Founder

Chapter 1

1

“She shouldn’t have called you.”

He could barely make out his wife’s face in the dark car. She didn’t reply, but he heard her sigh as she adjusted her hands on the steering wheel, emerging from one sharp turn to enter another that veered in the opposite direction. His body swayed slightly with the car. The world was gray in their headlights—asphalt and trees, subdued double lines that should be yellow. Or maybe it was him, the grayness. Sometimes he lost his colors. Not completely, but just enough to notice their absence.

“I was fine,” he continued, rubbing his sore hand, but she didn’t respond. “I am fine.”

Finally, she glanced in his direction, before her eyes returned to the mountain road. “No, you’re not.”

Her voice was sad. Why was her voice always sad lately? “What do you want me to do?” he asked. “And don’t say, go to that place.”

“What place?” she asked, now with a spark of anger. “Prison? Or the morgue? Because that’s where you’re gonna end up. That’s where you’re headed now. Is that what you want? To leave me a widow?”

“No! Of course not. But he was—”

“He was what? Tell me. Tell me what he was doing that made you swing a chair at the back of the man’s head.”

He felt a grinding frustration inside, one that went beyond his worn teeth into his very bones. “I wasn’t drunk.”

She laughed, short and harsh. “I know you weren’t. That’s what scares me.”

He struggled to get the thoughts, the words, to line up in his head. He’d been so careful about what he said lately, but he had to tell her. She had to know. And yet, as he spoke, the anger built in him again.

No, not anger—fear.

“He was going to hurt you,” he said, and he heard the same grinding in his voice that he felt in his bones.

She glanced toward him. “What do you mean?”

“I could hear him, wanting to hurt you.”

His wife sounded as though she didn’t have enough air to speak, forcing the words out from the bottom of her lungs. “How did you hear him? Who was he talking to?”

He paused. “He wasn’t talking out loud. But I heard him. I heard the things he wanted to do to you, in my mind.”

“Jesus,” she whispered.

She didn’t believe him. She loved him, but she didn’t believe him. That’s why he had to protect her.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she said, still barely above a whisper. “It’d be one thing if it were just us, but I have to think about—”

“I won’t leave you.”

She glanced over, and he thought he saw tears shining, reflecting the light from the console. “I don’t want you to. But I’ll be safe with Iris while you’re gone. And it won’t be long, just until we can get your medication right again. I promise.”

“It’s real! I swear to God, this is real!”

“Sweetheart, I know you think it is.” She paused, and the car slowed as she approached the Dead Hollow curve.

“It is real!” he exploded, raising his arms toward the heavens. “I have to stop him! If I’m not here, he will rape you and kill you and—”

In that moment, he saw her face turn toward him, her beautiful face. He saw it in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle as it rounded the turn, on the wrong side of the center line.

“Charlotte—”

But did he actually speak her name? Did he hear it, before her eyes grew wide and she jerked the wheel? Before the car pitched and the sound of brakes—theirs and the other vehicle’s—ripped through the air? Did he hear himself say her name before she screamed?

Their brakes dragged and clawed at the road, but the car struck the guardrail anyway, whipping his head but barely slowing them down. The front tires left the asphalt, his stomach lurched, and they were airborne. Then it all became a jumble of sound and sensation: tree limbs snapping, glass and metal breaking, the impact of the ground, of his head against the side window, of a tree, and then a second one, and then suddenly realizing that they’d stopped even though the sounds kept ringing in his ears.

The driver’s side was mashed against a tree trunk, but somehow the headlight on his side still sent a weak beam through the forest, visible through the space that used to be the windshield. His head itched. He reached up to scratch his temple, but scratching hurt, and his hand came away sticky.

“Charlotte?” He still wasn’t certain if he was speaking out loud. There was something wrong with his hearing. That must be why he didn’t hear her answer. He could make out her shape next to him, head back and immobile, but he couldn’t reach her.

Seat belt. His fingers fumbled with the release, and he could feel the noises of fear and frustration emanating from his chest and tearing through his throat. He felt but couldn’t hear the click as the buckle came free. The shoulder strap got hung up around his head, and his body shook with exasperation as he tore it loose.

“Charlotte.”

Her name was on his lips—he could feel it there—whether he heard it or not. He leaned across the gap between the bucket seats until he could feel her breath on his face. It didn’t smell right, and it came out heavy and uneven. She was in pain. Her face was a pale blur, with patches interrupted by darkness, and he was afraid to touch her without seeing where and how she was hurt.

Dome light. The roof had buckled some toward the windshield, but was mostly where it belonged overhead. It hurt to lift his arm, and he couldn’t find the little switch for the light. He tried to open his door, but it stuck until he gave it a mighty push with both legs.

Miraculously, the light came on. And he saw what he feared most in the world. Her pallor, the dark blood staining her face and shining wet below her chest. And something else. A kind of shimmering… She’s dying.

“No!” He stepped backwards from the car, clutching at the door as his legs buckled. From his knees, he turned and looked behind them, up over the bank in the direction of the road. There was a glow there. Headlights? And a figure silhouetted against them.

“Help me! Please, help me!” he screamed. The figure turned, hesitated. “If you leave, I will find you! I swear to God, I will!”

His throat felt so raw, surely the person must have heard him, but the figure disappeared. Moments later, the light left as well. A sob rocked his chest before he climbed back in the car.

“Charlotte, sweetie,” he said, leaning toward her. Her eyes swung in his direction, but they didn’t look right. Different sizes or too big or something. He tried not to think about it. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

“No,” she said, before burping a trail of blood from her mouth.

His chest seized. She was right. He couldn’t move her. But he had to save her. How could he save her? What could he do? He looked over his shoulder, into the forest. Into the places where his father had dwelled. The place where he had died. And that’s when he heard it—his father’s whisper. He couldn’t make out words, just an echoing whisper like the hiss of a snake, telling him what to do. If he could remember the language. If he could interpret the signs. He turned to his wife.

“No,” she said. Except he was watching her, and her lips never moved. But her voice was clear in his mind.

No, Virgil.

As his ears strained for more words, from his dying wife or dead father, he began to distinguish other sounds. Like the screaming coming from the back seat. How had he not noticed the shrill noise before?

He got out and tried to open the back passenger door, but it wouldn’t budge, not even when he levered one booted foot against the rear of the car. He climbed back in the car, wedged his broad shoulders between the bucket seats and peered through.

The boy looked fine, unharmed in his little denim overalls and still strapped into the child’s seat Virgil kept thinking he’d outgrown, his chubby face screaming with terror. Good thing he’d listened to Charlotte…

And that’s when he heard the voice again—his father’s voice—and although there were still no distinct words, the voice carried intention. Instruction. There was still a way to save his wife. If he were willing.

He reached for the child—