Welcome to Cedarcrest — The Newcomers

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Welcome to Cedarcrest.

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Snow. Snow everywhere.

Despite having lived up north for her entire life, Kaitlyn never understood how someone could possibly stomach living in someplace so dreary, so cold, and so open. She always knew that upstate New York was a hugely different place when compared to the big city, but never had she actually seen the difference in person.

Simply put, she wasn’t used to such vast, open spaces, where one could sometimes go miles without seeing any buildings whatsoever along the highways and backroads. She also wasn’t used to having to drive such long distances to get somewhere, as opposed to simply taking a taxi, bus, the subway, or even just walking to her destination.

Above all else, though, it was a welcome change. After all, with less distractions, less honking cars, and less police sirens going off at odd hours of the night, she figured she'd be much more efficient with her work.

Right?

Snow fell slowly and silently from the monochrome sky, which seemed to blend together with the similarly barren landscape. It briefly distorted Kaitlyn’s sense of placement in the world, as for only a brief moment, she couldn’t tell where the ground began and where the sky ended.

The color white seemed to stretch out as far as the eye could see, blanketing the world in its wintery screen. An icy wind cut through her body like razor blades, yet she remained outside, peering out into the milky whiteness with a paper coffee cup in hand, as if she was looking for something.

But I don't know what I’m looking for.

The move from the city to Cedarcrest had been easy enough for Kaitlyn. Hiring the moving company to bring her stuff to this small hamlet right next to State Highway 143 had also gone surprisingly well. The drive here, of course, was uneventful. On the way into town, she’d already found a mall, grocery store, post office, and even a Blockbuster—places she knew she’d be frequenting often.

All in all, it was a decently-sized and affordable apartment in a small, cozy town. By all means, managing to find a place like this right out of college was an absolute steal.

So why do I feel like something’s missing?

Some fleeting feeling had been tugging on something in the back of her mind for about a year now. Kaitlyn knew not of what it was, nor where it came from, only that the feeling was there and wouldn’t go away. Her writing process had suffered the most because of it; what would normally take her about a week to write would turn into frustrating months of writing stuff and summarily deleting it, then waiting around, writing some more, and deleting that, with no motivation in sight.

It had turned her into a recluse, too. Party invites were turned down, friends’ birthdays were missed, and even a potential date and relationship had been canceled all in favor of simply getting something out that was worth her editors’ consideration.

Her luck in that field couldn’t have been worse.

The move, then, was meant to directly counter this. Like she had thought so before, Kaitlyn figured that less distractions would mean more productivity. Even as she stood out alone in the white void, though, searching her mind and her surroundings for even a modicum of inspiration, she couldn’t find it.

She couldn’t find anything out here.

There was nothing for her, save for endless icy roads and piles of snow.

“Miss Brooks!”

Upon hearing her name, Kaitlyn stirred from her anchored zen state and looked back towards the Sunnypine Apartment complex. She made her way out of the parking lot and back upstairs, where she was briefly blocked by a man almost as wide as the doorway. He was helping a comically smaller and skinnier man carry a wooden bookshelf into the apartment, the two muttering something back and forth to each other in a language that she vaguely recognized.

She waited patiently as the big man and his partner set the bookcase down in the main atrium, babbling to each other in the foreign language. He then turned to her, brushing his hands together as if he were a handyman proud of his work. “Okay, that should be all your furniture, Miss Brooks! You have a lot of bookcases… Do you like to read or something?”

“I’m a writer,” she explained, taking a sip from her coffee. “But I do enjoy reading occasionally.”

He nodded. “Okay, okay. But, uh, yeah, we are finished here, Miss Brooks, the place looks good! What do you think?”

Kaitlyn took a brief look around the main atrium of her new apartment. Everything had been laid out in a meticulously neat and orderly fashion, and the apartment itself smelled fresh and clean.

Even though she had used up as much space as possible, she still had plenty of room to walk around and do things in, and the place didn’t seem cluttered at all. It was small, of course, but it wasn’t a dorm, and it was a start.

“It’s very nice, thank you,” she smiled, turning to the large man. “You speak Hebrew, Sam?”

He turned to her, his eyes lighting up in genuine surprise. “Um, yes. I do. How did you know?”

“Family.” That was a better explanation than any other lengthy sentence she could’ve provided. Kaitlyn wasn’t particularly religious anymore, nor did she particularly care for what went on at home, but it was always good to remember where she came from.

“Ohhh. I see. I see.” Sam nodded. He then perked up in surprise as she suddenly pulled out some money from her wallet, holding up his palms as if in protest. “Woah, woah, woah! Kaitlyn, I cannot accept this! We already were paid for this job!”

“It’s a tip,” she said softly, extending her offering out a little more towards him. “For your hard work. I insist.”

Reluctantly, Sam took the money, passing half of it to his smaller partner as he pocketed the cash. He stood in the apartment for a moment, looking around the place quietly as he buried his hands in his jacket pockets. “You know… I never thought about asking you: why Cedarcrest? You know I am from here, yes? No offense, but this town is pretty…”

“Boring?” She finished his sentence, shaking her head. “Nah. I don’t think so. It has a nice ring to its name. Cedarcrest.” She exhaled out her nostrils after saying its name. “I needed an escape from the city, Sam. Too many distractions. This was nice, and it was affordable.”

“Is that all?” Sam raised an eyebrow, curious.

Truth be told, Kaitlyn was telling a half truth here. Yes, she had moved to Cedarcrest to escape from the city and the myriad of distractions associated with it, but there was also something else to the move. She had a genuine interest in Cedarcrest’s perplexing history, including rumors of serial killers and urban legends of abnormal phenomena—tropes that she knew sold very well with her target audience.

Of course, rumors were just rumors, and she knew better than to just believe these things right off the bat, but she figured word-of-mouth stories and legends passed around were genuine enough to use as inspiration for her own stories, once she put her own little twist on it.

She just had to find the motivation to turn those ideas into stories.

“Oh, uh,” Realizing she had stalled on his question for too long, she nodded. “Yeah, that’s all.”

Sam huffed. The huge man turned to the door, shouting at his partner to follow him out in Hebrew. “Okay, Miss Brooks. Jonah and I are about to leave. Do you need anything else before we go?”

She thought about it for a moment, running through a mental checklist of anything she could’ve needed in her mind. After finding nothing, she shook her head. “Nope, I think I’m fine. Tell my dad I’ve made it fine if you see him, please.”

“Alright.” He called, making his way over to the door with his partner. As the smaller man left to start up the box truck next to her Honda outside, though, Kaitlyn saw that Sam had suddenly halted by the door. His body blocked the doorway and he seemed to be looking off at something from the balcony across the stairs.

“Sam?”

He looked back at her directly, his tone lower and more serious than before. “This town is nice, Kaitlyn, but I moved out because it had weird energy, and a weird history.”

“I’m aware of the weird history,” she replied. “It’s partially why I moved here—I just never told you this.”

“I figured.” He then raised a finger. “But if anything weird happens, anything bad happens, you let me know, alright? Just a precaution.”

Kaitlyn gave a thumbs up, half acknowledging his statement, but half wondering what exactly he had meant by “weird” was. “Thanks, Sam.”

She lingered on his words a little more as she watched the titan of a man jog down the steps, bound across the parking lot, and hop into the box truck. The truck started up, and before she knew it, it was on the main road heading away from the apartment complex.

Even as they left, Kaitlyn still found herself staring off into the featureless white void, trying to find that missing thought she so desperately craved. Longing to find even a sliver of inspiration clawed at her mind, like a caged beast trying to fight its way inside, or perhaps, trying to find a way out into the world.

As she stood there, peering out the window, the snow continued to fall from the heavens, and time continued to move on.




"D-Doctor H-Hawkins?” Ming’s voice faltered as she pointed out towards something vaguely human-shaped off in the dark distance. Her finger shook just as much as her voice. "I... I see... I see a...—"

Hawkins brought the hunting rifle up to bear and yanked its bolt back, fumbling a bullet into the chamber before pushing the bolt back into place. The intellectual’s eyes darted around the dark forest as he spun around slowly, searching for whatever his colleague was petrified by.

He took deep, shallow breaths as he continued pacing around. The woods seemed to be closing in on them with every passing second, the trees seemingly stretching upwards into a starless sky like a trap enclosing an animal. "Talk to me, Ming. What do you see?"

“I… it’s a...—”

Ming’s voice suddenly cut out as she stopped thinking and froze in place, her flashlight hovering over something hidden in the trees. An indescribable feeling had filled the woman’s body, snuffing out any semblance of rational thought she once had. In spite of this, Dr. Hawkins could see one clear emotion left in her teary, wide eyes and trembling voice.

Fear.

He turned to where she was looking and then saw it. He froze, just like her, gazing at something nestled between the trees that he simply could not describe with any words. By the time this happened, Sheriff Perkins had already spent a magazine firing at it and was already taking cover behind a redwood tree, reloading his handgun sloppily and in a panicked manner.

And even as the Sheriff popped from cover to try and shoot the thing some more, to try and draw it away from the good Doctor and his associate and buy them some time, he couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything, no matter how hard he tried.

The Visitor, similarly, did nothing. It only stared back at the trio, its long, pale fingers wrapping around the trunk of the massive tree as two vertical, golden eyes peered back at them from the shadows.

FUCK. This is too cliche. Not good enough. I need a better way to describe this. Fucking damn it.





“Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn. Talk to me. How much time do you need?”

Kaitlyn’s editor from the Shadow Grove Publishing Company, Daryl Mays, had an annoying habit of saying her name three times in a singsong manner. After almost hanging up on him right then, she begrudgingly set the telephone down, set it on speaker, and stood up from her table as she paced around the apartment.

“I’m trying to think.”

“I thought you told me you were calling because you needed some time.” He replied. “Q1’s just begun, so don’t stress. How long do you need?”

She snapped over to the phone and stuck a finger out at it. “Yes! That’s exactly why I’m calling you, Daryl. I’m calling you because I need some time to think, because I am trying to write something new. Something bigger and better than In The Dark, but I can’t right now. I’m at a block.” She sighed loudly. “So, I won’t be putting anything out for you by the end of Q1. Sorry. I don’t know how much time I need.”

She heard Daryl making a sucking noise on the other end of the mic, as if he were inhaling through his teeth. “Aw, come on, Kaitlyn. You’ve got this. The Grove’s always looking for new content, and you’re in our crosshairs. I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

Will I?

She turned to the cellphone, narrowing her eyes and scowling at it indignantly, as if she were scolding Daryl in person. “You don’t understand, Daryl.”

“What could I possibly not understand?” Daryl scoffed. “Kaitlyn Brooks, the prodigy horror writer fresh out of N-Y-U. Poster child of Shadow Grove Publishing and its new line of haunting, surreal cosmic horror novels. Slated to be the Grove’s top young author come Y-2-K. Everyone loves you and your stuff. Folks are already calling you the next Stephen King. They freakin’ loved In The Dark—I loved it from the first draft you threw by me—and they’ll love what’s coming up next.”

He paused. “All you need is some time to simmer, to develop, and you’ll find your rhythm. Keep at it.”

She didn’t seem to be buying his rousing speech and monologue. Kaitlyn only folded her arms as she looked out her window at the twilight sky outside, just in time to watch the orange street lights flicker on, lighting up the world with a warm amber color. Daryl was nice and motivational, and a hell of an editor, and without his work In The Dark probably wouldn’t have been as successful as it was.

His only flaw, then, was that he simply didn’t understand what it was that she was going through, nor how to help her. Save for getting her on the radar, of course, but that wasn’t important here.

“Ever since I published In The Dark, I’ve been at a block,” she explained, facing the telephone as she sat down atop a table in the main atrium. She scanned her living room, her gaze passing over dozens of books from dozens of authors along the bookshelves, as if she were trying to find inspiration from the multitude of better authors and their works.

“I haven’t been able to write anything. I haven’t been able to draft anything. I haven’t been able to do anything, Daryl, and it’s been hurting me. It’s been driving me crazy.”

Kaitlyn sighed again, picking up a framed Polaroid photograph from a bookshelf. In the picture, she was sitting on a couch, hugging a man her age and laughing. She paused for a moment, as if lamenting the memory, running a thumb over the man in the photograph. “I don’t want to become a one-hit wonder—you know I don’t—but it’s hard. I moved to Cedarcrest because I wanted a spark of inspiration after learning about it’s history... but even then, I’ve found nothing.”

Suddenly, she raised her voice, an intense, indescribable emotion washing over her. She dramatically threw her hands to the ceiling, nearly slamming the photo back onto the bookshelf as she grunted in a combination of anger, regret, and frustration.

“It’s just... stagnation! Emptiness! There’s not one damn original idea in my fucking mind anymore, or even any idea for that matter! I’ve utterly fucking lost that creative spark I had back when I was first drafting In The Dark, Daryl. It sucks. There’s nothing!”

Hysteria kicked in. She chuckled bitterly, rubbing her face as she paced around the room. “Nothing at all! No matter how I look at this situation, how much goddamn time and space I give myself, and how many times I run through my old drafting process, I have nothing.”

She paused again, flopping down onto the couch as she just stared at the wall. “Now you know why I need time, Daryl, and now you know why I’m so frustrated.”

There was a long silence at the other end of the line as Kaitlyn glanced at the telephone, defeated. For a moment, she thought that Daryl had hung up in the middle of her rant, but then she heard him huff on the other end. “Hey, Kaitlyn... this sounds like the beginning of a book to me...”

She scoffed, flopping her arm outwards, as if shrugging. Her palm landed on her thigh, making a clapping noise. “What, ‘frustrated author goes to a spooky town, longing to find inspiration?’ That’s already been done, done better than what I can write, no less.”

“No, dummy. I mean, like, this. Your struggle to find inspiration out of a cloudy mind, your battle against nothingness; it kinda reminds me of the protagonist’s existential battle against the forces of Un-Thought...”

Daryl’s voice trailed off. “...that is, in a hypothetical sequel to In the Dark... Kaitlyn, you could hit this from a metafictional angle and stun frickin’ everyone.”

She perked up, rushing to her kitchen and grabbing a pen, then frantically scribbled down what Daryl had said on the inverse side of an old receipt. “Holy shit. I just wrote that down.”

“Atta girl.” He chuckled. “Look, I’ve gotta take a call, it’s still daylight out here in Denver, but I’ll pull some strings to make sure what you need gets through. You need anything else, you call me, alright?”

“Thanks, Daryl.” She smiled. “I owe you.”

“Don’t mention it. See ya in a bit.”

Click

She took the receipt and left the main atrium, shutting off the lights as she did so. Her bedroom lights were off, but the blue glow of a CRT monitor atop a desk lit up the room well enough, shining azure light over the bed and digital alarm clock.

Kaitlyn sat in her chair and closed the door. What she had been writing last on the word processor sat unfinished from the day’s earlier burst writing session. Maybe, if she felt like it, she’d touch the draft up someday and return to the story of Doctor Hawkins and Ming. That was a story for another time, though.

After saving and closing the file, she opened up a fresh word document, placed her hands on the keyboard, then began to write.






Jen perked up, hearing some noise coming from deeper inside the vast, empty warehouse. Her pistol swept over the two bound and gagged Green Dragon Logistics employees she had apprehended earlier. With her free hand, she made a motion to where her mouth was beneath the porcelain mask, one vertical finger over her lips.

“Shut up.” She ordered, placing a thumb on the hammer of the pistol, as if for emphasis. “Don’t say a word.”

They shivered in fear, but remained deathly quiet, evidently taking her threat very seriously.

What could have gotten in? She had made sure that her entry was as quiet as possible, and the cameras had been disabled prior to doing so. There were no rats and no other guards in here... so what was making that noise?

Slowly, she passed by the aisles of racks, boxes of miscellaneous crap stacked on the metal shelves. As she proceeded deeper into the warehouse, her eyes focused on an anomaly in the darkness, something she had seemingly missed...

...and the source of the noise. A shipping container.

Not even bothering to question how something of that size could have made it into the warehouse, Jen approached the container, retrieving her flashlight with one free hand and shining a light on it. Her gun entered before she did, and as she rounded one of the open doors of the container, the noise became clear to her now.

Piano... music?

The container had an expanded interior, far larger than what was possible from the outside. Inside the container, her nostrils were filled with the smells of popcorn and perfume, and the piano music became louder and louder.

Jen reached up to the ceiling and pulled on a switch to turn on a lamp, and put her flashlight away now that the extra light was not necessary. Three girls in showgirl outfits stared back at her from atop bar stools in the container, one munching on popcorn, while the other two respectively enjoyed cotton candy and soda.

Then... the piano. The girls made no action whatsoever as she stepped inside, aiming at the man behind the music. He looked up at her; an ancient man with more wrinkles than she had ever seen before on someone’s face only smiled at her entry. Despite his age, and even with a gun pointed in his face, he played the piano with the precision and grace of a young professional.

Seeing as she had no reason to keep doing so, she lowered her pistol. “Why are you playing a piano inside of a shipping container?”

The man continued playing for a bit, finishing his piece. “Well... why not, Blair? There are no rules against it, are there?”

“Touché.” She looked around the room. Seeing as the man knew her name—her real name, that is—she decided playing it safe would be the best option from here on out. “What are you doing here?”

“Playing the piano, of course.”

“No, I mean, what are you doing here?” She corrected him. “In this warehouse, owned by this shady company I’ve been lookin’ into.”

“Well...” The man then began to softly play a tune. “We’ve been eating... cotton candy and popcorn, mostly. There’s a soda machine in the corner. And I've just been playing the piano.”

Jen glanced at the corner of the room. “Is there anything in the popcorn?”

“No, it’s normal popcorn.”

“And the girls?”

“Uh, we’re fine.” A squeaky voice replied, followed by the sound of hollow slurping from a cup.

This was something way beyond her paygrade. Jen backed away slowly from the scene, pausing to recuperate mentally as she placed a hand to her temple. “OK. Do you want me to close the door?”

“If you’d like,” the piano man replied. “I’d like to play a song for you first. A short one.”

Jen leaned against the door, still wielding her pistol, although it was pointed at the floor at this point. The man proceeded to play, humming along softly as he did so.

“Dreams, dreams, make my day fade away. Dreams dreams, let my mind wander to space. You take my hand and come with me, and intermingle with my cosmic energy. Dreams, dreams, make my mind run wild, dreams dreams, let me stay a while. Let my mind enter this place, and fade away to the light of day.”

The man finished his song after two more minutes of playing. Jen had no words for the song, aside from the lyrics being a little too abstract and nonsensical for her liking. Still, she felt obliged to compliment him, lest he do something abnormal. “It’s a nice song.”

“Thank you, Blair. I made it myself, for you.”

She narrowed her eyes at this strange little man, cocking her head to the side slightly. She still had unanswered questions—a plethora of them, even, and small talk and listening to this geezer play piano wasn’t helping.

Without raising her voice too much, she stepped forwards. “Why me? I’m the one looking into this Green Dragon Logistics and their connection to the occult. I’m the one who’s asking the questions. Why have they got you, some piano man, locked up in this little container?”

The piano man chuckled. “Oh, Jen, my dear. Look into your heart for your answer. I am your subconscious.”

stopping point - work on this later. need to fix this up.

Kaitlyn yawned, saved the document, and cut the monitor off.

Her face hit the pillow before she even thought of changing out of her day clothes, or even checking the alarm to see how much time had passed.




Her vision was hazy, but not hazy enough to instantly know where she was: Sandy Hollow High School.

The hallways were as pristine and unchanged as Kaitlyn remembered them, but the lights weren’t on at this hour, making the whole scene feel surreal to her. She stepped through the empty school as if she were being pulled by a string, her movements slow and floaty.

The school felt odd, as if something was there that was imperfect, like a locker not being a certain color, or the floor pattern not being what she remembered. As she continued further down a long and empty hallway, it soon dawned upon her: this was a space meant to fill dozens of people, all going different places... but it was empty.

The lockers on the walls suddenly gave way to a part of the school she knew existed, but never had any classes in, nor ventured to: the art rooms. The back rooms and hallways made way to open spaces full of blank easels, while a stairwell to nowhere extended out at the end of the room. The architecture made no sense, but she pressed on regardless.

At the bottom of the stairs was a door held open by a rubber door stop. It led out to a parking lot that melted into nothingness, and nothing reached out for her from the darkness. The school was floating in a dark void, yet, she felt an almost innate urge to step through the doors and continue on.

A sense of comfort lay in those dark doors, despite the unknown that may have been beyond it. Somewhere in the darkness, she could see headlights, and a familiar 1990 Honda parked out in the void.

Time to go home.

The darkness made way to morning light, and Kaitlyn found herself roused by the sound of music playing from the radio on her digital alarm clock.