More than that, she wondered if whatever had made the thing would be back.
She focused her attentions on climbing out. Using the shovel as a crutch, she buried it in the floor of the hole and reached upward, clawing at the smooth edges and trying to make her way up. There was precious little to keep hold of however, and her injured finger made it so that she had to try it one-handed, lest she rip her wound open afresh. Carefully, she dug her shoes into the wall and tried to climb. Then, with a jump, she grabbed onto a large stone that jutted out from the soil above. She held onto it, clambering up the side of the hole and hoping all the while that it wouldn't give way. The stone remained firm, and with some difficulty, Kim managed to claw her way out of the hole some minutes later.
As she flopped onto the grass and crawled away from the entrance, her limbs burning for the exertion, she looked around. The dead woods greeted her, the sun still burned in the sky. Little had changed since she'd fallen into the hole, but superadded to the cool breeze was the sensation that she was being watched. A surveyance of the woods yielded nothing. Perhaps, then, something was watching her from the pit. She imagined some nightmarish thing ambling through that darkened tunnel, its eyes rising over the lip of the aperture to meet her in the field. Not so long ago the day had been pleasant. Now, the mood was spoiled, ruined utterly by the discovery of this mysterious underground tunnel and the attendant presence. Something sinister had her in its sights and, without bothering to retrieve her shovel from the inside of the pit, she returned home as precipitously as possible, jogging through the field and not daring to glance back.
Where did the tunnel terminate? Did it really lead back towards the house? As Kim galloped along the field, she wondered if she wasn't walking directly above that accursed underground passage. What dread aberration had carved that path through the underground, and for what purpose?
Digging up that grave, she decided, was an awful idea. Whatever was down there... it was better off buried and forgotten.
Chapter 5
Julian took one look at her and began to laugh. “Where the heck have you been?”
Her clothing was marked in soil, her arms, face and hair were covered in it, and the bandage on her finger had come mostly unwound. More than that, the grime was held fast to her body by a layer of glistening sweat. Standing in the kitchen, panting and kicking off her shoes, Kim paused just long enough to give her husband the daggers. From there, she quickly made her way up to the bath.
“You look like a tramp, but I love you anyhow,” he said as she went, laughing all the while.
Throwing her clothes into the hamper, she turned the water on as hot as it would go and let the tap in the bath run for a long while before she even stepped in. She would start with a piping hot shower and then unwind with a warm bath. Carefully she undid her bandage and threw it into the waste bin. The sight of the wound, barely scabbed over, made her ill. Knocking a few pieces of grass from her hair, she glanced herself over in the foggy mirror before stepping into the shower.
The hot water felt amazing against her skin, the best thing she'd felt in ages. She looked downward as trails of brownish muck ran from her body and down the drain. Going to have to clean the tub after this, she thought with a grimace. Dampening her hair, she kneaded at her scalp, dissolved the clumps of dirt that'd clung to her locks and then reached for her shampoo.
The sound of the tap incited feelings of great calm in her. Kim lathered up her hair and let the shampoo sit a while. Then, while her mane was still sudsy, she applied a generous dollop of body wash to her scrubber and went to town on the remaining patches of dirt. All the while, she thought back to the grave, to the massive tunnel she'd discovered. It felt absolutely surreal. Had she told Julian about it-- something she had zero interest in doing-- he wouldn't have believed her. Hell, until she'd fallen straight into it, she wouldn't have believed it, either. But it was real, that yawning, pitch black tunnel. It'd been carved, no, clawed out by something she couldn't put a name or face to. What had been buried there, she wondered, and who had done the burying? And, for that matter, what could possibly possess the strength to create such a subterranean passage? No animal she could think of, even animals known for their burrowing habits, could possibly have created something so impressive.
Impressive wasn't the right word.
The tunnel was massive, mysterious, frightening.
There was simply no way an animal had been responsible for it.
She shuddered as she thought back to the almost tangible darkness that reigned there, to the rough appearance of the earthen walls. What sort of creature would dare traverse such a space? What could possibly feel comfortable so far underground, in a shadow-choked passage of its own making? The whole thing defied imagination.
When she felt reasonably clean, she took to filling up the tub. Then, submerging herself in the warm water, she dumped some bath beads in and watched listlessly as they fizzed up, her mind occupied with other things.
She was getting nowhere fast.
With each passing day, her fears only mounted. Where the house had made her uneasy early on, the frights it provided her with now were of a far more serious sort. There was no delusion she could cling to to allay her fear; something was after her. What it wanted, what it wished to impart, was a mystery. And she was keen to solve it. No matter what she did, all of her leads seemed to dry up however, leaving her hopelessly stranded till something reached out and touched her. She considered the acquaintances of the Reeds, the three individuals Edwin had put her into touch with. She'd spoken to two of them, and they'd each given a different account of the couple. It was tremendously unsettling. And the more things didn't add up, the more lost she felt.
Each time she hit a dead end, the feelings of vulnerability in the back of her mind would resurface, take a bow. They were back now, churning beneath the surface of every thought. She had no one she could depend on; Julian wasn't interested in pursuing any of this. She loved him, dearly, but she knew she was in this alone, and that whatever was reaching out to her was interested principally in her. The house had shown precious little interest in Julian. He hadn't suffered from the nightmares, hadn't faced the horrors she'd been faced with. Why was she more receptive to it? Why was it that Dakota reached out to her in dreams?
She knocked apart a mound of bubbles.
There you go again, asking your questions.
Knowing that there would be no rest until she'd advanced in her investigations, Kim exited the bath, took her time in toweling off, and then walked to the bedroom. She put on fresh clothes and stretched out on the bed, the sound of a power drill echoing from the downstairs. She couldn't help but roll her eyes at it. Here Julian was, concerning himself with renovations, while she'd just gone out and discovered a winding tunnel beneath their property. For all she knew, it probably led all the way to their house, its terminus located somewhere nearby.
She tried not to think of that. For, if she did, thoughts of some dread, nebulous something, emerging in the night to enter the house, naturally followed.
Rolling onto her side, she perused the nightstand. There, she caught sight of Dakota's journal, its leather-bound form basking in the darkness of the room. A thin film of whitish light drifted in through the breaks in the curtains. Save for this, the room was largely dark. It was hard to know what time it was; that it was late in the afternoon she felt somewhat sure.
Picking up the book, Kim turned it over in her hands and examined it. The journal had been the key. If only she'd been able to read it from beginning to end she'd have ended up with the answers she wanted. There were many entries, perhaps across several years, that could've elucidated the mysteries surrounding Dakota and Marshall Reed if not for the damage to their pages. Instead, she was left with a book whose overwhelming bulk was useless, frayed paper and splattered ink.
Maybe that was the point; maybe Dakota was trying to make contact with her because she wanted someone to know about what'd really happened to her and
her husband more than seven years ago. The journal had been left behind as a clue, but when it became too damaged to read, Dakota's spirit had been forced to intercede. This was a pleasant spin on the situation, one that Kim was eager to cling to. Something bad happened to the two of them, and they're trying to let someone know about it from the other side. They want people to know what really happened to them, why they disappeared without a trace. And it looks like I'm the only person they want to talk to. The job falls to me.
Kim considered cracking the cover to re-read the legible tidbits, but found herself lulled into a light sleep instead. Her head firmly on the pillow and her limbs growing slack, she dropped the book softly onto her belly and began to breathe deeply.
She was asleep before she knew it.
***
Numbness. An all-encompassing darkness.
And then, slowly, Kim passed into the dream.
She knew herself to be dreaming from the onset, her lucidity creeping in before even she'd had a chance to appraise the dreamscape.
She was in her room, still on the bed, the space lit in a flickering orange glow as if illuminated by candles. She looked up from her pillow, found the journal still sitting close-by, and picked it up.
Then, for reasons she couldn't altogether articulate, she rolled over, opened it, and began to read.
Somehow, though the discovery did not excite her quite so much in the moment as it would upon waking, the writing was all legible. The journal was pristine, undamaged, the way it must've looked before Dakota had abandoned it to the humid chamber in the cellar so many years ago.
Licking her finger, she leafed through the book, sitting up in the dimness and examining each page. The paper was crisp now, the words neat and almost jumping out at her as the pages turned. Reacquainting herself with Dakota's doubts and anguish, Kim felt a profound stirring of pity in her heart where previously there'd been mainly shock and apprehension. She felt somehow close to Dakota, and knew better than ever before the depth of the sorrows that'd plagued her on her quest to become a mother.
Then, just past the midway point of the book, after a stretch of anguished, repeated passages, Kim felt also the surging triumph that had been Dakota's at finally achieving her dream of motherhood. She felt it like she herself had found the child, like her own dreams and prayers had been answered in the woods that day in decades passed. It was like reading an emotional novel. She was growing invested in the characters, could see them coming to life in a way. The character had been so effectively written in this particular tale that Dakota's happiness and sadness were virtually Kim's own.
She pushed past the familiar parts, skimmed quickly to the entries she'd most wanted to read, eager to find them in a similar state of legibility. The photograph was in the same spot she'd originally found it, sandwiched between two pages. Turning it over, she found something written on the reverse. She hadn't been able to read it before, but could see it plainly now. She mulled it over for a time, puzzling, before ultimately setting it down and moving on through the journal.
On the back of the photo was written: I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE. I AM THE WAY TO A FORESAKEN PEOPLE. I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL SORROW.
What this meant, if anything, she could not say. She didn't care to ponder its significance, either, for the untarnished entries in the latter half of the journal beckoned. Excitedly, she lapped them up, one after another. So much of what she read in it would end up a blurry mess of half-forgotten nonsense by the time she awoke, but in the moment she felt her mind enriched, her curiosities satisfied. Fear melted away in the face of the knowledge she'd so fervently sought.
And as she read, she could almost sense someone's breath upon her ear, could make out the words, as she read them, relayed to her in someone else's voice. Someone, maybe, was hovering at her bedside, whispering the entries into her ear as she lazily stretched out and her eyes passed across each page.
There was mention, now and again, of “The Amber Light”. Dakota explained in hushed tones that they'd installed it in the woods because their baby had run away from them. The light was to serve as a beacon to draw it back to the property. Kim laughed to herself as she read; a big, stupid laugh. How could a baby possibly escape its parents? How could a baby leave the house at all without help? It seemed crazy, silly, that such a thing should happen. And yet, that was precisely what she was reading, and Dakota was relaying to her, in an entry dated just ten months from the day the photo was taken.
Of course there was more, and in Dakota's gripes about Marshall, Kim could only sympathize. Dakota talked about how Marshall didn't understand, that he did not love their baby the way she loved it. He had said to her, once, with great emphasis and apparent fear, that what they'd come upon in the woods was not a baby at all, though what he meant by that Dakota declined to say. Dakota dismissed his concerns as rubbish, chalked everything up to his nervousness over the prospect of fatherhood. “He is willing to say anything, to come up with whatever outlandish tales he must, in order to evade his responsibilities as a father. That is why the baby does not care for him.”
Never once did Dakota mention the baby by name and she said nothing of its sex. Kim flipped back several pages, trying to find the spot where Dakota had mentioned picking out a name for the child, but failed to find it. She continued onward instead.
Entries spanned across the next twenty years, detailing Dakota's great sadness at the baby's absence. She mentions seeing the baby from time to time in the woods, but that the child only ever returns briefly. Oh, how my child has grown, she would often write. During these years she mentions great reticence at leaving the house, in case the child should return to her. She waits long into the night, looking out to the woods, but often sees no sign of it. More and more, with every year that passes, she describes the alienation she feels from her husband and their former friends. Why doesn't Marshall want me to be a mother? This was our dream. Why doesn't he care for our only child? They see few people, scarcely leave the property. This, then, was around the time that they began drifting away from friends, like Edwin and Enid had said. Though, they weren't doing so because they were antisocial or obsessed with the house like so many had thought.
They were doing it because they were waiting for this mysterious child to return to them after having run away. The child no one knew about. This, and not the house, had been Dakota's obsession.
We've outfitted the spare room in the cellar in case the child should decide to return. A nursery for my baby! Kim pictured the dim, moist room in the basement and found herself smiling warmly. She could see in her mind's eye the figure of Dakota toiling in that room, painting a scene on the walls, arranging the baby furniture within.
The journal continued, the last few entries from about eight years ago.
Once, when the child had returned to them in the night, Marshall had taken it badly and punished it. He'd allegedly buried it in a field near the woods.
Dakota delighted in this, and described how ineffectual it'd been in separating mother and child. I raised a strong baby, and Marshall was a fool. The child has broken free of that little trap and has come back to me. My child is now in the nursery. Finally home, after all this time. The door is solid there, and I can visit whenever I like...
From across the room, Kim heard a whistle. Looking up from her book, she saw the squat, naked form of a white-haired old woman in the doorway, looking out into the hall. The woman started from the bedroom, whistling cheerfully as she went. Kim could hear her going down the stairs, could hear her heading for the living room. Kim stood and followed her, her own footfalls silent as she went. The whistling continued, high-pitched and melodious. What would Julian say now? Dakota was headed downstairs; he was bound to see her.
But, to Kim's surprise, the downstairs was profoundly dark.
Forced to follow the sound of the whistling and to navigate by touch, Kim ambled carefully through the living room, into the kitchen, and then joined Dakota in descending the basement
stairs. There was a light coming from something nearby, some transient, flickering source of orange-yellow light she couldn't account for in their surroundings. When they'd made it into the cellar, Kim then followed Dakota's small, shriveled form into the hidden chamber. That is, the nursery. The pair stepped inside, and after a few moments, the whistling came to an abrupt stop.
The chamber was inundated in darkness, but the dim, intermittent glow continued, giving Kim just enough light to see by. She didn't feel like she was properly seeing her surroundings, rather, she couldn't but imagine she was sensing them through other means. Physically, she wasn't there; only her mind seemed to drift through the house. Her eyes were closed, she was actually in bed. She knew and understood this. Still, this knowledge did nothing to rob this dream of its realism. She was in both places at once; two halves of her had separated, writhing off in different directions like the two halves of a severed bait worm.
Dakota had paused before the strange panel in the wall of the room, the set of switches and controls that Julian had been hopeless to decipher. He'd deemed them obsolete, left in the room for some long-defunct appliance from a bygone era. But Dakota's interest in the thing seemed to prove otherwise. She reached out with a bony, white hand and slowly pawed at the switches. She did it feebly, her voice quivering in the back of her throat like some sort of moan. Without turning to face her companion, Dakota gave a frail plea. “Bring back my baby,” she asked, her voice sounding like so much dust.
Dakota's long finger was extended, pointing to the panel.
And then, with a sudden dampening of the orange flicker, there was darkness again.
***
Kim was climbing out of bed before she even fully realized it.
She went downstairs, surprised to find it darker out. She had no idea how long she'd been asleep. Deep, hammering noises issuing from the kitchen quickly reminded her of Julian's renovation work, the sounds of a sledge breaking through the old wooden cabinets meeting her ears and inciting a grimace. The racket rang through the house with her husband's every grunt. How she'd managed to sleep through it was anyone's guess.
The Amber Light (Black Acres Book 3) Page 3
