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The Trouble With Home

By: Jason Morton

By Jason Ray Morton Published 2 years ago 14 min read
14
The Trouble With Home
Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

An engine roared as its' driver steered from the off-ramp of the 101 into town. The arrival of the black Charger in Florence happened in the early morning hours, allowing the driver to come into town unnoticed. It wasn't that the driver wanted to hide from anyone, but after driving across the U.S. from the Texas State University, the thought of a long shower and a nap before facing the locals did appeal to her. Cass needed something to eat after the long drive, so she slid through a drive-through and picked up a couple of breakfast sandwiches that everyone knew weren't too healthy.

Cassandra King hadn't returned to Florence in a long time. Janice and Richard King passed away during her freshman year in college. It nearly broke Cass. As the richest under thirty-year-old in Florence, she'd chosen to stay away for a while. Deep down she wanted to be judged for the quality of person she was rather than for her parent's money and prestige. The biggest problem with her plan for her own life was that she didn't, as of yet, know exactly who she was.

The lawyers called her right after graduation. There were things that needed her input as the sole beneficiary of the estate. Cass would have to return home to sort things out with her fathers' lawyer, Howard Thomas. So, there she was, driving around the outskirts of town, avoiding running into any of her old high school chums as she scarfed down two breakfast croissants.

Pulling out onto County Road 9, Cass put her foot on the gas and sped her Charger up to eighty miles an hour before she knew what she was doing. The sun was barely up and the skies were still dim in and around Florence. She felt the wind rushing around her as she cranked up her radio. She was still ten minutes from home and was looking forward to a warm, soothing, shower and a nice, comfortable, bed. She thought about calling Howard and letting him know she was in town. It was a momentary thought before she told herself he could wait until she'd slept for a few hours.

Rushing through a normally barren bend in the road the sound of sirens caught her attention. She looked in her rearview mirror. Where did they come from, she wondered? Pulling her car over to the side, cursing under her breath, this was the last thing Cass wanted to be doing this morning. Cass sat there, watching her rearview mirror, as she tried to make herself as presentable as possible. The campus police seldomly issued citations and as much as she liked to feed the engine of her Charger, she'd never been given the ticket. As the officer stepped toward the car, Cass unbuttoned the top two buttons on her shirt, revealing her red, lace, bra, and ample cleavage to anyone with working eyes.

"Good morning, officer," she announced as she turned slightly to the drivers' window.

"Well, I'll be damned," said the officer. "Cassandra King, you've finally come home."

Cass looked up to see the well-built, chiseled frame, of Chase Whitley. If there was one person in all of Florence that she didn't want to run into it would be Chase Whitley. Chase was the all-star quarterback from Florence High School, the guy voted most likely to succeed, and her ex-boyfriend before she went to college. Cass broke up with Chase shortly after landing in Texas and beginning to enjoy life at the University.

"Chase!" she exclaimed. "What the hell are you doing here? I thought you went off and joined the F.B.I."

"I did. I was there for two years. I decided sitting at a desk wasn't for me."

"Oh my god," she smiled at him, flirting as much as she could muster under the circumstances. "I can't believe you came home."

"Well darling," he sighed. "Not all of us could take a few years off between our freshman and sophomore years. Not that I could blame you."

"So, did you pull me over just to say hi to an old friend?" she asked, knowing that wasn't why.

Chase laughed. "Same old Cass," he told her, "always hoping to distract a guy when he has something important to say."

Cass knew she was busted. Chase was never the kind of guy who could be manipulated or swayed from doing the right thing. It was one of the few things that she remembered fondly about him.

"You were running over eighty miles-per-hour in a fifty-five mile-an-hour zone," he strongly reminded her. "Any reason why you're going so fast?"

Cass looked at him, her big blue eyes not getting her what she was accustomed to from men. She considered pushing her luck with Chase but knew it would make her look bad. Finally, after a minute that felt like forever, she opted for the truth.

"Look," she told him, "I've been on the road for nearly eighteen hours. I'm exhausted. I was only trying to get to the house so I can grab a quick shower, a nap, and then meet with dads' lawyer."

Chase looked down at his ex-girlfriend, a smile on his face. It was something of a shock seeing her again. If she'd been going a little slower he might have taken the time to run the plate before engaging but the way she was driving made him extra suspicious. He fingered his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose, looked her right in the face, and welcomed her back to town.

"Just do me a favor, slow down. You're the last person I want to be scraping off the road this week," he told her.

"Yes sir," she breathed a sigh of relief.

Chase started walking back to his car and Cass couldn't help but to check out his ass as he walked away. Her face turned red immediately when he looked over his shoulder at her, catching her ogling him.

"Ms. King," he told her, "Stop checking out my ass."

With a chuckle of nervous laughter that she didn't understand, Cass yelled, "Yes sir," and sped away from the side of the road nearly kicking gravel onto the hood of Chase's shiny black and white.

Minutes later Cass was home. As she pulled up to the gate she remembered how private her parents were. As a kid, she used to think the gates were to keep her in until her father sat her down and explained to her he was trying to keep her safe from the "barbarians at the gate." She never understood her fathers' apparent flair for theatricality. Now, it was something that she never would.

Cass pulled through the gate and closed it behind her. The peace and quiet would be nice, now that she was off the road. After hours in her car, with only stops for gas and to use the restroom, her body ached from being in the same position for so long.

Cass pulled her car in front of the house. She realized immediately that the money she had been forking over from her inheritance was money well spent. The caretakers were doing an excellent job keeping the house up. The yard, bushes, and trees were all the same as she remembered. The house looked immaculate as she walked around the outside, carrying only her duffel bag. Cass made her way around to the back, seeing the pool was being kept up, and thinking she might need to give the caretakers a raise.

"Incredible," she said to herself.

Finding her way around to the north end of the house, Cass walked inside, remembering the last time she stepped through those doors. People were everywhere. Most of them were strangers, friends of her parents that were there to pay their respects. The men were all in dark suits and the women all wore dark-colored dresses with clickity-clack heels.

She could remember the first time she was there, coming through the doors, as a six-year-old. Her father made her promise to stay quiet as he surprised her mother for their tenth anniversary. He even blindfolded her mother to keep her from seeing anything until they were inside the house. Cass could remember her mom breaking down in the happiest of tears as they walked through the house, her father excitedly pointing at all the furnishings and the decor. It was her mothers' dream home, something her father promised her when the two were just young kids starting out in the world.

"I'm home guys," she sighed, walking the hallway into the house as she stared at the three of them in photos that lined the walls.

Sleeping until after five wasn't what she planned on but Cass woke up to the sound of a bird chirping right outside of her window. Rolling over and seeing the oddly colored creature, she tried to put her head beneath pillows and hide until realizing her watch was telling her the entire day was gone. Ugh, she thought, as she forced herself out of bed, her bare feet hitting the cool tiling on the floors.

She had lived in the dorms and an apartment for so long that spending time in an actual house was oddly freeing. As she wandered down to the kitchen to get some water, she tried to imagine what to do with herself. If she decided to stay here, and not in a hotel, she'd have to call the satellite company and have them turn on the service. When she found her way into the kitchen there was a note on the refrigerator addressed to her.

Cassandra,

I've taken the liberty of filling up the kitchen. There are a couple of weeks of supplies, food, and bottled water. There are a few bottles of wine below the island. They were your parents' favorites. Just let me know if you need anything when you get here, take a day to settle in and relax, then get a hold of me at the office or my home number. It'll be good to see someone back in this old house.

Love,

Uncle Howard

"How sweet of him," she said aloud.

Cass decided to skip the water and went straight to the island, opening the fancy doors one at a time as she looked for the wine. Finding three bottles and a wine glass, she set them all up on the countertop and decided on the Merlot. Cass poured a glass and slowly walked through the rest of the house, reminiscing about her parents. Sipping the Merlot she rubbed her lips together as she walked toward the large windows, looking out over their private slice of heaven. It was nearly sundown, as she stood there, smiling at the view she once enjoyed so often. A light fog rolling in as the moon started to rise in the horizon gave her a creepy chill running up her spine.

As night fell over Florence, the fog rolling inland for miles, it made things hard to see for anyone outside. Things rolled in so quickly that it caught people by surprise. People driving were slowed to a crawl. People out walking were nearly lost in their own neighborhoods and around their favorite haunts.

Annie Trent was one of them that was stuck out there, in the fog, as it continued to get denser. Annie liked to walk at night, often after working at the real estate agency she partnered at. Running along the beach was her escape from the mundane reality of her existence. Two kids, divorced, and over forty was the depressing reality she faced now and Annie didn't know what to do with herself. Most of her plans included her ex-husband and doing them alone was tantamount to self-humiliation in her book.

With most everybody already clearing from the beach, working their way toward the light posts, Annie focused on getting back to the parking lot at the entrance to Devils' Creek Park. Annie could still hear her feet pounding against the water-packed sands beneath her. She couldn't see ten feet in front of her face with the fog being so dense, but she could make out enough of her path that she wouldn't trip over anything and land on her face. Her heart was pounding harder than normal. The lack of visibility made the oddly thick fog more daunting to run through. As brave a girl as she was, Annie preferred to get to her car and slowly make her way back into Florence.

A ringing broke her stride and she stopped to look for signs of someone else still being out there. Then she remembered her phone was in her pocket. Pulling her phone open and pressing send she put the receiver to her ear, huffing and puffing from her exercise.

"This is Annie," she told the man on the receiver.

"Yes, I know. The fog is so thick that nobody is moving quickly. I'll be there as soon as I can."

As Annie continued to work her way to the Devils' Creek Parking area, she could hear other people in the distance. It was getting darker but their laughter was unmistakable. Kids, she thought to herself.

Nearly disappearing into the foggy mist that was rapidly enveloping the area, blanketing it, Annie never felt the hand that grabbed hold of her hair and pulled her back with such force her feet came out from beneath her. She only knew that it was cold, strong, and unyielding. As she lay in the sand trying to catch her breath, only shadows of a figure walking around her in a circle, Annie screamed for help.

"Even if they heard you, they wouldn't see you," an odd and creepy voice responded.

Annie felt someone grab her by the ankle and begin to drag her away. She turned and tried to kick free but her fight was to no avail. Annie tried scratching and clawing at the sands, hoping to find something buried by the tides that she could use to free herself. As her face turned from feisty to fearful, her screams going yet unheard, Annie began to plead with whoever was dragging her deeper and deeper into the fog. She begged for her life so that she could see her children again.

"Please," she pleaded, "I'm a mother."

Once she'd been drug through some water Annie was thrown against the side of some rocks. She felt the crunching of her ribs as she struck the jagged pacific rocks. Her body ached, causing her to desperately scream out for help. She couldn't see what threw her so forcefully into the rocks. The fog was thick that she could barely see her own hands as she reached around, trying to feel her way across the sides of the rocky formation she leaned against.

"Who are you!" she shrieked, desperate and afraid.

Annie couldn't see anything, as the shadowy figure moved closer to her. She started to make out the features of her attacker. The dark silhouette was close enough to her she could smell the copperish odor of his breath. She tried to raise her arms to fight him off until they were pushed back against the rock-formed walls.

"Who are you, what do you want?" she screamed, kicking with her legs as she felt her heart about to beat from her chest. "Please, just let me go..." she started to sob uncontrollably.

Then, without warning, she felt the first sensation of searing pain as something pointedly entered her, her attacker holding her close to him. Annie struggled but her efforts were in vain. She didn't possess the strength to get free of his iron-like grip as her life started draining away. Annies' struggles ceased as her arms went limp. Her body slowly slid to the wet and sandy earth below them, her eyes beginning to flitter, and a tear streaking down her cheek. Before she hit the ground, she was gone.

In the morning, as the sun rose in the east, the fog finally lifted over a grateful coastline. The sun rose high above them, bringing new life and a new day to Florence. As people from the area started to gather on the beach at Devils' Creek, everything seemed normal until there was a scream that could be heard for a couple of hundred yards. People from the south part of the beach came rushing to the inlet that Devils' Creek fed into the Pacific from, very few staying close enough to get a good look at Annies' body.

Chase had been at the beach for a while when he heard the screams. Rushing down to the scene he turned sharply, feeling that sense of shock that forces men to vomit. Looking back over his shoulder as he ordered people to back away, chase dialed the police station.

"It's Whitley," he stuttered a bit into the phone. "We need to respond to Devils' Creek Park. There's been another one and it's been...well, she'll see."

Cass woke up on the floor of her parent's home, her face down in a mirror. She'd had a long night, nay, a long couple of days. It was good to finally be there now that she bit the bullet and went to her family home. She still couldn't believe it was hers. As she opened her piercing blue eyes, she felt an odd taste in her mouth and couldn't remember trying on the odd red dress she was wearing. She couldn't remember where the flowers came from, until seeing the vase that sat on the kitchen island knocked over right above her. Cass was only certain of one thing, it was daytime, and she needed to call her lawyer.

Even with the foggy nights, Cass was beginning to think living near the ocean might have its' advantages.

By LOGAN WEAVER on Unsplash

Horror
14

About the Creator

Jason Ray Morton

I have always enjoyed writing and exploring new ideas, new beliefs, and the dreams that rattle around inside my head. I have enjoyed the current state of science, human progress, fantasy and existence and write about them when I can.

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