This is Red Creek Boy, a new Kindling serialized novel. For the navigation page and more on this story, click here.
Content Warning: This series includes violence, ritual harm, bullying, and psychological trauma involving teens. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
Read carefully. In Antigua Falls, even stories have teeth.
In this episode: When a terrified mother walks into OSBI carrying a missing-persons flyer, Tom and Ned are pulled into their first real lead, and their first brush with whatever is stalking Antigua Falls. As Tom’s nightmares bleed into daylight, Constance Robinson delivers a confession that may unravel the case…or open something far worse.
Chapters:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Interlude
Tom ran cold water over his hands, then splashed it up his neck and face. The collar of his light blue dress shirt was stained dark with the moisture. His headache was a dull drum in his periphery, but the sweats had started. He turned off the faucet and looked at himself in the mirror, leaned down and sniffed.
He smelled like a distillery. The illusion that he had been fooling people these past few weeks was fading. Sobriety’s cold grip was taking the wheel. Still, he hadn’t quit everything. He was down to nightly beer runs, a six-pack of Coors Lights to keep the DT’s at bay.
If I quit all at once, then what? I’m no good sick or dead.
There was always a reason to come back to the bottle again. Some of them were lies, little ways he let himself slip on his promises. But some of them, the real ones, had to do with chasing monsters.
It’s the damn dreams.
They were back, and stronger than ever. He could barely sleep without the warm medicine to scrub his memories upon waking. It had been three days of investigating. The crime scene had been widened, then widened again in search of evidence. But there was nothing to tie anyone there.
No fingerprints, no skin, no hair—not human anyway. No clothes, no threads. Just teeth. Yes, teeth, and not hers.
The remains had finally been collected, the autopsy scheduled. There were no leads yet. Only followup interviews with the hiker, and a hunch from Ned about hunters.
He’s good. Different than I thought he would be, but he’s got instincts.
A flash from one of his nightmares cut his vision. For a moment, everything was dark. He could feel cool air and smell water. And something else. Something thicker—older. Moonlight broke, and he saw lines of trees broken by sky, heard heavy breathing, and footfalls on crunching leaves. Glowing eyes in the woods.
Lyla?
He didn’t want to see it, but he needed to. He needed to know how it ended.
Not just how, but who?
The door to the bathroom opened, and he was back. It was Ned. He stood, examining him from the hallway.
“I came to check on you Big Tom,” he said. His voice was cheery, but those blue eyes were calculating.
Tom looked at himself in the mirror again. His face was covered in droplets of sweat that had dripped down his neck, and spread wet stains down his chest. He would have to change his shirt.
“You feeling okay?”
Tom grabbed a handful of paper towels and dabbed at his neck.
“Never been better.”
***
Constance Robinson was a small woman, and the sterile interview room felt like it would swallow her up. She wore dark blue jeans, and flimsy, thread bare boots that looked too worn to keep out the cold.
“What do you think this is about?” Ned asked.
Tom looked at her through the glass. She was hunched and shivering, her thin arms wrapped around her belly. Her hair was bleached, but at the roots it was tinted orange from a bad dye job. In her hands she held a piece of paper. The white back of it was facing them, so that they couldn’t make out what it was she had brought to show them.
“She knows something,” said Tom.
“How do you usually handle these things?” asked Ned.
Tom watched her pull the paper out and examine it. Her face strained, so that he could see the grooves and lines that would form in the coming decades.
Maybe sooner, depending on why she’s here.
“Carefully,” was all he said.
Ned nodded, and the two exited the room to the hallway.
“When we walk in, keep things casual. People do better talking when they feel like what they’ve got to say is no big deal.”
“Even if it’s a confession?”
“Especially then.”
***
He knocked before he opened the door, but she still jumped.
“Good morning Mrs—”
“It’s miss,” she said without making eye contact. “I've never been married.”
“Apologies, Miss Robinson,” Tom said smiling. “I’m detective Tom Wallace, and this is my colleague, detective Ned Carter.”
Colleague, not partner. Not yet.
Ned reached out and shook her hand, that winning smile trying to make up for his thinning hair. He followed up and took her hand in his. She held the handshake limply, and he could feel her shaking.
Like touching a bird wing. Her bones are so thin.
“Anything I can get for you? Coffee, water?” Tom asked.
“Can I smoke?” she asked.
“Sorry, no ma’am. Not since they painted over the nicotine stains in the 90’s,” he chuckled.
She didn’t laugh along, just nodded her head and crossed her arms again. The old radiator was pumping out heat. The smell of burning lint filled the air, but in spite of that her teeth were chattering.
“Coffee is alright,” she said.
Tom looked at Ned, and he understood.
“You take cream and sugar?” he asked.
“Black.”
Ned nodded, turned, and was gone to fetch it for her in an instant.
He’s excited.
“Cold outside,” said Tom. He was examining her, feeling out the reason she may have come.
She said it's about Lyla Hill. But no one knows that name yet. Not in regards to a murder investigation.
Constance Robinson looked at the floor. She crossed her leg, uncrossed it, crossed the other over, then pumped it wildly. For a moment the only sound was the crinkle of the mysterious printer paper in her hand
“You look troubled Miss Robinson.”
“Constance,” she corrected, and for the first time, those wild animal eyes met his. For a moment they understood each other. She was afraid.
Tom leaned back in his chair. “You from Antigua Falls?”
“No,” she said. “I mean yes. I guess now I am.”
“How long have you lived there?”
“Less than a year.”
He nodded.
“Seems like a nice little town.”
She laughed.
“Seems is the right word for it.”
“Coffee, and I brought cream and sugar in case you change your mind,” Ned said, and placed a steaming styrofoam cup on the table in front of her.
She grabbed it, and he shut the door behind him.
Lights. Camera. Action.
***
Detective Tom Wallace:
“Today is November 15th, 2025. The time is 3:17 p.m. We’re at the OSBI interview room. Present is myself, Detective Ned Carter, and Constance Robinson. This is a voluntary, non-custodial interview. You came in on your own, and you are free to leave at any time.
For the record, can you please state your full name?”
Witness:
“Constance Robinson.”
Detective Tom Wallace:
“Thank you. We are audio/video recording this interview. Do you agree to speak with me today?”
Witness:
“I do.”
Detective Tom Wallace:
“Alright. I’d like to start by talking about how you know Lyla Hill.”
***
She looked past them, and ignored the question.
“It’s funny don’t you think?”
“What’s that?” asked Tom.
“The way the world is now. Not long ago, the people here lived in the wild. No cities. No lights. No doctors. What do you think it was like to give birth then?”
Tom’s neck prickled, and he adjusted in his seat, watching her closely.
“Hard,” he said, and she laughed. For a moment, he thought he knew what she must have looked like before her life happened. Young, and soft faced. Maybe even beautiful.
She coughed, and it vanished behind sallow, sleepless skin.
“Maybe, but maybe not. You ever think that playing God is the reason we’re in this mess?”
“I’m not sure I follow,” he said.
Ned glanced at him, but Tom focused, stayed silent until she continued.
“When I had my son, he was born feet first. Breech, was what the nurse said. God, it hurt like hell.”
She looked at them, and her eyes sparkled.
“Hell—yes—that’s the right word. If they wouldn’t have been there, none of this would have ever happened.”
“Who?” asked Tom.
“The doctors, the nurses. All those monitors and gloved hands. If they wouldn’t have been there, Allistair would have died.”
“Allistair is your son?” asked Ned.
“Yes,” she smiled. “He was tied up in the cord. It was wrapped around his neck three times. Every time I pushed, it pulled tighter. But isn’t that something? That they saved him?”
“It’s a miracle,” Tom said.
Her lip curled up in a half moon smile. “You do a lot of these?”
“Pardon?”
“Murder investigations.”
Ned and Tom looked at each other. For a moment he sat and looked hard into her eyes.
“Some,” he answered.
“Ever seen one as bad as what my son did?”
“Your son, Allistair?” asked Tom.
“Yes. He’s the boy who killed Lyla Hill.”
Ned shifted in his chair.
Tom’s heart raced, and for a moment he could feel the thud of his headache pulse in his temples, trying to pull him back into his dream. He sat back, thought about it.
Yes. In sixth grade. And it was my daddy who did it.
“Once.” Tom said, and swallowed hard against the lump in his throat.
She nodded, smiling crazily.
“When he told me what he done, I tried to kill him. I used a cord. An orange extension cord I had in the garage. Thought I’d finish the job God started in the womb. You ever think that?”
“Think what?” asked Tom.
“That sometimes those doctors are letting the devil into the world? Took ‘em hours to untangle. It was like my body knew that what was coming out wasn’t ever meant to be. Like it was trying to spare the world.”
Her fingers were digging in to her arm. The flesh there was too soft, like loose skin on a mother’s belly.
“Knowing what I know now, seeing what he did to that girl,” she shook her head and shivered. When she looked at them again, she realized. “Oh you didn’t know that? Yes, Allistar showed me the pictures. He’s like a Tom Cat that way, happy to bring me his dead. Show me what he’s done. After though? He always cries.”
“Miss Robinson, I’m going to need you to start from the beginning. Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”
She looked towards the mirror. Behind it was an empty room.
Like a tomb.
Tom glanced into the ceiling corner, and saw the faithful red light blinking on the camera.
“He wasn’t always this way,” she said.
Her eyes were wistful, like in a dream. This was always the old line he heard from mothers. The Columbine shooters, Ted Bundy, and Dahmer—it didn’t matter what they had done. In the end, their mothers always remembered them as little boys.
“What way?”
“A monster,” she whispered.
Her hands shook feverishly, and the paper she held wobbled and crumpled.
“Miss Robinson, did you want to show us something?” Ned asked.
She looked down at it, like remembering it for the first time, then turned it around slowly for Tom and Ned to see. MISSING, was stamped in large black letters at the top. They had seen the posters, plastered up all over Antigua Falls and beyond by her dad and stepmother. Lyla Hill’s round, young face stared out at them.
“What happened to her eyes?” asked Tom.
He was in the dream, laying in the circle of pines, staring up at the black night sky. He could smell water, then the other thing. What was it?
Oil.
Hot liquid poured down from the sky until there was no moon. No stars. No more.
Just black.
He fought the urge to go down, and focused on his feet against the floor. He was staring at Lyla Hill’s photograph. Where her eyes should be, was dripping, inky black.
“Miss Robinson, did you do that to her picture?”
It looked like oil.
Substance unknown.
His mind went back to his crime scene notes.
Black substance on neck.
Black substance in eyes.
She looked down at the picture, then at her own hands, seeing it for the first time. Black, viscous liquid covered her fingers, shimmering iridescent in the buzzing fluorescent light. They hadn’t seen it on her when she came in.
LYLA HILL IS AN INDIAN WITCH!
No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t there before.
It appeared.
Constance Robinson dropped the paper, and wrung her shaking, wet hands. The black smeared across her skin like blood.
“Please, you have to kill my son.”
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So, Tom is trying to go sober, huh? Not going to work, but good luck. It's the nightmares that had me confused with the dentist, but I feel the tone shift. Tom has his own voice. Allisitair's mom? What?!
Shania, Not surprised that Constance wants someone to finish what she couldn't do, what she blames the doctors for not stopping...wondering what else, who else her son has shown to her?? Hmm, does her son actually exist? And the daytime visions apparently from Lylas POV that Tom is starting to see or is his mind just tripping in withdrawal with this bizarre case? I hope I didn't read this chapter at the wrong time of day...about to turn out my lights for bed...