Taryn's Camera: Dark Hollow Road Part 7

"Cheap?" The other girl in the group laughed. "It was free! We found it on the sidewalk. Someone set it out," she explained to Taryn.

"Yeah, but we washed the cushions and sprayed it real well. There's nothing wrong with it," Emma said defensively. "Oh, and this is my roommate, Lindy."

Lindy looked eighteen and had shoulder-length blonde hair. She was hard-looking and brown, like someone who spent an equal amount of time at the gym and tanning bed.

Emma went around the room and made the other introduction: Joe, Brad, Eric, and Mike. Taryn knew she'd forget their names by the time she got back to the house but now she nodded and smiled at each one.

"So what do you guys do?" she asked, taking a bite of pizza. Dominos hadn't changed much since her own college days.

"We're trying to find Cheyenne," Eric grunted. He was the oldest looking in the group, although it could've been his red, bushy beard hiding his baby face.

"Did all of you know her?"

"Mike didn't," Emma explained. "He's Brad's roommate, though, and really good with computers so we roped him into this."

"I have nothing better to do," Mike smiled. He was strikingly good looking with a head full of dark, curly hair and an olive complexion that made him look Mediterranean.

"Don't let him fool you," Lindy smirked, giving Mike a punch in the arm. "He's as invested in this as we are."

"I don't know how much help I can be," Taryn interjected. She still wasn't sure why she was there, and not in the apartment but in Georgia at all.

"They all know about your, um," Emma faltered, searching for the word.

"Powers?" Brad of the camo pants suggested.

Taryn laughed. "I'm not a superhero! And it's more my camera than me. I've tried taking pictures of the farm, but I'm not really picking up on anything. All I can tell you is I know she was there. And, of course, you know that already."

For some reason she wasn't ready to share anything about her dreams yet, or the scream. Those felt too personal and she thought it best she play things as close to the vest as possible at the moment.

"Well, we can show you what we have," Emma insisted, snapping to attention and suddenly becoming business like. They removed the pizza boxes from the coffee table, which turned out to be a shipping crate, and began putting folders on it. Emma picked the first one up and opened it. A few sheets of paper fluttered out. "This is a timeline. It shows everything Cheyenne was up to in the forty-eight hours leading up to her death. There's also some copies of receipts in here to prove where she was."

"How in the world did you get those?" Taryn asked, raising her eyebrows. "Surely the police didn't..."

"Oh, no," Lindy replied. "From Thelma herself. She's given up on the police. They were dragging their feet. She hired a private investigator and a lot of this stuff is things she gave him. We just asked for copies, too."

"What happened to the private investigator?"

Emma shrugged. "He didn't turn up anything new. That's why Thelma let us take a crack at it."

"And brought in you," Mike smiled.

"To be honest, we don't have much to go on," Brad explained.

"It's like she just vanished into thin air," Eric quipped, the first thing she'd heard him say.

Taryn glanced over the timeline and receipts but there were no red flags. Cheyenne looked like a typical teenager: McDonalds (quarter pounder with cheese, no pickles), tanning bed, Wal-Mart (Revlon lipstick, a bag of Doritos, and a Keith Urban CD), and a milkshake from Dairy Queen. She'd apparently used her own bank card for all of the transactions.

"Did Cheyenne have a job or anything?" she asked after she'd flipped through everything.

"No," Emma replied. "She worked at a car wash one summer and talked about applying at Wal-Mart after she graduated but..." Emma let her voice trail off as the implication hung in the air. Cheyenne had never gotten around to applying at Wal-Mart because she was gone.

"Her parents gave her money," Brad supplied. "They worried about her and didn't want her to get stranded somewhere."

"Did they have a reason to be worried or was it just your typical parent thing?" Taryn asked. She remembered Thelma saying Cheyenne hadn't gotten along with her step-father.

Emma folder her hands under her chin and propped her elbows on her knees. "Cheyenne wasn't happy at home. That last year was probably the worst. She was hardly ever there. She'd come stay with me for a while, with Lindy a little bit, with an aunt... I mean, she always called home and checked in and all; she just didn't like being there. You know what I mean?"

"Is there any chance she just got too tired of it and left?" Taryn asked gently. In a lot of ways it did look like a runaway case. At least, the armchair detective in her, schooled by episodes of Law and Order and Criminal Minds, thought.

"No," Emma objected stubbornly. "I could see her doing it for a few days, maybe even a couple of weeks, but never for this long."

"Did they ever find anything of hers from that night? Any clues at all?"

"Her purse," Lindy offered. "It was still by the bonfire. One of the detectives thought when she caught the ride she must have been in a hurry and left her purse behind."

"I don't buy that," Emma frowned. "She always had that d.a.m.n thing with her. She kept a ton of makeup in there, some emergency cash, her cell phone... no. She wouldn't have gone anywhere without at least her cell."

The group was quiet, lost in collective thought. The silence between them was almost tangible.

"So what else do you have here?" Taryn gestured to the table, breaking the stillness in the air.

Brad and Mike began picking up folders and opening them. "We've got topographical maps of the farm and of the county, a list of people who have been interviewed and who we think need to be interviewed, pictures of her..."

Taryn hadn't planned on being alone in the total darkness as she drove back out to the house. While Emma's apartment was only a twenty minute drive away, the long driveway that separated the house from the rest of the outside world felt like a dark tunnel, channeling Taryn to another realm. The tall pines on either side reached up to the black sky, menacing now, shading the road from the glare of the moon and stars. She drove with her brights on, but still had trouble seeing more than a few feet ahead.

The normally soothing sounds of the Emmylou Harris CD she had pushed into the player now sounded eerie, a forbidding backdrop to the shadowy road and almost perfect stillness. She had to turn the song when "Love Hurts" came on, the almost dragging sound of her voice intertwined around the now-deceased Graham Parsons was just too much. Taryn slowed down to a crawl and poked around in the pa.s.senger seat for something else. A collection of Bryan Adams' hits might have been a little cheesy, but it was hard to feel frightened when "Summer of '69" was blaring through the speakers.

"Well, that's better," she mumbled to herself. Taryn had no problems talking to herself when she was alone. One day she'd probably be the crazy cat lady with the lavender-painted house and garden gnomes lining the walkway but for now she figured it was okay.

The night was cold so she'd cranked up the heater. The coldness made her joints hurt worse than usual, and she couldn't help but think about her grandmother; she'd always complained of arthritis in her knees and hips. "I'm getting older every second," Taryn sighed. "Pretty soon I'll be adding Vic's salve and support hose to the shopping cart."

She felt a sigh of relief when the road opened up to the meadow where the house sat, but then rolled her eyes when she realized it was as dark as a dungeonshe'd forgotten to leave a light on. "I'll be d.a.m.ned," she muttered, opening the car door to the wind and cold.

Running in an attempt to hold onto the heat of the car, she bounded onto the porch, trying not to think about the fact that when she got the door opened she'd be stepping foot inside a dark house.

When she placed her hand on the k.n.o.b, though, and tried to turn it she remembered that she'd locked it behind her when she left. Still muttering to herself, she rummaged through her coat pocket, the cold leaving her fingers stiff and numb.

Taryn had just fished the key out and was inserting it into the slot when the wind unexpectedly died down and the other sound began to build. It was subtle at first, a whisper, but it had her stopping in her tracks, the key left dangling loosely in the door. Then the whimper was all around her, a sound of helplessness. It encircled her like the wind, growing louder and louder. Taryn felt it in her feet, in her hands, p.r.i.c.kling at her brain. As it began to build in volume, so it grew in distress. It was no longer a whimper now, but a cry of terror.

Taryn turned in circles on the porch, her hands over her ears trying to block the horrible noise out, but could see nothing. She watched in shock as the keys shook on their chain and the windows rattled in their frames. The black night was a curtain and even the moon had slipped behind a cloud, leaving her completely alone with the horror unfolding around her. Taryn was at the center of a vortex, surrounded by a sound of incalculable fear she'd never felt herself. "Please stop, please stop, please stop," she chanted, but her words were lost, consumed by the night.

And as quickly as it started it stopped. There was nothing; the night air was quiet again, with only the sounds of Taryn's labored breathing breaking up the silence. She kept her hands over her ears, forgetting they were there. The moon and stars reemerged and shone down, illuminating the walkway and part of the porch. She took a tentative step, back towards the door and nothing happened. Now, more quickly, she scurried forward and began turning the key again.

But that was when she felt it.

With every instinct she had she knew there was something behind her, maybe only a few feet away. The key was stuck, probably from the rattling. As she began working faster to dislodge it, she could feel whatever it was moving closer and closer to her, an icy arm reaching out for her. A strand of her hair might have moved, tugged on, brushed aside. Drops of dirt fell at her feet. The breathing on her neck was cold, sour, and reminded her of throwing up after one too many c.o.c.ktails. The scent lingered on Taryn, threatening to sink down into her skin and stay.

Taryn's blood ran cold, her fear mounting as she fumbled with the door and lock. The fear started at the top of her head and quickly moved down to her hands and then feet as the eyes she knew were not far behind bore into her. There was a hitch of someone else's breath and then, finally, with one frantic shove, she opened the door and stumbled into the house, slamming the door to whatever was waiting for her on the porch.

Chapter 12.

Matt had been gone for four days and Taryn barely slept a wink because of it. It was nearly impossible for her to sleep at night so she'd taken to dozing during the day and then staying up during the night, editing photos and watching infomercials (thank goodness she was currently broke or else she'd been ordering everything she saw). The few times she had drifted off she'd gone straight into terrible nightmares, despite the fact she still wore her grandmother's ring. Even awake she listened to every little creak and groan the house made. And it made a lot. The night before she'd been sure she heard laughter upstairs, followed by footsteps in the kitchen. Cellphone in hand, she'd stalked the sources of the sounds and even called out in an attempt to communicate, but received nothing. It had her on edge and was enough to drive anyone insane.

Still, when Matt called she refrained from telling him about what had transpired on the porch; after all, he was working on something important and didn't need to be distracted. She could figure this out on her own.

She'd worked in haunted houses before. Few things would ever be as scary as Windwood Farm, or as troubling as Griffith Tavern. But this felt different. In hindsight, Permelia's ghost at Griffith Tavern was trying to give her clues and point her in a direction. And she wasn't completely certain that what she'd seen, felt, and heard at Windwood was really ghosts at work or just leftover energy. This, though. This felt pointed. Whatever was going on outside was being directed at her. It was aware. Proactive. And she had no idea what it wanted, although she could take a few guesses.

Despite the warm autumn sun pouring through the windows, Taryn wrapped herself up tighter in her fluffy bathrobe. Matt would be back soon and then at least she'd be able to sleep through the night again. And she'd definitely eat better. Without him there she'd resorted to pasta meals and takeout. And by "pasta meals" she wasn't talking about penne with sundried tomatoes and a white wine sauce. It was more along the lines of macaroni and cheese.

When she wasn't preparing for cla.s.s, trying to sleep, or editing her photos she was busy trying to organize her thoughts about Cheyenne's disappearance. She'd made notes, jotted down questions to ask Emma, and gone back over her pictures a dozen times. She didn't feel like she was closer to achieving any answers.

But she was almost positive she was being haunted by the missing girl.

It had been so long since Taryn paid for gas inside rather than at the pump that she almost found the act charming. Almost. It would've been more so if sleet hadn't been coming down in angles, stabbing her from all directions. She'd forgotten to fill the rental car up, again, and couldn't make it all the way to the college. Instead, she'd had to stop at the gas station on the outskirtsthat one hadn't yet upgraded to "pay at the pump" status but still served biscuits and gravy inside for $2.99.

Before she paid she wandered around and picked up a few essentials for her drive into cla.s.s and back: a couple of candy bars, a Mountain Dew, and some stomach acid tablets since she was pretty sure she was rotting her lining out with all the junk she'd been eating.

The overweight, frizzy-haired woman at the counter paid her no mind as she bagged up her items. Instead, her face was turned away, her eyes glued to something that was going on outside. "Six dollars and seventy-three cents," she announced vaguely, quickly glancing down at Taryn's card before looking back outside again.

"And thirty in gas?" Taryn supplied helpfully.

"Oh, yeah. My mind's somewhere else," she offered as an apology.

"Is everything okay?"

"Just watching," she murmured.

Now Taryn's eyes were peeled to the window, too. A stocky man with a blond crewcut and goatee was kneeling by his truck pumping air in his rear right tire. Colorful tattoos ran up his arm and disappeared under the sleeve of his white T-shirt. He didn't seem to be doing anything to warrant such careful observation. When he was finished, he jumped back up into his truck and peeled out of the gas station, black smoke billowing behind him.

Taryn was still waiting for her card when the cashier finally gave her a full inspection. "That was Travis Marc.u.m. He doesn't get out much, but I like to keep my eye out for when he does. You just can't trust someone like that."

Wanting to pry so badly, and yet feeling the need for decorum, Taryn walked a tightrope between manners and curiosity. "Is he the guy who..."

The cashier nodded with such vigor that her gla.s.ses almost fell off the end of her nose. She used one finger to push them back up and the other to punch in digits on the credit card machine. "Yep, that's him. Everyone knows he killed Cheyenne Willoughby, or at least helped hide the body."

Travis Marc.u.m, Taryn rolled the name around in her mind. That would be the older friend Cheyenne was last seen with.

"So did you know Cheyenne?"

Obviously pleased with the idea of being important enough to share information with, the cashier leaned forward and stage whispered. "Known her since she was a little thing. And one day law enforcement will have everything they need and give that no-good account a ride in the electric chair!"

Dang, Taryn thought, talk about the night the lights went out in Georgia. (Although she didn't think Georgia used old sparky anymore.) "So what's Travis doing now?" she asked, hoping for more information.

"Nothing," the cashier sniffed. "n.o.body around here with any sense will hire him. He lost his job driving the fork lift over at the speaker factory, and I reckon his parents keep him up now. He moved back home."

"So you probably know everyone around here," Taryn prodded.

"Yeah, mostly. The town's not the same as it was when I was growing up, that's for sure, but it's still small. Better when the college clears out. A bunch of prissy tree huggers who think they know more than anyone else. Asking for a Starbucks to come in here and complaining there isn't a decent place to buy groceries-like the Wal-Mart isn't good enough for them."

Taryn nodded her head in what she hoped resembled commiseration, despite the fact Matt had also pined for those very same things.

"It's a pretty place, though," Taryn smiled. "I like a small town."

"Yeah, well," she sniffed. "It will be a lot better when certain people are locked up where they belong. At least we'll know the streets are safe again."

"I didn't get everything wrapped up here like I thought I would," Matt apologized. His voice was m.u.f.fled and she suspected he was on the other side of room, shouting back at her. It made her want to shout back.

"It's okay, I'm fine." She hoped she sounded more lighthearted than she felt. "I taught today and have tomorrow off. Then there's the weekend. How's it going?"

"Oh, I got to train a new group of student interns today. They all called me 'Professor' or 'Mister.' One of those was wrong and the other just made me feel old. You?"

"Not much. Just been working on some things here at the house." Of course, she couldn't possibly tell him she spent most of the daylight hours sleeping because she was too scared when it was dark. He wouldn't have made fun of her, but he probably would've been back on the road and home in time for a midnight snack at the very least.

"Any new break-throughs?"

"No, but I did see the guy they said was the last one with her. I mean, I didn't meet him or anything. I saw him from a gas station window."

"Oh yeah? What's he like?"

Taryn smirked. "A little bit like Apple Valley's very own Boo Radley. He looked harmless enough, but I think if the cashier could've called the police she would have. You could tell she was looking for a reason."

"Listen, I want you to be really careful," Matt ordered, worry edging his voice. "I didn't like leaving you there alone, and you really don't know what you're getting into."

"Oh, I'm fine," Taryn tried her best to sound casual. "Remember, I've been on my own for a while, and this isn't my first rodeo with the strange and unusual."

"Yeah, but it's different this time. This time around all the key players are still alive. And we don't know what happened to Cheyenne. If someone hurt her, they could very well go after someone else next. Say, a pretty redhead who asks too many questions..."

Although she could hear a smile on Matt's lips, she knew he was anxious to get back. And she also knew he was right. This was the first mystery she'd ever been actively involved in. After all, this one had actually sought her out and brought her there. Some people might not take that lightly.

Emma picked Taryn up at noon, only about thirty minutes after she'd gotten up and thrown some clothes on. Taryn had stayed up late the night before, supposedly working but really watching a Friends marathon, and hadn't pa.s.sed out until after daybreak. She'd nearly forgotten about Emma's email and invitation for lunch.

When the maroon Chevy pulled into the driveway Taryn pulled on a Vanderbilt University hoodie, grabbed her knapsack, and pulled the door to behind her. At the last second she decided to lock it. She and Matt didn't normally lock it behind them, but coming back to a house that had remained open all day didn't seem prudent anymore when she was there alone. Of course, it might have come in handy to have it unlocked a few nights ago...

Lindy was riding shotgun, a baseball cap perched on her head, her long hair streaming in a ponytail out the back. In contrast to Emma's put-together look of long skirt and leather jacket, Lindy's tight sweatpants and tighter T-shirt made it look as though she'd just come from the gym. Both girls had fresh, young faces that would be pretty, thanks to their ages, even if they weren't particularly attractive. Taryn felt old as she squeezed in beside Lindy.

"I had to get out of the house," Lindy explained sourly as the sped down the gravel road. "My mom is driving me nuts."

"But we have to stop by there because Miss Thang forgot her purse and she doesn't go anywhere without it," Emma added.

Lindy shrugged and studied her fingernails, wrapped in the latest Jamberry special. "It's got my phone and s.h.i.t in it. It will just take a minute."