Addison Lee, stringer for the Piedmont Journal, had driven most of the night, the old sedan eating the miles from Birmingham in steady gulps. He was twenty-six, sharp-jawed, too ambitious for his paycheck, and wholly unaware of the kind of story he’d wandered into.
The Birmingham Post-Herald hadn’t sent him for ghosts, of course. They sent him for human interest; the kind that filled the spaces between football scores and county fair announcements. “Local boy returns home after fifteen years,” the editor had said. “You’ll be back before supper.”
But the road out past the mill turned wild quick, the asphalt thinning to gravel, and the dawn fog was thick as milk. The further he drove, the quieter it got; no birds, no crickets, no hum of far-off trucks. Just that wet, ghostly silence that made him roll the window down, half expecting to hear the world breathing wrong.
When the house came into view, it wasn’t through the windshield but through the fog itself, like it had grown there overnight. White paint gone gray, shutters sagging, chimney leaning as if whispering secrets to the trees.
He parked by the gate, jotted a note in his pad. “Old Turner place—abandoned?” And stepped out. The gravel crunched loud, too loud.
The front door was ajar.
He called out, “Hello? Sheriff’s office sent me up from town. Anybody here?”
Nothing.
Addison pushed the door wider, and the hinges gave a long, drawn-out groan, like something waking up. The air inside was cooler, damp with the smell of the creek. A kettle sat on the stove, cold now, but its spout was still wet with one bead of condensation sliding down as if reluctant to give up.
He moved slowly through the front room, careful not to stir the dust, notebook in hand. His flashlight beam skimmed the wallpaper, the mantel, the framed photo of a young couple grinning awkwardly at some long-ago picnic. The tag at the bottom read Tommy & Lily Pearl — 2003.
A board creaked overhead.
Addison froze.
“Hello?” he called again.
No answer.
But something shifted; a shadow crossing the landing above. He caught it just for a blink, two figures at the top of the stairs. One tall. One small. Both motionless.
He blinked, and they were gone.
The light flickered. His flashlight dimmed, then steadied again. Addison swallowed hard, forcing a nervous chuckle. “Old houses,” he muttered. “Plenty of drafts. Optical tricks. Nothing more.”
He climbed halfway up the stairs, pencil still clutched in his hand. The air grew colder. At the landing, he paused. The door at the end of the hall. The bedroom was half open.
Inside, faintly, came the sound of water dripping. Not rain. Not a pipe. Water.
Addison stepped closer. His shoe brushed the threshold, and the sound stopped.
The silence after was heavy. He could hear his own breath, ragged and quick. He reached for the doorknob, cold as ice, and pushed.
The room was empty.
But on the floorboards by the bed were two sets of footprints.
One large.
One small.
Both wet.
Addison took a single step back, his reporter’s mind racing. What kind of story was this, and who was telling it? Then something caught his eye: a newspaper clipping taped to the cracked mirror.
It was his own article. The one he’d written last year about The Unsolved Disappearance of Tommy Wayne Turner.
Except across the top, in looping blue ink, someone had written:
“You never asked what came back.”
*****
New Yesterdays can be found at: Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, as well as your favorite bookshops. The Audiobook is available from Libro.fm, as well as Amazon.
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