by Alexie Aaron
Never Forget
A Haunted Series Novel by
Alexie Aaron
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2015 – Diane L. Fitch writing as Alexie Aaron
Original cover photo by Ian Stewart Roberts
ALSO BY ALEXIE AARON
HAUNTED SERIES
in order
The Hauntings of Cold Creek Hollow
Ghostly Attachments
Sand Trap
Darker than Dark
The Garden
Puzzle
Old Bones
Things that Go Bump in the Night
Something Old
The Middle House: Return to Cold Creek Hollow
Renovation
Mind Fray
The Siege
NOLA
Never Forget
Coming Soon: The Old House
PEEPS LITE
Eternal Maze 3.1
Homecoming 3.2
Checking Out 9.1
Ice and Steel 9.2
CIN FIN-LATHEN MYSTERIES
Decomposing
Death by Saxophone
Discord
The Wages of Cin
To Jim, Kelly, Aaron, Sandy, Leanne, Marion, Sarah, Janice, Ian, Margaret, and my readers.
I will never forget what you have done for me, never.
Table of Contents
Bilbo
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Glossary
Alexie Aaron
Bilbo
Thunder rolled as the late afternoon sky lit up again and again. A warm front was moving in, pushing the much needed rain before it. The earth accepted the moisture until it could hold no more. Streams overfilled, flooding fields and lowlands. On the highway, water, pushed by the wind, moved across the pavement in waves. A fatigued semi driver pulled over on the verge. He no sooner had let go of the wheel when he felt a violent shift in the trailer he was hauling. Jumping out, he cursed himself for his stupidity. The wheels on the verge side had sunk into the easement, and the ground was falling away, causing the trailer to lean. If he did not get his cargo out immediately, the trailer and the truck would soon be rolling over and down off the highway.
He opened the back. The scent of fear was the first to leave the trailer, followed by an earthier odor.
“Bilbo, calm down, Artie’s come to rescue you,” he cooed to the bull. He waited until the African elephant moved his trunk along Artie’s body, taking in his scent before trying to unlatch his travel harness.
To Bilbo, the scent indicated that this was the driver. He waited patiently to be unhitched and for the ramp to be lowered.
“I’m not supposed to do this, old fella, but I screwed up,” Artie said as he guided the bull down the ramp.
Bilbo wasn’t pleased with the angle of the heavy metal ramp, but the driver had never hurt him before so he followed the man’s lead.
“You have to stay here, so I can get Little Suzy out,” Artie said and drove a stake into the verge behind the trailer before he attached the transportation harness.
The driver rushed away. The rain fell harder, lightning lit the sky, and Bilbo, for the first, time could see the trailer and the jeopardy Little Suzy was in. The ramp was no longer flush with the ground. It tilted the roadside edge up, lifting it three feet off of the ground. Bilbo pulled his neck upwards and backed away. The stake slid easily from the ground. He moved to the verge and leaned his massive head against the trailer and pushed.
Artie felt the leveling of the trailer immediately. He took hold of the frightened female and led her out of the trailer and into the rain. There he found Bilbo supporting the trailer.
“Good boy!” he exclaimed, patting Bilbo hard enough to be felt, but without any malice on his part. Artie moved Little Suzy beside the bull and ran for his radio. He had to find how far back the handling team was, and he needed to disengage the trailer to save the truck.
Bilbo waited until the driver got into his truck and moved it away from the trailer. He backed away and moved carefully down the embankment. Little Suzy followed.
Little Suzy swung her head back and forth, trying to rid herself of the nightmare that followed her from the trailer, the nightmare that filled her head with the urge to flee.
Earlier, in the transport trailer, Bilbo had tried to calm the small female. He initially thought the road trip had frightened her, or maybe the thunderstorm. Suzy had pushed with all her weight, battering it against the side of the trailer, again and again. The steel box had borne the movement, but soon afterwards, he felt the rig slow until it stopped. The driver’s fear mixed with Little Suzy’s had had Bilbo concerned.
Something was happening to Little Suzy that he did not understand. She kept crying about the machete men and that they had to hide. He saw no such threat and lumbered after her.
An old scent he had not smelled in years assaulted his senses. The trainer, the old trainer, was here! He thought he had smelled his scent in the trailer a few times, but since he saw no one, he dismissed it. He stopped and looked around for the man holding the vile hook. The odor of the man was strong, and he felt pain behind his ear. He flapped it in hope of releasing whatever had assaulted him.
Little Suzy had turned around and was now moving up to the road. Bilbo knew instinctively that death awaited her there. He ignored the repeated pain and ran to intercept her.
Suzy, younger than Bilbo by tens of years, was quick and had already made the road, but God was with her. The torrential rain had stopped most of the eastbound big rigs, and she crossed the road and onto the median with no difficulty.
Bilbo, trailing the lead with the metal stake bouncing behind him, caught up with her there. He moved between her and the westbound lane, saving her from a line of rain-blind cars. Suzy stopped, moved around him, and suddenly he was chasing her across that part of the highway and down the embankment on the other side.
She moved along the edge until she found a break in the fence line. She pushed through the brush and into the woods and headed north. Bilbo stopped and looked back, thinking of the driver and the comfort of the trailer. The sky lit up, and he smelled the trainer and cried as he endured the repeated assault on the tender areas of his body. He knew he should stay there, but Little Suzy needed his help. She knew nothing of the bipeds here. He shook off the fear, tore the harness from his body and followed her.
Artie got out of the truck, lit the emergency flares and placed them behind the listing trailer. He
walked down and looked for Bilbo and Little Suzy, expecting to find them in the lowland beside the highway. He found some disturbed earth, but no elephants. He heard the beep of the SUV horn that was transporting the handling team. He heard the car doors open and the curses of the team as the rain soaked their clothing. He fell as he climbed the embankment. He regained his feet just as the trailer slid and, finally, toppled down the hill.
Jane Monroe braced herself, bending her knees to stabilize her weight before reaching down and giving aid to Artie. He was flustered and apologetic. Never before in his many years of transporting elephants to the sanctuaries in Tennessee, Florida and Arkansas, had he had an accident nor lost the elephants.
Jane, a pragmatic researcher and elephant expert, agreed that the odds of this happening were 15%. “We’ll find them,” she said confidently.
“I think they moved through the lowland and headed south. I didn’t see them move across the road. The embankment here is too steep for Bilbo to make it up,” he reasoned.
“Fair enough, we’ll alert the authorities and start searching south of the highway,” she said. “We’re going to need to get a replacement transport. I trust you will handle that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Where are we exactly? I admit to falling asleep a few hours back.”
“Northern Illinois. South is mostly farmlands, but the area north has farms and large tracts of woods.”
“Let’s be glad that the accident happened on the south side of the road. I hate to have to hunt elephants in mature forests,” Jane said. “We’ll wait until the rain lets up to get a helicopter out. In the meanwhile, I better make friends with the local police departments. We don’t need any gun-happy Barney Fifes shooting at Bilbo or Little Suzy. They’ve been through enough.”
Fear drove Little Suzy until she could walk no more. She settled down behind an abandoned auto dealership. Bilbo found her there and, with his strength, managed to lift the large rolling doors so he and the small cow could get out of the rain. Only after he had lowered the door and placed himself between Suzy and it, did he settle down and rest. The lightning eased off, but the rain continued. Gone was the pain of the trainer, but the memory refused to release itself from Bilbo.
Little Suzy cried for a while before she let herself sleep.
Bilbo prayed that she would not dream of the men that killed her kin and placed her in a crate to be sold. No one should have to live through such horrors. No one.
Chapter One
Mia rocked Brian, holding him tight against her chest. “The storm's moving on, sweetheart,” she said gently. “Mommy and Daddy are here.” Mia looked at her tall husband standing by the window. They had been awakened by Brian's cries. Ted had dressed hastily in his Batman boxers and was there first to pull the frightened child from the crib. He handed Brian to Mia, grabbed the afghan his great aunt made, and draped it around Mia’s cold shoulders as she sat down in the platform rocker.
“You really are Batman,” Mia said to Ted when Brian’s last tear had dried.
Ted looked down at his beautiful wife and son. “If you see me this way, then I am complimented indeed.”
“You’re not frightened of thunderstorms, are you?” Mia asked.
“When you grow up in Kansas, the rain, no matter how it comes, is appreciated,” he said, avoiding answering her question directly.
“For me, lightning brings forth the Wanderers,” Mia told him and explained, “Wanderers are spirits that aren’t held to any particular place. They move with the energy of the storm fronts.”
Ted, fascinated by this revelation, pulled over the hassock and sat down, placing Mia’s bare feet onto his lap. “Where are your socks?”
“I always lose them in the bed. There must be a half dozen at the foot of the bed,” she said.
“Tell me about the Wanderers?” he asked gently, massaging Mia’s right instep.
Brian seemed to be concentrating on Mia’s face. She took this as his assent to her story.
“As we’ve discovered, most ghosts have a radius in which they can haunt. The most powerful, like Murphy, can move farther afield, but that is most unusual,” she prefaced. “Wanderers use the energy of the storm to generate, manifesting in touchable, physical representations of whatever form they held in life. To you, they would be invisible but still tangible. For instance, if you walked into one, you would feel a definite presence. They too would feel you, but unlike you, they can see you.”
Ted felt a chill move down his spine. He kept this to himself, fearing that Mia would stop her explanation.
“Wanderers, for the most part, continue to follow the storm, but some will settle in high energy areas.”
“Like Cold Creek Hollow.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“They could be tired of the road or attracted to the constant flow of nourishment. Or have another agenda. When I was young, I used to see their solemn procession, men, women and children, walking just behind the curtain of rain. They moved their heads almost in unison from side to side. When one would stop, they all converged upon the spot, their dead eyes taking in whatever it was that had interested the other. When I was six years old, their interest was me,” Mia said, pain washing over her as the memory took hold.
Ted reached out a hand and caressed her face. “Don’t, not if it hurts,” he said.
“I think I should continue. There are lessons to be learned.”
Brian reached a hand out and grabbed at Ted’s.
Ted smiled down at his son. “Mia, it’s almost like he’s telling me to let you continue.”
“He’s a smart kid,” Mia said. “Let’s continue this story in bed. I’ll feel better with your arm around us,” Mia confessed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Brian?”
Brian answered her in his vowel-filled language.
Ted reached forward, picked Brian up and waited for Mia to extract herself from the afghan and then the rocker. The young family walked down the hall and into the master suite. Mia plumped the pillows and got in bed. Ted handed her their son and slid in beside her, drawing the covers over them.
“Go on, Minnie Mommy,” he said, draping his protective arm around Mia’s shoulders.
“When I was six years old, I didn’t have the supervision that most six-year-olds need,” she started. “I was given way too much freedom. Locked doors didn’t faze me. I learned early how to unlock the old doors of the home I grew up in. As long as I avoided the room in which my mother typed, I could spend my days doing whatever interested me. In the summertime, it was being outside. There weren’t many children on my street. Most of the homes were old, and the occupants were likewise old. Our neighbors saw me as a weird, lonely little girl, and as long as I didn’t pick their flowers, they let me roam their yards without censure. To address me, or to bring me back home, meant they had to deal with Amanda. Brian, your grandmother Amanda wasn’t the nicest of people when I was a child,” Mia explained.
“One particular summer day, I had moved past the homes and out into the fallow fields. There I could chase butterflies and gather large posies of wild flowers. I would run around in the tall grass until my legs tired, and then I would lie on my back, looking up at the sky. On this day, the sky was rapidly filling with clouds. They weren’t the happy clouds that sailed across the sky in various shapes; they were angry ones. I got up and looked around. I had a natural sense of what direction home was in, so the high weeds didn’t frighten me. I started walking home when the first hard droplet of rain hit me on top of the head. Plop!”
Brian opened his eyes wide.
“It must have fallen from on high because it kind of hurt,” Mia said, rubbing her head at the memory. “I decided that it wasn’t fun to be out in that kind of rain so I started running for cover. Being naturally clumsy, I tripped over my own feet, fell down and skinned both knees. By then the rain was falling steadily, and that’s when I heard the first rumble of thunder.”
Ted watched Mi
a’s face reflected in the dresser mirror. She may be a woman now, but her face showed the emotions and reactions of six-year-old Mia.
“Previously, on one of his visits, my godfather Ralph had told me about thunder and lightning. He taught me how to count in between the flash and the rumble to determine how far off the storm was. This information I put to good use. You see, Brian, you count one one-hundred, two one-hundred and so on from the flash to the answering thunder. Each hundred was a mile. I didn’t know what a mile was then, but I knew the more hundreds in between was a good thing, especially if I was caught out in the rain. That day, I wasn’t so lucky. I barely got to two one-hundred when the rumble came. I got to my feet and prepared to run to the nearest house. The wind began, and as it swirled around me driving the rain, I lost my way. I ran parallel to the houses instead of to them. If it wasn’t for the old farm fence, I may have run all the way to Canada!”
“Ah am ah am,” Brian said. “Ooh, ooh.”
“I didn’t know Murphy then or your daddy. Had I, I wouldn’t have been afraid.”
Ted squeezed Mia’s shoulder in appreciation.
“Your daddy, at my age, would have been smart enough to construct a shelter out of bits and bobs, but I, however, was just a foolish, little, headstrong girl,” Mia admitted. “The rain fell harder, and the sky lit up again and again. The ground shook, and the thunder roared. I put my hands over my ears and sunk to the ground, curling up, thinking that if I made myself small enough, the weather couldn’t hurt me. How wrong I was. I heard a shuffling of feet in between thunder claps. I was too afraid to look around me. Had I done so, I would have seen the slow procession of the Wanderers as they moved across the field. I suppose, had one not run into me, I would have gone unnoticed by them, but I wasn’t that lucky.”
“Are you sure you want to continue?” Ted asked her. He could feel her shake off chill after chill even though the three of them were snug in bed.
