Echo Ridge Manor

Chapter 9 Charley

After filling in everyone at the station about Hannah's situation, I pull into my parking spot with a heavy knot in my gut. That feeling I know something is wrong, but I don't know what. I'm not sure why. No one else knows I've brought Hannah here. She should be perfectly safe. The only problem with that is, my gut is normally not wrong... However I am praying that it's wrong right now.

 I jog through the small parking lot, trying to beat the pelting rain. My foot slips on something, but I don't stop to examine it. But as I reach my second floor apartment, dread floods my entire being.

Lightning fills the area with illumination and thunder rumbles overhead, while the rain continues it's unusual relentless downpour. The wind is so strong it is trying to blow me over, but that isn't what is causing my distress.

The flash of light shows my door left wide open; and blood dripping down the stairs and out to the parking lot.

I race into the darkness, slipping a bit on the wet wood floor, and try the switch to turn on my lamp, but the room remains dark. Did the power go out? That can't be right because the power over the parking lot is still on. What is going on here?

"Hannah, honey? Where are you?" I try to keep my voice steady through the panic and pounding of blood rushing through my ears.

"Hannah?" I call again.

No response. The silence  is heavy, crushing me in a way I would not have expected. I've lived most of my adult life in my quiet little apartment, and I've always found it peaceful. But not now. Now I would give anything to hear her sweet voice tell me she is fine.

I rush to the last place I saw her. She is probably still sleeping  safe in my bed and didn't hear me scream her name. Maybe she is just a heavy sleeper... but somehow I don't think that is the case.

My feet skid to a stop as I slip on a dark puddle by my bedroom doorway. I see my broken lamp sitting in the goo.

My breath catches in my throat and my heart stops. In fact, my whole body is frozen. I can't even think. 

My brain starts to catch up to what my eyes are telling me. I carefully kneel down and touch the red, sticky substance. My heart is still trying desperately to refuse the fact that this is blood. The coppery  smell stings my nostrils. The urge to vomit overwhelms me. I empty my stomach in the hallway.

My only rational thought is I can't lose her. Not now.

I pull my cell out and dial the station.

"Davis," answers a brisk voice on the other end.

"Mike, it's Charley. Someone took Hannah. There is blood all over my apartment. I can't find her anywhere," I babble in a rush of panic.

"Calm down, man. We'll be right there!" Davis reassures me.

"I'll keep everything the way it is now, but I have to go after Hannah. I have a feeling whoever took her wanted to take her back to Echo Ridge," I say just before I hang up. 

I double check I have my weapon and race out to my car. In record time I'm pulling out of the parking lot.

Thunder and lighting are coming right on top of each other. The rain pelts my car, making it hard to see out my windshield, even with the wipers on high. The road is slick and my traction isn't the best. I really need to get new tires soon. Funny what passes through my brain when I am trying to to have a panic attack.

The wind pushes my car off the road. The weather never acts like this. It feels like it is purposefully keeping me away from Hannah. Can a natural wind do that? Or would that make it super natural? And if it was supernatural, why would it be doing this?

It doesn't matter. Even if I have to walk the whole way there, I'm going to get her back. I  told her I would keep her safe, and she believed me. Now I have to make it right, because for whatever reason she was taken, I had not kept my promise to her. Now I have to make it up to her.

I have an idea who might have taken her and even why. Hopefully I'm right about the where because the rest doesn't matter if I can't get to where she is. I hope she can  forgive me for not being there with her when she needed me the most. 

I'm still not sure how anyone found her. Unless they followed us this morning. Not that I was  expecting to be followed. I should have been paying more attention. But I guess it doesn't matter thinking about "what ifs," when there is a way to change the present.

With determination in my soul, I slam my foot on the gas and hydroplane down the street.

Nothing is going to keep her from me.