Page 101 of D for Dead

Except the twins didn’t raise the alarm; they said nothing.

Word around town the following day was that Amy was in hospital, having been hit by a car. There was no mention of Danielle and no one seemed able to fathom why Amy had been out on the wooded road so late at night.

There were murmurs she had been sleepwalking, others said she’d had a fight with Deanna Rooney and had been running away. Her parents cut short their trip and came to the hospital, spending three anxious days waiting by her bedside. Eventually she was well enough to be released and returned home to Montana.

She never returned to Melford and Troy’s last memory of her was watching her flee from Tucker Johnson and his basement of horror.

It was a full twenty-four hours before Danielle was reported missing. Her mom and stepdad both worked long shifts and it wasn’t unusual for Danielle to take herself off for the day. The police investigated her disappearance, asking questions around town. Leslie and Crystal Rooney kept quiet, never coming forward to say they had been with Danielle or that they had dared her to go into Tucker Johnson’s house.

Unsure what to do, Troy stayed quiet as well.

Over the years he often thought about Amy, wondering what she was doing and why she had never told anyone about that night. He was seventeen now and she would be twenty, and she was likely at college somewhere, probably had a boyfriend. Troy wasn’t too bothered about girls. Sure he dated, but none of the girls at his school compared to Amy. He had a few friends, but preferred to keep to himself, alone with his thoughts and secrets.

That changed the summer that Cap came to town. He was a couple of years younger than Troy, but full of the same anger and frustration at being shunted off to Hicksville, and the two of them formed a bond.

Cap, like Troy, was a city boy, and furious with his parents at dumping him on his elderly aunt for the summer while they fought out the terms of their divorce. Melford was dull and he wanted to be home with his friends, hanging out at the mall, going to ball games, movies and parties, not stuck in the back end of nowhere.

At first they had sized each other up warily. Cap might be a city kid, but he was new in town. He was also younger and petulant – spoilt, even. Troy preferred his own company. Did he want this kid hanging on his coat-tails? Likewise, Cap had reservations, at first seeing Troy as another kid from the sticks. If he caved and formed a friendship, it would go against his stance to hate everything in Melford.

They walked the same forest trails, fished in the same stretch of the river, continually running into each other. Wariness became grudging acceptance which in turn thawed into friendship.

As the warm summer days rolled on, Troy realised he had found his first true friend since moving to town, which sucked as only a couple of weeks remained before Cap would return to his life in the city, leaving him once again alone.

It was during an evening of fishing that Troy shared the secret he had kept to himself for five long summers. The two of them were sitting on the bank, sipping beer Cap had taken from his aunt’s refrigerator. Virginia Martin had a cupboard full of cans and it was easy for Cap to replace the ones he had taken.

They had hooked a few fish between them. Troy photographed his before releasing them back into the river, while Cap preferred to watch his squirm and flip about as they suffocated to death on the bank.

‘Why do you do that?’ Troy had wanted to know as he watched his friend’s latest catch wriggle on the end of the line. ‘It’s cruel.’

Cap had shrugged. ‘It’s just a dumb fish. Don’t you like having power over something, knowing you’re in control of whether it lives or dies?’

‘I dunno. I guess I never thought about it.’

‘I can put the fish back or I can make it suffer. It’s my decision, my choice. I get to decide what happens.’ He hauled the line in, unhooked the fish and threw it back into the river. ‘There you go; this one got lucky.’

They fished in silence for a while longer, finishing their beers as the sun set over the trees and dusk started to take hold.

‘I love the woods at night,’ Cap commented. ‘When the darkness falls and everything comes alive. Some people find it creepy. I don’t get that.’

‘It can be creepy. You never know what is lurking about in the dark.’

‘You scared of the dark then, are you?’

Although there was a teasing glint in Cap’s eye, the question had Troy’s back up. ‘Of course not. There’s plenty things scarier than the dark.’

‘Like what?’

Troy shrugged. ‘Nothing much.’

‘There must be something.’ Cap was silent for a moment, thinking. ‘Come on, let’s trade creepy stories. I’ll tell you the scariest thing that has ever happened to me and you tell me yours. What do you say?’

When Troy didn’t answer, Cap began his story anyway, telling him about the time he and his friends had decided to mess with a Ouija board. He claimed a glass had smashed and the board had caught fire. Troy wasn’t sure he believed him, but he didn’t say so. No need to go pissing his friend off.

‘So what about you? What’s your creepiest thing?’ Cap asked, story finished. ‘Bet you can’t beat mine.’

Troy was silent for a long moment. He could tell Cap about the murder house. He didn’t have to give him all the details.

‘There’s a house in the woods here that is really creepy.’