Devils night, p.21
Devil's Night, page 21
Ray had his own version, of course, sourced from his father. Dad had seen something weird up here, years ago. Things moving of their own accord. Dad probably wouldn’t like that Ray was working up here tonight. But they’d needed extra security, and Ray had enjoyed the festival last night. Until the accidents, anyway. Why not get paid to go for night two? Better yet, maybe he’d run into Penny. Though that hadn’t worked out.
He just wished the festival had better music. Ray liked metal, anything from old school Metallica and Megadeath to industrial to hardcore Power Trip. Nothing like a relentless guitar riff fortified by a distortion pedal to clear the clutter from your mind. The boundary between order and chaos was thin, indeed, and metal never failed to remind him of that.
He took the flashlight from his belt and started walking along the fence. The cleaning crew had already been through for the night; the vendors had packed up their booths. The festival grounds were deserted. But still he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was out of place. An event like Devil’s Fest attracted people from all over the state, maybe even all over the country. Where there were crowds, there inevitably were troublemakers.
Maybe somebody had stuck around, planning a little mischief?
Ray hadn’t gone to school in Ashton growing up. He never made the pilgrimage up to Eden on Devil’s Night as a teenager. But he’d spent every summer here with his dad since he was four. He knew this place inside and out, but he didn’t quite belong. Penny Wright was the first person he’d met who seemed to share that same status. It was a problem that she’d be leaving in a few days. If he wanted to ask her out, he needed to act soon. But first, he had to show how vigilant and dedicated he could be. She was the kind of girl that a guy needed to impress. Older than him, more worldly.
His phone vibrated. He’d just received a text. He’d chosen his cell carrier carefully, the one that had the best reception in the region. As a patrol deputy, he was often out in rural areas, off the usual grid. You never knew what might happen.
The message was from Penny. Instantly, a grin lit up his face.
Sorry to write so late, but Matthew said you had a message for me? Call if this is a good time, otherwise I’ll try in the morning.
He called her right away. “You’re up late,” he said.
She laughed awkwardly. “Can’t sleep, I guess. What about you?”
“Working at your festival tonight. Everybody’s safe and sound, and it’s all packed away for the night.”
She exhaled. “You have no idea what a relief that is, thank you.”
“No problem at all. I wanted to let you know about the forensic report on those bones—if you want an unofficial summary.”
“Yes, please tell me. I’d like to know.”
He told her the conclusions of the report. The body was at least a century old, belonging to a young woman who’d given birth at some point. There’d been signs of malnourishment, which wasn’t uncommon in those days. She’d died of a broken back, probably after falling from a decent height. The obvious conclusion was the roof, or maybe an upper floor.
“There was a window,” Penny said. “Pretty high above the place where I…where the body was found. Could she have fallen from there?”
“Sure is possible. She wasn’t buried very deep. Might’ve fallen there and was never found until now.”
A pause. “Will there be a burial?”
“Sure, that’ll be arranged once the paperwork is all finished. I just thought, since you seemed in such a rush before…”
“Thank you, Ray. I really do appreciate it.”
Are you free for coffee tomorrow? he wanted to ask. But maybe that would seem presumptuous. He wished he’d been able to talk to her in person. “Hey, by the way,” he asked, “have you seen Anvi? Did she go to Ashton? Linden was asking, and I wasn’t sure if you spoke to her.”
“I’m not at the inn, actually. You could try there.”
Penny said goodbye and ended the call.
Not at the inn. Well, huh. Where was she, then?
He shook off the disappointment. He was working tomorrow night—he’d see her then. Which meant he should finish up here, get home, and get some sleep so he’d feel his best.
Ray continued along the perimeter of the fence, rubbing the sleeves of his windbreaker. There was a little more moisture in the air than usual, and that made the cold seep into his bones.
That sense of unease still irked him. He spun around, suddenly sure that there was someone behind him.
He lifted the flashlight. “Hello? Anybody there?”
He felt eyes watching him. Ray’s pulse thrummed in his neck. He wasn’t like some of the older patrol deputies, always talking about gut instincts and intuition. Even so, he felt those eyes without seeing them.
Could be a mountain lion. Wouldn’t be good to run into one of them. He’d look like a colossal idiot tomorrow at the office—even worse, in front of Penny—if he got mauled.
By that same instinct, his hand had already gone to his service weapon, which he’d concealed under his jacket. Though he was off duty, he had a legal right to carry, and Linden hadn’t specifically asked him not to be armed. He was glad for the extra protection of a Glock 19 against aggressive a-holes, but he didn’t want to shoot some animal.
Just call it a night and go home, he thought, turning to go back toward the parking lot.
Then he spun. He’d heard a thump and a cut-off scream that sounded like, “Help.” That was no mountain lion. But it hadn’t come from inside the Eden fence. It was somewhere out in the canyon.
Drawing his weapon, he ran toward the noise. His flashlight beam swept over the landscape before him.
A figure appeared, illuminated by the beam. A person standing still, arms at his sides. Wait—it was a woman. She turned, and he recognized her face. Short pixie hair, pouty lips.
It was Anvi.
What was she doing out here? He lowered his weapon slightly so he wasn’t aiming at her. “Anvi, you need help? I’m Deputy Ray Castillo, remember?”
She stared at him, her eyes shining in the light. He realized what was so odd about her face—she wasn’t blinking. Wasn’t reacting. But she was holding a large, elongated object. A thick piece of wood.
Something moved near her feet. He couldn’t tell what it was. He took a few careful steps closer.
A person was lying in a heap on the ground. The person moaned. Her head moved, and her hair slid from her face.
Linden was lying there.
“What the—?”
Anvi’s arm came up, pointing something at him. He moved his gun up before realizing it was just a can with some kind of nozzle. But by then, Anvi had already pressed the trigger. A cloud of stuff, somehow both water and fire, spewed into his face. Bear spray. She’d hit him with freaking bear spray. He coughed and retched, rubbing his eyes. It wasn’t anywhere near lethal, wouldn’t even stop a bad guy in his tracks, but it stung like hell.
It had distracted him, though. Enough that, just as he noticed that Anvi was now beside him, he felt a heavy blow to his head.
Ray fell forward onto the ground. The heavy thing smacked into his head again, and he was out.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Penny slept until almost noon. She woke to find Matthew facing her from the other pillow, those blue eyes studying her.
“Hi,” he said.
She sat up, running her fingers through her tangled hair. “Hey. Hi.” The room was different in the midday light. Everything was different. Matthew was lying next to her with his arm propped under his head. His bruises were purple, and his skin was smooth and pale, and there was so much of it. She forced her eyes back up.
He tugged playfully at the sleeve of her t-shirt. “You put this back on? Are we awkward again now?”
She laughed, but she did feel strangely shy. Her eyes kept drifting downwards, and he’d kicked off his blankets.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she explained, “so I got up to make a call last night. Ray told me about the skeleton I found. It was a woman. Old. Could’ve been from the Devil’s Night Massacre.” It wasn’t recent—that had been a relief.
Matthew sat up and readjusted the blankets. “Do you think it’s important?”
Was it? She would never forget that hidden room. The helpless, overwhelming terror she’d felt there. The report might reveal a few more details about the woman’s death, but she doubted she’d ever know what really happened. She didn’t want to go back to that place, even in her memories.
“Probably not,” she answered. “I guess Anvi could post something about it, since it’s Devil’s Night tonight.” One hundred and twenty-five years exactly since the massacre. “But the festival’s over tomorrow, anyway. Ray said there’d be a burial at some point.”
They didn’t mention that her visit would also be over soon.
Matthew picked up her hand and kissed her palm. His gaze grew more intense.
She wasn’t feeling so shy anymore. She tossed aside her shirt and crawled over to him. They were more urgent than the night before, knowing that every minute together now was stolen time.
They showered and ate stale crackers for breakfast—or perhaps it was lunch, given the hour—and Penny finally picked up her phone to check her email and call Linden. She wondered if her best friend would know about Matthew just by hearing her voice.
Linden didn’t answer, so Penny left a voicemail.
A silence descended between them as they drove toward the inn. Penny tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. What was there to say now? Nothing that would fill the absence that Matthew would leave once he was gone.
She parked near the back of the lot.
“Should we go in together?” he asked. “Or…”
“I’m going to take a walk.” She handed him the keys and got out.
Her family might have already guessed. They had a preternatural sense of such things that were none of their business. But that wasn’t the reason that she preferred he go inside without her.
“Can I see you tonight?”
She paused and looked back. He was standing beside the open passenger’s side door, hand on the car’s roof.
“I’ll be busy at the festival. There’s a party and a dinner and…” She’d didn’t bother listing her other obligations tonight. Neither of them cared.
“Tomorrow?”
“Matthew. I don’t think we should.”
Spending the next three nights just like the last would be wonderful, but it wouldn’t make it any easier for her to get on that plane.
He walked toward her. “I meant everything I said last night.”
“So did I. I don’t want to move back here, and I know that you don’t want to leave. Long distance isn’t realistic. If none of those options work, what else is there?”
“There’s no discussion? Nothing that will change your mind?”
She blinked away tears and walked out of the parking lot.
In the meadow behind the inn, a trail led through an aspen grove and out into the greater valley. On the dirt path, a bicycle zipped past her. A creek ran alongside, filling her ears with quiet music. Inside, she was a wreck.
Matthew thought she had her mind made up. That wasn’t true. She wanted to run inside the inn and find him and tell him she’d stay. Every single second, she had to keep choosing the thing she knew was right, no matter how much it hurt. Unless she came up with some new stroke of brilliance, then she couldn’t see any alternative.
To distract herself, she scrolled through her feeds. There was a new post from Anvi. A live Instagram video from last night showed the crowd dancing at Devil’s Fest. There was no sound at all, no caption. The camera caught Anvi’s face only once, and her eyes were glazed. It wasn’t Anvi’s usual style. Actually, there was something eerie and even ominous about the video, with the writhing bodies of the dancers and the garish lights and the backdrop of ruined buildings, all in silence. Not a single shot of a Dark Energy can or its logo, which might’ve been for the best.
Penny remembered that Ray had asked about Anvi last night. For a moment, Penny wondered if everything was okay. But then she heard someone running behind her. She stepped to the side of the path to let the runner pass, but the woman stopped, panting.
“Please, Penny. I need to talk to you.”
She looked up from her phone. It was that woman from the other day—the one who’d thrown the ice water in her face at breakfast. She wore the cardigan with the missing buttons. The same wild look shone in her eyes.
Penny took a step back. “Leave me alone. I have nothing to say.”
“I’m sorry about the other morning. I was upset. But you need to listen.”
Penny turned to go, and the woman grabbed her arm. Penny shook her off. “Are you kidding me?” She lifted her phone. “I’m calling the police.”
But then the woman said, “I’m Helen Boyd. You really don’t remember me? Helen and Jason Boyd?”
Helen.
Penny searched the woman’s face. She’d changed so much, at least from the image in Penny’s memory. The red hair had turned dishwater gray, and frown lines creased her mouth. Yet there was something familiar about Helen’s eyes that tugged at her memory.
“How do I know you’re really her?”
The woman dug a tattered wallet from her pocket. She produced a driver’s license that said “Helen Boyd,” and then a wrinkled photo—Penny’s mom and dad with their arms around a man and a red-haired woman. Penny looked from the photo to the person in front of her. Helen had aged, but her features were definitely the same.
“What happened to you?”
Penny had so many questions. She couldn’t believe that Helen Boyd had accosted her at the inn. How could this be the same woman she used to know?
“I’ll tell you everything,” Helen said. “If you’ll listen.”
“But—you just yelled at me before. Why do you want to talk now?”
Helen knit her hands together. “I’d driven all night to get to Ashton after I read about your festival online, and it was so overwhelming to be here again…”
Penny closed her eyes. The initial shock of seeing Helen again was wearing off. “I don’t understand what you want.”
“To tell you the truth. That’s it. Please, Penny.”
“My father already told me. This is about Jason’s death, right? I’m sorry for your loss. But it’s nothing to do with me.”
“Your father doesn’t know about this. And it’s everything to do with you.”
Penny started down the path, pulling up the Ashton police department’s number on her phone. Another bicycle flew past. If Helen didn’t leave her alone, she’d hit call.
Helen kept up with her, still talking. “We tried to understand your power when you were a girl, and we failed you. I failed you. But I’ve learned so much more. I know what you can really do.”
Penny’s thumb lingered over the call button. After a moment’s indecision, she put her phone back in her pocket.
“You really impressed me, that first time I met you,” Helen said. “When you were little.”
They were sitting on a bench overlooking the creek. Penny had moved as far to one side of the seat as she could, arms crossed over her middle. She was still angry about that ice water. But she’d been wrong about Matthew when she first arrived, too. They’d misunderstood one another. Maybe the same was true of Helen.
Besides, Helen represented one of the few bright spots from Penny’s young childhood. The least she could do was sit and listen.
“We’d spent college imagining that we were paranormal investigators,” Helen went on. “Your mom and dad, Jason and me. Reading all those books and playing with equipment. After we graduated, we went our separate ways. I figured those days were gone. Just childish fantasies. But then Lawrence called me up one day and told me about you.”
Helen looked over at Penny, starting to smile. Somehow it made her eyes even sadder. When Penny said nothing, she went on.
“Things weren’t going well for Jason and me at that point in our marriage. I don’t want to get into it. But let’s say it was a rough patch. Really rough. It was my idea to come to Ashton to see your family. And when I met you, you were everything Lawrence had promised and more. You were so open. Innocent. But you already knew so much—about how ghosts interact with our world, how they feel. How incredible to think that so much survives after death. I was in my thirties, and I barely comprehended mortality, but here was this little kid who spoke about death like some guru on a mountaintop.”
Penny chewed the side of her lip, shaking her head. All that pressure that her dad put on her, the assumptions he’d made. She hadn’t wanted to believe that Helen was a part of that.
“I didn’t know anything. I was a child.”
“You knew plenty.”
“But I didn’t understand consequences. How a single day could follow me for the rest of my life.”
Helen pulled at one of the remaining buttons on her cardigan. “Maybe I didn’t either. But believe me, I came to understand.”
She shifted on the bench. The creek rushed past them.
“After Jason spent that Devil’s Night in Eden with your father, he couldn’t get the experience out of his mind. He had nightmares. I took us on a vacation, hoping that we could get past it and reconnect. I’d hoped he would work on things between us, like he’d promised me. But after Eden, he wasn’t the same.”
Helen gestured with her hands. “I don’t mean that his personality changed—if anything, he was more himself. Distilled. His problems had intensified. He’d been aimless in his career, but now he stopped even trying to find a new position. Eden became his escape. His obsession. He read everything he could about Eden’s history. He’d disappear, and I’d get a call that he was found asleep at our local library, facedown at a table full of books. He even tried to help some with your father’s book—they were supposed to be co-authors, but Jason was too erratic. He didn’t finish the parts he was supposed to write.
