Bradley staggered on, dragging his feet on the forest floor as he walked through the woods with one bare, bloody foot. The other battered foot was clad in a filthy sock that now had holes in it, both shoes gone long ago. He occasionally shuffled his feet as he walked; his head and shoulders slouched forward, he dragged dead leaves, bits and pieces of green plants as they caught on his feet. He walked on unaware of any of these things. He walked past a cell phone that lay on the ground, as it rang just as the battery icon flashed red. He walked past it, ignoring it completely. The screen on the cell phone went black as the battery died.
A large deformed rat burst from the brush and stopped a few feet away from Bradley. The rat stood on its hind legs and sniffed at the air, before running off as fast as it had appeared. It left behind Bradley, who hadn’t acknowledged it and continued on his slow but steady shamble through the forest. The only thought left on his mind was the task of getting to his destination.
Burke swore under his breath. He needed to talk to Jin but had no way of reaching him. As he peered inside the SUV again, he noticed a large, opened map of Oakwood Island spread out on the passenger seat. It had a large red circle drawn in an area that was a short hike from where he stood. He had no way of knowing for sure, but his instincts told him that Jin had left the map there for him to see.
There also seemed to be clutter under the maps, but Burke couldn’t make out what that was. He did see Ziploc bags and other things. In the back seat were Jin’s hiking boots so Burke assumed he would be wearing his running shoes, perhaps. This was strange as Jin was not the type to go on a trek without the proper foot gear. There was an open backpack which seemed to contain all the folders Jin had been studying. In the very back of the SUV sat a pair of large red plastic gas cans.
The sound of traffic caught his ear. He stopped to watch a lady drive past him. He waited until he saw the vehicle disappear around the next bend in the road. Turning his back to the SUV and leaning against it, he pondered his next move. Out of habit, he reached for his cigarettes and Zippo with the intention of lighting up, but soon remembered he was leaning against a car which contained plastic canisters of gasoline and changed his mind. He could wait for a cigarette, he thought, as he watched another small car being driven by an old man drive past. He could wait a little bit, he confessed to himself, but not for too long.
Looking down at his feet and back into the SUV, he used his deductive reasoning skills and assessed that the hiking boots were probably a size 8. He looked down at his feet which wore a size 10 battered pair of dress shoes and sighed. He took his large plastic framed glasses off and began cleaning them with the hem of his jacket while he wondered what to do next.
Chapter 21
Guiding Hands
“No, Lily,” Patrick said. He sat in the old truck between his twin sister Lily and Jack, the man who smelled like campfire.
Jack glanced at the twins as he drove, wondering what Patrick knew about his sister and her abilities. The kids had remained quiet until now. Why was he scolding his sister? Jack clutched the steering wheel with both hands as he drove a little faster than he normally would have. He hoped the police would be on the other side of the island, perhaps busied with something mundane while he worked to rid the island of an evil that had taken lives for decades. He glanced at the shotgun laying across the dashboard. A few times he had to hold it so it wouldn’t slide when negotiating turns a little too fast.
Lily sat quietly, staring at her bald doll. “My doll’s dead,” Lily muttered as she bent the dolls limbs into positions no human could possibly attain. “Dead like my Mommy,” Lily added.
“Was that dead lady in the hospital really our Mommy?” Patrick inquired as he adjusted his large sunglasses. He cocked his head to the side, listening for a response.
“What have they told you about that woman?” Jack asked, wondering just how much of this the four-year-olds would understand. They were both abnormally intelligent which made Jack wonder why they had been so willing to come with him. Had they not been taught the dangers of strangers, he thought, not realizing the irony in his thinking.
“Nothing,” Lily replied as she stared at her doll.
“Was she our Mommy?” Patrick repeated his previous question, still wanting an answer.
“Yes,” Jack replied. “She was.”
“Why was she in the hospital?” Patrick asked.
“She was sick,” Jack replied. “Very sick.”
“Is Lily going to be sick like her too?” Patrick asked. “Is that why you’re taking us there?”
Jack glanced at Patrick, mystified with how much he seemed to know. Jack slowed his truck as he drove past a familiar sedan and an SUV parked on the side of Ocean’s Edge Road. Both vehicles looked empty of any occupants as he drove past, glancing in his rear view mirror to be sure. Jack put a hand on the shotgun to keep it from sliding as he went around a bend in the road. He pondered how to answer the boy’s question. After rounding the bend, he saw a large upright figure emerge from the tree line, the thing covered in hair with long fangs and pointed ears. The familiar creature pounced into the road faster than Jack could react as he took his foot off the gas pedal, intending on stepping on the brakes but not having the time to do so. The snarling hairy beast stopped in the middle of the road, poised and ready to attack.
“No, Lily,” Patrick said firmly.
The hairy beast stopped and remained motionless in that moment as the old red Ford truck drove through what Jack knew had been an apparition only he could see. But how had the boy known about it? He wondered this as he watched a crow fly over the roof of his truck, and up over the trees in the direction they were heading, as if it already knew where he was going. The crow circled three times before swooping down and out of sight.
Not long after his arrival at the Cudmore household, Reverend Masterson was met by an upset and panic-driven Scott. Sure, Scott would sometimes get annoyed and impatient, but he’d never personally seen him truly mad before now.
Scott realized he was showing a side to his father-in-law that had been rarely if ever seen, but he couldn’t help it. His worry and panic were mounting by the minute. He told the Reverend to go check on Samantha in the living room, as he made a call to the small police force of Oakwood Island.
The dispatcher, Sandy, picked up on the first ring. She spoke fast, “Oakwood Island Emergency Line.”
“Sandy, it’s Scott Cudmore. Jack Whitefeather took my twins in his truck. You need to send help, now!”
“Scott, wait, what? Jack? Who took the twins?”
“Yes, Jack Whitefeather!”
“Is this a joke? You know we don’t like getting crank calls, Scott–”
He interrupted her before she could finish. His voice harsh and demanding.
“Sandy, I swear, if you don’t send someone to help NOW, I will go find him myself, and I promise you I will not think twice about doing whatever I have to…”
Sandy’s voice returned to the professional tone she had answered the call with.
“Tell me which direction he was headed, Scott.”
“He headed north from my house. Sandy, please…these are my babies…” Scott’s voice cracked again, and hot tears formed in his eyes.
“I’m sending two cars now, Scott. Hang tight. If you see them again, call me back right away.”
Scott didn’t wait to hear anything else. He hung up the phone and looked out the window. As he spotted the forest in the back yard, he realized that he had completely forgotten to mention Bradley and how his teenage ward had wandered off. Only now did he remember the boy walking off into the woods on his own. Since the porcupine incident, the boy had expressed his fear of going into the woods. He had been scared to come across another such creature and would never have ventured off in the forest, especially not alone. Bradley was old enough to know better, unlike the twins who were practically babies
still, thought Scott.
Scott walked back to the living room, where he saw that his father-in-law was trying to calm Samantha.
“I should have paid more attention to them. I should have tried to stop him.” Her sobs seeped through each word. Her grandfather spoke in a soft and reassuring voice to help her calm down. Under normal circumstances, Scott would have been able to pacify the situation without issue, but in his agitated state that ability had vanished, replaced by a feeling of mounting frustration. Samantha, a bit calmer, turned her attention to Gavin, making sure he was all right.
As soon as his father in law saw Scott in the foyer area, he exited the living room and joined him. Scott kicked off his loafers and grabbed his running shoes. He spoke in haste to his father in law as he started putting on one of his sneakers.
“Peter, Colin and Clay, will have to stay at their friend’s place until Miriam can go get them.” Scott said to Reverend Masterson without waiting for a reply. Done putting on his second sneaker, he walked quickly to the kitchen area again. The Reverend followed him down the hall, but not too close.
“Bradley will come back home when he’s good and ready. I don’t have time to go chasing after him with the twins gone.” Scott caught himself chocking up at the mention of the twins. He needed to focus on what he had to do now and keep his emotions out of it. He cleared his throat as he grabbed his cell and car keys off the kitchen counter and exited via the patio door.
“Where are you going?” Reverend Masterson asked.
“To look for the twins,” Scott replied.
“Where?” the Reverend asked.
“I don’t fucking know,” Scott blurted in a harsh tone as he got into the old minivan, slamming the door. He turned the key and heard a clicking sound. A feeling of hopelessness washed over him as he tried to start the van a second time and heard nothing but a clicking noise again coming from under the hood. With a quick glance in the rearview mirror, he knew the back door hadn’t been shut properly and the dome light had drained the battery yet again. Scott wasn’t very knowledgeable when it came to motor vehicles, but this wasn’t the first time one of the kids didn’t close the back door properly. He scrambled out of his seat, climbed in the back of the van, shut the door hard and got back into the driver’s seat. He gripped the steering wheel, leaned his head against it and prayed for the first time in his life, asking a God he didn’t really believe in for help to save his children.
Scott would never understand the truth behind what happened next. It wasn’t the actions of God that came to Scott’s aid in that moment, but the love of a mother. Even if she had never really known them in life, her spirit would stop at no end to protect them now.
The shimmering spirit of Norah Jenkins with her multicolored aura appeared before the van, unseen by Scott. She now knew the man before her was the reason her children knew love. Even if Lily had the same evil in her that had cursed her own sister and her family for generations, this man showed the child love. Because of this man, her twins had a family to care for them when she couldn’t.
The spirit of Norah reached a glimmering hand forward and laid it on the hood of the van as Scott prayed for help from a God he had never believed in but now in his hypocrisy, begged for help. Scott, with his head still on the steering wheel, reached down and turned the key once more in the hopes that perhaps there was a God and that he wouldn’t have abandoned him in this hour of desperate need. The van’s engine roared to life, surprising Scott as he sat upright in his seat, buckled his seatbelt and murmured his thanks to a God he still questioned deep down inside. Scott put the van in reverse and inched backward only to pause at the end of his driveway. The first place he knew he should go to was Jack’s cabin in the woods, but the small Oakwood Island police force would likely be thinking the same thing. They would surely beat him there. At least he hoped they would.
Scott didn’t know why, but he turned left. Driving off in a hurry without any idea where you were going was something he would normally have said was stupid. But in the heat of the moment, he had to do something and sitting still while others looked for his kids wasn’t it.
Jack was nearing his destination. There was a dirt road, if it could be called a road, coming up on this part of the island. He would drive up this beaten path as far as he could and walk the rest of the way from there. He’d carry the children if he had to. This needed to be done, he kept repeating to himself, trying to shut out the doubts that came to him more and more as he drove on. He felt sick, as if he might vomit at the thought of killing children, but he didn’t know any other way. Edwina Quartley was expected to never regain consciousness. Ben Augustine would never walk normal again, if he could walk at all. Unless he did this, the new occupants of the old Ketchum house would pay the price, the same as the Ketchum’s had. There was no doubt the evil had to end, but for the first time, he wished there was another way and that perhaps someone else would end it for him. For the first time in his life, he didn’t want to be the one who had to save the people of Oakwood Island.
Without the help of the crow, Jack couldn’t see the spirits that wandered Oakwood Island. He knew they were real as he spent most of his life watching them. However, without the help of his feathered friend, he had no way of seeing the shimmering spirit with the multicolored aura that stood in the middle of Ocean’s Edge Road. Norah Jenkins stood in the path of the oncoming truck, raised her hands before her, palms out and locked eyes on the man who had taken her children. The old truck drove through her spirit without pause. But when it did, the truck began leaving a small trickle of gasoline as one of the old patches on the gas tank had suddenly failed and sprung a leak. Soon the trickle would intensify, becoming a small stream, leaving a wet trail of fuel on the road behind it.
The faster Scott drove his minivan, the more convinced he became that he was heading in the right direction. He had no idea why he felt this way, but the feeling edged him on. His heart raced as he sped down Ocean’s Edge Road. He had no idea what Jack had in mind for a pair of innocent children, but he knew whatever it was, he wouldn’t let it happen.
Sitting next to Scott in the minivan was the spirit of Norah Jenkins, her multicolored aura shimmering brightly as she lay a hand on the dash of the van. She knew where Scott needed to go even if he didn’t and she would make sure he would get there. Her eyes sparkled bright colors as she guided Scott’s hands and the van towards her biological children, the twins that Scott loved as much as if they were his very own. She knew that working together was the only way they could save the twins from certain death.
Her soul, now freed from the curse in the afterlife, knew there was another important reason to stop Jack’s plan. She saw how the curse had started decades before. Ending it would also mean fulfilling a destiny that would bring even more decay and death to the island. She knew that the one dark spirit that was at the core of the curse could not have her twin’s souls. In the afterlife, protecting her children had become her only mission.
Jack’s old 1950’s faded red truck sat on the side of Ocean’s Edge Road with a small puddle of gasoline under it, a shotgun still laying across the dash and the keys still in the ignition.
Winded and sweating heavily, Jack walked along Ocean’s Edge Road with a child in each arm. His truck had run out of fuel a quarter mile from his destination. With no time to waste, he’d scooped up the children and walked to get to the dirt covered Dead Man’s Road that led to the cliffs. Jack felt as if his age was finally catching up to him as he struggled with the weight of the children, but he pressed on. The pain in his chest, not quite as strong as before had returned. The stress of it all bearing down on him as he walked, he asked his ancestors for the strength to carry this through but felt they were not listening. Perhaps killing children, even if they were evil was something they wouldn’t help him with. He knew his ancestors would have no part in this, nor would they help him.
“Almost there,” Patric
k said as Jack turned off the road and onto the beaten path.
How does the boy know this? Jack wondered. And if he knew that, then did he know what fate waited for them on the small clearing on the edge of the cliff?
Chapter 22
A Walk in the Woods
Burke stopped to look at his phone and up at the trees. The wind made the leaves overhead shake and bend the smaller branches just a bit. Not being any kind of outdoorsman, he had zero idea of what he was doing out in the woods. It had taken four tries until he’d managed to take a good enough picture of the map in the SUV through the glass. Since he recalled Jin mentioning a compass app on his phone to help navigate, Burke had discovered that he too had such an app on his cell phone. So in getting his bearings as best as he could, he had headed off into an awkward hike. He soon realized his shoes were obviously not made for this type of terrain. He also noticed that the compass app wasn’t very reliable. When he went to the image of the map and back to the compass, North had changed direction.
Burke couldn’t help but feel the irony of his thinking as he walked in the dense forest, towards what he thought was the area Jin had marked on the map in his SUV. What struck Burke as ironic was how he had obsessed about solving what had killed so many people, including Officer Ryan McGregor, the Stuarts and the Watsons. He would have never assumed those deaths would have been linked to Maggie’s abduction until Jin came along. He had found himself thinking about Jin Hong’s obsession with the fungus found on Oakwood Island. The same fungus Jin insisted shouldn’t be able to survive a winter here on this island, let alone thrive as he had insisted it did.
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