Contents
Chrome Valley Books
Chapter 1
Chapter II
Chapter 3
Chapter IV
Chapter 5
Chapter VI
Chapter 7
Chapter VIII
Chapter 9
Chapter X
Chapter 11
Chapter XII
Chapter 13
Chapter XIV
Chapter 15
Chapter XVI
Chapter 17
Chapter XVIII
Chapter 19
Chapter XX
Author Notes & Acknowledgments
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Chapter 1
“Agh.”
Iris’s eyes opened in a flash.
Scrambling upright, she took a deep breath in a futile attempt to calm her racing heart. The pounding against her chest threatened to knock her out and back into unconsciousness.
Her thin fingers crept up her shoulders for comfort from the unexpected chill thundering down her entire body.
Then there was the sweat. Lots of it. Beads of perspiration crawled along her brow and fell across her face like tiny blobs of regret.
Iris had no idea what had just happened, save for the fact that the usual night terrors showed no signs of abating.
Her breathing slowed as she closed her eyes.
She felt like crying, but couldn’t.
Her husband, Nicholas, was startled awake by her exclamation. He propped himself up with his elbows and blinked, still in a state of slumber.
Iris never spoke.
Instead, she concentrated on her breathing and stared intently at her bare feet poking out from under the covers.
A quick wiggle of the toes diluted the tension and returned a feeling of normality.
“Ugh.” Nicholas said. “Not again.”
She felt his palm sliding along her knuckles; soft, and reassuring.
Then, another unexpected pang of the shivers rumbled through her body, forcing the tiny beads of sweat to fall from her brow down to her forearm.
Just another typical morning in the Goddard household. The alarm clock on the bedside table read 05:59. Iris possessed an uncanny knack for waking up seconds before it was due to go off at six in the morning.
As if on cue, the digital timer snapped to 06:00.
Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
The unmistakable audio which signaled time for both Iris and her husband to wake up and get on with the day at hand.
“Iris? What happened?”
She refused to give an answer, and just stared at the bedroom door.
He reached over to the alarm clock and thumped the snooze button, killing the cuckooing sound.
A brief sigh was all that was needed in Nicholas’s mind - a half-relief that his wife had managed a relatively decent night’s sleep. And the other half? Acknowledgment that they’d probably go through this whole ordeal again tomorrow morning.
And the day after that…
Nicholas swung his legs from the bed and planted his bare feet onto the floor.
“I’ll fix you some coffee.”
Sniff. Sniff.
His nostrils clocked a distinct whiff of burnt fabric. He looked around to see what might be causing it.
“What’s that smell—”
He needn’t have asked. His eyes landed on the curvature of Iris’s frilly, green nightgown. It had a black, smoldering patch of fabric at the end.
“Huh?”
Hot to the touch, the fragile material flaked away in his fingers.
“How the hell did that happen?”
Iris sat still and, again, never offered an answer. Occupied with controlling her breathing, she turned her head to the bedroom door to find a small silhouette blocking the night light from the upper landing.
“Mommy?” the black shadow asked from under the door frame.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Nicholas offered, quietly. “It’s okay.”
“What’s Mommy doing?”
Nicholas massaged Iris’s shoulder and offered a quiet moment of reassurance to the concerned child-like voice.
“Mommy had a nightmare. It’s okay. We all have nightmares.”
***
A nightmare? Yeah, right.
Something was definitely wrong with mom. As their six-year-old son reached for his glass of milk, he couldn’t help but feel his mother’s eyes scan his face.
Iris covered her chest with her forearms. The cup of lukewarm black coffee hung through her index and middle finger waiting to be sipped.
Samuel Goddard was a good kid. He got on well with his peers and, for a boy of such a young age, took his mother’s adventures with sleep like a true champ.
He often wondered why his parents placed three, fat pillows behind their double bed’s headboard. His friends suggested that it was because “mommy and daddy like to play during the night”, not that he knew what that meant, of course.
Mom wouldn’t smile back, despite his best efforts to display some semblance of sympathy.
Wearing her nightgown and looking like she’d been poked by the devil, she stood by the kitchen door and stared deep into his eyes.
Not even her husband’s attempt to fry some bacon and eggs in the pan a few feet away from her had broken her gaze.
Nicholas wiped his hands on the hanging apron, “Okay, guys. We’re nearly ready. Take your seats.”
Sam squinted at his mother a final time.
“Mommy?”
Her voice croaked with her first utterance of the morning. “Yeah, sweetheart?”
“You’re weird.”
Her son’s revelation took her by surprise.
“Weird?”
Sam nodded and returned to his glass of milk. “Yeah. Everyone says so.”
Nicholas interrupted, careful not to tip the pan onto the floor. “Sammy. That’s not a nice thing to say.”
Iris focused her pupils on her son’s face and allowed the comment.
“No, babe, it’s okay,” she said to her husband. “Sammy?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you mean I’m weird?”
***
Iris checked the rearview mirror as she drove her son to school. There he was, sitting in the back passenger seat, with his school bag clutched against his chest.
She wanted to ask him a question but, instead, bit her lip and tried not to burst into tears.
Sammy looked into the mirror quite unexpectedly and clocked the pained uneasiness in her powder green eyes.
“Mom?”
Her voice struggled to acknowledge his desire for a chat. “Yes, Sammy?”
“I don’t want to go to school today.”
Iris wiped her face and turned her attention to the freeway. Dozens of cars zipped past hers as she hit the gas.
“That’s just tough, sweetie. You have to go to school.”
“But why?”
“Because,” she said without considering her answer. “It’s what children do.”
“But why?”
“Ugh,” she huffed. “I don’t know, sweetheart. Just be a good boy and do as you’re told, okay?”
“Huh.”
Sam peered out of the window, noting a blot on the landscape by the freeway; five tower blocks all lined up in a row, where the poor people lived.
The Goddards weren’t exactly living a rich and famous lifestyle, but at least they hadn’t been consigned to the Freeway Five estate in Chrome Valley’s west side. If anyone ever needed a reminder of just how good they had it,
the five, ghastly blocks of concrete blocking the morning sun served as a reminder.
“Sweetheart?” Iris offered into the mirror.
“What?”
“I’m sorry for yelling at you,” she said, softly. “It’s just that—”
“—That’s okay, mommy.”
“Mommy is so tired,” she finished, clipping his acceptance of her apology off.
A loud car horn blared from the adjacent lane, snapping her back into reality.
“Jesus,” Iris barked and swerved back into her lane.
The driver in the fast lane thumped his car horn again and flipped her the bird.
Iris saw him mouth a profanity from behind the passenger window. Judging by the movement of his tongue and lips, one of the words used began with an “N” and ended with “ger”.
She shook her head and wiped her eyes, hoping her son hadn’t seen what the driver had said.
“What an asshole,” she muttered as she applied the gas and threatened to give chase.
She thought better of it and allowed the driver to zoom off into the distance.
“He called us bad names,” Sammy said.
“I know, sweetheart. Just ignore them. They’re stupid.”
Five minutes later they had arrived at Chrome Junction Elementary, Sammy’s school. Iris parked the car at the gate and left the engine running as the boy opened the car door.
“Hey, listen,” Iris hollered after him. “Now, today, I don’t want any reports of you behaving badly.”
“Yes, mom.”
“I mean it. If I hear from Mrs. Tan that you’ve been—”
Whump.
Sammy closed the door and slipped his bag over his shoulders. “It’s okay, mom. I won’t do anything bad.”
“Come here.”
Iris wound the window down and puckered her lips. “Give your mother a kiss.”
“Ugh, mom,” he protested. “Not in front of everyone.”
“Don’t care. Gimme a kiss.”
Sammy sighed and obliged his mother in as quick and subtle a way as he could.
“There, happy?”
“Have a nice day.”
“I will.”
Sammy approached the school gate, where a few of his classmates caught up to him.
Iris watched him disappear behind the gates and took in a lungful of air.
Then, she burst into tears.
Her hands gripped the steering wheel. An intense, unwavering feeling of helplessness jarred up and down her entire body.
Just then, a chorus of angry car horns wailed from behind her car. She had been blocking the available path for others to leave the vicinity.
Hurried, she gripped the steering wheel, lifted the handbrake, and drove away.
It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out something wasn’t right with Iris today. Anyone looking her way would figure it out. Today was the day for ignoring everyone’s attention and attend to matters she felt were more pressing.
The note to her right would be a prime example of just such a matter, taking pride in the passenger seat in front of the open glove compartment.
The Freeway Five estate loomed in the distance.
Iris lifted her head having soaked up the information on the sheet of paper she had been reading.
A letter, addressed to her.
The contents unknown to anyone other than her and its author
She had a choice.
Turn right, and head back home.
Or turn left, and join the freeway to the estate…
Chapter II
I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get you what you were looking for. I’m sure you’ll understand that I needed to be thorough. To make sure I had the right person.
Iris sat in her car and stared at the playground on the Freeway Five estate. A couple of juveniles cackled like witches as they pumped their swings back and forth.
She lifted her head and clutched her cell phone in her right hand. The view beyond the windshield struck her as ominous. Post-meeting with Joy, the woman whose voice flooded her mind as she surveyed the bleak landscape.
I just hope it was worth it.
The two children were up to no good and should have been at school at this time of morning.
But they weren’t.
Typical behavior for children of such a shitty slum, she thought to herself. The Freeway Five reputation exceeded its physicality. The buildings, originating as a well-meaning government decision, were now reduced to a hollow shell that housed floors of people less fortunate than herself.
The middle one, the third of five, emitted a diluted mist where the rays of the sun caught its side. The ghastly structure looked at her as if it were a vicious middle finger aimed right at her face. No guilt, even less shame. Even the name of the estate had a perverse notion of guilt about it.
Tiny bits of glass glinted at her from the playground floor. Well, not glass, Iris knew, but bullet-shaped nuggets of plastic that contained methadone, or whatever the drug users felt compelled to waste their evenings away on. Dangerous stuff. When the estate was built, it was vibrant. Welcoming. Now, the bullets of heaven replaced the syringes of the eighties, and the pills of the nineties.
Whoever this guy is, you sure seem desperate to know more…
***
A deserted street lined with brick walls. Secluded, and oppressive.
Iris talked to a strikingly beautiful blond woman. Her name, contrary to the situation at hand, was Joy. Exhausted, she reached into her denim jacket pocket and passed a gold-colored envelope to Iris.
“I emailed you the details, too,” Joy said. “I dunno. I prefer the old paper-and-pen thing, personally. Feels like I’ve actually completed the job. Earned my fee.”
“Thanks.”
Iris took the envelope and wasted no time in tearing the flap away from its body. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking as she did it.
“You seem a bit anxious,” Joy said. “Are you okay?”
“Y-Yeah, I’m fine.”
Out came the folded sheet of paper in Iris’s right hand.
“It’s all in there. His full name, address, his movements, that kind of thing. Anything you’d want to know.”
The fingers on Iris’s right hand froze. She couldn’t open the sheet. Her nerves were shot, and she knew it.
Joy took the paper from her and offered to open it. Iris nodded for her to go ahead.
“I’m s-sorry,” she sniffed and chewed the urge to cry down to the pit of her stomach. “I, uh,—”
“—I understand. Whoever this guy is, he obviously means a lot to you.”
Iris wiped her nose on her sleeve and cleared her throat.
“Huh. You could say that.”
The paper folded out in Joy’s hand. “Want me to read it?”
“Sure.”
Joy inhaled and licked her lips, eying Iris’s face to double-check she should proceed. “Okay. His surname changed shortly after the incident, it would appear. Rehoused with a foster family until the age of eighteen. Joined the military for a spell—”
“—Tell me his name,” Iris spat with anger.
“Smalley. Lennard Sma—”
The instant Joy revealed the first name, Iris’s knees weakened and failed to keep her upright. Her back scraped down the brick wall behind, keeping her from falling flat on her back.
“M-My God.”
Her heart elbowed her ribcage over and over again.
“Take a few deep breaths, Iris. You’ll be okay.”
She did as Joy instructed, and closed her eyes. One breath in, and then out. Then a second, and a third. It seemed to calm her palpitations down, at least for now.
Iris planted her sweaty palms on the concrete and stared up at the woman.
“Keep talking. Tell me everything.”
Joy wondered if the request was a good idea or not. She looked around to ensure they weren’t being spied on. “Are you sure you want to do this here?”
“Just read i
t.”
“Okay.”
Joy returned to the paper, “So, Smalley is the name. Lived up north for a spell after joining the military. A lot of his whereabouts are unknown, but the sighting you told me about checks out…”
***
Iris leaned into the steering wheel and squinted at the entrance to the third tower. A fat, black man waddled across the playground, panting and wheezing.
He lives alone. No sign of any family. Spends a lot of time walking. Well, I say walking, I think waddling would be more appropriate. He’s not exactly hard to miss. There’s no indication that he works for a living.
Iris focused her eyes on the door as the man opened it, and switched grocery bags into his other hand.
A Ford car parked up in front of Iris’s vehicle. This was no ordinary car, though. It resembled a ghost; transparent, as was the blond-haired woman sitting behind the wheel.
How long did you tail him?
The ghost of Joy exited her Ford and took out her cell phone. She typed something as she, along with Iris, watched the man disappear behind the door.
Long enough to know everything in the report is accurate.
Joy’s ghost smiled and winked at Iris as she walked up to the tower. “At least two straight weeks.”
“Two weeks?”
“Uh-huh.”
An echo of children’s laughter whirled around the playground as Joy’s ghost walked through the climbing frame and into the vanishing point.
I don’t know what you have planned, or why you wanted him followed. But I hope I’ve given you what you want.
Iris’s elbow caught the middle of the steering wheel and beeped the car horn, startling her.
“Shit.”
The unannounced beep banished Joy’s ghost behind the door for good. Iris looked up the length of the tower, to find a light switch around two-thirds of the way up.
You can settle the balance, now. A bank transfer will be fine. You have my details. I wish you well, Iris.
Deep in her trance-like state, Iris wiped the beads of salty water from her eyes and started the car’s engine.
***
The digital dashboard clock in Iris’s car read 10:15.
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