Dark Child (Wild Men 5)

“Talk, not wander in creepy woods. I’m…” She takes a shaky breath. “I’m sorry. It’s all just reminding me of searching for you all those years ago, and how frightened I was.”

I watch Matt and Octavia approach and say nothing.

There’s nothing to say. I wanna go home, too, curl up with my girl and just forget. A pity the forgetting part was never a fucking option.

Hey, at least I got the girl, the best girl, so despite everything, I’m a lucky motherfucker. Some people only get the bad dreams.

“If you’re right,” Octavia says, turning in place in a circle, “then the body might still be here.”

“There was no fucking body,” Ross mutters, “there was never a—”

“I never thought this would turn into a murder investigation,” my sister goes on.

“I dunno what you thought it would turn into. I thought we came here to find out if there was a body after all.”

She shrugs. “It was all so abstract until now.”

“It still is,” Jarett says. “What are we gonna do? We can’t start digging up the place.”

“We put a marker here and tell the police.”

“And they’ll believe us?” Ross glares at me. “Based on, what, a little kid’s memories, or a grown-up’s nightmares?”

“I’ll talk to my friend the cop,” Matt says, “ask him to do this as a favor.”

“You got a cop friend?” Jarett mutters.

“I have all sorts of friends,” he says mysteriously. He turns to me. “I’ll talk to John Elba. Johnny.”

“He helped when the kids were kidnapped,” Octavia says, taking his hand. “When I was kidnapped.”

“Okay, so I think we’re done here.” I’m bone weary and so fucking cold. “Let’s go.”

They all follow suit, and I bet they’re glad to leave this haunted place behind. I sure am. Fact is, I doubt I’ll be sleeping any better tonight. Seeing this place, remembering more stuff, won’t undo my nightmares. That’d be fucking wishful thinking.

We haven’t solved anything. Sure, now I’m starting to believe what Gigi said all along—that my dreams are replaying something that really happened that night—but if they find the body of Ross’s mother buried in the mud… I can’t see how that will put me at ease.

Because if she was killed, then who’s the killer? How will they catch him fifteen years later? Is he still walking around free?

And that is if they do find a body. If not…

Yeah, if not, then… Then what? What if these memories aren’t real? What if I’m remembering dream memories, things I dreamed about, my mind telling me they’re real?

“Hey, there’s something here,” Gigi says stepping away from Jarett’s shadow. She nudges something with the toe of her shoe, something half-sticking out of the mud at the water’s edge. “It’s like… a handle. A wooden handle.”

Jarett bends down and pulls, then curses and kneels in the cold mud to dig it out.

It’s the remains of a shovel.

“Do you remember this?” she asks.

“I’m not sure. I…no.”

“What if this is what you saw from the distance, and not an ax?” Jarett wipes his muddy hands on his pants. “You said it yourself, the light was fading.”

Oh fuck. I dunno. I try to focus on the image of the ax in my dreams and pain rips through my skull, and the ground seems to slip from under me. Damn, I feel as if my head is splitting in two.

Distantly, I hear Cos saying something about the cold and going home.