The Dead and the Dark

by Courtney Gould

  Silence, and then her phone buzzed.

  unknown: TRISTAN

  Ashley gasped. She took the phone from Logan’s hands, staring at the screen like she thought he might appear to her. Her hands shook, but no messages came through.

  “Tristan,” Logan continued. “Where do you want us to go?”

  unknown: GRAVE

  “The cemetery,” Ashley breathed. “Tristan, are we supposed to meet you there?”

  unknown: OLD

  They met each other’s eyes. Logan listened, but she only heard the branches outside and the horses in the barn and the slow, lumbering groans of old wood. Ashley looked at the floor, slowly muttering the word old to herself like it would eventually make sense.

  She looked up.

  “Old grave. It’s Pioneer Cemetery.”

  * * *

  As it turned out, driving was much harder during a panic attack.

  Ashley rolled along Main Street, following the dull shine of Snakebite’s sparse streetlights. Most of the stores and restaurants along the main strip of town were closed for the night, but at the end of the road there was a blip of life. The Chokecherry still glowed faintly gold against the harsh blackness of the night. Ashley could just make out the thumps of classic rock pulsing from the jukebox inside.

  Past the main stretch, the streetlights fell away and they were left in darkness. Storefronts gave way to the sprawling plateaus of farmland on one side and the black, ebbing mass of the lake on the other. Fog rolled in over the highway in a thin blanket of slate gray. Ashley turned on her low beams and pushed ahead, unable to shake the feeling that there was something hiding in the mist.

  “Another message,” Logan said from the passenger seat. “It says CLOSE.”

  “Yeah,” Ashley said. Her heart hammered in her throat. “Pioneer Cemetery is just around the corner.”

  “I think we stopped here on the way into town.”

  “You did,” Ashley said, maybe too quickly. She cleared her throat. “The day of Tristan’s vigil. I saw you and your dad there.”

  Logan looked at her but said nothing.

  They rounded a massive black hill and the Ford’s headlights caught on the squat fence that enclosed Pioneer Cemetery. The graves here were especially pitiful at night—only mounds of dirt bathed in yellow headlight beams. Outside the truck, the wind moaned. It was heavier now than it had been when they left the ranch, heavier than it should be.

  “Do you feel that?” Ashley asked.

  Logan nodded. They climbed out of the truck and the packed dirt sounded hollow under their feet. The stone key stood resolute at the front of the graveyard, unflinching in the wind, the names etched into the stone almost as indistinguishable as the graves themselves. Beyond the key, the graveyard was black.

  Ashley turned on her phone flashlight. Logan handed her the ThermoGeist.

  At the back of the cemetery, the shadows moved. Not like the wind, but like an animal. Like some great, lumbering thing. Ashley narrowed her eyes, trying to track the shape of it.

  The ThermoGeist lit up.

  “Oh my god, look!” Ashley shouted over the wind. The ThermoGeist flared brighter than her phone, streaking the muck of the graveyard in blue. The light tugged her toward the back of the cemetery plot, toward the moving dark, with a magnetism she couldn’t explain.

  Ashley suddenly understood that she was standing alone.

  “Logan?”

  She whipped around. The white light from her phone glinted off Logan’s hair. Logan, who was still standing at the front of the cemetery with her eyes trained on the stone key. Logan, who looked like a ghost herself. Logan, who was so still Ashley wondered if she was breathing. In the murky black of night, she was a shadow of a person. Her expression wasn’t right—brows furrowed, eyes wide, neck strained forward as if she couldn’t read the etched words. The ThermoGeist continued to flare, begging Ashley to follow it to the back of the cemetery.

  “Logan?” Ashley called again. “What are you looking at?”

  “I…” Logan glanced up, hauled out of her trance. The wind whipped her hair into a flurry of black at her shoulders. “There’s a name on here, but it’s…”

  Ashley pocketed the ThermoGeist and made her way back to the key. They didn’t have time for this. Logan’s gaze was fixed on the engraved names in front of them, and Ashley followed her gaze to one in particular. For a moment, it didn’t register, and then her heart snagged on the hyphen.

  ORTIZ-WOODLEY, 2003–2007

  “Wait, like…” Ashley breathed.

  Logan pushed a hand into her hair to keep it out of her face. “I don’t get it. What does this mean?”

  Every device in Logan’s tote bag began screeching.

  Ashley cupped her hands over her ears. The wind through the graveyard picked up, piercing through the black night with a bite sharp enough to draw blood. The darkness at the back of the cemetery transformed. It was two masses now, both hunched over and swaying in the wind. They gathered at the very edge of the cemetery where the dirt met tufts of yellow grass, circling one mound of dirt just off the Pioneer Cemetery plot, hidden from the main walkway.

  The ThermoGeist flared again, but instead of flashing the blue light, it was a steady, unflinching red.

  It was the color of blood.

  “Logan,” Ashley said tentatively.

  Her voice echoed back in the wind. She swung her flashlight back over the darkness behind her, and Logan shielded her eyes, face washed in the ThermoGeist’s red.

  “I’ve never seen it do that before.”

  They followed the light to the back of the cemetery. Ashley’s hands shook, but she kept her grip on the ThermoGeist. It was as though Tristan stood directly behind her—she heard his breath, felt his hand hovering just above her shoulder. The truth was in front of her now, if she could just be brave enough to see it.

  Ashley’s jaw clenched. “What do you want me to do?”

  “What?” Logan asked, before realizing that she meant Tristan. Logan showed Ashley the Scripto8G. “It says DIRT.”

  Ashley’s breath caught in her chest. She could almost see him now, squatting in front of her, brushing his hand along the crumbling dirt. She could almost see his eyes, begging her to just do this one thing. She understood, but it was too much to ask. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and shook her head.

  “I can’t…”

  “You can’t what?” Logan asked.

  Please, a voice groaned, carried along by the wind.

  Logan’s eyes widened. “Holy shit. I heard that.”

  This voice wasn’t Tristan’s. Logan’s face said she recognized it, too. The voice was intensely familiar, but distorted as though the speaker stood miles away. Ashley had heard this voice, soft and bashful from the back seat of her truck.

  It was Nick Porter’s.

  “Okay, okay…” Ashley breathed. She turned to Logan. “Can you help me dig?”

  Logan stared at the dirt and her face drained of color. She shook her head, fist clutched to her chest. Even in the dark, Ashley recognized the fear in her eyes. Her pupils were shrunken, ragged breath fogging from her lips. She whispered, “I can’t.”

  “Then call Paris.”

  Ashley fell to her knees and pressed her quivering fingers to the dirt. Her heart hammered and hammered, but she swept at the dirt anyway. She tucked her phone under her chin so it could soak the ground in white light. The night smelled like fear and the metallic scent of impending rain. She dug until her fingers brushed against something solid. And then Ashley’s heart stopped. She pushed away a layer of dirt and there, beneath the earth, her fingers met skin as cold as stone. The skin was too human to have been buried long, and too close to the surface to have been buried right. She bit back a sob and kept brushing at the dirt until it gave way to the ridges of human knuckles. She stumbled back and collapsed in the dirt.

  She’d wanted to find one of the missing kids alive.

  Instead, she’d found a body.r />
  19

  The Body But Not The Soul

  After the cemetery everything was a strange dream.

  It was a dream with claws. A sweltering blur. A nightmare rippling over Snakebite in slow, aching waves. Windows were shut, blinds drawn, children ushered inside on hot afternoons when they would usually play in the lake. News about the body wasn’t like the usual gossip—it wasn’t discussed over coffee at the Moontide. This was the kind of thing that snatched the words from people’s tongues. There was a killer on the loose. Snakebite was blanketed in a coat of silence, because now it was all real.

  Nick Porter was dead.

  Not missing, dead.

  For the last two weeks, Ashley had been silent, too. The Owyhee County police had dug up one body in Pioneer Cemetery; Ashley had expected them to find two. More than ever, Snakebite was sure the Ortiz-Woodleys had something to do with it. Ashley wasn’t sure. Tristan was still missing, which was as terrifying as it was hopeful. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t home, either.

  Ashley didn’t know how to feel. Mostly, she felt empty.

  Nick was dead, Tristan was gone, and she still knew nothing.

  It’d been two weeks since she’d spoken to Logan. Two weeks since their whole world had been turned inside out. She wasn’t avoiding Logan—at least, not any more than she was avoiding everyone else—but something about reaching out scared her. If they kept looking, it meant everything they’d already found was real. It meant Snakebite could never go back to the way it had been.

  More than anyone else, though, she’d wanted to text. To call. She wanted to drive out with Logan and keep looking. Ashley wasn’t sure what to do with that.

  The call came in while she lay on her bed, head hanging over the side, blond hair draped across the floor. Ashley stared at Logan’s name a moment too long, then picked up.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey.” Logan’s voice was hoarse. After a moment, she cleared her throat. “How’re you doing after … yeah, how’re you doing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  For a moment, the line was quiet. “I was gonna text you, but it’s been weird. Obviously. But … I think we should keep going. If you still want to.”

  “You wanna go back to the cabin?” Ashley asked.

  “I do. I don’t know. I feel like…”

  “… like we didn’t find everything yet,” Ashley finished. Her chest was tight with the need to know more. “Same.”

  Whatever fear sat in her, whatever was waiting for them, Logan was right. There was more to find.

  And if Tristan was still out there, she couldn’t give up.

  * * *

  The trip to the cabin was somber this time. The junipers blurred as Ashley drove down the lakefront highway, dead and brown from the sweltering heat. Logan curled up in the passenger seat with her knees tucked against her chest, probably to avoid the no-feet-on-the-dash rule.

  “You weren’t at the funeral,” Ashley said.

  Logan took a deep breath. “I know. I was gonna go, but it felt disrespectful. I don’t know.”

  “It wouldn’t have been disrespectful,” Ashley said. “You were friends.”

  “Not like that. I mean it would’ve been a distraction. Everyone thinks my dads have something to do with it. If my little gay family showed up at the funeral, that’s all anyone would’ve paid attention to. I didn’t wanna distract from…” Logan pursed her lips. “It needed to be about Nick. That’s all.”

  Ashley grimaced. She wished Logan weren’t right. Something sat heavy in her chest. She blinked out at the sunny shore, blurry through the dirt-smeared window. “How did your dads react when you told them?”

  “Uh, told them…?” Logan trailed off.

  “About, you know—”

  “Okay, you have to stop calling it that.” Logan ran a hand through her hair, shaking out the tangles. “You mean when I told them I’m gay?”

  “Yeah. That.”

  “Um, I mean, they didn’t really have room to be mad about it? They were definitely surprised, though.” She idly messed with the air conditioner vents without looking up. “Alejo was worried I just thought I was gay because of them. Brandon was really freaked out, though. He said things were gonna be a lot harder for me. Which always seemed weird to me because I knew lots of queer kids back in LA. When I was there it was never really hard. It was just, I don’t know, a thing.”

  Ashley nodded. She loosened her grip on the steering wheel; she couldn’t remember when she’d clenched her knuckles.

  “I get it now, though. They grew up here.”

  The trees thickened as they reached the gravel turnout. The sun on this side of the lake used to be gold, but now it was too close. It was blistering, sitting too low in the sky. Ashley stared at the trees and ached for the shade between them. The more time passed, the more she was sure there was something wrong here.

  Logan kicked open the passenger door the moment they parked. She pulled her hair into a short black ponytail. “I feel it today. I feel like we’ll figure something out.”

  They made their way to the cabin. Immediately, something was different. Not like the nauseated feeling she’d had the first time. Ashley paused at the cabin’s front porch and held out an arm to keep Logan in place. The cabin was alive, but not as though with ghosts. Something rustled inside, groaning across the floorboards.

  “Do you hear that?” Ashley whispered.

  To her surprise, Logan nodded.

  Ashley swallowed hard. She carefully made her way onto the porch and pressed open the front door of the cabin. She expected a wild animal or knocked-over furniture. Even ghosts seemed more likely than Sheriff Paris standing in the far corner of the room, inspecting the initials carved into the walls. His posture was careful, fingers delicate as they traced the decayed wood.

  Paris stiffened at the sound of them. He turned, and his expression softened into a quiet laugh. “I thought I heard someone coming in.”

  “I…” Ashley started, but she wasn’t sure what to say. She cleared her throat. “What’re you doing out here?”

  “I’m guessing probably the same as you,” Paris mused. “Except looking for Tristan is my actual job.”

  Ashley looked out the shattered window to the other side of the lake. “I thought—”

  “—that we weren’t looking on this side of the lake?” Paris asked. “I said I didn’t want you kids over here. There’s not really any trails or landmarks. If I lost track of one of you, it’d be hard to find you again. I’ve already got one kid missing and another one dead.”

  “Oh,” Ashley said.

  “And, as your sheriff, I really don’t like you girls being out here by yourselves,” Paris said. “With everything going on, it’s really not safe. I’ll stick with you for now, but I’d really prefer you not to go anywhere without chaperones from now on.”

  Ashley and Logan nodded. For a moment, there was only silence.

  Paris’s expression brightened and he quickly made his way across the main room. He turned to face Logan and extended a hand. “You must be Alejo’s kid. Nice to officially meet you.”

  Logan blinked. “You know my dad?”

  “Oh yeah. Me and your dad were best friends in high school. Me, him, and Miss Tammy Barton.”

  Ashley shook her head. “I didn’t realize you knew her that well.”

  “Yeah, Tammy’s the best. She’s a busy lady, though.” Paris pulled off his cowboy hat and ran a hand through his straw-colored hair. “I try not to bother her much anymore.”

  “What tangled webs,” Logan said quietly. “Did you know Brandon, too?”

  Paris pulled the cloth off the piano. The keys beneath were decayed and brown around the edges. Logan looked at the piano and her expression changed. It was soft and almost mournful. Ashley thought she looked at the piano like someone else might look at a grave. Sunlight danced over her cheekbones, but her eyes were dark and faraway.

  Ashley wondered how many times she�
��d caught herself staring at those eyes, deep and brown and dark enough to swallow sunlight whole. Ashley’s chest felt tight. She tore herself away, focusing back on the cabin.

  “Brandon…” Paris sighed. “Kind of? He was a quiet kid. There were only twelve of us in the class of ’97. I knew him, but I didn’t know him. I don’t think anyone really did. I saw him every day but I think I only talked to him once.”

  “I know the feeling,” Logan whispered under her breath.

  “But yeah, me and Alejo go way back. We used to spend our summers out here on my dad’s boat. We kind of drifted apart when he went off to a fancy college. I still love him, though. He was like Snakebite’s golden child. Everyone loved him.”

  Ashley inched her way into the cabin and closed the front door. Logan seemed wholly uninterested in using any of her dads’ gear now. She only wanted to interrogate Paris. Ashley tried not to be vaguely irritated.

  “Why’d you guys stop being friends?” Logan asked.

  “We didn’t stop being friends.” Paris continued to pace the cabin before taking a seat on the ratty sofa. “Well, mostly. I don’t know. It sounds so bad, but in a way, when your dad came home and told everyone the news about him being … you know … I was kinda grateful. Like, I was mad that people were so awful to him over it, but it was kind of a relief, too. I got to step out of his shadow.” Paris shook his head. “Wow, that sounds terrible.”

  “Yeah,” Logan said, “it does.”

  Paris eyed her. “I don’t mean it in a bad way.”

  Ashley laughed uneasily. Logan shot her a look.

  “What is this place?” Ashley asked. She was careful not to mention that John had found the cabin on his father’s maps. Things with John were already tenuous enough—she didn’t need to snitch on him, too.

  “It used to be a gorgeous little cabin.” Paris frowned. “Obviously, it’s not in its prime anymore.”

  “Do you know who lived here?” Ashley asked.

  Paris’s brow furrowed in confusion. He looked at Logan. “I do. I thought you two … Well, now I don’t feel it’s my place to say.”