by Chris Raven
“We’re going to save her.” whispers Dunning, almost as if he was promising himself. “I don’t know if you and Eloise are right, but I’m not going to let it happen again.”
“Then you believe us?”
“I still think that there has to be a rational explanation for all this, but I can’t ignore the fact that all the information that you gave me is real and that you predicted it would happen again. I don’t give a shit if it’s a ghost, a family line of serial killers or the bogeyman... Whatever it is, I’m going to stop it, and you’re going to help me.”
“Me? What can I do?” I ask while I feel that my anxiety begins to increase.
“Well, I can’t tell my comrades at the station about your madness. They would think I’m getting older and I’m starting to dodder, so I had entrusted them with the official investigation of the case. While they interrogate the witnesses, check security cameras and search for her in the entire city, you and I are going to patrol the Champlain.”
“That’s what my friends and I did when we were kids and it was useless.”
“Yes, but you didn’t have this.” Dunning opens a little his jacket to show me his service firearm. “If that guy happens to poke his nose through the lake carrying the little one, he will get a shot between eyebrow and eyebrow as a souvenir.”
After arriving at the lake, Dunning leads to the north side following my directions. We got deep into the forest trail. When it seems clear that we can no longer advance, Dunning looks for a place among the trees to leave the car without being seen from the road. We waited for a couple of hours, with the windows open, listening to the radio and smoking, attentive to the noise of any engine that could approach. As it gets dark, I’m noticing that my nerves are tense.
Being in this place makes many painful memories to come to the surface. My mind is filled with the image of Bobby’s corpse, floating in the waters, of his small body beating against the roots of that tree... I can see Dave, dead on the shore, with his grieving brother heartbroken beside him. I see that shadow I chased through the woods. Although I know it will not be the same man, I feel an anger and a desire for unstoppable vengeance. I want to make him pay for the deaths of Anne, Bobby, and Dave, for my lost childhood, for all the damage he did to my friends...
“Fuck, I can’t stand it anymore.” I open the car door and go out. “Are you sure that he would have to go through here?”
Dunning opens his door and, after a few seconds of struggle, manages to get out of the car. He walks up to me, we sit together on the hood and he offers me a cigarette.
“If he wants to drown the girl in the northern area of the lake, there is no other way.”He answers me after he lights his cigar and gives him the first puff. Immediately, he is shuddered by a powerful and heartbreaking cough.
“You should smoke less.” I advise him, as I give a deep puff to my cigarette. “With your age and your weight, I don’t think it will do you any good.”
“Are you trying to make sure there’s going to be a murder in this lake today? I already have my wife to quarrel with. I don’t need your advice.”
“Okay, I didn’t say anything.” I shrug. “And what happens if he decides to drown the girl in another area of the lake? We’re not sure he’s coming here.”
“I am. I’ve checked all the murders since 1930 and they were all in this area. It may have something special that attracts serial killers.”
I turn and contemplate the landscape. In front of us, after several rows of trees that reach the shore, the waters of the lake are visible. Behind the trees where we are hidden, there is a large esplanade of blackened and parched land. I’ve never noticed, but it’s strange and disturbing. Not even weeds grow there. The earth is cracked and fissured, it looks like a wounded and scarred place. Something bad has happened in that place.
“Do you know why that terrain is like that?” I ask Dunning.
He watches it for a few seconds, as if he saw it for the first time, before he shook his head.
“No idea. It’s really weird. All the surrounding terrain is green. It seems as if the earth was hurt, as if it were...
“... cursed.” I finish the sentence for him.“I know you don’t believe in those things, but I can’t think of a better word to describe it.”
He doesn’t answer. He has remained very still, with his head tilted to one side. I listen carefully, and I also catch it. It is the noise of an engine approaching, but it does not come by the road. It seems to come through the forest. As the sound becomes clearer, I get the impression that it doesn’t sound like the engine of a car.
“Fuck!” shouts Dunning, startling me. “It’s a motorbike. The bastard comes on a motorbike.”
Without thinking twice, I start running towards the source of the noise. I can’t believe it’s going to happen again. We’ll be late again and the only thing we’ll achieve is to get another corpse out of the water. I hear Dunning running after me, but he is staying behind. I stop, doubting if I should wait for him. We haven’t run twenty seconds and Dunning is already congested and clutching the side while trying unsuccessfully to follow my pace. As I wait for him, he bends around his waist and starts coughing like he’s going to throw his liver through his mouth.
“You go ahead,” he says between cough and cough. “You have to stop him.”
I run again without thinking about it for a second. The engine of the motorbike still sounds, closer and closer. That means that he has not yet got off, that he has not begun to drown the little Norah, that I am still in time to save her... As I run through the dark forest, her bright, round eyes fill my mind. I don’t want them to turn into the dull eyes of a dead fish.
I realize that Dunning has kept the gun. Right now, I’m running helplessly to meet a murderer of whom I don’t know if he’s armed. Very clever of me. For a moment I think if I should go back to ask Dunning to give me his gun, but finally, I discard the idea and keep running. I don’t want to be late for seconds, and besides, I can’t even shoot.
The sound of the engine has stopped. I run even faster, without worrying about the times I stumble with loose stones, I scratch my legs with bushes or I get hooked up with the low branches of the trees. In my head, there is only the feeling that time is running out, that he may be killing her already... I notice the blood pumping hard all over my body, the beating resonates in my head as if my heart had been installed in my brain. I only hear that thump, thump, thump and the agonizing whistle of my breath. I feel a strong puncture in the side and my view gets blurred. My whole body urges me to stop, but I’m not going to listen to it. I can only promise to it that, from now on, I will take care of it and stop smoking, but in return, it has to endure a little longer.
I have come to the area where I thought I heard the bike for the last time, but I don’t see it. I go among the trees and reach the lake’s shore. At first, I am not able to distinguish nothing. The sky has already acquired a dark blue color, but the moon has not yet come out. Around me, every rock, every root, and every shrub look like human figures, huddling to surprise me.
I notice a movement about thirty steps away, right on the edge of the lake. There’s someone there. I run again, feeling that the adrenaline invades every one of my cells. Right now, I think I could kill him with my own hands. I run towards him, screaming like a crazed animal. I’m not worried about surprise him nor catching him. All I want right now is to take him apart from the girl.
The shadow raises his head and stays paralyzed, observing my progress. As soon as he gets to react, he stands up and starts running. He is quite ahead of me and he must be fresh, but that does not stop me. Ignoring the exhaustion, I take strength I didn’t know I had and I get to run even faster. In a few seconds, I come to the place where the man had been standing.
There’s a big empty camping backpack on the floor. At its side is the girl, lying face up, with a sweet smile on her face, like a beautiful porcelain doll. Wearing a blue dress with red roses embroidered on her chest and wh
ite socks with ribbons. Her black buckle shoes rest at the lake’s shore.
I kneel beside her and I stick my ear to her lips, trying to catch her breath, praying to God that she wouldn’t be dead. I don’t notice anything, not the slightest breath. I shook her by the shoulders, calling her by name. When I sit her up, she opens her eyes slightly, which increases her resemblance to the porcelain dolls my sister Lissie had when she was little.
I hear the sound of footsteps that come running. Dunning is approaching the shore, wheezing as a damaged boiler. I jump up and run to the place where our suspect has disappeared.
“The girl is alive, and the guy has escaped,” I shout without looking back. “Request reinforcements.”
In a few seconds, I’m again immersed in the thicket. I think he may be hidden in the underbrush, waiting to ambush me. He may be armed, he may be stronger than me, he may know how to fight better... It doesn’t make any sense to run like crazy looking for a guy I don’t have a chance against, but I can’t do anything else. I hear his hasty footsteps, stumbling in the darkness, and a smothered swear. I run again in the direction of those sounds. The first thing is to catch him, or at least to see his face. I’ll think about what to do next later on.
My hopes fade when I hear the noise of an engine. He’s got his bike. If I don’t hurry, he’ll vanish in the night and we’ll lose him forever. Exactly the same as with Dave’s death.
I follow the sound of the engine, which has almost reached the road. By the time I cross the forest and I can see something, the bike is a shadow that moves away. I can only remain exhausted, folded by the waist, trying to recover my breath as he disappears after the first curve.
There’s nothing more I can do, so, feeling defeated and weak as an old man, I’m back next to Dunning. He looks up when he sees me come and I can only shake my head in denial and collapse beside him on the stones at the shore.
“How is the little girl?”
“I think he drugged her, so he could put her in the backpack and bring her here, but her vitals are right,” says Dunning. The ambulance is already on its way.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t catch him.” I can’t say anything else because my voice breaks.
“Don’t worry, we’ll catch him. And we saved the girl. You should be proud, kid.”
We were silent as we saw the lights of the ambulances and the police cars lightening the sky across the forest.
III
When I open my eyes, the sun is very high up in the sky. It must be almost noon, which means I’ve slept more than ten hours. In spite of that, I find it difficult to move my body as if someone had sewn it to the sheets. The stress of the last few days is starting to take its toll.
I already got to sit on the bed and put on my shirt and socks, when I hear a couple of knocks downstairs, at the front door. I hear how Eloise opens and exchanges a few sentences with a female voice that I find familiar.
“Eric, they ask for you.” Eloise shouts. “It’s Meg Freeman.”
“I’ll go down in a second.” I answer while I try to get my pants on.
As I finish dressing I wonder what Meg will want from me. The last time we met, she was very clear that she didn’t want anything to do with me or my research. I go down the stairs two by two and go out to the street. Meg is there, looking into the garden with her hands resting on the porch railing.
“Meg, what a surprise. I didn’t expect to see you again.”
“I expected it even less.”She directs me a sarcastic smile. “But it seems that Anne does not want to realize that. I have another message for you.”
She takes out of her pocket a sheet folded into four parts and extends it to me. I unfold it, trying to appear serene. The whole page is occupied by a single sentence, written with a very large letter of childish strokes:
ERIC, I CAN’T TALK TO YOU.
I look up from the sheet, not knowing what to say. What shit of message from the afterlife is this? I can’t believe Anne possessed her childhood friend to communicate with me; just to tell me that she can’t communicate with me. Wouldn’t she have the same trouble in telling me something useful, like the name of her murderer or the way to put this to an end?
“Do you understand what it means?” Meg asks. I just deny with my head and remain silent. “I must have written it asleep. When I woke up, I had that paper by my side, on the pillow.” Meg raises her eyes to the sky, puffs and rubs her face with her hands as if trying to awaken from a bad dream. “You have to tell her to stop. These things frighten me. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be involved in this anymore.”
“You have seen the message. She can’t talk to me, and I can’t talk to her either.”I nod, pointing to Eloise’s house. “Believe me, we’ve tried. Anyway, you can calm down. Anne won’t do you any harm.”
Meg throws an angry look at me. I understand her perfectly. I’m not reassured at all either when Eloise tells me that my friends’ ghosts can’t hurt me. Without saying another word, Meg goes down the porch stairs, crosses the garden and goes away. I go back into the house and close the door, without separating my eyes from the message written on the paper.
“The salt,” says Eloise, standing in the middle of the hall with her arms akimbo.
“What salt?” I ask without understanding.
“The one you have to throw at the door every time you leave.”
“I will do it now, but first you have to see this...”
“The salt. There’s nothing more important than keeping us safe.”She insists.
I sigh resigned and I pour a handful of salt, covering the whole threshold. I turn around angry, waiting for Eloise to nod to start talking.
“Does that look good to the lady?”
“Yes, and don’t be sarcastic with me, kid. I don’t think you’re taking this as seriously as you should.”
“And I think you exaggerate. Do you think that ghosts are waiting by the door to see if we get distracted?”
“Would you bet your life or your sanity that there are not?” When she sees that I do not answer, she smiles satisfied. “Then remember the blessed salt.”
“Okay, I’ll remember. Can we talk about more important things now?” I give her the paper that Meg has given me. “It’s another message from Anne.”
She grabs it quickly, she comes to a window to see better and puts her glasses on the tip of her nose. After looking at it for a few seconds, she turns it around, as if she were expecting that there was more at the back.
“Is this all? She has contacted you to tell you that she can’t talk to you?”
“Yes. I was hoping you could shed some light on all this. I don’t think it’s normal for ghosts to bother to apologize for not communicating with the living.”
“It’s not. For Anne, this has to be important.”She starts to walk in front of the window with the paper unfolded in front of her, looking at it so intensely as if she would expect a secret message to be revealed. “As you told me, she has showed up to you on several occasions. Did she say anything to you in any of them?”
“No, she always had the lips sewn with black thread, but I guess that’s normal. They do it to all the corpses, don’t they?”
“Yes, it’s usual. Dave and Bobby also had their mouths sewn the times they visited you?”
“No, just Anne.”
“Then that means something. I think it’s another way of trying to express that she can’t talk to you. She wants to do it, she has looked for a way by possessing that woman at the psychiatric and her friend Meg, but she still insists on the same idea. Even Peter told it to us in the Ouija session. Try to focus. What can she want to tell you?”
I try to dive in my memories to find any clue that can be useful to us, but I still do not understand the message. After a few seconds, I shrug and deny with my head, trying to apologize.
“For God’s sake, Eric. Think a little. Were you angry before she died? Did you tell her not to talk to you anymore?”
“No, on the cont
rary... We were in love.” I feel like I blush to say it out loud. “You know, the way the twelve-year-olds are in love... The last few days we lived a kind of impossible love. We had crashed her father’s car and he punished her without going out all summer. I think he thought I was a bad influence for her, so he told her that he didn’t want her to talk to me again in her...”
“That’s it!” Eloise approaches me and shakes me, grabbing me by the shoulders, trying to make me react. “Don’t you see? When she died, she was punished without talking to you and she went to the grave with that weight in her soul.”
“Are you seriously telling me this? Anne was rebellious by nature. Her parents would spend the day complaining that she was very disobedient. Why would she choose to obey precisely that last punishment?”
“Precisely because it was the last, for all that it meant. Don’t you see? She died without being able to say goodbye to you, with her parents angry at her and without being forgiven by them...”
“Alright, I accept it because I can’t find any other meaning to the message. What should we do?”
“Eric, son... You’re a charming boy, but sometimes you’re too short. Don’t you see? You have to go talk to her father and get him to forgive her.”
“But do you think he’s still mad at her?”
“No, but I’m sure he never told her. You have to convince him to say it out loud.”
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to show up at that man’s house and tell him to talk to his dead daughter.”
Eloise is going to answer back to me when the door sounds again. I approach to open while I think that with so many visits we will need tons of salt. When I open, I find Dunning.
“Hey, kid. Good morning, Miss Carter. Could I come in for a moment?”
She nods and moves aside to let him pass. He comes in and waits for an invitation to go to the living room, but it seems that, after their last discussion, Eloise has forgotten how a good hostess behaves. After a few seconds, while I throw salt in front of the entrance, he decides to start talking.
