Chapter 2: A Missing Girl and a Strawberry Lie

Three days had passed since the woods, and James felt like he was slowly losing his mind.

He'd tried everything—convincing himself it was a bad trip, that the weed had been laced with something hallucinogenic. He'd even gone so far as to research spider species native to Appalachia, desperately hoping to find some explanation for what they'd witnessed. But no amount of rational thinking could erase the memory of that wet, pulsing thing tearing itself from the Ice Cream Man's back.

Kenny, on the other hand, had become obsessed.

"You saw it too," he kept saying, cornering James at lunch, following him home from school, calling him at all hours. "We both saw the same thing. That means it was real."

"Just because we both saw it doesn't make it real," James had argued, but his voice lacked conviction. The truth was, he could still hear those clicking legs in his dreams, still see the way the creature had moved with such horrible purpose.

The worst part was how normal everything else seemed. Their grandmother made breakfast every morning, humming old hymns while she flipped pancakes. Their parents called to check in, complaining about work and weather with the same boring consistency they always had. The town continued its sleepy existence, utterly unchanged by what had happened in the woods.

It was like the world was conspiring to make them feel crazy.

Then Jenny Hall went missing.

The news broke on Wednesday morning, spreading through their small high school like wildfire. Jenny was a sophomore, quiet and bookish, the kind of girl who kept to herself and probably had never skipped a class in her life. She'd last been seen on Monday afternoon, walking home from the library with a stack of books tucked under her arm.

James was sitting in third-period history when the principal's voice crackled over the intercom, asking everyone to keep Jenny in their thoughts and prayers. Around him, his classmates whispered and speculated, but all James could think about was the date.

Monday. The same day as their birthday party. The same day they'd seen the Ice Cream Man in the woods.

When he found Kenny after class, his cousin's face was grim.

"You're thinking the same thing I am," Kenny said without preamble.

"It's a coincidence," James replied automatically, but the words felt hollow. "People go missing all the time."

"Not here they don't. Not girls like Jenny Hall." Kenny pulled him aside, away from the flow of students heading to lunch. "When's the last time someone just vanished from this town? And don't say Tommy Morrison—everyone knows he ran off to Nashville to be a country star."

James couldn't argue with that. Their town was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone else's business, where a teenager couldn't so much as get a piercing without word getting back to their parents within hours. Jenny Hall disappearing without a trace was unprecedented.

"So what are you suggesting?" James asked, though he dreaded the answer.

"I'm suggesting we find that ice cream truck."

The plan was simple in the way that all of Kenny's plans were simple—straightforward, dangerous, and completely insane. They would stake out the town's main streets, looking for the Ice Cream Man. If they found him, they would follow at a distance, gathering evidence of whatever he was actually doing.

"Evidence for who?" James had asked. "The police? What are we going to tell them—that we saw a giant spider crawl out of the ice cream guy's back?"

"We'll figure that out when we have proof," Kenny had replied with the confidence of someone who'd never thought more than five minutes ahead in his life.

Against his better judgment, James found himself agreeing to the plan. Maybe it was guilt over Jenny Hall, or maybe it was just the need to do something—anything—other than sit around wondering if he was losing his mind. Either way, Thursday afternoon found them crouched behind a dumpster outside Mel's Diner, waiting for the familiar sound of that cursed jingle.

They didn't have to wait long.

The melody drifted down Main Street at exactly 3:30, just as kids were getting out of school. James felt his stomach clench at the sound, his body remembering the fear even as his mind tried to rationalize it away.

The ice cream truck rounded the corner in all its cheerful, horrible glory—pristine white paint job gleaming in the afternoon sun, colorful decals of smiling cartoon characters dancing along its sides. It looked exactly like every other ice cream truck James had ever seen, which somehow made it worse.

The Ice Cream Man sat behind the wheel, his face visible through the driver's side window. From this distance, he looked completely normal—middle-aged, clean-shaven, wearing that same spotless white uniform. If James hadn't seen what he'd seen in the woods, he might have thought the man looked friendly.

The truck pulled to a stop in front of the elementary school, and within minutes it was surrounded by a crowd of children, their voices high and excited as they clamored for treats. The Ice Cream Man served them with mechanical efficiency, his smile never wavering, his movements precise and measured.

"He looks normal," James whispered, fighting the urge to run. Being this close to the truck made his skin crawl, even with the distance and the dumpster between them.

"That's what makes him dangerous," Kenny replied, his eyes never leaving the scene. "Perfect camouflage."

They watched for nearly an hour as the Ice Cream Man worked his way through the usual stops—the school, the park, the shopping center. Everything seemed routine, mundane even. Kids bought ice cream, parents exchanged pleasantries, life continued its normal rhythm.

James was beginning to think they were wasting their time when something changed.

A girl approached the truck alone—maybe thirteen or fourteen, with long brown hair and the kind of shy demeanor that reminded James uncomfortably of Jenny Hall. She stood apart from the other children, waiting until the crowd had dispersed before stepping forward.

"Can you hear what they're saying?" Kenny whispered.

James strained his ears, catching fragments of conversation carried on the breeze. The girl was asking about flavors, her voice barely audible. The Ice Cream Man leaned out of his window, speaking in a low, conspiratorial tone that immediately set James on edge.

"...special flavor," the man was saying. "Strawberry cream. Very rare, very special. But..."

The rest was lost to distance, but James could see the girl's posture change. She was leaning closer now, hanging on every word.

"...only for special girls," the Ice Cream Man continued, his voice carrying just far enough for them to catch pieces. "There's a place... edge of the woods... old treehouse..."

James felt ice form in his stomach. He grabbed Kenny's arm, but his cousin was already tense, leaning forward like a hunting dog catching a scent.

"Did you hear that?" Kenny hissed. "He's setting up a meeting."

The conversation continued for another few minutes, the Ice Cream Man speaking in that same low, hypnotic tone while the girl nodded eagerly. Finally, he handed her a regular ice cream cone—vanilla, nothing special—and she walked away with a dreamy expression on her face.

As soon as she was gone, the Ice Cream Man's demeanor changed. The friendly smile disappeared, replaced by something cold and calculating. He sat motionless behind the wheel for a long moment, his head tilted at that same unnatural angle James remembered from the woods.

Then he drove away, the cheerful jingle fading into the distance.

"We have to follow her," Kenny said, already standing.

"What? No!" James grabbed his cousin's arm, pulling him back down. "We have to call the police, or her parents, or—"

"And tell them what? That the ice cream man invited her to see a treehouse?" Kenny shook his head. "They'll think we're crazy. We need proof."

"We need to stay out of it," James shot back, but even as he said it, he knew it was too late. The girl—Janine, he realized, recognizing her now as one of the kids from the next town over—was walking away with that same vacant expression he'd seen on the faces of everyone who bought ice cream from that truck.

"He's going to do to her what he did to Jenny," Kenny said quietly. "And we're the only ones who know about it."

James wanted to argue, wanted to find some other explanation, but the words wouldn't come. Deep down, he knew Kenny was right. Whatever had happened to Jenny Hall was going to happen to Janine unless they did something to stop it.

"The treehouse," James said finally. "He mentioned the edge of the woods. There's only one place that could be."

Kenny nodded grimly. "Miller's old fort. Up on the ridge."

They both knew the spot—a ramshackle structure built by some long-gone teenager, half-hidden in a grove of pine trees where the forest met the abandoned Hartley farm. It was isolated, accessible only by an overgrown trail that most people had forgotten existed.

Perfect for someone who didn't want to be disturbed.

"We have to get there first," Kenny said. "Set up somewhere we can watch, maybe get video evidence."

"This is insane," James muttered, but he was already thinking through the logistics. "When did he tell her to meet him?"

"After dark. I heard him say something about when the moon comes up."

James checked his watch. It was almost five o'clock. They had maybe four hours to prepare, to figure out what they were going to do when they got there. Four hours to decide whether they were brave enough to actually go through with this.

As they walked home, James couldn't shake the feeling that they were crossing a line they'd never be able to uncross. Three days ago, they'd been normal teenagers smoking weed in the woods. Now they were planning to spy on what might be a kidnapping, armed with nothing but a cell phone camera and Kenny's reckless courage.

But the alternative—doing nothing while another girl disappeared—was unthinkable.

"We're going to need flashlights," Kenny was saying, already making plans. "And something to defend ourselves with, just in case."

James nodded, only half-listening. He was thinking about Jenny Hall, about her quiet smile and the stack of library books she'd been carrying when she vanished. He was thinking about Janine's dreamy expression as she walked away from the ice cream truck.

Most of all, he was thinking about that wet, pulsing thing he'd seen tear itself from the Ice Cream Man's back, and wondering what it was doing out there in the darkness, waiting.