Chapter One

Clu

Ever since childhood, Clu Campbell hated goodbyes, and tonight proved no different. He wanted this moment to be his last memory; a comforting remembrance to take with him, but events didn’t unfold the way he hoped.

On the vacant Main Street of downtown Oneida Valley, Friday night could be mistaken for a quiet Monday or Tuesday. Lone Halloween decorations of jack-o’-lanterns and witches taped to store front windows fluttered in the breeze. The streetlights cast a dull, green-yellow haze over white bed sheet ghosts hanging beneath. Flickering neon illuminated a sign. RICK’S PUB.

At twenty-nine, Clu appeared several years younger. The red light from the neon sign colored his baby face as he stepped out onto the sidewalk, revealing a brief grin that veered downward into a frown. He jabbed at his phone’s recent calls list before cramming it into his pocket in a huff.

“He still didn’t call?” Marcus said.

Clu’s on-again, off-again partner towered next to Mandy, his inseparable best friend since middle school.

Clu shrugged. “Not even a text.”

“He will,” Mandy said. “First thing in the morning I bet.”

“You don’t know my brother like I do. He said he would make an effort, but this has been his M.O. for the better part of a decade.”

Marcus rubbed his hand along Clu’s arm. “Family dynamics are hard. Try not to let it bother you.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Clu said, as lightning flashed blue along the peaks of the distant mountains.

Marcus slid his hand into Clu’s and squeezed. “I can’t believe you’re leaving.”

“Me either. But good things are happening. D.C. is only four hours away. I’ll be back soon enough.” Clu wrapped his arm around Marcus’ waist.

Mandy, leaning with her shoulder on the front of the building, brushed a tear from her cheek and diverted her stare to the sidewalk.

“I sure as hell hope not,” Marcus replied. He pulled back and folded his arms. Clu recoiled.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t want you coming back here, you know—to this town. I don’t want to find you working at the Gas n’ Go in two years.”

“Maybe I like Gas n’ Go.” Clu grinned and placed his hand on his hip.

“I will kick your ass!” Marcus wagged his finger and snickered.

Clu’s voice lowered. “Maybe I’d like that too,” he said, leaning in to give Marcus a kiss. As he pulled away, he forced a small smile with his lips pressed tight. “I gotta go.”

Marcus dropped his head and squeezed his eyelids so tight deep wrinkles formed all around and across his forehead. Clu gave Mandy a big hug.

“I’m going to miss you so much. I’m coming out to see you the first chance I get.”

“I’m holding you to that, Mandy.”

Clu slid his hand down her arm and gave her a feeble wave. He ran to Marcus and planted one last kiss on his lips and walked away.

“Don’t look back,” he muttered. “Keep walking.”

He walked past the window of the Health Mart and paused. His first job. Still the same. A time capsule; sealed and buried, this entire town unchanged. His whole life, spent right here inside of it. He almost felt sad leaving his past behind. Almost.

He shivered and rubbed his arms. Unsettling pitch black crept around him as he walked further from the dim streetlights, like walking into the basement as a child after watching a marathon of horror movies with his brother. He tried to convince himself he was old enough to watch them without having nightmares or visions of terrifying demons jumping out at him from the shadows, but he was aware he fooled no one. Most definitely not himself. He told himself demons didn’t exist. They were created with some movie magic, prosthetic makeup, and a dash of CGI some poor shmuck whipped up on his computer in a Hollywood studio. He knew they weren’t real with every fiber of his being and synapse of his brain, but they looked real as hell. So, he walked, slow and cautious, to the basement, surveying every corner, every nook and cranny. One careful step at a time, running his hand along the banister while avoiding old sneakers and dodging brooms and mops hanging on the wall. He tiptoed to wherever he needed to go, all the while checking over his shoulder—before making a mad dash for the door, taking the steps two at a time. He survived. Because evil demons in the shadows weren’t real. He knew that.

Low-hanging fog crept in from the darkness, blanketing the streets and sidewalks. Clu followed past Lombardi Pizza to the intersection of Main and Second Street and turned one last time as Marcus walked into the bar. Mandy, smoking a vape pen, blew out a huge plume of vapor that distorted her face and grew to engulf her. The blanket of fog lifted higher from the ground and expanded around him.

The stale air filled with a familiar, but unsettling, chemical bitterness. He pinched his nose in disgust and squeaked out, “ew,” from his sour lips.

Clu cupped his hands around his eyes like makeshift binoculars and peered up the steep hill of Second Street towards Our Lady of Peace Church. No signs of traffic, only the faint glow from the streetlights. He wandered out onto Second Street and a car barreled past, missing him by inches. His body and arms swung around and threw him off balance, but he caught his footing.

“Damn, man, watch it!” he yelled at the car, well out of range. His fingers tingled with adrenaline. With a shaking hand, he wiped away the perspiration beading along his hairline, and hurried to the other side of the street. “Asshole,” he mumbled in a low voice.

A voice in the distance called to him and he stopped dead in his tracks. He cocked his head towards the sound, but it stopped. As he walked down Second Street, part of him wanted to ignore the voice, go to his truck, jump in, and drive to D.C. Leave this goddamn town tonight. Leave now and go.

But the muffled sound of voices spoke again. Voices…talking to him. Unnatural voices, hard to establish. They weren’t real, he convinced himself. He didn’t want to hear them anymore.

The fog thickened and enshrouded the surroundings. The odor in the air grew stronger, leaving a bitter sting in his mouth. Similar to the sulfide stench of industrial pollution permanently filling the air in the next town over. The one he rolled up his windows and held a sleeve over his mouth when he drove through. But this smell wasn’t right. He’d seen weird shit go on in this town and heard stories so weird he never thought of them as anything but exaggeration. The myths of a small town where nothing ever happened.

The silhouette of a strange man stood in the fog. Coming across in a low rumble, the voice fought to make itself heard, like a person screaming for help with a gag over their mouth. Clu flinched. The voice spoke again. This time clear.

“Before you go…retribution is due.”

Clu’s mouth dropped open, and his lip quivered. “Who—what the hell are you?”

As if in answer, the fog swirled clockwise around in a vortex and raised up in a vast arch, revealing the corner of Main and Second Street where he stood moments ago. He traveled past the intersection at the next block of River Road and Second Street, over the guardrail and railroad tracks, through a grassy patch, and to the muddy embankment surrounding the Oneida River, without realizing it.

Fog filled around him, and in his head. His vision blurred. A dull pain thumped right behind his retina. Doubled over in anguish, he squeezed at his temples with the palms of his hands and let out a painful gasp. His vision faded in and out of focus. Voices screamed, drawn out vowels and syllables in his skull were like a roaring train.

The stale, bitter chemical scent permeated and burned his nostrils. He remembered the smell from deep in the long-term storage of his mind. As a child. Five years old. The odor seeped into his bedroom as he laid under the covers of his bottom bunk bed. But outside of his bedroom…the commotion. The screaming. He had locked himself in his closet and covered his ears. But that’s all he could recall. Or wanted to.

He gagged when the chemicals reached his taste buds, and still bent over, his stomach full of drinks churned as if the liquid concoction might spill out on the ground. His skin grew cold and clammy. He drank too much tonight, he determined. But no more than any other night out. About four beers and two Jack and Cokes over four hours. More likely a creep put sedatives in his drink. A similar occurrence happened to him years ago at a club a few towns over. He remembered having two drinks and waking up the next day in his bed with Mandy crashed on his couch. With one hell of a hangover.

Clu fell to his knees and toppled over to his hands. He grabbed at the ground beneath him, to find himself no longer on the dirt path to the river embankment, but on pavement. The wind increased and cold air blew straight through him. He wanted this madness to be over.

The fog thinned out to reveal a guardrail, painted teal with chunks of weathered rust popping through it, in front of him. A constant, rushing, rippling came from the distance. Clu jumped and ran over to the guardrail. The water of the Oneida Valley river gushed and sped by like raging rapids below him, and he stood above, dead center in the middle of the Oneida Bridge, when the voice spoke again. With a scream. Hard to decipher. Gruff. From across the bridge, out of the dark.

“Who’s there? What the hell is happening to me?” Could this be the demon in the shadows of his basement, ready to jump out at him? Couldn’t be. He didn’t believe in those irrational childhood fears anymore. Demons in the shadows weren’t real, and he knew that.

Clu waited. His body trembling.

The tone changed. Familiar and comforting. “You’re not going to say goodbye to your brother before you skip town?”

Clu shook his head and stood straight. His mouth dropped.

“Van?…but how?”

Out of the shadow of fog stepped Van. Clu’s rapid pulse eased to normal. His trembling hand steadied. The anger towards his brother from moments ago, vanished. He jumped to his feet, but his brother stood at a distance. His hollow expression gave him an unsettling, lifeless stare. How did Van know he’d be on this bridge? Regardless, his brother returned home.

“You’re home. You kept your word.”

“You…mom…the past. Means nothing to me anymore.”

Clu hesitated. “How could you say that?”

Before he received an answer, Van vanished. Fog swirled in his place. Instead of dissipating, the cloud grew, and arched high over his head before rushing to the road. Clu planted his feet and readied himself to run. A figure again stepped out of the shadow of fog. A solid black silhouette in the shape of a man. Crackling particles of light swirled around his contours. The air sucked in around him and swallowed the light. Behind, a red car screeched to a stop. The passenger door creaked open. Clu recoiled against the cold steel of the handrail. The figure expanded into a spiraling hole above him. Mesmerized, Clu gazed into the endless chasm. Glowing eyes stared. Black, oozing appendages writhed within a hulking mass.

It was the last moment Clu would remember.