Followed Home Read online

  Andre Gonzalez

  Followed Home

  First published by M4L Publishing 2018

  Copyright © 2018 by Andre Gonzalez

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  First edition

  ISBN: 978-0-9977548-1-0

  Cover art by Dane Low

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  This book is dedicated to my grandmothers, Tonie and Esther. Thank you for teaching me so much. You never know who your real heroes are until they are gone.

  Contents

  A Poisoned Mind

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  5. Chapter 5

  6. Chapter 6

  7. Chapter 7

  8. Chapter 8

  9. Chapter 9

  10. Chapter 10

  11. Chapter 11

  12. Chapter 12

  13. Chapter 13

  14. Epilogue

  Followed East

  A Poisoned Mind

  Acknowledgements

  Enjoy this book?

  Also by Andre Gonzalez

  About the Author

  A Poisoned Mind

  Read a spinoff story about the Exalls for free at andregonzalez.net. Check out A Poisoned Mind today!

  1

  Chapter 1

  Kyle Wells moaned as snow swallowed him up to his neck. This snow is insane! he thought as he returned from his Dad’s truck to fetch an extra box of cereal for breakfast. The snow piled up as high as the doorknob, which stood at about chest level, and he had to wriggle his way through the path he had made on his way out. With his scrawny frame, he didn’t find it as difficult returning.

  When he reached the door, he shook the clinging snow free. A pile of snow had already fallen into the cabin when he opened the door, and he could see the dent that had collapsed in the wall of powder that clung on to the cabin’s wooden exterior.

  He opened the door to find his father, Travis, sweeping the melting snow off the floor of the cabin entryway. The fireplace crackled behind him in the living room as a deer head watched them from its place above the mantle. The welcome mat had soaked up most of the snow, turning it into a shade of dark red, which reminded Kyle of blood.

  “Well, this is a real shit storm, eh?” Travis said. Being the travel day back home, he wore his favorite outfit of sweatpants and a long sleeve tee. He had caught some sun the day before the blizzard hit, leaving his tone a light shade of pink. His dark hair was spiked in the front, a nod to his clinging on of his youth despite being a father to a teenager.

  “No shit,” Kyle agreed. The boys enjoyed the fact that Travis couldn’t care less if they cursed or not while their mothers weren’t around. He remembered using every curse word in middle school, when he was away from his parents.

  “You’re lucky your Mom isn’t here. She’d kick your ass if she saw all this snow inside,” Travis uttered, happy he had the authority while his wife wasn’t around. The boys were almost as tall as him anyway. Kids these days seemed to grow at disgusting rates, in his opinion, but perhaps he was just bitter at never experiencing such a growth spurt.

  Kyle kicked off his boots and sat at the kitchen table to enjoy a bowl of the cereal he had worked so hard to get from the truck. His long, curly hair draped over his eyes in waves of brown, hiding his typical groggy complexion after a short night’s sleep. His friend, Mikey, sat across the table with his laptop open, pounding away at his keyboard.

  Mikey had more brains than anyone in his group of friends and they often wondered why he even hung out with them. He had worked on cutting back his use of big words when he was around them, as they would all look at him like he had spoken Mandarin. Kids at school called him the “Wiz” because he had the answer to everything. He had even built his laptop from scratch. “I just YouTubed it. It wasn’t hard,” he told his friends when they had gawked at his creation in disbelief.

  Kyle believed Mikey would be the first black person to walk on the moon, and he would probably build his own spaceship to get there. He often told Mikey to not “dumb it down” when they were hanging out. Typically, the brains of a class would have minimal friends, or be picked on for being a “nerd”, but not Mikey. Every day he felt blessed to have met these friends who empowered him to use his talents while helping him to live a normal teenage life. Sometimes, they had to pull him away from his computer or books to go and throw a football around. Somehow, they even convinced him to join the basketball team, and the coach agreed to let him track stats to help improve the team.

  “Listen to this!” Mikey barked in excitement. “I just read an article on 9news that some guy in Denver saw a gray man snooping around his house last night. I swear, the legalization of marijuana is turning people into nutjobs in our city. What a crock!”

  “Riiight,” Travis replied. “Slow news day I take it.”

  “Even worse, the guy said it happened at night,” Mikey continued, the glare of the screen reflecting off his widened eyes. “If you saw someone outside your house at night, how would you know they had gray skin?”

  “Gray people?” Kyle questioned. “Sounds like nonsense to me.”

  “Ugh, I know. Journalists these days are garbage. They’ll literally write anything,” Mikey said. “That’s why I write my own blogs.”

  Stomping boots approached the door, likely in order to remove the snow that covered them. “Maybe it’s the gray man,” Kyle mocked, as his Dad chuckled.

  After the rattle of the doorknob, the door swung open, blowing another gust of snow inside.

  “Jesus Christ, you kids! I’m glad this is our last day,” Travis cried.

  “I’m sorry guys!” James Jensen announced, throwing his arms in the air in disgust.

  “Nice one, dipshit,” said Kyle, laughing.

  James -or Jimmy as he preferred to be called- balanced out Mikey in every sense. He couldn’t stand books or studying. All he cared about was playing sports. With an athletic build and a lofty height, he would likely finish high school at a height of more than six feet. Despite his awkward size, he moved quickly and gracefully. He shined in every sports team he played on and the girls loved him. His blonde hair flowed wildly, and his pearly teeth shined when he grinned. His path to fame as the sexy, dumb jock in high school was all but set in stone.

  “Relax dudes, I’ll clean this mess up,” Jimmy declared. He threw his Denver Nuggets beanie onto the ground, causing some left over snowflakes to dust his hair. “Brian isn’t back yet?”

  “No, I thought he’d left with you this morning?” Kyle asked with a curious look. Jimmy and Brian had gone out into the snow, wanting to be adventurous with the blizzard that made history.

  “Yeah, he did, but he wanted to head back here before me,” Jimmy explained. “He said he was hungry and wanted to eat.”

  Kyle felt the stress start to boil inside. They had all visited the cabin at least forty times since they had met in the sixth grade, and everyone knew the area well, even in the midst of a snow-storm.

  “I think we might have a problem,” Jimmy said, a shadow of fear creeping over his face. “I heard a scream. I thought it was down by the Tucker
’s cabin, so I didn’t think anything of it.” The Tuckers neighbored the Wells’ cabin about a mile away.

  Travis shot up from his lying down position on the couch in the living room. “Jimmy, are you being serious?”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t joke about something like this.”

  “Dad, we need to go find him!” Kyle jumped up from his seat, letting his spoon clang in the empty bowl of cereal.

  “Absolutely, let’s go!” Travis grabbed some more layers of clothing to wear out into the cold. Jimmy and Mikey followed.

  Kyle stormed into his room, snagged his hunting rifle, and returned dressed, all in what seemed like a handful of seconds.

  “What’s that for?” Mikey questioned.

  “Well, Jimmy said there was a scream. What if someone is out there?” said Kyle as he loaded the rifle.

  “That’s not reasonable, Ky.” Travis was now fully bundled and ready to begin the search. “We know the Tucker’s place is empty this weekend, and there’s four feet of snow. There’s no way someone is wandering the woods in the middle of nowhere today!”

  “He’s right, Kyle,” Jimmy chimed in, now also ready to go. “Brian’s probably fine. I would’ve seen someone, don’tcha think?”

  They all huddled in the living room while Kyle returned the rifle to its safe.

  “Okay, let’s split up, Travis commanded. “I’ll take north towards the Tuckers, Kyle, you go east back towards the main road. Jim and Mike, you head the opposite way, and spread out. If you find him, shout as loud as you can and we’ll come.”

  Mikey slid on his ski goggles as they barged out of the cabin to find Brian. They all shouted his name a couple of times as they broke into their different directions. The shouting died down in disappointment as they reached the conclusion that Brian either could not hear or could not respond.

  Kyle headed towards the main road that twisted down from I-70 as his Dad instructed. Having already fought through the snow earlier, he continued the shuffling motion with his feet that he had found to work so well.

  He was now out of sight from the cabin, which caused him some anxiety as he looked back and saw nothing but a whiteout of snow that swallowed tons of towering pine trees. Thanks to the whistling wind and the lengthy distance from the cabin, he knew a shout from this distance would never reach the others. Alone in nature, the silence was deafening in his mind. He began to hum as he treaded along some of the pine trees to try and distract his mind. A faint groaning sound like someone makes while they are asleep escaped the trees, chilling Kyle’s blood.

  “Brian?” Kyle trembled, panicking in his mind.

  “Ky!” It was definitely Brian’s voice.

  “Where are you?” Kyle shouted into the blindness of the storm. Brian’s voice seemed to bounce off the trees from every angle.

  “Tree…with heart on it,” Brian gasped. Clearly he could hardly speak.

  Kyle spun around frantically and identified the tree stump that some young lovers must have carved out years ago; a large heart encompassing the chiseled script of A + N.

  Kyle darted towards the tree, hugging it as he rotated himself around the trunk.

  “Holy fuck,” Kyle whispered to himself. His knees locked at the sight of a dark red trail, which led to a pool of blood surrounding Brian who lay on the ground with an apparent gash in his leg.

  Kyle collapsed to his knees, his whole body tense beyond belief. He forced himself to crawl along the trail of blood towards Brian.

  As he approached, Kyle vomited in the snow. Brian’s left leg was completely torn open at the thigh. He thought if the flaps of skin were pulled apart any further he would see the femur.

  “Wh-what happened?” Kyle asked.

  Brian had relaxed somewhat thanks to Kyle’s presence and could now speak and breathe a little more clearly. “All I remember…was being sucker punched from behind. Then I woke up with my leg throbbing.” Brian paused and glanced around as best he could from his stiff position in the snow.

  Kyle peered around, hoping not to see some creep wandering around the woods while his father and friends were nowhere to be seen. He dropped his head back towards the snow, letting the realization of what had just transpired sink in. He gathered his strength and pulled himself back up to his feet. His heart dropped straight into his stomach as he saw a man staring right back at him from between a couple of trees roughly twenty feet away.

  The man stood tall, bigger even than Jimmy. He wore baggy snow gear and donned a ski mask, which covered his entire face.

  Once the tightening in Kyle’s throat let up, he was able to muster a confident, “Who are you?”

  His palms were sweating despite the 20 degree weather. The man’s ski mask crinkled in the mouth region, leaving Kyle to believe a smile had formed behind the mask. “I’m your worst nightmare, kid,” a calm, baritone voice said.

  Kyle wished he had his rifle right now. He should have trusted his intuition. He stood there completely defenseless, face to face with a clearly dangerous man twice his size.

  “Did you do this?” Kyle questioned.

  Nothing but a blank stare out of emotionless snow goggles responded. The man raised his hands to reveal two yellow ski gloves covered in blood, causing Kyle’s stomach to twist into tighter knots.

  “Look kid,” the man said, breaking the silence. “I have some things to do, but I’ll see you around.”

  The man turned and ran back into the thick stand of trees.

  “What the fuck?” Brian cried from the ground.

  “We need to go to the cabin, get everyone, and leave right away,” Kyle cried. “Will you be able to get back on one leg using me as your crutch?”

  “I don’t have much choice right now.” Brian groaned in pain.

  Kyle examined the wound, but had no clue on what he could do to help, so he slouched down to wrap Brian around his upper body, and pulled him up as Brian flailed around in an effort to get proper footing on his good leg. He was fortunate to be in the cold, as his entire body had gone numb, making his pain only a soft throb for the moment.

  A depressing gray continued to rule the sky, and the falling snow picked up speed again on their way back to the cabin. Kyle and Brian walked in unison, pacing each other’s steps through the woods. Brian didn’t worry about the man as he could only concentrate on his bleeding leg. Kyle, however, kept looking back to make sure the monster in the ski mask wasn’t following them. They were 100 yards away from the cabin, but the snow and paranoia made it feel like 300. He had never seen a soul on his family’s property before and couldn’t figure out who it might be.

  * * *

  Kyle kicked in the door to the cabin, still half-hugging Brian around the waist. The ritual of snow falling inside continued, but it didn’t seem such a big issue this time around. A deserted cabin greeted them. Everyone had left in a panic, yet the fireplace still cracked its soothing tune. The two tumbled into the living room. Brian all but dove onto the couch.

  Kyle raced back out of the open door and shouted as loud as he could. “I FOUND HIM! WE’RE AT THE CABIN!”

  He ran back inside, slamming the door behind him, and tended to Brian who clenched his leg as he lay on the couch.

  Brian’s composure surprised him. He was never one to handle adversity with such grace, but something about him seemed more confident than normal.

  “I’m still numb, but it’ll get warm and wear off. Do we have painkillers?”

  “We should,” Kyle dashed to the kitchen and rummaged through a cupboard which contained all kinds of medications. “Got it!”

  All they had was a mild painkiller and a bandage, but that would have to do for the time being. Brian extended his hand for the pills as Kyle moved towards him with a glass of water. He took four of them and lay back as Kyle wrapped his leg with the bandage.

  Kyle felt nauseous as the white bandage instantly changed into a dark red color as it absorbed Brian’s blood.

  Tears rolled down his cheek as he imagined this devil
ish man in the ski mask telling him he would “see him around”. Kyle wiped away the tears as multiple footsteps paraded toward the front door.

  Travis burst into the cabin, panting, followed by Mikey and Jimmy.

  “Oh my God,” Travis whispered as his eyes met the massacre that had occurred on Brian’s leg.

  Mikey and Jimmy stood there speechless and both turned pale as they too saw the bloody scene.

  “He’s losing blood. We need to wrap something tight around his leg,” Travis said and grabbed a belt hanging on one of the chairs, fastening it firmly around the bandage. Brian fainted in his already sleeping position. “Tell me what happened.”

  Kyle explained everything he saw and experienced from the moment he found Brian lying on the ground. The mood in the room stiffened when he spoke of the large man roaming in the woods, and the blood on his gloves.

  “We need to leave right now,” Travis declared. He always did well at keeping calm in desperate moments. “Everyone pack your bags quickly. We need to get Brian to the hospital. There’s no time to wait for an ambulance.”

  Travis smacked his hands together twice in rapid motion. “Now!”

  The boys snapped out of their shock and retreated to their rooms to gather their belongings. It only took five minutes for everyone to throw their belongings into duffel bags and reconvene in the living room. Travis had put out the fireplace before pulling his Dodge pickup right to the front door and was already loading the bags into the bed of the truck.

  “Alright, I need two in the front with me. Brian will be laid on the backseat, and the other one of you will need to squeeze in on the floor below him,” Travis instructed.

  Travis, Kyle, and Jimmy carried the now unconscious Brian into the backseat while Mikey loaded the rest of the bags into the bed. Everything was ready to go and the boys all jammed uncomfortably into the truck.

  Travis scraped away inches of snow that had blanketed the windshield. Kyle and Jimmy sat in the front as they stared at the blank white slowly give way to the world as the back and forth motion of the ice scraper glided across the windshield.