In Dark Places

by Darryl J Keck

  Everything just got very real. I suddenly feel dizzy as if I stood up too quickly after being startled from a nap. My little adventure last night affected more than just Benny, Robbie, and me; everyone’s life must have spun off in a different direction.

  Although it only feels like a day to me, everyone else lived through 25 years of experiences that I can’t recollect. This is not like being frozen for 50 years and waking up to find a robot sweeping the floor. It’s deceiving. Everything looks pretty much the same; it’s the people that have changed. The picture of Robbie in a minor league baseball uniform was odd, but Billy being married to Jackie is absolutely devastating.

  “Where are you going with this?” he asks after a long pause.

  “I’m not sure anymore. I’m not sure of anything.” I sit on the porch ledge, trying to collect my thoughts—and breathing deeply to avoid the urge to vomit.

  I thought I’d be waking up to a brighter future. I didn’t expect the lives of the people around me to be transformed. I own the same car containing the same amount of rust, live in the same house, carry the same white purse, and apparently still have my underground webcam business. Where exactly has my life changed for the better? I’m not seeing any exotic alterations! Then again, I didn’t exactly ask for my life to change for the better—I had just requested for it to change. Why in the fuck wasn’t I more specific last night?

  “How long have you been married?” I ask, not wanting to hear the answer, but it’s far from a rhetorical question.

  “We’ve been married for almost ten years.”

  “Ten years? Jackie is my best friend in the world. We have some serious of catching up to do.”

  “The two of you are not best friends,” he says, refusing to pull his punches. “What is with this sudden interest in Jackie? You weren’t even invited to our wedding.”

  “Why wasn’t I invited?” My heart breaks upon this declaration.

  “From what she told me, you two haven’t been on speaking terms since about the third grade. I’m lost here, Mandi.”

  I roll right over his statement. “Do you think Jackie would talk with me? She’s the only person that will be able to make any sense of what has happened to me. I’m spinning out!”

  “I highly doubt that Jackie would be comfortable talking with you . . . especially after what happened to my mom last year. You, of all people, should understand that.”

  “What happened to your mom?” After the words exit my lips, I already know what answer is coming.

  “Why are you playing this game?” His eyes aren’t tearing up, but the redness shows that he’s holding in the pain of what must be a harrowing memory. “You know what Agnew did to her. After a senseless murder like that, Jackie will not want to associate with you because of your relation to him.”

  “Billy, you know me,” I plead. “Come on. I’m nothing like that guy; I only share the last name with the asshole.”

  “I only remember you from school. I have no idea what has happened to you since then. I’ve heard a few rumors, none of which were all that positive. For the safety of my family, I can’t crack open that door.”

  Each of my quick-witted snubs and clever brush-offs has been scrubbed from his memory. That’s probably the only reason he has talked with me this long.

  “All I need is to sit with her for an hour over a cup of coffee,” I plead. “It can even be in public. You can sit ten feet away to monitor the convo. I desperately need her voice of reasoning. So much has happened over the past 24 hours that only she would fully understand.”

  “Mandi,” he says firmly. “I strongly suggest that you stay away from her as well as our children.”

  “You have kids together too?” My question is full of melancholy. So much for being a godparent like we once promised each other. Jesus, my life will forever be renting substandard property, driving crappy used cars, and trying to crawl out of a trough of financial despair—all without Jackie there to lean on during the problematic moments. Man, did I ever make the wrong stop!

  “Yes, and she is due home with them in about an hour. If you are anywhere near the house, you’ll be forcing me to call the police. She wouldn’t understand why you are here any more than I do right now. She has suffered through too many sleepless nights worrying about the safety of our kids. I cannot put her in any situation that upsets her. Are we clear?”

  “Yeah, we’re clear.” I feel like he just socked me in the stomach while tightly gripping a roll of quarters. “I won’t get anywhere near Jackie. I want to reiterate that I may be related to Agnew, but I am nothing like him. I’ve never even met the asshole.”

  “That may be so, but you need to respect what I want here.”

  “You’re not giving me any other choice but to respect it.” There’s no point arguing because we’re virtually strangers. He only knows me as a version of Mandi that I’ll never meet—well, aside from those nasty mug shots and a driver’s license photo that made me cringe. Life can be a real bitch-slap. “I need to ask one last question. I promise to be on my way after that.”

  “What is it?” His abrupt reply is evidence that he wants me to disappear from his life.

  “Jeez, Billy. Don’t bite my head off. I was only going to ask which house on this street belongs to Patricia Jackson.”

  He hesitates, most likely trying to figure out my reason for asking. “From what I remember, Patricia lives out in Terrace View Mobile Park.”

  “I can’t believe she resides in that dump.”

  “I don’t keep tabs on her, but I believe she may still be there.”

  Apparently, Pat went from owning a home to residing in a crappy trailer park. Anyone in my path got royally fucked. Well, except Jackie. It sounds like she’s been fucking plenty.

  This day is shaping up swimmingly. In addition to being arrested, I have been downgraded to losing my only friend. Jackie has been by my side through every traumatic event in my life—until today. This new chapter of my life will contain no friends and a rising death toll. Nice wish, dumb ass!

  No matter how many familiar faces I encounter, they will all have 25 years of experiences that will make them strangers in this conflicting reality. Karma is sure taking a shark-sized bite out of my keister.

  Chapter 15

  Derek

  Travis effectively endorsed that Mandi’s behavior would be radically different from an adjustment made to the past, but he is not in touch with cosmic forces. After what I discovered in my journal and the memory of Taradiddle Tony, I should probably visit Bridget. I might be getting too obsessed with this case. Before I resort to seeing a counselor, I feel the need to gather information related to other peculiarities about Wilkinson Creek. The one person I can trust with questions of this nature is Carmen Ashbury—the proprietor of The House of Psychic Readings.

  I didn’t even think of contacting her until the Rogue Psychic comic turned up in my pile—it was just too much of a coincidence to brush off. Carmen is the area’s leading expert in the field of supernatural and dark forces—although she doesn’t advertise her arcane side too often. We met two years ago during a creative writing seminar. Incidentally, we were the most promising writers in the four-week course, but we were harboring a few secrets between us.

  A few weeks before dating Heidi, Carmen and I went on several dates. The relationship didn’t go anywhere because she has empathic abilities—something she hadn’t mentioned when I first asked her out. Under normal conditions, Carmen would have been ideal: she was talented, intelligent, and alluring as hell. I had never been in the company of an empathic person, so I didn’t realize how deeply she could tap into my emotions. Until our second date, I wasn’t even aware that she read palms, channeled, and worked with tarot cards. I’ve never been in a hurry to tell a woman that I’m in law enforcement, so I typically avoided any subject that could segue into how I earned a paycheck—including how they made a living.

  Carmen had been working on a nonfiction title covering the gamut of va
mpires, specters, and witches that inhabited Illinois long ago. Her dark tales about witches were not stereotypical—these were not women with pointed hats that flew on broomsticks like we’ve been led to believe in the storybooks.

  With Carmen’s radiant smile, dainty nose, and pronounced cheekbones, she has the captivating face you’d expect to see on a romance novel dust jacket, not a book centering on supernatural entities. Until she invited me to her house on our third date, I had no idea how deeply this obsession went.

  Her living room walls were covered in framed paranormal items. The collection consisted of authentic Ouija boards, stakes that were used to kill vampires, a ponytail of a teenage witch, amongst a slew of other spine-chilling items that should only be displayed in a horror museum. I had finally become comfortable that she worked as a psychic, but her walls left me unsettled.

  “Everything in my collection is completely authentic,” she stated. “Do you find it a peculiar that I have all this stuff hanging on the walls like mementos?”

  “Should I expect to find the daggers that were designed to kill Damien Thorne in a drawer?” I laughed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t seem the type to go in for all this spooky stuff. I’m not knocking it; I’m just surprised.”

  “My interest is centered on the historical opposed to the macabre. Maybe I can get you to read the first few chapters of the book I’m writing on the subject,” she hinted.

  “Would you trust me to read it?”

  “I’d love an honest opinion. I’ve done more research than I care to admit, and I’m hoping the book will come to fruition soon. I would like to know if it’s interesting or dry.”

  Before we could get into more detail, we moved to her living room and began kissing on the couch. Everything was going better than expected for a third date. We were comfortable with each other, and I was stylishly rounding the bases—somehow managing to ignore all of the phantasmal artifacts surrounding us. Out of nowhere, I felt an intense pulsation. A car had slowly passed by her house driven by someone intending to commit a violent act—or so I suspected. The kissing rhythm was only lost for about five seconds, but it was enough to radically change the mood.

  “Derek, did something just happen?” she asked, confrontationally. “I felt you disengage. More than that, I sensed that you felt an enormous shift of negative energy.”

  “I felt something weird,” I explained, trying to cover up all evidence of the internal surge. “It only lasted for a few seconds. I promise that it had nothing to do with you.”

  “The vibration emitting from you felt as if you were suddenly alerted to trouble or danger.”

  “Oh, I keep forgetting that you are empathic.” Her intuition was unsettling; it was like wearing my secrets on the outside. I was mindful of her palm reading talent, but I didn’t like her ability to read me during a romantic encounter.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “This happens from time to time,” I said in a weak attempt to downplay the ability. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “You’ve been awarded a gift you’ve yet to embrace fully. Don’t be afraid to master such an offering. When I first became conscious of my abilities, I was initially frightened. Over time, I realized my clairvoyance was more of a calling than a hindrance.”

  “Carmen, this is not an ability.” From the steely look in her eyes, it became evident that her mind had already been made up.

  Right then, I knew concealing this odd little quirk from a woman so sensitive to energy would be impossible. We hadn’t built up enough trust to reveal an esoteric secret that I could barely admit to myself. The next day, I phoned and told her that we just weren’t in the same place. It was such a “dick move.” And here I am walking into her place of business to tap into her mastery—another “dick move” but necessary under the circumstances.

  Showing up in this part of town without a uniform is a bit unnerving. The House of Psychic Readings resides in a neighborhood overrun by illegal drug activity, gun trafficking, and a bevy of criminal enterprises. Her business rests between a check cashing store and a sketchy pawnshop. Two blocks to the south, plenty of skanky women and trannys offer $20 blowjobs to any creep with a backseat or a blanket.

  Every small city has an area that becomes a magnet to the miscreants. The south side of Bluff Ridge is a breeding ground for drug pushers, prostitutes, and gang members. This wasn’t the case before Bluff Ridge was accused of not having enough diversity. Mayor Griffin thought a good move was zoning part of the city to relocate welfare cases from other cities. Unanimously, the original residents of Bluff Ridge didn’t feel as if expanding the population with unemployed residents was the best decision to keep up property values.

  Upon pulling open the door of The House of Psychic Readings, the rusted hinges squeak loud enough to alert every business within 500 feet to my unanticipated arrival. The dwelling has the aroma of musk incense and flowery air freshener.

  From the darkened hallway, a woman asks, “May I help you?” The sultry voice undoubtedly belongs to Carmen. As she comes into view, she is dressed to the nines in a revealing sleeveless blouse and a plaid skirt. With highlighted light brown hair, generous cleavage, and chip-free cherry-red nails, I royally screwed up letting her go. “Hello, Derek, it has been quite some time,” she says cautiously.

  “Hi, Carmen. It has been too long,” I say, attempting small talk.

  “Are you here on some type of police business?”

  “Not exactly—at least not anything directly related to you.” Although I’m not admitting it to her, I’m finally doing some long-awaited detective work.

  “Okay, good,” she says, clearly relieved. “I am not good with surprises that don’t come gift-wrapped with a shiny red bow. I thought it might have something to do with the boys that were in here about an hour ago. They were bringing trouble in the door, so I made them leave. The tween boys seemed difficult to trust.”

  “You probably did the right thing sending them away,” I say, wondering if I should ask whether they were from the neighborhood or not. I need to remind myself that I’m not on duty. “I’m actually here regarding an entirely unrelated matter.” I should keep it social and loose, but I’m gracing these walls because she’s a supernatural almanac. Since I haven’t made the slightest effort to cross paths with her in two years, I should probably just get to it. “I have a few questions regarding your expertise in the area of paranormal activity—especially people with unique abilities.”

  “You sound as if you are after something specific. I’m not all that surprised that you showed up.”

  “Were you expecting me?”

  “Not you necessarily,” she says, “but things have been very ‘off’ so far today.”

  “Can you feel it too?”

  “I don’t have to feel it—my two cats told me everything before leaving the house this morning for the library. They were hissing and tearing through the hallways like they were dosed on Red Bull. My felines are like a barometer. It is supposed to be clear skies all day, so I’m not sure what has them all riled up. Surges of negative energy have been floating through the air since opening my eyes.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “First, there was that unexpected suicide this morning,” she says. “There’s more to that than just a depressed man tumbling off the roof of the bank.”

  “I don’t know the specifics regarding the accident other than what I briefly heard at the station. I was writing most of the morning, so I kept the radio and TV off. I’ll catch up on it tonight.”

  “Personally, I think he fell the thirteen stories—or was pushed, but the Bluff Ridge Post will spin the outcome into a desperate suicide to sell newspapers. Then, those two tweens brought some negative energy in here with them. I was forced to escort them to the back door—regardless of their protesting. This town is going a little haywire, so under the circumstances, your arrival is not much of a shocker.”

  I’d ask if she c
an also detect the static in the air, but she might accuse me of having another ability. It’s best to proceed with caution to keep from being subjected to an uncomfortable discussion.

  “I promise that I’m not here to darken your day,” I say, although what I have to say just might do exactly that. “Would it be possible to have a half-hour consultation? I will pay for your time. I’m more or less following a hunch. What I need may seem out of left field and needs to remain confidential.”

  “We can have a consultation, but I need something from you before we begin.”

  “Sure, anything.”

  She hesitates, bites her bottom lip, and says, “I want to know why you broke it off with me!” Shit! I knew there’d be steep admission for coming to her for information. Well, I better own it. “I know it happened a long time ago, but I haven’t seen you since our last date. Everything seemed to be going fantastic, and then you called with that lame excuse. You were a departure from the standard guy I had dated, but you ended it in the same pathetic manner. At least you didn’t break it off in a text.”

  “It was something personal,” I admit.

  “Was it because you were put off by the way I kissed?” Her question is laced with vulnerability. “Over the years, several boyfriends have complained about the awkward way I used my tongue. I was a little loopy that night because I’m a complete lightweight when it comes to Chardonnay—and, well, you made me so damn nervous.”

  “Carmen, I swear that it had nothing to do with the way you kissed, touched, or anything in the area of romance. All of that was spectacular.”

  “You’re probably being nice to keep me from feeling like a drip,” she says, still a bit unsettled. “If it had nothing to do with the kissing, what could have caused you to desert me? I thought we were getting along so well.”

  I better be forthcoming. With Carmen’s empathic abilities, her bullshit detector has to be as sharp as a razor blade. “I was uncomfortable that you were able to sense what I was feeling.”