Darkness Stirring: A Troubled Spirits Novel

by J. R. Erickson

  Ben: Sure. You name the place.

  Lori: King's Post.

  15

  Lori wanted privacy, but King's Post was busy, and every table was full. The only seats available included a couple of barstools shoved beneath the long gleaming bar. Leaving an Overeaters Anonymous meeting and heading for a bar was not healthy transition behavior, but Lori silenced the voice in her head and ordered a gin and tonic.

  She watched through the front window as Ben arrived on his bicycle and locked the bike to the rack outside. He wore board shorts, black with a glowing red sun on one side, and a t-shirt depicting two cats kung-fu fighting. He wove toward where she sat and slid onto the stool beside her.

  "Nice shirt," Lori told him, grinning.

  "Birthday gift from my niece, Allison. I've grown rather attached to it."

  "I can see why."

  "So, what's up? Feeling a little better than last night, I hope? Your choice of establishment makes me wonder." He cocked an eyebrow at the rows of liquor bottles stacked behind the bar.

  No, she wasn't feeling better, but she forced a half-smile. "A little, yeah. I wanted to talk because… well, I guess we didn't come up with a game plan for looking into the girls, so I figured no time like the present." Not true. She'd wanted to talk because after she'd left the meeting at Holy Faith Church she'd felt terribly lonely and even the thought of Matilda in the bay window didn't soothe her.

  "Ben, my brotha! How you doing, man?" The bartender, tall and chiseled like a body builder, held out his fist for Ben to bump.

  "Hey, Zander, I'm keeping on. How are you, man? Still running bodies?"

  "Till the day I die. Been doing more on the day shift though. My old lady is pissed I'm working so much. Had a murdercycle yesterday. Damn if some people just won't wear their helmets. They would if they'd seen what I've seen."

  "True that. Widowmaker laws." Ben shook his head. "I'll take a Jones Soda if you have 'em. Vanilla or root beer."

  The bartender walked away and Lori looked at Ben curiously. "Did he say ‘murdercycle?’" she asked.

  Ben nodded. "Zander's a paramedic. ‘Murdercycle’ is someone killed on a motorcycle. Nasty business."

  "I couldn't do it," Lori said, finishing her drink and sliding it back to the edge of the bar. When she caught Zander's eye, she signaled for another.

  "It's not for everyone," Ben said.

  "When did you know it was for you?"

  "When I saved someone's life. That moment pretty well changed me."

  "Vanilla soda and another gin and tonic," Zander said, sliding their drinks in front of them. "Hey, we're doing karaoke on Friday. You coming with your crew? Body Runners versus Vampires?"

  "Yeah, I'll probably be there."

  Zander returned to the opposite end of the bar.

  "Vampires?" Lori asked.

  Ben smirked. "We draw a lot of blood. A few years back we all started meeting for karaoke and trivia. You need team names for trivia. The paramedics chose the Body Runners and our nursing crew opted for the Vampires. It stuck."

  "I don't like the idea of the actual work, but the comradery seems pretty great."

  Ben nodded and took a sip of his soda from the glass bottle. "It is, and necessary in our line of work. It's like being in the police force or the military. The ordinary world doesn't get it. You need people around you who understand. If you go home every night and tell your accountant girlfriend about a ten-year-old who got rushed to the emergency room so beaten her eye had popped out of her head, it can put a serious strain on your relationship."

  Lori flinched.

  Ben looked at her apologetically. "Sorry, that was just an example. I've never seen that myself."

  "But you know someone who has."

  "Unfortunately, yes."

  "How do you live with it? With all the death?"

  "Live, that's the operative word. I try to live every single day. I've seen how short this life can be. I don't want to miss a second."

  "I'm turning thirty next week," Lori said. "And suddenly my life feels... so terribly wrong. A week ago, it seemed fine, not great, but fine, doable. Now… it's like I want to set it on fire and run the other way."

  "Maybe your current life doesn't fit anymore."

  She pressed her hands on either side of her face. "Aren't we supposed to have this all figured out by thirty? My God, I thought by this time, I'd… I'd…"

  "What? Have a husband, couple of kids, little house on a cul-de-sac?"

  She squinted at her drink and then lifted it to her lips, downing half. "No. Maybe that's the problem. I never had a plan. I never had a dream of what my life would be. I think I did before Bev, but everything after that was just... one foot in front of the other, you know? It hurt to think too much, to imagine the future because she'd never get a future."

  "I can think of one future we can imagine right now. Your birthday, the day itself. How do you want to ring in the thirtieth year of your life?"

  Lori frowned and shrugged. "I don't know. Go out to dinner, maybe."

  Ben made a face. "Now that's just sad."

  "What did you do for your thirtieth birthday?"

  "Dressed up in drag and danced onstage at a bar in Toronto. That was after I got a tattoo earlier that day, and let me tell you, that sequined top stung like hell on my freshly tattooed skin." He leaned to the side and pulled up his t-shirt, revealing a staff with a snake wrapped around the top. The bottom of the staff disappeared into the waist of his jeans.

  "What is it?" She lifted her fingers to touch it and then quickly tucked her hand beneath her thigh, aware of what an intimate gesture that would have been and flushing at the thought.

  "The Rod of Asclepius," he said. "It's a Greek symbol. Asclepius was the Greek god of healing. Back in the day, people used snakes in a lot of healing rituals—staffs too, but I've always had a thing for both. I have a royal python at home."

  "As a pet?"

  "Yeah. Leia. She's beautiful, about seven feet long, lemon yellow and wicked smart."

  "She sounds like a keeper," Lori said, unable to hide the shiver down her spine.

  He laughed. "Yeah, most people shudder at the thought of her, but she's really gentle, not a mean bone in her body."

  "Are there any bones in her body?"

  Ben chuckled. "Contrary to popular belief, there are, yeah. Snakes have hundreds of bones, more than human beings. They've got the central spine like we have here." He leaned forward and traced his finger down the ridge of bone on the back of Lori's neck.

  Goosebumps rose over her arms and her breath caught in her diaphragm as his finger traced down her spine through her shirt.

  "Hundreds of vertebrae"—he pressed on a knobby spot in the middle of her back and then slowly drew his finger from her spine along her ribcage—"and hundreds of ribs. The skeleton of a snake is amazing. I've seen quite a few." He sat back, taking his touch with him, and Lori tried to concentrate on what he'd been saying.

  "I have a cat," she admitted, her cheeks warm and likely pink. "Her name's Matilda."

  "Cats are cool. Carm had a cat growing up named Beans."

  "What does it feel like? Getting tattooed?"

  Ben cocked his head to the side, thoughtful. "Have you ever used a hot tub on a bitterly cold day? The outdoor kind? Where you have to walk barefoot in the snow?"

  "Yeah."

  "So think of walking out barefoot in the snow, wind whipping your face. You rush up the steps and climb into that water. The hot water needles your feet, your legs as you sink down. It hurts, but it hurts good. Yeah?"

  "Yeah."

  "That's what it feels like getting a tattoo. It's the kind of pain that keeps you coming back for more."

  "How many do you have?"

  He closed one eye and scrunched his face. "Twenty-two."

  "Twenty-two!"

  He pulled up his shirt to reveal his back covered in the ink. Multiple scenes ran together—a man on a bicycle curving down a mountain road, a stairway leading into
a sky with a clock at the end, an eagle with a bright blue eye. “There are more on my shoulder and chest, half of one arm, the entirety of the other arm. I also have a full thigh done, but we might get some funny looks if I take off my pants."

  She smiled, more warmth flushing her face. "I'd imagine you're right."

  "Back to this thirtieth birthday. What's one thing you've always wanted to do? Preferably something you've always wanted to do that scares you."

  "I’ve always wanted to go to Machu Picchu, ride on a gondola in Italy, snorkel the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, but I don’t think any of those are going to happen by next week.”

  “Maybe not next week, but you should do all those things,” he said.

  “Why do you do stuff that scares you?" Lori asked.

  "After my family fell apart, the perfect little family, I was liberated. I quit the football team and joined drama. I stopped wearing my varsity jacket and the cool clothes of the time, and shopped thrift stores instead, buying sixties corduroy bell-bottoms and hitting the surplus store for army jackets and fatigues. I decided I was beholden to no one—least of all myself and those fixed ideals I'd developed that turned out to be little more than ant hills."

  "Ant hills?"

  "Yeah, these mountains you spend your entire life building only to have one rain wash them away. I've been breaking my own rules ever since. I didn't want to dress in drag on my thirtieth birthday. Frankly, the thought terrified me, but when I dug past the terror, I realized it exhilarated me, and I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to prove to myself that at thirty I was as willing to escape the box as I'd been at sixteen. Fixed beliefs are a leash for the mind. I'm nobody's dog, especially not my own."

  Lori finished her drink, the buzz making her feel light and breezy.

  "Go ahead. Tell me what scares you but secretly excites you." Ben gazed at her intensely, his gray eyes catching the light behind the bar.

  Lori crossed her legs and folded her arms across her chest, though that didn't stop the tremor that moved down her body at the magnetism hovering in the air between them. Then again, maybe only she felt that pull thanks to her multiple gin and tonics.

  "Whew… well…" She let out a long, shaky breath and rubbed her warm cheeks.

  As she searched for the things that scared her, the forest loomed in her mind. Not any forest, but Manistee National Forest where Bev had gone missing off Tanglewood Drive, a forest Lori hadn't set foot in nearly fifteen years. She signaled to Zander to bring her another drink. "I'm afraid of the woods."

  Ben leaned back, tilted his head and then nodded slowly. "Because of what happened?"

  "Yeah."

  "Then that's where we'll go."

  She shook her head. "I don't think so. I appreciate your"—she gestured at him—"whole take on life, but that's not me."

  "How do you know? How do you know if you’re unwilling to try? We drive to the road at the edge of the woods, there’s time to turn back, we park the car, still time to change your mind, we walk into the trees, we can still turn around and walk back to the car. There's nothing finite in that experience. You won't step off a ledge and start free-falling."

  "I'd rather do that," she said. "Yeah. How about bungee jumping or skydiving?”

  He grinned. "You'd rather jump out of a plane than go back to those woods?"

  She nodded.

  "Then the woods it is."

  Zander placed another drink in front of her and she thought he gave Ben a wry look, but the alcohol made her unsure and frankly uncaring. She didn't mind anymore that Stu had cheated or that her job was repetitive and unexciting or that she'd binged on Hostess cupcakes after years of food sobriety.

  She gulped half the glass of alcohol and stood to use the bathroom, tipping slightly. Ben caught her elbow. "Maybe you shouldn't finish that."

  She gazed at him, head drooping forward, and then picked the glass off the bar and finished it.

  16

  The next morning Ben sat at his kitchen table, sipping coffee and taking notes on a yellow legal pad. He'd printed a map of the locations the girls had vanished from and marked each with an X.

  Footsteps padded from the living room where Lori had passed out the night before on his couch. He looked up to find her standing in the doorway.

  "Well, this is awkward," she murmured, shielding her eyes from the light streaming through the kitchen window.

  "Nah. Awkward would be if you were naked or woke up on the front lawn while my neighbor was watering her flowers. This is pretty typical. Come have coffee. Water first though." He gestured at a pitcher of ice water next to the coffee maker.

  He hid his smile as Lori self-consciously patted at her hair and gazed down at her wrinkled clothes.

  "Mugs are above the coffee machine," he told her, watching as she selected a mug, gazed at it and then looked at him curiously.

  She held it up, displaying the black cup with the large pink heart on it. In the center were two words: ‘Go Away.’

  Ben chuckled. "Gift from a co-worker who was not a morning person and didn't appreciate the mornings I'd stroll into the hospital, bike helmet in hand, singing a Tom Petty song and telling her to have a stupendous day."

  Lori smiled and filled the mug. "Cream?"

  "There's coconut milk in the refrigerator."

  Lori added milk and started to sit, then went back to the counter and filled a glass with water, drinking slowly and wincing.

  "Headache?" Ben asked.

  She nodded.

  "Bathroom is down the hall on the left, there are meds above the sink. Ibuprofen, Tylenol, aspirin. Take your pick.”

  Ben returned to his notes. He drew lines between where the girls vanished, using the GPS on his phone to calculate the distance between then.

  Lori's scream ripped through the quiet, and Ben jumped to his feet and ran into the hall.

  Lori stood plastered against the wall. His python, Leia, slithered along the opposite wall, heading for the living room. Ben squatted and lifted her up.

  "Sorry, shit, I forgot I let her out. She's okay." He held Leia out for Lori to touch.

  Lori's face had gone pale, but the color started to seep back into her cheeks. "Leia," she murmured. "That's right. I vaguely remember you mentioning her."

  "She's harmless, meek as a mouse. Well, she eats those, so maybe not the proper analogy."

  Lori ran trembling fingers along the python's smooth scales. "She really is yellow."

  Ben grinned. "Thought I made it up?"

  "No. I just couldn't picture it at the time."

  "I'll put her away, so she doesn't spook you again."

  "No." Lori shook her head, stepping toward the bathroom. "I'm okay. I'm going to take some ibuprofen and wash up. Let Leia have her free time."

  Ben returned to the kitchen with Leia, releasing her into the screened sun room.

  Lori appeared several minutes later, her long hair pulled into a messy top-knot and her face shiny and clean.

  "Feel better?" he asked.

  "A smidge," she admitted, drinking her coffee. Her eyes drifted to the paper and studied the names written there. "This is about the girls?"

  "Yeah," he said, pulling his printed map towards her. "Here's where they each went missing along with the dates." He glanced at the clock. "No work today?"

  Lori shook her head. "I have an appointment in Traverse City with, umm… a dream doctor, I guess you'd call him."

  "A dream doctor?"

  Lori wrapped her hands around her mug. "Yeah, weird, right? When I was young, after Bev went missing, I started getting night terrors, apparently. I didn't remember, but then it happened recently at my mom’s and she told me about seeing this Jungian doctor."

  "Jungian? Like Carl Jung?"

  "You've heard of him?"

  "Briefly. During nursing school, we had a psych class and got a brief overview."

  "Yeah. He did a lot with dreams as a psychiatrist and there's a whole field of study based on his work. This
guy in Traverse City does that work."

  "Bizarre," Ben said, thinking of his own recent nightmare about Summer, made worse by the strange explosion of noise and light in his house just after he woke up.

  "What?" Lori asked.

  "I had a nightmare about Summer a couple nights ago. A really terrible nightmare. I haven't been able to shake it."

  "I did too. Not about Bev exactly, but… weirdly, it feels like it was about Bev even though she wasn't in the dream. I dreamed I was back in my old bedroom at our house in Baldwin, the same one I lived in when Bev went missing."

  "That's it?"

  Lori shook her head. "I woke up in the dream to this horrible crunching sound like something was right outside my door chewing on bones."

  Ben shuddered. "What was it?"

  "I have no idea. In the dream, I got to the door and I was just frozen with fear."

  "That's creepy."

  "Yeah, it is. What was your dream about Summer?"

  Ben tapped his pen on Summer's name on the map, frowning. He almost didn't want to share the dream—retelling it might bring it back to the forefront of his mind, but it was already there, Summer's wasted face in that dark, moldy cabin. "I was in the cabin in the woods, the one she went into that night, and she was there standing in the corner. She turned and her face was"—he grimaced and touched his cheek—"eaten away. There were maggots coming out of the holes in her skin." He shook his head, a feeling of revulsion washing over him. "Disturbing. It spooked me."

  Lori sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

  "Headache still there?"

  "Yeah. I don't think I'll be shaking it anytime soon." She looked at the map. "It is strange, isn't it? Four girls in such a small area."

  "Yes. It's more than strange. It's not just the girls going missing. They all went missing in the same way, walking in the woods in the evening with a friend."

  "I don't get why someone would target girls who are in twos and only take one of them. It's more difficult, so what's the point?"

  Ben stood and refilled his mug of coffee. "Maybe to play head games. He's got a victim to take, but maybe he gets off on the victim he left behind too."