Chapter 3: Whit & John
Sarah haunted his dreams for the first time in a long while that night. Her pink and white checkered swimsuit seemed to swell at her breasts. Her hair lengthened, darkening ever so slightly as she swirled around him with the same aroma Sharon had. Then poised beside his ear as when she first entered his dreams, he actually felt her breath. Her fuller, redder mouth lingered at the corner of his eye as she caressed his neck. Pangs of guilt filled him at the faint memory of the little girl, she used to be.
She whispered, “Stay away from my niece,” raking her nails across his throat.
Whit sat bolt upright, flailing, knocking the clutter from his desk, the skin of his throat searing. He gasped, eyes darting over the shadows of his lamp lit office. Then amid the dozens of unread emails from area funeral homes and the fruitless continued search for Living Rock Ltd. on the laptop screen, Whit caught the reflection of three long, red streaks rising on his neck; it wasn't just a dream. He froze, heart jerking upon seeing something else there—the distorted, blurry face of someone peering into the window behind him.
Whit bolted onto the large front porch in a breathless sprint from his office at the opposite end of the house. The screen door banging shut behind him. He ran to the porch edge, grabbing the post to leap the railing as he did so often as a kid. Then ready to run the length of the house he froze, shocked.
There stood John smiling as always. He suddenly reminded Whit of Tom Sawyer standing there in the dead of night, bare except for jean shorts. John's smile broadened into a boisterous laugh. He laughed so long Whit found himself joining him. There they stood laughing at each other in the dim lights of the windows.
Until John finally broke it, “Great job numb nuts.”
Whit collapsed to his knees, coughing before becoming speechless, unsure if he should weep at finally hearing his brother's voice again, or bolt in terror. Whit tried to speak.
John cut him off. “I didn't have anything to say. Said it all the first night, I came back.” After a long silence John tilted his head smiling again with, “She's had a crush on you since you first noticed her. You're the only one that has—any of us.”
John seemed to be making up for lost time. “But it's never what people like you think Whit; it has nothing to do with seeing us. It's the dreaming where we really get to live again. Hell. We don't even know why you can see any of us unless that's part of the dreaming thing.”
John stepped forward a little. Whit quickly rose, stumbling back.
John shook his head, grinning, “Don't worry, I'm not going to kiss you.” John stepped into the full light of the window as Whit, wading against a torrent of adrenalin, stood his ground. John was different. His face was sagged and creased by age. He looked as Whit would imagine him alive today. Whit realized that he wasn't looking at John as he really was now but as he imagined him to be; as manufactured and mercurial as a dream. Whit wondered if that was why spirits kept their distance. He also wondered if the beckoning John of his youth was John at all. He was the only victim he knew of until Sarah.
“They're lonely, Whit.” John said, reading his mind. “Many of them have been there a very long time. And something about us, about you, allows them to wonder now, searching others out to fill the void.” The gravity and wisdom of the aged hung on John's humorless face. “I can give you what you've been searching for little brother. But first you have to promise me something. Promise me that no matter what, you'll stop it.” John bore his eyes into Whit's as he had in youth when angry or demanding the fidelity of brotherhood. “And that you'll forgive me.”
Whit, confused, shook his head,. “This isn't John Glenn Middle School Whit. I won't be able to protect you. Just be strong.” John said.
Then he bolted. John beckoned him with a sweeping arch of his arm without turning, once again the little boy, Whit knew in life. Whit ran after him.
Long minutes passed as Whit followed, first through the neat sprawling yards of neighbors in the sparsely populated subdivision. The neat lawns gave way to rougher, hilly terrain. The terrain was eventually broken by train tracks meandering out into the infinite darkness. Whit, lungs and legs burning, stood at a break in the woods beyond the tracks. A gibbous moon hung high in a blanket of stars over a quilt work of farmlands.
There was just enough light to make out the varying shades of different crops and enormous, square, steal towers suspending power lines above them. They glinted, faintly, endlessly out over the distance of the huge valley separated by vast uniform distances. Whit marveled at the beauty of it despite his fear of being totally lost.
He caught the pale image of John's chest and face just above the crops gazing back at him, appearing for the first time as the ghost, he actually was. Then, as if sensing that Whit's breathe had caught up to him, John took off again. Whit, positive that he would never make it to the other end of the valley, followed anyway.
But he did make it to the other end where the curve of the valley, marked by a thicket of trees, sloped upward again. As he gazed up he knew. They were at Quarry Lake. He had no idea that it was this far—miles from home. They had ridden their bicycles from town as boys, entering through one of the seemingly dozens of overgrown, dirt roads leading to it.
Whit had been back only once before accidentally. He followed his father on one of his late night biking excursions, never at risk of being caught due to his struggle just to keep up. Whit didn't even realize where they were until he found him there, hands above him, hanging on the tall, chain link fence surrounding the lake, speaking to John. Whit decided to hang back and not reveal himself. He struggled to hear what his father was saying but couldn't. He raced home scared in the night, taking an alternate route so as to not be caught. He climbed the lattice sneaking back into his bedroom unsure if his father had beaten him home.
The memories of it cluttered his mind as clearly as yesterdays once he crested the embankment to a dawning sun not yet raised over the horizon beyond the lake. The surrounding beauty overwhelmed him despite the rusted, decrepit fence and signs reading, KEEP OUT, DANGER, and, TRESSPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. His gaze lingered over the landscape, the water, sheer cliffs, and sparse woods to the North and South. John was nowhere to be seen. Then standing sweaty and achy in the sunrise, a song began to fill his consciousness, low and soothing at first. The hum of the song permeating him like a weak electrical charge.
Until, the humming grew louder and louder for Whit. His head and limbs tingled. The world began spinning out of control. His eyes seemed to rest on the woods whenever he momentarily reigned in his vertigo. The darkness of the trees before the rising sun writhed like a serpentine mass. As he concentrated the mass separated into the shadows of people, dozens of them. They were varying shapes and sizes but definitely people. The buzzing rose into a cacophony of hymn growing clearer and clearer.
The shadow people moved closer, some even exiting the woods though still shadows to Whit somehow. Dread filled him as their intent became obvious. They were moving to surround him. Each one shouted above the other to be heard first, shattering the hymn their voices began with. Others screamed unintelligibly for attention, or were unable to form words.
Whit covered his ears, stumbling on the embankment that he had climbed as he backed away. Then as the shadows encircled him, blocking the dawn... darkness...
The world heaved to and fro beneath Whit, bouncing, moving side to side as if in a great earthquake, panicking him further. His skin burned in the piercing, relentless sun, stabbing his eyes, blinding and baking him from high above. Creaking and banging accompanied slams to the back of his head as it slipped from some hard, granular surface.
“Still got both nipples and eyes son? ...Looks like you still got all your digits but that's about all I'm checking!” some disembodied voice shouted from a distance before fading with laughter.
Then, sweet, cool darkness swallowed the sun again.
Quarry Lake Page 3
