This is Down in the Holler, a serial speculative mystery novella featuring Judith Temple, psychic detective.
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← In Episode IX: The Goodbye, with the case in shambles, Judith prepared to leave Salt Fork, and Tim showed up with donuts and a bit of consolation.
Melissa Sloan had steered clear of lunchmeat, alcohol, and Oxy for five long months, but it was the littlest of the three, the pill, that she craved most.
Just this once, one pill as a celebration – that wouldn’t be enough to give her baby the nasty withdrawals the narrow-eyed doctor had told her about, would it? He hadn’t even asked if she took Oxy, just lowered his angry, suspicious eyebrows and told her off anyway.
But surely one pill, just tonight, wouldn’t be enough to hurt baby. She’d kept away from Oxy for so long, and Granger had suggested, actually suggested, that they celebrate.
All those months of worrying and wearing baggy shirts and hoping he wouldn’t see the little, growing swell of her belly, of practicing the words in her head to say, Not this one. I’m keeping this baby, with or without you.
And after all those long, anxious months, tonight when the words spilled out of her, he hadn’t pushed back with his quick-tongued arguing, hadn’t threatened to leave. He’d just sat, silent, staring into space past her, through her. Then, with his lopsided grin, he’d said they oughta celebrate.
Just one pill, from his friend in the winding hollers up above town. One pill wouldn’t hurt baby. Would it?
Melissa glanced over at Granger, one hand on the wheel and his elbow leaning out the open window, the dim light of the dashboard glowing on his face. The heavy, fragrant mountain air of the cool June night billowed in gusts, tossing his hair against his forehead.
There would be no drive to Virginia this time, no pills or procedures to make baby go away so that its father would stay. They’d be a family. Finally, a family.
Up above the streetlights of Salt Fork, the mountain road was bumpy and pitch black. Darkness grasped at them, encroaching on the golden shafts of their headlights.
“What friend did you say this was?” she asked.
“Robby. You remember Robby, dontcha, way up in the hollers? Been supplyin’ me for a couple months since that sheriff’s started breathin’ down my neck.”
“Didn’t know Robby had a place up here. We gonna get there soon?”
“In a bit.”
The dark, thick and solid as a living thing in the cloudy starless night and the dense forest, pressed close as they wound up and up along the rugged trail. Melissa lurched with the truck, a rolling wave of nausea welling within her, and she laid her hand against her stomach and the little fluttering kicks inside.
Granger had made it clear, years ago, that he wanted no part in raising a family. And when precautions had failed and her heart had swelled and she’d begged to keep that first little baby, Granger again had made it clear.
But this time, when she hadn’t begged, when she’d been the one to make it clear – that she would choose this baby over him if she had to, he’d given in. Like she always knew he would, someday. Finally, a family.
This change of heart, it was worth celebrating, just like Granger said. One pill wouldn’t hurt.
The jostling truck rumbled to a halt, and Granger pulled the keys out of the ignition and plunged them into utter, wild darkness.
Melissa’s body tensed with a primal fear. Then, with a click, a beam of yellow light lit up the cabin of the truck.
“Gotta walk the rest of the way,” Granger said, opening the door. “Robby’s house is real remote. Even that sheriff don’t know nothin’ ’bout it.”
“There ain’t nothin’ out here but woods.” Melissa clutched the door handle.
“Just a little farther, baby. Right up the hill. Then we can have one last big night before we got all them responsibilities.”
The honeyed light stretched Granger’s lopsided grin, distorting it with shadows. That grin – she’d given so much, again and again, for that smile, clawing out the insides of herself to offer them up, hoping his smile would be aimed at her this time.
Sometimes it was. But she could never be sure about the next one.
Melissa tugged the truck door open and stepped down into the blackness.
Clutching Granger’s arm, she followed him step by wheezing step up the tree-crowded slope, brambles scratching her ankles and catching on her jeans. The yellowed flashlight shone just enough to keep them moving forward, slowly, up the mountain, tracing the rambling line of what looked to be little more than a deer trail through the forest.
Sweat trickled, cold and trembling, down Melissa’s spine. One hit, that’s all - one pill. Granger wanted to celebrate. He was happy about baby, about her – she should encourage that however she could. Even if it meant stumbling up a mountain in the dead of night, the rest of Salt Fork long since asleep.
They hadn’t even left the house until almost midnight. It had to be nearing one in the morning now.
Her doctor’s eyes, slitted with judgment, and the tiny spikes of the fast-pattering heartbeat inside her pushed into her thoughts until suddenly she didn’t see the yellow circle of light guiding her steps, didn’t feel the thick press of forest. She saw only the grainy gray image she’d hidden away in her wallet, the tiny mouth already sucking a thumb.
“I don’t wanna do this anymore.” Melissa stopped, tugging on Granger’s arm. “I don’t want one last hit. I been tryin’ so hard not to take any pills, and I don’t wanna fall off the wagon now.”
“We’re almost there, Mel. Don’t be like this.”
“It could give the baby withdrawals. My doctor said –”
“That’s fine. You don’t gotta have none. But I still want some, and Robby’s got my stash.” Granger pushed forward again, pulling Melissa along.
Melissa bit her lip and followed. Granger sped up, shoving through underbrush.
“I can’t go this fast,” Melissa said. Somewhere deep within her, a memory stirred, a vague sensation she couldn’t suss out. “I can’t hike like this no more.”
“We’re gonna be there in just a bit. Almost there.”
Melissa gasped for air, her lungs crowded by her growing belly as she struggled after Granger. They’d come up in the mountains plenty of times before – her and Granger, Autumn and Stewart and other tagalong friends. Daring each other to pry away a board and sneak into the old, closed up mine entrances scattered and hidden deep in the hollers. Kid stuff, stupid and dangerous and fun, if nobody got too cocky.
They’d been up here before.
A sudden fear, deep and visceral and overpowering, roiled within her, and she pulled her arm out of the crook of Granger’s elbow.
“Robby don’t have a house up here.”
“He just ain’t talked to you about it.” Granger turned toward her, but the beam of the flashlight still pointed forward, into the silent woods. “You think he’d go around tellin’ you and your blabbermouth ’bout where he hides out from the sheriff?”
“You ain’t never mentioned it before tonight.”
“He’s my friend. Didn’t see a need to bring it up.”
Granger snatched Melissa’s elbow and pulled her along behind the frenetic yellow beam that stabbed into the blackness.
Her body went cold and clammy, terror freezing over her skin as she plodded up the mountain, dragged along by Granger.
Between the tramping of their feet in the rotting leaves, with each step Granger took there was a faint, muffled jingle.
The keys.
Melissa’s teeth chattered, but memories flooded her mind. The warped wood that marked the abandoned mines, the earth-deep darkness, the stale and musty air that had always repulsed her. A feral instinct crept into her veins, a hideous suspicion she wouldn’t name.
Granger’s foot caught in a tangle of undergrowth, and he paused to shake it free.
Melissa yanked her arm from his grip and with a frantic swipe shoved her hand into his pocket.
Her fingers closed around the jagged metal of the keys. Pulling them free, she turned and staggered in a clumsy run down the hill, straining her eyes against the crushing darkness.
Where was the truck?
Her shoulder slammed against a tree, and she threw her hands out in front of her, scrabbling for a route through the black night.
Granger didn’t yell, didn’t scream at her to stop.
At first there was only the rapid, panicked crunching of her feet in the dead leaves, the gasping of her breath, and the pounding of her heart, an island of noise in the still, silent forest.
Then, behind her, she heard footsteps sliding down the mountain, and a flashlight beam lit her from behind, throwing her shadow across the trees.
Smothering a shriek, Melissa darted forward, fighting against the steep gravity of the slope, against the roots that snatched at her feet, against the branches that slapped at her arms.
Behind her, footsteps and heavy, angry breaths.
Her thoughts broke –
There was no plan.
Only the keys she clutched in her shaking hand and the enveloping darkness and her stabbing lungs and her swollen belly that – no, she couldn’t fall, couldn’t land on her stomach, she had to be careful. But he was closer now, was pounding down the mountain toward her and she couldn’t see the truck, couldn’t see the trees that sprang at her, could only hear him and his furious, growling breath –
A strong hand snatched a handful of Melissa’s hair.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this installment of Down in the Holler, please let me know with a like, comment, or restack!
→ Keep reading! Episode XI: The Shaft
← Read Episode IX: The Goodbye
Down in the Holler Table of Contents
If you have any questions about the story behind Down in the Holler, the inspirations behind the mystery, or the writing process, please let me know with a comment or DM! I’m considering putting together a story-behind-the-story Q&A once Down in the Holler wraps up in early July, and I would love to know what questions would be most interesting to you!
Oh. Wow.
This is exactly why this novella is so well-written. You covered all the necessary points and showed us just enough of Granger's psychology that I *should* have seen this coming. If Judith and I had asked the one question... just considered *why* he killed Autumn, or how a man who thinks like that would react to fathering a child himself... then we would have known what had to happen next, and why Autumn has been so insistent that her murder be solved. Everything was there, all along, but we were focused on the past.
Hoooooooo boy. Excellent chapter. Now I need some donuts.
First off, thank you for the donut chapter beforehand, because this was terrifying! Ironically, I happened to have a nightmare about being attacked in a forest last night. If I had the ability to acquire a donut, I would to tide me over until the next chapter!