Tallow Creek

It was raining when we got to Tallow Creek, a town straight out of some creepy storybook. Mom said we had to move here, but the minute I saw the flickering yellow streetlights through the passenger window—and the townspeople clinging to the shadows like they were hiding from something—I knew something was off. The streets were empty, eerily so, and it was only seven o’clock. Back home, lights would spill from the windows, people would be walking, laughing, the air full of life. But not here. Here, everything was too quiet. The air felt heavy, the kind of heavy that presses down when you just know something bad is about to happen.

We unpacked for two days without saying much. By the third morning, Mom was already at the clinic. She was always into her work, which wasn’t such a bad thing. Mom has a big heart, but it meant I was on my own a lot. She would have come with me to school if I let her, but I kind of liked being on my own. I also didn’t want my first day of school with my mom there.

School wasn’t far from our house, so I walked there. The school was a small brick building with wide stairs leading up to the front doors. Kids hung out on the steps and the walkway until the bell rang. It was weird, though—nobody looked at me, not even a glance. Usually, the new kid in an unfamiliar place is the talk of the town. I know because we’ve moved a lot.

I felt like a ghost walking through a faded crowd. Everyone seemed to wear gray, black, or some washed-out color. My darker skin and blue jeans made me stand out in a way that tightened my chest. What was it about this place? Everything here just felt…off.

The day dragged by like a gray cloud. Every classroom felt too still, too quiet. Even when the teacher asked questions, the other kids spoke in soft, careful voices, like they didn’t want to disturb the air. When the final bell rang, I almost ran out the door just to hear my own footsteps.

It had stopped raining, but the sky was still a dull sheet of silver. I decided to take the long way home, hoping I’d catch sight of Mom at the clinic. My backpack was heavy with books, so I shifted it on my shoulder as I walked.

That’s when it happened — the strap slipped, and one of my books tumbled out, landing in a puddle.

Before I could grab it, someone bent down and picked it up. A man — or maybe a teenager, I couldn’t tell. He wore a dark coat that hung too long on him, like it had belonged to someone else.

“Thank you,” I said automatically.

The man froze. He looked at me, and something in his expression twisted. His lips pressed together, then pulled into a smile — wide, too wide — stretching his face in a way that made my stomach drop.

“No need to thank me,” he said, his voice calm but sharp around the edges. “It’s only right. We take care of our own here.”

I didn’t know what to say. His eyes didn’t blink. For a second, I thought maybe he was angry, but then he laughed, low and breathy.

“New here, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

He leaned in a little, still smiling. “You’ll learn.”

Before I could ask what he meant, Mom’s voice called from across the street. “Hey! I thought that was you!”

The man’s smile dropped in an instant. He straightened, placed the book carefully into my hands, and stepped back. When I turned to look again, he was already halfway down the block, his long coat swaying like smoke behind him.

Mom didn’t notice any of it. She just smiled, tucking a strand of damp hair behind her ear. “Come on, kiddo. I could use some help carrying supplies into the clinic.”

I looked back once more, but the man was gone. Only the puddles remained — and my reflection in them looked just as pale as the sky.

I carried a box in for my mom, but that strange interaction clung to me like a dark ghost I couldn’t shake. My chest tightened every time I remembered that man’s smile — too wide, too wrong.

Inside, Mom was talking to her secretary. Patients had already started checking in, and I could tell she was getting busy fast. The waiting room was nearly full, and every face seemed to blur into the same pale expression — quiet, polite, but somehow off. No one met my eyes. It felt like they all knew something I didn’t.

I thought about leaving, but something about the idea of my mom being here alone didn’t sit right. So I grabbed my bag and picked an empty chair in the corner, pretending to work on homework.

Time dragged. The room filled up more, though no one looked sick. They spoke in low murmurs, asking for “help,” but never saying what kind. Every so often, the door to the exam room creaked open, and Mom appeared — clipboard in hand, face drawn tight like she was trying to make sense of something she couldn’t name.

After one patient left, she paused near the front desk, rubbing her temple. Her eyes flicked toward me, unfocused, then back to the chart. I wanted to ask if she was okay, but before I could, another patient was already at her side.

I glanced around the waiting room again, and the realization hit me — the clinic felt just like the rest of Tallow Creek: too quiet, too careful, like the walls themselves were holding their breath.

Days passed, and the pattern started to take shape, even if Mom didn’t see it.

People came in for the smallest things — a headache, a cut, a sore knee — and left looking worse than when they arrived. Sometimes they had bandages or bruises they didn’t come in with. Once, I saw a man stumble out of Mom’s office holding his ribs like he’d been punched.

When I asked Mom about it, she frowned. “He was having muscle spasms,” she said, flipping through her notes. But I’d seen the look on her face when he’d left. Confused. Maybe even afraid.

Every day, more people showed up. They filled the waiting room like it was Sunday service. Some brought flowers. Others brought jars of homemade jam, loaves of bread, and small wrapped boxes. Gifts.

“It’s their way of saying thank you,” Mom told me.

But when I looked closer, I noticed something strange about the gifts — all of them were the same shades of pale yellow and brown, like they’d been sitting in someone’s cellar for too long. None of it looked fresh.

The secretary, Mrs. Greaves, started acting weird too. She’d smile at me, but her eyes would slide past mine, landing on something just over my shoulder. Once, when I asked her if Mom was busy, she said, “Your mother’s special. The town can feel it.”

I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t want to.

One afternoon, I sat in the waiting room again, trying to focus on my homework. A woman came in holding her arm, just a little bruised, nothing bad. She smiled at me when she checked in.

An hour later, she was carried out on a stretcher, unconscious.

I ran to the hall, but Mom stopped me.

“It’s fine,” she said quickly, too quickly. “She just fainted.”

Her voice was calm, but her hands were trembling.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those people — walking in quiet and leaving broken.

And Mom, standing in the middle of it all, pretending not to see.

The next morning, Mom said she’d be out late — she had to drive to the hospital in Millstone, the next town over, to check on a patient who’d been transferred.

“It’s routine,” she’d said, her tone careful. “You stay here and get some rest, okay?”

Routine. Sure.

But when she looked at me, I could tell she wasn’t convinced of her own words. Something in her eyes lingered — not fear exactly, but worry, like she knew more than she wanted to admit.

That’s when she told me not to come by the clinic.

Her voice was steady, but her eyes gave her away — tired, distant, like she’d been awake all night thinking about something she didn’t want to say.

“Just stay home today, okay? I don’t want you worrying.”

But I was already worried.

Something was wrong. I could feel it sitting heavy in my stomach, the same way the air felt when we first drove into town — like the world was holding its breath.

I wanted to listen. I really did.

Technically, I did.

I waited until the sky turned dark and the town lights flickered on one by one. Then I grabbed my jacket and slipped out. The streets were nearly empty, the same way they always were, but the silence felt different now — thicker, like the shadows were listening.

The clinic’s neon cross buzzed faintly in the distance, a pale blue glow cutting through the mist. I didn’t even have to think about it; my feet just moved.

I had to know what was happening in there.

I was able to get in with a simple lockpick. The dark clinic, while looking empty, didn't feel it. The darkness felt heavy, like shadows were watching my every move. Fear crawled up my neck, but determination to find something -- anything to prove we need to leave this creepy place kept me going. People just don't show up to a Dr office and leave in worse shape than they come in. Something was not right.

My mom's office was down the hall across from her exam room. I wouldn't be long. Just long enough to maybe look around and pull a couple of files. I snuck down the hall and unlocked her door, slipping in quietly and locking it behind me. Getting to work, I started going through my mom's files and notes. Almost every patient yesterday came in with mild symptoms from bruises to stomach aches and headaches -- yet they all left in worse conditions.

Was my mom hurting them? That just couldn't be -- she would never -- it had to be something else. Going through her desk, I found a picture of a man with the eyes scratched out. I flipped the picture over and read the faded handwriting on the back:

“Dr. Ellis — gone but not forgotten.”

My chest tightened. Dr. Ellis… the name sounded familiar. I’d seen it on one of the clinic’s patient forms, crossed out in black ink, replaced with Dr. Morgan, my mom’s name.

A cold draft slipped through the vents, and the light above the desk flickered once. I froze, listening. The clinic was silent, but not empty. It felt like someone — or something — was just outside the door.

I swallowed hard and went back to the files, my hands shaking as I flipped through the folders. Then I saw it — a patient chart dated just before we moved here. “Mild fever,” it said in my mom’s neat handwriting. Under Outcome, someone had written one word in a jagged scrawl that didn’t look like hers:

“Healed.”

But right below it, in faint pencil marks, someone else had added:

“Gone.”

A chill rippled through me. I shoved the folder back, but as I did, something caught my eye — a smear of dried red along the desk edge, like a thumbprint.

The doorknob rattled.

I had to hide. There was a closet in my mom’s office — small, half-filled with coats and supply boxes. I opened the door and slipped inside just as the office door creaked open.

Through the thin slats, I saw a sliver of light spill across the floor. My heart pounded so hard I was sure whoever it was could hear it.

Footsteps. Slow, careful. Whoever it was knew someone had been here. Papers rustled. A drawer opened, then shut.

I held my breath.

Then, a voice — low, smooth, too calm.

“Curious little thing, aren’t you?”

I froze. That voice wasn’t my mom’s. It was the man from earlier — the one with the too-wide smile.

“I told her,” he murmured, almost to himself, “outsiders shouldn’t meddle. They never understand how we care here.”

He laughed softly, a breathy sound that didn’t reach his words.

Something dragged lightly across the desk — the sound of a picture frame being turned. Then silence.

The light in the room flickered, dimmed, and finally went out.

I stayed in the closet, too scared to move, until I heard the soft click of the door closing again.

Only then did I step out, my legs shaking. The photo of the man with the scratched-out eyes was gone.

I didn’t stop to think. I ran.

Out the back door, through the rain, across the empty street where the streetlights flickered like dying candles. My shoes slapped against the wet pavement, each echo chasing me like footsteps that weren’t mine.

By the time I reached the house, my lungs burned. I slammed the door behind me and locked it, pressing my back against the wood like it could hold back whatever was out there.

When Mom finally came home later that night, I was still awake on the couch, pretending to read. Her hair was damp from the mist, and there was a tired smile on her face.

“You’re up late,” she said softly, setting down her bag.

I wanted to tell her everything — about the clinic, the files, the picture, the man in her office. But the words caught in my throat. How do you tell your mom something like that without sounding crazy?

She must’ve noticed how pale I was, because she crouched down beside me. “Hey,” she said, touching my arm. “What’s wrong?”

“I… I just don’t like it here,” I managed. “Something’s not right, Mom. We should go.”

Her smile faltered for just a second before she looked away. “I know it’s been hard,” she said. “But we can’t leave yet. The town needs me. People here are—” she paused, “—fragile.”

Fragile.

That word stuck in my head long after she went to bed.

The next morning, I woke to the sound of the phone ringing. I heard Mom’s voice in the kitchen, quiet but shaking.

When she hung up, she didn’t look at me. “One of my patients passed away last night,” she said.

My stomach dropped. “The woman with the bruises on her arm? –the one who left in the stretcher the other day?”

Mom froze, then nodded slowly. “She was fine when I left,” she whispered. “She just… stopped breathing.”

The room went still. Outside, the rain had started again — steady, cold, unending.

And I knew then that whatever was wrong with Tallow Creek wasn’t going to stop at the clinic.

Morning came, gray and wet. Mom didn’t notice how pale I was when she kissed my forehead. She was leaving for the hospital in Millstone — the same excuse she’d used before. But this time, I didn’t follow. I couldn’t. I had seen too much, and I knew the town was watching, waiting.

I stayed behind, peering out the window as the rain turned the streets into mirrors. The clinic’s neon cross buzzed faintly, flickering against the mist. People moved through the fog like ghosts, silent and deliberate. I could see them waiting, patient after patient, their smiles small, polite — practiced.

Something heavy settled in my chest. Tallow Creek wasn’t a town to visit. It was a trap. And my mom… she was right in the middle of it.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t call anyone — who would believe me? Even if they did, it wouldn’t matter. The town had rules I didn’t understand, and they didn’t care about reason. Only their version of “help” mattered.

The wind rattled the windowpane. The clinic door creaked open, and a figure stepped into the flickering light. I didn’t need to see the face to know who it was — or why.

I pressed my hands to the glass, silent, powerless, as the rain poured down.

And I realized, with a sinking certainty, that some stories don’t have happy endings. In Tallow Creek, help was a promise… and a warning.