Return to Red Creek by Nathan Hystad (free ebooks romance novels .txt) 📕

to get out of there, but he was unable to make any sound. He was trapped. His shadow dragged beside him, carrying from the streetlights, adjusting angles with every step he took closer to the house.

“Paul! What happened! Why are you here?” Beth asked in a flurry.

A calm, familiar voice answered, “Bring me my family,” it said, sounding exactly like Paul.

“What? They’re right here.” Beth stepped to the side, and Paul felt his cheeks go wide in a sadistic smile.

“Son, come here,” he said, and Stevie considered his mom, a confused look on his face.

It was time. The shadow stretched forward, lifting off the ground, and Paul screamed inside his own mind, watching as it reached for his son, but unable to stop it.

_______________

Tom raced for town in the pickup truck. He was going twice the speed limit, the wipers intermittently swiping across the windshield, scrubbing away the light rain drops.

“Which way?” Tom asked as they entered the main hub of town. There weren’t many options.

“Right, then the next left,” Isabelle said. They hadn’t talked much, and Tom knew they were both in a little shock from the whirlwind of events within hours of one another. His priority was making sure Isabelle’s family stayed safe. He couldn’t believe it was all true. Tom had seen the thing pour off Emma. He’d seen the look of abject terror cross her face, and the relief when it was all over, the gun pointed at her head.

Then there was Rich Stringer, and the injured sheriff. Tom Bartlett would mourn the lost officer when it was over, but for now, he was pushing all the emotions into a box inside him, and wasn’t going to let them out.

He made the turns, the truck cruising along in the early hours of the morning. No one was on the streets at this hour, and it made him drive faster, knowing they were against the clock on this one. Whatever had entered Paul Alenn wasn’t friendly.

Isabelle had her dad’s cell phone in her hand, and she was hitting redial, which kept going to her mom’s voicemail. “Damn it, Mom, pick up!”

“We’re almost there, right?” Tom asked, and she pointed to the left.

“Turn there, fourth house on the left.”

Tom did, and instantly found his car pulled onto the side of the road. The front end was parked on the sidewalk, and Paul Alenn was walking toward the front door of the house. Tom shouted out his open window, “Get away from him! He’s not Paul!”

The woman’s eyes darted toward him, and Tom didn’t hesitate. He was already out of the car, gun in hand, moving down the sidewalk.

“What do you mean, this isn’t Paul?” a woman inside the doorway asked.

“Don’t listen to him, Terri,” Not-Paul said, his voice monotone, but clearly that of Paul Alenn. Tom didn’t know what to do.

“The man is Paul, but he’s carrying something inside him. The shadow. Look!” Tom pointed to the front yard, where the lifting shadow was moving for the door. It was as if no one else had noticed it, and Tom wondered how powerful this entity was.

“Stevie, get over here!” Not-Paul shouted, and Tom strode closer, his gun lifted.

“Mom, Aunt Terri, he’s not lying! The Schattenmann has killed more people.” Isabelle was standing behind Tom, hiding behind the safety of the detective, and Tom kept his body there as a wall. “Don’t listen to him.”

Tom’s instincts were to shoot. He could feel the dark energy lifting from the ground, but he feared the bullet would be useless. If he killed Paul, the thing would break free, and might enter one of the others. If their stories were true, it could join with any related blood, so the little boy or Paul’s sister would be targets. The young boy pushed free from his mother’s grasp while all of these thoughts ran through Tom’s mind, and he moved the gun’s aim lower and pulled the trigger.

_______________

The storage area was as Detective Bartlett had described earlier. Emma’s unit was at the end, and Taylor could see boxes from floor to ceiling inside through the chain link walls.

“She’s doing a lot to hide what’s inside, don’t you think?” Uncle Darrel asked as he moved toward the unit’s hinged entrance. There was a keyed padlock open, hanging on one of the links; the hasp was unlatched.

“Looks like she forgot to latch it,” Brent said, rubbing a finger on the open lock.

Darrel pulled the chain-link door open and stepped inside the storage compartment. Taylor wished she had a gun too and almost took the one from Brent. He looked so out of place with it in his hand. The storage area was mostly full, boxes and plastic totes stacked high in a circle around the see-through walls.

There was no nest hidden behind them, no monster, no kids’ bones, no living children, just the clean organized area of a woman with too many belongings for a small apartment in Red Creek.

“Wait, what’s that?” Taylor asked, noticing a crack in the far wall behind an empty shelf.

Darrel went first, and found the shelf itself wasn’t on the ground. It was hinged on the wall, and he tugged it open, the drywall coming with it. It was cut perfectly flush with the back, sides, and bottom of the metal ledge, so it was almost impossible to notice the variance in the drywall.

“It’s perfectly cut out in the wall,” Taylor said. “She must have cracked it running out of here, otherwise, no one would have ever seen this.”

“I think you’re right,” Darrel whispered. “Stay behind me. We’re going in hot and heavy.” He passed Taylor a flashlight, one of the heavy black ones full of D batteries. She hefted it in her hand and held it up, turning the beam on.

“Ready,” she whispered.

Brent was behind Darrel, gun at his side. “Ready.” His voice was barely audible.

Darrel held the makeshift door, and they stepped beyond the wall underground in the orchard. Taylor smelled it before she