Page 4 of Primal Hunger
“It’s nice,” I blurt out.
He’s back to the eye rolling. “What did you expect? Something like the Addams family?”
To be honest, I’m not sure what I expected.
As I head up the walkway to the front porch, Tyler follows quietly on my heels, the soles of his boots scuffling along the stone behind me. I pause on the welcome mat, trying to work out exactly what I’m going to say, but Tyler reaches around me and jams his thumb into the doorbell.
I glare at him as it echoes through the house, followed by the yipping of small dogs.
Sometimes, those kinds of pets are worse than anything you find in the woods at night or under the bed. Real life land sharks ready to nip at your ankles for breathing in their direction.
I reserve judgment.
“Coming,” a man’s voice calls seconds before the door opens a crack, and a pair of dark brown eyes peer out. When they meet mine, the glare in them eases, and the door opens wide enough for the man’s form to fill it. “Hi. Can I help you?”
“Are you Mr. Reese?” I ask, still working through how I plan to approach his son’s disappearance. I don’t want to risk himrunning us off the premises before I’ve even properly introduced myself.
“Yes. And you are?”
I clear my throat. “I’m Erin Roberts, owner of theHooked on Spooksparanormal blog. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions about the myths circulating the town and specifically how they connect to what happened to your son, Brandon.”
What I expect is a careful consideration of my interest and possible questions about the blog, but the way his face immediately darkens surprises me. His brows furrow together, and his mouth hardens into a thin line. “I’m not interested in answering questions.”
As he goes to shut the door in my face, I panic and reach for the knob. “Mr. Reese, please. Is there any comment you would make to a foreigner looking to travel to your town? Any words of advice? Places to stay away from this time of year?”
He hesitates for a brief second, just long enough to make me think he’s actually going to talk, before answering. “Yeah. Stay out of the fucking trees.”
And then the door slams closed in my face.
I stand there for a stunned second, wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do. I could knock again and make a better plight for information; insist that I’m trying to help the town with my research. But I deflate a few seconds later, my confidence disappearing. There’s no sense in getting the cops called on me for harassment, no matter how badly I want answers.
Damn it.
With a sigh, Tyler and I turn and head back to the car. He touches my elbow like he’s looking for permission to comfort me, and I shrug him off.
“Well, that was fucking useless,” I grumble.
He looks smug, his hands now shoved in his pockets and his chin uplifted. “I told—”
“Say it and you can walk home. I’m not kidding.” I cut him off and glare in his direction.
He falls silent, but I can still see the whisper of a smile on his lips. Yeah, coming here was a waste of time, just like he said it would be, but we had to try.
There are always more townspeople we could interview, although Tyler has told me everything he knows about the Grim lore. Maybe someone’s grandmother has seen something else? Heard something?
So far, I’ve been hesitant to pry only because the locals seem distrusting of an outsider.
It’s been hard to research on my own, and making friends outside of Tyler has been almost as impossible as finding the Grim.
If I can even call Tyler a friend…He’s more like a pain in the ass little brother who insists on tagging along constantly. At the very least, he’s proved to be useful once or twice.
I grumble, wracking my brain for an alternative plan and coming up empty. Any extra shred of information would be greatly appreciated as we go into the solstice with the vaguest idea of what will happen.
“We just have to wing it, I guess,” I say, my disappointment evident in the sigh that follows.
We climb into the car and I start the engine, staring blankly ahead at the dashboard as my mind spirals with unnerving thoughts.
It isn’t the first time I’ve dived headfirst into a situation with nothing more than a whisper of information, although the stakes weren’t very high in the past. A few haunted hotels with rumors of voices and footsteps. A graveyard where people saw lights and felt lightheaded, and an abandoned hospital wheregurneys rolled down the hallways on their own. Nothing overtly dangerous, nothing evil.
