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The following is based on a WMGE report, with names changed to protect the innocent...
October 2024.
The wind howled through the hollow bones of Maple Lanes, an abandoned bowling alley slouched under decades of rot. Lorraine Bellamy stepped over a sagging patch of warped linoleum, her flashlight flickering as if protesting her presence.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she muttered, pulling her coat tighter against the cold clinging to the building’s skin. Her boots crunched over broken glass and shattered pins—too sharp, too awake in the sleeping dark.
A voice rasped behind her ear.
"He’s waiting."
She froze. Not a whisper. Not imagined. A voice—low, graveled, close enough to feel the breath that never came.
She turned toward the back exit, its door half-hinged, revealing a path swallowed by weeds and broken stone. Her pulse quickened.
"You better be right about this," she said aloud, to no one—or everyone. “I’ve followed your voices through attics, woods, basements… This is the last time.”
A bowling pin clattered in the distance.
Outside, moonlight bled through skeletal birches. Lorraine pushed into the overgrowth, the flashlight beam jittering with each breath. A crow perched on a rusted gutter, watching.
She halted.
Behind the building, the earth dipped unnaturally, as though it had sighed open. A pale fragment of jawbone caught the light through moss and dirt.
“No…” Lorraine dropped to her knees, scraping at the soil with bare hands. “This can’t be Emily.”
A skeletal hand emerged—brittle, limp, as if it had reached up and given up halfway.
Another voice—quieter. Male. Frantic.
"Help me—please—she’s not—"
The rest garbled into static. Lorraine sat back, chest rising fast. “Who are you?”
Silence.
"Not the girl you seek."
Her flashlight trembled. Beneath the bones, the ground scorched. Faint letters seared into the concrete.
“What the hell…” she whispered, tracing them. “Who did this to you?”
Leaves stirred behind her.
“I should call this in,” she said, rising. “Get you home. You deserve that much.”
Pins inside the alley toppled—one after the other, like invisible players rolling perfect strikes.
A new voice emerged.
Young. Clear.
"I’m still here."
Lorraine spun toward the alley. Her breath fogged, though the night remained warm.
“…Emily?”
Darkness pressed in.
Something moved down the lane—a shape, a girl, maybe. Watching.
Waiting.
Her fingers gripped the pendant at her neck—the charm Emily’s mother had given her. It pulsed.
“I’m listening,” she whispered, stepping toward the yawning doorway.
Pins no longer fell.
Trees rustled behind her, low and constant.
She didn’t need more proof. The dead had spoken. And someone else, someone lost, had begun to answer.
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I’m excited to announce that Cumberland Chronicles is now live on Books2Read! If supernatural, horror, and weird tales are your thing, this one's for you. If not, sharing it with others who might enjoy it would be a huge help. Thanks for all the support!
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