Clearwater, Chapter 1

The House at the Edge of the Woods

Avery smacked a mosquito on Knox’s neck. He yelped, turned fast, and she was already running. He chased her halfway up the porch before Mom hollered, “You two, knock it off!”

Dad didn’t even look up. “Knox, grab the rest of the suitcases.”

Grandma held the screen door open. “C’mon in. I’ll show you your rooms.”

Lily stepped inside first. Eager, like always. She looked around the front room, like she wasn’t sure if they were visiting or staying forever.

Knox lingered a moment on the porch. The sky felt bigger out here—stars scattered everywhere. The air was fresher, sure, but he caught a whiff of the cows in the field. That’s not fresh, he thought. The old farmhouse was surrounded by corn fields, pastures, and dark woods. The tree frogs were going wild—louder than traffic, louder than a police cruiser in pursuit.

They weren’t in the city anymore.

They were in Clearwater, Indiana.

Mom and Dad took the basement guest room. Grandma had paid some local high schoolers to fix it up over the summer. It used to smell like mold and old furniture, but now it looked like a low-budget hotel room. Clean, quiet, plain.

The kids had to make do upstairs.

Avery and Lily got stuck in the sewing room. There was one bed. An old Singer machine sat in the corner under a pile of yarn and fabric scraps. But the worst part was the dolls. Dozens of them. Homemade, dead-eyed, just sitting there on a shelf watching the room.

“Oh my,” Lily said. “They’re creepy.”

Avery grabbed a blanket and threw it over the shelf. “There. Fixed.”

The bed was wooden and creaky, with drawers underneath. They changed into pajamas, then opened the drawers to see what was inside.

Photo albums. Scrapbooks. Old stuff.

Avery clicked on the lamp. They flipped through a couple albums, not saying much. Lots of pictures of their dad as a kid—smiling, arms around Grandpa, standing next to a beat-up truck, or holding up a fishing pole.

“He looks happy,” Lily said.

Avery didn’t answer right away. “Guess things change.”

One of the scrapbooks was full of newspaper clippings. The front page had a headline about Empire Stone, the quarry just outside of town.

“There was an accident,” Lily said. “Looks like it shut the whole place down.”

She read out loud: “‘Empire Stone employee Justice Preston was arrested for reckless endangerment. When asked for comment, Preston said, It wasn’t supposed to wake up.’ Wake up, what?”

Avery sat up. “Okay, no thanks. Let’s finish this in the morning.”

Lily nodded and shut the book. “Uh. Yeah. Okay.”

They turned off the lamp, the room falling into a warm kind of dark. The blanket still covered the dolls, but not all the way. One hand poked out from underneath, like it was reaching for something.

Avery rolled onto her side. “You wanna pray?”

Lily was already folding her hands. “Yeah.”

A short pause. Then Lily whispered, “Father, thank you for getting us here safe. Please help Mom and Dad. And… keep the creepy dolls away. Amen.”

Avery grinned in the dark. “Amen.”

Down the hall, Knox was in Uncle Bert’s old room. He’d never met Bert. He wasn’t even sure Bert was still alive. The room smelled like dust and old carpet. A barn cat had been staring in the window for ten solid minutes before finally disappearing.

He didn’t like the closet. One of those folding metal ones that rattled even when you weren’t near it. He stared at it for a while, then made himself open it.

Inside were boxes.

The good kind.

Transformers. The real ones. Optimus Prime. Bumble Bee. Metal, heavy, the kind from YouTube videos. Voltron, too. And ThunderCats—Lion-O, Panthro, the whole crew. Knox opened one of the boxes and just stared. This was a gold mine.

There were crates of comics. BB guns. A bow with a set of arrows. A couple pocketknives. One of the arrows had a strange shape burned into it—looked like a stag head, but Knox wasn’t sure.

He set the arrow down and walked to the desk. An old computer sat there, the kind with a fat monitor and dusty keyboard. Just for fun, he nudged the mouse.

It came on.

Black screen. Green text.

BERT, SHALL WE CONTINUE — Y/N

The cursor blinked.

Knox hovered over the “Y,” but then yawned. “Tomorrow,” he muttered, pulling off his shirt and tossing it at the desk.

Behind him, the screen flickered. Then it went black.

Downstairs, Mom and Dad lay side by side in bed, staring at the ceiling. Neither one said anything for a long time.

Then Mom broke the silence.

“What are we gonna do?”

Dad rubbed his eyes. “Get through the funeral. Talk to Mom. Figure it out from there.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to go home?”

He didn’t answer right away. “Eh, we might have to make a new one.”

“You hate this place.”

“I did. Still kinda do.” He rolled onto his side. “But we’re out of options. And Mom needs help.”

She nodded. “I’m not mad at you.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“I just wanted to say it. This wasn’t your fault.”

“I know. Thanks.”

They turned out the light. A photo of Dad’s father sat on the nightstand. He flipped it face down before pulling the blanket over his shoulders.

Upstairs, the kids were already asleep.

No cars. No sirens. No trains in the distance.

Just frogs. Crickets. And the steady tick of the grandfather clock in the living room.

Out in the woods, past the cornfield, past the fence line, something moved.

Low to the ground. Slender. Steady.

Two red eyes glowed in the dark, just below a rack of wide, crooked antlers.

It didn’t blink.

It didn’t move.

It just watched.

Read Chapter 2.