Page 2 of In Her Fears
Teddy considered turning away.But what if the person needed some kind of help?
“Hey,” he called again, slightly louder.“You okay?”
Still no response.
He moved closer, using his phone’s flashlight now, sweeping the beam across the clearing.The light caught something that made Teddy stop mid-step.At the base of the largest oak tree, slumped against the trunk, was a figure.A man, from what Teddy could tell—and he wasn’t moving.
“Sir?Are you all right?”Teddy’s voice cracked slightly.
Five more steps brought him close enough to see details, and his stomach twisted with growing unease.The man’s posture was wrong—too straight, too still.People who fell asleep sitting up usually slumped.This man sat perfectly upright against the tree trunk, arms extended oddly at his sides.
He forced himself to take another step closer, the beam of light now trembling in his hand.The man was middle-aged, with a neatly trimmed beard and wearing what looked like a button-down shirt under a tweed jacket.Like a professor, Teddy thought distantly, his mind grabbing at normal, mundane details to avoid processing what his eyes were seeing.
Then Teddy’s flashlight beam caught the man’s face, and a cold wave of dread washed over him.The man’s eyes were open, staring blankly forward.They didn’t blink when the light hit them.
“Oh, God,” Teddy whispered, his mouth going dry.
Now he could see that man’s arms weren’t just positioned oddly—they were bound to the tree with thick, weathered rope that cut into the flesh of his wrists.His legs were stretched out before him, ankles crossed and also bound together.But it was his chest that caused Teddy’s breath to catch and his knees to weaken.
Protruding from the center of the man’s tweed jacket was a wooden stake, driven deep into his chest.The fabric around it was dark and stiff with dried blood, the wound itself black in the harsh light of the phone’s beam.
Teddy’s mind spun, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.It looked like something from a horror movie—the kind of ridiculous vampire-slaying scene that made theater audiences jump and then laugh nervously.Except there was nothing ridiculous about this.Nothing that would dissolve into laughter.This was real, the man was real, and the stake in his chest was horribly, undeniably real.
A sound escaped Teddy’s throat—half gasp, half whimper.His legs finally received the message his brain had been screaming and stumbled backward, tripping over an exposed tree root.He landed hard on his backside, the phone flying from his hand and skittering across dead leaves.Its beam shot upward, illuminating the twisted branches overhead.
The phone’s light caught something else—something carved into the tree trunk just above the dead man’s head.Teddy couldn’t make out what it was from his position on the ground, and every instinct screamed at him not to go closer, not to retrieve his phone, not to look again at the man whose dead eyes seemed to be staring at him even now.
But he needed his phone.He needed to call for help.
Teddy scrambled forward on hands and knees, grabbing the phone without looking toward the tree.He clutched it to his chest, thumbs automatically unlocking the screen.
The image of the man—the corpse—played on repeat behind his eyes.The stake.The ropes.The blank stare.It was like a scene from a different century, a witch trial or an execution.Not something that happened in Pinecrest, not something that happened now.
Teddy bent over, gasping for breath, the taste of copper in his mouth.
His phone buzzed again in his hand—a text from Tina: "Everything okay?getting worried."
Everything was about as far from okay as it could possibly be.Teddy stared at the message, thumbs hovering over the keyboard.What could he possibly say?“Found a dead body.Brb.”It seemed absurd.
He had to call the police.Now.But as his thumb moved to the emergency dial button, a thought sliced through the panic: he wasn’t supposed to be out.He wasn’t supposed to be in the cemetery.He’d been trespassing after hours, sneaking out to see his girlfriend behind both their parents’ backs.Would he be in trouble?Would they think he had something to do with...with whatever had happened to that man?
Tina’s house was close—just two blocks away.But he’d found a body.A murdered man.Staked to a tree like some kind of ritual sacrifice.And now here he was, contemplating whether to still go through with their date night.
Teddy fumbled with his phone, finally managing to dial 911.When the dispatcher answered, his voice sounded strange to his own ears, higher and thinner than normal.
“I need to report a body,” he said, the words feeling surreal as they left his mouth.“In Pinecrest Cemetery.A man.He’s—he’s dead.Someone killed him.”
CHAPTER ONE
The steady beep of medical equipment punctuated the silence like a metronome counting away precious seconds.Jenna Graves shifted in the uncomfortable plastic chair, her eyes never leaving the frail woman who lay motionless in the hospital bed.
"Come on, Jill," Jenna whispered, leaning forward."Give me something.Anything."Just once, this woman had looked at Jenna with undeniable recognition before speaking the name of her long-lost twin sister: "Piper."
Jenna checked her watch: 9:17 AM.The hospital was well into its morning routine, staff moving efficiently in the corridor outside.Jenna had been here since visiting hours began at eight, watching, waiting, hoping for a moment of clarity in the fog that seemed to envelop Jill’s mind.
The woman’s chart hung at the foot of the bed, a clinical summary of a life they knew almost nothing about.Jane Doe, known as Jill, is approximately in her fifties.Status: stable, severe malnutrition, signs of prolonged captivity, cognitive impairment of undetermined origin.
Jenna rubbed her tired eyes, memories surfacing unbidden.Nine days ago, she and Jake had descended into the damp darkness of an abandoned coal mine, following nothing more concrete than Jenna’s most recent lucid dream.There, in the oppressive gloom, they had rescued two women they found huddled inside a cage.The younger one, Ginger, had been able to tell them some things about their captivity.They had been captured by organ traffickers who called themselves “Harvesters.”The woman called Jill had barely been conscious.
