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We didn’t go on vacation every year, but both Claire and I got to pick somewhere to go when we graduated high school. Claire picked Disney, while I picked a beach. I hated flying; had to take some of that Dramamine stuff to stop the queasy feeling from taking over. Even though our luggage was old and ugly, not worth stealing at all, Mom had been insistent on getting these things and using them.
I found what I was looking for, snaked it out of the drawer, and headed straight for the front door. I slipped on my shoes and grabbed my keys, bringing my phone back to my ear as I walked out of the house.
“Brett, I have a plan.”
“It better not be fucking stupid.”
I got in my car and started her up. The road was empty in the pitch-black night, so I was able to back right up onto the road. I told him my idea—it involved me stopping at a twenty-four-hour gas station, praying they had the right kind of battery I needed to replace the current dead one—and once I was finished, Brett told me what I already knew.
“That’s a fucking stupid plan.”
“Maybe, but it’s the only plan we have.” AKA the only plan that didn’t involve Tyler killing Claire and spreading the truth about how the most wanted killer in the state had been in hiding all this time.
With any luck, this plan would work. Whether or not I had any luck to begin with, well, I think we all knew the answer to that. Luck was never my forte, but as they said, even a broken clock was right twice every day.
The only twenty-four-hour gas station I knew about was close to the college, and thankfully they had the specific kind of battery I needed. Sitting right there in the tiny parking lot, I switched the batteries out and then made sure my phone was connected to the AirTag. I got rid of the passcode for my phone, so anyone could open it without the four-digit number, and then I slipped that AirTag into my shoe.
And here I thought AirTags were pointless. Turns out, it just might save the day.
Or the night? Whatever.
I pulled out the paper from my back pocket and typed the address into my phone. The location that popped up was a park—and for obvious reasons, it was now closed.
As much as I wanted to dally, I knew I’d already taken a detour coming to the gas station, so I couldn’t waste any more time piddling around. I got back on the road and followed the directions my phone gave me, speeding a little.
Nighttime driving was unlike daytime driving. It was like a whole different world. Empty and vacant, shadows looking like monsters. I passed only a few cars on the way, and once I arrived at the park, I pulled into the empty parking lot and shut my car off. I dutifully sent Brett my location, and then I left my phone screen-down on the driver’s side of my car.
I got out of the car and wandered to the small lake that sat just beyond the concrete pathway between the parking lot and the rest of the park. I’d never been here during the day, but with the silver moon overhead, it looked to be a pretty nice place. A big grassy field sat to the right, where children could frolic during the day, and the lake was stocked for fishing. Since it was night, the water’s edge was lined with peepers even though it wasn’t spring.
The lake had a stone dock you could walk out on, a good twenty feet past the edge of the water. I wandered out, gazing around, and then I angled my head down, staring at the dark, flat surface of the water.
Besides the frogs on the shore of the lake, this place was eerily still. Not a single ripple in the water. Everything was dormant at night. Even the peepers peeping couldn’t hide the fact that the night air itself was stagnant.
And then I heard a twig break. I straightened out and turned around, expecting to see Tyler, but all I saw was a whole lot of nothing. No other car had pulled up into the parking lot. I supposed there could be other areas for people to park their cars nearby; in the night, without any aiding light other than the moon above, it was hard to tell.
I thought I was alone, but maybe I wasn’t.
“Charlie.” In the distance, it sounded like someone had called my name, faint, like a whisper the wind had carried.
Turning, I was able to spot a line of trees on the far side of the field, and I was pretty sure that’s where the sounds had come from. Again, I wasn’t sure. But it was literally now or never, so I had to go check it out.
I crossed the grassy field, struggling in vain to keep my heart in check. If I said I wasn’t nervous, I’d be a liar. You’d think with the things I’d lived through, everything I’d experienced, I would’ve been numb. You’d think fear wouldn’t be something that could take hold of me and choke me so badly.
The trees blocked out the moonlight, so under their wide canopies was a whole different world, one of pitch-blackness, of pure night. As I crossed the threshold between the field and the trees, I was reminded of my backyard. Once you went past the outer gate, the world changed. Nature ruled. Here, it was no different.
Another twig broke further in, and I swore I heard Tyler whispering my name again, so I spoke, “Tyler? Is that you? Why don’t you come out? Let’s talk like civilized people.”Civilizedwas the last adjective I’d ever use to describe Tyler. The things he’d done, the things he’d threatened to do to get me to comply… Tyler was a psychopath hiding in plain sight.
Though it was hard to differentiate shadows from each other, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, and when I turned, that shadow came at me, hands outstretched. I swore I saw Tyler’s face before his hands wrapped around my neck and the back of my head collided with the nearest tree.
Everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Five – Charlie
A raging headache was what told me I was still alive. My eyelids fought to open, and when they lifted, I saw I stared at a drop ceiling, the kind they had in classrooms or basements when homeowners wanted to hide the electrical work and everything else and make the basement a finished space of its own.
I groaned, reaching up to my head. Slowly sitting up, my fingers found a tender spot on the back of my head, and when I pulled them away, I saw a bit of blood.Ow.
I was in a basement, near a wall made of cinderblocks. A single yellow light hung from the ceiling, illuminating the space in an ugly hue. A body lay slumped beside me, and maybe it was the fact that my brain felt like it was going to explode, but it took way too long for me to realize who that body belonged to.
