Loud Unspoken Memories

Chapter One

Dallas

I roll over in bed and smile. My beautiful wife is sleeping peacefully. It may be cold outside, but just lying next to her has warmth flowing through me like a freshly brewed cup of coffee.

I brush a chunk of blonde hair off her forehead and a wave of nausea washes over me when the hair sticks to my hand and pulls away from her head to reveal the gray, ashy pallor of her face.

She turns to me and her sunken eyes spring open. “I’ll always love you, Dallas.”

Bolting awake, I run to the bathroom and hover over the toilet like I’ve done so many times before, certain I’m going to hurl. Sinking down onto the cold plank floor, my forehead meets the wall, pounding against it until the dream starts to fade.

“Fuck!” I yell to no one, the word echoing off the walls of my small cabin.

When the nausea passes, I go back into the other room and check the time. It’s three-thirty in the afternoon. I suppose the good news is I did get six hours of sleep—after the totally sleepless night I endured upon returning from my brother’s wedding.

I wolf down a protein bar, top it off with Gatorade, and layer up in my running clothes.

It doesn’t matter how hot or cold it is, or if it’s raining, snowing, or storming, or even if it’s two in the morning, I always work out or run after I dream of her. Or him. Or them.

On my way out the door, I look up at the sky. It’s as gray as Phoebe’s skin was in my dream. Weather is coming. There’s already a thin layer of frost coating the ground. It’s lying completely undisturbed. No footprints. No tire tracks. It’s exactly why I picked this cabin. It’s so far away from… everything, that I even had to pay to get a cell tower installed so I could have decent enough internet to work up here.

They erected the small tower halfway between my cabin and the only other one up here within thirty miles. Not that Abe Miller needs the internet. That old guy couldn’t work a computer any better than a primitive caveman. But I did talk him into getting a cell phone at the very least. And he has his trusty dog to keep him company.

Abe lived here long before I moved in. I often wonder why he chose to live a life like this. Though we’re friendly, it’s not like we have Tuesday poker nights. We barely even cross paths unless we happen to be making a supply run at the same time. And only then because there’s exactly one road in, and one road out.

Luckily, if bad weather is coming, I’m completely stocked, having been to town right before I left to go to Blake’s wedding in Calloway Creek.

I eye the five-hundred-gallon propane tank that sits eighty feet from the rear of my cabin, wondering when it’s scheduled to be filled next. A quick check on my phone confirms it’s tomorrow. Good thing.

Picking up the pace as I head toward the road, Blake’s wedding once again takes over my thoughts. It was the first wedding I’d been to since losing Phoebe and DJ. Well, the first wedding that actually resulted in a marriage, that is. My other brother, Lucas, infamously known as the runaway groom of Cal Creek, recently bolted yet again, leaving his fourth fiancée at or near the altar. Maybe that’s why I went to that one. I knew there wouldn’t be a ceremony.

But a few months ago, when Blake told me he was getting married after a whirlwind romance, I knew it would be different. I knew it would happen and I’d have to watch him and Ellie smile and laugh and cry and declare their love for each other. And as expected, every second of it ripped my fucking heart out.

I stupidly had a few too many drinks at the reception, only staying as long as I needed to become sober. Thankfully, my younger brother knows me well enough not to have asked me to make a speech. That would have only driven the stake further inside me. Lucas’s speech wouldn’t have been any better, so our father did it. The whole time, my eyes traced the movements of a spider making its way up a nearby trellis, my mind making up a story about where he’s going to weave his web and how big it might become.

Being only the second guest to leave, following closely behind a woman with an infant, I made the four-hour drive back home.

Home . This is my home now. Has been for the last two and a half years. The middle of nowhere in the Tug Hill Region of New York. It’s the polar opposite of the small town of Calloway Creek where I was born and lived for twenty-six years. A town where all you need to do is look outside your window to see your neighbors’ kids playing in the yard. Where couples stroll the sidewalk hand-in-hand. Where families meet at the ice-cream shop, the parents having coffee as their kids inhale their cones then run around the playground laughing.

No—that was never going to be home for me again. Not after losing everything.

The drive seemed uncharacteristically long. It had rained earlier, and the frigid temperature allowed ice to form on some of the sparsely traveled roads. I drive the biggest, baddest truck around, but still nearly skidded into a gully. I stopped, pounded the steering wheel, and shouted to God—if he even exists—because what kind of God would take my family like that? I screamed at the top of my lungs for him to make something happen. Take me. Slam me into a fucking tree so I can join them if that’s what it takes. Anything to get me out of this pitiful existence.

Eventually, I made it home in one piece, tried to sleep, but just kept seeing Phoebe walking down the aisle toward me just like Ellie walked toward Blake. Closing my eyes almost always results in seeing her. Seeing DJ. It’s why I live half my life as a sleep-deprived zombie.

Finally, at eight in the morning, when my body was shaking from stress and lack of sleep, I resorted to taking a sleeping pill—something I only do when things get critical. At least it allowed my body to recharge enough to think. To eat. To run.

So that’s what I’m doing now. Running. From them. My dreams. My demons. Next to my job, it’s what I do best. Between that and chopping wood, I’m in the best shape of my life. Not that it matters. There’s nobody in my life to appreciate it. I don’t date. I’m not in competition with, or for, anyone. I barely leave the cabin. I crunch numbers. Alone. Because as CFO, that’s what I do. Numbers don’t have faces or feelings. Numbers are safe. They don’t talk back. And they don’t die.

I’m not sure how long I’ve been running, but when I trip over a snow-covered root, it brings me back to the here and now and I realize I should probably turn around and head home. I know the forest like the back of my hand by now, which means I know how dangerous it can be in a storm. I might have turned reckless in the past few years, but I’m not stupid. Breaking my leg and starving or freezing to death out here is definitely not at the top of the list of ways I’d like to leave this life.

And yes, there is a list. But not one I’d ever act upon. Because if I failed and lived, Mom would fucking kill me, not to mention what my little sister Allie would do. Blake, Lucas, and Dad would be okay. They’d get over it. But not Mom and Al. They’d become like me. And that’s not something I’d wish for anyone.

A sound in the distance has me stopping and listening. A gust of wind pushes it away. Maybe I was imagining it. Like I often imagine the sharp piercing sound of the CO detector alarm that could have saved my family. The alarm that was never there because I failed to install one.

I hear it again. I’m definitely not dreaming. It’s not an alarm either. It’s a horn.

Making a detour on my way back—because if anyone is in trouble, I may be the only person around to know about it—I follow the sound as it becomes louder and louder.

Ah, shit. My feet slip out from under me, and I fall hard onto my ass. There must be a thin layer of ice under the inch or two of snow. Before I get up, I see the rear of a car sticking out of a ditch. A Honda or Kia or… definitely something without snow tires. Who the hell comes to the middle of nowhere New York in late November without snow tires? Stupid fucker.

Standing up and getting my footing, I make my way over. The blaring horn is starting to get on my nerves. Must the driver keep pressing it? I mean, Jesus.

I freeze when the whole car comes into view. Because I know the driver isn’t pressing the horn. The front end of the small red car is crumpled against the large trunk of a tree. I race over to the driver’s side and try the door. It won’t budge.

I’m almost afraid to look at what lies within. But movement inside the car has me doing it.

It’s a woman. Blood trickles down her forehead and she’s holding her left arm in her right hand.

“Are you okay?” I shout over the horn.

She looks over at me, relieved to see another person, but terrified all the same. “I—I don’t know.”

The hood is mangled and twisted. I’ve become pretty good at knowing car engines. With that knowledge, I reach inside, feel around and finally pull the plug on the horn. Ahh, sweet silence.

Then my stomach hollows with dread when I see the hole in the front windshield. But it’s not the hole that has bile rising in my throat. It’s the empty child’s car seat I see in the middle rear seat.

Terror licks at my heart as I turn and vomit into the fresh snow.