The Darkness Within (5 page)

Hidden Truth

My heart pounded as I reached out and knocked on the door. The screen door was held open by my side as I knocked on the door once more, this time louder than before. I tapped my foot impatiently as I waited, wondering if David was going to open the door or not. I had already knocked a few times, and not once had I heard any movement from within the house. I pushed my unruly curls out of my face as I looked over my shoulder to David’s rocky driveway where his car was parked. Other than his car, there was no other indication he was home. The house was still and silent. I huffed a sigh, feeling a pit in my stomach. I felt extremely bad about last night and now I didn’t even have the chance to apologize while my accusations were still fresh on everyone’s minds.

Taking a few steps to the side and letting the screen door bang shut, I tried to peer into one of the thin windows on either side of it. A thin curtain covered the window, but I was still able to see a distorted view of the house. There were boxes still piled in the entranceway and the house looked unlived in. When I saw a shadow coming from the right, the kitchen area, I stood to full height and backed away from the window slightly.

When David pulled the door open, I gave him my best smile; beaming as if I hadn’t accused him of attacking his daughter just the night before.

“Claire?” David questioned, looking over my shoulder before meeting my gaze. He pushed the screen door open for me. “What brings you here?” He leaned against his front door, holding the the screen door open with his hand as if he was going to let it slam shut at any moment. Despite his rigid posture, he offered me a friendly smile—one that didn’t make my skin crawl and actually reached his eyes. He was dressed sharply in a gray, single-breasted suit, and tie. His hair was styled neatly, and he was wearing a pair of fancy looking leather loafers.

“Um, hi,” I mumbled, before clearing my throat. “I, um, just wanted to come and apologize about what happened at dinner yesterday, but if you’re about to leave for work or something then I can just come back tomorrow.”

David furrowed his eyebrows, then glanced down at his suit. “Oh, this?” He pulled at his jacket lightly. “It’s nothing, you’re more than welcome to come inside. I had a job interview earlier and I haven’t changed yet.”

“Oh, all right,” I said with a nod.

David stepped back, holding the door open wide for me to pass through it. The thought of going inside his house alone made my skin crawl, but I stepped inside nonetheless. Once I was standing in the foyer, David closed his door and turned to me. “Want something to drink?” he offered.

I shook my head no. “No, thank you.”

“Sure. Do you want to sit?” He brandished his arm out to the left, where two couches and a coffee table sat in the small living room.

I nodded and followed him into the living room, taking a seat across from him. The couch was much softer than I expected and my butt sank deep into the cushion. I shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position where it didn’t feel like I was being swallowed whole by his couch.

David sat across from me, his eyes just watching me. There was a flicker of something in them—amusement maybe. He just sat there with his elbows resting on his knees and his eyes glued to me. After a moment I realized he was waiting for me to say something.

I wrung my hands together as I began. “I wanted to apologize for having my mom ask you about what happened between you and Gwen. It wasn’t our place. I was just a little freaked out.” I swiped my hair out of my face and tucked it behind my ear.

“It’s really no problem, Claire. I’m sure I would’ve reacted the same way if I was in your place.”

“All right,” I said, not really knowing what else to say. “Oh, I also wanted to let you know that if Gwen ever wants to hang out with someone, I’d be more than happy to show her around. I’d love to meet her, and maybe she won’t be so sad about the move if she has a friend.” I smiled, and surprisingly David returned it. His eyes seemed haunted at the mention of Gwen and I hoped I wasn’t treading on thin ice. I wondered if they were even in a good place right now. It has to be hard living in a house full of tension and having your daughter hate you. I was so grateful that my mom and I got along well, or our relationship could be almost as bad as David’s and Gwen’s.

David nodded. “That would be really great. You seem like a great girl, Claire. For your young age you really have your head screwed on straight. Gwen could use a friend like you.” He paused momentarily, twisting his gold wedding band around his finger. When he began again, he had lowered his gaze to the ground, his expression doleful. “She texted me after school let out today saying she was going to a friend’s house to do homework and that she would be home after dinner. I’m glad she’s making friends, so I let her go, but I think she’s just looking for any excuse to stay out of the house until it’s absolutely necessary.” He looked up, giving me a sad smile.

I shifted positions awkwardly, causing my butt to sink farther into the couch. “What school is Gwen at? Does she go to Montgomery High?” I asked, attempting to change the subject slightly. I didn’t want to pry into his relationship with his daughter.

David shook his head. “No. I let her pick her school, figuring that was the least I could do. Move her away from her family and friends, and then let her choose her high school. She goes to Westfield.”

“Oh, cool.” Westfield High was anything but cool. The school was farther than Montgomery and a lot of the students there hated my school. We had a huge rivalry. Everything between the two schools was a competition and a majority of the people I knew there were stuck-up bigots. “Well, you can tell Gwen if she ever wants to hang out then she can just come knock on my door. I’m usually there, unless I’m with my friend Adrianna. On the rare occasion that I’m not home then she can just leave a message with my mom.”

David beamed. “That is very kind of you, Claire. I’m sure she will take you up on that offer.”

“Of course. It’s my pleasure.” I pushed myself up to my feet, preparing to leave. It took me a while just to stand up. It was as if the couch was trying to pull me back down and suck me into its cushiony depths. When I was on my feet, David stood too. He waved his arm out, gesturing for me to lead the way to the door. When he waved his arm, his cuffed sleeve slid up a few inches, showing off a nasty mark on his wrist. The skin was inflamed and red, and I could swear I saw the unmistakable indentions that could only be left by teeth.

David pulled his sleeve down quickly, eyeing me to see if I had noticed, but I had already flicked my eyes away. My mind was already racing again.
Had Gwen done that to him?
The bite was so deep it had pierced his skin. My head swam at the thought.
How could someone hate their father that much for not letting them leave in the dead of night?
Maybe Gwen wasn’t the kind of friend I needed. Not if she was capable of
that
.

I walked to the door, my thoughts going wild.

“Thank you for coming over, Claire. Tell Jasmine I said, ‘Hi’.”

“Sure thing,” I said, stepping to the side as David twisted the lock and opened the door. He pushed on the screen door just as the sound of something crashing to the ground caught our attention. I whipped my head around, looking toward the basement door where the sound had come from.

“
Shit
,” David said, looking angry instantly.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, my eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

David shook his head. “I have a pest problem,” he growled. He was seething and his face began to turn red as the sound of another object crashing to the ground met our ears. “You should leave. I need to call animal control. Raccoons keep getting inside.” David all but shoved me onto the front porch before he slammed his front door.

I stood on the porch in shock for a moment before I crouched down and peered through the window by the door again. I watched as a distorted image of David stormed into the kitchen, before he disappeared from view. I hurried over to the other window to get a better view, and watched as David flung his basement door open and descended the stairs.

I watched the open door, but nothing happened. I listened hard, trying to hear what was going on inside the house but there was nothing. With a sigh, I stepped away from the door and turned to head back to my house. I couldn’t do anything about it if David was a freak like I thought he was. There are plenty of weird people in this world. Being weird isn’t a crime, but with all of the strange incidents that happened whenever he was concerned, I couldn’t help but feel a little worried. There was this hollow feeling inside of me, my gut was telling me that he was hiding something. I just didn’t know whether to ignore my gut or give into my feeling and try to figure out what was going on.

As I took the stairs down from his porch I remembered the chain rattling noise I’d heard in the basement before. The crashes, along with the angry, red bite mark on his arm, and the scene from two nights ago made my skin crawl at the thought of what might be going on in his house. Something wasn’t right, and I was going to get to the bottom of it. I just needed to talk to Adrianna first.

Paranoia

“Lorenzo is coming home to visit at the end of the month,” Adrianna spoke, her voice coming out loud and clear over the phone.

I twisted a strand of hair around my finger, and continued to stare out the window at David’s house. “Mhm, that's good.”

Adrianna huffed into the phone. “No it’s not. All he does is pick on me and act like he's in charge.” She paused for a moment, before saying, “Wait, you aren't still into him, are you?” Her tone was accusatory.

I scoffed. “Not even,” I answered, coming out of my slight daze at her question. “He's not even cute anymore,” I lied. Adrianna’s brother, Lorenzo, was and always had been cute. He was three years older than us and was in his first year of college. I wasn't in love with him anymore like I was at one point, but I don't think I’d ever stop finding him attractive.

Adrianna breathed a sigh of relief. “Good, because that was
so
gross. He has a girlfriend now, you know,” she pointed out.

My eyes focused back on David’s house, looking at every square inch of it. The house really did freak me out. “Good for him.” I sighed into the phone and began twisting my hair around my finger again. “Can we talk about something else?” I asked. I had called Adrianna in hopes of talking about my suspicions about David, but she had instantly dove in and began talking about everything under the sun.

Adrianna sighed. “Well, I had been meaning to tell you about something that happened in anatomy today,” she noted, her tone changing. There was a hint of something in her voice, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Unease, maybe?

I sat up a little straighter, finally looking away from my window. “What happened?”

Adrianna took a moment to reply. When she did, her breathing was hitched. “Something happened with Ben. It was really strange.”

I was perfectly still, holding my breath as I waited for her to go on.

“We dissected a fetal pig in class today,” she continued. “Mrs. Nocera wanted us to remove all of the internal organs, examine them, and then make a chart on paper with their names and leave the correct organ beneath the name. Well, when it was time for her to come around and check our work, I noticed that our chart was missing an organ—the heart.”

“Did you get points taken off?” I questioned, crossing my legs and bouncing my foot. I didn’t see where she was going with this story.

“Well yeah, but that’s not the point. The point is that after class ended, Ben offered to walk me to my locker. I didn’t want to be rude, so I accepted.” Her voice lowered an octave, coming out in a whisper. “Claire, he gave me the heart.”

My foot stopped bouncing mid-air. I froze completely, digesting her words. “He
what?
”

“He gave me the heart,” she repeated slowly. “He used an x-acto knife to carve our initials into it. It was
so
small.”

I gulped. “Okay, that’s disturbing.”

“That’s an understatement. I threw up in the bathroom before we walked home. Dissecting the pig was bad enough already.”

That’s why she was so quiet on our walk home.
“You should’ve told me sooner,” I chided. “I could’ve talked to him. I honestly think he means well, he’s just a little socially inept. Not to mention the fact that he’s a
guy.
Guys our age are gross and don’t think before they act.”

“I guess,” she mumbled under her breath. Then a little louder she said, “I’m going to try to avoid him from now on. He makes me uncomfortable.”

“Fair enough.”

We were both silent for a bit. I shivered at the thought of Ben handing Adrianna the heart. He always had a crooked smile on his face that made his expression seem haunting.

“Is there anything you want to talk about?” Adrianna asked.

I hesitated for a moment. “Well, since we were already on the topic of people who make us uncomfortable...can we talk about David?”

Her response was immediate. “Oh my gosh, seriously, Claire?”

“Seriously!” I retorted. “How come you get to be unnerved by Ben, but I can’t be suspicious of David?”

“Um, maybe because David hasn’t done anything to justify your feelings toward him! Can't you just give the poor guy a break? So he likes your mom, that's not a crime! She’s gorgeous.”

“It’s not that,” I said, feeling frustrated that no one else saw how strange he was. How was I the only one picking up on his odd behavior?

“Then what is it?” she questioned. I could just imagine her with one eyebrow raised and her mouth pinched in the way she does when she's waiting impatiently for something.

I dropped the cord from my hand and held the phone between my shoulder and my ear as I reached up and shut my window. I didn't want anyone overhearing this conversation. Call me paranoid, but I know when something doesn't click. “I still don't think he checks out. I went over there today, and we were talking, and everything was fine until something fell over in the basement.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, one minute we were having a good conversation, and the next he was all angry and rushing me out of his house. He slammed the door on my face and everything.” I stood up, pacing my room as I thought about earlier. “It was so weird, Ade. It was as if someone flipped a switch and all of his anger hit him at once.”

Adrianna was silent for a second, probably taking in everything I just said and trying to find a logical explanation for it. “Did he give you a reason for rushing you out?”

“Raccoons.”

“Raccoons?” she repeated.

“Yeah, he said that they keep getting in his house.” I walked back toward my window, staring down at the house again. It was like I was drawn to it or something.

“Hold on a sec.” She yelled down to her parents in Spanish before returning. “Okay, I'm back. Maybe raccoons do keep getting in. His house is pretty shitty.”

I let out a breath of laughter at her words. “Maybe, but something feels off. First it was the chains, then it was him fighting with his daughter, and now there’s the crashes from the basement. It’s all too much. I didn't even tell you about the bite marks on his arm yet.”

“The bite marks?” she questioned, her words coming out slowly.

“Yeah. I think his daughter bit him.”

“That’s really strange.”

“I know.” I stepped away from my window again, this time closing the curtains. If I stared at the house any longer I would undoubtedly have nightmares about it.

Adrianna breathed into the phone. “Okay, maybe the basement stuff is really just raccoons, and the thing you saw the other night was even more exaggerated because your sleepy mind warped it into something more than it was.”

I frowned, furrowing my eyebrows deeply even though she couldn't see me. “I know what I saw.”

“Yeah, yeah, it was just an idea. Hold on.” She began yelling in Spanish again, and this time I heard my name. When she returned, she said, “Okay, I'm coming over. Be there in ten. We can look into David and see if there are any red flags.” She didn't even say bye before she hung up.

I placed my phone down on the receiver and cleaned my room up a little before she got here. By the time I had straightened up and went to the kitchen to get us some cheese and crackers to snack on, she was here. The doorbell rang and without waiting for me to answer, Adrianna pushed the door open and came inside. Whenever I knew she was coming over I would leave the door unlocked for her, and when she got here she would ring the bell before coming in to be polite. I rounded the corner with the plate full of cheese and crackers as she was locking the door behind herself.

“Hey,” I said, smiling and extending the plate toward her.

“Yes, I'm starving,” she groaned before taking a few crackers in her hand. She never ate the cheese, but I was okay with eating the cheese by itself so it worked out.

“I figured that was part of the reason you came over.”

She smirked, pushing her sunglasses up into her hair. The pink stripe was fading into a bleached line in. “Mom hasn't gone grocery shopping yet. It's like she's trying to starve me.” Adrianna frowned before stuffing two crackers in her mouth.

I laughed and stared down at her toothpick thin legs. “It's working.”

“
So
funny.” She feigned laughter while chewing her crackers, looking anything but amused at my joke. “Come on.” I followed her up the stairs and back into my room where she pulled out my desk chair and plopped down in front of the computer. I set the plate on my desk and kneeled next to her. “Let's get to work. I've always wanted to be a spy.” She winked at me.

I rolled my eyes and watched as she got to work, signing into my computer and pulling up an Internet page.

“Where should we start?”

Adrianna began typing instantly. “Let’s start by searching his name.” She pulled up Google and typed in David. “What’s his last name?”

I furrowed my brows, trying to remember if he’d even mentioned his last name. If I couldn't remember it then this whole search was going to end before it even began. I thought back to the day David moved in. He had introduced himself as David Greer. “Greer,” I answered.

Adrianna’s fingers danced over the keyboard as she typed it in and then clicked search. After a few seconds, a bunch of different links loaded. We clicked on each one, not finding any that led to information about
our
David Greer. Once we had gotten to the bottom of the second page, Adrianna said we should try searching something else.

“What next?” I asked, shifting positions to get more comfortable.

“We’ll check social media sites. If David has a teenage daughter then she’ll be on Facebook. Maybe even David has one.” Adrianna searched Facebook for Gwen Greer and David Greer, but none of the results were correct. I didn't know what Gwen looked like now, but I knew she was blonde and from Ohio, which cancelled out every girl who came up in the people search on Facebook. After spending over a half an hour just searching for their names and pairing it with Ohio, we still hadn't found anything. “What else do you know about them?” Adrianna asked, munching on another cracker.

I bit my lip, trying to think. Absolutely nothing came to mind. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my
Chapstick
, rolling it onto my lips and pocketing it again before saying, “Nothing that will help us stalk him online.”

Adrianna pouted. “No social security or passport identification numbers?”

I rolled my eyes at her question, and she laughed. Then she slid back from my chair and said, “Hey, at least we tried.”

“Yeah, but we didn't find anything,” I pointed out.

Adrianna shrugged, pulling the sunglasses from her hair and setting them on my desk. She began twisting her hair up into a high bun. “We don't have enough information.”

“I know,” I responded, pacing my room again. “We need more information,” I said slowly, as I came to a stop in front of my window. I stared at the curtains that were concealing my view of David’s house. “I need to go back to his house, but this time when he’s not there.”

Adrianna leveled me with a look. “You can't be serious.”

I nodded, already thinking of ways to get inside and find out what David was hiding. “Dead serious.”