Chapter 2: A Lock of Hair

Chapter 2: A Lock of Hair

Sleep offered no escape. Trey’s dreams were a chaotic slideshow of an empty morgue drawer, a heavy stone box slick with condensation, and Neil’s unnervingly placid smile. He woke on the lumpy sofa to the infuriating, rhythmic plink... plink... plink of water striking concrete. A sound of relentless decay.

He needed to fix something. The idea was a lifeline in a sea of encroaching madness. The missing body, the hidden box—those were puzzles without edges. A leaking pipe, however, was a problem with a solution. It was real. It was something his hands understood.

The sound led him to the basement door. He pulled it open, and a wave of cold, musty air washed over him, smelling of damp earth, mildew, and forgotten sorrows. He flicked a switch, and a single, naked bulb cast long, dancing shadows across the crumbling stone walls. This was his father’s domain, a place of secret drinking and simmering rage.

He found the source easily enough: a rusted pressure valve on the main water line, weeping a steady trail of rust-colored tears down the copper pipe. A simple fix. A half-hour job, if he had the part. And that was the problem. He didn't. His city apartment had a full toolbox; this house had only ghosts.

There was only one place in Harrow Creek to get a part like that.

The thought made his stomach clench. Smith's Hardware.

He tried to push the thought away, to think of another solution. But there was none. The nearest town with a proper plumbing supply was an hour away, and leaving Neil alone for that long felt wrong. Besides, the desire to conquer this small, tangible problem had taken root. Fixing the pipe felt like pushing back against the rot, if only by an inch.

“I need to run to the hardware store,” he called out to Neil, who was sitting at the kitchen table, idly tracing patterns on the dusty surface. “Be back in twenty.”

Neil looked up, his expression unchanging. “Okay, Trey.” He didn't ask what for. He didn't seem to care.

The drive into the town’s sorry excuse for a center was a tour of neglect. The handful of storefronts lining Main Street were a testament to failure—a diner with soap-whitened windows, a dress shop with a single, sun-bleached mannequin, and at the very end, Smith’s Hardware. The faded red paint on its sign was peeling to reveal the grey wood beneath, like skin flaking from old bone.

He parked his truck and stared at the entrance. This was where it had happened. Not inside, but on the sidewalk right out front. His father, drunk and roaring, had confronted a teenage Neil. Trey could still see it, burned into his memory: the argument escalating, the shove, Neil’s head cracking against the concrete curb with a sound that had echoed in Trey’s ears for years. The sound that had finally given him the desperate courage to run. And now he was walking back into the heart of that memory.

A small bell chimed as he pushed the door open. The air inside was thick with the smells of metal, oil, and sawdust, layered over a century of dust. Shelves overflowed with a chaotic jumble of tools, boxes of nails, and coils of wire. It was a dragon’s hoard of the mundane.

From the gloom at the back of the store, a figure emerged. Mr. Smith was as ancient as his inventory, a stooped man with skin like wrinkled parchment and cloudy eyes that seemed to look right through you.

“Help you, son?” he rasped, his voice dry as autumn leaves.

“Looking for a pressure valve,” Trey said, keeping his voice even. “For an old copper pipe system. Three-quarter inch.”

Mr. Smith squinted, his head tilting. “Blackburn. Knew it the second you walked in. You got your father’s shoulders.” He wiped a hand on his dusty apron. “Shame about Jason. A bigger shame about what’s happened since.”

Trey’s jaw tightened. Of course, the whole town knew. In Harrow Creek, secrets and gossip were the only thriving currency. “You hear things fast.”

“Nothing else to do in a town like this but listen,” Smith said, his gaze unnervingly sharp. He shuffled towards a towering set of wooden drawers. “Funny thing, memory. I remember you boys. Remember that day right out front. Your father... he was in a state. Screaming his head off. Your brother, poor Neil, always was a fragile thing.”

Every word was a small, precise stab, reopening the wound. Trey didn't want to talk about this. He just wanted the goddamn valve. “Do you have the part or not?”

Smith’s hand paused over a drawer. “I might. Parts for these old houses... they’re getting rare. Like honest men.” He pulled a long, narrow drawer open with a screech. After a moment of rummaging, he produced a small, heavy piece of brass, gleaming dully in the dim light. “Ah. Here we are. Last one.”

Trey reached for his wallet. “How much?”

Mr. Smith held up a hand, a slow, deliberate motion. “Can’t sell it.”

Trey froze. “What?”

“Not for money, anyway,” Smith clarified, his cloudy eyes fixing on Trey. A strange, knowing look entered them, a flicker of something ancient and hungry. “Parts like this, things a man needs... they have a different kind of value. A barter system is more appropriate, don't you think?”

A cold knot of dread formed in Trey’s stomach. This wasn't a transaction anymore. It felt like something else entirely. “What do you want?”

The old man’s lips stretched into a smile that didn't touch his eyes, revealing yellowed teeth. “Nothing much. A keepsake. For an old man’s collection.” He gestured with a crooked finger. “A token of the bloodline that built this town. Just a lock of hair.”

Trey stared at him, speechless. The request was so bizarre, so intimate, it sent a jolt of pure revulsion through him. It was a violation. His mind screamed at him to walk out, to drive away and never look back. But the image of the weeping pipe flashed in his mind—the rot, the decay, the one small thing he could actually fix. He thought of Neil, alone in that house, waiting. Leaving meant failure. It meant letting the house, and everything it represented, win.

He was trapped. The old man knew it.

With a grim, resentful sigh, Trey nodded. “Fine.”

Mr. Smith’s smile widened. He reached under the counter and produced a pair of long, sharp-looking scissors, the kind used for cutting fabric. They glinted coldly. He beckoned Trey closer, his movements having the slow, deliberate gravity of a ritual.

Trey leaned forward, his shoulders tense, every muscle coiled to spring away. He felt the cold steel press against his scalp, heard the soft, dry snip as the blades sliced through his dark hair. A piece of him was severed.

Smith held the lock of hair between his thumb and forefinger, examining it in the dusty light as if it were a rare jewel. Then, with a satisfied hum, he carefully placed it into a small, velvet-lined box he pulled from his pocket. He pushed the brass valve across the counter.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Blackburn.”

Trey snatched the valve, the metal cold and heavy in his palm. He didn’t say a word. He turned and walked out of the store, the bell chiming his retreat. Back in the cab of his truck, he stared at the part in his hand. He had what he came for, but he felt a profound sense of loss. He had come to town for a piece of brass, and in return, he had left a piece of himself behind. And as he drove away, he couldn't shake the chilling certainty that the old man wasn't just collecting keepsakes. He was collecting ingredients.