CHAPTER THREE (Part 3)
Shattered Glass
Clive Carson—The Carsons’ House—River Street
“A toast to family,” Clive finally said as he r… moreaised his glass.
“To family,” Rachel agreed.
“Family,” Henry concluded softly, reluctantly participating.
The three clinked their glasses together and Clive slowly slipped back into his seat as he drank some of the glass’s contents. “It’s a shame,” Clive murmured into his glass. “Lots of people I… we all wish were still around.”
Henry narrowed his eyes slightly, becoming a little suspicious of Clive’s hospitality—his friendliness was often something reserved for people not like himself. Clive even admitted to have a grudge against the sheriff’s office for hitting a dead end in Alexander’s murder. Despite this, Henry raised his eyebrows regretfully and nodded before he leaned back in his chair as well. He would not let simple suspicion get in the way of a peaceful dinner, though he was preparin… [view original content]
[Come clean and reveal the strange presence to Rachel.]
While I don't know if Rachel believes him, he should at least tell her about it, as this might be important. Otherwise she might not take it seriously, should she ever experience something similar.
CHAPTER THREE (Part 3)
Shattered Glass
Clive Carson—The Carsons’ House—River Street
“A toast to family,” Clive finally said as he r… moreaised his glass.
“To family,” Rachel agreed.
“Family,” Henry concluded softly, reluctantly participating.
The three clinked their glasses together and Clive slowly slipped back into his seat as he drank some of the glass’s contents. “It’s a shame,” Clive murmured into his glass. “Lots of people I… we all wish were still around.”
Henry narrowed his eyes slightly, becoming a little suspicious of Clive’s hospitality—his friendliness was often something reserved for people not like himself. Clive even admitted to have a grudge against the sheriff’s office for hitting a dead end in Alexander’s murder. Despite this, Henry raised his eyebrows regretfully and nodded before he leaned back in his chair as well. He would not let simple suspicion get in the way of a peaceful dinner, though he was preparin… [view original content]
CHAPTER THREE (Part 3)
Shattered Glass
Clive Carson—The Carsons’ House—River Street
“A toast to family,” Clive finally said as he r… moreaised his glass.
“To family,” Rachel agreed.
“Family,” Henry concluded softly, reluctantly participating.
The three clinked their glasses together and Clive slowly slipped back into his seat as he drank some of the glass’s contents. “It’s a shame,” Clive murmured into his glass. “Lots of people I… we all wish were still around.”
Henry narrowed his eyes slightly, becoming a little suspicious of Clive’s hospitality—his friendliness was often something reserved for people not like himself. Clive even admitted to have a grudge against the sheriff’s office for hitting a dead end in Alexander’s murder. Despite this, Henry raised his eyebrows regretfully and nodded before he leaned back in his chair as well. He would not let simple suspicion get in the way of a peaceful dinner, though he was preparin… [view original content]
CHAPTER THREE (Part 3)
Shattered Glass
Clive Carson—The Carsons’ House—River Street
“A toast to family,” Clive finally said as he r… moreaised his glass.
“To family,” Rachel agreed.
“Family,” Henry concluded softly, reluctantly participating.
The three clinked their glasses together and Clive slowly slipped back into his seat as he drank some of the glass’s contents. “It’s a shame,” Clive murmured into his glass. “Lots of people I… we all wish were still around.”
Henry narrowed his eyes slightly, becoming a little suspicious of Clive’s hospitality—his friendliness was often something reserved for people not like himself. Clive even admitted to have a grudge against the sheriff’s office for hitting a dead end in Alexander’s murder. Despite this, Henry raised his eyebrows regretfully and nodded before he leaned back in his chair as well. He would not let simple suspicion get in the way of a peaceful dinner, though he was preparin… [view original content]
CHAPTER THREE (Part 3)
Shattered Glass
Clive Carson—The Carsons’ House—River Street
“A toast to family,” Clive finally said as he r… moreaised his glass.
“To family,” Rachel agreed.
“Family,” Henry concluded softly, reluctantly participating.
The three clinked their glasses together and Clive slowly slipped back into his seat as he drank some of the glass’s contents. “It’s a shame,” Clive murmured into his glass. “Lots of people I… we all wish were still around.”
Henry narrowed his eyes slightly, becoming a little suspicious of Clive’s hospitality—his friendliness was often something reserved for people not like himself. Clive even admitted to have a grudge against the sheriff’s office for hitting a dead end in Alexander’s murder. Despite this, Henry raised his eyebrows regretfully and nodded before he leaned back in his chair as well. He would not let simple suspicion get in the way of a peaceful dinner, though he was preparin… [view original content]
CHAPTER THREE (Part 3)
Shattered Glass
Clive Carson—The Carsons’ House—River Street
“A toast to family,” Clive finally said as he r… moreaised his glass.
“To family,” Rachel agreed.
“Family,” Henry concluded softly, reluctantly participating.
The three clinked their glasses together and Clive slowly slipped back into his seat as he drank some of the glass’s contents. “It’s a shame,” Clive murmured into his glass. “Lots of people I… we all wish were still around.”
Henry narrowed his eyes slightly, becoming a little suspicious of Clive’s hospitality—his friendliness was often something reserved for people not like himself. Clive even admitted to have a grudge against the sheriff’s office for hitting a dead end in Alexander’s murder. Despite this, Henry raised his eyebrows regretfully and nodded before he leaned back in his chair as well. He would not let simple suspicion get in the way of a peaceful dinner, though he was preparin… [view original content]
CHAPTER THREE (Part 3)
Shattered Glass
Clive Carson—The Carsons’ House—River Street
“A toast to family,” Clive finally said as he r… moreaised his glass.
“To family,” Rachel agreed.
“Family,” Henry concluded softly, reluctantly participating.
The three clinked their glasses together and Clive slowly slipped back into his seat as he drank some of the glass’s contents. “It’s a shame,” Clive murmured into his glass. “Lots of people I… we all wish were still around.”
Henry narrowed his eyes slightly, becoming a little suspicious of Clive’s hospitality—his friendliness was often something reserved for people not like himself. Clive even admitted to have a grudge against the sheriff’s office for hitting a dead end in Alexander’s murder. Despite this, Henry raised his eyebrows regretfully and nodded before he leaned back in his chair as well. He would not let simple suspicion get in the way of a peaceful dinner, though he was preparin… [view original content]
(!) Clive will reveal the strange presence to Rachal
I'm working on the part right now. Haven't gotten the chance to continue Clive's story yet, but I'll probably start on that soon enough. Titles for the second act's chapters are likely going to go up soon as well!
Rachel presented him with the bottle and he reluctantly siphoned a pill from it. He held it out in front of him for a second and contemplated hiding it under his tongue, but instead let out a long sigh as he returned from where it came. “I’m sorry, Rachel.” He closed the lid glumly and looked up at his confused daughter. “I’ve taken my medicine already… I thought it’d be easier to lie about it…”
“Why? Lie about what?” she asked with a low tone.
“I’m seeing things, and I swear they’re real.” He inclined his head to the front door. “There’s something in this house with us. Some kind of presence. It’s right--” Clive stopped suddenly when he noticed the thicket of air resigning itself from the house and leaving through the closed threshold of the door. “Wait!” he shouted as he jumped from his seat and ran towards the door. “Come back!”
“Dad!” Rachel called after him. She raced to the door and found him standing on the porch, running his hands through his hair nervously while looking over the yard. She noticed Henry still hadn’t left yet and was now exiting his car with a worried expression. “What’s this about?” Rachel questioned.
Clive looked at her and his expression distilled worry in her. “I’m--” Clive licked his lips and blinked an unusual number of times. “I’m not crazy,” Clive reminded her. “It was real... It followed me-- here.” He noticed his daughter’s scared look. “I’m not making this up, I’m not crazy,” he repeated. Clive inexplicably looked down at his hands and started swaying slightly. “I’m not crazy…” Clive mumbled almost inaudibly as his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he collapsed a second time.
Samantha Jones—Silicon General Hospital
The doctor kept his word and Samantha was out of the hospital in a few days. She currently idled in the lobby while her parents signed some papers at the front desk. Glancing around the clean, white room, she silently declared not to spend another night at the hospital and away from home. Its cleanliness and sterilized smell made her feel uneasy.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the nurse who was with her when she awoke from the sedative. The note came to mind almost instantly. She reached into her jacket pocket and felt the card touch her hand. Samantha knew it had to have been a prank from one of the guys at school; she expected it was Alex. Samantha always had attracted unwanted attention from him. He wasn’t the type to nervously leave a note in the locker. Alexander was confident and sly, and he preferred direct introductions. But he was a joker, and leaving behind a cryptic note to confuse her was something she could see him doing.
The nurse approached Samantha before she could herself. The nurse flashed a smile as she walked by and Samantha did her best to return one. “Excuse me,” she said, stopping her and revealing the note, “did you see who left this?”
She looked at the note for a second then at Samantha to answer. “Yes.” She tapped her head to remember. “One of your relatives came in and left it right after the news of you waking up went public.”
“Did they say what their name was?” Samantha asked.
The nurse shook her head. “They just said they were family.” She worryingly frowned. “Is everything alright?”
“Of course,” Samantha replied while she shoved the note back into her pocket, perhaps too quickly, as it provoked the nurse to raise an inquisitive eyebrow. “I’m fine,” she added. “It’s just a prank from a guy at school.”
The nurse looked at her with suspicion. “A guy?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Um… Alexander Carson would be my guess.”
“Um…” The nurse fell silent for a second, letting Samantha briefly hear her parents thanking the clerk at the desk. “Alexander Carson died a month ago. I’m sorry. His body was found a day before you went into a coma.”
Noticing Samantha’s mouth fall open, the nurse prepared to try to comfort her, but before she could Samantha’s parents reached them and took their daughter with them, flashing smiles at the nurse as they went. “Uh, mom…” she stuttered. She see stopped dead in her tracks and her parents looked at her with worry. “Is Alex dead?”
What the nurse said was true and Samantha felt even more uneasy in the hospital. She now wanted nothing more than to return home and stop thinking for the rest of the day. Her friends Anna and Kayla, along with a bunch of other students she barely knew, had visited her on the second day of being awake, but she wished to see them again as soon as possible. The cool, brisk air greeted her exit from the hospital and they arrived home in their family van after a short drive.
Samantha stepped hesitantly into her house. Immediately sensing something was off, different, she noticed that a small table situated near the door was missing its vase that was once set on top. The question rose from her lips without much thought as the vague dream came to mind: “Wasn’t there a vase there?”
Her father, stepping through the front door behind her mother, blushed with slight embarrassment. “I knock it over after getting back from the hospital on the first day you were in the coma,” he admitted glumly. Though his expression quickly brightened to its former state. “Do you need anything?” he asked with a hope that she might.
She shook her head. “No, thank you.”
A gruff nod and her father stepped into a room off the entrance hallway. Her mother lingered and she gave Samantha a loose hug before retreating into the same room, stating on her way out, “Don’t hesitate to ask for anything.”
Samantha gave a feeble smile until her mother left the hallway, at which point she frowned again and looked up the stairs. She slowly walked up them until she was standing at the door to her room. Turning the knob, she stepped inside and saw a large stack of mail sitting on the bedside nightstand. Samantha sat on her bed and brought the stack to her side where she looked over them after removing her jacket. The newest ones were on the top and the oldest on the bottom. Pulling a recently received vintage postcard from the mix, the picture on the front read: ‘Greetings from Minnesota: Land of 10,000 lakes.’ She turned it over and read the message. “Hey, sis,” it began,
“it’s awesome that you’re awake, and I plan to get over their as fast as I can, but someone broke into my dorm and that’s delayed my visit. Although nothing was stolen and no one was hurt, they graffitied a message on the wall. Strange, stuff. Anyway, don’t sweat! It’s just going to be another day or two before I can catch a plane into Wisconsin.
See you soon! ~ Bernie.”
“What the...” Samantha stammered as she reread the card in its entirety to be sure she read it right the first time. Looking for the date it was sent. It was mailed two days after she woke up. Something like a wave of revelation and speculation fell over her. “Oh, fuck.”
She didn’t know what to think of it. Not sure what it meant, she opted to continue reading the postcards and letters to take her mind off her brother’s card. But her worry was only reinforced when she found another recently received letter. She peeled it open and unfolded the sheet of paper inside. “Hello, Samantha Jones.” It went on:
“You got my last note at the hospital, I assume? I know, it was probably strange and you must think I’m creepy or something. I wasn’t in a healthy state of mind at the time and that is the reason I write to you know. Well, partly. I need your help finding someone. That request may seem out of your limits, but to the contrary, you can find this person. You can find Luke Page. He can be found only if you help. I know you might be asking yourself ‘Why would I trust a creepy person who uses letters for communication?’ The answer is simple: Luke’s wellbeing hangs in the balance.
I can offer more, though. I know you’re going through a chance and I can tell you more about it. There’s no one here that can explain what’s happened to you like me. So, to reiterate, not only will we secure Luke’s safety, but you will also learn what’s happening to you if you come to the address I’ve listened below. Do you want to know why you went into a coma? I can tell you.
Clover Drive is a farmhouse that’s seen better days on the north exit from town. Be there at 5 p.m. on the dot any day during the week you woke. Come alone. After that week's past, you won’t get any more letters from me. But you should ask yourself if you care about Luke and then ask ‘Can I take the risk letting him slip away?”’Because, listen, it’s not just his life that’s in danger. I could name a few of them, but let’s just say most of this town is in serious jeopardy until he’s recovered.
See you soon...”
Its message resonated in Samantha’s mind. Clover Drive was only a bike ride away from her house. She could be there before dinner. A question did hang in her mind: would going to see this person be a good idea? Though some would have seen her meeting with a stranger as pure, ill-considered recklessness, she didn’t even have a decision to make; Luke was her friend and she would endanger her own life to secure his.
The gray jacket was retrieved from where it was discarded earlier and Samantha pulled her arms through its sleeves one at a time. Glancing at the bedside clock, she learned it would be another half hour before five. Plenty of time to reach the farmhouse. She went into her brother’s old room and dug through a few of the boxes until she found the pocket knife with a red, wood-print grip and hid it in her pocket. Walking down the stairs with hushed footsteps, Samantha rehearsed the speech she would tell to her parents in her mind. She rode on the hope a simple one would suffice.
“Samantha?” her mother said with minor surprise. Her parents were seated at opposite ends of a table, a cup of coffee was situated in front of her mother, and the two looked up at their daughter.
“Hey, uh…” she looked between the two nervously, but quickly presented a confident, genuine expression, “I was wondering if it would be alright if I went for a bike ride. Get some fresh air.”
Her father vaguely nodded behind his thick beard. “If mom is alright with it, I am.”
“Go ahead,” her mother permitted, “but don’t ride too far off. You’re still recovering.”
She gave an appreciative, innocent smile and soon passed through the threshold of the front door. Pausing suddenly, she realized the gravity of the message in her brother’s postcard. She predicted the break in. The second letter had completely distracted her from it. Perhaps, if some change was happening to her, the man waiting for her to arrive at the farmhouse actually did have the answer, like he claimed to. Obviously, he knew more about it than her. Maybe he could explain. Samantha wouldn’t let herself trust whoever was waiting for her until she was one hundred percent sure the man was trustworthy.
“Sam?” The familiar voice of Anna interrupted her thoughts. Anna, Kayla, and a young man she vaguely recognized as a friend of Anna’s walked down the sidewalk towards her. Anna noticed Samantha’s worried expression and her own mimicked it with concern. “Is everything alright? We were just coming to see you.”
Samantha managed a nod, put on a smile and brushed her brown hair from her eyes. “Yeah. You know...” she trailed off and briefly glanced at her brother’s old, red bicycle leaning against the wall on the inside of the open garage. She returned her vision to the group before her behavior became suspicious.
“Hey, I’m Tyler,” the boy introduced with a warming grin. Tyler had a buzz cut, remnants of brown hair and blue eyes. He stood at an average height, possessed a runner’s build and looked like he was light on his feet. He looked to be seventeen. His grin gave way to a charming smile as he extended his hand. Samantha respectively took it, with a halfhearted smile of her own, and the two shook for a few seconds before parting.
“So, Sam, how are you holding up?” Kayla asked as she joined the semicircle forming around Samantha. Kayla’s eyes were a beautiful, bright green and dead still. She carried her white-tipped, silver cane and wore a pleasant expression.
“I’m alright,” Samantha lied quietly. “I was just going out to get some fresh air. I was, uh, considering riding my bike to the park up on the northern side of town.”
Kayla gave a short nod. “Any reason?”
Samantha considered telling them what she actually planned to do but ultimately sided against telling everyone. She knew both Anna and Kayla well, but Tyler was still a mystery. “If it’s alright, I’d like to talk to Kayla alone for a second,” Sam said to the group. Tyler gave a gruff nod and walked with Anna to idle out of earshot.
“Is something wrong?” Kayla finally asked while walking with Sam into the garage.
Sam sighed then took a deep breath before beginning. “I got a lot of cards while I was in the hospital. I got to reading a few of them and found a postcard from my brother that mentioned his dorm being broken into and graffitied. I swear, Kayla, I got a note a few days ago in the hospital, telling me to picture it and I did, and it was just so… lucid. Someone broke in through the window and graffitied large red letters on the wall in the daydream and in real life.” Kayla expression looked confused, but Sam went on: “I… I think predicted it.”
After finally stopping for a breath, she waited for Kayla to reply. Her friend looked for the words and licked her dry lips. “You predicted it?” she repeated. “Do you think you have some sort of power?”
“I’m not sure,” Samantha answered, crossing her arms to fight back the chill of a breeze. “Maybe I can… test it again. Just… I don’t know, give me a place, a date, and a time. Something you witnessed, maybe?”
“So you can see the past, too?” She quietly chuckled to herself. “Alright,” Kayla said, going along. She thought for a second and sighed. “You know highway 32, right? Okay, well, highway 32 at the sign that says you’re entering Copperfield city limits, may 3rd, 2014, at exactly six at night.” She paused for a second with a skeptical look. “What do you see?”
Samantha closed her eyes and remembered the highway she frequented whenever visiting the lake in the neighboring city. The bright green sign came to mind, and then the date and time was compiled with it. An image of a car speeding down the dimly light road rolled over a hill and barreled down the highway, followed by a large animal stepping out in front of it and being slammed into by the car. The driver, disoriented by the shattering glass and the airbags’ sudden deployment, spun out and crashed into the city limits sign. Finally settling amidst a plume of smoke rising from under the hood, Samantha got a good look at the driver. Bruised, shaking, and crying blood, Kayla sat in the front seat with glass protruding from her eyes and fragments speckling her face. Her screams were muted in the daydream, but her pained, terrified expression burned into Samantha’s mind.
Samantha took a heaving gasp and coughed violently when she finally opened her eyes. She leaned on her knees and felt like she was about to vomit. “I--” she mumbled, “I have somewhere to be-- I…” Samantha started towards the bicycle and immediately started riding out of the driveway, much to Anna and Tyler’s surprise.
“Sam?” Kayla called out with increased, intense worry. “Sam!”
Anna and Tyler reached Kayla at the garage and watched with bewilderment as Samantha rode away as quickly as she could. “What happened?” Anna questioned.
“I--” Kayla paused and cursed herself under her breath. “I don’t know,” she said, frightened and worried.
She pedaled and pedaled as fast as she possibly could, gaining speed as she coasted down hill and let herself shed tears that blurred her field of view. The image of Kayla in pain was plastered on her eyes and could not be shakened or blinked away. When it became clear she was approaching a turn at a dangerous speed, Samantha slowed to a full stop and paused at the lip of the street.
She rested on the handlebars and breathed heavily for a few long lasting seconds, wiping the tears as they came. For a few more seconds, she lingered. The voice of one of her friends calling out from the distance entered her dulled perception and she forced herself to move forward down the road and made another block.
Eventually, the image grew worse and took over her entire field of vision as she just barely brought the bike to an almost full stop before stumbling away from it. The vision clouded her mind and the audio was just stillness, making her felt like it’d never heard sound in the first place. She drifted inconsistently between the vision and her actual self, staggering forward on the empty street. She felt the horror, pain, and fear of her friend. She witnessed Kayla being removed from the wreckage by paramedics and then being pushed down the hallways of a hospital on a table by worried, hurried doctors and nurses. She couldn’t look away as they used scalps and tools to moves bits of glass embedded in her skin, as they eventually removed her once brown, now bloodied and mangled eyes. Suddenly she was stable and a slow recovery began, Kayla was handed two beautifully bright green, glass eyes.
Samantha felt a rush of clarity and opened her eyes to find herself standing on the bridge across the creek, her brother’s bicycle was lying in the road about twenty feet behind her. She took several deep, calming breaths and all was well. Whatever had just happened, it was over for that moment. The serene flow of water beneath her and a cool winter breeze eased her, and she took one giant, final breath and exhaled. It was over for now.
To be continued...
Most of the next part is written but has been separated due to length. There still some refinement that needs to be done to its later half and a lot of finishing touches. Unless it needs to be divided a third time because of the size, the next part will be the last in this chapter. The chapter final is approaching! :O
CHAPTER THREE (Part 4)
Shattered Glass
Clive Carson—The Carsons' House—River Street
Rachel presented him with the bottle and he rel… moreuctantly siphoned a pill from it. He held it out in front of him for a second and contemplated hiding it under his tongue, but instead let out a long sigh as he returned from where it came. “I’m sorry, Rachel.” He closed the lid glumly and looked up at his confused daughter. “I’ve taken my medicine already… I thought it’d be easier to lie about it…”
“Why? Lie about what?” she asked with a low tone.
“I’m seeing things, and I swear they’re real.” He inclined his head to the front door. “There’s something in this house with us. Some kind of presence. It’s right--” Clive stopped suddenly when he noticed the thicket of air resigning itself from the house and leaving through the closed threshold of the door. “Wait!” he shouted as he jumped from his seat and ran towards the door. “Come back!”
“Dad!” Rac… [view original content]
Great chapter! I loved this one! Plus it had the Tyler's first appearance! I'm so happy! I can feel the gears turning in my head trying to figure out who's sending these letters to Samantha.
CHAPTER THREE (Part 4)
Shattered Glass
Clive Carson—The Carsons' House—River Street
Rachel presented him with the bottle and he rel… moreuctantly siphoned a pill from it. He held it out in front of him for a second and contemplated hiding it under his tongue, but instead let out a long sigh as he returned from where it came. “I’m sorry, Rachel.” He closed the lid glumly and looked up at his confused daughter. “I’ve taken my medicine already… I thought it’d be easier to lie about it…”
“Why? Lie about what?” she asked with a low tone.
“I’m seeing things, and I swear they’re real.” He inclined his head to the front door. “There’s something in this house with us. Some kind of presence. It’s right--” Clive stopped suddenly when he noticed the thicket of air resigning itself from the house and leaving through the closed threshold of the door. “Wait!” he shouted as he jumped from his seat and ran towards the door. “Come back!”
“Dad!” Rac… [view original content]
Samantha arrived at the road to the house completely exhausted, either from the ordeal or the bike riding. Her hands grew numb and irritated while holding tightly onto the textured handles, heading down the large, bumpy path. When the farmhouse appeared from behind a set of trees, Sam felt overdue relief, as well as panic rising at what might await inside the glum, faded-yellow, dirty building. Its unbroken windows were sparse among the shattered and cracked ones. It had definitely been abandoned for at least ten years.
Departing with the bicycle a couple dozen yards away from the porch, Samantha hesitantly approached the grim-looking house, one step at a time. She let her hand hover in the air for a second and then gave two loud knocks on the door. Stillness, occasionally interrupted by the creaking of the old house in the wind, presented a void of manmade noise, allowing her to hear the fast, rhythmic beating of her own heart. Nervous breaths, leading to an annoyed hissed as she turned on her heel to walk back down.
Standing completely still was a man, several yards away from the porch with his hands raised in front of him as a peaceful gesture to ensure the introduction didn’t turn sour. He had a soft expression and piercing green eyes. The man was in his early twenties, not much older than herself, stood six-feet-tall and was only vaguely muscular. He wore a gray, long-sleeve, button-up shirt under a brown vest that had seen better days. He seemed tired, possibly deprived of sleep. “Hi,” he said with a calm, polite voice. “My name is Owen Williams. And I know you, you’re Samantha Jones.”
“Yeah, I’m Samantha,” she shot back harshly, eying up him suspiciously, taking in his every movement to make sure nothing in his body language insinuated danger. She was constantly aware of the pocket knife hidden on her person just in case things took a bad turn. “How do you know Luke?”
“I don’t really know him personally,” Owen admitted. “I do know what happened to him, though, it might come off as a shock to hear. But we should start with you—do you want to know what’s happening to you?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed a little too quickly. The disturbing vision of Kayla in the car accident was still fresh on her mind. “I’m daydreaming things. They’re like visions, I suppose.”
The man’s face lit up with a kind of wonderment. “Visions?” he repeated, starting to smile and looking off to the side briefly. He returned to the subject and looked at Samantha again with a somber expression, saying, “Did you get the messages? The note and letter?”
“Yes. And I predicted someone breaking into my brother’s dorm after reading the note you left. I got a postcard from my brother that confirmed it.” She narrowed her eyes and swallowed. “Did you break in? All the way in Minnesota?”
“I had another reason for being there, and I figured, ‘two birds, one stone.’ I mean, I didn’t take anything, but maybe the whole breaking and entering thing was a bit overboard and…” He stopped, sighed again and scratched his neck. “Just know, I’m sorry. I know you probably can’t tell your brother this, but I am.”
“Well, it’s fine. No one was hurt.” Samantha shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “The visions?” she brought up again.
He nodded. “Yeah, the visions. From the way you described it, it sounds like you can see things. I’d take it you can predict things if you can get a good fix on what you want to see? With a little practice, maybe you could be a full-on clairvoyant.” Owen soon noticed Samantha’s lack of enthusiasm. “You’re not too happy about it, huh?”
“Of course not, it’s awful. It felt awful. I--” Samantha paused suddenly and gave a sad frown before she went on: “I tried to tell a friend about it, and she gave me a date from last year to see if I was telling the truth, and I pictured it just too clearly… I…”
Owen’s face lit up with genuine concern and he straightened up. “What happened?”
“She gave me a date from last year and I witnessed her in a car crash. It wasn’t like what I saw when I pictured the dorm. This time, it was foggy and… disturbing, painful, made me physically sick, in a way,” she explained.
Owen tried his best to be respectful and hid his excitement. “You saw the past?” he asked with unusually sober tone. There was a second of pause in which he returned to a more natural voice. “And the sickness, it might just be the context of what you saw. A crash is some scary shit. So… I’d be careful what you choose to envision,” he advised.
She nodded. “Alright, then.” Samantha tilted her head and looked off to the woods as the trees swayed with the breeze. “I have a few more questions: What put me into a coma? Where’s Luke and how can we find him?”
“It’s all connected, you see,” he said. “Luke put you into the coma.”
Samantha’s eyes widened with confusion. “How?” she questioned.
“To be fair, I don’t think he did it on purpose.” He frowned. “Did you ever feel a cold presence, maybe saw something out the ordinary before going into a coma?” Owen asked. “Because, if you came into contact with him…” he paused and looked intently at her. “Luke is a carrier.”
“Carrier of what?” Samantha shot back quickly.
“Whatever caused the change in you, caused the visions.” His face darkened. “Whatever it is, he’s not able to contain it so it sort of runs off, I guess.”
“Where did he get this?” Samantha asked, worried.
Owen shrugged. He scratched his black head of hair with the same worried expression. He changed the topic: “I wrote to you and said people were in danger. This change that happened to you doesn’t have a one hundred percent success rate. It can be deadly, I’d say. Did you hear about the drug dealers? The sudden turn-coats were Luke’s handiwork. He destroyed the surviving one’s mind because he took control of him, exposed him to too much of the stuff, made him shoot at his guy.”
“He killed a guy?” Samantha exclaimed. “Luke isn’t a killer.”
“He saved the sheriff officer Kyle Flinton and deputy Henry Parker by doing it,” Owen defended. “But everybody has their secrets, and no matter how long you might know them, they’d keep these things hidden.” He sighed distantly. “Onto topic number three: where is Luke and how can we find him.”
“Alright, go on,” Samantha agreed.
“He’s not just missing. He’s not just dead.” He noticed the confusion on her face but continued: “He’s both, in a strange way.”
That provoked Samantha to interrupt. “Both? How can he be both?” she questioned, puzzled.
“How can you see things?” Owen shot back. He shook his head and went on: “The point is he’s probably been having a really weird out of body experience for, like, the last month. If that doesn’t do a number on your psyche, I don’t know what will.” He frowned deeply. “Odds are he’s been exposed a good number of people, just mildly, you’re probably one of the few he’s hung around long enough to make these changes appear. And we don’t want him to do that--” he began.
“Because it could have bad effects?” Samantha finished.
“Growing pains are the worse,” Owen said. His reply made Samantha worry. “Anyway, I need to find his body and his… uh, wandering spirit, for lack of a better word, and I think you’re capable of that.”
“I’m not sure I can,” she replied. “So far it’s taken a lot of information to just witness something. I’m not sure I could find his body, let alone his spirit without details of their locations.”
Owen stepped forward slowly, put a hand on her shoulder and spoke with a calm urgency. “You need to. You have to.”
“I can try,” she added. “I’m not sure it’ll work, though.”
“Trying is better than giving up completely.” Owen gave a friendly smile and took a step back. “Let’s begin, then. Start with his body.”
Samantha closed her eyes and she thought heavily of Luke’s features and facial structure. To her surprise, it seemed to work and an image came to mind: Luke’s pale, lifeless body hovered just above the lake bed in Copperfield. Oddly enough, it wasn’t decomposing. Coming out of the vision, Samantha coughed for a second before taking a deep breath and looking a worried Owen in the eye. “His body is at the bottom of Copperfield Lake,” she said, deeply unsettled by the vision.
Owen smiled and gave a quick, appreciative nod. “Good job, Sam. Now you need to his consciousness. This might not be as easy.”
Taking a deep breath, Samantha shut her eyes tightly and focused on Luke once again. The still body came to mind instantly and she had to forcibly disregard it. This time, thinking of how she knew him, she saw something from a past rainfall. Luke ran over the bridge that spanned the overflowing creek. He lingered there for a second and threw something into the churning waters. “I see the creek overflowing… and… and Luke is scared, horrified...”
Owen gently shook her out of the vision and she looked at him with confusion. Shaking Owen off of her, she took a step back. “I’m sorry,” he quickly said. “You’re looking at something you don’t want to see. It probably would have hurt more than that car crash ever could. I can’t have you blacking out on me, so focus on the present and stay awhile from that event.”
It seemed more likely that he was hiding something than protecting her. But, slightly more hesitantly than the last time, Samantha sighed, closed her eyes and let her hand rest in her pocket where the knife was for comfort, just in case things escalated. The things she thought of were garbled and messy, crude and inconsistent and painful. Empathic feelings of fear, power, and anger compelled her to keep looking. Flashes of brief screens graced her eyes and left as quickly as they appeared. One image kept repeating, though: a tree with about a dozen initials carved into its trunk that stood in a clearing. She recognized the place and saw fit to finally open her eyes. “I-- I found him...” she said with a gagging sensation. “I know where he is.”
Owen’s face brightened and twisted into a wide grin, and he gestured for Samantha to follow him down the porch. “Let’s go find him, then,” he said with surprisingly happy voice. “It’s time for a reunion.”
Since Owen didn’t have a car, and in the interest of getting there as quickly as they could, Samantha allowed him to pedal while stood on the front pegs of her brother’s old bicycle. It was an awkward setup that took them over the two blocks as they rode, but it worked.
Things took an ominous turn when a sheriff’s cruiser pulled into the street they were leaving behind and turn on its lights and sirens “We need to pull over,” Samantha said, noticing the car instantly.
Owen stole a look back at the sheriff’s car and scoffed. “We need to find get to Luke or else he might slip away again.”
Samantha looked over Owen again and watched as the sheriff waited for them to pull over to the lip of the road, but Owen refused. Instead, he began pedaling faster in an attempt to reach their destination quickly. “Listen, Owen,” Sam snapped, “we need to pull over.”
“No, you need to listen,” he said, his tone still polite but echoing with urgency. “Luke needs help and we’re the only ones who can help him. Now, please, sit back and enjoy the ride,” he finished harshly.
“What’s your stake in this? You said you don’t even know Luke, why do you care so much?” she questioned with a voice of equal frustration.
“Everybody has their secrets,” he mumbled. That put Samantha on edge and she finally decided that whatever Owen had told her, whenever he seemed to be perfectly honest, that all that was unconfirmed things told to her by a complete stranger. But Luke was what mattered and she needed to secure him one way or another, but Owen, rightfully so, was nowhere near gaining her trust.
To be continued for the second time!
So I've opted to separate the part further since this section was done. What will probably be the final part to this chapter needs more rereads and refinement and a clearer end-point. And since that all can wait until tomorrow, I figured "why the hell shouldn't I post what's done?" Anyway, surprisingly, what was once the whole finally part is bigger than everything written before it in this chapter. Hopefully, it'll be finished and ready sometime tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Interesting chapter, I bet she'll see something interesting if she tries to see Luke on the bridge again, maybe Owen was there? He knew what Sam was seeing, DON'T TRUST HIM!
CHAPTER THREE (Part 5)
Shattered Glass
Samantha Jones—Clover Drive—Silicon
Samantha arrived at the road to the house completely exh… moreausted, either from the ordeal or the bike riding. Her hands grew numb and irritated while holding tightly onto the textured handles, heading down the large, bumpy path. When the farmhouse appeared from behind a set of trees, Sam felt overdue relief, as well as panic rising at what might await inside the glum, faded-yellow, dirty building. Its unbroken windows were sparse among the shattered and cracked ones. It had definitely been abandoned for at least ten years.
Departing with the bicycle a couple dozen yards away from the porch, Samantha hesitantly approached the grim-looking house, one step at a time. She let her hand hover in the air for a second and then gave two loud knocks on the door. Stillness, occasionally interrupted by the creaking of the old house in the wind, presented a void of manmade… [view original content]
CHAPTER THREE (Part 5)
Shattered Glass
Samantha Jones—Clover Drive—Silicon
Samantha arrived at the road to the house completely exh… moreausted, either from the ordeal or the bike riding. Her hands grew numb and irritated while holding tightly onto the textured handles, heading down the large, bumpy path. When the farmhouse appeared from behind a set of trees, Sam felt overdue relief, as well as panic rising at what might await inside the glum, faded-yellow, dirty building. Its unbroken windows were sparse among the shattered and cracked ones. It had definitely been abandoned for at least ten years.
Departing with the bicycle a couple dozen yards away from the porch, Samantha hesitantly approached the grim-looking house, one step at a time. She let her hand hover in the air for a second and then gave two loud knocks on the door. Stillness, occasionally interrupted by the creaking of the old house in the wind, presented a void of manmade… [view original content]
Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to tell Rachel about the presence, as it seems to have shooed it away. But who knows, perhaps there will be benefits coming from this in the long run, even if this presence was apparently not Alex, as I have hoped for at first, but Luke. And it looks like it is dangerous for Clive to be around him, given that he just collapsed again. However, if this is really Luke, then I wonder why he follows Clive around.
As for Samantha's part, I loved the revelations in it. However, I am still conflicted about Luke and unsure how to feel about him. I think it is all but confirmed that he was at least involved in the events that lead up to Alex' death, given how distraught he was in the prologue. Because of this, I am not sure if I even should care for what happens to him, even though I am still not sure if he is responsible for it. If he is, even in the slightest, then he needs to die screaming. If he isn't, then he better has a very good explanation for his odd behaviour in the prologue. I also definitely do not trust this Owen guy. I think he knows at the very least who is behind Alex' death, as he definitely knows more than he revealed. Maybe he's even the killer, I wouldn't be too surprised about that. By the way, was it already revealed how Alex died exactly?
CHAPTER THREE (Part 5)
Shattered Glass
Samantha Jones—Clover Drive—Silicon
Samantha arrived at the road to the house completely exh… moreausted, either from the ordeal or the bike riding. Her hands grew numb and irritated while holding tightly onto the textured handles, heading down the large, bumpy path. When the farmhouse appeared from behind a set of trees, Sam felt overdue relief, as well as panic rising at what might await inside the glum, faded-yellow, dirty building. Its unbroken windows were sparse among the shattered and cracked ones. It had definitely been abandoned for at least ten years.
Departing with the bicycle a couple dozen yards away from the porch, Samantha hesitantly approached the grim-looking house, one step at a time. She let her hand hover in the air for a second and then gave two loud knocks on the door. Stillness, occasionally interrupted by the creaking of the old house in the wind, presented a void of manmade… [view original content]
Wow, two parts on the same day! I like that
Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to tell Rachel about the presence, as it seems to have sh… moreooed it away. But who knows, perhaps there will be benefits coming from this in the long run, even if this presence was apparently not Alex, as I have hoped for at first, but Luke. And it looks like it is dangerous for Clive to be around him, given that he just collapsed again. However, if this is really Luke, then I wonder why he follows Clive around.
As for Samantha's part, I loved the revelations in it. However, I am still conflicted about Luke and unsure how to feel about him. I think it is all but confirmed that he was at least involved in the events that lead up to Alex' death, given how distraught he was in the prologue. Because of this, I am not sure if I even should care for what happens to him, even though I am still not sure if he is responsible for it. If he is, even in the slightest, then … [view original content]
Hehe. This story is going to make you flip-flop feelings every chapter or so, so I wouldn't let your suspicions cloud your judgment or condemn anyone completely until they admit to the crime. Especially if they can still be useful.
He was shot in the shoulder and ended up in the overflowing creek. It was pretty much a combination of drowning, bleeding out, and possibly blunt force since an overflowing creek is always full of debris.Needless to say, it wasn't pleasant. Of course, that won't stop them from trying.
Wow, two parts on the same day! I like that
Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to tell Rachel about the presence, as it seems to have sh… moreooed it away. But who knows, perhaps there will be benefits coming from this in the long run, even if this presence was apparently not Alex, as I have hoped for at first, but Luke. And it looks like it is dangerous for Clive to be around him, given that he just collapsed again. However, if this is really Luke, then I wonder why he follows Clive around.
As for Samantha's part, I loved the revelations in it. However, I am still conflicted about Luke and unsure how to feel about him. I think it is all but confirmed that he was at least involved in the events that lead up to Alex' death, given how distraught he was in the prologue. Because of this, I am not sure if I even should care for what happens to him, even though I am still not sure if he is responsible for it. If he is, even in the slightest, then … [view original content]
Oh damn, that is definitely not a pleasant death and it makes me hate the killer even more. I slightly regret now that Rachel wants to put that bastard into prison, because she honestly needs to take vengeance on him (or her, if it is a female killer). It also does not make things any better for Luke, considering that he threw a metallic object into the river, most likely the gun Alex was shot with and especially considering how he acted in the prologue. If he is innocent, I'm wondering why he hasn't told his parents and why he likely destroyed evidence. At best, that would make him an accomplice of the killer. It's definitely hard to keep an open mind on him, since he is the most likely suspect. On the other hand, in which story has the most likely suspect ever been the actual killer? For now, I'm adding Owen to the list of suspects as well, which means that I have two suspects now, yay. I just hope the death of the killer, regardless of who it is, will be a lot worse than Alex' death.
Hehe. This story is going to make you flip-flop feelings every chapter or so, so I wouldn't let your suspicions cloud your judgment or conde… moremn anyone completely until they admit to the crime. Especially if they can still be useful.
He was shot in the shoulder and ended up in the overflowing creek. It was pretty much a combination of drowning, bleeding out, and possibly blunt force since an overflowing creek is always full of debris.Needless to say, it wasn't pleasant. Of course, that won't stop them from trying.
Oh damn, that is definitely not a pleasant death and it makes me hate the killer even more. I slightly regret now that Rachel wants to put that bastard into prison, because she honestly needs to take vengeance on him (or her, if it is a female killer).
Killing someone isn't just going to be a fresh breath of relief. Rachel, Clive, they can't change the past or revive Alexander. But don't throw away your resources, Liquid, because everyone can be useful.
It also does not make things any better for Luke, considering that he threw a metallic object into the river, most likely the gun Alex was shot with and especially considering how he acted in the prologue. If he is innocent, I'm wondering why he hasn't told his parents and why he likely destroyed evidence. At best, that would make him an accomplice of the killer. It's definitely hard to keep an open mind on him since he is the most likely suspect.
I'll give you that. You said earlier "If he is, even in the slightest, then he needs to die screaming." Let's say it is Luke for a second: does Rachel really want to kill a kid? I mean, come on, man, unless said kid is an immedite threat, shouldn't getting them mental help be prioritized rather than a murder-manhunt?
On the other hand, in which story has the most likely suspect ever been the actual killer?
And Luke has been the obivous suspect for pretty much the whole story. It wouldn't be much of a surpirse if he was revealed to be the killer, now would it? Then again, maybe I'm just saying this to throw you off the main suspect. Maybe I said that just now for the pure purspose of throwing you off further? Maybe I said that to confuse you more...
Oh damn, that is definitely not a pleasant death and it makes me hate the killer even more. I slightly regret now that Rachel wants to put t… morehat bastard into prison, because she honestly needs to take vengeance on him (or her, if it is a female killer). It also does not make things any better for Luke, considering that he threw a metallic object into the river, most likely the gun Alex was shot with and especially considering how he acted in the prologue. If he is innocent, I'm wondering why he hasn't told his parents and why he likely destroyed evidence. At best, that would make him an accomplice of the killer. It's definitely hard to keep an open mind on him, since he is the most likely suspect. On the other hand, in which story has the most likely suspect ever been the actual killer? For now, I'm adding Owen to the list of suspects as well, which means that I have two suspects now, yay. I just hope the death of the killer, regardless of who it is, will be a lot worse than Alex' death.
They turned into the open park ground with the sheriff’s cruiser at a moderate distance behind. The lights flashed and the siren echoed, but Owen ignored it as he rode the bike into the center of the clearing. When he finally came to a full stop, he walked towards the tree, discarding the bicycle as Samantha caught up with him. She peered over her shoulder as the cruiser came to a stop in the parking lot at an angle and the driver’s side door flew open.
“Luke!” Owen called out with a booming voice in the direction of the treeline. The flora simply moved with steady agitation from the wind, disturbing the sound of shoes walking through the grass with a quiet rustling. “Luke?!” he continued.
Samantha’s attention was drawn to the sheriff’s approach. “Mitch,” she mumbled to herself. An angry expression replaced his usual friendly face. In all honesty, what was once a very kind, warmhearted man now looked absolutely terrifying as he stomped towards them, a hand on his belt to keep his holster from being jostled by the large strides.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he blurted out the moment he was within twenty feet of her and he continued walking. She knew perfectly well that his tone was purely a protective anger, but it still stung to be shouted at by him. “Why didn’t you--” he stopped by Samantha and looked at the man as he continued to scream into the woods about another ten yards away. “Who’s this?”
“His name is Owen Williams,” Samantha replied quietly.
“What are you doing with him? Why didn’t he pull over?” He stopped looking at Samantha with annoyance. Mitch went on when the man’s shouting got on his nerves: “And why the hell is he calling out to Luke?”
“It’s a long story,” Samantha said, attempting to avoid the topic.
“Well,” Mitch said, crossing his arms, “do tell.”
Samantha bit her lip and sighed with embarrassment. “He said he could find Luke if he had my help.”
Mitch rolled his eyes. “You’re friends and family are worried sink.” He gestured for Samantha to wait by the car, to which she obliged. Mitch marched towards Owen with his hand now nowhere near his pistol. “Hey, buddy--” he began. He stopped in his path the moment he got a good look at Owen’s face, and the man stop shouting into the woods. “Owen Felt?”
Owen looked at him with calm, but genuine confusion. “Felt?” he murmured with an exhausted huff from all the yelling.
“You’re wanted for seven accounts of shoplifting—” he pulled handcuffs from his belt and grabbed one of Owen’s wrists ”—and one attempted armed robbery.”
“I haven’t robbed anyone!” he shouted, but did not resist.
“Save it,” Mitch replied gruffly as he reached for his other wrist.
At that point, Owen had enough and attempted to keep his other hand free by jerking it away, but it took only another two seconds for Mitch to grab it by force and lock it in the cuff. While he kept a tight grip on the chair, Owen ledgend away from him and tried to get away. “I haven’t robbed anyone!” he repeated.
“Again,” Mitch muttered while he pulled Owen towards him and began pushing him towards the parking lot, “save it.”
That didn’t stop Owen, as he quickly went limp, which merely provoked an annoyed sigh from the sheriff. Mitch rubbed the bridge of his nose and the seventy year old man then picked Owen up by the shoulders and awkwardly pushed him forward. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Mitch groaned as he stopped, let the man lay in the grass, and bent over him angrily. “Stand the fuck up and walk to the car,” he ordered.
All the while, Samantha worrisomely watched this trivial exchange unfolded. Her attention was moved steadily away from them, though, when an unsettlingly cold breeze blanketed the area. Upon feeling this chill, Samantha noticed the unnatural fog her breath produced. It was difficult to see, but she could swear the two mens’ breath was freezing as well.
Owen felt it, immediately rushed to his feet and scanned the area. “Luke!” he cried. “If he takes me to jail, I won’t be able to help you! You have to stop him if you want to set things right!” He looked at the woods with widened eyes. “Learn from what you did before, and maybe you can do this without killing!”
“What hell are you talking about?” Mitch questioned as he pulled Owen with him. He didn’t resist this time and just took a step back without moving his eyes from trees.
Samantha took a few steps closer to the edge of the parking lot and looked out over the field as the trees seemed to be pulled inward briefly before everything grew still. She reached into her pocket and held the pocket knife extremely tightly for reassurance. Even Mitch froze at the sight. Soon, a large animal’s silhouette began walking from the shadows of the dark woods and a menacing gray wolf stepped out of the treeline.
Mitch raised a worried eyebrow and started backing away while pulling Owen with him. He wasn’t resisting, and a hopeful smile had dawned on his face. “Oh, you should let me go now,” the man rambled as he was pulled closer to the pavement. They were still situated at least twenty yards away and going uphill, and Owen wasn’t assisting their departure anymore than he already had.
The wolf dashed forward and was nearly upon the two in mere seconds. Mitch acted quickly and pushed Owen to the ground where he fell in the grass on his side. While he did this, Mitch had also reached for his belt. The barrel of his pistol had just barely cleared the holster before he was knocked on his back by the swift animal, the gun being jostled from his grasp by the sudden impact.
Samantha rushed a step forward after retracting her hands from her pockets with the knife held tightly. She flipped out the three inch blade with trembling hands, and pushed herself a step closer to the fight.
Though he was on his back, disorientated and had the wind knocked out of him, Mitch was still persevering. He had kept the jaw of the beast from getting too close to him, but as consequence, had several of his fingers violently bitten.
Mitch was a seventy-year-old veteran with a Distinguished Service Cross award who had settled down for retirement and a peaceful existence as a sheriff in a small town. Though his reasons for living here were to have his remaining decades be pleasant ones, he kept in good physical shape and continued to use some watered down military exercises.
You’d imagine Owen’s, and even Samantha’s surprise when he pushed the animal off of him, but not before jabbing its throat with a quick punch. Although he was in shockingly good shape for a senior, Mitch was quickly exhausted and fatigued by the those few actions and his bleeding hands. He was smart, though, and started looking for his pistol, whenever it might have fallen, by rummaging through the substantially tall grass as the places his hands touched were stained by his blood.
The wolf wasn’t as dazed by the punch as Mitch had hoped. It was back on its feet within a couple of seconds and rushed him again. It bit down on the back of Mitch’s neck, causing the man to let out an uncharacteristic cry of agony.
Samantha was now within twelve feet of the whole ordeal and watched with horror. She knew what was happening, deep down, she knew that this wolf contained whatever fragment was left of Luke’s consciousness. It didn’t stop her from approaching with the knife ready. As it bit down harder on Mitch, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Owen slipping his cuffs over his legs and feet. Samantha now stood about seven feet away. “Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop this!”
It didn’t. Samantha ran forward and stabbed the blade of the knife into the side of the wolf’s head. It let out a feeble whimper as it staggered away. She couldn’t look at it as it stared back at her, its eyes seemed to convey some level of emotion before it toppled to the ground beside Mitch with the knife’s red grip protruding from its fur.
Samantha leaned over Mitch and tried to feel for a heartbeat. She found a weak one without trouble and shot an angered glare at Owen as he walked to the downed man and grabbed the keys to the handcuffs. “You did this,” she hissed, barely audible. “You changed him…”
Owen gave a hurt expression and backed away as he released one hand from the cuffs. “It’s changed him,” he countered. “This...” he waved a freed hand at Mitch. “This wasn’t his intention or mine. Call 911 and get some help. I can’t be here when they show up…”
Samantha was applying pressure to the wounds of the man’s neck when she looked back up and stopped him with a worried utterance that was a mixture of pain and sadness. “Did I kill him? Is Luke dead for good?”
He remained silent for a long few seconds. “We’ll see,” Owen replied with a tone of slight disdain. He broke into a sprint and pulled her brother’s bike upright as he started pedaling out of the area. She didn’t care. She knew, though, if there was any place he would go now, that he was heading to the lake in Copperfield.
Her hands that were bloodied with Mitch’s blood reached into his pocket with one hand still pressed on his neck and retrieved his cell phone to call for an ambulance. The voice of a woman greeted her ears with a sweet voice. “911, what is your emergency?”
She found herself in dead quietness and teared up slightly with confliction, confusion as she stared at the wounds inflicted on Mitch’s neck and hands. She decided to tell the only thing that would make any sense. “There’s--- There’s been a wild animal attack,” she answered regretfully, choking up slightly. “Mitch Jenkins is hurt badly.”
But don't throw away your resources, Liquid, because everyone can be useful.
So, you're implying the killer is useful for something... That hints even more at Luke, as he is build up to be important. Well, then he better is going to be extremely useful for something that actually saves a lot of lifes. Though, in the long run, no amount of usefulness could be enough to justify him getting away with murdering Alex.
I'll give you that. You said earlier "If he is, even in the slightest, then he needs to die screaming." Let's say it is Luke for a second: does Rachel really want to kill a kid? I mean, come on, man, unless said kid is an immedite threat, shouldn't getting them mental help be prioritized rather than a murder-manhunt?
Objectively, getting them mental help is the right thing to do and I won't deny it. In any other case or constellation, I would agree with you. However, undoubtly I am far too biased in this case to think objectively and far too furious at the bastard who murdered Alex. Someone just has to pay for that, that's what I care about. Saving Luke is a secondary goal at best, for me, or even something I'd try my best to prevent, if it turns out that he was the one that murdered Alex. In that case, he does not deserve help, period. Of course, I don't want Rachel to end up as a cold-blooded murderer, but on the other hand I don't want to see the killer walking out of this alive, especially as Alex never had a chance. Perhaps there will be a chance to kill him without murdering him, if that makes sense. If Luke is the killer, then Luke is dead for me. If it is Owen, then Owen is dead for me. Hell, even Clive would be dead for me if, in a cruel and unlikely twist of fate, he turns out to be the killer.
Then again, maybe I'm just saying this to throw you off the main suspect. Maybe I said that just now for the pure purspose of throwing you off further? Maybe I said that to confuse you more...
And now I am confused indeed. You're hinting quite heavily at Luke, though it wouldn't be the first time you lead a false trail and it wouldn't be the first time I'm falling for it. Though, in many cases I wasn't entirely wrong in the long run, for example that time in Monument, where I was convinced that Zafir was an evil bastard.
Oh damn, that is definitely not a pleasant death and it makes me hate the killer even more. I slightly regret now that Rachel wants to put t… morehat bastard into prison, because she honestly needs to take vengeance on him (or her, if it is a female killer).
Killing someone isn't just going to be a fresh breath of relief. Rachel, Clive, they can't change the past or revive Alexander. But don't throw away your resources, Liquid, because everyone can be useful.
It also does not make things any better for Luke, considering that he threw a metallic object into the river, most likely the gun Alex was shot with and especially considering how he acted in the prologue. If he is innocent, I'm wondering why he hasn't told his parents and why he likely destroyed evidence. At best, that would make him an accomplice of the killer. It's definitely hard to keep an open mind on him since he is the most likely suspect.
I'll give you that. You … [view original content]
Oh shit... Luke is a lot worse than I thought. The same goes for Owen. I don't buy any of his 'I want to help'-shit, he effectively caused Luke to attack Mitch, so that he won't get arrested. The way he acted about this after the attack makes me doubt it was an accident. This means, perhaps he is the one responsible for this and maybe he manipulated or even forced Luke into killing Alexander. But I never thought that Luke would outright attempt to murder Mitch. I mean, there is no way to justify that, the man was just doing his job. Then there's this line:
“Luke!” he cried. “If he takes me to jail, I won’t be able to help you! You have to stop him if you want to set things right!” He looked at the woods with widened eyes. “Learn from what you did before, and maybe you can do this without killing!”
This line hints even more at what I speculated about Luke all the time. At this point I am convinced that he murdered Alex and he probably has the audacity to feel bad about it, as seen with the line where he apparently wants to set something right. That could also explain why he follows Clive around, to explain his actions. Too bad that I'm far too furious about what he did to care how much regret he shows. I'd like to hear his explanation, sure, but that is unlikely to change how I feel about this situation. There's no way he can set that right again, unless it turns out that he is not the killer, or at least not responsible at all for what he did. Although, responsible for his actions or not, at this point I seriously doubt Luke is even worth all the trouble. Alex and now probably Mitch already died for that bastard and who knows whom he will kill next. At this point, neutralizing the threat he poses should be more important than saving him.
CHAPTER THREE (Part 6)
Shattered Glass
Samantha Jones
They turned into the open park ground with the sheriff’s cruiser at a moderat… moree distance behind. The lights flashed and the siren echoed, but Owen ignored it as he rode the bike into the center of the clearing. When he finally came to a full stop, he walked towards the tree, discarding the bicycle as Samantha caught up with him. She peered over her shoulder as the cruiser came to a stop in the parking lot at an angle and the driver’s side door flew open.
“Luke!” Owen called out with a booming voice in the direction of the treeline. The flora simply moved with steady agitation from the wind, disturbing the sound of shoes walking through the grass with a quiet rustling. “Luke?!” he continued.
Samantha’s attention was drawn to the sheriff’s approach. “Mitch,” she mumbled to herself. An angry expression replaced his usual friendly face. In all honesty, what was once a very kind, … [view original content]
CHAPTER THREE (Part 6)
Shattered Glass
Samantha Jones
They turned into the open park ground with the sheriff’s cruiser at a moderat… moree distance behind. The lights flashed and the siren echoed, but Owen ignored it as he rode the bike into the center of the clearing. When he finally came to a full stop, he walked towards the tree, discarding the bicycle as Samantha caught up with him. She peered over her shoulder as the cruiser came to a stop in the parking lot at an angle and the driver’s side door flew open.
“Luke!” Owen called out with a booming voice in the direction of the treeline. The flora simply moved with steady agitation from the wind, disturbing the sound of shoes walking through the grass with a quiet rustling. “Luke?!” he continued.
Samantha’s attention was drawn to the sheriff’s approach. “Mitch,” she mumbled to herself. An angry expression replaced his usual friendly face. In all honesty, what was once a very kind, … [view original content]
CHAPTER THREE (Part 5)
Shattered Glass
Samantha Jones—Clover Drive—Silicon
Samantha arrived at the road to the house completely exh… moreausted, either from the ordeal or the bike riding. Her hands grew numb and irritated while holding tightly onto the textured handles, heading down the large, bumpy path. When the farmhouse appeared from behind a set of trees, Sam felt overdue relief, as well as panic rising at what might await inside the glum, faded-yellow, dirty building. Its unbroken windows were sparse among the shattered and cracked ones. It had definitely been abandoned for at least ten years.
Departing with the bicycle a couple dozen yards away from the porch, Samantha hesitantly approached the grim-looking house, one step at a time. She let her hand hover in the air for a second and then gave two loud knocks on the door. Stillness, occasionally interrupted by the creaking of the old house in the wind, presented a void of manmade… [view original content]
CHAPTER THREE (Part 6)
Shattered Glass
Samantha Jones
They turned into the open park ground with the sheriff’s cruiser at a moderat… moree distance behind. The lights flashed and the siren echoed, but Owen ignored it as he rode the bike into the center of the clearing. When he finally came to a full stop, he walked towards the tree, discarding the bicycle as Samantha caught up with him. She peered over her shoulder as the cruiser came to a stop in the parking lot at an angle and the driver’s side door flew open.
“Luke!” Owen called out with a booming voice in the direction of the treeline. The flora simply moved with steady agitation from the wind, disturbing the sound of shoes walking through the grass with a quiet rustling. “Luke?!” he continued.
Samantha’s attention was drawn to the sheriff’s approach. “Mitch,” she mumbled to herself. An angry expression replaced his usual friendly face. In all honesty, what was once a very kind, … [view original content]
Oh shit... Luke is a lot worse than I thought. The same goes for Owen. I don't buy any of his 'I want to help'-shit, he effectively caused L… moreuke to attack Mitch, so that he won't get arrested. The way he acted about this after the attack makes me doubt it was an accident. This means, perhaps he is the one responsible for this and maybe he manipulated or even forced Luke into killing Alexander. But I never thought that Luke would outright attempt to murder Mitch. I mean, there is no way to justify that, the man was just doing his job. Then there's this line:
“Luke!” he cried. “If he takes me to jail, I won’t be able to help you! You have to stop him if you want to set things right!” He looked at the woods with widened eyes. “Learn from what you did before, and maybe you can do this without killing!”
This line hints even more at what I speculated about Luke all the time. At this point I am convinced that he murdered Alex and he pro… [view original content]
CHAPTER THREE (Part 6)
Shattered Glass
Samantha Jones
They turned into the open park ground with the sheriff’s cruiser at a moderat… moree distance behind. The lights flashed and the siren echoed, but Owen ignored it as he rode the bike into the center of the clearing. When he finally came to a full stop, he walked towards the tree, discarding the bicycle as Samantha caught up with him. She peered over her shoulder as the cruiser came to a stop in the parking lot at an angle and the driver’s side door flew open.
“Luke!” Owen called out with a booming voice in the direction of the treeline. The flora simply moved with steady agitation from the wind, disturbing the sound of shoes walking through the grass with a quiet rustling. “Luke?!” he continued.
Samantha’s attention was drawn to the sheriff’s approach. “Mitch,” she mumbled to herself. An angry expression replaced his usual friendly face. In all honesty, what was once a very kind, … [view original content]
Oh shit... Luke is a lot worse than I thought. The same goes for Owen. I don't buy any of his 'I want to help'-shit, he effectively caused L… moreuke to attack Mitch, so that he won't get arrested. The way he acted about this after the attack makes me doubt it was an accident. This means, perhaps he is the one responsible for this and maybe he manipulated or even forced Luke into killing Alexander. But I never thought that Luke would outright attempt to murder Mitch. I mean, there is no way to justify that, the man was just doing his job. Then there's this line:
“Luke!” he cried. “If he takes me to jail, I won’t be able to help you! You have to stop him if you want to set things right!” He looked at the woods with widened eyes. “Learn from what you did before, and maybe you can do this without killing!”
This line hints even more at what I speculated about Luke all the time. At this point I am convinced that he murdered Alex and he pro… [view original content]
He would probably be best described as a consciousness able to move freely and manipulate various things, including being able to possess people and animals. When the wolf died it's likely Luke survived and was just forced to move on.
Wow! Great chapter, this gets more and more interesting every chapter.
I'm trying to wrap my head around what Luke is. Is he dead but his 'essence' or something inside a wolf?
Thank you!
He would probably be best described as a consciousness able to move freely and manipulate various things, including being able to possess people and animals. When the wolf died it's likely Luke survived and was just forced to move on.
It was mention in the previous part when Samantha was looking for his body, that it was at the bottom of the lake in Copperfield, strangely undecayed after being submerged for over a month.
I know, right? I'm always amazed how easily I wish death upon characters when I am invested in a story. But the characters I wish to die for always did something to deserve it first. One thing that is guaranteed to make me hate a character forever, is if this character kills one of my own, especially if the dead character is one I like. Things would look slightly differently if Clive would be the one that has been killed, as for some reason, I don't really care that much for Clive, but I definitely liked Alexander. Therefore, I'm going to try my best to make the killer pay. Unfortunately, I know just as well that I am quick to jump onto false conclusions, so perhaps I am completely wrong with my accusations against Luke. Knowing Hope, there will almost certainly be some sort of twist in all of this, so with a bit of luck you will witness the fascinating sight of me doing a complete 180 on Luke as soon as it turns out that he has been completely innocent all along. However, objectively he is starting to become a danger to everyone around him, as he basically mauled Mitch for no reason, so putting him down looks like the best and safest course of action for everyone else, even if he's innocent of murdering Alex. And should he be proven guilty... well, let's just say, at the moment I'm still trying my best to hold back on my hatred for Luke, I swear
Indeed, that is a good possibility. Perhaps there will be more suspects revealed soon, but at the moment, Luke and Owen are both strong candidates and perhaps they are both killers. Luke is definitely a confirmed killer, in a certain way, since he shot these drug dealers. While even I can't blame him for them, it proved that he is able to kill, which makes it only more likely that the bastard murdered Alexander. And then there's Owen. I think he is at least behind the actions that lead to Luke's current state and perhaps he's even involved in the death of Alex, as I'd be surprised if that isn't connected in some way. He is at the very least responsible for siccing Luke on Mitch, in an attempt to resist arrest. The way he acted about the attack after it happened makes it only more likely that he has no good intentions. The longer I think about it, it's becoming increasingly less likely that these two are innocent.
Owen gave a hurt expression and backed away as he released one hand from the cuffs. “It’s changed him,” he countered. “This...” he waved a freed hand at Mitch. “This wasn’t his intention or mine. Call 911 and get some help. I can’t be here when they show up…”
I'm not saying he's an innocent, kind-hearted, on the up-and-up citizen, but he definitely showed some regret for what happened. And he brought up something: "It's changed him."
Indeed, that is a good possibility. Perhaps there will be more suspects revealed soon, but at the moment, Luke and Owen are both strong cand… moreidates and perhaps they are both killers. Luke is definitely a confirmed killer, in a certain way, since he shot these drug dealers. While even I can't blame him for them, it proved that he is able to kill, which makes it only more likely that the bastard murdered Alexander. And then there's Owen. I think he is at least behind the actions that lead to Luke's current state and perhaps he's even involved in the death of Alex, as I'd be surprised if that isn't connected in some way. He is at the very least responsible for siccing Luke on Mitch, in an attempt to resist arrest. The way he acted about the attack after it happened makes it only more likely that he has no good intentions. The longer I think about it, it's becoming increasingly less likely that these two are innocent.
Yes, he showed regret, but it was a very shady sort of regret and felt kinda half-hearted. Effectively, he still tried to resist arrest, when Mitch had good reason to arrest him. If he's as innocent as he claims, then there would have been nothing to be afraid of. But instead, he called on Luke, knowing how dangerous he can be after the stuff that happened with the drug dealers. I don't know how he wanted things with Mitch to end, but the fact that he ran away instead of helping a probably mortally wounded man, just to avoid getting arrested, does not speak in his favour. The regret he showed felt more like a half-assed attempt at not looking like the bad guy in front of Samantha. As for this mysterious thing that changed Luke, the fact that Owen is so vague about it makes me feel that he has a lot of things to hide, or else he would be more open with Sam. And as long as there aren't any better leads, he's my current prime suspect alongside Luke, even if a lot of things are still vague about him. He might as well be the good guy in the story, but as for now, I only trust him as far as I can shoot him. If he isn't the killer, I bet he at least knows who murdered Alex.
Owen gave a hurt expression and backed away as he released one hand from the cuffs. “It’s changed him,” he countered. “This...” he waved a f… morereed hand at Mitch. “This wasn’t his intention or mine. Call 911 and get some help. I can’t be here when they show up…”
I'm not saying he's an innocent, kind-hearted, on the up-and-up citizen, but he definitely showed some regret for what happened. And he brought up something: "It's changed him."
That was a great chapter! I really dont trust Owen, he hides something and I dont think he has good plans. I really disliked the way he acted at the end of this part and definitely dont like him at all. But I dont think he murdered Alexander, because why would someone who tries to avoid the police do something like this? Luke is far more likely to be the killer but I think he is almost too obvious. There has to be someone else, maybe someone who is not introducet yet, because out of the introduced characters Luke is the only possibility. But even if he isnt the killer, he just became completely insane in this part. Poor Mitch did not deserve that! I dont know if Luke can come back from this but I hope that they can at least stop and defeat him before he becomes a danger to even more people if they cant restore him to normal.
CHAPTER THREE (Part 6)
Shattered Glass
Samantha Jones
They turned into the open park ground with the sheriff’s cruiser at a moderat… moree distance behind. The lights flashed and the siren echoed, but Owen ignored it as he rode the bike into the center of the clearing. When he finally came to a full stop, he walked towards the tree, discarding the bicycle as Samantha caught up with him. She peered over her shoulder as the cruiser came to a stop in the parking lot at an angle and the driver’s side door flew open.
“Luke!” Owen called out with a booming voice in the direction of the treeline. The flora simply moved with steady agitation from the wind, disturbing the sound of shoes walking through the grass with a quiet rustling. “Luke?!” he continued.
Samantha’s attention was drawn to the sheriff’s approach. “Mitch,” she mumbled to herself. An angry expression replaced his usual friendly face. In all honesty, what was once a very kind, … [view original content]
The brisk wind bit Owen through his thin clothing and caused him to violently shiver. He rubbed his arms to stimulate warmth as he looked over the chilled lake. Standing at its bank, he watched the waters carefully with prominent blue eyes as he waited for a change in the water’s surface. Soon enough, a flurry of bubbles rose from the deep near the center of the lake and a motionless body, face down, floated to the surface.
“Oh, shit,” he hissed to himself. Owen rushed into the freezing cold water, wading until it grew too deep to stand, then swam to the body and took hold of him by the shirt collar. He pulled Luke with him to the shore and dragged Luke’s pale, unconscious body through the sand until they were situated a few feet away from the water’s edge. Owen rolled him over to his side and allowed the liquid that filled his mouth to pour out, followed by a sudden cough.
Luke coughed up more water and what appeared to be blood. He blinked, sand sticking to his face and body as he looked up at the overcast sky. Wheezing, he pushed himself off the breach, still sitting, and stared back at the lake from which he floated up. Lightheadedness blurred Luke’s vision, and without a word, he blacked out and fell back in the stand.
Samantha Jones
The hospital hallway Samantha currently stood in, peering through the window in the door, was sparsely populated. She painfully watched Mitch lay motionlessly on the bed, the movements of his chest were so small and unnoticeable that Samantha would have thought he was dead without the knowledge that he was, in fact, stable.
The frustrated presence and footsteps of an angry man pulled her from the window. She looked at Henry as he approached and soon stopped several feet away. Arms crossed, he looked pissed; though not directly at her. “Kyle and I have checked out the lake like you suggested and found nothing.” He leaned closer and lowered the pitch of his voice. “We know this was an animal attack, one fuckin’ weird animal attack. It’s uncharacteristic of a wolf, or any animal really, to just straight up attack someone like that, but it’s still a lot more believable than what you told us.”
Samantha sighed and looked at the floor. “I don’t have anything else to tell you then. I told you everything, the full truth, the whole truth. I know it’s hand to believe, but it’s what happened. Owen Williams was trying to find Luke to put his… uh, disembodied mind back into his body.”
“Jesus Christ,” Henry exclaimed, massaging the bridge of his nose. “You know how ridiculous that sounds, don’t you? Seriously, it sounds like the plot of a horror movie from the thirties.”
She tensed up for a moment and thought about proving to him that it was the complete truth. But them, as it came to mind, there was something she had neglected to consider: the happenings from one month ago; she could look at it now. If she could see the future and the past, she could convince Henry of that.
“Give me a specific date, a place and a time that you experienced and I’ll tell you exactly what happened.” Samantha crossed her arms, unmoving, and waited for an answer.
Henry rolled his eyes and shoved a hand in his pocket to retrieve his wallet. He extracted a photo and studied the backside for a second. He flashed Samantha the photo. It looked like a family portrait of Henry, a woman, and a baby boy. He flipped it and revealed handwriting written below the picture’s printing date. “Tell me what happened, then,” he muttered.
Samantha realized quickly this was an important date to him, possibly something private that he might want to keep private. But he gave her permission, even if he didn’t expect her to pry at the memory. So she closed her eyes and thought heavily of the date he showed and things appeared, imagines flowed lucidly. It was like she was suspended in 2014; the thought of Henry sent her to L.A., and she soon saw what he had experienced on that day:
Henry was crying in the memory, the past, the vision; whatever it was: he sat on the kitchen floor, propped against the fridge with a note written on yellow paper in his hands that explained the situation he was in. It read: ‘I am taking Walter with me and I am leaving with my lover, another man to start a new life. I’m sorry. - Ellen.’
Still in the vision (memory, thing), Samantha started to have the same sensation that she had when peering into Kayla’s past. Pain, horrible pain, she felt it. It was Henry’s pain, sadness, sickness, guilt, and anger, all that he had experienced during those grim days was all washing over her in a matter of seconds.
As she opened her eyes and gasped a large breath, she quickly sat on the hospital floor in fear of fainting. Looking up at Henry’s confused expression, she realized what she felt in the vision: it was kind of empathic link with Henry. She felt what he felt. She felt what Kayla felt. Now her plan to figure out what happened to Luke and Alex was a lot more worrisome since Alex died and Luke went through some kind of soul-tearing.
“Samantha?” Henry said.
Samantha finally managed to answer Henry’s baffled attempts at getting her to respond, though reluctantly, “Your wife left you and took your son with her on that date. You cried for a very long time.”
Henry stared at her blankly for a couple of seconds. “What?” he stammered. “How…?”
“I don’t understand it,” she said quietly, still sitting with her back to the wall. “But I felt your pain. I’m sorry that your wife left you with just… just a fucking note.”
Blinking with tears welling up in his eyes, Henry pulled a yellow slip of paper from a pocket in his wallet. He unfolded it to reveal the same message as in the vision, the same exact note. “How did you know?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbled. Her own lack of knowledge worried her gravely; but she knew one thing: “Owen and Luke have something to do with it.”
Henry started walking down the hall while he brushed some tears from his eyes. “I’ll talk to you about this more… I just… I need a minute.” He disappeared around a corner and Samantha was left alone again.
Samantha stole one last depressing look at Mitch and bit down on her lip as she rushed into an empty room. She sat on the bed and had to think it through. She didn’t want to experience death or the separation of mind and body, neither of which she expected to be pleasant; though there was an urge to know what happened the day the creek overflowed. Plus, Owen did warn her of looking at that time: Did he not want her to see something incriminating or was it out of legitimate concern?
[Take the risk of ill-side effects to know what happened to Alex and Luke.]
[Don’t take the super dangerous risk that could legitimately hurt her.]
Comments
[Come clean and reveal the strange presence to Rachel] I see no point in lying about this.
[Come clean and reveal the strange presence to Rachel.]
[Come clean and reveal the strange presence to Rachel.]
While I don't know if Rachel believes him, he should at least tell her about it, as this might be important. Otherwise she might not take it seriously, should she ever experience something similar.
[Come clean and reveal the strange presence to Rachel.]
[Come clean]
Yeah...no.
[Come clean and reveal the strange presence to Rachel.] Why would you lie about it?
Great part!
[Come clean and reveal the strange presence to Rachel.]
[Come clean and reveal the strange presence to Rachel.]
Voting is closed!
(!) Clive will reveal the strange presence to Rachal
I'm working on the part right now. Haven't gotten the chance to continue Clive's story yet, but I'll probably start on that soon enough. Titles for the second act's chapters are likely going to go up soon as well!
CHAPTER THREE (Part 4)
Shattered Glass
Clive Carson—The Carsons' House—River Street
Rachel presented him with the bottle and he reluctantly siphoned a pill from it. He held it out in front of him for a second and contemplated hiding it under his tongue, but instead let out a long sigh as he returned from where it came. “I’m sorry, Rachel.” He closed the lid glumly and looked up at his confused daughter. “I’ve taken my medicine already… I thought it’d be easier to lie about it…”
“Why? Lie about what?” she asked with a low tone.
“I’m seeing things, and I swear they’re real.” He inclined his head to the front door. “There’s something in this house with us. Some kind of presence. It’s right--” Clive stopped suddenly when he noticed the thicket of air resigning itself from the house and leaving through the closed threshold of the door. “Wait!” he shouted as he jumped from his seat and ran towards the door. “Come back!”
“Dad!” Rachel called after him. She raced to the door and found him standing on the porch, running his hands through his hair nervously while looking over the yard. She noticed Henry still hadn’t left yet and was now exiting his car with a worried expression. “What’s this about?” Rachel questioned.
Clive looked at her and his expression distilled worry in her. “I’m--” Clive licked his lips and blinked an unusual number of times. “I’m not crazy,” Clive reminded her. “It was real... It followed me-- here.” He noticed his daughter’s scared look. “I’m not making this up, I’m not crazy,” he repeated. Clive inexplicably looked down at his hands and started swaying slightly. “I’m not crazy…” Clive mumbled almost inaudibly as his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he collapsed a second time.
Samantha Jones—Silicon General Hospital
The doctor kept his word and Samantha was out of the hospital in a few days. She currently idled in the lobby while her parents signed some papers at the front desk. Glancing around the clean, white room, she silently declared not to spend another night at the hospital and away from home. Its cleanliness and sterilized smell made her feel uneasy.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the nurse who was with her when she awoke from the sedative. The note came to mind almost instantly. She reached into her jacket pocket and felt the card touch her hand. Samantha knew it had to have been a prank from one of the guys at school; she expected it was Alex. Samantha always had attracted unwanted attention from him. He wasn’t the type to nervously leave a note in the locker. Alexander was confident and sly, and he preferred direct introductions. But he was a joker, and leaving behind a cryptic note to confuse her was something she could see him doing.
The nurse approached Samantha before she could herself. The nurse flashed a smile as she walked by and Samantha did her best to return one. “Excuse me,” she said, stopping her and revealing the note, “did you see who left this?”
She looked at the note for a second then at Samantha to answer. “Yes.” She tapped her head to remember. “One of your relatives came in and left it right after the news of you waking up went public.”
“Did they say what their name was?” Samantha asked.
The nurse shook her head. “They just said they were family.” She worryingly frowned. “Is everything alright?”
“Of course,” Samantha replied while she shoved the note back into her pocket, perhaps too quickly, as it provoked the nurse to raise an inquisitive eyebrow. “I’m fine,” she added. “It’s just a prank from a guy at school.”
The nurse looked at her with suspicion. “A guy?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Um… Alexander Carson would be my guess.”
“Um…” The nurse fell silent for a second, letting Samantha briefly hear her parents thanking the clerk at the desk. “Alexander Carson died a month ago. I’m sorry. His body was found a day before you went into a coma.”
Noticing Samantha’s mouth fall open, the nurse prepared to try to comfort her, but before she could Samantha’s parents reached them and took their daughter with them, flashing smiles at the nurse as they went. “Uh, mom…” she stuttered. She see stopped dead in her tracks and her parents looked at her with worry. “Is Alex dead?”
What the nurse said was true and Samantha felt even more uneasy in the hospital. She now wanted nothing more than to return home and stop thinking for the rest of the day. Her friends Anna and Kayla, along with a bunch of other students she barely knew, had visited her on the second day of being awake, but she wished to see them again as soon as possible. The cool, brisk air greeted her exit from the hospital and they arrived home in their family van after a short drive.
Samantha stepped hesitantly into her house. Immediately sensing something was off, different, she noticed that a small table situated near the door was missing its vase that was once set on top. The question rose from her lips without much thought as the vague dream came to mind: “Wasn’t there a vase there?”
Her father, stepping through the front door behind her mother, blushed with slight embarrassment. “I knock it over after getting back from the hospital on the first day you were in the coma,” he admitted glumly. Though his expression quickly brightened to its former state. “Do you need anything?” he asked with a hope that she might.
She shook her head. “No, thank you.”
A gruff nod and her father stepped into a room off the entrance hallway. Her mother lingered and she gave Samantha a loose hug before retreating into the same room, stating on her way out, “Don’t hesitate to ask for anything.”
Samantha gave a feeble smile until her mother left the hallway, at which point she frowned again and looked up the stairs. She slowly walked up them until she was standing at the door to her room. Turning the knob, she stepped inside and saw a large stack of mail sitting on the bedside nightstand. Samantha sat on her bed and brought the stack to her side where she looked over them after removing her jacket. The newest ones were on the top and the oldest on the bottom. Pulling a recently received vintage postcard from the mix, the picture on the front read: ‘Greetings from Minnesota: Land of 10,000 lakes.’ She turned it over and read the message. “Hey, sis,” it began,
“What the...” Samantha stammered as she reread the card in its entirety to be sure she read it right the first time. Looking for the date it was sent. It was mailed two days after she woke up. Something like a wave of revelation and speculation fell over her. “Oh, fuck.”
She didn’t know what to think of it. Not sure what it meant, she opted to continue reading the postcards and letters to take her mind off her brother’s card. But her worry was only reinforced when she found another recently received letter. She peeled it open and unfolded the sheet of paper inside. “Hello, Samantha Jones.” It went on:
Its message resonated in Samantha’s mind. Clover Drive was only a bike ride away from her house. She could be there before dinner. A question did hang in her mind: would going to see this person be a good idea? Though some would have seen her meeting with a stranger as pure, ill-considered recklessness, she didn’t even have a decision to make; Luke was her friend and she would endanger her own life to secure his.
The gray jacket was retrieved from where it was discarded earlier and Samantha pulled her arms through its sleeves one at a time. Glancing at the bedside clock, she learned it would be another half hour before five. Plenty of time to reach the farmhouse. She went into her brother’s old room and dug through a few of the boxes until she found the pocket knife with a red, wood-print grip and hid it in her pocket. Walking down the stairs with hushed footsteps, Samantha rehearsed the speech she would tell to her parents in her mind. She rode on the hope a simple one would suffice.
“Samantha?” her mother said with minor surprise. Her parents were seated at opposite ends of a table, a cup of coffee was situated in front of her mother, and the two looked up at their daughter.
“Hey, uh…” she looked between the two nervously, but quickly presented a confident, genuine expression, “I was wondering if it would be alright if I went for a bike ride. Get some fresh air.”
Her father vaguely nodded behind his thick beard. “If mom is alright with it, I am.”
“Go ahead,” her mother permitted, “but don’t ride too far off. You’re still recovering.”
She gave an appreciative, innocent smile and soon passed through the threshold of the front door. Pausing suddenly, she realized the gravity of the message in her brother’s postcard. She predicted the break in. The second letter had completely distracted her from it. Perhaps, if some change was happening to her, the man waiting for her to arrive at the farmhouse actually did have the answer, like he claimed to. Obviously, he knew more about it than her. Maybe he could explain. Samantha wouldn’t let herself trust whoever was waiting for her until she was one hundred percent sure the man was trustworthy.
“Sam?” The familiar voice of Anna interrupted her thoughts. Anna, Kayla, and a young man she vaguely recognized as a friend of Anna’s walked down the sidewalk towards her. Anna noticed Samantha’s worried expression and her own mimicked it with concern. “Is everything alright? We were just coming to see you.”
Samantha managed a nod, put on a smile and brushed her brown hair from her eyes. “Yeah. You know...” she trailed off and briefly glanced at her brother’s old, red bicycle leaning against the wall on the inside of the open garage. She returned her vision to the group before her behavior became suspicious.
“Hey, I’m Tyler,” the boy introduced with a warming grin. Tyler had a buzz cut, remnants of brown hair and blue eyes. He stood at an average height, possessed a runner’s build and looked like he was light on his feet. He looked to be seventeen. His grin gave way to a charming smile as he extended his hand. Samantha respectively took it, with a halfhearted smile of her own, and the two shook for a few seconds before parting.
“So, Sam, how are you holding up?” Kayla asked as she joined the semicircle forming around Samantha. Kayla’s eyes were a beautiful, bright green and dead still. She carried her white-tipped, silver cane and wore a pleasant expression.
“I’m alright,” Samantha lied quietly. “I was just going out to get some fresh air. I was, uh, considering riding my bike to the park up on the northern side of town.”
Kayla gave a short nod. “Any reason?”
Samantha considered telling them what she actually planned to do but ultimately sided against telling everyone. She knew both Anna and Kayla well, but Tyler was still a mystery. “If it’s alright, I’d like to talk to Kayla alone for a second,” Sam said to the group. Tyler gave a gruff nod and walked with Anna to idle out of earshot.
“Is something wrong?” Kayla finally asked while walking with Sam into the garage.
Sam sighed then took a deep breath before beginning. “I got a lot of cards while I was in the hospital. I got to reading a few of them and found a postcard from my brother that mentioned his dorm being broken into and graffitied. I swear, Kayla, I got a note a few days ago in the hospital, telling me to picture it and I did, and it was just so… lucid. Someone broke in through the window and graffitied large red letters on the wall in the daydream and in real life.” Kayla expression looked confused, but Sam went on: “I… I think predicted it.”
After finally stopping for a breath, she waited for Kayla to reply. Her friend looked for the words and licked her dry lips. “You predicted it?” she repeated. “Do you think you have some sort of power?”
“I’m not sure,” Samantha answered, crossing her arms to fight back the chill of a breeze. “Maybe I can… test it again. Just… I don’t know, give me a place, a date, and a time. Something you witnessed, maybe?”
“So you can see the past, too?” She quietly chuckled to herself. “Alright,” Kayla said, going along. She thought for a second and sighed. “You know highway 32, right? Okay, well, highway 32 at the sign that says you’re entering Copperfield city limits, may 3rd, 2014, at exactly six at night.” She paused for a second with a skeptical look. “What do you see?”
Samantha closed her eyes and remembered the highway she frequented whenever visiting the lake in the neighboring city. The bright green sign came to mind, and then the date and time was compiled with it. An image of a car speeding down the dimly light road rolled over a hill and barreled down the highway, followed by a large animal stepping out in front of it and being slammed into by the car. The driver, disoriented by the shattering glass and the airbags’ sudden deployment, spun out and crashed into the city limits sign. Finally settling amidst a plume of smoke rising from under the hood, Samantha got a good look at the driver. Bruised, shaking, and crying blood, Kayla sat in the front seat with glass protruding from her eyes and fragments speckling her face. Her screams were muted in the daydream, but her pained, terrified expression burned into Samantha’s mind.
Samantha took a heaving gasp and coughed violently when she finally opened her eyes. She leaned on her knees and felt like she was about to vomit. “I--” she mumbled, “I have somewhere to be-- I…” Samantha started towards the bicycle and immediately started riding out of the driveway, much to Anna and Tyler’s surprise.
“Sam?” Kayla called out with increased, intense worry. “Sam!”
Anna and Tyler reached Kayla at the garage and watched with bewilderment as Samantha rode away as quickly as she could. “What happened?” Anna questioned.
“I--” Kayla paused and cursed herself under her breath. “I don’t know,” she said, frightened and worried.
She pedaled and pedaled as fast as she possibly could, gaining speed as she coasted down hill and let herself shed tears that blurred her field of view. The image of Kayla in pain was plastered on her eyes and could not be shakened or blinked away. When it became clear she was approaching a turn at a dangerous speed, Samantha slowed to a full stop and paused at the lip of the street.
She rested on the handlebars and breathed heavily for a few long lasting seconds, wiping the tears as they came. For a few more seconds, she lingered. The voice of one of her friends calling out from the distance entered her dulled perception and she forced herself to move forward down the road and made another block.
Eventually, the image grew worse and took over her entire field of vision as she just barely brought the bike to an almost full stop before stumbling away from it. The vision clouded her mind and the audio was just stillness, making her felt like it’d never heard sound in the first place. She drifted inconsistently between the vision and her actual self, staggering forward on the empty street. She felt the horror, pain, and fear of her friend. She witnessed Kayla being removed from the wreckage by paramedics and then being pushed down the hallways of a hospital on a table by worried, hurried doctors and nurses. She couldn’t look away as they used scalps and tools to moves bits of glass embedded in her skin, as they eventually removed her once brown, now bloodied and mangled eyes. Suddenly she was stable and a slow recovery began, Kayla was handed two beautifully bright green, glass eyes.
Samantha felt a rush of clarity and opened her eyes to find herself standing on the bridge across the creek, her brother’s bicycle was lying in the road about twenty feet behind her. She took several deep, calming breaths and all was well. Whatever had just happened, it was over for that moment. The serene flow of water beneath her and a cool winter breeze eased her, and she took one giant, final breath and exhaled. It was over for now.
To be continued...
Most of the next part is written but has been separated due to length. There still some refinement that needs to be done to its later half and a lot of finishing touches. Unless it needs to be divided a third time because of the size, the next part will be the last in this chapter. The chapter final is approaching! :O
Clive is going crazy, and Sam received a certain letter from an individual who knows some shit. Plot flying everywhere, I love it xD
Great chapter! I loved this one! Plus it had the Tyler's first appearance! I'm so happy! I can feel the gears turning in my head trying to figure out who's sending these letters to Samantha.
CHAPTER THREE (Part 5)
Shattered Glass
Samantha Jones—Clover Drive—Silicon
Samantha arrived at the road to the house completely exhausted, either from the ordeal or the bike riding. Her hands grew numb and irritated while holding tightly onto the textured handles, heading down the large, bumpy path. When the farmhouse appeared from behind a set of trees, Sam felt overdue relief, as well as panic rising at what might await inside the glum, faded-yellow, dirty building. Its unbroken windows were sparse among the shattered and cracked ones. It had definitely been abandoned for at least ten years.
Departing with the bicycle a couple dozen yards away from the porch, Samantha hesitantly approached the grim-looking house, one step at a time. She let her hand hover in the air for a second and then gave two loud knocks on the door. Stillness, occasionally interrupted by the creaking of the old house in the wind, presented a void of manmade noise, allowing her to hear the fast, rhythmic beating of her own heart. Nervous breaths, leading to an annoyed hissed as she turned on her heel to walk back down.
Standing completely still was a man, several yards away from the porch with his hands raised in front of him as a peaceful gesture to ensure the introduction didn’t turn sour. He had a soft expression and piercing green eyes. The man was in his early twenties, not much older than herself, stood six-feet-tall and was only vaguely muscular. He wore a gray, long-sleeve, button-up shirt under a brown vest that had seen better days. He seemed tired, possibly deprived of sleep. “Hi,” he said with a calm, polite voice. “My name is Owen Williams. And I know you, you’re Samantha Jones.”
“Yeah, I’m Samantha,” she shot back harshly, eying up him suspiciously, taking in his every movement to make sure nothing in his body language insinuated danger. She was constantly aware of the pocket knife hidden on her person just in case things took a bad turn. “How do you know Luke?”
“I don’t really know him personally,” Owen admitted. “I do know what happened to him, though, it might come off as a shock to hear. But we should start with you—do you want to know what’s happening to you?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed a little too quickly. The disturbing vision of Kayla in the car accident was still fresh on her mind. “I’m daydreaming things. They’re like visions, I suppose.”
The man’s face lit up with a kind of wonderment. “Visions?” he repeated, starting to smile and looking off to the side briefly. He returned to the subject and looked at Samantha again with a somber expression, saying, “Did you get the messages? The note and letter?”
“Yes. And I predicted someone breaking into my brother’s dorm after reading the note you left. I got a postcard from my brother that confirmed it.” She narrowed her eyes and swallowed. “Did you break in? All the way in Minnesota?”
“I had another reason for being there, and I figured, ‘two birds, one stone.’ I mean, I didn’t take anything, but maybe the whole breaking and entering thing was a bit overboard and…” He stopped, sighed again and scratched his neck. “Just know, I’m sorry. I know you probably can’t tell your brother this, but I am.”
“Well, it’s fine. No one was hurt.” Samantha shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “The visions?” she brought up again.
He nodded. “Yeah, the visions. From the way you described it, it sounds like you can see things. I’d take it you can predict things if you can get a good fix on what you want to see? With a little practice, maybe you could be a full-on clairvoyant.” Owen soon noticed Samantha’s lack of enthusiasm. “You’re not too happy about it, huh?”
“Of course not, it’s awful. It felt awful. I--” Samantha paused suddenly and gave a sad frown before she went on: “I tried to tell a friend about it, and she gave me a date from last year to see if I was telling the truth, and I pictured it just too clearly… I…”
Owen’s face lit up with genuine concern and he straightened up. “What happened?”
“She gave me a date from last year and I witnessed her in a car crash. It wasn’t like what I saw when I pictured the dorm. This time, it was foggy and… disturbing, painful, made me physically sick, in a way,” she explained.
Owen tried his best to be respectful and hid his excitement. “You saw the past?” he asked with unusually sober tone. There was a second of pause in which he returned to a more natural voice. “And the sickness, it might just be the context of what you saw. A crash is some scary shit. So… I’d be careful what you choose to envision,” he advised.
She nodded. “Alright, then.” Samantha tilted her head and looked off to the woods as the trees swayed with the breeze. “I have a few more questions: What put me into a coma? Where’s Luke and how can we find him?”
“It’s all connected, you see,” he said. “Luke put you into the coma.”
Samantha’s eyes widened with confusion. “How?” she questioned.
“To be fair, I don’t think he did it on purpose.” He frowned. “Did you ever feel a cold presence, maybe saw something out the ordinary before going into a coma?” Owen asked. “Because, if you came into contact with him…” he paused and looked intently at her. “Luke is a carrier.”
“Carrier of what?” Samantha shot back quickly.
“Whatever caused the change in you, caused the visions.” His face darkened. “Whatever it is, he’s not able to contain it so it sort of runs off, I guess.”
“Where did he get this?” Samantha asked, worried.
Owen shrugged. He scratched his black head of hair with the same worried expression. He changed the topic: “I wrote to you and said people were in danger. This change that happened to you doesn’t have a one hundred percent success rate. It can be deadly, I’d say. Did you hear about the drug dealers? The sudden turn-coats were Luke’s handiwork. He destroyed the surviving one’s mind because he took control of him, exposed him to too much of the stuff, made him shoot at his guy.”
“He killed a guy?” Samantha exclaimed. “Luke isn’t a killer.”
“He saved the sheriff officer Kyle Flinton and deputy Henry Parker by doing it,” Owen defended. “But everybody has their secrets, and no matter how long you might know them, they’d keep these things hidden.” He sighed distantly. “Onto topic number three: where is Luke and how can we find him.”
“Alright, go on,” Samantha agreed.
“He’s not just missing. He’s not just dead.” He noticed the confusion on her face but continued: “He’s both, in a strange way.”
That provoked Samantha to interrupt. “Both? How can he be both?” she questioned, puzzled.
“How can you see things?” Owen shot back. He shook his head and went on: “The point is he’s probably been having a really weird out of body experience for, like, the last month. If that doesn’t do a number on your psyche, I don’t know what will.” He frowned deeply. “Odds are he’s been exposed a good number of people, just mildly, you’re probably one of the few he’s hung around long enough to make these changes appear. And we don’t want him to do that--” he began.
“Because it could have bad effects?” Samantha finished.
“Growing pains are the worse,” Owen said. His reply made Samantha worry. “Anyway, I need to find his body and his… uh, wandering spirit, for lack of a better word, and I think you’re capable of that.”
“I’m not sure I can,” she replied. “So far it’s taken a lot of information to just witness something. I’m not sure I could find his body, let alone his spirit without details of their locations.”
Owen stepped forward slowly, put a hand on her shoulder and spoke with a calm urgency. “You need to. You have to.”
“I can try,” she added. “I’m not sure it’ll work, though.”
“Trying is better than giving up completely.” Owen gave a friendly smile and took a step back. “Let’s begin, then. Start with his body.”
Samantha closed her eyes and she thought heavily of Luke’s features and facial structure. To her surprise, it seemed to work and an image came to mind: Luke’s pale, lifeless body hovered just above the lake bed in Copperfield. Oddly enough, it wasn’t decomposing. Coming out of the vision, Samantha coughed for a second before taking a deep breath and looking a worried Owen in the eye. “His body is at the bottom of Copperfield Lake,” she said, deeply unsettled by the vision.
Owen smiled and gave a quick, appreciative nod. “Good job, Sam. Now you need to his consciousness. This might not be as easy.”
Taking a deep breath, Samantha shut her eyes tightly and focused on Luke once again. The still body came to mind instantly and she had to forcibly disregard it. This time, thinking of how she knew him, she saw something from a past rainfall. Luke ran over the bridge that spanned the overflowing creek. He lingered there for a second and threw something into the churning waters. “I see the creek overflowing… and… and Luke is scared, horrified...”
Owen gently shook her out of the vision and she looked at him with confusion. Shaking Owen off of her, she took a step back. “I’m sorry,” he quickly said. “You’re looking at something you don’t want to see. It probably would have hurt more than that car crash ever could. I can’t have you blacking out on me, so focus on the present and stay awhile from that event.”
It seemed more likely that he was hiding something than protecting her. But, slightly more hesitantly than the last time, Samantha sighed, closed her eyes and let her hand rest in her pocket where the knife was for comfort, just in case things escalated. The things she thought of were garbled and messy, crude and inconsistent and painful. Empathic feelings of fear, power, and anger compelled her to keep looking. Flashes of brief screens graced her eyes and left as quickly as they appeared. One image kept repeating, though: a tree with about a dozen initials carved into its trunk that stood in a clearing. She recognized the place and saw fit to finally open her eyes. “I-- I found him...” she said with a gagging sensation. “I know where he is.”
Owen’s face brightened and twisted into a wide grin, and he gestured for Samantha to follow him down the porch. “Let’s go find him, then,” he said with surprisingly happy voice. “It’s time for a reunion.”
Since Owen didn’t have a car, and in the interest of getting there as quickly as they could, Samantha allowed him to pedal while stood on the front pegs of her brother’s old bicycle. It was an awkward setup that took them over the two blocks as they rode, but it worked.
Things took an ominous turn when a sheriff’s cruiser pulled into the street they were leaving behind and turn on its lights and sirens “We need to pull over,” Samantha said, noticing the car instantly.
Owen stole a look back at the sheriff’s car and scoffed. “We need to find get to Luke or else he might slip away again.”
Samantha looked over Owen again and watched as the sheriff waited for them to pull over to the lip of the road, but Owen refused. Instead, he began pedaling faster in an attempt to reach their destination quickly. “Listen, Owen,” Sam snapped, “we need to pull over.”
“No, you need to listen,” he said, his tone still polite but echoing with urgency. “Luke needs help and we’re the only ones who can help him. Now, please, sit back and enjoy the ride,” he finished harshly.
“What’s your stake in this? You said you don’t even know Luke, why do you care so much?” she questioned with a voice of equal frustration.
“Everybody has their secrets,” he mumbled. That put Samantha on edge and she finally decided that whatever Owen had told her, whenever he seemed to be perfectly honest, that all that was unconfirmed things told to her by a complete stranger. But Luke was what mattered and she needed to secure him one way or another, but Owen, rightfully so, was nowhere near gaining her trust.
To be continued for the second time!
So I've opted to separate the part further since this section was done. What will probably be the final part to this chapter needs more rereads and refinement and a clearer end-point. And since that all can wait until tomorrow, I figured "why the hell shouldn't I post what's done?" Anyway, surprisingly, what was once the whole finally part is bigger than everything written before it in this chapter. Hopefully, it'll be finished and ready sometime tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Interesting chapter, I bet she'll see something interesting if she tries to see Luke on the bridge again, maybe Owen was there? He knew what Sam was seeing, DON'T TRUST HIM!
I'm conflicted on this Owen guy. I have no idea if we can actually trust him or not...
Wow, two parts on the same day! I like that
Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to tell Rachel about the presence, as it seems to have shooed it away. But who knows, perhaps there will be benefits coming from this in the long run, even if this presence was apparently not Alex, as I have hoped for at first, but Luke. And it looks like it is dangerous for Clive to be around him, given that he just collapsed again. However, if this is really Luke, then I wonder why he follows Clive around.
As for Samantha's part, I loved the revelations in it. However, I am still conflicted about Luke and unsure how to feel about him. I think it is all but confirmed that he was at least involved in the events that lead up to Alex' death, given how distraught he was in the prologue. Because of this, I am not sure if I even should care for what happens to him, even though I am still not sure if he is responsible for it. If he is, even in the slightest, then he needs to die screaming. If he isn't, then he better has a very good explanation for his odd behaviour in the prologue. I also definitely do not trust this Owen guy. I think he knows at the very least who is behind Alex' death, as he definitely knows more than he revealed. Maybe he's even the killer, I wouldn't be too surprised about that. By the way, was it already revealed how Alex died exactly?
o_O damn Liquid that's cold XD
Hehe. This story is going to make you flip-flop feelings every chapter or so, so I wouldn't let your suspicions cloud your judgment or condemn anyone completely until they admit to the crime. Especially if they can still be useful.
He was shot in the shoulder and ended up in the overflowing creek. It was pretty much a combination of drowning, bleeding out, and possibly blunt force since an overflowing creek is always full of debris.Needless to say, it wasn't pleasant. Of course, that won't stop them from trying.
Oh damn, that is definitely not a pleasant death and it makes me hate the killer even more. I slightly regret now that Rachel wants to put that bastard into prison, because she honestly needs to take vengeance on him (or her, if it is a female killer). It also does not make things any better for Luke, considering that he threw a metallic object into the river, most likely the gun Alex was shot with and especially considering how he acted in the prologue. If he is innocent, I'm wondering why he hasn't told his parents and why he likely destroyed evidence. At best, that would make him an accomplice of the killer. It's definitely hard to keep an open mind on him, since he is the most likely suspect. On the other hand, in which story has the most likely suspect ever been the actual killer? For now, I'm adding Owen to the list of suspects as well, which means that I have two suspects now, yay. I just hope the death of the killer, regardless of who it is, will be a lot worse than Alex' death.
Killing someone isn't just going to be a fresh breath of relief. Rachel, Clive, they can't change the past or revive Alexander. But don't throw away your resources, Liquid, because everyone can be useful.
I'll give you that. You said earlier "If he is, even in the slightest, then he needs to die screaming." Let's say it is Luke for a second: does Rachel really want to kill a kid? I mean, come on, man, unless said kid is an immedite threat, shouldn't getting them mental help be prioritized rather than a murder-manhunt?
And Luke has been the obivous suspect for pretty much the whole story. It wouldn't be much of a surpirse if he was revealed to be the killer, now would it? Then again, maybe I'm just saying this to throw you off the main suspect. Maybe I said that just now for the pure purspose of throwing you off further? Maybe I said that to confuse you more...
CHAPTER THREE (Part 6)
Shattered Glass
Samantha Jones
They turned into the open park ground with the sheriff’s cruiser at a moderate distance behind. The lights flashed and the siren echoed, but Owen ignored it as he rode the bike into the center of the clearing. When he finally came to a full stop, he walked towards the tree, discarding the bicycle as Samantha caught up with him. She peered over her shoulder as the cruiser came to a stop in the parking lot at an angle and the driver’s side door flew open.
“Luke!” Owen called out with a booming voice in the direction of the treeline. The flora simply moved with steady agitation from the wind, disturbing the sound of shoes walking through the grass with a quiet rustling. “Luke?!” he continued.
Samantha’s attention was drawn to the sheriff’s approach. “Mitch,” she mumbled to herself. An angry expression replaced his usual friendly face. In all honesty, what was once a very kind, warmhearted man now looked absolutely terrifying as he stomped towards them, a hand on his belt to keep his holster from being jostled by the large strides.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he blurted out the moment he was within twenty feet of her and he continued walking. She knew perfectly well that his tone was purely a protective anger, but it still stung to be shouted at by him. “Why didn’t you--” he stopped by Samantha and looked at the man as he continued to scream into the woods about another ten yards away. “Who’s this?”
“His name is Owen Williams,” Samantha replied quietly.
“What are you doing with him? Why didn’t he pull over?” He stopped looking at Samantha with annoyance. Mitch went on when the man’s shouting got on his nerves: “And why the hell is he calling out to Luke?”
“It’s a long story,” Samantha said, attempting to avoid the topic.
“Well,” Mitch said, crossing his arms, “do tell.”
Samantha bit her lip and sighed with embarrassment. “He said he could find Luke if he had my help.”
Mitch rolled his eyes. “You’re friends and family are worried sink.” He gestured for Samantha to wait by the car, to which she obliged. Mitch marched towards Owen with his hand now nowhere near his pistol. “Hey, buddy--” he began. He stopped in his path the moment he got a good look at Owen’s face, and the man stop shouting into the woods. “Owen Felt?”
Owen looked at him with calm, but genuine confusion. “Felt?” he murmured with an exhausted huff from all the yelling.
“You’re wanted for seven accounts of shoplifting—” he pulled handcuffs from his belt and grabbed one of Owen’s wrists ”—and one attempted armed robbery.”
“I haven’t robbed anyone!” he shouted, but did not resist.
“Save it,” Mitch replied gruffly as he reached for his other wrist.
At that point, Owen had enough and attempted to keep his other hand free by jerking it away, but it took only another two seconds for Mitch to grab it by force and lock it in the cuff. While he kept a tight grip on the chair, Owen ledgend away from him and tried to get away. “I haven’t robbed anyone!” he repeated.
“Again,” Mitch muttered while he pulled Owen towards him and began pushing him towards the parking lot, “save it.”
That didn’t stop Owen, as he quickly went limp, which merely provoked an annoyed sigh from the sheriff. Mitch rubbed the bridge of his nose and the seventy year old man then picked Owen up by the shoulders and awkwardly pushed him forward. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Mitch groaned as he stopped, let the man lay in the grass, and bent over him angrily. “Stand the fuck up and walk to the car,” he ordered.
All the while, Samantha worrisomely watched this trivial exchange unfolded. Her attention was moved steadily away from them, though, when an unsettlingly cold breeze blanketed the area. Upon feeling this chill, Samantha noticed the unnatural fog her breath produced. It was difficult to see, but she could swear the two mens’ breath was freezing as well.
Owen felt it, immediately rushed to his feet and scanned the area. “Luke!” he cried. “If he takes me to jail, I won’t be able to help you! You have to stop him if you want to set things right!” He looked at the woods with widened eyes. “Learn from what you did before, and maybe you can do this without killing!”
“What hell are you talking about?” Mitch questioned as he pulled Owen with him. He didn’t resist this time and just took a step back without moving his eyes from trees.
Samantha took a few steps closer to the edge of the parking lot and looked out over the field as the trees seemed to be pulled inward briefly before everything grew still. She reached into her pocket and held the pocket knife extremely tightly for reassurance. Even Mitch froze at the sight. Soon, a large animal’s silhouette began walking from the shadows of the dark woods and a menacing gray wolf stepped out of the treeline.
Mitch raised a worried eyebrow and started backing away while pulling Owen with him. He wasn’t resisting, and a hopeful smile had dawned on his face. “Oh, you should let me go now,” the man rambled as he was pulled closer to the pavement. They were still situated at least twenty yards away and going uphill, and Owen wasn’t assisting their departure anymore than he already had.
The wolf dashed forward and was nearly upon the two in mere seconds. Mitch acted quickly and pushed Owen to the ground where he fell in the grass on his side. While he did this, Mitch had also reached for his belt. The barrel of his pistol had just barely cleared the holster before he was knocked on his back by the swift animal, the gun being jostled from his grasp by the sudden impact.
Samantha rushed a step forward after retracting her hands from her pockets with the knife held tightly. She flipped out the three inch blade with trembling hands, and pushed herself a step closer to the fight.
Though he was on his back, disorientated and had the wind knocked out of him, Mitch was still persevering. He had kept the jaw of the beast from getting too close to him, but as consequence, had several of his fingers violently bitten.
Mitch was a seventy-year-old veteran with a Distinguished Service Cross award who had settled down for retirement and a peaceful existence as a sheriff in a small town. Though his reasons for living here were to have his remaining decades be pleasant ones, he kept in good physical shape and continued to use some watered down military exercises.
You’d imagine Owen’s, and even Samantha’s surprise when he pushed the animal off of him, but not before jabbing its throat with a quick punch. Although he was in shockingly good shape for a senior, Mitch was quickly exhausted and fatigued by the those few actions and his bleeding hands. He was smart, though, and started looking for his pistol, whenever it might have fallen, by rummaging through the substantially tall grass as the places his hands touched were stained by his blood.
The wolf wasn’t as dazed by the punch as Mitch had hoped. It was back on its feet within a couple of seconds and rushed him again. It bit down on the back of Mitch’s neck, causing the man to let out an uncharacteristic cry of agony.
Samantha was now within twelve feet of the whole ordeal and watched with horror. She knew what was happening, deep down, she knew that this wolf contained whatever fragment was left of Luke’s consciousness. It didn’t stop her from approaching with the knife ready. As it bit down harder on Mitch, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Owen slipping his cuffs over his legs and feet. Samantha now stood about seven feet away. “Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop this!”
It didn’t. Samantha ran forward and stabbed the blade of the knife into the side of the wolf’s head. It let out a feeble whimper as it staggered away. She couldn’t look at it as it stared back at her, its eyes seemed to convey some level of emotion before it toppled to the ground beside Mitch with the knife’s red grip protruding from its fur.
Samantha leaned over Mitch and tried to feel for a heartbeat. She found a weak one without trouble and shot an angered glare at Owen as he walked to the downed man and grabbed the keys to the handcuffs. “You did this,” she hissed, barely audible. “You changed him…”
Owen gave a hurt expression and backed away as he released one hand from the cuffs. “It’s changed him,” he countered. “This...” he waved a freed hand at Mitch. “This wasn’t his intention or mine. Call 911 and get some help. I can’t be here when they show up…”
Samantha was applying pressure to the wounds of the man’s neck when she looked back up and stopped him with a worried utterance that was a mixture of pain and sadness. “Did I kill him? Is Luke dead for good?”
He remained silent for a long few seconds. “We’ll see,” Owen replied with a tone of slight disdain. He broke into a sprint and pulled her brother’s bike upright as he started pedaling out of the area. She didn’t care. She knew, though, if there was any place he would go now, that he was heading to the lake in Copperfield.
Her hands that were bloodied with Mitch’s blood reached into his pocket with one hand still pressed on his neck and retrieved his cell phone to call for an ambulance. The voice of a woman greeted her ears with a sweet voice. “911, what is your emergency?”
She found herself in dead quietness and teared up slightly with confliction, confusion as she stared at the wounds inflicted on Mitch’s neck and hands. She decided to tell the only thing that would make any sense. “There’s--- There’s been a wild animal attack,” she answered regretfully, choking up slightly. “Mitch Jenkins is hurt badly.”
END OF CHAPTER THREE: Shattered Glass
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So, you're implying the killer is useful for something... That hints even more at Luke, as he is build up to be important. Well, then he better is going to be extremely useful for something that actually saves a lot of lifes. Though, in the long run, no amount of usefulness could be enough to justify him getting away with murdering Alex.
Objectively, getting them mental help is the right thing to do and I won't deny it. In any other case or constellation, I would agree with you. However, undoubtly I am far too biased in this case to think objectively and far too furious at the bastard who murdered Alex. Someone just has to pay for that, that's what I care about. Saving Luke is a secondary goal at best, for me, or even something I'd try my best to prevent, if it turns out that he was the one that murdered Alex. In that case, he does not deserve help, period. Of course, I don't want Rachel to end up as a cold-blooded murderer, but on the other hand I don't want to see the killer walking out of this alive, especially as Alex never had a chance. Perhaps there will be a chance to kill him without murdering him, if that makes sense. If Luke is the killer, then Luke is dead for me. If it is Owen, then Owen is dead for me. Hell, even Clive would be dead for me if, in a cruel and unlikely twist of fate, he turns out to be the killer.
And now I am confused indeed. You're hinting quite heavily at Luke, though it wouldn't be the first time you lead a false trail and it wouldn't be the first time I'm falling for it. Though, in many cases I wasn't entirely wrong in the long run, for example that time in Monument, where I was convinced that Zafir was an evil bastard.
Oh shit... Luke is a lot worse than I thought. The same goes for Owen. I don't buy any of his 'I want to help'-shit, he effectively caused Luke to attack Mitch, so that he won't get arrested. The way he acted about this after the attack makes me doubt it was an accident. This means, perhaps he is the one responsible for this and maybe he manipulated or even forced Luke into killing Alexander. But I never thought that Luke would outright attempt to murder Mitch. I mean, there is no way to justify that, the man was just doing his job. Then there's this line:
This line hints even more at what I speculated about Luke all the time. At this point I am convinced that he murdered Alex and he probably has the audacity to feel bad about it, as seen with the line where he apparently wants to set something right. That could also explain why he follows Clive around, to explain his actions. Too bad that I'm far too furious about what he did to care how much regret he shows. I'd like to hear his explanation, sure, but that is unlikely to change how I feel about this situation. There's no way he can set that right again, unless it turns out that he is not the killer, or at least not responsible at all for what he did. Although, responsible for his actions or not, at this point I seriously doubt Luke is even worth all the trouble. Alex and now probably Mitch already died for that bastard and who knows whom he will kill next. At this point, neutralizing the threat he poses should be more important than saving him.
no, Mitch! Man, he can't die. Not like this.... And this Owen guy, the hell is he up to?
Great part
Jeez, I never expected this to happen! This story never ceases to amaze, Hope :P
Poor Mitch though...He punched that wolf like a champ.
Liquid maybe we have to consider the possibility that there's more than one killer.
Wow! Great chapter, this gets more and more interesting every chapter.
I'm trying to wrap my head around what Luke is. Is he dead but his 'essence' or something inside a wolf?
XD Liquid, I'm not used to you wishing death upon characters!
It'll take a while I think to get used to you saying stuff like this.
Thank you!
He would probably be best described as a consciousness able to move freely and manipulate various things, including being able to possess people and animals. When the wolf died it's likely Luke survived and was just forced to move on.
Would that mean his real body is just laying around somewhere as if he was dead?
It was mention in the previous part when Samantha was looking for his body, that it was at the bottom of the lake in Copperfield, strangely undecayed after being submerged for over a month.
I know, right?
I'm always amazed how easily I wish death upon characters when I am invested in a story. But the characters I wish to die for always did something to deserve it first. One thing that is guaranteed to make me hate a character forever, is if this character kills one of my own, especially if the dead character is one I like. Things would look slightly differently if Clive would be the one that has been killed, as for some reason, I don't really care that much for Clive, but I definitely liked Alexander. Therefore, I'm going to try my best to make the killer pay. Unfortunately, I know just as well that I am quick to jump onto false conclusions, so perhaps I am completely wrong with my accusations against Luke. Knowing Hope, there will almost certainly be some sort of twist in all of this, so with a bit of luck you will witness the fascinating sight of me doing a complete 180 on Luke as soon as it turns out that he has been completely innocent all along. However, objectively he is starting to become a danger to everyone around him, as he basically mauled Mitch for no reason, so putting him down looks like the best and safest course of action for everyone else, even if he's innocent of murdering Alex. And should he be proven guilty... well, let's just say, at the moment I'm still trying my best to hold back on my hatred for Luke, I swear 
Indeed, that is a good possibility. Perhaps there will be more suspects revealed soon, but at the moment, Luke and Owen are both strong candidates and perhaps they are both killers. Luke is definitely a confirmed killer, in a certain way, since he shot these drug dealers. While even I can't blame him for them, it proved that he is able to kill, which makes it only more likely that the bastard murdered Alexander. And then there's Owen. I think he is at least behind the actions that lead to Luke's current state and perhaps he's even involved in the death of Alex, as I'd be surprised if that isn't connected in some way. He is at the very least responsible for siccing Luke on Mitch, in an attempt to resist arrest. The way he acted about the attack after it happened makes it only more likely that he has no good intentions. The longer I think about it, it's becoming increasingly less likely that these two are innocent.
I'm not saying he's an innocent, kind-hearted, on the up-and-up citizen, but he definitely showed some regret for what happened. And he brought up something: "It's changed him."
Yes, he showed regret, but it was a very shady sort of regret and felt kinda half-hearted. Effectively, he still tried to resist arrest, when Mitch had good reason to arrest him. If he's as innocent as he claims, then there would have been nothing to be afraid of. But instead, he called on Luke, knowing how dangerous he can be after the stuff that happened with the drug dealers. I don't know how he wanted things with Mitch to end, but the fact that he ran away instead of helping a probably mortally wounded man, just to avoid getting arrested, does not speak in his favour. The regret he showed felt more like a half-assed attempt at not looking like the bad guy in front of Samantha. As for this mysterious thing that changed Luke, the fact that Owen is so vague about it makes me feel that he has a lot of things to hide, or else he would be more open with Sam. And as long as there aren't any better leads, he's my current prime suspect alongside Luke, even if a lot of things are still vague about him. He might as well be the good guy in the story, but as for now, I only trust him as far as I can shoot him. If he isn't the killer, I bet he at least knows who murdered Alex.
That was a great chapter! I really dont trust Owen, he hides something and I dont think he has good plans. I really disliked the way he acted at the end of this part and definitely dont like him at all. But I dont think he murdered Alexander, because why would someone who tries to avoid the police do something like this? Luke is far more likely to be the killer but I think he is almost too obvious. There has to be someone else, maybe someone who is not introducet yet, because out of the introduced characters Luke is the only possibility. But even if he isnt the killer, he just became completely insane in this part. Poor Mitch did not deserve that! I dont know if Luke can come back from this but I hope that they can at least stop and defeat him before he becomes a danger to even more people if they cant restore him to normal.
I got much catching up to do ;-;
CHAPTER FOUR (Part 1)
Awakened
Owen Williams
The brisk wind bit Owen through his thin clothing and caused him to violently shiver. He rubbed his arms to stimulate warmth as he looked over the chilled lake. Standing at its bank, he watched the waters carefully with prominent blue eyes as he waited for a change in the water’s surface. Soon enough, a flurry of bubbles rose from the deep near the center of the lake and a motionless body, face down, floated to the surface.
“Oh, shit,” he hissed to himself. Owen rushed into the freezing cold water, wading until it grew too deep to stand, then swam to the body and took hold of him by the shirt collar. He pulled Luke with him to the shore and dragged Luke’s pale, unconscious body through the sand until they were situated a few feet away from the water’s edge. Owen rolled him over to his side and allowed the liquid that filled his mouth to pour out, followed by a sudden cough.
Luke coughed up more water and what appeared to be blood. He blinked, sand sticking to his face and body as he looked up at the overcast sky. Wheezing, he pushed himself off the breach, still sitting, and stared back at the lake from which he floated up. Lightheadedness blurred Luke’s vision, and without a word, he blacked out and fell back in the stand.
Samantha Jones
The hospital hallway Samantha currently stood in, peering through the window in the door, was sparsely populated. She painfully watched Mitch lay motionlessly on the bed, the movements of his chest were so small and unnoticeable that Samantha would have thought he was dead without the knowledge that he was, in fact, stable.
The frustrated presence and footsteps of an angry man pulled her from the window. She looked at Henry as he approached and soon stopped several feet away. Arms crossed, he looked pissed; though not directly at her. “Kyle and I have checked out the lake like you suggested and found nothing.” He leaned closer and lowered the pitch of his voice. “We know this was an animal attack, one fuckin’ weird animal attack. It’s uncharacteristic of a wolf, or any animal really, to just straight up attack someone like that, but it’s still a lot more believable than what you told us.”
Samantha sighed and looked at the floor. “I don’t have anything else to tell you then. I told you everything, the full truth, the whole truth. I know it’s hand to believe, but it’s what happened. Owen Williams was trying to find Luke to put his… uh, disembodied mind back into his body.”
“Jesus Christ,” Henry exclaimed, massaging the bridge of his nose. “You know how ridiculous that sounds, don’t you? Seriously, it sounds like the plot of a horror movie from the thirties.”
She tensed up for a moment and thought about proving to him that it was the complete truth. But them, as it came to mind, there was something she had neglected to consider: the happenings from one month ago; she could look at it now. If she could see the future and the past, she could convince Henry of that.
“Give me a specific date, a place and a time that you experienced and I’ll tell you exactly what happened.” Samantha crossed her arms, unmoving, and waited for an answer.
Henry rolled his eyes and shoved a hand in his pocket to retrieve his wallet. He extracted a photo and studied the backside for a second. He flashed Samantha the photo. It looked like a family portrait of Henry, a woman, and a baby boy. He flipped it and revealed handwriting written below the picture’s printing date. “Tell me what happened, then,” he muttered.
Samantha realized quickly this was an important date to him, possibly something private that he might want to keep private. But he gave her permission, even if he didn’t expect her to pry at the memory. So she closed her eyes and thought heavily of the date he showed and things appeared, imagines flowed lucidly. It was like she was suspended in 2014; the thought of Henry sent her to L.A., and she soon saw what he had experienced on that day:
Henry was crying in the memory, the past, the vision; whatever it was: he sat on the kitchen floor, propped against the fridge with a note written on yellow paper in his hands that explained the situation he was in. It read: ‘I am taking Walter with me and I am leaving with my lover, another man to start a new life. I’m sorry. - Ellen.’
Still in the vision (memory, thing), Samantha started to have the same sensation that she had when peering into Kayla’s past. Pain, horrible pain, she felt it. It was Henry’s pain, sadness, sickness, guilt, and anger, all that he had experienced during those grim days was all washing over her in a matter of seconds.
As she opened her eyes and gasped a large breath, she quickly sat on the hospital floor in fear of fainting. Looking up at Henry’s confused expression, she realized what she felt in the vision: it was kind of empathic link with Henry. She felt what he felt. She felt what Kayla felt. Now her plan to figure out what happened to Luke and Alex was a lot more worrisome since Alex died and Luke went through some kind of soul-tearing.
“Samantha?” Henry said.
Samantha finally managed to answer Henry’s baffled attempts at getting her to respond, though reluctantly, “Your wife left you and took your son with her on that date. You cried for a very long time.”
Henry stared at her blankly for a couple of seconds. “What?” he stammered. “How…?”
“I don’t understand it,” she said quietly, still sitting with her back to the wall. “But I felt your pain. I’m sorry that your wife left you with just… just a fucking note.”
Blinking with tears welling up in his eyes, Henry pulled a yellow slip of paper from a pocket in his wallet. He unfolded it to reveal the same message as in the vision, the same exact note. “How did you know?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbled. Her own lack of knowledge worried her gravely; but she knew one thing: “Owen and Luke have something to do with it.”
Henry started walking down the hall while he brushed some tears from his eyes. “I’ll talk to you about this more… I just… I need a minute.” He disappeared around a corner and Samantha was left alone again.
Samantha stole one last depressing look at Mitch and bit down on her lip as she rushed into an empty room. She sat on the bed and had to think it through. She didn’t want to experience death or the separation of mind and body, neither of which she expected to be pleasant; though there was an urge to know what happened the day the creek overflowed. Plus, Owen did warn her of looking at that time: Did he not want her to see something incriminating or was it out of legitimate concern?
[Take the risk of ill-side effects to know what happened to Alex and Luke.]
[Don’t take the super dangerous risk that could legitimately hurt her.]
[Take the risk of ill-side effects to know what happened to Alex and Luke] It's risky but it's a risk she has to take, Owen can't be trusted.