The vanishing at opal cr.., p.1
The Vanishing at Opal Creek, page 1
THE VANISHING AT OPAL CREEK
A THOMAS AUSTIN CRIME THRILLER
BOOK 10
D.D. BLACK
CONTENTS
I. Mere Mortals
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
II. Blood Trail
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
III. The Unseen Hand
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
A Note From the Author
More D.D. Black Novels
About D.D. Black
A Note on Setting and Characters
While many locations in this book are true to life, some details of the settings have been changed. Only one character in these pages exists in the real world: Thomas Austin’s corgi, Run. Her personality mirrors that of my own corgi, Pearl. Any other resemblances between characters in this book and actual people is purely coincidental.
But what about the unlikable author, David Dierdrick Zwart, and his cruel wife, Eve? How much of them are based on you and your wife, who writes under the name Eva Blue?
To be honest, not much. I had a lot of fun creating unflattering alter egos for us, and there are perhaps one or two small details taken from our real lives.
But you’ll have to guess which ones.
Thanks for reading,
D.D. Black
“Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
- Oscar Wilde
“In Hollywood, the illusion is everything.
Reality is nothing.”
- Rex Reed
PART 1
MERE MORTALS
CHAPTER ONE
Opal Creek Wilderness Area
Marion County, Oregon
“Bet, Bigfoot would literally flex, bro.” Grayson continued swinging the branch he’d snapped off a Scouler’s willow near the trailhead. “Sasquatch would dropkick Spiderman across Oregon while shoving a pine tree up Superman’s—”
“Shhhhh!” Chloe had heard enough. “You’re going to scare away the birds.”
“I don’t think he’s here for birds,” Henry whispered.
“Facts,” Grayson agreed.
Grayson used the branch to lift a rogue blackberry runner off the trail, allowing Chloe to pass safely.
Chloe nodded. “Thanks.” She turned to walk backwards as she passed the thorns, directing her attention to Henry. “I hope I’m not the only one who knows we’re not actually going to find Bigfoot out here.”
Grayson let the runner swing loose at Henry, who jumped, successfully dodging its massive thorns.
“Boom!” Henry said, much too loudly for the quiet forest atmosphere.
“G.O.A.T. skills, bro,” Grayson said. “You totally yeeted that.”
Chloe rolled her eyes and let the boys pass as she scanned the massive forest surrounding them. “I’d be stoked if we see a Blue Rock Thrush or Blackpoll Warbler, though.”
Henry shrugged.
Chloe knew Henry had little interest in birds, and she didn’t think he really believed they’d find Sasquatch. He was probably just happy to not be trapped behind a high school desk for the day.
Grayson, however, was a true believer—both in Sasquatch and in its powers. He spent time on the message boards, listened to all the conspiracy podcasts, and had even gone to a Sasquatch conference in Portland with his dad.
The three of them had made it through the first three days of school, but via a series of texts exchanged late into the previous night, they’d all agreed that they needed an extra day off. Today, they were taking it.
In their small town of Mill City, there was nowhere to hide but the woods. They’d been out on the trails for an hour so far, mostly following Grayson’s intuition about where they might find Bigfoot. Henry had stolen weed from his dad and he and Grayson wanted to smoke it on the trail, but Chloe wouldn’t let them. She didn’t like the smell and didn’t want to spend all day convincing them they weren’t lost when the paranoia set in.
Most importantly, though, that stuff would scare away the birds. And the birds were why she was really here. The Opal Creek Wilderness Area was home to some of the rarest warblers and thrushes in the region, not to mention the Peregrine Falcons that nested along the rocky cliffs. The old-growth forest, with its towering Douglas firs and centuries-old cedars, created the perfect canopy for dozens of species. The thought of missing even one glimpse of a Blue Rock Thrush or a Townsend’s Warbler because her two loser friends wanted to get high made her stomach turn.
She scanned the trees, sighing as Henry and Grayson talked loudly about some movie they’d seen last weekend. She should have known the nice, quiet walk she’d been promised—while certainly nice—was not likely to be quiet. The boy’s voices traveled further than their smoke would have.
She wouldn’t see much avian activity today. Not while hanging out with these two.
“You know what I’d like to find?” Henry asked. It was a rhetorical question. “Where they plan to shoot that reality show, Alone in the Forest. I love that show. They eat bugs, use leaves for pillows, everything. I heard they’re supposed to start filming somewhere in Opal Creek next week.”
“Nah bro, they already started filming,” Grayson corrected. “My dad saw some of their crew in town just yesterday. But anyway, Bigfoot would crush any superhero in a one-v-one matchup.” He couldn’t let go of his previous train of thought.
Chloe rolled her eyes. These boys were basically just talking to themselves.
Grayson swiped a thick patch of dirty blond hair out of his eyes, then yammered on. “Think about it! Bigfoot’s got this insane strength, right? Like, he’s been living in the wilderness for hundreds of years, lifting trees and boulders. Built like a tank. Plus, he’s got crazy stealth skills—he’s been hiding from humans forever, so obviously he can sneak up on anyone. ‘All warfare is based on deception.’” He’d changed his voice to an authoritative drone. “Thus said Sun Shoe or whatever.”
Chloe thought it was Sun Tzu, but even she wasn’t sure.
Grayson continued swatting the pussy willow branch about as he continued. “What’s Spiderman gonna do, throw a web? And Superman? Bigfoot would totally use his environment to his advantage, like drag him by the cape into the thick forest where he can’t fly fast or do any of his laser-eye stuff without burning everything down. I mean, maybe I’m underestimating the powers of spidey sense.” He paused briefly. “Naw, bet. Bigfoot’s gotta have some kind of mystical powers, right? Like, how else has he stayed hidden for so long?”
Chloe stifled a laugh. There were three things Grayson took seriously: sports, video games, and theoretical battles between fictional characters from contrasting paradigms. The juvenile subject matter was in humorous contrast to the deep masculine voice he’d grown into.
“That’s Dead Man’s Fork,” Henry said, stopping mid-trail and pointing to a split in the woods ten yards ahead.
“Why do they call it that?” Chloe asked.
Henry frowned. “You don’t know the story of Old Man Misery?”
Grayson and Henry stood shoulder to shoulder, both towering about a foot above Chloe. However slight, and even though she was only a freshman, she wasn’t intimidated by the boys. They were juniors, but that didn’t make them wiser.
In fact, they were definitely not wiser.
Besides, they knew they had no chance with her. She’d made it clear that she wouldn’t be dating anyone until after she went away to college, although she had secretly considered making an exception for Henry. But he’d ruined that when he’d gone and asked Jenny to homecoming. Chloe didn’t know what Henry saw in Jenny. She wouldn’t last a hot minute on a show like Alone in the Forest. The thick layer of perfume she used would either scare away her dinner or attract bees. She’d starve or be stung to death. “Who’s Old Man Misery ?” she asked.
A cool breeze picked up, carrying the scent of damp pine and moss. Her question hung in the air as Henry made an exaggerated shocked face he’d probably learned watching Youtube. The Opal Creek Wilderness spread out around them, towering trees casting long shadows and the sound of the creek echoing through the stillness.
“Old Man Misery was once the richest person in town,” Henry began. “Started out owning the general store back when the timber industry was taking off. The kind of guy people would step aside
“So what did he do?” Chloe asked.
“Killed himself,” Grayson interjected.
Chloe shook her head.
“I guess he totally lost it when his wife left him.” Henry shook his head, pointing as though Old Man Misery’s body still lay across the fork in the trail. “Took his own life right here.”
“One theory I read online,” Grayson said, “is that’s why Bigfoot hangs out here. In addition to being a total badass, Bigfoot is a sensitive soul. Never got over seeing the suicide is my guess.”
“From here,” Henry said, “the trail splits into two paths for less than a quarter mile, then comes back together. There’s a nice view of Crystal Falls at the spot where they meet up again.”
Grayson grew serious. “I know you two don’t really believe. But humor me on this. A guy I’m on message boards with said he spotted something a week ago while flying his drone over this patch.” Grayson gestured at the expansive forest area surrounded by the split and merge trail. “Get your walkie-talkies on,” he continued. “Chloe, you head to the left. Henry and I will head to the right, which has a better view. Chloe, your job is just to make sure he doesn’t escape to the left. If you see anything, ping us on the walkie-talkies.”
Both boys pulled out their phones and began recording.
Chloe rolled her eyes again, but didn’t say anything. Instead, happy to be away from the guys for a moment to listen for her birds, she began strolling down the trail to the left.
The wind picked up, and Chloe shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans, fingering a piece of lint that always seemed to end up in the same spot no matter how many times she took it out.
The jeans had been her mother’s. After dying of cancer four years ago, she’d left Chloe these jeans, a drunk stepfather, and little else. Chloe’s stepfather was the main reason she spent as much time as she could listening for warblers and thrushes in the forest.
She heard something to the right—maybe a branch snapping. Glancing toward the sound, she saw nothing. It was probably the boys messing around on the twin trail, which she couldn’t see but guessed wasn’t more than fifty yards through the woods. She imagined it mirroring the trail she was on, widening in the center before coming back together, the view from above outlining the shape of an eye.
Walking further, Chloe’s trail began veering to the right again, heading for the connection point. The distant white noise of rushing water filled the soundscape and Chloe felt the air becoming slightly damper.
After taking a few more steps, she looked up, finally able to catch a partial view of the waterfall cascading down from the moss-covered cliffside, its stream slicing through jagged rocks before pooling into the lush greenery below. Towering pines framed Crystal Falls, their trunks dark against the vibrant mosses and ferns that hung clinging to the rocks. The water fell in a delicate ribbon, mist catching the faint light that filtered through the trees.
Then she saw something else—a dark form moving laterally toward the water along the crown of the waterfall. Its movement told her right away that it wasn’t a deer and it wasn’t a bear.
It was a person—a man judging by his size and gait—dressed all in black.
He walked precariously on the cliff, not more than a yard from the waterfall. Maybe he was a producer scoping out the area for the reality show. Or maybe a cast member if Grayson was right that filming on Alone in the Forest had already begun.
But why was he getting so close to the edge? In these parts, a still surface with even the least bit of moisture will grow moss. Those rocks would be very slippery.
She jogged a few paces towards the waterfall, thinking she might warn the outsider of the danger. But she was still a couple hundred yards away from him, and, when she looked up again, she saw the dark form disappearing behind a patch of bushes that bordered the cliff.
She stopped, stared. Ten seconds passed, then twenty. What was he doing?
Embarrassed, it occurred to her that he might just have stepped behind the bushes to relieve himself. Then, as quickly as the thought had formed, the man stumbled out into view toward the cliff’s edge.
His foot struck something, a rock or root perhaps. She couldn’t see for certain. Waving his arms wildly for balance, he fell, slipping forward feet first and disappearing below the tree line.
Chloe gasped, momentarily frozen. “Oh no,” she whispered.
She began running down the path. She hadn’t heard him strike the rocks below because of the sound of the waterfall itself, but she didn’t need to hear it to know the truth: that fall would have killed him.
What the heck had he been doing up there in the first place?
As she approached the spot where the trails met back up, she heard a shout.
It was Grayson. “Hurry!” he was yelling. “Chloe, hurry! Get your phone out! I think he ran to the left!”
Chloe reached for her phone instinctively, then realized Grayson wasn’t talking about the man who’d just fallen from the cliff. He was still talking about Sasquatch. Chloe skidded to a stop and looked to the left. Ahead of her, she definitely saw something—but it wasn’t Bigfoot.
It was a medium-sized black bear.
Chloe knew the right thing to do: stay calm, make herself look big, and back away slowly without turning her back to the bear. Thankfully, it was already heading away from her, but she kept her distance and made sure to give the animal plenty of space.
The boys caught up with her a moment later, panting with excitement.
“It was a black bear, you idiots,” she said. She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself. “Didn’t you see the guy up there?” She turned and pointed, but from their current vantage point, the trees blocked all but the very top of the waterfall.
“What are you talking about?” Grayson asked.
“There was a guy up there,” Chloe said, pointing. “Right there. Through the trees. Top of Crystal Falls. He fell, or slipped, or jumped, or something.”
“Jumped?” Henry asked. “There’s no pool at the bottom, that guy would have…”
“Not jumped, but…” Chloe was interrupted.
“A second suicide?” Grayson shook his head. “Sasquatch is going to need counseling.”
“This isn’t funny,” Chloe said. “I couldn’t see really. He came out from behind a bush, and… what the heck was he doing up there? We need to go check it out.”
What she didn’t say was the thought, the fear, that had lodged somewhere in her toes: That the man had possibly been pushed out from behind the bushes. She didn’t say it because it was paranoia, irrational fear. But her homelife had given her plenty to be afraid of.
In the far distance, they heard sirens, faint at first but growing louder.
A wave of fear passed over Henry’s face. “I can’t get caught here, skipping school and with weed.”
Chloe frowned. Henry was right. Her stepdad was cruel on his good days, violent on his worst. If she got caught skipping school with two older boys… she couldn’t even imagine what he’d say, what he’d do.
The black bear was still between them and what she presumed was the man’s body. She heard a humming sound and looked up to see a drone overhead, probably part of the crazy reality show production that was going on.
The sirens were getting louder.
