I got in the car.
The seat was cold against my thighs. The door clicked shut behind me like a cell door. He reached into the console and handed me a sandwich, wrapped in wax paper, then handed me a bottle of water.
“I’m not a bad guy,” he said, watching me take the food. “I’m just trying to help.”
That’s what every bad guy says.
He turned the key, and the engine started.
“I just need you for something. Something small. Something good for both of us.”
I bit into the sandwich. It tasted like dust and mustard.
“You’ll stay with my brother,” he said. “He’s a mechanic. Got a workshop. You can sleep there.”
I nodded again. Still chewing.
He kept talking, but my brain was drifting, already counting what else I could get. When hunger wraps around you long enough, it becomes the only God you pray to.
Ten minutes later, we pulled into a gas station off the highway. A rusty truck sat by the pumps, engine still on, with its windshield fogged up.
“That’s him,” the cop said. “Go on.”
I opened the door.
My momma once told me:Don’t ever take food from strangers. Don’t get in their cars. Don’t drink their water.
I’d done all of it. Maybe I was just desperate. Or maybe part of me stayed behindthat night,and the rest was still trying to catch up.
As I stepped out, the station lights flickered above me, buzzing, blinking. The air turned cold, and my knees wobbled.
I saw him.
Ian.
He stood by the truck, still as stone. Same face I remembered, but hollow now. His skin was bone-pale, stretched too tight, his eyes two holes, empty and staring straight through me. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. Just stared. Like he wasn’treallythere. Like he was caught in between now and somewhere much, much colder.
He was warning me. I blinked once, hard. And my eyes shut.
Dark fell upon my eyes, and memory slipped its hand around my throat, taking me when I was four.
The cold floorboards of Gloomsbury Manor creaked under my bare feet. The air in the house had that strange, old smell, smell of damp wood and dying things. A scream rang out from the basement.
It wasn’t Mom.
It was higher. Younger. Full of pain.
I froze, my heart beating so fast. Then Ian appeared in the doorway. He was breathing fast. He grabbed my wrist without a word and yanked me toward the bed.
He pressed his finger to his lips.Shhh.
Then pointed. Under the bed.
I didn’t ask questions. I dropped to my knees and crawled into the dust under the bed. Ian went under the other bed across the room just as the screaming stopped.
Only silence followed. But it didn’t feelempty.It felt likeitwas listening.
Then came the sound, faint at first. A dragging. Like bare feet across old wood. Slow. It wasn’t walking.
