The Dead and the Dark

by Courtney Gould

  “Then how is it killing people now?” Ashley asked.

  “Not sure.”

  “How are you not sure?”

  Alejo scoffed. “I think Logan’s rubbing off on her.”

  Ashley flushed.

  Brandon took off his glasses and cleaned them with the hem of his shirt. “I don’t know as much about it as you’d think. It doesn’t really talk about itself. After Logan … after the incident, we packed up and left. There’d be too many questions about the cabin if we stayed. People would ask how she was back. We couldn’t explain any of it, and we knew no one here would take our word for it.”

  “Plus, we had to get rid of the Dark,” Alejo said.

  “Well…” Brandon trailed off. He looked away from Alejo and cleared his throat. “At first, it did help me. It said it would keep us afloat. It wanted to help us find a new home.”

  “Logan said you guys lived on the road,” Ashley said.

  “Not on purpose. We ended up in different small towns that were a lot like Snakebite. Which meant we ran into the same problems. People didn’t like outsiders, and a couple of guys rolling into town with a five-year-old girl in the back seat made them nervous. Everywhere we went, we ended up leaving again. The longer we went without settling down, the pushier the Dark got. It was like it was getting weaker. More desperate. The angrier it got, the more of me it took up. I spent months in a blur, just driving, not really knowing where I was going. It wanted more to feed on. For years, it’d had all of Snakebite. Now it only had me.”

  “Why would it do that?”

  Brandon shrugged. “I have my guesses. It might’ve wanted me to do something it needed a physical body for. My best guess, though, is that it wanted a new town to infect. It needed a way to move on. It wanted me to lay down roots in a new little town. And if we’d stopped moving, it would’ve started all over again.”

  “But it made a mistake,” Alejo said.

  Brandon nodded. “We’d been driving for two weeks straight, living on the last bit of a loan from my mom. I remember putting gas in the car while Alejo was in the store buying some water. And I remember hearing it whispering right at the back of my neck. It said to take the car seat out of the back and leave it on the curb. To just … take the car and go.”

  Alejo shook his head. “It wanted him to leave us behind.”

  “It wanted to find a new home, I guess. Obviously I didn’t do it, but I remember wanting to. And I remember knowing that the need wasn’t mine. It was the first time I felt it trying to … overwrite me. The Dark didn’t want to help me, it just wanted to use me. It wanted to find a new home that was just as hateful as Snakebite so it could start all over again.”

  Ashley’s stomach sank. This spiraling dread, these uneasy shadows, this black-tar fear that’d burrowed its way into her since January—it was the Dark. It was all the years of hatred Snakebite had built up, sticky and black and cloying. She’d loved this town her whole life, but this was what it had created.

  “From then on, we were just looking for ways to get rid of it,” Alejo said. “We knew we couldn’t stay in one place for long or the Dark would find a way out. I’ve been able to see spirits since I was little. But Brandon and I realized that we could use this … whatever to find people who might have some answers. We helped people talk to dead relatives, scooted lingering spirits out of people’s houses, exorcised haunted objects, but we were always looking for information on the Dark.”

  “Eventually, we started to make a name for ourselves,” Brandon said. “We were approached by a network that wanted to make a show about what we did. It was a perfect setup—we could move around the country without worrying about money, and we’d reach a bigger audience. Someone would know about the Dark and how to get rid of it. We found lots of people who could see ghosts—”

  “Who, by the way, were not fans of the show,” Alejo interjected.

  “—but no one knew about the Dark.”

  Ashley looked out the window, head reeling. She and Logan had spent weeks trying to understand what was plaguing Snakebite, and here it was, laid out in front of her. Logan had been an arm’s length from the Dark her whole life and she’d never known it. Ashley thought of Tulsa. Of the way a single moment had haunted Logan for years.

  “What happened in Tulsa?” Ashley asked. She sat forward, leaning against the back of Alejo’s seat. “Did the Dark threaten her?”

  “Not so much threaten. More like…” Brandon sighed.

  “It asked what would happen to Logan if we got rid of it,” Alejo said. “It just put that out there. We didn’t know if getting rid of the Dark meant getting rid of Logan.”

  “But obviously we couldn’t risk it,” Brandon said. “I had to put distance between Logan and the Dark. Which meant putting distance between Logan and me. It knew we’d do anything to keep her safe.”

  Ashley nodded.

  Alejo turned in his seat to look at her. His expression was strangely calm. “You’re taking this all really well, by the way.”

  “I’ve had a really weird year,” Ashley mused.

  “Yeah,” Alejo said. “We know the feeling.”

  Ashley traced the back of Alejo’s seat with her pointer finger. Something about all of this still didn’t add up. She closed her eyes. “Why did you come back to Snakebite?”

  “It was a bad idea, but I couldn’t think of what else to do,” Brandon said. “I couldn’t kill the Dark without the risk of losing Logan. And I didn’t even know how to kill it. So I thought I’d come back to Snakebite and stay for a week or so. Let the Dark settle back into the place where it came from. Then I’d leave.”

  Ashley sucked in a breath. Brandon had brought the Dark back here on purpose. “You let it—”

  “—get away from me?” Brandon said. “I did. It was way too easy. The first morning I woke up in Snakebite, everything was so quiet. There was a solid few days where I wandered around Snakebite and thought maybe I did get rid of it. Maybe it was really that easy. I even booked tickets back to LA.”

  He put his face in his hands.

  “Then your friend went missing.”

  Ashley’s stomach sank.

  “I knew it was the Dark. It never really felt gone.”

  “You think it picked someone else?” Ashley asked. She thumped her head back against the seat. She wasn’t sure her head even had enough room for all this information. Brandon wasn’t a killer, but he’d brought back the monster that was. He’d done it to save Logan, and that might be why Tristan was gone.

  Logan was dead.

  The two men sat silently in the front seat, Alejo’s hand over Brandon’s. Ashley wondered if Brandon had ever admitted this truth to anyone. After all the time Logan had spent searching for these answers, Ashley felt like she’d stolen them. These secrets weren’t hers to hear.

  “I thought if I could find the new host, I could convince the Dark to come back.” Brandon cleared his throat. “I thought if I could get it back, the killing would stop.”

  “You’d take it back?” Ashley asked. “Even though you don’t know how to kill it?”

  “Better than letting innocent kids die.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Logan?”

  “What would that change?”

  “We didn’t know where to start.” Alejo shook his head. “We didn’t even understand how she came back. It would’ve traumatized her. We wanted her to have a normal life.”

  Ashley looked at Brandon. “She would’ve known why you weren’t around.”

  “But it wouldn’t’ve changed anything.” Brandon stared at the palms of his hands. “I appreciate your concern. But knowing why I was gone wouldn’t have changed that I was gone. She would’ve … I would’ve had to leave her just as much.”

  Brandon slumped back in his seat and, for the first time, Ashley noticed how tired he was. The stubble at his jaw hadn’t been shaved in days, his clothes were disheveled, his eyes were rung with half-moons as dark as bruises. She thought of the nigh
ts he’d spent alone in the cabin, wandering the woods, looking for the Dark. How he’d been willing to take it on all over again if it meant the killing in Snakebite would stop. He’d hurl himself back into misery and loneliness to save the town that cast him out. She’d always thought of Snakebite as one big, tangled family, but she couldn’t think of a single person willing to lose what Brandon had lost to keep it safe.

  “I still think you should’ve told her,” Ashley said. “Then she wouldn’t think you hate her.”

  “She…” Brandon turned in his seat to face her. “She what?”

  “No,” Alejo said, as though he were trying to convince himself more than anyone else. “No, she doesn’t think you…”

  Ashley wished she hadn’t said anything.

  Brandon’s expression sank. Of all the things he’d learned tonight, this one seemed to cut him the deepest. He pressed his palm over his heart and closed his eyes. She thought of the sadness Logan wore under her wry smiles. The way she longed for her family, even if she denied it.

  “And now it was all for nothing,” Brandon said. “Because we can’t even kill it.”

  “The place where it all started,” Alejo said. “We could just go to the cabin. Head it off at the pass.”

  “We could,” Brandon said. “If the killer’s there, we can at least try to reason with them. Or the Dark.”

  “Does it usually listen?” Ashley asked.

  Brandon and Alejo scoffed in unison.

  A strange, prickling sensation crept over Ashley’s neck. She looked out the window and, outside the police station, she saw a shadowy figure flickering in the yellow light. She squinted, waiting for it to take shape. The faint scent of fuel wafted in through the air conditioner.

  “Tristan,” Ashley whispered.

  Alejo turned to look outside the window. His eyes widened, and he looked at Ashley. “So this is Tristan. I’ve seen him a few times.”

  “I thought he was bringing me to you guys,” Ashley said. “But I think I’m still supposed to follow him.”

  She climbed out of the car into the empty night. Behind her, the passenger door opened and Alejo stepped out. He pulled a jacket from the minivan and threw it on over his T-shirt. “Has he made you follow him before?”

  “He hasn’t made me do anything,” Ashley said. “But he led me to Nick’s body. And he led me here.”

  “Interesting.”

  Brandon leaned across the front seat. “We have to get to the cabin.”

  Ashley shook her head. “You guys go. I have to follow Tristan.”

  “She can’t go alone. She’s a kid,” Alejo said quietly, like he thought Ashley wouldn’t hear him. He stood with his hands on his hips, brow furrowed in frustration. His gaze traced Tristan’s outline, lips quivering. “I’ll go with her. You go to the cabin. Find Logan.”

  Brandon shook his head. “No, I can’t—”

  “She needs you.”

  “She doesn’t need me.” Brandon’s eyes were wide, magnified by his glasses. His knuckles on the steering wheel were white.

  Ashley looked between them. It didn’t matter who came with her and who went to the cabin; they needed to go. Tonight was the night this all ended. Tristan was already gliding out of the parking lot, fading quickly into the night. He turned to look over his shoulder, but Ashley couldn’t see his eyes. They were running out of time.

  “I’m going,” Ashley said.

  “Hold on,” Alejo snapped. He closed his eyes and slipped a hand over Brandon’s clenched fist. “You’re the only one who knows the Dark. You can stop it. You can do this.”

  Brandon stared.

  “It’s stronger than it ever was with me. I don’t know what it’ll do.” He cleared his throat. Black clouds rolled past the moon above them, scattering silver light over the road. In the dark, Ashley heard Brandon breathing, slow and methodical and weary. “If it’s too strong … I don’t know who will come back.”

  “You will.” Alejo shakily laughed. He wore an easy expression for Brandon’s sake, but Ashley saw the way his grip shook against the passenger door. “Because I’m not doing taxes with that thing again.”

  “A fate worse than death.”

  This wasn’t a normal send-off. Ashley understood, suddenly, that they’d expected this day. They’d known it would eventually come down to this moment. They’d known Brandon would have to face the Dark alone. After everything, they were always going to have this goodbye. The kind that might be forever.

  “I love you,” Alejo said.

  Brandon nodded. “We’ll be okay, right?”

  “One day,” Alejo breathed.

  Brandon smiled. “See you when it’s all over.”

  Alejo reached into the minivan and took Brandon’s face in his hands. He kissed him, soft and lingering and mournful. When he drew away, he held Brandon’s face and looked into his eyes.

  With that, Brandon closed the door, threw the van into drive, and tore down the highway toward the woods. Down the road, Tristan lingered. He waited, hovering along the pavement, both there and gone at once. In the night, he looked more smoke than human, but she knew the shape of him, no matter how gone he was. Wind howled through the valley, whistling off the water like a scream. There was death in the air. The night was swollen with it.

  Alejo lingered, eyes fixed on Brandon’s headlights until they disappeared around the bend of the highway. “Well then, let’s follow your ghost.”

  They climbed into the Land Rover and drove into Snakebite proper. Tristan’s ghost was hard to make out in the dark, but between the two of them, they tracked him from street to street. He paused in front of a squat, green house behind the Chokecherry, spinning like he had in Pioneer Cemetery.

  Ashley recognized this house.

  Alejo shook his head. “This is Frank Paris’s house, right? Why would he take us here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Ashley unbuckled and took off. She and Alejo followed Tristan to the front door, hesitating on the porch. Inside, Ashley heard the muffled sound of the TV and murmured voices talking alongside it. Ashley met Alejo’s eyes, then tentatively knocked.

  The door opened and Ashley found herself face-to-face with John Paris. The same John Paris who had tried to drown Logan. Anger boiled up in her, but she suppressed it. Tristan shifted behind John, making his way deeper into the house.

  “Ashley,” John said. “And…?”

  Alejo donned a surprisingly easy smile and gave John a curt wave. “Alejo Ortiz. We haven’t met. You’re Frank’s son?”

  John narrowed his eyes. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Can I come in?” Ashley asked.

  John looked over his shoulder, then opened the door and motioned her inside. She nodded at Alejo, promising him that she’d be okay on her own, then stepped into the Parises’ living room. An action movie crashed on the TV. On the couch, Fran was curled up under a blanket, scrolling idly through her phone. She looked up and caught sight of Ashley, and her expression soured.

  “Ash?” Fran asked. “What’re you…?”

  “I just need a second,” Ashley said. Tristan lingered at a door off the living room. “Uh, what’s through there?”

  “What’s this about?” John asked.

  Panic bubbled up in Ashley’s chest. Tristan continued to spin near the door. “I just need to go in there. I promise I’ll leave after that.”

  “No.”

  “John, please,” Ashley tried.

  “No. Shouldn’t you be with your girlfriend?” John asked. He donned an overconfident sneer. “I’m gonna need you to get out of my house.”

  Ashley turned toward Fran, because it wasn’t John Paris she was appealing to. Fran looked back down at her phone, but she was listening. “I would be with her if you hadn’t just tried to kill her.”

  At the word kill, Fran looked at John.

  “What’s she talking about?”

  “She’s fine,” John scoffed. “Ash is just overreacting.”

>   “I’m not overreacting,” Ashley snapped. “You held her head underwater for fifteen minutes. You’re lucky she’s alive.”

  “Is that true?” Fran asked again. Her eyes were wide, expression something like a scared animal’s. John looked at Fran, but said nothing, and she knew. Her mouth quivered, but she didn’t speak. She looked at Ashley and her unspoken words were clear.

  I’m sorry.

  John clicked off the TV. “Get out of my house, Ash.”

  Tristan looked at Ashley, then at John, then at the door. Something was on the other side, and whatever it was, he needed her to see it. It was the thing he’d wanted all along. She was only steps from understanding why he’d been haunting her for months, and John Paris was not going to snatch it away.

  “I can’t,” she said. “It’s Tristan, he’s—”

  “Are you serious?” John boomed. “I thought Fran was exaggerating about you and this ghost thing. I’m so glad Tristan’s not here to see this shit. You’re out of your fuckin’ mind.”

  Tristan moved from the door now. He hovered at John’s side, and Ashley pictured the two of them like they used to be. John’s hatred was deeper than anger; it was pain. He wasn’t the only one who hadn’t gotten to say goodbye. She looked at Tristan, but he had no answers. His stance was slouched. Mournful. He was sad for John—sad for what his friend had become.

  “I can’t explain it, but Tristan’s trying to show me something.” Ashley took a deep breath. “If you let me follow him, I promise I’ll leave you alone. If I’m wrong, it doesn’t hurt anything.”

  “I don’t want you to leave us alone, Ash,” John said. “I want you to go back to normal.”

  Tristan moved back to the door and faded through it. Ashley couldn’t wait for John to cooperate anymore. She had to make a move. She darted for the door, but John was quicker. He lunged for her, balled-up fist aimed for her face. Ashley flinched, braced for impact, but there was none. A heavy thump sounded in front of her. She opened her eyes just as Alejo threw open the front door. Between them, John Paris crumpled to the living room floor, unconscious.