Forest of Shadows (24 page)

“Hold on,” Jessica said to him and bent down to pick it up and place it on the table behind her. When she straightened up to give it a second try at the door latch, the boy was gone. This time she easily turned it open and stepped out onto the patio.

She looked both ways and saw only trees. Then she went to the railing to see if maybe he’d jumped off the patio and was playing down in the grass. 

Nothing. 

It was like he’d never been there. 

And then it dawned on her. Maybe she was right the first time she’d seen him. 

Maybe it wasn’t an actual boy after all. Some people called them ghosts and were scared of them but her daddy had taught her different. This was the leftover energy of a boy who had been here at one time. 

But who had he been?

Eve was awakened by Liam’s fussing in his crib, a prelude to his morning cry for food and a fresh diaper. Her eyes still blurry from sleep, she changed him in record time and brought him into bed with her, cradling him to her chest. Liam smiled up at her and pawed at her face with his chubby hand. 

“Hey you, are you hungry? You want to come downstairs with mommy and have a baba?”

She tickled his thighs and he squealed with delight. A quick peek at the clock broke her from her reverie. It was almost ten o’clock. Boy had they slept late. She couldn’t remember the last time either of them had slept past eight. She could hear the television on downstairs, so that meant Jessica was awake. If she heard the radio, she’d know John was up and about. Instead, she detected the faint sounds of his snoring in the room across the hall. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so tired. John looked ready to collapse before he hit the hay. 

Liam yawned and his hands balled into little fists that shook with the effort of his morning stretch. She placed him back in his crib and went to the closet for her robe. Liam held on to the top edge of the crib and bounced on the mattress. His new, dry diaper crinkled under his footie pajamas. 

Just as she was about to scoop him up, the phone rang. She quickly picked up the receiver before it woke John up. They’d had an eventful night and he needed the rest. Muraco hadn’t left until four in the morning and John had to walk him to his car with a pair of strong flashlights. Muraco had a hard edge to him but whatever had happened in their yard was enough to scare the bejeesus out of him. 

“Hello.”

“Eve, is John there?”

It was Judas, sounding more excitable than she’d ever heard him. 

“He’s still sleeping. We had kind of a late night.”

“Well, when he wakes up, can you tell him to call me? I had something else happen to me, only this time it wasn’t anywhere near the house. And I have something amazing to show him.”

“How about coming over to the house? I was just about to make breakfast.” Eve didn’t know what to make of the call but she also wanted to keep Judas calm. Poor kid sounded like he was ready to burst from his own skin. 

His reply was preceded by a long pause. 

“That’s okay. I’d feel better if John came to my apartment. No offense, but bad things seem to happen whenever I swing by and I’ve had my share, especially after last night.”

“You want to tell me what happened?” Eve asked, concerned. She was beginning to wonder if whatever happened to Judas was in some way related to the incident with Muraco last night. 

“I…I think it’s best if I tell John first.”

“That’s not a problem. Believe me, I understand. John should be up soon. I’ll tell him to call you as soon as he’s coherent.”

“Hey, thanks. Talk to you later.”

Eve hung up the phone and looked at Liam in his crib. The sun was pouring in through the skylight and illuminating his angelic face. She’d left a window open just a crack last night and the air that came wafting in smelled of cinnamon and wild flowers. 

How could a place so beautiful have any trace of negativity? Then again, who said the strange events that were happening were negative? People just assumed that any paranormal activity was frightening and tinted with bad omens or an eternal snapshot of some horrific event. One of John’s first rules for investigating the unknown was to remain objective. See things for what they are, don’t taint them with your preconceived notions or the emotions of the witnesses who come to you for help. Report the facts and realize not every story has an ending. 

Last night was odd and Judas could ratchet things up a notch today. It might be best to have a small period of normalcy, so Eve decided to clear her mind and make a big breakfast for everyone. 

“Come with me, kiddo.” She held Liam in the crook of her right arm and found Jessica sitting on the couch, zoned out by the television. 

“Morning, honey,” she said and ran a hand through her long, soft hair that was now a tangled mess. 

“Hi!” She looked up and smiled, then was back glued to the screen. 

Eve placed Liam in his playpen by the couch. He proceeded to pick up a plush toy and throw it Jessica’s way. It bounced harmlessly on the cushion next to her. 

First things first, Eve warmed up a bottle for Liam and got the coffee maker percolating. As she warmed a skillet, she opened a fresh pack of bacon and took four eggs out of the refrigerator. 

“Are you hungry Jess?”

“I had donuts.” 

“You have any room for bacon and eggs?”

“One slice of bacon with no gooey parts and a scrambled egg with ketchup on the side,” Jessica called out. 

While the bacon was sizzling, Eve asked, “What time did you wake up?”

Jessica shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. Early, I think.”

“If you were lonely, you could have woken us up. I never mind being up with you in the morning.”

“I know. I almost woke you up when the energy boy was outside on the patio but then he left so I watched more TV.”

Eve shivered. 

“What energy boy? Was there a kid playing in the yard?” Eve did a poor job of containing her worry. 

“I asked if he wanted to come inside and watch cartoons with me but then he disappeared, just like before.” 

Eve had to grip the kitchen counter to steady herself. Here they were, fast asleep, while innocent Jessica was moments away from letting some phantom boy, possibly the same apparition that John and Muraco saw just hours earlier, into the house. 

“He looks lonely,” Jessica added. “I wish I could be his friend.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Jeep ran into a pothole the size of a toboggan and John nearly dropped the index card he’d written the directions to Judas’s apartment on. “This is nuts!” he exclaimed, fighting the wheel to keep the Jeep on the road. 

Judas had told him his apartment was off the beaten path and John had laughed. Shida invented the phrase “off the beaten path”, though some paths were more beaten down than others. The sign for Alder Street, bent over in one corner and faded to the point of near luminescence, poked out from behind a spruce tree and John turned into a road surrounded by smallish meadows with fading green grass as high as a man’s chest. A quarter mile into Alder Street, he spotted a ramshackle house with a warped porch and a Sno-Cat parked to the side. He glanced at the postcard and noted the landmark. Tuttu Road should be just ahead. 

When he asked what Tuttu meant, Judas sighed and said, “I think caribou or something. There are so many languages used up here to name shit, no one knows what it all means. My friend Teddy tried to look the word up once and caribou was the closest he could come.”

The meadows were overtaken by tall evergreens and day turned to night under the canopy of thick pine needles. John bounced around in the Jeep for a minute or so until a pair of squat buildings appeared out of nowhere, one on each side of the road. Each building had three apartments, so they were more like the multi-family homes he was familiar with back in Long Island, though less appealing to the eye. He pulled next to Judas’s truck, walked up the front steps with enough paint peeled off to reveal the original wood underneath, and rang the bell. 

“Come on up,” Judas shouted down the staircase. 

John paused when he heard the sound of rain pelting the porch roof. When he looked back, small pellets of hail bounced crazily off of every hard surface they hit. It wasn’t even autumn and already there was hail. With any luck it’ll be over by the time I have to get back to the truck, John thought. 

Judas’s apartment was exactly as he pictured it—small, unkempt and redolent of innumerable bong hits. It was like being back in college. The next tenant would have to torch the place to get rid of the scent of burning weed. 

“Hey man, thanks for coming.” Judas, on the other hand, looked rather well-pressed. John did notice two bookshelves packed with books on a multitude of subjects. He suspected the boy had read them all, some more than once. For all his carefree stoner ways, he was actually a bright kid. 

“No problem at all. Eve said you sounded pretty excited. I guess she mentioned some of the stuff that happened at the house last night.”

“We didn’t really get into it.”

John dropped his jacket on the couch. “I’ll save my story for later. You tell me yours first.”

“Hey, you want something to drink, you know, before I start blabbing?”

“No thanks, I just had breakfast.”

He sat down next to John and lapsed into silence. The hail pelted the windows, sounding like a swarm of biblically angry bugs trying to break in. John pulled out his mini recorder and placed it on the coffee table.

“This seems to be getting a lot of use lately. You don’t mind, do you?”

Judas snapped up from his trance. “No, no, not a problem, man. I’m just trying to get everything in order so I make some sense.”

John patted his shoulder. “Just take your time.”

“I’ve been pretty freaked out about Millie’s death, you know. This may sound weird, but I’ve felt kinda guilty, like whatever happened to her was somehow because of me.”

“Which, in turn, was because of me.”

Judas studied him and for the briefest moment, John detected the harsh glare of anger. Just as quickly, it was replaced by sorrow. 

“I don’t know anymore. So you see, I got all these mixed up feelings and something kept telling me I had to get up off my ass and find the truth for myself, because I know for shit-sure that Sheriff High Bear isn’t about to do anything about it. In fact, it seems like the entire town is happy to push the whole thing under the rug, which gets me even more suspicious.” He picked up a dented beer can from an end table and plucked at the pop top. “Last night I broke into the library.”

“You did what?”

John was tempted to stop the tape, lest it get into the wrong hands somewhere down the line, until he reminded himself it would be smarter to edit that part out when he got back home. 

“Kinda stupid, huh?” 

“You could say that. You do that kind of thing often?”

Judas shook his head vigorously. “I’ve never even been tempted before until the first time I went in through the window and found Millie, and then again last night. I’ll probably regret both times for the rest of my life.”

John asked, “What happened?”

Judas flicked his thumb hard on the pop top and it vibrated like a miniscule springboard. Now he looked genuinely terrified. 

“Something tried to attack me, and it wasn’t a person or an animal. It was in the basement and it was hell bent to skin my ass.”

“Did you see anything? You’re sure it wasn’t a raccoon or something trapped in the basement?”

“It was too dark to see but I could
feel
it looking at me, waiting for its moment. And then I heard it moving around, until it came rushing up the stairs. I’d probably be road kill right now if something didn’t grab me from behind and slam the door shut on it. And before you ask, I didn’t see what grabbed me either. All I can tell you is that it felt cold as hell. Then the thing in the basement was pounding on the door like crazy and I’m being shoved down the hall.” There was a slight quiver in his voice. “I ran like hell, man, and jumped out the window I came in. I could hear that thing in the library and I nearly crapped my pants when I was running for my truck.”

John rubbed his hands through his beard and massaged his brow. “So, through all of this, you weren’t able to see what was coming after you or what, you believe, interacted to save your life. But you did hear the thing in the basement and feel the touch of whatever pulled you aside.” He suspected the presence in the basement was an angry squatter who was using the abandoned library as a place to catch forty winks. Unseen, arctic hands that yank a man backwards, now that was a mystery. 

“It was like having dry ice pressed against raw skin.”

“And you’re sure the entity in the basement meant to harm you?”

“As sure as I am that you’re sitting next to me right now, yes. But that’s not the end of it.”

The apartment grew suddenly silent as the hail storm stopped. Even the white noise of the humming refrigerator chose that moment to switch off. 

“When I got in my truck, I felt something in my back pocket, which is strange because I don’t even keep my wallet there. I hate sitting on shit, you know. This is what I pulled out.”