Chapter 34 #2
I frown at the gravel driveway, following it with my eyes past the iron gate as it carves through the trees, further and further until it bends out of sight. If my past self showed up right now, stomach churning from that super pleasant cocktail of ectoplasm, fear, and excitement—would I stop her?
Would she listen to me?
Probably not when I’m swaying on the porch with a bottle in my hand.
Movement beyond the fence catches my eye at the tree line alongside the driveway. The trees are thick. Dense enough that anything could be hiding out of sight. I squint into the shadows between the trunks. Maybe it was Peggy, hoping for more fish.
I raise the bottle to my lips again when the shadows shift.
There’s something between two oak trees about fifty yards out. It’s not moving.
And it’s watching me.
I blink hard, trying to get my eyes to focus, and when I open them, the figure is gone.
All I can see are trees and shadows and the dying light.
My eyes track along the tree line sluggishly, waiting for something to materialize—a big raccoon, maybe, following the road toward the house and looking for garbage to eat.
Nothing appears. No trash panda. Nothing.
It’s the Jim Beam playing tricks on me. Has to be. I take another drink, trying to steady my nerves, but the whiskey tastes like copper now.
Then I see it again.
It’s still following the road from the safety of the trees, but it’s closer. Maybe thirty yards out.
On my side of the fence.
The bottle falls from my hands. I launch myself up the steps as fast as I can and stumble toward the house.
The porch sways under my feet. I can’t get a grip on the door handle.
The metal keeps slipping until it finally turns and I fall inside, slamming it behind me so hard the frame shudders. I lock the knob and deadbolt the door.
“Donny!” My voice comes out sounding strangled. “Donny!”
Footsteps shuffle down the hallway, and then he’s there, still wearing his reading glasses.
“Eden?” Donny asks. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s someone outside,” I say, pointing toward the front door. “Watching the house.”
Donny moves to the window, pulling the curtain aside enough to peer out. “I don’t see anybody.”
“Someone was there.” My voice rises, teetering on the edge of hysteria. “I saw him. On the inside of the fence. He was standing there, watching me.”
But even as I say it, doubt creeps in. The whiskey is making everything feel like it’s happening to someone else. Am I sure the figure was on the inside of the fence? What if I imagined it?
Donny yells for Nico. I hear a door opening upstairs, and I press my back harder against the door.
Nico rounds the corner.
He looks nothing like the man who was yelling at me in the library hours ago. He’s in clean clothes. His face is calm and so neutral that it makes me feel like seeing him shouting was a dream I had.
He narrows his eyes. He must be able to tell how fucked up I am right now. I’d bet he can smell the whiskey from across the room.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“Eden saw someone watching the house from the tree line,” Donny says. “I need you to do a perimeter check.”
Nico nods, already moving toward the back of the house, clearly glad to do something that doesn’t require him to stand in the same room as me.
Donny guides me away from the front door, his hand light on my elbow as he tells me he’ll make me another cup of tea. What is it with this guy and tea? As if chamomile is going to fix the fact that I’m losing my mind, but I accept the tea.
Pro tip: chamomile does not mix well with whisky, so I take one sip, then push it as far away from my nose as possible while keeping my hands wrapped around it for warmth.
I keep checking the clock on the microwave—five minutes, then eight.
How long does it take to check a perimeter? What if something happened to Nico?
I jump when the back door opens. Nico enters, brushing leaves off his jacket. I scan his face for blood or any sign that he found something terrible out there, but he just looks cold and tired.
“Well?” Donny asks.
“Nothing,” Nico says, not sitting down at the table with us. “Checked the tree line, went about fifty yards deep into the woods. No sign anyone was there.”
Of course there was nothing. Of course I imagined the whole thing. Just Eden being dramatic again.
“That doesn’t mean what you saw wasn’t real,” Donny says quickly, like he can read the shame written all over my face.
Nico crosses his arms. I wonder if he’s thinking of killing me right now. Of grabbing a cooking pan and bashing me over the head because my dramatic ass made him go traipse around in the woods.
I mumble an apology and go out the back door, desperate for air that doesn’t smell like other people. The cool evening air hits my face like a blessing. I sink onto the narrow wooden steps, trying to slow my racing heart.
The yard stretches out in every direction. I fix my eyes on the spot in the tree line where I saw the figure. There’s no sign anyone was ever there. Because there wasn’t anyone there.
I should stop drinking. Should eat something. Should collect my quarter million dollars and get the hell out of here before I end up as another cautionary tale.
I close my hand into a fist and pound it into my forehead. Why is it that I can use logic when thinking about Marcus Walsh and Ed Mathis, but not with Nico?
I tilt my face up to the darkening sky, finding Dad’s dog tags and gripping them hard. The metal is warm from my body heat and worn smooth from years of me rubbing it.
“What am I supposed to do?” I whisper to the empty air. “Please, Dad, tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
The wind picks up, rattling the bare branches above me, but that’s the only answer I get.
I cover my mouth with my hand, my shoulders shaking with the effort of stifling the sobs. My family’s been gone for eight years, and I’m on my own, with nobody left alive who gives enough of a shit about me to tell me what to do.