"The Doom Statues" - Chapter 55

Jeremy’s seated at the round wooden table in his cabin, having just finished the task at hand. Underneath the bright floor lamp shining over his shoulder, he’s gone through every tree in the sketch book, comparing the names Drucker scribbled, against the drawing itself, against whatever images he could find online, on his phone.

He leans back in his chair and exhales, attempts to decipher what this all means. Glancing down at the top drawing, at whatever page he’d landed on last, Jeremy concedes that this was mostly a complete waste of time. Like so many of the fact-finding episodes around here, it seems. True, the sketches appear to match the names Drucker had given them. And as Blodgett indicated, none of these species should grow anywhere near here. But does this mean he was only slightly off in drawings, and mislabeled them as a result? Or mislabeled them period, when there’s a similar looking tree that is found locally?

Well, whatever the answer, he isn’t the person for sorting this out. And has just about wrapped his head about a plan to resolve this issue, when a knock sounds out at the door. Emily hasn’t returned, so he hasn’t locked it, which means that a few seconds later, before he’s even made up his mind about calling out hello, the door creaks open and he sees Denise’s mischievous face peeking through the crack.

“Oh good, you’re decent,” she says, enters the room fully and gently clicks the door shut behind her.

“But you were gonna come in either way?” he questions, palms up, bewildered yet again by his exceedingly forthright, possibly future sister-in-law.

“Apparently so, heh heh,” she cackles. Then claps her hands together, leaves them in this position, pointed forward like a swimmer. Or someone about to make an announcement.

“Listen. I know this is rather abrupt, but…”

“Where’s Emily?” he asks, cutting her off.

Denise rolls her eyes and says, “back at her fucking mural, painting! Can you believe it? Don’t answer that. That’s actually…eh, that’s kinda why I’m here. In a roundabout way.”

“She’s painting!? Does she not know how late it is?”

“Apparently not. You know how she’s been here lately. Now she’s back to fucking around with Kay’s jaw again. I guess it beats her outlining…some kid who was never even here? But anyway, so listen…”

“That’s what she’s been doing?”

“Yes. Anyway. Listen.”

“I’m listening,” Jeremy insists.

“Good. Yeah, so anyway, I’ve been thinking, and I’ve decided. I’m outta here.”

He feels his own jaw reflexively drop, before he’s able to collect himself and ask. “What do you mean, you’re outta here?”

“I mean I’ve already loaded up my backpack with essentials, and I’m getting the fuck out of this place. My sister’s acting weird, people are disappearing left and right, I’m done. Well, not done done. I’m still determined to get to the bottom of whatever’s happening around here. But…,” she sighs, “I just figure our chances are better if somebody gets off of this property and does their research far removed from it. And I think that someone is me.”

“Yeah but…aren’t you a little worried about what happened to Tom? It looks like maybe he had a similar idea and it…didn’t turn out so well.”

“Of course I am. I’m fucking terrified. But we need some sort of a plan. It’s better than sitting around waiting to see what becomes of us. That’s why I’m not making an elaborate, like, spectacle of this. I’m slipping out in the middle of the night. Figure I’ll head thataway,” she says, half turning to fling a finger vaguely northeast, “because nobody’s tried that yet, not that I’m aware of. Unless Jen did, maybe, but, well…”

As she’s shrugging, unsure how to finish this sentence, Jeremy asks, “you tell Emily?”

“No. I’m telling you, and I already told one other person, just now.”

“Who?” he demands.

“Doesn’t matter,” Denise says, waving him off, “I already told this person, so they can corroborate your story. For when everybody’s freaking out in the morning, and you’re forced to tell them about this little conversation.”

“You’re serious,” he states, a plain declaration Denise interprets as a question.

“Hell yeah I’m serious.”

“Oh, wait,” it suddenly occurs to him to ask, “you guys find out anything over there in the office files?”

Denise offers him a wicked smirk and says, “did we ever. First we stumbled upon this old picture, taken here, and it sure as hell looked like Kidwell was in it, as a kid. Then we got to digging a little more and found some land records or whatever you call it. His grandma didn’t buy this property after the fire. He’s full of shit. It was already in their family at the time of the fire, and they kept it. We think he probably just hung out here quite a bit, when he was little.”

“Hmm,” Jeremy mutters, mulling over this information. “I’m surprised he would just leave that shit in a filing cabinet, even if he was locked. Then again he probably had no clue it was there…”

“And wouldn’t care if he did,” Denise concludes.

“Yeah really. He strikes me very much as a guy who just bulldozes down acre after acre, and keeps right on moving, without looking behind him a whole hell of a lot.”

“Or ever. But yeah, so all of this definitely plays into my decision. I mean I was already about ninety percent convinced, but now….” Denise sighs, nods once at him, as a sort of goodbye salutation, and makes her way to the door. Here she does a little half salute, half wave, while opening it, “So I will see you down the road, my, uh…”

“Possible future brother-in-law?”

“Okay, sure,” she chuckles, offering a warm smile as she backs out of the door, “that’s optimistic, the way things are right now, but why not. We’ll roll with that.”

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