Darkness Stirring: A Troubled Spirits Novel

by J. R. Erickson

  Lorraine didn't even call Bev's name as she tore through the woods. She couldn't. The cramp in her side ballooned ferocious and hot, a hundred times sharper than it had been when they walked in. Her breath whistled through her dry lips, but she didn't stop. She didn't catch her breath. She couldn't. If she did, she'd never make it out.

  2

  Lorraine didn't stop running until her feet hit Tanglewood Drive, the dirt road they'd walked that afternoon. She turned south and half-jogged, half-limped toward her house, rubbing at the burning sensation in her side. When she reached her road, Cypress Avenue, Lorraine picked up the pace again, darting into the grassy ditch and across her front yard. She burst through the door into the kitchen where her mom was feeding Henry at the kitchen table. Henry, though five, refused to eat vegetables unless their mother fed them to him.

  "You need to put your laundry away, Lorraine," her mother scolded. "I asked you three times yesterday, and what did I find in the basement this afternoon? Your basket full of laundry."

  "Mom—" Lorraine huffed.

  "I mean it. I wouldn't have let you and Beverly wander off if I'd have known—"

  "Mom," Lorraine shouted.

  Rebecca paused, spoonful of peas halfway to Henry's mouth, and turned to look at her daughter. Her mouth opened as she prepared to scold Lorraine for yelling, but her expression shifted from irritation to concern.

  "What's wrong?" she asked, standing and putting a hand on Henry's shoulder as if to make sure nothing had happened to her youngest, who sat perfectly safe in his chair as he watched his big sister try to speak.

  "Lor yelled," Henry announced. "Kids can't yell at mommies." He looked expectantly toward their mother as if waiting for her to agree.

  "It's…" Lorraine struggled to spit it out. She hadn't caught her breath, and her mind had shifted into warp speed, thoughts ricocheting through her head like exploding fireworks. "Beverly's in the woods. I couldn't find her," she managed.

  Their mother frowned—first annoyance, a typical reaction to the antics of teenage girls. Then exasperation, as if Lorraine had merely not looked hard enough. And then the final expression, one Lorraine would remember for years to come. Fear.

  "Can I play with trucks now?" Henry asked as if sensing the forced pea feeding had come to an end.

  "What do you mean she's in the woods? Did she fall and get hurt?" But Rebecca didn't wait for her daughter to answer. She stepped away from Henry to the black phone that clung to the wall beside the doorway into the sitting room. She put the receiver to her ear and dialed a number.

  "Lor, look!" Henry slid from his chair, squatted and grabbed a blue truck from beneath the table. "Vrooooom." He walked around the kitchen as if driving the truck on an invisible highway.

  "Charlotte, it's Rebecca," their mother said into the phone. "Can you come sit with Henry for a bit? Lorraine's friend got lost in the woods. Thanks. I appreciate it." She hung up the phone, untied the yellow apron wrapped around her waist, and stuck it on a hook in the pantry.

  "She… she didn't fall," Lorraine breathed. "She went up a tree, and I never saw her come back down, but…"

  Rebecca walked to Henry and washed his face and hands with a clean cloth. He tried to swat her away, but she persisted. She wiped down the table and then squatted in front of Henry, taking his shoulders in her hands. "Charlotte from next door is coming over, Henry. I want you to be a good boy."

  "I will, Mama," he said, side-stepping her and continuing to zoom his truck through the air.

  "Is she stuck in the tree?" Rebecca asked Lorraine.

  Lorraine shook her head. "I called for her. I didn't hear her. I yelled and yelled."

  Rebecca looked toward the window where the sun had already set, leaving a pale purple sky in its wake. "We don't have much daylight. Run out to the garage and grab a couple of flashlights just in case."

  When Lorraine returned, their neighbor Charlotte stood in the kitchen. She'd brought her daughter Daisy with her. The little girl had just turned six the month before and, despite her mother's best efforts to civilize her, she wore her usual stained dungarees and a t-shirt streaked with mud and grass. Her dark hair lay tangled on her shoulders. She marched to Henry and grabbed the blue truck from his hand.

  Henry's mouth fell open, but before he could erupt into a scream, Charlotte grabbed the truck from Daisy's hand and gave it back to Henry. "Daisy, no. We do not take toys our friends are playing with. Go find a toy in the living room.”

  Daisy and Henry glared at each other for another moment and then Daisy stalked through the doorway into the living room.

  "Mine!" Henry announced triumphantly to her back.

  "Henry, remember to share with Daisy." Rebecca turned her attention to Charlotte. "Thanks, Charlotte. If Brian calls, will you let him know we're in the woods off Tanglewood Drive?"

  "Of course," Charlotte promised. "Hi, Lorraine. How are you today?"

  "I'm okay," Lorraine murmured, except she wasn't okay. Her knees had begun to quake at the thought of returning to the forest.

  "We better go," Rebecca said.

  "Listen, Mark's home," Charlotte told her. "I'm sure he'd be happy to go with you—"

  "No, that's okay. We'll be fine," Rebecca assured her, pushing open the door.

  Lorraine followed her.

  "Did you get in a fight?" Rebecca asked as she started off briskly down the road toward Tanglewood Drive.

  "No. Bev wanted to go up a tree to watch the sunset, so she climbed it, but I…"

  "You what?"

  "I couldn't get into the tree. I couldn't pull myself up, so I just waited at the bottom."

  Her mom pursed her lips. "And she never came back down?"

  Lorraine picked at the hem of her shorts, pulling at the strips of fabric. "I didn't see her, but, umm… she was wearing this bell thing, like a necklace that was a bell. I heard it in the woods, so I thought she must have come down, and somehow I missed her."

  "But you didn't see her?"

  Lorraine shook her head, tears welling up. The stitch in her side had returned the moment they'd left the house, and she struggled to keep pace with her mom. Rebecca said nothing more as they left their street and turned onto Tanglewood Drive. There were few houses on Tanglewood and none at this end of the street, just forest lining the dirt road.

  "Where were you?" Rebecca asked.

  "Umm… a little further," Lorraine said, pointing to a spot down the road. "Maybe right around here."

  Rebecca turned and strode into the trees. Lorraine wanted to grab her hand and jerk her to stop, insist they not go into the woods. Something terrible would befall them. But she didn't. She followed her mom, biting her bottom lip so hard between her teeth she tasted blood.

  Rebecca turned to face her after several minutes. "For God’s sake, Lorraine. Are you crying? You're fourteen years old." She swiped at Lorraine's cheeks with her hand, frowning as she looked at her daughter's mouth, where a bead of blood coated her lower lip.

  She shook her head and turned away, scanning the forest. "Beverly!" she shouted, walking forward. "Beverly, this is Rebecca Hicks. It's time to come out, young lady."

  Rebecca's tone was stern, but Lorraine heard the tremor in her voice. Lorraine stayed close to her, so close that when she stopped abruptly, Lorraine walked into her back.

  "Lorraine," Rebecca said, annoyed. "Show me which tree she climbed."

  Lorraine stared around the forest, which looked alien in the approaching nightfall. She took a few steps forward, making sure her mom followed.

  "That one," she said, spotting it through a break in the trees. She was sure it was the right one when she saw the remnants of the oyster mushrooms she'd smashed on the ground several feet away.

  Her mother glanced at the mushrooms and then walked to the base of the tree, staring up into the dark branches. "Beverly Silva! Are you up there? This is Lorraine's mother. It's time to come down."

  No sound emerged from the tree and no Beverly.

  Lor
raine stared at the ground, at the pale mushrooms like flesh. She could smell their acrid odor and her stomach turned.

  "Mom," she whimpered. "I'm scared."

  Her mom said nothing, merely stared into the tree, but when she looked back at Lorraine a moment later, she too looked scared. "How long ago did you see her climb into the tree?"

  Lorraine shook her head. "I don't know, a half hour maybe."

  Rebecca turned on a flashlight, though darkness had not completely fallen. "Beverly," she yelled, walking ahead of Lorraine.

  Again, Lorraine felt the irrational urge to grab her hand and scream, 'Run!' She wanted them both to turn and race from the trees. Instead, her feet leaden, she followed her mother deeper into the woods.

  Eventually the crunching of branches underfoot met their ears. Lorraine perked up as her mother swung the flashlight toward the sound.

  "Beverly," Lorraine croaked, stumbling forward, but it was not Beverly who stepped into the beam of light.

  Mark, Charlotte's husband, appeared in front of them, his own flashlight, the long heavy-duty black kind, clutched in his hand. "Charlotte said one of Lorraine's friends is lost out here?" he asked.

  Rebecca sighed, reaching for Lorraine’s hand. Her palm felt cold and slick.

  "Yeah, thanks, Mark," she told him. "Her name is Beverly Silva. I figured we'd walk in here and find her right away, but..."

  "Where did you last see her?" He was looking at Lorraine now.

  Lorraine pointed back the way they'd come. "She climbed into a big oak tree back there."

  "And never came back down?"

  She shook her head. "I never saw her come back down."

  "Can you take me to the tree?" He clicked his flashlight on.

  Lorraine walked past him, her mother's hand slipping from her own.

  When they reached the tree, Mark easily swung onto the lowest branch and started up, hopping from branch to branch. "Beverly?" he shouted.

  Lorraine and her mom stood on the ground watching as he disappeared into the same dense leaves Beverly had climbed into. For a moment, Lorraine thought he wouldn't come back out. Like Beverly, he'd climb up and up. She imagined the tree as the plant in Jack and the Beanstalk. It led to a giant's castle in the sky.

  Several moments later, his jeans-clad legs stepped out from the leaves. He climbed back down and dropped to the forest floor.

  "She's not up there," he said. "Best if we walk home and make some calls, get more searchers out here."

  "Maybe she'll already be there," Rebecca said hopefully. "Might have found her way to the road and doubled back and we missed her."

  "Very possible," he agreed.

  Lorraine wanted to share their optimism, but as they trudged out of the forest, she felt sure they would not find Beverly waiting for them.

  That night Lorraine fell asleep to the sound of voices downstairs. Outside her window, beams of light from people's flashlights crisscrossed the yard and the road.

  The police had come and Beverly's parents too. Lorraine had told them all the story, repeating the details again and again. She never reported the odd shriek she'd heard, fearing if she mentioned the Dogman, she'd lose all credibility.

  It was midnight when Lorraine's mother had finally ushered her up to bed. Though Lorraine argued, she fell into a deep sleep when her head hit the pillow.

  In Lorraine's dream, she was back in the forest once more. Everything was quiet, and a red mist rose from the ferns. In the distance she heard the tinkling of Bev's harmony bell. Lorraine stumbled forward, hands out, as she pushed through the fog.

  "Beverly," Lorraine screamed. She could barely walk, feeling as if she moved against the rushing current of a warm stream. The tinkling of the bell grew further away.

  Lorraine woke in her bed, whimpering, one hand reaching in the darkness.

  Near her window, Lorraine heard the tinkling of Beverly's harmony bell. She bolted to her feet and lunged toward the window. Lorraine's toe caught on her bookbag and she pitched forward, missing her bureau by only a few inches, throwing out her hands so she didn't land on her face.

  She held her breath and listened. The sound had vanished, but as she raised her eyes to the glass, she saw that it was wide open despite her mother having closed and locked it when she put Lori to bed.

  The searches went on for weeks.

  Three weeks from the day that fourteen-year-old Beverly Silva went missing, the searches were called off. More than five hundred people had scoured the woods. Divers had gone into a pond. Tracking dogs had followed Beverly's scent to the tall oak, but could not find it from there.

  In the months that followed, few leads arose regarding the whereabouts of Beverly Silva—few save one.

  Those who continued searching for the missing girl reported hearing the haunting tinkle of a bell somewhere in the forest on Tanglewood Drive.

  3

  Fifteen Years Later

  "Come on, Lori," Stu argued. "Everyone is going. The whole crew for a weekend of camping. How can you not want to go?"

  Lori looked at her boyfriend, Stu. He wasn't pleading. Instead, he looked irritated that she'd even consider saying no.

  "I don't camp, Stu. Go, have fun. I'm going to stay here. There’s an HR webinar I wanted to attend that focuses on dealing with aggressive or violent staff.”

  "Are you kidding me right now? You're going to pass up a weekend of floating down a river to learn a skill you will literally never use? You work for a marketing company. That place is as dry as an old woman’s panties."

  Lori shifted back to her planner where she'd been filling in her work schedule for the next two weeks. "I'd rather you saved your bad metaphors for Ronny and Mitch."

  "Both of whom will be camping this weekend."

  "Well, that gives me two more reasons I won't be going.”

  "That's horseshit, Lori. We haven't taken a vacation in months and you've barely left your apartment. You cancelled our trip up north so you could dogsit for that spaz, Naomi, who probably just took off shopping or some shit."

  "Her grandfather died, Stu. She didn't go shopping and she needed the help."

  "Well, I wanted you there with me. Is that so wrong?" He got off the couch and walked to where Lori sat at her desk, spinning her around in the computer chair to face him.

  He knelt and pulled her closer, forcing her knees apart so he could squeeze between her legs, stopping with his face inches from her own. "I'm asking you to go with me, Lori. I think we need this. I know we do."

  Lori studied his eyes, green with bits of gold. They'd been the first thing she noticed when she'd met Stu five years before at the Steak Pit, where they were both waiting tables. Stu had been a year graduated, but working at the Steak Pit while he searched for a teaching job. Lori had been graduating in the spring and trying to save up money for an apartment. Despite the passage of years, Stu still worked at the Steak Pit, as a manager now rather than server. And Lori still lived in the same apartment she'd found the summer after they met.

  He cocked an eyebrow and leaned in, keeping his eyes locked on Lori. "Come on, baby. For me."

  She loved and hated when he called her that. Loved it because it made her feel special, chosen. She hated it for the same reasons and for that gaping void of fear that lay on the other side of that feeling. The chasm left if those feelings ever departed.

  Lori glanced toward the bay window, where her cat Matilda slept in a pile of calico fur. Her paperback copy of Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury sat unopened beside her. Lori had bought the book the day before from a mobile book truck that had been parked in the lot outside her work building. She'd purchased it on impulse and had been fantasizing about a weekend reading and drinking coffee in her window.

  Lori closed her eyes and opened her mouth to say no. She couldn't go camping. She had reasons she couldn't explain because she'd shut that part of herself away. She couldn't talk about it to anyone, not even to herself in the solitude of her own mind.

 
But Stu pressed his mouth against hers so hard that their teeth clacked together. He ran his hands through her long dark brown hair and then she felt his hands on her shirt, tugging it up and off. His mouth moved to her neck.

  He grabbed the elastic of her sweatpants and pulled. Lori lifted upward long enough for him to yank them free and then he was picking her up and carrying her to the bedroom. Somewhere in the haze of grasping and kissing, she said yes.

  "Lori!" Mindi shrieked when Lori climbed out of the passenger side of her car. Mindi bounded across the space between them and grabbed Lori in a hug. "Stu said you weren't coming. I'm so excited."

  Lori hugged her back, noticing another of her former co-workers over her shoulder.

  Nicki, inappropriately dressed in a tube top and jean shorts so high her pockets hung out the bottom, had stopped as she lifted a bag from her trunk, eyes narrowing in Lori's direction. Nicki's smile turned into a frown, and then her eyes slid over to Stu and brightened. She feigned struggling with the bag. Her keys hung from the trunk lock, a hot pink stiletto keychain dangling from the set.

  "Need help with that?" Stu asked, walking toward her.

  Nicki giggled and tucked one strand of pale blonde hair behind her ear. "Guess I should have packed lighter."

  Mindi released Lori. "Cole and I brought a huge tent if you guys want to sleep with us. It's one of those beasts with three separate rooms. Apparently his mom bought it for some big camp-out they did a few years back in Yellowstone."

  Lori shifted her gaze away from Stu and Nicki, trying not to notice Nicki's impossibly shapely tan legs that extended from her jean shorts.

  "Who wears that camping?" Lori mumbled, considering her own camel-colored hiking shorts and baggy athletic shirt.

  Mindi turned and eyed Nicki. "Oh, you know, Nicki. The fewer clothes the better even if we are hiking into poison ivy-infested woods."

  "Really?" Lori frowned, wishing she'd opted for long pants after all.

  Mindi laughed. "No, of course not. Not on the trail anyway. If you wander into the wilderness, well, that's another story, isn't it?"