Page 9 of The Curse of Redwood

“You can’t run forever,”a disembodied voice whispered, the sound traveling all around me.“Redwood will claim you just as it did to all the others.”

I woke with a start, blinking up at the ceiling in confusion.

Sitting up on the couch, I rubbed the back of my neck and tried to make sense of my strange dream. The man had definitely been Z, but he’d looked younger than I recalled. I then mulled over the second part. I had never reached the doors of the mansion before in my dreams.

I was getting closer to some big revelation.

Or maybe I was just going crazy.

A loud snore from down the hall pulled me from my head, and I noticed crumbled beer cans and empty bottles all over the living room floor. Right. I was at Taylor’s house. Before anyone else woke up, I went home. I showered and dressed, trying to shake the strange feeling in my bones. It was my day off, so I headed back out the door and walked over to Ben’s place.

Maybe he could help me make sense of it.

There was a slight chill in the morning air. Summers in Connecticut typically didn’t get too hot, despite the high temperatures we’d experienced over the past two weeks. Maybe the heatwave was finally receding.

As I walked, I played over my dream from the night before. It had felt so real. And why had Z been in it?

Reaching Ben’s house, I knocked on the door and waited.

About three minutes later, a click sounded on the other side before it swung open. Ben wore a cardigan sweater over his wrinkled T-shirt, and his sleep pants were baggy. He rubbed at his eyes before squinting at me.

“Don’t tell me we had plans and I forgot again,” he said, his voice croaky.

“No, we didn’t. Did you just wake up? It’s after ten.”

Ben opened the door wider so I could step inside. “I stayed up late working. Lost track of time.”

“I had to force him to come to bed,” Theo said, appearing in front of me. “Good morning, Carter. Would you like some coffee?”

“Sounds good. Thanks.”

“How was your friend’s party?” Ben asked, yawning.

“You know college guys. Bunch of beer, music, and girls.” I followed him into the kitchen and leaned against the red countertop. “I think I’m too old for that scene.”

“You’re only twenty-six.” Ben filled two mugs with coffee. “Enjoy your twenties while they last. Pretty soon, you’ll be old like me.”

“Thirty-one is not old, Benjamin Cross,” Theo argued, appearing at his side with a bottle of hazelnut creamer. He knew exactly how Ben took his coffee.

“Tell that to my aching joints,” Ben said.

“Thirty is nothing,” Theo responded. “I’m over a hundred and I feel fine.”

I snickered. Theo had such an interesting sense of humor.

“Uh huh. Rub it in.” Ben kissed Theo on the cheek. He added creamer to his cup before looking at me. “Want some?”

“Please.” I could drink my coffee black but preferred cream and sugar. “So, um. I had another dream last night.”

“Oh?” Ben sat at the table and briefly closed his eyes as he took a drink. The poor guy was overworking himself. “Another nightmare?”

“Yes and no. It was at Redwood… but it was in two parts. Z was in it this time.”

“A sex dream?” Ben guessed.

I shook my head. “It’s hard to explain, but it didn’t really feel like a dream at all. More like a memory. But that’s impossible, right? Plus, everything looked like it was from a different time period. Then, I saw the mansion as it always looks, dark and unsettling. I approached the doors and they opened.”

I then told them about the voice I’d heard and what it had said.