The Doom Statues

By Jason McGathey

Though dormant for many years, when an artists' retreat in the country reopens, a group of creatively inclined strangers cannot resist its charms. None of them find it odd that the locals steer clear of the place - at least not initially. Long before the property's dark past reveals itself to them, how

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jason McGathey
• Release date: Dec 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9798869329806

Jason McGathey

Formerly much more inclined to meander along the eastern coast, Jason McGathey now forces himself to remain in one place and work on his next magnum opus.

Book preview

The Doom Statues

This is some seriously creepy territory, Emily says, as they turn from the paved road onto one composed of half dirt, half stone.

Yeah and this gravel road makes it even better, Kay concurs, equal parts sarcasm and queasiness from the back seat.

The funny thing is, I didn’t come this way last time, Jeremy, their driver, tells them, thank God for those maps on our phone. I must have taken a wrong turn away from the normal route, but this will work.

"Wait a second – you’ve been out here before?" Kay gasps.

Well yeah, whose idea do you think it was? Emily wonders, smirking as she spins around to face her best friend. "He said he’s got something to show us."

That may be true, but...never mind. There’s a little one in the car, Kay jokes, then glances over at her four year old son, Noah, and his hair. Yet the youth is mostly tuning out all conversation, sitting still and cataloging the scenery from his baby seat.

I think I might start coming this way instead, though, Jeremy croaks, smiling though serious, pleased with himself, the gravel road part’s a nice touch.

"You mean you plan on driving all the way out here again? Kay says, adds, this better be good."

What are we even seeing? You told me but I forget, Emily says.

You’ve heard of a gravity hill? he asks.

No....

"Well, okay, a gravity hill they’ll tell you is an optical illusion. There are these places where it looks like you’re going uphill but you’re actually moving downhill. Except...I don’t know, you'll just have to see it. This whole area’s weird."

Though the directions guiding him that first time were vague, with the false far outweighing the true – a common predicament, in the flood of information now overwhelming everyone online – Jeremy did manage to find this nifty little urban legend, or make that a rural one, just a week ago. Traveling alone and charting these winding roads through the forest, northeast of Stokely, itself a blip on the map and nearly an hour away from their own hometown.

Viewing this hill that initial occasion, at night, was spooky enough, but in a sense less satisfying. Too dark to really make out as much of the horizon, even with proper headlights and all. Now, however, accompanied by his girlfriend, Emily, and her faithful sidekick Kay, not to mention the ultra-impressionable Noah, it should not only prove more fun, showing them this peculiar sight, but also a little easier to discern visually by day.

Isn’t this cool? Jeremy asks, at the wheel even though this nearly brand new Beamer belongs to Emily’s parents. With those two out of the state on a mini-vacation, she determined on a whim that this would make the perfect vehicle for this quaint little day trip, even if she personally didn’t feel comfortable driving it and the car wasn’t technically supposed to leave the house.

Yeah, we’ll see how cool if you scratch up the side of this frickin’ car, Kay grovels, only three-quarters joking, as this gravel road narrows and overhanging tree branches press ever nearer, on both sides.

Don’t worry, I think we should be back on solid pavement here soon, he says.

Yeah, I think I see it, actually, Emily seconds, nodding to where this lane ends into an abrupt T-intersection ahead.

Just past where the trees finally open up again, with a charming stone cottage on the right and field to their left, another solid bank of forest directly before them, this stop sign presents its pair of choices. Even though the internet connection is spotty out here, memory and the occasionally cooperative maps on their phones both seem to indicate they should turn left, and so he does.

The three adult occupants are all 19 and have known one another since at least the third grade, possibly longer – on this point memories diverge, and nobody has yet bothered to unearth a yearbook from those elementary days. This pair of females, Jeremy knows, are both artistically inclined, live relatively close to one another, and share similar senses of humor. Unlike them, he's never really had a creative bone in his body, so it's hard to say how all three of them wound up so chummy, years before he and Emily began dating. Once middle school hit, or thereabouts, and it became more apparent that they were more or less central figures in their tiny village's in crowd, of course, everything about their friendship felt like a preordained eventuality, as did his courtship of this amazing woman beside him.

Though somewhat on the thin side, Jeremy's always been tall, and in at least as good of shape as basically every other average kid he knows. Thus he extended a token effort toward athletics, with modest interest and even less success, until his sophomore year. This roughly coincided with his taking up smoking, and also a burgeoning mutual attraction with Miss Emily Garverick. Somewhere along the line, it became obvious to both that the longtime friendship was turning into jokes about flirting, which itself begat actual flirting. Even so, it took them a solid year to really do anything about it, and begin dating in earnest.

Nearly as tall as Jeremy, and a curly haired blonde to his sandy brown, Emily has thus far successfully avoided taking up smoking, and of course she's always had her painting obsession against his total lack of interest in the arts. But in nearly every other aspect they are pretty much the same. They fall into your same basic late teenage category, given to a little bit of partying with alcohol and maybe the occasional weed, nothing else really edgier than this. Still, a little shiftless, which is maybe the product of their nothing town – a town almost as lame as that Stokely or whatever it was they just drove through – and working stupid jobs with no real prospect of anything else on the horizon, though they’d all performed at least decently in school.

Of course, when her lifelong best friend, Kay Hutchison here, found herself with child at the age of 15, that did somewhat complicate matters in her specific case. Especially as baby’s daddy was basically of no use at all. Even in these modern times, there’s a horrific stigma attached to pregnancies at that age, and Kay’s suffered all manner of abuse in the court of public opinion, basically just for deciding on her own that she was quite happy and excited to have this kid. Even Kay's own parents have made little effort to disguise that they’re not exactly thrilled by this development, yet have if nothing else allowed her to remain living at home without pressure to figure out a career, thus far anyway.

Jeremy has just begun to wonder if he made a wrong turn somewhere, when he rounds a corner and realizes they have crossed the top – or is that the bottom? - of the hill he’s been seeking. It just looked different this time, having approached from the opposite direction. And though he says nothing, the first words out of both girls’ mouths are some variation of a whoa and a mild curse, marveling at all this graffiti on the road.

Some in paint and some chalk, these markings cover much of the expected bases in defacing the road. Mostly lighter colored and/or pastel, featuring a wild assortment of handwriting styles and subject matter, plenty of names, few actual drawings, but maybe just a little more demented bent than usual, given the nature of this site. Among these are a baby sized chalk outline of a body, an assurance that CLOWNS LIVE HERE, as well as a question written in a girl’s looping cursive, asking simply Do ya love me?

Having reached the bottom of this hill – or the starting line, to be more precise – Jeremy knows he’ll have to turn around, and yet there’s no immediate place for doing so. He continues ahead as the road inclines upward once more, then at the peak of this slight rise, finds a gravel drive leading to a rickety, wooden, two story house, its exterior grey and warping. An old man in the back yard is burning trash in a barrel, and turns slowly to regard them with a dirty glare.

Ooh hoo hoo! Kay chortles from the back seat, did you see that? He looks pissed! I’ll bet he’s tired of this shit.

Well yeah! Emily agrees, wouldn’t you be? He’s probably burning the bodies of the last dumbass kids to try this!

"It could be their spirits haunting this place," Jeremy cracks.

Upon turning around, he creeps down the current hill until bottoming out. Here, after lining up his car as well as possible between two wooden posts that someone painted with single, horizontal purple stripes, to mark the proper starting place, he comes to a complete stop.

So what is the point of this, anyway? Kay questions.

Just watch, Jeremy tells her, then demonstrates. Okay, you’ll see that the car is now in neutral and that we are completely stopped, right?

Yeah, both girls reply at once, with a tone of voice suggesting a shrug.

Okay then, so see what happens...when I take my foot off the brake..., he mutters, lifting his knee a little more than necessary to show them he has done so.

Though staring at a fairly steep incline, with no gas and the car in neutral, the BMW does indeed begin to ascend this hill. Will continue doing so for approximately a quarter mile, even around a curve in the road. Though Kay insists this must be some sort of trick, especially as she can’t fully see what Jeremy’s up to in the driver’s seat.

You’re hitting the gas! she declares.

But even if I was, it’s in neutral! he points out, directing both of his hands toward the steering column in the middle. We were dead stopped and the car’s in neutral!

Whoa..., Emily says, running a hand through her long, curly blonde hair with a wicked, appreciative grin, that was...tripped out...

They are stopped at the top of this hill, near where the curve in the road straightened out and momentum ground to a halt at last. Still, no other cars have materialized, which affords them a chance to deconstruct this occurrence. Jeremy shifts the gear into park, and they sit for some seconds in pure silence.

"Okay, so what is this place allegedly about?" Kay asks.

Well, actually, allegedly, Jeremy explains, "common sense would bear this out, and there also a number of similar places around the world, but...apparently you are not really moving uphill here. It’s an optical illusion. Apparently we are actually moving downhill. Although, man, I don’t know...it doesn’t look that way, does it? Plus I have another theory on that, which I wanna point out to you guys at some point."

Let’s do it again! Emily cheers, softly clapping her hands together, I wanna film it!

Just as Jeremy is about to shift into drive, Kay blurts out a suggestion. "Hey! We should back down the hill. Wouldn’t that prove...something?"

Jeremy weighs this thought for a second, lips pursed, before sharing a glance with Emily. When they shrug in unison, he nods and agrees to give it a try. Throwing the car in reverse, they begin creeping back the way they came, in the same lane, gradually picking up steam as they approach and then reach the longer, straightaway portion.

This is so weird! Kay marvels, facing forward again. She extends her arms and flaps her hands to indicate the breadth of this scene. I mean, look at this! This is clearly a hill!

I know! Jeremy agrees, half turning in his seat toward her.

I wanna check something, Kay says, extracting her cell phone. With the photo app pulled up, she points it at the road, though not actually snapping any pictures. Now what does it look like..., she wonders, if I zoom in to crop out the horizon...hmm. No, I guess it still looks like a hill, either way.

As they bottom out near the purple striped posts, backing ever so slightly past them, they can feel the car strain up the next hill behind them, until Jeremy brakes and then shifts into drive once more. He coasts again to the starting line, and Emily pops her door open, begins climbing out before he's even arrived at a full stop.

Alright, I’m getting out, Emily explains, phone in hand, I’m gonna post this and see what everyone has to say.

Good idea, Kay tells her, Jeremy here's gonna do the same.

I'm gonna do the same? he questions. How's that?

Yes, because I'm driving now. I gotta find out firsthand if this for real!

Jeremy waves his hands around at the dashboard, console, and pedals before replying, "but you can see, I’m not performing any, fuh, uh, sleight of hand up here..."

Yeah, I know, I know, but it’ll drive me nuts not to prove it. Just let me try.

As Emily exits, Jeremy slides over to accommodate Kay, with Noah remaining alert yet wordless in his child seat. Kay slips in behind the wheel, and they begin moving once more, while Jeremy, though only remembering to do so a quarter of the way through, starts filming their journey on his phone. Noah at last seems fully engaged now, wide eyed and open mouthed, staring out the window - if still not fully comprehending what makes this such a peculiar phenomenon. Kay continually mumbles that she can’t believe this, can’t believe this, and at one point even throws it into park. As expected, the vehicle jerks to a halt, though the instant she switches back to neutral, they begin accelerating all over again.

After rounding that bend in the road, and the car finally stops, Jeremy mutters, "actually, that made me think of a second reason why this is just wrong...."

Mom, what are we doing here? Noah questions at last, despite untold minutes of silence throughout this process. This causes both adults in the car to break out laughing, though the kid remains in character, so to speak, appearing completely serious.

I’m gonna stay behind up here. There’s something else I wanna see, Kay announces, and then steps out, as Jeremy immediately does the same.

While they stand for a moment in the road, staring down the apparent bottom, a white minivan materializes, creeping down the opposite hill, near the old man's driveway, and pulling up beside Emily at the starting block. A light mist has begun falling, to accompany the thin veil of fog which never evaporated on this cool summer morning. Figuring that this minivan is surely here to commence its own experiment, and can spot them at the top, Jeremy declares that he should move the car, then begins in that direction.

Jeremy executes another nimble turn, on this flat peak bordered by a slight strip of woods and field beyond on both sides, then makes his way down in proper fashion. Still, the minivan has yet to move. The driver is a lone middle aged man, a bit on the hefty side. Emily is leaning against his vehicle, talking to him through the passenger window he has cranked halfway down. Jeremy also hits the button to drop his own window, which Kay must have rolled up, and shouts a hello out to the two of them.

You tried this before? Jeremy asks the guy.

No, but I’ve been meaning to, he says. He has curly black hair and just the faintest trace of beard stubble, smiles broadly and readily enough, although it does bother Jeremy, for reasons he can't place, that this dude is wearing a business shirt and tie. Not to mention wraparound shades, despite it not being the least bit sunny today. There’s all kinds of urban legends online about this place, too, he adds, turning to nod his chin at the road ahead."

Yeah, I read some of that junk myself..., Jeremy replies.

Urban legends? Emily asks, perking up, intrigued by this angle.

Yeah...something about...this girl felt some thump on the back of her car, the guy tells Emily, that part must have happened right here? Anyway, supposedly she got to the top of the hill and got out to look, and saw fresh handprints on her trunk lid? Turning to Jeremy now for confirmation, he asks, that’s pretty much the story, right? And it all took off from there?

Yeah but why would you just randomly get out to look at the top of the next hill? In the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night? Seems a little too convenient.

Exactly, exactly, the guy agrees, nodding as he stares at the road some more.

Anyway I don’t really care about any of that crap, Jeremy allows, I just want to know what is or isn’t actually happening. But yeah, Emily, allegedly that’s how this all started.

After the man sighs and says something about he supposes it’s time to try it, they wave and wish him good luck. Jeremy’s watching the minivan in his side mirror, then the rearview, while Emily, though also glancing a couple of times up the road at his progress, crosses and eventually climbs back into the passenger seat. Within thirty seconds, a panting Kay arrives, reclaiming her original spot as well.

What was that all about? Jeremy asks.

Well, she wheezes, winded though having merely strolled down the road, "you’re probably not gonna wanna hear this, but...I decided to walk it, except with my eyes closed. And if you do that, I mean, you can tell after one step that you’re actually moving uphill. Even though it looks downhill. I mean it’s completely obvious, trust me."

Emily isn’t sure why, but feels as though she’s been punched in the gut with this revelation. Furthermore that for some strange reason, she’s fighting off the urge to spin around and reach over and – only playfully, of course – strangle her lifelong best friend here. Just wrap her hands around Kay's throat and give it a healthy squeeze. How dare Kay deflate one of the most interesting mornings they’ve experienced in who knows how long, possibly years? But instead, Emily offers a fake, though passably authentic looking smile, and suggests, hey, didn’t you say something about a lake? The first time you came here?

Yeah, her boyfriend nods, flicks an index finger at the road ahead of them, I came in from that direction. You drive past this fairly good sized lake. Not much going on, but it's pretty.

Emily shrugs and offers, let’s go that way, then.

They begin moving in this direction. Past the old house and possibly even older man still burning trash in a barrel, eyeing them warily. At the top of that crest, just past the home, there’s another dip and a gradual bend left, down and up another rise, where this road abruptly ends into a more significant one. Faced with this pair of choices, knowing his way home from here, Jeremy turns left.

Something about this terrain reminds Kay of what she always pictured Scotland would look like. Hilly and fog drenched, sure, but abundantly green, too, with the road a series of long sweeping curves. But it’s not exactly a land she would care to walk, say, alone on a moonless night. Which is why it so startles her, bogged down in these thoughts, when Noah speaks up, croaking something about this small cemetery on a hill to their right.

That one doesn’t have too many doom statues, he says, pointing a finger in that direction.

Doom statues? she and Emily repeat at the same instant, with Jeremy joining in as all three of them share a laugh. Obviously, by this he means tombstones, though she doesn’t bother to correct her son. These little slips of incorrect phrasing will someday seem charming – in fact they already do – and she’s in no hurry to rush through this era.

No, I guess not, Kay agrees. As they pass the graveyard, she observes that many of the tombstones are faded, the names barely legible, and some have even fallen over with age and neglect.

Grandma told me there are ghosts in the doom statues, Noah adds, in the same deathly serious croak.

Kay clicks her tongue and says, "grandma told you that? I’m gonna have to have a word with that woman..."

Yeah, Noah nods, but only if there are evil men there. And zombies, vampires, or skeletons.

Noah honey, that’s not true, she says, "for one thing, there’s no such thing as zombies or vampires or...well...uh..."

She trails off, fighting back a sudden urge to ask Jeremy to floor it, anything to change the subject matter. But the boy, to his credit, has always been headstrong, he is not easily shaken from a topic that holds his fascination.

Can I come visit you when you’re in your doom statue? he asks Kay, peering up at her with expectant eyes.

Yes, Noah, of course. Now can we drop it?

"You gotta wait at least five years for that, buddy," Jeremy jokes, half turning to hold up all five fingers in his right hand.

Everyone laughs, including Kay. Noah doesn’t seem to get the joke but is giggling along with it anyway. Yet even despite the laughter, which feels like a tremendous release at this point, she’s also shuddering, wishing they had never come this way.

––––––––

They pass the lake in a flash, just one S curve of a bridge, which slips through the narrowest visible point between its shores. To their left, the slightly shorter expanse, and a sign indicating it’s the reservoir for the nearby town of Stokely, where a small, placid pool tumbles over a dam, apparently leading the way southwest to that town. Meanwhile, to the right, it fans outward to accommodate the expected variety of jet skis, fishing boats, and recreational craft. They cruise past a tiny marina and then the land closes in around them once more, all forest, on a slight uphill swing that eventually gives way to peaks and valleys again.

A few miles along, having moved in essentially a straight western line despite the ups and downs, Jeremy slams to an abrupt halt. Fortunately, there isn’t anybody directly behind them, or else they might have gotten rear-ended. For that matter he can’t remember passing a car heading the other way, either, since at least the marina, maybe longer. The problem is that while the main road appears to sweep gradually to the left, another route of identical importance branches off to the right at this juncture, the angle only slightly less acute. Both possible paths are equally tree lined and to further complicate matters, there’s no street sign on either.

What’s the matter? Emily asks him.

I can’t remember which way to go. I came out and returned via this route last time, but...

Wouldn’t it be to the left? Kay suggests, pointing her own finger now in that direction, it said back there that the left side of the lake was some reservoir for Stokely.

No, you know what, I don’t think so, Jeremy says, and whips the wheel to the right, begins accelerating up that road, it seems like it should be, but that’s where they get you.

They? Emily asks, with a slight smile, half joking.

Eh, you know what I mean. I feel like I looked that up once, but it's just a bunch of bullshit dead end streets. Let’s try this, I think it’s correct.

For the next twenty minutes, almost nothing about the landscape changes. Emily mostly stares out her passenger window, observing that on both sides, even the trees are nearly unwavering in their uniformity: thin but towering pines, ranging from, she guesses, between sixty to eighty feet, and none with branches except near the very top. They’re just these impossibly tall, slender, vaguely creepy looking objects she's not sure she's ever seen before.

Emily begins to wonder if she’s the only one among them feeling this lead weight of increasing dread. Sure, her cell phone still shows a healthy signal, and there’s plenty of daylight, so even if they were to run out of gas or something miles from civilization, it would only prove a hassle, not exactly life and death. But she can’t shake the feeling that this entire trip was a mistake – and if not, then daydreaming herself back to the living room couch, curled up with a book and some background noise on the TV, sure sounds like an improvement over the current situation anyway.

But they reach a passage where another road, splitting off perpendicular to the right, is clearly a newly laid one, its fresh black asphalt and impeccably drawn lines unblemished. Not to mention that the power lines cutting through look the same, that distinct open wound of a recently carved path through the woods. Nobody has to say a word, as Jeremy instinctively turns in that direction.

Back this way, as elsewhere, they do encounter the occasional driveway leading to a house, although these are almost exclusively sparkling, mint new gravel paths cutting through the woods, back to homes which are in some cases not yet built. Though out here even these are sparse, this has the makings of a burgeoning sub-development, which brings with it the hope of civilization. Still, apart from spotting a few carpenter looking types yanking supplies from the bed of a battered red pickup truck, off to the right hand side of the road, near one of these sites, they encounter no one. After another couple miles of this, Jeremy decides he’s had enough, and makes to turn around.

You know what, eff this. I’m gonna ask those guys back there how you get out of this mess, he explains, in so doing.

After pointing themselves back the way they came, Jeremy begins driving at a relative crawl, so as not to miss that site. Nonetheless this entrance does seem to creep up on them, despite the glittering, large white rocks which fill this lane, back to that red pickup truck and those workers. It’s even out in the open, somewhat, hugging a stretch of woods on one side, true, but bordered by maybe a half-acre of low cut grass on the other, before that too is hemmed in by trees on its opposite end. A slight rise from the road, up to that truck and whatever log cabin looking structure this is that they’re working on.

I thought you were kidding, Kay remarks from the back seat. Is this even necessary? I mean, one of us could just pull up Mister Google’s map on our phone.

No, actually, I’m trying that right now..., Emily murmurs, distracted as she fidgets with her cell, the signal kind of sucks out here...

By now, Jeremy has already parked just shy of the hill's crest, where the lane bends at roughly 90 degrees and cuts in front of the cabin, parallel to the road below. It’s only upon taking a few steps toward the apex that he observes there are in fact a number of structures in various stages of completion, some out in the open and some tucked back into another strand of woods, behind this front building.

Excuse me! he calls out, to the trio of gents who are studying a blueprint of some sort, the document unfurled across the truck's open tailgate.

Two of them appear to be about the same age as Jeremy, maybe a little older, though the third is probably in his mid-forties. All three glance over their shoulders, apparently having paid their arrival no mind until now, as only this older figure fully turns to regard him. Then smiles and takes a few steps in Jeremy's direction. He’s wearing a long sleeved denim shirt to go with matching blue jeans, has a curly mop of loose brown hair worn a bit shaggier than is custom in this day and age. Even while overall the kind of middle aged character who will always look younger than his years, and, if slightly flabby, is also more muscular than the typical guy his age.

Hello there! this figure calls out, you the phone guy?

The phone guy? Huh? No, ah..., Jeremy explains, turns to nod at the car, we just kinda got lost, I was hoping you could...

Harry Kidwell, this figure says, extending his right hand. He has a pencil tucked behind one ear and is holding one of those L shaped metal ruler type gadgets in his left.

Oh! Uh...Jeremy Ado.

The two of them shake hands, and Harry asks, Ado?

Yeah, rhymes with Play-Doh. That’s kinda what I usually tell people. Look, uh...

Sorry, you said you’re lost? Kidwell replies, rubbing absently at a millimeter or two of grey-brown beard stubble, as he eyes distant buildings – most likely considering whatever kind of work lies ahead – in the woods behind them. After leveling out just behind this front building, the lane rises again maybe 50 yards ahead, before curving into those trees.

What is that back there, anyway? Jeremy questions.

Oh that. This. Everything here, Kidwell chuckles, nodding finally at this cabin beside them, with its slender wooden porch, nearly flush with the ground, and firewood logs stacked in a neat symmetrical triangle against one wall, beside the front door. Then he squints up at Jeremy and explains, coupled with his winningest smile, "I guess you might call this the kookiest idea I’ve ever had. Or one of them, at least, heh heh. But yeah, he straightens up and sighs, adopts a more somber tone, my grandmother died a while back, and I inherited a nice bit of property here."

He begins to stroll, past the cabin, and Jeremy instinctively follows. Lost within his thoughts about the tasks ahead, Harry draws up short, as soon as the breadth of the property comes into view, and continues his monologue. "So anyway, yeah, I’m in the construction business, you know, that’s just sort of what I do. At first all I could think about is how many plots I might possibly carve this into, pop, I don’t know, at least three-four houses in here and sell ‘em. But then it hit me, you know: wouldn’t it actually be kinda cool if I reopened this place?"

Reopen? Why, what was it before? Jeremy asks. A second or two later, the car horn sounds out, though he turns to raise both of his arms and fix Emily with an impatient what the hell? glance. She responds by flipping him off.

Harry’s nodding at this property, as though still amazed by what he’s been given, glances over at Jeremy and then returns to beholding this wondrous land again. Oh, well, you probably don’t know, but this used to be – well, it went by a few different names, over the years, though basically always the same concept. Central Carolina Artists' Retreat, that was the final incarnation, the last ten or twelve years there.

Hmm. Cool, Jeremy says, genuinely somewhat impressed by this unexpected twist. So you plan on, what, like, setting up grants or something to have...

Kidwell only peers sidelong at him now, with a slight smirk and admits, "well, that’s what my grandmother tried, here and there anyhow, you know. But no, I’m not quite rolling like that. I mean, yeah, if this thing really takes off like I expect it to, then yeah, it would be great to maybe look into awarding some residency type situations down the road. For the time being, though...see, it’s gonna be a somewhat loosely organized, half educational, half retreat type structure. I’ll be charging the artists, in fact we’ve already gotten some enrollees in the program, but trust me it’s definitely a fair, slightly below market, even, fee for room and board."

"You already started, huh? I mean, it looks like the place is in pretty decent shape."

Yeah, but we got a lot more to do if we hope to hit this September 1 open date. I mean, it’ll happen, but... Kidwell trails off, then laughs and says, hey, you don’t know any artists, do you?

Artists? Like, what kind?

Any kind, Harry shrugs, "like, we’ve already got this husband-wife duo on board, and this older guy that’s into some kind of media pastiche nonsense – oop, I mean, pieces, masterpieces, heh heh – and then also this young girl that actually does some pretty nifty, uh, I believe what they refer to as found object type work."

Though getting out of this massive forested region had seemingly turned into a major hassle, Jeremy’s thinking now that this could turn into an amazingly lucky break. He doesn’t believe in providence or any of that crap. It’s just this, pure random good fortune, which, even while considering himself a slight pessimist, he thinks that maybe decent breaks are allowed to happen to anyone every now and then. That the law of averages pretty much says they have to.

Actually...

You an artist?

Me? No. But my girlfriend Emily is actually pretty damn good with a lot of this stuff.

Oh yeah? You don’t say! Harry replies, beaming. Even in the moment, Jeremy’s aware that this guy is transparently about half impressed, half huckster, or maybe more like 20/80, but doesn’t care. Soon enough, he’s spinning on his heels and shouting Emily’s name, waving for her to come on up here.

What? she irritably demands, upon exiting the vehicle, though marching to meet them just the same.

––––––––

As they are leaving with pamphlets and all kinds of other information in hand, Kidwell points out, heartily chucking as he does, that if they had never turned off onto this road, they were actually moving in the right direction and would have reached Stokely in less than fifteen minutes. Which is exactly what happens, as Jeremy and Emily climb back into the car and drive to the main route, Stokely Farm Road, continue onward into town. Though unfamiliar with Stokely before their first passing through it earlier, there’s not much to the town, and soon enough the four of them have settled in for lunch at a diner, possibly the town's only sit-down restaurant. As far as they can determine, this charming hamlet consists of two state routes, crossing at one of the three traffic lights, with this Stokely Farm Road spilling in just a block northeast of that intersection.

I don’t know, I’m kinda excited about this...art retreat concept! Emily cheers, turning the pamphlets over in her hand, then examining them again. I think I’m gonna hit my parents up for this – they're always telling me I should find some sort of passion in life. You could come, too, Kay! We all could!

Though Jeremy just scoffs, tucked low in his booth but also examining some of the paperwork Kidwell had given them. Kay offers a rebuttal, saying, "yeah but you’ve got that whole...painting thing, which you’re good at. I love to dabble, but I'm not really good at anything. Plus I’ve got...well...," she breaks off and points down at Noah, her hand above his head. He’s busy playing a portable video gaming gadget, though, and paying no apparent mind to this discussion.

That’s not true – what about those chalk drawings, of, like, dolphins that you used to do? Remember those? On black construction paper? Emily points out, giggling as she recalls these. Those were awesome!

Kay rolls her eyes and says, come on, that was like fifth grade.

"They were still cool! I’m sure you could totally get back into that groove in no time! And are you saying your parents wouldn’t keep Noah for, like, a month or whatever? Of course they would! I mean, you already live there..."

I don’t know..., Kay sighs, even if they would, I’m sure it’s a lot of money just to completely suck, and not follow through on anything anyway. Not to mention, there’s probably a limited number of spots and...

Come on, who are we kidding, Jeremy grumbles, tossing the pamphlet aside, "dude was a shyster. Charming and probably harmless shyster, but still. He would obviously take anybody willing to pony up the cash for that crackpot scheme."

You really think so? both girls ask, with just slight variation.

Pssh, Jeremy scrunches up his face to retort, totally. Anyway, I’m way more interested in that gravity hill business. I still can’t stop thinking about it.

You kids talkin about that spot way out offa Stokely Farm Road? their waitress asks, returning with the food they’ve ordered – breakfast, all around, though it’s mid-afternoon. This woman is 60 years old if she’s a day, with a gold name tag bearing the name Doris and attired in the kind of powder blue diner uniform that fell out of fashion half a century earlier, a matching skirt and button up blouse which look like one solid piece.

The gravity hill? Jeremy repeats.

Doris nods, dispensing their plates, and says, "yessir, I’ve heard all about it over the years but taint never been. They say if you put a buncha flour on yer trunk before you start, then you can see handprints in it by the time you get up top. Somethin to do with a young girl s’posedly killed herself there. But then I also heard the handprints was just yer own residue from openin and shuttin the trunk, and the whole thing’s an optical illusion anyway so I don’t know..."

Trailing off in this manner, Doris departs twice as abruptly as she’s arrived, the battle worn swiftness of a veteran waitress, leaving the three adults at the table to chuckle in her wake.

She’s right, though, at least the part about the illusion, Kay offers, like I said, if you close your eyes and walk it, you can totally tell.

Okay, but the whole thing doesn’t make sense, Jeremy says, straightening up in his seat in a manner not even the food's arrival could inspire, what are we saying, then, that it’s a hill inside a hill? Or that the other side is an optical illusion, too, even though I’ve never heard anything about it working if you go that way?

Hill inside a hill? What? Kay questions.

Yeah. Think about it, Jeremy tells her. Well, okay, like, we turned around in that old man’s driveway...

Burning bodies, Emily jokes, "that’s probably what really happened to Doris’s girl there..."

Yeah, Jeremy says, glancing over and humoring her with a slight laugh, but so anyway, think about it. We turn around in the old man’s driveway, okay, right?

Yeah? both girls reply.

"Okay, then we clearly head down that hill – I mean, clearly – and bottom out at the end of it. Nobody ever said going up in that direction was any sort of gravity hill or illusion, so we have to take that one at face value, right?"

Sure, I mean, whatever, Kay shrugs.

Sure, Emily agrees.

"Well and then there’s an obvious shift in the opposite direction or whatever you want to call it, once you throw the car in neutral from there. So what is this, some kind of hill inside a hill? That doesn’t even make any sense."

I still don’t follow, Emily admits with a grimace, and Kay laughs, mostly at Jeremy’s plain agitation.

Okay..., he says, clasping his hands together, attempting to explain it slowly, "once you come down that hill from the old man’s driveway, you are clearly at the bottom, unless you’re saying that hill is inverted also and you’re really at the top. Otherwise, if we agree we are at the bottom there and that the road obviously isn’t flat from that point and is obviously moving in a different direction, and there isn’t any kind of dip in the road, then that other direction must be up!"

But what are you really suggesting? Kay says, come on, this goes against every known, like, physical law in the universe!

"So what are you saying then? I mean, based on what I just laid out? It’s true, isn’t it?"

I don’t know, I’m just telling you: walk the thing. Walk the thing and you’ll see what I mean, Kay tells him.

Hey but wait a second, Emily interjects, more to soothe these suddenly escalating nerves as much as anything else, what about when you put the car in reverse? Did that...prove anything?

Jeremy raises his eyebrows and says, well, actually, that’s a good point because it proved.... But then he stops and trails off before smacking himself in the forehead.

What? Kay asks, with Emily right behind her.

That actually proved nothing. I remember clearly putting the car in reverse up there. It should have been neutral. Dammit! I just wasn’t thinking. So yeah, that proved nothing. But the rest! I’m telling you, I don’t know...

The return trip southwest, to their hometown of Jenson, NC, takes right at an hour. This region one of those odd pits devoid of interstates, between the two points, a drive involving state routes and country roads between countless towns only slightly larger than Stokely. Jenson is the most sizable of these, though still not much, boasting but a population of about 3000, with two elementary schools feeding into a single junior and then senior high.

Jeremy drops Kay off first, followed by his girlfriend, before swinging over to the ice cream shop that his parents, Ben and Lois Ado, have owned and operated for the past 13 years. Up until about a week and a half ago, that is, when they could no longer deny the inevitable and were forced to shut the place down, in the face of mounting debt, though this is still the late stages of summer. They can’t even claim some slick corporate competitor swooped into town, unless you count a few Dairy Queens and other mom and pop chains, some twenty miles south in Charlotte. No, though they are conscientious owners who take their craft seriously, doling out fairly impressive and popular fare for an operation like this, watching food costs and adjusting prices accordingly...the reality is, there just isn’t population enough in this declining town to keep even one small ice cream stand afloat. There are but two national fast food franchises here in Jenson, for example, and both of these are struggling, too.

As Jeremy enters, he finds his parents in their expected states, harried, bummed out, and packing boxes. Ben Ado donated whatever tallness gene Jeremy might have inherited, though at a good six foot six he didn’t quite pass on all of that to his son, and towers a good half foot above Jeremy. He’s also wiry strong, despite the years and relative thinness, and looks like he could probably still win a boxing match against his offspring if so inclined. Jeremy likes to think that this is why his dad’s unchanging crew cut through the years has also displayed nothing but a pure, premature greyish-white for over a decade now, as some sort of cosmic scale balancing.

Ben has a Sharpie tucked behind one ear and a hammer hanging from his left pants pocket, behind the counter of this admittedly dingy ice cream parlor which went up somewhere in the mid-1970s. They have a number of cardboard boxes filled and staged along the food window behind, as Ben zips along with a marker labeling them. Grabs each box after doing so, spins and deposits it on the counter for Lois to run to the van.

Here, ma, let me help, Jeremy offers, jumping in to grab the next one arriving.

Despite her more modest height, Lois Ado has that brand of invisible strength obtained from a life spent working on one's feet. Therefore can shoulder what seems like an absurd load for a middle aged woman of such modest proportions.

It’s only when they are outside again that Jeremy risks asking what has been bothering him for weeks now. Whenever the subject is introduced, his dad, while relentlessly upbeat about the situation, is almost what one might term antagonistically positive, insisting everything will be alright. As though challenging someone to just go ahead and try suggesting they won’t come out smelling roses after this ice cream shop closure. So he’s leaving it up to his mother to answer a much more practical question: what are they going to do with themselves, now?

I don’t know, Lois admits with a dry, throaty cackle, the product of who knows how many pots of coffee, every day, all day, for most of her fifty plus years. You’ve got some money saved, right?

Jeremy, by virtue of living at home and his already having risen through the ranks of his grocery stocking position, to a low rung managerial level, has in fact both made decent money for quite some time now, and also managed to sock it away. Though paying for his car and insurance, his parents have generally not asked him for anything else, nor to move out on his own, even as he’s occasionally offered both since graduation. So he not only doesn’t mind the thought of chipping in and bailing them out if needed, but would be open to renting his own place to cut down on their expenses if needed.

Sure, he tells her, I can help you guys out...

"I’m kidding, she says, as they’ve finished loading these boxes and are returning to the shop for more, we’ll figure something out. We’re crafty. I’m not worried about it."

They instinctively kill this topic once indoors again, however. Behind the counter, spinning around with the latest box in his hand, Ben’s eyes dart between the two of them, as though - not that this would take a major imaginative leap - plainly intuiting the subject matter covered outside. Even in picking up the Sharpie again, to write on this box after setting it on the counter, his face a picture of grim if cautious determination, his eyes don’t leave them as they approach.

––––––––

Emily is uncertain about a great deal concerning her background. By all rights, she should probably be one of the snobbish popular girls. And even as things have always stood, most would probably agree that if not quite in the inner circle of the uppermost clique, she’s still not far removed from it. Yet she has conflicting emotions about all this anyhow, which might be factor enough, causing by itself exclusion from the high priestess clique. They surely don’t trouble themselves with these matters.

She’s quite aware that most of what popularity she does possess is a direct result of being a) one of the prettier girls - though speaking objectively as she can, if being candid she knows this is true - in her grade, b) living in the Threaded Oaks subdivision, the finest their small town has to offer, a result of her parents’ lustrous careers, c) involvement in all manner of school related and extracurricular activities, which is its own reinforcing feedback loop, in a way, stemming from the confidence and opportunities brought about by point b, continually increased the more she continues at it, with maybe a pinch of two of d) her intelligence, thrown into the mix, although even this is somewhat a byproduct of some previously listed factors.

And yet, despite all this, things hadn’t quite turned out how you would draw up the cliché. First off there’s the matter of her painting obsession, which manifested itself in substantial fashion somewhere around the age of six. While she supposes her parents are technically kind of artistic themselves in their chosen professions - her dad some kind of imperial tech wizard, her mother one of the area’s top two or three interior decorators - nobody on either side of the family, stretching back as far as anyone living is aware, has shown so much as an aptitude with stick figures, not until Emily’s arrival in this world. Her mastery of not just painting but a whole slew of other art forms is therefore one of the family’s treasured though perplexing delights.

Her tall, slender frame is also a bit of a mystery, and to a lesser extent her cascading falls of curly, bright blonde hair. True, her dad, Randy Garverick, does still maintain that basic shade himself, into his early 40s, although in his case it’s more of a wispy, often vaguely greasy, straight and ever so slightly orange tinted bowl cut that went out of fashion decades ago. To go along with his giant gold tinted, wire framed glasses which are also stylistically challenged, ditto his seemingly ever-present uniform of black dress slacks and long-sleeved white business shirt with some sort of ill-advised vertical striping pattern happening there.

Sure, without question he is a brilliant man, but even so, she has picked up far more genetically from her mother – yet that too wouldn’t seem to extend very far. Kathy Garverick does have a handful of inches on her husband, height-wise, granted, but she’s also a little more prone to maintaining some excess pounds. True, maybe this doesn’t bode well for Emily in later years, but her mom was never exactly skinny at any age, nor has Emily’s younger sister, Denise, ever been. And so even if already slightly taller than even her mother is, Emily did at least pick up the height gene there, and likewise a tendency toward social interaction, a breezy, inclusive chattiness, as well as the prevailing fashion sense of if not quite hippie attire – God no – then at least a fondness for wild, colorful schemes and loose fitting clothes.

Kathy is much more of a straightforward, networking extrovert, however. Emily considers herself a skilled mingler, as evidenced by her popularity with both teachers and fellow students alike, though she also feels more analytical and withdrawn, cautiously studying a scene more even while ostensibly taking part in it. If not coming anywhere near Randy’s rampant, introspective nerdiness, a trait which he blessedly has not imparted upon either of his girls, Emily is still capable of the odd Friday night where she’s ignoring every text and phone call (even those from Jeremy, although typically she’ll just tell him in advance not to bother, and he’s cool with it) in favor of blasting music in her attic bedroom while she paints.

Still, though Emily’s somewhat of an oddball within her family tree, nothing yet considered will even begin to explain Denise. Emily feels as though she’s mostly the complete opposite of her parents, and then Denise is the opposite of that, somehow, which doesn’t flip her back to the other side, rather into some other far flung realm.

Nobody really knows what happened with Denise. There are of course endless theories about everything. But in Emily’s estimation, her parents are neither too lenient nor too overbearing. At some point you maybe do have to chalk it up to just hanging out with the wrong crowd, with possibly a dash of some distant family tendencies thrown into the mix.

Shorter than their dad, even, her hair naturally a wavy shade of sparkly brown which she nonetheless has always hated, almost always straightens and dyes raven black. Denise also possesses by far the most alluringly curvy body of them all, too – even if she takes great pains to downplay this physique, both in dress and, Emily believes, a calculated effort at obnoxiousness which nonetheless, however accidentally, has bled into the real thing, after so much extended practice at it.

So the smoking and drinking at a very young age, yes, as well as a near total lack of interest in school, further enhanced by occasional suspensions from said school, up until she just completely dropped out. And then also a tendency toward boyfriends who were a little more on the thug end of the spectrum. Whereas Jeremy has always been a handsome, well-liked guy of roughly the same popularity as Emily, throughout high school and beyond, Denise continually displays far less interest in social ranking than even her sister does, and has definitely trolled downward from there in her selection of dudes.

Clay, her current find, actually might be the best of the bunch, so there’s always hope – and yeah, Emily suspects, as might her parents if they don’t want to actually vocalize as much, that Denise will someday outgrow these rebellious outcroppings and turn out just fine. But two or three major boyfriends ago she wound up pregnant, in the tenth grade, and if eventually making what was surely the correct decision in opting for an abortion, she sure worked everyone else up around her into a nervous frenzy, wringing her hands about it for an awful long time. Admittedly, her mom and dad handled this situation with considerable aplomb. They were much calmer throughout that ordeal than they have been about Denise’s decision to stop showing up for school, early into her senior year. Currently Denise enjoys a semi-pariah status, half crashing at Clay’s parents’ house, home some of the time, sleeping on the couches at various friends’ the rest.

Ever since stumbling onto that artist retreat the other day, Emily can’t stop thinking about it. While it does sound like a great opportunity for possibly advancing her own artistic pursuits, mostly she’s trying to think of a way to get Denise excited about it, too. Though losing interest in formally expressing such, at a very young age, Denise is actually pretty skilled with poetry, and even better with pencil sketches. She still fiddles with both, in her diary, or graffiti-esque bursts around town, on coffee shop bulletin boards, and so on, but prefers to keep it on the down low. If anyone displays interest in her work, she shuts down and as far as anyone knows won’t touch it again for a month. But this retreat, it could really reignite Denise’s creative side, Emily feels.

––––––––

Sometimes Kay resents the relationship Emily has with her parents. Well, not resent, exactly, more like it fills her with profound sadness, and leads to bouts of fantasy when contemplating the situation over here. She often wonders how different her experiencing having a child might be, for example, if switching households with Emily. It’s kind of hard not to, considering that Denise actually endured a similar ordeal herself. Meanwhile Kay’s own family, not to put too fine a point on it, has ranged from ever so slightly, queasily supportive of her single mother status, to occasionally downright hostile.

Depending upon these climate changes, she has ranged from either holding down a job – housekeeping, dollar store cashier, you name it – while various relatives babysat Noah, to stuck at the house doing so herself, for months at a time, when they suddenly began hassling her about the arrangement. She could understand some of the arguments, that they’re all attempting to maintain normal lives themselves, and bring home paychecks, and that Kay’s not even compensating