“You still haven’t explained yourself. Why were you in the auditorium? Why?” I wanted to vomit, but my mouth felt dry, so very dry.
“I heard singing. I thought it was my mother. She likes to sing.” He ducked his head and stared at his hands, a gesture that accompanied many a tall tale around the academy. But always from other children, never Ollie. So why was he lying now?
“Your parents are not coming, are they? Tell me the truth. Where are your parents?” He refused to speak to me. I struggled to my feet and put on my clothes. I was sliding my suspenders up over my shoulders when I caught a glimpse of the boy’s cot. It was littered with pictures. I recognized the paper, the very expensive paper like the kind the headmaster liked to use. But there was no time to give lectures on thievery and asking permission. I could not take my eyes off the images; they were compelling in a ghastly way. I squatted down and picked them up, examining them one by one. There was a small boy standing on the auditorium stage. A dark figure behind him, with large, slanted eyes. And this was clearly the woman with the braids—and that strange man! Yes! Ollie had seen them too!
But the last picture, the one I now held in my trembling hands, disturbed me the most. Clearly, it was me. I recognized the beard; I usually kept it trimmed neat, but in this illustration I was unkempt. My suspenders were tangled around my arms, and I was dead. I had to be dead; I was lying in the center of the stage with a knife protruding from my chest.
“Ollie?” I asked, unable to formulate a question beyond that.
He put his hand on my shoulder. “We have to go now.”
“Why would you draw this? This is a nasty thing to do, Ollie.” And then my mind swirled with fear-fueled questions. “Did you kill that bird, lad? Tell me. Tell me the truth. You killed it, didn’t you? I believed you were innocent—how could you do such a thing?”
“I did not, Mr. McCandlish! Please, sir. We have to go. They will be coming back soon, and they will be so angry.” Ollie’s voice shook, but I could not move from the spot. Nor could I stop staring at the illustration of my death.
“Why did you draw this? Don’t lie to me, lad! You saw them; I can see by your own expression that you saw them just as I did!”
He took another step away from me, and this time his back was to the door. He fumbled with the button of his coat as he began to cry. “I drew them to show you what will happen if we stay! They’re whispering to me, Mr. McCandlish! Whispering so loudly! Make them stop!”
I held the picture up and waved it at him. “What does this mean?”
“Please, we have to go.”
And right before my eyes, two black, snakelike hands reached through the closed door and snatched the boy away. One hand was clamped around his mouth so he could not scream, and his eyes were wide with terror. Loud footsteps banged down the hallway, and then there was nothing.
Nothing except the sound of my own shouting.
After some time, I heaved myself off the floor, slid on my shoes and reached for the doorknob. There was nothing for it. I had to search for Ollie. Something had grabbed him, stolen him and spirited him away. But where had they taken him? This must be the work of those horrible creatures—the October People! I glanced down at the foreboding picture.
Did I really have to wonder? I knew where I would find him. I knew where I had to go. If I wanted to save Ollie, that is. Like a coward I paced the floor and considered, if only briefly, how quickly I could run from the place. How long would it take me to put a hundred miles between myself and this repulsive school? But how could I? Ollie trusted me like nobody ever had. If I had ever had a son, he would have been a boy like Ollie. Quiet, thoughtful. And now the lad was caught in this hideous tangle of events the same as me, yet I did not believe him to be the cause of any of it. What should I do?
I heard music. The tinkling of a piano, the sound of a woman’s voice, a clear and elegant soprano. Without bothering to lock the door, I trudged into the hallway. I was never coming back, was I? There wasn’t a chance I would be able to escape this place. Not with evil creatures lurking in the hallways, snatching children through doors, chasing us, their phantom footsteps always behind us.
As I opened the door and walked into the hall, I wondered how all this had come about. What had I done to deserve this? Was it some cosmic collusion that caused me to be here with Ollie? Was this always to be my fate? My only wish had been to see the star alignment, to enjoy the quiet beauty of the countryside. But that was before a helpless boy needed me.
I took another step and then another. I ignored the many shadowy faces that peered at me from inside the now open doors. And to think, Nanna always told us that spooks only appeared after dark, that they were creatures of the night. But here it was afternoon and they were everywhere. I got the sensation that somehow, the walls were writhing with them. Yes, the spooks were built into the place. They were ground into the bricks, and when the time was right, they sprang to life.
Nanna had been wrong. Golden sunshine filtered through the big window over the landing. I was not surprised to see people huddled together in the chairs; they were whispering to one another, and I was the subject of their conversation. They lined the stairs and waited for me on the lower level. But these weren’t living people.
They were dead. And I was about to join them.
Chapter Eleven—Jocelyn
“We’re in here, boy. This is where we’ll sleep tonight. Or at least where you’ll sleep.” He made a funny groaning sound, and I laughed at hearing it. Sometimes I felt as if the dog knew what I was saying; more likely, he just understood the tone of my voice. I always knew dogs were smart, but I had no idea they were so expressive until I adopted Sherman.
After my encounter with the dead Gary Holloway, I had to admit that I was happy not to return to the Leaf Academy alone. I still wasn’t sure what Adrian and Mr. Holloway expected me to accomplish, but here I was. Yeah, this was why I came, but those kinds of freaky encounters still shook me.
And he threatened to peel my skin off!
No matter how experienced you were, hearing something like that would rock a person. But no way was I skipping out on the Leaf Academy investigation. What I was going to do was take the next few hours to review the research material I brought with me and flip through the journal I found. I looked out the window for a few minutes, just in case Mr. Weirdo showed up again. Could that really have been Gary Holloway? If I had a picture to look at, I was sure I could identify him. I would never forget the clover-shaped mole on his cheek, the definite cowlick at his right temple. If he was really an apparition, he must be a strong one to project himself into our world with such detail.
It was still early in the day, only noon, but my time was running out. I should have asked for one more day; I was pretty sure Adrian would have given me the extra time. No, I better stick with the plan. I opened my soda and sniffed the air. I thought I caught a whiff of stale cigarette smoke, but then it was gone as quickly as I detected it. Sherman didn’t move an inch; in fact, he decided my sleeping bag was the perfect place to lie down.
“I thought you were sick. I’m glad you’re not, but what are you going to do when I have to really go out of town?” I shook my head at him as I opened the journal. With the combination of daylight and my LED light, I could finally read the name written neatly inside.
This journal belongs to Moriah Mitchell.
The first twenty pages or so were pretty mundane, the usual stuff one might read in a headmaster’s journal. Kids behaving, kids misbehaving. Oh, this looked interesting.
I spoke with Mr. McCandlish today. He has seen the boy; the cycle continues. What was thought banished has returned. I fear that the worst will happen for him, but who can prevent it? I cannot. That I know as well as any here. There is no hope for it.
The pages felt dirty beneath my fingers, but I turned them hastily.
McCandlish calls the boy Ollie, and the ghost becomes more visible by the hour. It is God’s blessing that many are gone
now. McCandlish is fully entwined in the Spider’s trap, for it has made itself known to the sad teacher in ways I could not have imagined. I depart this place today, and that is none too soon. I have warned McCandlish that he must not stay here, that he must leave. He will not listen. He will be gone when I return, I am sure of it. May God have mercy on us all!
A sketch of black feathers had been carefully drawn at the bottom of the page. It was actually very fine work from an artistic standpoint, but seeing the familiar image in this old journal gave me the creeps. How was it that I, a visitor to the Leaf Academy more than eighty years later, would see the same feather? But it couldn’t be the same. There were probably lots of crows in this area and had been for quite some time. Lots and lots.
The journal stopped abruptly at the end of September 1937, but I kept flipping through the pages. Many pages had been torn out of the book; a few stubs were left, but clearly someone had very sloppily removed some of them. I skimmed the book again. Nope, those pages were gone.
“Come on, Sherman. Let’s go down the hall for a second.”
I returned to the room where I’d found the box that held the journal and sifted through it hoping to find more of the same. Most of the items were uninteresting, just as I first believed, but then I found an old red paper folder. Inside were the missing pages. These were drawings, a child’s drawings by the look of them.
And they were terrible to look at.
A small boy sitting in a chair in the auditorium, a gruesome smile on his face. A dead man lying on the stage with a knife in his chest. A woman floating above him, her mouth open as if she were screaming or singing or saying something. And there were so many eyes, all around the boy and the stage. I took pictures of the horrible images because that was all I could think to do. A shudder shot through me as I slid the papers around and my eyes fell on the last sheet of paper.
This was me.
It had to be me. I was sitting next to the boy, and beside me was the man in the black jacket, the one I believed to be Gary Holloway. This was no Rembrandt painting, but the artist had enough skill for me to identify myself easily enough. My dreadlocks were hanging over my shoulders, a camera dangled from my neck—and my neck! Why was it hanging at such an odd angle?
Why did my neck look like that? Was it broken?
“No!” I said as I let the picture flutter to the ground. I heard the sound of an old-fashioned lighter clicking in the hallway. Sherman heard it too. He got quiet, but his eyes were focused on the open door. He wasn’t sitting beside me now, as was his custom whenever I got still. No, the furry canine was poised to pounce, run or snap at the intruder. A shadow passed the door. Sherman began to bark, but like a good dog he didn’t abandon me.
Okay, Jocelyn Graves! Get it together! You’ve got a job to do. Remember?
“Hey!” I yelled as I stepped out into the hallway. I didn’t have my camera, but I had my phone. I fumbled with the screen and tapped the camera app. It opened, and I took a panoramic burst of photos. “Who is out here?” No one answered, and my voice echoed back to me. “Are you Moriah Mitchell? Mr. McCandlish? Ollie? Is that you?” Sherman barked once as a small shadow swept across the hall. And then all was still. I petted the dog on his head.
“Well, boy, if we’re going to chase shadows, we better do it right. Come on,” I said as I hurried back to my room to gather my audio recorder and anything else I could manage to carry. So much for research. The spirits of the Leaf Academy were stirring now, and I was ready to capture the evidence of their existence. Non timebo mala. I will fear no evil. I was beginning to understand why they had that engraved over the door. Had the builders of the Leaf Academy always known this place was a spiritual hot spot?
That’s when I noticed the picture on my cot, but I’d just dropped it in the other room. I couldn’t help but pick it up. Only there were figures missing from the sketch—the man in the leather jacket wasn’t sitting beside me now. He was gone, and so was the boy.
I was sitting alone in the auditorium. With my neck twisted at an awkward angle.
What was this supposed to be? Some sort of freaky threat? This had to be a joke, an extremely jacked-up joke. But who would go to the trouble of pulling such a horrible gag on me? Pete Broadus wasn’t this smart. And Midas? Never in a million years. Nobody knew where I was except Adrian Shanahan and Mr. Holloway.
Sherman began to growl at the doorway. “I know, I hear it too.” I clicked on the digital recorder in hopes of recording the sounds of the footsteps. They weren’t heavy ones but small ones, as if a petite lady or a child were pacing up and down the hallway.
“I can hear you out there. Why don’t you come in? Don’t be afraid. Is that you, Ollie?”
Sherman didn’t move, and neither of us could look away as the doorknob began to slowly twist.
Chapter Twelve—Jocelyn
After a few seconds, my investigator’s brain kicked in and I stepped back, reached for my camera and hit the video button. Whatever was on the other side of that door seemed to know what I intended. The twisting doorknob ceased, but that was just the calm before the storm.
Tap, tap, tap.
Loud, persistent tapping—no, make that banging—echoed from the wall next to me. I got the feeling that “it” wanted us out of the room. The first bang struck the wall on the left, that was the outer wall, and then it hit the one on the right. And then there was banging on the wall near the windows. I could hear the old windows shaking in the panes, and I prayed that they wouldn’t break and shatter all over us. Poor Sherman began barking; he was clearly terrified, but I couldn’t offer him any comfort. My dog never barked, never. I didn’t blame him one bit. I was shaking in my hiking boots. The tapping became banging, horrible, life-threatening banging that offended not only my ears but also my nervous system. I never wanted to pee so bad in my life. I grabbed Sherman’s collar to keep him from launching himself at the wall beside us when finally, unable to stand it anymore, I screamed, “Stop!”
To my surprise, it did. Sherman stopped barking too; he was panting now. I felt the same way, as if I couldn’t quite catch my breath. I patted him on the head as I stared at the doorknob. It was all too quiet now.
And then the music started. Swelling orchestra music, like the kind you would hear if you were seated in the auditorium. I shivered as I thought about the horrible drawing with me sitting beside the ghost boy. Was that what this was about? Was the ghost boy trying to lead me to the auditorium? That’s where they had found the very dead body of Hugh McCandlish in the fall of 1937. He’d been dead for many weeks, or at least that was what was printed in the newspaper at the time. For the life of me, I hadn’t been able to locate a coroner’s report or anything like it with Hugh McCandlish’s name on it. Was this the Ollie spirit Mr. Mitchell referred to in his journal?
The music got louder. What was that tune? It seemed like I should know it from my college theater days. I walked to the window and with some elbow grease managed to open it a crack. I could hear people applauding, and now a woman was singing. Even though I could barely hear her, I knew this song!
Goodnight, my love, the tired old moon is descending
Goodnight, my love, my moment with you now is ending
It was so heavenly, holding you close to me
It will be heavenly to hold you again in a dream
Immediately I began recording, but from this distance it wasn’t going to be hi-def material. I had to get closer. I looked down at Sherman.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked him as I put the device back in my pocket and dug through his overnight bag for his leash. Snapping it on him, I patted his head and gave him a pep talk. He tugged back but didn’t fight me too much as the music played on. It could be an old record player I’m hearing. The music did sound kind of scratchy, otherworldly.
The stars above have promised to meet us tomorrow
Till then, my love, how dreary the new day will seem
So for the present, dear,
we’ll have to part
Sleep tight, my love, goodnight, my love
“Okay, boy. This is for all the money. We’ve got to get close enough to record the sound; that means you can’t run off and leave me. And be quiet, okay?” He whined and pushed his cold nose against my hand. “You can do this, Sherman Graves. You’re a ghost hunter just like your Mom.”
Together we faced the door, and I pressed my ear against it to make sure I couldn’t hear anything in the hall. Obviously, there was a ton of activity in the building tonight, but the last thing I wanted to do was walk into Gary Holloway. Hey, that’s kind of trippy. Why is it dark in here? It wasn’t anywhere near sunset. Why did it feel like whatever intelligence was here—and I believed there was an intelligence operating here—wanted to keep this place in the dark?
Because you can’t see what’s hiding in the dark, and it doesn’t want you to see it. Not yet.
As I put my hand on the doorknob, the music stopped. Even the sound of applause waned, but there was no turning back now. Clutching Sherman’s leash tight, I swung the door open and immediately stepped out into the hallway.
“Hello?” I clicked on the recorder again. I had Sherman in one hand, the recorder in the other and a camera around my neck. I sure hoped I didn’t have to take off running again. I wasn’t graceful enough to navigate all three and my feet successfully.
I gasped at the sight of the boy standing near the upstairs landing. He had on dark clothing, but I could see quite a bit of detail like the dirty hems of his sleeves and pant legs. Yes, he was very dirty, as if he’d just dug his way out of his own grave. I couldn’t see his hands or fingernails from here, but I was pretty sure that if I could I would see that they were filthy. His hair hung in his eyes, obscuring them from view, but I knew he was watching me.
The October People (Gulf Coast Paranormal Extra Book 1) Page 6
