A Curse Upon Thee 2-24A

Alright. Enough.

Chad O’Donaghue frowned as the bell to Granny’s diner chimed loud above his head, the young man pushing his way past the glass. The door swung shut, the chill of the Maine dawn left behind and his eyes took in the empty diner; the air missing the distinct smell of fresh-brewed crude oil and bubbling fryer grease. 

“Ruby!”

He’d been in this particular zip code for a good ten days now, and the depths of his patience had run dry; along with his willingness to play dumb. Polite coordinated stonewalling was one thing because, being honest, he knew well enough to understand that small towns closed ranks around local scandals all the time. It would have been weirder if they didn’t.

But last night?

With the brunette librarian scurrying away like a mouse, Ruby’s overplayed lies about her birthday, and the entire eatery emptying out in a matter of minutes when he wasn’t paying attention? That had crossed the line from a regular tight-lipped community into something dangerously wrong.

He hadn’t been able to sleep last night. 

Not even a little bit.

Half-torn between just ringing up his uncle to call in the cavalry and knuckling down to prove to the family he could handle this on his own, his eyes had stayed firmly open as he stared up at the ceiling fan.

It didn’t help one bit that every time he closed them, he saw that dead-eyed gaze from the man on the sidewalk. Grant — or Graham, or whatever his real name was — the guy Ruby had dragged out of the street in a panic. The exact same guy who, a few days later, hadn’t even recognized his own name when Chad spoke to him.

Forget a simple small-town secret.

It’s a cult. His jaw tightened as he walked past empty booths, boots quiet on the linoleum. Some kind of backwoods ritual horror show bullshit, and Finn got himself dragged right into the middle of it.

“Ruby?” Her name bounced through the diner, Chad’s voice loud and clear with nothing and no one else to drown him out. “Come on, I know you’re in here. We need to talk.”

No answer deepened the frown on his face. Where is she? As far as he knew, the morning rush was in minutes and Ruby was always down here before half the town was even up.

“Ruby!”

Picking up his pace, Chad made his way around the counter. One hand raised, he pushed open the swinging double doors that led to the kitchen…

Jesus.

…only to stop dead, barely two steps inside..

Chad had never been back here before and, apart from the glimpse he caught last night, he had no idea what the state of Granny’s kitchen was on a normal morning. Even still, he doubted it was anything at all like this.

“Jesus.” The word clipped past his thoughts, sharp and hissed.

Pots and pans were scattered across the floor as if ripped free by an extremely localized whirlwind, shelving and tables overturned and dented, with the whole floor dusted with what was either flour and sugar, flour and salt, or a mix of all three; the white storm mixed with shattered and crushed ceramic, plates and mugs both. 

But it was the pantry…

It was the pantry that made Chad lose his breath.

They’d been building a cage in here last night, Ruby and her rude grandmother; both of them using equipment he’d most often seen in construction sites rather than standard home renovation work. The thing had been heavy-duty, industrial-grade almost — a steel cage built into a pantry for whatever insane reason he’d been trying to understand all night.

That same cage was ruined, the thing ripped wide open.

The bars over the door had been bent outward, most of the metal warped and twisted with what had to be brute force. Deep gouges, jagged things, were carved into the metal and surrounding drywall; the blood freezing in Chad’s veins as he realized the marks seemed to look almost exactly like—

“—clawed her way out! It’s not just the cage, David! She’s go-!”

Chad spun around, eyes wide as he realized the exit to the back alley was halfway off its hinges too, the door hanging limp and listless as Granny Lucas stormed into the kitchen, the sheriff-mayor hot on her heels with a heavy flashlight in hand.

Both of them froze where they were, open looks of shock on their faces as they spotted him in the middle of all the wreckage, but it was Granny who caught herself first. “Wh-what in the hell are you doing back here, young man?” Her hand rose, a wrinkled finger pointing him back out into the diner. “Out with you! Now!”

No.

“No, I don’t think so. I want to know what happened here. More than that, I think I want to know where my cousin is.” Apart from his mouth, Chad didn’t move a single muscle. That is, until he turned slowly, his eyes making contact with David’s’ — cobalt meeting sky. “…so are you gonna start the conversation or should I?”

“Young man, I said get o-”

“Ma’am. With all due respect…” A single finger went up as Chad spoke again, voice still level and low. “I was not speaking to you.”

“Chad…” David’s grip tightened around his flashlight, something the younger man in the powder-blue jacket didn’t miss. As the mayor stepped forward, Chad took a careful step back of his own, one hand raised toward his jacket.

“You can speak from there, David.”

David’s eyes slid down to Chad’s hand as it vanished into his Harrington. “Chad… what are you doing?”

“What am I doing?” Chad didn’t raise his voice, fingers carefully avoiding the concealed surprise in his coat as he pulled his iPhone free from an interior pocket. “I’m looking at a shattered steel cage in the middle of a diner kitchen, Mr Mayor. I’m looking at a crime scene.” A smile crossed his face, tight and tense. “And I’m feeling a little curious about it.”

The words ‘crime scene’ seemed to activate something in the man standing opposite Chad as David stepped forward again, broad shoulders squared. “Chad, this is police business. We had an animal… an animal break-in last night. A bear, probably.”

…okay. “A break-in, huh?” Chad tilted his head toward the bent bars. “Looks more like a break-out to me.”

“It’s not safe.” Another step had David move toward the pantry, the man’s body aiming to block Chad’s view. “The bear could come back.”

“A bear.” Chad let out a small huff of air, too quiet and too harsh to be called a laugh even as that same smile stayed on his lips. “David?”

“…yes?”

“How the hell did you get this job?” The laugh burst out again, dry and quiet. “Either of them, I mean. Because you’re very bad at this.”

“This isn’t the time, Chad.” Insistence was not authority and, on David’s face, all Chad read was a strained panic more than a strong demand. “We can handle your questions after… after we take care of this.”

“He said out, boy.” 

Granny’s warning nearly forced the false smile off his face, Chad gritting his teeth into a rictus as his eyes met hers for a moment. “And I said, I wasn’t speaking to you.”

“Chad…”

“No.” Whatever the mayor’s next request was, the young man wasn’t having it. “I grew up with money, David, not brain damage. You’re done lying to me.”

“No one’s l-”

“You are not good enough at this to keep trying, David!” A crack sounded in the empty diner, the noise nearly drowned out by Chad’s sudden shout. Bright blue eyes followed the path of the sound to his own raised hand, his phone case crumbling to pieces and falling from his clenched fingers. Huh?

Blinking back up at the two other people in the room, he caught them mid-step, both the mayor and the old woman flinching back. What… Odd as that was, Chad wasn’t going to let some broken plastic distract him — at least, not right now. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice, but I’m tired. I’m tired of the lies. I’m tired of this town. I’m tired… of pretending like I’m a… a fucking idiot.”

He pulled in a breath, schooling his features again. “Enough is enough, and I’ve had enough.”

“We just…” David swallowed, one hand up as his own eyes snapped up from the shattered phone case and back to Chad. “We just want to make sure everything is… okay?”

You… you fucking…

“It will be, David. It will be okay. Okay?” Chad’s words were clean, his tone light, as he raised his phone up again. “It will all be okay when I get the authorities to come in and tear apart this sick little town for whatever it is you people did to my cousin.”

“You…”

The morning chill blowing in from the torn-open door had nothing to do with the sudden cold  that filled the room, Granny’s mouth open in a gasp as David’s jaw tightened. “You… you wouldn’t do that, Chad.”

“You’re right.” He didn’t waste a moment in agreeing, that much true enough that it was undeniable. “Bureaucracy is a nightmare.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t for the reasons that David thought.

“I don’t have the time for that.  I’ll just call my uncle. Finn’s father.” Chad nodded his head as he spoke, ready to do exactly as he said. “And trust me, the McHale family are a bunch of hard bastards. They’ll bring down far more hell on this psycho town than the police or even the FBI ever could. And in way less time.”

The mayor parted his lips to say… nothing, the large man standing there with eyes wide and mouth open, as if the world had fallen out from under him.

“So.” The phone dropped slightly, the device aimed at David like a weapon. “Start talking.”

The mayor’s chest rose and fell, his breathing heavy and almost reluctant as he looked back at Granny, receiving only a flat glare from the old woman.

“Fine.” David sighed the word as he looked back at Chad. “Just… just follow us. We’ll tell you everything.”

Eyes narrowed at the both of them, Chad didn’t take a single step yet. “You will?” 

“Yes.” 

As much as he wanted to deny it, the young man could see the truth of it as he stared at the mayor; a lack of tension in the other man’s face for the first time that Chad found honestly hard to doubt.

“But…”

Chad nearly groaned at that. “But what, man?”

David turned his gaze toward the open back door. “But we have to take care of something first.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

“How deep are we going exactly?”

He’d always hated the woods.

Growing up, it was something he and Finn could always agree on, one of the few things they hadn’t bumped heads over. Literally, in one case.

Chad wasn’t sure exactly what it was that prickled him so bad about it; the damp, the suffocating smell of pine or just the uneven muddy ground.

Honestly, it could have been any one of them in particular, or just the association of all of them combined. Regardless, as much as he hated the woods, he hated the back of David Nolan’s head even more.

“We’re just following a trail, Chad.” David called back, the man pulling aside a low branch to allow the old woman in front of him — carrying a red cloak for some reason — to pass by.

“I can see that.” He could see exactly what they were following, the huge tracks and torn apart foliage leading them further into the suffocating depths of the Maine tree line. “What I don’t see is why we’re following the trail.”

The old woman and sheriff almost paused their pace to share a look ahead of him — both of their faces tight and tense — before David looked back over his shoulder. “It’s better if you see first… okay?”

“…okay.” Chad’s answer came as calm as he could force it, the young man a few good paces behind both David and Granny as his right hand rested casually inside his coat. Okay. No problem. 

If there was a problem, of course, he had something to solve that; four fingers wrapped tightly around the textured grip of his SIG Sauer. Boston might have been annoying about gun laws, but Maine was a lot more accommodating when it came to concealed carry, and Chad absolutely did not trust these people not to march him into a ditch. “I hear you.”

“Good.” David sighed out loud, unaware of the pair of blue eyes narrowed on his upper back like a bullseye. “That’s good.”

His fingers flexed, hidden behind powder-blue fabric. I’m sure it is. 

Part of Chad had wondered if this was paranoia. Unfortunately, the other part had only to recall the torn-apart cage in the diner and his cousin who had disappeared into the backwoods, so it really didn’t care all that much. Still, with David walking him deeper into the woods with a flashlight in hand and a broadsword at his side, Chad somehow didn’t feel himself being put at ease in the slightest.

He was no coward but he didn’t trust either of these people. Not the sheriff-mayor and certainly not the old woman tracking animal prints like a seasoned hunter.

It was only the P239 in hand that allowed him to extend what little trust he had that much farther.

Unless, of course, it led to him in a ditch.

In that case, he was putting a hollow point in David’s chest before the man could draw that ridiculous blade.

“Over here!” 

David’s voice cut through his planning with the same intensity as his flashlight cut through the dense fog of the early-morning. Granny at his side, somehow keeping pace, both the old lady and the mayor hurried forward past a cluster of damp pine branches.

“Ruby!” Granny’s voice sounded out after David’s; a low rasp just like her granddaughter, only with years and years behind it. “Ruby!”

Ruby? Chad pushed through the brush, eyes narrowed and thumb hovering near the safety of his weapon. It was only the sight of a girl lying on the forest floor that had him stop, mouth falling open. Why is Ruby here?

Ruby Lucas was curled into a tight ball near the base of a tree, half its roots aboveground and damp leaves scattered all over. Completely unconscious, her chest rose and fell under a torn and mud-splattered red flannel, the thing so large that it almost reached down past the pair of no-longer-white linen shorts she had on. The rest of her that wasn’t covered was splattered and streaked with dirt, leaves and what looked almost like…

Blood?

“Ruby, wake up!” Granny dropped to her knees with the command, the red cloak in her hands as she held it up. “Inside your hood. Come on, girl.”

The second the fabric touched her skin, a gasp came from the sleeping girl as dark green eyes snapped open, wide and blown out. 

Without warning, Ruby scrambled back against the mud until her spine hit rough bark, the girl still clutching the cloak around her as if by instinct. “Granny? David? Ch-Chad…”

The young man just stared, grip tightening.

Ruby’s breath came quicker as her gaze snagged on him, chest rising and falling in rapid hitches. After a few unsteady pulls of air, she looked back at her grandmother, a question on her face and on her lips. “Where… how did I get out here?”

“You don’t remember?” David dropped to a crouch beside the both of them. “At all?”

“No, yeah, I… I don’t remember anything.” Ruby clutched the well-made red cloak around herself, voice halfway to crying. “I don’t remember what I did last night. What… what happened?”

“You’re alright, girl. Nothing happened.” 

Despite Granny’s words, Ruby didn’t look at all convinced, her focus turning to David with a harder question. “Did I… did I hurt anyone?”

“I…” David’s mouth worked silently for a few seconds, Ruby’s face falling the longer it took the man to form a proper sentence. “…there is a missing person report, but I d-”

He didn’t get a chance to finish before Ruby’s face fell into her muddy hands, loud cries filling the forest. 

Chad stood perfectly still in the damp leaves, hand falling away from his gun as he simply stared at everything in front of him.

I have so many questions.