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“Yeah.” Rachel seemed to recognize why Alma
looked confused. “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to mention Stephen’s not
just my camera guy, he’s my husband.” She held up her left hand and
pointed at her naked ring finger. “They don’t want me to wear a
ring on camera. All part of the illusion, you know?”

Alma shook her head. “Not really.”

Stephen got up to get a new plate of food
from the buffet and set his hands on his wife’s shoulders to
massage her for a second. “Rachel is supposed to be the hot, single
reporter. They don’t want viewers to know she’s taken.”

Rachel rolled her eyes and sighed. “Yeah,
it’s a sleazy business.”

“Well, at least it pays well,” said
Alma.

Rachel gave a quick laugh and straightened
her posture. “You’d think, right? Truth is reporters get paid like
shit. You think teachers have it bad? Try being a reporter on a
local news show.”

“Really? I had no idea. I just assumed you
guys made a lot.”

“Not unless you’re an anchor.” Rachel looked
over her shoulder at her husband. “He makes more than I do, by a
lot.”

“That’s why we’re trying to get this site
off the ground,” said Stephen on his way to the buffet table, out
of earshot.

“Look,” said Alma sharply. “I have a feeling
I know where this is headed, and I should just stop you before we
go any further. I can’t help you with your site. I’ve left that
part of my life behind me.”

Rachel visibly deflated, and she looked
nervous as she continued to stab at the zucchini on her plate. “I
understand. I really do, but will you just hear us out?”

“Honestly, I probably couldn’t help you out
anyhow. That happened when I was eight years old. I don’t even
remember it that well anymore.”

Stephen overheard them as he came back with
a new plate of disgusting fried meat. “Did you tell her?” He
sounded disappointed.

“She saw it coming,” said Rachel. “Probably
because of your none-too-subtle introduction at the school.”

“Sorry to be a bummer,” said Alma. “I really
can’t help you though. I don’t know anything more than what’s
already been out there. And to tell you the truth, I don’t believe
all the ghost stories anyhow. The police said that the
disappearances were due to a fight between a motorcycle club and
the mob. They said that the people in the town are probably all
living in Mexico or something, hiding from the mob.”

“Yeah, but that’s crazy,” said Stephen. “An
entire town just packs up and moves because of some drug running
mob deal?”

“What’s crazier?” asked Alma. “That, or that
they all got abducted by aliens, or sucked up into an alternate
dimension, or whatever other crazy conspiracy theory is out there
now.”

“You told the police that you saw the green
light that night,” said Stephen, almost as if trying to confront
Alma with a lie.

“I was eight,” said Alma. “Who knows what I
saw? I don’t remember any of it.” She had a habit of avoiding eye
contact when she lied, and tried to stare at him when she spoke,
but still averted her gaze when she said that she didn’t remember
that day. The truth wasn’t that she couldn’t remember anything, but
rather that she couldn’t remember pieces of what happened. There
was a large chunk of time that had been lost to her.

“Have you heard about the Widowsfield
lights?” asked Rachel. Her light tone calmed the conversation. “Not
just what the police report said you saw, but the phenomenon that’s
been going on out in Missouri ever since the day the people in
Widowsfield went missing.”

Alma shook her head. “I try not to pay
attention to the rumors anymore.”

“People that live near Widowsfield say that
they can see green lights on foggy nights,” said Rachel. “They’ve
even started to film it. You can watch some of them online. It’s
actually pretty creepy.”

“And you don’t think that’s staged?” asked
Alma. “Come on, the people making those videos are setting out
green lights on foggy nights and then taking video of it. There’s
nothing mystical about that.”

“And that’s what we want to find out,” said
Stephen. He was excited about the project, and Alma could
understand how that could be infectious for people around him. He
had an almost childish fascination with the subject. “We want to
approach this type of thing differently than other shows out there.
Our goal is to go in with various viewpoints. Some of the people on
our show will be skeptics, and others will be believers. I’m hoping
to find a local out there that has seen the lights, maybe even
someone that has been to the town a few times. We’re going to try
and dispel any of the fake crap out there, and only bring out the
truth.”

“I’m on your side, Alma,” said Rachel. “I
always try to think of the most reasonable solution to things, and
I agree that the people of Widowsfield probably just fled the mob.
It was a pretty small town, and it’s not impossible to think that
the majority of them were mixed up in the meth ring.” She crossed
her arms and sat back in her chair. She looked over at her husband
as she continued. “Did you know that right around the time all this
went down, the DEA had just changed the laws around
pseudoephedrine? They made the sale of large quantities illegal,
and they discovered a meth lab in Widowsfield after the
disappearances. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

Stephen shook his head and frowned as if he
thought Rachel’s point was ridiculous at best. “They found a tiny
little meth dealer’s set up. It wasn’t Breaking Bad or anything in
there. Shit, I bet there’s a home meth lab within walking distance
of this restaurant. They’re not exactly rare.” Then he looked at
Alma and got excited again. “But you see, that’s the kind of thing
we want to go over on our show. We want to explore every
possibility, no matter how ludicrous they are.” He cast a snide
look at his wife.

“It sounds great,” said Alma. “But I’m not
sure what you want from me.”

Rachel and Stephen looked uncomfortable. It
seemed that they were wary to ask for what they wanted, as if they
knew it was asking too much. Stephen eventually explained, “We were
hoping to convince you to come with us to Missouri, to go past the
place where your brother disappeared.”

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” said Rachel.

Alma laughed uncomfortably. “No way. Sorry,
but I’ve left all of that behind me. Besides, my brother didn’t
disappear there. The police agreed with my father. My brother was
kidnapped from his room.”

“Yeah,” said Stephen, “but that’s not what
you told them originally. You told them he was…”

“I know what I told them,” said Alma, and
was immediately embarrassed by her abruptness. “But I was eight
years old. Remember? I had a bad dream, and that’s all there is to
it. You have no clue what this whole ordeal did to my family. It
ruined us.” She looked back and forth between Stephen and Rachel as
if admonishing them for daring to bring this subject up. “I haven’t
talked to my father for more than a few minutes in almost a decade.
My mother…” she faltered and cleared her throat. “My mother killed
herself.”

“I know,” said Rachel. “I’m sorry.”

“And the worst part is, every year around
this time I get a call from someone that wants to dig up the past.
I get letters all the time from people with all sorts of insane
theories. They say that the government was involved, or that some
corporation with a facility near there was doing tests on some
Greek boat they bought,” she laughed at the absurdity of the next
theory. “For fuck’s sake, I even had one guy say that sightings of
Bigfoot skyrocketed right before the people in the town
disappeared. He accused me of trying to hide the fact that the
government kidnapped everyone in the town to turn them into
Sasquatch super soldiers.”

Rachel chuckled and then gave Stephen an
apologetic glance.

“It’s nuts,” said Alma and couldn’t help but
smile.

Steve looked pensive. “I’ve never heard
anything about a Greek boat. What was that one about?”

Alma shook her head and laughed in
exasperation. “You don’t get it. That’s the point, it was bullshit.
All of it is just bullshit. Just like the 9-11 conspiracies, and
the faked moon landings, and the magic bullet that killed Kennedy.
People turn things into conspiracies because they have some
deep-seated notion that the world is more mystical than it really
is. The people of Widowsfield disappeared because they were
involved in a drug ring that went bad. That’s it. And my brother
was kidnapped in the middle of the night, from his bedroom, and not
by some creatures in the fog.” She was frantic now, and had trouble
keeping herself from crying. She got up and got ready to leave.
“Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I’m sorry. Good luck and
everything, but I’m going to go. Okay? I’m sorry.”

Stephen got up, but Rachel was faster and
motioned for him to sit back down. “It’s okay, Alma. Don’t be
sorry. I understand.”

“I just,” Alma tried to explain herself. “I
just left that part of my life behind me, and I’ve been trying to
move on ever since. I just wish I could. Every damn year it all
starts up again.”

“I can imagine,” said Rachel as she walked
to the front of the restaurant with Alma. “I’m so sorry to have
dragged you into this. We never meant to hurt you.”

“I know,” said Alma. “I don’t blame you. I’m
not mad or anything, I just want to put that part of my life to
death.” She meant to say, ‘to bed,’ and was surprised by her
violent wording.

Rachel didn’t pick up on the Freudian slip.
“I get that, but if you ever want to talk about it, or anything,
please don’t hesitate to call. Here, take my card.”

Alma took the business card, if only to be
polite.

“That’s the one. The cell phone number on
there is my personal phone too.” She rolled her eyes and shrugged.
“They don’t even buy us our own cell phones, if you can believe it.
We have to supply our own.”

“I hope the whole website thing works out
for you,” said Alma. “You guys seem like nice people. Sorry I’m
being so weird about this.”

“No, don’t worry about it.” Rachel waved off
Alma’s apology.

“Who knows, maybe one of these days I’ll be
ready to talk about it. Maybe that’d be good for me, but I’m just
not ready for it now.” Alma lingered because she felt guilty.

“I understand,” said Rachel. “But if you
ever do, you know, want to talk, you’ve got my card. I’m a good
listener.”

Alma got to the exit and looked back at the
two. Rachel still stood in the middle of the restaurant, and had a
look of concern that reminded Alma of a mother watching her child
go away to college. Stephen seemed frustrated, but not angry, and
continued to eat his fried pork. They were a good looking couple,
and seemed kind. If circumstances were different, Alma might’ve
enjoyed getting to know them. However, the fact that they wanted to
dissect Alma’s past made them seem parasitic and dangerous. She
waved goodbye, feeling a unique mix of regret and disdain at
leaving them behind.

She sighed and started to walk through the
parking lot, but then jogged, eager to get as far from them as
possible. She fumbled with her purse to find the keys to her Subaru
Outback. Emotions swirled, sorrow battled with anger, calm fought
frenzy, and she wasn’t sure if she was about to cry, scream, or
laugh. “What the fuck,” she muttered to herself as she pushed
through the things in her purse in search of her keys. She stuck
Rachel’s business card in a pocket on the inside of her purse as
she continued to rifle through the contents.

It was a chilly night, just past dusk, and
the moon cast a brilliant blue light over everything. Bats squeaked
as they zipped through the night sky, spots of black shooting
through blue. Alma found the teddy bear key chain that her
ex-boyfriend had bought her and pulled the keys out. The ring
caught on one of her white plastic wrapped tampons, which fell to
the ground beside her car. She cursed again and picked it up. When
she knelt down she saw the shadow of a man cast by moonlight
against the side of her car.

“Alma,” said her father in a frantic, hushed
whisper.

She yelped in shock and stood to face him.
She pressed her back to the car and held her mouth with the hand
that her keys were in.

He was ragged. His clothes were a tattered
mess and his hair was greasy, with strands of grey and black
sticking up in various directions. His eyes were wide and darted
back and forth above dark circles. He hadn’t shaved in weeks and
his stubble was almost completely white. “Alma, baby. Baby girl.
Alma, what did they want?” His words flit past his lips too fast
for him to properly say them, causing the syllables to mix together
between quick breaths. He had sores on his lips and cheeks, as if
he’d been scratching at himself until he’d bled. “Did they want you
to go with them? You can’t. You know that, right? You can’t go
there. You’ve got to let that die. You’ve got to let it die.”

“Let me go!” She pulled her arm away from
his grasping hands like a disgusted royal squirming to escape a
leper.

“Don’t fuck me like this, babe.” He
scowled.

“I said back off.” She palmed her keys so
that they poked out between her fingers as she made a fist.

“You’re never going to save him.” He backed
away, just as Alma had asked. Then he glowered as if he’d forgotten
hatred for years, only now remembering it. He surged forward and
grabbed the back of her head with one hand as he pressed the other
against her mouth. All at once, she was a child again, caught in
the grip of a sadistic father, tasting the grime of his palm as he
kept her silent. He pressed himself against her tall frame, and
still towered over her, just as he did so many years ago. She
clenched her eyes shut and a hundred terrible moments were suddenly
fresh in her mind. It was impossible to breathe, to scream, to do
anything but cry as he growled at her.