Odessa sat frozen in shock, just staring down at the remains of her smashed watch. But it wasn’t the loss of the footage that sent a chill down her spine, it was the fact that for some reason, this cop, this person who was supposed to be able to help her, had wanted that footage gone.
Slowly, she raised her eyes to look at him. The inspector stared directly back at her with an unreadable expression, almost as if he was waiting for her to make the first move.
But Odessa found herself stuck in the moment, afraid of what would happen once she did respond. Unsure what the correct response even was. She waited for her body to figure out what to do, but her mind drew nothing but blanks.
After what felt like an eternity, but which was in reality, only a few moments, the inspector turned to the note-taker and commanded in a casual tone, “Check her mind. Make sure that was the only one.”
Before Odessa knew what was happening, the other cop had gotten up from his chair and placed his hands on either side of her head.
She felt her skin grow warm as her whole life flashed before her eyes. Well, not her whole life, but the last few days at least. It was as if she were watching it all on fast-forward. Some bits would slow down and occasionally a scene would be replayed. By the time the other inspector was done, Odessa felt like she’d lived it all over again. As if she was stuck in a nightmare that never ended. The feeling of being out of air felt so real that when the man removed his hands form her head she fell forward gasping. There came a sudden icy chill and she instinctively pulled away from him.
Then she heard the inspector say, “Good, now wipe her mind.”
The words hit like a electric shock wave.
Odessa sprung from her chair.
“No!” she cried. Half-tripping over her feet in the process, she threw her back against the wall and reached for her dive knife, still on her harness. She held it close and in between them. “You can’t have my memories.” She wasn’t sure what she was going to do. She’d never stabbed anybody before or even intentionally hurt anyone. The worst she’d ever done was once throw a stuffed animal at her mum. She’d been a teenager anxious to get out and experience life. She’d been sick of being cooped up in a small backward town, protected from witches and everything that went with them. Well, she’d certainly gotten what she wished for. It didn’t matter how it turned out though, she’d die before she’d forget even the worst of it. Every bit of it was a piece of her. Forgetting wouldn’t change what happened, and despite all the bad, there had been good moments in there too.
She had nowhere to run. Both men were much bigger than she, and almost certainly witches, which meant they had a power of some kind. Neither would have needed it though. Odessa was small and outnumbered.
The knife shook in her hand. She wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or the fear.
But they did not immediately approach her. Instead the note-taker looked toward the inspector with a questioning expression.
The inspector spoke to Odessa directly and calmly as if talking to a frightened animal.
He sighed and with the gentle shake of his head he said, “It’s better you know, if you let us take them. We can make you forget the whole experience. We can even make you think you’re friends just went home. It’ll be far better that way. Nicer for you. Do you want to remember the last few days forever? It must be a torment I’m sure.”
“My friends need help,” Odessa managed to blurt out.
He shook his head and gave her a professionally sympathetic look. “Your friends are all dead. If they’re not in town by now then they’re gone. We have rule, anyone who makes it back to town is allowed to leave. And I won’t take your memories if you don’t want us too but I do urge you to consider it.”
“You’re...” Odessa swallowed as she processed the implications of his statements. “You... you... made a deal with it?”
“With Kevin yes. An arrangement of sorts. Folks here don’t really take kindly to strangers, you see. You young tourists come here in your vans with your rubbish and your beer cans. You disrupt the peace with your loud music, your gas guzzlers. You treat the town like you own it. That said, you also bring in money, and the old lady does need to feed from time to time. But of course the townsfolk don’t want to be the main course and nobody wants to move. They’ve have lived here for generations. Just because Kevin made a mistake doesn’t mean we should all pay right?”
“A mistake?” Odessa asked.
But he ignored her question and continued. “It’s the obvious solution, and we’re not heartless. If you’d just stayed out of the forest you’d have been fine. But you had to go try stamp your name on something not yours didn’t you. But hey, you made it back, so you get to leave. With your memories if you want them.”
Odessa didn’t drop the knife. She was sure he was just trying to get her to drop her guard.
“Why would you... you made up stories, about others who had been here. You made it look like they disappeared somewhere else? I could just tell people what happened. I could tell the world. Why would you let me go?”
He smiled and then he dropped his gaze to the floor and the remains of her watch. When he looked back up at her he replied, “Without any evidence who would believe you?”
“My followers would. They trust me. And, and I made a post before this, saying where I was going.” It was a lie. Odessa hadn’t put any of the new stuff up yet. As far as her followers knew, she was mountain climbing.
But the note-taker shook his head.
The inspector smiled again. A smile that was supposed to be comforting but wasn’t.
“I know you didn’t and I know you have no reason to trust me, but you saw some of the footage from others before you came here surely? They all do. You know we’ve let others go before. You see, there’s this nice middle ground. We don’t take in excess and we’re very careful about who we select. And when they disappear they don’t disappear here. Just enough blurry footage and the odd rumor tends to lure a certain kind of person in. A glimpse here a glimpse there. Most people won’t come. Most people like to watch from the sidelines. But a couple will, the sort who either won’t be missed or those who are so adventurous they’re basically expected to vanish at some point. Let your followers know. Advertise the place for us. Lure them in. We’ll be very grateful.”
Odessa was silent. Surely her followers would believe her? But she knew he was right. Donny had made fake found footage videos for fun before and put them up as if they were real. People loved them. Even those who got up off their couches and flocked to the locations excited to capture similar footage of such terrifying things, didn’t actually believe in the reality of them.
With a sigh he stepped toward the exit and pulled the door open. Both of them stepped aside. The way out was clear, if she moved fast enough.
“Look, you’ve had a rough day. Let us put you up in a motel for the night. You can think it over. Have a shower, a warm meal, and a sleep. We’ll be here in the morning if you change your mind. Or you can simply leave town tonight and never come back. It’s up to you. Trust me, if we wanted your memories we would have just taken them already.”
On that point, Odessa knew he was right. She had no choice. Hesitantly she put her knife away.
In a daze she let the inspector lead her from the police station and across the road to a cozy looking inn. He booked her a room, then handed her a key, and let the innkeeper show her where it was. Someone had even brought her bag of clothes and some other things from the campsite down to the station. Probably Kevin. Odessa didn’t think about it too hard.
They put her bag in the room and then left. She locked the door the second she was alone. For several minutes she just stood there, adrenaline still coursing through her veins. Outside, the window she could hear a couple of birds tweeting sweetly.
‘Your friends are all dead.’
The words echoed in her mind. She mentally listed their names. Bob, Donny, Chaser, Rhys, Niko, and Triss. She remembered their faces. Them all sitting around the campfire the night before or in the car on the way up, laughing, joking... all dead. It didn’t seem right that birds could be tweeting outside while her friends were all dead. It didn’t make sense to her that that thing could still be out there and that she was also safe, just because she was this side of an invisible line. It felt surreal.
She suddenly felt horribly horribly tired. She was cold too. She knew it. In that she found something to do. Like a robot she stripped her wetsuit and everything off. But she couldn’t find the energy to get in the shower. Instead she wrapped herself in a towel and lay down on the bed, intent on resting just for moment.
When she next awoke it was dark outside, and a bloody face was looking in her window.
Odessa shot upright and stared directly at it.
It blinked and then it moved out of sight.
A moment later there came a knocking at the motel door.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Another knock.
A voice in her head.
“Odie, open the door.”
A voice she recognised.
She lept up from the bed and threw open the door.
“Chaser!”
He gave her a lop-sided smile. “Hey Odie.”
Without another thought she threw her arms around him. “Where the fuck have you been?”
It wasn’t until she stepped back that she realised the state he was in. The motel’s nice white towel was now covered in bright red blood.
“Uhh...” She looked down at herself and then over at him as he stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind him.
He noticed her worried look. “Don’t worry, it’s not mine. Gods, you’ll never believe the day I’ve had.” His eyes swept the room before meeting her own gaze. “Or, uh, maybe you will.” He gave a gentle laugh and then he paused and a frown appeared on his face. With slight concern in his tone as well as a dash of hope, he asked, “Where are the others?”
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Odessa couldn’t answer. But her expression was response enough. As she sat back down on the bed, she watched Chaser’s expression fall.
“Shit,” was all he said at first. But after a few moments he asked, “All of them?”
Odessa nodded. “Kevin was in on it. The whole town is. They have some kind of deal with this monster.”
“The whole town?”
Odessa nodded. “Chaser, where were you? What happened?”
He sighed and took a set next to her. “She attacked me, Hoots did. She tried to kill me.”
“What is she? It?”
Chaser shook his head. “I dunno. Something unnatural. But I managed to get away, just by dumb luck. I hid for awhile. Found an underground beach and a cavern full of bones. No skulls though, just bodies and marks scratched into the wall, and teeth, so many teeth, just littering the tunnel floor. I didn’t notice them properly at first. I thought they were just weird shaped stones until I climbed up onto the beach and realised I was sitting on hundreds of them. She found me again, eventually, but during the initial escape I managed to grab some of her hair and by then I had this.” He nodded down at his closed fists.
Odessa realised he held something in his hand.
It seemed to take him a second to remember how to open his fingers, but when he did she could see that in his palm lay a figure, molded from clay, long white hairs running through its center. It was one of his dolls and it almost looked like Hoots. It was splattered in blood.
“A poppet?”
Chaser nodded. “I made her go away. Forced her to go back into the water. But I couldn’t control her then. It’s hard enough when I can see someone and I wasn’t sure where she was. On the little beach I could hear her coming which gave me enough time, barely. She fought it, dove back down. Could have been anywhere. I waited. I don’t know how long. And then I got sick of waiting. Figured dying in the tunnels was better than waiting forever. I got turned around though. That was when I found arrows gouged into the walls and I just followed them. Got swept down a shaft with a current and came out the side of the cliff face in a waterfall. I was dizzy for a good hour after that. My knees were popping. My ears were itching. I couldn’t move. Got the bends real bad. I think it sucked me down deeper you know, for a little bit. I just lay there. I thought I was a goner. Thought she’d find me for sure, but she never did. Then I got up and I saw a house. Their house. Kevin was there...”
“You thought he’d help?” Odessa asked in a hushed voice.
Chaser shook his head. “I hoped. But by that point, I didn’t trust him either so I made this before I left the beach.”
Another clay figure, this one coated with much more blood. This one could have been Kevin, if it had still had a face. The arms and legs and torso were there but the head looked like it had been squashed by a small child.
“I...” Chaser paused, shook his head. “We fought. I got him with my knife, just a cut, just enough, and then, he nodded toward the poppet, then I dealt with him. After that I went back to find you guys but by the time I got to the campsite I saw the car was gone and some stuff too... and then she was there.”
“She?”
“Hoots.”
“Oh.”
“She told me how she killed you all, what you tasted like. She described it in detail. I guess she forgot I had the poppet. We fought for control again. Maybe she thought she could beat me. She came pretty close. But I won. Pushed the mindwalking infusement to its limits and I got inside her head, I saw what it felt like to do what she did. I tasted what she tasted. What she did to Bob at least. I saw his face before he died, briefly. He looked surprised. Then she ate his head, didn’t even give him a chance to react. I had hoped that maybe it was just her fantasy. I had hoped that if it wasn’t, that at least some of you got away. But then I gave her different memories. I distracted her, confused her. She couldn’t fight the voodoo as easily then. Between the infusement and the poppet I had her. I made her walk over to where the gas tanks were, made her light a match and...” Chaser described the rest with his hands. He mimed an explosion.
“She’s gone?” Odessa asked, feeling some of the weight in her chest lift. At least that would be something.
Chaser nodded. “They both are.” Then he frowned and turned to look at her. “You said the town was in on it?”
Odessa nodded. “They knew, they knew what was happening, and they just let it happen. I don’t understand why they couldn’t stop it. All this time.” She thought back to all the other disappearances that Donny had told them about. “All those people. We thought they died after visiting this place, on another trip, but it was here. The people in this town sent emails to their families, pretending to be them.”
Chaser stood up. “If that’s the case, we should leave. Get out of here right now. Before they figure out what I’ve done.”
Odessa nodded and then she shivered.
“You’re cold?”
Odessa nodded. “We should go though.”
Chaser frowned and then he looked down at himself. “Maybe not like this. I think we’ve got some time. They probably won’t go up there now. Let’s get cleaned up, eat some food, get a few hours sleep, and then hit the road before dawn, while they’re all asleep. Okay?”
Odessa nodded but she stayed where she was.
Chaser pulled her to her feet. “Come on. Let’s get you warm.” He helped her toward the bathroom and turned on the shower.
A few hours later, following food and a short nap, they were back on the road.
Chaser drove while Odessa stared blankly out the window.
They drove for hours, through town after town. Odessa barely spoke. She barely slept. She kept visualising Niko’s eyes just looking at her. She kept remembering his smile. And Triss’s last words.
“I was supposed to get help,” Odessa mumbled to herself.
Chaser glanced over at her with a worried expression. Then he pulled the car over.
On both sides they were surrounded by expanses of red sand.
‘Red, like the blood that had flowed from Rhys’s neck,’ Odessa thought. It stained the landscape all around them. Wherever she went she would not be able to escape that place.
“Come on Dess, pull yourself together,” Chaser told her. “You did your best. You can’t change what happened. You just have to pick yourself up and keep moving forward. Remember the good times and live for the ones who can’t.”
“We have to go back,” she finally told him.
“What for?”
“We have to get their bodies.”
“They’re dead Odie. There’s no point. Body recovery is difficult in the best of circumstances. We’d be risking our lives for something that’s not them anymore.”
She didn’t answer. How could he be so okay?
Chaser sighed softly. “Did I ever tell you how I got into adventuring?”
She shook her head.
Chaser stared out at the red desert for a moment before continuing. “I hated my parents. It’s not like they were bad people. I mean, maybe to each other they were, but to me they were always nice, except they were nice in the way that people are when they think they know you better than you know yourself. Think they know what’s good for you. They’d organise events or buy me things I hated, that I had to pretend I liked, and most of the time it was just to better each other. It wasn’t even really for me. I couldn’t wait to get out. Then I met a guy with a really nice car. He was a lot older, just passing through town. I hitched a ride with him and left home at the ripe old age of 15. I never looked back.”
“Your parents didn’t look for you?”
Chaser stretched his arms then shook his head. “Nah, in fact, not long after I left, they renewed their wedding vows. Everyone was happy. For little while at least. Jordan, that was his name, he taught me a lot of things, but most of all he taught me exactly why you should never just get in a car with a stranger. He took advantage of me. He took advantage of a lot of people. By the time I figured out what sort of person he was I couldn’t just go back home. Things had changed too much. I’d changed too much. It would have been worse than before I’d left. I ended up in a pretty dark place. Things got so bad I thought the only way out was ending it. It’s not as easy as you’d think. I figured if I found the perfect cliff then maybe I could just do it by stepping off the edge you know, and just fly into oblivion. And I found one. Not too popular but real pretty view. Bit of a hike to get there but hey, I was only going the one way.”
Odessa listened closely. She’d never heard him talk about this part of his life before.
“Anyway, I get up there, and I’m getting ready to jump, and I see a rocky peak in the distance, pointing straight up, sloping sides. Not too far away, not too big, but fucking majestic looking you know?”
Odessa nodded. Some rocks just looked nice. Some rocks just had to be climbed. They’d make your soul ache just to look at them.
“And I felt this sudden urge to go climb it. I’d never really climbed anything before but it felt wrong not to. To just leave the planet while that thing stood there like that. And then I think, why the fuck not? I can always jump the next day or maybe I’ll get lucky and I’ll die doing something epic. So I did. I climbed it, it wasn’t actually too bad, a little crumbly but big holds, easy angle. I felt free. It didn’t change anything. I still planned on jumping off the cliff the next day but I was at peace you know. I had a plan. Next day, I’m back at the cliff just about to follow through. Figured I’d wait until sunset, do it then. I wasn’t in any rush you see. Or maybe I was just putting things off. The body has this strange habit of fighting for life even when the mind doesn’t want to you know?”
Odessa nodded but she only half understood. Often, she felt more like it was her mind trying to make her body do things that it wasn’t always up to. She might live on the edge and stare down into darkness but she’d never actually wanted to jump off, at least not without a parachute. Okay, there was the whole call of the void thing, but that was different from what Chaser was describing, and as she listened to him tell his story, and she remembered everything that had happened over the last couple days, she decided that one thing was certain, death terrified her.
“So I was sitting there on that cliff, and this group of climbers turn up and start talking about the pointy peak, admiring it and stuff, and I mean, hey I just climbed it, so I join in, telling them what it’s like. Turns out they’re all headed to some hole in the ground, big 300 ish metre abseil straight down and then a couple hours through an easy cave to get out. None of them have done any caving before but it’s not supposed to be a hard one. They invited me to go with them, despite the fact that I’d never abseiled anything. But it’s not like I was scared because what was the worst that could happen?” He chuckled to himself.
Odessa didn’t join in. She wished she’d known him then and could have comforted him. But something else he said distracted her. “Wait, they were climbers, not cavers? Did they have static ropes?”
Chaser smiled and nodded. “Oh, yeah, yeah you’ve already guessed where this is going. And no, all they had were several coils of dynamic rope. They figured they’d just knot them all together and they’d be fine. And they might have been if they’d had the right rope.”
Odessa waited with bated breath. He was right, she did think she had a pretty good idea where his story was going. “They used ATC’s for the abseil too?”
Chaser’s look got more serious. “They did.” A single nod this time. “Somehow most of us actually made it down. A couple of almost fuck ups at the bottom cause of the friction, but most of them went slow, me in particular. I’d never abseiled before so I was real careful. That feeling as the friction disappears, gods I’ll never forget that. The last guy though, he was the most experienced, still a fucking newbie, just knew more than the rest of us, knew just enough to be dangerous and was bold enough that I guess he thought he could just let the rope run through like you normally would on something short, quick and fast. Didn’t click to any of us that the increased friction at the top would mean less at the bottom or that the longer and faster the abseil the more heat you generate. None of us had any idea how hot an ATC could get or how easy it is to melt through a climbing rope. He was about 60 metres from the bottom when he burned through. We had a healer in the group but it didn’t make a fucking difference. He was dead when he landed. Gave a nice good whack splat.” Chaser mimed it with his hands.
Odessa glanced away, not wanting to think about it. But a moment later, like watching a car accident, she turned back to hear the end of the story.
“Put me right off jumping off that cliff. Not about ending things, just the method. I don’t know what actually changed my mind in the end, if anything did, I just kept finding other things to do and then eventually I didn’t think about it so much. That’s not why I told you this story though. We never made it to the cave. We got lucky, got rescued by another group who did know what they were doing. It was a popular hole. I’ve seen a lot of death over the years, Odessa. You do in this kind of life. Good friends, lovers, kids like I was, so new they think they’re invincible. Eventually you kind of start to expect it. Everyone dies, it’s just a matter or when, and the dead don’t know, they’re not actually missing anything. There isn’t an afterlife. There’s just now, each moment, and you’ve got to live it. I know it’s hard right now. But things will get better, and then you’ve gotta get back out there. I’ve seen people go one of two ways after they lose someone or even a whole party like we just did. I’ve got to the point where I think I know pretty quickly which way people are going to go. Either, after a little bit of time, they get back out there, stronger than ever, smarter, better prepared. They explore the world, live their lives, or they get stuck, they lose the spark, they end up afraid to live. But if you don’t find a way to love the fear then you’re as dead as those who never walk out their front door. I don’t want to lose you too, Dess, okay.”
Odessa nodded slowly but she couldn’t feel the same passion he had. And the thought of getting back out there, of climbing something without the others just left her feeling cold and afraid. As for diving, that was even worse. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to get back in the water, not when who-knew-what might be lurking in the darkness.
“We should go back,” she said as he started the car again. But she said it weakly. She didn’t want to go back. That place scared her. But there was a tug. She felt like they should go back and she wasn’t really sure why. They were all dead after all, weren’t they?
“We can’t go back, Dess,” Chaser told her firmly.
She didn’t argue.
Meanwhile, in a small underwater cave in the middle of the forest, not far from the small town of Riftgate, a slender figure crouched in the darkness and waited for help to come.