Diary of the Gone (14 page)

I didn’t feel shame about being
envious of them. These people had someone to count on, to turn to.
I had none. The house where I was heading lost its soul after Aiden
had taken Mom and Beverly from me. Now that they were gone I was
willing to admit that I missed them badly. I remembered the times
when I wished them to leave me alone, just for a day, just for an
hour. I felt so stupid that my wish had been fulfilled.

Thoughts rushed through my head like a
freight train, and I couldn’t concentrate on one. Mrs. Palmer’s
reluctance to let me see Vivian depressed me. I wondered if I would
ever see her again, with the life in Olden Cross so unpredictable.
Also, I couldn’t get it why she wouldn’t reveal the secrets she had
about my father. Did they know each other? If they did, did they
know each other well? What if the townsfolk were right about her
being crazy? And why would she look for him?

It was a bit
comforting to walk into the light pouring from the windows onto the
snow.
When you step into a shadow, it
becomes part of you,
Mrs. Palmer had said
back in the library. I’d prefer to think that when you step into
the light, you become part of it, whereas darkness and shadows are
only a temporary temptation aimed at ruining you.

As I stepped into another square of
light I heard someone’s steps behind. My first instinct was to run
and hide, but when a familiar green jacket came in sight I exhaled
in relief.

“
Cal, I need to talk to
you,” Vivian said, breathing heavily.

“
Sure, erm,” I said. “What
happened?”

“
Well, we are not going to
talk here.” She tucked the loose strands behind her ears then
grabbed me by the sleeve of my jacket and pulled me back. “After
your sister went missing,” she said, “Aunt Gloria sort of grounded
me, so I don’t have much time.”

“
If she finds out that
you’re not at home she won’t let you out till the end of the year.
Hey, are we going back to your aunt’s house?” I asked as we got
closer to the house I’d just left.

“
Of course not,” Vivian
replied, taking a turn right. I knew the road that we’d taken. It
led to the graveyard.

“
Are we going where I
think we’re going?” I asked her.

“
It’s the only place where
no one would eavesdrop on our conversation.”

“
You think?” I
exclaimed.

Vivian shushed me, bringing her index
finger to her lips. “Keep your voice down! Don’t tell me you’re
afraid of the dead?”

Well, yeah. If you
knew what I knew about them,
I
thought.

“
Of course not,” I said.
“I’m not five.”

A huge padlock hung on the
wrought-iron gate, but it was doubtful protection from those
wishing to enter the graveyard. We climbed over the fence and
roamed among the graves, kicking the snow with our boots.
Tombstones jutted out of the ground like uneven teeth, snow caps
growing on them.

We came to an old bench and I brushed
a thick layer of snow off it with my sleeve. We sat down, a short
distance between us, fog clouding our faces as we breathed. I was
too self-conscious yet to feel at ease around Vivian.

“
How’s your hand?” she
asked.

“
Not so bad. At least now
I have something to defend myself with.” I smiled. “I should use it
when I meet Stan next time.”

Her lips curved in a smile, causing
butterflies to flutter in my stomach.

“
Cal, I know what we need
to do,” she said in a hushed tone, her expression serious this
time.

“
What are you talking
about?”

“
About your father. I know
how we can catch him,” she said.

Now the butterflies
started
raging
inside me.

“
No, Viv, wait. I think
it’s not the best idea. He’s too dangerous.” I looked into her eyes
that were now as black as Mrs. Palmer’s.

“
You just need to use me
as bait,” she pressed. “We just need—”

As if on cue, the wind stopped and an
eerie silence settled in.

“
No!” I interrupted her.
“What are you, mental?” I asked.

She sat a bit closer and put her hand
on my shoulder. It felt as light as a feather. She was way too
close to me, compared to what I was used to with other people.
“Cal, listen. We need to go to Chief Coleman and talk to him. He’ll
think of something.”

I shook my head. “No, you don’t get
it. It’s better for you to stay out of this. There’s no way I will
risk your life.”

She lowered her
eyes, as if offended by my words. I needed to tell her why.
Just say it,
I told
myself. “It’s because I really like—”

“
Vivian!” a voice called
from behind the gates, and Vivian jerked up her head, gasping
quietly. “Oh, damn it, it’s Aunt Gloria.”

“
Vivian, I know you are
there!”

“
How did she find us? I
think I’d better go.” She pushed herself up from the bench and
broke into a run down the snowed path, leaving prints in her wake.
“Bye, Cal. Promise me you’ll think of what I told you,” she shouted
to me, her voice farther away from me.

I followed her with my eyes till she
reached the gate. Mrs. Palmer’s stern voice boomed again, though I
didn’t catch what she was saying.

“
See you, Viv,” I
whispered. After a few more moments of sitting on a cold bench, I
stood up and hurried back home.

It was freezing tonight as Mrs. Palmer
had said, and my legs felt stiff in this fierce cold.

When I got home, I switched on the
lights in every room, then rushed upstairs and looked around my own
room. No traces of anyone being here. Aiden hadn’t visited the
house.

It was hard to believe this room had
belonged to my father. The thought sickened me, and I left the room
that would never feel mine anymore.

I went downstairs, then to the
kitchen. I checked the fridge for something to bite, but it was
nearly empty. I picked a slice of pizza and washed it down with
cold water.

Then an idea came to me. Under the
stairs leading to my room there was a door to the basement where
we’d dropped boxes with all sort of junk on the day we’d moved to
Olden Cross. I didn’t remember Mom going in there ever since, and I
wondered if there might be something in those boxes that might help
me find out anything about Aiden. Old pictures or stuff like
that.

I opened the door and peered into the
dark. The switch was in the basement, so I had to go down first and
then turn on the lights. I took cautious steps, feeling the cool
walls with my hands. My eyes gradually adjusted to the dark, and I
exhaled upon reaching the last step.

I entered the dark room and hit the
switch, and the bulb flickered, bathing the room with dull yellow.
I squinted for a few moments, but then I got used to the dim light.
Stacks of boxes lay around in a haphazard way, some of them on the
damp ground, already ruined by mildew. The air here was cold and
damp, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay here long, so I got to
the nearest box and opened it.

Filled with old clothes, nothing
interesting. I laid it aside and got to the next one. Books,
fiction. I buried my hand deeper, looking at the titles. Nope,
nothing here as well.

After about ten minutes of rummaging
through the boxes I hadn’t found anything yet, my clothes and face
covered in dust. At least I didn’t feel cold anymore. It wasn’t as
easy to get through the old stuff as I’d expected. Some of the
boxes were so heavy I couldn’t lift them so I just pushed them
aside to get to the other boxes.

Halfway through the
labyrinth of boxes I found one that was Scotch taped. I put it onto
a stack of boxes I’d already looked at. This one was rather heavy.
Perhaps more books. I looked around for a knife and noticed a box
of nails on a shelf not far.
This one will
do,
I thought as I picked a large nail. I
cut the tape and pried the box open. Dust swirled around me, and my
nose tickled.

Yep, more books. “Wait,” I
whispered.

There were a few picture albums there,
and I grabbed one. They were Mom’s, back when she was a child.
There she was smiling at me, her mother looking at the camera. I’d
never known my grandparents, and I didn’t know how I felt about
seeing these pictures. Sad? Probably yeah.

I turned the pages and there were more
pictures that I’d never seen. Why would Mom hide them from me and
Bev?

Then I came across a picture with Mom
and a boy. It chilled me to see the boy’s face burned out of the
picture, like someone had put out a cigarette on his
face.

I checked the rest of the album, all
of the pages having the same burned-out pattern. Was it Mom who did
it to Aiden’s face? I felt too creeped out to go on.

There seemed to be nothing else of
interest in the box, but when I got to the bottom, my fingers
grabbed hold of a notebook. Its leathery hardback was pliant,
crumbling at the edges.

An old diary. I opened it to find
yellowed pages with a familiar scrawl. I leafed through it, the
page rumpling under my fingers.

I caught bits of Aiden’s notes; I
didn’t want to read the whole thing. The excerpts I read chilled
blood in my veins.

“…
I
can’t take them haunting me anymore.”
I
opened my mouth like a fish suddenly finding itself out of
water.

“
No one can help me. …
They follow me everywhere …”

“…—
the dead …”

On top of one of the
pages I found the date:
December 26,
1976.

Next to it there was a heart with an
arrow piercing it. Two names were inside the heart, and I could
feel my hands shaking as I stared at these two names: Aiden and
Gloria.

I shook my head.
That couldn’t be right. Aiden and
Gloria?
What the
hell?

The door opened and closed upstairs,
and I stopped breathing. There was no way out of the basement
except through a narrow window I would never be able to get into.
I’d probably chosen the worst time to get trapped here. If that was
Aiden, I’d never make it out of the room.

I took a few steps to the stairs,
listening. Someone was breathing in a noisy way. Someone close to
the basement.

“
Callum? Beverly?” a voice
called, hoarse and difficult to make out.

I knew who it was and I bolted up the
stairs, taking three at a time, and ran out of the
basement.

“
I’m here, Mom,” I
said.

Then I skidded to a halt. It was Mom,
but it looked like she’d aged a decade, her clothes covered with
dirt, her hair a mess. She coughed, and for the first time in my
life I sprinted to her. I hugged her, and not only because I was
relieved to see her.

“
Where’ve you been?” I
asked.

She coughed again, then cleared her
throat, and said in a feeble voice, “I need to tell you what you
should have known years ago. It’s about your father.”

I led her to the couch and she
sat.

“
Wait,” I said, going to
the kitchen and switching on the kettle. “I’ll make you a cup of
tea.”

When I returned to the couch Mom was
sleeping. I woke her, and she drank the tea.

“
Thank you, dear.” She
smiled at me weakly.

“
I missed you,
Mom.”

“
I know. I missed you
too.”

“
What happened to
you?”

She looked at me, then sighed. “Your
father came here a few days ago. He forced me to go with him to the
Swamps.” I noticed bruises around Mom’s wrists. “He kept me in some
old house.”

“
A house?”

“
Yes. I’d never known
there was one. It’s deep in the wood.”

So that’s where he
keeps everyone,
I
thought.

“
Have you seen anyone else
there?”

“
No, I was alone in that
room. But I occasionally heard voices in other room.”

“
Jeez!” I hugged
Mom.

“
Your father’s crazy. He
kept mumbling about some signs and numbers on your
hands.”

“
What? What else did he
say?”

“
Well,” Mom’s eyes filled
with tears, “that he’s going to kill you all when he’s got you in
his collection.”

“
Collection?” Aiden was
sick.

“
It started years ago. He
and his parents lived here, in this house. I lived not far down the
street. I was friends with Cynthia Abbott and Gloria Palmer. We
tried to make friends with Aiden at first, but he always kept to
himself so we left him alone.

“
Then Oliver Crosby came
to town. We became friends, and then Aiden started bullying him.”
Mom coughed again. “Then Cynthia and he started dating.”