Sheri Almond was seated on the end of the bed, taking notes on a small pad of paper. His eyes were shifty like he didn’t believe anyone, and he was right not to. We were all lying.
“And you’re sure he didn’t hurt you?”
“No, he just scared me.” I grabbed the glass of water from the nightstand and sipped. It went down like I was swallowing a potato.
He nodded and scribbled in his notepad. “When do you leave, Grace?”
My hands shook as I placed the glass back on the coaster. “ e day after tomorrow.”
“Good.”
“Good?” I questioned.
“It’s just better you leave. I’ve got a sixth sense for trouble, and this ranch reeks of it.” He squinted his eyes, punctuating his warning to me.
“Am I safe here?”
e sheri sucked on his front teeth, trying to decide on what to say, what the right answer was, if there was a right answer. He couldn’t go around throwing accusations he had no proof of.
“You’ll be all right,” he nally landed on. Sheri Almond closed up his little notepad and slid it into the front pocket of his shirt. He stood, pulling a card from his belt. “If you need anything, and I mean anything, call me,” he said, handing over his business card.
I ipped it over several times in my hand, deciding if I should tell him
anything more. Was what Joe said true? Was Calvin driving the night Lisa was killed? Had he framed his own brother? Joe said he didn’t remember anything, so how would he know? And what had Charlotte told him? Whatever she said could have been a lie. She was so hurt by Calvin rejecting her, she’d probably do just about anything to hurt him back. en, there was the missing woman. I looked up at the sheri .
“What about that woman? Have you found her?” I asked.
He furrowed his brow. It was clear he hadn’t, and I could tell it pained him.
He looked haunted by the unsolved case.
“Not yet, but we will.” Sheri Almond twisted a thick strand from his mustache. “Have you noticed anything unusual around here?”
I considered his question. e words sat at the tip of my tongue—the clothes in the dresser, the woman’s scream, the locked basement door—but I swallowed them. “I’m from New York. Most everything here is strange to me,” I landed on.
He folded in his lips and nodded. “If you do notice anything, you have my number.” e sheri turned on his foot and walked to the door. “Want this open or closed?”
“Closed,” I said.
He tilted his head and left the room, shutting it behind him.
I turned the card over and over in my hands. He didn’t say I was safe here. He said I’d be ne. Fine. I plucked my book from the nightstand and slid the business card inside of it.
I’ll be ne. I’ll be ne. I repeated it over and over until I started to believe
it.
Outside, the roar of engines startled me. Peeking out the window, I saw Joe
seated in the back of a police cruiser. e vehicle pulled out, then Sheri Almond’s, and then Calvin’s truck.
Without thinking, I swung my legs out of bed, tiptoed toward the door, and listened for a moment. When I heard nothing, I slowly opened it and
stuck my head out, peering down the long hallway. e house was quiet. e
oorboards creaked beneath me as I crept across them. “Calvin,” I called out. “Are you here?”
Silence.
I’ll be ne. “Albert,” I said.
ere was silence save for the creaking the house made on its own, like little warnings to those inside of it.
I stopped in front of the door leading to the basement. e one area of the ranch that was o -limits. But why? I placed my hand against it—willing it to tell me what was on the other side. What did Calvin not want me to see? What was he hiding? I slid a hand into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out a bobby pin. After twisting and bending it, I slid the pin into the keyhole of the door. I took a deep breath and got to work. I needed to know what was down there. I needed to know what he was hiding.
After a few minutes, the lock popped. e open door revealed a set of decrepit wooden stairs jutting out. Moisture and the smell of mildew hung heavy in the air. A metallic tinge wafted into my nostrils, permeating every breath I took. I ipped the light switch on the wall at the top of the stairs, but nothing illuminated the dark cavern below. Pulling out my phone, I turned on the ashlight (the only thing it was good for in this house) and slowly descended the steps. e damp old wood absorbed my weight. As my line of sight dropped below the walls, I began to make out large mounds scattered across the space before me; stacks of boxes mixed with various unknowns formed a jagged and misshaped mountain range, a miniature remake of the mountains just aboveground, beyond the river. e place was the creation of a hoarder who collected various treasures with no intention of relinquishing them. I weaved my way along the path cut through the junk, trying to nd anything of importance. I waved my phone, and then I noticed something very odd for a basement in someone’s home: pairs of eyes, yellow and dead, following me. My body froze to listen for movement or breathing. Nothing. I
wanted to turn back and run but curiosity got the better of me, and I charged
forward. As I moved around another stack of boxes, a massive cobweb planted itself across my face.
“Ahh, gross, gross, gross,” I squealed and jumped back, knocking into a
tower of junk.
I turned to see what I had bumped into, but there were those eyes again, no more than a foot in front of me, paired with razor-sharp teeth, bearing down at me. I put my hands up to block my face and shrieked but . . . nothing happened. I reopened my eyes, and there it was, still in the same spot. Looking at it closer, I realized what it was. A stu ed raccoon. How the hell were there more of these down here? Did he switch them out for each season?
ere were other pairs of eyes across the room, and I quickly went to inspect each of them. A weasel, a badger, a coyote, all stu ed and dead, staring me down from somewhere beyond.
I reached out to touch one of them. It was sti and its coat was coarse.
Backing away from the dead creatures, I bumped into another stack of boxes. Inside the top one was a hodgepodge of junk: old books, a belt, a small shing tackle box, and a stack of photos. I collected the pictures, ipping through them. e rst was a picture of Joe and Calvin out by the river with shing poles in their hands. ey had to have been teenagers in it. e next one was Calvin, Joe, and an older man and woman. e older man was unusually large with a stern face full of frown lines. e older woman was petite and beautiful with long brown hair. She wore way too much makeup—more than she clearly needed unless she was trying to cover something up. A forced smile was plastered across her face. ese were their parents.
e next photo made my mouth drop open and my hands relax. All the pictures fell to the ground. I stared down at the collage of photos, my eyes glued to the one on top. e one that revealed a lie. I bent down slowly and picked it up, bringing it closer to my line of sight. Calvin and Joe were seated on a bench. Calvin had to have been around eighteen. Sitting in a chair beside them was a much younger Albert without the rosacea. He was all smiles. I
turned the photo over and discovered the handwritten message on the back.
Summer of ’ . Calvin, Joe, and Uncle Albert.
I slid the photo into the back pocket of my jeans. Albert was Calvin’s uncle. He lied to me. He wasn’t his Airbnb guest, not some guy passing through. He was family. Why would he lie about a thing like that?
I picked up the rest of the photos and tossed them in the box, closing it back up.
Making my way through the path, I had every intention of going back upstairs, but something else stopped me. A large notebook sat on top of a tote.
e words Calvin’s Guest Book were written in thick black letters on the cover.
My ngers grazed over them.
Each page was lled with names and dates. I quickly gathered that the dates were check-in and checkout times, beginning one year ago. I found the last page and ran my nger down it, reading the names. Cristina Colton stuck out because the rest before it were all male names. en Kayla Whitehead. I remembered Calvin’s words: I don’t really get any female guests. Kayla had been a guest just nine weeks before me. My eyes moved down the page and when I got to the last row I gasped. e words were written neatly with a heart over the letter i. e check-in column had a date. e checkout column didn’t. e
nal name on the page was Bri Becker. Calvin lied about her. She was here,
and according to this guest book . . . she never left.
A car door slammed outside. I jolted and quickly closed the guest book, putting it back where I found it. I ran to the stairs but before I ascended them, I stopped. Something behind the open staircase caught my eye. A folding table sat behind it. Several guns, knives, and bullets were laid out, an arsenal for mayhem. I picked up the small handgun and turned it over and over again. I set it back down, and my ngertips slid over a large hunting knife. e blade was curved, and the handle was wooden. It appeared homemade. I held it, studying it closely. ere was a red tint to the edge of the blade as if it weren’t cleaned properly the last time it was used. I backed away from the table with the knife in hand and quickly ran up the stairs, closing and locking the
basement door behind me.
I slid the knife and photo under the mattress and crawled into bed. I could feel my heartbeat everywhere in my body—from my feet to the back of my head. I’m not sure how long I laid there. Maybe ten minutes. Maybe twenty. When I didn’t hear footsteps, I sat up and pushed the curtains aside. I nearly screamed when I saw the ghostly gure standing in front of the house, dressed in a long white nightgown. It was dark out, and it took a few seconds to realize it was Betty. She swayed side to side, staring at the house. I considered staying in bed, but I needed to see what she was doing here.
A few moments later, I was standing in front of her. She hadn’t even noticed
me. Her eyes were laser-focused on the ranch like she was seeing something that no one else was privy to. I was about to speak when she started to mumble. I stepped closer, trying to hear what it was she was saying.
“ e house is evil. It infects everyone,” she said just above a whisper. “Nothing good happens here.”
“Betty, are you okay?”
She didn’t react. She just continued whispering. “You shouldn’t have come here because now I’m not sure you’ll be able to leave.”
“Betty,” I said again, but this time I grabbed her hand.
She inched and let out a gulp, like all the air had been sucked out of her body. She blinked several times. I must have come into focus for her because she turned her head toward me almost robotically.
“Grace, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I said.” Betty shook her head and took a step back, bringing her hands to her face. She rubbed at it violently like she was trying to wake herself from a bad dream. I was going to tell her to stop but my voice got stuck in my throat. Betty turned and scrambled toward her vehicle.
“Please don’t tell Calvin I was here.”
Before I could clear my throat and ask her what she meant, she was backing her car down the driveway. I stared up at the ranch. It looked di erent now.
A truck rumbled in the distance. I sprinted back into the house and closed
the bedroom door behind me just as the engine shut o outside. When I
reached for the lock, it was then that I noticed what Calvin had done. e handle had been installed the wrong way. Instead of locking others out, it would lock me in. It was no longer a bedroom. It was a cage.
