Page 1 of Believe in Caloosa Springs

Chapter One

Christian

ME:Dude… where the fuck is this guy taking me???? I got in his car 2 HOURS ago!! I KNEW he was a psycho killer when I first got in the car *crying emoji*

MANDY:lmaooo

MANDY:nooooo it’s just a long drive from the airport. you should be getting close though. it’s not like you’ve never been here before…

ME:I’m in the middle of NOWHERE MANDY! I’m not close to ANYTHING! All I can see is desert. And the Uber driver keeps glancing at me weirdly in the rearview mirror with his dead eyes.

MANDY:he probably just thinks you're pretty…

ME:Yeah, in a very Jame Gumb kind of way.

ME:I can’t believe I ever let you talk me into this… wtf was I even thinking??

MANDY:why are you so convinced you are going to be serial murdered

ME:I TOLD you, in seventh grade I did the Ouija board at Kristy Pumperdinkle’s 14th birthday party and accidentally summoned a demon who cursed everyone touching the board to be serial murdered at some point in their lives.

MANDY:i’m going to go out on a limb here and say that every one of those girls are still alive and kicking to this day

ME:Oh yeah? Tell that to Annette Schultz!

MANDY:who’s that

ME:A girl who did the Ouija board that night and isn’t alive anymore.

MANDY:what happened

ME:She was on vacation with her family and now… all of them are DEAD!

MANDY:HOLY SHIT! they were murdered?

ME:No, a semi-truck plowed into their Volvo going sixty miles an hour and they all died.

MANDY:that doesn’t really fit the bill of being “serial murdered,” t

ME:That’s not the point! You said, and I quote, “every one of those girls is still alive and kicking” and that would be…FALSE!

MANDY:i can’t stand you

MANDY:besides, I’m sure you are almost here! it’s going to be great. stop trippin’. like you had shit else going on anyway. and you needed to get the fuck outta Vegas. it’s like a fresh start!

ME:Is it too much to ask for my ‘fresh start’ to have included a place that at least had a Starbucks?

MANDY:man, fk starbucks. cassie’s has better coffee anyway

ME:Yeah, but how’s their chai latte?

Mandy stopped responding, leaving me with a pit in my stomach. Those people probably didn’t even know what chai was. I knew they were all very kind people who prided themselves on their hospitality and small town charm, but face it—Caloosa was a bumpkin town.

I’d been listening to Mandy’s stories about the town and its diverse and somewhat quirky residents. I never imagined I would move there, however. I’d visited a few times over the years, mainly on holidays—Christmastime looked just like an old-timey postcard. There certainly wassomethingabout the place. Charming, to be sure. Exciting? Eh… probably not.

I sighed and happened to glance up from my phone screen, only to lock eyes with the driver in the rearview mirror.

Christ.

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