The Road Not Taken

That day began like any other in my somewhat mundane life, with a hot mug of coffee and a pen in my hand.  Intending to spend the day writing and ignoring the outside world, I’d settled in at my desk and crafted a few lines before my cell phone rang and killed my buzz. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, Layne. What’s up?”

“Hey. Nothin' you’d be interested in,” I teased. “Actually, I just sat down at the computer to try and get some work done.”

“Seriously? I swear you’re always working on something. Doesn’t that get boring after a while?” Ivy asked.

“Not really. It’s safer this way.” I was serious. I’d rather stay hidden away and live vicariously through made-up characters I created than face the real world on any given day of the week.

“For you, maybe. But what fun is that? Come on, let’s get out of here for a while. Please?” she asked.

After she’d begged me twice and bribed me with Starbucks, I’d reluctantly agreed and asked what she had in mind.

“I don’t care, Laynie, as long as it gets me away from here for a while.” I could read between the lines. 

My best friend, Ivy, was bored and needed a distraction after a recent breakup sidetracked her life. 

Me? I was content to be alone. It was much less chaotic that way, especially these days. Who needs that kind of drama anyway?

“The sun is shining, and I really needed some air. Let’s go for a walk. Pick you up in an hour?” Ivy asked enthusiastically.

I’d already made an excuse in my head but sighed and gave up when I realized she would never buy it. 

“Ugh. Alright, but I want to be back early. I’ve had a new story tickling my brain for days, and I need to get it out, or I’m going to go crazy,” I complained.

“Yes! See ya soon!” 

Man, if I had half her enthusiasm and zest for life, I’d probably be the editor-in-chief of a newspaper like I had always dreamed of.

We said goodbye, and I reluctantly shut my laptop and packed a backpack to take with me.

We’d been friends since we were kids, so Ivy got me, like really got me, even if we didn’t always agree. She was used to playing second to the imaginary world I created on paper. But she balanced me well and pulled me back to reality when I needed it, too. 

Two loud honks summoned me from her horn. It wasn’t like I couldn’t hear or see that she’d pulled up, but she somehow felt the need to announce that she had arrived, no matter where she went.

“So, where you wanna go this time?” she chirped, handing over my venti caramel macchiato with vanilla cold foam spilling out over the top. 

I licked at the creamy foam, then had an idea. “You remember that street I told you I used to walk down at night with my stepmom? The one that seriously gave me the creeps?” 

“Ooh, yeah, how could I forget? You wanna wait til tonight when it’s dark, though? Cuz that would be so much more fun.” 

“How bout we pass on that idea and do it when we have some daylight still? I just pray there might be a few witnesses, you know, just in case things go south,” I suggested.

“Okay, fine,” she finally agreed. “You’re such a big chicken, and it’s fine. But I’m just sayin’ right now - I wouldn’t be sad if this walk turned into an all-out Layne and Ivy adventure.” 

The mere thought of it sent shivers down my spine. Ivy had gotten us into many a predicament when we were younger. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“And I’d be perfectly content if this was just a quick walk to clear your head, but literally - nothing more,” I answered sternly. “Remember the poem by Frost, The Road Not Taken? Let’s stick to the one everybody else has been on and one where everyone comes back alive, shall we?”

“Hey, this was your idea, remember?” Ivy prodded.

“Yeah, I know. So don’t make me regret it,” I answered after we pulled up. I quietly shut the car door as I got out.

“Seriously?” Ivy teased. “It’s not like there is anyone to hear you for miles. What do you think? You’re gonna wake somebody up?”

“Shh. I don’t know why I did it, okay? But really, there’s no sense in waking the dead.”

She laughed and continued to taunt me for a bit as we walked. I’m sure I looked like I was about to jump out of my skin - that’s precisely how I felt.

Hazel Street. So plain and unassuming, really. But the fear the name invoked was palpable every time I read it or even drove by.

Something about this place unnerved me. In my mind, it always had.

I swear, looking down the long, winding road lined with abandoned houses and dilapidated barns, it looked even more terrifying than I’d remembered. Over the years, my mind exaggerated the fear and made it much scarier than it actually was, but that was saying a lot.

The sun was hot, and I almost asked if she wanted to turn back before we’d gone too far, but I knew she’d push me to keep going. There was no use arguing when she had her mind set on meeting a goal.

As we neared the end of an old, cobbled street, my eyes drew to fresh footprints on the concrete sidewalk. Not the kind you'd see in dirt or wet sand, but actual indentations of a large print, their imprinted pattern filled with rain.

“It rained this morning, didn’t it?”I asked, gathering details and sorting out facts.

“Yeah, it did, but not for long. I was happy to see the sun come out. I was afraid the gloomy weather would mean I’d be stuck inside the whole day. Why?” Ivy asked.

My thought was that with the hot sun baking the pavement, there were no remnants of water anywhere else that I’d seen except for within this one very defined set of footprints we’d passed.

I shook my head and turned to follow Ivy but couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about this whole scenario.

I held back a few beats, not that Ivy even noticed. She was on a mission and seemed to be lost in working out the thoughts inside her head. 

A few steps forward, my eyes caught a flash of light glimmering on the side of the road closest to an open field.

I don’t know what it was that drew me to it, other than my imagination and the makings of a story if I happened to stumble upon it, but a few steps in, I knew I hadn’t been wrong to look.

Another flash caught my eye, and I could see two items lying precariously buried between blades of grass and upturned earth. It was the casing of a camera and a broken flashbulb.

Instinctively curious, I stooped down to inspect the area around the strange, damaged items but did not see anything else out of the ordinary, though it was hard to tell what clues the rainfall might have washed away overnight.

I should have just left well enough alone, but my instincts baited me, and I just couldn’t resist. I picked up the items and quickly stuffed them inside the backpack I carried on my back. 

“Whatcha doin’ there, Laynie girl? What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

“Ahhh!” I screamed. “You scared the shit of me, Ivy. What is your problem?” I blurted. She’d pushed my nerves over the edge by scaring me the way she had.

“Well, when you didn’t answer me, I wondered what had happened. When I turned around, you’re over here Sherlock Holmsing the field and lost in your own little world. So, whatcha got that was so exciting you had to hide it in your bag and not want to show it to me first?” She was teasing, and I knew it, but I weighed the pros and cons before deciding to tell her or keep it to myself for good.

“Come on. I saw you look around like you were some suspect in a crime. Give up the goods, Layne, and tell me what you found already,” Ivy pushed. She rubbed her hands together like waiting for a surprise to be revealed.

“God, you’re bossy. Alright, don’t get your panties in a bunch,” I warned as I retrieved my unassuming finds from the backpack.

She snatched the broken bulb out of my hands, grabbed the camera, and fidgeted with making it fit. 

“Hey, be careful with that. I wanted to look it over and see if I could get a replacement piece and somehow get it to work,” I lied.

To be honest, my dad was the sheriff of my hometown growing up, and my grandpa was the chief of police. So when things were amiss or seemed even a tad bit suspicious, my mind followed clues leading straight to the crime.

At one point in my early college-bound years, I’d been obsessed with becoming a coroner too. I would literally dream some nights of getting my hands dirty in a cold, dead body lying fresh in the morgue. I would have been a genius detective, solving the latest crimes and tying up cold cases unsolved in this small, sleepy town I called home. But as time often did, it sped like a bullet train bound for Hates, and it never really worked out as I hoped it would.

So, I’d stuck to writing cozy thriller mysteries and plotting the next victim's demise in my head instead.

Ivy nudged me and brought me back to reality as she repeated the question she’d asked twice. “Do you think there is more to us discovering the footprints and finding this camera buried in the field? I mean, what if someone went missing again? What if they tried to get help," she swallowed hard, "but never did?”

Before I could answer, my world went black. I was knocked unconscious by a powerful blow to the head.

When I came to, I forced my blackened eyes to focus ahead.  I could barely make out the outline of the wooden side of a barn door.

My throbbing wounded limbs felt heavy, buried deep under mounds of cold, wet, slimy dirt.

I heard voices angrily muttering phrases and words my concussed mind tried to understand but could barely comprehend. The few I made out caught my breath when they spoke.  They were ‘camera,’ and ‘murder,’ and ‘lucky they aren’t already dead.’

I assumed that we must be the ‘they’ in that warning, but in not seeing Ivy, dread filled my gut and made me sick to think about what they had done to hurt her - or worse.

Looking back on that moment, I couldn’t believe that the simple suggestion, “Let’s go for a walk,” would take such a dangerous and disturbingly deadly turn.