BOOK ONE
One
Buffalo, New York, Trailside Grove
The horror that was coming for Greg, Jennifer, and Jake Griffin could not have happened to another family.
Yet, like other families, they were living everyday lives in an everyday suburb.
It could’ve been greater Boston, Chicago, or Toronto—any metropolis with freeways webbing from crowning skylines, stretching to new communities where farm fields had been churned to yield a crop of template neighborhoods. All of them served with the same assortment of Walmarts, McDonald’s, Home Depots, and other big box outlets.
It could’ve been Calgary, Denver, or Detroit.
Any big city with planned subdivisions, schools, playgrounds, parks, man-made lakes and protected forests. Neighborhoods of curving streets with names like Spring Breeze Way, Sunshine Rise, or Blue Willow Crescent. They were the kinds of places where kids pedaled their bikes, or skateboarded around the block, or played basketball or road hockey; where gardens were tended with love, where SUVs were washed in driveways. They were places where the houses had double garages, pools, decks and patios, big kitchens; home offices, en suite bathrooms, and fireplaces. They were the kinds of places where people pursued their dreams while trying to hang on to reality.
But behind the closed doors of their home, the Griffins held secrets, kept them unseen, buried below the surface, so that on the night the horror began, no one—not Greg, Jake, or Jennifer—knew what was coming for them.
There was no shriek, no immediate alarm, because it came upon them silently, the way an anaconda captures its prey, slowly coiling around it, squeezing until escape is impossible.
* * *
The Griffins lived in the Buffalo-Niagara region of New York, in Trailside Grove, a newish and serene neighborhood not found on any map.
On that night, everything started to unravel sometime after nine, when Greg wheeled his Ford F-150 into his driveway. After shutting it off, he sat there in the late spring twilight, the engine ticking down, dragging his hands over his whiskered face and reflecting on the evening’s events.
What have I done? I should’ve put a stop to it.
Exhausted, yet his mind raced.
Did I let it go too far? No, relax. It’ll be all right.
Taking a breath, he pressed the button on the remote opener. His double-garage door came to life, rising before him. The interior automatically illuminated.
Jenn’s Corolla was gone.
She’s at book club tonight. That’s why she’s not home.
Grunting, he climbed out of his truck and entered through the garage, smelling the usual mix of rubber, engine fluids, and fresh-cut wood, looking at items neatly placed there: the snowblower, the lawn mower, the ladder, Jake’s hockey sticks, Jake’s bike, Jenn’s bike, her gardening stuff, his tools, workbench, table saw, and the recycle bins.
Stepping up to the interior door, he hit the wall switch and the garage door rumbled closed.
Greg entered his home with a sense of accomplishment because he’d built it. Well, he and his crew had built it, several years ago. They were among the contractors framing houses when Trailside Grove was in its infancy.
Where All Your Dreams Come True, the developer’s billboard had said, the banner arching like a rainbow over an artist’s concept of a world of new homes and blissful families.
For Greg and Jenn, this was their dream home.
“Our forever home,” Jenn had called it.
There were still things Greg would change—a contour here, window size there, maybe the placement of a door. All right, it was well-constructed. But bottom line: he was damned proud of this house. It took a lot of their hard-earned savings, the little money they’d inherited, and a lot of sweat, but he and Jenn had done it.
Our forever home.
The strong scent of laundry soap greeted him as he moved by the washer and dryer through the laundry room. He walked into the living room, softly lit by the lamp Jenn had left on. He’d also leave it on because she wouldn’t be home for well over an hour.
That’s how it was on her book club nights.
He made his way to the kitchen. It was spotless. The counters gleamed in the dimmed cabinet lighting, and Greg welcomed the tranquility.
He opened the ceramic jar with the peanut butter cookies Jenn had made then went to the fridge for milk. Crunching on a cookie, he read notes written in her neat script on the calendar pinned to the wall next to the fridge door.
Jake was at Carter’s tonight for a sleepover.
Right. Jenn had told him about that yesterday. Jake had a dental appointment coming up. Greg shook his head, recalling Jenn’s warning: “He may need braces.”
A big expense when things are getting tight.
Taking another cookie, Greg saw that Jenn had school meetings, a yoga class, then some kind of seminar-conference thing in Tonawanda with the optometrist she worked for.
Finishing another cookie—man they’re so good—he drank milk directly from the bottle, something Jenn forbade. But she wasn’t home, so...
Greg grabbed more cookies and, milk bottle in hand, went down the hall to his office. Standing at his desk, he looked over his copies of the drawings, to familiarize himself with the next stage of the job tomorrow at Phase 2 of Pine Castle Park.
Then he glanced at the printout of Kyle’s email. He was continually urging him to move to Phoenix. “The building biz is booming in AZ, bro.” The notion of steady work and no snow was appealing to the point that Greg and Jenn had considered moving there. But they weren’t sure because Buffalo was their home.
Greg glanced at the other letters and printed emails officially informing him of the contracts his company had bid for and lost out on. Sure, the region’s economy had taken some knocks over the years, but with that never-say-die attitude of Western New Yorkers, Greg believed things would improve. Still, missing out on contracts deepened his fear that if things didn’t pick up for his crew soon, they’d be in real trouble.
His phone vibrated. There was no name displayed, but he knew the number and read the text.
Think about it Greg. We’d be great together.
He didn’t respond.
He didn’t move, still looking at the photo of Jenn with Jake on his desk. They’d known each other since high school. They’d built a good life together, shared so much. She was so beautiful, so loving, but lately, little by little, she’d become distant and he didn’t know why. He closed his eyes. He was too tired to think about anything. He had to get up early to get to the job site. He left the text unanswered, turned off his phone, then connected it to the charging cable in the kitchen.
Wearily, Greg hauled himself upstairs.