Ryan stopped walking. "Wait, Vorez?"
Grace nodded. "Yeah. Why?"
Pacing in a small circle, Ryan looked as though he had just had the wind knocked out of him. Neither Dylan nor Grace could tell what he was thinking, but it was clear that what Grace had just told them was more significant to Ryan than they understood.
"She said he had a niece, right? Liza?"
"Yeah. She is said to have disappeared too, but I figure she just sort of stayed with the gypsies."
Ryan's eyes got a far away look to them. He shook his head.
"Holy shit." he said quietly.
"Okay, Ryan," Dylan groaned, "if there's one thing this night doesn't need, it's any more holy shit."
"Ryan, what is it?" Grace asked. "Why is this significant?"
He told them. He told them about how Travis told Laura and him about Eliza Vorez, whose traveling gypsy freakshow brought the curse to the Hackett family. It was clear, given what he knew now, that it was this woman's aunt who came to Hackett's Quarry in search of a missing actress. But why did Eliza return so many years later?
Ryan shook his head. "But it doesn't explain how her son Silas became infected with the curse. Especially since it sounds like the actress was the one who brought the microorganism here."
Grace folded her arms as she walked. "It's like so many other things connected to this story. All roads lead to Hackett's Quarry."
Dylan rolled his eyes. "And we're looking for the one road that leads out."
"If only we could find those journals," said Grace.
They arrived. The boxy forms of the cabins sat how they always did, in an oval around the giant tree. Peering through the viewfinder of the camera, Grace saw that more invisible beams stretched across the lawn, in and around cabins and some angling down from the trees. They stopped walking, unsure of where their destination was.
"Where did she say she hid them again? Ryan asked. "The journals, I mean."
"In a foreman's shed left over from the quarry days."
Ryan's stomach turned. "That's going to be long gone." Grace feared she agreed with him.
However, Dylan blinked, his face lost in thought. "Maybe not."
After surveying the lawn, they found that a safe route could be followed if they climbed through the brush behind the cabins, instead of around them. They inched their way out onto a safe patch of grass directly in front of the steps leading up to the plateau on which sat the Radio Hut.
"Mr. H. always said the Radio hut was one of the original buildings," Dylan said, rummaging around in his wallet for something. "It's, like, over a hundred years old but they kept patching it up."
Dylan produced a key, a souvenir of his days spent as camp D.J.
"It's a long shot," he said, inserting the key into the lock. To everyone's amazement, the knob turned and the door swung open. Victorious, Dylan swept his arm dramatically like a doorman.
Grace dove into the darkness of the Radio Hut like a terrier. Ryan stopped to let Dylan go first.
"Age before beauty," Ryan said, smirking.
"So rude."
In the distance, one of the lamp posts along the paved road on which they had driven earlier that afternoon suddenly lit up. Then the next in the sequence did the same. And then the next.
YOU ARE READING
Return to The Quarry
FanfictionIt's 2027. The luxury resort built on what was once Hackett's Quarry Summer Camp has folded and wants to close out their accounts - which include paying off the debts of the former camp and damages to the nine counselors nearly killed in the "bear a...