My Darkest Rose

Chapter 14

Not a Mannequin

He couldn't wait around any longer. He'd spent an hour pacing the house, certain Mandy would return to arrest him any minute.

He played the events of the night before over and over in his mind. There was no way he could have known if someone else was in the woods. He hadn't even heard them until they started running away. It had been too dark to see anything, even with his phone light.

He imagined Detective Hernandez, the man who questioned him when Rose disappeared, asking him what he'd done all night alone in a rotting house in the woods. "Were you angry when you found teenagers trespassing on your property?"

Yes, I was, Sir. So mad, actually, I chased them out of their hiding spot like a deranged old quack.

Shoving a pack of cigarettes in his back pocket and his phone in the front, he left the house and walked up the driveway toward 1000S.

The air was muggy and smelled of rain. He guessed there were more storms on the way.

As he got to the road and saw police cars in the distance, just around the bend. His mind immediately returned to that night, of red and blue lights lighting up the canopy as he was walked outside by his aunt and driven to the police station.

As he walked around the bend in the road, a grasshopper jumped out of the tall grass in the ditch and landed on the hot blacktop just in front of him. He walked around it so as not to step on it, ending up in the center of the road where he saw a white truck parked along the side just ahead.

The window of the driver's side was down and a man sat inside smoking a pipe. Jack could smell it's vanilla scent as he stopped and contemplated what to do.

He was reluctant to walk forward. If it was someone he knew, or someone who knew him, they might draw attention to him. Might even yell for the police. But it was too late to turn around. The man was already turning around, and when he saw Jack, raised a tanned arm in greeting.

He was old, maybe even in his eighties, and wore a weathered Colts baseball cap. Jack didn't recognize him. "Can't get through," he said to Jack, pointing ahead to where two police cars blocked the road.

"What's going on?" Jack asked. He took the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and walked over to the truck door. "Got a light?" he asked.

The man reached in the center console and grabbed a white lighter. He handed it out the window to Jack.

"Found a body up there," he said.

Jack tried not to look too alarmed as he lit his cigarette and took a deep drag. He handed back the lighter.

"No shit?" he said.

"Sure did," he nodded. "I saw it this morning when I was driving by. Thought it was a mannequin, til I saw all them cuts on him."

"Cuts?" Jack asked, his mouth going dry.

The man looked at him. Maybe he detected something off in Jack's tone. Maybe Jack was being paranoid, but he seemed to take a good long look before he said, "Big cuts. Ain't seen nothing like it. Must've been hit by a car in the night, but they'da had to be flying to do damage like that. Not a stitch of clothes on him either."

Jack's mind was reeling. He'd seen cuts like that before, on Rose. "You know who it is?"

He shook his head no. "We haven't had a hit and run around here in a long time though, I can tell you that. You live around here?"

He glanced up the road where Jack walked from and he could tell he was trying to piece together what he was doing there.

"Yeah, just around the corner," he said, not knowing what else he could say. There was only one house on this stretch of road and no real reason for anyone to be walking around.

But the man must not have known his story, because he just nodded and turned his attention back to the police cars ahead.

They watched as a police officer appeared on the road walking toward the parked cars. It looked like Mandy. When she saw Jack, she waved him over.

The old man, thinking she was signaling to him, climbed out of the truck and walked over to her, leaving Jack to watch from a distance. He wanted to go over there and find out what she was saying, but he was afraid of getting too close. Maybe if he left now, there would be no report of him ever being there.

When he turned around to leave, he saw Detective Hernandez in the middle of the road, watching him. Where had he come from? Had he been there the entire time? Had he followed Jack?

Hernandez was a short man, a full head shorter than Jack, with a thick black mustache and a hook nose. His expression was calm, giving nothing away. But there was contempt in his eyes. The "I got you, Mr. Channing. I got you this time," was as clear as a drop of blood on a white sheet.

This time, a monster explanation wouldn't work. He couldn't blame his chase through the woods on a bad trip.

"Out for a stroll?" Hernandez asked.

"Just coming to check on Mandy," he said.

"Officer Channing is busy right now, but I'm sure you knew that."

"I saw. That's why I'm headed back."

"Back to the house, or back to Chicago?"

"The house," he said.

"Good. Make sure you stay there. I'm sure I'll be paying you a visit very soon."

Hernandez didn't move from his spot in the road as Jack tried to walk by him, but as soon as he got close, he held a hand out to stop him.

"Strange, don't you think?" Hernandez said.

"What's that?" Jack stared straight ahead.

"You show up, we got another dead kid. A kid last seen on your property."

"Yeah, I drove all the way down here just so I could kill some teenager I never met." He'd tried sarcasm with Hernandez before. It didn't work then either.

"Next you'll be telling me it was a creature in the woods. A shadow, isn't that what you called it?"

"Can I go now?"

"Sure you can. I'm sure I'll be seeing you real soon."

Jack walked back to his driveway, knowing that Hernandenz watched him the entire way. He stepped on a loose rock and nearly went sprawling, but caught himself just in time. When he looked over his shoulder, Hernandez turned around and walked away.

As he walked up to the house, he thought he could hear him laughing in the distance.

But the sound wasn't coming from the road. It was coming from somewhere in the forest. And it didn't sound like Detective Hernandez at all, it sounded like the soft hacking of an old crone. AS the sound got louder, it sounded more like gagging.

He ran, not daring to look behind him. As he rushed up the driveway to the house, he thought he saw movement following him through the forest. His fear spread, viral, through the air and into the surrounding forest, over the lake and deep beneath the water to the darkest places. His fear was like a siren, an awakening, that woke the very monsters he prayed to never see again.

Back near the road, Mandy picked up a pair of pants in the ditch. They had been ripped off of Eric Holstetter sometime in the night while he'd tried to run through the forest. Blood stained the frayed edges. Hooked on one of the belt loops was a silver keychain with the letter J.