“I should have told you this sooner, Sarah. But you were dealing with enough bad news. I was afraid it would have pushed you over the edge so I withheld it. Until now.”
“Ben, what is it?”
“You couldn’t have seen Jim out there in the woods tonight. He’s been dead since this afternoon.”
The words bit me and wouldn’t let go. “Dead?” I whispered, not understanding. “Jim was already dead when I saw him? Impossible.” Yet even as I said it I knew better. My grandmother had been dead for many years and I’d talked to her a few hours ago. In my haunted world, nothing was impossible. “How?”
Ben sighed and put his arms around my shoulders tenderly. “There was an accident about an hour away from here. Everyone on the bus was either hurt or killed outright. Jim never regained consciousness. I’m sorry, Sarah. I’d sent out an A.P.B. on him this evening before I picked you up and I got this information back. I couldn’t lay it on your shoulders, when you were so upset over your ex-husband’s death and Jeremy’s disappearance. I was trying to protect you.” The look in his eyes said it all and I understood.
I nodded up at him. “It’s all right, Ben. I think I already knew it.”
I looked away towards the room where they’d taken my son and murmured a silent prayer. Please let my son be okay.
“You did what you thought would be best at the time.”
It’d been shock enough seeing Jim fighting the thing in the woods and then vanishing the way he had. “There wasn’t anything that could have been done to stop what happened. It wouldn’t have made any difference one way or another.”
Ben held me and it wasn’t long before a doctor came out in search of us. “You’re the boy’s mother?” He was brisk, businesslike.
“Yes.”
“He’s going to be fine. He has cuts and bruises and a bad break in his left leg, but he’s a healthy child and it shouldn’t take too long to mend. I’ve set it and he’s already out for the night. So don’t worry. He’ll heal. You should go home and get some sleep.”
“Can I see him? I’d rather stay here with my son overnight. Is that permissible?”
“Sure, there’s an empty bed in his room. Feel free to use it.”
“Thank you, doctor.” I smiled my gratitude, sagging against Ben in relief. The man in white strode away, already busy with other patients. Together, Ben and I went to see Jeremy. We stood for a long time over his sleeping form.
Ben wrapped strong arms around me. Later, he went back to the house and got some things I needed for the night. Then I sent him home while I stood guard over my son. Grateful I still had him but sad over the others I’d lost. Every one of them.
For the first time since the long ago summer’s night when I’d been a frightened child, I wasn’t afraid. There was no longer anything to be afraid of. I could feel it. Knew it.
Jim had taken care of it.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
It was November 30, and it would have been Jim’s twenty-eighth birthday. I breathed deeply of the crisp wintry air and thought about my brother. It was mild out today, compared to the last two weeks. Cabin fever had hit me with a vengeance after the snow began to melt and I found myself walking around the old neighborhood a lot lately. A week ago we’d had twelve inches of snow and temperatures down below zero, but today was mild; the kind of day where you just love to get outside and enjoy the clean, chilly air and the cold sun. I could feel its feeble warmth through my warm winter coat. My hands were covered by red mittens Jim had given me a few Christmases ago. I touched them to my cold face and walked faster.
The snow was piled everywhere in tall, frozen piles along the side of the road and my boots left footprints on the tightly packed road powder. I followed a tire track for a while until it ran out and I had to wade through virgin territory.
I trudged the old familiar path to where I’d grown up. I looked out across the empty white fields and tried to locate the treacherous hidden gullies that I knew lurked out there beneath the snow. I wasn’t afraid any longer of the memories or the ghosts that had once lived there.
The evil was gone forever and, so too, were the ghosts. My family, all of them, were finally at rest.
The trees circling the woods were like bent fingers against the bright sky. There were no voices anymore. No laughter. Nothing. It was an empty forest now, as the house ruins were all loose rubble and cracked bricks scattered about on an empty piece of land. The cherry tree was just a cherry tree.
The wind came up as I strolled by my childhood home. There were many good memories here, too. All I had to do was hold on to those instead of the bad ones, and let time do its healing.
There was the hill we children used to tumble down in old cardboard boxes. I remembered the summer days and nights playing out in these fields. They’d been good days, those days. Jim had loved them as much as I had. We’d go hunting in the twilight for the elusive fireflies, catching them gleefully in our hands only to let them go again. Jim could never stand to hurt anything small and defenseless.
Gazing out over the snow covered scene, I could still see the blanket of soft warm summer nights speckled with tiny, twinkling lights. So beautiful.
I walked into the field towards the woods, unafraid for the first time. Little white puffs of frozen air escaped my lips. Thanksgiving was close. I was going to bake a huge turkey. Ben was coming, too. Of course, he was always there anyway. I should marry the guy and make it legal, I thought, amused. It was sort of a joke between us. He’d asked me to marry him at least twenty times in the last few months. Maybe I would.
I stuffed my hands into my pockets and began to whistle a nameless melody as my mind day dreamed.
Years fell away and I was with Jonathan, long before the troubles clouded our lives. Jeremy was a baby gurgling happily in Jonathan’s arms. Before the baby had been born, we’d stayed up all night in the labor room, Jonathan and I, playing cards to while the long hours away. Jonathan had been so sweet to me. When I first held our son, I’d been content. I had everything, I’d thought. It was funny what life did to you.
Jonathan must have known he was going to die. Some people do. Perhaps it was the real reason he’d left us. He’d thought he’d missed out on life in some way and was trying to catch up, or maybe he thought that running away from me, he’d live. It hadn’t worked out though. No person could escape their destiny. I, more than anyone, knew that.
At first, I’d experienced guilt over the deaths. I had nightmares and couldn’t sleep. I’d wake up screaming, blaming and punishing myself until I was heart sick with it. Until one day Ben pushed me in front of a mirror and forced me to take a good look at myself. I was a wreck. Thin as a rail with dark circles around my eyes. Raccoon eyes.
“You’re starving yourself,” Ben said, making me look. “What will Jeremy and I do if you waste away to nothing?” There was pity and anger in his voice, and in his eyes until he took me into his arms and held me while I finally cried. Cried all my guilt and ghosts away.
“Don’t rush me, Ben.” I laid my fingers over his lips before he could utter another word. “Give me time.”
“You’ve had enough time. You have to live now. It wasn’t your fault they died. Don’t punish yourself, Sarah. Jim wouldn’t want it and it won’t bring any of them back. At least there’ll be no more murders. You and Jeremy are safe. Take comfort in that.”
From that moment on, I pulled myself together and resumed living. There was Jeremy. There was Ben. I had never been meant to stop what had happened. We’d been spared because of Jim’s love. I had to make something out of our lives to make his sacrifice mean something. To make some sense out of all the deaths.
But I wasn’t the same Sarah as before. Against Ben’s better judgment I decided to accept the psychic gift I’d been given. I would help anyone I could. I helped the police on any case they brought me. I had gained o
vernight fame from Jenny’s murder, and now I welcomed the tons of mail with open arms. I answered every letter myself and helped wherever I could. There was really so little I could usually do, but I tried. Even the hate mail didn’t stop me from helping. I’d laugh at the mailman. He’d drop the bags of mail off about ten feet away from the house and dash off because he was frightened of me. I felt sorry for him but I couldn’t help but laugh. There were always those people who were afraid of what they didn’t understand.
This was the price I had to pay. I’d been allowed to live for a reason…and this was it.
Then there was my new career.
Ben had placed some of my artwork in a few select art galleries. Now, everything was suddenly selling like hotcakes. The galleries were asking for more. Ben was pleased. I was skeptical.
“It’s only my name they want,” I told Ben. “Not my pictures. I’m a celebrity freak. That’s all. They couldn’t care less how good I really am. They can buy a piece of me for a few bucks to hang on their very own wall. Great conversation pieces.”
“Sarah! You can’t really mean that. It’s your pictures they want. You’re a good artist. You have talent. They’d have snatched up your stuff anyway. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” He’d laughed and kissed me on the nose.
I hoped he was right. I wanted to be a real artist, not some kind of a new craze.
I’d been walking for over an hour and my feet and hands were freezing, but I didn’t want to go home yet. I was thinking about Jim’s journal. I’d found it lying on my nightstand after his death. I’d been surprised when I had.
It dispelled a lot of my guilt and explained why we’d been cursed.
It was a message to me, I knew it the minute I picked it up and stared uncomprehendingly at the scribbled pages. It was Jim’s handwriting of that I was sure. I read it, and at last understood everything I’d never been allowed to understand before.
I finally knew why they had all died.
I finally had some insight into what the thing in the woods was. He’d written:
On a summer night, the night my sister Sarah had seen it in the woods and run home crying, I’d first known it was back again. It will never leave me in peace, no matter how many lives I escape to; no matter how hard I try to hide it finds me! I should kill myself now and end all the misery I know will soon begin, but I am such a coward. How can I kill myself? How could a child kill himself? Maybe it will go away this time. Maybe, it won’t find me this time. Maybe, it won’t hurt anyone…this time.
That had been written by an adult Jimmy reaching back into his haunted childhood, trying to find some comfort in his confessions. I felt sick as I read page after page. Of course, I knew what happened next. How Jim must have suffered knowing all along he was the cause.
The demon, for that’s what it is, still wants to punish me for disturbing its sleep so long, long ago. Lifetimes ago. Sarah, I will put these words down here, now, hoping that someday you will read them and try to understand, but most of all, forgive me for the harm I’ve done you and those I loved. I was a coward; and that has been my curse and also my excuse all these years. I could have ended it so many times by admitting defeat and giving it my body and soul. But I was afraid of dying forever. The others never lost their souls as I will if I give in to it, or so I believed. So I kept playing for time. Playing for time to yet find a way to defeat it and to regain those who’d been lost to it over the long years…endless centuries.
It started so long ago and the story is so complicated, bear with me and I will try to make you see why I had to do what I did all those years.
At that part of the diary, the words had become wild and hard to read. But, fighting back the tears, I took a deep breath and read on. My brother had been in agony when he wrote those final words and the very nature of my gift seemed to lock into that misery and it pricked and nipped at me. My hands were shaking.
Sarah, we live over and over. Forever. It’s true. We have all lived many times before and I wasn’t always as wise or cowardly as you know me to be in this life just past. Many lifetimes ago I sought to answer the greatest questions of the universe. I have always doubted God existed and in my earlier foolish existence I took it upon myself (how arrogant!) to find out which was truly the stronger…good or evil. I was sure good would prevail in the end, no matter what. What a fool I was! It never occurred to me good doesn’t always win. My arrogance in itself would weaken me and my cause; sometimes man aids the evil by the imperfections in himself. Evil can be stronger sometimes. I was a monk, a man of conceited righteousness in my first life. The Devil and his minions were pawns, I thought, to be moved and toyed with by my control and link with the Almighty. So I called up a demon by the old art of black magic and woke it from its slumber. I yanked it from hell, out into the unsuspecting world where its evil increased tenfold! I had been so sure I could handle it, defeat it, and send it back to the fires with its tail between its legs. Oh, how wrong I was! I couldn’t beat it and in the end I couldn’t even control it. I couldn’t send it back where it belonged; where it wanted to go. It haunted me, begging first, then growing angrier and angrier at my folly and ineptitude. In the end, coward that I was, I ran away from it and it stalked me. Like a tracer, it could hunt me down if it came close enough to me. The glow of my magic shone bright, and no matter how hard I fought to diminish it with the powers I had left at my disposal, it would always give me away. Yes, not all my powers from the old days had died, at times, as you know now, I could still keep it at bay. I could still at times keep it confused long enough to get away—but my powers faded over the lifetimes. Finally, I couldn’t even protect you and the boy any longer and I knew it was only a matter of time before it would take you or him, or both, and, Sarah, that I couldn’t allow. We lived so many lives together and I always ran. You and the others in my lives were left to suffer and die. I never gave myself to it. That’s all it ever wanted. Had I but faced it years and centuries ago, those lifetimes of killing would never have been. I know you’ve seen those other times, our past lives, in your visions. I know. Do you see now what I have had to live with? When I could no longer protect you or myself I knew I had to give it its revenge, its ounce of flesh and pound of soul, give it what it craved or it would never stop killing. There wasn’t any more time. I had to take it back to hell with me, my punishment for my arrogance.
The next page was dated the same day Jenny died and by his handwriting I could tell Jim knew about it. I read on, my face draining of color at what I found.
Charlie knew about the demon before it came to claim him. He always knew what it wanted. I think it was why he hated me so in life and in death. He still blames me for the limbo he exists in. I have heard his voice many times and I have seen him. Yes, Sarah, Jeremy is not the only one Charlie appears to. I am followed constantly by the tormented child who was once Charlie. The demon has used him where he could never use the others, because—how can I say this—there are people who are marked when they enter this life with the sign of evil. They know each other Oh, it isn’t their fault. Charlie wasn’t completely evil. It’s because he had so little good in him. It’s why he hated me, he knew what I was. He knew what he was. He never belonged here with us. It had been a mistake. He heard the demon’s call and thought it would give him power, too. He was wrong. Evil cannot ever be trusted. Poor Charlie. How he wanted to be special. How he wanted love, but he couldn’t outbalance the bad inside himself and so he was doomed.
Here the writing broke off. The next entry was even stranger.
I have thought so much about Charlie these last days. I have seen him often. He is trying to warn me, tell me something.
A few pages later:
Charlie. I would never have believed it. He has promised to help us! He wants to redeem himself.
Perhaps, I thought sadly, Charlie did redeem himself. I prayed he’d find peace. “Thank you, Charlie.”<
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I puzzled over the last entry written on the final day of Jim’s life. What he had meant. What had happened? The entry was only a few desperate pleas for help and forgiveness:
It has killed so many people I love and I still haven’t found the courage to end this hell called my life. I am responsible. I am to blame. It only wants me to submit and give up my life. It only wants me but if I do give in…what good will it really accomplish? Will it begin all over again, anyway? I don’t think I can stand to face another life. I really loved my family. I always loved all my families. Why won’t it leave me the hell alone? Why won’t it be appeased and let me live in peace? If only I could have more time to find out how to defeat its evilness and send it back to hell where it belongs forever and still save myself. If only I had more time.
I cried at his tormented words. He’d never found the answer and the hideous evil had trailed him finally to his own final death. No more lives and no more evil. I wasn’t angry at Jim for the death he’d brought to us. No one blames the rabbit hounded by the dog pack, if it tries to escape, to stay alive. After all, according to the diary, Jim knew his death would probably only begin the horror over again from a new start.
He had nothing to lose, and nothing to gain. He’d been playing the game for a long, long time. I wondered what had happened to him those last few days that had made him give up? Why had he finally surrendered?
The answer, I knew, as I read the last paragraphs of the sad little book, lay with Jeremy and myself. For some reason, he’d loved us too much to watch us die.
He’d written on the last page in a steady handwriting—steadier than most of the previous pages:
When you read this, Sarah, it will all be over. I can’t let you and Jeremy die. Let anyone else die. I know how to stop it and owe this to you, to our family. Do not forget me, Sarah. Don’t hold what I have done against me. I’m sorry. Forgive me.
Evil Stalks the Night Page 34
