Island of the Forbidden

by Hunter Shea

In that instant, he knew.

  Holy Christ. No! Please, stop!

  He grabbed Jessica’s hand. “Let’s go back to the house.”

  A flicker of understanding flashed in her eyes and she ushered the children ahead of her. “You know what kids? I’m starving. Can you take us back to the house?”

  “Sure,” Jason said. “Follow me.”

  Alice turned back to the clearing. “Goodbye. See you later.”

  Jessica’s mouth opened as if she was about to say something to the little girl, then closed. She cast a wary glance at the scorched ground before urging the kids back to the house.

  Eddie concentrated on the winding pathway, pushing the foliage back with his mind so nothing would hinder their exit.

  When they were back on the main path, his head pounded to the beat of his heart.

  He could still feel the desperate gazes of the dead children to their right.

  Something skittered amidst the leaves. Eddie knew it wasn’t squirrels or chipmunks.

  The spirits of the Last Kids and generations before them were everywhere.

  And they were gaining strength.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Harpers truly left Eddie and Jessica to themselves, allowing them to go anywhere they wished in the house or on the island. In fact, after lunch, Paul went upstairs with Jason and Alice to make sure they did their reading while Daphne and Tobe retired to the library. Fires had to be started in the downstairs rooms at two in the afternoon to make the house comfortable.

  Jessica was in the kitchen, eyeing a door when Eddie came in through a side door leading outside.

  “You think that’s the basement door?” she asked. He’d been pretty quiet since the weirdness at the little plot of dead land. Swallowing her urge to push his buttons, she’d left him to himself, confident he’d tell her everything he saw when the time was right.

  Maybe I’m finally getting the hang of working with a partner. She’d been so stubborn when she decided to jump headfirst into the study and exploration of the supernatural. When Eddie initially came to her—at the request of her father, who had died thirteen years earlier—they butted heads constantly. She was beginning to realize she was the source of most of the friction.

  The problem was, aside from her relationship with Angela, she’d been a loner most of her life. It was difficult sharing her passion with someone else, made even more so when he discovered that she had bizarre abilities that rivaled his own.

  “With the water table on an island, I suspect there’s no basement,” he said, turning the old key and opening the door, revealing a fully stocked pantry.

  “Good call,” she said.

  “I have my moments.”

  She stepped into the pantry. A few new cans of vegetables, soup and boxes of cereal lined one of the shelves. The others were cluttered with dusty mason jars, bottles of cleaning supplies with labels and logos decades old, several terracotta planters and other odd knick-knacks. Behind the door, what looked like an old lab coat hung on a hook. The linen was spotted with amber splotches of age. Eddie said, “Looks like someone liked to experiment in the kitchen.”

  Jessica didn’t laugh.

  “This may sound strange, but I can’t shake feeling sad. The air is heavy here, and not just in the house. It reminds me of the funeral home when my grandfather passed away. Everywhere I go, I get this sense of grieving.”

  Eddie squinted at the ceiling light. “Did you bring your digital recorder?”

  When she first started exploring EBs, she’d had all of the equipment she’d seen on TV and read about in books, from EMF meters to EM pumps, FLIR cameras and radio frequency boxes that purportedly helped the dead communicate with the living.

  Eddie had replaced all of that. Now all she had was a couple of digital recorders and a video cam that could also take stills. She used these more for compiling corroborating evidence than anything else. Now that her website was gone, that evidence would never see the light of day beyond what she showed the people who came to her for help. Privacy was paramount.

  “I have one right here,” she said, fishing the slim, silver recorder from her front pocket.

  “Turn it on.”

  She flicked the power button and pressed Record.

  “Put it right there,” Eddie said, pointing to the kitchen table.

  “Are you hearing something?”

  “Lately, I’m always hearing something. I can just get enough from the mess to discern a coherent sentence. We need to go up there.”

  He pointed at the ceiling. “To the locked bedrooms?” Jessica asked.

  “Higher. There’s an attic above the rooms.”

  Jessica recalled an image of the house as viewed from the outside. She’d walked around it several times, taking pictures at random. She didn’t recall seeing any windows above the second floor.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  Eddie shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not, but they are.”

  “The Last Kids?”

  She had to admit, when Jason and Alice mentioned talking to the Last Kids in the place where they went to sleep, a chill had danced up her back. She wasn’t frightened for herself, but for the Harper children. She knew full well how exposure to things like this at an early age could screw your head right around.

  “First, middle and last,” he said and left it at that. As much as she wanted to shake him and ask him what the hell he meant, she knew it was best to back off—for now.

  “All right, let’s go then. Should I just leave the recorder running here?”

  “Yes. We can pick it up later.”

  They went upstairs, their ascent on the old, bare steps making enough noise to wake the dead.

  Except here, the dead never slept. She didn’t have to have Eddie’s ability to speak to them to know that.

  Walking down the long hallway, they looked for a trap door in the ceiling. There was none. Paul’s muted laughter sounded from the children’s room, followed by a giggle from Jason or Alice. It was hard to tell.

  “The access must be in one of the rooms,” Eddie said.

  “Let’s check ours first.”

  The Yellow and Blue rooms were dead ends. When they met back in the hall, Jessica said, “Might as well see about the kids’ room.”

  She knocked on the thick door, the wood of the bottom half scarred as if numerous boots had kicked it open over the decades.

  Paul opened the door. Jason and Alice sat on their beds, open books on their laps. A pile of magazines lay on an old rocking chair by the window.

  “Hi Ms. Backman,” Alice said, smiling.

  “Hello Mr. Home,” Jason chirped. They looked grateful for the break.

  “How’s everything going?” Paul asked.

  “Just mentally mapping the house out so we don’t kill ourselves when we knock around in the dark,” Jessica said, scanning the ceiling. No dice. Although, the attic entrance could just as well be in the closet beside Jason’s bed. “Do you mind if we take a quick look around your room, kids?”

  “That won’t take long,” Jason said. The room was a bit on the small side, but it had a nice view over most of the treetops straight to Charleston Harbor. She went to the closet, finding a rack of clothes and a sealed cardboard box on the floor. No one was getting to the attic from here.

  Eddie talked to the kids, asking about the books they were reading—Lord of the Rings for Jason and a Junie B. Jones chapter book for Alice.

  “Paul, do you know if there’s an attic?” Jessica asked.

  He scratched at his beard. “I haven’t seen it, but I’ve only been here a little over a week. I haven’t done much exploring. These two keep me pretty busy.”

  “I noticed the spare bedrooms are locked. Do you have a key? If there is an attic, it would be important to know. EBs tend to stay in places
where the living spend little time.” It was a lie, but one she’d seen perpetuated on ghost shows. She knew Paul would buy it.

  “That’s true,” he said, as if he’d had a lifetime of experience chasing ghosts in dusty attics. He sucked on his teeth, twisting his lips in thought. “I don’t have a key. I’m not even sure there is a key. I’d have to ask Daphne and Tobe.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll head on downstairs and ask them myself.”

  “They just left.”

  “Where to?” Eddie asked.

  “Tobe had to meet with someone in Charleston on some kind of business. He’s always got his hands in different things. My sister went so they could go out to eat later. They’re not used to all this home cooking.”

  A short gasp hissed behind Jessica. She whirled to see Eddie on the end of Jason’s bed, holding his head.

  “Are you all right?” Paul asked.

  “Just a headache. I get them a lot,” Eddie said. He scrunched his eyes, taking several slow breaths. “I’ll be fine. They go as quickly as they come.”

  Alice gingerly walked across the room, placing her pale hand on his forehead. “Would you like a cold washcloth, Mr. Home? Mommy always gets me one when I have a fever or my head hurts.”

  He patted her hand. “Thank you, Alice. I’m already feeling better.”

  Jessica caught his eye.

  Time to make our exit.

  “Well,” she said, “we have the whole week to explore. I’ll talk to them when they get back. Sorry to interrupt your reading time.”

  The kids looked at her, imploring with their big eyes to stay. It must have been pretty boring out there with no other children to talk to or play with. They probably craved distraction. She and Eddie fit that bill, all right.

  “I’ll have dinner ready at seven,” Paul said. “Nothing fancy. I’m firing up the grill out back and making hamburgers and corn on the cob.”

  “Sounds delicious. See you in a little while, guys,” Jessica said.

  Paul closed the door behind them.

  Eddie clasped her arm, walking her downstairs and outside by the front of the house.

  “He’s lying,” he said.

  “You think Daphne and Tobe are still on the island?”

  “No, they’re really gone. But when he was talking, the EBs started screaming. It was like being at a football game when the ref blows a call.”

  “So what are they saying?”

  “Paul knows about the attic. He just doesn’t want us to know…yet.”

  The gentle raps on the door startled Nina D’Arcangela from her catnap. Light afternoon naps were part of a routine she’d established many years ago. As a dyed-in-the-wool night owl, she’d learned the value of a quiet lie-down when the sun was high.

  She patted her hair down, the static from the sheets tugging at the ends. “Coming, coming.”

  She opened the door but found no one there.

  Must have dreamt it, she thought.

  Just as she was about to retreat back to her suite, she spotted a sealed envelope on the floor. Nina flicked it open with the sharp edge of a nail. A sheet of cream-colored stationery had been folded in half. It simply read “Tomorrow”.

  Letting the door close behind her, she dropped the note and envelope on a glass topped coffee table, returning to the bedroom.

  Better get as much rest as I can. It’s all heavy lifting from here.

  Truth be told, Ormsby Island unnerved her. From the first moment she’d stepped onto the dock, she wondered if she’d gotten in over her head. Telling people what they wanted to hear by contacting their deceased loved ones (sometimes catching faded glimpses of the actual mothers, husbands, children, you name it, most times not) in the comfort of her living room was one thing. But she had wanted to branch out, to become something more than a housebound psychic. Even if ninety percent of her gift was knowing just the right thing to say to a person in need—because no one came to her unless they needed something, most times, closure—hadn’t she always wanted a bigger, brighter stage? Now was not the time for fear.

  What unsettled her most was the intense surge of clairvoyance that had filled her during the first séance she conducted with the Harpers on the island. It was as if the realm between the living and the dead had been opened wide for her. At times, she felt as if she was merely a tool being manipulated by something she couldn’t quite grasp. There was no need for clever tricks and lines of questioning. Information came to her from the ether. For the most part, all she needed to do was ask and it was provided. After returning from the island she tried it again in her hotel room, but came up with nothing. If she was a radio, the island was the electrical outlet. It was intense and strange and invigorating all at once.

  And what about the game of deception that had been played up to this point? That wasn’t a worry she could take on. No sense losing beauty sleep over that one. Life was a con. The trick was to be on the right side of the Three-card Monte table.

  She closed her eyes, conjuring up an image of her childhood home. Her mind’s eye recreated every nook and cranny of the house on Highland Avenue in Lake George. She heard her mother humming to herself as she did the ironing in the laundry room, just off the kitchen. By the time she crept up the steps to her bedroom with its posters of the Sex Pistols and The Ramones, sleep had cradled her within its arms, whispering voices from the past, present and beyond.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Boy, Jessica has some appetite,” Paul said as they carried the dirty plates into the house. The little barbecue on the back patio had really hit the spot. Paul had also gotten the fire pit going even though it was early on a summer night. The whole setup reminded Eddie of harvest festivals in North Carolina in October.

  “She does and there is no shame in her game,” Eddie joked, craning his neck to make sure she was out of earshot. Because of his misgivings about Paul, he made it a point to buddy-up to the man. In the past, he could have pried into Paul’s mind as easily as opening a can of sardines.

  He wasn’t kidding when he told Jessica he was broken. Out here, especially, there was just too much psychic noise for him to center on any one thing. It was unsettling to think he was at the mercy of the horde of EBs congregating on Ormsby Island.

  Just have to do things the hard way, he thought, giving Paul a conspiratorial wink. Or what the rest of the world would consider the normal way.

  It didn’t make things any easier that everywhere he went, he walked through the evanescent shade of a deceased child.

  Why are there so many children here? Are Alice and Jason drawing them in? Is it Jessica? Or are they all trapped on the island? And if they are, what the hell went on here?

  “I think I’ll take Jessica out for a walk, try to burn off some of those burgers,” Eddie said to Paul after loading up the sink. Jason and Alice stood on little stools so they could wash and dry the dishes.

  “Will you be back after we take our baths?” Alice asked.

  He patted her head. “Of course. We have nowhere else to go.”

  “Good. Then you and Jessica can read us a story.” Her smile nearly melted his heart. It was hard not to pick her up and give her a bear hug every time he looked at her. He’d never been this way with kids before. Actually, he’d never had much interaction with them. Maybe my daddy instincts are waking up.

  Smiling, he said, “I’d like that. You pick out the story.”

  “I’ve got one in mind already,” Jason said, swiping a wet plate with his towel.

  Eddie spotted Jessica in the yard. The sun was still out beyond the trees, but outside it looked like midnight. “See you two in a little bit.”

  A large, though still childlike EB—he looked to be in his late teens—stood between Eddie and the door. He sidestepped the EB teen awkwardly and hoped Paul and the kids didn’t witness his clumsy exit. There was something about th
e mass of that EB that made his unconscious mind think he couldn’t just walk through it.

  Getting weirder.

  Jessica had put on a bright green windbreaker before dinner. He couldn’t recall ever seeing her in anything quite so colorful and bright.

  “Hey Gumby,” he said.

  “Rag on the jacket, you better be wearing a cup.”

  Unlike so many other threats she’d launched at him in the past, this one was said with a wry smile.

  “Wanna walk for a bit?” he asked.

  “That’d be cool. Is there anything you need to show me?”

  He rubbed the back of his head. “Oh, how I wish I could show you all the things I see right now. Unfortunately, I don’t have a pair of psychic glasses on me so you can look into the netherworld.”

  “Like Roddy Piper in They Live,” Jessica said.

  “What the heck is They Live?”

  “Never mind. Eighties music, eighties horror movies. They’re my thing.”

  They walked side-by-side to the front of the house. The farther they walked from it, the more it felt like mid-summer at dusk.

  “I don’t remember you being this sarcastic,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, I spent some time around this Long Island family a few years ago and picked up a thing or two.”

  She gently elbowed him in the ribs.

  “All kidding aside, what the heck happened here? I need you to come clean, now.”

  Jessica stepped in front of him, studying his face. “How bad is it?” she said.

  “I’ve never even imagined anyplace could be this bad. Jess, there are about a dozen EBs standing right behind you. And behind them are a dozen more, and so on. Everywhere I look, they’re there. The worst part is, they’re all kids.”

  The world around him seemed to brighten as incorporeal bodies nudged closer to them. Hands reached out, touching Jessica. Blurred faces pressed against her legs.

  “How do you feel right now?” he asked her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are five EBs touching you at this very moment.”

  Her brows knitted, concerned. “Are you shitting me?”