Vance drove down the main road on the way home, staring strangely into the coffee shop before cruising past it.
When the three of them returned home, Ariella and Arkus joined Max on the couch to watch TV, Lumis still isolating himself in the storage room. Vance plopped down on his bed for a nap and fell asleep for a few hours. During this time, Jaxson finished his editing and uploaded the podcast, and Rodney returned home for the evening. After the many important tasks they’d all performed today, everyone’s energy seemed to wind down, and everyone’s day was coming to a peaceful and tired end.
Vance awoke sometime after nightfall, meandering into the living room and seeing that Ariella, Arkus, and Max had all fallen asleep crookedly across the couch, the three of them sitting lopsidedly, the TV still on. He scoffed out a laugh at the sight of them, then moved into the kitchen and pulled out a plastic container of leftover pasta to eat.
Just when he sat at the table and began eating his dinner, he paused, seeing a tired, gaunt-looking Lumis standing at the edge of the hallway.
“Ah… hey,” Vance uttered. “Morning. Or… evening.”
Lumis nodded, wandering forward and pulling out a chair. He sat across from Vance, intertwined his fingers, and glared fixedly at him.
“What…?” Vance mumbled, slurping up a loose pasta noodle.
“Something’s been bothering me,” Lumis replied in a soft, dark voice.
Vance slowly nodded. “Yeah. I know…”
“Not that,” Lumis responded. “Something else.”
Vance narrowed his eyes, waiting for him to explain.
“You knew that house… that house on the Hunter family’s property,” Lumis stated. “You can’t tell me when your parents were born, or what they looked like… or even what their names were. But… somehow… you knew that random house as well as you know your own home .”
Vance stared at him for a moment, swallowing his food and straightening up. “I really can’t control that…”
“I know you can’t… but it’s just too much of a coincidence,” Lumis told him. “Our last lead… our final possible suspects… and you just happen to know the layout of their home like the back of your hand.”
“What’re you saying…?” Vance asked.
Lumis stared intently into him. “And your headaches have gotten a lot worse ever since the Cutthroat Killer came back.”
“Bill,” Vance said seriously. “ What are you saying?”
“I’m saying… we should’ve resolved this by now,” Lumis replied flatly. “With every other case, you led me right to the perpetrator’s doorstep with no difficulty whatsoever. But this case, for some reason… you and I just can’t crack it. And I’m pretty sure I know why now.”
Vance took back. “Why, then…?”
“Because… the headaches are mental blocks , Vance,” Lumis said straightly. “That’s how trauma-based amnesia tends to work. Your memory loss never came from being hit in the head in Iraq. It came from a purely psychological source. I was never sure about that before, but now… now, there’s no doubt in my mind. And I’m pretty damn sure the Cutthroat Killer case is connected to your past somehow… because every time we come close to a lead, you end up with a migraine, and your magic hound dog senses suddenly cease to function.”
Vance gulped uncomfortably, scooting his pasta bowl away. “Well… what do you want me to do? I can’t just flick a switch and fix it.”
“No… but you and I need to brainstorm, and I need you to fight through this mental fog you’ve got going on,” Lumis replied. “I know that’s asking a lot of you, but this has gotta come to an end. All of it does.”
Vance sighed deeply, leaning on the table and thinking for a moment. “All right, well… you said that property was always owned by the Hunter family, right?”
“Yes, all the way back to the fifties. That house never belonged to any Callaghans.”
“So… the Hunters could’ve been friends to my family, or…”
“Or you were adopted, just like Ari.”
“You could just look it up,” Vance suggested. “Did you ever get the names of all the Hunters who used to live there aside from the missing couple?”
“The names of every single family member? No,” Lumis answered. “The couple were the only two people living in that house during the time of their disappearance. But, I can look up all the members of the couple’s family at the station tomorrow. I found numerous Hunters during all this, but if I limit the search only to people who ever lived in that house, I should be able to narrow it down. I mean, I’ve already done that, but it can’t hurt to try again. Might’ve overlooked something.”
“Well… good. Do that,” Vance said with a nod.
Lumis squinted at him. “Vance. Do you know your parents’ names? Do you have any idea where they could be?”
“Nope,” Vance answered, grabbing his bowl again and taking a bite. “I’m sure their names are on something around here. I know this house was my family’s before it was mine. It’s always belonged to the family. I know that much.”
“So you weren’t adopted,” Lumis determined. “All right… and you’ve got a lot of random knowledge about hunting. So, from that, we can determine that your parents probably used to drive you out to the Hunters’ property for hunting trips.”
“Guess so,” Vance shrugged, swallowing a gulp of food.
“Okay. Well… I’m going back to bed,” Lumis dismissed, standing and smacking the table.
He vanished down the hall, leaving Vance alone to finish his dinner.
Lumis sat alone in the darkened room, choosing not to lay back down yet, clasping his hands and surveying all of Vance’s military belongings, as well as the large flag and the gun cases, his mind working up a storm. Quite honestly, he was growing tired of sulking in this room and wallowing in the despair of his wife’s death.
He couldn’t help but delve into the unanswered questions, feeling incredibly driven to do so.
He needed to solve all the mysteries surrounding Gates Mill now—and strangely, somehow, many of them seemed to boil down to Vance Callaghan.
Lumis pondered on one of his last conversations with Marissa, when she revealed that Vance was discharged from the military after a shooting and an explosion took place. He had no further details about the event—but now, as he replayed the incident at Boomsday through his mind, it made plenty of sense. The way Vance reacted to any sort of explosions—he most assuredly could’ve endured a trauma related to the event Marissa spoke of.
And now, during the investigation of the Cutthroat Killer, Vance seemed to know the home of the final suspects flawlessly.
Lumis slowly stood, glaring into the military plaques on the wall.
“What the hell is your life, Vance…?”
After a moment of staring, Lumis turned, his eyes landing on the closet in the corner of the room. He sparked an idea, and he moved around the cots, hunching into the closet and quietly removing the boxes inside one by one. He spent some time opening them, finding random household items, more military supplies, and even a few more handguns that had been dismantled, packed away, and forgotten.
Then, he found a box filled with dusty old papers, envelopes, and mail packages.
Lumis sat on his cot again, pulling the old papers out and reading the names off them. None were addressed to Vance or Ariella, and all the paper seemed to be bent and yellowing in various shades, indicating they were fairly old.
He read over the envelope in his hand, which had been sent to 313 Colonial Avenue—this very address—back in 1983. The recipient of the letter was Victor Callaghan.
“Victor,” Lumis mumbled interestingly, digging deeper into the box.
After reading over a few more things sent to Victor Callaghan, Lumis found another envelope with a name on it—the same surname, but a different first name. The name on this envelope was Sarah Callaghan.
“Why has he never looked in here before…?” Lumis murmured to himself. “His whole damn life is packed away in this room…”
After a brief session of searching through Vance’s family documents, Lumis finally resolved to pack up all the papers and return them to their rightful places in the closet. He lay on his back atop the cot, gazing into the ceiling and vowing to return to the station tomorrow, no longer sulking alone in this room—and he would exhaust himself researching every single Hunter and Callaghan that ever lived in Gates Mill.
When Lumis was drifting off to sleep—Vance sat slacked back in his chair at the kitchen table, watching the TV show over the back of the couch absentmindedly for a while. After some time, Max woke up and rubbed his eyes, standing and wandering off to the back room where his bed was. Ariella and Arkus both remained slumped over sideways on the couch, Ariella snuggled into Arkus’s chest, both of them snoozing lightly.
Just when Vance yawned and moved to stand, his phone made a muffled ping from his pocket. He leaned back again, pulling out his prepaid and flipping it open.
He squinted at the phone’s small screen, seeing that he’d gotten a new text message and instantly thinking it peculiar. Everyone who knew him knew not to text; Vance only used phones for talking.
He pressed the center button, and the text opened up, reading:
She’s losing blood. Goldwater Estate. Better hurry up—and if I see Lumis or any other cops, I’ll slit her throat. Come alone or she dies.
“What the f…”
Vance leaned closer, narrowing his eyes at the tiny screen of his prepaid and seeing that the message had come from a restricted number.
Seconds later, another text message popped up.
Vance hit the center button again, and an image overtook his phone’s screen. The image depicted a familiar young woman hanging from a ceiling by her wrists, wearing only underwear, her body battered and bruised, face twisted up in anguish.
He jumped from his seat, the chair legs scraping loudly on the floor behind him. He then fell still in his stance, gripping the phone viselike, his heart beginning to pound with anxious anger, his eyes glued to the screen and his stomach turning.
After what felt like an eternity, he tore his gaze from the phone, staring down the hall, then at the couch, wondering what he should say or do.
His first instinct, of course, was to wake Lumis and call the police—but the texter stated plainly that he would slit Tammy’s throat if any cops arrived.
So, Vance swallowed, pocketed his phone, and snatched up his overcoat. He double-checked his 45 before marching out of the house with haste.
He leaped into his car, started the engine, and backed out of the driveway—then he drove like a madman on the night roads, not caring about the extra police presence in the town.
The farther he drove, the tighter he gripped the steering wheel, a slow-brewing anger rising up inside him.
He vaguely remembered where the Goldwater Estate resided; Mary Goldwater’s old halfway house was in an isolated area on the outskirts of town, long empty and abandoned ever since Mary’s death many years ago.
Vance drove the back road alone, scouring the street until he spotted a gravel driveway leading into the woods. He slowed down and drove into the forest, a gentle sprinkle of rainfall spotting his windshield as his headlights coasted over the darkened scene before him.
At first, there were only trees and gravel—but he soon spotted a monstrous, elegant building sitting in the distance, every window dark, the wide concrete walkway halfway overgrown with shrubbery, the two gargoyle statues at either side of the entrance crackled and weather-worn, moss and thin vines coiled around each one. He recognized the building perfectly from the front page of the newspapers from thirteen years ago—though now, the place seemed utterly worn and dilapidated compared to the pristine images of the past.
His heart was hammering madly as he ran every possible scenario through his head, rehearsing every move he could make and every possible consequence for his actions; he knew full well the police wouldn’t be happy with him for pulling a lone-wolf stunt yet again, but it hardly mattered now. A girl’s life was at stake.
After opening his glove box and slipping his hands into his gloves, Vance scanned every visible inch of his environment before opening his car door, slowly emerging and surveying the area attentively. The long rocky driveway led right up to a clearing in front of the Goldwater Estate, a clearing that was once a parking lot, now covered with grassy patches and tall weeds growing from the numerous pavement cracks.
He held his gun low, closing his car door quietly without bothering to power the vehicle off, as he preferred to keep the area illuminated with his headlights. Vance tightened his grasp on the gun, taking a slow stride toward the once impressive building, skimming over every nook and cranny of the darkened property, his heart bashing behind his ribs, his jaw twitching as he clenched his teeth with angry anticipation.
For a while, he stood in front of the two gargoyles, glancing around and seeing no hint of movement anywhere. A damaged concrete wall spread out from either side of the gargoyles, wrapping around the entire huge building and spanning extensively across either side of the property, but the wide concrete walkway was right in front of him, leading in between the two walls and directly up to the estate’s entrance, and there was nobody in eyeshot at all.
“Well?!” Vance barked madly into the night. “Come on, you little coward! I’m right here!”
He fumed into the darkness, awaiting a response, but seeing and hearing nothing all around him. If Tammy truly was bleeding out, then he knew he couldn’t waste much time out here—but he also knew better than to walk into a pitch-black building filled with rooms and corners, a place where he could easily be ambushed. Standing in the middle of this clearing with his headlights washing over him was a far safer place to be.
“Do you think I was born yesterday? Do you think they don’t prep you for ambushes in the military?!” Vance hollered furiously. “I’m not walking into that building, you little shit— you’re gonna come to me! ”
Moments after, a hint of movement finally caught his eye.
Vance held up his gun instantly—a cloaked figure slowly emerging from behind the concrete wall, wearing a white mask and easefully raising his hands.
“Freeze,” Vance ordered, stepping closer.
The hooded figure slowed to a stop, its white skull mask aimed directly at the PI, presumably staring at him.
A palpable tension erupted in the air between the two of them.
“Zane Jackson,” Vance uttered, inching steadily nearer. “Am I right?”
The figure kept his hands raised, but managed a shrug.
“Don’t fuck with me. I know who you are,” Vance snarled. “Where’s the girl?”
The figure shrugged again, motioning loosely to the building behind him.
“She alive?” Vance asked, taking another small step closer.
The figure shrugged a third time, instantly making Vance lose his patience.
Huffing angrily, he scowled, aiming at the ground and firing off a shot—a muzzle flash illuminating as the deafening noise echoed throughout the trees. The gunshot blasted rocks into the air less than a foot away from the figure’s leg, making him jump and scramble backward.
“ Is she alive? !” Vance asked again, this time taking a wide step forward. “You think I won’t shoot you? You think I give a good goddamn about the consequences? The last abusive bitch I came across— I shot down without a second thought . And I’ll be damned if I won’t do the same to you.”
The figure straightened up, holding up his hands again and rearing back, inhaling a long, deep breath. Then, the skull-faced killer released a terrible screeching howl into the night, bellowing as loudly as he possibly could.
Vance stared at the figure in total bewilderment—the screaming so loud, he couldn’t hear the shuffle of rocks behind him—
“ Agh! ”
Someone yanked the pistol from his hands—a wire tightening around his neck and cutting off his breath instantly.
Two more hooded figures were behind Vance now, one holding his pistol, the other tightening a thin wire around his throat, making his face fade red as he fought and struggled, his head going light as the stranger strangled him.
The hooded figure had a difficult time keeping a hold of Vance’s powerful movements—but he just barely managed to keep the PI tightly confined in a wire chokehold.
Skull-Face laughed and swaggered forward—and another gunshot made all of them leap from their skin—rocks flying into the air in the bullet’s wake.
“BACK OFF!”
Skull-Face and his cronies reared like cats, glimpsing around frantically in search of the new voice. Vance sank backward, his consciousness attempting to abandon him as the hooded David kept him in a tight bind.
“CUT HIM LOOSE—NOW!” Rodney bellowed, striding through the trees and brandishing his AR-15. “OR I SWEAR TO ALMIGHTY GOD, I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKIN’ HEADS OFF!”
Skull-Face and his followers stared at him silently, David choking Vance so tightly, his arms began to go limp.
Rodney grinded his teeth and took careful aim—a series of earsplitting shots exploding into the night—a bullet grazing David’s shoulder and making him shriek in agony.
David lost his grip on Vance—and he and Richard spun around, following the skull-faced Zane as they all darted away as quickly as their legs would carry them.
Vance’s handgun was dropped feet away as the three criminals fled the scene, Rodney shooting at their heels as they ran, Vance now lying on his back on the gravel, choking out a rough cough, his eyes clasped shut.
Rodney kept his sights aligned with the three criminals until they were far out of sight, then looked to Vance and quickly approached him. As he stepped into the beaming rays of the headlights, he was illuminated in full—wearing a fur vest he’d made himself, a long-sleeved camouflage shirt beneath it, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a Kevlar vest underneath and several mag-packs strapped onto him, his hands equipped with grip gloves. He knelt beside Vance, giving him a light smack.
“Boy—wake up,” Rodney yelled down at him. “You good? Still with us?”
Vance grasped his throat, wincing and coughing numerous times. As he blinked himself fully conscious, Rodney offered his hand, yanking him to his feet.
“Fuckin’a…” Vance rasped, straightening up and stroking his throat repeatedly. “Never… ever … been caught off-guard like that before…”
“Yeah, well… that’s how cowards fight,” Rodney told him. “No even matches. They’ve gotta sneak you and outnumber you three-to-one, or they can’t manage.”
Vance’s vision began to straighten out, his eyes fixating on Rodney and his expression warping into one of confusion.
“What’re you doing here…?” he asked, his voice as rough as the gravel he stood on.
“Well…” Rodney nodded sideways, pulling out his phone and holding it in front of Vance’s face. “I reckon the same thing you are.”
Vance read over the phone, which displayed the same text message and the same image that he himself had received.
“But… Zane never found out I was a, uh… gun enthusiast,” Rodney smirked, pocketing his phone and patting his rifle. “So… I imagine he thought I was just gonna wander out here and get killed like a helpless old bastard. No such luck for his sorry ass.”
Vance stared into him incredibly, and the longer he did, the more his head began to pound.
“Who are you?” he exhaled.
Rodney blinked. “Your daughter’s teacher.”
“No—I mean—really, who are you?” Vance pestered. “Every time I look at you, I swear to God, I—”
“Listen. We need to call the police right now,” Rodney stated, swatting loosely up at the old estate. “And we need to find Tammy as soon as possible. She’s in there somewhere. Come on.”
Rodney started toward the building, Vance grabbing his pistol and quickly following him.
“Don’t—don’t call the police,” Vance advised. “If they come out here and find Tammy strung up in that building—and they find Tammy’s teacher out here with an AR-15-then the warrant for Zane Jackson isn’t gonna matter. They’re gonna blame you—and probably me, too.”
“What makes you so sure?” Rodney asked, strolling toward the building briskly.
“Because the media is dragging the precinct’s reputation through the shit. The cops are getting desperate to pin someone for the crimes—and they almost pinned my ass for it once already,” Vance ranted as he walked. “This would be the final nail in the coffin. They’d pin one of us, or both of us. They have to pin someone soon or they’ll lose all credibility—and they won’t let that happen whether justice is actually served or not.”
“Mhm. That’s the right answer,” Rodney surmised, jiggling the old double-doors. “Here we go.”
Rodney and Vance traded a glimpse and smashed their arms into the doors in unison. They forced the doors open—revealing a wide, dusty interior filled with darkness, overturned furniture, and little else. Two curved stairways raveled up to the second floor on each side of the spacious room, and Vance quickly took the lead, strolling into the hallway beneath the stairways.
The two of them opened every rickety door they found, peeking into several old bedrooms that once belonged to the homeless folks Mary Goldwater took in many years ago, all of them now filled with clutter and dust. It wasn’t long before the two of them reached the second floor, peering into every room they passed by.
“Watch my six,” Vance instructed, moving forward. “God only knows if they’ve got a fourth accomplice hiding around in here.”
Rodney nodded, keeping a close eye on the hallway behind them as Vance approached the final room on the floor. He nudged the creaking door open, revealing a rounded, empty room, cobwebs in every corner, the window cracked, and a figure hung from the opposite corner—a girl, dangling by her wrists.
“Tammy,” Rodney breathed, quickly moving toward her.
Vance’s arm jutted out, pushing him back. “Wait.”
Rodney shot him a look, and Vance pulled his keys out, using the small flashlight that was fixed onto his keychain. He turned it on and shone a light over Tammy—Vance’s expression hardening, Rodney’s mouth drifting open in awe.
The girl hung lifelessly, Tammy’s mouth gagged, her throat sliced deeply, blood saturating her entire right side and beginning to dry. Her eyes were wide open, glazing over emptily, her head hanging sideways at a slumped, morbid angle.
A wicked nausea erupted inside both of them, Rodney stepping back and clasping his mouth, Vance’s visage stonier than ever.
“Don’t vomit,” Vance instructed, his voice now cold and hard. “Keep it inside. Leave no evidence that we were here.”
Rodney faced away, hunching over and leaning on the door’s frame, fighting the overwhelming sickness with all his might.
Vance drew closer to the hanging corpse, shining his flashlight over the girl’s stomach, where a series of tiny scars caught his eye. Two words were carved into her skin, shining red in his light. The carving read:
White Trash
Vance gulped painfully, stepping back and turning to face Rodney.
“We need to go now ,” he said flatly.
Rodney slowly raised his head, his face stricken with anger and remorse.
“We tried, but it was too late. I think she was dead before we even knew she was here,” Vance told him firmly. “But if we’re found here, we’re fucked. We’ll make an anonymous call to 911 from a payphone. All right?”
Rodney gave him a horribly conflicted stare. After a moment, he reluctantly nodded, and the two of them marched out of the room quickly. When they reached the outside, Vance skidded to a stop in front of his car, wheeling around to Rodney.
“Where’s your car?” Vance asked.
“Ah… on the side of the road, up that way,” Rodney mumbled with some difficulty, still fighting with his nausea, swatting toward the north. “I can walk—”
“No—get in the car,” Vance demanded, ripping his driver door open. “We both need to disappear as fast as possible. Let’s go.”
Rodney sighed, giving the building a final dark glance before climbing into Vance’s passenger seat. Vance drove forward and brought the car to a circular turn, speeding down the driveway without hesitation.
As he drove, Rodney pulled out his phone and tapped on one of his apps.
Vance glimpsed over at him. “Don’t call the police right now. We’ll do it from a payph—”
“When was the last time you saw a damn payphone, boy?” Rodney griped in response. “I’m pretty sure there’s all of two of them left in Gates Mill, and they’re both clear across town. We don’t need one. I have an app and a VPN.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means I can call and text from a fake number, and my phone can’t be tracked. I can make the call right now.”
“Oh. Well, go ahead, then… but try to disguise your voice a bit.”
“That won’t be a problem… considering I…” Rodney paused, swallowing and sighing stressfully. “I’m trying not to fucking puke…”
Grimacing deeply, he made the call and held the phone to his ear.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“There’s a dead girl in the old Goldwater Estate… north side of town… and, ah…” Rodney hesitated, releasing a shaking breath.
“That’s enough,” Vance said, lowering his voice. “Hang up.”
Rodney nodded and ended the phone call, leaning back and running a hand down his face, looking thoroughly shaken to the core.
Vance drove in silence until he reached the north road, nothing but trees and darkness all around, only one other vehicle on the street. He spotted it a short ways ahead, parked on the side of the road and sitting idly by itself.
Vance then pulled to a stop behind Rodney’s parked car, sighing grimly and turning to him.
“Go,” go barked. “The cops will be swarming all over the area any second.”
Rodney nodded, frowning and fidgeting with his rifle. He looked to the PI, and Vance maintained eye contact despite the thumping headache that began to form.
“I’m sorry,” Vance said sincerely.
Rodney gave him a somber stare, shaking his head and popping the door open.
“I’m sorry for her ,” he mumbled, stepping out of the car.
“Hey—we did everything we could,” Vance told him forwardly. “You remember that. We did everything we could.”
Rodney leaned into the doorway, managing a nod. He walked off, and Vance’s eyes followed him as he moved across the headlights. He continued to watch until Rodney was in his car, revving the engine and driving out of sight.
Vance was quick to do the same.
The day of Halloween soon arrived—and the morning was a grave one for Vance and Rodney.
After a restless night, Vance remained in his room, clasping his hands and resting his chin on his knuckles, glaring into the darkness and replaying the horrific evening in his mind on repeat.
He didn’t respond when Ariella and Arkus said their goodbyes to his bedroom door before heading off to school, nor did he speak when Lumis announced his own departure. Throughout the morning, he didn’t dare watch the news, didn’t bother with the TV. After a long while of angry reflection, he resolved to leave the house, following whatever loose leads that came to mind—anything to remain busy and distracted.
Rodney was standing in his empty classroom this morning, leaning on his desk and glaring fixedly up at his TV, his expression etched with dark perturbation, looking thoroughly haunted, gnawing on his thumbnail and feeling his stomach continue to churn, just as it had been all night. The images of his and Vance’s horrific experience refused to leave his mind—and now, the news broadcast playing on his TV made the stress of it even more difficult to endure.
He almost jumped when his classroom door opened unexpectedly. His heart dropped, seeing that Ariella, Arkus, and Jaxson were strolling toward him.
“Fuck, she’s not here…” Jaxson sighed, pointing to the podcast room. “Is Tammy in there? I seriously can’t find her anywhere.”
Rodney felt a powerful urge to vomit yet again, quickly stifling the urge.
Ariella leaned closer, reading his distraught visage and feeling an instant wave of gloom.
“What?” she asked, marching closer. “What happened?”
“Oh Christ,” Arkus breathed, gazing up at the TV.
The four of them watched, a thick sense of severity taking over the classroom as they observed the horrible news broadcast.
The large TV screen depicted footage of the Goldwater Estate, run-down and overgrown with shrubbery, the front of the building sectioned off with yellow tape, police cars parked crookedly all over the property. Becky Miller stood before the estate, speaking into the camera.
“An anonymous call last night,” Becky was saying. “Police discovered the body of a young college student, who some believe to be yet another victim of the Cutthroat Killer—though now, police are actively pursuing this man, Zane Jackson, another student at Gates Mill University.”
The screen switched over to a photo of Zane. It was a photo taken from his Facebook, the photo Lucy had snapped of him during their night of bar-hopping months ago, Zane sitting at the bar and sipping on a large pink beverage with an apathetic expression strewn across his face.
“According to authorities, Zane Jackson was friends with the victim before he had a warrant out for his arrest,” Becky narrated. “And they were both once members of the Gates Mill Gate Keepers Podcast, an online talk show hosted by several college students. The victim’s name was Tammy Larson, a young psychology major who…”
The screen showed a couple of Facebook photos of Tammy—and Jaxson instantly whipped around, scowling and covering his face. He stormed across the class and thundered toward the podcast room, ripping the door open and vanishing inside.
Ariella, Arkus, and Rodney all stared after him sadly, wanting to call out, though none of them had the strength to. The tragic, horrible news seemed to lament them all to a standstill.
Jaxson slammed the door shut behind him with an echoing bang .
It felt as if years were passing by, Rodney grimacing up at the screen, Ariella and Arkus holding one another, their faces stricken with remorse.
Eventually, Rodney turned the TV off, sitting on the edge of his desk and running his hands down his face repeatedly. The emptiness of the classroom no longer felt welcoming, but deafening, the sunlight blazing through the windows now ominous rather than uplifting, and everything in the room seemed to be frozen in a state of dark, terrible gloom.
Ariella stroked Arkus on the back, patting Rodney’s shoulder, trying to comfort them both, sparing Tammy several thoughts as she did—every fun encounter and every gleeful adventure, every snarky comment and every good time had.
It felt entirely surreal—more so than any past trauma or any frightful encounter, even Julian’s near-death experience and the horrendous burning of Gates Mill Church of God—it all paled in comparison to this, as this event simply did not feel like it could have truly transpired.
Suddenly— so very suddenly—she was ripped out of this world for no reason whatsoever, never to visit this class again, never to smile and quip sarcastic comments again, never to see her friends again. And as this grim realization sank deeply and terribly into them, the silence in the classroom soon grew to be relentlessness. No longer did this big, eccentric classroom feel like a safe haven for Ariella and her friends, and no longer could any of them simply smile as they joked and hung around with their favorite teacher—because now, their misfit family was broken in a way that could never be repaired.
Eventually, after what felt like decades, Arkus sighed and moved toward the podcast room, opening the door and leaning inside the darkened interior.
Jaxson sat across from the room, hunched onto his desk and cradling his head, the neon GATE KEEPERS sign glowing above his head.
“Jax,” Arkus said gently, slowly stepping into the room. “I know… I know you don’t wanna hear it right now, but… everything’s gonna be—”
“Shut up,” Jaxson croaked, laying over his desk and shaking his head. “Don’t…!”
“I know… but everything’s gonna be—”
“THAT’S BULLSHIT!” Jaxson exploded so suddenly, Arkus leaped backward.
Ariella and Rodney perked up, wiping their eyes and approaching the podcast room.
Arkus’s back pressed against the door’s frame, giving Jaxson a wild, conflicted stare.
Jaxson had leaped to his feet, his hands balled into fists and his eyes watery, face warped with a fury none of them had ever seen in him before.
“Jax… I… I loved her, too,” Arkus uttered weakly. “We all did… but… we’re all still here—”
“OH YEAH—BIG FUCKIN’ WOOP—THAT MAKES IT ALL OKAY! YEAH!” Jaxson roared, launching a chair across the room and smashing it against one of the microphones, instantly destroying it. “TAMMY’S DEAD—TAMMY IS FUCKING DEAD —BUT WE’RE ALL STILL ALIVE! OH, YAY! GOOD FOR US! FUCK HER , RIGHT?!”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” Arkus sighed grimly. “I just meant we’re gonna be—”
“NO—YOU KNOW WHAT?! FUCK OFF!” Jaxson bellowed, rounding on him. “DON’T GIVE ME THAT! DON’T FUCKING GIVE ME THAT EVERYTHING’S GONNA BE ALL RIGHT BULLSHIT—BECAUSE THAT’S A FUCKING—GODDAMN— LIE! THAT’S A BULLSHIT FUCKING LIE YOU TELL TO DUMBASS A KID WHO DOESN’T KNOW ANY BETTER! THAT’S NOT GONNA FLY FOR ME! ”
Arkus said nothing, his hands pocketed, his expression stoic as he vacantly returned Jaxson’s insane glare. Ariella and Rodney stood close behind Arkus, watching Jaxson, their hearts giving a painful jolt, their eyes darkening as a grave, severe atmosphere took over them all.
“Fine,” Arkus conceded. “I dunno if everything’s gonna be all right—but we are gonna get through this, because we have to.”
“Why?” Jaxson laughed madly, tossing his hands up as tears rolled down his cheeks. “Why the fuck do we have to? What the fuck have we even accomplished here? Huh? We didn’t help with Cutthroat—Zane’s out there doing whatever the fuck he wants—and Tammy is fucking dead . What the fuck have we even done here? !”
“We found purpose in here,” Arkus replied, his voice rising, planting a finger to the table. “All of us did— including her. And that podcast we made yesterday was probably the most helpful one we ever—”
“NONE OF THIS WOULD’VE HAPPENED WITHOUT THIS STUPID FUCKING PODCAST! ” Jaxson roared, his voice shaking. “ZANE WENT FUCKING BAT-SHIT CRAZY BECAUSE OF IT—MORENO BRUNELLI GOT KILLED BECAUSE OF IT—THAT CHRISTIAN BITCH AND THAT LIBERAL FUCKER GOT KILLED BECAUSE OF US—AND SO DID FUCKING TAMMY! WE HAVEN’T DONE A GODDAMN THING—EXCEPT MAKE EVERYTHING FUCKING WORSE! I’M DONE! I’M FUCKING DONE! ”
Jaxson grabbed another microphone and ripped it violently from its stand on the table. He launched it across the room, bashing it to the wall and narrowly missing Arkus’s arm.
“STOP!” Arkus erupted.
“I—AM— DONE —WITH THIS—FUCKING—GODDAMN— PODCAST! ” Jaxson exploded in the loudest voice he could muster, grabbing the nearest microphone stand and swinging it with all his might—shattering the custom GATE KEEPERS sign and making it spark and fall from the wall.
Arkus leaped forward and grasped Jaxson by the arms, trying to calm him—and Jaxson screamed and cursed loudly in his face, Ariella watching gravely from the doorway with her professor observing just behind her, her face blank, eyes glazed over the same way they had been on the night of the church fire, not knowing what she could possibly feel or do.
Seconds later, Jaxson’s rage broke apart, and he devolved into tears. Arkus yanked him into a tight hug, embracing him and allowing him to cry for several minutes, the funereal gloom of the atmosphere growing heavier with every passing second.
It felt as if they were all living through a wicked dream, a darker one than any of Ariella’s dreams prior, a version of reality than none of them were equipped to deal with.
And as they stood there—Arkus hugging the sobbing Jaxson, Ariella and Rodney watching solemnly from the classroom—Ariella’s heart palpitated, a slow-brewing anger rising up inside, and all the sudden, she couldn’t think why she so easily dismissed this feeling before.
Because now, once more, she felt the hunger spreading throughout her like a wildfire, a deep sense of indignation infecting her like poison to a wound. It felt as if nothing—her mindset, her friends, her life, or anything else—would ever be all right again so long as Zane walked this earth alive.
Ariella sighed heavily, turning on her heel and marching away from the podcast room, heading toward the exit.
Rodney glimpsed between her and the boys in the room, then trailed after her.
“Where’re you going?” he asked, his voice a weakened rasp.
Ariella slowed to a stop, turning to him and meeting his gaze with the same detached, stony visage he’d seen on her after just the church burned—and he returned the look with a hardened, forbidding glare.
“Don’t you dare,” Rodney said in a soft, crackling exhalation, mildly shaking his head.
“I’m just going home,” Ariella murmured emptily. “I need to grab something for the party.”
Rodney narrowed his eyes at her, utterly unconvinced. “What?”
“My dad’s guns,” Ariella told him.
Rodney let out a breath and hung his head, grasping her shoulders viselike. “You told me… you promised me you wouldn’t…”
“That was when everybody was still alive,” Ariella replied icily. “I don’t care anymore.”
“Well—tough shit—because I do ,” Rodney griped through gritted teeth. “What do you think would happen if you strolled into this school packing heat? You wanna become another statistic of this godforsaken town? There’s a reason I keep all my guns at home .”
Ariella groaned out a sigh. “This party is the only lead we have on him. If he shows up—I swear to God— I am gonna kill him .”
“No—no, you’re gonna play this smart ,” Rodney corrected, tapping a finger to her forehead. “I wanna see him hang, too—God, believe me , I do—but there’s a way to do this that won’t ruin your life in the process.”
“Like what?”
“All right—all right, I have a plan. You and I are both gonna go to this party, and we’re both gonna have your father on speed-dial. We look for Zane tonight—and if we see him, one of us calls your father while the other calls the cops.”
“Yeah, I wanted to do the same thing. But that hasn’t worked so far.”
“That was before everybody was looking for him,” Rodney pointed out. “Considering what’s on the news today—and the podcast we made yesterday—everybody in this school is gonna be looking for him, too. We see him, we gather some quick manpower at the party, and we make a citizen’s arrest until the cops or your father arrive. All right?”
Ariella gave him a long, uncertain stare. “I want him dead.”
“So do I,” Rodney replied darkly, Tammy’s corpse still haunting his mind. “But this is the best we can do. He might even get the death penalty—who knows.”
“Do you know how many people like him end up walking free?” Ariella complained. “If they lock him up, they might just end up letting him go one day.”
Rodney stared into her, looking torn and disturbed.
“ This is the plan we’re going with,” he said flatly. “This is the best plan for your sake. You keeping your life is a lot more important than him losing his . Do you understand me?”
Ariella glared into him for several long seconds before giving him a reluctant nod.
“Good—now give me your father’s phone number,” Rodney requested. “We need to be prepared for everything tonight.”
Ariella agreed and saved Vance’s phone number to Rodney’s contacts. Just when they finished, she glanced behind Rodney, seeing that Arkus and Jaxson were now meandering glumly out of the podcast room.
“I’m gonna take him home,” Arkus said, looking to Ariella. “You coming with me?”
Ariella and Rodney shared a brief, intense stare. Then, she simply nodded, joining with Arkus and Jaxson as they all left the room, Rodney staring after them the entire way.
Once they were gone, the professor sighed stressfully, turning to face his windows and folding his arms, glaring outside fixedly, as if something deep within the trees in the distance was most assuredly staring back at him.
Rodney knew the Cutthroat Killer was listening to the Gate Keepers regularly—and after listening to the podcast they recorded yesterday, Cutthroat was almost certainly planning to target Zane Jackson now, and this Halloween party was the only existing lead on him.
The longer Rodney pondered on it, the more he became convinced that the Cutthroat Killer and the Skull-Faced Killer would both likely make an appearance tonight.
Zane arriving to this party would be a reckless move—but it would also be flashy and bold, which matched his personality perfectly.
And with Zane’s immoral actions becoming widespread public news—it seemed incredibly likely that the Cutthroat Killer would find him guilty enough to die.
And as Rodney continued glaring intensely outside, his expression took on a dark, heavy severity that he hadn’t harbored in years.
It seemed that every long game—those that spanned mere months, and those that stretched on tirelessly for generations—would all boil down to this fateful Hallow’s Eve.
As the day passed by—when Ariella and Arkus returned home, and when Vance found himself parked at the coffee shop again—Detective Lumis finally decided to stroll back into the precinct.
He marched inside, crossing the office desks and the police all around him, hoping to reach his own office room in the corner. He passed by Chief Hawkins, who stopped abruptly and gave him a look.
“I thought you were on leave?” Hawkins asked.
“Yeah… didn’t take,” Lumis replied with a flattened sort of smile, moving past him and opening his office door.
He was quick to isolate himself in his office before anyone else could greet him with any similar questions or unneeded condolences. Sighing, Lumis sank into his rolling chair, booting up his old computer and preparing to begin his long afternoon of research. It was late in the day now—so late in the afternoon, cops were patrolling nearly every street across town, and families were already beginning their tick-or-treating-but Lumis had plenty of time to do what he came here to do.
The GMPD had a unique system in their computers. It was something of a virtual phonebook used to collect information on everyone who lived in Gates Mill. It was admittedly difficult to use this system to research people from previous generations—people who had far less of their information available online—but he had to give it another try regardless.
“Victor… Callaghan,” he murmured as he typed.
When the file of Victor Callaghan opened, Lumis read over all the information; the file on the screen showed a picture of him, and beside it was a long bio of his. The image looked almost identical to Vance, only with dark eyes and a grislier face, as if Vance’s father regularly grew and shaved a beard throughout his life. Lumis raised his brows at the picture, then began to read over the bio.
“Vietnam veteran… deceased,” Lumis muttered. “Military guy… makes sense. Probably died in the war.”
Then, Lumis read over the date of Victor Callaghan’s death.
“1984…?” Lumis uttered to himself. “Vietnam ended in ‘75…”
Curious, he typed in the next name on his mind, Sarah Callaghan. After a bit more searching, he found the correct person, listed as a resident of 313 Colonial Avenue, just as Victor was. Sarah’s picture was of a beautiful blonde woman with a bright smile, and with the same translucent blue eyes as Vance’s.
“Also deceased… died 1984,” Lumis said interestingly. “So they both died at the same time. God, Vance would’ve been…”
At last, he began to type in the names of the Hunter couple. He specified the search results based on the address of the Hunters’ property, and the files of Alison and Harley appeared on the screen. Lumis had already seen these files, and neither of them contained pictures, but this time, he looked more closely, searching each of their bios for any listed family members and again finding none. It couldn’t be helped. Many of these files only had basic information, after all; they weren’t entirely complete, they didn’t actually contain every single person in town, and they weren’t often updated.
Sighing frustratedly, Lumis typed in the basic surname Hunter, and a flurry of files appeared.
He leaned tiredly on his hand for a good long while, mindlessly clicking on each one and finding nobody who ever lived at the Hunters’ last known address.
After nearly an hour of absentminded clicking on his mouse, a peculiar file opened with very little information available. The bio was incredibly small, and there was no picure—but it was a member of the Hunter family who once lived at the Hunter couple’s address before the couple themselves ever did. The person in this file wasn’t listed in relation to the Hunter couple, but it seemed likely to be a relative of theirs, since they shared the same surname and they’d taken turns living in the same exact house.
Staring into the screen incredibly, Lumis pulled out his phone and dialed Vance, unable to tear his gaze from his computer.
Vance was parked on the side of the main road, glaring out his side window, trying to ignore the annoying yelling of the protesters farther down the street. His eyes traced along every detail of the coffee shop building, every brick and every crack, every hint of movement inside and every cocoa bean along the interior’s decorative wallpaper.
He couldn’t fathom why, but every time he stared at this coffee shop, his head began to pound, and he felt a peculiar sense Deja-vu.
Vance slowly stepped out of his car, the noises of the main road instantly louder, cars coasting past behind him, protesters hollering vulgarities and ideological arguments, trading shouting matches with random Gates Mill citizens across the intersection down the road.
He paid them all no mind, stopping at the edge of the sidewalk and gazing up at the sign above the entrance of the coffee shop—a sign that looked like it hadn’t been changed since the ‘90s, reading COCOA STOP.
A sharp pain penetrated his mind, Vance quickly grasping his head, though he didn’t tear his eyes from the building.
The stranger from Boomsday entered his mind—another pulsation throbbing through his skull.
Just when his phone began to ring, he gulped, his eyes locked onto the building as he slowly raised his phone to his ear.
“Speak,” Vance uttered roughly.
“Vance—I just found another member of the Hunter couple’s family,” Lumis informed. “It’s the same person who owns the property now. Same name. And you’re not gonna believe where else he used to live—”
“This isn’t a good time, Bill,” Vance mumbled distractedly, taking a step back and eyeing the building as his mind painfully raced. “I’m trying to figure out… I’ve been here before… I’ve been here a lot …”
“Vance—are you listening?” Lumis asked. “I found—I—where are you? Sounds like you’re walking on the interstate.”
Vance inched backward, gaining a full view of the building as a deeper wave of pain overcame him. He gritted his teeth, glaring into the coffee shop and reaching for the cause of pain, trying to remember, opening the glass doors, waltzing inside, laughing and joking, sitting at the bar—ordering a double-shot espresso—talking to—
Vance swallowed a groan, taking one more step back, farther from the curb—
SCREECH—CRUNCH.
The coffee shop was ripped from his vision—his feet from the ground—his entire body rocketing into a crooked fumble as an SUV smashed into him, crunching the hood and sending Vance flying down the road.
He hit the pavement hard, everything blurred and spinning, breath knocked clean out of him, the sound replaying in his rattled mind—screeching tires, crunching of fiberglass, and the tires squealing atop the surface of the road.
Lumis jumped, standing from his rolling chair and growing instantly alarmed at the noise on the other end of the phone call. “Vance?!”
Everyone on the street suddenly stopped—every driving vehicle and every screaming protester. Several heads whipped around, many drivers and passengers flooding out of their vehicles. The protesters and pedestrians seemed to forget entirely about their argument, joining the crowd as people circled around Vance, a vibrant urgency breaking out amidst them all.
Vance blinked several times, a wretched pain in his abdomen as his lungs refused to refill, his hand groping around the pavement, his phone having been flung from his grasp. Two people hoisted him off the pavement, the world spinning in blurs around him as they guided him off of the road.
The SUV was parked crookedly where it had struck him, the hood dented deeply, and a heavyset woman in a blue dress scrambled out of the truck, repeatedly clasping her face and shedding tears as she approached.
The strangers placed Vance against the coffee shop’s wall, allowing him to sink into a sitting position on the sidewalk, thoroughly dazed and disoriented. Numerous people were hovering over him now, some of them bombarding him with questions while others simply stared at him with shock or worry. The large blue shape moved to the front of the crowd, hitting her knees in front of Vance, his eyes trying and failing to focus on her.
“ I’m so sorry! ” the woman cried, reaching out to him as tears stained her rounded cheeks. “Honey! I’m so sorry! Why’d you walk out in the road like that?! Oh God—I’m so sorry! ”
Vance couldn’t answer, his lungs shriveled painfully and his mind a million miles away—the screeching tires, crunching fiberglass, squealing of brakes and peeling out on pavement.
“Harley,” he grunted in a weak, hoarse exhalation.
Suddenly, nothing else mattered—not the accident, not Lumis’s news, nothing in the world—except this, Vance glaring forward, trying to fixate his bleary gaze on the road before him, before the coffee shop—the very same place where this accident had happened once before.
“Ph-phone,” Vance managed, glancing up to the person nearest him and waving his hand. “I need my… phone…”
The young man standing over him nodded, briskly walking into the street to find the lost phone. The blue-dressed woman grabbed him by the shoulders, her concerned gaze meeting his pained and dazed one.
“Honey—you want me to call you an ambulance?!” the woman blubbered in a panic. “I can! Or I can drive you to the hospital—”
“N… no,” Vance shook his head. “No, I…”
The young man returned, placing Vance’s prepaid phone in his hand. He attempted to thank him before holding the phone shakily to his ear.
Lumis’s voice was yelling his name repeatedly from the device.
“Vance! Answer me—what the hell was that noise?!”
“Bill,” Vance growled in a raspy, knowing voice, replaying the sounds of the accident through his mind in a way he’d never again forget. “I… remember… everything.”