Chapter 5 - The Thirteenth Bell
There was no church near Blackthorn Road.
Daniel knew because he checked.
The nearest chapel stood nine miles away and had no functioning bell.
Yet the sound rolled through the woods again.
Three.
Jonathan whispered:
“It happened in 1998.”
Four.
Rebecca started walking quickly toward the bridge.
Daniel called after her.
“You just said we need to get off the road.”
“We do.”
“Then why are you going toward the bridge?”
“Because the road isn’t where you think it is.”
Five.
Daniel and Jonathan followed.
The bride led them through the broken fence into the woods.
For the first time Daniel noticed that Rebecca’s bare feet did disturb leaves.
She left prints in mud.
Branches caught her skirt.
She was not an intangible apparition.
At least not entirely.
Six.
They reached an abandoned service path.
Rebecca pointed toward faded stones embedded beneath weeds.
Old roadway.
Blackthorn Road had been rerouted in 2003.
The modern road Daniel drove was not the original.
The crashes before 2003 occurred here.
Seven.
Rebecca led them downhill.
Jonathan struggled to keep pace.
Daniel asked:
“What happens at thirteen?”
Rebecca answered:
“It repeats.”
“What repeats?”
“The last drive.”
Eight.
They found a rusted guardrail.
Beyond it, a steep ravine.
Daniel’s flashlight swept downward.
Twisted metal gleamed beneath leaves.
A car.
Old.
Almost consumed by forest.
Jonathan gasped.
“Emily’s.”
The official report said Emily’s vehicle had been removed after her fatal crash.
It had not.
Nine.
Rebecca climbed down.
Daniel followed.
Inside the wreck was no body.
But beneath the passenger seat he found a cassette recorder sealed inside degraded plastic.
Rebecca stared at it.
“I never found that.”
Daniel pressed play.
Static.
Then Emily’s voice.
Alive.
Panicked.
“Rebecca, if you get this, don’t believe Michael.”
Daniel’s heart jumped.
Another accusation against his father.
Emily continued:
“He knows why these crashes happen.”
Jonathan looked at Daniel.
The tape crackled.
“He told me there’s no one following us, but I saw his car behind me.”
Daniel’s stomach sank.
Michael had been near Emily the night she died.
Rebecca stared.
“He told me he wasn’t.”
Ten.
The recording continued.
Emily described Michael following her for miles.
Then headlights appearing behind his vehicle.
Then a figure running beside Emily’s car.
Not a bride.
A young man.
Their brother, David, who had died as a child.
Emily panicked.
She accelerated.
Michael tried overtaking her.
She interpreted it as aggression.
Then the other vehicle appeared.
Emily lost control.
Crash.
The tape stopped.
Jonathan looked at Daniel.
“Michael lied.”
Yes.
But why?
Daniel forced himself not to finish the story too early.
Michael being there did not mean Michael caused the crash.
Eleven.
Daniel searched the wreck.
A second object beneath the seat.
An old photograph.
Michael.
Emily.
Rebecca.
And a fourth person.
A sheriff’s deputy.
Daniel recognized the surname on his uniform.
Vale.
Jonathan’s father.
Sheriff Arthur Vale.
Jonathan stared.
“My father said he barely knew them.”
Another lie.
Twelve.
Rebecca backed away.
“We need to go.”
Daniel held the photograph.
“What did Arthur have to do with this?”
“Later.”
“No. Every person keeps saying later.”
Rebecca stared at him.
“Because some truths are dangerous when you learn them in the wrong place.”
Daniel almost laughed.
“That sounds convenient.”
“It is.”
She stepped closer.
“And it’s still true.”
The bell began its thirteenth toll.
Everything went silent.
Not quiet.
Silent.
Rain vanished.
Wind vanished.
Jonathan’s breathing vanished.
Daniel could see Rebecca’s mouth moving but heard nothing.
Then headlights appeared on the abandoned road above them.
A vehicle from 1998.
Rebecca’s car.
It drove past.
Inside sat twenty-five-year-old Rebecca wearing her wedding gown.
Daniel looked beside him.
The present Rebecca was watching herself.
Behind the old car came Michael’s sedan.
Then Jonathan’s truck.
The events of the wedding night were replaying like a memory imposed onto the landscape.
Not ghosts.
A recording?
Daniel watched.
Rebecca’s car stopped.
Young Rebecca climbed out.
Michael stopped behind her.
Jonathan’s truck approached.
Then a fourth vehicle emerged from the darkness.
No headlights.
It stopped between the trees.
A man stepped out.
Sheriff Arthur Vale.
Jonathan’s father.
Jonathan stared upward in horror.
“My father was here.”
The replay continued.
Arthur approached Rebecca.
Michael tried to stop him.
The two men fought.
Rebecca ran.
Not from Michael.
From Arthur.
Then something impossible happened.
Another Rebecca appeared beside the road.
A perfect duplicate in the same wedding dress.
Young Rebecca saw her.
Froze.
The duplicate raised one finger to her lips.
Shhh.
The replay vanished.
Sound returned violently.
Rain.
Wind.
Jonathan gasping.
Daniel looked at Rebecca.
“You saw yourself.”
She nodded.
“What was it?”
“I thought it was my ghost.”
“And now?”
Rebecca’s eyes moved toward the ravine.
“Now I think it was trying to save me.”
Daniel frowned.
The frightening bride might never have been the predator.
It might have been the warning.
Then Jonathan noticed something in the wrecked car.
Scratched into the dashboard by Emily:
A.V. ISN’T THE ONE FOLLOWING US.
Jonathan stared at his father’s initials.
Arthur Vale looked guilty.
Emily had explicitly said he was not the real pursuer.
Below it:
M.M. KNOWS WHO IS.
Daniel’s father.
Michael Mercer.
Rebecca looked at Daniel.
“That’s why I needed you.”
“Why me?”
“Because Michael died without telling me the name.”
Daniel’s phone vibrated.
A scheduled email had arrived.
Sender:
MICHAEL MERCER.
His dead father had scheduled a message sixteen years after his death.
May you like
Subject:
IF YOU SEE REBECCA RUNNING, DO NOT LET HER REACH THE BRIDGE.
