of the night the demon took my mom and killed my dad; me as a seven-year-old kid pushing open the door to my parent’s bedroom…
The room was empty. No one was there.
I relaxed slightly and allowed myself to take a breath before crossing the hall to Diane’s room. The door was half open. Same as before, I pushed the door all the way open, my heart beating loudly in my chest, and waited for something to reveal itself but there was nothing.
I dropped my shoulders and allowed myself to relax, but not much. It seemed the house was empty. I hunkered down, my back against the landing wall as I tried to think. Josh was gone. Diane was dead. What was I supposed to do now? Then I remembered the writing on the bathroom mirror. You will be soon . In other words, I was next. Whoever had taken Josh would be coming for me as well.
“I have to get out of here,” I said to myself as I stood up. Diane’s body was still in the bath tub. I didn’t feel right about just leaving her there like that so I called the cops and told them I wanted to report a murder, giving the address and hanging up before they could ask my name.
I cried as I went downstairs on the verge of a nervous breakdown. How could so much happen in one day? I was shattered, the person I once was blown to pieces by the force of events.
I have to keep it together. I have to get Josh back.
That was the only thing on my mind, finding out who took Josh and getting him back. They didn’t kill him, whoever “they” were—I didn’t think so anyway, which meant they wanted something. Kidnappers always wanted something. I just had to find out what.
I left Diane’s house before the cops arrived. I didn’t even think to take clothes or anything else from my room; I just grabbed the laptop and my mom’s journal from the living room. Before walking out the door, I looked back through blurry eyes. My life had been going so well. I had been happy for the first time ever, contented. All that had been wiped out in a single day.
I was still crying as I left the house and got into my brother’s Mustang. There was only one person who could help me now.
Uncle Frank.
Chapter 5
I don’t think I stopped crying until I got outside city limits. I almost pulled up at the building where Kasey lived so I could ask her to come along with me for moral support; I needed to tell someone who cared about what was going on. I actually slowed outside the building, but I shook my head and sped off. I couldn’t drag Kasey into all that. Diane had been murdered. Josh had been kidnapped. I couldn’t risk the life of the only other person in the world I cared about. I had never felt so alone in my life as when I drove away from Kasey’s place, towards the home of a man I had never even met. Uncle or not, he was still a stranger and I didn’t like the fact that I was being forced to put my trust in someone I didn’t know. I learned a long time ago that trusting strangers was dangerous, and it was going against my every instinct seeking that man out.
Following the directions my mom had written on the back of the photograph, I eventually came upon a turn-off in the main road that took me up a steep mountainside and through a thick forest where my uncle apparently lived. My lips pressed tightly together and my stomach roiling, I drove up the narrow dirt road. There was a sour taste in my mouth as I wondered what I was going to find at the end of that road.
What if this guy is a total psycho? He hunts monsters for a living, he’s hardly going to be warm and caring.
The night seemed to become darker the further up the mountain I drove. I could make out next to nothing of my surroundings and I kept wondering why someone would choose to live all the way up there, miles from nowhere, isolated and alone. My dread soon gave way to full-blown anguish after the dirt road finally ended and I came upon a cabin built on a flat clearing surrounded by trees.
This was it. Uncle Frank’s
The room was empty. No one was there.
I relaxed slightly and allowed myself to take a breath before crossing the hall to Diane’s room. The door was half open. Same as before, I pushed the door all the way open, my heart beating loudly in my chest, and waited for something to reveal itself but there was nothing.
I dropped my shoulders and allowed myself to relax, but not much. It seemed the house was empty. I hunkered down, my back against the landing wall as I tried to think. Josh was gone. Diane was dead. What was I supposed to do now? Then I remembered the writing on the bathroom mirror. You will be soon . In other words, I was next. Whoever had taken Josh would be coming for me as well.
“I have to get out of here,” I said to myself as I stood up. Diane’s body was still in the bath tub. I didn’t feel right about just leaving her there like that so I called the cops and told them I wanted to report a murder, giving the address and hanging up before they could ask my name.
I cried as I went downstairs on the verge of a nervous breakdown. How could so much happen in one day? I was shattered, the person I once was blown to pieces by the force of events.
I have to keep it together. I have to get Josh back.
That was the only thing on my mind, finding out who took Josh and getting him back. They didn’t kill him, whoever “they” were—I didn’t think so anyway, which meant they wanted something. Kidnappers always wanted something. I just had to find out what.
I left Diane’s house before the cops arrived. I didn’t even think to take clothes or anything else from my room; I just grabbed the laptop and my mom’s journal from the living room. Before walking out the door, I looked back through blurry eyes. My life had been going so well. I had been happy for the first time ever, contented. All that had been wiped out in a single day.
I was still crying as I left the house and got into my brother’s Mustang. There was only one person who could help me now.
Uncle Frank.
Chapter 5
I don’t think I stopped crying until I got outside city limits. I almost pulled up at the building where Kasey lived so I could ask her to come along with me for moral support; I needed to tell someone who cared about what was going on. I actually slowed outside the building, but I shook my head and sped off. I couldn’t drag Kasey into all that. Diane had been murdered. Josh had been kidnapped. I couldn’t risk the life of the only other person in the world I cared about. I had never felt so alone in my life as when I drove away from Kasey’s place, towards the home of a man I had never even met. Uncle or not, he was still a stranger and I didn’t like the fact that I was being forced to put my trust in someone I didn’t know. I learned a long time ago that trusting strangers was dangerous, and it was going against my every instinct seeking that man out.
Following the directions my mom had written on the back of the photograph, I eventually came upon a turn-off in the main road that took me up a steep mountainside and through a thick forest where my uncle apparently lived. My lips pressed tightly together and my stomach roiling, I drove up the narrow dirt road. There was a sour taste in my mouth as I wondered what I was going to find at the end of that road.
What if this guy is a total psycho? He hunts monsters for a living, he’s hardly going to be warm and caring.
The night seemed to become darker the further up the mountain I drove. I could make out next to nothing of my surroundings and I kept wondering why someone would choose to live all the way up there, miles from nowhere, isolated and alone. My dread soon gave way to full-blown anguish after the dirt road finally ended and I came upon a cabin built on a flat clearing surrounded by trees.
This was it. Uncle Frank’s
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