What follows is part 19 of the re-serialization of Westville Book 1. New parts drop every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
If you’re new to Westville and want to dive in, you can get the books on Amazon or signed copies direct from my website:
55
The drive back was slow going. And that’s being generous, even with his dad’s Chevy Silverado and winter tires. The lake-effect snowstorm was making good on its promise, dumping days’ worth of accumulation in a single night. Casey gripped the wheel tight; the road ahead was swallowed by a churning white abyss, and the wind howled, rocking the truck slightly. Found Out About You by the Gin Blossoms crackled over the radio. Comforting and distracting all at once.
He’d taken back roads to avoid holiday highway traffic. Probably a mistake. But it was too late to turn back now.
Everything Heiser had sent flew through his mind like the icy powder against his windshield. Accounting sheets, contracts, statements, all painting the dark picture he’d suspected but couldn’t prove. Janus Global and PRINCE Milling were inextricably tied. Jack Thompson’s name was plastered across contracts for JG Logistics. And that letter from Heiser haunted him:
I know that I wasn’t up front with you, Casey. But for a man in my position I had to walk a delicate line… Janus is going to make a move, and Millie has a part to play. She will suffer. Others will suffer. I need someone who believes me to do something about it.
He clenched his jaw and drove in silence, the old Christmas music on the radio sounding surreal through blown speakers. Then a weatherman’s voice broke in, urging people to stay home as conditions worsened.
Casey needed answers. He had to confront Joe and Jack Thompson. The evidence was impossible to ignore. Had they sanctioned Millie’s capture? Played a part in Howard Meyers’ mysterious death? And what about Ethan Crawley, who were they shielding, and why?
Then the radio went dead. A different voice took over:
“Breaking news from Iron Falls: an attack at Mary’s Heart Memorial Hospital has left two staff wounded. The assailant was a patient. Westville police officer Travis Johnson, recuperating from wounds in a friendly-fire incident last month. He is armed, dangerous, and unstable. Do not approach. Contact local authorities immediately.”
Casey froze. Travis.
A sickening realization coiled in his gut. Travis had been trying to hurt Aly that night. And now he was loose and disturbed. The Seethe, the Red. It had gotten to him, just like it did with Crawley. Now, he was on the run.
Through the storm, Casey could just make out the hospital’s glow. Silent red lights blinking against the snow. His pulse thundered. Travis was heading to Westville. He could feel it.
Pieces clicked into place. Travis must have been at those disturbed graves. The ritual. Now he was unhinged.
Casey’s knuckles whitened on the wheel. He wasn’t letting it happen again.
He gunned the accelerator, barreling through the blizzard straight toward Westville.
56
Aly should have known something was wrong the moment Erin Thompson didn’t show up for lunch.
At first, she told herself it was nothing. The weather, maybe. The roads were bad. But the sour feeling in her gut wouldn’t settle. She checked her watch and called the house. No answer.
Maybe she’d forgotten, or lost track of time at the hospital.
Aly tried to dismiss the unease, swinging by the restaurant to take care of a few things before heading home. Kathy was closing early, saying Olivia had gone to stay with a friend for the night.
Still, the wrongness sat heavy in her chest.
Back at her apartment, she tried calling again. The line rang endlessly. Nothing. No one answered at Joe’s place either.
Snow swirled in the 5 p.m. darkness when she stepped outside. The wind had picked up again, tearing through Westville’s side streets, sending drifts curling up against porches and driveways.
By the time she reached the Thompson house, the snow was coming down thick. She stepped onto the front porch, shoulders hunched against the cold, and knocked.
Nothing.
The house was dark. No Christmas lights, no warm glow in the windows. Even the neighboring homes were silent, save for a few. She heard the hum of a generator in the distance.
The power must be out.
She knocked harder. Still no answer.
When she tried the doorknob, it turned.
Aly hesitated, breath fogging in the cold air, then stepped inside.
The dark swallowed her.
“Erin?” she called, her voice sharp in the silence. “Joe?”
Nothing.
She moved further in, boots creaking against hardwood floors. A frigid gust followed her before the door swung shut with a dull clack.
She crept through the living room. The Christmas tree stood dark, ornaments glinting like dead eyes. Unease radiated off the room in slow waves.
Down the hallway, she caught sight of a figure slumped in the corner of a bedroom.
Her stomach dropped. Erin.
Aly rushed forward, shaking, crouching beside her. Erin’s head lolled to the side, breath shallow. A syringe and a near-empty vial of pink liquid lay on the floor.
Morphine.
“Erin?” Aly whispered, fingers pressed against her neck. A weak, steady pulse.
Relief washed over her with the panic. She noticed the gun safe in the corner. Standing open. Where was Joe? What had happened here?
She stumbled to her feet and darted for the kitchen phone. It was dead.
She swore, heart pounding.
No time.
She grabbed her coat and sprinted into the snow, thoughts racing as the drive to the station became a blur of icy roads and pulsing dread.
Then she saw Joe’s pristine F-150, abandoned in the high school lot.
Her Beetle fishtailed to a stop near the cracked open front doors.
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
Aly stepped out, boots crunching in fresh snow, breath curling in the freezing air, and reached for the school door.
Her skin crawled. Then something seized her from behind.
A sharp prick at the back of her neck. She gasped, her body slumping as ice crept through her limbs.
Syrup-thick.
She was shoved forward onto the rubble-strewn entry hall floor.
Vision fading.
A tall, gaunt figure bent over her.
Travis Johnson.
Pale, with burning red eyes. Blood stained his shirt. The syringe shook in his hand; his breath came in fevered bursts.
In the gloom, another voice echoed.
Joe Thompson.
“Make sure she doesn’t leave.”
Aly tried to struggle. But the world tilted and slipped into darkness.
57
The storm intensified as night fell, snow whipping through the streets and blanketing Westville in suffocating silence.
Olivia sat cross-legged on the worn carpet of Kyle’s living room floor, her backpack by her side. The Andersons were out at a company Christmas party in Iron Falls, and Kyle’s kid sister was at his grandparents’.
The others were scattered around the room: Austin flipping a switchblade nervously between his fingers, Eli thumbing through one of his notebooks, and Kyle sprawled across the couch, looking like he regretted every choice that had brought him there.
“We good on alibis?” Olivia asked, breaking the silence.
“Mom thinks I’m at Eli’s,” Kyle said with a shrug.
“Dad thinks I’m at Kyle’s,” Eli added.
Austin smirked. “My mom never cares as long as I’m back before sunrise.”
Olivia pulled her sleeves down over her hands. “Alright. We wait until the roads are dead, then we go.”
By 7 p.m., the snow had swallowed the town whole. The roads were deserted, the only sounds the howl of the wind and the crunch of their boots on the snow-covered sidewalks. Main Street stretched before them, streetlights casting eerie white halos through the swirling flakes, accented by the warm yellow of Christmas lights entwined in the red and green tinsel decorations, blowing in the wind.
“This is insane,” Kyle muttered, his voice muffled by the scarf wrapped around his face.
“No arguments here,” Eli said, limping here and there as he struggled to keep up.
Olivia led the way, head down against the biting wind. The towering silhouette of PRINCE Milling loomed ahead, the sign’s red glow illuminating snow in bloodied air.
The group huddled at the edge of the parking lot, staring up at the mill’s concrete facade.
“Last chance to turn back,” Olivia said, not really meaning it.
Kyle snorted. “Yeah, because you’d let us hear the end of it.”
They approached the loading dock cautiously, which at present was open, their footsteps echoing off the metal steps. She saw the freight elevator at the top of the small staircase, where nearly two months ago she’d first seen Ethan Crawley step through it. Crawley could be down there, and protecting the watch. She could feel it.
The keypad beside the elevator door was coated in frost, but Olivia brushed it clean with her sleeve and punched in the numbers: 1-8-9-8.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then with a shrill beep, the elevator doors shunted open.
“Everyone in,” she whispered, stepping inside.
The freight elevator groaned as it descended. Olivia glanced at the others. Nervous, but determined.
The elevator shuddered to a stop. The doors opened to a long, dimly lit hallway. Pipes snaked along the walls and ceiling, and the faint scent of something metallic lingered in the air.
Olivia nodded. “Let’s move.”
The group stepped out of the elevator, their flashlights cutting thin beams through the dim hallway. The hum of machinery was faint but ever-present, vibrating through the metal walls and floors like a pulse. Pipes crisscrossed overhead, condensation dripping occasionally and echoing softly against the floor.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Kyle muttered, clutching his backpack tighter.
“Creepy or not, let’s focus,” Olivia shot back, keeping her voice low.
They moved cautiously, their footsteps muffled by the hum of the facility. The red emergency lights flickered intermittently, casting strange shadows that danced along the walls. Olivia led them around a corner, her breath fogging in the cold air.
Ahead, a door stood slightly ajar, faint light spilling through the crack. Olivia gestured for the others to follow as she pushed it open slowly. The room inside was small and sterile, dominated by a single hospital bed. Tubes and wires dangled from IV stands, their clear plastic catching the crimson glow. A monitor blinked faintly in the corner, its screen cracked and unreadable.
Olivia froze, her stomach tightening. She didn’t need anyone to say it. She already knew.
“This is where they must have kept her,” she whispered.
Austin stepped forward, his face pale. “Are you sure?”
“That’s messed up,” Kyle said, “right under the nose of her own dad.”
And her loving grandfather, Olivia thought.
“She told me about the IVs, the needles.” Olivia’s voice shook as she pointed to the equipment. “This is it.”
The room smelled faintly of antiseptic, and the sheets on the bed were rumpled as if someone had only recently left. Olivia ran her fingers over the bed’s edge, her mind flashing back to Millie’s pale face in the hospital. And there was a strange machine, something situated over the head of the bed, a halo of wires and metal bars connected to a metal box with multiple knobs and a black screen showing a static green blob.
A faint scuff of boots on metal cut through her words. The group froze, their eyes darting to the door. Another step, heavier this time, echoed down the hallway.
“Someone’s coming,” Kyle hissed, backing away.
Olivia motioned for them to turn off their flashlights. The emergency lights painted the room in shifting shadows as they pressed themselves into corners, barely daring to breathe.
The footsteps grew louder. Then, the door creaked open.
Ethan Crawley stepped inside, his eyes glowing an unnatural red. His face was slack, his lips slightly parted, breath fogging in slow, rhythmic bursts. His movements were eerily smooth. Like something else was pulling the strings.
Behind him, three other men entered, one wearing a flannel and the others gray PRINCE Milling uniforms. Their eyes glowed the same vivid crimson.
Olivia’s heart sank. She glanced at the others, their faces pale and terrified.
Crawley turned to the other men, his lips curling into a grim smile.
Ethan raised a radio from his belt and pressed the button.
“Found them.”