The Stonebound Detective

“Keep your eyes on me,” he said. “Not the trees. Me.”

Spencer obeyed, though his gaze flickered toward the forest.

“My hand feels cold.”

Duncan crouched before him. The skin over Spencer’s knuckles had dulled to the color of old limestone. He reached for the boy’s wrist and felt something harder than bone beneath the skin.

“What’s your name?”

“Spencer.”

“I know. I’m Duncan Sinclair. I used to be a detective.”

“Used to be?”

The question landed with more force than it should have. Duncan examined the spreading gray instead of answering.

“Can you walk?”

Spencer nodded.

“Then we’re getting you into town.”

The rockslide blocked the road behind them, and the creek cut off the shoulder ahead. Duncan looked toward the far bend. A narrow maintenance path ran beside the water, barely wide enough for a person. It disappeared beneath leaning pines and broken branches.

Spencer followed his gaze. “That way?”

“That way.”

“What if she’s still there?”

Duncan looked back at the boy’s hand. The gray had reached his wrist.

“What if she is?” Spencer asked again.

“Then I’ll deal with her.”

The lie came easily. It was the kind of lie Duncan had once told frightened witnesses, before the department took his badge and before every promise he made acquired a shadow.

He pulled his coat from the car and wrapped it around Spencer’s shoulders. The boy flinched when the fabric touched his arm.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not yet.”

Not yet.

Duncan slipped one arm around Spencer’s back. The boy was light, too light, and trembled beneath the coat. Together they started along the maintenance path.

The creek was louder there. Water flashed between the trees, brown and swollen from the rain. Roots rose across the trail like knotted fingers. Spencer stumbled twice, and each time Duncan caught him before he fell.

“Tell me about the girl,” Duncan said.

“She had red hair.”

“Anything else?”

“She didn’t look scared.”

“Did she say anything?”

Spencer shook his head.

“What did she do?”

“She looked at me.”

Duncan’s boot struck a loose stone. He nearly slipped into the creek.

Spencer seized his sleeve. “Detective?”

“Keep moving.”

“You believe me?”

Duncan looked at him. “I believe something happened.”

“That’s not the same.”

“No.”

They reached a break in the trees where the path climbed toward an old service gate. Beyond it, the road continued toward town, but the gate was chained shut. A sign warned of unstable ground. Someone had painted a red X across the warning, then scratched it away.

Duncan set Spencer against a pine.

“Stay here.”

“Where are you going?”

“To open the gate.”

The chain was thick, rusted at the links but secured with a newer padlock. Duncan searched the ground, finding only wet branches and a length of broken fence. He struck the lock with the metal end of the fence post. Once. Twice. The impact rang through the trees.

The third blow split the post.

Behind him, Spencer made a small sound.

Duncan turned.

The gray had climbed past the boy’s elbow. A pale ridge formed along his forearm. Spencer pressed his back against the tree, staring at it.

“Get it off,” he whispered.

Duncan crossed the distance in two strides and pulled at the sleeve. The fabric had begun to stiffen around Spencer’s arm. He tore it open with his pocketknife.

The skin beneath was no longer skin. It had the rough, granular texture of stone.

Spencer’s breath came in shallow bursts. “I’m turning into one.”

Duncan took his face between both hands, careful not to touch the gray.

“Listen to me. You are not a statue. You’re a boy, and I’m taking you to town.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t.”

The admission steadied Spencer more than certainty would have. His eyes fixed on Duncan’s.

“Then don’t leave me.”

Duncan glanced at the locked gate, the creek, the road sealed behind them. Every route out carried a risk. The boy’s condition was advancing by the minute.

“I won’t.”

He slid Spencer’s uninjured arm over his shoulder and turned back toward the creek. The path down was steeper than the way up. Mud sucked at their boots. Spencer’s weight sagged against him.

Halfway down, a stone fell from the trees and struck the water.

Duncan froze.

Another followed.

Not falling stones. Footsteps.

He turned toward the forest. Between the wet trunks, something pale moved and vanished.

“Is that her?” Spencer whispered.

Duncan pushed him behind his body. “Stay down.”

The woods offered only rain, branches, and the thin silver flicker of creek water. Duncan drew the small revolver he kept beneath the driver’s seat, though he had no memory of reaching for it. His hand was steady. That, at least, had survived the disgrace.

“Come out,” he called.

No answer.

A branch cracked to his left.

Duncan fired into the ground.

The shot shattered the afternoon. Birds erupted from the pines. Spencer cried out and clutched his stonebound arm.

“Duncan!”

“I’m here.”

The silence returned, larger than before. No girl stepped from the trees. No face appeared between the trunks.

Duncan lowered the revolver. His ears rang.

They had to move.

He half carried Spencer to the creek bank. The old footbridge had collapsed, leaving two beams stretched across the water. One had shifted under the rain. Duncan tested it with his boot. It groaned.

Spencer stared at the rushing creek.

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“I’ll fall.”

“Then I’ll hold you.”

Duncan went first, arms out for balance. The beam flexed beneath him. Water churned below, carrying branches and broken weeds. He reached the far side and turned.

Spencer stood alone on the bank, his arm gray to the shoulder now. A thin crack ran beneath his collar.

“Come on,” Duncan said.

Spencer stepped onto the beam.

The wood rolled.

Duncan lunged, caught Spencer by the coat, and hauled him forward. They hit the far bank together. Spencer’s head struck Duncan’s chest. For several seconds neither moved.

Then Spencer whispered, “You came back.”

Duncan looked at the boy’s face. “I didn’t go anywhere.”

The town’s first houses appeared beyond the trees, pale shapes behind rain-streaked windows. Harmony Creek was quiet even on good days. Now it seemed abandoned. No cars passed. No children played in the yards. A church bell began to ring somewhere uphill, though it was not the hour.

Duncan carried Spencer the rest of the way.

At the edge of town, Spencer’s legs hardened beneath him. His knees locked. Duncan lowered him carefully onto the grass beside the road.

“Stay with me.”

“I’m trying.”

Duncan ran toward the nearest house and pounded on the door.

No one answered.

He tried the next. Then the next. Curtains shifted, but every door remained shut. From the hill, the church bell rang again and again, each note slower than the last.

“Help!” Duncan shouted. “There’s a boy here!”

A door opened across the street.

Spencer flinched. “Don’t let them look at me.”

Duncan returned to him. “Why?”

“I don’t know.”

The woman in the doorway raised a hand to her mouth. Her gaze fell on Spencer’s arm. She screamed and slammed the door.

Duncan crouched beside him. “We’re going to the clinic.”

“Will they fix me?”

“They’ll keep you alive.”

Spencer’s eyes filled. “That means no.”

Duncan had no answer. He lifted the boy again, ignoring the sharp pain in his back.

The clinic stood beside the town hall, its windows dark. Duncan kicked the side entrance until the lock broke. Inside, the halls smelled of antiseptic and dust. He laid Spencer on an examination table and searched the cabinets for bandages, blankets, anything that looked useful.

When he returned, the gray had reached Spencer’s throat.

Duncan stopped breathing.

A mark had appeared beneath the boy’s jaw: a small oval impression, as if a fingertip made of stone had pressed into his skin.

Spencer watched him see it.

“What is that?”

Duncan touched the mark. It was cold enough to numb his finger.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re a detective.”

“Not anymore.”

“Then be one now.”

The words struck deeper than the boy could know.

Duncan wrapped Spencer in blankets and carried him through the front doors. A truck had arrived outside. Its headlights washed the street white. Someone had finally called for help, but Duncan could not wait for an ambulance that might never come.

He placed Spencer in the passenger seat and drove toward the hospital on the other side of town.

They had gone three blocks when Spencer said, “There’s another one.”

Duncan glanced at him. “Another what?”

“Boy.”

Across the street, beneath the dead sign of the bus shelter, a child stood alone with a backpack hanging from one shoulder. He was staring down at his hand.

A gray line crept across his palm.

Duncan slammed the brakes.

The truck stopped crooked in the intersection. Spencer turned toward the window, and Duncan caught his head before he could look outside.

“Keep your eyes down.”

“But Phillip - ”

Duncan stared at the boy across the street.

“Phillip?” he said.

Spencer nodded. “He sits behind me at school.”

Phillip raised his face.

For one terrible instant, his eyes met Duncan’s through the rain-streaked glass.

Then Phillip screamed.

The sound tore across Harmony Creek as a fresh stone mark bloomed beneath his eye. Duncan left the truck running, lifted Spencer from the seat, and ran toward the second boy while the town’s church bell began ringing again.

End of chapter one. 7 more chapters and about 15,684 words in the full book.