Where He Can't Find You

by Darcy Coates

But those five original followers were still there, still cheering her on with each new video, and she always replied to thank them. Abby hadn’t told Hope that the accounts were hers. She probably never would.

“You’re right, but this is morning night.” “It’s…what?” “Haven’t you noticed how they’re different?” She squinted one eye open to see him. “Late night, and early morning? You can go jogging at four a.m. and people will think you’re just a little too healthy for your own good. But go jogging at midnight and…well. It’s weird, right? It’s just not normal.”

He’d been diagnosed with EDS when he was twelve. That meant his tendons didn’t hold his bones together the way they should. It left him hyperflexible, but also extra vulnerable to injuries.

Spalling’s body was recovered from the abandoned home on Breaker Street after an anonymous tip directed the police to it. She’d been cut up and spliced back together with a second victim, identity unknown.

Thompson released a small, weary chuckle. “And here I was thinking small towns had a reputation for being friendly. Well. That aside. I’ve been able to glean one thing. The people here seem to keep a curfew. Indoors after sundown. I’m thinking we should follow their example, at least until we’re more settled in.”

She stared through the kitchen window at the grassy stretch running down the side of their house, her heart leaping unpleasantly. Something long and lanky moved there, its body undulating as it walked past their home.

Nearly two-thirds of all victims were taken between nightfall and dawn.

“Stay safe, children,” he murmured, and then finally turned away. “Not everyone in this town is your friend.”

“Wait a moment.” Mrs. Bridge reached for her husband. “Bob, you go with them. It’s…it’s not safe outdoors. Walk them home. Make sure they get there safely.”

Five men went up to Charles Vickers’s house. Abby’s father had been the leader, though. And Abby’s father was the only one who didn’t return home the following morning.

He’d never been found.

Tumorous growths sprouted across the deer’s body and face. There were at least sixty of them, growing in bunches, some as large as a tennis ball. They interrupted the beautiful rich brown fur, bulging outward, an ugly, tar-colored shade tinged with red.

“It’s close to dusk,” the farmer said at last, and swung the rifle to indicate toward the fading sun. “You’d best get back inside. And stay there until morning, y’hear?”

“Why?” “The Stitcher’s getting hungry again.” The farmer began to turn. “You’re still new here. You don’t know about our town yet. But take my word for it; you don’t want to be outdoors while the creature’s roaming.”

There’s this kind of rule in Doubtful…when someone goes missing, you leave their stuff where it is.”

“The Stitcher doesn’t just kill his victims,” Abby said. “He keeps their bodies. Sometimes for a long time. He’ll dissect them and sew them back together in unnatural ways. Hands connected to the face, arms and legs stitched end to end into a long line. Organs placed into stretched skin that’s sewn back into a parcel. And worse.”

“You asked us about January Spalling earlier. She was one of the victims. Found combined with sections of an unknown man.”

“The Stitcher strikes erratically,” Abby said. “But there are usually signs leading up to an attack. Technology will stop working. Animals grow sick or die. People…get worse. You’ll have nightmares. When you notice the signs, it means the Stitcher will take a victim—or victims, plural—soon.”

“The legend says that the Stitcher came from the mines. That the men dug further than they were supposed to and unlocked something ancient and evil.

“His parents were taken by the Stitcher.” Riya was close enough that Jen could feel the trembles through the dirt as Riya tapped her foot, nervous. She kept her voice low. “Years ago. It was…bad.”

They said my father died first, by about ten hours. I want to believe he was protecting my mother.

“It might be nothing. You should tell your father about the thread, though, and stay away from those trees until the police have searched them.” “It’s not always a body,” Connor said. “Sometimes it’s just…a part of a body. A foot or something.”

Clocks wind back Windows crack Signals fall Motors stall Long red thread Someone’s dead

She’d already seen three body bags carried out, and they still weren’t done.

But were those…eyes? Cold, unblinking eyes, watching her from the dark?

A deafening bang echoed through the alley. Riya choked on a scream as the light was blotted out. The kitchen door had slammed closed.

The metallic creak came again. It was the door to the storage room. A door she knew for certain she’d closed, but now hung wide open.

“Who was that in there with you?” her mother asked. Riya, who was pulling her seatbelt down toward the buckle, went still. “What?” “There was someone behind you.” Her mother turned toward her, and her pupils seemed tiny in her wide eyes. “It’s why I put my lights on. Because someone was behind you, and they were walking closer, and I couldn’t see who it was.” They both stared into Bobby’s Pizzeria. The dining room was empty.

The window—the window that Hope liked to keep an inch ajar, to feel the night breeze—had been wrenched wide open. The screen was torn into shreds. Hope was gone.

“Riya Bhatt must have called you,” Abby said. “Or Connor Crandall—” “Mr. Vickers called us,” an older female officer said. Her tone was clipped, her voice harsh. “He reported a break-in at his house. Wait here, both of you.”

“There are never any witnesses,” Rhys said, speaking carefully, “Even when others are nearby.”

“So sad. He takes so many. And only one of them ever came back.”

“Did you say…” Her voice caught. Every hair rose as gooseflesh covered her. “Someone came back?”

The Stitcher waits The Stitcher takes The Stitcher cuts The Stitcher shapes

“And Mrs. Ward can’t leave the town. Not anymore.” Jen shot her a quick glance. “Why not?” “This town…” Riya seemed to be struggling to put her thoughts into words. “It’s like it plants hooks in you. And the longer you live here, the more hooks start to embed themselves, and if you try to pull free you’ll only hurt yourself. If people are taken away from the town—if they’re forced to leave their homes when they’re not ready—they don’t usually make it. Most patients who are transported to hospitals or care facilities don’t live past six months.”

“Abs is trying to care for her mother at home for as long as possible,” Riya continued. “But if the wrong people knew about her mother’s situation—if people wanted to hurt Abby—then they could have Mrs. Ward taken away. And Mrs. Ward wouldn’t survive it.” This wasn’t just an explanation. It was a warning. Riya’s soft eyes pleaded with her: don’t talk about this with too many people. Don’t put this into the wrong hands.

Sometimes the worst things that happen to you come from the smallest decisions. You lean on the accelerator instead of the break. Or you shift your weight on the ladder. Or you leap into the pool headfirst without checking how deep the water is. Tiny, tiny mistakes that would have been inconsequential any other day. But for some reason, the universe’s gears get jammed at that exact second, and your tiny mistake permanently changes the remainder of your life.

“Don’t go into the mines.” Bridgette took a slow, deep breath, then let it out carefully. “But, if you do, crawl away from the threads. The denser they are, they closer you are to the heart of its lair. And that’s not somewhere you ever want to be.”

“You said the Stitcher came for you twice while you were inside the mines, but you survived both times. What does that mean?”

Finally, on the dawn of the fifth day, the bodies were reached, and the tapping noise fell silent. There were no survivors. The bodies had not only been crushed but had been torn apart by the force of the collapse. To this day, no one has been able to explain the tapping noise that persisted until the tunnel was opened, and then immediately ceased.

Florence brought the pieces of her son back to their family home and laid him on the dining table. And then, she took out her thread and started stitching.

Florence had been murdered. Her body had been dismembered, and pieces of it were scattered through both floors of the building.

Her sewing supplies had been scavenged, and trails of red thread were soaking in the pools of blood.

His body was malformed, however, the skin shriveled and rotted in the damp. Either with his mother’s help or by his own hand, he began taking replacement body parts from his victims to repair the sections of himself that were failing.

A hole in the hallway, near the front door, leading straight down to the mines. All of this time, we thought Vickers would have to leave his home to get to Hope. He’s had access to her the whole time.

When he tells the story of the day his family was taken, he only talks about his parents. But there were four people in the car that day.” “Yeah?” Jen prompted. “His parents, Angie and Hugh Weekes. And his younger brother, Asher, age six.”

“When his mother, Angie, got out of the car, she told Rhys to look after his brother until she came back. But Asher didn’t want to be apart from her. He cried and squirmed and eventually opened the door to run after his parents. He was never seen again.”

Five fingers, larger and longer than any she’d seen on any human. The skin was as gray and weathered as a tombstone. It had been crisscrossed with lines where the flesh had been separated, and then pulled back together with stitches of red thread. Bridgette Holm and Nicholas Rigney had been telling the truth. Doubtful was haunted by a monster.

Her mother had mended that sleeve when Abby was still a small child. She’d seen it every morning as her father had slung his jacket over his shoulder and every afternoon as he’d hung it on the hook by the door. The last time she’d seen it was on the night when he’d left to confront Charles Vickers. “At least I know, now,” she managed.

The woman gagged. Something was in her throat. Something that choked her. She hunched forward and retched. Again and again. It was right there, at the back of her mouth. She reached dirty fingers in and scrabbled them across her tongue. A cracked fingernail caught on the edge of the foreign object. She pulled.