21
Salem
Where’s Martin?
R ayne’s bed was empty when I woke. She hadn’t slept beside me. We’d fucked and she... left.
I’d been too tired to realize it the night before. Now, my heart beat an uncertain rhythm in my chest. Worry dug its brutal hands into my stomach.
I’d done exactly what I wasn’t supposed to do. I’d fallen for her.
I thought of her rare smiles and my nervous stomach fluttered. Recalled the sometimes soft, sometimes merciless touch of her hands and shivered. I closed my eyes and remembered the taste of her, then licked my lips to see if any of her remained.
My thoughts spun uselessly, my mind a whirlpool. It didn’t feel right, but this was it. I pulled her sheets up over my nose and breathed in, my eyes stinging with unexpected tears.
Not now, Salem. Keep it together. It’s time to go home.
The manor was quiet. The kitchen team had already left by the time I dragged myself down to the dining room. I toasted a bagel and ate alone near the window, watching the rain and trying to figure out why I felt so sad.
I was leaving a puzzle half finished. Putting down a book without reading the last chapter.
But it was more than that.
It was the same feeling I’d had after Colin left. That maybe somehow I could have done something different and everything would have worked out. It was the feeling that my loneliness was my own fault.
But I’d known better from the start. Rayne and I simply weren’t meant to be; real life didn’t work like that. We had jobs to do, our own lives to lead.
I still hated saying good-bye.
Rayne was nowhere to be found. Loki was asleep in the foyer, and I sat by his side for far too long when I should have been packing, hoping his mistress would make an appearance. But the house was still, and colder than ever.
When I finally returned to my room to hurriedly stuff my belongings into my backpack, I listened outside her door for any movement within. I felt pathetic, but I couldn’t help it.
Rayne didn’t want to see me again. I had to accept that. She’d given me a little glimpse behind that impenetrable wall around her heart, but never opened the gates. My feelings, my curiosity, my questions were all unresolved.
And likely always would be.
I had come here to start over. To erase my past so I could focus on the future. But I’d let myself feel too much. I’d gotten too invested. I’d allowed myself to think there was more to this than there was.
My last hope was to find Rayne at the front desk as I went to check out, but no. A wooden box had appeared on the reception desk, and someone had written on it in black marker Drop room key here for checkout.
It felt like a kick in the stomach. This was it, then. The fantasy was over. The clunk of my key into the box felt like the drop of a guillotine, severing my last tie to this place.
I gave Loki a hug, scratched his chest, and told him he was a very good boy. I opened the door, told myself not to look back even though I heard the big dog whine in protest.
It was time to go home.
The rain poured as I rode my bike along the winding, muddy road toward the docks.
I had two hours to reach the ferry, the last ride off the island until the end of winter.
Water streaked down the hood of my raincoat, my tires splashing through mud.
No one else was on the road; I didn’t see a single vehicle.
Even the fields were devoid of animals, who had likely taken shelter from the downpour.
Lightning flashed in the distance, followed by the low rumble of thunder. By nightfall, those storms would be directly over the island. I thought of Rayne sitting at her window, a joint in her hand, watching the storm approach with her music playing.
My heart ached. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Hood up, scarf wrapped around my face, I barely heard the sudden cry of “Help! Please, I need help!”
My tires skid as I abruptly braked. Wind rustled through the trees, limbs creaking and twigs snapping.
“Help!”
Alarm seeped through me as I laid down my bike and stepped off the path. The voice was distant, but familiar: It was Martin.
The area around me was flat but overgrown, tangled with ferns and fallen trees. I couldn’t see the hunter anywhere.
“Help! Please!”
His voice fell strangely on my ears. It was recognizable, but something was off. The tone was distressed, strained as if in pain. I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly sounded so wrong.
“I need help!”
Stumbling deeper into the trees, I yelled, “I’m coming! I can hear you! Keep talking!”
The forest abruptly fell silent, as if the trees themselves had gone still. I picked my way through the bushes and brambles, my head on a swivel.
“Martin! Keep talking to me!”
The rain increased, rustling the leaves as it dripped to the forest floor. Even with my raincoat, I was drenched, but I kept stumbling onward, calling Martin’s name. He’d call back, sometimes close, sometimes far.
It made no sense.
“Help! I need help!”
A fresh wave of fear washed over me, so heavy I immediately stopped walking. My lungs were heavy, and goose bumps covered my arms. There was something eerie about Martin’s voice. It was too... repetitive. The same tone, same inflection, every single time.
Despite my instinct to turn back, I clambered down an embankment to have one last look around. The man had been injured last I saw him, and the sheriff had been searching for him and George for days. I would never forgive myself for walking away from someone in danger.
Cupping my hands around my mouth, I shouted, “Hello? Where are you? Martin?”
My inquiry was swallowed by the trees. I could no longer see the path where I’d abandoned my bike, and I couldn’t delay any longer. I had to get to the docks.
But when I turned to head back, I wasn’t alone.
A figure stood between the trees, naked, its back to me. It looked like a man—at first. Its skin was pale like a fish’s belly, its waist and stomach shrunken and narrow, its rib cage wide and squat like a bell. I could count its every rib, the bones clearly visible beneath its taut skin.
My eyes struggled to comprehend what I was seeing.
It was hairless, its flesh wrinkled and thick in unexpected places. Sharp shoulder blades— four of them —protruded from its back. Its knees were bent, its long, muscular legs ending in cloven hooves.
Four too-long arms dangled at its sides, swaying slowly as it rocked back and forth.
What the fuck was I looking at?
“Hey! I need some help!”
It was speaking—no, it was screaming . But it didn’t turn toward me; it didn’t move. It just screamed, in Martin’s voice, the words full of pain.
This wasn’t possible.
It wasn’t natural.
This wasn’t a prank, this wasn’t someone in a costume. Its long clawed fingers twitched, and suddenly, it turned.
It was eyeless, with snakelike slits for a nose. But I could feel it looking at me as my stomach lurched with a primal, instinctual terror.
Its mouth gaped. Flaps of skin stretched between its jaw bones as its maw unfolded like a snake’s. Spiked, tonguelike appendages coiled and writhed between rows of pointed teeth.
Then it dropped to the ground and crawled toward me with terrifying speed.
I sprinted through the trees with no path to follow. Branches snapped behind me, the cold air ached in my lungs. I had no idea which way to go. My bike was behind me, the road was gone. I vaulted over a log and nearly lost my footing. My adrenaline made everything seem to be moving in slow motion.
Suddenly, I caught sight of a flash of red. A crimson glow that moved distantly between the trees, and I could have sworn I heard a cold voice whisper, “This way.”
Every time I dared to glance back over my shoulder, the creature was in pursuit. I caught only glimpses of it between the trees: the sickly white flesh, too many limbs, the gaping mouth.
It couldn’t be real.
This couldn’t fucking be real .
I sprinted toward the red glow, with no other sense of direction. I could have been hurtling straight toward a cliff and the ocean below, but I had no choice, I couldn’t stop.
One moment my feet were flying and then they tangled, slipping on mud. I fell, tumbling, my body striking trees and stones, every blow knocking the wind out of me. Down, down, down, until suddenly—
Pain. Darkness.
The sky was a dark mass of swirling shadow.
Night had fallen.
My mouth tasted like dirt and blood. There was a pulsing pain in my head, made worse when I crawled unsteadily to my feet. Drenched and shivering, I turned in a slow circle as I tried to determine where I was.
Barely visible between the trees, the Blackridge lighthouse loomed above me, pale as the moon and utterly dark within. I was miles away from the manor, and my phone was missing. My muddy, soaked backpack lay nearby.
It had been hours.
The last ferry was long gone.
My stomach churned as I tried to remember what happened. Something had chased me. But my memory of it—the grotesque body, the eyeless face—had I hallucinated? The way it ran after me on six limbs, how its mouth gaped like a snake’s. That couldn’t be real.
This was a nightmare. I was dreaming, or I’d hit my head so hard I was misremembering.
Despite my dry throat, I called out, “Hey! Can anyone hear me? I need help!”
The forest’s silence was my only response. Chills went up my spine as I remembered the cries for help that had led me to this situation in the first place. Cries that sounded like Martin, yet somehow came from the mouth of that thing .
My breath came quick and shallow. None of this made any sense.
At least the lighthouse gave me some insight into where I was. The manor was south of me, and Marihope was due east. I needed to find my way back to the road.
As I huddled beneath the trees, rummaging through my backpack for my flashlight, there was movement among the craggy rocks surrounding the lighthouse.
Immediately I shrunk, crouching down behind the boulders and plants.
Covering my mouth with my hands, I watched as something impossible emerged from a narrow tunnel burrowed into the dirt.
Six limbs. No eyes. Hooves and claws. Over the wind and rain, I could faintly hear its sounds: grunts and gurgles, whispered syllables. And then...
“Can anyone hear me? I need help!”
My voice came from that thing’s mouth. The beast paused, crouched near its burrow, head up as if to sniff the air.
“Help! Help!” It was George’s voice this time. The creature was switching back and forth between our tones, mimicking them perfectly. Like bait. A trap to lure in the unsuspecting.
Holding my breath, I watched the creature until it crawled away into the forest, its cries fading. Only once it was out of earshot did I start moving, stumbling through the trees. I had to get into town. I had to find a doctor, a firefighter, a policeman...
Rayne. I had to find Rayne.