Lost In Dreamland

by Jason Paul Rice

  “Yes.” The unsturdy chair screeched against the wooden floor as Ellen McCarron stood up to respond.

  Black-painted fingernails swept dark locks streaked in gray from her pale face. The older woman tucked the hair behind her pointed ear.

  Her purple lips began to move and a deep voice followed. “I have statements to make and offers to present.”

  Forty people were seated in small chairs around Hanging House, not to mention the actual court participants. Ellen searched the room for a sympathetic eye and came up empty. She was the last of a nearly extinct breed of strong women.

  She continued, “When we arrived on this piece of land, nobody wanted to come near it. A group of women saw the vision. We saw the crops. We saw the tobacco plants and apple trees. We produced more than we needed so we sold some to other folks.”

  Ellen lit a match and held it above the dark wooden pipe in her mouth, exposing the silver flecks in her eyes. She took a few draws from the pipe and exhaled the cinnamon-scented tobacco into the audience. The thick smoke hung around the room until several men fanned it away and chased it out the open window.

  The unmarried woman found guilty of running a whorehouse, amongst many other charges, said, “We prospered and when we prospered, jealousy apparently developed. We were somehow deemed a threat. A group of women without weapons. We had no guards, no form of defense, yet Adoxia had to send in the National Troops to surround Dankstone, a small town in a big country. Fear is an awful vice. It often shifts to senseless retaliatory violence.”

  She started pointing at people around the room as she continued, “You men think you are so powerful to convict an old woman of witchcraft and sentence her to die by hanging. Every single woman in the Coven has been found guilty despite no proven evidence. Time to hang the last one.”

  Ellen refreshed her pipe with some fresh goldenleaf and hit it in between sentences. “Kill the last one so you can steal our land. Steal our crops. Allow me to venture the thought that my possessions have been seized for profit. Dark motives often meet dark fates. Hang me and you shall release the spirits of all the women you’ve falsely judged. Our wrath will be felt by anyone who stays here or tries to live here. This will always be the land of the Coven, once stolen, only to be taken back and never relinquished again.”

  The smug audience of all men was becoming uneasy and most people were shifting around in their seats. She continued smoking and pointing at people in the room as she went on, “From beneath the dirt we conspire to take back that of the surface. Cursed be this land. Ye fields shall run true and verdant, yet be enjoyed by none.”

  The bearded judge pounded the gavel against the desk and yelled, “Enough. Enough. That will be all. Take her to be hung.”

  The Court Marshall’s hand grabbed the back of her soiled gray dress that had been shiny and silvery before her two-year imprisonment. The hand shoved her toward the front door. She looked around the room, studying everyone’s face as the Court Marshall pushed her outside.

  The strong rays of the golden sun wouldn’t allow these crimes to be unseen by God as Roger Uplot prepared the noose. The bloodstained rope hung from a branch of a huge green-leafed tree full of shiny burgundy apples.

  The Court Marshall and Roger worked together to get Ellen’s neck in the noose, although the woman never resisted their efforts. In fact, her lips appeared to be curled up in the corners. The shaky stage constructed of thin plywood bounced as both men stepped down.

  Ellen McCarron stood alone in the eyes of God.

  She smiled and said, “I’ll give you one last opportunity to give me back my land and let me live in peace. Only then will you be spared.”

  The men broke out in laughter and Roger screamed, “Pull.”

  The stage beneath her bare feet disappeared and Ellen fell. The rope tightened like a boa constrictor around the convicted witch’s neck as her veins bulged out of the pale white skin. Ellen gagged and slobbered when a crack of thunder darkened the sky.

  As life slowly fled from the body of Ellen McCarron, a streak of lightning flashed down from the sky and struck the branch that held the noose. The long branch crashed to the ground along with Ellen McCarron, who rolled around gasping for air.

  Several of the witnesses had seen enough and ran for the hills. Two men raised their loaded muskets and officially ended the life of Ellen McCarron. As the men prepared to drag the body to the Dankstone Cemetery and throw it on the pile, a rumble started from within the earth.

  The dead body of Ellen stood up and faced the crowd. Covered in blood and bullet wounds, she said, “All of you will die before you leave here. You shall all be drowned in the Devil’s Waterway and that is where you will spend eternity. In the dark depths below.”

  The body of Ellen McCarron collapsed again as shadowy figures resembling women started to sprout from the ground like carrots. The angry ghosts surrounded the people who had judged them guilty and moved in.

  Whitney closed the book titled, The Strongest Witch in the All the Land. She had hoped it would help to calm her nerves. She was wrong.

  Whitney knew how the book ended. The men never left Dankstone. They were drowned in the Devil’s Waterway and nobody ever lived in this town again. There were even reports over the years about people being physically picked up by the ghosts and run outside the town limits.

  Whitney had read several books on Ellen McCarron and identified with the outcast woman of strong will and determination. She hoped her connection would help her deal with some of the darker spirits but that hadn’t been the case so far. She had wanted to come here as a teenager, but nobody would come with her. She started to think that wasn’t really a bad thing.

  The brown stain on the once-white lampshade caught her attention. The phone rang. She ran and grabbed it from next to the iPad.

  “Hello.”

  The voice said, “It’s your time. Grab your things and get into the car. I will guide you with directions as you go.”

  Whitney and Darominius got in the car and followed the directions. As they went deeper into Dankstone, Whitney tried to rub her tingling gooseflesh back to normal, but it only got worse.

  An awful smell seemed to seep out of the earth. Whitney remembered that awful smell from when she had walked into the wrong room at the funeral home as a child wafted into her nose. A strange pressure filled the car and started to squeeze Whitney’s shoulders and chest.

  Why were the surrounding woods so quiet? There weren’t any buzzing locusts or cicadas. She could almost hear an echo from the kidnapper’s voice on the phone as he told them to come to a stop. They were at the end of a dirt road.

  Surrounded by sweeping autumn forest, Whitney stepped out of the car. As soon as her foot hit the ground, the sensation of someone sticking pins in the souls of her feet began. She jumped around until the sharp, jabbing pains slowly dissipated. Then the gag-inducing smell of death hit her in the face like a shovel. She was taken aback and tried to breathe through the sleeve of her hoodie.

  The kidnapper directed them into the dull woods with nothing but dead shades of brown to entertain the eyes. The crusty leaves covering the ground gave the appearance that they had fallen a long time ago as they cracked under their footsteps. Whitney still hadn’t heard any animals or birds, adding to the morbid feel.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder and spun around to find nobody. She remained on constant alert, scanning the woods in all directions as the kidnapper continued to direct her. They waded through a knee-high brown grass field in between two expanses of covered forest.

  She tried to find a different color than brown as they trudged along, chasing the setting sun.

  “Walk forward one hundred yards and you will see the Cemetery,” the kidnapper said and hung up.

  The tightness in her chest and queasiness in her stomach exacerbated as some different colors finally appeared.

  The fifteen-foot high rusted gates wrapped in green ivy couldn’t hide the enormous pile of skeletons. The pile occupi
ed most of the rectangular fenced-in area and stood taller than the gates. The hair Whitney never knew existed on the back of her neck started to stand up and the overwhelming putrid stench that kept coming in waves almost brought her to her knees.

  One of the skeletons appeared to move and Whitney took a step back.

  A wild howl in the distance broke the eerie silence of the woods.

  Whitney kicked around the crusty leaves, exposing the black soil, as she spun in circles trying to find the perpetrator. She couldn’t spot anything in the dull forest through the deepening dusk and focused back on the enormous pile of witches’ bones.

  “I don’t want to freak you out, but are invisible hands grabbing you too?” Darominius asked.

  “Me too? I’m well beyond freaked out at this point, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

  Due to the hysteria, Whitney had forgotten about the hand on her shoulder earlier.

  “If you are already freaked out, then this won’t matter. The amount of dark energy in this area is amazing. A level I’ve never felt before and I’ve seen a few of these cases,” Darominius revealed.

  “How do you know that? Just by your senses?”

  “Just by my dragon senses,” he joked.

  Darominius tried to force a smile as he moved up to the gate and unlatched the lock. He nodded to Whitney and started to push up. The creaking lock sounded like a person wailing in pain as chunks of rust that had sat undisturbed for decades fell to the ground in an ominous pitter-patter.

  These witches’ spirts can’t be angry with me. I have a thing with ghosts and I’ve looked up to these witches, especially Ellen McCarron. But why does this feel so much different? So much darker? I wish Richard and the family would show up to help me get through this.

  The gate screeched like the devil’s nails on a chalkboard as Darominius slowly pulled it open and the sun disappeared for another day.

  4

  Darominius reached through the bars and re-locked the main gate to the Cemetery. Whitney’s chest tightened even more as she felt trapped next to a pile of bones and skulls. The skeletons only left a narrow walkway around the entire perimeter of the Cemetery. She had read many stories and seen many pictures of Dankstone, but nothing compared to seeing this mass carnage in person.

  To say she wanted to throw up would underestimate the intense terror twisting around in her empty stomach. This place made all the scare houses she had been to over the years seem like clown shows.

  “So, how are you doing?”

  Darominius jerked his head to the left and looked back over his left shoulder. “I’d say this place is a little bit creepy. Hopefully the sun rises earlier tomorrow is all I really have to say.”

  “Why won’t the good ghosts show up to help us?” She kicked a pile of leaves aside.

  Darominius leaned back against the rusted bars. “They are limited in what they can do. Unfortunately, it seems like there are no limits for some spirits concerning humans. They are doing what they can to figure out what is going on and how we can help you more.”

  A snaky sibilance started on the other side of the Cemetery, raising Whitney’s eyebrows and her heartbeat. She inched closer to Darominius as the hissing intensified. A swarm of snakes came around the corner of the pile of bones and slithered toward them.

  Whitney hated snakes. Her two biggest fears were snakes and spiders. She jumped up into the dragon shifter’s arms. The snakes of different colors were frighteningly visible as the moon acted like a spotlight for Dankstone Cemetery.

  The wave of twisted snakes came up to Darominius’ knee and some snapped at him. Whitney hoped her friend’s thick camouflage pants would protect him. The powerful mass of reptilian force tried to wrap around Darominius’ legs but he just kept thrashing around, kicking the snakes away as best he could.

  Whitney kept thinking he was going to drop her as he fought away the horde. A coldness ran though her midsection. She shivered and wondered where the sudden chill was coming from. The snakes disappeared back into the darkness with a few brave stragglers snapping at Darominius before retreating.

  He let Whitney down as the temperature rose again. She started to overheat and kept stretching her neck to see if the snakes were coming back.

  Whitney was in the middle of taking a deep breath when Darominius was suddenly blown back by an unknown force. He crashed into the fence and tried to hold on as his body slipped between the bars. The tall dragon shifter was forced perpendicular to the bars as the heavy wind that only affected him whipped in the quiet forest.

  A lightning strike fired down from the sky and hit the rusty fence, causing Darominius to let go and subsequently crash into the huge trunk of an old oak tree. The shifter mumbled and cursed under his breath.

  “Are you alright?”

  The dragon shifter struggled to get to his feet. “I’ll be right over.” He tried to walk back toward the Cemetery and the wind violently blew his silver beard and sideburns back, rippling the golden reptilian skin on his face and forcing him to close his eyes. A sudden gust picked him up off his feet and threw him back against the tree trunk with a painful thump.

  Whitney sympathetically felt the thud deep in her own bones.

  This is some Exorcist type shit. Why won’t my ghost friends come help me? Richard? Roland? Ruth-Ann? Raquel? Maybe this is a burden I need to bear alone. I don’t want to get him hurt. It’s me that this sicko wants but I really don’t want to be out here alone.

  “Forget it. Just go back to the motel. I’ll be fine here by myself.” She hoped he wouldn’t take her up on the offer.

  “I would try again, but I don’t want to break my back. Are you sure?” he asked and tried to straighten out his battered body.

  “I can’t have you dying out here. The deal was that I had to stay in this place all night, not you. You do what you have to do.” She still hoped he wouldn’t leave.

  “I hate to do it to you but it appears these forces don’t take too kindly to me. Force yourself to sleep and morning will be right along.” Darominius limped away mumbling in pain and then his voice and the sound of crackling leaves were silenced.

  Whitney was all alone with the ghosts. The staccato melodies of her chattering teeth quickly filled the void.

  A strange, buzzing sound started to build from the pile of bones until the ground shook and a skull rolled down in front of Whitney. Two big, red spiders emerged from the eyes of the skull and Whitney jumped away.

  The buzzing continued driving her crazy and she wanted to rip off her ears to make it stop. The intense pearly moonlight reflected off the skeletons and made them look like they were in motion. Whitney started coughing and dry heaved.

  An army of spiders had been hiding inside the bones and they all rushed out to play with Whitney.

  The temperature dropped precipitously and Whitney hoped it would chase the spiders away as she backed into the fence bars.

  The brown, white, gray and black spiders kept coming toward her like a moving collage. She almost ran out of the Cemetery and back to the motel but she took a deep breath and regained some courage. Trent would die if she left.

  Whitney got up on her toes to avoid the oncoming arachnids of every shape and size. She could feel them on the outside of her leather shoes and climbing up her gray pants. The wind became much more intense and Whitney could see her breath in front of her face.

  The intense force caused Whitney to hook her elbow around a rusty upright bar. The wind picked up even more and pushed her back so that most of her body was outside the perimeter. Only her elbow and part of her forearm remained inside. She grabbed another post with her other hand.

  Up the rusty pole came a parade of spiders, heading right for her arm.

  She could still feel the spiders over her long, heavy pants and she dry heaved again. A fuzzy, brown spider with red spots climbed onto her elbow and moved up toward her shoulder.

  She became short of breath and wanted to pass out. A shield of cold sweat built up on h
er forehead and the wicked breeze pushed it into her eyes. Whitney opened her eyes to a stinging salty sensation.

  The rusty bar Whitney was clinging to was starting to bend, threatening to snap apart and send her flying out of the Cemetery, subsequently killing her husband. The horrible creaking sound finally ceased, although Whitney had no time to breathe a sigh of relief.

  The chilly weather couldn’t stop her from overheating and the spider with a body bigger than a silver dollar disappeared from her peripheral vision. The wind beat against her face and she couldn’t turn to see where the hairy creature was headed.

  She wanted to throw up again as eight legs tramped up her neck, causing a sensation of tiny needles wrapped in fuzz like some sick sort of acupuncture.

  Whitney bawled as the spider approached her ear.

  She blew a snot bubble out of her nose, and her nasal passages became clogged. She had no choice but to open her mouth to breathe. She prayed that the spider wouldn’t crawl in her mouth as she shook in trepidation.

  The wind continued pushing her from the Cemetery, but despite every urge telling her to let go and knock all the spiders off her body and run home, she held on.

  She held on despite her writhing stomach and tear-drenched face. She didn’t know how much longer she could last as the spider stopped on her temple.

  The eight poking legs began moving again and Whitney shut her eyes as the arachnid ran across her forehead, down the bridge of her nose and then must have slipped off because of the tears. She sucked in a breath of relief and tried to blow her nose to clear it out.

  The brown spider fluttered toward the ground before suddenly stopping about a foot from the ground. The giant spider started rising back up from the web it had attached to some hair near her ear.

  Come on. You can’t be serious.

  Whitney could only focus on this nightmarish spider and didn’t feel the ones slipping inside the sleeve of her hoodie. The breeze continued and Whitney had trouble swallowing due to the dry mouth.

  Her furry friend kept rising toward her head until a crack of thunder sounded from above.