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

  With no other streetlamps on the road, the boarded-up storefronts hid in the shadows, ghosts of small towns past. Ancient meters glowed in her headlights and garbage cans overflowed onto the cracked sidewalks.

  “Probably hard to keep up with all the people,” Taryn remarked, recognizing the irony of the now-empty streets.

  Around her, the mountains rose straight up into the sky, murky silhouettes that colorless clouds embraced. When she got out of her car, she caught a whiff of cigarette smoke and rain. Her joints were aching; she would need to take medicine when she got inside. The dampness always made it worse.

  “I am getting old,” Taryn frowned as she searched in her backpack for the motel key. “When I can predict rain from my aching knees, I’ve crossed the threshold.”

  Somewhere, several miles away, another woman studied the mountains rising around her and also felt the rain coming on in her bones. Rain, and something else…

  Four

  Taryn stood with her back to the gym. She could feel its vastness behind her, slowly opening like a mouth ready to swallow her whole.

  Before her, the long, gloomy hallway carried on for eternity, the miles of open doors between her and the end little comfort with their feeble attempts at light.

  The soft music that spilled towards her swelled within the shadows and built around her, seeping inside her skin. She caught the words “blue eyes” and something else and then the line began repeating itself over and over again until she thought she might scream. The endless loop was as unnerving as the darkness that seemed to be alive.

  When she felt the icy tendrils gently lace themselves over her neck, she began to run. On and on she ran, her tennis shoes softly thumping on the tile below. Their plodding rose above the ghastly music.

  She ran as hard as she ever had, her chest heaved and fell from the effort, but as she looked in horror, the end was suddenly much further away. She hastened her speed, making her legs pump faster and faster, but it was of no use. Then, behind her, a slam.

  Taryn screeched but did not pause or look over her shoulder, not even after another door slammed, and then another.

  They were catching up with her now. There was only one more between her and whatever chased her. Her legs ached; she began to slow down when the heart in her chest felt as though it might jump right on out.

  When the last door behind her bolted shut, Taryn screamed.

  Five

  Taryn walked around the chilly motel room, pale rays of morning filtering through the space between the dirty floor and heavy door. She’d wanted to make it out to the school by sunrise but hadn’t quite gotten up in time. After her nightmare, she’d gotten sucked into a “House Hunters: International” marathon and didn’t fall back asleep until the wee hours of the morning. As it was, she was running on three hours of sleep and a gallon of caffeine.

  From the television hovering precariously atop the ancient bureau, the morning news chattered, and the glare flashed random colors around the room.

  Taryn was not a morning person, but mornings and sunsets offered the best light.

  Hair damp from a shower intended to wake her, Taryn started a braid to tame the unruly waves that fell to her shoulders. Her hands felt heavy with fatigue. The water pressure in the tiny bathroom had been all but nonexistent. She’d run out of shampoo (never, in her life, had she used up the shampoo and conditioner at the same time). And she was stuck drinking the same warm, flat two liters of Coke she’d been nursing all night since she forgot to hit the gas station to restock and didn’t have any change for the vending machine.

  The morning was not going as planned.

  To make it worse, Miss Dixie appeared to be judging her from across the room.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Taryn grumbled, stalking over to her camera. “I see you looking at me.”

  Feeling foolish, Taryn turned the camera around so that it was facing the wall, her face now reflected on the LCD screen. And yet, she somehow felt oddly better. She might joke that Miss Dixie was often her eyes, but, in fact, sometimes she felt like Miss Dixie had her own eyes. And maybe even a soul.

  Taryn wouldn’t start painting today or even sketching. She generally spent the first few days walking around the property, snapping pictures of the features that called to her. She’d then return to her room and upload the images to her laptop. From there, Taryn would go through them one by one, studying the building and what Miss Dixie had captured. She found that this helped her get a better feel for what she was working with. When she was offsite and didn’t have the building right in front of her, she could use the images for help with late-night painting sessions.

  Taryn knew she’d never make a real living as a photographer; her work lay with her paintings. The photos were just for her. Still, a month back she’d had a small showing of her photography at a Nashville art gallery, and it had gone very well. A former client had set it up for her, and she knew she wouldn’t have gotten the gig without her benefactor’s string pulling, but Taryn had managed to sell several of the shots and the owner was setting up another one in the spring.

  That was something.

  Sighing, Taryn stretched her leg out in front of her and winced. The pain was worse. It seemed to be getting a little worse every day. A few short years ago, she’d never heard of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, the connective tissue disorder that was wreaking havoc on her joints and organs. Now she dealt with the repercussions of having it almost every day.

  Suddenly, Taryn’s attention was drawn away from her aching leg and to the television screen. “…Muddy Creek…” she heard an announcer say so she walked back to the bed and lowered herself to the fleece blanket she’d spread over it.

  The screen was instantly filled with a live view of the court house. Although it was barely daylight, the steps were covered with swarms of people. Some held homemade signs with the words “Murderer” and “Killer” scrawled on them. Media hounds staked out spots on the grass and sidewalk, looking for spectators willing to talk. (None had to look very hard.) There must have been three dozen people already gathered on the steps, and from the sounds of the cars racing down the street outside her room, more were on their way.

  Taryn groaned. She’d have to get in the middle of that to reach the school.

  As though on cue, the shot of the court house disappeared, and one of the school loomed before her. Taryn turned up the volume as she studied the once impeccable and somewhat charming country school appear on the screen.

  “For almost forty-five years the Muddy Creek Elementary School was a thriving, welcoming, center of community for the residents of this small West Virginia town,” the heavily made-up face of Frieda Bowen intoned. “Most years, the small school only saw one-hundred fifty students at a single time. It was a place where everyone knew everyone, and everybody felt safe.”

  The camera zoomed in on an athletic, thirtysomething brunette with two toddlers at her side. “I went to school here, yeah,” she declared, smacking her lips as she spoke. “Went there all the way through elementary school. I loved Muddy Creek! I was hoping these would get to go there, too. But then it closed. It was just awful what happened. I hope she hangs!”

  Taryn winced. She understood why people were angry, but open hostility was not something she was comfortable with. Taryn still feared lynch mobs. No wonder Lucy Dawson had installed the gate and security camera. She wondered if they were enough.

  Another shot, this one of an elderly woman in a swing. The words “rsing Home” could be seen on the brick wall behind her.

  “My sister, Marilu Evans, was a schoolteacher there for forty years,” she stated in a soft, but firm, voice. “She loved it more than anything. We grew up down the road from it. Attended the original school even before they built that one. Our daddy worked the mines until he passed. I’m the only one left now. She never thought that school would be her death…” A single tear escaped from her eye and slid down her wrinkled cheek. Taryn shook her head with sadness.

&nbs
p; Another picture flashed on the screen, an image of a tall, unsmiling woman with thick, short-cropped hair standing in front of a library shelf, surrounded by somber eight-year-olds.

  Taryn trembled again. Of course. She was one of the people killed that night. She hadn’t remembered her name but knew she’d been one of the teachers.

  They’d all been teachers.

  “This small, isolated county that nobody had ever heard of before will never forget what happened that fateful night,” Frieda charged. Her crazy looking eyes were almost wild as she stared down the camera before her. She was all but shaking with excitement. “What was meant to be a joyous occasion, a reunion, a time for reconnecting, would end in senseless tragedy…”

  Taryn shook her head and rolled her eyes. That “nobody had ever heard of”? She imagined that went over well with the local people. It was a second away from pissing her off. Still, the new footage of the little school, a blazing inferno, was a sight to see. Taryn had seen the material before, but it continued to amaze her. One entire side of the building was a wall of flames, the black smoke dense.

  “Today, opening statements for the trial of Lucy Dawson…”

  Taryn considered the face of the woman they now showed, but she tuned out Frieda.

  Lucy Dawson was not a large woman. Barely five feet tall and hunched over slightly, she looked like a child next to the officers that flanked her as they marched her up the court house stairs. The video was taken months ago, at an arraignment. Back then she’d been fifteen pounds heavier, but she’d looked younger. The peasant skirt and loose-fitting blouse billowed around her as she moved, both trailing behind her like a cape. She was not an attractive woman by any means, but she was impressive looking. Her long tangled hair fell nearly to her waist. Her ruddy cheeks were plump, her forehead high and shiny. The thick bifocals took up half her face and slipped down her nose as she walked, but nobody offered to push them up for her.

  For some reason, that bothered Taryn. Couldn’t someone have helped her?

  When a bystander shoved against Lucy and caught her off balance, she nearly tumbled to the ground. The older officer grabbed her under the arms and straightened her, his mouth set in a hard line. The other one seemed to give her a push. Even in the short piece of footage, their roughness was evident. The jeering, taunting, and spitting were all obvious as well.

  Despite the fact that the woman was accused of a cold, calculated murder Taryn found herself growing a little sick to her stomach. She didn’t like seeing anyone picked on or mistreated–no matter what they’d done.

  When the news program began displaying pictures of the deceased, seven who had died the night Lucy Dawson had decided to play “Independence Day”, Taryn turned it off. Now, with the sound gone, she could hear the excited chatter of the journalists outside, the ones who hadn’t yet left. They sounded like a group of athletes, getting ready to head off for the Big Game. Their laughing, jostling, and animated calls to one another were almost festive. Soon, she’d be all alone in the motel, everyone else in the thick of the action down the street.

  “Eh, what the hell,” Taryn mumbled, allowing herself to fall backward onto the bed. “I’ve got plenty of time.”

  She wasn’t yet ready to face that school, not after what she’d just seen. Miss Dixie would have to get over it.

  * * *

  THE GIRL THAT lounged behind the dusty counter had her feet propped up on an empty toilet paper box and a Cosmo magazine balanced on her lap. She sipped on a root beer. (Maybe. It might have been a real one. Taryn couldn’t see real well.)

  Taryn would put her around nineteen, although she had one of those older, kind of worn-looking faces that was deceptive.

  “Hey, I hate to be a bother,” Taryn began, a hint of apology in her tone, “but I was wondering if you all have any hair dryers up here. Mine doesn’t seem to be working.”

  Taryn rarely dried her hair with a blow dryer, preferring to let it air dry so it didn’t frizz, but the weather report was calling for a cold front. She didn’t want to get sick. Sicker than she already was, anyway.

  The girl barely acknowledged her. She was currently engrossed in a quiz, circling her answers with blue Maybelline eyeliner. Beside her on a small television screen, Dr. Oz excitedly gestured to something in a bottle while his audience leaned forward with rapturous attention.

  Taryn coughed politely.

  “Um…,” the girl heaved a sigh at last, rolling her eyes in the process. “We don’t, like, keep any here.”

  “Oh, okay then,” Taryn replied, feeling foolish. Used to working alone the majority of the time, Taryn didn’t always do well with people. She was known to be socially awkward at times, especially if the other person was even less communicative and outgoing than her. It was one of the reasons she got along so well with Matt–both were rather shy introverts who enjoyed quietness and alone time. They were perfectly happy sitting together on the couch, reading separate books, all afternoon long.

  The girl, however, suddenly seemed to have a change of heart. Or maybe she was just bored.

  “I can, like, look around though,” she shrugged. “Somebody might have left one here.”

  Taryn got a flash of someone going off and leaving a nice straightener or hair dryer and that going right into the housekeeper’s purse instead of the Lost and Found. Not that she could blame them; those suckers were expensive.

  “That would be nice, thanks,” Taryn replied. “I’m in Room 16.”

  “No problem,” the girl said with another shrug. “You one of them reporters here?”

  “No, I’m actually here to paint the school,” Taryn explained. “Well, not paint the building, but to paint a picture of it.”

  With her explanation, Taryn now held more interest to the girl before her.

  The girl’s eyes lit up with interest. “Yeah? Really? That’s cool, that’s cool. I took art in high school. It was my favorite class.”

  Seeking an opportunity to learn more information about her surroundings, Taryn leaned forward on the counter and brushed a stray strand of hair from her face. “So you from here?”

  “Everyone’s from here,” the girl snorted. “Nobody actually moves here or anything.” Her stringy hair was held back in a plastic butterfly clip–something Taryn hadn’t seen in ages. The thick eyeliner and lipstick were applied heavily, but carefully. She’d apparently taken her time getting herself ready that morning. Her skin was far too brown for it to have been a natural tan, considering the season. Still, it didn’t have an orange tint to it. Tanning bed, Taryn guessed. There was one on every corner there.

  Looking at her, Taryn was again struck by the changes the small town was experiencing from the influx of visitors and attention. She tried to imagine being a local and waking up one morning to the hordes of people, the continuous line of traffic, the cameras…She figured people felt a mixture of overwhelming excitement and immense irritation and distrust. After all, it wasn’t the first time outsiders had come into their mountains with their cameras and tape recorders and shown the world only a partial story of what was really going on. They couldn’t trust what was being relayed to the masses.

  “It’s a pretty place,” Taryn offered truthfully.

  The girl rolled her eyes again and sniffed. “It’s okay. There’s literally nothing to do here. Used to have a skating rink when I was a kid. Now, even that’s closed.”

  That was a picture Taryn saw painted all too often. Small towns everywhere were drying up and closing down, giving way to urban sprawl and big box stores. It wounded her.

  “Did you go to the school?”

  Now, technically, the county had four elementary schools, including one within the city limits. But they both knew which “school” she was talking about.

  “I didn’t, no,” the girl answered. “I went here in town. But my cousins did. We always laughed about it, about how far out in the country it was.”

  Taryn started then laughed aloud herself. There was one two-lane h
ighway running into the county. The coal company had built it a few years before. The county itself had fewer than five-thousand people. There was no Wal-Mart, no Kroger, no clothing stores (besides a few church-sponsored charity shops), and only a handful of restaurants. There wasn’t a single subdivision in the entire county. Road names actually included the word “Hollow” on them–she had passed a few on the drive to the school. How far out did a place have to be to qualify as “country” there?

  “You having trouble with the reporters or anything?”

  She was nosy, but she couldn’t help it.

  “Naw,” the girl replied. “I mean, they ask a lot of questions and stuff, but they’re okay. Police have only been here twice in the past week. That probably woulda happened anyway, you know?”

  Taryn nodded. She’d heard one of them making fun of the town earlier, calling the residents “all rednecks” and later referring to them as being “so inbred they were turning blue.” But they hadn’t realized she was in her room and could hear them. Or else they figured she wouldn’t care; after all, she was just a guest there herself.

  “But, yeah, that woman,” the girl interjected into Taryn’s racing thoughts, “she was always weird. Always.”

  At first, Taryn thought she might be referring to Frieda Bowen. Taryn had heard Frieda was also staying at the motel, though she had a hard time believing it. But then, on instinct, she realized the girl was talking about Lucy. Sensing an opportunity, she ran with it. “She was kind of your town celebrity before she was your, er, celebrity, wasn’t she? Because of her books?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I never read ‘em though,” she said. “And nobody never saw her. She didn’t, like, leave the house much. My mom said she used to get out and do stuff, used to go all over the country for book signings and to be on TV. But none of that went on in my life. She’s always been right there at that house by the school as long as I can remember.”