Forest of Shadows (35 page)

The dot grew into a pulsating orb of light with hazily defined edges. Oddly, the light, as it became bigger and brighter, was contained to the object itself. The hallway stayed dark, even though it had a beacon sitting right in its center. 

It was then that the static came in, obscuring the entire screen. 

“Damn!” John slammed his fist down on the table. It was a common occurrence when filming entities. Sometimes their electromagnetic charge would wreak havoc with recording equipment, thus destroying any hope for lasting evidence. 

He watched, dull from disappointment (and perhaps the effects of the pills Eve had given him) as the barrage of white noise played on. Fast forwarding was out of the question as it would make it too easy to miss something that might pop up on screen. 

So he watched. He looked outside the living room window and saw light snow lazily fall to the ground. The edges of the storm were already here. 

Back to the static. White flakes outside, white flakes inside. 

There was no sound on the video and the entire house was silent. Yawning, he realized he’d have to head upstairs soon or risk a backache by sleeping in his chair. 

He turned when he heard footsteps on the stairs. 

“Coming down to check on me?”

Eve came over and looked at the computer screen. “Feeling tired yet?”

“Getting there,” he replied, rubbing his eyes. 

“Let me help,” she said, slipping her nightshirt over her head. 

He sat there, stunned. Eve was completely naked, her nipples puckered atop soft, inviting breasts, the tan lines from her bathing suit still visible. She placed his hands on her hips and pulled his head between her warm, soft cleavage. He looked down at the blonde hair between her legs, felt the heat on her skin, the supple flesh of her ass. 

“It’s about time,” she moaned. 

John’s heart raced as he kissed the space between her breasts, working his tongue across the goose pimpled flesh until her nipple was in his mouth. She pulled away and held his face in her hands. 

She was beautiful. It had been so long since he’d been with a woman and the lust he thought he’d buried for good came roaring back to life. She flashed a devilish smile and went to her knees, unzipping his pants and caressing his hard cock. She didn’t waste any time, slipping her mouth around him, sucking him down to his balls. 

“Oh my God,” he moaned. 

As he watched her head bob up and down on his lap, he was suddenly struck by one of his last memories of Anne and their final night, before the fight. How badly they had wanted each other, finally getting a chance before they were both too tired. How well she knew his desires, expertly stroking him as her tongue played across his head. 

For a moment, he saw Anne’s face instead of Eve’s. His body stiffened, and Eve whispered while massaging him, “Something wrong?”

She didn’t wait for a reply, instead straddling his lap and guiding him inside her. Eve grabbed the back of his chair and started to grind against him, her breasts swaying and slapping against his face. John closed his eyes, afraid to see Anne once again. Eve moaned louder and he felt himself ready to come. 

When he opened his eyes, Eve was no longer astride his lap, nor was Anne. An oily black shadow rode him while two others held his hands to the arm of the chair. When he tried to scream, the shadow swarmed over his mouth, silencing his cries. 

Faster and faster it pumped, until, against his own will, he went rigid with orgasm. Ashamed and terrified, he hung his head. 

Looking up again, he was alone once more, the white snow still dancing on the computer screen. Glancing down, he saw his pants were still on, though tented from his hard-on. 

“What the hell?”

Still breathing heavily, he looked around, searching the dark corners of the room for lurking shadows. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. 

Something on the computer caught his eye. 

A black blob inched its way up the screen in stark contrast to the sea of white blinking flakes. He stared in amazement as it took shape until it was a featureless human head. 

His speakers blared to life.

“
Give them to us
.” The jade head burst into hundreds of black rain drops and faded from the screen. 

For the first time in all his years investigating the unknown, John was afraid. 

Chapter Forty

Sheriff High Bear had stormed from the council meeting that was held at Cheryl’s Diner after closing time. He had enough on his mind without catering to that gaggle of scared old geezers. 

They’d all been there, from the oldest member Pati Samson at ninety, to Muriel Hawkins and her high and mighty ways. As they blathered on about the white man and his family powering
ixitqusiqjuk
, bad spirits, it was all he could do not to lash out at them. He knew deep down that Nuna Goodlife had poisoned Erica against him. The meddling old witch had been a thorn in his side for year. 

Despite knowing all along that their relationship would eventually fizzle out, Erica realizing old men don’t make good on long term plans, having lost her to the intervention of Nuna on behalf of the council was too much. 

So he’d stared at their wrinkled, tan faces. Henry, Sooleawa, Agnes, Niyoc, Thomas, Feather and the dozen others were in attendance, all ordering him to send the white man away. Someone had heard about a gathering at the house with Muraco’s gang and they were terrified of the implications. 

“What do you want me to do? Kill them?” he’d said scornfully in the midst of their cries. 

Their silence provided his answer. 

“There are kids involved. This isn’t like the old times.”

Agnes Riggs had raised a hand to shush them all. She said, “We have children, too. It is worse than the old times. Would you kill Shida’s children instead?”

“Like Millie,” someone lamented. “She paid the price for her grandfather’s sins.”

He’d had enough. He left the diner, jumped into his truck and drove, stopping home at one point to pick up a bottle of Wild Turkey. 

By midnight, he was drunk and broken as a Hank Williams melody. Even the Wild Turkey couldn’t dull his emotions. He was sad Erica was gone, angry at the council, sick at the thought of reliving the past and most of all, fearful of going to that house. 

Gary hadn’t been there since the Bolster family turned up missing, and even then he was surrounded by people, never alone. He’d been alone up there plenty of times in the past and had most certainly worn out his welcome. 

He took another shot of Wild Turkey and felt it sting the back of his throat. 

Damn the council. There were other ways. He’d march up there right now and roust them out of bed. Order Backman to pack his bags and get the hell out. Sure, he’d scare him if he had to, maybe even threaten to kill them all. But they would leave. By the break of day, they would leave. 

There was too much blood up there. It was in the ground, in the roots of the trees, the blades of grass, within the veins of the dry leaves. He’d be damned to start that up again. 

He killed the headlights as he pulled up the driveway on Fir Way. 

The forest around him was silent, save for the occasional skittering of leaves in the wind. Standing outside his truck, his mind wandered. 

“This’ll teach you to follow me here!”

“What are you doing? I’m a cop. Are you crazy?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll make sure your fuckin’ ass rots in jail forever, asshole.”

The men and women surrounding him laughed. 

“You’ll be rotting long before us.” A pause, then, “Gary.”

A much younger Gary High Bear stepped forward, gun in hand. 

“People will come looking for me!”

“Then I’ll make sure to put you in a bigger hole so you can entertain your guests,” Gary said. 

He cocked the hammer…

Gary shook his head to ward off the memory. Dozens of deer footprints dotted the freshly fallen snow. The plan was to repeatedly slam his nightstick on the door, scare the hell out of them, then give them the bum’s rush out of Dodge. It seemed simple enough, though just his being here shrouded by night was turning his stomach to jelly. 

As he approached the house, he heard whispering. He stopped, straining to locate the direction of the voice. Or was it voices? The night was once again silent. 

Something banged against his car. He spun around and noticed his door, which he’d left open, was now closed. 

His breath caught in his throat. 

“
Hhhhhuuuuhhhhhhhh
.”

He was confronted with a single row of shadows so black they obscured the house behind them. They were as tall as him and quivering slightly in the breeze. 

He wanted to run back to his truck, but icy cold fingers sprang from the ground and gripped his back and legs, holding him in place. 

“Shit shit shit shit,” he stammered. 

One of the shadows drifted forward, coiling through the air like a snake. Hovering inches from his face, it whispered, “
Come see the hole. There’s room for one more.”

When Gary tried to scream, the shadow leapt into his mouth, gagging him. 

His body jerked, held up by dead hands. 

I can’t breathe! Gary thought. His mind reeled in terror. 

I…can’t…breathe…

Chapter Forty-One

The last couple of days had been a flurry of activity, and Eve was grateful for the work. It helped to keep her mind off the feeling that she was never alone, no matter what room she was in. It was to be expected, considering all they had seen so far. That didn’t make it any easier for her to deal with.

A day didn’t go by without a handful of odd occurrences: creaking on the stairs as if someone was walking up and down when they were all in bed, turning around to see drawers opened that had been closed just a moment ago, strange tapping noises on windows and the outside of the house, barely audible whispers that faded the moment you tried to concentrate on them, and worst of all, the darting shapes that existed only on your periphery. It was worse outside, an open range zoo of scurrying shadows that made no sounds, which is why she now kept the kids in the house. It was getting too cold to be in the yard anyway, Eve told herself. 

The bell rang and she let Judas in. He seemed apprehensive, so she called for John to come up. 

“You all ready for tonight?” Judas asked. 

“As much as I can be for something like this,” she said. 

John took Judas’s coat and led him to the kitchen, talking a mile a minute. 

Even John seemed distant the past day or so. They barely spoke and there were a few times she actually thought he was avoiding her. Too much stress, for all of them. Who would have thought it would turn out this way?

The weather man had said they would get hit with a pretty bad snowstorm, a freak happening so early in the season. She hoped it wouldn’t impede their departure tomorrow. 

Everything but the bare essentials had been packed away. Jessica and Liam were upstairs taking a nap. She had even loaded up the Jeep with a couple of suitcases. The rest was in boxes throughout the house, awaiting the men who would pick them up for shipment next week. The furniture would go back to the outlet they had rented it from. In just a few days, the house would once again be empty. 

And that’s the way it should remain, Eve thought, shivering from a sudden chill. 

An hour later, she heard the bell ring and John answered. She came downstairs and was introduced to the gang, and they certainly were a gang. 

Muraco, Wadi, Ciqala, Ahanu, Erica from the diner and Mai, their first house guest, were all smiles. Wadi, the one with the shocking red hair, carried a case of beer. To them, this was just a perfect excuse for a party. 

John eyed the group and the beer and scowled, visibly displeased by their attitude. 

“So what do you want us to do?” Muraco asked. 

John sighed and rubbed his hands across his face. Despite his misgivings, he was resigned to working with what he had. “Basically, your just being here is all I need. I have the entire house wired up for video, still pictures, sound, and I’ll be taking frequent electromagnetic, ionic and temperature readings. Upstairs is off limits, because the children are there along with Eve. If you see, hear or feel anything strange, let me know so I can concentrate on that area. If anything solid comes of this, you all just might find yourselves in some magazine articles.”

A couple of the guys high-fived each other and murmured something about being on TV. Erica was busy admiring the house while Mai stood off to the side looking scared. Muraco saw her and pulled her close to him. 

“Hey Judas, where’s your butt buddy?” Ciqala asked. 

“He’s with his grandmother. I guess he’s smarter than us.” 

“Yeah, right,” Ahanu said. “Like missing a chance to be in a magazine is smart. Dumb lard ass.”