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Read an Excerpt From Darker Days by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
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Read an Excerpt From Darker Days by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Sometimes you think you can see things behind the fence. Bad things. So it’s better not to look…
By Thomas Olde Heuvelt
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Published on October 9, 2025
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We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Darker Days, a new horror novel by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, out from Harper on October 28.
In Lock Haven, a quiet little town in Washington State, Bird Street is a special place. The residents of this pretty cul-de-sac on the edge of the woods are all successful, healthy, and happy. Their children are prodigies; well-mannered and… unnaturally smart.But come November, the “Darker Days” descend, bringing accidents, bad luck, conflict, and illness. Luana and Ralph Lewis-da Silva prepare for this, and so do their children Kaila and Django. It is in November when a stranger appears to collect on a longstanding debt. A price must be paid for the good fortune they enjoy the rest of the year. A sacrifice must be made.So it has been for over a century. To assuage their guilt, the residents of Bird Street choose carefully who will be sent into the woods. Usually, it is an elderly or terminally ill individual who wishes to die with dignity and is content to be helped on their way.But this year, things don’t go to plan, and events take a terrifying turn…
RALPH
The Sick Woman. The Good Samaritans of Bird Street. There’s No Place Like Home.
3 NOVEMBER
The woman looked like she wanted to die. She looked like she was going to die anyway, even if they didn’t help her this afternoon. But here she was, in the hands of the Bird Street neighbours, as they took her into the woods.
Her name was Ann Olsen Dickinson and the most important thing, according to Ralph Lewis, was that she seemed at peace. There had been plenty of conversations between Ralph, his neighbour Elizabeth Aikman and Mrs Olsen Dickinson over the past few weeks, but Ralph knew that most people’s true motivations wouldn’t be apparent until the final hour. Sometimes they felt they were a burden to their families. Especially the elderly and chronically ill. If their eyes revealed anything but self-determination, Ralph would deem the operation ethically flawed and call the whole thing off. Last-minute if he had to. He was a judge for the King County Superior Court in Seattle, but you didn’t have to be a judge to see it. You had to be human.
Ann Olsen Dickinson’s case was clear as day: she was ready. The proof was not just in the ravages of her devastating disease – the white fuzz on her scalp, her scrawny claw-like hands or her shrivelled, sunken face, submerged in her woollen scarf like a deflated moon. As they carried her palanquin between the larches in the pouring rain, Mrs Olsen Dickinson was in a state of bliss.
She couldn’t stop talking. ‘Oh, would you look at that,’ she said, her voice a crow’s. ‘All those lights. And music! Did you do all this for me?’
Elizabeth smiled from beneath her dripping yellow hood. ‘Of course, Ann. Everything has to be absolutely perfect. We wouldn’t settle for anything less.’
‘It’s wonderful.’ Ann took a wheezing breath which erupted into coughing. Elizabeth put a hand on her back, waiting for the fit to subside, then poured hot tea into a thermos cap and handed it to her. The sick woman brought it to her mouth and managed to slurp some of it down. ‘You’re an angel,’ she rasped. ‘You’re good Samaritans, all of you.’
Ralph’s scalp itched, a juncture of nerves sending vibrations of unease through his body. Yes, everything had to be perfect. Elizabeth hadn’t lied about that. They wanted to offer those they took into the woods a final flash of transcendence.
This part of Snoqualmie National Forest – the reserve bordering Lock Haven, Washington, which was surrounded by a tall, overgrown chain-link fence and property of the McKinley clan – spanned miles of the western Cascade Mountains. There was only a single trail in, known locally as the South Sunday Trail. It started on the far side of the McKinley estate, behind a rusty iron gate in the wall that was locked year-round. Last week, Graham McKinley Jr and his brother Maurice (‘Ugh, such dicks’, was Luana’s usual reaction to hearing their names, and Ralph fully agreed with his wife) had unwound giant reels of power cable from the generator shed at the gate, hiding them in bushes along the trail. Marc Wachowski, from across the street, helped decorate. Some three hundred LED lights were strategically placed on either side of the trail, gently glowing and dimming to the rhythm of meditative soundscapes played by dozens of speakers in weatherproof casings. They had systematically worked their way into the woods from the gate to the Quiet Place (which Maurice McKinley insisted on calling the Execution Place—‘One of the reasons,’ Luana would say, ‘though certainly not the only one, for his dickishness.’) And finally, they had suspended over twelve hundred clustered electric jar lights from the trees. The result was magical: spanning its entire two-mile length, the South Sunday Trail was a journey amid enchanting lights, pulsating pink, blue and green to the music. If you shut your eyes, you could imagine yourself walking down a tunnel of will-o’-the-wisps.
Ralph found that so many twinkly lights together fooled the senses.
You could almost unhear the pouring rain.
You could almost unsee the grim, stark November branches swaying like skeletal arms on the edge of your vision, or what scurried beyond it.
You could almost ignore the stench of undergrowth and underground.
* * *
They were a procession of six.
Ralph and Harry Aikman lugged the palanquin between them, with its covered seat carrying Mrs Olsen Dickinson. Harry at the front, Ralph at the back. It wasn’t heavy – the woman was skin and bones – but it was an uphill trek, and Ralph’s hands were numb from the rain. Harry’s wife Elizabeth scampered alongside the sick woman like a faithful Pomeranian, but the narrow trail forced her to swerve around trees or go knee-deep through the bracken and she had slipped more than once. Juliette McKinley, the intolerable McKinley brothers’ tolerable sister, led the way with a lantern. Her wife Olivia Davis was last in line and Ralph could hear her nervous breathing. This was Olivia’s third year on Bird Street, and she was obviously ill at ease. No blame there.
Ann Olsen Dickinson had been a healthy woman in her sixties when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2019. Surgery and subsequent radio-and chemotherapy did what they were supposed to, and Ann was given two relatively good years, albeit within the limitations of the pandemic. But last September, the doctors had discovered metastases in her lungs and lymph glands and told her further treatment would only alleviate the symptoms. Extend her time a little.
The Bird Street residents knew this because Elizabeth Aikman was her voluntary homecare-giver, assigned by the University of Washington Medical Center. She had administered the morphine that, besides freeing her from pain, had also removed any inhibitions. In Elizabeth, Ann had found a ready ear.
‘Stanley found out I inquired after the DWDA. And guess what? Damn idiot had me certified incompetent! Can you believe it? Forty-one years of marriage, and that’s what you get! Just because we go to the same church as that turd of a doctor!’
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Darker Days
Thomas Olde Heuvelt
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Darker Days
Thomas Olde Heuvelt
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Oh, the band of neighbours knew a thing or two about Washington State’s Death with Dignity Act. So they understood how Ann’s husband, so overwhelmed with grief he had sought counsel from God instead of his wife, had expertly used the law to cut off her path to a dignified, self-elected end.
‘And he isn’t even there. He takes these long walks, all the way to the Sound, because he can’t handle it. Poor man, I feel so sorry for him. But I don’t want to wait until it crawls inside my bones. Until my body cannibalizes itself, screaming in pain. What kind of a life is that?’
No kind of a life, Elizabeth had agreed.
But maybe she could help.
* * *
Now Mrs Olsen Dickinson was so high on morphine she felt no pain at all. As the neighbours led her away from civilization, she gleefully regaled them with her life story. Elizabeth did the ooohs and the aaahs. Ralph sympathized, more than he would care to, but his position behind the palanquin made him focus on the physical exertion rather than the emotional, allowing his mind to drift.
He thought of whales. Of the orcas and humpbacks they and the children had seen romping around Puget Sound, three weeks ago. Talk about ooohs and aaahs. That was on one of the many Sunday trips he and Luana planned every October with nearly grim determination. Others took them to the High Trek Adventure zipline park near Paine Field, the MoPOP and Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle, the Washington Serpentarium in Monroe, and the Mini Mountain Indoor Ski Center in Bellevue. At ten, Django still thought everything was dope, especially the iguana they’d let him hold in Monroe: ‘Maybe it will poop on me!’
For Kaila at fifteen, however, it meant suppressing catastrophic boredom. She argued that the mandatory family outings distracted her from her routine at the King County Aquatic Center. Kaila Lewis da Silva was a platform diver. Her coaches were prepping her for the ’24 Paris Olympics, and right now all the stars seemed to be aligning for her to qualify.
‘And besides,’ she said one October night, ‘you’re just trying to buy off your guilt, and I have no intention of catering to that.’
Kaila was an angel, an absolute wonder of a child, but even in her good times she could still be a brutally blunt teen. Luana had raised her voice and sent her to her room.
‘Fine!’ Kaila yelled. ‘I was going there anyway!’ Slamming the door behind her.
It was Django who broke the silence. ‘Crazy, huh?’
But Kaila was right. Weren’t the family outings a rather corny effort to redeem the unredeemable? An afternoon of whale-spotting or snowboarding on a rolling carpet did little to alleviate the memory of the Crisis Ward at Fairfax, the Psych Ward at the Seattle Children’s Hospital, or the three weeks in Stillwater, two years ago.
Duh, Kaila would say.
After a brief time-out, Ralph had gone upstairs.
‘I don’t want to go back into lockdown,’ she told him as they sat on her bed. ‘Not when my friends don’t have to, for a change.’
‘I know, honey. But we’ll get through it. Like we always do. Know why?’
‘Because we love each other. Blah blah.’
‘Exactly. And hey, you can’t let your brother zip down those lines all by himself. He won’t shut up about them for the rest of the week.’
‘He’ll probably write a song about them. Shoo-ba-dee Zipline.’
‘Bebop Parkour Blues,’ Ralph agreed. They laughed. ‘What do you say? Should we start upping your lithium a little?’
Kaila had nodded dejectedly.
The compromise was that she could bring her boyfriend, Jackson. Kaila could often be swayed eventually. Sometimes because of Jax. But mostly, Ralph suspected, because she knew that after this, there was only Halloween. Their last chance for some fun.
After Halloween, all the kids on Bird Street went into lockdown.
Then came November.
Ralph listened to the rain pattering on the hood of his poncho. The vibration of unease on his scalp now crawled down his back. The Darker Days were upon them.
Each time, you think you can escape it. Each time, you think it won’t be so bad. But it always is. And now it’s too late to brace yourself. It’s started. God help us.
Suddenly, he had an almost painful desire to be home. Hunker down, play Ticket to Ride with the kids, munching on nachos supreme and Luana’s pão de queijo behind the shutters that locked out the rain and the Snoqualmie Woods and everything that dwelled there.
Juliette McKinley stopped, and the procession came to a halt.
On the trail before them was a pile of branches.
It blocked their way.
‘Can we go around, with her?’ Elizabeth asked. When she glanced back, Ralph saw that her face was ashen. Harry tilted his head, giving her a clear were-you-born-stupid look.
‘We ’ll leave the trail,’ Olivia decided. She strode past the palanquin and grabbed Juliette ’s free hand, pulling her away from the heap and looking for a place to deviate. The left embankment was too steep. The right wasn’t much better, with gnarls of slippery larch roots, but there was no other option.
‘Is everything all right?’ Ann Olsen Dickinson asked when Harry followed Juliette, tipping the palanquin backwards. He slipped on a root, but Olivia caught him, and Ralph braced himself when most of the weight was suddenly on him. The sick woman cried out, then roared with laughter. ‘What are you doing to me! Wouldn’t it be easier just to remove the branches? There aren’t that many.’
‘There’s an easy detour right here,’ Juliette lied.
‘My, my, so much trouble… sweethearts, you really don’t have to do this.’
‘Yes, we do,’ Elizabeth said. ‘You’ll see why in a moment.’
‘And in such weather!’ The woman wheezed. ‘I’ve seen my share of heavy rains at Olympia and Pacific Rim, but boy, is it coming down here!’
‘It’ll be all right, Mrs Dickinson.’ That was Olivia. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘Worry? What’s the worst that could happen? I fall and die?’
Most of them joined her laughter, but Ralph thought, No, it can be worse.
They passed the pile, circling the first row of larches then returning to the trail. Mrs Olsen Dickinson was right: it would have been easier to remove the branches. The stack was only knee-high. But none of them had wanted to. There seemed purpose in the way they were piled across the trail, too artificial to be a work of nature. But none of them had put them there.
And they hadn’t been there this morning.
* * *
Ten minutes later, they reached the Quiet Place. Elizabeth Aikman pressed her hands against her lower back and said, ‘Look, Ann. Why the trouble, you ask? Here’s why.’
It was a clearing underneath a cluster of tall hemlocks and maples. Here, music relegated the sound of the rain to the background. Ella Fitzgerald singing ‘It’s Only a Paper Moon’. And believe it or not, it was dry. Upon closer inspection, you could spot the tarp Marc Wachowski and the McKinley brothers had spanned between the treetops, but in the twilight of the woods the eye was drawn instead to the hundreds of atmospheric lights, twinkling like a starry sky. Lower down, fires burned in braziers. A large projection screen showed a portrait of a married couple with three daughters. Ralph recognized a younger, much healthier Ann Olsen Dickinson.
Amid it all stood a splendid, bright white canopy bed.
Mrs Olsen Dickinson cupped her hands over her mouth, and even though Ralph could only see her back, he knew she was crying.
‘Oh, this is wonderful…’ she whispered as they slowly carried her inside the circle of braziers. ‘The bed… and Ella!’ In a surprisingly clear voice, good enough to be a variety singer’s if it wasn’t for the cancer, she began to sing along the part about the canvas sky and the muslin tree, and how it wouldn’t be make-believe, if you believed in me.
Ralph and Harry stopped at the silk curtains draping from the canopy’s frame, where Juliette and Olivia were waiting like gatekeepers. Elizabeth supported the sick woman as she disembarked, even though it was evident she was able to stand on her own. Sunken in her robe she had looked like a mouse skeleton wrapped in napkins, but Ralph could tell she wasn’t so close to the edge yet that her body had given up. Annie Dickinson simply had no intention of letting it get that far.
They lowered the palanquin. Ralph, rolling his shoulders, joined the others around the bed, where Elizabeth helped Ann take off her robe and settle under the down comforters.
‘This is lovely, guys,’ she said. ‘So beautiful. How can I ever thank you all?’
‘Gratitude is the last thing we need, Ann,’ Elizabeth said. ‘We ’re happy we can do this for you. Is there anything you need?’
‘I could do with some more tea.’
‘I have something better,’ Juliette said. From a storage trunk next to the bed she retrieved a tray, upon which she displayed six small shooters and a bottle of crème de cassis.
‘No, a Gabriel Boudier!’ Ann clapped her hands. ‘For our honeymoon, Stanley had booked a chateau overlooking the Saône River in France, and that’s what we drank every night! Just like Hercule Poirot, he’d say. He was so sexy in his suit, my Stanley…’ Worried, she looked up from the memory. ‘But I’m not supposed to drink any more, am I?’
Now everyone laughed, even Olivia. ‘If there ever was a time to ignore doctors’ advice, this is it, don’t you think?’
She did. Juliette poured and made her rounds with the tray. Ralph’s mouth went dry when she reached him. Juliette saw his hesitation, but insisted. As soon as he smelled the alcohol, saliva flooded the corners of his mouth.
Ann raised her shooter to the good Samaritans of Bird Street. ‘Well, cheers, then. To life.’
They clinked glasses. Ralph felt a droplet trickling down his temple – not rain this time. If he drank now, he’d go home, straight to the garage, and sit in the Forester’s driver’s seat. He’d fish up the bottle of Smirnoff and the glass hidden underneath. The glass was superstition: Ralph didn’t drink from the bottle. Fuck ice, fuck lime. Hell, fuck tonic… but you didn’t drink from the bottle.
Ralph Lewis was prepared to swear under oath that he wasn’t an alcoholic, and he’d be telling the truth. But it was November. Everything changed in November.
After downing one glass tonight, another would follow. There would be no Ticket to Ride. No munchies, no warmth or homeliness with the kids. They would fight.
Suddenly, he upended the glass over the forest floor.
He had resisted.
This time.
* * *
‘I didn’t expect to be afraid,’ Ann said. The rasp was back in her voice, and Ralph had to strain to hear her. ‘But I am.’
‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, Ann,’ Elizabeth said.
Ralph shot her a glance. Then he knelt beside the bed and took one of Ann’s bony hands in his. ‘You know you can always change your mind.’
She waved his words away, as if that wasn’t the point. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why are you doing this?’
That question came sooner or later, and they were prepared. ‘Because there are plenty of cases in which the DWDA doesn’t cut it,’ Harry said. ‘Look at yourself. You suffer, and the last thing you are is incompetent. But they only give you two options: either you wait out the ride, which is bound to be agonizing, or you hurl yourself off it.’
‘You mean eat a bullet,’ Ann said matter-of-factly. ‘Stanley keeps a gun in his safe upstairs. I’ve never cared much for guns, but if I hadn’t met Elizabeth, I’d probably have used it.’
‘See? We think that’s wrong. We feel that patients should have another way out. A more peaceful way.’
‘But enough about us,’ Elizabeth intervened, clapping her hands. ‘We have another surprise for you.’
The slideshow. ‘It’s Only a Paper Moon’ made way for ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’, and with one push on her clicker, Elizabeth started a photo carousel of Ann’s life. Ralph felt a sudden wave of razor-sharp anger blowing through him like a cold wind. She’s going too fast, he thought. She’s not listening to her any more.
Had it been any other month, mere annoyance would have been all it was, but now he felt actual, unfettered anger that turned outwards, shocking him with its intensity. Oh, the Darker Days… they spread like a virus, unnoticed, but since everyone was going around with the same red spots, you never realized how they got a hold on you. And you resisted them a little less each time. The Darker Days were what made Elizabeth push Ann, and the Darker Days were what fuelled Ralph’s heated response.
Already.
Ralph stepped away from the circle of fires and closed his eyes. Counted to ten. When he opened them again, he felt a bit calmer. Elizabeth had taken Ann’s hand. There was real compassion in that gesture, making Ralph a little ashamed of his reaction. Elizabeth was under the same influence as he was – that shouldn’t be ignored.
The screen now showed Ann’s three daughters on swings. A young Ann looking across her shoulder, luxurious hair spilling like sunlight. The chateau in France, and yes, her Stanley had been easy on the eyes. If she hadn’t been so enchanted, Ann might have asked how they’d gotten these photos, but she wouldn’t. They never did.
Ralph listened to the rustling beyond the first row of hemlocks, deliberate enough to be heard over Ella and the rain. Here, outside the circle of light and practically in the cold, wet forest, Ralph felt vulnerable. He quickly rejoined the others and pretended he hadn’t heard a thing.
* * *
Ann was crying again, and now Olivia was the one who held her hand. For the first time, Ralph saw real sadness in the woman’s eyes. ‘Stanley must be so worried…’
Yes. Even if his walk had taken him all the way to the Sound today, Stanley would likely be back home in Mill Creek right about now and find his terminally ill wife missing. He had probably called their daughters by now, and the police, and yes, he would be deeply worried.
Once it was over, they had told Ann, they would leave her in the same strip of woodland where, several hours earlier, wrapped in her cloak and hunched over her walker, she had gotten into the anonymous car waiting for her beyond the eye of the neighbourhood’s CCTV. They had promised to leave her in the middle of the track, so she’d soon be found. Stubborn as she was, she must have gone for a stroll, which Stanley had expressly forbidden. In her state, a fall would soon lead to hypothermia and death. What about the meds? Don’t worry, Ann. Chances of an autopsy, with her condition, were close to zero. Especially if the narrative was so clear.
‘I feel so bad it has to be this way,’ Ann had said. ‘But with Stanley set in his ways, what is one to expect?’
Now, in the hour of her death, Olivia comforted her. Then Elizabeth approached the bed, carrying a red satin pillow. On it were two hypodermic needles.
‘This is it, Ann. This one’s the sedative, and this is the muscle relaxant. You won’t feel a thing. You’ll fall asleep in seconds, just like any other time, and then you won’t wake up.’
For a long while, Ann gazed at the needles.
‘I’m almost afraid to say this,’ she finally said, her voice unsteady.
‘What, Ann?’ Olivia asked.
‘I keep thinking about our honeymoon. The chateau had a courtyard, where the guests would wine and dine. There was a chansonnier singing songs, and a pianist who was older than I am today. And you know what Stanley did? He took me by the arm, pulled me from my chair and danced with me, all around the courtyard. Everyone was laughing and applauding. I was so embarrassed! But not Stanley. He was like that. All he had to do was look at me, and I felt at ease.’
‘That’s lovely, Ann,’ Olivia said.
‘I remember we saw The Wizard of Oz at the Pacific Crest Theater, before they tore it down. When Judy Garland said, “There’s no place like home”, I knew I’d be with Stanley for the rest of my life.’ Teary-eyed, she looked at each of the good Samaritans of Bird Street individually, pushing the satin pillow away. ‘Stanley’s my home. I don’t think I want to do this, guys.’
There was a strange, charged moment, and Ralph could feel the implications of Ann’s words hanging almost palpably between them. It lasted but a second, but still Ralph pictured a grotesque image: Elizabeth snatching the first hypo from the pillow and cramming it straight into the sick woman’s sleeve, ignoring her panicked screaming.
Instead, Elizabeth stepped back and put the pillow on the storage trunk. ‘Ann, darling, but of course,’ she said. ‘This is entirely, unconditionally, explicitly your choice.’
‘I’m terribly sorry…’
‘Hang on,’ Juliette spoke up suddenly. ‘We ’ve come this far. Are we really sure this is for the best?’ She saw Olivia’s face and added, ‘For her, I mean?’
‘Mrs Olsen Dickinson knows what’s best for her,’ Ralph said, turning to the sick woman. ‘And there’s no need to feel sorry.’
‘But look at the effort you’ve put in. The risks you’ve taken! And who will take all this down?’ She hoisted herself up as if she wanted to do it herself. But she moved too fast, provoking another coughing fit.
When it was over, Harry said, ‘Don’t you worry about a thing, Mrs Dickinson. We ’ll take care of it.’
‘Can I at least give you something? For your trouble?’
Elizabeth leaned in and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘No, Ann. We won’t accept it. We ’re doing this for you, and for you only. And that’s why I must ask you this.’ She exchanged a glance with Ralph, who was too late to intervene. ‘Are you absolutely sure? Because Juliette has a point. You know the reason you’re here. You know what’s coming if you abandon this.’
‘I know, sweetheart,’ Ann answered. ‘But I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life. I’ll be able to face it, with Stanley by my side. I want to see the daffodils bloom one more time, and if I do, I’ll have you people to thank for it.’
Harry put his left hand on his wife’s back and his right hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m so happy we were able to help you find your way back into the light, Mrs Dickinson.’
It wasn’t that he pulled his wife away from the bed, Ralph thought, but it was close.
As for Ralph… was he relieved?
He didn’t know. But he was suddenly beyond tired.
* * *
In February, Elizabeth would receive an anonymous postcard that they’d recognize immediately. That turd of a doctor gave me six weeks, but I lived long enough to see the daffodils! Though I do feel the end is near now. Thank you all for the time you have given me.
Now, as they prepared her for the hike out of the woods, Ann Olsen Dickinson said, ‘It bears repeating. You are good Samaritans. All of you.’
Ralph got his phone out. There was a message from Luana. How did it go? Love you. He sent a reply. Bailed. Can’t wait to see you. And the kids. Home soon.
None of the neighbours worried that late afternoon.
There were always other takers.
And they still had time.
They did then.
Excerpted from Darker Days, copyright © 2025 by Thomas Olde Heuvelt.
The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Darker Days</i> by Thomas Olde Heuvelt appeared first on Reactor.
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