Twenty-Five
If I didn’t know the history of this place, it would almost seem peaceful.
The break in the trees gives my lungs a chance to expand as my eyes adjust to having more than a few feet’s worth of visibility at a time.
The foliage has become fluffy light green as it spreads around the ground, everywhere but on a narrow dirt road that winds through the pass and along the various homes.
I’d guess it could’ve fit maybe one buggy, could now fit a horse-riding party in a single-file line.
There are about ten buildings, all made of the same golden wood slabs, some aged grayer and darker than others, depending on how much sun hits them.
They’re all either one- or two-story structures, all seemingly one room per floor.
No windows, no doors. Some have horizontal poles for tying up horses, some don’t.
Inside, the only bits of furniture that remain are a few workbenches made from the same material as the houses.
They remind me of the old Lincoln Logs toys my parents would give Owen and I to play with when they decided Lego were too expensive.
There were only like five combinations of structures one could make, an easy task for a child.
These homes truly look like a child designed them.
If the legends are true, children still haunt them.
And the witch.
I shiver.
Beck moves closer to one of the two-story structures as I find myself just staring.
Children and a witch. The old fairy tales suddenly resurface in my mind.
The witch who tried to shove Hansel and Gretel into an oven to eat them.
My stomach sours thinking about it. What did happen to those schoolchildren?
How were they “sacrificed” to the devil, to the witch?
Does it even matter if the witch is fake if it’s caused such real, unspeakable harm?
Why is it that Harlow and Opal were missing body parts? Why were Paisley’s teeth so messed up?
I shake my head, shake my whole body out to force the thought away. I can’t dwell on that. We’re here because Paisley’s video showed them coming here. Maybe we’ll find a new piece of evidence, maybe we won’t. I can’t assume the horrific unless the horrific comes.
But Beck seems to think otherwise. She stares blankly at a plaque right outside the buildings, which commemorated the ghost town and the schoolchildren who lost their lives here.
There’s a photo on the plaque: twelve kids and a woman in her twenties, all of them frowning, their eyes dead as they stare ahead.
Like the photo was taken after they’d already died.
“So, Opal and Harlow were found in the ravine,” she says. “Opal was missing her finger and Harlow’s body was intact but missing an ear. So…if they did die out here, we might find…that.”
The nausea returns. “I don’t think we’d find body parts,” I say. “The animals would’ve taken them by now.” I force a deep, long breath until the wave passes. “But clothing. We might find that.”
I don’t even remember what Paisley was wearing that night. We should look back at the videos, but I don’t want to see their faces as we do this.
How did they encounter the killer out here? Were they followed, or did they walk right into her nest by being here? Should we try to find Evan and check in with him? Just so someone else knows exactly where we are?
But Beck suggests we start by checking every building, so that’s what we do.
We’re completely alone out here, but it’s a whole lot bigger space to fully investigate than just the campsite.
By the time we finish our initial check and have to get on our hands and knees to do a more thorough inspection in one of the one-room buildings, I need to fill the silence.
This place is vast, yet the pain here is palpable enough to leave dread swirling in my gut.
I don’t believe in ghosts, but there’s something heavy here.
Maybe it’s just the grief at being so close to where they likely spent their last moments.
“Are you passionate about volleyball?” I ask Beck.
The building is full of aging trash: scrap metal that must’ve once been a part of the structures, rusting old tools, piles of dusty bricks, dead plants that made their way inside.
Interestingly, it doesn’t seem like there are any framed photographs or vases or knickknacks.
Maybe they’ve all been taken by hikers over the years.
“Uhhh, I like the adrenaline rush,” Beck says. “I like that I’m good at it. I like that it’s the kind of thing where if you put in enough hours to pick up a new sub-skill, it can be done.”
All those questions and then I remember what happened with Beck and volleyball. Despite my cheeks heating from that realization, I decide to just go for it.
“Are you upset about getting booted from the team?” I ask.
Beck examines a rusty tool, gingerly avoiding the most worn-out spots.
“Honestly, it was the biggest relief of my life. I like being active, sure, but I hated the team dynamics and all the rules. I’m not going to say I was better off skipping school and getting into fights, but do you know how it feels to finally not have to adhere to a schedule and just exist?
” She sighs. “I know what I was doing was a bad way to cope. But no, I’m fine spending senior year part two without doing a sport.
Maybe I can find something I like doing that isn’t stressful as fuck. ”
I’m still sifting through stuff, but I’m starting to forget what we’re looking for in the first place. “What do you want to spend your life doing?” I pause. “If you know.”
“I’m not sure,” Beck says. “I really love movies, so maybe I could study film or something? Not sure what I’d do with it, though.
I’m not creative and I don’t know if I’m smart enough to be a critic.
I know I have to finish high school, but sometimes I wonder if I even want to go to college.
I really like being active, so part of me always dreams of becoming, like, a zipline guide and being in nature and having a quiet life. But my parents would never let me.”
I would’ve known the answer to what Paisley’s parents would think about Beck being a zipline guide just from knowing the pressure they put on Paisley with the auditions.
But now knowing just how deeply Paisley’s mom has been living vicariously through her now-dead daughter, Beck doesn’t even have to say it.
I don’t want her to have to say it out loud for my sake.
My throat stings again as I speak. “The expectations have changed.”
“Yeah.” Beck pinches the bridge of her nose. “I don’t even know if I can come out to my mom. She wouldn’t have cared before, but now that Paisley’s dead, I don’t think any alternative lifestyles are able to be processed by her brain.”
Fuck.
“She uh…” Beck inhales sharply, staring at a hole in the old wooden walls. “She always envisioned one of us would have one of those Pinterest weddings: Prince Charming groom, meadow maternity photoshoot. Paisley would’ve done it. I…”
I seek out Beck’s gaze, stepping close enough that I can see the redness in her eyes.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.
Your dad seems like a real champion for you.
Let him fight that battle with your mom.
She just wants you to be happy in the end, right?
” I smile. “And who knows? Maybe you’ll still get married and throw her a bone. ”
Beck breaks into a smile. “I’m going to get married in the most rustic, obscure, out-of-the-way place just to make her hike there in her heels. The ultimate catharsis.”
“There’s also nothing wrong with being a zipline guide.”
She laughs, a sound that breaks the tension in the room. “I’m sure the pay’s shit, but yeah.” She looks over at me, gaze heavy. “What do you wanna do?”
“Design movie posters. Do some kind of illustration for a living. I’m getting better at portraits, so that’s cool. Just hoping that the entire profession doesn’t get replaced by AI…”
Beck’s eyes widen. “Wait. Paisley has some portrait in her room. Did you draw that?”
I blush. “Yeah.”
“Shit, that thing’s amazing!” She puts her hand on my arm. “You’re really good.”
I don’t think a peer I know in real life has ever shown that much enthusiasm for my work.
Teachers, my bosses at work, strangers on the internet, sure.
But there’s something about Beck, the light in her blue eyes and the way eagerness spreads to her whole body that makes me feel it in a way I haven’t before.
Beck, standing here, acknowledging she thinks I’m talented while her touch has my nerves coming to life from my arm to heart, brain, and everywhere beyond that.
I fall a little in love with her in that moment.
“Thank you,” I mutter, butterflies flapping in my stomach as the real animal flitters around beyond this old structure.
Images flood my head of what happens after this.
It’s not clear what we discover on this trip, but we’re back home.
I could go try out a million hobbies and career paths with Beck until she finds something that makes her as happy as art makes me.
We could go to horror movies together, and I could show her behind-the-scenes at the Mystic Museum and draw her as many pictures as she wants.
I could take her out to dinner with my family the next time we go somewhere fun and show her what a low-key dynamic can look like.
We could finally have a connection that’s real.
Maybe…maybe that moment in the tent wasn’t a fluke.
Maybe there’s more than just a platonic friendship—
Cold rushes through me.
I’m imagining a happy ending for us that started with the slaughter of her sister and my friends.
What kind of a monster does that?
I try to inhale, but my breath catches. I try again, and same thing.
I need to breathe, list five things, but the room is disappearing around me.
I can smell the rustic smell of blood, the heavy, sickly sweet of rotting flesh and dead leaves and animal feces and whatever else was in that cave they found Paisley in, and—
I put my hand to my chest, feeling my heartbeat against my fingertips. I’m panicking. There’s no blood, there are no bodies. But I could do with some fresh air.
“I’m gonna take a breather,” I say.
I walk out the door, the green calming me enough to stop the lurch of panic but not enough to get my fucking brain to shut up.
What are we hoping to find here? Some signs that my friends were ritually sacrificed piece by piece by someone who thinks they were possessed by a witch?
Their parts eaten and the rest methodically planted over the cliff?
What even happens after that? Where does a horrible story like this end?
What happens to Beck if we even find out?
What happens to me? Is it supposed to make me feel okay feeling grateful I’m not dead?
Make the abandonment I felt seem worth it?
I know it is. I know I’d rather be alive and rejected than dead.
This whole trip has felt like a nightmare, paths suddenly appearing out of nowhere with no clear sign as to what they mean. And this ghost town feels like the ultimate labyrinth. Are we even at the final location where the deaths took place or is there more for us to uncover?
I put my head between my knees and wait for my racing thoughts to lose their bite.
The sun feels nice on my back, and there’s a soft breeze running through my hair.
It smells like pine needles again. Slowly, I stand back up and prepare to explain to Beck that I’m fine, actually.
The loss of control is not good for me, and it’s only going to get worse, but I can’t hyperfocus on that right now.
And just like that, I spy something half-buried near the foundation of one of the homes before I can find Beck. Like someone’s looking out for me.
I bend down and brush away the dust.
It’s a tool. A pair of pliers.
Modern pliers, I realize as I pour some of my water over it.
My stomach drops.
There’s blood on these things. Dried blood soaked into the shine of the metal.
Then Beck screams.
It’s one of those screams that pierces into your soul, one where you can hear the pitch rising and falling as the emotion rushes through someone’s body.
It’s worse than anything I’ve ever heard in a horror movie.
I sprint so fast I feel as though I’m flying.
Into a different house this time, two stories, up a rickety narrow staircase that would’ve terrified me in any other circumstance.
Past giant holes of decay in the wood that could land you right back onto the first floor with a broken foot.
Out the back window and onto a slat of flat wooden rooftop.
Beck stands over a bird’s nest.
For a moment, I search her for blood, for an injury that would have her screaming like that. The closer I get though, the clearer I can see she’s holding something, but she’s uninjured.
“Beck!” I scream, trying to be heard over her screams. “What’s wrong?”
She falls back onto the ground, squirming away. Dropping something where she was.
It’s neon orange.
I bend down and every gear in my brain suddenly slows to the speed of molasses.
But once my eyes focus, the scream builds in my own throat.
It’s a fingernail painted in orange polish.
There’s a bird nest on this roof and it’s lined with Paisley Horne’s fingernails.