*2014 Readers' Favorite Finalist
*2014 Golden Ankh Nominee
*2013 Readers' Favorite Award Winner
*2013 Reviewers' Choice Award Winner
*2012 ARRA Finalist for Favorite Paranormal Romance
*Five-time winner of The Mistress of the Darkpath
Also by Charity Parkerson
If you liked Of Ghosts and Dreams, be sure to check out Unbalanced.
Find Unbalanced online and view Charity Parkerson’s author page.
For more from Charity Parkerson
Twitter @charityparkerso
Website
Facebook
The Lost Sheep of Menotomy Village
by Eric Keys
As soon as I read about the mass disappearances at Menotomy Village, I knew Paul would call. And when he called, he offered me a job—a job he knew only an unsavory old friend would be able to do. Losing your kid and half the kids of your parishioners would push a fine pastor to call a private investigator with a seamy reputation. Naturally, it was easier as we had once been chums.
But I was on retainer and I would have to clear it with Mr. Hess.
I let myself into Mr. Hess's office without a knock. Knocking irritated him and he had decided that certain trusted employees simply should desist from the practice. He sat behind a big oak desk, which made his tiny, fragile frame look even smaller than usual. His eyes darted up to me, then scanned the room to see if my entrance had allowed any unauthorized access.
I'm tempted to call him a funny looking man, but that might be the pot calling the kettle black. My ears are a bit juggy and my eyes bulge more than is considered socially acceptable. And my nose has been broken a few times too many, if you catch my drift.
Once he saw that the coast was clear, he returned his gaze to the stack of papers on his desk.
"Boss," I said.
"Don't call me that or I will retaliate by calling you Abraham."
"Abe is just fine, Mr. Hess."
"What do you want, Abe?"
"You heard about Menotomy Village?"
"Of course. It sounds like the work of our enemies, but The Executive Board has decided that it is not in their best interests to act in this matter."
"And what, exactly, are their interests?" I asked.
"It is better not to ask such questions." That was all Hess said, but his glare conveyed more.
Of course, I knew I was better off not knowing. They paid me well, tolerated my unorthodox methods, and had taught me all kinds of interesting things. And the stuff I'd seen working for them... I honestly wished I could forget most of it, but you can't go back once you've seen this stuff. Better not to step foot on that road than to go forward and try to go back.
"Do we have anything big coming up?” I hesitated. “A friend of mine has asked me to do a little digging. What do you think?"
"I know with absolute certainty that you will go regardless of what I say, so I do not know why you ask instead of just telling me you are going."
If my life is to make any sense to you, then you have to believe there are some things science just can't explain yet. For example, Hess is an incredibly shrewd judge of character. You almost always lose when you bet against him. However, when he utters the phrase "I know with absolute certainty that..." then you are in the presence of a supernatural event. He simply cannot be wrong about any character judgment that comes at the end of that sentence.
Seriously. The Executive Board hired some statisticians to study him. They recorded every word he spoke during the working day for two years. And then they analyzed data for longer than that. Their conclusion was that when he uttered that phrase, he was 100% accurate. Even without that phrase, he was still shockingly accurate if fallible.
They even tried to trick him into saying the phrase when he was not inclined to. At least, I hope it was a trick. Putting a gun to someone's head for an experiment is pretty intense. I never did figure out if the researcher had threatened to blow Hess’s head off unless he said the magic phrase because it had been part of an experiment or if he had just lost it. Either way, I had shot the gun-toting statistician dead before he could fire. What was I supposed to do? Part of my job is to keep Hess and the others alive. If it had been an experiment, they should have told me.
And that is why The Executive Board kept Mr. Hess in their employ. Sure, he was a pompous ass, but he was no worse than some of the other guys around there. Reggie, Hess’s boss, was worse. But at least Reggie let you call him by his first name and would take you out boozing once in a while. Plus, he always seemed to draw the nice looking women to him and he’d mastered the art of throwing the funny looking side-kick a bone now and then.
Hess sighed and said, "But you are on your own, Abe. No rescue attempt will be made if things go wrong. And if you are alive next week, then show up on time. I expect there will be work for you. Please go now." And with that, Hess returned to his papers.
His fear tactics were more an expression of disdain than any real warning. He and I both knew that these sorts of events were almost always isolated. He knew my purpose was to pacify and comfort someone, and he had no patience for that sort of activity.
But his opinion was not the one I really wanted or needed. That one would come in the middle of the night.
I knew Alicia would be in my dreams that night. I could tell when she was going to make an appearance. I would catch a certain smell. It doesn’t seem to have a physical source and I can’t describe it, for the life of me, but it’s a reliable sign. I figured she knew something was afoot. She had some kind of weird connection with some of the players in this fucked up game. I probably wouldn’t have agreed to go to Menotomy Village if I hadn’t got the feeling Alicia was going to help me out.
That night, the dream started with a replay of the day we’d met. Things were distorted in the dream—my funny looking mug was almost grotesque—but the details were basically the same: I brought some papers to the TV studio, where Alicia was taping one of the most popular kid’s TV shows in the country. The Executive Board had asked me to deliver these papers in person for reasons I didn't understand fully at the time.
I took in the view of her from a distance, before she went into wardrobe. I was hiding in the shadows like a peeping tom. She was a little on the short side, with jet black hair and big brown eyes that look like the entrance to a deep cave of obscene lust. The short loose skirt showed off her shapely legs. No need to cover up that flawless skin with hose or tights. Just a slight hint of a tan and the effect was complete, and I was nearly bowled over.
She came out of wardrobe with her perky breasts flattened out by some seamstress's trick, and the shapeless jumper left a whole lot more to the imagination than her street clothes did.
As the dream continued, I watched the taping, and I was amazed they let her on a kiddy show. The sexual vibe she gave off almost melted my phone. I bet she was the reason so many dads watched the show with their kids.
And the smell of her. No one else ever seemed to smell the special scent, but I knew it meant she was mine for the taking. It was the smell of a woman who has come to close to certain forces that operate in our universe. Women who have been near those forces seem to find me irresistible. I have no idea why, but at least a funny looking guy like me can get a pretty girl now and then, even when Reggie isn’t around.
After the taping, I introduced myself and told her I had some papers related to her recently deceased uncle. I offered to buy her a drink and go over them.
The dream condensed the evening, but all the delicious cat-and-mouse flirting games we played that night were preserved. Normally, in games like this, I don't do too well. But that night I had an edge. I knew she wanted me badly.
We ended up back at my place and the dream slowed to a crawl as my favorite memory from the evening came. She was naked, with her jet black hair plastered to her head. Her head was pressed into the pillow and her shapely ass was in the air. She was fingering her clit and pus
sy as I worked my cock slowly in and out of her anus. Her sphincter started to clamp down hard on my cock—which looked huge against her tiny frame—and I could no longer control myself. I felt my whole body contract with each violent shot of cum that burst from my body. My dream biology was prodigious, as it seemed like an impossibly large load of semen filled her ass to a literal overflowing, but my orgasm seemed to go on and on until my brain could not process any more.
But the dream did not end. Now was where it usually got interesting. Here was where we talked. I don't know if I was really in contact with her then, but usually at that point she was aware of all that had transpired between that first night and today—including her attempted betrayal and the trap I led her into.
"So, you're going to Menotomy?"
"Yes, Alicia. My friend Paul needs me," I answered. I don't think my motives were as pure as all that, but I often don't understand why I do things until later. I sort of feel my way through situations and analyze afterward.
Alicia gave me a smile that let me know she thought my response was bullshit. Then she got a sad, fearful look in her eyes. She was thinking about how she was going to have to go back to her new home soon. "It's horrible, Abe. You need to help me. You can't even imagine..."
Her face was white as a sheet. She's tried to describe her life to me. I hung on to the hope that all of this was just a dream, but it was unlike any dream I had ever had. She had given me such useful information—some of which had saved my life.
"You know I can't help you," was all I could say. I had tried. Every avenue of research had come up empty. It was like she was in hell. Not dead, but not alive by any reasonable definition of the word. Constant torture, interrupted by her occasional forays into my dreams. I'd often wondered if her wardens let her have these moments of respite as a way of making her agony all the more painful.
I calmed myself with the notion that nothing lasts forever. Entropy always wins, even if it takes billions of years.
"What's waiting for me in Menotomy, Alicia?" I asked. The pain and despair in her eyes was so deep. But if I didn't want to end up dead or worse...
"Abe," she said, her voice smooth and sultry, “can’t we do other things?" Her hand stroked my cock, and unbelievably it responded.
I knew she wanted to drag out our time. If I got what I wanted, I might leave. Or maybe her motives were worse. Either way, I needed to know what was there, and her attempt to distract me disturbed me.
"What's there?" I asked again.
“You’ll know when you get there, and you’ll know what to do. But you aren’t doing your friend any favors.”
She started to stroke my cock again. I reflected that the alarm wouldn't go off for hours. In this dream world, I could recover quite fast, and she still had two pretty holes I would like to visit.
Still, I wondered if I was really doing her any favors. But that thought disappeared as she took my cock in her mouth.
***
I arrived in Menotomy the next morning. It wasn't hard to find Paul's church. It was the biggest one in such a little town. Of course, he was quite a successful pastor. It was a life that chose him, I suppose. What other career could a bookish kid named Paul choose?
The facilities were very modern but it was clear they were in crisis mode. The receptionist was nowhere to be seen. I found Paul's office quickly enough, and there were muffled voices coming from behind the door. I knew it could be a tense counseling session or some other sensitive matter, but I also was on a mission of sorts and I didn't have time for tact.
I'm goofy looking enough that people assume I am totally socially inept. I knew if I barged in, people would give me the benefit of the doubt, so that is what I did.
Paul was sitting on a couch talking quietly to a middle-aged woman who had invested quite a lot of money and time into looking young. She had been crying a lot. Her kid must have been one of the kids who’d vanished. But there was more. In her eyes, which rose to meet mine as I walked in, I saw guilt.
She ran off sobbing. Paul gave me a look—half angry, half relieved.
Paul continued to look at me. His face was blank, then a forced sickening smile turned on. I saw the recognition in his eyes and the smile disappeared. His face went slack, and I thought for a moment he was going to fall over as his body started to sway, but he steadied himself on his glass-topped metal frame Apple-store looking desk. All this seemed to happen in a second or two. An untrained observer might have missed it.
"Thank God you're here, Abe!" He hugged me and a sob escaped him.
I checked my cynicism and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume this was genuine.
He offered me the couch to sit on and he pulled up a small desk chair from the corner of the room.
"You must realize you aren't getting the kids back, yes?" I was not so much looking for his opinion as trying to figure out how close to collapse he was.
A slight shiver ran through his body and he made a long sigh. "The theologically correct reply is that ‘all things are possible with God.’ But I know the kids are gone. I need to know why, Abe."
"It's not your fault, Paul." It wasn’t much consolation but it was all I could say.
"Are you sure? I've believed in God as far back as I can recall. I've seen some weird stuff, but I've never pursued or studied the occult. But I have friends who do. Pentecostal preachers who know about demons. They've seen some pretty awful stuff. They say demons only can affect you if you do something that lets them in. Sin, for example."
I looked at him for a moment. I was glad I had my poker face already in place because the urge to laugh was incredible. I was sure those preachers had dealt with dark powers but if they really knew what was going on, they'd all retire. What had happened here in Menotomy was out of their league.
But his talk of sin got my mind working and words formed in my head. A question was stirring in my brain and it felt like the right direction to go. "That woman who was just here, what's her name?"
"Elsie."
"How long have you been fucking Elsie?"
He punched me good and hard. He had telegraphed the punch but I let it land because Paul was an old friend.
He sat back down and sobbed in his hands for a few seconds. I was glad as it gave me some time to start seeing straight again.
"It's worse," he said. "I've been fucking her daughter, too. She's only 17. My career is over if this gets out."
He stared off into space for a few minutes. I watched him patiently. "She lost her youngest child and I lost my only one," he said.
"Tell me what happened," I said. "What you saw and heard."
"It was such a wonderful spring day, Abe. It was cool but not cold and just slightly damp. It was the first good park day after a long winter, so lots of parents were with their kids at the playground. I was there with my three year-old, Jake.
"I knew so many of the people. Many of them were from my church or were people I knew from my work there—community involvement is one of our core values. Kids were yelling and running. Some of the parents were trying to control things, but most of us had given up and let the kids run as wild as we dared.
"And then the noise started." Paul paused, his mouth still hanging a bit open like he was trying to catch some last taste of the words, like there was some meaning he might feel in them with his tongue.
"What were the noises?" I asked.
"Well, that's the thing. I've talked with literally dozens of the adults at the park and they all heard something different."
"What did you hear, Paul?"
"It was a steady, deep pounding, like some kind of construction equipment. But some people heard crashing glass or music or animal noises... All kinds of things..."
"Go on, Paul. This may be important."
"I was with Elsie and a few other parents."
"Was your wife there?" I regretted that as soon as I said it. I'm a detective of sorts and my instinct is to rattle people and see what falls out. But P
aul was an old friend and he'd been rattled enough.
"Yes, Amy was there," he said, with contorted mouth and furrowed brow.
"Go on, Paul. I'll try not to be more of an ass than I need to be."
"Groups of us start to look confused. We all knew something wasn’t right about those noises." Paul put his face in his hands like he was going to start crying again.
I patted him on the shoulder because I didn't know what else to do.
"One by one, or in small groups, the kids all start running for the woods. Not scared or anything. It's like some kind of game. Most of us parents were looking at each other at this point, so we didn't really notice how weird it was for all these kids, who were seconds before all playing different games or just running around the way toddlers and little kids do, to start playing one game that involved running in the same direction.
"Somebody, I don't know who, started yelling for his kids to come back. The urgency in his voice woke all of us from what seemed like a trance. And the kids were gone. Most of us ran into the woods, yelling names, pushing branches, tearing up bushes. They were just gone.
"The cops came and there were search parties, but I wouldn't have asked you to come out here if they had found anything. Just nothing. Abe, I don't think there is anyone in town who doesn't know some kid that is gone now. Abe, this town's future disappeared that day."
Paul was being melodramatic, the way preachers often are, I thought. Or maybe it was an expression of grief.
"Paul, you don't really think I can get those kids back, do you?" I asked. "You know they are gone for good, right?" I've always been one for tearing the Band-Aid off quickly. Hearts heal faster when hope is gone and you stop picking at the wound.
Paul sighed and said, "I’m supposed to say that all things are possible with God, but I guess I don't have any hope for my Jake to return.”
Grave Hauntings: Where Sexy and Sinful Meets Dark and Chilling Page 2
