The Forest of Forever (The Soren Chase Series, Book One)

by Rob Blackwell

  “‘We have to go down there and face it,’ John said. ‘There’s no other way out. Whatever you do, don’t let it touch you.’

  “I nodded and we walked down the stairs together, each one of us holding out a knife in his hand. But I knew we were dead men. We’d been in a few fights but nothing like this. Whatever this monster was, it was an experienced killer. I doubted we could do anything to surprise it.

  “We smelled the smoke as soon as we got downstairs. We stood in the living room and could hear banging in the kitchen. Smoke came billowing out from under the door.

  “John didn’t wait but ran over to the front door and tried to open it. But the dead bolt was locked. John looked up at the ring near the door for the key that should have been hanging there, but it was nowhere to be seen.

  “‘Looking for this?’ Mikey asked.

  “He was standing by the kitchen door, which swung shut behind him. In his right hand was the key to the front door, which he dangled on a small key ring. His left hand was hidden behind his back. Smoke was filling up the room. He’d clearly set a fire in the kitchen.

  “‘I guess this is what it means to smoke somebody out,’ Mikey said.

  “‘We attack him at the same time,’ John said. ‘Don’t let him goad you. If we hit him at the same time, we can hurt him, I know we can.’

  “Mikey started laughing again. He was grinning in a way I’d never seen before. It was somewhere between insanity and just plain meanness. There was a savagery to it. He drew his left hand out from behind his back. He was holding a butcher’s knife considerably longer and fiercer than the weapons we held.

  “‘Come and get it, boys,’ Mikey said. ‘If you think you can take me, go ahead. But if you’re wrong, know that I’m going to steal one of your lives.’

  “Mikey looked over at John.

  “‘I hope it’s yours,’ Mikey said. ‘I’ve seen your lovely bride. She seems like a nice piece of ass.’

  “The monster had correctly assessed John’s weakness in less than a minute. There was smoke pouring into the living room and a crash from the kitchen. I started coughing and so did John. But the thing that looked like Mikey didn’t react at all. I don’t think those things even need to breathe. Or if they do, they can hold their breath far longer than people.

  “‘I’ll go to her and tell her there was a horrible accident,’ Mikey said. ‘And she’ll want to comfort me. I bet she knows how to do that real good, doesn’t she?’

  “‘Shut up,’ John yelled.

  “‘Don’t let him get you aggravated, John,’ I told him, but it wasn’t doing any good.

  “‘And when I’m done with her, I’ll tie her up,’ Mikey said. ‘And I’ll eat her fingers. It’s been a while since I’ve had dark meat. And then I’ll eat her hands and her arms. And I’ll cut off every bit of her pretty black face and make sure to keep her alive and screaming the entire—’

  “He never finished the sentence. I saw John about to make a move, so I rushed in there first. I couldn’t win but I had a crazy hope that I could distract it long enough for John to get away. But Mikey never really focused on me. When I launched myself at him, he backhanded me, sending me sprawling across the room. He was so fast I barely saw the blow, which was hard enough that it rattled my head. My vision went blurry for a minute.

  “I slammed into the sofa and collapsed on the floor. I might have even blacked out for a moment. When I got up, I could barely breathe for all the smoke. The flames were now inside the living room. I could see all of John’s parents’ stuff burning on the walls.

  “But when I looked over near the kitchen door, I saw something even scarier. It wasn’t John versus Mikey; it was John versus John. There were two identical copies of my best friend tussling on the floor, punching each other. Both had large knives, and each had blood on him. The room was on fire around me, but I had no idea who to help.

  “Then I noticed the key on the ground. I didn’t hesitate but ran over to scoop it up. My intentions were noble at first. I was trying to get it so that both John and I could escape. I ran over to the entrance and unlocked the dead bolt, opening the door and trying to get a breath of fresh air. But when I turned back, I couldn’t tell which John was the right one. They were frantically trying to stab each other. When one of them started coughing, I thought that might be a clue. But a second later the other started coughing. I stood in the open door not knowing what to do.

  “At some point during their fight, both Johns seemed to notice me there. They looked up and started talking at the same time. They muttered the same words in the same way.

  “‘Go,’ the Johns said. ‘Go while there’s still time.’

  “The roof caved in while I watched them looking at me. The center wooden beam running down the length of the cottage collapsed on top of them. It sparked a fresh spout of flames that knocked me through the door and outside onto the ground. I watched as the entire house was engulfed in flames.

  “And so I ran. I got into Edward’s car and found the keys right where he always had them, in the sun visor above the driver’s-side door. I stuck them into the ignition and I peeled out of there. But just as I was getting on the road, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw John walk out of the cottage. For a moment I was elated, thinking that somehow he miraculously survived. But then it hit me that it wasn’t John at all. He even gave me a grin, the same savage one that Mikey was wearing.

  “I don’t know what happened next. I was driving too fast on roads that were slick from rain. I was also scared and upset, wondering what I should do next. I was crying. Somehow I managed to drive the car off the bridge and into the lake. Maybe I did it on purpose—I don’t know. But that was that. The next thing I knew I was in a hospital. They said my head was knocked pretty badly into the steering wheel when I hit the water. Edward’s car was old and didn’t have an air bag. The blow left me temporarily unconscious and caused sporadic memory loss. They told me I swam free of the car, but I don’t remember it.

  “When I woke up, it was a new world. My family and friends had turned against me. Everyone, it seemed, was convinced that I had murdered John, Mikey, and Edward and then set fire to the house in an attempt to hide my guilt. And do you want to know what the funny part is? I was the lucky one. Everyone might hate me, but at least I was alive.

  “Alive but different. Because I knew something the others did not. The real killer, the one who had slaughtered my three friends, was still out there. I didn’t know whose face he was wearing or where he had gone next. The only clue the police found was a set of footprints leading away from the cabin and into the woods. My guess is he just stood there, watching the cabin burn and thinking all of us were dead.

  “The police ignored that sign, as they did any other that I was innocent. They had no motive or witnesses, but it didn’t matter. As soon as I was free, I made a vow to hunt down the thing that had done that to John and the others. I wasn’t going to wait around to see if it realized I was still alive. I was going to be the hunter, not the prey. I made a vow on John’s grave that I would not rest until I found his killer and ended the creature’s existence. I would make it pay for what it had done.”

  Soren stopped and looked over at Annika, who had tears in her eyes.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  He hugged her then, pressing his body to hers not out of lust but just the need for comfort. He realized he was crying, too, a first for him in the eight years since his friends had died. He had never allowed himself the luxury of tears before, but now they seemed to bubble up to the surface. He cried as if a dam inside him had finally burst.

  He cried until he fell asleep in Annika’s arms. He was glad he had shared his story, relieved to have finally spoken it out loud. Before he drifted off, he thought how pleased he was to have confided in someone like Annika Taylor.

  But when he woke up, she was gone. Soren never saw Annika Taylor again.

  Chapter Thirty

  Soren rolled over, expecting to
find Annika, but all he saw was the clock staring at him accusingly. He had slept until almost noon.

  Soren thought he’d feel sore, either from the attack on the warehouse the night before or the various extracurricular activities that he and Annika had engaged in afterward. But he felt refreshed.

  He found her note by the bed.

  “Didn’t want to wake you,” the note said. “Went out to get clean clothes and food. Should be back soon. Thanks for last night.”

  There was a smiley face appended to the last sentence. Soren couldn’t tell how to take it. It was such a clichéd phrase, but he supposed it was the man who usually delivered it. The other problem was the word “soon.” Since he didn’t know when she left, it could mean anything from two minutes from now to a couple hours. He rubbed his head and got out of bed.

  There was no sense in puzzling over it. He wanted to look at the journal with a fresh set of eyes and was relieved to be looking at it by himself. He enjoyed having Annika around, but she was also distracting. He thought sleep and a new perspective might let him make some connections he hadn’t the first few times he read the book.

  He pulled on his boxer shorts and a T-shirt and sat back at the desk with the journal in front of him. This time he didn’t just read it, he studied it. He looked carefully at the front and back covers and even held the journal to his nose to see if he smelled anything peculiar. There was no unusual scent, but he did notice a tiny symbol on the inner edge of the back cover.

  It looked like two interlocking circles, the kind that couldn’t be pulled apart from each other. When he inspected it closer, he noticed they weren’t circles but snakes. They were chasing each other in a figure-eight pattern, with each about to eat the other’s tail.

  The symbol reminded him of an Ouroboros, an ancient representation of death and rebirth. But that sign had just one snake eating itself. The one in front of him had two, each trying to eat the other.

  He knew the Gem of Darisam had a symbol on it, and it did not take much of a leap to surmise that this was it. But did the symbol mean anything? All he knew was that Terry had told him it was designed to protect Nanna’s wife from death.

  As he looked at it, something tugged at his memory. He suddenly recalled sitting in school with Sara decades ago. He had no idea why it surfaced or what it meant, but he recalled watching her as she wrote down every item the teacher put on the blackboard. Sara noticed him looking and gave him a dirty look.

  “Eyes on your own work, mister,” she said.

  In his head he could see the symbol she was drawing. It wasn’t two snakes but the math symbol for . . .

  Soren abruptly stood up. He ran his hands through his hair. He didn’t quite have everything yet, but an idea was forming in his mind. And if it was right, he had been thinking about Reapoke Forest all wrong.

  He paced back and forth in the room, thinking. What he was contemplating was insane, crazier than any theory he could have imagined previously. But if he was right . . .

  The Gypsy. Edolphus had mentioned a Gypsy. Why? No other visitor to Reapoke Forest had. Unless Edolphus had made an assumption based on the clothes the person was wearing and any question he or she had asked.

  And then there was the reference to a soldier. Soren knew of a soldier who had been sighted in Reapoke, but that was Samuel Mitchell, who lived a good fifty years after Bethlehem was abandoned. So Edolphus couldn’t have seen him. But if he didn’t, what soldier was he talking about?

  Soren wished desperately that Annika would come back so she could tell him how off-the-wall he was. He needed someone to set him straight.

  His eyes wandered to the phone in his room. He felt like a fool. All this time he’d been sitting here and he could have called her. He dug inside his clothes to find the cell phone Annika had given him earlier. He’d forgotten he owned it.

  Only when he turned it on did he realize he had a problem. The first was there was no entry for Annika in it. He hoped that she might have preprogrammed it, but she’d either forgotten or hadn’t had time.

  The second issue was more worrisome. There were multiple missed calls he’d apparently received during the night. He fumbled with the settings to find the phone was set to silent, but he had no idea when that had happened. Maybe it had been that way since Annika gave it to him. Or maybe he’d accidentally messed it up when talking to Glen earlier.

  Either way, Glen had clearly been trying to reach him for several hours, and that worried Soren deeply. He called him back, and Glen picked up on the first ring.

  “Soren, where the fuck have you been?” Glen said.

  “I’m sorry, but my phone was apparently on silent,” Soren said. “It’s new and—”

  “Shut up and listen to me,” Glen said. “I originally wanted to call you about the research I did. I got in contact with one of the nudists. But when I got to the office today, your voice mail was clogged. Most were from a Chief Adler—apparently he’s head of the Chickahominy tribe.”

  “I’ve heard the name but never spoken to him,” Soren said.

  He didn’t like this. The only reasons Adler would call him were bad ones.

  “Yeah,” Glen said. “He’s really anxious to talk to you. I called him back this morning but he wouldn’t talk to me. He said it had to be you.”

  Soren wondered what had happened. Had the gaunts attacked?

  “Okay, I’ll call him. Do you have Annika’s number as well? It’s not on my phone,” Soren said, and he scribbled down both numbers that Glen read off to him.

  “Call me back afterward, okay? I have more to tell you, but the chief was insistent you talk to him right away.”

  “Okay,” Soren said, and hung up the phone.

  He called Annika first, but her phone appeared to be shut off. There was no response. He swore and called Chief Adler next. Like Glen, the person on the other end picked up immediately.

  “Yes?” a voice said.

  “I’m hoping to talk to Chief Adler,” Soren said. “My name is Soren Chase. He’s trying to get in touch with me.”

  There was a long pause, and Soren thought the line had been cut. Instead, a different male voice picked up a minute later. He sounded tired.

  “Chase? My name is Joseph Adler,” the man said. “I need to know what happened to my boys.”

  Soren looked around the room with a confused expression on his face.

  “What do you mean?” Soren asked, but he felt his stomach tighten into knots. “They should have been home by now. You can ask them yourself.”

  “They never came back,” Adler said.

  Soren felt ice running through his veins.

  “I don’t understand,” Soren said. “The mission was a success. Mingan was wounded, but he was alive and doing well when we separated. We got the journal. The last time I saw them, they were paddling upriver to the rendezvous point. They were worried about reprisals.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  “Are you telling me the truth?” Adler asked.

  “Yes. They were fine when they left.”

  There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the phone.

  Soren struggled for words. They had been offshore. Unless the gaunts had learned to swim, he didn’t think they could have harmed Kael or the others.

  “As soon as my partner gets back, we’ll come over there,” Soren said. “We’ll organize a search party.”

  He knew it wasn’t a serious suggestion even as he said it. But Adler didn’t bother to point that out.

  “No,” he said. “I know where they are. The forest has claimed them. Reapoke Forest has taken more of my tribe.”

  There was a click as Chief Adler hung up the phone. Soren sat there staring at his phone and hoping the chief was wrong. Maybe they were delayed by something or had canoed to a different location. But his explanations sounded hollow even to himself.

  Reapoke Forest had taken more of his tribe. Truthfully, that sounded about right.

  “Fuck!”
Soren yelled.

  He looked around at the hotel door, as if willing Annika to walk through it. He glanced again at the clock, which now said it was nearly one. What the hell was taking her so long?

  He picked up his phone and called Glen back.

  “The Indians have disappeared,” Soren said.

  “Is that supposed to be code for something?” Glen asked. “The eagle has landed, that kind of shit?”

  Soren realized he had told him nothing of his plan the night before and quickly filled him in.

  “Sounds like things are going really well, boss,” Glen said when he finished.

  “Well, they were until recently,” Soren said.

  He wanted to throw the phone across the room in frustration. He didn’t know what to do next. Without Annika, he didn’t have transportation, and she wasn’t picking up her phone. Besides, where would he go? It wasn’t like he could go running through Reapoke, screaming Kael’s name.

  He shook his head and tried to clear his mind. He had a job to do, and if he did it well enough he might still be able to save Kael.

  “Tell me about the nudist,” Soren said.

  “It was the husband of the founder,” Glen said. “You know, the one that ended up in the loony bin. He’s an old guy now, and I shudder to think if he’s still a nudist, boss. Just thinking about it gives—”

  “Focus, Glen,” Soren said.

  “Right, sorry. Anyway, you’re not going to believe what he told me. He said his wife was haunted by all sorts of visions. She supposedly saw a burning man and some Indians and even some people in white robes.”

  If the visions were the basis for her stint in an asylum, Soren was willing to bet she wasn’t crazy. She might be someone he could talk to if he had the time, but he definitely didn’t. He tapped his foot impatiently, hoping Glen had obtained something else that could help him immediately.