After Dark

Chapter 7: Demons

Sady and Hunter move quickly, placing cameras and microphones into the hollows of trees, the forks of branches, covering them with leaves and forest detritus while making sure to leave the lenses and actual microphones uncovered, able to receive the evidence they have come to collect. The devices are battery operated, so they require no wires, and once inside the house Sady and Hunter can monitor each device through wireless connection. Though this limits the area they can cover, as the signal can only reach from the house to a certain distance, it makes things much easier, as well.

They finish just as the sun is dipping down, below the horizon. Light glows softly through the trees, outlining everything in gold. This won't last long, perhaps only a few minutes, but the effect is stunning, and Sady looks at everything in awe as they make the walk back to Hunter's grandmother's house. Hunter is used to the view, having walked it a few times every day for years, and so he walks in silence, his eyes trained ahead of him where Sady's cannot seem to find a place to settle.

Gertrude Limon's house is old and rather small, clad in wooden slats with a small porch. There is an old, wooden chair on the old, wooden deck beside the old, wooden door. The house is made completely of wood and, were the forest to be struck by fire, the house would be just as susceptible to it as the trees and dead, dry leaves that litter the ground.

Sady does not spot the house, at first, as the wood had greyed with age and so it blends in with the surrounding trees. The slate on the roof is covered in a blanket of leaves from a particularly large tree that bows over the house, like a large umbrella shielding it from the world. The structure blends seamlessly with the environment, and it is lovely, in an old, broken way.

Hunter makes no comment as he walks up the three stairs to the door and opens it, no key required. Sady guesses that living in the forest could give a person a strong sense of security, after all, who would come all the way into the forest to steal from this house? Who would see it at all, if they did not know what to look for, or have Hunter to guide them? Still, she hopes there is a lock on the inside. She hasn't even been able to sleep with her bedroom door open, lately, and she cannot imagine sleeping in a house where anyone, or anything, can just walk in.

Hunter holds the door open for her, and Sady steps inside, the empty plastic bags in her hand making a strange, crisp sound as she holds the strap of her backpack, shifting her bag slightly. The house is as small on the inside as it looks on the outside: there is a tiny corridor, and an open arch shows, to the left, a sitting room with cabinets filled with Gertrude Limon's glass plate collection. A small table beside the couch holds a vase and a frame with a picture of Hunter and his mother. In front of the flowered couch, covered by a crocheted throw blanket, is a small, old television. To the left, across the hall, is a closed door which leads to Hunter's grandmother's bedroom. Beside that is another door, which leads to the bathroom, and straight ahead the corridor ends in the largest area in the house, a kitchen dining room. Off that is another door, leading to Hunter's room. His mother's, beside the sitting room, is empty and closed. No one has been inside of it since she died.

Hunter walks straight, through the house, and Sady follows. "There's the bathroom, if you need it," Hunter says, gesturing to the second door on the right as he walks.

"I'm good," Sady says, looking at the bare walls, empty but for the flowered wallpaper which matches the couch in the sitting room.

"Hungry?" Hunter asks, as they reach the kitchen. Sady shakes her head, and gives him the plastic bags when he holds out his hand. Hunter throws them into a cupboard and closes it, taking off his backpack and going into his room. Sady stays, looking around for a moment at the quaint kitchen, wooden countertops and plain, modest chairs around a table that is just as plain and modest.