Hadn’t it?
Shelly eventually overcame her incredulity and mobilized, and Robert followed suit, placing a hand on the small of her back as they followed Sean toward the helicopter. As they neared, the air from the blades blew his jacket wide and whipped his hair back.
Sean reached the helicopter first and he put his foot on the dasher before turning back to them.
“Get in,” he shouted, gesticulating wildly with his arms.
Robert helped Shelly into the chopper, and she took a seat across from Sean. He hoisted himself inside and then slid in beside her.
He had never been in a helicopter before, and a strange thought suddenly occurred to him.
Not the circumstances under which I thought I would cross this off my bucket list.
He turned to Shelly, who was deathly pale.
Evidently, riding in a helicopter wasn’t her idea of a good time.
Staring at her pretty face, her eyes closed, it dawned on Robert that while he knew little of Sean or Leland, he really didn’t know that much about Shelly, either. They had been intimate, of course, but only in the physical sense.
Like Sean, she too was guarded.
If we get out of this, I’m going to start asking more questions. Cal, too, wherever he is. For so long, I’ve been buried in my own problems. It’s about time I started thinking of others, too.
Sean put a set of gray headphones on and instructed them to do the same. Robert helped Shelly unhook hers that hung behind them, and then put his on.
Immediately, the drone of the blades disappeared, and was replaced by an odd and mildly discomforting silence.
And then Sean started to speak, his voice surprisingly clear.
“Mark, take us to the Seaforth.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sir?
Robert glanced over Sean’s shoulder and noticed that there were two men in the cockpit. The one named Mark, the pilot, gripped the controls in gloved hands. Then he pulled back, and Robert’s stomach lurched as they lifted off the ground.
Shelly reached over and put an arm across Robert’s chest.
He couldn’t help smiling, despite the circumstances.
No, this definitely wasn’t Shelly’s idea of a good time.
The other man in the cockpit stared straight ahead, his strong jaw locked. Instead of controls in his hands, his fingers were wrapped around the barrel of a machine gun, the butt embedded into the floor.
Military? Is Sean from the military?
Robert looked over at Shelly, but her eyes were locked out the window as they continue to rise in the air.
“ETA forty-seven minutes. Storm on the island, might make for a bumpy ride.”
Shelly visibly swallowed.
Forty-seven minutes…
They were barely forty feet in the air when Sean started speaking, and Robert turned his attention to the man just as the roof of the Harlop Estate, the one that Patricia Harlop had been shoved off, disappeared into the darkness.
“Seaforth Prison currently holds twenty-two inmates, all of whom were deemed too dangerous to house on American soil. That’s where the man-made island comes in. The prison has had only one warden since its conception, a man who, by all accounts, is tough and law abiding. Getting long in the tooth, and has mounting health problems, but a good man. There are eleven guards, give or take, mostly ex-military, and an IT man named Peter Granger. All had thorough background checks. The prison runs on a five days on, four days off schedule. Sleeping quarters are located in a small building separate from the prison. Meals get boated in on a weekly basis, and then two cooks—part-timers that work regular hours—are flown in from the mainland to prepare them. There is only one way off the island; a heavily fortified boat that makes a single trip each week.”
Robert struggled to take this all in as he continued to swallow to force his lunch from entering his throat. Flying in a helicopter was hardly the romantic experience that he had expected. Still, he was faring better than Shelly, whose head was pressed against the rear cushion, her back ramrod straight, eyes closed.
“And this Warden—”
“Ben Tristen,” Sean said, filling in the blank.
“Warden Ben Tristen; he knows we are coming?”
Sean shook his head.
“Lost contact with the prison once the storm started. The system is powered by mainline electricity and generators, with multiple backup power sources and redundancies, and it is never supposed to go dark. But it did two days ago. When it came back online, the warden reported that a guard had been murdered. Details are sketchy, and support was supposed to head out to the island. But then the storm hit, and we lost contact again. About the same time you…” Sean let his sentence trail off.
“I what?”
Sean held a finger up and then turned toward the two men in the cockpit behind him.
“Mark, Aiden, set your headphones to channel 3, noise-canceling on.”
The pilot nodded, while the other simply reached up and switched a dial on the side of his gray headphones. Aiden’s robotic behavior was unsettling to Robert.
Sean turned back to him and Shelly, but Shelly still appeared to be at the mercy of her air sickness and was breathing through pursed lips. He nodded at Robert.
“That was when you started having the dreams.”
Now it was Robert’s turn to shake his head.
“What do the dreams have to do with this? What the fuck is going on, Sean? What is really happening?”
Sean pressed his lips together and paused before answering.
When he finally started to speak, Robert leaned in close and listened.
Chapter 22
Father Callahan used the keycard that he had taken from Quinn’s body and used it to open the front door of the Seaforth Prison. He was thankful that it was just Hargrove that was on the boat, that his old friend Ben had kept the other man, the harder one, the one he called Smitts, by his side. That man was not like Ben and Hargrove; he was not a man of the church.
Hargrove, on the other hand…Father Callahan knew his mother and father from their brief time in South Carolina. Which was probably why the man had agreed to leave him alone with Quinn’s body, under the pretext of needing to pray.
And, as he’d predicted, with all that had been going on in the prison, someone had forgotten to take away his pass. Or one of the ridiculous old-fashioned brass keys.
The hardest part had been slipping off the boat undetected. His body was old, worn, and he had nearly fallen into the water when he had climbed over the side. As it was, he had twisted his ankle something fierce, and every step brought with it shooting pains up to his knee.
After watching the tug pull away, Father Callahan crept out from behind the bushes and struggled mightily against the pouring rain and strong winds, and soon he once again found himself back inside the prison. As he crossed the threshold, the outer door closed and locked automatically, finally offering him a reprieve from the elements.
With a deep, racking breath that brought with it a series of dry coughs, the priest found himself alone in the small holding room.
He teased the key out of his robes and put it in the lock and turned it, the metal biting deep into his gnarled fingers.
Then he grabbed the door and pulled.
Nothing happened; it wouldn’t open.
He fiddled with the lock again, but when he tried the door second door, his efforts were met with the same result.
Then he remembered Ben using his walkie to signal to someone who opened the door remotely.
Father Callahan scolded himself for being so stupid. He was just a frail, old man—how was he supposed to break into a prison so secret that only a handful of people had even heard of it?
But he had to try. He had no choice but to try.
Two nights ago, he had had a vision—a vision of a rift in the Marrow, and it all started here. He didn’t know if it was just a coincidence that Ben had called him, or if he too had picked up signals from the Marrow and
just didn’t know it.
But the details didn’t matter. And it didn’t matter how close he was with Ben, how far back their friendship ran.
Father Callahan had to get inside—he had to talk to Carson. And he had to stop the man, no matter what the cost.
Ben had been too soft on the man, and as the quiddity in the prison increased, the strength that Carson possessed grew with it.
Despite the vision, Father Callahan had thought he had more time. His first intention had been to just visit the prison, check out the scene, and then seek out one of the Guardians.
But after seeing the video of Carson with the eyeballs clutched in his hands, and the poor guard speaking of the Goat, he knew that time was of the essence. And the feeling, the tightness in his chest that he felt even now, made it abundantly clear that there was no time to seek the others.
He himself was not a Guardian, just the keeper of the book. And the what was happening at Seaforth followed closely the prophecy in Inter vivos et mortuos.
The prophecy that described a sadistic murderer opening the gateway to the Marrow, allowing the evil to spill into this world, and forever poisoning the Marrow Sea.
It was up to him to stop Carson. There was no time to reach out to the others.
Father Callahan took a deep breath, feeling his lungs constrict, and he fought the urge to cough again.
Then he stepped back, and for some reason he flicked a hand up at the camera in a half-hearted wave.
A second later, the lights clicked out and the inner door swung open.
Chapter 23
“…what’s really going on here?” Robert asked.
“Truth is, I’m not sure anymore. All I know is that a few years back, there was a disturbance of sorts, a tremor, if you will, something that I haven’t felt in…well, I have never felt like this before.”
Robert eyed the man suspiciously, remembering Leland’s words.
How much do you really know about Sean Sommers? Do you look at him with the same disdain in your eyes as you do me?
“You felt it?”
Sean nodded.
“Like you, I can feel things—only difference is I’ve been at this a lot longer than you have.”
Robert made a face.
“Who are you? And, more importantly, who am I?”
For a long time, Sean just stared at him. He had recovered somewhat from his disheveled appearance at the Harlop Estate a few hours ago; his tie was still hanging loosely around his neck, his hair messy, but at least his face was no longer slack. Something about his hardened expression, despite having incited rage back at the estate, was oddly comforting under these circumstances.
Familiar, even.
“I told you that I’m not here to answer your questions, Robert,” he said at last. “That’s not my role to play in all of this.”
Robert immediately opened his mouth to protest, but Sean held up a hand to silence him.
“But given what has happened—what is happening—I feel obliged to tell you more. Because I fear that…well, you were destined to find out eventually anyway. It’s probably best if you heard from me, and not from him.” The man’s ramblings sounded to Robert as if he were trying to convince himself, rather than the other way around. He held up a finger again before continuing. “Aiden? Mark? ETA?”
They waited in silence for a moment, and when there was no reply, Sean nodded and indicated Shelly with his hand.
“What about her?”
Sean gestured for him to slip the headphones off her head. Robert turned to face his lover; her breathing was rhythmic, her expression slack.
She was sleeping.
A bout of guilt hit him as he reached over and gently teased the headphones from her ears, remembering what she had said about being honest with her. Her eyelids fluttered slightly with the reintroduction of the sound of the storm and the helicopter blades, but she remained asleep.
Shelly demanded that he was honest, but this was different.
Robert had the sneaking suspicion that just hearing what Sean was about to say would put her in danger.
As he hung the headphones on the hook beside her head, he couldn’t help but feel that it was a mistake bringing her along with him—with them.
Deep down, he was grateful that Cal had run off, that he wouldn’t be exposed to whatever was going to happen in the prison. Because if the sensation he had experienced during his vision was anything like what was really happening there, then it was better off to remain ignorant.
“Robert?” Sean’s voice asked quietly in his headphones, and Robert regained his focus. He lifted his gaze to meet Sean’s eyes, and the man leaned forward intently. And then he started to speak.
“I’m going to tell you what I know, Robert. It isn’t everything, and the truth is that there are those out there that know more than I do—much more. All I ask is that you keep an open mind. Can you do that?”
Robert nodded, and Sean continued.
“I guess there is no better place to start than with Carl Jung.”
“Carl Jung?” Robert asked, incredulous. “The Carl Jung?”
Sean pressed his lips together, clearly annoyed by the interruption.
“Yes, that Carl Jung. Are you familiar with his thesis on the collective unconscious?”
Robert shrugged.
“Not really; I mean, I’ve heard of him, like I’ve heard of Freud, but I don’t know much about any of his work. After all, I’m an accountant, not—”
“Jung believed that in addition to the individual self, the persona, there exists a collective unconscious, an archetypal representation of our most base desires. Sex, lust, anger, love, madness. As humans, these exist outside of our selves, and we draw from them. Through individuation, we become less reliant on this unconsciousness, less able to access it. But for some of us…for a certain type of person…” Sean let his sentence trail off, and Robert took the opportunity to jump in.
“For the James Harlops, the Andrew Shaws.”
Sean nodded.
“The Carson Fords of this world, they grab on to the most heinous of these archetypes of the collective unconscious and hold on tight. You see, Carl was wrong about one thing. The collective unconscious doesn’t exist in the cloud.”
“It exists in a Sea. The Marrow Sea,” Robert whispered.
“That’s right—although it has been called many different things over the years. In any event, it is from within this sand and sea that most of human consciousness ends up, and it is from these seeds that new quiddity are born.”
A frown started to form on Robert’s lips as he tried to understand.
“You mean like reincarnation?”
“No, not exactly. It’s more like an amalgamation of past lives, mixed together to create a unique individual. It’s like our DNA, in a sense; the building blocks are the same for twins, let’s say, but for a variety of reasons they are different, all unique. In part because of individuation.”
“But if what you’re describing is the sea and the sand, what about the fire? The faces?”
Sean cleared his throat.
“Despite having many names, I’ve always been in favor of ‘The Marrow.’ Loosely, the Marrow means ‘the middle,’ which is where you were. Standing on the shore, you made it to the place only a handful of people have ever been before and returned. The collective unconscious was lapping at your toes, but above…above was the embodiment of pure evil. You see, evil can’t exist in the Marrow Sea—the most ruthless of acts, murder, rape, slavery, are centered in the self. And this, my friend, is the Hell that you saw.”
Robert exhaled loudly.
“Why? Why me?” he asked.
Sean shrugged, and averted his gaze.
“That’s complicated, Robert. And, quite truthfully, I don’t know the exact reason.”
Robert didn’t press; he could tell that Sean was more than a little uncomfortable sharing what he already had, and there were still many other questions that he wanted to
ask.
“I’ve never…I mean, how do you know about this? About any of this?”
Sean’s eyes returned to Robert’s.
“From a book—Inter vivos et mortuos; Between the living and the dead.”
He paused after saying the words, either because it pained him to do so or because he expected the Latin-sounding name to come as some sort of revelation.
If he was expecting the latter, he was sorely mistaken. Robert just stared at the man, dumbfounded.
Eventually, Sean continued.
“No one knows who wrote it, or where it came from. It’s a simple leather-bound book written in basic Latin. Abrupt, to the point—almost Hemingway-esque in style. No wasted words. And in it, it describes the most basic of human conflicts: the desire for self-immolation or self-preservation. And this is the decision that every human quiddity must face when they land on the shores of the Marrow, or at least that’s what the book states—we can’t be certain, because, well, until recently, no one has ever made it back. On the shores, you can give yourself to the Marrow Sea, replenish the stock of quiddity for others that have yet to be born, or you can stay whole, retain your identity, but in doing so you are banished to the flames above. You’ve seen the faces—you know what I mean.”
An image of the fiery sky with the horrible, screaming mouths flashed in Robert’s mind, and a shudder passed through him.
“Yeah, I’ve seen them,” he croaked.
“The book also describes a group of Guardians, people empowered with making sure that things stay in order. Leland was one of the Guardians, as am I—and there are others, too. Fewer now than there were, but still a fair number.”
“Was Carl Jung one of these guardians?”
Sean shrugged.
“Maybe, don’t know for sure. But based on his writings, I would think it highly likely. Either that or he was very close with one.”
“But if Leland was a Guardian, why is he trying to create a rift?”
Sean sighed, a heavy, exasperated sigh that seemed to make his entire face slacken.
“Something happened, something that changed him, and instead of wanting to keep order, to maintain a balance between the Fire and the Sea, the self and the collective unconscious, Leland began working for the opposite. He became obsessed with the Self, tried to convince all of the Guardians that they were misled, that the Sea was actually Hell, and that not only should everyone choose the flames, but that they can come back. Most of the other Guardians thought that he had lost his mind, but some thought differently. You see, Inter vivos et mortuos speaks of a prophecy, of a time when a man rises up and opens the floodgates, letting the quiddity flow backwards. And since all the good has already been sacrificed, all that’s left is—”
Seaforth Prison (The Haunted Book 3) Page 9
