Forest of Shadows (36 page)

“Hey, hey, hey. Let’s try to keep it civil,” John interjected. “Now why don’t you all have a seat in the living room and have a beer. If you want I can start a fire, put in a movie, whatever will make you comfortable.”

They jumped onto the couch and chairs, like standing up had been a supreme effort. Wadi ripped the top off of the case of beer and handed one to everyone. 

“Judas, you want to help out with something simple?”

“Might as well.”

He handed him a handheld device and a pad. “This is a laser guided thermal scan. If you could, just walk around sections of the house and take readings. Once you form a baseline, keep hitting the same spots. If you get a markedly lower or higher reading, note the time, temperature and place.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

Eve watched as Judas walked with his head down around the house while John went back and forth to his different cameras and sensors. Muraco and his friends drank beer and watched an action movie, hooting whenever something blew up. Outside, the wind howled and snowflakes started to fall. 

“Please, God, don’t snow us in,” Eve murmured as she went back up to the children. “And while you’re at it, keep us all safe tonight.”

Chapter Forty-Two

Nuna Goodlife rose with a grunt from her chair and shuffled slowly to the window when she heard a car pull up outside. Erica said she’d wanted to stop by and talk soon. In preparation for her visit, Nuna had bought chocolate chip cookies, Erica’s favorite. She was tempted to have a few herself but the doctor had made her swear off cookies on account of her worsening diabetes. 

She pulled the curtain aside and saw the Sheriff’s truck parked alongside her car. 

This couldn’t be good. She saw his face during the meeting and the raw hatred there. He was mad at all of them, her especially because of her link with the child. It wasn’t right, him cavorting with a girl her age. And maybe she wanted to protect Erica in the process, keep her from learning any of his dark secrets or the council’s shrouded past. Physical relations have a way of loosening lips. 

He knocked loudly on the door four times. 

“Hold your horses, High Bear. I’m coming.”

Might as well let him say his piece, let the air out a bit so he didn’t pop.

She opened the door to a man who was no longer Gary High Bear. His cobalt blue eyes were dead and gray. A river of bile had frozen and crusted on his chin and shirt. 

“Why did you run? Did you think you could just steal my kids and money and get away with it?” he said in a voice that was not his own. 

Nuna knew that voice all too well. She began to tremble.

“I told you when I threw you out, Nuna, crime doesn’t pay. Time to come back home.”

“No!” she shrieked. 

Gary High Bear raised his gun and shot her in the face. 

A prisoner in his own body, Gary watched Nuna’s head explode. He’d been reduced to a series of mere molecules granted access to the sights and sounds of carnage his own body was creating. Thick gobs of blood hit the ceiling and floor as her body crashed to the ground. The bullet had taken off the entire right side of her face. Her left eye slipped from its shattered socket and lolled onto the floor. 

Swimming in revulsion, he was forced to view his booted foot crash down and pulverize what was left of the old woman’s head. 

The world spun as he turned to go back to his truck. He could smell Thomas Covell’s vomit as it dried under his nose. He didn’t know which was worse, quickly killing Nuna with a single bullet or watching as he strangled Thomas to death. 

He was utterly helpless. The vile eddy of hostile spirits that had invaded his body was in control now. He could hear it laugh, gleeful in the death of the council members and happy to have him locked in his own cage. 

As easily as it could read his thoughts and divine his memories, he could get a sense of its own designs. Muriel Hawkins was next. It was going to get everyone on the council, one by one. But then what? 

He drove along, not bothering to put on the wipers to clear the windshield of the heavy snow that had begun to accumulate. The truck skidded to a stop in front of Muriel’s home and he grabbed the shotgun off the rack. 

Without pause, he kicked the door off its hinges with the force of a concentrated hurricane. Teddy Hawkins sat in front of the TV eating a bowl of ice cream. The door skidded to a halt at his feet. When Teddy saw the sheriff and his rifle, he jumped from the couch, shouting, “Mamaw, run! Get out of the house!”

Both barrels caught Teddy in his ample stomach. His shirt flew apart in tatters and dozens of bloody holes erupted on his pale flesh. 

Muriel stood in the hallway aghast. 

“Why did you kill my husband?” Gary said, this time in a woman’s voice. “You were my best friend!”

A calm settled over Muriel as she faced him. 

“Because he chose you over me, Sally. I was young, and jealous and stupid.”

A grin spread across Gary’s face. 

“Not good enough,
friend
.”

Before she could say another word, he shot her in the chest. She flew back into the hallway and out of sight, landing with a tremendous thud. 

Inside himself, Gary screamed as his body walked out of the house searching for its next victim. 

Chapter Forty-Three

The snow outside had begun to accumulate over the past hour. High, howling winds battered the house as thick sheets of snow obliterated their view of the outside world. Even Muraco, who was used to intense winters, remarked how early in the season it was for such a storm. 

As John walked by the patio doors, he thought he saw something move past the bottom of the steps. When he looked back the snow was pristine, not a track in sight. 

He rubbed his eyes, hoping it was just a side effect of snow blindness. Could you get that just by looking out a window? He wasn’t sure. 

While everyone watched a movie and drank, he noticed Mai was sitting off to herself. 

“If you’re frightened, I can take you home,” he offered. 

She shook her head. “I’m okay.”

He didn’t even know her and he could tell she was lying. It probably wouldn’t do any good to make a scene out of it. The last thing he wanted to do was upset the balance with Muraco’s gang. It wasn’t like he’d invited the church choir to the house. 

Judas came over to him and said in a hush, “It looks like the temperature of the entire room is dropping. In the past ten minutes, everywhere I’ve taken a reading is lower by five degrees.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Five degrees is pretty significant, especially in such a short amount of time. If it was a little less, I’d just say the house was getting cold because of the weather outside. Are there some spots dropping more than others?”

Judas consulted the list he’d been tracking for the past couple of hours. “Nope. It’s everywhere. If this keeps up, we’ll all be ice cubes.”

That was odd. Cold spots were ubiquitous phenomena when it came to hauntings. Entire rooms dipping into a chill were rare and many times portents to major poltergeist activity, though John had ruled out a poltergeist some time ago. What was happening here just didn’t fit the mode. Then again, nothing in this house adhered to any set pattern. 

“Can you do me a favor and just take some quick readings on the stairs and upstairs hallway? Then do it again every five minutes. Let’s see what we get after a half hour.”

“Gotcha.” Judas went back to aiming his thermal scanner and taking notes. 

In the meantime, John took a few Polaroids. He looked at the ones he had taken previously and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just a living room filled with delinquents watching the television. 

“If you want, I can take some pictures for you.” It was Erica. “I took photography in school. I’m pretty good at it.”

He thought it over for a moment, hefting the camera in his hand. 

“Sure. You don’t have to be Annie Leibovitz with these pictures.” The reference went high and wide. He handed her Eve’s camera that he’d kept looped around his neck. “Here you go. If you see any weird shadows or balls of light, let me know.”

“No problem. Hey, thanks.” 

Muraco tilted his head back over the couch and pined, “How come I don’t get to do anything cool?”

Thankfully, he laughed before John could cook up a reply. He realized with a small sense of dismay that he may have to get them all involved at one point, just to keep them in line. 

When he looked down at the fresh Polaroids, every picture had developed with a translucent white sheen, as if someone had poured milk over the lens. He brought one over to the dining room table and examined it with a magnifying glass. A black funnel that looked like a mini twister could bee seen just outside the front window. 

He quickly went to the nearest video camera on its tripod and swung it towards the same window. Judas came downstairs and stepped into the shot.

“Upstairs is okay, so far.” He saw the determined look on John’s face behind the camera and scooted to his side. “I don’t think I want to be in the line of fire,” he half joked. 

Upstairs, Eve, Liam and Jessica stayed in the big bedroom and played Candy Land. Liam spent the game in his mother’s lap chewing on one of the playing cards. 

Jessica waved to Judas when he came up with the laser thermometer. She had a feeling that if she ever liked boys, she would think he was cute. He smiled back and walked off down the hall. 

Even though the people downstairs could sometimes be noisy, Liam started to yawn. So did Eve. 

“How about we all take a nap?” Eve said. 

“I’m not tired,” Jessica said. 

“You want to play with your video games?”

“Okay.” 

While Eve and Liam went to sleep, Jessica played her game system. Judas stayed in the hall for a while, and went back down to her father. It had started to get cold, so she put on her knitted poncho. 

When she got bored, she turned the game off and picked up a book. As she turned the page, the book fell from her hand as if it had been slapped. Surprised, she sat up and saw a boy in the hallway. 

It was the boy she had seen out on the patio, the same one that had been in the house when they first came here. He motioned for her to come closer. He looked as real as the people downstairs; as real as his father had appeared in the yard that day.

Casting a quick glance back at Eve to make sure she was still asleep, Jessica approached the boy.

“Come here,” he said and darted down the hall. Jessica followed. He stopped when he reached the door to the room at the end of the hallway and said without turning his head, “You’ll have to open it.”

He stepped aside and melted into the wood when she gripped the handle. As the door creaked open, he was already there, standing in the center of the room. The man she had come to believe was his father stood next to him, with a woman at his other side. They didn’t appear threatening, but they weren’t smiling either. 

“If you stay here, we can save you,” the father said. His arm was draped over the boy’s chest. 

“We’re strongest here,” the woman said. She motioned at the floor and when Jessica looked down, she could suddenly see everyone below. It was as if the floor had disappeared! Jessica gasped and stepped back. “The strength of my family will hold you up. When the time comes, bring your aunt and cousin to this room. We’ll do all we can to protect you.”

Now, Jessica wasn’t afraid of energy people, but she was terrified of their implications. 

Then a thought came to her.
Should I trust them? Maybe they’re the ones who I should be running from, not to. 

She felt a tingling sensation on her shoulder and whirled around, coming face to face with the light boy. Though he didn’t have a face, much less a mouth, he said, “You have to trust us. We’re already dead, but you don’t have to be.”

There was shouting downstairs and the two girls who had come with the boys screamed. Jessica jumped. 

“It’s happening,” the light boy said and sank into the floor. 

Chapter Forty-Four

When Gary High Bear looked at his face in the rearview mirror, all he could see was a pair of wild, gray eyes poking out in a sea of red. Blood dripped down his hands and formed a pool on the leather seat between his legs. A chunk of flesh about the size of a hamburger was caught on his jacket zipper, dangling like a quivering ornament. 

Jesus Christ, I can’t take anymore! 

The last two murders of council members had been especially gruesome. They were easy pickings, every last one of them. It was easy to kill when your victims were old and feeble. Henry and Feather Shipman had been the worst. He’d snuck into their unlocked back door, pulled an electric knife and a meat tenderizing hammer from a drawer. 

They were reading the paper in the living room, oblivious to the madman in their house. He smashed them in the back of the head with the hammer and dragged them to the kitchen where he carved them up like Thanksgiving turkeys. Gary watched in helpless horror as his own hands gathered strips of flesh and muscle and crammed them up Henry’s anus, which he’d sliced open with a steak knife so he could stuff him easier.