by Rysa Walker
Chase runs toward the kitchen, but Julie meets him at the doorway. Her arms and legs are stretched to block his entry, like a giant four-legged bug caught in a spider’s web.
“Don’t go in there,” she says, on the verge of tears. Chase leans to one side, trying to see around her body. “I’m serious, Chase. Do. Not. Look.”
Chase doesn’t look on purpose, but her body isn’t wide enough to block his view, and he’s already seen what Julie had clearly hoped to spare him. Martha Yarn is half inside the oven and half out, as though she wanted to curl up in there and take a nap, but she dozed off before she could pull her legs inside.
Gas. That’s what he smelled when they first stepped into the living room.
“You shouldn’t have looked,” Julie says sadly. “You’ve seen enough for one day. Come on. Let’s get you outside.”
She pushes him toward the exit, leaving the door open behind them. “I turned the gas off, but the place needs to vent. And I have to call Tucker.”
Outside, Chase waits by Julie’s car while she dials Tucker’s number on her cell. He can see the outline of Martha Yarn’s TV through the open door, but it’s still completely dark.
“Damn,” Julie says. “I’m not even getting his voicemail.”
Chase nods down the street toward a house near the end. A police cruiser is parked at the curb. Four or five other cars are clustered in and around the driveway. “Pretty sure that’s Mrs. Starrett’s house.”
Julie follows his gaze and then rubs her forehead. “You’re right. Come on, we’ll just walk.” She starts down the sidewalk but turns back when she realizes Chase isn’t following. “What’s wrong?”
“I’d rather wait here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I don’t…I don’t want to see her family. They’ll be sad and crying and…” He shrugs, hoping this convinces her, because it’s the only thing he can think of.
Julie hesitates for a moment. “Okay, but don’t go anywhere. Just stay by the car. I’ll be right back.”
He watches as she walks down the street and rings the doorbell. It takes about a minute—a minute in which Chase keeps shooting glances back toward Martha Yarn’s TV, which is still dark. Eventually someone opens the door at the Starrett house. It looks like Scott Jenkins, Marybeth’s dad. He’s not sure why Mr. Jenkins is there, and for a moment it seems like he’s not going to let Julie in. But then he steps aside and slams the door behind them.
Chase thinks about the body hanging over the street less than half a mile away. The body is new, but he’s been seeing the noose for a while. He knows the noose is a symbol of death, and walking into that house could be every bit as risky as hanging himself.
But he needs answers, and it’s now or never. So he pushes rational thought aside and runs up the walkway onto Martha Yarn’s porch.
The living room seems darker than before. Maybe a cloud passed over the sun, or maybe it’s just his imagination messing with him. He stands in the doorway, uncertain, then takes a step forward. And then he takes another step, and another, until he’s directly in front of the old TV.
“Hello,” he whispers. “Are you there?”
Nothing.
Hand shaking, he reaches out to twist the knob.
Still nothing. It doesn’t even turn on.
Chase looks around. If the guy inside the TV has something to tell him, he needs to hurry. Julie will be back with Tucker soon.
He gives the television a kick. No response, but a second later he hears a noise in the kitchen. It’s sort of a sliding sound, almost a squeak of metal on metal. Then something hits the floor with a clatter.
Chase sighs. He does not want to go into that kitchen, but he’s not sure he has a choice now. His feet are already headed in that direction. As he gets closer, he sees a small metal table with two chairs and one of those old wall phones. On the table is a plate of cookies. An index card is propped up against the plate: Chase and Julie. And beyond that, what he glimpsed earlier—Martha Yarn’s body sprawled across the oven door. It’s a bit like a scene from Hansel and Gretel.
The squeaky sound comes again, followed by another faint clatter and ping. Chase has no doubt now that to see where it’s coming from, he’ll have to go into the kitchen. He mutters a curse under his breath and steps through the door.
A flash of red draws his eye…not blood as he fears, but a bright-red letter Y. It slides to the right to make room for a yellow O, a yellow U, and a purple R.
Then, directly below, a purple F moves up, followed by a green V, which pauses in place and then spins upside down, and then a purple L and an orange T.
YOUR FALT
It’s misspelled, but he doesn’t see another U on the fridge or on the floor. The meaning is clear either way. And just in case he was wondering if the message was for him, the letters rearrange to spell his name. CHASE.
The number one slithers up from the bottom as he watches it turn on its side, joined by the green V, also flipped sideways, stained with something that looks like dirt or maybe coffee grounds. Together they form an arrow that points at the body hanging out of the oven.
Then all of the magnets slide to the bottom of the fridge except for three—a purple L, and a yellow I and O. Instead of spelling out a word, however, the L flips on its side, and the I and O line up vertically beneath, pressed flush against each other.
It doesn’t spell a word, and for a moment, Chase is confused. Just as he realizes that it looks a bit like a dangling noose, the fridge door shakes, and all of the letters shuffle.
He backs slowly toward the living room, watching as the letters rearrange several times, cannibalizing the earlier words as needed.
N0T
YOUR
FAULT.
B3 CAREFUL
And then four more words: RAUM LIES, followed by SOME, and then TIMES.
Or at least he guesses that first one is a word. A name, maybe?
The letters then shift and divide into a multitude of letters before his eyes, forming a thick multicolored frame around the edge of the refrigerator. Now there’s only a tiny blank square, just large enough for the words GUESS RAUM GOT IT FROM HIS MAMA.
“I don’t understand,” Chase says as he backs away from the fridge. And he doesn’t. Not at all. First it is his fault. Then it isn’t? He has nothing to do with Martha Yarn. He barely even knew her. How could her death be his fault?
The letters continue to multiply, moving up to the freezer and around the sides. Seeing them move on their own was weird enough, but watching them stretch and divide like giant multicolored amoebas is a whole new level of freaky. He has to get out. It was a stupid move to have come in at all.
As he backs into the living room, however, the TV hums to life. The man’s voice he heard earlier says, “You need to try harder, Chase.”
When he turns toward the television, the man isn’t there. Just the spinning door, and it’s no longer exactly on the screen. It’s more like a hologram, half inside the TV, half out. Sort of like Miss Martha in the oven.
Chase moves closer. He’s pretty sure that if he touches that spinning door, he’ll tumble right through.
“They’re squabbling,” the voice says. “I think they do that a lot. Your fault, not your fault. Doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. The one thing they’re right about is that you aren’t supposed to be here. Everything is twisted now, like one of those Möbius strips.”
He opens his mouth to ask what a merbius strip is, but the Door Man plucks the thought from his mind.
“Doesn’t matter. The point is that you’re not supposed to be here. But you already know that, don’t you?”
When Chase doesn’t answer, the Door Man continues. He sounds a bit annoyed now. “Martha wasn’t supposed to die. She was almost to a hundred. Do you have any idea how much effort that took?”
Chase shakes his head. “Why did she do it?”
“To save you, apparently. Someone was worried that you were going to
be stupid enough to step into that noose. But it was under control. I could have managed.” His voice is strained now, like he’s barely holding back from yelling. The perpetual spin slows to a halt, and now the door is no longer shades of gray. It’s glowing deep scarlet, almost like a beating heart.
Chase doesn’t get the sense that the man, or whatever this is behind the door, is talking to him anymore. Those last words were aimed at the They he mentioned. The Ones Who Squabble.
They must think the same thing, because there’s another clatter from the kitchen. It’s much louder this time, as though all of the magnets, which must number in the hundreds by now, hurtled to the floor at the same instant.
And then he hears a single word: GO!
The word echoes from all corners of the room, although if he’s being honest, it sounds more like it’s coming from all corners of the universe. It’s not the Door Man’s voice this time, or at least not just the Door Man’s voice. Chase doesn’t hear the command with his ears. It’s more like he feels the word with his entire body. He turns and has taken four long strides toward the door when he hears the whooshing noise behind him.
A large hand hits the center of Chase’s back and shoves him out of the house, off the porch, and into the air. He hits the lawn, rolling toward the sidewalk, as the entire house erupts into a ball of flame. Heat sears his skin, and he smells his clothes and hair burning.
He opens his mouth to scream, and then everything flickers.
The fireball is gone. It’s just Martha’s house again.
He’s not even the slightest bit singed.
And beside him on the lawn is the plate of cookies, still neatly wrapped in foil.
Three
TUCKER
Tucker is beginning to wonder if anyone outside of Haddonwood is alive. Three times, he’s tried to call Martha’s family in Viola City. Three times, the call has clicked directly over to voicemail. When he tries the chief, he doesn’t even get voicemail or an automated message about the party being outside the coverage area. It just keeps ringing. On and on and on.
Haddonwood isn’t very lively, either. Downtown seems about as busy as usual for midday, but the roads heading in and out of town are deserted. So is the parking lot outside the station. The Haddonwood Police Department is housed, along with several other town services, in what used to be the old elementary school, before they built the elementary and middle school complex. On any normal afternoon, there would be at least one cruiser here—usually Chief Craven’s—along with the vehicle for whichever dispatcher was on duty, and four or five cars belonging to people in the other municipal offices. And yet the lot is completely empty.
What’s most baffling to him, however, is the utter lack of curiosity about the gunshots at the library. Haddonwood is a small town. It doesn’t see much excitement. And sure, the reasonable thing to do when you hear gunshots is to keep your ass inside. But nosiness generally outweighs reason. The only other occasion he’d dealt with gunshots downtown had been some numbnuts nearly shooting off his toes when the gun in his pocket went off. No one knew it was accidental until after the fact, and you’d think people would have had the good sense to stay inside. But pretty much everyone within three blocks had been peeking out the doors or lining the sidewalks when he arrived on the scene, determined to find out every little thing. Gossip is a form of currency in small towns, and people will take a little risk to fill their pockets.
He’s not sure why he even pulls into a parking space, given the completely vacant lot. Force of habit, mostly. And as soon as he steps through the door of the station, Tucker can tell that no one has been in at all today. For one thing, he doesn’t smell fresh coffee. Lucy Brennan isn’t at the desk, and she should be working. Even though the 911 calls weren’t answered, Tucker had hoped it was just the system that was down, and not an actual problem at the station. He reaches for his cell phone, which has everyone’s numbers programmed in, then remembers that he left the now-useless thing in the car. The desk phone is dead, too. So is the computer. The radio seems to be functional, but all he’s picking up from the scanner is a word or two mixed with a ton of static.
Tucker considers the possibility that Lucy checked out early because the equipment was down, but she’s worked with the department for twenty-five years. She might file her nails on duty and watch cat videos on her phone when things are slow, but she wouldn’t leave her post. Someone is required to be on dispatch at all times. Elise, the night dispatcher who was on duty when Tucker signed out around midnight, shouldn’t have left until Lucy’s butt was in that chair. And she wouldn’t have if Craven was here. It’s almost like they’re schoolkids trying to see how much they can torture the substitute teacher.
Except that doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right at all. Whatever his problems with Marty, the dispatchers are conscientious, dedicated public servants. He likes both of them a lot. Neither woman would pull a stunt like this.
Tucker finds a yellow legal pad and jots down Lucy’s address. Elise lives a good fifteen miles outside of town, almost to Viola City, so he doesn’t bother with that one for the time being. Marty’s address he already knows. He went over for a beer a couple of times right after he joined the force, during that brief window before they both figured out that even though they had to work together, they simply didn’t have enough in common to be friends.
A quick drive by Lucy’s house reveals that she’s not home. The house is completely empty. So he heads over to Marty’s place. He’s beginning to wonder if Marty has disappeared too, when the deputy finally stumbles to the door, squinting at the sunlight.
“What the hell, Tuck? I just fell asleep.”
“Need you to get down to the station.”
“You ever hear of this thing called a phone?”
“Phones are down. So’s the internet. Lucy didn’t show, and I need you to cover dispatch until Elise comes in.”
If Elise comes in, he thinks.
“What’s the point if the phones are down?”
“Somebody needs to be there. We’ve had two suicides in town since you went off duty.”
Marty’s eyes go wide. Tucker gives him a brief rundown but can’t quite bring himself to mention Barb grabbing his gun. It will be in his full report, and Marty will find out all the minute details eventually, but right now Tucker can’t deal with it.
The safety was on. He’s one-hundred-percent certain on that point. How had she managed to turn it off without him noticing?
“I’ve already left a message with Hank about picking up the bodies,” he tells Marty. “Keep trying to get Sheriff Hoyt and give me a shout on the radio if you reach him. Assuming it works.”
“Where are you going?”
“I still haven’t made it out to Neil Prescott’s to get his statement about the Pinewood.”
“You need to just drop that, man. Somebody punked you good.”
But Tucker can’t drop it. Even with everything else that’s been dumped onto his plate in the past few hours, he has to nail down what happened to that woman’s body and her 1957 Ford Fordor. Because she sure as hell didn’t drive it away.
Fifteen minutes later, Tucker is in front of Prescott’s house, which is little more than a shack. That strikes Tucker as odd. The man owns the Pinewood Motel and Diner, both of which do decent business given the limited options in Haddonwood. You’d think he could afford a nicer place. What does the guy do with all that money?
The white cinder-block house has two windows and a door smack in the middle. Rising rainwater and mud have stained the bottom rows of block a pale brown. A tin roof sits atop the squat, square building, with specks of coppery rust scattered across the otherwise drab gunmetal gray. Prescott’s front yard isn’t much to look at, either—dead grass cut short to the point of dust and a few anemic-looking trees.
But the backyard is a different story. The ground drops dramatically via a series of rock ledges, almost like stone steps, leading down to the river. A faded wooden
dock stretches halfway out into the muddy water. At the end, a rusty lawn chair is parked next to a small cooler.
It’s not perfect, and the mosquitos are probably a bitch in the summer, but Tucker can definitely see the appeal. This far off the main road, the only sounds are those of nature. He could get used to this.
The front door opens before Tucker is even out of the car. Neil Prescott wears a pair of baggy boxers and a loose black T-shirt that billows in the wind around him. Apparently, he wasn’t expecting company.
That also strikes Tucker as odd. Neil knew he was coming by to take his statement. True, he should’ve been here a few hours ago, but…
Thinking about why he’s late brings up the image of the dead librarian. The image of Martha Yarn follows, her legs sticking out of her oven like an illustration in some fucked-up fairy tale.
“Afternoon, Deputy. What can I do you for?” Neil doesn’t seem that happy to see him, and under normal circumstances, Tucker would sympathize with that point of view. No one likes to see a cop until they need one. But Neil is fully aware of why Tucker is stopping by.
“I ain’t done nothin wrong. Pretty sure of it.” Neil gives a half-assed laugh at the end. Both of them know there are at least a dozen charges he could be arrested on in any given week if the Haddonwood Police were inclined to make trouble. Prescott isn’t a member of the town Chamber of Commerce, by any means, and there are more than a few people who would like to see his motel shuttered, given the pervasive rumors of drugs and prostitution. Chief Tobe Craven fields several of those calls each month. But the chief also knows that many residents consider the Pinewood an institution of sorts—maybe not one you’d put on a tourism brochure, but an outlet that every town needs, nonetheless. There’s a good deal of nostalgia in that point of view, since a decent percentage of Haddonwood’s population—and possibly Chief Craven himself—lost their virginity in one of the Pinewood’s rooms. Tucker suspects that quite a few townspeople were conceived there, as well.