Muddy Creek: A Paranormal Mystery (Taryn's Camera Book 7) Read online

  “Don’t we deserve some happiness, Taryn?” he asked quietly.

  You do, she wanted to respond. But she couldn’t. So much to say and she just didn’t have the energy to say it.

  Instead, she turned and pointed at the house across the street. “There,” she said, indicating with her finger. “That’s the house where Lukas Monroe lived. Where he was, you know.”

  Matt grimaced and shook his head. “Poor kid. I just about threw up reading that garbage. You know the father only got five years in prison for what he did? Mother didn’t get a thing.”

  The thought sickened Taryn. She hadn’t known that, hadn’t done any follow-up. “Do you know what happened to Lucas in the end? Was he okay? I read something about going to live with a cousin or something.”

  Matt nodded. “Yeah, he was okay for awhile. And then three years later he killed himself. Self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.”

  The darkness was everywhere, Taryn realized, if you knew where to find it.

  * * *

  TARYN HADN’T HAD a smartphone for very long and was still trying to learn how to use it. She had, however, learned how to search for stores with it. It didn’t take her long to locate a bookstore at the Huntington Mall.

  As Taryn pulled into the huge parking lot, she was frankly surprised that the mall was still standing so many had closed over the past few years, giving way to “town centers” that, to her, looked like a bunch of strip malls connected by green spaces. She’d seen many of the dinosaur carcasses going to waste by the side of the road, everything but tumbleweeds blowing through the empty acres of parking places. Taryn loved to shop, but even she wasn’t sorry to see a change in fads where malls were concerned. Something about being inside a building without any windows, unable to tell if it was day or night, while piped-in Muzak tinkered through the speakers depressed her.

  The bookstore in the Huntington Mall had what she needed. By the time she checked out she had a stack of Lucy Dawson’s bestsellers and three romances. She was on a mission to learn something and entertain herself in the process.

  It was too late to go to the school, and she didn’t relish the idea of returning to the motel room and sitting around by herself for the rest of the night. Instead, she parked herself inside one of the mall’s restaurants and ordered a burger. While she waited, she pulled out the books she’d just bought.

  “The Boy in the Tree,” “The Girl in the Well,” “Avalonia,” and “The Light Behind the Door.” She’d never heard of the last one but had read the others on at least one occasion.

  Lucy’s first book was published when she was only twenty years old; Taryn was just fourteen at the time. Technically, she’d been too old to enjoy the books that were marketed at pre-teens. Still, they’d garnered so much media attention that she hadn’t been able to ignore them. On one cold, rainy afternoon she’d visited her local library and settled down into a bean bag chair, surrounding herself with copies that were already well-worn. And she’d fallen in love. That was one of the ways her romance with books that weren’t necessarily going to get her on the “best read” lists began. Matt was embarrassed by her obsession with Nora Roberts and V.C. Andrews. Taryn did like giving everyone equal opportunity, however–she was just as likely to have a copy of “Great Expectations” on one side of her bed as she was to have “Flowers in the Attic” on the other.

  In her defense, while Lucy’s books might have been geared towards younger readers, she’d found mature messages within them that were much more prudent to someone of her age.

  Reading through the books was a good distraction from thinking about Matt. He hadn’t wanted her to go inside the airport with him, had told her it wasn’t necessary even when she’d protested, so their rushed goodbye at the curb wasn’t exactly fulfilling. She’d see him again soon. As soon as her job ended she’d return home, do laundry and air things out, and then travel to Florida where she’d stay with him for a week or two. That was their routine.

  It didn’t mean that saying goodbye wasn’t difficult.

  She would go straight to Florida, but she had a doctor’s appointment in Nashville she couldn’t miss. Due to her aneurysm and various cardiac issue caused by the connective tissue disorder, Taryn had to have an echocardiogram repeated every six months, and a CT scan each year. She was due for both.

  “Avalonia” had always been one of her favorite children’s books and now, as she read through it again, she felt herself smiling widely. The tale about the little girl who lived in the mountains and was whisked away to the magical world each night by the winged unicorn hit close to home. As a child who had often felt lonely and out-of-place, Taryn had dreamed of traveling to a place where she was not only accepted, but actually wanted. The magical kingdom of Avalonia, located under the dark waters of Lake Michigan and only accessible by the invisible underwater elevator, was a fantasy she could get behind: miles and miles of book-filled shelves, ethereal music permeating the golden streets, mermaids and fairies soaring through the perfumed air…

  Taryn wanted to go now.

  In “The Girl in the Well” a nine-year-old child falls into a well on an old farm. For more than a month her friends and family were unable to reach her and provide her with anything she needed. Instead, she became friends with the underground animals that burrowed through the dirt and became her saviors. While the people above her prayed and worried and tried dozens of attempts to free her (all of them outlandish and none of them practical), she took care of herself. She dug out a little house from the packed dirt and drank the nectar from the flowers the little rabbits and moles brought her. She learned to make juice from honeysuckles and to weave together the blades of grass the ants brought her from above to make herself a warm and cozy blanket.

  By the time the adults finally rescued her, she was happier than she’d ever been. She hadn’t even needed them in the end; she’d tunneled out to the edge of a creek and was able to swim to safety.

  “Sad,” Taryn murmured to herself.

  The last book was not one she was familiar with. She read the title aloud and then opened it, absently picking at the French fries scattered on her plate.

  “There was once a little boy, a little boy that lived in a tunnel,” she read. “The tunnel was very dark, without any windows. Each day the little boy would wander through the darkness, his hands on the walls, trying to find his way out.”

  Taryn stopped and looked up. “What the hell is this?” she asked nobody in particular. This was starting like a horror novel, not a children’s book.

  “He would walk and walk and walk, but he could never see what was in front of him. He’d never seen his face or his hands or his feet. He thought his legs might be purple or even green; only he didn’t know what purple or green looked like.”

  Taryn shuddered, shaking the image from her mind.

  “Then, one day, he saw a light at the very end of the tunnel. The light was in the shape of a rectangle. ‘It’s a door,’ he said. ‘There’s a door at the end, with light. I must go there!’”

  Taryn continued to read and grew increasingly uncomfortable as the young boy tried various ways to outsmart the monsters and other things in the dark that kept him from the door. In the end, he made it.

  “When he put his hand on the knob and turned it, he was more excited than he’d ever been in his life. Suddenly, his world was filled with light. ‘What shall I do first?’ he asked himself. ‘Should I get ice cream or play in a park or read a book?’ But when he saw the mirror in front of him, he knew what he had to do. ‘I’ve never seen myself before,’ he cried. ‘Now I will finally know how gruesome I am!’ When the young boy looked at himself in the mirror, however, he saw that he wasn’t green or purple or blue at all. He was not even a monster! He was just a regular little boy. A happy little boy. ‘I will never go back into the dark again,’ he cried. With that, he closed the door to the dark tunnel and began walking away. With time, he might even forget that tunnel was ever there.”

&n
bsp; Taryn closed her eyes and rested her head on the illustrated pages. It was not a tunnel, after all, in the book. It was the hallway, the same one from which she, herself, had escaped. The same one she saw in her own dreams.

  Lucy was trying to get out of it as well. But she hadn’t. She was still in there, still running. The little animals had saved the girl in the well. The winged unicorn had taken the little girl away to Avalonia. The boy had finally found the door in the tunnel. Who had saved Lucy?

  * * *

  SHE HEARD THE CRYING before she saw the source.

  Taryn needed caffeine in the worst way. Luckily, Matt had left her a pile of change for the vending machine and now she grabbed a handful of it and went in search of a Coke. They had to restock the machines every day, just to keep up with the demand of the motel’s guests. When she heard the sobbing, however, she paused.

  A cluster of picnic tables was located behind the motel. They overlooked the stream. Even though it was late, Taryn followed them now. The crying was female, and it was human. This was no ghost.

  Taryn was shocked to find herself come face-to-face with Frieda Bowen. No makeup, matted hair, and in her pajamas. And crying like her heart was breaking.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  Frieda looked up and for a moment managed to look embarrassed but when she saw it was Taryn she sniffed and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “You want to sit?”

  Taryn nodded and hoisted herself up on the table next to Frieda. “What’s going on?”

  Friday sniffed again. “I don’t know if you watch my show but Louisa Rothburger, that little girl in Florida who was kidnapped? They found her body today. Think she’s been dead the whole time.”

  Taryn had seen Frieda on her show almost every night for a week, bringing on witness after witness in that case. Yelling at them. Demanding answers from them. Almost bringing them to tears. People in the press had called her horrible things. A monster. A barracuda without feelings. Badgering the victims.

  And now, here she was, crying by herself behind a motel for the loss of the six-year-old she’d been trying to find answers for.

  “These kids,” Frieda cried, “some of them don’t have advocates. When I started doing this, it was to give them a voice. To help them. But I just don’t know how much more I can take.”

  Taryn nodded. She understood.

  “It just…it’s taking the life out of me. Taking on other people’s sadness.”

  Taryn could understand that as well.

  Frieda brushed a clump of hair out of her face and sighed. “I miss my kids. They’re back home with my husband. They don’t know what I do, you know? They know Mommy helps other kids, but they don’t know the real story. I want to keep that from them. When I’m with them, I am just Mommy. We go to the zoo, get ice cream…but sometimes I look at them and I see what the world is, and I don’t want to let go. I am afraid for them.”

  “I would be as well,” Taryn agreed.

  “Did you know about Lukas Monroe?” Frieda asked.

  “Not until I got here,” Taryn replied.

  “Neither did I. To think something like that was happening and it didn’t even make the news. Nobody cared. Everyone failed him. The school system failed him. The neighbors failed him. His friends’ parents failed him. They say he’d been showing signs of abuse for years and nobody said anything. Who was helping him? What about all these kids were hurt and nobody is there for them? Nobody got them justice.” Frieda sighed and bowed her head. “I am not doing enough. Sometimes this world just hurts too much.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Taryn rolled around in her sleep, groaning and crying out into the stuffy room. She was back in the circle of chairs again. The monster danced in the middle, shards of light that wouldn’t stand still. The bouquet of flowers was on her desk this time, right in front of her. She could smell them, but she kept them at arm’s length, incapable of touching them.

  Sickness grew in her belly. She gagged and retched and tried to keep from vomiting, but there were too many emotions running through her mind. Her little body was too small to handle them.

  When Taryn woke, her sheets were covered in a filmy vomit.

  “Oh, damn,” she cried.

  Taryn flipped on the light and struggled to get out of bed without making a bigger mess. She was just about to strip the sheets and lay her blanket down on the mattress when her phone rang. It was Matt. Not only was it a ringtone, this time Roby Orbison’s “Claudette,” but it was 3:15 am. Nobody else would dare call her at that hour. (Not that her phone suffered from incessant calls to begin with.)

  “Hey Matt,” Taryn started as she gave her fitted sheet a pull. “I just had a nightmare and woke up. Threw up on myself. What’s–”

  “It wasn’t seven!” Matt cried, cutting her off.

  “Huh?” Taryn paused, the dirty sheets wadded up in her hands.

  “You were saying something about the article earlier, about it being seven people,” he said again, more calmly. “But it wasn’t meant to be seven. The report said six, six people.”

  Taryn tossed the sheets down on the floor and scrambled to her laptop. Within seconds she’d pulled up the pictures and was sifting through them. “Well I’ll be damned,” she said. “How did I miss that?”

  “We both missed it,” Matt said. “I read it the other way, too.”

  Now that she was looking at the article, she felt silly. “So Lucy did plan it, but one of them was an accident. They weren’t meant to be there,” Matt said.

  “When I was trapped in that office and heard the stuff coming from down the hallway, that was Sarah trying to tell me something,” Taryn said, taking a seat in the rickety desk chair. “Maybe something happened at the school but had nothing to do with the teachers there. It was a parent, abuse that the school knew was going on but did nothing about.”

  “Like Lukas Monroe and his father,” Matt added. “What do you know about Lucy’s parents?”

  “Nothing,” Taryn admitted. “Not a thing.”

  Both were quiet as they contemplated the situation.

  “Which one was missing?” Matt asked. “Which one wasn’t meant to be there? If we can figure out who the mistake was…”

  “Then we can put this to rest,” Taryn finished for him.

  “Any ideas?”

  Taryn allowed everything that had happened to spin through her mind like a movie reel. She watched each scene carefully, quickly analyzed it. “Maybe,” she said at last, as something began to dawn on her. But let me marinate on it. I’m going back to the school again tomorrow. I’m armed with more information. I might find out more now.”

  “You want me to fly back? I don’t like the idea of you rooting around in there by yourself,” Matt said worriedly.

  “I am going to do a cleansing first,” Taryn told him. “Do a protection over the school and me. I’ve learned a few things from past experiences.”

  “You have the candles and sage?” he asked. “Where did you find those?”

  “In Huntington today,” Taryn replied with a shrug.

  “Wait, you found ritual supplies at a store in Huntington?”

  “Naw, at the Halloween super store,” Taryn grinned. “Part of their Halloween sale. It’s the best time to be a witch in the south.”

  * * *

  “I CLEANSE THIS SPACE of all negative energy,” Taryn chanted. “I cleanse…”

  The milky smoke trailed behind her, rising from the little bundle of herbs like wisps of cotton. She had started at the library and had slowly made her way from one end of the school to the other, leaving behind a stream of sweet-scented smoke.

  At the end of the hall a door slammed shut; the impact caused a piece of the roof above her to crumble and slide to the floor at her feet. Taryn jumped back, nearly tripping over an overturned garbage can, but held her ground.

  “Bad energy is gone, only good remains. There is good here,” she sang out in a loud, clear
voice.

  Two years ago she wouldn’t have imagined doing such a thing. Things had changed a lot.

  “Cleanse this school and make it clear, only good is allowed in here.”

  A window broke. Shards of glass scattered across the tile; she heard them shower upon the floor like rain. Though she closed her eyes and winced, Taryn ignored the sound. She was not going to let whatever was there scare her out. Not again.

  Taryn walked backward, keeping her voice steady and carefully watching the floor as she moved, so as not to trip over any animal bones.

  “I cleanse you…”

  Parallel with the bathroom doors, she stopped. The fetid scent she’d been smelling since she’d come to Muddy Creek was almost overpowering. The women’s door looked at her mockingly, daring her to step inside.

  If Taryn was going to do this, she was going to do it right.

  Taking a nervous gulp, Taryn made a tentative step towards the door and gave it a slight push. It didn’t budge. Taryn closed her eyes and winced. She would be okay; she would be okay…

  With a mighty heave, she threw her whole body weight into the door. At first, she thought it wasn’t going to move again, but then it swung free, tossing her to the floor. As she and the door swung inwards, the rushing water rushed outwards. Taryn landed smack dab in the middle of a stinking, decaying pool of water that came up above her knees.

  “Oh my God,” she shouted as she sputtered and coughed, trying to rise to her knees. The room smelled like a tomb, a fusion of sewage and death.

  Not wanting to stick around any longer, she splashed through the water and ran back outside, her clothing now clinging to her along with the smell.

  She would need to bathe for an hour when she got back to the motel.

  Shaking and gagging, Taryn rushed down the length of the hallway, putting as much distance between her and the awful bathroom as she could. She would continue to have nightmares about that for weeks to come.