Free The Haunting of Secrets by Shelley R. Pickens Page A

people and
getting some vitamin D while I’m at it, couldn’t hurt.
    I pull out the combination from my book bag
and slowly turn the face of the lock to open my locker. I turn it
round and round until I arrive at the last number and I hear the
click of the lock give way. I pull up the lever to release the
locker and open it up expecting to find empty space for my things.
Instead, I find a folded piece of paper laid neatly in the center
of it. Curious, I look around at the other open lockers in the
corridor. I see students putting their books and such in their
lockers. I don’t see anyone else open a piece of paper. I guess no
one else has a note inside. Thinking it may be a note of
encouragement for our first day back after the bombing, I open it
up and begin to read. My breath comes faster and faster as I read
the words on the page. Four simple words designed to instill fear
inside my very soul. The paper drops from my hand and flutters to
the ground. My lungs feel as if they’re filled with lead because I
can’t catch my breath. The roar of the intense pounding of my heart
fills my ears. I’m frozen, the safe world I have created here
crashes before my eyes with those four simple words:
    ‘I’M COMING FOR YOU .’
     

 
    Chapter
Fourteen
    ~ The Road Less Traveled
~
     
    “Earth to Logan. Logan? Dude!” exclaims a
very frustrated Tyler. “I asked you a question. Do you think that
Coach Kutter will still let you play point guard on the basketball
team if we make the baseball playoffs too?”
    Logan is sitting by a tree out in the
courtyard, eating his sandwich and chatting with friends, but his
mind isn’t on his lunch. He tries his best to concentrate on what
his best friend, Tyler, is saying.
    “I’m sorry, man, just a bit out of it today,”
explains Logan. “I guess we’ll just have to see if we make the
playoffs first, then deal with Coach Kutter when the time comes.”
He says knowing full well that Tyler will worry about it until then
anyway. Even though Tyler is a top-notch player and practically the
best pitcher this school has ever seen, he still pushes himself to
be better, to outdo anything he had achieved in prior years. He’s
the epitome of obsessive compulsive. Yet despite his many quirks,
he’s a good friend to Logan and has always been there for him no
matter what.
    “And it doesn’t matter anyway, you know I
would never choose basketball over baseball, so stop worrying or
I’ll declare you a girl and banish you to the softball fields.”
    “Ha! I’d like to see you try!” teases Tyler,
lightly punching Logan in the shoulder for emphasis. Lightly
scuffing with Tyler and not eating his lunch is exactly what
Logan’s doing when he sees Aimee run out the side door of the new
school and head for the parking lot. Without needing to look at her
face, he knows there’s something wrong. The way she’s running;
she’s definitely running away from something or someone. There is a
desperate edge to her movements. Without a thought, he drops his
sandwich and runs after her. Behind him, he can hear Tyler hurling
questions at him, wondering why he’s sprinting away, but Logan
ignores Tyler’s protests. There is something more important at
hand.
    Logan yells Aimee’s name, but she doesn’t
seem to hear him; she never turns back to see who’s pleading for
her to stop. Aimee runs through the parking lot and up the hill to
the outer perimeter of the school. She’s heading straight for the
trees that surround the back of the building. Logan’s worry
increases ten-fold as she nears the edge of the forest. Those trees
extend for miles and are so thick the sun barely breaks through. If
she gets lost in there, she may never come out.
    Logan’s watches as Aimee runs without
abandon, seemingly caught within her own mind with no escape from
whatever haunts her. Logan knows she just got out of the hospital
and considering her current errant behavior, there’s no way to
predict what she’ll do. He