Jack slipped out of the hospital room unnoticed.
Back in the cab of his truck, Jack Whitefeather’s meditation felt like it was finally working. He saw a blurred image in his mind of a patch of tall grass which he didn’t recognize at first. Then the crow shifted its gaze and Jack saw a large oak tree in an open field that he recognized instantly. The bird was on the back of his property. The tree he looked at through the crow was the tree his mother had planted over the grave of his grandmother, Sparrow Whitefeather. The otherwise unmarked grave had remained undisturbed since his own mother’s passing.
Before the tree, a shimmer appeared, and Jack knew even before the vision was clearly visible that it was his grandmother’s spirit. This was the Sparrow he now remembered as a child, an old frail woman, with gnarled hands and few teeth remaining. She wore the same dress she had worn in her youth, the light brown one with the burn mark on her chest. The old woman extended her arms towards the crow, palms up, fingers splayed as if inviting the bird, or perhaps him, to come to her. The spirit of the old grandmother opened her mouth wide as if chanting, but no sound came at first. Then Jack heard the sound coming from inside his mind, the sound of rushing wind which would eventually carry a keening voice along with it. The crow launched itself into flight.
Jack’s body convulsed as in his mind’s eye, he saw the bird fly headlong at Sparrow Whitefeather’s spirit. In an instant, the bird was flying into the old woman’s wide-open mouth and Jack’s body stiffened as everything in his mind’s eye went black.
A flash came to him of a circle of fire, followed by another flash of the twins, standing in the center. He heard his grandmother’s stern voice commanding him to do the unimaginable. What was this circle of fire? What did it mean? He thought as the visions came.
“Kill the children! Kill the children and end the evil bound to their family!”
Jack’s body tensed, knocking his hat against the back window of the truck making it fall off his head. The voice of his grandmother echoed once again in his mind, louder than before.
“The boy is a sign! Kill them and end the plague of evil twins forever!”
Why is the boy a sign? A sign of what? Jack wondered.
His hand immediately covered his ears as Jack woke from his trance. He was soaked with sweat and tears immediately welled up in his eyes. But what of Norah, he thought as he felt a pain in his chest and panicked. He clutched at his chest and grimaced. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. Was this the day he died, he wondered? A heart attack would save him from what he needed to do, but it wouldn’t save others from the evil that clung to Lily. Jack took a deep breath and felt the pain in his chest subside. Was this what real stress felt like, he pondered. He needed to relax. A heart attack might be a blessing in disguise for the old man but not for the future victims of the Jenkins’ curse.
Chapter 14
Generations of Evil
Year: 1917
Nineteen-year-old Fannie Jenkins sat in the nursery of her new, secluded home, built for her by her former lover, Edmond Finley. He had made a lot of money in the flourishing lumber industry of Oakwood Island. With wood from his mill and money to pay for the construction he had built her a beautiful home, telling people it was what a good and responsible Catholic man did, help someone in need.
With twins of her own of little more than two years old, Fannie found herself thinking dark thoughts again, like she had done during her youth. She had struggled with a darkness inside her throughout her childhood and never understood why. While pregnant the darkness had seemed to subside and she felt like perhaps she could after all, finally lead a normal life.
The courtship with Edmond Finley had been shortened by the unexpected pregnancy. In one of her episodes of darkness, as she liked to call them, Fannie had seduced the good Catholic Edmond. This had not been a problem for Edmond, until he learned that Fannie was pregnant with his child out of wedlock. His Catholic upbringing had engrained in him the thought that a child born out of wedlock was sinful. His parents and family would shun him if they learned of Fannie’s pregnancy. Edmond ended the courtship before Fannie showed any signs of the pregnancy to protect his reputation and he’d secured Fannie’s agreement to end their relationship by vowing to build Fannie a home for her and her child.
Fannie though, had had twins and it wasn’t long after the children were born that the rumors began to spread as people speculated on whom the father really was. Several people were sure it was Edmond, but other stories spread of how her brother was the father. Those rumors had been fueled by Edmond in order to protect his own reputation. He would recount the scandalous story to anyone who would listen, and added that he’d known all along, which was why he’d built Fannie the house to protect her from her evil brother. Having provided for Fannie and the babies financially, he had been seen as the hero in all this in the end. He knew he was the father, but he would never correct any of the rumors. What he did not know was that rumors were based on a truth he would never fully comprehend.
In 1914, on their parent’s farm and cattle ranch, Fannie and Liam, her sixteen-year-old twin brother, had been growing more independent. Fannie’s parents had kept her and Liam sheltered for a long time, never wanting to let them venture out too much. She knew there was something about her that her parents were afraid of, ever since she had been a young girl. She had always felt – something – deep inside of her, something dark, and Fannie suspected that this was why their parents had been so overprotective.
But eventually, as the twins got older, their parents had become more complacent in their discipline. Wallace, their father, was getting older and needed help on the ranch so when Fannie and Liam had become teenagers Wallace had put them to work on the farm and ranch. The new experiences had been liberating for a time, and Fannie and Liam soon learned that by completing their work that they had gained some independence from their parents.
This all changed one fateful night when Liam and Fannie both experienced something so traumatic that it would mark them forever.
One day one of their father’s business associates had come to the ranch. He was from Anchor’s Point, the small village on the mainland, and he’d brought along his daughter to see the ranch. Liam had been working near the house when they’d arrived, and the girl had laughed when they first met. This caused Liam to feel uneasy and self-conscious, but he was smitten with her beauty and long, blonde curly hair.
The blonde girl came to the ranch several times over the course of that summer. Every time she would giggle and laugh whenever Liam was around. Liam eventually grew tired of the laughs and giggles. He assumed she was laughing at him, which annoyed him, but he wouldn’t show it, as he was attracted to her. Unbeknownst to him, her giggles were simply due to her being nervous around him, a young man, she too found very attractive.
As the laughing and giggling continued, Liam’s growing lust for the girl became fueled with anger.
For some time, Fannie had thought her darkness had been under control. She’d gone several months without having had an episode. But one night that summer, the darkness came to her out of the blue. As always happened when the darkness came, she did not try to change her thoughts, nor did she try to stop them. She felt a sense of longing for the ultimate control she knew she would have over the person in her midst. It was like she had no control over herself during her episodes, but she could control those around her, in the most intense and oftentimes scariest of ways. With this power, Fannie could do whatever she wanted and had done so since she had been very young. She used it to her advantage a few times to scare Liam with the sight of a snake in the tall grass. He would run off, terrified of the slippery serpent. She would laugh, amused at this power to frighten her brother as well as others around her. Although she didn’t know how it happened, or where it came from, she didn’t push against it either as she loved the thrill she felt whenever it happened.
On this particular evening, the only other person nearby happened to have been Liam. They had been tasked with cleaning the barn. As her thoughts turned towards her brother, everything in the barn dissipated around her. She could only see him and nothing else while she could feel something, a presence of sorts, taking over. She felt the desire welling up inside of her, the wanting to control, to use it to her advantage. Her lips curled at the corners, a smile spreading across her face as she stared at her brother.
Liam had stopped sweeping and looked up towards Fannie. There, standing in front of him, was the blonde girl from the mainland. Surprised but happy to see her, he smiled as he propped the broom against the nearest wall. He looked behind her to see where Fannie had gone, but could see no sign of her anywhere. He cleared his throat, wanting to talk to the pretty young woman standing in front of him.
“What a nice surprise to see you here! I thought you were back on the mainland. What are you doing here?”
He saw her smile at him, her bright blue eyes so inviting. He felt himself blushing, his excitement obvious at the sight of her. Just as he was about to ask her if she had seen his sister when she came in, she let out a slew of giggles. Liam’s smile vanished just as quickly as the giggles started. As he watched her, his skin grew warmer as she began laughing hard, pointing at him while doing so. She laughed and jeered at him as she undid the top buttons of her white blouse, exposing the soft skin of her perky breasts. As he watched her undress slowly, still laughing at him, anger filled him alongside a desire that he could no longer hold back. He rushed to her, ripping apart the rest of the buttons of her shirt, grabbing her breasts and kissing her hard on the mouth. Pushing her down on the hay in the corner of the barn, he had his way with her, the blonde girl laughing the whole time, moaning in pleasure in between laughs. Once he was done, he collapsed on her, panting from the excitement and release of his first sexual encounter. As he raised himself off though, he realized the blonde girl was no longer laughing, nor moving. Looking down, he saw his sister, Fannie, eyes wide in fear and shock, pulling down her skirt and closing her ripped blouse with shaky hands. Without a word she ran out the barn and to their home up on the hill.
No one would ever know that Liam thought he was with the girl from Anchor’s Point. Not even Fannie. Though she knew the darkness that overcame her could bring about much trouble and pain to those she inflicted it upon, she understood very little about the evil that poured out of her when she was affected by it. She had no control over what happened when it took hold of her.
She only knew that she often felt this darkness envelop her, creating evil thoughts that scared, yet excited her. This time however, it had cost her a lot more than what she had bargained for. The same dark thoughts would eventually drive her family away.
Once at the house, she had run up to find her father and told him that her brother had attacked her in the barn. After her insistence, Wallace had confronted Liam. The boy claimed he hadn’t been with Fannie, but with the girl from the mainland. He admitted that he had been intimate with the blonde girl, but somehow Fannie had appeared out of nowhere, and the other girl was gone. His father knew better. The girl Liam liked had gone back to her home on the mainland a week before.
When Wallace explained to his daughter that Liam had been confused, that he was convinced she had been the girl from Anchor’s Point, Fannie knew something strange had come over her brother, and it was her own doing. She knew that when the darkness came over her, her thoughts would focus on someone and drive them mad, drive them to see things that weren’t really there. She knew she couldn’t tell her parents this, or anyone else for that matter, as no one would believe her.
Wallace and Hester feared for their children’s sanity, as they both sounded mad, like Henri, their real father, had been before hanging himself years ago. Wallace decided to send Liam away for the rest of the summer, trying his best to keep the twins separated. He hoped that distance would allow them to regain a sanity they both seemed to have lost.
But after Liam was sent away, Fannie had started spending more time in town, trying to escape the dark thoughts. She had met Edmond, and had seduced him, not knowing if it had been the darkness or her own desire to escape the events from the barn.
When it was discovered that Fannie was pregnant, and Edmond had ended his courtship, Wallace feared that Fannie would be driven completely mad. As the rumors spread among the townsfolk, he was sure that Fannie would go crazy, but she’d seemed unusually calm. When Edmond agreed to build Fannie the home, Wallace thought it was a good thing, despite the rumors he knew Edmond had been spreading about Liam. The home seemed to provide Fannie with some stability that had been missing in her life. But throughout her pregnancy, Wallace feared for the safety of her unborn child. Would it be born with this sickness of the mind too? Would it suffer at the hands of their mother, or its uncle?
Now, a few years later, as Fannie sat in the room where her twins slept, she idly wondered if the children had her ability. Would they be able to taint someone’s mind? Would they get a thrill from the darkness when it came?
Was she going even madder by thinking about this? Maybe she wasn’t really going mad at all, but instead being driven into madness by her own children. She wondered; could such evil be passed on?
Chapter 15
Better That Way
Jin Hong opened his eyes and saw stars in the night sky above him. He felt the cold ground beneath his back, and an ache that spread from his shoulders all the way down to his lower back. His vision blurred, the stars becoming fuzzy glows and then his eyes regained their focus and the stars turned into sharp pointy pin pricks of light again. He turned his head, pounding and heavy, and saw trees jutting out of the ground on each side of him as he came to the realization that he was still in the forest. Feeling disoriented, he wondered how he got there and how long he had been lying there. The last thing he remembered was running. Why was he running? Why were his eyes burning? Confusion had its grip on him, and he couldn’t seem to gather up his thoughts in a cohesive manner.
He heard a rustling sound nearby and noticed a part of the darkness moving. Jin felt panic rise in his chest and a scream build in his throat. A scream he suppressed as he realized the patch of moving darkness was a large black bear a few feet away. The bear approached him slowly until he could feel its breath on his face, sniffing out his scent. Tears ran down the sides of his face from a combination of fear and the burning sensation in his eyes. Jin held his breath in anticipation as the bear sniffed at him before it turned and walked away. Jin would later think he heard the bear’s stomach growl as he lay there, holding his breath while it inspected him. He wondered why the bear had not killed and eaten him but was relieved the bear had decided against having him as a meal.
Jin sat bolt upright when his memories of events flooded his mind. He remembered the disfigured rat leaping onto his chest and spraying something in his face and eyes. He patted his eyes which felt free of the sticky substance now but still felt hot. Jin touched them and felt slight swelling. He looked about for the bear and saw that it was gone. Jin patted himself down, assessing the situation as if expecting to find injuries. His backpack was gone and so was his cell phone. With no compass and no flashlight, he would have to navigate by stars alone. As Jin got to his feet and tried to look up at the stars, he staggered and reeled from a momentary head rush. Pain shot down his back and across his shoulders, but he managed to regain his balance. He continued his assessment of himself. Besides the pain from the fall, he realized that the only other injuries he had were a sore scalp and the burning irritation in his eyes. He studied the stars and decided he was confident enough that what he was looking at was the Big Dipper and the North Star. He got his bearings and began to walk. He must have passed out and that’s how he ended up still in the woods at this hour, he thought to himself. With a combination of his aches and pains plus the darkness he soon stepped on a tree root and rolled his ank
le and fell on his side.
This is going to be a long damn walk, he thought to himself as he got to his feet and began his trek again but this time with a slight limp. He still managed to bend tree branches to mark his path. This much he remembered from his training as a scout, long ago.
After what felt like the longest hike of his life, Jin was back at his motel room. He felt exhausted. His head ached and his entire body shook with fatigue, but he couldn’t rest just yet. Not until he made a call. The trek through the dark woods guided by what few stars he could see had taken Jin much longer than he had anticipated. During his long journey back to the motel, he had nothing but time to ponder the predicament he knew had befallen part of Oakwood Island. He had no idea what that rat thing had been, but he knew what that dead rabbit was.
It was very bad.
The way the dead rabbit hung from the tree from its maw with its guts opened meant the fungus was spreading. It was spreading on a scale that no one had ever seen before in creatures much larger than the tiny little zombie ants he studied in the Amazon forests of Peru. Burke won’t believe me, he thought as he dug through paper files trying to find the business card the detective had given him.
A short time later, Jin was lying on the bed, a soothing wet washcloth over his itching eyes and the motel phone at his ear.
“You know what time it is?” he heard Burke say through a voice hoarse from too many cigarettes. “Who is this?”
“It’s Jin. I lost my phone, so I called you from the motel phone.”
“It’s 4:37… AM. Couldn’t this have waited until the morning?” Burke asked.
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