One by One

by D. W. Gillespie

  So, no, I don’t blame them. It was about half an hour after Walker ran off into the woods that a single, unmarked pickup pulled up in the front yard, lights flashing. The cop’s name was Officer Simmons. A nice guy. He was actually off duty at the time, and after trying and failing over and over, dispatch asked him to check the situation out. Luckily, he lived a few miles away.

  I wish I’d never known that little nugget of information. I could have died, not happy, but maybe a bit less unhappy knowing that a police officer was within walking distance the entire time. Dean saw the lights before he knocked, and let him right in. Officer Simmons was a young guy, probably not even thirty at that point. He wasn’t ready for this…whole scene. But he handled it well.

  Dad told him what happened while I sat in Mom’s lap in the living room. I kept glancing up as they talked, and I kept seeing Officer Simmons looking away from Dad, just a second at a time, catching glimpses of the turkey dish still sitting on the floor or the splatters of blood on the table. When Dad finally got to that part of the story, I knew, just knew, that Simmons was going to puke.

  He never did.

  The young man wasn’t in uniform, but he did have his gun and a flashlight, and after calling in the situation as best he could, he told us all to sit tight. It was a strange sight, seeing Simmons in a snowsuit, probably bought for some ski trip, and a thick wool hat on, pistol in hand, as he ventured out in the woods. He wasn’t gone long.

  Simmons found him a few hundred yards away, clutching a tree, nearly naked.

  Dead.

  The snow was already beginning to cover him, and in a few more hours, it would have likely buried him. It took another hour for the rest of the police to arrive. I can remember standing in the front room, gazing out the wide bay window, and watching the world of solid white turn blue and red with lights. They filled the room, chasing the shadows away, chasing the ghosts away. Here, again, were people, proof that the world didn’t end when you walked out of our driveway, that the last few days hadn’t taken place on an alien planet.

  I stood there for a long time, watching the police make a perimeter, check the house, do all the things they needed to do. At some point, I realized that someone was standing next to me, so close and so sudden that I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t noticed it before.

  It was Dean. He was crying, but he wasn’t making any noise. I got the feeling that he wanted to tell me something, but he never did. I’ve wondered about that for years now, trying to figure out if he wanted to thank me, to apologize, to just tell me he loved me. I never knew.

  A few moments later, I felt a hand on one shoulder, a soft hand, my mother’s hand.

  “Never seen this much snow,” was all she said in a quiet voice.

  I heard Dad approaching, his footsteps too heavy to sneak up on anyone. He stood behind all of us, one hand on my left shoulder, the other on Dean’s. He pulled us together in a wordless embrace.

  I remember riding to the hospital in Mom’s lap, Dad and Dean piled into the back of Simmons’s extended cab pickup. We were all bruised, cut, battered. But somehow, the family that had walked into that house was walking out again, forever altered.

  And that was what happened.

  It was thirteen years ago, a lifetime for the little girl who survived it. I’ve tried so hard to put it behind me, but something has been missing, something I couldn’t quite grasp until years after the fact. I feel it every time I pass a tall guy on the street, especially if he has a beard or long hair. I feel it on more nights than I’d like to admit, when the wind blows cold and I hear something brush across the window. I feel it in the shower, always taken with my eyes open, so I can see any faces peering against the curtain.

  Walker is still with me.

  I’ve known it since the moment he tapped on that glass and fled into the cold night. Here are the things I know:

  I know he died in the woods that night.

  I know he was buried in the ground with no fanfare, no family to watch them shovel the dirt.

  And I know that he can’t hurt me anymore.

  But everything I know is pointless in the face of what I feel, and what I feel are eyes watching me sleep, hands brushing through my hair, and a mixture of blood and snow running through my fingers. He’s with me every second of every day, and only now, after all these years, have I finally figured out how to put him to rest. It was a simple thing, something I learned from a powerful, strong, stubborn girl I never actually met.

  Mary.

  Mary’s still with me too. I don’t feel her every waking moment like I do Walker, but when I do notice her; it’s stronger, more meaningful. It’s in the way that I don’t take shit from the guys I meet, whether in bars, online, at work, you name it. It’s in the way that I carry myself, my posture, my voice, the way people look at me. Most of all, it’s in the way that I understand the vital power of words, of the weight they carry, of the damage they do.

  I’m working as a journalist now, just local stuff with a few internet articles mixed in. I’m not setting the world on fire, not yet at least, but I’m using my words for something good. I’m making a living off them, changing people’s perspectives with them, and most of all, I’m telling the truth.

  I wonder a lot about what I would have been like if I hadn’t gotten that diary, if Walker hadn’t left it for me to find. Would I have been my mother – strong, tough, rarely backing down? Or my father – flighty, fanciful, always willing to risk something on a dream? I don’t know the answer. But I do have a sense that I fall somewhere in between. A dreamer, sure, but a dreamer with a voice, with the conviction to make it real. And what is a dream that you don’t chase? It’s just a cloud, breaking up, disappearing, impossible to say whether it had ever been there at all.

  Mary gave me something, something I was lacking, something vital.

  No.

  That’s not right.

  She helped me find something. It was there, but I just didn’t know where to look. I walked into that strange, awful house a silent child. I walked out with a voice.

  We never went back, by the way. I think maybe Dad did, once we shuffled things around, living in hotels for several weeks while the banks took one more risk on us. The house we landed in was in a neighborhood, an older one with houses on each side, far enough away to have a nice yard but close enough for neighbors to be there if you need them. Once I started driving, I decided I’d go see the place, just a quick drive by. I thought it might help. But the fact was I couldn’t get within a mile of it. I had this overwhelming feeling that I’d get a flat just as I drove by, and there I would be, stuck next to the house as night began to fall. I never tried it again after that.

  I even avoided the woods for years, but I’ve actually started to go hiking recently. I like it during the summer and spring, even the fall. But not in the winter. Not when the leaves are gone and the trees look like gray bones in a graveyard. The winter woods are too full of secrets, and my life doesn’t have room for secrets anymore.

  Dean ended up doing better than me, which is understandable, I suppose. He was always easier, always bending in the wind, just like Dad, in a strange way. There was a difference though. He was easygoing, but he was focused too. He went to college, got a solid job at a corporate office, and within five years out of college, he got married. He’s satisfied. You can see it all over him. I think that was the difference between him and Dad. He got the smooth edges, but not the butterfly chasing.

  His wife’s a sweet girl, and they’re expecting a baby later this year. I think about him a lot. We don’t see each other as much as I thought we would, but that’s okay. He moved, I moved, and life just goes that way. Only once did we really talk about what happened. He had just graduated high school, and he was getting ready to go to college out of state. It felt almost like a funeral, that last day he was at home. That might sound dramatic, but he was part of my
life from day one. All of a sudden, that was changing.

  I caught him in his room, finishing the last bit of packing. I sat down on the bed, acting like I owned the place. Nothing had changed.

  “Things are going to be different without you around,” I said, trying to be cool about it, acting like I was too stoic to be crushed inside.

  “You’ll be fine,” he said. “You always are.” He paused, seeming to think for a moment. Then he added, “You always will be.”

  I didn’t go in there intending to grill him about everything that happened. I’d come close for years, going as far as walking up to his closed bedroom door and holding my hand up to knock. I never took that step though, but something about that moment, his last day before leaving, the finality of it, grabbed me, shook me.

  “Do you ever see him?”

  He froze in place. I can still remember what he looked like standing there. He was holding a Pop Figure. I’m not sure which one, but I think it was King Kong.

  “See who?”

  The tone told me the truth, told me everything I needed to know.

  “I see him everywhere.”

  There was a moment there, that edge-of-a-coin feeling again where the conversation could have gone either way. He could have called me crazy, told me to get over it, to leave the past in the past. Instead, he nodded.

  “I might not see him as much as you do. But yeah. I see him.”

  “How do I make it stop?” I asked, throat thick, the tears just there, always waiting.

  Dean never looked at me. But he did sit down next to me.

  “I don’t know. Every day it gets better for me. There are whole days, almost weeks even, where I don’t think about it.”

  I felt a pang of jealousy. The idea of going an entire week without thinking about him was unthinkable.

  “I hear you,” he said. “Sometimes. At night. I don’t think Mom and Dad do. Their room is too far away. And…I think about it. About you. About what you did. I think, maybe, that you did…more. That for the rest of us, it was something we went through. Something we survived. But…” He paused, seeming to struggle with the words. “…for you, it was something bigger. That it took something from you. That maybe you left a piece of yourself in that shed. That you had to. And if you hadn’t, we all would have died that night.”

  There were no dry spots left on my cheeks when he finished talking. We sat there a while as I waited to get my voice back.

  “So where does that leave me?” I asked.

  He sighed, telling me what I needed to know before he even spoke another word. “I don’t know.”

  It was hard for him to leave me like that. I know it was. But it was also, in some ways, a kindness. He didn’t sugarcoat it. He didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear. He gave me what he had, and that would have to be enough.

  Mom and Dad both tried to connect with me in their own ways, Mom trying to keep me busy, trying to make me happy. That first year, I got to do pretty much whatever I wanted. I tried not to take too much advantage of the situation, but it was hard when the offers were always in my face. I tried to play guitar, piano, and violin that first year, all three at considerable cost, I’m sure. None of them stuck.

  Dad, always the talker, would try to dig into the situation whenever he found a moment that seemed right. I’d give him bits and pieces, just enough to make him think that I was doing fine, that this awful chapter of our lives was finally closed. It was a lie, but it was a kind one, and I think he was finally able to find some peace with the fact that he had gotten us into that situation in the first place.

  It wasn’t his fault, of course, but I think Mom always saw it that way. As soon as I graduated high school, they finally separated. They lived apart for a full, awkward year. Holidays became two-step affairs, with one Christmas or birthday at the suburban house that had finally become home, and another, smaller, sadder one at Dad’s apartment. I’m still young, but there are few things more pathetic than the apartment of a single fifty-year-old man, but we made the best of it.

  Somehow, through some black magic I still don’t understand, they got back together the following spring. Maybe the holidays were too sad even for them. They’ve limped along ever since, but I think there’s something hopeful in them. I don’t know for sure, but it seems like they’ve found a bit of that spark that got them together in the beginning. I’m surprised to say, but I think they’ll make it.

  Which leaves me. Just me. I’m alive. I have a job. Maybe I’ll get a boyfriend if I feel like it. But it’s hard. I already have one awful man in my life.

  I think a lot about that conversation with Dean. About that idea. That I left something behind to save us all. He’s right. I know he is. But the question is, what happens when you lose a part of yourself? What takes its place?

  I’ve always known that Mary was with me. That she got me through all those awful moments. That, in some way, she was the one who did what I couldn’t. I don’t mean literally, or at least, I don’t think I do. Peering through the window of that diary showed me what was possible. Showed me what a girl could do.

  Mary saved me.

  And finally, after all these years, it’s time for me to do the same for her. I’ve already gotten rid of Walker’s pages, purged him from the records of this place. And now, I’ve finished her story. You see, that was the only way for me to continue mine.

  I found her. The records are all public, not hard to find if you look. She’s right there, in town. Gardenside Cemetery. I haven’t been yet, but I already know what I’ll say.

  I’ll tell her what happened, even the worst parts, the parts I’ve never told anyone.

  I’ll tell her I’m sorry, for everything she went through.

  And most of all, I’ll thank her. I’ll let her know that her life, no matter how painful, no matter how short, was not in vain.

  You saved me, Mary.

  I thought about the best way to do it. I don’t own a grill or a fireplace. I walked around the store, looking for something that would work, and I settled on a big metal pot. It’s too big for me to use for soup or chili. I never have that many friends over.

  When I’m done here, I’ll go out back, set the diary inside, and set it on fire. It will be hard to lose it in a way. It’s become almost a security blanket for me. And another part of me thinks that she’s in there somehow, like a part of her is still locked away, and that if I keep it, I’ll keep her.

  But it was never mine. And Mary is long gone.

  When it’s done, I’ll take the ashes and I’ll finally visit her. In person.

  And finally, after all these years, I’ll give Mary back what belongs to her. I don’t know what comes next. But I think it’s time I found out.

  —Alice

  About this book

  This is a FLAME TREE PRESS BOOK

  Text copyright © 2019 D.W. Gillespie

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  FLAME TREE PRESS, 6 Melbray Mews, London, SW6 3NS, UK, flametreepress.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Thanks to the Flame Tree Press team, including: Taylor Bentley, Frances Bodiam, Federica Ciaravella, Don D’Auria, Chris Herbert, Josie Karani, Molly Rosevear, Will Rough, Mike Spender, Cat Taylor, Maria Tissot, Nick Wells, Gillian Whitaker. The cover is created by Flame Tree Studio with thanks to Nik Keevil and Shutterstock.com.

  FLAME TREE
PRESS is an imprint of Flame Tree Publishing Ltd. flametreepublishing.com. A copy of the CIP data for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  HB ISBN: 978-1-78758-166-1, PB ISBN: 978-1-78758-164-7, ebook ISBN: 978-1-78758-167-8 | Also available in FLAME TREE AUDIO | Created in London and New York

  FLAME TREE PRESS

  FICTION WITHOUT FRONTIERS

  Award-Winning Authors & Original Voices

  Flame Tree Press is the trade fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing, focusing on excellent writing in horror and the supernatural, crime and mystery, science fiction and fantasy. Our aim is to explore beyond the boundaries of the everyday, with tales from both award-winning authors and original voices.

  Other titles available by D.W. Gillespie:

  The Toy Thief

  Other horror titles available include:

  Thirteen Days by Sunset Beach by Ramsey Campbell, Think Yourself Lucky by Ramsey Campbell, The Hungry Moon by Ramsey Campbell, The Haunting of Henderson Close by Catherine Cavendish, The House by the Cemetery by John Everson, The Devil’s Equinox by John Everson, Black Wings by Megan Hart, Stoker’s Wilde by Steven Hopstaken & Melissa Prusi, The Playing Card Killer by Russell James, The Siren and the Specter by Jonathan Janz, The Sorrows by Jonathan Janz, Castle of Sorrows by Jonathan Janz, The Dark Game by Jonathan Janz, House of Skin by Jonathan Janz, Dust Devils by Jonathan Janz, The Darkest Lullaby by Jonathan Janz, Will Haunt You by Brian Kirk, Creature by Hunter Shea, Ghost Mine by Hunter Shea, The Mouth of the Dark by Tim Waggoner, They Kill by Tim Waggoner