The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Twenty Seven

 

“If I never see rural woodland ever again, it’ll be too soon,” I said, as I sat in the back seat of Martin’s car. I had to sit in the backseat because my petticoat flared out on each side, the moment I sat down. “Where are we exactly?” It was dark outside and I couldn’t see much through the windows – just vague glimpses of trees flashing past.

 

“I’m not sure, to be honest, Ash. My GPS doesn’t seem to be connecting. I’m trying to find some sign posts.”

 

We seemed to be driving around the countryside at random. I peered out of the side window again, as I l moved my petticoat rustled. “I hate this fucking dress.”

 

“You actually look kind of cute,” Martin said. “A bit like a grown up Alice in Wonderland. It’s sexy.”

 

“I will worry about your disturbing sexual fetishes when I’m safely home,” I said. The back seat smelled faintly of old fabric and something pine-sharp, like an air freshener that had long since given up. I sat with my knees drawn close, arms wrapped around myself, watching the headlights carve a narrow, trembling tunnel through the dark.

 

No GPS. No signal. Just the road unspooling endlessly ahead of us, pale and slick as a ribbon.

 

Martin drove with one hand on the wheel, relaxed, his other arm resting casually near the gearstick. The dashboard clock glowed an unreadable blue. Trees pressed in on both sides of the road, tall and close, their branches knitting together overhead. Every now and then, shadows slid across the windscreen—branches, leaves, nothing at all—and my body flinched anyway.

 

“They were real,” I said again. My voice sounded too loud in the enclosed space. “I saw them.”

 

Martin sighed, not unkindly. “Ashlee, I’m not saying you didn’t see something. I’m saying you were under a lot of stress. Rural woods at night can do that to people.”

 

“Pig masks,” I said. “Machetes. That’s not just ‘something.’”

 

“They could’ve been shadows,” he said. “Branches. Hunting gear. Your mind filling in the blanks.”

 

I watched the road curve gently to the left. Hadn’t we taken a left already? Or was that earlier? Time felt soft, unreliable. “We’ve been on this road before,” I said.

 

Martin glanced at the speedometer. “No, we haven’t.”

“I think we have.”

 

“You’re tired,” he said. “And shaken. That’ll mess with your sense of direction.”

 

The woods thickened. The darkness beyond the headlights felt heavy, as if it were leaning toward us. I leaned forward slightly, peering between the front seats.

 

“There was a mailbox back there,” I said. “With a red flag. We passed it already.”

 

He smiled faintly, the kind of smile meant to soothe. “There are a lot of mailboxes out here.”

 

I sank back against the seat. My heart was still beating too fast. Every turn felt familiar in the worst way, like a dream looping back on itself.

 

“Where are we going?” I asked.

 

“Anywhere with lights,” he said. “A town. A motel. Somewhere open.”

 

“And if we don’t find one?”

 

“We will.”

 

His certainty made me uneasy. The car hummed along, tires whispering over asphalt. For a while, neither of us spoke. My thoughts drifted, tugged backward by the rhythm of the road, by the enclosed intimacy of the car.

 

“Do you remember the first night we met?” I asked suddenly.

 

Martin chuckled softly. “Of course I do.”

 

I closed my eyes for a moment and saw it again - the bar in Springfield, warm and loud, neon signs buzzing faintly. I’d been tired after the day’s course, still wearing my jacket, scanning the room for an empty stool.

 

“I didn’t even know it was a singles bar,” I said.

 

“I figured that out pretty quickly,” he said.

 

“I thought everyone was just unusually friendly.”

 

“You looked like you wanted to disappear,” he said. “That’s why I talked to you.”

 

I frowned. “That’s not flattering.”

 

“It is,” he said. “You were different. You weren’t hunting. And I love red hair.”

 

I smiled and touched my hair. “You told me that,” I said. I remembered how he’d leaned against the bar beside me, not crowding my space. How he’d asked where I was from, what brought me to Springfield. I’d told him about the FBI course without hesitation—it felt natural then, unquestioned.

 

“I wasn’t looking for anything,” I said. “I remember thinking that very clearly.”

 

“And I remember thinking you were lying,” he replied lightly.

 

I opened my eyes. “No I wasn’t!”

 

“You were,” he said, still calm. “Maybe not to me. To yourself.”

 

The road bent again. Trees. Darkness. No signs. No houses.

 

“I didn’t want a relationship,” I said. “I told you that.”

 

“And I told you to just have a drink with me,” he said. “No pressure. You could walk away anytime.”

 

“I almost did.”

 

“But you didn’t.”

 

I remembered the feel of the cold glass in my hand, the way the ice had clicked softly. The way time had slipped without my noticing. How easy it had been to talk to him.

“You convinced me,” I said. “I guess I was a bit lonely. You caught me at the right time.”

 

He glanced back at me in the rear-view mirror, our eyes meeting briefly. “I asked you to give me a chance.”

 

“And I gave you my number.”

 

“You did.”

 

Something tightened in my chest.

 

“I don’t remember dialling it,” I said quietly.

 

The car continued forward. Martin didn’t answer right away.

 

“You don’t have to remember everything perfectly,” he said eventually. “Memory isn’t a recording. It’s… flexible.”

 

The word unsettled me.

 

“What if we’re going in circles?” I asked.

 

“We’re not.”

 

“How do you know?”

 

“Because I’m paying attention.”

 

I watched the trees slide past, each one indistinguishable from the last. The road narrowed. Or had it always been this narrow?

 

“I keep thinking we’re going to see them,” I said. “Just standing there. In the headlights.”

 

Martin’s jaw tightened slightly. “You won’t.”

 

“You can’t know that.”

 

“I can know they aren’t real,” he said gently. “Fear can dress itself up in very convincing costumes.”

 

I wrapped my arms tighter around myself. The back seat suddenly felt too small, too confining.

 

“What if you’re wrong?” I asked.

 

He didn’t answer immediately. The engine’s steady drone filled the silence.

 

“Then I’ll protect you,” he said.

 

The words should have comforted me.

 

Instead, they made my stomach twist.

 

Outside, the road curved again - left or right, I couldn’t tell anymore - and the woods closed in, endless and watching, as if we were moving through the same stretch of darkness again and again, trying to remember how we’d first found our way in. “I’m sure we’ve come this ay already.” It was so dark outside I couldn’t be sure. 

 

“We’ll find a town soon, Ash. That’s the thing about roads – they always leads somewhere.”

 

The question came out of me quietly, almost by accident.

 

“What was it,” I asked, “that made you want me?”

 

Martin didn’t answer right away. The road continued to slide beneath us, headlights washing over trunks and branches, the woods closing in and opening again in the same familiar, unfamiliar rhythm. I watched his hands on the wheel, steady, unhurried.

 

“You mean the red hair?” he said lightly.

 

“I know about the red hair,” I said. “You’ve said that already.”

 

He smiled, just a little. “It didn’t hurt.”

 

“That’s not what I’m asking,” I said, though I hadn’t quite figured out how to ask what I meant. I didn’t want to beg him to talk about feelings. I didn’t want to sound needy, or uncertain. I wanted him to volunteer it, to say it because it was true, not because I’d prompted him.

 

He glanced at the mirror again, checking my face. The road curved - gently, I thought, but it might have been the same bend again. My stomach tightened.

 

“You remember that first night,” he said. “At the bar.”

 

“I remember,” I said.

 

“You didn’t flirt,” he said. “Not really. You weren’t performing. Everyone else in that place was performing.”

 

“I didn’t know I was supposed to be.”

 

“Exactly,” he said. “You just talked. About your course. About how boring Springfield felt after dark. You were honest in a way people usually aren’t when they think they’re being evaluated.”

 

I watched the trees slide by. Had that leaning oak been there before?

 

“You liked that?” I asked.

 

“I liked that you didn’t need me,” he said. “At least not obviously.”

 

Something about the way he phrased it made my skin prickle. He kept talking, as if reminiscing were easy for him, a well-worn path.

 

“Our first real date,” he said. “That little place with the bad wine list. You insisted on ordering the worst one just to prove a point.”

 

“It was drinkable,” I said.

 

“It was not,” he replied. “But you sat there and explained tannins to me like you were teaching a class.”

 

I almost smiled. It was a happy memory.

 

“And then there was the walk by the river,” he continued. “When you got quiet all of a sudden. You said you were thinking about whether you even had time for something like us.”

 

“I was,” I said.

 

“And yet you kept showing up,” he said. “Three months of showing up.”

 

The road dipped slightly. The headlights caught a reflective marker on a post - white, scratched, familiar. My heart gave a small, unpleasant lurch.

 

“Martin,” I said slowly, “how long have we been on this road?”

 

He didn’t look at me. “Why?”

 

“It feels like we’ve passed that marker before.”

 

“There are dozens of them,” he said. “Standard rural markers.”

 

I pressed my lips together. He sounded so sure.

 

He went on, unbothered. “I liked the way you argue,” he said. “Even when it’s ridiculous.”

 

“Ridiculous?”

 

“Like the Nutri-Girl thing,” he said, chuckling.

 

I stiffened. “That wasn’t ridiculous.”

 

He laughed softly. “You walked out on me.”

 

“Because it was insulting,” I said. “Putting that on the menu like it’s normal. Like women need to be fed fortified gruel to be acceptable.”

 

“It was just a health option.”

 

“It was pink gruel,” I said. “It was marketed. ‘Glossy hair, strong nails, optimal fat distribution.’ That’s not food, Martin. That’s messaging.”

 

He nodded indulgently, eyes still on the road. “You stood up in the restaurant and explained that to the waiter.”

 

“He needed to hear it.”

 

“You were shaking,” he said. “Furious.”

 

I remembered it - the heat in my chest, the sudden certainty that something was wrong with the world and that no one else seemed to see it.

 

“But I understood you needed to feel right in that moment. I allowed you that, Ash. And, anyway, making up after an argument is always good.”

 

That word again. Needed. The road curved. Trees. Darkness. No signposts. No lights ahead.

 

“Martin,” I said, more firmly now, “are you sure we’re not driving in circles?”

 

He finally looked at me, meeting my eyes in the mirror. Calm. Steady. Untroubled.“ Ashlee,” he said, “you’re connecting feelings to geography. That’s not how roads work.”

 

“But…”

 

“You’re anxious,” he said. “So everything feels repetitive. Familiar. That doesn’t mean it is.”

 

I swallowed. My certainty wavered, like a reflection disturbed by a stone.

 

He returned his attention to the road.“ What attracted me to you,” he said, as if resuming exactly where he’d left off, “was that you’re intense. You care deeply. You don’t half-believe things.”

 

“That doesn’t sound safe,” I said.

 

“It isn’t,” he replied calmly. “But it’s real. You’re real. You’re passionate, and that’s sexy, too.”

 

The car hummed on through the dark, the woods closing ranks around us, and I tried to hold onto his words - to the shape of our history, the dates, the arguments, the familiarity of three months, because outside the windows, the night looked the same in every direction, and I could no longer tell whether we were moving forward at all.

 

The first sign appeared out of nowhere, illuminated in the pale wash of our headlights. A weathered wooden post, tilted slightly to one side, the paint chipped and flaking, letters carved long ago but still legible: “DUNWICH →”.

 

I felt it before I could think. A tight, sharp spike of dread that made the hair on my arms bristle. The name seemed… wrong. Not familiar, not based on anything I’d read or seen, and yet it carried some terrible resonance I couldn’t explain. A chill slid down my spine, and I swallowed hard, my throat dry.

 

“Martin…” I said, voice low. “I don’t like this. We should just keep going. Drive past it. There has to be another town.”

 

He didn’t take his eyes off the road. One hand stayed steady on the wheel, the other adjusting the gearshift. “Ashlee,” he said carefully, “we’re running low on gas. There’s nowhere else close, and Dunwich is the next town. That’s where we’ll find fuel.”

 

I shook my head, but my protests sounded smaller in the dark. “I don’t know why… I just don’t like the name.”

 

“The name doesn’t matter,” he said firmly. “The gas does. We’ll refuel, get a room if we need to, and then figure out the rest.”

 

I pressed my fingers into my knees, trying to will myself calm. My stomach had settled somewhat during our drive, though my heart still pounded in quick, uneven beats. But now… now that sign had released a new, insistent unease, something deeper than anxiety. I didn’t know why, and that was what scared me the most. Martin took the next turn, following the arrow, and the forest around us seemed to shift. The road narrowed, the trees bending closer over the asphalt, their branches knotted together so that the dim beam of the headlights created long, trembling shadows that slithered and writhed across the undergrowth. Every turn of the wheel felt like the trees were closing in.

 

“Martin,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “Are we… sure this is the right way?”

 

He didn’t glance at me. “Positive,” he said. “Just keep your eyes on the road ahead.”

 

But I couldn’t. The shadows from the trees seemed almost alive, moving with a rhythm independent of the car, twitching across the road and over the edges of the dashboard. I kept pressing my hands against my thighs, gripping my powder blue dress, willing myself not to look at them. My mind was a frantic machine, turning over possibilities: maybe it was nothing, maybe it was the way the branches leaned… maybe it wasn’t nothing at all.

 

We drove on, twisting deeper into the forested corridor. The road curved again and again, the headlights picking out broken signposts, leaf-littered shoulders, and the occasional glint of distant reflective paint on some unseen post. The trees seemed taller here, darker, the canopy nearly closing overhead. The mist began to gather, subtle at first, just a thin veil across the asphalt, then thickening, curling around the wheels and undercarriage, muffling the engine and softening the outlines of the roadside.

 

“I don’t like this,” I whispered.

 

“Where’s the fire?” Martin said lightly, still calm. “It’s just a road. First you said we were going in circles, and now we’ve actually found a town…”

 

I didn’t reply. My mouth felt dry. My heart pounded so hard that I could almost hear it above the low hum of the tires. Every instinct screamed that the moment we reached the outskirts of this town, something would be wrong - but I couldn’t name what it was.

 

Then the lights changed. The forest thinned. The trees receded just enough to reveal the first buildings. Dunwich.

 

It was exactly the way it should have been in some nightmare I hadn’t dared imagine: crooked roofs, dark and leaning, windows black and shuttered, streets twisting and narrow as if built by someone who wanted to trap you. Lamp posts cast a sickly yellow glow that pooled on the damp cobbles, illuminating warped signs, broken fences, and the faint haze of fog that seemed to pour down from the sky.

 

I could see nothing explicitly wrong - no figure standing in a doorway, no shadow moving in the mist - but everything about it felt wrong. The scale was subtly off. Buildings leaned as if eavesdropping on the street, doorways looked too small or too tall, porches sagged. The air felt thick, almost viscous, and carried with it the faintest sour tang of something organic and decaying.

 

“I don’t…” I said, voice trembling. “I don’t like this, Martin. We could find another town.”

 

He glanced at me, eyes steady in the rear-view mirror. “We’re here. Gas, shelter, whatever you need. That’s the priority.”

 

“But the name,” I said, almost pleading. “Dunwich… I can’t explain it, but…”

 

He reached over, touching my hand lightly. Calm, grounding. “Names don’t kill people. Let’s just get what we need, okay?”

 

I nodded, but the pit in my stomach didn’t loosen. The road ahead wound deeper into the town, narrow and crooked, the mist curling around the lamplight like smoke, the silence pressing down so heavily that even the hum of the engine felt loud. Every instinct in me screamed to stop, to turn, to flee—but there was nowhere to go except forward.

 

And so we drove further into Dunwich.

 

We rolled slowly through the streets, Martin’s hands steady on the wheel, headlights cutting ribbons of light through the mist that clung to the uneven cobbles. The houses leaned over the road as if straining to whisper secrets to each other. Every window we passed was dark, some shuttered, some with cracked glass reflecting the dim glow of the streetlamps. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the town was watching us, even though nothing moved. Nothing breathed.

 

I pressed my palm to the cool glass of the passenger window, trying to steady my own jittering heartbeat. “Martin,” I said, barely above a whisper, “this place… it doesn’t feel right.”

 

He glanced at me, calm, unhurried, as if my panic were an inconsequential breeze. “Ashlee,” he said softly, “it’s just a town. Like I said - we need gas. Maybe a motel. That’s all.”

 

“It’s not just that,” I said. “I don’t know how to explain it. The name, the way it feels… it’s like it’s… alive. Or… watching.”

 

Martin’s jaw tightened ever so slightly, though his tone remained measured. “It’s a small town. The fog and the darkness are playing tricks on your imagination. That’s all.”

 

I swallowed, but the feeling didn’t leave. Every shadow seemed too long, every angle just slightly off. The lamplight pooled oddly, as if the streets themselves were bending the light, creating impossible angles. A crooked sign swayed silently in the mist, and for a moment, I could have sworn it leaned toward me, judging me. The car slowed at a fork in the road, and I flinched at the silence beyond the headlights. Martin paused for a moment, then turned the wheel onto the narrower branch, the tires crunching over gravel. The buildings grew closer, tighter, as if the town was corralling us inward. My stomach dropped.

 

“I don’t like this,” I whispered again. My fingers tightened around the edge of the seat. “I don’t like it at all.”

 

He reached over again and lightly brushed my hand with his, a small grounding gesture, and I flinched at the comfort it brought. “Ashlee,” he said gently, “you’re exhausted and stressed. You’ve been running. The woods, the shadows… the imagination has a way of taking over when you’re tired.”

 

I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to. But the deeper we went, the narrower the streets became, the more the buildings seemed to lean inward, tilting just slightly wrong, windows reflecting light in ways that made me dizzy. It wasn’t just the darkness. It was the geometry, the unnatural quiet, the subtle sense that every corner, every alleyway, was waiting for something - or someone.

 

“We should find a place to stop,” I said. My voice shook slightly. “A motel. Anywhere but… here.”

 

Martin didn’t argue. He slowed to a crawl, scanning the street ahead. “There’s a diner up ahead. Maybe a gas pump. Let’s see what’s available.”

 

I leaned forward slightly, trying to see beyond the mist. The town seemed to stretch endlessly, its streets twisting in ways that didn’t make sense. Each turn looked familiar, yet I knew we hadn’t been there before. My mind screamed that we were driving in circles.

 

“You’ve driven a lot,” I said carefully, my eyes on the same lamp-post I thought we had passed before. “Are you sure we’re… not going in circles?”

 

Martin shook his head. “No. We’re moving forward. You just haven’t been through roads like this before. That’s all.”

 

“But everything feels…” I struggled to articulate it. “Wrong. Too quiet. Too precise. Like it’s waiting for something. I’m sure I saw that street before?”

 

He glanced at me again, calm, confident. “Ashlee, you’re reading intent into geometry. Buildings don’t have plans. Streets don’t wait. It’s just a small town on a foggy night.”

 

I swallowed, my pulse hammering. “It doesn’t feel like a small town,” I said. “It feels… terrible. Like it knows we’re coming.”

 

Martin’s lips quirked into the faintest, patient smile. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you. That’s all.”

 

And maybe he was right. Maybe the buildings were just crooked, the streets too narrow, the fog too thick. Maybe it was just tired eyes and a mind stretched thin by stress and fear.

 

But even as I tried to believe him, I couldn’t shake the sense that Dunwich itself was watching us, corralling us, testing us, and that no matter how confident Martin seemed, it might not be enough.

 

I pressed my hand to the window again, gripping the edge as the car moved slowly deeper into the town. Every shadow seemed heavier now, every angle more threatening. I didn’t know whether it was real - or if my mind was simply creating horrors to match the unease that had been gnawing at me since the first sign.

And yet, despite the fear, I couldn’t look away.

 

We were in Dunwich. And whatever was waiting here - whether real or imagined—was waiting for us too.