Things Slip Through

Things Slip Through

last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
By:  Crystal Lake PublishingCompleted
Language: English
goodnovel4goodnovel
Not enough ratings
25Chapters
4.0Kviews
Read
Add to library

Share:  

Report
Overview
Catalog
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP

Synopsis

When a child mysteriously disappears from a small town and even his mother seems indifferent, it’s time for the new sheriff to step in. Meet Chris Baker, the new sheriff of the quiet Adirondack town of Clifton Heights. As one inexplicable case after another forces him to confront the townsfolk in The Skylark Diner, it’s the furtive Gavin Patchett that hands Chris a collection of not-so-fictional short stories that tumbles him into a world of monsters, ageless demons, and vengeful citizens. As Chris reads through the stories the veil starts to lift, and he soon questions what is real and what’s not, and whether he really wants to know. Nothing will ever be the same again. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

View More

Chapter 1

1.

August

5:00 PM

Clifton Heights, New York

It’s Poker Tuesday. My daughter Meg is at the sitter’s and my friends and I are relaxing on my front porch, enjoying a few quiet drinks after we wind down from our respective afternoons. Father Ward stands beside me, Fitzy leans against the railing at the porch’s end and Gavin sits on the railing across from me. I’m sitting in my favorite Adirondack lounge chair.

The warm summer air is quiet and still, save for the distant buzz of cars easing their way down Henry Street. Usually, this is my favorite night of the week; an evening of carefree leisure, when the world’s troubles are held at bay by camaraderie and friendship, and beer and pizza, too.

But tonight is different. Tonight, everything may fall apart because the things I’ve ignored for so long can no longer be dismissed and I must speak, risking at the very least our friendships, at the very worst this place I’ve come to call home.

And the others sense it too, I think. At least Father Ward seems to, as his gentle hand squeezes my shoulder. “I don’t mean to pry, Chris . . . but how are you tonight? You look tired.”

Fitzy sips from his beer and says with a grin, “What the good Padre means is, you look like shit, Chris.”

I shrug but say nothing, while Gavin says, “Y’know Fitzy, most the time you manage a passable imitation of compassion, but every now and then? You’re an ass.”

He offers a jaunty salute with his root beer. “Just sayin.”

Fitzy waves. “Oh, bullshit. I say what everyone is thinking and you know it.”

He takes a long pull on his beer.

“It’s your tone, Fitzy,” Father Ward offers. “You don’t realize it, but sometimes you sound . . . flippant. Insensitive.”

Fitzy scowls. “The hell you say. Insensitive? I have a goddamn loving soul; I’ll have you know. Ask any of my patients.”

Gavin’s smirk widens. “Maybe the coma patients. Anyone else, though . . . ”

Everyone laughs and we relax some. But I still wonder if by the night’s end we’ll be able to recapture this levity, or if things will be changed forever.

Fitzy shrugs and grins at me. “Okay, we’ll play things their way, even though I figure you can handle yourself, being a big bad cop and all. BUT, to make the touchy-feelies happy . . . Chris, you look sad. What’s up? Women troubles? Too many of them, or not enough?” He winks. “Tell Dr. Fitzy the truth, now.”

I laugh, not unkindly . . . but not happily, either.

Truth.

It’s a precious commodity.

Especially between friends. It’s essential in building trust and dependability. The problem, however, lies in how much truth do we share? How honest can friends be with each other, really?

I’ve come to believe that layers of truth exist. How far we peel them back depends on an infinite combination of variables: time, place, audience, mood, and intent. All factors are weighed multiple times a day and often in a heartbeat when considering how much we want to share with those closest to us.

For example, when my wife Liz was still alive, it went something like this: “Chris, please be honest. Did you find your partner attractive?”

One layer of truth: “Honey, she could never be you, could never raise our children and take care of me like you have.”

Which of course isn’t the same as saying “no.” It’s a truth that subtly replaces a deeper truth: “Yes, I am attracted to her. Because she’s young, and she’s a cop like me, and she likes the same things I do, and that’s why I requested a new partner, because the more I looked into her bright green eyes the less I thought about you and Meg and that scared the hell out of me.”

Or it went like this:

“Liz . . . you okay? Look a little pale this morning.”

“I’m fine. Tired from working those late shifts. Just a little headache, is all.”

Which had been a lie. Working in the oncology unit at Binghamton General, having seen dozens of patients with the same symptoms: dizziness, blurred vision, headaches, nausea, chronic fatigue, she knew too well her probable diagnosis.

Brain cancer.

A truth she shared with us much too late, because she’d understood a deeper truth: in the end, it wouldn’t make a difference when we found out.

She was still going to die.

I think all this and then say, “Fitzy, you’re right. I don’t want to play poker, tonight. What I want is the truth, for once.”

His jovial manner fades, his eyes taking on an odd, somber cast. I glance at Gavin. His face hardens also. “The truth about what, Chris?”

I’ve only lived in Clifton Heights for little over a year; have only known Fitzy and Gavin and Father Ward for about the same time. We all met around a tragedy last fall involving one of Gavin’s students. I was first officer on the scene. Fitzy was the ER doctor who’d treated the shooter afterwards. Father Ward visited her in jail regularly until she was moved downstate to the Riverdale Psychiatric Institution for further treatment.

And out of that awful incident, our friendship slowly bloomed. We hung around each other for several weeks and somehow Poker Tuesdays developed and we became friends. Good friends, even.

But a wall has grown between us since then, a wall built from a subtle evasiveness preventing us from becoming close friends.

That wall?

The truth.

About this town and the strange things that happen here. Last September’s shooting was tragic and heart wrenching but in some ways ordinary. Turn on the television and you’ll see the same thing happening all over the country: bigotry, persecution and cruelty everywhere. Eventually, people are pushed past their limits and they lash out.

Other things have happened here, however.

Strange things. Unexplainable things. Like average people quitting their jobs mid-shift for no reason and vanishing into thin air. Mothers removing their children from school with no warning and taking off for parts unknown, entire families sneaking away into the night, clergy and veteran teachers resigning their posts unannounced, experienced hunters disappearing into the forests never to be seen again.

Of course, some of these things have been more . . . memorable. Grotesque, even. Like cannibalism. Maybe. Hard to tell, when the town coroner says bite marks “might’ve been made by human teeth” but all his tests come back “inconclusive,” which has happened more than once around here.

And that’s not all, by a long shot. There have been suicides. A LOT of them. Missing kids, more than you’d expect in a small Adirondack town. Also, patients in our small hospital are often mysteriously “transferred” to special recovery facilities “downstate.”

What it all comes down to?

The truth.

What really happened in those cases? What’s hiding in the dark corners of this town? This whole past year, I’ve tried unsuccessfully to wrest answers from my friends with probing questions like . . .

Has it always been like this? Did you ever imagine that he or she’d be capable of doing this? How’d you guys not see this coming? You’ve known this or that person all your life. How’d you miss the signs?

And as the year has passed their answers have grown increasingly evasive, offering shades of half-truths, nothing more.

And I’m tired of it.

Especially after this last one.

“The truth?” Fitzy mutters, face oddly blank. “About what?”

I reach under my chair, pull out a stuffed manila folder held shut with several rubber bands and toss it at Fitzy. It hits him square in the gut, and he somehow manages to trap it there with one hand without spilling his drink.

I point at the folder. “That’s our most recent case. Ellen Danvers and her missing son. Happened two weeks ago. You’ve all heard about it by now, I imagine.”

A knowing silence.

One I’ve heard too much of this year.

Finally Gavin says, “Sure we’ve heard. Everyone has, and it’s terrible, thinking her boyfriend did something like that.”

“Right,” Fitzy adds too quickly, nodding sharply. “Danny Tremont. Grew up with him. He’s a sonnuvabitch. Always has been. Not surprised he–”

“Bullshit.”

I look at every one of them in turn. If I weren’t so annoyed, I’d find their shocked expressions at my rare use of profanity amusing. “That’s not what she says, not now. At first she was hysterical, claiming something took her son Timmy. Of course, everyone just figured she was distraught and a little out of her head, especially the state police department’s grief counselor. But then three days later she calls me at the station, asking me to end the search, saying we don’t need to look for Timmy anymore because he’s gone on to a better place.”

Father Ward pats my shoulder again and says softly, “Shock and denial, Chris. Surely you’ve seen similar reactions in cases like these.”

I shake my head. I’ve been put off by Father Ward’s affable, man-of-the-cloth routine before. Not tonight. “But the physical evidence also doesn’t match up. There was no time in the incident’s chronology for anyone to have abducted Timmy Danvers, least of all Danny Tremont.”

I look at each and every one of them again, then say, “Two weeks ago, Timmy Danvers effectively disappeared off the face of the earth and his mother doesn’t seem too upset by this, now. And neither does anyone else in this town, with the exception of my guys and the state troopers.”

I nod at the folder. “There have been other disappearances this past year, a recent one very similar to this. A month ago, seven-year-old Anne Marie Hauer from Utica vanished from her bedroom. No forced entry, no forensic evidence. She’s just GONE, like Timmy Danvers.

“And you know what, fellas? I’m tired of this. I really am. All the time, you act as if you don’t know anything, that you’re just as mystified as me, like everyone else in this town. But I call, fellas. I call BULLSHIT.”

And now a deep silence grows between us. I let it fester for several minutes before saying, “Here’s the deal. We’ve reached a crucial juncture. If you want to continue as friends, you’re going to tell me what the hell’s going on in this town, or at least tell me what you know. We’ll order some pizza, go inside, pour over the whole thing together, so I can do my job the way I’m supposed to.”

“And if we don’t?” Father Ward asks gently, but firmly. “Some things aren’t meant to be known, Chris.”

My answer is just as firm. “Then we cancel Poker Tuesday. I start looking for a new job somewhere far away from here, take my daughter and get the hell outta Dodge.”

More silence.

And I see it in their eyes.

They’re debating it. Weighing the pros and cons of telling me what they know or letting me walk away. And to be quite honest? A part of me, the part that never grew up, that little boy inside who’s still afraid of shadows and wind rustling through leaves wishes they would let me walk away.

Because maybe that would be better.

But Gavin takes the folder from Fitzy, then nods down the street. “The Skylark Diner is open twenty-four hours. And its owner is very . . . discrete.”

“In other words,” I whisper, “he knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

Fitzy nods sharply, dispensing with all pretenses. “Damn straight he does.”

Gavin tucks the folder under his arm and gives me an odd, penetrating look. “I need to grab something from home first. Meet you there?”

I wave toward my long, winding drive. “After, you folks.”

And as we thump off my porch, I wonder.

How much truth do we tell ourselves? What layers are we willing to face? And is there a place to stop?

A safe place where we can say: “Enough.

“I know enough.”

Expand
Next Chapter
Download

Latest chapter

To Readers

Welcome to GoodNovel world of fiction. If you like this novel, or you are an idealist hoping to explore a perfect world, and also want to become an original novel author online to increase income, you can join our family to read or create various types of books, such as romance novel, epic reading, werewolf novel, fantasy novel, history novel and so on. If you are a reader, high quality novels can be selected here. If you are an author, you can obtain more inspiration from others to create more brilliant works, what's more, your works on our platform will catch more attention and win more admiration from readers.

Comments

No Comments
25 Chapters
1.
August5:00 PMClifton Heights, New YorkIt’s Poker Tuesday. My daughter Meg is at the sitter’s and my friends and I are relaxing on my front porch, enjoying a few quiet drinks after we wind down from our respective afternoons. Father Ward stands beside me, Fitzy leans against the railing at the porch’s end and Gavin sits on the railing across from me. I’m sitting in my favorite Adirondack lounge chair.The warm summer air is quiet and still, save for the distant buzz of cars easing their way down Henry Street. Usually, this is my favorite night of the week; an evening of carefree leisure, when the world’s troubles are held at bay by camaraderie and friendship, and beer and pizza, too.But tonight is different. Tonight, everything may fall apart because the things I’ve ignored for so long can no longer be dismissed and I must speak, risking at the very least our friendships, at the very worst this place I’ve come to call home.And the others se
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
Read more
2.
The Skylark Diner5:30 PMSomehow I’m not surprised when Gavin walks into The Skylark alone. No one said much as we left my place, but I sensed—through body language, maybe—that this was Gavin’s job, telling me the truth or whatever passes for it in this town.A nice town, dammit, in spite all of this. Picturesque, a postcard-beautiful Adirondack town as charming as Inlet or Eagle Bay but not as touristy as Lake George. And the people here have been nothing but accommodating and pleasant. Word of the new Sheriff in town (also new widower with an only daughter) has paved the way for fruit baskets, pies, homemade bread, frozen venison and casseroles galore, all this past year.But as time has passed and the town’s strangeness has bloomed, it’s dawned upon me that maybe this town is too accommodating, because someoneshould’ve petitioned the Town Board for my immediate resignation a long time ago, especially considering all the odd cases I haven’t been able to s
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
Read more
Lament
She swings the hammer down again and again. Bone crunches, blood splatters. Her stomach churns as she raises the hammer to swing it down once more . . .But she stops and squeezes the hammer’s slick rubber grip. Blood oozes between her fingers. The hammer shakes in her hand.And then she drops it to the pavement where it hits with a dull ring and she looks at what she’s done to his face, and realizes . . . she likes it.And wants to do it some more.She kneels and sobs.Then vomits.MondayGavin Patchett glared at the stack of essays sitting on his desk, then glanced at the first one before him. He tapped it with his red pen, leaving clusters of smeary crimson dots near its heading. He read the first paragraph, squinted and read it again, hoping it would make more sense the second time.It didn’t. Just made him feel tired was all.He closed his eyes, sighed and rubbed his warm forehead. Maybe he’d call in sick tomorrow, sta
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
Read more
3.
3.I lean back against the booth’s thin leather cushions and pull my hands away from the journal, staring for a moment at Gavin’s elegant script. The words themselves seem to shiver and twitch across the page.I look up at Gavin, who’s nonchalantly devouring the stack of blueberry pancakes he ordered while I was reading.My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.Fortunately, Gavin speaks for both of us, after swallowing a forkful of syrup-drenched pancakes. “That whole thing was horrible, and I feel awful that it took a tragedy like that to sober me up. But after everything died down, when I finally dried out . . . I knew things had to change. I haven’t had a drink since.”I reach toward the journal but don’t touch its pages. It’s as if I’m afraid of something happening to me if I touch it, which is ridiculous. It’s only a journal. Paper bound by a leather cover.That’s all.“You wrote this. After it happened?”He reaches for his glass of orange juice, compliments of the waitress,
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
Read more
Way Station
WAY STATIONIt was QuestCon, New Hampshire’s largest SpecFic convention. Attendees packed the main lounge of Portsmouth’s Holiday Inn, bunching up in clots around tables and chairs and the bar, chatting with old friends, hitting up new ones. Con veterans worked the scene, happy to be among colleagues and friends. Younger, more inexperienced folks bounced nervously about, balancing between worshipful awe and their overwhelming desire to be “noticed” by peers and role models, and amongst them drifted fans asking for signatures, wondering respectfully (most of the time) when their next book or comic book would hit the stores.It was a full house, everyone busily engaged and enjoying themselves and, Jim Goersky couldn’t help but feel, glancing at him and Gavin Patchett from the corner of their eyes.“Listen, Franklin,” Gavin snapped into his cell phone, “the distribution sucks and you know it. Why the hell weren’t there more copies of Forever War at the Barnes & Noble here in Portsm
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
Read more
4.
4.Gavin has finished his pancakes and is now sipping from his coffee, watching me with a neutral expression. I again push the book away from me, as if prolonged contact with it could hurt me, somehow.Which is ridiculous.It’s just a journal full of stories, that’s all. So what if Gavin’s story about the Pital girl was eerily accurate? Gavin wrote fiction for a living, he made stuff up. That’s what writers do, right? Make stuff up.Right?I meet Gavin’s calm gaze and speak carefully. “So. This story’s . . . a . . . what do you call it? A metaphor. Symbolic. Of how you realized there was more to life than your writing career.”Gavin raises his eyebrows and says, “Is that what you think it is?”I clasp my hands together on the booth’s tabletop so hard my knuckles ache. “I don’t really know what to think, Gavin. You brought me here with cryptic allusions to a Truth, then have me read these stories . . . ”I wave at the book and I swear Gavin’s flowing script wavers and trembles,
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
Read more
The Water God of Clarke Street
THE WATER GOD OF CLARKE STREETIt was a cold winter day and Carolyn O’Neil was pissed off at her imaginary friend Bob the Water Sprite.“I hate you Bob,” she rasped, trudging through powdery snowdrifts, “I hate you! Adam Stillman thinks I’m a freak, and it’s all your fault!”“I hate you.”Her angry footsteps scraped the frozen sidewalk and her ponytail swished against the back of her neck as she recalled today’s disaster in sixth period study hall. It had been the most humiliating experience ever and she had Bob to thank for it.Adam Stillman was the most popular boy her age. Athletic and graceful, with brown hair teased into a skater cut, his bright blue eyes made her knees buckle. She tutored him in Math every sixth period but they might as well live on separate planets. He was a basketball god that all the cheerleaders worshiped. She was the kinda-chubby smart girl everyone ignored. He only tolerated her because she helped him keep his grades up so he was eligible to play ball.
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
Read more
5.
5.Our waitress (whose tag reads Cassie Tillman) refills Gavin’s coffee. She offers me some, I politely decline, and as she walks away a startling realization hits me: our waitress, Cassie Tillman.JennyJenny Tillmanyou know . . . the senior who wears the purple eye shadowand the short skirts all the boys likeThe implication sends ice down my spine.If all these stories are true, or, as Gavin puts it, have Truth in them . . . how many are about folks I know?For example, Jenny Tillman. Cassie Tillman’s younger sister, a high school senior. She disappeared back in March. Got into a big blowout with her mother and stormed out of their trailer in the Commons Trailer Park on the edge of town. She was last seen hitching along Bassler Road, toward the interstate.Will I read a story about her next? Or maybe a twisted tale about how my next door neighbor—a gentle, seventy year-old retired nurse named Maude—is really a dedicated Satan-worshiper who dines on the flesh of cooked bab
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
Read more
The Gate and the Way
THE GATE AND THE WAYThe woods behind Bassler House stank worse than anything Jesse Kretch had ever smelled. He looked up to bitch about it to Scott, but a tree branch smacked him in the face before he could speak.“Ow! Dammit! Watch it, Scott!”Small lines burned his cheeks. Scott looked back as he pushed through brush and more branches. “Sorry. You okay?”“Yeah. Guess so. Stings like a motherfucker, though.”“Pussy.”“Ass.”“Whatever. Just keep movin. We don’t have all day. Gotta have Mrs. Wilkins’ yard mowed by dinner.”Jesse scowled but said nothing as he followed Scott through the woods behind old Bassler House. They could’ve taken the easier way along Bassler Road, but that started off the end of South Main Street and looped around town. Way too long. This shortcut—through the woods behind the Commons Trailer Park—was quicker.But smellier, way smellier. The air reeked of bad milk and old piss. Mounds of bulging white plastic bags dotted the ground, some split open like
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
Read more
6.
6.“So that’s it?”I ask as we descend The Skylark’s front steps into the nearly empty parking lot so Gavin can take a smoke break. “Jesse Kretch is gone?”With a quick snap Gavin lights the cigarette in his mouth with a battered old Zippo, takes a drag and releases a gray-blue plume of smoke into the black sky. He stuffs the lighter into his front pocket, then sucks on his cigarette some more, its tip glowing a bright orange. He blows out more smoke and says, “When’s the last time you saw Jesse? Do you remember?”I close my eyes, thinking quickly. The answer comes sooner than I’d like. “New Year’s Eve. A few weeks after that 911 call. He’d been cutting up rough at The Stumble Inn. Drunk again, ranting and roaring his usual gibberish at the top of his lungs. That time, Deputy Shackleford and I brought him back to the jail so he could sleep it off. Next morning, I got him breakfast—coffee and an egg sandwich from the Quickmart down the road—gave him my usual speech about him sobering
last updateLast Updated : 2021-09-06
Read more
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status