watched the people on the sidewalks and in the windows of local shops, talking and shopping with relative peace. A few even waved as we passed by, noting the sheriff’s emblem on the truck door. One young woman tucked a strand of light blonde hair behind one ear, and I thought back to the missing person’s files, those faces I’d poured over for hours.

Two young women, one old man, one middle-aged hiker. No connections between the hiker and the first three, save for the location and circumstances. No footprints, no scent trail, no bodies.

“You really think we’ll find anything?” I voiced aloud my gloomy reservations and tried not to think about how any one of the people outside my window could be our suspect.

He let out another deep sigh, and the sheriff’s weathered face reflected my own doubts. “After this long? I don’t know. It’s like I told Hilco; if there are any bodies out there, they’ll be in pretty bad shape, but if somehow they are still alive, then we’re looking at some nasty business as far as trafficking is concerned. After this long, those girls could be in Yemen for all we know.”

My stomach knotted at that, and I winced at the sudden realization that I would honestly rather find their corpses than know the victims might still be suffering an unknown fate. “I’ll give the house another once-over this afternoon, to see if I can dig something new up. Did the reservation elders ever come back with any information?”

Steering the pickup around another turn in the sleepy streets of our town, Sheriff Kowalski frowned. We were on decent terms with the local Native American reservation many miles across the county from Jacob’s Fork, helped by the fact that the sheriff himself was a half-blood relative to their tribe. Still, there were tensions between the two communities, primarily around drugs and gambling, which drew both tourists and troublemakers alike. “Nothing useful. They’ve got enough problems of their own with the casinos, alcohol, petty crime, you name it. If one of theirs snatched our people, we’ll never know about it, and wouldn’t have the jurisdiction to go after them even if we did.”

We reached the police station on the opposite end of town and parked in the small lot where the other patrol vehicles waited. Ours was a small department, perhaps a few dozen or so deputies on the force in total, but we did have extra staff for administrative and forensic work that could help pull some of the weight. With an entire county to manage, and the upheaval surrounding the Wickenshire case, many of us had pulled 14-hour shifts for multiple nights in a row when the vanishings first happened. Between increased patrols around Smoke Point Mountain and search teams looking for evidence to pass on to the forensics lab, some of our boys had resorted to sleeping in cots set up in the rec room just to avoid falling asleep at the wheel. As the weeks went by, with nothing to show for it, this titanic effort had been scaled back, until all that was left was a hefty dossier on my desk and bad memories.

“Hey, Sloan.” As we passed through the front lobby and into the offices beyond, Sheriff Kowalski turned to wave at a nearby deputy seated behind another desk. “Drop what you’re doing; you’re on assignment with Junger in the field. Grab your files from evidence and get on it.”

Deputy Clyde Sloan looked up from his paperwork, saw the two of us, and understanding crossed his face in a measured grin. “You got it, boss.”

Turning to throw one last glance at me, the sheriff flicked his eyes toward the station doorway, which lay in the direction of the northern mountains. “Try to be back by dark.”

I said nothing, but we both knew what he meant as the man lumbered away to his office.

Clyde and I had been partners back when we were both cops on the beat, developing a close friendship and working on several cases together. Always the team player, Clyde applauded my promotion to detective, but I felt bad leaving him behind to the regular roadwork. Despite a habit of running his mouth to the irritation of most polite sensibilities, or his enduring love for chewing tobacco that he’d been trying to kick for years, Clyde was a good cop. He’d been with me when I brought down the Valentine’s Day shooter, and the only reason I got credit for the kill was because he went left around the wrecked car while I went right, thus engaging the suspect first. Loyal and headstrong, he deserved a promotion of his own, but the sheriff couldn’t just hand out pay-raises like candy, not when the local bureaucrats wanted to trim the budget every other year. Still, that never stopped him from working like a dog to earn his keep, and in less than fifteen minutes we were rolling along the lonely backroads of northern Idaho, the mountains looming closer as the warm summer breeze flowed through the open windows of my car.

“Still hard to believe it’s August already.” From the passenger seat, Clyde shuffled through the files within the overstuffed binder, paging through weeks of evidence to unearth a property map of the Wickenshire Estate. “At least we won’t be knee-deep in snow this time. Where are we fixin’ to start?”

I leaned over to tap on a section of the map north of the house, a spot marked with multiple little X’s inside of circles. “Boulder fields. That’s where the hunter went missing, and where they found Erin’s phone. We’ll try there while we have light, then the house when it gets late. Power should still be on; I don’t think the county ever bothered to shut anything off up there.”

For a few moments, we sat in silence as the car rumbled along, the mountains drawing closer, green trees flashing by along the roadside.

“Heard they want to sell the place.” Clyde drummed idle fingers on his knee as he stared out the passenger window, the evidence folder lying in his lap. “What kind of fool came up with that idea?”

“Renfield.” I turned onto the final route leading to the mountain road, civilization falling away behind us as the wilderness swallowed us up. “With some help from Hubour and Finberger. They’re going to open the whole park back up in a few days.”

He hissed a curse between his teeth, and Clyde rolled his eyes as he fished in his shirt pocket for a tub of chewing tobacco. “Ain’t never seen someone so money-hungry. Place has four bodies on it, and she wants to turn a dime on their graves. If that snooty pencil-pusher ever gets in as mayor, I’m moving to Florida, I swear to God.”

Despite the grimness of the setting, I couldn’t help but feel a thin smile crawl over my lips at his complaints, reminiscent of older days on the force together. “Still set on being a swamp man when you retire?”

“Yessir.” The twinkle returned to his eye, and Clyde nodded with an amused chuckle at his own vision of paradise. “I’m gonna build a little house by the water, a good fishing boat for the dock, and mix up a nice cold drink while I watch the sun go down on the gulf. Just me, the gators, and my dog. A man could live his whole life anywhere else and never have it that good.”

We laughed, but the looming shadow over us dampened the jovial mood as the trees closed in, the harsh stony tip of the mountain towering upward into the sky. Smoke Point Mountain wasn’t especially grand when compared to other, more notorious places in the US like Denali or Olympia, but it was prominent enough for our little valley that everyone’s eye was drawn to the granite peak every time they looked across the horizon of Jacob’s Fork. Supposedly local miners had used it as a communications point way back in the olden days, sending up smoke signals like the Kootenai did to let their bosses know another train load of iron ore was on its way down from the nearby range that the mountain sat detached from. Eventually telegraph lines came in, and made the smoke signals useless, but the name stuck, and the mountain stood by its lonesome, like an outcast before the other line of tall stone crags, good for hikers, hunters, and not much else. It had been made into a public park in the 1970’s during the environmental push, but the Wickenshire House escaped absorption into government ownership by remaining the one private homestead left on its cold slopes.

Every bump in the gravel road that wound its way up the mountain side brought back memories, dark flashes of countless days and night searching for signs, for hope, for anything to let me know I was close to the truth. So many hours spent combing the forest, pouring over topographically maps, even a few helicopter rides to scout for unseen trails from above. Seemingly endless calls from concerned locals, the numerous emotion-heavy pleas from the families of the missing, the accusations from pot-stirring journalists that wanted to find something juicy for a story that could go viral on social media. They were all disappointed, angry, confused, even fearful when the days dragged on and I continued to discover no further clues. They vented their fury at me, the only one they could point a finger at, despite the sheriff doing his best to vent the backlash away from our department. How could they know how many times I walked the grounds of the estate, paced through the silent halls and corridors, and gazed out the lifeless windows into the wilderness beyond? How could they know how many nights I went without sleep, abused gas-station alertness pills, drank gallons of the worst sort of coffee, beating myself to death over the failure to find anything? All for a dead end.

All for nothing.

And somehow, it was all my fault.

At last, as we pulled up the narrow driveway, the thick rows of evergreen trees fell away, and a spindly shadow or rusted cast iron reared upward into the fading sunshine. The gate was more rusty than last time I’d laid eyes on it, as if whatever oil or paint on it had given up the fight long ago. Around it, the long stone walls of the courtyard stood cracked along the mortar joints, settled with a kind of age that radiated a weary grief I felt in my bones. It was like seeing an old friend slowly choke to death on cancerous lungs, a place that I remembered fondly from better times, when I myself was nothing more than a boy.

“Still burned out.” Clyde spat tobacco juice into a plastic Coke bottle and shook his head in amazed dread at the landscape around us. “Not a single blade of grass, even with all the rain we’ve had. Scorch must’ve gone deep.”

The fire had happened on the night of the first disappearances, burning the entire 100-acre plot of the Wickenshire Estate from the property line inward, right up to the stone wall. There, inexplicably, the flames had stopped, not so much as tarring the stonework, leaving the enormous house and its manicured gardens intact. A strange anomaly of fate, it left a small oasis of greenery in a large field of barren rocks, dead soil, and crumbled remnants of what had once been plant life. Above this towered the house itself, an edifice of a bygone era, once a thing of immaculate beauty, and now . . . now I felt sick at the mere sight of it.

Unlocking the thick steel padlock we’d left to keep random people from accessing the property, I drove us through the gate, right up to the front of the house itself. It was a tall building, two stories high but it seemed much higher, built from local quarry stones over a hundred years ago. Victorian in its design, there was not another house like it in all of Idaho, a strange misfit of architecture among the timber-framed rustic ranch houses and log cabin-themed ski lodges that dotted the land. Wooden shutters lined every window, the sills carved from smooth granite, and the roof bore uniform rows of slate that would likely outlive me. A wide wooden porch covered the front half of the house, the pillars shaped like those of the Greek Pantheon, and beneath the eves of its awning stood the double French doors that had devoured Erin and Cindy whole.

I didn’t have to tell Clyde on what to bring for the trek up the mountainside. He was as experienced as I was and kept up with me as we shouldered our packs, making our way through the ornamental gardens within the courtyard walls to the back gate that led to the burned expanse beyond. Once we traversed this, we finally passed into the forested sections of the mountain slope that hadn’t been touched by the fire.

It was a quiet, morose place. Many people often didn’t understand how silent the mountains could be, especially if they came from a place filled with noise like the city. Tourists would ask us if hunters ‘killed all the animals up there’ or if ‘there wasn’t enough oxygen’ which I found amusing, given the evident lack of awareness in their statement. The truth, as always, was that there were animals in the mountains, they just had to be pickier than their lowland cousins, more cautious of how much energy they expended, and often moved down into the lowlands throughout the seasons. Hunters didn’t kill them all, there certainly wasn’t an oxygen problem for so insignificant of a peak, and it was often the case that the noisy, clumsy, inexperienced urbanites had been right next to a bird or critter that they never saw simply because that animal didn’t want to be seen.

However, this part of the mountain had changed since the vanishings, and even as a local, I noticed the heavy, oppressive silence. No birds sang, not in the distance or around us, and I couldn’t see any movement flitting through the branches overhead. No signs of recent deer or other tracks dotted the sparse portions of earth, and even the stones that clattered under our boots echoed too loudly in the quiet. At one point, we did spot a single, black crow rustling about in a stand of blackberry bushes, and Clyde called out to it with a friendly ‘hello there’, only for the thing bolt off into the treetops as if we’d startled it. Wind whistled and wailed the higher we climbed, mournful and chilly despite the season, the daylight slanting lower in the sky as the evening wore on.

We spent hours looking through the boulder field, a massive plain of rocks and rubble left behind by ancient glaciers. Clyde scanned the area with a set of binoculars, I checked every gap between the stones with my flashlight, and we marked our progress with chalk on the boulders as we inched over the slope yard by yard. We used a metal detector to look for old shoe islets, belt buckles, anything that might indicate where a body could be. I sent up a drone the department had been given during the first search operation in December to scan the area from the sky, circling round and round in hopes of spotting something from a different angle. We combed that placed front and back, until the light got low enough that I couldn’t put it off anymore.

“Let’s go.” I zipped up my backpack and shined my flashlight toward Clyde, who stood not far off down the slope, prodding at another crevice. “We’re out of light, and we still need to search the house. Sheriff’s going to get antsy if we don’t report in soon anyway.”

Clyde turned to respond, but his face hardened into an alarmed frown as he starred past me into the trees, and he slid one hand toward his service pistol. “Junger . . .”

I spun around to spot a strange object hanging amongst the branches of a nearby spruce, swaying to and fro in the cool evening breeze. Even from this far away, I knew we hadn’t missed it on our first walk through, the object dangling right over the path we’d taken into the boulder field, dull and pale in the gleam of our flashlights. It hadn’t been there five minutes ago, I was sure of it.

Together Clyde and I stalked forward, closer and closer until we stood mere feet away from the thing in the tree, stunned into mutual silence.

The thing was held suspended by an odd form of hand-made twine, which looked to be twisted together from roots, vines, or even thorn bushes, until each strand was as thick as my pinky finger. Each strand interconnected with another in a crude net, almost like a spider’s web, the knots tight and strong. These supported a basket of sorts, made from what at first glance looked like branches, circular in shape, with white and yellowed patches showing in the flashlight beam.

Bones.

Dozens of them.

Four broken sections of elk antler were circled together as if an embrace, stripped of any flesh or meat at the base, dried out from endless days in the Western sun. More smaller bones were interwoven with mats of reeds and thorny stems, the gaps pasted shut with a thick, black sludge decorated with a carpet of ebony petals. I’d seen markers like this in searches before, had seen them appearing more and more in the landscape around the house, and knew why the sheriff did his best not to mention them in his reports. They were all like this, odd, eerie things that appeared from nowhere, but they were all on the ground and, save for five pillars built around the house itself, were no bigger than knee-high. We still didn’t know what they meant, or who left them, but we knew it had started around the first vanishing. This one was hanging as if left for us as a gift, and the smell that emanated from it nearly knocked the air out of me, a pungent mixture of wet dirt, wood rot, decayed flesh . . . and roses.

Always roses.

Even then, it was what lay in the middle of the macabre basket that drew me forward, until my hand reached out almost without my beckoning to scoop the tiny item from its place.

With a cracked glass screen and sun-faded purple case, the cellphone looked as though it had lain on the mountain for months, but no sooner was it in my hands and the tormented display lit up.

As soon as my eyes registered the face on the lock screen, I swore under my breath, Clyde doing the same, and rivers of ice flooded my veins.

Cindy Fadro stared back from the phone, smiling in the stillness of the background picture, with pretty features, blonde hair, and sky-blue eyes. We’d never found her phone the night she disappeared, only her friend Erin’s. After so long without a charge, exposed to the elements including Idaho’s vicious winter snows, it shouldn’t have been working. The only way this device could still be functional was if someone had kept it.

Or taken it.

Bzzzz.

The phone vibrated in my hand once, and an icon slid up before my eyes.

New message available.

Heart pounding, I dared to tap the screen, and found no entry code blocking me, the device opening up for us to access Cindy’s message files without complaint. They were old, most of them several months old, missed calls and texts from dozens of people who wanted her to be alive, to be okay, to come home.

According to the phone, she’d never viewed any of them.

One new message glowed at the top of the roster, and as I clicked on it, I tasted metal on the back of my tongue, my ears ringing with a shudder of unease. It was a picture, grainy and blurred by motion as if whoever had taken it was moving while doing so, but the subject was clear enough to make out.

It was us, Clyde and myself, walking through the woods on our way to the boulder field. Our backs were to the camera, leaves from a blackberry bush half-obscuring the unknown watcher, and under the picture, a single line of text appeared while my friend and I blinked at one another in horrified realization.

Hello there.

Plot summary from an essay of the same name posted on the publishing site 'Medium' (free access):

1. We see Side One as setting the stage in NYC. It shows the hero, Rael, as a gangland kid searching for respect. When a ‘wall of death’ emerges, he is the only one to see it and is apparently unsuccessful in trying to outrun it. The collision sets off a nightmarish journey of discovery as to what is real within himself. The events symbolize his feelings of being trapped by society and then spinning out of control.
2. Side Two starts with a series of flashbacks that illustrate his previous cruel actions and lack of empathy. It shows feelings of victimhood and a lack of success in his search for love. Reaching into his chest, Rael pulls out his hairy heart and shaves it off. The scene reveals the album’s surreal aspects and Rael’s new understanding that he is not in touch with his emotions. As he follows others into a chamber having many doors but no exit, he resigns to his fate and sits despondent.
3. Opening the Third Side, Rael asks for help for the first time. Ironically, blind Lilith shows him a way out of the chamber, but leaves him in a chaotic ‘waiting room’ which leads to an encounter with an undertaker. After dancing with Death, he arrives at a pool. It is the lair of the Lamia. Entering the water, he makes love and unwittingly kills them. Upon eating their now dead bodies, he experiences a deep sorrow for their loss.
4. The Fourth Side finds him arriving in the land of the degenerate Slippermen who ask him to join in. He refuses. He heroically passes this test of his values. But Rael and his brother (John is now next to him) have no way out except to be castrated. Now impotent, Rael searches for an exit. He rejects a portal back to NYC when he hears John below in the rapids screaming for help. Rael risks his life to pull John from the water, but then finds his brother is himself. Thus united, he joyously knows what ‘it’ is. Triumphant music fades to end the album.

Accepting his worthless brother, who is actually himself, now makes Rael whole as he understands what it is to be truly human and fully alive. This union may show his Ying and Yang in balance, and Rael is now ‘complete’.