Calling Back the Dead: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel

by Erickson, J. R.

  Sarah closed her eyes, and the room tilted as she pushed deeper into Brook’s hungry lips. Suddenly falling, she shot her arm out and caught the edge of the counter. Brook held her firmly around the waist.

  “Whew,” she breathed. “Are you okay? I thought you might take us both down.”

  Sarah blinked and raked a hand through her blonde hair. It felt oily. When had she last washed it? As she considered the question, she realized she had eaten nothing that day, either. No wonder the kiss rendered her senseless.

  “I need a shower,” she murmured.

  Brook’s smile widened, but Sarah shook her head.

  “I want to, eventually. I do, Brook. I’m into you all the way. Okay? I know you might think I’ve been playing games, but honestly-”

  “Hey,” Brook grabbed her hand and kissed it. “I meant what I said. I’m not here for excuses. You’re in a strange place. I don’t have a twin, but I adore my sisters. If I ever lost one…” She trailed off. “Don’t feel guilty, and don’t feel obligated. I’m here right now. That’s enough for me.”

  Sarah kissed her on the lips and rested her forehead against Brook’s.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  After she showered, Sarah slipped into a pair of freshly laundered jeans and a crisp white t-shirt. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and returned to the living room, pausing in the hallway at Will and Brook’s conversation.

  “Ethel Kerry,” Will explained. “That was her name.”

  “Wow,” Brook said. “I knew I heard a little girl that night. I tried to do research on the house, but that was fifteen years ago. The Internet wasn’t exactly thriving.”

  “I can’t imagine a world without the Internet,” Will said. “Here, check out this article I printed.”

  Sarah stepped into the room.

  “Well, you guys are fast friends,” she said, winking at Brook when she looked up from the article.

  “We share a common interest,” Will declared, tapping the pile of books.

  “Ready for lunch?” Sarah asked. “We can continue our Kerry Manor discussion at North Peak.”

  CORRIE

  * * *

  “YOU DIDN’T WRITE that in the book,” I murmured.

  “The book was fiction,” Fletcher said gently. “I had read about resurrections. Different texts told different stories. The dead would come back as an apparition, or in the body of another. What did I have to lose? One way or another, I would have her back. Whether she returned, or I joined her on the other side.”

  He stopped and gestured at my hand.

  “Corrie, you’re bleeding.”

  I looked down. I had been squeezing my hands in a fist so tightly, my nails had drawn blood from my palms. I opened them and stared at the line of red crescent moons. I started to wipe the blood on my pants, but Fletcher stood.

  “I’ll get a towel,” he said, “and maybe this is a good time for a cup of tea?”

  I nodded, trembling, most of me wanting to insist he sit back down and finish the story. Instead, I followed him into the kitchen. He doctored my hand, wiping it clean and wrapping it in a paper towel.

  I started to fill the kettle, but he took it from my hands.

  “Sit, I’ve got this.”

  I watched him move through the kitchen, filling the kettle, pulling packets of tea from the jar by the sink.

  “Have you been with anyone else? Since Lauren?” I asked.

  He paused and looked out the window, where rain had begun a soft patter against the glass.

  “Yes, several. But no one has compared to her. Not to the love I shared with her.” He turned back to me. “I didn’t expect anything else. But you don’t have to think about that yet, Corrie. My advice to you is not to rush into anything or anyone right away.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I whispered. “I couldn’t. And I won’t need to.”

  “Because you’re going to bring him back from the dead?” Fletcher asked.

  I looked away from him and nodded.

  He sighed.

  “I wanted to hold her again, so I opted for the resurrection that included another person. I needed someone who wanted to die, someone ready to leave the world, but also who resonated with Lauren. I searched for months.”

  “And you found her,” I said. I had read the book. I knew.

  “Yes, her name was Jade. She lived in New York City and she reached out to me online. She had planned a day for her death.”

  “And it worked…”

  “No,” he shook his head. “It didn’t work, Corrie. I wrote the book because I needed the catharsis. I needed to follow the possibility to its end. The night of the ritual, Jade swallowed a bottle of OxyContin. I rushed her to the hospital. I couldn’t go through with it. They pumped her stomach, and she survived. She hated me for a long time, and then she forgave me. We’re still friends.”

  He took his phone from his pocket, scrolling for a moment before handing it to me.

  I stared at an image of Fletcher in front of the Statue of Liberty. A small, dark-haired woman with huge brown eyes and piercings in her nose, eyebrow and cheek looked back at me.

  “That’s her, Corrie.”

  As I looked at the picture, my shoulders slumped. My head seemed to grow heavier, and I rested it on my hands.

  “I’m sorry.” He touched my hand, and I stared at his fingers, long and smooth with the nails clipped short.

  I used to clip Sammy’s fingernails. Every few seconds he’d jump and howl in pain, and Isis would giggle.

  I couldn’t even look at fingernails; the most neutral thing in the world reminded me of Sammy.

  Sarah

  * * *

  “FUCK,” Sarah grumbled when she spotted one of the detectives she’d seen during her last trip to the police station. The detective put his menu down and glanced their way. His eyes stopped on Sarah, and then widened when he spotted Will.

  Will craned around in his seat, following Sarah’s gaze.

  “Hey, Detective Lawson. How’s it hanging? Put away any innocent men today?”

  Brook had just begun to ask who they were all staring at, but closed her mouth at Will’s comment.

  Sarah kicked him under the table.

  He jumped but continued glaring at the detective until the man lifted his menu back up, concealing his face.

  A moment later, Detective Collins walked in.

  Sarah dropped her head into her hands, looking up when Detective Collins cleared his throat. He stood next to their table.

  “I see you’ve found Will Slater. Funny, you didn’t get in touch with us so we could interview him.”

  “Obviously it wasn’t that hard,” Will declared, folding his arms across his chest. “Hoping to pin this one on me? Follow in your mentor’s footsteps?”

  Detective Collins considered Will, nodding his head as if coming to some conclusion.

  He pulled a card from his pocket and planted it on the table.

  “It would be great if you’d come down to the station to answer a few questions, Will. Maybe your new friend can drive you.” He nodded at Sarah and turned on his heel.

  “What was that all about?” Brook asked.

  “Oh, they’d like to blame me for the murder,” Will said nonchalantly. “And now Sarah’s my accomplice.”

  “I don’t want to talk here with those detectives in hearing distance,” Sarah said. She turned to Brook. “Will and I have to meet someone this afternoon, but I promise I’ll fill you in on everything soon.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Now

  Corrie

  I watched Fletcher hurry to his car, his coat held above his head as a flimsy shield against the downpour.

  I couldn’t let him go. I ran into the storm. The rain had soaked me clear through before I stepped off the porch and plummeted into the muddy yard. I slipped on wet leaves and nearly fell.

  “Fletcher,” I called out his name, but the roar of the wind drowned my call.

  He opened his car d
oor.

  I surged forward and caught his coat, yanked him around to face me.

  “Tell me, damn it!” I howled, and maybe he heard, or perhaps he read the desperation in my face.

  “Get in,” he yelled into my ear.

  I scrambled around to the passenger side of his car and climbed in, soaking his seat.

  The cold seeped through my skin, slowed my blood, turned my bones to ice. My teeth chattered as he started the car and turned on the heat.

  “I met a woman,” he said at last. “She described a place - a dimension, if you will, where evil does not exist. And then there is earth, where everything, good and evil, manifests as matter. And then there is the space between, the place where souls and energy might linger, might get trapped.”

  “And you found her? You summoned Lauren’s spirit?”

  He closed his eyes briefly and looked back at the house. I saw the troubled way he watched it, as if were not a house at all, but a monster waiting to devour us.

  “I can’t explain how, but the woman-”

  Something in the way he said ‘the woman,’ gave me a chill.

  “She showed me the way. But Corrie, if you do this…”

  “I don’t care!” I slapped his dashboard so hard my hand stung.

  “I know,” he said, hanging his head. “Why is the moment of clarity always after the disaster?”

  “Fletcher…” I pleaded.

  “I don’t know her name. She lives in our world, but she’s not of it. You’re fortunate - though I hesitate to use that word - because she doesn’t live far from here. I drove for a day and a half to find her. She lives in a little Upper Peninsula town called Ishpeming. She may choose not to help you. For each of us the summoning is different, and somehow she sees what needs to be done.”

  “Ishpeming,” I repeated the name and city. “Do you have a phone number?”

  He smiled.

  “She doesn’t use a phone, or didn’t then, but believe me, she’ll know you’re coming. When you get into Ishpeming, find Bluff Street. A stone wall runs along the front of her property. You can’t miss it. Take cash, five hundred dollars.”

  “How did you find her?” I asked breathlessly, renewed hope making me want to bounce in my seat.

  “Jade. After I saved her, she told me her life story.” Fletcher put his hands on the wheel and frowned. “Horrible things had happened to her as a girl, and she’d never gotten over them. Her friend insisted Jade travel to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, to the home of a witch who could right those wrongs, punish those who’d hurt her. Jade never went-”

  “But you did.”

  Fletcher nodded.

  I jumped from the car. I wanted to write it down before some detail slipped my mind. The rain battered me, but I paused for a moment and mouthed ‘thank you.’ I don’t know if he saw through the rain-slicked window.

  Sarah

  * * *

  GLEN BLACKBURN LIVED in a large Tudor-style house protected by an iron gate and rows of flat bushes.

  The rain had ceased, and pockets of sun shone through openings in the cloud cover.

  “I can jump that fence,” Will said, sizing it up.

  “No, we’re not breaking into the guy’s house.”

  “Okay, genius, tell me what your grand plan is.”

  “We’ll ring the bell. I‘m an architect, you‘re my pupil. We’ll ask for a tour.”

  Will shrugged.

  “Okay, yeah, that will keep us out of jail, anyway.”

  “Yes. If we manage nothing else today, let’s at least stay out of jail.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Will said. “Unless you’re in with the drunks hogging the toilet all night while they puke their guts up.”

  Sarah grimaced.

  “Thank you for the visual.”

  “My pleasure,” Will said, swinging his door open and jumping out.

  “Let me do the talking,” Sarah told him.

  Sarah knocked on the door. An older gentleman, well into his seventies, with a portly belly and twinkling blue eyes answered the door. He smiled cheerfully, and Sarah had a momentary image of the man dressed as Santa Claus.

  “Hi, sir,” Sarah held out her hand. “My name’s Sarah Flynn, I’m an architect here in Traverse City, and this is Will, an intern at my office. Today we’re learning about Tudor architecture, and your home is a stunning example. Would you be open to giving us a tour?”

  The man beamed, glancing from Sarah to Will.

  “Oh yes, that would be lovely. You know, this house dates back to 1926? It’s an absolute jewel. My father built it.”

  Glen led them through the house, and Sarah pointed out examples of Tudor style.

  “Do you notice the irregularly shaped rooms, Will? This supports the asymmetry of the Tudor style.”

  Will played along, asking questions, murmuring in the right places.

  “Can I use your bathroom?” Sarah asked as Glen led them through a glass door that opened on a brick patio.

  “By all means, dear. Down the hall, third door on your left.”

  “Is that a pizza oven?” Will asked, pointing at a tall brick oven on the patio.

  “Go ahead,” Sarah told them. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  Sarah paused at the bathroom listening as Will and Glen left the house. She crept down the hallway, pushing doors open. The first room contained a front-loading washer and dryer, the second a bedroom fitting a child, most likely for a grandchild. The third was Glen’s study. She closed the door behind her and hurried to his desk, pulling open drawers and rifling through paperwork, pens, and an odd array of little wooden figures. She hadn’t fancied Glen a whittler, but apparently he was.

  She found the bottom left drawer locked.

  “Fuck all,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  Sarah jumped and let out a little squeak of surprise.

  A little boy stood shirtless in the doorway, a pair of dinosaur pajama pants pooling around his Batman slippers.

  “Grandpap?” he asked, though obviously she was not Grandpap.

  “Oh, hi. I’m sorry. I was looking for the bathroom and stumbled in here.” Her voice shook, and she was tempted to ramble further but doubted the little boy cared either way.

  As she stepped into the hall, a woman peeked around the corner spotting Sarah and blinking as if she questioned her own eyesight. She looked at the little boy, alarmed.

  Sarah held up a hand.

  “Sorry, hi. I’m Sarah Flynn, an architect. Glen was showing me the house.”

  “Oh.” The woman stepped into the hallway. She wore crisp white pants and a gray cashmere sweater, her long dark hair falling over her shoulders.

  “I’m Diana, his daughter. I was reading to my little rugrat when he ran off.”

  “He’s adorable,” Sarah said with a gesture at the little boy, who’d stuck his thumb in his mouth and started sucking on it loudly.

  “Everett, what did Mommy say about sucking your thumb?”

  The boy continued, a line of drool dripping from his mouth onto the cream carpeting.

  Diana sighed and took his shoulders in her hands, steering him back down the hallway.

  “Nice to meet you,” Sarah called as they disappeared around the corner.

  “WELL, that was a blasted waste of time,” Sarah declared, hitting the gas and shooting the car up the hill that led away from Glen Blackburn’s house. “And I almost got caught. His daughter and grandson were in there. The kid saw me digging through his study.”

  “I told you to let me do the lurking, but no, you’re the adult and I’m the kid.”

  “Well it wasn’t there, so I don’t see what difference it would make. Should we grab dinner?”

  “Hell no. I want to get my hands on that book.”

  “Will, that’s obviously not happening tonight. We need the key, and-”

  “This key?” Will held up a long black key with a staring eye engraved in the center.

  Sarah snatched it f
rom his hand.

  “Where?”

  “It was in his workshop, sitting right on the window ledge with a bunch of weird little wooden figures. He turned his back, and I slipped it in my pocket.”

  THEY SCOURED the woods behind the Northern Michigan Asylum for two hours. Crisscrossing back and forth among the graffitied trees, pushing through thickets of dead brush. They knocked on trees, shuffled leaves, thinking perhaps the door to the chamber was beneath their feet. They found nothing.

  “He said only a person in the brotherhood could find it,” Will muttered.

  “Which has to be bullshit, right? I mean, if it’s a real place…” She stopped at the look on Will’s face.

  “Suspend disbelief, Sarah. Remember?”

  Sarah swore and kicked a tree, wincing.

  “We need Dr. Evil,” Will said at last.

  CHAPTER 34

  Now

  Corrie

  I kissed Isis goodbye and hugged my sister.

  “Maybe you can come stay for a few days next week?” Amy asked, balancing Isis on her hip.

  “Yeah, sure.” I nodded, offering a final wave before climbing into my car.

  The drive to Ishpeming passed slowly. I tried the radio, but every song reminded me of Sammy. For an hour I cried, and then numbness took over and I allowed my body to slip into autopilot.

  Bluff Street contained only a handful of houses. I slowed when I came to a crumbling stone wall crawling with dead vines. I turned onto the cracked pavement of a circular drive and surveyed a decrepit two-story Victorian house shuttered against the wind. Wood planks hung loose, and several shingles had slipped off the roof and lay on the weed-choked lawn.

  I walked to the front door, and my breath hitched in my chest. I lifted a trembling hand. Before I knocked, the door flung open and a thin, sunken woman with white hair pulled back from her face stood surveying me.

  “Are you coming in or not?” the woman asked sharply.

  I followed her in, hesitating for only a moment. The door slammed behind me. I turned expecting someone standing there, but I was alone in the foyer.