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Dad talked his way around Mom’s inevitable questions, telling her a story about taking me to county records for a school project. Mostly not a lie. Not that it made me feel any better—we were still leaving out some rather important facts.
Like I was being stalked by a green-eyed monster. Yeah—that would go over well.
I explained away the limp with another lie—that I twisted it in dance class. A dance class I didn’t actually have, since I was out for the season.
I limped up to my room, with Dad’s help, after he convinced Mom I was fine, just on information overload. Now that one was true. Absolutely.
He brushed his hand over my hair. “Can I do anything?”
I lowered myself to the bed, looked up at Dad, his arms crossed, worry in his eyes. I tried for a smile. It didn’t work. “Not really. I just need to sleep. Right after I call Sam.”
“No, Alex.” My hand paused over my cell phone. “If you call him tonight, he’ll just go after the thing himself. Am I wrong?”
I rubbed my face. “I wish you were. I have to tell him, Dad. His parents might know what it is. Sam might even know. Even if they don’t, they need to be warned.” I clutched the edge of the bed as my muscles finally unclenched, letting me know loud and clear how much I ached, everywhere. “Where did you get a shotgun?”
He smiled, not surprised by my question. He was obviously waiting for it. “I bought it after one of the work sites was vandalized. I keep it in my truck, just in case. I have a permit for it, Alex, so stop worrying.”
“And you know how to use it?”
“Weekly sessions at the police academy firing range.”
Wow—how did I miss this militant side of my own dad? Not that I was complaining. He came roaring out of the darkness like the cavalry, just when I needed him.
“You heard the—creature scream,” I said, searching for a way to say the next words without panicking myself. “Why didn’t any of the neighbors? They should have been converging like rabid paparazzi. But there was nothing.”
He pushed off the door frame, came and sat next to me on the bed. “I want you out of this. Tonight was it for you, do you hear me?” He shocked me when he punched the bed, so hard I bounced off the mattress. Then he grabbed me and pulled me into his arms. “You scared the hell out of me tonight. I was afraid I wouldn’t get to you in time. I don’t ever want to feel that helpless again. Do you understand?” He leaned back, meeting my eyes. “You tell Sam tomorrow that you are out. Give him what information you think he should have, then walk away.”
The thought of walking away from Sam hurt like a blow to my heart. “Dad—”
“I know how much you care about him, Alex. But he is up to his neck in whatever’s going on, and I don’t want you anywhere near it.”
“So—you’re forbidding me from seeing someone I consider a friend. Forbidding me.”
“Got it in one.”
“What if I say no?”
Dad stood, marching to the door. “Then we can talk about a nice, long grounding.”
“What?” I had never been grounded. Never. I wasn’t stupid enough to do something that would even get me there. Not with dance class, and the sense of freedom I enjoyed. “You can’t—”
“If it keeps you safe, Alex, I can, and I will. Now get ready for bed. Mom is making up a tray for you, since we both missed dinner. I’ll have your car towed tomorrow, the tires replaced.”
“Dad—”
“This discussion is over, young lady.”
He closed the door after him. I stared at it, stunned, still trying to let what just happened compute.
I had to tell Sam I couldn’t see him anymore, or I would be grounded.
I actually had to say the word grounded out loud.
I couldn’t tell Sam—it hurt just to think about. How would I actually get the words to come out of my mouth?
I fell face down on the bed, and groaned at the contact. I knew I would be bruised from my desperate flight. My ankle throbbed in agreement. Right now I wanted to crawl under my comforter and forget, just for a few hours.
Forget that I would have to shut Sam out of my life. Forever.
~ ~ ~
My aches kept waking me up. I finally stopped trying to sleep about three a.m., since all the restless moving made my body ache more.
Easing out of bed, every movement stiff, I limped over to my desk and sat, picking up the grilled cheese sandwich Mom had made for me. It was cold, but tasty.
The first bite brought my appetite roaring back. I finished off the sandwich, then started on the family size bag of salt and vinegar chips, my favorite. Mom left a big bottle of water to go with them. The food revived me, and though I still hurt every time I moved, it was bearable.
The food also jumpstarted my brain. Which meant I wouldn’t be getting any more sleep.
Going with a thought that had been poking at me since the surprising discovery of Hyattown, I wheeled my chair over to my laptop, Red, and booted her up. I opened a search window, typed in folklore, and let the search run while I opened another window. This time I searched urban legends. In a third window, I searched mythical creatures. Then I started opening sites, and comparing.
Running a program that grabbed specific keywords off the open sites, I let it extract while I read about golems, the real Bloody Mary, Sasquatch, the Jersey Devil—along with the usual suspects that fill horror stories.
Buried in the myths and stories, I started to find common threads, coincidences that wouldn’t let me go. I started printing relevant pages, sorting them into piles. By the time I finished, the program had spit out its results, and it was close to six a.m.
I didn’t need to export the information to tell me what I already found, but I did it, creating a simple Excel spreadsheet. Just to have, in case.
All the possible answers I had hoped to heaven weren’t there sat in front of me, in neat piles. Undisputable, and if I was right, a whole ream of bad news.