Shadows of Eternity: The Children of the Owls (Frost and Flame Book 2)

by Rick Kueber

  “You know Theo… that makes sense in a crazy, new age, paranormal, psychic kinda way.” I grinned, and was swiftly smacked on the back of the head by Jennifer.

  “Sorry!” I digressed. “I didn't mean any disrespect. You know how I am. I meant that it did make sense, but to the average person, they would think we were all kooky.” I grinned once again, and quickly cringed, but there was no slap, just a dim glimpse of smiles and rolling eyes in the midst of this dark nightmarish haunting.

  We toured Theo through the upstairs and though I could tell he was sensing things, he never spoke up about any of them, until we reached the odd shaped, large rectangular room with the adjacent non-closet that was still a mystery to us. When we neared the 'whatever' room that wasn't a closet, Theo paused and backed up to one of the windows. In fact, he had backed up to the only window on that side of the second story that was boarded up.

  “I feel a pressure on my chest and a dizzying rush, like I'm falling.” He stepped away from the window. “I believe someone was pushed out of this window, a woman...maybe on accident, but I also feel hostility. It's a bit confusing, but I'm almost positive that something like that happened.”

  “Yeah...” Katie said quietly, remembering back to our first visit, when she had thought she caught sight of a ghostly woman falling from the building, out of the corner of her eye, but she did not bring it up. The very thought of it filled her heart with remorse and she was ready to think about something else...anything else.

  We finished the tour upstairs with very little conversation, and found ourselves back in the stairway. There was an odd feeling in the air, and we all sensed it... like that feeling you get when you know something is about to go terribly wrong, but you can't pinpoint what it is, until it happens, and then it's too late. That feeling that connects the pit of our stomach to a place deep in our consciousness, to warn us, even though we rarely heed the warning. I had to do, or say, something. Each second we stood there was another second for this uncomfortable feeling of despair to grow. I turned toward the stairs and without a word began my descent. The other three followed close behind and we found ourselves huddled at the bottom landing of the stairs, still feeling this awkward sense of confusion. Something was going to happen; I could feel it in my very bones, something bad.

  “Do you all want to split up in pairs and cover more area or all stay together?” I finally broke the silence.

  “I'd say split up, at least for now.” Katie spoke up. “Yeah, I think so too.” Theo agreed, and so we paired up and went our separate ways.

  *** While Katie and I had decided to head upstairs to investigate, Jennifer and Theo took their search for answers to a much lower level. Back in the old basement area of the home, the unlikely duo found themselves drawn to the old rickety stairway to nowhere. While Theo planted himself on one of the bottom steps and began a brief meditation to become in tuned to the spirit world around him, Jenn was drawn into the old boiler room and without even knowing why, began snapping photo after photo, more than a hundred in fact.

  There was a force driving her decision that she did not even realize existed. While taking the pictures, she simply assumed she was doing it because that is what her subconscious investigator was telling her to do. When she sat down in the old wheelchair to quickly review the photos, she soon found out that there was another will that had been directing her.

  She scanned through each picture, using the digital display on the back of her camera, looking for anything out of place. She had reached the section of about three dozen photos taken in the direction of the wheelchair, when she stopped. There was something off about one of them. She studied the screen, but saw nothing unusual, so she decided to compare it to the previous shot. Nothing… and the one before... nothing. She dissected each one in turn looking for oddities and irregularities, picture after picture, looking back through all of the wheelchair shots. When she backed up to the sixth photo, she paused, once again picking the photo apart, pixel by pixel, when it hit her. There, in the cutout opening in the wall, just up and to her right (because she was now sitting in the wheelchair) was a face. The outline of the old hairdo, a high and frilled collar, and the shoulders that seemed to fade into the background of the picture appeared to be an old woman, and it was all too familiar. She had seen this face before.

  Without warning the batteries in the camera went dead, and the blackness engulfed her. A stinging pain grew stronger in her head, and she could not bear it any longer. Jennifer stood up from the wheelchair, pressing her fingertips against that small, indented spot, just where the nape of the neck meets the skull. She stumbled forward a few awkward steps in the dark, and her foot slipped over the edge of the rectangular cut out in the floor. It was less than a foot drop, but it was enough to throw Jennifer forward, and being unable to see at all in the unlit room, she could not catch herself. In one quick motion, she stumbled forward into the corner of the pit. Her shin hit, and scraped, against the corner of the shallow pit. In that same motion, the instant pain caused Jenn to reel backwards, contorting as she fell until she struck the crown of her head against the uneven brick floor of the cut-out pit. The world of pain that she was experiencing went uncomfortably numb and quiet, and the conscious world around her ceased to exist.

  The sound of a roaring fire awakened Jennifer. Somehow she was standing upright, and to her it felt like a dream or some near death, 'out of body' experience. The room she was in was the same, and yet it had noticeable differences. The electrical wiring that had been stapled to the rafters and the dusty cobweb covered insulation that had been hanging from the ancient pipes were no longer there, and the brick lined cut out in the concrete floor was now filled with a huge pre1900's coal fired boiler, which was burning at full steam.

  One thing that had remained was the wheelchair. Much to Jenn's bewilderment, the chair now had an occupant, a terribly macabre occupant. An old woman with her hair up, wearing a high collared black dress and boots sat in the chair. In her hand she held a bouquet of red roses that had such a crisp and dry appearance; it seemed that even a slight wind could cause them to turn to dust. The old woman's legs bent awkwardly to one side as if they had been useless for a number of years, or decades, and her head was bowed, giving the impression of sleep, or worse, death.

  It was just as Jenn had summed up her surroundings, that a man in an old time officer's uniform and another man in business attire (minus a sport jacket and tie) entered the room. The uniformed man backed into the room first, hunched over and struggling with a heavy burden in hand. She knew immediately what she was seeing. He was dragging a limp and bloody body into the room with her. The business-man followed behind him with the same posture and dragging yet another lifeless cadaver.

  Jenn glared across the space between her and the wheelchair in horror, but the horror hadn't even begun yet. As the men teamed up to drag yet a third body into the now crowed room, she noticed a movement across the way that grabbed her attention like a train wreck that she could not look away from. The old woman, whom Jenn had almost assumed was dead, slowly raised her head. Second by agonizing second, the pale grayish flesh of her wrinkled and weathered face was revealed, until Jennifer noticed something was amiss. One of her eyes was as gray the billowing smoke from a burning pile of damp leaves, and the other was a black abyss, and the blackened blood that ran from its socket, was now dried and stained the monotone skin of her cheek.

  The businessman rolled up his shirt sleeves and donned a pair of leather gloves. Stepping over to the oversized door of the boiler he grasped the lever-arm and lifted it, unlatching the hinged door and spewing forth a blaze of heat into the small room. The two men the cautiously lifted the first corpse and with a 'one-two-three' swing, tossed the body into the roaring flames of the coal fire. Much of the cadaver landed in the white hot coals, while an arm and both of his legs dangled out of the opening, like limp branches sticking out of a bonfire. Grabbing the charred coal shovel that leaned against the wall, the uniformed man b
egan to poke and prod, pushing the body completely into the furnace. The man in the dress slacks and shirt swiftly closed the door, and opened the damper, causing the fire to roar like some medieval, mythical dragon.

  Just as they performed this heinous act, the old woman opened her mouth and jerked her head towards them. Jennifer could hear a shrill, raspy voice calling out “RED!” and was drawn to the sound and movement like a moth to the flame. She now knew the source of the eerie voice on the recording, but what could it mean? When her eyes met the old woman, the flame light illuminated her distorted features even more. Much to Jenn's horror and disgust, she could see the non-existent eye socket and beyond. In fact, she could now see the dancingyellow-flame lit wall behind the invalid woman through the hole in her eye socket that went completely through her head.

  The men did not take notice of the nightmarish woman, nor did they notice Jennifer. They simply continued on with their morbid task of filling the belly of the old boiler with the three murdered men, one by one, and then shoveling even more coal on top of them to ensure the flames reach their peak intensity. While the two men carried on with their task, Jenn noticed the old woman was somehow fading, becoming slightly translucent, and then somewhat transparent, fading from her sight. She could feel her own self beginning to feel hollow and growing emptier from within, until the woman was a mere shadow, and brightness of the room faded, as did Jennifer's sight. All was dark.

  *** Theo sat on the stairs in a trance-like state, meditating and trying to get in-tune to the energies of the house. The once newly remodeled place just a few steps from where he sat, was now old and worn with years of use by the fraternal club. Years upon years of occupation had left many imprints on this historic structure, and Theo felt the connection with the location and the energy it held. Slowly, he began to open his eyes, only to find that the time battered stairs and surroundings were now replaced with a newer feeling, yet antiquated look. As he took in his surroundings he began to hear the voices and laughter of children playing. A coolness in the air appeared and seemed to brush past him, and almost through him, when he saw a string of youngsters, hand in hand pass him, trotting ad skipping into the room before him. He watched as the ghosts of three children past, all boys, playing happily in what was once their home. Theo began to speak to them, hoping to find answers to the questions that were confounding him.

  “Hello...” He paused and waited for a response, but the children did not seem to notice his presence. “Are you all okay? You seem happy, but are you frightened by anything? Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  Two of the boys continued to play, as boys will do, but the oldest one, (only seven or eight years old) stopped, dead in his tracks, (as the fitting cliché goes) and stared directly into Theo's eyes. His face became darkened and twisted; his eyes grew completely black, as did his mouth when he opened it to let out a blood-curdling screech. As the sound left his lips, his features physically contorted and twisted in an inhuman way that left Theo not only shocked, but utterly disturbed.

  A distant echoing sound 'popped' from another level of the house followed by the hollow and muffled thundering sound of footsteps. A fourth child ran into the room, a young girl who was a few years older than the boys. She shuffled them all quickly into the cubby hole under the stairs. It was only when they were all hunkered over and hidden in the safety of the darkness, that the girl wandered across the room, away from Theo and the boys under the stairs.

  “You should follow them and hide little girl.” Theo prompted her, before realizing she had an ulterior motive behind her presence.

  “Time is running out. Save them! Save the children before it’s too late!” She called out desperately to him, and as she began to crumble and fade away with the rest of the scenery, Theo cried back to her.

  “ASH! Is that you?” He tried to get his words out before she was completely gone. “Help me save them.” he called out to her, but she was gone, and he sat alone again in the dark of the stairs, rubbing his face and head, trying to make sense of what Ashley's pleas could mean. From what did these children need saving?

  There was a shuffling sound and a brief series of dull, blunt thuds that came from the boiler room area. He jumped up to investigate what series of events may have caused these noises. Still 'waking up' from the daze of his interactions, he entered the boiler room with flashlight in hand.

  His light flickered across the decrepit old wheelchair and from wall to wall, and scanned the floor when he realized that Jennifer was lying unconscious in the shallow brick lined pit in the center of the room. He approached her distorted body carefully. She looked unnervingly still, and Theo feared the worst, but only for a moment.

  Nervously, he checked for her pulse. It was strong, and rapid. That was a good sign. His light flashed Jenn's face in sporadic and frantic movements as Theo tried to check for any bleeding wounds. He gingerly ran his hands and fingers behind her head and though her hair, noticing a large goose egg of a knot on the back of her head. She started to groggily come to.

  Moaning under her breath, she muttered, “What the hell happened?” “I'm not sure. Did something push you, or maybe, did you miss a step and fall into the pit?” He questioned. “I heard this noise, and came in here... that's when I found you, just lying there.”

  “I don't know how long I was out, but I seemed like a long time. And I had this weird dream, thing... I dunno what it was, but it was freaky. It started off when I was sitting in the wheelchair...” Her sentence trailed off and Theo cut her off.

  “Maybe you should write it down, before you forget, and we can all talk about our experiences together... come to think of it, I have a couple of experiences that I need to get on paper, before I forget any of the details.”

  “Yeah, okay... I really want to tell Katie and Rick about it anyway, so, I might as well get all the details out now while it's fresh in my aching head, you know, before I get... what do you call it?.” She grumbled, but it caused Theo to smile. Jenn was acting just like Jenn should, and though she had a nasty knot on her head, a skinned up shin, and a few minor bruises, it was a comfort to know she hadn't been seriously hurt.

  “Amnesia?” Theo answered and laughed at the silly joke Jenn had made.

  “Yeah... I think that's it.” Jenn barked out sarcastically.

  A face in the window

  Chapter 11 A Chill in the Air

  While the Heerdinks were taking a break from investigating on the main level and Theo and Jenn were scouring the sub-level, Katie and I had returned upstairs, where Katie had been spooked by the maniacal laugh of a devious entity on our first visit. We had slowly made our way to the top of the steps where Katie pointed out the exact spot next to the banister where she felt the presence and heard the voice. We both sat quietly for a while with no real activity to speak of, though we both had an uncomfortable feeling, like we were not welcome and were being watched. Who was watching and why they didn't want us there was something we desperately wanted to find out. When we couldn't take the eerie stillness anymore, we ventured into the rooms to the right of the stairs.

  That side of the upstairs had a restroom, which was originally a large storage area, and now, years later was no longer even a functioning rest room. Next to it was a kitchen, that was also a re-purposed area, and no longer functional. Both of these rooms were entered from the large, somewhat rectangular room at the top right of the stair way. We did not spend much time in these areas, though each had its own personal 'creepiness' about it.

  In the larger room, we searched once again with our meters and kept our digital voice recorders running. There were several instances where we would 'catch' a rogue e.m.f. that seemed to be free moving and had no connection to anything electrical that we could explain.

  “Do you hear that?” Katie asked with the hint of a quiver in her voice. “Yeah... I hear it. Sounds like people on the stairs, trying to be quiet. No worries.” I answered silently with a grin, and in a half dozen long strides had pla
ced me back into the upstairs landing.

  I poked my head back around the corner where I could see the light from Katie's e.m.f. detector. “Nobody.” I whispered in the dead silence of the night. “Cool.” Katie said. “Yes, it was cool.” I replied quietly.

  “No.” She whispered sternly. “It's getting cool in here.” I strained through the darkness where I could barely see the outline of Katie's face in the dim green light of the K-II meter. I could also see the light reflecting off of her breath, now billowing out like wisps of smoke. Her heart raced, for she knew what this meant. Something was pulling every particle of energy from the atmosphere around us, leaving it frigid and barren. But this feeling was an illusion, because it was far from empty. Whatever was collecting the energy was in close proximity, and what was more alarming was the truth that the energy was being accumulated for a reason, and that reason was to perform some paranormal act that we could not anticipate.

  “I'm f-f-freezing.” Katie murmured, as she began to physically shiver. I rushed back to where she was and found myself stepping into an arctic blast of bone chilling air.

  I wrapped my arms around myself and rubbed them, trying to create heat from the friction. An obvious thought came to mine and I reached into the darkness, grabbing Katie by the arm, I tugged. More than tugged, I nearly pulled her off balance, and pulled her out into the stairwell landing. It was much warmer, and a more comfortable feeling was in the air around us.

  “You don't need to be that close to any possible negative energy.” I said, feeling like an overprotective, big brother.

  “You're probably right, but we've all been exposed to the spirits here already, and we did do the protection ritual with Theo before we started.” She stated confidently.