Forest of Shadows Read online

  When they got to the threshold of the room at the end of the hallway, he stopped.

  “That’s the room where it happened,” he choked and swallowed hard.

  “Are you all right going back inside? I checked it out the first day we came here and every day since. Everything seems solid as can be.”

  Judas sucked wind through his clenched teeth. “If you say it’s cool, let’s go. I just hope we don’t hear voices telling us to get out.”

  “You’re a long way from Amityville. That was a sensationalist hoax anyway,” John said, hoping to soothe his fears.

  He stepped into the room and gave John the blow by blow. His voice was a little higher now and he was speaking at a rapid pace. When he came to the section of the floor he believed he fell through, he hesitated a moment, then gingerly stepped onto it.

  Nothing happened.

  “Next thing I know, I’m on my back in the living room. The mop and the bucket were down there with me.”

  John pulled an EMF meter out of his pocket and waved it around the room. He had a thought that the phenomenon would be keyed off by Judas’s presence. Everyone has a family in their neighborhood that is a magnet for bad luck—lifelong residents under the black clouds of misfortune. The same thing goes for select witnesses of the paranormal, and like the unlucky family down the block, it is not a welcome circumstance.

  The EMF meter ticked in the normal range. John motioned for Judas to join him in the hallway. He did notice that the wood finish in the section Judas claimed he fell through seemed newer, the grain slightly lighter than the flooring in the rest of the room. Maybe there had been a piece of furniture over this spot that protected it from wear and tear. Either way, it was a something worth noting.

  “What does that thing say?” Judas asked.

  “That all is well in there at the moment. I’d like to find out more about the house itself. Do you know of anyone in town besides your friend’s grandmother that would be willing to point me in the right direction? I tried as much as I could using the internet when I was in New York but Shida town records aren’t exactly flowing on the net.”

  He nodded and his ponytail bounced against his back. “I’m not sure. Unfortunately, you’re not hooked up with the most popular guy in town.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I have a feeling that even if I gave everyone here a million bucks, I still wouldn’t be elected mayor any time soon. Or dog catcher, judging by the looks I’ve gotten.”

  “You’ve got two strikes against you there. First, you don’t look the part. Second, the word is already out that you won’t be here for long, so it’s not as though anyone’s gonna take the time to get to know you. Right now you’re just like some kind of curiosity.”

  “I’m just a curiosity filled with curiosity,” John said, smiling.

  Before they walked back downstairs, John placed a sound activated digital recorder in the empty room. Perhaps it would pick up an EVP, or Electronic Voice Phenomena, which was a fancy way of saying a recording of voices from the beyond. Next to cameras, it was the most reliable and oft times eerie source for recording the unexplained. Hearing those disembodied voices, some pleading, some simply trying to get a message across, others downright threatening, always caused the hair to stand up on the back of his neck.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Judas said.

  “Shoot.”

  “You still believe I’m telling the truth? Even after I admitted I smoked a little reefer before it happened?”

  “I believe something happened to you, though I’m not so sure exactly what it is right now.” He leaned back against the dining room table. “As far as the pot thing goes, I’m smart enough to realize it doesn’t make you hallucinate. Unless there was a little added something in it.”

  Judas waved his hands. “No, dude. I like my herb straight up. That other shit scares me. When I smoke I just wanna get mellow, not lose my mind.”

  “That’s what I figured. I know this is a painfully obvious angle, but do you know of any Native American legends or stories about this area of the town that might explain this?”

  “If there was, I’d know it just by osmosis, but as far…”

  The sharp thud of a closing door upstairs caused them both to jump. John bounded up the stairs.

  The door to the room at the end of the hall was now shut tight.

  He grabbed the camera that was hanging by a strap around his neck and took five quick shots of the hallway and door, then reached into his pocket to make a note on a small memo pad.

  A damp, earthy smell, like mushrooms, was in the air and quickly dissipated.

  Judas slowly came up behind him.

  “What was that?”

  “Probably just the wind.”

  But all of the windows were closed and they could both see the stillness of the day in the motionless trees outside the windows.

  It was warm inside the old library and naturally the fan had decided to kick the bucket. Millie hit the button several times, even gave the blades a nudge with the eraser end of her pencil (just in case it did start and snipped off her finger tip). It was dead. Dead as this library.

  “Wonderful,” Millie sighed. She ripped the cord from the outlet and tossed the old metal fan in the garbage pail behind the reference desk.

  It was almost noon and Millie was the only one in the library. Not even some of the old timers who came by to read the paper or peruse the odd book or two had come to break the monotony. Maybe it was too hot for them. When you were used to the cold, an eighty degree day with a healthy dose of humidity felt like walking into a furnace. It was weird to have a day like this so late in the season. More proof that the global warming folks may be right.

  She picked up the book she was reading, The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell. It was part of a trilogy about the life and death of King Arthur. She’d read all three several years ago and immediately fell in love with them, especially the detailed battles and the Merlin storyline.

  “What girl can resist a knight in shining armor?” she said as she leaned back in her chair.

  Her heart skipped a beat when the phone clanged beside her.

  “Shida Library.”

  “Hey, Millie, it’s Judas.”

  Her heart jumped again, but for entirely different reasons. Why did he have this effect on her? If this was the time of the knights, he’d be the court jester at best. Judas Graves was the antithesis of everything she was looking for in a man and for some reason this made him attractive. No wonder men can’t figure us out. We can’t even figure ourselves out.

  “What can I do for you?” It came out overly chipper, like a Stepford receptionist. She smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand.

  “I, uh, wanted to know if you have any, like, records on the houses in Shida.”

  “What kind of records are you looking for? Sounds like you may need to check with city hall.”

  “I highly doubt anyone in city hall would help me.”

  She got his drift and left it at that. “Maybe if you tell me what you’re looking for, I can get a better idea of what you need.”

  “Actually, it’s not even for me. I’m kinda helping that writer that moved into town a week ago.”

  “I overheard some people talking about him. Hard to believe we have a genuine Hollywood writer in our midst. What’s he like?”

  Judas paused and said, “Different, but the same as any other guy, I guess. He’s really nice if that’s what you were getting at.”

  “Too bad he hasn’t written any books. I could have gotten him to autograph some copies, maybe drum up some excitement down here. You think he’d be interested in coming by one day? I thought a big time writer might be a good draw. We could have a kind of book festival or something.”

  “Hey, you never know.”

  “Look at me rambling about my ideas.” She twisted the old black phone cord between her fingers. “Tell me again what you’re looking for.”

  Judas hemmed and hawed hi
s way through it, and when he was done Millie had a close approximation of what he wanted. She told him she’d look into it and call him if something came up.

  After their phone call, she had a bite to eat, three fig newtons and half a ham sandwich, swept around the tables in the main reading room and checked the windows repeatedly to make sure there was still indeed a small town out there with actual living people. The streets were emptier than usual, but a few kids sped by on bikes, taking a moment to jump up the three steps that made up the entryway to the library, and ride back down them. This entertained the kids, and Millie, for about ten minutes until they coasted down the block and out of sight.

  Break time over, she decided to get to work on Judas’s request.

  “There may be some records in the basement that’ll be helpful. Might as well check them first,” she said. She never thought out loud before the job at the library. Now she did it just to hear the sound of another person’s voice. It provided an odd sort of comfort.

  She was never a fan of basements and was especially reluctant to delve into the library basement. The mold and mildew and smell of dead, forgotten books, coupled with poor lighting and the odd scurrying sounds of mice made it her least favorite place to be. If only Judas knew the sacrifice she was making.

  She flicked on the light at the top of the stairs. The forty watt bulb barely made a dent in the oppressive darkness that swallowed up the bottom half of the stairs. Slowly, she descended, jumping back when a big black spider drifting at the end of a solitary web nearly bumped into her face. The warped wooden stairs creaked for all the world to hear and she thought she detected the pitter patter of little rodent feet fleeing to their safe hideouts.

  “Almost twenty-three and you’re still scared of the dark,” she said as she scampered down the last three steps to hit the wall switch. When the three bulbs hummed to life, she gasped.

  The last time she had been down here was about two weeks ago and the room was a total mess. She had made a mental note to hire someone to come down and help her get it in shape because she damn well wasn’t going to be down here alone for the length of time it would take to restore order. Boxes had been stacked one atop the other along the walls while odds and ends, furniture that had been put out to pasture, rolled up area rugs and such were just dropped in any available space.

  Except now the center of the basement had been cleared and in the place of haphazard junk were rows of unfolded metal chairs facing a large table.

  “What the hell went on here?”

  Tiny pinpricks of ice cascaded down her neck and arms to her fingertips and although the little voice in her head screamed at her to go back upstairs, she instead walked past the phantom meeting space to the newspaper files.

  Chapter Twenty

  By the fifth day, the house began to come alive.

  The first round of developed pictures showed nothing but a series of beautiful rooms filled with rented furniture and the half put away belongings of invaders from the east. John left an audio recorder on all night in the room where Judas had his incident and spent the better part of the next day analyzing the recording while Eve and the kids went exploring outside. In reality, it wasn’t much of an exploration, just some poking around the very edge of the wood line by the house. Liam and Jess found more than enough things to entertain them as they discovered a tiny creek, a multitude of strange and rather large insects and a never-ending supply of twigs to swing around like pirate swords. Eve was doing her best to give him space and time to work and he was grateful. The tape revealed nothing more than the sound of his own snoring two rooms away.

  He was unpacking the infrared video equipment in the upstairs hallway when he first felt the breeze.

  Except this wasn’t a whisper of wind from an open window or the icy sensation people described when in the presence of an approaching spirit.

  This breeze felt like a lick of flame from an enormous furnace. It flicked the back of his neck and when he turned to face the source it washed over his face, enveloping him. It felt like he had just stuck his head out of a car window cruising down Death Valley.

  “Aaahhh,” he grunted, his hands moving quickly to shield his face. It smelled like burning hair in a blow dryer and he realized the hairs on the backs of his hands were being singed off.

  John’s head was encased in an invisible bubble of magma while everything below his chest remained at room temperature. It was getting hard to breathe. Every inhalation brought intense pain to his seared lungs. His heart beat against his chest with the reckless abandon of a drowning man.

  The door to the room at the end of the hall began to open, slowly, slowly, until it was all the way back on its hinges and he was staring at the boarded-up window inside.

  Whump!

  The plywood that had been nailed over the broken window dropped to the floor, its bent nails sticking out along its side in four neat rows.

  Instantly, the sensation of heat disappeared and a strong gust of humid air wafted in from the exposed window pane. John sucked in huge gulps of fresh air, dousing the fire in his organs. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, summoning up the strength to meditate on something, anything relaxing that could calm his heart and stop it from beating his chest to dust. He had taken meditation classes on the advice of Dr. Anderson a year ago and though he may not have become a yogi, he did get good enough to prevent himself from going over the deep end when his panic attacks hit, buying the necessary time for the medication to take effect. The ultimate goal of meditation was to eliminate his reliance on the various antidepressants that his body and mind had become so dependent upon just to carry on the façade of a semi-normal existence.

  But now all of his medication was back in New York on the mantel.

  He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just been assaulted.

  Concentrating on his mantra, John managed to steady his pulse, though his arms and legs still shook. He checked his hands, expecting the usual tangle of short black hairs to resemble the charred stumps of a forest after a wildfire. They were, in fact, fine. Even the smell of burning hair was gone.

  “That was a new one,” he huffed.

  It was as if nothing had happened, if not for the board lying face up on the floor. His good EMF detector was downstairs and he wanted to get some readings while the event was still fresh. When he turned towards the stairs, he jumped back.

  “Jesus, squeak-pip, you scared me.” He held a hand to his chest.

  Jessica’s hair was a tangle of knots and her hands were black with dirt. It looked like she’d been rolling in the garden for hours.

  “I saw a boy,” she said.

  “Is he outside playing with Liam and Eve?” He wanted to edge past her to get the EMF detector but she remained square in his way.

  “I was digging a hole by myself outside the dining room doors when I saw him in the living room. When he started to go upstairs, I came inside.”

  John’s spine turned to ice.

  “Are you sure you didn’t see me when I was lugging this upstairs?” he asked, nodding at the black camera case.

  Jessica giggled. “I know what you look like, Daddy. No, it was a boy like my age, with really short hair.”

  He knelt down and grasped her arms gently. “Now honey, are you sure you saw a boy in the house? Did you see where he went?”

  Jessica looked serious now as she sensed the growing concern in her father’s posture and voice. “I did see him and he saw me. He even waved at me. He started going upstairs as soon as I got in the door, so I followed him.”

  John drew a hand through his hair and sighed.

  “Do you think you could describe what he looked like?”

  Jessica looked puzzled. “Why? Didn’t you see him when he came upstairs?”

  John silently gazed at her, unsure what to say. If he said yes, he’d be lying and she’d know it. If he said no, she might get scared. Sure, she was a brave kid, but seeing phantom children in the house they were
living in would scare the stuffing out of most adults.

  “He was energy, wasn’t he?” she asked in her small voice.

  Her intuitive abilities were astounding, especially for a six-year-old girl. Sometimes she could see situations and people for what they really were and could cope with them in ways far beyond her years. It was best to be honest. “I’m not sure. I never saw him but if you say he was here, I believe you.”

  “He looked nice.”

  Jessica looked completely unafraid, and aside from the oppressive heat from before, so was he. This is what he came for, though maybe not to such an extreme demonstration, especially for his initial encounter with the unknown sharing space in this house.

  “I bet he was.”

  Jessica smiled and somehow it made everything all right.

  As she turned to go back down the stairs, John said, “Do me a little favor, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said without hesitation.

  “Don’t tell Aunt Eve about the boy. She’s not tough like us. It might scare her.”

  “I won’t,” she replied then skipped down the stairs. “But he’ll come back.”

  The front door slammed shut, leaving John alone in a house that no longer felt quite so empty.

  The apartment was an absolute mess, worse than usual, but Judas couldn’t give an emu’s ass. He sat back on his bean bag chair, its sides held together by wide strips of silver duct tape, listening to the beans shift with his weight. He kicked off his boots and watched Teddy prepare the bong.

  Teddy’s chubby fingers tamped the weed into the metal holder. He grabbed a lighter, inhaled and passed it to Judas who did likewise. They went back and forth several times before the effects started to settle in. Judas laid his head over the edge of the bean bag and stared upside down at his front door.

  “So, tell me about your trip out to the house, man,” Teddy said, his voice raspy and strained as he slowly exhaled the pungent smoke.

  “It was nothing like I thought it’d be. Like, if all that shit hadn’t gone down with me when I was there alone and then those weird shadows when we went, I would think it was just a normal house.”