Forest of Shadows (29 page)

Doubt. 

For the first time, High Bear didn’t have all the answers, which meant he didn’t have total control and it was eating him alive. 

“Look, when he was up here a while back, he kind of gravitated to me because, well, you know how this place is. You don’t exactly roll out the welcome wagon to white people, now do you?”

“Why is he here?” Tiny flecks of spittle flew from his mouth. 

“It’s no secret, he’s writing a book. He asked me over a couple of times to talk about what life is like up here in the interior. No big deal. Nothing to blow a gasket about.”

He was taking a chance talking this way. He knew full well that High Bear wasn’t above beating the information out of him. The sheriff stared at him, as if to psychically will the truth from him. When Judas didn’t break his gaze, High Bear turned and stormed back to his truck. As he backed out, he rolled down his window and said, “If I find out you’re lying, I’ll be back and it won’t be pleasant.”

He sped off and a stray rock kicked up by the tire hit Judas in the thigh. 

They both knew he was lying. He could deal with the sheriff. There was no way he was going to tell John about this little visit. The man had enough on his mind without having to worrying about their resident psychotic law man. 

When Jack pulled up in front of John’s house, the downstairs lights were on as well as a light in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Even though he had installed a very good home security system, John still felt it necessary to have a handful of five dollar timers connected to assorted lamps in different rooms. 

Inside, the house felt every bit the empty home. The central air system kept it from smelling musty but it couldn’t mask the sense of loneliness that clung to you the moment you stepped inside. He tossed his keys on the foyer table and went upstairs to John’s study. 

As he browsed the fully stocked book shelves, he remembered the folded email in his shirt pocket and took it out to make sure he was on the right track. John had listed several book titles he wanted Jack to scan for any stories related to, of all things, dark shadow people with more than one shade present during a sighting, as well as any interaction between differing types of spectral apparitions. John was nice enough to give him an example of what he meant, which actually made him break out in goose bumps because his gut told him his friend was speaking of these things from first hand experience. 

It took him almost half an hour to find all ten books. Together, they must have weighed fifty pounds. “You’re paying for my eye doctor bill,” he said, hefting them into a nylon duffel bag. He’d start reading them tonight. 

He looked again at the email that was now sitting on John’s desk and laughed when he read: I’LL NEED YOU TO PULL A CINDY CRAWFORD FOR ME. I HAVEN’T HAD ANY LUCK GETTING A HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OR THIS TOWN FOR THAT MATTER. IT’S LIKE LIVING IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE, WITHOUT THE AMENITIES. FROM WHAT I CAN TELL, THE HOUSE WE’RE IN WAS BUILT OVER TEN YEARS AGO BY SOMEONE WHO WASN’T A RESIDENT OF SHIDA. THE ADDRESS IS LISTED BELOW. LET ME KNOW IF YOU CAN CRAWFORD SOME INFO. :) YOU’LL NEED MONEY. I HAVE A STASH I KEEP IN MY CLOSET IN A PHONY PHONE BOOK. THE INSIDE IS HOLLOW AND HAS ABOUT FIVE GRAND IN IT. TAKE AN EXTRA TWO HUNDRED FOR YOU AND THE MISSUS AND HAVE A NICE DINNER ON ME. CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU FIND ANYTHING OUT. CAN’T TRUST EMAIL UP HERE. — THANKS, JOHN.

Pull a Cindy Crawford. 

There weren’t many people in Jack’s life who knew what that meant. Back when he was in college, he and his roommate George had an unhealthy fascination with supermodel Cindy Crawford. Their walls were plastered with her posters and cutouts from magazines, with special loving care applied to her Playboy layout. One day, they decided it was time to meet the raving beauty. What better place to meet a supermodel than her own home? 

They managed to scrape up enough money to hire a less than reputable private eye, under a cover story about as thin as waxed paper and even more transparent, to get Cindy Crawford’s home address. It only took one week to get the address and a month to screw up the courage to drive out of New York City to her home in Westchester. Once there, they camped out a block from the entrance to her street and waited to catch a glimpse of she-with-the-stunning-mole passing by in her car. They staked out her place seven times before giving up, once even managing to go through her garbage and coming up with a crumpled heating bill with her name on it and an empty bottle of nail polish remover. 

They had both used Cindy Crawford as a code word for finding out secret information ever since. Needless to say, neither had much opportunity to ferret out skeletons in any closets.

Jack finally had his chance to truly pull a Cindy Crawford. 

Wadi and Ciqala eyed Judas suspiciously as they stepped from the dirt bike and dusted their jackets and jeans off by slapping themselves with leather gloved hands. They greeted Muraco with the perfunctory head nod and he threw them each a cold beer. The back yard of Muraco’s house resembled an outdoor museum of rust, filled to bursting with old mattresses with exposed bed springs, rotting tools, a couple of weathered muscle car frames, filthy buckets, and endless scraps of wood, most with bent nails protruding from the mud-caked grain just looking to give someone tetanus. Neither Muraco nor his parents were sticklers for cleanliness and order. 

Muraco, Judas and Wadi sat on overturned cement buckets while Ciqala pulled up an old milk crate encrusted with sod. 

“Dude, what’s Stitch doing here?” Ciqala asked, motioning his head towards Judas. 

“He’s gonna help me out with something, just like you guys.”

Wadi kicked the bucket with the heel of his boot. “Help you with what?” There was no trace of hesitation in his voice. If Wadi was anything, he was game. 

“You’re not going to believe me when I tell you, but I swear, this shit’s for real. Judas can back me up. Right?” He tapped Judas in the chest with the back of his hand. 

“Yeah…right.” Judas replied. He felt like he was in the belly of the beast and it made him as uncomfortable as being in John’s house. Here he was sitting with the three biggest assholes in town, grown men who still taunted him like the worthless bullies they were back in grade school. Now that Judas had gotten himself and Muraco entangled in something strange and, for them, exciting, he was an honorary part of their crew. He wished Teddy were here just so he had a sane face to turn to. 

Muraco filled them in on the story, even including the mysterious death of Millie as a possible link to the strange events at the house on Fir Way. In the middle of his monologue, he stopped and said to Ciqala, “Didn’t your father work on that house?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “He might have. He probably helped build most of the houses around here over the last twenty years.”

“So we have him to blame for this town’s sorry ass look,” Wadi joked. 

“Hey, at least he does more than sit on his ass and drink all day until he passes out.”

A staring contest immediately ensued, which would soon lead to rolling around the floor. Muraco broke it up by shouting, “Cut it out, dicks. This is serious.” He turned to Ciqala. “You think you could ask your old man if there was anything funny about that house?”

“I’d have to be a little smoother than that, but yeah, I could.”

“Cool. Judas here is going to talk to the dude who lives in the house now and see if maybe we could all get together with him. We should probably meet up at Phil’s during the day so there aren’t a lot of people around.”

All three nodded their heads in agreement. 

“Can I bring Erica with me?” Wadi asked. 

Muraco thought it over for a moment, questioning the wisdom of bringing even more heavy shit down on them. Did they really need heat from High Bear, too? Then again, what else was there to do? It’s not like they had any real jobs or lives or futures. 

After a couple of agonizing minutes of silence, he said, “Why not? One more wolf will only make the pack stronger.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

When Jessica came back inside rushing up the stairs and into her room without so much as a word, John knew something must be wrong. He was positive she wasn’t hurt, because she would have come to him immediately for that, expecting comfort and the instant healing power imparted to all parents from above. He was tempted to just go upstairs and talk to her. Past experience taught him to allow her space to decompress and gather her thoughts. She could be intense and often needed time to marshal her emotions.

Eve was playing on the floor with Liam, so she didn’t notice Jessica’s abrupt entrance. John flipped ahead in his book, a compilation of ghost tales of the great northwest, to see how many pages were left in the chapter he was on. He decided to check on her when he was finished. That should give her enough time. 

“You know, we should really all go into town again,” Eve said with Liam on her lap and tugging on her hair. 

Intrigued by this sudden turnaround, John said, “I thought you never wanted to go back there again.”

“I know. I heard on the radio that a cold front is coming and it’s not going to get much better until next spring. It might be a good idea to get out of the house before we’re trapped here and afflicted with cabin fever.”

The house felt entirely different since the night of her revenant dance in the kitchen. The air itself was heavy with expectation. Eve had been unnerved, to say the least, but reassured by John that her experience, though rare, could do her no harm. 

Eve placed Liam on his lap and shifted closer so she could rest her head on John’s knee. “I’ve decided I could care less what those people think of us. For the first time in my life, I’m tired of home cooked food. Let’s go to the diner and get some greasy cheeseburgers. There are some things we’ll need from the store and I think we have to make a stop at the gas station to fill up the generator’s gas cans.”

The house had come equipped with a backup generator that could last a few days in case of emergency, as long as they watched their energy consumption. John hoped he’d never have to use it but realized it was better to be prepared up here, miles from help. 

“I hope the house isn’t creeping you out, because if it is, we can always leave.” Liam turned to face him and buried his head in John’s neck. 

Eve slumped onto the couch next to them. “I can’t say that incident in the kitchen hasn’t rattled me a bit. And there have been some noises that I can’t quite explain.”

“How about smells?”

Eve looked astonished. “You smell things too?”

“It’s all part and parcel.” 

“I thought I was going crazy. I keep smelling something like rotting potatoes, then sometimes it’s perfume, and another time I swear I smelled a burning match, but I was the only one in the room. What does it mean?”

John shook his head. “I don’t know. They could be imprints left on the house like an image on a negative or a spirit’s way of getting attention. I haven’t been able to find any source for the odors that seem to come and go around the house, or any pattern.”

“There’s really something here, John. To be honest, I’m more intrigued than scared.”

He gripped her hands in his and said, “Me, too. I just know that if I can get some solid background on this place, I can at least say I know what’s here and formulate a good theory as to why.” 

He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. 

When Eve emerged from the basement and announced they would need to bring along one of the gas cans for a refill, John added it to his mental checklist and went up to Jessica’s room. He knocked on the door gently and eased it open. Jessica was sitting on her bed reading a comic book. 

“Hi Daddy,” she said with less than her usual enthusiasm when he entered the room. She was clearly troubled by something. 

“Hey squeak-pip. Looks like you came inside just in time.” Thunder rumbled like a passing construction truck and the sky outside was quickly turning to the shade of night. “If you were out there any longer, you and your dolls would be taking a cold shower.” 

Jessica slid her comic book across the comforter onto the floor. 

“Can I tell you something?”

He settled on the bed and pulled her close. “You can tell me anything.”

“I spoke to a man outside.”

Alarms went off inside him and his blood turned to ice. He carefully chose his words and monitored his tone so he didn’t scare her from telling everything that happened.

“Did you ever see this man before? What did he say?”

She snuggled in closer and draped her arm across his chest. “No. He really wasn’t a man.”

John knitted his brow in confusion. “Was it someone dressed up like a man?”

Jessica giggled softly, assuaging his anxiety. 

“No, not like that.” She propped herself up to face him. “He was a ghost. He seemed nice. We talked for a little while, and then he had to go.”

John sat up straighter in the bed. “Are you sure he was a ghost?”

She nodded. “That’s what he told me, and when he left, I saw him disappear into a tree. He said for me to tell you that if it snowed, he would help you, but not to be afraid. He also wanted me to tell Judas he was sorry for making him fall.”