Proof of Life

by Sheila Lowe

  For an instant, the full moon appeared through the clouds, huge, and low in the sky, spilling a shaft of silver light across the water like an omen. Jessica shivered. What might such an omen portend?

  On each side of Big Bear Boulevard, plows had pushed the snow off to the sides of the wide road. Unlike the jam-packed cities at the foot of the mountain, there were open spaces between buildings here, occupied by towering pines. They cruised past darkened churches, a post office, fire station, Denny’s.

  “Everything is so dark,” Jessica said. “Shouldn’t there be some lights on, at least in the Denny’s? They’re always open.”

  Sage agreed. “Just the traffic lights are on. The power must be out.”

  “How can traffic lights be on if the power is out?”

  “Backup batteries. Can you read the street signs?”

  The snow was coming down harder now, soft flakes turned to ice pellets bombarding the body of the car.

  “They’re too dark to see. Does this road ever end? I don’t remember Big Bear being this big.”

  “Population 30-k, give or take.”

  They kept rolling through miles of endless business district, coming at last to residential streets where homes were built on wooded lots that allowed for plenty of privacy. The snow plows had not made it this far out and a white mantle camouflaged everything in sight—roofs, vehicles, hedges, trees.

  Abby had already texted twice to ask their progress. She had sent a photo of the A-frame they were aiming for. It might have been more helpful if the sun had been up. In the wee hours and in snowfall, all bets were off.

  Banked snow on the road made it impossible to see street corners. The prim GPS voice counted down the number of feet before the turn but they bypassed the street anyway.

  “I’ll have to put the chains on before we head back,” Sage said, clenching his teeth when the tires began to slip and they were forced to make a U-turn.

  The muscles in Jessica’s already tense shoulders tightened some more. “I hope we can get the hell away from here, fast.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  At last through the trees, the headlights picked out what appeared to be the right place. By the time they turned in by a glow-in-the-dark snow pole marking the driveway, it was past 2 a.m. The good news was, they were no longer being pelted by ice.

  The A-frame stood fifty yards back and away from any other dwellings. It was painted a dark color, either green or black, which had made it hard to see. The steep pitched roof on the front section came close to the ground. At the front, a small wooden deck perched on five-foot-tall stilts. Sliding glass doors allowed entry from the interior.

  Another section behind the first one had the higher roof of a second story. Icicles hung from the eaves. Packed snow on the roof looked like frosting.

  “A gingerbread house,” Jessica murmured, overcome with sudden dread for what awaited them inside.

  She had not thought to ask Abby the make and model of Trey’s car but it would have made no difference if she had. The vehicle parked in the driveway was mostly buried under a mound of snow.

  Contemplating the A-frame from the warmth of the car, Sage peered through the falling snowflakes. “The entry must be around back. Ready?”

  Jessica had no answer. An unpleasant impression of heat and darkness seemed to issue from inside the top of her skull. Slowing neurons, dendrites, axons to a crawl, busy drilling into the deep structures of her brain. Thinking was too hard.

  “Jessica?”

  She heard his voice but engrossed with the ooze, she did not reply. Thick and sludgy, like overused oil, it brought the heaviness of bleak despair, even worse than she had experienced in Benedict Canyon.

  By the time she caught on to what was happening to her, her facial muscles were beginning to numb. The sensation moved inexorably downward. She struggled to alert Sage, her lips as stiff as if they had been injected with botox.

  “Now would be a good time for that prayer of protection.”

  Without asking questions, Sage reached over and grabbed hold of her hand, speaking in a strong voice. “Father-Mother God, we come here in the name of love, light, peace and truth. We ask that the power of the Holy Spirit uplift and protect us as we enter this property and attempt to find Ethan Starkey. Surround us with light and cast out any negative entities that would stand in our way.”

  And just like that, the brewing darkness arrested. The energy that had been sapped out of her returned. Jessica gazed at Sage in awe. “That was freaking amazing. Did you make it up?”

  He shrugged. “It’s partly from a prayer Bella uses sometimes. She got it from another British medium named Brian Hurst. I ad-libbed the rest.”

  “I love it,” she said, meaning it. “I feel protected.”

  “Good. Now, we need to figure out what we’re going to do. Knock on the door in the middle of the night?”

  “We can’t wait ‘til morning. I think we should take a walk around the place. Maybe we can see inside.”

  “And hope not to get shot.” Sage tapped the steering wheel. “Okay, Miss Jessica, if that’s what you want. Let’s go do it.”

  She reached for the Ross sack in the backseat and got out the items they had purchased, including a flashlight. She had installed the batteries and torn the price tags off the knit hats and gloves during the drive. Sage pulled his hat down over his ears and Jessica did the same.

  Falling snowflakes landed on their faces and melted into ice water. The frigid air burned her throat. Jessica leaned back into the car and snatched up a woolen scarf. She wrapped it around her neck and over her lower face, grateful for the warmth.

  Together, they moved toward the building. Low-lying cloud cover hid the stars in the silent night and made her think of the vision she had seen of Ethan surrounded by darkness. She knew they were close.

  It must have snowed for hours before their arrival at the upper elevations. The drifts piled two feet high. They crunched their way through hundred-foot-high conifers, following a path around to the back of the A-frame. Two windows were set high on the side of the house. Too high to see into without a ladder. An enclosed porch at the rear of the house stopped them.

  The porch door stood open.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Protect us. What was it Sage had said in his prayer? Surround us with light. Protect us. Surround us with light. Protect us. Maybe if she kept repeating it…

  Leading the way, Sage mounted the wooden steps and disappeared through the porch door. Jessica gave him a few seconds to return. When he did not reappear right away, she followed. The inner door leading into the house was open, too.

  The interior was as cold as outside and quiet as a soundproof booth. Still holding on to the faint hope that she was wrong about Trey, she considered the possibility that he and Ethan might be asleep upstairs.

  Then she remembered. In the log cabin scene, he’d had a gun.

  What if he woke up and thought they were intruders?

  Surround us with light. Protect us.

  The doors to the A-frame had been left open to the freezing air. It seemed unlikely they were asleep. But what if they—

  Surround us with light. Protect us.

  Keeping the flashlight pointed low, Sage swung it around the entry, showing a staircase that led to the second floor. Beyond it was a small kitchen and a short hallway to the living room. The flashlight beam revealed a cozy, updated decor. Leather couch with big throw pillows, and a multi-colored knitted afghan in a heap, the way someone might leave it after getting up from a nap.

  On the opposite side of the room, a wide screen TV stood atop an Asian-style media cabinet. Matching side chairs and an upright log table between them faced the sliding doors they had seen from the car. A free-standing, wood burning fireplace made a pleasant hearth in the corner nearest the deck. Sage opened the glass door in front, showing freshly laid kindling waiting to be lit. He pulled out the ash drawer. Clean.

  Why were the doors open?

&
nbsp; Jessica felt along the wall until she found a switch and flipped it. Nothing happened. Their suspicion that the bad weather had caused a power outage, seemed to be on target.

  Sage motioned her to wait for him where she was, and tiptoed up the staircase.

  The A-frame was small enough that searching the two bedrooms and bath went fast. He came back down and reported seeing no sign of Ethan or Trey.

  “Are you sure they came here?” he asked.

  “Yes, I feel it as strongly as I’ve ever felt anything.”

  “Then where the hell are they?”

  “I think we can safely assume it’s his car under that pile of snow. They can’t be far.” If Ethan was outside in this weather—panic flooded her. There was no way he could survive alone in the snow, regardless of how well he was dressed—assuming Trey had dressed him properly for the weather.

  She had to stop the crazy. She had to turn inward and ask for a message.

  For the first time, she found tuning in to her psychic sense similar to finding a radio station. The voices were the static. Once she got past them and listened carefully, she heard, “Go outside.”

  With the words came a knowing. Beckoning Sage to come with her, she walked out to the porch, following a magnetic pull. It was a similar feeling to what she had experienced in Ethan’s bedroom, except this time, instead of pulling at her from inside her abdomen, it was an external pulling, as if a cord was tied around her waist, leading her away from the A-frame and into the trees.

  They walked as fast as the ankle-deep snow allowed. Thirty feet behind the house, partially hidden behind the trees was a rustic structure the size of a one-car garage. With the exception of the door being on the side of the cabin between two windows, rather than at one end, it bore a strong resemblance to the log cabin Jessica had assembled in her trance state.

  They exchanged a look—a question and an answer.

  “He’s in there,” she said quietly. “Trey is inside. I feel him.”

  A roof overhang kept the snow from the porch, but the three stone steps Sage mounted were blanketed with the white stuff. He knocked hard on the door and called out, “Trey? Trey Starkey?” His voice reverberated in the silence. They were too far away from other dwellings for the neighbors to hear. He knocked again.

  While he was shining his flashlight in the window to the left of the door, Jessica climbed the steps and tried the doorknob.

  “The door’s open,” she whispered.

  Sage swung around, his flashlight arcing across her face, blinding her for a moment. “Don’t go inside,” he said hoarsely. “You don’t need to see it.”

  Jessica stared at him. “What did you see?”

  “You were right. Your scene was right.”

  Her heart lurched. “Ethan.”

  “Wait, Jess, don’t go—”

  If Ethan was inside and Trey… She had no intention of waiting for anything. She pushed open the door, started to step over the threshold. Sage wrapped his arms around her and jerked her back.

  “It’s a crime scene. You can’t go in there.”

  “But Ethan…”

  “Remember, Ethan wasn’t in the scene you made. He’s not here.” Holding her behind him in the doorway, Sage swung the flashlight around the cabin.

  “You don’t have to protect me,” Jessica insisted, straining against him. “Let me see.”

  “If you’re sure—”

  She stepped into the doorway, her gaze raking over the plain furnishings. Two cots, an oil stove, a cheap-looking two-drawer chest. And Trey Starkey, face up on the cot closest to the door—though not much was left of his face. Jessica’s stomach lurched. She turned away, afraid she would hurl.

  She put a shaky hand on Sage’s arm, taking several deep breaths through her scarf to steady herself. “The log cabin scene—”

  “Yeah.”

  Blood spray and tissue had splattered on the wall behind the body. There was no ambiguity about what had happened: Trey, stretched out on his back, had placed the handgun under his chin and pulled the trigger. The gun had landed on the floor in the very spot where the clay one had been placed in the scene she’d constructed.

  Sage moved the flashlight beam to show the second cot. A slight indent in the pillow showed where a small head had lain. A powder blue blanket drooped over the side of the cot, sponging up blood that had pooled on the floor. The light of the flashlight gave it a grisly tie-dye effect.

  “How does a father do this to a son he supposedly loved?” said Jessica.

  “People do all kinds of evil things to the people they supposedly love. Revenge on Abby was more important to him than his child. Selfish motherfucker.”

  “Where can Ethan be? There’s no place to hide in here.”

  Sage pointed the flashlight at the chest of drawers. “Look.”

  An amber colored pharmacy container stood on the chest, its white childproof cap next to it.

  Jessica wanted to rage at the corpse on the cot, to grab him by his bloody shirt and shake him until he told her where his son was. But Trey was past any human response. At least a few hours must have passed since his transition to the world of spirit. Linear time did not exist over there. He had come through with a message for her at the séance. Was it possible Trey had already been there long enough to rid himself of the selfish need to hurt Abby through their child? Could she reach him?

  Where is he, Trey? Where is Ethan?

  “I’m sorry. Tell Ab…”

  The line of communication was shaky. That she received an answer at all astonished her. She fought to hold onto the connection, knowing that at any moment she might lose him.

  I will tell her, Trey, I promise. But please, let me help Ethan.

  A shimmery image of the A-frame appeared to her, almost immediately replaced by one of Ethan. As she had seen him earlier, the little boy, thumb in his mouth, was curled in a tight ball, surrounded by darkness.

  Is he in the house somewhere? Is that what you’re telling me?

  “My son…sorry…sorry.”

  The connection broke like a bad cell phone signal, leaving behind the heaviness of guilt and sorrow. Jessica knew in her gut that Trey would not reconnect. She turned to Sage and spoke urgently. “We have to get back to the main house. Ethan is there.”

  “But we already looked in the house.”

  “I don’t care. He’s there.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  She gave him a quick glance, loving the way he trusted her without question. Sage closed the door on the hideous tableau and hurried back through the woods.

  Jessica took the flashlight, while Sage used the flashlight app on his phone. Inside the A-frame, they split up and explored every room again, calling Ethan’s name, listening to the silence.

  She opened bedroom closets and even drawers that were too small to be a hiding place. The linen closet in the bathroom. Cabinets under the sink. A storage chest that contained summer bed linens. They met back where they had started, in the living room.

  “We’ve looked everywhere, Jess. He’s not here.”

  “He’s got to be. We must have missed something. I’m not leaving until we find him.”

  “We need to call the police. They can help look for Ethan. If he’s in the woods—”

  Jessica interrupted, “He’s not in the woods. Trey showed me this house and Ethan. I wish we had better light.”

  No sooner had the words left her mouth than the living room lights came on. Startled, they blinked at each other, their eyes adjusting to the sudden change.

  “I must have left the switch on,” she said. “And the power came back on.”

  “That makes things easier. I’m going to look around some more.”

  Sage left the room and Jessica went upstairs again, going back over ground she had already covered. Once more, she looked under beds, in closets, in every drawer.

  She was opening the linen closet again when Sage called up from the hallway.

  “Jess, come
down here. Hurry.”

  She rushed back to him at breakneck speed. He was crouched next to the triangular space under the staircase. Bending down, she followed his pointing finger. A door no more than three feet high was set flush with the wall.

  She held her breath as Sage reached out and gently opened it.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Jessica fell to her knees. The cupboard under the stairs extended several feet back. It was full of darkness, too dense to see inside.

  “Shine the light to the side, Sage, not directly inside,” she said softly.

  The beam bounced off the wood flooring, bringing sufficient illumination to light up the space. Crouching on all fours, she peered in. She was just about able to make out his face, so pale it was almost luminous. His eyes were closed, long lashes dark on chalky white cheeks. They had found him and he looked dead.

  He can’t be dead. He can’t be dead. He can’t be dead. If she said it enough, would it be true?

  “Ethan.” Jessica spoke just loud enough to be audible. “Ethan, everything’s going to be okay.”

  “Let me get him out of there,” said Sage.

  She backed out of the space, refusing to believe they were too late. “I’ll go get the blanket off the couch.”

  “Good idea.”

  He took her place, kneeling on the wood flooring. As Jessica hurried away, Sage was stretching his long arms into the cupboard.

  She seized the afghan and sped back to the hallway. Sage was holding the four-year-old in his arms, his ear bent close to Ethan’s mouth. He seemed to be listening for the child’s respirations.

  “Please tell me he’s alive,” she said, noting that the boy’s lips had a bluish tinge.

  “He’s breathing, but slowly,” said Sage.

  Jessica nearly fainted with relief. How long ago had Ethan woken in the cabin and seen the horror that must have sent him running for the A-frame? How long had he been holed up in the cupboard under the stairs with inadequate protection against the freezing weather? The legs of his footed fleece Spiderman pajamas were damp and speckled with brown spots.