JOSIE
Bad idea? Probably. But bad ideas are often something that we thought we could handle, only to find out later we didn’t even have a chance.
I nervously fix my hair for the fourth time as I sit in my car, parked across the road from the blue house on Lauren Street, the address in the text. It’s nine in the evening, dark and eerie outside.
This idea is risky. But if I play it right, I will finally get to find out what the guy has for me.
If something goes wrong, I will have to use the pepper spray in my pocket.
I left a note with the address under the pillow in my bedroom.
If anything happens to me or I go missing, Grandma will find it.
I exhale through my pursed lips, trying to summon the courage.
The house is in a row of old properties on the outskirts of Burnville.
Shabby neighborhood. Sneakers hanging off the electric wires—no doubt someone is selling drugs around here.
The drug dealers and users trickle here from Brownstown, the meth capital of the county, ten miles away.
Rent is cheaper here. The police department is much smaller.
You still have all the amenities at your fingertips, and the cell phone reception falters only farther up into the mountains.
I check the address on the mailbox again. There’s no garage, no car parked in the driveway or on the street.
Bad memories walk hand in hand with darkness and silence.
Plenty of those in my head right now. I should’ve insisted on coming here by daylight, but I didn’t insist on anything, I gave in, because I’m tired of secrets.
Except I won’t be able to explain to him why I ran off after I saw him being hit by the car.
Not my problem, right? If he wasn’t afraid of anything, he would’ve met up with me by day, in a public place.
I take a deep breath and gather my courage. Pepper spray is in my pocket again. I tested it in the backyard to make sure it works. My grandma has plenty of such stuff in her secret stash, including a rifle, a shotgun, handguns, and ammo. I found them while cleaning her bedroom wardrobe one day.
Pepper spray won’t save me if this guy tries something funny. But I’m not going in, I’ve already decided. I’ll stay on the porch and ask him what he wants. That’s it. That’s how it’s going to be.
I step out of the car and stick my hand in the right-hand pocket of my parka, nervously clutching the pepper spray. The second I do it, I’m already trembling, second-guessing my decision.
The property seems run down, old dry grass and branches scattered across the front lawn, if you can call the five-foot-deep patch of ground a lawn.
No lights in the house, just a naked light bulb on the porch.
No garbage cans outside. No personal objects on the porch when I step onto it, except for a discarded For Rent sign.
I’m uneasy. Not scared, not paranoid, no, not yet. But as I ring the doorbell, I have a nagging feeling that all of the above will come later.
The silence in response is what makes me nervous. My ears perk up. I ring the doorbell again, waiting for the door to open, and the man who is supposed to know my family’s past to appear behind it.
But there’s nothing.
I ring again, the buzzer ringing inside the dark house that might or might not be a trap.
Impatiently, I look around. My hand in my pocket squeezes the pepper spray tighter. The street is empty.
I reach for my phone in the other pocket, open the message thread to “Unknown,” and type:
Me: I’m here.
Dreadfully slow seconds go by, but no response comes.
I ring again, then knock on the door, and when no one answers, I lose my patience.
Screw it.
I turn the handle. The screen door opens, and I prop it with my shoulder as I turn the main door handle, which gives way easily.
Blood pounds in my ears. I should walk away.
Something’s not right. A musty odor wafts in my face.
Not entirely unfamiliar—plenty of old houses in this town are neglected and falling apart at the seams, especially in this neighborhood.
That’s not what makes me alert. It’s the coldness of the interior.
It’s early springtime, the temperatures low, and the heat should be on if someone lives here. Yet, it doesn’t feel like it is.
This is bad. And stupid. And careless. Nope, I’m not doing it. I’m about to walk out when a sound comes from the inside.
It’s a high-pitched sound muffled by the walls, somewhere deep inside the house. It could be a cat.
I freeze, listening to any footsteps or the creaks of the floor—a clue to run the hell away from here.
Nothing. I must be hearing things.
Then the sound comes again, and this time, I’ve been waiting for it, and I hear it clearly—the drawn-out wail, a female wail, no mistake about it.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
The sound repeats again.
“Heeeelp!”