Return to Red Creek Nathan Hystad (e books free to read .txt) 📖

it wasn’t getting a family sacrifice.” Paul looked at Taylor, worry creasing his brow. “We have to get out of here.”

Taylor shook her head, even though every inch of her agreed with his sentiments. “We can’t. Besides, the police caught someone and have him locked up. We saw it. The deputy says they have evidence.”

“Do you believe it?” Uncle Darrel asked, his voice never more serious.

Taylor considered the facts but found she couldn’t believe it. “No. I think the Schattenmann is still out there.”

“Then we should go,” her mom whispered, and as if remembering her son, she called into the living room. “Stevie?”

He didn’t answer, and Taylor’s dad was up in an instant. “Stevie!” he shouted, and Taylor followed him into the empty living room. The TV showed a paused video game, but there was no sign of her little brother.

“Check the front,” her dad ordered.

Taylor ran to it, finding it locked from inside. He hadn’t gone that way. She heard a cacophony of voices calling for her brother, who had somehow vanished from in front of their eyes.

“The back door’s unlocked!” Isabelle called from the rear of the house, and they ran there in a pack. Taylor’s dad was the first one out, and she was close behind him as he turned the porch light on. Stevie was sitting there, headphones on, head bobbing.

Taylor’s dad scooped him up in his arms, her brother looking much too large for the motion. Stevie’s headphones fell off his head, and he shouted, “What are you doing, Dad?”

“You scared us, Stevie. What did I tell you about staying in the living room?” her dad asked. The others had migrated into the house, leaving the scolding to the privacy of the backyard. Taylor stayed, walking over to her mom and dad, who were hugging Stevie.

“Kid, you don’t want to be out here alone,” Taylor said softly, extending her gaze around the yard. “Dad, let’s go inside.”

“Let me down, Dad,” Stevie said, wiggling free from his dad’s embrace.

“Get inside,” Terri said angrily. She stopped on the porch and turned to Taylor, grabbing her arms as Paul entered the house with Stevie. “I know you felt the need to come here and help with the missing kids, but I don’t think this was a good idea. We don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

“We know much more than we did before,” Taylor retorted.

“Honey, you were there. Do you remember when Grandpa was in the hospital and you ran down the hall ahead of me? Your dad was in Red Creek. You saw the shadow then. If it was here and there at the same time, have you measured in your mind how powerful it must be? It’s survived for two hundred years, traveling with a family, feeding on the souls of children wherever it lands.”

“That’s why we have to stop it,” Taylor said, feeling resolve firm in her veins as she said the words.

Her mom’s eyes had filled with tears. “That’s why we should leave here and never look back.”

“We can’t. I have a hunch, and I think I’m right,” Taylor said.

Terri let go of Taylor’s hands and wiped her tears away. “What’s the hunch?”

“Will you promise we all stick together and see this through?” Taylor asked. She had a feeling they were going to need all the help they could get.

“If that’s what it takes, then yes.”

Taylor’s dad was hovering outside on the porch, the chilly evening air making his breath mist out. He held his wife’s hand and waited for Taylor to speak.

“It’s not fully powerful yet. It still needs to feed. And we have what it wants most, right here in this house.”

Her dad was frowning. “What’s that?”

“Good old-fashioned Smith blood.”

_______________

Paul was driving the SUV to the orchard, and Darrel was in the lead in his pickup truck. Beth had stayed home with Terri and Stevie, and Paul hated the thought of leaving them behind. Stevie was their blood, and the youngest. Taylor hadn’t suggested her brother might be the bait, but to Paul, it felt like she might have suspected.

There was no way he was going to let this thing get his son. He was of half a mind to drive Taylor out of town now, but she’d find a way to come back. Paul could see his own bullheaded behavior mirrored in his daughter, and there was no stopping that level of stubbornness.

Beth had never seen the shadow. Even when Taylor had been taken twelve years ago outside Chuck’s, they hadn’t seen it, so he was reasonably sure it wouldn’t go there. His old house, on the other hand, seemed to be a hotspot for it.

“You’re sure about this?” he asked Taylor, who was in the passenger seat of the Range Rover. Brent was sitting in the middle seat behind them, leaning between the seats so he could hear the conversation. He seemed like a decent kid, and Paul could tell Taylor was into him. Paul was also surprised by how well the young man had taken to all the insane and open discussion of their family’s secret history.

“Of course I’m not sure, Dad!” Taylor answered loudly. She adjusted her voice, and Paul could hear how petrified she was. “Trevor Hayes saw this thing repeatedly, over the span of six months or so. Not once did it attack him. But he was the right age. It wanted him. It needed his soul, or heart, or liver, or whatever the hell this monster feeds on.”

They’d spent hours researching various shadow figures online but hadn’t come up with much. There was a lot of folklore around shadow people, but it didn’t quite fit. First, most of the time they were seen from the corner of one’s eyes, often when in bed or waking. They might be shades of the underworld or other supernatural creatures, but Paul didn’t think that was what they were dealing with.

Most of these sightings didn’t result in harm, which might line up, but they didn’t see anything close