Beyond the Dark Waters Trilogy

by Graham West

  Jenny smiled. “Yeah, it was just a bit weird. I’m okay, though.”

  “Are you sure?” He pulled her into his arms.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I didn’t think she’d look so real.”

  Jake kissed her neck. “I thought you were going to join us for a drink. Didn’t you see Kayla? She came to get you.”

  “Yeah, but I said no. I needed to clear my head.”

  “Did you go and see the grave?”

  Jenny didn’t want to talk about how Blakely had found Jacob Root’s remains. She didn’t really want to talk about anything. “Yeah. It’s really nice,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “Just hold me for a moment.”

  Since Kayla had come into their lives, they’d had a wedding and a baby. Then there had been those initial twelve months weaning Isaac off the bottle, listening to him as he’d tried to form those first words and watching him take those little baby steps that would signal the start of a new phase.

  She loved Jake. There was no doubt in her mind, something of which she’d reminded Kayla at every opportunity. She was faithful, and that was the end of the matter.

  But Jenny had found herself avoiding any lengthy time alone with Kayla. They went out in public, spent afternoons shopping and having something to eat at The Keys, and that was okay, because there were always plenty of people around. But sometimes Jenny saw that look in Kayla’s eyes—that look that made her heart skip several beats.

  Jake kissed her neck again. “This Amelia doll has really got to you, hasn’t it?”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t lie to him. It wasn’t about Amelia, as freaky as that model in the attic was. This was about betrayal. This was about wanting someone else. This was about hiding her feelings. But for the sake of the family—for the sake of little Isaac, that sweet, innocent child—she had to keep them a secret and pray Kayla would do the same.

  ***

  Blakely squinted, peering through the tangled branches of trees that appeared to be wrestling each other, blocking out the sunlight and shedding bark like dead skin. He could see the cottage, a crumbling affair, slowly disappearing beneath nature’s creeping tentacles. Eventually, it would surrender completely and collapse, an impudent imposter, strangled and swallowed by the forest.

  “That’s it, mister. You wanna see inside?”

  Blakely didn’t, but he couldn’t let the kid know that. “Yeah, sure.”

  Cody went ahead, adept at negotiating the bracken and trailing roots at speed. He ran across the clearing and stopped at the door. Blakely followed behind, his heart still racing. The door creaked as the child, who seemed totally at home in his surroundings, pushed it open.

  Blakely was relieved to find there were no ghosts or dead bodies inside, just a dank, dark room that smelled as bad as it looked.

  “Mr. Root was sitting in that chair,” Cody said excitedly. “And look! That’s his pitchfork!”

  Blakely startled at the word and turned to follow the direction of the boy’s gaze. Sure enough, standing in the corner was the three-pronged implement. But then he noticed something else; something that sent shivers of dread through his entire body. The prongs were covered in blood.

  Trembling, Blakely crept over, tentatively reaching out. Dried blood would have gone brown, and this was red. Bright red. He touched it and gasped.

  “What’s the matter, mister?”

  Blakely spun around to see the boy staring at him.

  “It’s wet!” he cried, wiping his hands on his shirt. “The blood is still wet.”

  Cody frowned. “What blood? That’s silly. I can’t see any blood.”

  “What do you mean?” Blakely looked down at his shirt and the streaks of red. “There’s blood on my shirt.”

  The boy chuckled. “No, there isn’t! Unless you’ve got special eyes too.”

  Blakely couldn’t make the kid out. What was he playing at? “This man you saw. It wasn’t Mr. Root.”

  “It was!” Cody protested. “He told me his name.”

  “Jacob Root is dead. Whoever you saw is very much alive, and he might have hurt Bailey. This might be her blood.”

  The boy was stunned, and for a moment it looked as though he were about to cry. But the kid had a stubborn streak as wide as the Nile. “It was Mr. Root!” he snapped. “And I don’t care what you think. He hasn’t hurt Bailey. He wouldn’t.”

  Blakely pulled out his radio. “Frank? Are you there? Over.”

  There was a loud crackling sound. “Yep. Any news? Over.”

  “I’ve found blood on a pitchfork. I’m heading back to the park with the kid, and then I’m calling for more help—over.”

  ***

  Darren Pascoe needed some fresh air. He headed out into the forest, hoping he’d find the girl and return as a hero. His stepfather had guessed there had been an ulterior motive the moment he’d volunteered with an enthusiasm that belied his dislike of dark places.

  “You’re really going all out to win that girl back, aren’t you?” Rob said with a wry grin.

  Darren didn’t deny it. The place reminded him of that book about those monster plants—Triffids. That was it, The Day of the Triffids. If it were possible for trees to look angry, then these trees did. “Does this place feel creepy to you?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

  Rob nodded. “I can’t imagine anyone coming here unless they had to, so it’s unlikely she’s been harmed.”

  Darren was thinking about the girl who was found in the woods with a bullet through her brain. But that had been down to Caden Reece—a man on a mission. “It seems odd, though. You’d think she would have heard us by now.” They’d called the girl’s name over and over again but there was no reply.

  Rob shrugged. Sometimes Darren wondered if there was still a part of the man that wanted to kick the shit out of him for what he did. Time was a healer, and they’d got along pretty well since, but now and then he felt as if he were walking on eggshells around him and one wrong word at the wrong time would see him in a hospital bed sucking his food through a straw.

  He checked his phone: no signal, not even a single bar. It was hardly surprising; the sunlight was struggling to break through the dense canopy. “Even if we find her, we’ve got no way of letting anyone know. They’ll still be wandering around this place for hours.”

  Rob was preoccupied. That worried Darren.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked cautiously. “You seem tense.”

  “I’m fine. It’s just this place.”

  Darren breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah, they could film horror movies in these woods.”

  Rob stopped dead, glancing around. “There’s something here. Something we can’t see, but it’s here.”

  Darren went cold. “What? Like a ghost?”

  Rob was pale. “I’m not sure. It’s like a darkness. Not a physical one…like a spiritual thing.”

  Jenny had recounted the story of Amelia: the dreams and how they had found her remains in the lake. Up until that time, Darren had always laughed at the whole idea that there might be life after death.

  Rob took a couple of steps forward, listening. “Can you smell something?” he asked.

  Darren threw back his head and breathed in. There was, amongst the scent of the forest, an unpleasant putrid aroma. “Yeah. What is it?”

  “It’s stagnant water.”

  “But we’re nowhere near any water.”

  “There’s something about that lake,” Rob muttered. “It doesn’t matter how much they clean it up and fill it with fancy fish, that smell still lingers. I know there’s a kid in here, but we need to get out of this place.” Rob turned, and Darren saw the panic in his eyes. “We need to get out now!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dennis Blakely put on his best, untroubled smile. “Bailey will be okay. We’ll find her, don’t worry.”

  But Nicky wasn’t buying it. There was a coldness in her eyes. “So why won’t you let me look for her? She’s my child!”

 
; “There’s no need. Best if you sit tight.”

  “Why? Because I’m a woman? You think I’m going to get myself lost or something?”

  Bailey’s mother was perfectly capable of looking after herself, but Blakely wanted her to believe they had the whole thing under control.

  “No, it’s got nothing to do with that,” he replied gently. “I only took Cody because he could show me were he’d been with your daughter.”

  “But there’s no sign of her!” Nicky snapped. “What if there’s some weirdo hanging around in the woods?”

  “I can assure you, no one would hang around there unless they had to. If you were looking to abduct a kid, you’d stay in the main park.”

  “What if they saw Bailey going in there and followed her?”

  “We’re checking the CCTV footage as I speak. We have cameras at all the entrances now. Even along the perimeter wall at the far end of the woods.”

  Nicky looked visibly relieved. “I know she’s probably got herself lost. Bailey doesn’t have any sense of direction.”

  “You’re bound to be worried, but she’s got to be somewhere in those woods. We know she can’t get out.”

  Nicky smiled. “Thank you.”

  Blakely stood and patted the back of her hand. “I’ll be in touch as soon as there’s any news.”

  He headed back towards the office, where he’d left two security staff perusing through the video footage, praying they’d not caught sight of any strangers who could have taken the girl. He would have to call the police pretty damn soon, and then all hell would break loose. Luckily, Bailey’s mother hadn’t noticed the blood on his shirt; blood that might have been running through her daughter’s veins just a few hours ago.

  ***

  Cody sat at the table outside the lodge with his sketchpad and pencils. He was mad at Bailey. All she had to do was wait. He’d only been in that cottage for a minute. Why did she have to go running off? His parents had stopped shouting at him, but they were still angry, so he thought it was best to stay out of their way.

  He was drawing the boy he’d seen standing behind Bailey’s mum at the swimming pool, but it wasn’t very good. There was no tingle in his hand, just a regular kids’ picture. Cody reached for his juice bottle and took several gulps, placing the empty container beside him and returning to his sketchpad. But then he felt an ice-cold draught, like when he opened the freezer door to get an ice pop.

  Instinctively, he looked up. Bailey stood in front of him, her hands hanging limply at her sides. She was pale but untroubled.

  “Hello, Cody. What are you doing?”

  “I-I’m drawing,” he stammered, wondering how she’d managed to creep up on him like that. “Where have you been? Everyone’s looking for you.”

  Bailey smiled. “That’s nice. But I’m back now. Would you like me to show you where I’ve been?”

  “No!” Cody answered quickly, wondering why he was so scared. “We did wrong going there. It was my idea, but it was wrong!”

  Bailey pulled out a chair and sat down. “It’s okay. That’s fine.”

  “Why did you run away?”

  “I didn’t. I heard my mum calling me, and I just followed the voice.”

  “Don’t be silly. Your mum wasn’t with us.”

  “I’m not silly. It sounded like my mum.”

  “How come you got lost?”

  Bailey shrugged. “It was very dark in there. And the voice stopped. I don’t really remember much after that.”

  Bailey was weird, and Cody thought she’d probably get even weirder when she grew up, but people didn’t just forget where they’d been. He snorted and looked back down at the picture of the boy with red hair. “Only old people forget things like that.”

  “I’m not old!”

  Cody heard a movement behind him. He looked up to see his mother. “Bailey! Where have you been? Everyone’s been looking for you!”

  “I know,” she replied casually. “Cody told me.”

  “Does your mother know?”

  Bailey shrugged.

  “Does anyone know?”

  “Dunno. I just got here.”

  “Then get home now and tell her!”

  Cody guessed his father was having a drink somewhere because his mother was cursing him for not answering his mobile. Bailey turned without a smile or a goodbye and disappeared as silently as she’d arrived.

  Cody felt the warmth of the sun again. He knew exactly what that chill was about and had been surprised it was only Bailey standing there. He’d expected to see the boy with red hair checking out his drawing. Maybe he had been; sometimes that happened. He knew they were there, but they’d been as invisible to him as they’d be to stupid people, like the kids in his class.

  “Did she say where she’d been?”

  Cody didn’t look up, but his mother was casting a shadow over the page of his sketchpad. “Nope. She thought she’d heard her mum calling and went looking.”

  “And she got lost?”

  “I guess.”

  Cody sensed his mother was getting a little frustrated. “What do you mean, I guess? Didn’t you ask?”

  “’Course I did, but she doesn’t remember much.”

  “What do you mean? How could she forget she got lost in a bloody forest?”

  Cody looked up. “You said a bad word!”

  His mother rolled her eyes. “Okay—sorry. I didn’t mean to, but that girl must remember what happened. She’s been missing nearly four hours.”

  Cody shrugged and carried on with his sketch. His mother huffed loudly and vanished. She was slamming things around the way she always did when she got mad. But he stopped listening because he felt that familiar warmth in his shoulder, and now it was coursing down his arm. Cody felt his fingers tingle as they grasped the pencil. The face on the page seemed to appear from nowhere.

  This wasn’t how it happened; not usually. He didn’t even know who this woman was. She wasn’t standing in front of him the way they had when he’d drawn his other pictures. She wasn’t even in his head. Yet she looked really frightened.

  Cody closed his eyes for a few seconds. Sometimes that worked—a bit like when the teacher rebooted the computer in school. But when he opened his eyes, the woman was still there. She had marks on her neck too. Like someone had tried to strangle her or something, and it looked as if she was shouting.

  Cody ripped out the page and screwed it up, shoving it into the pocket of his shorts in case his parents found it and kicked off again. He closed the sketchpad. Bailey was on his mind. For a girl who could have a baby, she was acting pretty dumb. Imagine having her as a mum, getting lost all the time and then forgetting where she’d been.

  Cody didn’t know where she was staying or he might have gone over and asked if she wanted to go to the play park. But then he realised she’d probably be grounded for the rest of the day. Maybe he could apologise to her mum; it was his fault, after all. Bailey probably watched far too much TV and that was why she never saw things, but most girls would have come out of that wood crying like a baby. The woods would have been full of rats, just like the one she’d run away from, yet she’d spent hours in there and come out like it didn’t matter. The more he thought about it, the stranger the whole thing seemed.

  Cody found his mother in the kitchen pouring herself a coffee.

  “Mum?” He crept up behind and made her jump. “Did you think Bailey was weird?”

  His mother frowned. “Well, yes. For a start, I thought she’d have gone home first and—”

  “She didn’t look scared or anything, did she?”

  “No, that’s true.”

  “I think I should say sorry to her mum, though.”

  His mother smiled. “You know something, Dee? I think that would be a very, very good idea.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was a long time since Rob Adams had wanted a glass of wine as much as he did now. Josie had meant well buying him a bottle of alcohol-free dry white to wash down
the burger and fries, but it wasn’t the same.

  “What does that taste like, Dad?” Jenny asked with a mischievous grin.

  He picked up the bottle, peering at the label through narrowed eyes. “It tastes like it’s zero per cent proof,” he grunted.

  They all laughed. All except Darren, who was still watching his phone waiting for Danni to call. He’d polished off two cans of the strongest lager he could find and was looking like a young man on the edge.

  “You okay, hun?” Josie asked.

  Darren shrugged.

  “If she’s meant for you, she’ll be back.”

  “And what if she isn’t meant for me? It won’t stop me wanting her.”

  Josie smiled feebly. Sometimes Rob wondered if she was a little too keen to play the therapist. Even he could see the lad wanted to be left alone.

  “Thank God that kid turned up,” Jenny said, changing the subject. “I wouldn’t fancy getting lost in that wood, especially at night.”

  Rob shuddered. The place was creepy enough in broad daylight. He took another sip of his insipid wine and wondered if he’d get more of a kick out of a strong coffee. But then anger rose from the pit of his belly. This was supposed to be a holiday, for fuck’s sake. All his family were here—his crazy, dysfunctional family. It was true, but Jenny had got herself a good guy, Darren had a job, Jenny was taking time out until Isaac started school, and Kayla had found a place at the local salon. After all they’d been through, it was about time he let his hair down. A couple of glasses wouldn’t do any harm.

  Rob wandered into the kitchen area, out of sight, and took a bottle of chardonnay from the fridge, carefully pouring the alcohol-free stuff into the sink and running the tap to drown the sound. As he refilled his glass, there was movement behind him, and he spun around to see Josie standing in the doorway with a face like thunder.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Rob felt like a chastised child. “I came to get a glass of water.”

  Jo rolled her eyes. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Rob. I’m not stupid.”

  “Okay! I just wanted a drink. A proper drink. Is that so bad?”

  Josie gave him one of those looks that drove him crazy.