Darker than Dark (Haunted Series)

by Alexie Aaron

  “What do you think about PEEPs moving into your neck of the woods?”

  “You or PEEPS?”

  “K, me.”

  “I’m not making any promises, but I would love to have you for a neighbor,” Mia said guardedly. “I’d like to be able to drop in and disrupt your love life.”

  “Is that what we did, Cid and I? I remember being invited.”

  Mia reached over and squeezed his hand. “You are always invited but keep your shrink on a leash. Gee I thought we were actually going to stop dancing and grow up there for a moment.”

  “I was sweating bullets.”

  “You’ll get your answers, Teddy Bear, when I know them.”

  “Cool beans, Mia.”

  “Time to put on our PEEPs faces,” Ted said as he turned into the drive and maneuvered around Angelo’s Town Car.

  Mia saw a twitch of curtains at the front of the house. “Are we late?”

  “We are always on time, even when we are late,” Ted said firmly.

  Mike walked away from the window of the den. “Ted and Mia have arrived,” he announced. He stifled a yawn. “Let’s have our meeting, so Burt and I can go and grab some shuteye.”

  Beth was still pounding away at the keyboard and had been since she arrived. Mike hadn’t seen her so engrossed since they investigated the hollow. “What did you say?” she asked.

  “Meeting in the dining room in ten minutes.”

  “Sure, I’ll be ready. Did Ted and Mia get here yet?”

  “I don’t know,” he said sarcastically. “I’ll go look.” He stomped out of the room.

  Beth smiled to herself. She heard him the first time.

  Angelo and Burt were looking at the pickle jar. Angelo had added strips of duct tape to hold the lid down. He explained that on the way home last evening the three little monsters figured out how to unscrew the lid from the inside. “Two of them joined together and made a column from the bottom to the lid of the jar. The other one twisted them, and I was chasing the buggers all over the car. My driver was not amused.”

  Burt chuckled. It was a new experience for him to see Angelo in this light. He feared he would lose his original bet and perhaps Angelo was indeed human after all.

  “Can I get you gentlemen a cup of coffee?” Martha asked with one eye on the jar.

  “I’m swimming in caffeine at the moment,” Burt confessed. “I’ll pass.”

  Angelo smiled and moved his cup in Martha’s direction. “Please.”

  She poured it and smiled. Keeping busy was her solution to not worrying about Julie and her family. They left in the rented limo a few hours ago. They wouldn’t land for a bit yet. She wouldn’t be at ease until she received a phone call that they had landed.

  “Don’t worry, they will be fine,” he said softly. “Have faith.”

  She nodded and walked away as tears were filling her eyes.

  The front door banged. They heard Ted and Mia asking Mike questions as they came into the kitchen. “Sorry, we’re late, but it took time to get Cid set up,” Mia explained. “Ted was a gent and gave me a ride here.” She looked at Angelo and pushed him out of her head.

  He narrowed his eyes and regretted the day he taught her how to block a mind reader. He and she would have to have a serious conversation before he left this country. He wasn’t pleased with the rumors of her and Whitney and felt that she was hiding information about her friend Murphy from him. He maintained his dislike of independent entities. He felt strongly that it was unnatural to want to stay earthbound.

  “Did you check on Beth?” Burt asked Mike.

  “She’s ready,” he replied.

  “Okay team, grab a coffee and head into the dining room. We have a lot of information to discuss. Angelo will be meeting with us. Martha you are welcome to join us, after all this impacts you and your family the most.” Burt got up and left the room.

  Ted and Mia moved over to the counter, and Martha helped them with their coffees.

  “That’s a lot of sugar, young man.”

  “I need the quick jolt,” Ted explained.

  Mia smiled and opted out of the girly stuff and settled for it black.

  Martha looked very uncomfortable and sighed.

  Mia touched her hand and said, “It’s okay to worry, just don’t let it monopolize your mind. Things have a way of working out. Gwen and your family are fine.”

  “I hope so. Thank you for being so kind.”

  Mia put her cup down and hugged her. She felt the stress start to ease from the older woman, but yet, felt that something else was plaguing her. “Martha, have you been having nightmares?”

  “Yes. Bloody ones. There was a lot of blood and children lying dead beside their mothers.”

  “I’ve seen that. My perspective was looking up at a hillside,” Mia informed her.

  “Mine was from the ground. I lay there feeling life drain out of me. My fingers reached for my babies, they were just out of my grasp.”

  “I think it’s important for you to come in and discuss this with all of us. There is no one in that room that will judge you. Information is power. I’m hoping that Beth has come up with something that may explain what you and I are seeing.”

  Martha let go of Mia and took a moment to compose herself. Mia waited for her, and they entered the dining room together.

  Ted had two seats empty by him. He patted a chair. “Martha, sit next to me.”

  Mia smiled at the softhearted tech and sat on the other side of Martha. She looked around and saw that Burt had the place wired for video and sound. Ever the showman, Mike had taken a place at one end of the table.

  Angelo sat with his back to the camera at the other end of the table. Beth had monopolized most of her side of the table but kept an empty chair reserved for Burt.

  Mia placed her bare hand on the top of the cherry table top. She admired the highly polished surface. It reflected her hand and the lights from the overhead chandelier. She looked around the room and examined each shadow. She saw it standing, waiting and listening. It was in the chenille drapes. Mia pushed out with her mind and told it to be patient. It would have its say. The fabric puckered slightly as the mass nodded. Mia opted not to say anything to the others. She looked at Angelo and invited him into her mind. He glanced over at the drapes and back at Mia giving her his approval of her silence.

  “I think we all have something to contribute to this conversation. I’d like to give a brief summary of the events and then let Beth have the floor,” Mike opened. He watched for the approval of the group before beginning, “A little over four years ago, Gwendolyn Kowalski was born in this house. She, by all accounts, is a happy energetic little girl. Unbeknownst to her parents and siblings, she suffered what appeared in the beginning to be little attacks on her person. Four years later, she and her parents experienced a full invasion of what she called darker-than-darks. For the sake of this investigation, we’ll call them DTDs. We will get back to them in a moment. They called PEEPs, and Burt had the foresight, when he didn’t find any historical reference to them, to call Angelo Michaels who searched his archives and possibly came up with what they may be.”

  “Inspection of the house,” Mike continued, “showed us a bevy of dark shadowed creatures, some with snakelike form.” Mike pointed to the pickle jar in front of Angelo.

  Burt zoomed in on the three who sat coiled and attentive as if they were listening.

  “Mia had a strong feeling that the DTDs came from the wood in the child’s room. Questions were asked, and we found out that the wood came from an old barn that resided here on this farm. Soon after the Kowalski family moved into the farm here with Martha, a large group of them left the house and started their journey back here. Maybe they sensed Gwen was here or are merely returning to their, for lack of better word, basecamp. What are they? What do they want? Can they be destroyed? These are open for discussion after Beth gives us her report.”

  Mike sat down. Beth shuffled her papers as Burt positioned the camera
to take in the researcher. Beth smiled and began, “When we look into a haunt, I try to get the most information I can. Household records, deeds, diaries and the like prove most useful in getting a history on the buildings and land. Martha has been more than accommodating. But the papers only tell what has happen here since the farmland was cleared and the buildings were erected. There was no mention of any disturbance of this type here before now. I then decided to look at the land. I surfed the internet and happened upon a few papers published on the tribes of northern Illinois. I couldn’t come up with anything specific to this area until I looked at the Illini. It’s fascinating reading.”

  “And?” Mike said, leading her away from her exuberance and back into the research.

  “Sorry.” She jostled her papers a moment to collect her thoughts. “Reading about the tribe through French eyes cleared any prior notion about peaceful tribes of Native Americans hunting and farming this area. They along with their enemies were a violent bunch when slighted. The Illini fought many wars, but and this is important, they were compassionate too. It was their compassion that started their demise. Bear with me. I think this story is important to our investigation. The Winnebago were enemies of the Fox – a common foe of the Illini – and on their way to do battle with another tribe, they were caught in a storm and 500 of their warriors were drowned. This left them vulnerable, so they retreated to a fortification around what is now Green Bay, Wisconsin. They did not have enough to eat and were starving. The Illini sent 500 warriors to their aid, bringing food and other provisions to get them through the winter. The Winnebago had a great feast to welcome their patrons. During the feast, they reportedly cut the bowstrings of the warriors, killed and ate them.”

  A series of shocked noises came from the others in the room. Mia watched as the drapes wavered. Beanie, Bubba and Blast twined around each other and huddled in the bottom of the jar.

  “The tribe didn’t know what happened to their warriors until they sent an expedition who found what the Winnebago had done and that they had moved on to another place of fortification. Oh, before you key every RV with the Winnebago name, I’d like to point out it was in retaliation for some atrocities perpetrated by the Illini that had not been forgotten.”

  “Excuse me,” Ted said and waited for Beth’s nodded permission to continue. “This is very interesting, well, horrifying, but what does this have to do with identifying our DTDs?”

  “Sorry, I get carried away. Okay, it was the burial practices that were the link. The natives of this area didn’t bury their dead in the ground prior to the American invasion of the area. Instead the bodies of the dead were wrapped in skins and attached by the feet and head to the trees. After the flesh had rotted away, the bones were interred in crude stone tombs.”

  “It makes sense,” Mia piped up. “I’ve had visions of the bodies tied to the trees. I thought, incorrectly, at the time they were being tortured.”

  “Not torture, believe me there were more brutal things done to torture prisoners. I won’t elaborate. I think we all have had enough nightmares lately,” Beth said solemnly.

  “The trees, perhaps the same ones hewn for the barn,” Angelo surmised. “They held the spirits of the dead. Why did the spirits not ascend?”

  “I don’t know,” Beth admitted. She looked over at Mia. “Were there witnesses to what happened? If so, what caused the spirits to bond with the trees instead of moving to the great hunting ground?”

  “Oh, I think we have a multitude of witnesses. There is one in this room right now. If you would permit me, I think it would like to speak.”

  “Where? How?” Mike asked aghast.

  “I think it has been trying to communicate with us. It didn’t know how. It thought that if it could become us, we would listen. But language had to be learned, and a way to become us, without killing us, had to be worked out. It’s chosen to morph into a porous fabric. I believe I could survive the transformation.”

  “No!” Ted said firmly.

  “Trust me. Angelo will pull me out if I’m in trouble.”

  Angelo nodded.

  “Burt, you’re going to want to film this,” Mia said as she walked over to Angelo and picked up the jar. She pulled off the tape and opened it near the curtained window. “Beanie, Bubba and Blast spent four years developing language along with Gwen,” she explained.

  They watched as the three DTDs crawled swiftly out of the jar and moved to the curtains and crawled up them.

  “K. Now this, if it works, will be a first for me. Understand that I am just a mold. The DTD will not possess me. It will become a mirror image of me.”

  Mia walked up to the now flowing fabric and turned and backed herself into the drapes. Ted watched in horror as chenille arms developed and pulled Mia into its body. It wrapped her from head to foot. Mia shook as her nervous system didn’t understand what was happening. She willed herself out of her body briefly in order to let the DTD take form. Once it started to inch away from Mia, she moved back into her body.

  Burt focused in on what seemed impossible. A distorted replica of Mia folded out of her body swinging away as they were hinged together at the left hand and foot.

  “Paper dolls,” Martha said in awe.

  The DTD was a copy of Mia from hair to clothes. On the far right edge she was more chenille drape than human.

  “Mia, are you alright?” Ted asked.

  “Yes, Ted,” Mia said, breathing a little too fast.

  “Yes, Ted,” a scratchy voice repeated. “Yes, Ted.” This time the voice was rounder, deeper. “Yes, Ted,” the voice now held an accent. “Yes, Ted, Mia is fine.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Angelo spoke, “Welcome, do you have a name?”

  “Not that you could understand,” the doppelgänger replied.

  “Call her Chenille,” Mia offered, looking at the drapery she had used as camouflage.

  “I am Chenille,” the copy said.

  “Chenille, Mia said you would like to speak to us. Please do,” Angelo invited.

  “In my tribe we identify ourselves with the story of our lives. I will break tradition and tell you also of my death. Then I will tell you why we are here.”

  Angelo nodded.

  Chenille began…

  From my earliest memories, I have been a nomad. My father, a shaman, moved us with the hunting party. Normally, being female, it was expected of me to stay with the women and children, but my mother passed two years after my birth and I survived. My father wanted me close to him. To teach me the ways of our culture and to become a healer like he.

  Our people owned many hunting grounds, many rivers and forests. They fought to keep what was ours and for many moons we were feared. For many more we were diminishing. We were tricked, betrayed and hated. Do not cringe when you read of the mighty Illini, we did what we were taught. We were a violent people but gentle with our own. Loyalty was rewarded. Those that betrayed us were not suffered to live. They died slowly and painfully. It was our way.

  When I grew to have breasts, my father gave me to a warrior. He was my husband. He was fierce but gentle. I had three children with him. When they weaned from my breast, I wanted to resume following the hunt but was forbidden to do so. My place was now with the village. No longer would I feel the string of a bow, the excitement of felling prey. Instead I ground grain and ministered to the old.

  The people you call Iroquois were taking our land. The Fox came and told us they would show us where the cowards were hiding. Our warriors painted their faces and went out to slaughter the demons. The Fox promised to watch over our old. Promised to guard our women and children as if they were their own. They lied.

  Our warriors were gone two nights when the Fox came to our village. We offered them food. They spat upon the ground. I ran to find my children. To hide them, to save them. I was too late. I found their little bodies broken and mutilated. I fell to my knees to gather them into my arms. I didn’t see what demon killed me, but as I lost the light from my
eyes, I prayed for them.

  The room was still. Mia felt the anguish and horror Chenille felt. “Tell them what happened after you died,” Mia instructed. “They need to know about him.”

  Our raiding party found out that they were fooled. They hurried back to the village, but they were too late. They ran to look for life, but all were gone. My father instructed the warriors to put down their weapons and prepare our bodies. They wrapped us in skins and tied us, as was our tradition, to the trees. Later he would come back and put our bones under the rocks. The chief who had been fooled by the Fox was inconsolable. No matter what counsel my father gave him, he rejected it. He grew more and more incensed. He demanded this of my father, “Wrap me in skins but leave my face free. Tie me to a tree facing my dead people. Cut me and mark each body with my blood. Leave me here to die in the company of their bodies. I vow I will return and slaughter the Fox, the Iroquois and all that made treaties with them.”

  He died slowly, and as his fluids nurtured the roots of the tree to which he was tied, he rejected the spirit way. He denied all of us the spirit path by having my father mark our foreheads with his blood. He prayed to the shadow god, and we fell with him into hell. We stayed there until the world became peaceful again.

  “How do you know this?” Beth asked.

  “When my father’s time came to die he was brought to my tree, and his forehead was marked with the soil from the chief’s tree. He descended with us.”

  “Why have you chosen to talk to us?” Angelo asked.

  “To warn you. The chief is returning. I feel his hatred in the air. He intends to do as I have and become whole. He will then slaughter the Fox, the Iroquois and all of you that had an accord with them.”

  “How will he know these people?” Angelo asked.

  “He won’t, but he will kill anyway. You are here on his land, you will die.” She paused and looked around the room. “It is not all of us who wish to have this happen. My father, who now travels with the chief, and I would like to join the spirit along with my children.”