Forest of Shadows (6 page)

Chapter Seven

Mom’s Bar was just like any small neighborhood pub. Five or six stools lined up along a battered wood bartop, a couple of black tables and chairs nearby, a pool table that cost a dollar in quarters for a game on a table that had seen better days, a new jukebox that had your standard collection of barroom CD’s: The Best of Jimmy Buffet, Jimi Hendrix, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Van Morrison, Van Halen, Metallica, Bob Marley, and a smattering of new rock and pop acts. Mom’s perpetually smelled like cigarettes and old beer, as did Agnes, the bartender. Agnes was pushing sixty, dressed like she was still twenty and thirty pounds lighter, and was quick to give buybacks to her steady customers. 

John saw Jack Casella at the end of the bar and pulled up a stool next to him. Aside from Agnes, they were the only ones in the bar. Jack and Agnes were watching the television and smoking. Jimmy Stewart glided past the screen riding a horse and wearing a cowboy hat five times the size of his head. He looked ornery. 

“Hey Jack, Agnes,” John said. 

“Well if it isn’t himself,” Jack said and slapped him on the back. 

Agnes went to the tap and pulled him a draft. There was only one beer to choose from at Mom’s. You either had Schaefer on tap or you drank the hard stuff. The fact that it was always cold as hell and only cost a buck made it hard to refuse. 

“So, what brings you to the confines of Mom’s on a sunny afternoon? Not that I mind the company on my daily liquid lunch break. No offense to Agnes, of course.”

John smiled. “I was on my way back to the house, figured I’d find you here and I was in dire need of a cold Schaefer.”

“It’s been a while. Me and Agnes were beginning to think you didn’t like us anymore.”

John had met Jack Casella almost ten years ago when they worked together at the phone company. They had stayed in touch, sliding easily from close work acquaintances to even closer friends. They had been coming to Mom’s for years, though lately, Jack had been making it a daily habit. 

“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” John asked. 

“I have everything I need right here,” Jack answered, holding up his glass. 

“I don’t know how you function for the rest of the afternoon. I remember when we used to go for a few beers on Fridays and I was totally useless when we got back to the office.”

“Who says you weren’t useless before we went out to drink?”

Jack smiled. 

“Is today Wednesday?” he said.

“All day.”

“That would make it Dr. Anderson day. How’d it go? Better yet, tell me what she was wearing.”

Jack had accompanied John to his early sessions with Dr. Anderson and had lusted after her ever since. Dr. Anderson was easy to lust after. 

“Session was the same as usual. I’m no saner than when I went in.”

“And?”

John took a long drink. “Red sleeveless blouse, white slacks, red high-heel shoes. And her hair was down.”

“Any cleavage showing?”

“Christ, you’re hopeless.”

“I’m married. I live to window shop. If you don’t mind my asking,” Jack said, his tone sober, “have you made any progress? I mean about the panic attacks. You’re not still having them as much, are you?”

“Hard to say. I’m on so much medication now, there’s no way of telling whether that’s getting better or not. I have talked to her about weaning myself off them, mostly to see if I’ve gotten any better at handling an attack. Plus, I hate having to take this shit. Sometimes, man, I don’t know which is worse, the attacks or the meds.”

Jack nudged his side. “At least you’re fighting to get better. So what did the sexy Dr. Anderson have to say about your desire to just say no?”

“She thought it was a good idea and we’ve charted out a plan.”

“You nervous?”

“Not about that. Especially since I’m the one who brought it up. No, there was something else she mentioned that kind of got me on edge.” 

He looked to Agnes and held up their empty beer glasses. She tilted her head towards the tap, meaning he should help himself. 

“She said she thinks it’s time I made some changes in my life.”

Jack took a sip and twirled his glass in his hands. “What kind of changes?”

“Anything. She’s right. Here I have the money to do whatever I want and I haven’t even taken a vacation in five years. I live in the same house, follow the same routine day in and day out, talk to the same people, like I’m nestled in some kind of comfort zone except if I was so comfortable, I wouldn’t have so much anxiety. She says that maybe the things I think I need to stay calm are the very things that have made me such a mess.” John traced his finger around a ring of condensation on the bar. “She put it a little bit nicer and more professional than that, but you get the idea.”

“Well then, to changes.” They clinked glasses. “I suggest going slow at first and simply changing your underwear.”

John snickered. The beers were starting to make him lightheaded and it felt good. 

“Here’s the only catch, and it could be dumb but it’s how I feel. Yeah, change would be great and yes, I agree it’s time I lived my life a little. It’s just that…”

He paused.

“It’s just that, with each change, I’ll lose another piece of Anne.”

They passed the next hour mostly in silence, watching an old western, drinking dollar beers and working hard at dulling the pain of a five-year-old memory. 

Chapter Eight

“Far out, man.”

Teddy Hawkins sank his considerable girth into his ratty couch while Judas talked. He popped open a beer and felt the foam spill over his hand and onto the carpet, but he didn’t dare take his eyes from his pasty friend. 

“So, what happened when you went back and told Mary Longfeather?” he asked. His eyes were as wide and white as ping pong balls. 

“What do you think?” Judas huffed. “She accused me of getting stoned on the job and canned my ass. I really could have used the money, too. If I’d have just kept my mouth shut and finished the other houses.”

He lapsed into silence, pondering his lost wealth. 

Teddy pushed his long black hair from his face and struggled to sit forward. One hand plunged into the depths behind a couch cushion while the other fought hard to balance his beer. 

“
Were
you stoned?”

“I only smoked half a jay, then I slept it off. No, dude, I was straight when it happened.”

“And you fell right through the floor?”

Judas shivered slightly. “Yeah. Except there wasn’t even a hole in the ceiling. Man, I just ran the hell out of there as fast as I could.”

Teddy drank his beer in deep contemplation. Judas walked over to the kitchen and poured some cold tap water into a jelly jar with a parade of cartoon characters marching around the glass. He stared at the centerfold for Miss March pinned to the refrigerator but his mind was back at the house. Even the smiling image of a gorgeous brunette with high, tight breasts and long shapely legs couldn’t offer him a much needed distraction. 

“Is there anything in Indian legends that would explain something like that?” he finally asked Teddy. “I mean, if you believe everything you read and see, Indian spirits are like everywhere, especially up here in nowhere land.”

Teddy shook his head. He was part Dakota, part Chitimacha. His grandparents had moved to Shida in the early sixties and the Hawkins family over the decades had woven themselves into the fabric of the Shida Native American community. Shida had become a sort of refuge for members of every imaginable tribe. There were plenty of rumors about the twisted roots of the family trees about town, but silence about the past held sway in Shida.

“I’m as clueless as you,” Teddy said. “All I can think of are the variations on the story of a portal within a deep cave that selected braves descended through to get to the underworlds to battle demons or confront gods. A lot of tribes have pretty much the same story. That’s as close as I can get but hey, I’m just a burnout. I could always ask my grandmother. If anyone would know, it would be her.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Judas’s head hung low and he slumped onto the couch next to Teddy. 

Teddy dropped his beer on the coffee table and slapped his hands. 

“Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t we go out there right now and check it out?”

“What?” Judas exclaimed with an incredulous glance. 

“It would be a piece of cake. You said yourself that the alarm isn’t even on. It wouldn’t be the first time you broke into a house.”

“Man, I did that crap when I was a kid. If I got busted for that now, my ass would be thrown in jail.”

Teddy elbowed his side. “Come on, there isn’t another soul within earshot of the place.”

“You don’t understand,” Judas said. “I don’t want anything to do with that house. I’m still sleeping with the lights and the TV on, bro. I can’t smoke or drink enough to get that place out of my head.”

Judas’s body shifted to the side as Teddy pulled his weight from the couch. He waddled across the room and grabbed their coats, throwing the black leather jacket on his friend’s lap. He reached into a wicker basket by the door and pulled out a set of keys. 

“If you want me to ask my grandmother, I’m going to have to see for myself. It’ll take five minutes, tops.”

Judas sighed and slipped into his jacket. There was no use arguing with Teddy, especially since he was willing to help find an answer. Maybe if there was a name to what he experienced, something tangible with a history, maybe then he could find peace of mind. If not, his electric bills were going to skyrocket.

They loaded into his truck and drove out to the house in a silence heavy with fear and anticipation. It was very late but still relatively light outside, more like an extended dusk. Shida had closed up for the night. The faint blue glow of televisions flickered in only a handful of windows as they made the turn out of the center of town and headed for the more remote areas of habitation. Out here was where the more eccentric populace of Shida lived their quiet existences. Crazy old men and their hunting dogs, an old woman who claimed to be a witch, whole families of three or more generations who lived off the land during the spring and summer, only to be seen in town during the cold season once a month or so to gather provisions. Their children didn’t go to school and the adults would never be found sitting in the pew next to you at church or sidling up to the counter at Cheryl’s. 

Judas started to make the turn up Fir Way without seeing the crooked road sign. God, he’d lived here too long. Even the least traveled paths were part of his subconscious road map. He couldn’t get lost or make a wrong turn if he tried. 

“There it is,” Judas said as he slammed the brakes and put the truck in park. The house was like a depthless shadow nestled among the fir trees. It was ten shades darker out here than anywhere else. The house was completely encircled by tall, full evergreens that blocked out the moon and seemed to create their own stygian atmosphere. 

“It looks big.”

“It is big. Let’s get this over with before I lose my nerve.”

Their feet crunched along the gravel and the night was alive with the sounds of singing insects and the rush of nocturnal animals going about their business. At the front door, Judas used his pocket knife to pick the lock while Teddy took a walk along the wraparound porch. The door was open by the time he made it back around. 

“After you,” Judas whispered. He needn’t have kept his voice low since there wasn’t another soul for miles but something told him it was best not to wake sleeping spirits. 

When Teddy crossed the threshold, the ache of groaning wood echoed like a bellman’s cry to every corner of the house. The mop and bucket were scattered along the living room floor, exactly where Judas had left them, along with some loose change and the two double A batteries that had popped out of his Walkman. 

Teddy slowly moved towards the mop with Judas close behind. Neither of them had expelled a breath since their entrance into the house. An owl hooted nearby in the enveloping forest. “What’s next, a bolt of lightning and a screaming cat jumping at us?”

Teddy snickered. 

Judas snorted to himself. Maybe he was being ridiculous. 

Then again, he did fall through the damn floor. The proof was in the overturned bucket and mop. There was no way he imagined that. 

Judas watched Teddy bend over with a loud grunt and retrieve the mop. He straightened up then tilted his head to gaze at the ceiling. Even in the dark, he could see that the fitted logs above were as solid as they day there were installed. Judas considered pocketing his change and batteries, but decided he didn’t want anything that had been in the house. 

“Looks fine to me.”

“Looked the same to me the other day.”

“Guess we have to go upstairs,” Teddy said matter-of-factly. 

Judas paused and looked at the staircase ascending into pitch black. He grabbed Teddy’s shoulder and half whispered, “Forget it. Let’s just get out of here. You don’t have to ask your grandmother anything. I don’t give a shit anymore.”

His friend moved forward, undaunted. 

“You don’t have to come up, man,” he said. “Just tell me which room you were in when it happened.”