Whispering Pines

by Heidi Lang

  Could that be the purpose behind the eye snatching? Was Doctor Anderson using that ritualistic destruction to build a foundation of dark energy so he could rip another hole in the fabric between their dimensions?

  Threefold… The eye snatcher had taken three and then three. If Brandi and Jeremy were both victims as well, then the next victim would be the third of three.

  Caden glanced at Rae’s back and shivered. Maybe Aiden was right. They really shouldn’t be here.

  The text message, the building sense of anticipation in the house, it all felt…

  Like a trap.

  He realized Rae was already at the cellar door, her hand on the doorknob. “Wait, Rae,” he called.

  She glanced at him, then pushed the door open. For a second, Caden saw his brother outlined in that all-too-familiar rectangle of inky darkness, the way he’d been that night. Laughing and excited. Mom and Dad are wasting their time with the other rooms of the house. This is where the magic happens.

  Caden squeezed his eyes closed. He’d said they should go back for their parents, but Aiden hadn’t wanted to. And Caden had known it was a mistake to follow him down. But when his brother was like that, all eagerness and enthusiasm, it was like being swept up in a windstorm, impossible to stop.

  “Can you feel it?”

  Caden opened his eyes. Rae had already vanished down the stairs.

  “Better hurry, brother. Clearly she’s not the kind of person who waits for help.”

  Caden hurried to the cellar doorway, then paused. The dim light of the hall filtered down several feet, illuminating a few narrow stairs before they vanished in the pitch black below. He really, really didn’t want to go down there.

  “Any light switch up there?” Rae called. “Because it’s like a cave down here. I can’t see a thing.”

  Caden took a deep, calming breath, but it didn’t help. Panic tightened his chest, and he kept imagining tentacles made of shadow lurking there in the depths. He fumbled along the wall at the top of the stairs until he found the switch, and flipped it.

  Yellowish light bloomed and flickered ominously, then held.

  “Thanks,” Rae said from the bottom of the stairs.

  Caden left the door of the cellar open and walked down after her, blinking against the brightness.

  The cellar looked exactly the way he remembered it. Mostly empty. In one corner was a bookshelf full of the doctor’s secret obsession: books on the occult. A large fancy camera rested on top of them. “This looks like the camera he was wearing that day in the woods,” Rae said, taking it down and flipping through the photos on it.

  “Any luck?” Caden tried peering over her shoulder, but for such an expensive-looking camera, it had the world’s saddest display screen.

  “Not really,” Rae said. “A couple of trees, a bird, and then a bunch of pictures of some huge ugly building in the woods.” She frowned. “It has a tall electric fence around it and a bunch of guards.”

  “Maybe the Green On! lab?”

  “Maybe,” Rae said. “But why would he have pictures of that?”

  Caden shrugged.

  “He must have deleted the picture of us after delivering it to me.” She sighed and put the camera back on the shelf.

  In the opposite corner of the room sat a small wooden shrine. Doctor Anderson kept another picture of his dead wife above it, and below were dried flower petals, a few charms, and a candle burned down almost to the nub. And next to the shrine… a door.

  Rae reached for the doorknob.

  “Don’t!” Caden lunged forward, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back.

  “What?” Rae twisted, searching the room.

  “Just… stop rushing forward, would you?”

  Rae looked down at his hand on her wrist, frowning.

  Caden let her go. “It’s dangerous to open doors like that,” he said. “Especially that door.”

  “Why? What’s in there?”

  “It doesn’t matter what’s in the room,” Caden said. “It’s the doorway itself.” He pressed his lips together to stop them from trembling. He could still see that door opening, the yellow light throbbing, his brother screaming… “Aiden used that doorway as his anchor when he created a portal into the Other Place.”

  “Why?” Rae asked.

  “Because this cellar was full of negative energy, and using a physical door helped strengthen the structural integrity of his spell.”

  “But the portal is gone now, right?”

  Caden hesitated. It still felt wrong, with that same fear-smell as the Other Place, almost like an oily taste on the back of his tongue. But he remembered the swell of power when Aiden performed his spell, like a wave building and building and then crashing on the shore. This didn’t feel strong like that. More like a ripple. “I don’t know,” he admitted finally.

  “Well, isn’t that what we came here to find out?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Creak. Creak. Creeeeaaaak.

  They both froze. “Did you hear that?” Rae whispered.

  “Someone is upstairs,” Caden breathed. He looked around the cellar, but there was nowhere to hide, especially with that light spilling into every inch of space. And it was too late to run.

  He heard a doorknob rattling and turned in time to see Rae opening the furnace room door. That feeling of wrongness increased, and he knew with deadly certainty that something was in there that shouldn’t be. “Wait,” he hissed, but it was too late. She’d already gone inside.

  25. RAE

  Rae thought of that creepy text message, and Brandi’s maimed face, and knew they needed to hide. Now.

  There was only one place. No matter how much Caden might not like it, there wasn’t a choice. She yanked open the door.

  “Wait,” Caden hissed.

  Rae stepped inside the room. The darkness of it enveloped her, crashing over her head like a solid thing, almost suffocating. And it smelled strange, a mixture of musty and too-sweet, and over that, a fake flowery scent like the room had been doused with bathroom spray. Rae wrinkled her nose and tried to breathe shallowly as she walked farther in. She could barely make out shapes ahead of her: boxes, a very full shelf pushed against the wall, some dusty books stacked in a haphazard pile.

  “Wait, Rae,” Caden whispered again.

  “Close the door,” Rae said.

  He glanced back like he might make a run for it. But then he pulled the door shut, plunging them into total darkness. Rae closed her eyes, then opened them. It didn’t make a difference. It was that awful type of darkness where you think you see shapes that aren’t really there. She pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket, the screen’s glow shedding a tiny bit of light around them. The room extended farther than she’d thought, and she slowly, carefully waded around boxes toward the back.

  “Where are you going?” Caden whispered.

  “If Doctor Anderson sees the light on in the cellar, he’s probably going to look in here,” she said softly. “We need to hide deeper.”

  Caden grimaced, the blue glow of her screen casting weird shadows across his face. “Okay,” he said. “But let me go first.”

  “Why? Is this some weird chivalry issue? Coming here was my idea, so I should take the lead.”

  “It’s not a ‘chivalry issue.’ I just have more experience with this kind of thing.”

  “With what kind of thing? Hiding in a storage room?”

  “With… there’s something in here, okay? There’s something wrong in here. Something supernatural.”

  A shiver ran down Rae’s back. “Are you sure?”

  “Don’t you hear it?”

  Rae went quiet. She could hear her breathing, and Caden’s, and the beating of her heart. And… rustling noises from the back of the room, like something large was rifling through boxes. “Maybe it’s just rats?” She really hoped she was sharing a room with rats, which made her wonder about her life choices.

  “Too big,” Caden whispered.

  The
rustling got louder, and now Rae could hear other noises. A low moaning sound, like an injured cow, and the scraping of feet against the concrete floor. She inched back toward Caden, still clutching her phone. Only now it seemed like a signal flare, advertising their presence to anything in the room. Rae hurriedly thumbed the screen off and shoved it back in her pocket.

  Immediately the room felt too dark and too close. And without any light, her imagination painted a whole sea of monsters shuffling forward, arms extended, teeth bared, eyes giant hungry pits. That sickly sweet smell grew stronger, filling her nostrils and making her gag.

  Thump-thump-thump.

  Someone was coming slowly down the stairs.

  Rae shivered, terror roaring in her ears, freezing her body. For one second she was eleven years old again and waiting for her missing dad to come home.

  But she wasn’t eleven anymore.

  Maybe Caden was right, and she did rush forward into things, but she’d sworn that she would never again hang back and do nothing. Even if she was scared. Especially if she was scared. They had come here to find out what Doctor Anderson was hiding, and that was precisely what she was going to do. She owed it to Brandi.

  Rae pulled her phone back out of her pocket and punched open the flashlight app. She held it up, the light highlighting more boxes, gleaming off plastic bins full of clothes, and disappearing into the darkness. She carefully picked her path toward the thing hidden at the back before she could lose her nerve again, Caden’s breathing loud and harsh behind her.

  Rae turned a corner, her flashlight glinting on a metal surface at the back of the room. The furnace, tall and cylindrical, the space around it clear. And empty.

  Rae moved closer, her steps slowing. There was something else crossing that space, a line of some sort. She crouched down, studying it. Rope, one end tied loosely around the base of the furnace. And the other end—

  “Hello?” a man called from the cellar. It definitely sounded like Doctor Anderson, home from work early.

  She caught Caden’s eye. He looked surprisingly calm, like he was resigned to whatever happened next.

  But Rae wasn’t. She refused to be caught here, now, in this creepy place. She swept her flashlight quickly around the furnace, noticing boxes stacked in a row to the side, rising up practically to her waist. She pulled Caden behind them. There was a surprising amount of space, almost like the boxes were there to form a little den. Plenty of room for Rae and Caden to hunker down.

  The darkness in the room shifted, grew lighter. Someone had opened the door.

  She ducked and shut her flashlight off.

  Rae could hear Doctor Anderson’s breathing as he moved closer, his footsteps loud. She tried to breathe as shallowly as possible, her fingers gripping the hard plastic of her phone case, Caden going still next to her.

  “Where are you hiding?” Doctor Anderson asked.

  Rae bit her lip, willing her heart to beat quieter. She felt way too exposed crouching here, practically in the open.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the doctor singsonged.

  Caden gripped Rae’s arm. Doctor Anderson was mere feet away. All he had to do was look over the boxes.

  She pictured Brandi, how she’d been the first night, vibrant and friendly. And then the thing she’d become later, her eyes removed, her mouth slack-jawed. How had he done that to her? Would it hurt? Rae squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the dim light, and praying this darkness wouldn’t be permanent.

  Go away, she thought. But she could hear the doctor walking closer, the scuffle of his shoes, the brush of his clothing against the boxes. And beneath that, something else.

  Someone else. Breathing. Right behind her.

  Rae’s eyes shot open, and she turned. But too slowly.

  26. CADEN

  Something crashed into Rae, something long-limbed and pale and hungry, knocking her back into Caden. Both of them tumbled to the ground, boxes falling around them, Rae’s phone skittering across the floor.

  Caden struggled to get up, but he was pinned beneath Rae and her attacker, and a heavy box of books, his mind swirling with images of his brother wrapped in tentacles, screaming.

  Rae put her hands up to protect her face, but her attacker didn’t do anything, just crouched over her, his own arms hanging limply at his sides, knuckles dragging on the ground.

  “Eyes,” he moaned.

  Rae stopped struggling. “Jeremy?” she said.

  Light flared through the small room, chasing away the shadows and illuminating the figure of Jeremy Bentley. He lifted his head, his curly blond hair hanging in dirty clumps around his face, framing the dark pits where his eyes should have been.

  Caden felt Rae’s horror stab him in the gut. He shoved the box of books away and scrambled up, pulling Rae back with him, leaving Jeremy hunched alone.

  “What are you—” Doctor Anderson stopped, staring down at them. “Why are you in my house?”

  “Why is he?” Caden demanded, pointing at Jeremy’s trembling form. “What did you do to him?”

  “Me? I didn’t do anything.” But Doctor Anderson’s face had gone nearly as pale as his hair, and he took a small step back.

  “Lovely eyes.” Jeremy twisted his face up as if he was trying to see them. He raised his arms, and Caden noticed the frayed length of rope knotted around his left wrist.

  “You tied him to your furnace?” Rae whispered, horrified.

  “It was just temporary,” Doctor Anderson said. “Just so he couldn’t hurt himself.”

  “You mean, so he couldn’t escape.” Caden glanced around the room, looking for a weapon. The box he’d shoved away had opened, heavy leather-bound books spilling across the floor. He scooped up the largest, then immediately dropped it again, his hand tingling like he’d just shoved it in a stinging nettle bush.

  The gold-embossed title caught the light: Blood Magicks and Sacrifices for Greater Power.

  Caden looked up, meeting Doctor Anderson’s eyes. His fever-bright blue eyes. Eyes the winter blue of the sky…

  Doctor Anderson’s mouth opened, his lips trembling. “I… I was just trying to help.”

  “Help who?” Rae asked, moving closer to Caden.

  “Isn’t this a sight for sore eyes?” a new voice said, cool and calm.

  Doctor Anderson whirled just as Patrick strolled over to their corner of the cramped room. He wore his same immaculate black suit with his same carefully styled hair, and he was flanked by four large men in bright green one-piece outfits.

  “I’m sorry, that was a bit insensitive, given the circumstances,” Patrick said.

  “What are you doing here?” Doctor Anderson demanded. “What are all of you doing here? This is my house!”

  “This was your house,” Patrick said. “But we’re taking charge of it. And of you.”

  “What?” Doctor Anderson looked completely bewildered.

  “We’ve been watching you for a while, William. Monitoring your energy usage. You’ve been experimenting again, haven’t you?”

  “I have done nothing wrong,” Doctor Anderson insisted.

  “This”—Patrick waved a hand at Jeremy—“looks very wrong to me.”

  “I’m helping him,” Doctor Anderson hissed. “Saving him from you.”

  Patrick stepped to the side. The men behind him moved forward, two of them grabbing Doctor Anderson by the arms and hauling him back. It happened so fast, Caden almost missed it.

  “Wait! You can’t do this!” Doctor Anderson yelled, struggling, but it didn’t have any effect. “This is just a cover-up! I know what you did to Helen! I’ll prove it!” And then they were out of the cellar, his voice fading.

  The other two men followed behind with Jeremy, who had gone limp and quiet in their arms.

  Caden and Rae exchanged glances.

  “Thank you for your help,” Patrick said. “We’ve been hoping to catch the person responsible for these atrocities for months. I’m just glad we got here in time before he was
able to claim any other victims.”

  Rae hugged herself. “So you really think Doctor Anderson is the serial eye snatcher?”

  “I think… Doctor Anderson has not been entirely himself ever since his wife died. You can ask your friend here about that.” Patrick nodded at Caden. “I’m sure he has more insight.”

  Caden didn’t say anything. He knew Doctor Anderson had been trying to contact his wife after her death. Messing with the afterlife was tricky, especially if you didn’t know what you were doing. It was too easy to put out a call for a departed loved one, only to accidentally issue an open invitation to anything out there.

  And there were a lot of bad things out there.

  That was why Doctor Anderson had needed the Price family to cleanse his house in the first place. But Caden wasn’t sure how Patrick knew about any of that. If Doctor Anderson was the serial eye snatcher, that cleared Patrick. But it still didn’t mean Caden had to trust him.

  “Who’s Helen?” Rae asked.

  “His wife,” Patrick said.

  “How did she die?”

  Patrick sighed. “It’s a sad story, really. She worked for Green On! for a number of years, but there was a tragic accident.”

  Rae tensed. “What kind of accident?”

  “It happened a year before I joined the company, so unfortunately, I’m not really clear on the details. All I know is that William has blamed us ever since.” Patrick’s features were molded into the perfect mask of regret and pity, but Caden could feel nothing from him. No emotions whatsoever. Even people who were good at masking their feelings still gave off an impression. It was like dropping a rock into a quiet pond; there would still be ripples after that rock had vanished from view. But with Patrick, it was as if that rock had never existed. Standing next to him felt like standing next to a void.

  Rae’s emotions, on the other hand, were all over the place. Relief and confusion and the lingering echo of fear. “Why did you suspect Doctor Anderson?” she asked.

  “Let’s get out of this depressing space,” Patrick suggested, turning and walking out of the furnace room. Rae followed him, leaving Caden to trail a little behind. “There were a number of reasons we suspected the good doctor. Especially after we detected an unusual energy spike here this past December. We have been keeping a close eye on him ever since.”