Sylvie

by Stacy Galloway

  Tom paced the room shoving his hands through his hair, “Where else could she be?” He gazed out the windows towards the Hartman’s empty house.

  “I’m gonna check down there,” he said pointing out the window.

  Kevin looked and said, “You think she’s at the neighbors?”

  “No, I don’t know, we just need to find her!”

  “Look man, just calm down, we’ll-.”

  “Calm down?” Shouted Tom throwing his hands in the air, “How? Bridgette’s gone and I’ve got two days!”

  He grabbed Kevin’s collar, “Two days! And then Bridgette’s dead! Do you get that? Two days to find some hell-crazed demon and then figure out SOME WAY to make this right!” Tom stopped, looked at his hands and let go of Kevin.

  “Oh my God,” He said rubbing his face, “Look, I’m sorry man, I feel like I’m going crazy.”

  Kevin clapped him on the shoulder, “Don’t worry about it. This…” He gestured around the room, “This would make anyone crazy. We’ll find her.” He clapped Tom on the shoulder again and looked out the window.

  Kevin said, “Personally, I don’t think she’d go to the neighbors. Mainly because she’s not familiar with this day and age. I still think she’ll stay close. I think she’s out looking for that old shack.” He peered towards the lengthening shadows of the forest, “It holds many secrets…” He trailed off.

  Tom looked to see what Kevin was looking at. He studied the darkened forest. He looked back at the Hartman’s empty house. They were gone until the 22nd. That’s the day Bridgette dies. Tom shook his head to chase the morbid thought away. Kevin was right, Sylvie would probably not go to the neighbors. She would need to get accustomed to how things worked first. Everything would be new… electricity, cell phones, TV’s, computers…

  “Where did Bridgette get the book?” Kevin’s voice startled him out of his train of thought.

  Tom looked at him puzzled.

  “The Locum Tenens, where did Bridgette get it?”

  “Oh, that… She dug it up out of the cellar.”

  “Did you see anything when you were down there?”

  “Well, there’s a hole, so, yeah, Sylvie tried to get it.”

  “That probably got her riled up,” Said Kevin looking around the room.

  Tom turned and stared at the mess, “That’s an understatement.”

  “All the more reason for her to find the shack, if you ask me,” Said Kevin

  Tom agreed. Since Sylvie couldn’t find the one magic book she had it made sense that she’s search out the place where there was more magic.

  “So, now what?” Asked Kevin

  “We wait,” said Tom as he looked out the window. Twilight had fallen and the forest blended into a blackness.

  “Should we keep a lookout?”

  Tom looked toward the driveway. He could barely see the trunk of Kevin’s car. “No, she’s gonna know we’re here,” He looked at Kevin, “I doubt she’ll try to come in if she thinks somebody’s here. And if she somehow sees that there’s two of us, then no way.”

  A movement caught his eye. Tom squinted toward the forest. For a split second he thought he saw someone duck into the trees.

  “Stay here!” He shouted as he sprinted through the kitchen and banged through the screen door. Flashlights crossed his mind. No time. He ran across the meadow and plunged into the dark forest.

  Blackness enveloped him. His foot caught on something unseen and he tumbled, sliding to stop on his elbows and knees. His breath rasped. He coughed and sat back on his feet in a kneeling position. He listened for a telltale crunching of leaves or any other sign of movement. Silence. He squinted trying to make out the shapes of the trees and bushes around him. A shadow slid to his left and sunk into the ground. He scrambled to his feet and lunged towards it. Something tripped him and he fell face first onto the ground. He pushed himself to his feet again and looked wildly around. A human silhouette stood a few feet in front of him. He reached for the featureless shadow. Red eyes opened and blinked closed and the silhouette dissolved.

  Tom scanned the darkness around him as he slowly turned. Now, the silhouette stood off to his left. Hesitantly he reached out. Another silhouette appeared next to the first one. Both figures stood still. Tom slowly dropped his hand to his side. He turned. Three more silhouettes stood off to his right. As he completed his turn, he saw one more directly behind him. Its red eyes slowly opened and gazed at him in a burning hate. Fear shot through him. His muscles tensed. He was surrounded. He braced himself to run when suddenly something cold, clammy, and dead caressed his cheek. Cold, rotten breath breathed on him as something leaned close. And then he felt it. Lips, rotting and fetid, pressed next to his mouth. Every cell in his body screamed in agony and terror. Tom bolted and ran.

  “Which way?” Skittered through his mind quickly followed by, “any way but here.”

  A dim light shone off in the distance. Tom aimed for it. It grew larger and the next thing Tom knew he was running pell-mell across the meadow and towards his house.

  Kevin was standing in the yard facing the forest, Tom tore past him grabbing his arm on the way and pulling them both into the house.

  Tom whirled, slammed and locked the back door, and gasped for breath with his hands on his knees.

  “Are you all right?” Asked Kevin, “What happened?”

  Tom walked quickly to the kitchen sink, turned on the water and scrubbed at his face. It was no use. The odor lingered. Even worse, he could still feel the press of the dead lips next to his mouth. Nothing he did made that go away. He scrubbed dry and tossed the towel on the counter.

  His breathing had slowed, “Something’s in the forest, something with red eyes, they surrounded me, and then one of them….” He scrubbed at his cheek trying to rub off the memory, “One of them touched me… It smelled dead…” Tom shivered at the memory.

  Kevin nodded slowly, “The Rumilures.”

  “I thought that was a made up ghost story. Legends.”

  “Oh no, they’re real. Many people have encountered them. Some of the stories are from kids looking for a place to park or party. But some stories come from people who have no reason to make up such a story. People with their reputations on the line… like cops. I read one where a cop saw what he thought was a hitchhiker on one of these back roads. He stops to check it out. It’s a woman. As he’s talking to her he says he watches her eyes turn pitch black. She smiles this evil smile at him and he says he thought he was going to die. Next thing he knows there are more of them, behind the woman, all looking at him with pitch black eyes. The first woman reaches out and caresses his cheek and suddenly disappears. Turns out another car had stopped. The driver was an older guy who saw the cop surrounded by people and wondered what was going on. All the people disappeared when the old guy stopped. They both went to the station to file a report about dangerous people wandering the back roads. The cop quit and moved not long afterwards. But it’s there, the report I mean.”

  Tom nodded. He thought about Old Pete. He had a newfound appreciation of the old man. The thought of running into those things in the dark of the night terrified Tom more than he would ever admit.

  The men were silent.

  “So now what?” Asked Kevin

  “We come up with another plan. She’s not going to come here while we’re here. But we need to catch her,” He caught Kevin’s look, “Or find the shack.”

  He looked nervously out the back door, “But we’re not looking for the shack in the dark.”

  Kevin nodded in agreement, “That would be a bad idea. We’ll do that during the daytime.”

  Tom looked around the cluttered kitchen, “Let’s look around and see if we find anything unusual here. We probably won’t, but since we’re here it won’t hurt to look. We can check out that hole in the cellar, try to find my keys, collect things we might need….” He trailed off looking around, “Like rope, we have rope in the cellar.”

  Kevin nodded and turned towards th
e cellar, “I’ll check out the hole and grab the rope.”

  Tom picked up the crockpot and looked inside. Empty. He carried it to its spot in the pantry. He put the peanut butter away. He picked up the blender and saw it was full of shredded paper. Curious, he dumped it on the counter. As the papers fluttered and settled he realized he recognized what it was. It was a wedding photo of him and Bridgette. The familiar photo and frame normally sat on Bridgette’s nightstand.

  Stunned, he picked up the shreds and held them in the palm of his hand. A sick nausea was followed instantly by rage. First she steals Bridgette and now she shreds our pictures? Tom’s emotions tumbled and crashed into each other. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sylvie had mutilated the picture on purpose and left it for him to find as some kind of a sick twisted message. Or warning.

  He scooped the shreds into his hand and dropped them into the trash can. A grim determination came over him. He promised himself, for Bridgette’s sake, that he would see this thing through to the end. Even if the incomprehensible happened and he didn’t catch Sylvie in time. Even if the 22nd passed by and he still didn’t know where she was, he vowed to himself, and to Bridgette, that he would hunt her down and stop her. It would become his life’s mission.

  A purposeful sense settled over him. He quickly put the kitchen back in order. He picked up the other remote from in front of the computer, bumped a key and the screensaver disappeared revealing Bridgette’s obituary. Tom turned quickly away and walked into the living room.

  He set the remote down. He scooped and stacked the DVDs and CDs. Cases and discs went into the same pile for now to be sorted through later. He crumpled the sheets of newspaper and threw them away. He reached to pick up a book.

  “Hey Tom!” Shouted Kevin’s voice from the cellar.

  “Yeah?” Responded Tom

  “You need anything else from down here? I got the rope.”

  “No, that’s all I can think of right now.”

  “Okay, I’ll be up in a minute.”

  Tom remembered the tools he had pulled out earlier this morning for his project to move the angel. Warily, he watched the forest as he stepped out to the back porch. He glanced down. Hoe, pitchfork, and rope. He tried to remember what else he had pulled out from the crawlspace under the porch. A vision of Bridgette, her face twisted in hate, an axe over her head, filled his mind. The axe was missing. Tom glanced around. And two shovels. Even though he knew Bridgette probably wouldn’t use one, he’d gotten two shovels out just in case. And, now, neither of them were here.

  He looked towards the apple tree. It looked foreign and strange without the angel underneath it. He walked over, watching the ground carefully. There, he picked up the shovel and carried it to the back porch. So, she’s got a shovel and the axe. He slid open the crawlspace and set the shovel inside. And the .357, don’t forget about that. He shook his head as he placed the hoe and pitchfork next to the shovel. He slid the crawlspace door closed. He didn’t think the crawlspace existed when Sylvie lived here. Tom shook his head at the stray thought. It didn’t matter. Now, she had a shovel, an axe, and a gun. He picked up the rope and went inside.

  He locked the door again and called down to Kevin, “Hey, I forgot I had some rope up here, but bring that one up too.”

  “Got it.” Kevin came up the stairs.

  He set the rope, zip ties, and a roll of duct tape on the table.

  Tom picked up the zip ties and set them back down, “Good idea.”

  “Yeah, I see it on the cop shows all the time. Makes a quick restraint.” Kevin continued, “I looked in the hole, it was empty.”

  Tom thought back to Sylvie’s journal.

  “According to what I read there should have been a hand and some candles and a bowl left in there.”

  Kevin shook his head, “Empty. She must have gotten whatever she could out of there.”

  “The hand might have rotted.”

  Kevin shrugged, “Maybe. It’s hard to guess what happens once things have been used for a magic spell.”

  Tom drummed his fingers on the table, “We could stay here tonight. Be waiting for her when she comes in.”

  Kevin looked thoughtful.

  “How about we go back to my place for tonight. Rest up. Come back here tomorrow and spend the night? Sleep in shifts. Stay until we catch her.”

  Tom started to object.

  “Tom, look. You’ve had a long day. Neither of us is ready to stay up all night. I say we go back, grab a bite to eat and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow, we can pick up anything else we need, head back here, one of us sleeps while the other stays awake. We’ll be better prepared mentally and physically.”

  Weariness crept over Tom. He’d been running on adrenaline all day and it was catching up. Kevin was right. They could leave for now, get some rest, and come back ready to stay as long as they needed to. Hang out in her lair, so to speak.

  Then, his stomach twisted as he thought of Bridgette. She needed him. He was running out of time. He felt like he was abandoning her.

  Kevin nodded, “You need rest. We both do. Tomorrow we’ll be here for the long haul.”

  Tom searched his front pocket for his keys before remembering he hadn’t grabbed them. “Let me look for my keys.” He said going towards the bedroom.

  He picked up clothes and shoved them into the closet. Then he thought the better of it and reversed the action. He shoved the shoes and clothes out of the way in the closet. No keys. He then picked up the garments one by one and threw them into the closet. The empty photo frame was tangled in a sweater. He gently laid the frame on the nightstand and threw the sweater in the closet.

  A few minutes later, and he still hadn’t found his keys. He double checked the empty nightstand drawers and slid them back into place. He opened dresser drawers. They were mostly empty. No keys there. He looked under the bed. He found Bridgette’s purse and pulled it out. He thought it was strange he hadn’t noticed it before, but he brushed it off. After all, he’d been looking for Sylvie and could have very easily missed the purse in the mess.

  He sat on the bed and carefully laid out the items from her purse. Wallet, makeup bag, small hand lotion, a pack of gum, and sunglasses. He felt around inside the empty purse and tipped it upside down. No keys. He stood and looked around the room. Their cell phones were gone and so were their keys.

  “I guess you’re my ride,” He joked to Kevin as he came back into the kitchen.

  “No problem,” Said Kevin.

  Tom glanced out the back door. The black night pressed up to the glass. He turned on the porch light. He cupped his hands to his eyes and pressed his face against the window. The dark of the forest blended into the dark of the night. The darkness made him think about the flashlights he had in the cellar. He thought about leaving them here, but didn’t know what Sylvie would destroy next.

  He went to the cellar, flipped on the light, and called back to Kevin, “I’ll be right back.”

  “Wait, what do you need? I’ve got stuff at my place too!”

  “Flashlights.” Said Tom as he hurried down the steps.

  “I’ve got lots!”

  But Tom was already standing in front of his shelves of tools. Odd bits and pieces of things ended up down here. Extra screws, door hinges, light bulbs. Tom grabbed the two Mag Lights from the second shelf. He clicked them on and the beams of light danced around the cellar. He glanced over the other shelves. There was the blank spot from the zip ties. He scooted the tape measure over and something jingled and landed on the floor. He backed up and looked down. Nothing. He looked on either side of the shelves. Nothing. He reached behind the lowest shelf and ran his hand along the ground. He felt a ring and pulled. Bridgette’s keys popped free.

  “Hey, I found Bridgette’s keys!” He called as he stared at them and turned them around in his hand. Anger towards Sylvie flared. He couldn’t wait to catch her and send her back to 1912 or all the way to hell. He didn’t care which.

  He shoved Brid
gette’s keys into his pocket and grabbed the two Mag lights.

  Kevin stood at the top of the stairs.

  “Hey, I found Bridgette’s keys!” Said Tom as he climbed the stairs.

  “Great,” Said Kevin calmly, “Guess you won’t be needing that ride anymore.”

  Tom smiled at the joke and glanced at his friend, but Kevin was already walking towards the front door.

  “Wait, let me grab the rope and stuff.” Tom started to pick up the rope but set it back down. He went to the pantry and grabbed a plastic bag. He filled it with the rope, zip ties and duct tape.

  He hurried to the bedroom and grabbed a pair of jeans, socks, boxers, and a flannel shirt. He stopped by the bathroom and grabbed toothpaste and his toothbrush. He went back to the pantry and put the rest of the items in another plastic bag and topped it off with the flashlights. He picked up the two bags and walked out of the kitchen.

  Kevin stood at the open front door.

  “Got everything?”

  Tom looked around again, “I guess so.”

  They went outside and Tom instinctively turned to lock the door and then remembered, “I’ll leave it unlocked for her.”

  Kevin nodded and headed towards his car. “See you at my place,” he said as he got in and started the engine. He pulled out and was down the road before Tom had unlocked his car door.

  Tom watched the taillights fade in the distance.

  He quickly unlocked his car, climbed in and set the bags on the passenger seat. He locked the door. He stared across the yard at the dark forest. If he tried, he could imagine he saw figures cavorting around in the darkness. He shook his head and looked at the house. The lights blazed. He briefly thought of going in to shut them off, but quickly shut that thought off. He had no desire to walk around in the dark anymore. At least not tonight. He turned the ignition and the old car sputtered to life. He backed down the driveway, pointed the car towards town, and drove to Kevin’s.

  It Was Hidden in the Darkness