I gave Jason an excuse and went back home. In actuality, I didn’t have any chores to do, but I wanted to spend some time alone.
I sat on the back deck, half paying attention to the murder mystery in my hands, and staring at the way the light bent and curved as it hit the surface of the water. I’d lived here for years and I never get tired of the amazing view out our back door. Boats zoomed around, towing tubes filled with kids, and boards of all different shapes and sizes behind them. Our small town population doubled in the summers. I was amazed at how people came here for vacation and were never aware of half the things that went on here. I would bet most of the people on the lake had no idea who Mady Smith was and what happened to her.
I texted Kent and Jason that I wasn’t going to hang out with them tonight and I’d catch up with them tomorrow
Mom got home around 6 P.M. and I greeted her at the door. It was a different feeling when Mom and I were in the house without Dad, but we got by just fine. Mom always spoiled me when he was gone, making my favorite meals and watching movies with me. I think we both enjoyed it equally as much.
After she changed out of her work clothes she went to the kitchen and started to make burritos for dinner. We ate together, and picked a romantic comedy to watch that night. Whenever Dad was around we watched comedies because everyone liked them, but secretly, I loved romance movies. Mom and I cuddled on the couch and watched the movie. When it was over, I said goodnight, washed my face, brushed my teeth and crawled into bed. I hadn’t had an urge to read more of Mady’s blog all day, but it was like candy. You may not crave it, but if it’s sitting in front of you there’s no choice but to have a piece.
I fetched the computer and opened it up to the page. I scrolled down to the third post dating back to about eight months ago and started to read.
My happy place…
Everyone has a happy place. Whether it’s down by the local river with all of your friends around you, or in your bedroom keeping to yourself, everyone needs somewhere they can go and feel comfortable. Safe. When I moved to town my happy place was ripped from me. It was on the beach, with the sun setting over the ocean. Many people would say that’s not exactly a happy place. You can’t really feel alone there, but I did. When I was at the beach I felt like I was the only person in the world. Ever since that day I haven’t been able to go to a beach that even looks remotely similar to the ones on Florida’s coast, and the worst part was that I didn’t have anywhere to call mine. Yeah, we all have our own places in our houses like our bedrooms, but it’s important to have a pace to actually call your own. It took me a couple of months after moving here, but I think I finally found a place. It’s a little cabin behind the local saw mill that shut down over 10 years ago. I think there. Sometimes I just sit for hours looking at the weathered walls thinking about where life has taken me. I’m happy and sad all at the same time, and in a way, I guess I love it here, but I guess it’s just hard to call this my new home.
The blog post was short, but it said so much about Mady. She never felt like she really belonged here, and I can understand why. When something traumatic happens to you, it scars you for the rest of your life, no matter how you run from it. Maybe she couldn’t take the stress and emotions anymore. The only thing I knew for sure was I had to go visit that cabin in the woods. Now.
Chapter 8
Sneaking out of the house was never hard. With all of the windows, every single one was a door to the outside. When we renovated the house a couple years ago my parents installed a super high-tech security system. Dad said he wanted to make sure Mom and I were safe when he was out of town. After a month of religiously arming it, they started to forget about it until it was almost as if the system didn’t exist anymore. I still made a habit of checking it before I snuck out. I had only left the house a couple times without my parents’ permission. Mostly to lay on the beach with Mady on nights like this when the moon was at its fullest. I had made an art of never getting caught. I walked downstairs to Dad’s office, where the tablet that controlled the entire system was situated. I checked all of the security camera angles, making sure he hadn’t changed any of their locations since the last time I made a daring escape.
When everything seemed good to go and I had triple checked no alarm was set, I went up to the third floor. My parents turned what used to be an attic into a third floor living area with an extra three bedrooms. I liked how the roof had a slight angle in this part of the house, and ever since we moved in I wanted to take over the attic and make it one large bedroom for me. Alas, Mom convinced Dad it would be more worthwhile to make this place into more bedrooms for when they eventually sold the place, and my dreams were thrown out the window. I went to the right, to the end of the hall, and opened the door to the largest bedroom. The bed was made up and it looked like nobody had ever been in the room before. The bed sheets were still fresh and the entire place smelled of fresh wood floors and varnish. It was probably because in the two years since we renovated the house, I didn’t think anyone had ever stayed in the room.
I slowly slid the window open and then the screen, making sure to take a second to listen and ensure I hadn’t set off any alarms. When I was sure it was clear I threw one leg over the side of the window sill and then the other. If my luck held, Mom wouldn’t wake up when I crossed the roof and executed my evasive maneuvers to achieve freedom. I shoved pillows under the covers of my bed so it looked like someone was there. If push came to shove and Mom checked, the lump under the covers would fool her.
Before I started working my way across the roof, I texted Jason I was going to pick him up. I was pretty sure he would be up, and was banking on the fact he would be down to go to a dark creepy forest with me in the middle of the night. After I hit send, I walked across the slanted pitch of the roof, with the thought that if I died from a fall right now, at least I could be with Mady.
I started the shimmy down the roof, doing my best not to slip and fall three stories. In order to avoid the cameras, I had to go over to the back-right corner of the house, and right now I was in the very middle of the house facing the front. This was always the scariest part, and it didn’t help I was already nervous about where we were going. I walked on a narrow ledge that lined the entire roof just under the third story windows. After that the roof dropped off and became steeper. My hands slicked with sweat and my face burned. It took ten minutes, moving an inch at a time, to make it to a spot where I could see the ledge I had to jump to. The ledge was actually the outside part of a set of railings that wrapped around a porch to one of the guest bedrooms on the second floor. From where I was standing, all I could see was the top of the railing and the small overhang that went past it. This was by far the loudest part, and all I could do was hope Mom wouldn’t hear me sliding down the roof, or hitting the rail.
I landed on the wide railing, falling onto my back and winding myself. I laid there for a second staring up at the stars. I hated the feeling of not being able to breathe. It passed after a moment. I hopped over the railing and held onto the deck with my hands. I let go and landed in the wet grass. The sprinklers were going, but I could see from the light of the moon they had stopped in this section of the yard. Thank God.
When I was sure no lights on the back of the house turned on I ran towards the front of the house and hopped the gate. The next step was probably the loudest and most obvious. Since my parents’ room was at the end of the second-floor hallway, they combined two rooms into one. The window overlooked the drive as well as the lake which made it very hard to sneak down the driveway.
I took the keys out of my pocket and unlocked the side door of the garage. I hit the button to disable the electronics on the garage door opener so I could manually push it up. The door was always well oiled and when I pushed it, it didn’t make a sound. I unlocked my car. Without turning the car on, I put the gear shift into neutral. It started to roll forward. Once it gathered speed, it shifted into drive and rolled silently down the driveway. As I neared the
gate I hit the button. It opened just in the nick of time, and I slid through. Once I was out on the street I started the engine. I checked my cell and saw Jason had responded. He hated me for getting him up, but he’d do it because he was bored. It was a very Jason thing to say.
It was 1:30 in the morning and the main road was completely empty. I pulled up at Jason’s house a couple minutes later, cutting the engine a few houses down and rolling to a stop in front of his driveway. A second story window slid open as I pulled up, and within seconds Jason emerged. He waved to me, and then moved to the lattice at the side of the house. He shimmied down it like a ladder, and ran towards my car, closing the door softly for the first time in his life, and I rolled down the slight slant of the road.
“So, where are we going? You know I’m only here because I’m worried about you. I’m not going to let you go adventuring in the dark by yourself.”
“We’re going to the old sawmill.” I pulled out of his cul-de-sac and sped through Flankstone’s deserted streets.
“The old sawmill? Why on earth do you want to go there? You know the place is cursed and haunted. I can deal with cursed, or haunted, but I draw the line at both.”
“Mady mentioned a cabin behind it that nobody knew about. In her blog she said she spent a lot of time there alone. Maybe we’ll find some answers there.” Everyone knew the saw mill was haunted by the ghosts of workers who died there. I didn’t care. Maybe Mady’s ghost would show up.
“I guess that makes sense, but sooner or later this blog is going to kill you.”
I laughed at that. What we were doing was stupid, but I had to do it. I hadn’t been to the old sawmill in years, but I knew how to get there.
I took a left down a dirt road and followed it for a couple minutes until the sawmill came into view. It towered over the surrounding trees. The mill used to be the town’s main source of income. Once coal mining took off, the lumber mill shut down and all of the people that worked there started moving over to the mine. Now the structure stood empty and abandoned. I parked at the front gate. It used to swing open but now it looked like it was so rusty no force of nature could move it. The rolled razor wire on top of the fence was going to prevent us from hopping over. I knew we were in trouble.
The woods around the mill had grown into the fence and it had become a complete wall of wire and woods. The only way to get past them was by cutting through them with a machete, which we didn’t have, and would probably take all night even if we had tools. Then it hit me. The only way we were going to be able to get to the back of the mill, was by going through the dense trees and bushes that surrounded the place. The only issue was we still didn’t have the tools needed to get through that amount of shrubbery. I started to wonder how Mady had found the cabin in the first place. The woods were pretty thick, but we should be able to get through. We might need reinforcements though, I thumbed up Kent’s contact and hit dial. After a couple rings, he picked up.
“Hello?” He didn’t sound groggy in the slightest which surprised me.
“Hey, since your parents aren’t home could you come meet Jason and me out by the old sawmill? Oh, and bring a big branch cutter and a hand saw.”
He didn’t object and sounded intrigued. He was new to town so maybe he hadn’t heard all the spooky stories about the place.
Kent’s parents were both doctors and volunteered with Doctors Without Borders. Kent was left alone for months at a time, but he didn’t seem to mind. It only took him a couple minutes to arrive. He came rumbling down the dirt road and waved as he pulled up. The headlights blinded us for a second before he cut the engine and joined us. My vision still had white dots dancing around the edges. I distinctively heard two doors open and close. Once my eyes adjusted I made out another figure beside Kent. It was Jessica.
“Hey guys,” Kent greeted us.
“Hey,” Jason responded, sounding as confused as I felt.
Why did Kent bring Jessica along, and how could he have picked her up and got here so quickly?
Kent got right to the point. “I suppose this would be a good time to tell you Jessica and I are seeing each other. It’s nothing super serious or anything, but we’ve been testing the waters.”
I nodded. She was probably spending the night and wanted to come along. They seemed like a strange couple, but if they were happy, I was happy for them.
“Good for you. I mean it, but we can talk about that later? Right now, we have bigger fish to fry.”
I realized that I would have to tell Jessica everything. Maybe her being here was a bad thing after all. “I think I have some explaining to do.” I went over to a rock and sat down. I explained everything, filling Kent in on the parts I hadn’t told him before. He didn’t seem to mind that I kept things from him.
“So basically, we’re trying to find the cabin Mady used to spend time at.”
Neither one of them asked any more questions after I cleared everything up. Kent popped his trunk and produced a hand saw and a large branch cutter like I had requested. Instantly he went to work cutting at the branches to clear a path for us on the edge of the fence. I advised him we should stay as close to the fence as we could since Mady said the cabin was behind the mill.
It didn’t take us as long as I expected to get to the back of the lot. The density of the forest diminished the further in we got and soon we were able to get through it without having to slice and dice a path for ourselves. A few times we thought we heard something lurking in the shadows or behind a tree, but I wasn’t sure if that was just my mind playing tricks on me in the dark. When we eventually reached the back of the fence there was a small pathway between the forest and the fence that we could walk down single file. We stood there for a second looking around, but nothing seemed to jump out at us.
“What now?” Jason asked. He was breathless more with fear than exertion. I checked my phone: it was 2:46 in the morning. I didn’t want to be out here much longer.
“I guess we just walk around until we find it.” I shrugged.
“Wait, guys! Over here!” Jessica yelled. She had veered off from the group and was standing by the back entrance to the gate.
We joined her and she pointed to a foot path disappearing into the shadows under the trees in front of us. To the right of the path a stick in the ground with an arrow attached pointed deeper into the woods.
“I guess that decides which way we’re going,” Jason spoke the obvious. We stared into the wooded darkness and I wondered if this was a good idea.
I led the way down the path in silence. It sounded like the woods were coming alive the deeper we went. The hair rose on the back of my neck and my stomach clenched. Maybe we should come back in the daylight? Maybe this was the wrong place? Maybe Mady’s happy place was a figment of her imagination. But surely, she wouldn’t have written an entire blog post about her ‘happy place’ if it didn’t exist.
We walked for about ten minutes. The woods were thicker here and the path was becoming more grown over. I glanced down and noticed a small piece of stone. I stopped and went to investigate while the other three continued down the path. The bit of stone looked sharp where it protruded from the underbrush. It looked like a corner to a building. Above it was a flat area of vines and tree branches. I read somewhere that right angles don’t occur in nature. I pulled at the vines and branches and uncovered a wall of cobblestone.
“Guys, over here!” I yelled, not sure how far they had gotten down the path. Branches snapped and cracked as they pushed through the brush toward me.
“What is it?” Kent asked, arriving first.
“I think I found it.”
Jason and Jessica crowded in beside us and we searched for a door. We yanked every vine and branch covering the wall but we couldn’t find a door anywhere. I started to wonder if this was really just a cobblestone wall that had nothing to do with Mady’s cabin.
“There’s no door,” Jason exclaimed, sitting down and leaning against the cobblestones.
“Wha
t about the side? Maybe this was the side of the place at one point, but the forest just grew over the actual front of the house,” Jessica suggested. “We should look for a corner”
I went to the right and saw the vines and branches were a dense wall of greenery we’d have to cut through. All that foliage couldn’t have grown in the two months since Mady had been gone, so I gave up on that side. I went to the other side where the flat wall of bush stopped and the forest started to curve towards me again, following the bend of the path.
This side looked different. It was like the wall kind of just kept going until it hit a tree trunk. I tried moving the vines to look behind them, but as soon as I grabbed them and pulled, they gave way. The whole piece seemed to move together. It was a lot heavier than I thought it would be. When I looked down I realized they were all attached. Someone had woven them together against a big board and placed it against the side of the building. Jason, Jessica and Kent were all searching the front face of the building, but I was too excited to tell them I found something. I wanted to find out what was behind the wall.
I shoved as hard as I could. Vines snapped, along with tree branches, and my friends turned to see what I was doing. Once everything keeping the wall upright snapped off, the piece of plywood fell over, revealing a well-worn path towards the side of building. There were no trees touching this side of the building and a wooden door frame protruded from the wall.
Jason, Jessica and Kent came over when the piece of wood toppled, but they were too late. I was already rushing down the side of the building to the door. I figured out where this place was and I needed to be the first one to see it. The door was wood with a small window covered by a metal grate that looked like it belonged in a castle. I wondered how old the place was and how Mady found it in the first place. I tried the handle. It didn’t budge.
Dangerous Past Page 7