Forest of Shadows

by Hunter Shea

  “Now these things have been there for the past ten years. Except when I go to get them yesterday, they ain’t there. There’s just an empty space where they used to be in the box. Weird, huh?”

  Judas nodded in agreement. Chalk another oddity to the drama they’d all been sucked into.

  “It’s almost like someone doesn’t want us to find the truth,” Muraco said.

  He lit another cigarette and stood back up. “Well, fuck ’em. I don’t care what they’re hiding and I’m not running from anything up at that house. Tell Backman we’ll all be there.”

  Stretching, he began to howl, setting Judas’s nerves on edge.

  “Yeah, fuck ’em all.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  John was still humming from the excitement of the previous night, as well as the heightened sense of awareness that comes from lack of sleep. If he didn’t get at least five solid hours of sleep in soon, that awareness would degrade to vapor lock. Go enough days without sleep and your thoughts were no longer your own, your vision was less than reliable and that old friend paranoia would soon start creeping in. The more you thought about the sleep you were missing and how crucial it was to get some this very night, the more your mind played tricks on you, convincing itself that sleep would never come and you would be left a babbling lunatic.

  He knew firsthand what it meant to be your own worst enemy.

  He cast those thoughts aside and instead concentrated on viewing the video from the hallway. Jessica had put on a brave face when she recounted her experience with what she called the light boy. John slipped the VHS-C cassette into the player and started at the beginning. Even though he knew the incident wasn’t until about an hour into it, he would watch it all, hoping to catch something that Jessica had missed. With any luck, there would be recorded evidence to back up his daughter’s claims, which, as her father, he had no reason to doubt.

  While the cassette rewound, his stomach started to growl.

  “All right, all right,” he said, patting his aching stomach. “I’ll feed you in a minute.”

  Resistance to his hunger was futile, so he went upstairs to grab something quick.

  Eve was seated at the kitchen counter, her head bent over reading a large, leather bound book. She looked up when he stepped into the kitchen.

  “I’m at a loss, John,” she said. The rims of her eyes were red from lack of sleep, too. After Jessica and the detector’s bleating woke her up from a deep sleep, she’d found it almost impossible to slip back into her dreams. She’d been perusing all of the books John had brought instead, looking for anything that might match their experience.

  “This is the second time I’ve looked over this stuff and I can’t find anything like what’s happening here. The closest thing would involve poltergeist cases, and even those, from the Smurls to Borley Rectory, the Enfield case and even the Lutz’s, I can’t find anything that has as much solid phenomena as here. Just bits and pieces here and there.”

  Eve rolled her eyes and closed the book.

  “You find anything from last night yet?”

  “Nah. I’m just getting the tape ready so I can review it. You want to watch it with me?”

  “I can’t,” she replied, motioning towards Jessica and Liam in the living room playing with one of his baby toys.

  “Well, if I catch anything, I’ll call up for you. Jess can watch Liam for a few minutes. Jesus, after her performance last night, I bet she could take care of us all.”

  Jessica was busy showing Liam how to use the various dials and buttons on his Fisher Price barn set. Whenever Liam did the wrong thing, she gently corrected him and showed him to correct way to make the chicken or the cow appear from behind the closed plastic door.

  Eve said, “You know, when I was her age, if I saw a ghost, I would have screamed bloody murder and not slept for a year.”

  “She’s a tough nut.” John grabbed a root beer from the fridge. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must retire to my lab.”

  Before he could take the first step down the stairs, the phone rang. Eve was the closest, so she answered. She motioned for him to stay. After a brief, friendly exchange, she handed him the phone.

  “It’s Jack.”

  He gladly took the phone.

  “Please tell me you were able to Crawford something good for me,” he said.

  “Hi, how are you. Nice to hear your voice,” Jack answered sarcastically.

  “You won’t believe the stuff that’s going on up here. This place is beyond a gold mine. It’s a diamond mine.” John did his best to sound upbeat. He didn’t want to let on to his growing trepidation around Jack or Eve.

  “Well then, I hope I have a valuable gem to add to your dig. It didn’t take long, or much money, to find out that the man who built the house you’re currently experiencing the nether world in is one Robert Foster, a self-made millionaire who worked his way up in the construction business in sunny Florida. Seems he built a lot of the condos that retired New York cops and accountants like to call home now. In the early nineties, he sold his estate in Florida and moved into a lovely, rich man’s cabin in an out of the way town called Shida, Alaska. He was tired and wanted a place as far away from the rat race and snooty social circles as possible. Unfortunately for him, his retreat from the world he’d worked hard to become a part of was less than a year. According to an article in the Miami Herald, he had a stroke during his return flight to Florida and lost most of his mobility.”

  Jack paused to let the information sink in. John was literally on the edge of his seat.

  “I guess the million dollar question is, is Robert Foster still alive?” he asked.

  Jack clucked his tongue. “My final answer would be, yes. He’s back in Key West, Florida. Lives with a full-time nurse named,” there was a ruffle of papers, then, “says her name is Nancy. He’s seventy-six now and it doesn’t look hopeful that he’ll see seventy-seven, though people have been writing him off since the day he returned to Florida.”

  The news was disconcerting to say the least.

  John asked, “Has anyone spoken to him about what happened up here?”

  “Why don’t you ask him yourself? I have his number.”

  “Jack, you are truly my hero.”

  “Don’t hate me because I’m wonderful. You have a pen?”

  John took down the number.

  Jack said, “Call or email me before you leave so I know you’re all coming back sane and happy.”

  “You got it.”

  When John hung up the phone, Eve walked over and eyed the number he’d written down on the pad.

  “Whose number is that?” she asked.

  “The very man who had this house built. Jack says he’s not in the best of health, but I think I’m going to give him a call anyway. It can’t hurt. He had a massive stroke, so I only hope he can still talk.”

  As he descended into the basement with the cordless phone in hand, Eve called out, “Good luck.”

  The cassette player was ready but he wanted to get this call over with first. Cold calling people about their own supernatural experiences was not something he had ever done before and he knew the longer it was put off, the harder it would be to actually make the call.

  Settling into his chair, he punched the number into the phone. A woman with a heavy Jamaican accent answered on the third ring.

  “Hello, may I speak to Robert Foster, please.”

  “Whatever it is, he don’t want it.”

  “Wait, don’t hang up. I’m not a salesperson. If you could, please tell Mr. Foster that the man who is currently living in his Shida house would like a few words with him.”

  “What the hell is a Shida?”

  “It’s a town in Alaska. He built a house up here a while ago and I live in it now.”

  She paused.

  “Mr. Foster is a very sick man.”

  “If you just tell him I’m in his Shida house, I believe he’ll talk to me.” In reality, he had no idea if this wo
uld work, though it seemed a reasonable expectation.

  “And you are?” she asked, exasperated.

  “John Backman, though he doesn’t know me.”

  “Hold on.”

  He heard the phone being dropped on a hard surface and the sound of flip flops fade off into the distance. His nerves were itching.

  Just as his mind began to drift to other things, a dry, raspy voice wheezed, “I don’t own that house anymore.”

  Listening to Robert Foster was like playing back one of his EVP recordings; he was nothing more than a strained voice from beyond the grave. His voice sounded like an old tire being dragged over gravel.

  “I understand. I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about the house.”

  The old man breathed heavily into the phone. “I left it a long time ago. It’s a bad house. Not safe.”

  “Not safe from what?”

  “Nothing can keep them out. So I left. You should leave. I should have burned it to the ground. They feed off of us, you know. They’re angry because we have what was taken from them.”

  He remembered the index cards he’d found his first days in the house, before they mysteriously disappeared, especially the one that had read THEY FEED OFF US. He hadn’t thought twice about them since they’d been lost. Now he knew the author.

  What he needed now was the whole message.

  “Who is angry, Mr. Foster?” John pressed.

  “I knew right away it wasn’t my house. Never would be. It belongs to them.”

  “Who does it belong to?”

  “I stayed too long. Don’t know why. Too, too long.” Robert Foster’s voice cracked and John thought the man was crying.

  “That house is no good. Burn the goddamn thing. Just burn it!”

  John was struck speechless.

  “It’s not meant for you. It’s not meant for anyone. Get out before you can’t! If the winter comes, you’ll all die! Set it on fire! I should have done it myself. Burn it, Backman!”

  He heard the phone being wrestled away and Robert Foster’s ravings in the background. The nurse was back on the line and less than pleased.

  “Now look what you done!” she scolded. “Don’t call here again. Mr. Foster’s too sick for this.”

  She slammed the phone down and he was left with the steady hum of the dial tone.

  There was a soft, shuffling sound in the darkest corner of the basement. John stared at the empty spot. It sounded like a small person with slippers lazily walking towards him.

  It came closer.

  A book fell off the shelf not five feet from where he sat. His every muscle tensed.

  The book slid half a foot as if something had nudged it out of the way.

  The room felt colder.

  Then silence.

  He looked down and saw the hairs on his arms standing on end while Foster’s frantic cries played over and over in his head.

  Burn it. When the winter comes, you’ll all die!

  Erica Standish looked at her reflection in the mirror and sighed in disgust. She looked like hell. Last night with Gary was a nightmare and she was paying the price for it.

  “Maybe a shower will help.”

  She stripped down and took a long, hot shower. Closing her eyes and letting the water splash down on her face and chest, she tried her best to clear her mind.

  Erica had always gone for the bad boys and there was something in Gary High Bear that made him probably the baddest of them all, no matter how well he tried to keep that part of himself concealed. Sure, he wore a badge now, but she could tell he didn’t always operate on this side of the law. Call it female intuition.

  It also didn’t hurt that he was great in bed. Lately, though, the age difference thing had started to nag her and the fact that they had to keep their relationship on the Q-T, like some dirty little secret, left her feeling worthless.

  So, yesterday afternoon when he stopped by the diner for his usual coffee and Danish to go, she’d followed him out to his truck and told him it was over. He seemed to have taken it well, simply saying, “Can’t say I didn’t see it coming. I’ll miss you.”

  Then last night he’d called, obviously drunk off his ass, calling her all kinds of names and accusing her of sleeping with Wadi, who he would throw in a jail cell for the rest of his natural born days just to teach her a lesson.

  She’d pleaded with him, cried and screamed. Next thing she knew, he was at her door and she foolishly let him in. Things got even worse, with more drunken threats and his constantly calling her a whore at the top of his lungs. Finally, around four in the morning, she’d thrown him out. He could barely sit straight, much less put up a fight. She watched him stumble into his car and slowly drive away.

  The bad boy had finally come out, but it was too late. Now she was worried for Wadi more than herself, because she knew he would never lay a hand on her. He’d had plenty of chances last night.

  She’d have to warn Wadi to lay low, at least until things cooled down.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Judas woke up coughing until his ribs hurt. With a great heave, he spat enough phlegm to choke a horse into the waste paper basket by his bed.

  Not even twenty-five and he already sounded like an old man in the morning. It might be high time to give up the high times.

  Once his eyes adjusted to the morning light, they settled on the note he had written the night before and left on the bedside table: CALL JOHN FIRST THING IN THE MORNING, SUNSHINE.

  He’d scribbled the number below the note along with a doodle of a man giving the finger. He needed to warn him about Muraco. The man was angry and scared and itching to lash out at something. In this case, what could he possibly do? Punch a ghost? John didn’t realize how quickly things could turn bad with Muraco’s so-called pack.

  “The number you have reached is no longer in service. Please hang up the phone and dial again.”

  Judas tried again but couldn’t get through.

  On the third attempt, the operator’s recorded voice crackled into static. He was about to hang up when he heard soft whispers that turned his blood to ice.

  “Nooooo serviiiiiccce…Juuuuudaassss.”

  “Here, take these.”

  Eve put her hand under John’s face. Two blue tablets rested in her palm.

  “May I ask what these are?” he said.

  “Night time pain killers. It’s over the counter, but it’s all I have. You need some sleep, buddy. I’m not sitting around waiting until you pass out.”

  She tilted her hand and dropped the pills into his mouth before he could protest, pulling a bottle of water out from behind her back so he could wash them down.

  “Good boy.” She patted his head as he took a mouthful of water. “You should be drowsy in about half an hour, so you might want to get any urgent work done now. Ciao.”

  Smiling, she went upstairs to bed.

  He’d just been ambushed and he never stood a chance.

  Eve was right. It had been days since he’d had a decent night’s sleep. The fear that he was rapidly falling into old patterns, coupled with the increasing happenings around the house both conspired to rob him of precious sleep.

  Half an hour. He’d better get to work.

  He hadn’t told Eve about his failed attempt at finding a flight for her and the kids so they could leave before his final planned night in the house. All of the flights had been booked solid, not that it mattered since a freak storm had hit the coast pretty hard, shutting down the airport. Winds were gusting at over sixty miles an hour. Southern sections of the George Parks Highway were reportedly under water and the rain was rapidly turning to snow.

  Yet another, odd, unexplainable event. Or maybe he was just being paranoid. Phantoms could not control the weather.

  He grabbed the hair on the sides of his head and shook the cobwebs from his brain.

  John clicked the play button on his media player and continued watching the recording in the hallway on the night Jessica spo
ke to the light boy. The time stamp, right down to the second, ticked off in the right corner of the screen. He paused the playback when he saw a tiny dot, like the glow from a penlight, appear on the screen. It hovered a few feet from the floor just outside the bedroom door.

  The dot grew into a pulsating orb of light with hazily defined edges. Oddly, the light, as it became bigger and brighter, was contained to the object itself. The hallway stayed dark, even though it had a beacon sitting right in its center.

  It was then that the static came in, obscuring the entire screen.

  “Damn!” John slammed his fist down on the table. It was a common occurrence when filming entities. Sometimes their electromagnetic charge would wreak havoc with recording equipment, thus destroying any hope for lasting evidence.

  He watched, dull from disappointment (and perhaps the effects of the pills Eve had given him) as the barrage of white noise played on. Fast forwarding was out of the question as it would make it too easy to miss something that might pop up on screen.

  So he watched. He looked outside the living room window and saw light snow lazily fall to the ground. The edges of the storm were already here.

  Back to the static. White flakes outside, white flakes inside.

  There was no sound on the video and the entire house was silent. Yawning, he realized he’d have to head upstairs soon or risk a backache by sleeping in his chair.

  He turned when he heard footsteps on the stairs.

  “Coming down to check on me?”

  Eve came over and looked at the computer screen. “Feeling tired yet?”

  “Getting there,” he replied, rubbing his eyes.

  “Let me help,” she said, slipping her nightshirt over her head.

  He sat there, stunned. Eve was completely naked, her nipples puckered atop soft, inviting breasts, the tan lines from her bathing suit still visible. She placed his hands on her hips and pulled his head between her warm, soft cleavage. He looked down at the blonde hair between her legs, felt the heat on her skin, the supple flesh of her ass.