Let the fun continue.! This is the 65th installment of a continuing fictional story. Before each new segment, the last paragraph from the prior edition will be shown in quotations. “The rest of our walk was in silence. I guess she just needed some time to figure out how she was going to tell me that Weathers wanted to steal my soul. ”

By C.L. Harmon

The silence was awkward, but under the circumstances, it felt as though remaining quiet was the right thing to do. I had dragged her into this and it was only right that I let her talk to me when it felt right to her to do so. “Meet me at the library after school.” This was all she said to me when we arrived at the front of the school building. It was a long day waiting, just as it had been a long night waiting. When finally the end bell rang, I hurried out of the school and ran to the library. I waited for her on the steps and it soon became apparent to me that she was not as anxious to talk to me as I was to her. It would be fifteen minutes before she arrived and it was not to tell me about information we needed to research to bring down Weathers as I had hoped. She sat down next to me and placed her books between us on the step. She then took a deep breath and pushed her long red hair behind her ears with her fingers. She bore a worried look and her sweet smile was far from her innocent face. “Blake…I, I can’t do this anymore.” She stuttered a bit as she said it. I desperately wanted to be confused and not understand what she meant by her statement. Sadly though I did know and therefore said nothing. “I can’t help you fight this evil, Weathers or whoever he is and I cant be around you anymore! I am sorry, but I just can’t!” Her voice was weak but her meaning without hesitation. “I have already lost my father and I can’t bare to lose someone else I care about. He showed me things Blake! Horrible things and this doesn’t end well. Not for you or your sheriff friend or anyone else in this community. You need to leave Blake! Just run away and don’t look back!” With those words, she leaned in and kissed me and then hurried off. I went by work and told my boss that I wasn’t feeling well. I then left the senior center and walked outside. I continued walking in the opposite direction of my house and just kept walking with no particular destination in mind. It was sometime after darkness had fallen that I found myself at Polk’s house. I heard the television on in the house and was walking toward the kitchen door that I had used the last time I was there and spoke to Selma. But then I noticed a light on in the barn. I walked toward the barn, not even understanding why or what I would say if Polk was in there. I crept up slowly and peered through the cracked doors. The secret room that always remained hidden and I assume locked, was open. Polk was sitting at a desk reading something. There was only one light bulb hanging from the rafter in that room, but it lit up the small area enough for me to see a photo of Porter hanging on the wall next to a gun rack with several rifles perched upon it. There was also a few books about WWII on a table below the gun rack and then something very peculiar…something I had seen before. Polk had a book, a very old book. It was bound in old leather or something and I there were no words on the binding, but I had seen it before. I slipped back into the darkness outside the crack of the barn doors and and thought hard about where I had seen it. Then the words YESTERDAY WILL SPEAK AND VOICES FROM INSIDE WILL SEEK ESCAPE FROM THEIR HAUNTING TRUTH stirred in my soul. I remembered where I had seen it. The problem was that I had seen it in a dream…or at least what I thought was just a dream.