Don’t Go Looking

* This story contains implied physical violence and references to death, reader discretion advised*

Don’t Go Looking

“Yeah, yeah, no. We just checked in.” Val’s voice pipes up from the inn bathroom. “No, Mom, I promise we will be careful; how dangerous can it be, really?”

How dangerous can it be, really? Even as I sit here, staring off at the old wallpaper, yellowed with age and listen to the light crackle of a TV down the hall, I know the answer. How dangerous can an old inn, on the top of a hill, in an old coastal town really be? Very.

Or, at least we wouldn't be here if the answer was, ‘eh, somewhat.’

When Valerie had floated the idea that we do a small series on our podcast about a disappearance, just a few hundred miles from home, I was in. That was until she oh-so-sweetly informed me that she had already booked a room in the inn the victim was last seen in.

I don't like to think that I could survive a kidnapping, or whatever is going on here, I’m not that deluded. I know that if I had to fight for my life, in a horror movie, the last thing you would hear before the lights came back on and the movie went black would be the sound of a trigger being pulled and a safety being on. I would die defending myself, that's for sure.

But I would die, no question.

“Yeah, I know Mom, that's why I didn’t want to tell you.” Val admits, “I knew you would be upset,” she pauses listening to the tirade that is her mother, “No, no, no, do NOT come down here.” She huffs out, “Because I want to be taken seriously and no one is going to do that if I have mommy following me to all of my investigations.” She pauses again and I can hear that distinct shriek that Mrs. Amari has as it echoes from the receiver and bounces off the tile in the bathroom. Val sighs and I can hear the resignation in her voice, “Mom, I have to go.”

The bathroom door opens and Val had a bright smile on her face, acting as though the walls in this place are not paper thin. “That was Mom. She says hi.” She comes over to the bed, sits and throws herself back onto it in what can only be described as operatic dramatics.

A soft chuckle reaches my ears from behind me as my best friend wraps her hand around my bicep and pulls me back to lay beside her. We both devolve into giggles, all pretense that Mrs. Amari actually likes me, dropped.

I let out a sigh, one of those deep ones that leaves your throat feeling cold and your soul feeling satiated. I turn to her, looking her right in her mischievous baby-blues. “Oh, God,” I say, squeezing my eyes closed at the thought of what is going to come out of her mouth next. “What?”

“So, you know how I told you we would be hands off for this investigation, just focus on the real journalism?” She puts on a fake smile, and I can tell what is coming next before she even has to say it, “I lied.”

“Val,” I breathe out in exasperation, “What do you mean you lie?” I prop myself up on my elbows and glare daggers at my best friend as she does her best at playing coy.

“Well, we might be staying at the hotel that our last victim, Vikki, disappeared in. But that's not the gist of it.” Just as the words tumble out of her mouth in what can only be described as a confession, a headache takes up residence behind my left eye and I have to squint through the sunlight room.

“If you tell me this is more than it seems, one more time, I am going to take the car keys and drive home without you,” I say, a gruff undertone making its way into my voice. We had been arguing about the ‘facts’ of the case for a few days now and had finally left it at a stalemate.

To Val, this case is our chance to go pro, to get our grubby little hands into the fortune that is supposed to be podcasting.

From my perspective, we are trying to help find these poor people, and try as I might I can't help but worry that Val is seeing more than there is to see here, simply because she's hoping for it.

The area has a lot of missing person cases; that's what happens in small coastal towns. It’s a lot easier to pull someone onto a boat, never be seen again, than it is to throw them in a car and drive.

The only thing that both of us can agree on, we are not here to break the case, we are here to tell the world that there is a case. At least I am not daft enough to think that this case is something two amateur, at best, journalists, with a microphone can solve.

Val’s got dreams; I’m realistic; we shouldn't work.

...

The sun cuts through the old lace curtains at the window, casting a stark slash of light across the, otherwise, dim room as I blink away the sleep from my eyes. The unfamiliar ceiling comes into focus, and I am okay and in one piece for the time being. Val's soft breathing, next to me, grounds me as I slowly flex and unflex my hands; some fears never quite leave you.

Just as I will myself to close my eyes and sleep in for the first time in ages, I hear voices. They are screaming, vaguely muffled by the dirty window, very angry for this early. I chastise the investigative side of my personality as I slowly creep out of bed and try my best to open the window just a hair, enough to hear the argument in its bitter glory.

“Aaron, we can't keep ignoring this problem,” there is a pause and I can hear as a woman advances on, who I can only assume is Aaron. “People are going to start connecting the dots, and this place will be even more of a ghost town. I’ll have to close the Inn, your restaurant will go under. We will all fall apart.”

I don't know if it is the panic in her voice, or my own traitorous heart, but I slowly shift to a crouch, getting a better view of the pair: Aaron, an older man with a greying beard and the hostess for the Inn we are staying in, Minny, I think.

“I’m not saying we ignore it,” Aaron reaches up and runs his hands through his hair, a deep frown creasing his brows. “The last time we had someone poking around, trying to figure it out, they disappeared. I am just recommending that we let the same thing happen. We don’t intervene like we did with Vikki.”

I take in a sharp breath, the sound out of my mouth before I can snatch it back, and the hushed conversation goes completely silent. Before I can process what I have done, Aaron makes full eye contact with me as I stare down at him through the window.

I scramble back as fast as I can, not bothering to close the small gap in the curtains, and lose my balance, smacking the back of my head on the floor with a reverberating thud.

I hear as Val scrambles out of bed, finding me on the floor with a worried look, “Sam, what the hell?” The deep, concerned, furrow of her brow jolts me back into action. I scramble on my hands back into the door. Slowly, I motion for Val to be quiet and make sure the door is locked.

I point to the chair at the ancient desk, against the wall, and Val silently pads over and wedged it under the doorknob.

“What the hell is going on?” she whispers, her strawberry-blond hair falling forward into her face, highlighting the fact to me that we are far too innocent and far too old to be this stupid.

“They were arguing outside: they were angry that we are here, they know what is happening, the disappearances; you’re right, there is something more to them.” My eyes burn as the gravity of the situation falls on me; they saw me, they know where we are, who we are. They could be on the other side of the door for all I know.

Val crouches down at my side, putting a cold hand on my face, and I lean into it. I close my eyes and when I finally have the will to open them, I see something.

A band of dirty, braided fabric sticks out from under Val’s nightstand.

A burning arc of electricity crawls under my skin as I crawl over and reach for it.

“Is that a wallet?” she asks, her voice quiet.

I flip it open, and my heart stops at the face staring back at me, “Vikki Crowe.” My eyes widen as I toss the wallet to Val. She looks back at me with twin fear. “We need to leave!” I exclaim quietly.

Val doesn't argue; she takes the wallet, tosses it into her suitcase. We are packed in less than a minute.

My heart hammers on my ribcage as the old hinges of our door scream in protest as we slowly open it. Val stands behind me, pole taken from the bedpost in a white-knuckle grip in her hands.

We both sit there, the color draining from our faces, as we wait for any sign that Aaron or Minny are up here, waiting to ambush us. To our surprise there is nothing. Even the faint static from the TV is gone; there is no creak of someone stepping on the old wooden floor, no sound as someone breaths around the corner, nothing.

I feel Val silently prod me forward with the pole, and I take a shaky breath, slowly moving down the stairs. Every time our weight lands on a loose board with a creak, we pause, listen, and move faster. 

...

We can’t just leave. We know if we do that our expected fate will just befall another unsuspecting soul. So, when we get to the car we throw it into drive and we don’t skip town, we move further into it.

The archive room the favorite place for any journalist worth their salt, in a small-town stares back at us. My headache worsens with every passing second I don't have coffee running in my veins, but we don't exactly have time to stop and chat with a barista, so we are here, freezing in the early morning cold coming off the coast.

No one was here to let us into the library, but the door was open, so we took it as an invitation. This place is eerily quiet, and the most up-to-date technology is a huge computer that I suspect still runs on dial-up. We sift through the public records, looking for anything with keywords like missing or disappearing.

An article from 1984, discreetly placed between an announcement about a big town election win and a coupon for a steak dinner at a local tavern, finally gives us a thread to pull on.

It's just three paragraphs long.

A blurb about a woman’s car being found on the side of the road with no one inside.

She had left everything in her car: her maps, her wallet, and the keys were still in the ignition.

We don't stop, we find seven more articles, all placed discretely in news columns. None of which are the same, one woman gone from family home when she was in town visiting. A man who went out to walk his dog, the dog came back, leash trailing behind her. A young girl was abducted from a school parking lot while she smoked a cigarette between classes. A nurse, for the only town clinic sighted that a patient had gone out a window after ripping out her IV.

All of them have never been seen again.

“I think we have what we need.” Val says, smacking the old copier as it coughs out a copy of each article.

I want to agree with her, I really do. But what do we have? A loose understanding that this small-town has more issues among its fifteen hundred residents than most major cities? The dawning realization that we might have bitten off more than we can chew? These cases are only loosely connected, which leaves us with some very terrifying options. My gut’s telling me to run because it knows what we are dealing with.

This is not just one person ripping up tourists.

This is a noose tied around the neck of the whole town. A big red warning sign telling me that there is more than one suspect.

Maybe the whole damn town.

...

“So, we need to find this Matthew guy, see what he has to say.” Val says, folding her arms over her chest to ward off the cold air as we walk back to the car.

“Val, that's an awful idea; we need to go home, do some investigating, dig deeper and then contact the police.” I know as I say it that she won't go for it, that she will protest every mile home if we leave it like this. I yank the car door open and close it behind with a loud thud, wincing at the noise.

“All I am saying,” Val starts, throwing open the passenger side door, “is that we don't have enough for an episode. We don't have enough for an Instagram post at this point.” She huffs out a breath, blowing a strand of blonde hair out of her face. “We can’t just leave-”

“Shh, shut up, shut up,” I motioned for her to duck down and close my eyes tight.

Val goes to peek above the dashboard but I swat her back down, “What is it?” she asks glaring at me.

“Aaron,” is the only response I have in me.

We both wait, breaths held as footsteps get louder on the gravel parking lot outside. A loud knock on the driver's side window makes both of us jump, and we see Minny, waving politely with a smile on her face.

“Shit, what do we do?” Val whispers, her face ghostly white.

“Girls are you okay?” Aaron says from outside my window, “You seem spooked.”

I look over at Val, tucking my dark bangs behind my ear and putting on the best ‘this is normal we are not going to die’ face that I can manage. “Oh, we’re fine, thank you.”

They don’t move, barely even blink. The silence stretches on for so long I feel the need to move, shifting in my seat.

“Mind rolling down the window?” Aaron chuckles, a smile reaching his eyes.

I look over at my best friend, take a deep breath, and reach toward the controls. “What can I do for y'all?”

...

“Okay we are on in three, two, one.”

The technician, off-screen, motions to the teleprompter, and I read a small message. “In breaking news around the world today, two podcasters, the minds behind ‘Cold Cases and Other Unsolved Mysteries’ were found dead this morning in a forest near their most recent investigation. This comes following a cryptic post to their social accounts late last week; we are going to play the video, but viewers are advised, this is not something you want to see, to if you are alone.”

The video plays on the screen, primed for a reaction. It’s a woman, dark hair, in her mid-twenties. There is dirt smudged across her face and a gnarly gash across her forehead.

“Val,” she screams, running through a thick forest. She trips and you can hear her curse as the phone goes flying. There is a scrambling noise as she picks it up, looks at the camera, and takes a shaky breath, running still.

“This place is full of monsters, but they aren’t the ones we are taught to fear as kids; they are the ones we are taught to trust. The Inn Owner, the man who runs the restaurant in town, the PTA, your neighbor, your classmates, they are all suspects. They’ve been killing people here for years.” She stops talking, looking back over her shoulder and the fear on her face increases tenfold, “Their coming, I don't have much time, just know it is not what it seems. There are innocent people dying here, and if you are seeing this, I am probably one of them. Don’t let these monsters continue unchecked. They are evil. They are bloodthirsty, stay away from this down, hell, burn it down to the ground.”

The girl trips, and I shrink in on myself as she screams, and the phone thuds to the ground at her side. The birds in the trees take off in all directions, and there is a figure, barely visible around the frame of the video, dressed in black, face covered, heavy steps. The girl scrambles for the phone, and we get one last look at her terrified face as she stops the video and then posts it for the world to see.

I shift in my seat, pulling my collar away from my throat with a gulp. “The recording amassed nearly fourteen million views before it was taken down late the following day.”

The screen shifts to an ariel view of the town, "Authorities have confirmed the area has flooded with investigators, seasoned and amateur alike. No evidence has yet to support the allegations made in the video.”