The Dead and the Dark(42)



“It looks different,” Elexis said. He wandered to the back of the cabin with his hands in his pockets. “There’s a firepit back here.”

“Do you guys know anything about the family who lived here?” Logan asked.

Elexis shrugged. He walked farther, pausing at the back of the cabin to admire the massive, smashed windows. “They had a cool view.”

Logan unearthed a handful of devices from her tote bag, unsure where to start. She and Ashley made their way to the front porch and stepped into the main room. Ashley’s quiet was deeper than usual. It was unsettling. Logan glanced at her every couple of seconds to make sure she hadn’t left. She wasn’t the only thing that was different; it was like the cabin was determined to be different from the last time Logan visited. Today it didn’t feel like death or despair or magic or any of that. It felt like a wooden house in a clearing. Nothing more.

The ThermoGeist agreed. Logan cautiously paced the cabin floor, but the square screen on the device remained unlit. There was nothing paranormal here—at least, not for her.

Logan tasted the tang of disappointment on her tongue.

The air outside was light with birdsong and smelled sharp like soil. Sunlight filtered into the cabin through gaps in the roof, angled like sheets of gold through the sunbathed wood. She imagined how beautiful this place might’ve been once. How it might’ve felt to stand here and listen to the piano and taste the summer wind through the open windows. She imagined white linen curtains on the far wall, a basket of fruit on the kitchen counter, a wooden light fixture over her head. It was a vision so real it felt like a memory. Logan could almost see it when she closed her eyes.

“I feel like … I’ve been here before.”

“You have,” Elexis called. “Twice, right?”

“You know what I mean.” She put a hand on her hip. “Before before.”

But there was no before. She wasn’t like Brandon and Alejo; she didn’t have memories here. This wasn’t her home. Snakebite was only supposed to be now.

“Well,” she said, “whatever was here before, it’s gone.”

Logan wasn’t sure she believed that.

Ashley said nothing.

“Hey.” Logan waved a hand in front of Ashley’s face. “Are you in there?”

“Sorry,” Ashley said. For the first time, Logan noticed the deep circles under Ashley’s eyes, dark as bruises. Her eyes were glassy and distant—even when she looked into Logan’s face it was like she couldn’t focus. “Sorry, I don’t know what’s…”

Elexis made his way into the cabin’s main room. “Can we go home? My allergies are kicking in.”

“No,” Logan snapped.

“I feel kinda sick to my stomach,” Ashley said. “I think something bad happened here. It wasn’t like this before. I don’t know why I…”

She sank onto the ratty sofa in the corner of the room and put her head in her hands. Her blond ponytail fell in waves down her back. Fear twisted like a knife in Logan’s chest. The air was too still, the cabin was too empty. Ashley was a mess.

Something was wrong.

“Do you see anything?” Logan asked.

Ashley shook her head.

Logan nodded. “Okay. I wanna take a quick look outside, then we can leave. You just … stay here.”

Elexis and Logan left the cabin and wandered farther into the trees toward the shore. The first time Ashley had seen Tristan, he was in the trees, not the cabin. Logan juggled devices, scanning the trees, but nothing registered. Nothing indicated that this was anything other than a regular patch of trees bordering a regular lake outside a regular town. Nothing indicated that the things they had seen before still lingered here.

They reached the water and Elexis froze.

A piece of clothing was caught along the dusty ridge of the shore, hooked under a flat rock. The water from the lake ebbed and retracted over a red sleeve. For a moment, Logan thought the thing was breathing.

“What’s—”

Elexis snatched the thing from under the rock and unfurled it. A waterlogged Captain America symbol spanned the front of the hoodie.

It was Nick’s.

“He’ll be happy you found that.” Logan laughed.

“No. He wouldn’t leave it.” Elexis draped the sweatshirt over his shoulder and began scouring the ground, panicked. “It’s his favorite. He wouldn’t leave it here.”

“You guys were both out of it.”

“Not that out of it.”

“I—”

Elexis pointed to Logan’s tote bag. A faint blue seared through the stitching. She fished through the bag and pulled the ThermoGeist to freedom, pointing it at the hoodie. Just like the windmill episode of ParaSpectors, the device blared solid blue. She turned it away from the hoodie and it went dark again.

“Have you talked to Nick?” Logan asked. Her tongue felt like lead in her mouth. “Since the party?”

Elexis shook his head.

Logan closed her eyes. She was sinking.

“Take that hoodie. We’re going to the police.”





18


Long Shadows


Logan slipped into the passenger seat of the Ford and let out a sigh. It was only her second trip to the Owyhee County police station, but she was already tired of it. Elexis was still inside, talking to Sheriff Paris and waiting for Gracia to pick him up. The moment they left the woods, Ashley seemed clearer. The dark circles under her eyes subsided, and she was back to being her annoyingly wholesome, doe-eyed self.

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