And Ruin Followed Behind Her

Chapter 1-3

AFTER FINISHING WITH the funeral home, I decided to walk through town. I hadn’t been back since the night of the portal opening, and I figured it would be my last chance to see the old town before I left it forever. There was nothing holding me to Chandler anymore.

I had nothing but bad memories here. I had no friends. I had no lovers. I had nothing that I wanted to burn into my memory forever, except for the mystery spot, which was the start of all this. It was the beginning and the end of everything good—and bad—that happened to me over the last two years. Maybe my entire life.

I had always thought the mystery spot was just a hole in the middle of a park that made my hair stand on end. After all, that’s what it had been doing since before I was even born. The town was built around the mystery spot. It was quite literally the hub of everything we did. Stores, schools, and churches lined the square around the mystery spot and people bustled between them all day and night.

People from all over the world came to our little corner of Colorado to witness the spectacle for themselves. The mystery spot drew over a million visitors a year in its heyday and brought prosperity to the town. Nobody knew what it was until the night it opened a portal to Hell. Now, the streets were deserted, and the buildings laid fallow and desolate, their windows boarded up and their facades cracked and chipped.

Of course, I knew why. I destroyed it when I closed the portal to Hell. The mystery spot no longer had any spark in it; it didn’t have any power left, which meant there was no reason for people to travel here. What used to be a unique attraction was merely a hole in the ground. No reason to drive a thousand miles just to see that.

Crossing the street to Mystery Spot Park, I turned back to see Elka’s old shop, once full of teas and curiosities, now abandoned to time. The windows were boarded shut, just like the shops on the right and left of it. I never thought I would see something so sad in Chandler. Those shops seemed like they would outlive all of us, and yet in just a few short years they were gone.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” I heard as I walked toward the center of the park. I knew the voice well, even if I hadn’t seen the man behind it for more than two years.

It was Chuck Dixon, the park’s security guard. The last time I saw Chuck he was bleeding from a pair of gunshot wounds to the chest. He walked with a cane now, but he had the same big, warm smile as ever.

“It’s good to see you, Chuck,” I said, walking toward him.

He wrapped his arms around me. He was big, strong, and handsome as ever, even if he was doughier than I remember him. “I’m sorry to hear about your mama.”

Seeing Chuck again and thinking about Mama made my eyes well up with tears, but I knew Mama wouldn’t have wanted that. She didn’t want me to mourn her. She made her choices and lived with them, with no regrets. She didn’t want chemo, to spend her last months getting violently ill. Hell, she didn’t want to be stuck in one place for long enough to receive treatment. Mama lived as best she could with the time she had, and she wanted me to do the same.

“Thank you.” I unlatched myself from Chuck’s hug. “I’m glad to see you’re alive.”

“Me too.” Chuck nodded. He was looking at me, hard, like he wasn’t sure if he should say something. “That night—what happened that night?”

I smiled. “Do you really wanna know, Chuck? Or should we just chalk it up to one of those Chandler secrets?”

He laughed. “You know, I think I’d rather not know. I was unconscious when it happened, clinging to life, and then I came to and they told me some fantastical stories. Last thing I remember was you . . . you bringing me to that store and that nice, old woman bringing me to the hospital.”

“That’s all you remember?”

Chuck shook his head. “I was just trying to stay alive, Julia. I barely remember anything.”

I walked toward the hole in the ground that was once the Mystery Spot. “That’s for the best.”

“Maybe,” he said, following behind me. “But when I got back up, I was out of a job and the city was overrun by the national guard. That’s a pretty rude awakening.”

I sighed. “And the mystery spot wasn’t special anymore.”

“No,” he said, looking down at the hole. “No, it wasn’t.”

I don’t know what I hoped for when I walked to the mystery spot. Some piece of me hoped my hair would stand on end and my toes would curl like the best memories from my childhood, but that wasn’t possible now. Intellectually, I knew it would be that way, but I still couldn’t comprehend it until I felt it for myself. The stark reality was that there was no magic left in Chandler anymore.