Chương 34: Chapter 11: Welcome To Whisperwood

We followed Isabel and Sameer through town, which consisted of one main road branching off into smaller streets and pockets of homes. A hand-painted wooden sign leaned at the edge of Main Street: Welcome to Whisperwood. The paint was too fresh, like it had been planted here yesterday. Whisperwood smelled like fresh-cut grass and blooming flowers. It sort of reminded me of the way Disneyland smells, just slightly manufactured. The concrete sidewalks looked freshly set, and there were no stray leaves or dirt on them.

In fact, there was a near-perfect pile of maple leaves between every few houses. Something about it didn't sit right, but not in the way I'd braced for. I was expecting dread and creeping horror. But instead, it unsettled me because it wasn't scary. I scanned the houses for some sign that the imp was lying. A dog barked from a yard, and a woman in a quilted jacket waved from her porch as if she'd known us for years. Whisperwood was as real as Tre or me. The impossibility of it all made me sick.

It's giving 1955 Hill Valley meets Woodsboro, Tre thought over Mindbleed. Sameer lit a joint with the bored precision of someone tying his shoes. He didn't even glance around for cops or neighbors, just took a slow drag and exhaled into the crisp morning air.

"Breakfast of champions," he said, trailing off. Isabel took the joint from Sameer and took a long drag.

"You're gonna get us arrested before first period," she deadpanned.

"Oh, please." Sameer shrugged.

"Sheriff Hardin's so in over his head with the Doc Mosley thing we could blow smoke into his face, and he'd let us slide." Isabel nudged me, offering the joint. I shook my head.

"I'm good," I said, passing it back to Sameer. No fucking way. I needed my head completely clear for whatever fresh hell this game was going to throw at us. Who in their right mind would want to be high during a demonic survival game? Behind us, Tre stretched out his hand.

"Uh, excuse me? Did I change my name to Skip?" Sameer shrugged and passed the joint to Tre.

"Sorry, dude."

"Don't be," Tre said, taking it. The sight of a two-foot talking doll taking a long drag nearly broke me. I looked away, gesturing at Isabel.

"I love your bag, by the way. I used to have a similar one back in—""Back where we used to live. Before we moved," Tre cut in. For half a second, Isabel's eyes held mine, like she was going to call me on it. Instead, she smirked.

"Yeah? Good taste." She adjusted the strap.

"Got it at a thrift store in the city. It was so throwback goth I had to have it."

"Throwback. Yeah." Isabel's eyes met mine with the thinnest of grins.

"Trash recognizes trash." I smiled.

"Exactly." For the first time since I'd met her, Isabel's rough edges softened. Just a little.

"So how do you two know each other?" Sameer asked.

"Don't think I've seen you around before." I had no idea what was expected of us. Should we play along or break the immersion? I answered quickly to not overthink it.

"We just moved from Chicago. Still figuring things out." Tre nodded as we'd rehearsed it.

"Yeah, but at least we met some chill people right away!"

"What about you guys?" I asked.

"How long have you lived here?" Sameer jerked a thumb toward Isabel.

"Our whole lives. And we've known each other almost as long. I met Isabel in kindergarten. Ms. Wallace's class."

"He always had to get school lunch, and it was usually disgusting," Isabel said.

"Except for pizza day," Sameer added. We nodded in silent agreement: Pizza day rules.

"So, I asked my mom to start making extra sandwiches," Isabel continued.

"And now I'm cursed with his friendship." She glanced at him, eyes shining behind her usual edge.

"Don't let the stoner front fool you, though. He's a straight-up science dweeb." That lit Tre up.

"Oh yeah? What kinda science you into?" Sameer shrugged.

"Physics. Planning on majoring in it once I get out of this dump."

"Physics is everything, man," Tre said, practically bouncing.

"The whole world is just equations waiting to be solved." Tre and Sameer fell into their own orbit, trading theories about black holes and momentum like they'd been lab partners for years. Isabel shook her head, smirking.

"Nerds." I fell back a half-step with her.

"Does everyone know everyone here?" I asked, thinking about how Summer and Liam had jumped in so fast.

"Pretty much. School's K-12, so we're all crammed together. You see the same faces for thirteen years straight." She grimaced.

"Makes drama… complicated." I nodded and pushed a little harder.

"So, what's up with Sameer and the big guy?" She glanced at him, sadly, then back at me.

"Sameer and Evan are just… working through some shit." She shook her head and pivoted the discussion.

"What about you? What's your deal?" If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I hesitated. Was I supposed to make up a character? Or pretend to be the teenage version of myself? Neither option felt good, so I went with the truth.

"My mom was sick for a long time. I was her caretaker. She died not too long ago, and... I'm just trying to figure out what comes next." Isabel frowned.

"That's rough."

"Yeah," I replied. That was the plan, anyway, until a demon ended the world in a maggot invasion. Heat flooded through me, and I balled my fists. It wasn't fair. None of it. I wanted to scream, smash a window, anything, but instead I was stuck playing along in some fucked-up small-town horror movie some demon made to feed on my fear until I died. Isabel must have caught something in my expression.

"You okay?"

"Yeah... It's a lot, you know?"

"It's not close to the same thing, but I had a nanny growing up, Marisol." Isabel looked at me, revealing the sad girl under the heavy eye makeup and sarcastic demeanor.

"She died a few years ago, and it nearly broke me. It was so hard to climb out of that black hole.

"First, thanks for sharing. Second, this isn't the trauma Olympics. Your pain is as valid as mine." I tried to perk up my tone.

"And if you ever want to talk dead mother figures, I gotchu." Isabel's mouth twitched into something resembling a smile.

"Do you always trauma dump when you first meet people?" I laughed.

"Not usually, but to be honest, I don't meet many new people." She mercifully changed the subject.

"Well, if it helps, nobody here's been talking about anything except the murder anyway." I blinked.

"Murder?"

"Couple nights ago. Town doctor. Brutal." She said it flat, like she didn't want to add details, but the way she tensed up, like she knew more but wasn't willing to say. Tre's eyes met mine, and I knew he shared my suspicion.

"So… what happened to the doctor?" I asked. Isabel shrugged.

"There are plenty of rumors. But the sheriff is keeping it quiet."

"That's cause he couldn't solve a murder if the killer were standing right in front of him holding a hatchet," Sameer added, exhaling a plume of smoke that blew back at Isabel and me.

"What are people saying happened?" Tre prodded. Isabel glanced ahead at Sameer and Tre, who'd drifted a few paces forward, deep in physics talk.

"Supposedly, they found him in his office. Place was wrecked; papers everywhere, drawers torn out of the desk... somebody was definitely searching for something."

"Searching for what?"

"No idea. But what they did to him..." She trailed off, chewing her cuticle. I stopped walking.

"Isabel. What happened to him?" She met my eyes, and for a second, fear or maybe disgust flashed behind her usual deadpan armor. She lowered her voice, almost conspiratorial.

"His mouth was stuffed full of shredded paperwork." She looked away.

"Like, it was crammed until he choked on it. And his eyes..."

"Stabbed out," Sameer finished. They'd stopped talking and slowed their pace to close the gap between us. Tre did a double-take.

"What the fuck?"

"I heard he was mutilated," Isabel bluntly stated.

"Everybody's saying the killer poured bleach into the sockets after. Apparently, the skin around his eyes was red and inflamed, like from a chemical burn. Probably bleach."

"Papers in the mouth and bleached eyes? That's like Season one, episode two of Criminal Intent."

"Cool?"

"It's really not. But in that one, the killer bleached the eyes to 'purify' what the victim had seen. It's a classic intimidation tactic; shutting the mouth and blinding the witness. The dead doctor saw something he shouldn't have. The killer's sending a message for sure."

"Yeah." Isabel started walking again.

"Well, nobody around here's dealt with anything like that. Sheriff Hardin's completely in over his head. It's just him and Deputy Shit-For-Brains trying to solve the first murder this town's probably ever had." The LifeLine device vibrated, and I palmed it out, angling the screen. A red number one appeared over the CLUES app. CLUE ADDED: DOC MOSLEY WAS MURDERED >Mouth stuffed with paper, eyes mutilated with bleach.

I kept my face neutral as I read, then slid the phone back into my breast pocket, but my mind was racing. It was good that the game automatically added clues as I discovered them. Especially since I barely knew what to look for.

"Is it connected to something?" I asked carefully.

"Like… papers in his mouth sounds like someone wanted him to shut up." Isabel worried at her cuticle, biting at the torn skin until a bead of blood welled up. The sight of Isabel's blood sent gooseflesh across my shoulders. It suggested Isabel was a real person. Meaning Sameer was real too. Maybe all of the NPCs were. Are they trapped here, too? Or is the game filling in background details to mess with me?

"Don't pick at it," Sameer said without needing to turn around. Isabel smiled to herself, then sucked the blood off her finger.

"Don't dig too deep into this," she said.

"You just got here. You don't want to get wrapped up in whatever dark shit went down."

"Sorry, I just—" I caught myself.

"It's fucked up. That's all."

"Yeah." She studied me for another second, then seemed to relax a little.

"It is." By the time we reached the center of town, Main Street had woken up. The town's center was positioned around the courthouse, which rose in front of us, bigger than anything else on Main. A two-story brick block with tall windows and a pair of stone columns giving it an air of authority. City Hall was stenciled in fading gold paint above the doors, as if it had been redone a decade ago and never touched up since. Sameer caught me staring up at it and smirked.

"Monstrosity, right? Figures, the biggest building in town is just a boring municipality." As we moved beyond the building, I could just make out a cramped annex trailing behind it: a smaller brick rectangle connected at the back. Sameer pointed with his chin.

"That's where the sheriff hides. Whole 'station' is basically a hallway, a couple of offices, and a few cells." Isabel rolled her eyes.

"And that's all he needs. Half his job is writing parking tickets, the other half is listening to rumors. Town gossip solves cases faster than he ever could." As we neared the end of the block, I spotted a telephone pole on the corner, listing slightly to one side like it had taken an impact it never fully recovered from. It was covered in memorial offerings. Weathered teddy bears dangled from strings. Brittle flowers, some fresh, most faded, were bundled at its base.

Faded photos fluttered in the breeze, their colors bled out by rain and sun. I slowed, drawn to it in a way I couldn't explain. Two photos were stapled to opposite sides of the pole. One showed a young woman, early twenties maybe, with dark hair and a bright smile, the kind you'd see framed at a graduation party. The other was a middle-aged man with weary eyes and a forced smile. It made me think the photo was taken at a company picnic or Christmas party. The offerings were similarly divided.

The girl's side had more stuffed animals, handwritten notes, and flowers. The other side didn't have any stuffed toys, but it did have a chipped coffee mug and several photos of the middle-aged man with a little boy. Two separate griefs. Side by side but never touching.

"What happened here?" I asked. Isabel's face went hard as stone. Sameer's whole body went rigid. His shoulders drew up around his ears. He walked faster, deliberately putting distance between himself and the pole.

"Don't," Isabel said, voice low. She watched Sameer quickly walk past us.

"Not now." I wanted to know what happened here, the tragedy behind Sameer's bruised expression, and why the memorials were separated like enemies forced to share a grave. But Isabel's solemn expression stopped me from pushing harder. This wasn't the time. I glanced back at the pole as we walked past. The photos of the young woman and the middle-aged man, forever frozen in their last good moments, flapped in the light breeze. Sameer's sister. Evan's dad. It had to be. The fight at the mailbox made sense now.

The LifeLine vibrated as a clue was added to the journal, but I didn't need to check it. I'd have no problem remembering this spot. School was a sprawling brick K–12 complex planted at the end of Main Street. Kids hovered around the front entrance, and a few of them greeted Sameer and Isabel as we passed with friendly waves or head nods. We crossed the campus toward the school doors. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement across the football field. A masked figure stood motionless on the far sideline.

The light caught on the colorless porcelain mask, mouth fixed in a slight smile. It was veined with hairline cracks painted a faint bronze, and the eyeholes were pits, edges red as though rubbed until they bled. A long leather trench coat hung heavy over a dark hoodie, the hood pulled up tight to shadow the edges of the mask, workman's pants tucked into steel-toe boots planted firm in the grass. I blinked, and the field was empty. Had I imagined it? Was my brain filling in threats that weren't there? No.

It had felt like being watched.