If You See Her Read online

  PRAISE FOR ANIA AHLBORN

  “…genuinely scary…damn good...”

  -Cemetery Dance on Apart in the Dark

  _____

  “…good, spooky stuff.”

  -Jack Ketchum on Within These Walls

  _____

  “…creeps under your skin and stays there.

  It’s insidious…”

  -The New York Times on Within These Walls

  _____

  “For fans of sleepless nights.”

  -Portland Monthly Magazine on Within These Walls

  ANIA AHLBORN

  Born in Ciechanow Poland, Ania has always been drawn to the dark, mysterious, and sometimes morbid side of life. Her earliest childhood memory is of crawling through a hole in the chain link fence that separated her family home from the large wooded cemetery. She'd spend hours among the headstones, breaking up bouquets of silk flowers so that everyone had their equal share.

  Ania's first novel, Seed, was self-published. It clawed its way up the Amazon charts to the number one horror spot, earning her a multi-book deal and a key to the kingdom of the macabre. Eight years later, her work has been lauded by the likes of Publishers Weekly, New York Daily News, and the New York Times.

  She lives in Greenville, South Carolina with her family.

  If You See Her is her tenth published work.

  W W W. A N I A A H L B O R N. C O M

  ALSO BY ANIA AHLBORN

  Seed

  The Neighbors

  The Shuddering

  The Bird Eater

  Within These Walls

  The Pretty Ones

  Brother

  I Call Upon Thee

  The Devil Crept In

  Apart in the Dark

  If You See Her

  ANIA AHLBORN

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 Ania Ahlborn

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781797676678

  Baby Bird, I love you. Look at me, Baby Bird.

  It’s all for you.

  And as to being in a fright,

  Allow me to remark

  That Ghosts have just as good a right

  In every way, to fear the light,

  As Men to fear the dark.

  _____

  Lewis Carroll, Phantasmagoria

  PROLOGUE

  MAY 2000

  BY THE TIME Jesse realized where they were heading, it was too late to object. He had been absorbed in his new Nokia 3310, long-coveted and so fresh out of its box that it still had that new plastic smell. It was a luxury he’d spent months saving up to buy; a damn fine high school graduation present if he did say so himself. And quite frankly, he was obsessed with it, which was why—lounging in the back seat of Casey’s beat-up Honda Civic—he hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation being had between his two closest friends.

  But now, glancing up from his game of Snake II, he knew where they were. It was pitch dark out there, but that made no difference. There was no mistaking the area, and the butterflies that had been slumbering in the pit of his stomach exploded into a frenzy of undulating wings.

  With his phone clenched tight in his right hand, he forced himself to lean forward, positioning himself between the two front seats. Eminem was cranked to nearly full volume. He wasn’t sure how it was possible, but it was exponentially louder in the front two seats than in the back. Reed was obsessed with this damn CD, and while the songs were getting tiresome, it wasn’t hard to understand Reed’s infatuation. Sure, Michigan had its share of breakout stars. Alice Cooper. Stevie Wonder. Madonna. Al Green. But none hit as close to home as the no holds barred rapping white kid with 8 Mile roots. The guy had come out of nowhere and from nothing. It wasn’t tough to imagine that dead-end existence had been had in Warsaw rather than Detroit.

  Casey was driving way over the limit, his head bobbing in time to every bass beat, the ruts in the road threatening to shake that shitty Civic to pieces. Not that it mattered. Casey had a habit of trying to destroy his ride for God only knew what reason, taking it out to empty fields, doing donuts at full speed.

  Reed, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was rapping along with the music. He'd burst into laughter every now and again, stumbling over the lyrics despite knowing them by heart. The trio had heard every song on the Slim Shady EP about a hundred thousand times, but it didn’t make the lyrics any easier to master, and it didn’t lessen Reed Lowell’s infatuation with the man himself. But that was Reed for you. A little obsessive. A little over-the-top. Jesse’s best friend since elementary school.

  “Hey,” Jesse said, reaching between Casey and Reed to turn the music down. He was trying to keep from sounding too concerned—too chickenshit—but he had to say something, because this was a field trip he hadn’t signed up for. “What the hell are we doing out here?”

  Jesse’s cohorts glanced at each other. A moment later, they were cracking up at their oblivious backseat passenger. Reed twisted in his seat and peered back at him. Casey’s upgraded stereo—the only upgrade that car would ever get—illuminated the contours of his face in a pale and ghostly glow. His mouth twisted up into his signature grin. It was the kind of smile that made you feel simultaneously stupid and too amused to care.

  “Dude, are you drunk?” Reed asked.

  Casey fell into a fit of poorly suppressed laughter.

  It was true, the car did smell like a mixture of booze and Cool Ranch Doritos. And from the tinkle of glass that sounded every time Casey hit a particularly jarring pothole, there were plenty of empties rolling around beneath the seats. But Jesse was far from drunk. Yes, he’d had a couple of beers before the trio had crawled into Casey’s car for a late-night drive, but both Casey and Reed had imbibed way more than he had. Not that that mattered, either. Warsaw had all of six cops and not many obstacles to hit while inebriated. Especially not past the buckshot-riddled city limit sign.

  “He’s drunk,” Casey ascertained from behind the steering wheel.

  “I mean, he must be,” Reed said. “Maybe we should hit up Speedy’s for some hair of the dog to sober him up. What do you think?”

  Speedy’s was Warsaw’s only alcohol-licensed convenience store. It was a real shit-show of a place with a bathroom so dirty even a junkie would think twice to use it. But it was open twenty-four seven, even on Christmas, so the grime was easily overlooked. Rumor had it the guy who owned the business was a Buddhist, which didn’t sit particularly well with the older blood-of-Jesus locals. But anyone under thirty? They couldn’t have cared less. What they did care about was that the guy didn’t card; a nightmare for any God-fearing teetotaler trying to raise upstanding young Michiganites, but great for business, and great for getting tanked.

  Some would venture to say that Warsaw High’s seniors were the only reason Speedy’s had stayed open so long. There had been some town counsel hubbub about shuttering the place a while back, but the outrage petered out. Even the cops hadn’t been for it. After all, Speedy’s may have been making underaged sales, but they had powdered doughnuts—three fifty a dozen—and the coffee was surprisingly good, even at three AM.

  But Casey and Reed’s back and forth was doing little to soothe Jesse’s nerves tonight. It was nothing but darkness and wheat fields and a two-lane highway beyond his window, but there was no mistaking their destination. The trio had taken this drive a countless number of times, and the trek never failed to make Jesse squirm.

  “Why the hell are we out here?” Jesse asked again, turning away from Reed’s buck-to
othed smile to stare at Casey’s hands on the wheel. “We aren’t seriously going back to that place again, are we?”

  That place was a house, crooked and abandoned, sitting lonely on a spent plot of land that had once been used for one crop or another—soy beans, or maybe wheat. It was a place Reed had visited as a kid while he and his older brother rode dirt bikes along back-country roads. A place you could reach on a pedal bike in about half an hour if you were fueled by old-fashioned pre-teen hopped-up-on-sugar gusto. A place that had always been there. Always. Since the beginning of time.

  “No,” Reed said, turning back to face the windshield. “We aren’t going back there seriously. We’re going back for shits and giggles, man.”

  Except, Jesse didn’t buy that. Shits and giggles? No way. Reed had been infatuated with that house since they’d first ventured inside it at eleven years old. Ever since then, it’s like it called to him, forcing him back, over and over.

  “Calm yourself,” Reed said, “before you bust a vein.”

  Casey found this commentary just as funny as Reed’s other lines.

  With Jesse’s trepidations ignored, the car kept rolling forward. As a matter of fact, it accelerated rather than slowed. But that was Casey’s style. He was always one to exacerbate the situation, especially when it came to stuff between Jesse and Reed. Sometimes, Jesse was convinced that Casey’s ultimate goal was to push the trio’s friendship to a breaking point. He’d almost managed it a few times, too. First, on Halloween night of 1993. And just recently, when he started dating LouEllen Carter.

  Both Casey and Reed knew that Jesse had been pining for LouEllen since sophomore year. He’d been talking about asking her to prom for months. Then Casey swooped in and beat him to the punch as if to say too slow, sucker. Now, LouEllen was up in her room on Westmont Road, gazing at whatever frilly prom dress she’d picked up at a Detroit department store, thinking about Casey Ridgemont. And Jesse was here, in the back of Casey’s car, possibly sitting in the spot where Casey would pull down LouEllen’s panties and—

  “Hey.” Reed regarded Jesse with a new level of suspicion. “You aren’t going to freak out, are you?”

  No, Jesse wasn’t going to freak out. What was there to freak out about? Skipping prom so as not to see Casey and LouEllen slow-dance to the sappy Savage Garden billboard hit the student council had chosen as the class’s graduating anthem? Or the fact that, despite getting into MSU, Jesse had just gotten a Dear John letter about the scholarship he’d applied for? Denied despite his grades. And there was no way his folks were going to throw their money at an English degree—a useless degree if you asked them—when there were “perfectly acceptable” community colleges in Detroit.

  Or maybe he should freak out because Casey was pulling off the highway and onto a dirt road that would take them to the house that gave him massive anxiety; a place that had haunted him since the night Casey and Reed had hidden his bike in an utterly hilarious prank.

  “No,” Jesse said. “I’m not going to freak out.” But he felt on the verge of doing just that, tiptoeing along the edge of panic as Casey’s Civic plowed over potholes and loose gravel.

  Jesse’s response made Reed narrow his gaze even more. Clearly, Jesse was less than convincing.

  “It’s just for fun, dude,” Reed said. “Besides, Casey’s got a new camera.” And when Casey had a new toy, there was no use fighting it. Reed loved that house, and Casey was obsessed with abandoned America.

  They called it a farmhouse, but there was nothing farm-like about it. It must have been built by some weird eccentric because the place was taller than it was wide. It reminded Jesse of something out of a Hitchcock film, or maybe he was thinking of the Addams Family. Either way, it was bizarre sitting out there the way it was; nothing but it and ancient trees lining a road that cut through a desolate field. He was no architect, but the style struck him as Victorian, like something out of a twisted fairytale. The front door was at the base of a tower that shot four stories up. The roof was so steeply pitched it was eerie, and the fancy gable and delicate-but-rotting woodwork only made it that much more macabre. What must have once been a remarkable home of gleaming white intricacy was now a boarded-up skeleton of broken glass, the mangled porch steps leading to little more than a front door hanging from a single hinge.

  Casey pulled into the overgrown roundabout in front of the place. There was a dead spot in the center, surrounded by flat stones someone had stacked as a planter border. What had once housed the likes of coneflowers and daffodils was now littered with empty bottles and crushed beer cans. Because when you live in a town as small as Warsaw, abandoned places like this have a strange sort of pull.

  “You think there’s a mattress up there somewhere?” Casey asked, leaning his chest against the steering wheel and peering up the turret.

  “A mattress?” Reed asked. “Like, for…” He paused, thinking better of extrapolating the obvious. But if he was doing it for Jesse’s sake, it was a wasted effort. Jesse rolled his eyes and surprised himself by shoving open one of the Civics’ back doors. Because standing out in the darkness was better than listening to Casey go on about his prom night plans, even if it did mean standing alone in front of that house.

  Yeah, he thought. A mattress. If Casey wanted something covered in mold and infested with chiggers, he’d score big. A goddamn mattress. How romantic.

  Reed eventually exited the car and wobbled in front of Casey’s headlights. He’d never been one to hold his liquor well, and tonight was no different.

  “So,” he said, “are you super-pissed or what?”

  “Super-pissed?” Jesse asked, reaching into the pocket of his sweatshirt for a pack of cigarettes. “Super-pissed about what?”

  “You always get super-pissed about LouEllen,” Reed said, then motioned to the house before them. “About this.”

  Jesse shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. He pulled a cigarette out of the pack and pressed the filter between his lips—a rebellious act that would have set his mother’s hair on fire had she known. “Whatever,” he murmured. “We’ve all got our hang-ups, right?”

  This reply seemed to satisfy Reed. He gave Jesse a swift few slaps on the back as if to say ‘atta boy. A moment later, the driver’s side door swung open and Casey met them next to the car’s dented quarter panel. He held a flashy new SLR camera in his right hand.

  Jesse eyed the camera. There was no doubt it cost a pretty penny, and he was sure Casey hadn’t spent a dime of his own money on it. It was the same with his car. It was used, sure, but also a far cry better than most of the teen-owned lemons rolling around town. Casey’s parents had bought it freshman year, and Casey didn’t even pay for his own gas. Jesse had noticed him using plastic at the pump on more than a few occasions—the credit card was in Mrs. Ridgemont’s name, no doubt.

  Don’t count other people’s money, Jesse’s mom would have warned. But the benefit of growing up as the town’s rich kid was impossible to ignore. There was a tinge of jealousy, sure, and how could there not have been? Ninety-nine percent of Warsaw made less than forty grand a year, and here was Casey Ridgemont, walking around like he owned the place. Swooping in like a raptor. Plucking LouEllen up and carrying her off to his nest.

  “You two done dicking around out here?” Casey asked, slipping the camera strap marked NIKON around his neck.

  “Yeah,” Reed said. “But I need another drink.” He lifted a hand into the air and spun his wrist around. Bring on the booze.

  “What happened to the rest of that forty?” Casey asked, suspicious.

  Reed lifted his shoulders and gave Casey a virtuous smile. “Vanished,” he said. “Like some sort of Criss Angel voodoo. Swear to God.”

  Casey snorted and moved to the trunk of the car, pausing to get an eyeful of the unlit cigarette balancing upon Jesse’s bottom lip. Their eyes met, and a second later, Jesse was pulling a lighter from his pocket. Because that was the power of Casey; the guy who could persuade without even trying, the guy who
got the girl.

  Casey popped his trunk and brought out another bottle, this one whiskey.

  “I’m saving this for prom, man, so if it vanishes, you owe me a bottle of Beam.” He tossed it at Reed, who just barely caught it before it went crashing into the wild grass and dirt. Reed uncapped the bottle, took a swig, and offered it to Jesse, who shook his head in refusal.

  “I’m good,” Jesse said, only to be met with another drink. Then a third. “You want to slow down, maybe?” Jesse asked. This time he was the one to watch his friend with cautious skepticism. It felt like Reed was psyching himself up for something, like he was trying to settle his nerves.

  Reed capped the bottle and slid it atop Casey’s roof, then clapped his hands. “Okay,” he said, “let’s go.” And then he set off for the house’s front door. He didn't bother glancing over his shoulder to make sure his two friends were in tow.

  Casey didn’t hesitate. He fell into step, his SLR held fast in his hands. Jesse watched him for a moment, not sure what Casey saw in taking photos of places like this. But he supposed everyone had a hobby. Reed memorized intricate rap lyrics. Casey took pictures. And Jesse? Jesse spent most of his time in his room writing fiction and fantasizing about becoming an honest-to-goodness pay-the-bills kind of author. Perhaps for a magazine. Maybe for a newspaper. Hell, if he got lucky, he could write novels like the big guys, do press tours and sign books for fawning teens. Whatever. If it got him out of Warsaw, it would be good enough.

  But as for now, most of his free time was spent behind a greasy grill at the local Mister Frosty, and he had the burns to prove it. But he also had a new phone, so it wasn’t all bad.

  “Hey.” Reed nodded at Jesse from beside the house’s front door. “Are you coming or what?”

  Going inside that house was the last thing Jesse wanted to do. But it was also only six weeks until graduation, and something had been “off” between the three of them for the past few months. There were Casey and LouEllen, the thought of which turned Jesse’s stomach. There was Reed and his occasional mumbling of taking off to Detroit to do whatever. Because, as he had put it, any place is better than this shithole. Jesse, of course, whole-heartedly agreed.