Darkridge Hollow: A dark and fast-paced thriller set deep in Midwest America by Nicky Shearsby

Author:Nicky Shearsby [Shearsby, Nicky]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SRL Publishing
Published: 2024-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

16

I drove to Megan’s property with too many impossible ideas swarming my brain. I’d tried hard and failed to focus on something other than her last words, nothing she’d said providing any notion of truth. I was no longer concerned for my safety. Our earlier conversation had left me numb and desperate, her continued lies ensuring I was standing on the precipice of hell, waiting to be devoured by demons that came in the form of incomprehensible human beings.

I brought the car to a halt, the engine left running – should I need a swift escape – retaining a safe distance between my vehicle and Megan’s domain. Her overgrown driveway was ready to ensnare my wandering feet, should I venture too close, my wondering mind already captured. The entire place was as hidden as my thoughts, her windows dark and imposing—that dilapidated property as threatening in the daylight as it was in the dark. If Megan was trying to make me appear insane, it was working, single-handedly ensuring I was now on the edge, borderline manic, the police having no issues buying her crap.

I’d fully expected police intervention by now, news crews, live interviews, national television coverage promoting a full-scale search for my missing child. I assumed many concerned residents would be ready and willing to help me without hesitation. Yet, as it was, nothing had happened, nothing able to sedate my pulsating brain aside from a few oddly placed comments, a passing gesture of sympathy—death and decay the only things I’d absorbed. That skinny-framed figure I’d imagined in the darkness ensured I was overthinking everything, my mind creating images that didn’t exist, my missing child the reason behind it all. “Leave Darkridge Hollow,” Martha had told me, her words expressed with volatile force. Why would she say that? What the hell was I missing?

The concept made me sick to the pit of my stomach, leaving behind a taste of bile that continually burned my throat. Who could I talk to anyway? Who would believe the shit I’d endured? Anna had often joked about places you should never venture alone, many small communities best avoided. Until now, I didn’t assume they were real, just ridiculous pandering, Anna’s imagination running wild, her words designed to poke fun because she could.

I loitered beyond the boundaries of Megan’s property for well over an hour, my rental car my only willing companion. When someone tapped the window, I wasn’t expecting it, my imagination a troubled, tangled mess of shit I’d created from too many impossible scenarios. I turned sharply to see a smiling stranger. It momentarily threw me, such an innocent gesture alien to my senses. I was no longer used to simple acknowledgements, the last couple of days ensuring my mind was permanently set on high alert, antagonistic behaviour the norm. Yet this stranger’s smile allowed a brief assumption that I could open the window without provoking immediate chaos. The guy didn’t look a threat. I should have been grateful.

‘You lost?’ He was

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