Chapter 3

Hector drove up to the construction site his cousin Roberto was working at. Hector and Roberto were like brothers growing up. Even when they had chosen different roads in their early adulthood (Hector wanted to become a businessman, and Roberto chose street life), they still remained close.

Roberto was an amiable guy, always loving to joke around and laugh. He was also one of the toughest and most dangerous criminals out there. Ostensibly, he owned his own construction company, and they actually did build houses, but his real income came from coordinating between the various street gangs and their mafia backers. He had ties to pretty much every single crime syndicate operating in California.

Hector saw Roberto and stopped his car. Roberto had a shaved head that was covered in scars. His frame was extremely lean and hid his true strength. He had on a white tank top, black, terrycloth shorts, and flip flops. Hector got out of the car and started shouting to his cousin. "Hey Bobby! How are you, you hijo de puta con cara de cabra?"

Roberto turned around and smiled. "Hector! I'm surprised you can still speak Spanish after schmoozing with all them nice white people you've been hanging with lately."

"Hey, their skin might be blanco, but their money is the perfect shade of verde!" Hector replied warmly.

The two hugged and slapped each other on the back.

"So what's going on, bro? How's the search for your little girl going?" Roberto asked with real concern. He had been praying every night that the police would find Gabrielle.

"That's what I've come to talk to you about," Hector said in a low, hushed tone.

Roberto understood immediately what Hector wanted. He quickly started calling out for his guys to take lunch. Once they had all gone to their vehicles and out of earshot, Roberto turned to Hector and said, "Sure bro, no problem. I ain't seen Gabrielle since she was this high, but she's still blood. Whatch you need?"

"I got a picture of the piece of shit that took her. I'm not asking you to do anything other than help me find him. I'll take care of the rest." Hector's voice cracked a bit, but his determination never wavered.

Roberto nodded. "Yeah, sure, whatever, man. Let's see the picture of this mutha fu . . ." Roberto stopped dead when he saw the picture. He suddenly started shaking his head and waving his arms in an X in front of his chest. "Naw man, huh-uh. No," he said over and over again.

Hector was shocked. How could Roberto be turning his back on him? On Gabrielle? "What? Why? What happened to all that talk of blood?" He demanded.

"Listen bro, I'm sorry. Any other creep, perv, whatever, I'm down with you, bro, but THAT? No! Sorry. I can't help you," he said as he turned around and tried to walk off, but Hector grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.

"You know who this is, don't you? Is that it?" Hector felt betrayed. Was Roberto really going to choose a bunch of criminals over family?

Roberto shook his head again. "Him? No. But I know of people like that. Listen, bro, I'm telling you because I love you, there are certain people, certain groups, you don't mess with. It doesn't matter if you're the biggest crime boss, billionaire tech guru, president of the United States, crown prince, whatever! It doesn't matter. Certain people, certain groups, you just leave alone."

"You going soft?" Hector said mockingly, hoping his taunt against Roberto's masculinity would make him change his mind.

Roberto turned to the area where his men were sitting and shouted, "FELIPE! AQUI!" A large mountain of a man stood up and started running over. Roberto turned back to Hector. "If Bruce Lee and Mike Tyson had a Mexican baby, that'd be Felipe. I saw home boy face down a whole roomful of armed men before. There ain't no braver or badder."

When Felipe got to them, Roberto explained in Spanish that his cousin's daughter had been taken, and he was looking for help finding the man that did it. He said that his cousin had a picture of the guy, and Felipe nodded in agreement and asked to see the picture. As soon as he saw it, he screamed, crossed himself frantically, and ran off, reciting every prayer he could remember.

"See?" Roberto said. "You're not gunna find a different answer from nobody here." Roberto then put his arm around Hector's shoulders. "Listen, I'm going to give you a little tough love here, bro. The best thing you can do is delete that picture, bury your girl, and walk away." He then walked off, leaving Hector all alone.

********************************************

Elana was getting ready to leave for work. Since Gabrielle's disappearance, her entire life had boiled down to wrote repetition: get up, shower, get dressed, go to work, come home, and sit alone in darkness until it was time to go to bed; rinse and repeat. Her life, her heart, her soul were as empty as Gabrielle's bedroom. Nothing mattered anymore. Life was meaningless. She barely ate and had lost almost 60 pounds. She was so thin, even the hospital where she worked was concerned. It didn't matter, though; nothing did.

She opened the front door to go to her car and saw Hector standing there. He looked as horrible as she did. His hair was a mess. Several days of beard growth clogged his face. His clothes looked like he'd been sleeping in them for about a week. More than that, he looked emotionally and mentally exhausted.

"What do you want?" Elana asked without emotion.

Hector, who had been leaning against the side of the doorway, looking down at the ground, slowly turned his head to face Elana. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy. "My daughter," he said, his voice hoarse and tired.

Elana just looked at him. "She's not here, so please leave, I have to go to work now."

He just looked at her, not fully understanding what she said. He turned his head back down. "I tried to find him," he started talking as much to himself and God, as Elana, "the man who took our Gabrielle. I tried every connection I had. I begged, I pleaded, I promised everything I had, but no one would help me."

"And?" Elana asked in a cold, dead voice. "What is that to me, Hector? The only way I could possibly care is if you would have brought her home. I don't care about your revenge fantasies. Why would I? Do you think if you would have killed that man but not bring Gabrielle home, that would have meant anything to me? Revenge is what men seek when they have nothing left. You think it takes the hurt away, but it doesn't. I want my daughter, not a dead man."

Hector turned back to face Elana again. "I know. I don't think it would have meant anything to me." He paused for a moment, then lowered his head, rolling it back and forth. "You were right - I failed. I failed as a husband. I failed as a father. I was supposed to look after my family, and I didn't. I wanted to kill him, make him suffer like I have. Thing is, it wouldn't've been for Gabrielle, but me; to make me feel better, like this wasn't all my fault for being an absolute failure."

"Yes, you were a failure, but you weren't the one that put her on that bus." Elena's voice was low and broken. "I want to hate you for the same reason you wanted to kill that man - guilt. I wasn't there for her. I sent her away. I didn't even think about therapy. You failed; I failed."

Hector slid down the wall to sit on the porch. "Go to work; I won't stay long. I'm just tired." He then looked back up at Elana. "For what it's worth, you're not a failure. I was always proud of you, you know. I might have hated you, but I was always proud. You were a good role model for Gabrielle. You showed her what a strong, independent woman was. All I showed her was the type of man to avoid. "

Elana sat down beside him but didn't look at him. "When I found out you were cheating on me, I asked myself why. I felt ugly, unwanted, unloved. Over and over, I asked myself, where did I fail. You made me feel worthless; that I wasn't woman enough for you. Why? Why did you do it?"

"Oddly enough, for most of the same reasons. You had stopped being intimate with me. I felt left out. That was my way of feeling wanted and desirable again." As he spoke, he remembered the pain and frustration he had felt back then, but now it seemed selfish and cruel.

"I was exhausted. I went to school, worked, took care of the house, and looked after Gabrielle. It felt like another pressure, another obligation I didn't want to have. Looking at it again, I was also angry at how selfish you were. I was there for your pleasure and your pleasure alone. You expected me to pour every milliliter of myself into you, and in return, all you offered was a roof over my head that I was paying half for anyways."

"I was busy too, working multiple jobs, trying to start a business, that was my release. It took the pressure away. I thought it did for you as well." He tried to sound conciliatory but ended up sounding petty and childish.

"Maybe it would have if I thought you actually cared about my feelings and not just wanting to use my body for a little bit," she responded tearfully.

"You're right, I never did consider your feelings. No, I didn't. I'm sorry. I was just too caught up in my own bullshit." He was done trying to find excuses or pretty words to make everything better; it was time to just own up to himself and admit everything."I never talked about my feelings. I yelled. I screamed. But I never talked.

"My old man was a mother fucker. I saw him do to Mama everything I did to you and I hated him for it. I swore I'd never be like him or any of the other men I grew up with. I turned out just like them. Fuck me stupid."

"I tried, Hector, I did. But every time I did, you got defensive and angry. You would turn everything around on me. That's why I stopped trying. I knew you would never listen." Elana said, also wanting to get everything out.

The two just sat there, staring into nothingnes, wondering why it had to take a tragedy like this for them to open up to each other.

2

Sarah sat with her feet on her desk, staring at the white board in front of her. She had it divided into three columns: the first column was labeled "taken before camp", the middle column was labeled "went missing at camp", and the third was labeled "ran away". In each, she had listed all the evidence for each scenario. Each one was plausible; each had its points, but each had its flaws. There was no overwhelming evidence to push one above the others.

As she stared, she could feel time grinding on her. It had been a month since she first got the case, and she knew every day, every second, she didn't find Gabrielle, the odds of her ever doing so decreased exponentially. There had to be something she was missing, some connective tissue she wasn't seeing.

She looked into the camp. Originally founded by Maxwell Richardson, a wealthy capitalist who owned a variety of enterprises, in 1968 after his only son decided to "tune in, turn on, and drop out", leading him to die of a drug overdose. It was designed to put wayward kids back on the path of the straight and narrow. Originally called "Camp Fundamentals" (gawd, conservatives can't name shit, she had thought to herself), it closed in 1973 when allegations of abuse became public.

It had been revived fifteen years later with a grant from the Reagan administration (because, of course) by a local youth pastor named Ryan Lehman, who liked Richardson's original concept. This time, it was called "Camp Narrow Path" (these names!). This second version ran until 1993, when it collapsed due to lack of funding, which caused the pastor to have a complete loss of faith and start his own Satanic cult before killing himself.

The newest version started in 2008. There was something in the pattern that bothered her. While coincidences happen naturally all the time, this was something different. The repetition of five and fifteen years seemed to be too much for just a natural glitch in the Matrix.

Except now.

This incarnation of the camp has been going for 11 years. Maybe that meant nothing, or maybe that meant everything. It was just one more mystery in this turducken of a cluster fuck. Either way, not much is known about the group that started this latest version except that it's compromised of a group of businessmen, Christian pastors, and former military officers. Once again, it was set up as a way of taking wayward youth and turning them into good, upstanding citizens, or, as Sarah cynically thought, future Republican voters.

While this was all strange, it didn't leave her with anything but a whole lot of questions. She had thought about trying to get a search warrant for the camp, but with the way red haired guy was acting the last time she had been out, he probably would have had the place scrubbed clean by now.

She closed her eyes and started to think, trying to make the pieces all fit. Suddenly, she was back in the stone building she had seen when she had entered that abandoned house. The man who looked like Hastur was there, staring at her, with a small red creature standing at his right. Around the room stood what looked to be palace guards, clothed in black, obsidian armor with long, red capes trimmed in gold. Archaic symbols adorned gray, mold covered stone walls. In the center of the room, upon an altar made of a material she had never seen before, stood a machine whose shape and geometry was an affront to the laws of physics.

The Hastur thing raised its arms and began chanting in a voice no human organs could ever produce. It was gutteral yet transcendent. The words, if words they be, were of no human tongue. It went for a bit, then stopped. It looked over its shoulder as if it were staring at her directly. Its eyes glowed with venomous hate. There was a sudden flash of light, and everything went black.

Sarah barely stopped herself from screaming as she snapped back to what felt less and less like reality. Ever since the house, she had been plagued by nightmares; images of other worldly, misshapen monstrosities that defied all know laws of biology and evolution. They were coming for her, coming for all of them. She looked again at the board and knew what she had to do.

*********************************************

Tiffany and her friends exited the club, pleasantly buzzed, and feeling all the joy of being in their early twenties. The world belonged to them. They were young, beautiful, and full of life. There was nothing in this world that was forbidden to them. They were the masters of all creation.

Her friends wanted to hit another club, but Tiffany was feeling righteous enough and decided to call it a night. She hugged her friends and said bye; watching them as they disappeared down the street in search of further adventures. She smiled and pulled her phone out to call for an Uber when she felt a pair of muscular hands grab her from behind and drag her into the alley beside the club.

It happened so fast that she didn't even have time to process what was happening until she was pinned up against the wall. Instead of some muscle bound man, she saw the brown skinned cop who had come to the camp, asking about that missing girl. She went to scream, but the cop put her forearm against her throat, cutting off any possible sound.

"I thought you'd be harder to find, but luckily your parents are as dumb as you are," Sarah said in a quiet, angry, taunting voice.

"Listen, and listen well white girl, because I am not going to repeat myself. Understand? You and I are gonna have a talk, so I'm going to have to remove my arm here. If you try to scream or get away, I'm will kill you. Once again, do you understand?" Sarah talked overly slow to the girl, like a mother on the verge of losing her patience explaining something for the umpteenth time to a four year old.

Tiffany stared, eyes bulging in fear. Slowly, as best she could, she nodded yes. Sarah lessened the pressure of her arm but still held it on her neck in case she needed to quickly reapply the pressure.

You, y-y-y-you can't do this to me! This is illegal, unconstitutional!" Tiffany protested in abject terror.

Sarah laughed. "Illegal, as in the law, right? Let me tell you somethimg about the law white girl. The law is the security blanket your people wrap yourselves in and the boot used to stand on the necks of people like me. You invoke the law when it benefits you and ignore it when it doesn't. Every 'lawful' treaty your people made with mine you broke the second it was advantageous for you to do so. So, no, I'm not here to follow the law; I'm here for justice.

"Now," Sarah's voice softened and became overly friendly, "to that end, we're going to have a little role play. I'm going to pretend I'm a white cop and you're the scary minority. So, when you don't answer my questions, I'm going to treat you exactly like a minority suspect and beat the ever loving shit out of you. Shall we begin?"

"Please, please," was all Tiffany could say, over and over, tears, streaming down her face.

"What's that? You can't breathe? How well did saying that work for Eric Garner? Hmm?" Sarah said mockingly. "Oh, you're saying please. Please what white girl? Please don't hurt you? Or please don't make you tell the truth? Because one will dictate the other."

"My name is Tiffany," she started to say but was cut off by being slammed against the wall.

"Name? Name! Let me tell you something about names white girl! My name is Sarah. It's an English name. I speak English. I don't speak Lakota, outside of a few words. I have a colonizer's name. I speak a colonizer's language, think in that language! Do you know how that feels; to have your very thoughts, your very identity, stamped and owned by your oppressor?

"Then, what do I see? Back during the Obama administration, people, your people, saying they want their country back. Their country? My people were living, dying, laughing, crying, singing, dancing, fighting on this land millenia before your people ever laid eyes on it. You want your country back? I want my my hemisphere back! Canada, America, Mexico, Brazil, all a colonizer fiction imposed upon us. So you don't have shit to say about names to me white girl!"

"If, if, you feel that way, why did you become a cop?" Tiffany croaked out, feeling confused now as well as afraid. Hopefully by asking her questions, she could distract Sarah long enough to find a way to escape.

"I can't change time. If I could, I would slit Columbus' throat and burn the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria to the ground; but I can't. I can't save my ancestors, I can only stand up for my people now. All my people. The people that got left out of your American scheme. The black people. The Asian people. The gay, bi, and trans people. The poor, the mentally ill, the disabled, the forgotten, and despised. I became a cop for them. I became a cop for girls like Gabrielle. So, now, you're going to tell me everything I want to know."

Tiffany nodded, finally more terrified of Sarah than her bosses. "Gabrielle never made it to camp. She wasn't on the bus when it arrived. I panicked and started writing letters home to her mom, pretending to be her."

"What? Why?" Sarah asked completely confused. "Why not go to the police? You left three months go by with a girl missing? Do you know how much that killed any chance of us ever finding her? And what what did you think was going to happen when it was time for her to go home?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to get the police involved. I wasn't thinking, " Tiffany said as fresh tears started to flow.

"But why? And why was Red so cagey about me looking around? "

"Because," Tiffany said, looking down at the ground in shame, "some of the kids, they're more rambunctious than what our normal methods can handle. They need extra attention; extra discipline. We have special rooms for those kids hidden under the floors of the main cottages. We call them the Dark Rooms."

Sarah just looked at Tiffany in stunned silence for a second. She didn't know what to say or even how to react. She wasn't any closer to finding Gabrielle, but this - this was almost some sick consolation prize.

"Alright," Sarah finally said, "you're coming with me." She then proceeded to read Tiffany her rights.

After Sarah had finished and leading her away, Tiffany asked quietly, "Am I going to prison?"

Sarah gave a defeated sigh and answered, "You're pretty and you're white, so probably not."

**************************************

Michael was driving up to the camp like normal, singing along to his favorite classic rock station, when he saw the cop cars parked at the entrance. He stopped his car and got out cautiously. Out of the one car, the female cop from a few weeks ago, got out, holding a pair of handcuffs.

"We found The Dark Rooms," Sarah simply said with no emotion.

Michael began to weap and fell to his knees.

******************************************

Hector and Elana were sitting on her couch, looking through old photo albums and laughing. It was a bitter sweet experience. Reminiscing, by nature, usually was. This was even more so. The two had reconciled to a point; becoming a form of friends at least, having finally let go of all those years of anger and bitterness. Looking at the old pictures reminded them of the good times they used to have. It also reminded them of how empty their lives were without Gabrielle.

"I can't believe you still have that mustache," Elana said, pointing to a picture of the two of them before they went to prom.

"Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it," he teased back.

"You look like Gomez Addams with that thing," she said while gently slapping his arm.

"Raul Julia is the man baby!" Hector said throwing his arms up in the air.

Elana laughed before pointing to another picture. "Oh, look, there's you with Gabrielle when she was about a year old," Camila said, pointing to a picture of Hector holding Gabrielle in their old backyard. Gabrielle had on a blue shirt which read, "Handsome Like Daddy" in blocky, yellow letters.

Hector chuckled. "That shirt was wrong," he said.

Elana turned to him; her face was now serious. "Remember when she told you? How nervous and afraid she was? So many other men would have reacted badly, but you didn't. Why?"

Hector thought for a moment. "I can't lie and say I wasn't disappointed. Men want sons to carry their names on. However, God makes us all who we are. God made Gabrielle the way she is. Who am I to question the Lord?"

Elana just looked at him, remembering why she had fallen in love with him in the first place. Her rememberings were interrupted when her phone started ringing. She picked it up and answered. Her face became grim and she she told whoever was on the other end that they'd be there immediately.

"That was Detective Redcloud," Elana said before Hector could say anything. "She said she has news about Gabrielle and needs to see us as soon as possible."

3

Hector had barely parked his car before he and Elana had jumped out and begun running up to the police station. At the end of the parking lot, they saw Sarah and a white man standing by a beat-up, 1985 Volkswagen Golf. It appeared as though she had been waiting on them here instead of inside.

"Hey," she called out in an oddly friendly manner, smiling and waving. She had on a pair of old Aviator sunglasses, a brown leather jacket, white shirt, oversized belt, and blue jeans. Her hair hung straight down, kept out of her face by a headband with tribal markings on it.

Elana and Hector just stopped, switching from looking at each to Sarah. They were confused by how relaxed and unbothered her demeanor was. They also couldn't figure out why she was out here and not inside. Cautiously they started to walk over to her.

"Detective, " Elana started to ask, trying to find out why Sarah was out here when she was cut off by her.

"Not 'Detective' anymore. I got fired," she said happily, which threw Elana and Hector off even more. "It's just Sarah for now."

"Is this what you wanted to see us about?" Hector asked, feeling a bit betrayed if that turned out to be the case.

"No," Sarah replied, her tone growing much more serious. "Kind of, but not quite. I was fired for being a little too aggressive with a suspect. Your case is being transferred to another detective, however, I know the little racist asshole; so don't expect anything out of him."

Sarah could see their spirits breaking. She regretted telling them, but she knew they deserved the truth. She had much more to say, much more that would break their hearts. She thought about not saying anything more and letting it rest there, but she couldn't, no matter how badly she wanted to.

" However, there are some things I wanted to tell you before I left. It turns out, Gabrielle never made it to camp. The letters you received were from one of the workers there." Sarah waited a bit for the full impact of what she said to sink in before continuing.

"The text messages you had been getting from Gabrielle were coming from an abandoned house, Jerry here was able to find the location. As it turns out, it's not far from where you live Elana."

"Aye, mi Dios," Elana screamed and collapsed crying into Hector's arms. The thought her daughter had been so close, but that she had no idea, ripped her soul in twain.

"It's a good thing she didn't go in a way," Sarah continued, hoping to ease some of Elana's suffering. "The camp was abusing kids. They had secret rooms where they would chain kids to the floor in total darkness. There was a mattress for them to sleep on and a pot beside a mattress for the kids to go in. They were often beaten and left there until they were deemed acceptable to return. It had been going on for a while. Apparently, it predated the current owners. They had found the rooms when they had taken over."

Elana couldn't speak, all she could do was cry. She couldn't believe that she had, or at least, was going to send her daughter to a place like that. All she wanted was for Gabrielle to calm down, get her head together. What would have happened if she had made it? Elana thought back to all those children she had seen coming off the bus with their dead, defeated eyes. Gabrielle would have been one of them because of her. She would have destroyed her daughter's life in the name of making it better.

"De - I mean Sarah," Hector said softly, "while we are grateful Gabrielle didn't have to go through that, that still doesn't tell us where she is."

Sarah gently nodded and quietly said, "No, it doesn't. The best we can figure is, based on the evidence, Gabrielle ran away to avoid going to the camp. She was probably hiding out in the house where she was texting you from. Whether she planned on coming back or not, I can't say. While she was hiding out, she was probably kidnapped by the man in the picture or someone working either with or for him."

Hector nodded. It all made perfect sense. It didn't make it better or easier to accept, but at least it made some sort of sense.

Elana pushed herself away from Hector and looked Sarah in the face, with wet, pleading eyes. "So what does this all mean for my daughter and us?"

Sarah removed her sunglasses so she could look Elana in the eyes unobstructed. "You're daughter has been missing for a little over four months now. The first three of which, no one even knew she was missing. There were no searches or Amber Alerts, or anything. The odds of finding anyone after that loss of time are nil to none.

"Even if they are able to find her alive, she's not going to be the same person she was before. No doubt she's been through unimaginable torments. Yes, we have found people after months, years, even decades, but they're never the same. She's going to need a lifetime of therapy if she ever is found. I won't tell you to give up hope, but the best, and, honestly, the most realistic thing you can do is say goodbye. Have a funeral, if only in your head, and move on as best you can."

Hector stuck out his hand. "Thank you, Sarah. You're not the first to tell me that. Man has failed, it's all in God's hands now." Hector had the tone of a condemned man who had finally accepted his fate.

Sarah took his hand and shook it. "Thank Hector. I hope your faith pays off." She then went over to Elana and gave her a massive hug.

"Gracias Sarah," Elana said in tears. "I know you did your best. I hope you find something soon."

"Thank you Senora. Wakan Tanka kici un."

"Hey Sarah, " Jerry said, reluctant to barge into the moment, "I got to get back to work."

Sarah turned to him. "Go ahead and thanks Jerry."

"No problem," he said to Sarah then turned to the Floreses and said, "I'm sorry for your loss," and left.

"Take me to the house," Elana said abruptly, causing both Sarah and Hector to snap their heads around and look at her.

Stunned, Sarah asked, "Are you sure you want to do that?"

"I need to see it. I need to see where my carino stayed, the last place she was . . . . . the last place before she, " Elana couldn't finish. Every time she tried to talk, she kept breaking down and choking up.

Hector put his hands gently on her shoulders. "Elana, don't do this to yourself," he said, trying to dissuade her from doing herself any more harm.

"I HAVE TO SEE IT," she screamed at him before turning to Sarah. "Please, Sarah, I have to, as one woman to another, please show me."

Sarah looked at Hector. "And you?"

Hector looked at Elana and replied, "I will go with her."

Sarah nodded. "Follow me."

******************************************

So this is it, Elana thought to herself. It looked like something out of a horror movie. More than that, it was so extremely close to her house. She couldn't help but think back, did I see her, did I see a light in the woods? God, I could have walked to you; held you, picked you up, and taken you home. I could have but I didn't because I never looked, never noticed.

But that's the story of our relationship, no? I never noticed your pain, your loneliness. I only noticed you acting out, and for that, I sent you away. Oh my carino, if God brings you back to me, I swear, every day, I will throw myself at your feet, begging for your forgiveness. Please God, please let Gabrielle come back to me.

Hector put his arm around her shoulders. "Elana, it's time. Staying here any longer, it will do none of us any good. You can stay with me for a while if you want; get away from all this."

Elana didn't say anything but just let Hector walk her away. He was right, she had had enough.

Sarah stayed behind, waiting until she was sure the Floreses were gone. She walked over to a bush where she had hidden a gas can. She pulled it out, went inside the house, and emptied its contents all around, ending at the door. She removed a book of matches from her jacket, lit one, and threw it down.

The fire spread faster than she thought and she had to run as fast as she could to avoid the sudden flame. She then pulled her phone out of her other pocket and dialed 911. She told them a house was on fire, where it was located, and hung up.

Before she left, she just stared at the hateful structure. The fire caused the front two windows to glow with a demonic furry; reminding her of the eyes of the Hastur creature. The house seemed to groan and shriek in pain and anger. She knew she had crossed a line, entered a world of shadows and danger; of unimaginable darkness. Her life would never be the same and she was ready.

"Hoka-hey, mother fucker," Sarah said under her breath defiantly and left.