Relic

by Gretchen McNeil

  No, it’s not.

  Right. The Anamet needs a host. It can’t exist outside the mine without one. That shadow is my imagination. It’s a flesh-and-blood person I need to be afraid of.

  As if to prove to myself that there’s nothing in the house, I boldly walk down the hallway into my dad’s room. It’s empty, just as I thought.

  But as I turn to leave, my eye catches sight of something in the corner. My dad’s white canvas hamper—it’s been tipped over, its contents scattered across the floor.

  Why was my dad digging through the hamper yesterday? He couldn’t have known he’d find a bloody rag in there.

  I kick at the clothing with the toe of my sneakers: sheets, a couple of bath towels, socks, and underwear. But the facecloth he showed me the other day is missing. And so, oddly, are any of my dad’s uniforms.

  He has six sets for everyday use, so that he only has to do laundry on his days off. Judging by the uniform I just saw him in, he’s been wearing it for at least a day or two, and I know he hasn’t been home long enough to do laundry in over a week. So where are the rest?

  I turn on my heel and head for the laundry room, but both the washer and dryer are empty. Where the hell are my dad’s uniforms?

  Involuntarily, my eye drifts to the large garbage can near the door to the garage. The lid is askew, indicating it’s stuffed full, but it’s not like either of us has been around to fill up the garbage.

  My fingertips tingle as more calmly than I imagine possible, I lift the lid from the can and begin to pull out the clothes inside, piling them up beside it—some still wet, others stiff with blood and gore.

  “No,” I say, tears welling up. “Please, no.”

  It can’t be my dad. He was nowhere near the mine.

  Wasn’t he?

  I groan, remembering the report Sonya found in the Sheriff’s Office database. My dad let the college students go after Weller and Flynn arrested them, stating that there was no evidence of trespassing at the scene. How would he have known that unless he’d been there?

  My dad had been to Bull Valley Mine within twenty-four hours of Benjamin Cooper’s appearance on Slaughterhouse Island. Could the Anamet have already left him and transferred to my dad? Was that why Cooper was disoriented, confused at the passage of time—he was finally in control of his own body again after thirty years?

  My hands shake as I hold the bloody clothing. That’s why my dad let the students go—he needed to get to them later. That’s why he was the first one to arrive at Weller’s cabin the day we discovered the body—he was already in the neighborhood because he’d just killed Weller. And that’s why my dad wants me to stay home. He knows what he is, what he’s become, and whatever shred of my father that’s left inside is trying to protect me.

  My dad is a killer. My dad is the Anamet.

  All my anger and resentment toward him is instantly forgotten, and I feel a dull ache in my heart. Not my dad. My mom’s already been taken from me, I can’t lose him too.

  He isn’t your father.

  I shake my head, fighting back tears. It’s true. If the Anamet has overtaken him, turned him into a ruthless killer, I can’t think of him as my dad anymore. He’s a murderer, and any of us could be next.

  I’ve got to warn my friends.

  Cell phone, laptop, landline are all gone. But there’s one piece of technology my dad forgot. I race down the hall to my room and pull my tablet out of my messenger bag.

  Jack answers my FaceTime call immediately. “Annie!” His eyes dart anxiously to the left and right. “What the hell happened?”

  “My dad confiscated my phone. Jack, I have to tell you something.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Home. My dad’s got me on lockdown.”

  “Good. Your dad said—”

  I cut him off. “My dad’s the killer.”

  “Annie, he told us—”

  “Don’t listen to him!” I take a deep breath and talk fast, explaining the bloody clothes, the college students, his visit to the mine, and his unwillingness to listen to me about Weller’s notebook. “We have to warn Sonya and Frankie.”

  Just then, Frankie’s face comes into the screen. “Consider me warned.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  IT’S AS IF I’VE BEEN PLUNGED INTO FREEZING-COLD WATER. My muscles tense up, my lungs feel as if all of the air has been sucked out of them, and my bedroom begins to come in and out of view. Jack is alone with Frankie. “Wh-what is she doing there?” I hear myself ask lamely.

  “Frankie has a plan,” he says by way of answering. “We’re going back to the mine.”

  Going to Bull Valley Mine alone with Frankie? “I’m going with you.” My heart aches with a mix of love and jealousy.

  “No!” Jack says quickly. Too quickly.

  My anger flares up, sudden and vicious. “I get it. You want to be alone with your ex-girlfriend.” I feel like such an idiot, thinking Jack would choose me over her.

  Jack sighs. “Annie, I’m not sleeping with Frankie.”

  “At least now I know,” I barrel on, my face growing hot with indignation and shame. “You won’t have to worry about sneaking around behind my back.”

  “Annie, listen to me . . .”

  I’m barely controlling my emotions. “I can’t believe you said you loved me. When all this time you just wanted to get back with her.”

  Jack opens his mouth to say something, then looks down. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Yeah, that’s exactly how it is. Exactly what you’re thinking. Me and Frankie all this time.”

  “Fuck you.” I hang up.

  I stare at the blank screen, waiting for the uncontrollable crying to kick in, but now that I’m off the call, my breaths regulate, the tears dry up, and I’m left with a sickening emptiness that’s far more painful than a sobbing-induced headache.

  Why would he want you when he could have her?

  It had been my nagging doubt throughout our relationship. Frankie’s the total package: smart, popular, and ridiculously beautiful. I doubt Jack cared about the popularity, and while I can hold my own against Frankie in a classroom, there’s no way I could compete with her tall, dark beauty.

  I try to rekindle my anger from moments ago, but even that has faded. I don’t regret my time with Jack; everything I did was by my own choice. I just regret that I’d been so blindly trusting, and so willing to overlook the problems when they arose. Maybe if I’d been more realistic with myself, I wouldn’t be left with this glaring, aching gap in my soul.

  No regrets.

  It’s true. I made my choices. In the end, I suppose Jack and Frankie deserve each other.

  Especially if the killer gets them both.

  I freeze, jealousy and hurt forgotten. Jack hadn’t listened to me. Was my dad on his way over there now? Would their bodies be discovered tomorrow morning, mangled, torn apart, half-devoured?

  Do I leave Jack to his fate? Like me, he made a choice.

  You still love him.

  I do. And I can’t let him die like that.

  Slight problem. I’ve got no transportation and it would take me hours on foot to get to the lake.

  Thankfully, the one person who can help lives just two blocks away. I just have to get to Sonya’s house.

  I change into jeans, sneakers, and a long-sleeved shirt, then grab a black hoodie. There’s nothing I can do about the alarm, but maybe if it alerts the Sheriff’s Office, they’ll send more patrol cars out to find me? That’s not necessarily a bad thing—it’ll take more than my friends and me to defeat the Anamet.

  In fact, I’m going to need protection.

  I hurry into my dad’s bedroom. His nine-millimeter handgun is responsibly locked up in a safe he had specially built into the walk-in closet. After I passed my marksmanship exam last year, my dad took me to the safe and gave me the code, warning me that I was only to use the weapon if I felt my life was in danger.

  Like now.

  I push aside a stack of shoe boxes inside my
dad’s closet and crouch down in front of the safe. With deft fingers, I punch in the six-digit code: 083069. My mom’s birthday.

  But when I turn the handle, it won’t budge.

  “Shit!” My dad changed the code. One more sign that my dad is no longer my dad.

  The dull throbbing of my headache returns as I sit back on my heels, stunned. What would he have changed it to? My birthday? His? No, too obvious. And if he went for part of someone’s social security number, I was screwed. I could barely remember my own, let alone his or my mom’s.

  My mom. I catch my breath. Could he have used another anniversary for the code? A day neither of us wanted to remember but could never, ever forget?

  I punch in the date of my mom’s death.

  The door swings open.

  I lift the Baby Desert Eagle carefully from the safe, keeping the barrel pointed down and away from my body as I double-check the safety. Then I eject the clip and examine the cartridges. Four rounds plus one. I’m surprised that there are two shots missing—my dad must have used it for target practice at some point—but it’ll be enough.

  I stare at the gun and try to imagine myself emptying cartridge after cartridge into my dad’s chest. Will I be able to do it?

  You have to protect yourself.

  He’s not my dad anymore; he’s a killer. If Jack and Frankie aren’t already dead, they soon will be unless I can get to them first.

  Without giving myself the chance to second-guess, I shove the gun into the back of the waistband of my jeans, and dash out of the house.

  THIRTY-NINE

  FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE I’VE KNOWN HER, THE KITCHEN door at Sonya’s house is locked.

  I peer through the beveled glass. The kitchen is dark, no sign of life, a rarity in the usually bustling Hendricks household. Maybe no one’s home?

  I should ring the doorbell, just to make sure. Sonya’s minivan is my only chance of reaching Jack and Frankie in time. I turn toward the front of the house, then freeze in my tracks. Trolling up the street, creeping along at maybe five miles per hour, is a Sheriff’s Office patrol car.

  They’re looking for you.

  My dad’s desperate to keep me locked up in the house. He’s probably got half of his deputies patrolling the streets to make sure I don’t escape.

  I press my body flat against the door as a searchlight pans across the front of the house, just missing me. I stand frozen, not daring to move as the car creeps down the street then rounds the corner, out of sight. While I don’t mind having them on hand if we have to confront my dad, if they catch me now, it’ll all be over.

  My heart thunders in my chest as my adrenaline spikes, and the stabbing pains at the base of my skull intensify. No time to deal with a stress headache. I push the pain aside and slip around the side of the house into the backyard, tiptoeing up to Sonya’s bedroom window.

  There’s a light on inside, and as I peek through the curtains, I see Sonya sitting on her bed, face buried in a book.

  Yes.

  I push the window up. “Sonya!”

  She screams, jumping out of bed and backs herself against the wall as I crawl into her room.

  “Shh!” I hiss, finger pressed to my lips.

  “What are you doing, Annie?” Her voice shakes. “Your dad said you’re on lockdown.”

  “I snuck out.”

  Sonya doesn’t move, doesn’t take a step toward me, just stands there next to her bureau, her body tense. “It’s not safe for you to be here.”

  “Son, I need your help.”

  Sonya eyes the door. “Annie, your dad said—”

  “Sonya, my dad is the killer.”

  Her eyes grow wide. “Wh-what?”

  I quickly lay out all the facts. “See? Jack and Frankie are heading back to the lake and I think my dad’s going after them. But no one will listen to me.”

  Sonya swallows, her eyes flying around the room. I can sense her fear, but I need her to find some courage. We can’t let anyone else die. I come around the end of the bed and stand right in front of her. “He’s going to kill them, Son. And then come for us. I need your help.”

  “I don’t think we should follow them.”

  “Please!” I grab her by the shoulders, and I can feel her body tense up. “Sonya, we can’t let them die. Not like Rob and Terrence.”

  She chokes back a sob. “But your dad said—”

  She’s terrified. I can see it in her eyes, in the pained expression on her face.

  “Please, Son!”

  “No!”

  Sonya won’t help me, so I’ll have to do this myself. I grab her car keys from her bag before I slip back out through the window. This time, I’m on my own.

  I don’t even know how I get there, but before I know it, I’m speeding north on the winding highway out of town in Sonya’s minivan, accelerator planted against the floor as I coax every last mile per hour from the aging engine. On the surface, it seems like a fool’s errand. The perimeter of Shasta Lake is over two hundred miles, and Frankie and Jack could literally be anywhere. But Jack said they were going back to the mine, and they’d need a boat for that.

  At almost midnight that’s no easy task. Even during peak tourist months of summer, none of the boat rental offices are open after dusk.

  Where are they going?

  The California Geological Survey. Frankie’s mom works for them, and they have offices—and boats—at Shasta Dam.

  Before I know it, I pull into the parking lot by the boat dock just east of the dam. My adrenaline must be coursing so high I don’t even remember the winding drive through the craggly woods. But that doesn’t matter. I can see what I came for: parked in the middle of the lot is Jack’s red pickup.

  There are no street lamps this far into the park, but it’s a near full moon with a clear, cloudless sky, and the entire parking lot looks as if it’s been lit with muted blue floodlights.

  I keep the engine running as I slip out of the car. Jack’s truck is dark, abandoned, but my dad’s SUV is nowhere in sight. Still, as I cautiously approach the cab I reach back into the waistband of my jeans and pull out the short-barreled handgun. I’m not taking any chances.

  I flick the safety off with my thumb as I cradle the gun in my palm, ready to fire if anything comes at me from the darkness. There’s no movement, not even a breeze to rustle the tall grasses that have weaseled through cracks in the pavement. I peek through the driver’s-side window, half expecting to see a body slouched over the wheel, but the cab is empty.

  Just then I hear a dull roar, which hiccups, dies, and then roars again, louder than before. Like a lawn mower sputtering to life. An outboard motor. They must be at the dock.

  At a full sprint, I round the path to the boat dock, but it’s too late. The puttering of the motor is fading, the wake that ripples the reflected moonlight on the lake is racing off to either side of the rapidly departing boat, and in the glow of the moonlight, I can see one person piloting the boat.

  Just one.

  I stand dumbstruck, watching the smudged outline of the boat disappear into the muddy darkness. I’m too late. My dad has killed Jack and Frankie, and now he’s going back to the mine, where no one will be able to find him. I’ve got to stop him. But how?

  Could there be another boat?

  Duh. My footsteps are hollow on the metal dock as I pound across the joints. As the end comes into focus, I can see the snakelike coil of rope from the departed boat, thrown haphazardly across the dock, and directly opposite it, I see another line—thick and white—stretching from the dock to the water.

  Another boat.

  I’m alongside it before I see what’s inside. On her back, glassy, unseeing eyes staring straight up into the night sky, is Frankie.

  FORTY

  “NO!” I CRY, SINKING TO MY KNEES. THE SOBS EXPLODE FROM my mouth, chest heaving uncontrollably as I stare at her body. I hated Frankie, but I never wanted to see her dead. Certainly not like this. I stare at her glassy, unseeing eyes whi
le sobs continue to rack my body. I tried to save her, save them, but I couldn’t. I was too late. There’s a dark patch on her forehead, above the left eye, which glimmers in the moonlight. Someone must have cracked her over the head with an oar.

  Not “someone.”

  I choke on a sob. Frankie’s body is here, but where is Jack’s? I think of the silhouette piloting the boat away from shore. It didn’t look like my father. In fact, I thought I could just discern the outline of a Mohawk.

  Jack. No. My dad is the killer, not my boyfriend.

  Your dad isn’t here.

  I shake my head, I don’t want to believe it, and yet I can’t deny the truth. My dad’s SUV isn’t here. Frankie and Jack drove here together in his truck. Now she’s dead, and someone piloted that boat away from the dock. Can I really continue to believe Jack is innocent?

  But I saw the bloody clothes in the garbage.

  Jack could have planted them.

  It’s true—he’s been in my house enough times. He pretended he had a plan and lured Frankie out here and killed her, then, before he could feed on her body, he heard me coming, heard the sound of the minivan in the parking lot. So he untied the boat and sped off toward Bull Valley Mine.

  It takes several moments before my sobbing subsides. There’s a sense of relief that my dad isn’t a killer, but it’s cold comfort. Jack has been the Anamet since that day in the mine. I remember all the time we’ve spent together since then . . . all the things we did. He was a killer, and a cannibal. The hands that caressed me are the same ones that cracked open Greer’s skull. The lips that kissed me are the same ones that tasted Graham’s brain matter. It’s a horrifying, nauseating realization. This boy I love so dearly is a monster.

  And I’m the only one who can stop him.

  My heart aches, but I have no choice. I have to kill Jack. Kill the one boy in this entire world I’ve ever loved. Will I be able to do it?

  Maybe.

  I glance out across lake, its surface restored to a glassy stillness. Him or me.

  I’m shivering as I navigate the small boat down the Squaw Creek arm of Shasta Lake. Like our first night on the houseboat, the temperature is much cooler here than it is in town, and despite my hoodie pulled over my head and zipped to my chin, I’m chilled to the bone.