Page 1 of Believe in Caloosa Springs (Caloosa Springs #3)

Christian

ME: Dude… where the fuck is this guy taking me???? I got in his car 2 HOURS ago!! I KNEW he was a psycho killer when I first got in the car *crying emoji*

MANDY: lmaooo

MANDY: nooooo it’s just a long drive from the airport. you should be getting close though. it’s not like you’ve never been here before…

ME: I’m in the middle of NOWHERE MANDY! I’m not close to ANYTHING! All I can see is desert. And the Uber driver keeps glancing at me weirdly in the rearview mirror with his dead eyes.

MANDY: he probably just thinks you're pretty…

ME: Yeah, in a very Jame Gumb kind of way.

ME: I can’t believe I ever let you talk me into this… wtf was I even thinking??

MANDY: why are you so convinced you are going to be serial murdered

ME: I TOLD you, in seventh grade I did the Ouija board at Kristy Pumperdinkle’s 14th birthday party and accidentally summoned a demon who cursed everyone touching the board to be serial murdered at some point in their lives.

MANDY: i’m going to go out on a limb here and say that every one of those girls are still alive and kicking to this day

ME: Oh yeah? Tell that to Annette Schultz!

MANDY: who’s that

ME: A girl who did the Ouija board that night and isn’t alive anymore.

MANDY: what happened

ME: She was on vacation with her family and now… all of them are DEAD!

MANDY: HOLY SHIT! they were murdered?

ME: No, a semi-truck plowed into their Volvo going sixty miles an hour and they all died.

MANDY: that doesn’t really fit the bill of being “serial murdered,” t

ME: That’s not the point! You said, and I quote, “every one of those girls is still alive and kicking” and that would be…FALSE!

MANDY: i can’t stand you

MANDY : besides, I’m sure you are almost here! it’s going to be great. stop trippin’. like you had shit else going on anyway. and you needed to get the fuck outta Vegas. it’s like a fresh start!

ME: Is it too much to ask for my ‘fresh start’ to have included a place that at least had a Starbucks?

MANDY: man, fk starbucks. cassie’s has better coffee anyway

ME: Yeah, but how’s their chai latte?

Mandy stopped responding, leaving me with a pit in my stomach. Those people probably didn’t even know what chai was. I knew they were all very kind people who prided themselves on their hospitality and small town charm, but face it—Caloosa was a bumpkin town.

I’d been listening to Mandy’s stories about the town and its diverse and somewhat quirky residents. I never imagined I would move there, however. I’d visited a few times over the years, mainly on holidays—Christmastime looked just like an old-timey postcard. There certainly was something about the place. Charming, to be sure. Exciting? Eh… probably not.

I sighed and happened to glance up from my phone screen, only to lock eyes with the driver in the rearview mirror.

Christ.

I quickly looked away and slumped in the seat. Being eye-level with the mirror was doing nothing for my nerves.

I tried to open Maps to see how far away we were, but when I tried to input Mandy’s address, all I got was a spinning wheel of doom, followed by a check network connection pop-up.

Of course I had no service. I was in the middle of actual nowhere. Maybe that's why Mandy seemed to not be responding.

I locked my phone and nervously picked at the chipped black polish on my nails. Oh god, did they sell nail polish in Caloosa Springs, or was the place frozen in time before varnish had been invented? Horror gripped my guts.

With every rotation of the tires, the feeling of impending doom ballooned. “What are you doing, Tian,” I muttered under my breath. After the last six months, I was ready for something different—but I was beginning to believe I’d run in the wrong direction.

I’d always wanted to go to New York. I could have hopped right on a plane from Harry Reid International and headed straight to JFK. I could be eating a hot dog from a street cart in the middle of Times Square right this very minute. But I didn’t do that.

Or Portland! I heard Portland was right up my alley— a massive art scene and alternative community rich in queer culture and acceptance. Nope. Didn’t go there.

I must have read twenty books about voodoo in New Orleans. Vampires and witches! Occult shops and cemeteries older than the country itself! Enjoying a sugary beignet while sauntering down Bourbon Street? Sign me up… or not.

For that matter, who’s to say I even had to stay in the country? I’d dreamt of seeing London since I watched Interview With a Vampire for the first time. Why hadn’t I gone overseas?

The world was my oyster. So, naturally, I chose… Caloosa Springs.

I glanced up as the scenery began to change, and the rolling desert gave way to massive green pastures surrounded by tall fencing. A large sign mounted on the fence read Baker Farms . I recognized the name as the people who Mandy worked for.

My favorite cousin—a title she self-proclaimed when we were kids—worked at a bookstore-turned-cannabis dispensary. She’d been begging me to come out here and stay with her for a long time, having offered me a job countless times over the last couple years, but I hadn’t taken the bait. Eighteen-year-old Tian wouldn’t have been caught dead living in a small town. I was a city boy through and through, despite having been trapped in a(nother) small town until the day I’d turned 18. My parents, to their credit, weren’t completely awful. We just existed in two completely different worlds. They were religious, archaic, and staunch conservatives. Good people, just severely stuck in their ways. I tried to give them credit, as it wasn’t their fault their youngest offspring turned out to be their polar opposite.

My mother cried for four days straight when my 11th grade history teacher called to inform her that I’d been caught kissing another boy in the back of the library stacks during lunch. Unfortunately for them, by that point, they were kind of out of options. I’d already been cordially uninvited from the pew of our family church by the pastor the year prior, on account of “[asking] too many questions, and [needing] to strengthen my faith in the Lord.” My dad’s face had turned purple, and I believe with every ounce of my existence that was the closest the man had ever come to putting his hands on me.

Then, when I’d started kissing boys, my folks had no choice but to have my mother quit her job so she could be available to homeschool me through the remainder of my high school education. What a joy that was… not.

Fortunately for me, I was already two years into the four-year plan I’d made on my 14th birthday. Instead of getting me the Xbox I’d asked for, my parents instead gave me a $4,000 certificate of deposit. It was “for my future,” they’d said. As pissed off as I was, I still was determined to figure out how to use it to my advantage.

I read every word of the paperwork associated with the CD, and taught myself exactly how they worked. They had selected a 12-month term at a 4.2% return. Knowing what I know now, they got a hell of a rate. Er, I guess I got a hell of a rate.

Then, on my 15th birthday, they cashed it out, added in another thousand dollars, and put it back in for another year. They continued to do that until my eighteenth birthday, when I was able to cash it all out at once. Knowing what I know now, there would have been better investment options that would have yielded a larger return, but whatever. Doing what they did gave me a little under ten grand to start my adult life with. I had also been working part-time at the movie theater for two and a half years, and made a point to save as much as I could. I’m not entirely sure where their logic had come from. I wasn’t allowed to go back to regular school because they didn’t want me kissing other boys, but they allowed me to work in a dark movie theater 15 hours a week. Laughable.

By the time the clock hit midnight on my 18th birthday, I was one trip to the bank away from getting the fuck out. Las Vegas was close by and seemed like everything I needed in my life: bright, loud, and anonymous. With my ass on fire and all my worldly savings, I caught a Greyhound out of town and didn’t look back.

I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window, grinning like an idiot at that stupid boy, just running to run. My two-and-a-half years in Vegas had been a hell of a ride, but it was time to get out. I had no idea where I was going to end up next, and I’d be lying if that wasn’t extremely exciting. Caloosa, tiny as it might be, was going to be a great reset point. Those creeps from the BoysTown cam house wouldn’t be able to find me, and I had a free place to crash while I figured out what the next chapter in my story was going to look like. Cherry on top was I got to spend some time with Mandy while I figured it out. She and I had always been the black sheep of our shared family, and, consequently, she got me like nobody else ever had.

My phone began to ding in my lap and I picked it up to see cell service had finally returned now that we were in town.

MANDY: just have him drop you off at booked, i still have a few things I need to finish up and then we can grab some lunch

Great, that meant I was going to have to verbally interact with John Wayne Gacy in the driver’s seat.

“Um… so, there’s a slight change in plan. Could you drop me off at Booked instead of the address I provided? If I remember correctly, it’s just up ahead, before the curve on the right.”

It had been a while since I’d visited, and things did look different, but there wasn’t much here to forget. Three dirt roads connected the town to the main vein of blacktop running through it. I think there were a total of 12 commercial buildings in town; the rest were residents’ homes.

I watched the man’s reflection as he turned his head and looked at the screen mounted to the dash.

“Address reads 4580 Calico Lane. That’s where you’ll be dropped off. 4580 Calico Lane,” he repeated in a monotone.

“O-kay-y-y…” I replied as smoothly as I could, sinking back down into my seat.

ME: I’VE BEEN KIDNAPPED!!!

***