by James Hunt
The baby’s cries grew louder, and that pushed Daniel over the edge. He pounded on the door, rattling like he was going to rip it off its hinges.
“Carla!”
“Stop it!” Carla cried, the baby’s screams growing louder now. “You’re scaring her!”
Daniel was about to pound on the door again when Lindsy grabbed his arm. “That’s not helping.”
“I’ll get my tools,” Daniel said, running up the stairs, Mike chasing after him to help.
Alone outside the door, Lindsy waited patiently as the child started to calm down. “Carla? Can you hear me?” She tried not to sound too eager. The last thing she wanted was to make Carla more nervous.
When Daniel and Mike returned, they made quick work of the door and ripped it open; inside, they found Carla with the child wrapped in a dirty cloth, clutching the baby to her chest.
“NO!” Carla cried. “You can’t have her!”
Daniel made the first move forward, but as Lindsy stayed back with Mike, she noticed something, or rather a lack of something.
The child had stopped crying.
“Carla, stop this,” Daniel said, pleading, his arms extended forward. “Just let me help you, give her to me.”
Carla retreated to the corner of the room, keeping the bundle of cloth close to her chest. “I don’t want you to take her from me.”
“I’m her father,” Daniel said.
Lindsy walked over and stood next to Daniel, hoping to offer another voice of reason. “It’s okay, Carla. No one here is going to take your baby.” She looked at Daniel. “Right?”
Daniel quickly nodded. “Yes, right.”
Lindsy faced Carla again, who was still huddled in the corner, looking at everyone in the room with accusing eyes. “We only want to help.” She slowly approached Carla, and then knelt, reaching for the shawl the child was wrapped in.
Not saying a word, Lindsy carefully scooped the baby out of Carla’s arms, but the moment she held the shawl, Lindsy knew there was something wrong.
“Please, don’t hurt her,” Carla said.
“I won’t,” Lindsy said, assuring the frantic mother.
Lindsy peeled back the cloth to reveal nothing but small bones, the skeleton of a child. She looked from the bones to Carla, who was still huddled in the corner.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Carla asked.
Daniel peered over Lindsy’s shoulder and then quickly looked away in disgust.
“Oh my god,” Daniel said, covering his mouth with his hands. “Oh my god, oh my god.”
“Carla,” Lindsy said. “Did you look in here?”
“Of course I did,” Carla answered, sounding distressed.
“This isn’t your daughter, Carla,” Lindsy said.
Carla grimaced and then lunged for the bones in Lindsy’s arms. “You’re lying!” She missed on the first grab as Lindsy retreated, and she hurried to her feet.
Lindsy opened the shawl to expose the bones and then showed Carla, who recoiled in horror.
“No! Where is she? Where’s my daughter!” Carla lurched backward, pinning herself against the wall, and she started to cry, while everyone wondered whose bones she had found in the woods.
7
It took Carla awhile to calm down, but her hysterics eventually subsided, and she fell into a stoic calm that felt eerier than when she had been screaming nonsense.
Mike had been the one to take the bones away, Daniel barely able to keep himself from vomiting, and carried the remains into the kitchen, keeping them wrapped neatly in the dirty shawl that Carla had found them in.
After a drink of water, Carla took a breath and then shook her head. “I saw her face. I swear to God I saw my baby’s face when I found that shawl in the woods. She was even crying.”
“She was,” Lindsy said, trying to sound encouraging to the despondent mother. “We all heard the crying when we were on the other side of the door.”
“How is this possible?” Daniel asked angrily. “How is any of this fucking possible!”
“It’s Evelyn Carter,” Lindsy answered, staring at Daniel with the same level of intensity he had offered to her. “The midwife.”
“So… she’s real?” Carla asked, a glint of hope in her voice.
Lindsy nodded.
A mixture of relief and terror flooded over Carla, and Lindsy understood both reactions. The woman was glad to have confirmation she wasn’t crazy, but terrified of what this news meant for her daughter.
“How did she make me see my daughter?” Carla asked. “Is that… something she can do?”
“If she’s as strong as I think she is, she can do a lot of things,” Lindsy answered. “The longer a soul spends on this side of the realm after a person dies, the more powerful they become. Most of the time, ghosts, spirits, whatever you want to call them, can do little more than rattle furniture and make a room get colder. But the midwife has been dead and feeding on souls for the past eighty years. She’s going to be very difficult to stop.”
“But you can still help, right?” Carla asked, trying to still sound positive. “You can still find our daughter?”
“Christ, Carla,” Daniel said, shaking his head, exhausted. “Look at what you found! You found baby bones in the woods! We’re not getting our daughter back!” He shouted at her, and while Lindsy knew the man was angry about the situation, he shouldn’t have taken such a harsh tone with her. They were both just scared.
“You don’t know that,” Lindsy said.
“And you do?” Daniel fired back. “You just said it yourself that this thing is powerful, and you don’t have any idea how to stop it.”
Lindsy stood and about to fire back something she would regret when Mike stepped between Lindsy and Daniel.
“I think we’re all just a little on edge about what’s happening, so why don’t we just take a step back, and regroup,” Mike said.
Lindsy took Mike’s suggestion and stepped away, and Daniel did the same. But while Daniel was muttering curses beneath his breath, Lindsy was thinking.
It was obvious the child Carla found wasn’t their baby. The decomposition rate from flesh to bones took years, and their baby had only been missing three weeks.
And because the authorities never found the bodies of the children Evelyn Carter had taken when she was abducting infants when she was alive, Lindsy believed that Carla had found one of the children the midwife had taken.
“Carla, I need you to show me where you found the bones,” Lindsy said.
Carla shook her head. “I can’t go back out there. I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
Lindsy grabbed Carla’s hand and squeezed it, transferring her strength into the woman. “You can. And you won’t be alone this time. We’ll be with you. All of us.” She hoped the solidarity would bring out the best in the woman, but Carla shook her head again.
“I can’t,” Carla said, on the verge of tears.
Lindsy didn’t let go, and she didn’t give up. “Yes, you can. I know you’re afraid, but think of how afraid your daughter is right now because she’s waiting for you, Carla. And we’ll find her together.”
Lindsy knew the moment she spoke those words that Mike would have something to say about it to her later. One of their rules together was to never promise anything to the people involved in their cases. Promises only made hopes go higher, and then it made the desperation even more significant when they failed. Then the anger and resentment set in, and that made it awkward for everyone involved.
“I need you, Carla,” Lindsy said. “We can’t do this without your help.”
Unsure if the speech would work, Lindsy continued to hold Carla’s hand, and then the mother finally nodded.
“Okay,” Carla said. “I’ll show you.”
“Thank you,” Lindsy said, smiling, and then helped Carla up off the floor.
Everyone followed Carla out into the woods as they headed northeast of the house.
Lindsy watched Carla, the young mother’s
movements stiff and uncomfortable. She resembled a zombie seeking flesh. They walked maybe another half a mile before Carla stopped.
“This was it,” Carla said, nodding as she circled the area, searching the ground with hesitation, almost as if she were afraid she would find more skeletons, but there was nothing but grass, leaves, rocks, and dirt.
Lindsy stepped to the center of the space that Carla had circled. “Do you remember exactly where you found the remains?”
Carla bit her lower lip, and Lindsy saw she the young mother struggling. “This is too much. I can’t—I can’t be here.” She clutched her chest and started to hyperventilate.
“Just breathe,” Lindsy said, offering comfort to Carla. “You can do this.”
Carla paused and took a breath as instructed. She closed her eyes and muttered something only she could hear. When she opened her eyes again, she was more focused, and everything was clearer. “It was by the base of that tree.” She pointed, and Lindsy followed the finger. “I remember because the spot was shady beneath the tree. Almost like someone had put her there so she wouldn’t be so hot.”
Carla’s mouth quivered, and Lindsy placed a hand on the mother’s shoulder to keep her calm. “That’s perfect, Carla. Thank you.”
Lindsy walked to the spot where Carla had recovered the child. She took a moment to observe the area before she stepped closer. Her abilities weren’t picking up any signals. No images. No voices. Nothing. But it had been the same way in the house until she had gone into the attic and found the trunk. And judging by how powerful the midwife had grown over the years, Lindsy knew she wasn’t going to get any freebies.
Lindsy walked to the spot at the base of the tree where the baby had been placed and crouched low in a squat. She saw no other visible markings when she moved closer, no signs of footprints or other disturbances.
“What are you trying to do?” Lindsy asked herself, trying to figure out the ghost’s motive. The fact that the midwife was taunting Daniel and Carla after taking their daughter was peculiar.
Lindsy placed her hand to the spot on the ground where the baby had been, flattening her palm against the dirt and grass, which was still cold and damp from the morning dew. She shut her eyes, waiting for anything to come to her, but there was only darkness waiting for her on the other side. She opened her eyes and removed her hand.
“Do you see anything?” Carla asked.
Lindsy was quiet for a moment, considering her response before she shook her head. “No.” She stood, dusting off the bits of dirt on her palm.
“But this was the place,” Carla said, growing defensive as if it were her fault that Lindsy hadn’t been able to find anything. “I was sure of it.”
Lindsy turned to face Carla. “I’m not saying that you’re wrong. I’m just telling you that I’m not getting anything out here.”
Carla looked lost and despondent, her mouth hanging open, speechless. Daniel and Mike then appeared through the trees.
“Did you find anything?” Daniel asked.
Carla said nothing as she slipped her arms around Daniel’s waist and then buried her face in his chest where she cried softly to herself.
Daniel looked at Lindsy. “What did you do?”
“Nothing,” Lindsy answered.
“Take me back inside,” Carla said, wiping her nose. “I don’t want to be out here anymore.”
“Of course,” Daniel said, and then carefully guided Carla back to the house.
Lindsy had wanted Carla to stay; she still had more questions. But the young woman was barely holding herself together.
Mike walked over to Lindsy, and she already knew what he was going to say, so she held up her hand.
“I just need a little more time,” Lindsy said.
“We don’t have any more time,” Mike said. “We need to call the police.”
“You know what happens when we do that,” Lindsy said. “They come in, and they ask us why we’re here, and all of a sudden, they brand us as crooks and the Maples as lunatics for having brought us out here. Not to mention they might throw us on the suspect list.”
The pair hadn’t had the best experience when it came to law enforcement, who never believed in anything they had to say. They were always immediately written off, and no matter what kind of evidence they provided, the police never even considered that Lindsy might be telling the truth.
Most people were too frightened to acknowledge the truth that the dead walked among us. Lindsy always believed that it was because the human mind could only handle so much before it shut down. And to acknowledge the fact that there was something else in the world besides what they could understand in the physical realm simply broke people.
“The longer we wait to call the cops about the remains we found, the more they’re going to press us about who we are, why we’re here, and where we were the night the Maples child was taken,” Mike said. “Now, I know we have a good alibi because, at the time, we were in another state, but you know how these small-town cops like to push people like us. Some of these guys don’t care about due cause and evidence. They only care about what they ‘think’ is just and right, instead of following the letter of the law.”
Lindsy knew Mike was right. They had run into their fair share of trouble when it came to dealing with local authorities. There was always something about authority in a small town that either made them super friendly and neighborly, or very overprotective and aggressive towards outsiders.
“We go to the police, and they’ll put us on the sidelines,” Lindsy said.
“It’s not up to us anymore,” Mike said. “Remember the deal we made? When bodies start showing up, we don’t take it into our own hands. We learned that lesson the hard way.”
They did, and it had cost them six months of jail time after they found a body and were charged for withholding evidence in a murder investigation. Lindsy knew that another reason Mike always became antsy was that the moment the police saw they had a record, they would immediately turn their accusations toward them.
“Fine,” Lindsy said, knowing when she had to concede. “We call them, but I don’t care what they try and do. I am not going to back down. I will figure out what’s going on here because if we don’t, then it’s just going to keep happening.”
Mike didn’t object, only happy that she had agreed to call the police. The pair turned away from the patch of land and returned to the house when Lindsy heard something that made her stop.
“Wait,” Lindsy said, turning back around to the clearing. “Did you hear that?”
Mike paused, listening. “Hear what—”
The child’s cry was muffled and distant, but the moment they heard it cry, they both jogged back over to the clearing, walking the ground.
“Where the hell is it coming from?” Mike asked.
Lindsy paced, walking more frantically as the child’s cry intensified. She paced the space, certain she was standing in the right spot when she suddenly realized the crying was coming from beneath the ground.
Lindsy dropped to her knees and started clawing at the dirt, digging as fast and as deep as she could as the children’s cries grew louder. Mike dropped down beside her, helping her dig.
There must have been dozens of children crying all at once. There was so much screaming that the very ground seemed to shake beneath their feet. The crying reached a crescendo just before Lindsy reached the first shawl buried in the earth, and when Lindsy unraveled the old piece of fabric, the crying finally stopped when she saw the tiny skeletal remains of an infant.
8
The yellow crime scene police tape had been wrapped around the trees in the woods where Carla and Lindsy had found the remains of the two children. The neon color of the yellow tape contrasted against the earthy tones of the rest of the landscape.
The cops immediately quartered off the area in the woods, and Lindsy and Mike were forced to sit and watch while the police department hauled in all of their equipment. It didn’t take long to unc
over the rest of the bodies, and everyone watched in stunned silence as the police located body after body.
Lindsy walked back to the house before she heard the final number, but after all was said and done, she thought she heard the number go as high as sixty-two. And that was only one section of the woods. The amount of property around the house and the sheer amount of open land that stretched beyond that seemed to provide an endless burial ground for the midwife to have used.
And while Carla and Daniel spoke with the police, Mike and Lindsy waited by the RV, already catching a lot of stares from the other officers as they waited to be questioned.
“How long do you think this is going to take?” Lindsy asked, growing antsy about being left in the dark.
“With the number of bodies they found, it’s probably going to take a little while,” Mike answered. “Not that I’m in a hurry to speak with these deputies.”
“We have the facts on our side,” Lindsy said.
Mike shook his head. “Those don’t seem to matter these days.”
Eventually, a tall, lanky-looking man slowly shuffled over to the RV. He wore a wide-brim hat, and the tan of his uniform made him blend into the rest of the woods. He kept his head down as he walked, and he had to keep his head down when he finally reached Lindsy and Mike because he was so tall.
“I’m Sheriff Torrence,” he said, shaking each of their hands. “Do you two have time to answer a few questions?”
Lindsy wanted to say no, but she knew that it would only cause more trouble than it was worth. The last thing she needed now was to be slapped with a pair of handcuffs and have Mike come and bail her out.
“Go ahead,” Mike said, speaking when Lindsy didn’t answer.
“How do you two know the Maples?” Sheriff Torrence asked.
“They hired us,” Lindsy answered, not wanting to beat around the bush anymore and already knowing that Carla and Daniel had told the cops who they were. “We’re ghost hunters.”
Mike shut his eyes, and the sheriff paused for a moment. Lindsy always used the term ghost hunters when she spoke to officers instead of the more political ‘paranormal investigators’ because she wanted to make them understand that she believed in what she was doing wholeheartedly.
