Where He Can’t Find You

Chapter Two

Abby stayed only long enough to slide a note under Hope’s door, saying where she was going.

That was one of their rules: don’t leave without telling someone.

Her silver bike waited for her against the house’s side. She jogged with it to the street, then climbed on and turned toward the main road.

When people wanted to say something nice about Doubtful, Illinois, they called it a bike-friendly town. What that really meant was that cars were too unreliable. Most of the time they’d work as intended. But sometimes, with no warning, they would stall. Or grind to a halt. Or simply refuse to start.

The town’s mechanics would look at a car and say, It’s got the jitters. That was slang for when they couldn’t find anything technically wrong, but it simply refused to work.

And it wasn’t just cars. Phones were unreliable. Streetlights went out. Televisions would play static or display a mangled version of two channels spliced together, audio and graphics merging into one.

Things in Doubtful just broke easily.

Not bikes, though. The rubber and spokes and brakes didn’t rely on electricity, and so the town’s decaying effects left them alone. If you wanted to be certain of getting somewhere in Doubtful, you rode a bike.

Abby’s breath came hot and fast, spiraling out behind her like smoke. She moved quickly, air funneling around her body, her legs heating from the exertion, and at that moment she felt as though she could outrun the darkness itself. A streetlight behind her blinked and then vanished, extinguished like a candle being snuffed out. She rode faster.

It was still well before dawn. The houses around her were dark. With the lights out, it was sometimes hard to tell which houses held sleeping forms, and which had been abandoned for years.

A shadow raced toward her, emerging from one of the side streets like a phantom. It skimmed closer until it ran alongside her, matching her pace. In the intermittent streetlight, she could make out dark hair and wild, intent eyes. Rhys.

They shared a look, then turned back to the road ahead.

Don’t travel alone. That was another Jackrabbit rule. Rhys could have taken a more direct route to Breaker Street, but he’d taken the longer path to join up with Abby instead.

The road vanished under them. Rhys matched her furious pace perfectly, and they stayed abreast, each turn anticipated, until the rusted sign for Breaker Street rose out of the gloom.

Abby’s lungs burned from the exertion, but it was a good kind of ache. The kind that told her she was alive and moving. That her body was strong. She let her bike roll to a halt and put one foot down as she stared along the road.

Red and blue lights flashed, lighting up the asphalt and the washed-out houses. She counted three police cars and an ambulance, all parked askew on a lawn that was long dead and choked with dry, rattling weeds.

Breaker Street was residential but right next to a strip of industrial stores: cube-like buildings with bars over their windows and flat roofs. The area had all been built around the same time—decades before Abby had even been born—and then left to slowly be consumed by neglect.

Rhys gently tapped her arm to draw her notice, then nodded toward the shops across the road. Two figures stood in their shadows. Riya, small and tense and with her dark hair tightly braided, had one arm raised to hail them. Just behind her was Connor, his curly flaxen hair mussed from sleep, his large teeth working at his lower lip as he tried to control his nerves. Abby and Rhys silently crossed the road to meet up with them.

“There’s a ladder,” Riya whispered as they drew near. Even her warm complexion looked washed out and strange in the frantic, undulating red and blue lights. She nodded to the store behind them, which had once printed commercial signs but had been out of business for more than a decade. It still held advertisements in its fogged windows, promising forty percent off everything. “We might be able to see better up high.”

Rhys gazed up the metal ladder bolted to the building’s back wall. “Good find,” he said.

They left their bikes at the store’s back, where they were less likely to be seen. The shops along that stretch of road, right on the outskirts of town, had been left to neglect. Rust flaked off the ladder as Abby climbed, and the wall was full of cracks, zigzagging along the lines of the bricks hidden beneath the concrete, like a map of a hidden city. She reached the ladder’s top and swung her legs over the half wall.

The flat concrete roof was barren except for piles of rotting leaf litter gathered in the corners and a stack of old boxes and abandoned furniture clearly intended to be thrown out but then forgotten. The half wall ran around the roof’s edges, like a battlement, and Abby held her breath as she crossed the space to get a better view of the streets.

On the other side of the main road, Breaker Street was alive with activity. Abby lowered herself, her arms braced on the half wall, as her three friends took up their places next to her.

Every house along the street looked like it was built from the same mold. They were all Midwesterns with sagging porches and shutters over their windows, and picket fences that sliced the lawns into portions.

They could have looked beautiful once, but Breaker Street had succumbed to time and apathy. The fences leaned and the lawns had lost their color. Children’s toys had been abandoned in a nearby yard: tricycles and a small plastic slide now overgrown with weeds.

The police cars had all parked outside one of the worst houses. Pots were spaced about its porch, but none of them held any plants. The shutters were cracked, boards coming loose, and the painted siding was peeled and discolored.

Riya leaned close to the wall, her small hands gripping the cracked concrete, her expression tight. “I pass that house every day,” she said. “I’ve never seen anyone in it.”

Abandoned houses weren’t uncommon in Doubtful. Properties were cheap, but there were few jobs to attract new residents. Forgotten For Sale signs dotted the town, weathered or tipping over like loose teeth, abandoned where they stood.

Abby remembered how, when she was young and eager to have adventures, she’d wanted to explore some of those empty buildings. She’d quickly learned why that was a bad idea. It wasn’t unheard of to find things in them.

Figures moved in and out of the house, flashlights in hand. The ambulance’s back doors were open, but Abby couldn’t tell if anyone was inside. Most of the activity seemed to come from the police. Their uniforms and badges caught the red and blue lights, but their caps were pulled too far down for her to recognize any of their faces.

Rhys had one forearm resting on the wall as his dark eyes took in the scene. “Do you think the new transfer’s there?”

One of the deputies had left town nearly six weeks before, bundling his family into his car and tearing out without even putting in his resignation. The town had been forced to hire an outsider. The new transfer and his daughter had apparently moved in just days before, but Abby had yet to see either of them.

“I can’t imagine what sort of welcome to town this would be.” Connor poked around the pile of abandoned items before pulling something free. He’d found a folded metal chair, red with rust. He shook it out to open it.

“You’ll get tetanus,” Riya said at the sound of whining metal, without even taking her eyes off the road.

Connor made a faint noise in agreement, but still positioned the chair near the half wall and sat. His pale, densely curly hair absorbed the undulating lights, turning a different shade with each flash.

“There,” Riya hissed, rising up another inch. “Look!”

The activity inside the house seemed to have condensed into one room. Flashlight beams cut over one another, bursting out of gaps in the tattered curtains and broken shutters.

Abby craned forward, breath held. She knew what was coming. A part of her didn’t want to see it, but a larger, stronger part of her had to.

This was how you survived in Doubtful.

You watched. You learned.

And you figured out the rules that would keep you safe.

Figures appeared in the doorway, carrying something on a stretcher. They wore thick gloves. Large masks covered the lower half of their faces. Their heads were tilted to one side, watching first the lopsided porch, and then the steps, and then the desiccated grass as they traced their path to the ambulance. Abby was struck by the impression that they weren’t just watching where they walked, but that they were desperately trying to avoid looking at their burden.

The shape on the stretcher was covered by a white sheet. It wasn’t large enough to be a whole human.

But it was undeniably part of one.

The first stretcher was closely followed by a second. Just like the first, its contents were covered. It was a larger burden this time. But still not the size of a full body.

Abby couldn’t read the officer’s faces except for a glimpse of their eyes: narrowed in revulsion.

“Who do you think it was?” Connor asked.

Abby couldn’t bring herself to answer. It felt too grim, too sour, to be betting on whose family would be receiving a call later that morning. Whose lives would be irrevocably changed.

A third stretcher came through the door, and the sheet covered something smaller than either of the first two.

Riya took a quick breath. “There’s more than one.”

Abby sent her a look. Riya’s eyes were almost fever bright.

“I counted three feet. They found more than one body this time.”

Abby leaned forward, her heart running fast. Chips of broken concrete shifted under her hands. The first stretcher had already been moved into the ambulance, but she thought Riya was right. Each bundle alone was less than a full body. But, together, they amounted to something more.

The officer on the final stretcher slipped as he stepped off the porch. Even with the distance between them, Abby heard him yelp in shock. The stretcher tilted. The sheet slid down. Another officer moved forward, grabbing the cloth and dragging it back over, but not quickly enough.

She saw a glimpse of the burden underneath.

Flesh. Red thread woven through it, stitching it back together.

“Was that…” Connor’s voice lost its joviality. His words were hushed, uncomfortable. “A hand?”

Yes and no. Part of a hand. And other things.

She watched, sickened and transfixed, as the final stretcher was lifted into the ambulance.

Then Rhys’s hand shot out, grasping her upper arm. “Vickers,” he whispered. The four of them reacted in unison, dropping down below the half wall.

Rhys didn’t need to explain what he’d meant.

Charles Vickers was here.

Of course he was.

He was at every crime scene, every discovery. Often before the police themselves arrived.

The store’s roof was dark. It would make them hard to see. Slowly, breath held, Abby raised herself in increments until she could see over the wall.

Charles Vickers sat on the porch across from the crime scene. He was in a rocking chair, his hands folded in his lap. His pale hair, balding on top, was neatly combed, and he wore one of his navy sweaters, an intricate knit pattern running across his torso. He gave the impression of just having stepped outside to relax.

Only, it wasn’t his house. Charles Vickers lived across town, on Stokes Lane.

He didn’t seem uneasy that he was sitting in someone else’s chair, on a porch that didn’t belong to him, watching a crime scene be established across the street.

“How long has he been there?” Abby asked, knowing none of them had an answer.

The porch was shadowed and his clothing was dark. He was barely visible, except for the small, rhythmic motion: the chair rocking back and then forward again in lazy arcs.

For all she knew, he’d been there when she and Rhys biked passed. Sitting in the dark, watching them.

“They’ve seen him,” Riya whispered.

Two police officers crossed the street in slow, measured strides, backlit by the flashing lights. One officer stopped in the middle of the road, hands on his hips, legs planted. The other continued on for another few paces before also halting. She was speaking to Vickers.

“I bet he called it in,” Riya murmured.

“Huh?” Connor asked.

Riya’s voice was wound tight. “How else would they know the bodies were there? Who’s exploring abandoned houses at four in the morning? Vickers set it up and then called it in and sat down to watch them process his crime scene.”

It made too much sense. He’s growing bolder.

The conversation was inaudible, but it seemed to stretch out. Vickers, calm as always, rocked the chair as he spoke. Then, at last, he stood.

Charles Vickers wasn’t an intimidating figure. He wasn’t tall, and he didn’t try to seem threatening. Most of his clothing—even in summer—were knit sweaters or windbreakers. His shoulders were curved. His demeanor, unassuming and calm. He looked like he could be a high school teacher, or a counselor, or a coach.

Until you saw his smile. It was small, chilling, and full of quiet knowledge. As though he was a part of a joke you didn’t understand. As though he was laughing at you behind his teeth.

He wore that smile as he climbed down from the porch. Both police officers took a step back. He said something, raised a hand in farewell, then turned away.

“They must have told him to move on,” Connor said, his voice raspy. “Look, he’s going.”

Charles walked to the end of Breaker Street, following the cracked sidewalk, then turned down the main road. He was almost past the store when he paused.

Abby’s heart squeezed painfully. Charles Vickers stood almost directly below their hiding place. He tilted his head, angling his gaze up toward them. And sent them one of those small, knowing smirks.

They all drew back. Abby’s shoulder pressed against the concrete half wall. Riya’s breath was hot and shallow on the back of her neck.

Charles Vickers’s smile widened a fraction, showing just a sliver of small, immaculate teeth. Then he turned and continued walking along the sidewalk, disappearing deeper into the town.

Abby’s blood pumped too fast. Her throat ached. Even with Vickers gone, she couldn’t relax.

Riya groaned as she leaned back against the wall. She didn’t seem to care that she was sitting in decaying leaves and forgotten trash. Connor gingerly raised himself back into the rusty chair and spread out there, legs askew, one hand pressed to his chest to signal his own racing heart.

“Stitcher.” Riya spat the word like it was a curse. “More bodies, and the police just let him go. Again.”

Abby looked back toward the house where the remains had been found. The two officers who had spoken to Charles Vickers had returned to their companions. A different officer was unrolling police tape around the building. It would probably stay there, knots coming loose and plastic decaying, until strands broke free and were lost in the mud and bushes. Just like all the others.

A broken spiderweb of forgotten police tape across the town.

The ambulance started up, its engine a deep growl, as it prepared to take the bodies away.

“At least we were here for this one,” Connor said. He hesitated, his eyebrows pulling together incredulously. “That was the plan, right? Remind me again why this was something we wanted to see?”

“Knowledge will keep you safe,” Riya said, reciting from their rules. She closed her eyes, grimacing. She’d been watching the scene intently, and Abby knew she was reliving the images of red-threaded flesh underneath the sheet.

“Yeah, I get that.” Connor leaned back and his chair groaned. An apologetic smile twisted his broad lips. “But also there was that whole thing about don’t go out after dark. And look where we are now.”

Riya flicked a hand, her grimace deepening. “You’re right, but this is morning night.”

“It’s…what?”

“Haven’t you noticed how they’re different?” She squinted one eye open to see him. “Late night, and early morning? You can go jogging at four a.m. and people will think you’re just a little too healthy for your own good. But go jogging at midnight and…well. It’s weird, right? It’s just not normal.”

They sat for a moment, letting the silence flow around them.

Then Connor said, “I’ve gotta be honest. I don’t think this town is built for normal.”

The tension from the previous hour broke, like a snapping rubber band. Abby keeled forward and chuckled, even as her chest continued to ache.

Even Rhys, at her side, let a ghost of a smile tease the edges of his lips before it vanished again.

She didn’t get to see that often, but she treasured it when she did. Rhys almost never smiled anymore.

“You know what I’m saying,” Riya said, eyebrows lifted pointedly. “No one should be out after dark. But there’s a difference between dusk and dawn. And, if we have to leave our homes, I’d rather it be on this side.”

Abby knew what Riya meant. On the distant horizon, morning was gasping its first breaths. There was safety in light. As much safety as you could hope for in Doubtful, anyway.

And it was always better to be on the approaching side of daylight, not the receding.

Their levity had been brief and almost desperate. Then Abby asked, almost against her better judgment: “Is anyone else having nightmares?”

“Oh, yeah,” Connor said. “Three in the last week.”

“My TV won’t turn on,” Riya said. “And my radio sounds strange. Things are getting bad again.”

There was a second-long whoop of a police siren before the driver turned it off. One of the patrol cars was leaving, following the ambulance.

Things are getting bad again. If Doubtful’s cycle had followed any kind of logical pattern, the discovery of a body should be a culmination, a final blow. It never was. Things getting bad meant more disappearances. And soon.

“Remember the rules,” Rhys said. His voice was soft, but they all turned toward him. “And keep your distance from Vickers.”

Abby remembered the way Vickers had gazed up at them, his secretive little smile lit up in the red and blue lights. He’d seemed…delighted. Chills moved through Abby, and she pulled her jacket tighter around her chest.

Rhys continued. “If you find yourself somewhere alone with Vickers, call me. If you feel unsafe, call me. No matter where, no matter when, I’ll come.”

It was a promise he’d made before, and Abby knew it was meant for all of them. But Rhys looked directly at her when he said it.

Her heart gave the strange, uncomfortable shift it sometimes did around him. Like misjudging how many stairs were ahead and having your foot land in thin air. A drop of the stomach, a catch of breath. The slightly giddy, slightly shocked sensations as your body regained its balance.

She looked away, focusing her eyes on the rapidly fading stars above. She didn’t like to think about those sensations, or what they might mean, or where they might lead her if she listened to them.

There was no point thinking about normal things like that anyway: there were no happy endings to be found in Doubtful.