Intercepts: a horror novel Page 5

  Riley didn’t have much to say to that. She wanted to come up with something more substantive than her standard “it’s cool” response, but her brain was fried. As much as she searched for something to say, it just made her tired.

  So, she glanced over at her father, nodded, and simply said, “It’s cool.”

  She turned back to the window and stared out for a few quiet miles.

  The road curved around to the right. The tree line began to thicken as they started a gentle ascent up into the hills. The world loomed darker up ahead as the trees blocked out the last moments of dusk.

  Riley rested her head against the shoulder strap of her seat belt. Her eyes felt heavy and the emotional exhaustion of the day began to fully settle in.

  She had a sudden twinge of a headache. It was an aching pain at first. The pain crept backwards, through her head, until she could feel the sharpness in the back of her neck. She reached back and massaged her shoulder muscles, momentarily wishing that one of the guys from school — Brian Holgate, perhaps — were here and she could flirt him into giving her a backrub.

  The pain must be from stress, she figured. Had she been clenching her shoulders all day? Her mom used to sleep with a mouth guard to keep from grinding her teeth at night. Riley often worried if such weird, old-person, stress-avoiding bullshit were also in her future.

  The saliva in her mouth suddenly turned thick and creamy. It tasted of metal. Or was it blood?

  What was happening to her?

  Maybe she was dehydrated. When did she last drink water? She didn’t know. She couldn’t remember. Perhaps she hadn’t had anything to drink all day.

  With that thought in her mind, she suddenly desperately wanted a drink of water.

  She glanced over to the center console. No bottles there. Her dad might have some under his seat, but she didn’t want to ask.

  The dull ache sharpened into a knife of pain, stabbing behind both her eyes and at the base of her skull. A high-pitched tone then filled her ears. It was a constant whine, blocking out all other sounds.

  As if someone had their hand on the volume control inside her head, that tone steadily became quieter and quieter. Before Riley knew it, all sound became a distant muffle, as if she were sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool.

  While concentrating on her hearing and the pain in her head, she barely noticed that her hands had grown numb. She could no longer feel her fingers pressing into the knot on her shoulder. She couldn’t feel her other arm resting on the pickup’s door or the seatbelt pressing against her cheek.

  Was this a heart attack?

  She shut her eyes.

  Just as she was about to say something…

  Click.

  It all went away. The numbness, the ringing, the pain in her head.

  The weird sensations had flown through her and subsided as quickly as they had arrived.

  She pressed her thumb into her temples to try to recreate the pain, but nothing felt out of the ordinary. Whatever it was had passed on through and left. She hoped her dad didn’t notice. The last thing she needed was for him to be all awkwardly concerned about her health.

  Riley took a breath and then rested her head against the seatbelt again and stared out the window.

  That’s when she saw her.

  The area didn’t have streetlamps, and so it was only the headlights of her father’s pickup truck that illuminated her.

  A woman.

  Standing alongside the road.

  Her white hospital gown reflected the light from the headlights. Her long, black hair fell down past her shoulders. It was so straight, and seemingly oily, that the cars zooming by didn’t blow enough air to move a single strand. That greasy black hair framed and accented a ghostly pale face. Unnaturally pale. It was as if this woman hadn’t an ounce of blood flowing through her capillaries.

  The woman stood straight but then began to twist at the waist. Her hands and arms shook and twitched. Despite the movements of her limbs, her gown remained perfectly still, incapable of catching the faint breeze.

  Her head, meanwhile, swiveled on her neck and tracked the pickup as it sped past. Her eyes didn’t move, didn’t flutter, didn’t focus in on anything. They simply stared straight at wherever her head and neck were pointing them. And, in this case, it was directly at Riley.

  Riley jerked upright in her seat so fast that the seatbelt locked into place and forced her shoulder back.

  “What is it?” her dad asked.

  Riley loosened her seatbelt and spun her head around to look out the back window. She saw only darkness.

  “You okay?” He looked over at her.

  “You didn’t see that?”

  “What?”

  She settled back into her seat. “Sorry… it’s, um… it’s nothing.”

  “What did you see?”

  Riley rubbed her eyes. “I think it was a, like, a scarecrow. Or something. It was like a woman, but she didn’t look real.”

  Her dad looked in the rearview mirror. “Weird. Didn’t see it.”

  “It was creepy as fuck.” Riley caught herself swearing. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry ‘bout it.” He continued to glance at his rearview mirror. “Was it off in a field?”

  “It was only like ten feet away. I swear, it was a woman just watching cars.” Riley took a deep breath and shook her head. “Or maybe I’m seeing things. Maybe I’m fucked up.”

  A silence overtook the pickup. She regretted saying anything. She knew her father wouldn’t know how to respond. She could practically hear the thoughts churning in his head.

  “Riley…” he finally began.

  “It’s cool, Dad. I’m tired. I need to take a nap.”

  With that, she leaned back against the window and shut her eyes. He didn’t say another word. He just kept on driving.

  After a moment, when she was sure that her dad had stopped glancing over at her, she slowly opened her eyes again. She kept them glued out the window.

  She suddenly didn’t feel safe with her eyes closed.

  CHAPTER 6

  For the remainder of the trip, Riley drifted in and out of consciousness.

  She finally awoke when she felt the pickup take the familiar sharp right onto the unmarked, gravel road.

  Navigation apps could never properly locate the house. More than a few of Riley’s childhood friends and their parents ended up circling the area for half an hour trying to find it. But that was back when Riley was really young.

  After the divorce, Riley and her mom moved to Linville, a few hours away. Her parents promised her the distance wasn’t too far, especially with social media. But to a middle-schooler, it quickly became insurmountable. Somewhere in a drawer back at her mom’s home, she had a small box with a collection of half-heart friendship necklaces… and friendship rings… and friendship letters. They all promised the then-seven-year-old Riley that her childhood friends would be her friends forever.

  What a load of bullshit.

  There was no one big, climactic moment that symbolized the end of the friendships. No fight, no jealousy, no nothing. Just a slow-drying cement around Riley’s ankles that prevented her from putting forth the effort to bridge the growing gaps. She stopped inviting those old friends over, and no one seemed to mind.

  These trips “home,” and this turn down the long gravel driveway, no longer filled her with excitement and nostalgia. At this point, she simply considered the weekend trips to Dad’s house as a break to escape the nagging tongue of her mother.

  The thought then crept into Riley’s mind that she had now permanently escaped the nagging tongue of her mother.

  A massive lead balloon seemed to inflate in Riley’s stomach.

  She tried to push it away.

  The drive from the main road to the house was about a mile of gravel driveway. No one else lived off this street. There probably wasn’t another house for miles.

  Tall trees grew on all sides, completely tucking the house away from ra
ndom eyes. Riley’s mom had once flippantly commented that the trees made it difficult for satellites to see when Joe was home or not. When Riley, who was about twelve at the time, asked her father what that meant, his face turned cold and stern. He excused himself from dinner and went off to his office. She could hear him yelling over the phone at her mother, calling her all sorts of names.

  That might have been the last time Riley ever dared ask her father a question related to his work or life.

  The pickup finally migrated its way around one final bend in the road and came to a stop. Her father’s house was an elegant, modern design, although not particularly large. Riley always took the house for granted until she and her mom moved into their dumpy two-bedroom starter — and finisher — home.

  “I’ll grab your backpack,” her dad said. “You go settle in.”

  Without saying a word, Riley climbed out of the truck and ambled up the path to the front door.

  “You got a key?” he called after her.

  Riley gave a thumbs-up without even turning to face him.

  She walked up to the door and put her key in the lock.

  For some reason, she hesitated. She felt goosebumps on her arms despite the fact that it wasn’t particularly cold out.

  She glanced around at the woods. She had wandered these woods at night many times before, but she couldn’t recall it ever seeming this dark. It felt as though a filter, some impossible-to-see membrane, had been placed over her eyes and was blocking out the texture of the world.

  At that moment, she felt that something was out there in the woods. Something that she couldn’t see. But it could see her. And it was watching her.

  With a shiver, she turned the key in the lock, opened the door and—

  A black Labrador burst from the shadows of the darkened house and scurried through the door. It whined in terror as it galloped past Riley and into the woods.

  “Jesus! Goddamnit, Moby!” she screamed as the dog careened past the pickup and hopped off into the trees.

  Her dad ran up to her. “What happened?”

  “I opened the door and Moby went ape-shit!”

  “Did you step on her?”

  “No! She just jumped out!”

  “Was she greeting you?”

  “No, she jumped out!”

  “Are you sure she wasn’t just greeting you?”

  Riley glared at him. She hated the way he casually twisted conversations into interrogations, as if Riley were incapable of discerning events for herself. “She never greets me like that,” Riley said, her voice hissing more than she intended.

  Her dad stared out at the darkened woods and sighed, not even seeming to notice his daughter’s annoyance. “I’ll find her. You go settle in.” With another sigh, he turned and plodded back down the driveway, calling out, “Moby! Moby! Here, girl!”

  Riley took a moment to catch her breath.

  Then she stepped inside the house.

  An alarm pad had been chirping since Riley opened the door. It now chirped faster and louder. Even from a young age, Riley’s parents had drilled into her how to deal with the house’s extensive alarm system. She pivoted around and entered her personalized passcode into the system.

  The chirping went quiet.

  The flashing red light on the pad turned to green. A small LED screen on the alarm scrolled her name along with the date and time.

  Riley glanced around the living room.

  The lights were all off and the trees in the area were too thick for moonlight, but Riley knew the layout by heart. Her dad may have no design style, but he also wasn’t one to leave a mess. There wouldn’t be any tripping hazards.

  She stepped across the darkened living room — past the department store coffee table and cheap-but-nice-looking leather couch that always stuck to her skin and squeaked when she moved, no matter whether or not she was sweaty — to the lamp by the hall.

  When she flipped it on, the lamp’s soft orange glow lit its small area of the room.

  It wasn’t much light, but it was enough.

  Enough for Riley to see her.

  She was just within view of the corner of Riley’s eye. The light couldn’t penetrate too deeply into the hallway, but Riley could see that white gown.

  The woman stood there.

  Silent. Unmoving.

  Riley froze, hand on the lamp and eyes looking at the floor. Only her peripheral vision could see the woman. Riley couldn’t bring herself to look fully, but she was sure that she wasn’t alone. Thoughts pounded through her head as she stood with her hand on the lamp.

  Do I look?

  Do I scream?

  Do I run?

  Do I grab the lamp and swing it as a weapon?

  Finally, she called out, “Uh, Dad? Did I leave my phone in the front seat?”

  Without taking another breath, she turned her back on the hallway and, one quick step at a time, hurried from the house.

  As soon as she emerged from the front door, her speed-walk transformed into a full sprint.

  Her dad still paced up and down the driveway, calling into the forest, “Moby? Come on, Moby!” He turned as he saw the urgency with which Riley ran toward him.

  “There’s someone in the house,” Riley said, her voice low and urgent.

  For once, her father didn’t question or doubt. His body went rigid as he fixed his eyes on the house. “Get in the truck,” he said quietly.

  No further urging was needed.

  Riley ran to the passenger side, ripped open the door, and jumped in.

  Her father wasn’t far behind. He started the truck, kicked it into reverse, spun it around the driveway and zoomed off down the road.

  She had never seen him drive so fast. Gravel shot out from under their spinning tires, clanging into the wheel-well. He took the final turn so aggressively that the truck skidded, and Riley feared they might even roll into a tree.

  But he kept the pickup steady. He turned onto the main, paved road and kept his foot on the gas for a while longer. After another minute, he finally slowed and veered onto the shoulder, coming to a complete stop with the engine running.

  He turned to Riley. “Alright, now, tell me what you saw.”

  “There… there was a woman…”

  “Where at?”

  “In the hall. She was just standing there.”

  “She trip the alarm?”

  Riley thought. “Uh, no. No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes! I went in. It was doing its little warning beep. I entered the code. It stopped.”

  His eyes narrowed as he examined her. Riley could read the look on his face — he doubted her.

  “You’re absolutely, positively sure you saw someone in that hall?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Not just some reflection of light from the bathroom? Or some curtain, or something?”

  Riley looked at him. Her gaze was firm. “I saw someone in the house.”

  He nodded. But he didn’t make any other motions.

  “Just call the police!” Riley said, her voice cracking a bit.

  “My job’s got certain protocols on how to handle situations like this. Once I make the call, I can’t take it back. And so, tell me, are you one-hundred percent sure it wasn’t some trick of light? It wasn’t that you’re tired? You saw someone in the house?”

  Riley gulped. Her mind replayed the entire scene, everything she could trawl from her memory. She looked at her dad. “Yes.”

  His face stayed firm. “Well, okay then.”

  He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. Someone answered immediately.

  “Tyler, it’s Gerhard. 459, Code 2. My house.”

  ***

  At the base of the hill by the Facility, tucked away in the trees, stood a garage. The door of the garage rolled up. Two white, windowless vans pulled out.

  They sped off down the road.

  The vans rolled through town, honking loudly as they plowed through an intersection witho
ut slowing.

  The locals knew enough to stop their cars and not ask questions.

  The police knew enough to not interfere.

  Within four minutes, the vans arrived at the turnoff to Joe’s driveway.

  They sped down the gravel road and screeched to a halt in front of his darkened home. The back and side doors of the vans opened and two teams of guards — dressed all in black and armed with submachine guns — streamed out in perfect military precision.

  One team went through the front door.

  The other looped around the sides.

  CHAPTER 7

  Riley looked out the window of her dad’s truck as they rolled to a stop in front of the house. Portable floodlights lit the driveway and the nearby forest as armed guards patrolled the grounds. Every light in the house was on. More guards moved around inside. Riley could see them in the living room as they inspected every cabinet and checked behind every curtain.

  One particularly large man — whose black uniform had no rank or insignia — approached the pickup and held the door open for her dad. Riley watched from the passenger seat as her father climbed out and warmly shook the man’s hand.

  “Whatcha got for me, Tyler?” her dad said to the large man.

  Although Tyler stood ramrod straight, he gave her dad a slight smile, his entire posture conveying both a respect for her dad’s authority and a closeness to the man. “Building is clear. No signs of forced entry. We’re combing the perimeter now. No footprints in the soft dirt surrounding the house. No suspicious vehicle tracks along the road.”

  Riley watched her dad’s stance tighten and his face flush a bit.

  “I see,” he said. He bit his lip, seemingly disappointed. Or embarrassed.

  Riley glanced around. All the other men had stopped working and now kept their eyes on her dad and Tyler, awaiting their orders. Riley always suspected it, but now she knew — her dad was someone important.

  “We dusted your computer. No prints, other than yours,” Tyler said. “I checked the logs. Don’t seem to be any strange logins or obvious signs of system penetration. I’d like to check your security camera feed, see if maybe it caught something.”