Darkheart

The Past: Hands & Knees

Crystal biked past the theater, Penzer's drug store, a bakery and Real Value Hardware, a Little Caesar's Pizza and a gas station, stopping at last outside Good Ol' Days Antiques. She hopped off her bike, kicked out the stand, and let it sit while she strode out of the impossibly gorgeous sunshine and through the bell-tinkling door of the moldering establishment. There were several antique shops in Port Killdeer, and this one was the most popular amongst tourists and pickers not just for its proximity to the other well-trafficked establishments but also for its absolutely disastrous interior. Counterintuitively, the sort of patron the shop desired to attract did not want order, cleanliness, and aesthetic displays, did not expect solicitous staff or sensible pricing and, in fact, would surely be turned away by logic and civility. No, Good Ol' Days spoke to a particular sort of clientele who'd enjoy getting lost in its narrow, labyrinthine aisles and nooks of haphazardly crammed junk. It knew its very chaos and dinginess were amenities in the eyes of the curious and the treasure-seeking, and Crystal was, at least on that day, both.

Her mother's birthday was in three days, and while she and Jess didn't have much money, they always bought their mother birthday gifts (more out of a sense of filial obligation than because of the joy they believed their gestures would bring). The woman had held onto a set of collectible plates Crystal's long-dead grandmother had left behind, and while the girl thought the things were hideous in their saccharine portrayals of plump little German children doing mawkishly adorable things, she checked the antique stores from time to time to see if any had turned up, figuring her mother would at least like them enough to keep them. But Crystal had also decided to peruse the shop for her own sake; she enjoyed the sensation of sinking into a cave of wonders that always accompanied her ventures into Good Ol' Days and never minded squandering half an hour inside.

Additionally, she wanted to be alone for a while before heading over to the resort, where she was scheduled to work the lunch shift along with Jeremiah. Every word she'd shared with the others since the Fourth two days ago had turned to soup in her skull, and there was something about a solitary wander through a distracting, enclosed space that, she knew from experience, would allow her to organize her thoughts.

Mr. Wozcielski, the owner of Good Ol' Days, gave Crystal a gruff nod as she slipped inside and then went back to reading a newspaper behind his ancient oak counter. Happy to be virtually ignored, the girl headed straight down the nearest aisle toward the back of the shop, where there was a hall from which ramified three other rooms and a stairway leading to a dank cubbyhole of old tin toys and comic books and costume jewelry and, on occasion, a taxidermied critter or two. The one time she'd spotted a little plate like those of her mother's, it'd been down with the old toys, perhaps because they portrayed children. Crystal didn't know; the place exhibited no attention to coherence.

As she descended the stairs, she put a brief shiver in check. Mind over matter, she told herself. There's nothing down there that can hurt me. Of course, after what she'd seen at that resort, she wasn't sure how convincing her self-talk could be, anymore.

They'd met at Starboard an hour after it'd happened, just as Kevin had told them to. Although Crystal hadn't wanted to go, Jeremiah had been a total wreck and insisted they had to do something, couldn't just go home, so she'd gone along with it. The ice cream parlor had been buzzing with people (mostly parents treating their children to one last thrill before returning home and attempting to force their excited bodies into beds), and rather than unnerving the teens, the jumble of sound and movement had provided a reassuring backdrop to their conversation. Mostly, the four of them had recounted what they'd seen in order to compare stories, to satisfy themselves that they hadn't been alone in their nightmares, and then they'd tried to figure out what to do about it.

Telling other adults would be pointless. If even the police had gone in there and been fooled, there was no way the resorters would allow some other man or woman to catch them in their devilry. Spreading gossip about what they'd seen would likely only cost them their jobs and further antagonize the resorters. There'd seemed to be no good option, and after much debate, it'd been Kevin, again, to suggest that they go about as if nothing had happened while secretly looking for clues or evidence they could bring to the police. He'd told them that he intended to return to his snack shack the next day and implored them to do the same. Well, they'd all needed some convincing. Heather had been in such a harried state that they'd had to keep reminding her what they were talking about, and Jeremiah, who'd been inclined never to set foot on the resort again, had changed his tune when Kevin argued that by returning, they'd convince the resorters that they'd forgotten what happened, while by leaving, they'd reveal their continuing suspicion: "And do you really think those freaks will leave loose ends?" he'd added for effect. Crystal herself had remained quiet most of the time, largely because she'd had to maintain an awareness of her younger sister's friend group while attempting to stifle the simultaneous panic and disbelief within.