The Darkness comes hunted

Chapter Ten: The Holy Ground

Back in Prescott Manor, the atmosphere had calmed down. Quietly, all the guests focused and waited for Valentina to begin her eulogy.

“I know it’s impossible, but I swear—when I put it on, it feels like he’s in the room, smiling at me—” Valentina gazed at Nathan’s casket that was placed beside his portrait in a golden frame. She wiped her tears and continued.

“Even though he was born three years before me and had a totally different birthday from me, Nathan, like any big brother, tried to convince our parents to combine our birthdays into one. But at first, I didn’t know why. I thought Nathan was jealous of me because every birthday I always had more guests than him. I used to be mad at him, really mad, when he first brought that up to our parents.” She wiped her tears again, regretting how she treated her brother.

“It wasn’t until years later that I found out the truth—it was because no one wanted to come to mine, and Nathan didn’t want me to know. So all the guests that came to my birthday were afraid of him. They had been forced by my brother to come and say nice things to me, even though they hated me to the core. He protected me, every single day. I wish I had been with him on that bus to protect him that day.” She couldn’t handle the guilt anymore.

Valentina turned to her brother’s casket behind her and said, “I’m sorry, Nathan—we failed you, all of us.”

Betty hurried to Valentina’s side, placing her hand on the grieving girl’s back, while in the front row, Mrs. Prescott got up and walked away, not bothering to check on her daughter’s feelings.

Valentina turned and hugged Betty, feeling sad and depressed.

A moment later, Mr. Prescott tried to handle the chaos that had just happened. He got to the podium and attempted to calm the guests down. This was a disaster for the Prescotts and especially their reputation.

“I think we’ll adjourn now, to the winter salon for a light supper,” he said, putting on a fake smile.

Most of the guests followed Mr. Prescott’s instructions and headed to other rooms, but not all of them. Mike and Betty decided to take a detour in Prescott Manor.

They both tried to sneak upstairs to Mr. and Mrs. Prescott’s bedroom, looking for some files that they had in their possession, a dirty d*******l file, or anything else that was illegal that they could use to bring the Prescott family down.

“Hey…shh, be careful,” Mike whispered in Betty’s ear.

“Do you know where the room is?” Betty whispered back.

“I don’t know, try to find a big room with a big bed in it, who knows?” Mike replied, in his sneaky voice.

Holding hands, they thought, “Sneaking around Prescott Manor like Ninja Turtles, what a night.”

Finally, they came across a room with a big gold-laid door. Mike peeked into it and saw a portrait of the Prescott family hanging on a big wall with a wide window view.

“I think this is the room,” Mike whispered to Betty.

Mike crept into the room, followed by Betty.

“Is it me, or did the temperature just drop like it does in horror films?” Betty asked Mike sarcastically.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s just the icy chill of the dead,” Mike joked back.

The duo started to look around, scanning the room for anything out of place.

“Where does a mob boss hide his secrets?” Betty asked.

“Maybe in a safe somewhere, or maybe he’s just like us, he hides them under the mattress, in the drawers, behind the headboard, or in the closet,” Mike said, busy searching through a pile of documents on Mr. Prescott’s desk. He saw something and crossed to the far corner of the room. He opened a cabinet door at the bottom of the bookshelf.

And Betty decided to check the nightstand, the pillow, and even pull out the bedsheet.

She felt something hard under the pillow and lifted it up. It was a gun, loaded and ready to fire. She gasped and dropped it, making a loud thud.

A loud cracking footstep could be heard from outside the room. “As I told you before, Valentina is a ticking time bomb, we should lock her in her room, not let her run wild like that.” It was the voice of Mrs. Prescott, yelling at her husband.

“You want to lock our daughter in her room, are you out of your mind??” This time it was the voice of Mr. Prescott.

“Locking her in a room is a better idea than letting her run wild and embarrass us like she just did downstairs.”

The argument continued, but back at Betty and Mike, they tried to keep their footsteps quiet, sneaking out of the room before Valentina’s parents caught them red-handed.

Before they could successfully escape, a loud yell from Mrs. Prescott could be heard again.

“Guard— go get my daughter, now—and bring her to my room.”

After hearing that, Betty wanted to turn back and go to warn her friend Valentina, but Mike stopped her.

“There’s nothing we can do, Valentina is a tough cookie, she can handle it,” said Mike.

“But Mike— we should—.”

“We should go, Betty, before we get ourselves into real trouble too.”

The pair decide to leave. Betty glanced back for a second, hoping she could do more to help her friend.

Meanwhile, in Valentina’s bedroom, Mrs. Prescott dragged her daughter from the upstairs main hallway to Valentina’s room and threw her into it like an animal.

“But— Mother— I had to, it’s what Nathan would have wanted.”

“No, Valentina. As always, it’s what you wanted.” Mrs. Prescott shouted right back at her daughter’s face, with anger that could be seen from miles away.

Tears dropped across Valentina’s cheeks, her eyes now looked like glowing red balls, caused by all the crying and depression she had been through these past weeks.

“I hope you enjoyed yourself, because after tonight…there will be no more phone, laptop, TV, PlayStation, party or sleepover— and if not for the fact that no one would have you…” she grabbed Valentina’s chin tightly. “I’d be shipping you off to a boarding school in Europe tonight.” Then she pulled back her hand and walked away.

Valentina’s bedroom door was slightly open, and beyond it was Mr. Prescott standing in the hallway, looking in at his daughter crying her eyes out, feeling really sorry for her, but with his wife’s eyes staring directly at him, there was nothing he could do.

Later that day at Lakewood River, sitting below the railway bridge were Cole and Cheryl, chatting, hugging and kissing like all teenagers do when they are alone together.

“I want to tell you something, Cheryl,” Cole said.

“What do you have on your mind, Bebe?”

“I secretly submitted one of my best photos to a photography contest in Los Angeles.”

“And— you won?”

“No— I didn’t even pass the first round,” Cole said, putting his head down.

“Oh–sorry to hear that, Cole. But your photography skills are the best in town, even my dad and your art teacher, Mr. Jefferson, agreed on it.”

“What if Mr. Jefferson was lying? People lie all the time. Maybe he didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The judges in the L.A. contest don’t think I have the chops.”

“So Mr. Jefferson said you were good, my dad thinks you were good, I think you were very good, and especially you, you thought you were good, and just because a bunch of judges in L.A. say you’re bad, and now you think you’re bad?” Cheryl said, trying to find the right words to boost her boyfriend’s confidence.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Who wouldn’t? You want me to wallow with you? Sorry, but I don’t know art.”

“It’s not just about what you all think about me, Cheryl. It’s about what I think about myself.”

“I know it’s hard, Cole, it’s almost impossible, but let me ask you this right now, who’s telling you that you can’t take a good picture? Mr. Jefferson, the judges in L.A., your dad, or is it just you?”

Cole paused for a moment, trying to dig up the information in his brain and give Cheryl an answer.

“I don’t know, C, I really don’t know— but can we stop talking about it and start kissing instead?”

After saying that, the pair continued their make-out session on the right side of the river, under the years-old railway bridge.

Of Lakewood, Oregon.

The scene shifted to the booth at Wipeout Arcade, where Betty the investigator was trying to tie the knot and work on their article with the expert crime solver, Mike Sinclair.

“It’s been two months since Merrick Biotech secured their land at the old drive-in with Mayor Blossom and his corrupted goons. The sign has been put up: Merrick Biotech Laboratory - Under construction? That’s what the sign says…”

“Merrick Biotech may have been based in our small little town and made it seem big, but it wasn’t, and it will never be. A lot of companies, like Merrick Biotech, come and go like the wind. First, they think, a small population means it is easy to control the narrative and the market share in the town. Oh boy, did they get it wrong? Lakewood is a small town, everyone agrees on that, but easy to control? That’s a big no-no for the people of Lakewood. But well, who knows, let’s see what the people of Lakewood are made of. Can they stand up to the big mighty evil company like Merrick Biotech and kick them out of town, or let them roll all over them?” Typing his mind into his laptop was what Mike Sinclair did on the weekends, just staying under the radar, researching, and then waiting for the right time to strike.