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Story: The First Hunt

The door to the basement opened with acreak.“John? Is that you down there?” Clint’s voice called out.
Holly grabbed John’s arm. “Is there a door to outside from down here?”
“Yeah.” John pivoted and pointed out the room and to the left. “It’s through there.”
“John, your father killed all those women. Even your mother.” Holly glanced toward the stairwell. “We need to leave. Right now. Come on.”
John shook his head. “No. I’m not going anywhere.”
“But—” She registered something in the teenage boy’s eyes she hadn’t seen before. Something dark and sinister. She released his arm and took a step back, recalling John’s expression when he saw her office wall covered with details from unsolved murder victims—including Meg.He’d known that his father had killed Meg when he came to my house.
Clint’s footsteps sounded down the stairs. Her gaze fell to the bat in John’s hand. She’d already said far too much.How far would he go to protect his father?
Holly turned and rushed toward the doorway, not bothering to try to drag John with her. If she hurried, she could make it to the door leading outside before Clint could catch her. Then, if she could escape and call the police, they’d make sure John was placed in a safe home—away from his father.
Holly reached the doorway when from the corner of her eye she spotted the end of a baseball bat swinging toward her head at full force. A split second later, the impact turned the edges of her world into a black void as she fell to the floor.
A weightlessness came over her, like she was floating. Her vision cleared, and she spotted a woman lying on the basement floor, blood pooling around her head near the doorway. Holly reached out to help her, but her hand wouldn’t respond to her command. She studied the woman’s face. The woman on the floor washer.John squatted beside her unmoving body and pressed two fingers against her neck. Seemingly satisfied, he stood, keeping hold of the bloody bat.
Holly drifted higher, farther away, as the world below began to blur. Clint, John, and her lifeless form faded to nothing before being replaced by a blinding light. Meg emerged from the glow, still looking eighteen, wearing a white dress as she strode toward Holly. A brightness gleamed behind her as Meg outstretched her hand.
“Welcome home, sister.”
Meg.Too overcome with emotion to speak, Holly felt herself smile as tears sprung to her eyes. Holly placed her hand in Meg’s, wanting to ask her sister so many things, but still too overwhelmed to find her voice. Peace surged through Holly as her sister’s arms wrapped around her. There was endless time ahead to ask Meg everything she wanted to know.
Finally, they were together again. Forever. Where no one could ever hurt them or tear them apart.
Chapter 44
JOHN
John lowered the bat, assessing Holly’s chest for movement as she lay limp at his feet. Blood pooled from the back of her head onto the concrete floor. He crouched over her, placing two fingers against her neck as his father’s footsteps tromped down the stairs.
No pulse. He stood, relieved. He didn’t want to have to strike her again with the bat. After Laurie had told him and his father about the crime writer who’d be moving in next door to hide from her abusive ex, John had hoped creeping up on her in the Alberton’s parking lot would be enough to scare her away. Unfortunately, it had to come to this.
“What the hell did you do?” he heard his father shout from less than a few feet away.
John spun around.
His dad gaped at Holly’s body.
“I didn’t have a choice,” John said.
His dad put both hands on his head as he shifted his wide-eyed gaze from Holly’s body to John to the wall behind him. His jaw fell open. “And what the hell is this?”
John pivoted toward the walls. “Oh. I just like to come down and look at these sometimes. I had them in a box under my bed, but after seeing Holly’s wall next door, I wanted a place where I could have them all displayed.”And with Holly moving in next door, I thought it might be safer to get them out of my room. That way, if Holly or the police ever found them, they would blame you, not me. But John kept that part to himself.
John smiled, looking between the two walls: one with articles from his father’s kills and the other from his own. “I’m catching up to you.”
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” He grabbed John by his T-shirt, baring his gritted teeth, and shoved John against the wall. “Have I taught you nothing? How do you expect to get away with this?Her murder will lead the cops right to our door!”
John winced, feeling a nail head poke against his spine. “You’ve never fully let me in. Ever since we came back from that trip to Alaska, you’ve been distant. Hell, I don’t even know if you’ve killed anyone since then!” John threw up the arm not holding the bat.
“Watch your language,” his dad said.
“It feels like you don’t think you can trust me. And I’m yourson.” John let his arm fall to his side. “You haven’t even taken me hunting in the last few years.”
His father shook his head. “I’ve failed you as a father. I shouldn’t have let you become like me. I wanted more for you.”