Calling Back the Dead: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel

by Erickson, J. R.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that murder,” he spat.

  “I believe you,” Sarah reassured him. “But I think you can help me. Please?”

  Will shoved one hand in his pocket and looked beyond Sarah, studying the parking lot and the park beyond.

  “Not here,” he said finally. “This isn’t my place. There’s an arcade on Front Street. I’ll meet you there.”

  “An arcade?” Sarah asked, dubious. It didn’t seem like the ideal location to talk about murder.

  “My friend owns it. There’s a private room, and it’s easy for me to get out if I need to.”

  SARAH’S SHOES stuck to the sticky floor as she wound through the arcade. Lights flashed from the tops of games, and little electronic voices shouted, ‘you lose’ or ‘add one dollar now.’ A group of young men stood around a pool table, lining up quarters on the edge and haggling one particular kid who was wrestling his own pool cue from a long black case.

  Sarah had not been in an arcade in years. They seemed a thing of the past, and yet here in downtown Traverse City, tucked away, one still existed. Sarah stopped at a little Plexiglas window.

  The girl behind the glass looked all of fourteen -years-old; she stared at Sarah, but said nothing.

  “I’m looking for Will,” Sarah told her.

  The girl stood, face expressionless, and opened the door beside her.

  “He’s back there.”

  Sarah walked past, glancing at the girl’s desk, where a battered copy of Rolling Stone lay revealing the non-smiling faces of the band U2. The hallway contained only two doors, one marked restroom and the other a mystery. She opted for the mystery door.

  The room matched the arcade, with dim lights and sticky floors. A Pac Man game towered in the corner, and several well-loved couches butted around a large, scarred coffee table. Will sat on one couch, his hands fiddling with a small pocketknife he opened and closed.

  Sarah stared at the knife and gave Will a look she hoped would deter him from using it.

  He looked surprised, and then glanced at the knife.

  “It’s not like that,” he told her, tucking the knife in his pocket. “My dad was an Eagle Scout. He taught me to take my knife everywhere. It’s not for violence.”

  Sarah nodded, thinking the same dad he spoke of had murdered his mother.

  She grabbed a plastic folding chair and perched on the edge, preferring not to get too comfortable next to the troubled young man.

  “So what do you want?” he asked.

  “My brother was the person murdered at Kerry Manor. A detective told me you were there that night.”

  Will’s face grew red, and he sprang from the couch.

  “I told you, and them, I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it!” he shouted.

  Sarah leaned back on the stool, glancing at the door. Over the sounds of the games and the well-insulated walls, no one would hear her if she screamed.

  “I’m not here to accuse you,” she said calmly. “I want to know what you think.”

  “What I think?” he sneered.

  “Yes, what you think. I know you suffered a tragedy you believe was connected to Kerry Manor. I’d like to hear more.”

  Will glared at her. He seemed to size her up, questioning whether she might actually believe him.

  He took his knife back out and flicked it open, closed, open. He paced away from her.

  “Whoever killed your brother,” he said in a rush, “was forced to do it.”

  “Forced how?”

  “By the evil spirit that lives in the house.” He spoke the words with his back to her.

  She wanted to laugh. In a movie, this was the part where she’d laugh, the kid would get mad, and later the evil spirit would kill her for her disbelief. The kid would get the last laugh. Instead she squeezed the chair beneath her and braced for the possibility his words were true.

  “You don’t believe me, right?” he asked, spinning around.

  “Well, I don’t want to,” she sighed. “I prefer murderers who can be incarcerated. But I’m learning things, strange things about Kerry Manor. You’re not the first to…”

  “I know,” he said. “I’ve spent the last five years of my life researching Kerry Manor. There are at least three deaths I’m aware of, four now that your brother is dead, and half a dozen other… things.”

  “Three deaths?” Sarah asked, incredulous. “At Kerry Manor?”

  He shook his head and slumped back onto the couch.

  “Before your brother died, there’d been only one at the house itself – well, more if you include the original family that died. The first after the fire happened in 1965. It was a doctor who worked at the Northern Michigan Asylum. His wife killed him in Kerry Manor.”

  Sarah frowned.

  “How do you know?”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “This is the twenty-first century. Have you heard of the internet?”

  “Don’t trust everything you read online.”

  He snorted.

  “I’m not stupid. The stories online are a place to start. I found the wife.”

  “The wife? The murderer?”

  He nodded, head high.

  “She’s not a murderer. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. A spirit made her kill him. She woke up in a pool of blood in Kerry Manor. She found her husband in the kitchen, dead, stabbed to death with a piece of broken glass.”

  A tremor of fear coursed through her as she recalled the story of Mr. Pulver’s friend with glass sticking from his cheek.

  “How did you find her?”

  “Her name was public record. They institutionalized her after the murder at the Northern Michigan Asylum. When the hospital closed, they released her.”

  “Released her? No prison time?”

  “They considered her insane when she committed the murder. Of course, they released her. She lives in Petoskey now with her sister. She takes care of old people.”

  “And she spoke to you about these things? After all these years?”

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  “She did when I told her about my dad. But it’s also because I believed her. Do you know how rare that is? To find someone who truly believes? I mean, look at you. You’re sitting there just searching for a way to poke holes in my story. You don’t want to believe it, so you’ll find a way not to. I know the truth. I watched it happen with my own eyes. My dad was the best person I’ve ever known. He was honest and kind and loved my mom like… like people in romantic comedies, or some shit. After we went to that house, he was scared. He confided in me. I was only twelve, but I knew something was wrong. He said a girl followed him from the house. She was torturing him, and he was terrified she wanted to hurt Mom.”

  “And then your father killed your mother?”

  “Except it wasn’t him. It was just like the doctor’s wife. He blacked out, and when he woke up, Mom was dead in the bathtub. They arrested him. The prosecutor made up some fool story that he wanted to have an affair with his secretary. Bullshit! He and my mom used to laugh about what a ditz his secretary was. Our criminal justice system is a joke.”

  Sarah tried to imagine the young man before her as a twelve-year-old boy - the only believer in his father’s innocence.

  “Why did he commit suicide? I mean, doesn’t that imply guilt?” She realized she’d just echoed the words of Detective Collins, and immediately regretted them.

  Will glared at her and shook his head.

  “He killed himself to get rid of the spirit. He couldn’t take it anymore. He wrote me a letter and told me everything. I tried to stop him. I called his lawyer, but it was too late. By the time I got the letter, he had already done it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sarah breathed. She too had lost her father, but not under such horrendous circumstances, and not while she was still a young girl. “What other things happened at Kerry Manor?”

  “I’m sure there’s more than what I know,” he said. “But I have a file on my
laptop of every incident I’ve uncovered. Give me your email, and I’ll send it you.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “Okay, yeah, that would be helpful.” She noticed he had glanced toward the corner when he mentioned his laptop, and she saw a green duffel bag next to a stack of neatly folded blankets.

  “Do you live here?” she asked.

  His jaw tightened, and he shook his head.

  “I crash here once in a while.”

  “You’re seventeen?”

  “Eighteen in four months.”

  “And then what? College?”

  He shrugged and took the knife back out, opening it and closing it.

  “Maybe. Why do you care?”

  Sarah stood.

  “I don’t, just asking.” She handed him a card from her wallet.

  “Sarah Flynn, Architect,” he read out loud.

  “Yep, that’s me.”

  “You build houses?”

  “Design them. I leave the building to the professionals.”

  He nodded and stuck the card in his back pocket.

  “I’ll email you tonight.”

  SARAH CLICKED the email from truthteller333@mail.com. Will had compiled a Google document that spanned five pages, including links to online articles, forums, his personal notes, and a detailed timeline.

  “Damn, this kid is organized,” she murmured, wondering at his persistence. His parents were both dead, after all; there was no one to exonerate.

  “He did it for himself,” she said. “Because he had to know for sure.”

  The document started with the original tragedy at Kerry Manor. It listed the names of the five members of the Kerry family offering a handful of details about each. There was a paragraph about Ethel, who had potential behavior problems at school and allegedly spent six months in the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane.

  The next incident occurred in 1928 and involved a little boy who nearly drowned while swimming in front of the partially burned mansion. He insisted he saw a little girl watching him from the window, and then suddenly she was in the lake, pulling him beneath the water. His father resuscitated him, and the incident was reported to a local journalist, who wrote a piece reflecting on the tragedy that occurred in the house nearly three decades before.

  Sarah read on. A girl claimed she was shoved from her roof by a ghost who followed her from Kerry Manor. A young woman was institutionalized, insisting she was being haunted by a child’s spirit after visiting Kerry Manor. The doctor’s wife, who murdered him at Kerry Manor and claimed she had no memory of the event. There were several reports by people who visited Kerry Manor and heard a child singing. Five articles linked to the murder of Will’s mother, Beverly, and an entire page was devoted to his father’s strange behavior after their visit to Kerry Manor. Finally, lastly, Sarah read about her own brother’s murder, and followed links to two news articles.

  Sarah leaned back in her chair and blew out a long, heavy breath.

  She had followed Will’s links and read articles posted by journalists who clearly had an open mind when it came to paranormal possibilities. She had also read two forums where several people spoke of second- and third-hand stories about strange, and often tragic, events that occurred shortly after family or friends visited Kerry Manor.

  Sarah closed her laptop and walked to one of several windows in her study. She braced her hands on the window ledge and looked at the steadily darkening sky. The sun had set and left a purple horizon, soon to be black.

  Something was clearly wrong at Kerry Manor. Sarah felt as if she was staring at a huge table scattered with puzzle pieces, unsure of the image she was meant to create.

  CHAPTER 20

  Now

  Corrie

  I was twenty-one and Sammy was twenty-three years old when he proposed marriage on a gondola in Las Vegas. It was cheesy and romantic. We drank champagne, and Sammy sang Moon River in his Sinatra voice. As the gondola veered back to the Strip, beneath the dazzling lights of the Venetian, Sammy fumbled onto one knee and pulled out a ring - a woven band of gold with an emerald in its center.

  “Will you be mine, forever?” Sammy asked, and I stared into his earnest eyes and tried not to burst into tears.

  “Who else would have me?” I grinned, wanting to joke through the spasm of happy grief that overwhelmed me.

  “Nope, it has to be proper,” he said. “Will you marry me?”

  “Yes, in a heartbeat.”

  We ate caramel crepes at the Paris to celebrate, and then returned to our own, less fancy, hotel in downtown Las Vegas. We sat in our room at the Golden Nugget, on a comforter that smelled of cigarettes, and plotted our future adventures.

  “Sammy, what if we become like all those other boring married couples who resent each other, but stay together because it’s easy or comfortable or they have kids?”

  Sammy lay half-naked on the bed, wearing a pair of sagging gray briefs. We had barely made it into the hotel room before we tore off our clothes and made love on the bristly carpet.

  “That will never happen to us, Corrie,” he said in a rare serious moment. “This love we have is cosmic, lifetimes in the making. This world,” he waved his hand dismissively, “can’t touch what we’ve got.”

  “Cookie!” Isis announced from the back seat, pulling me from my memories.

  I glanced in the rearview mirror at Isis holding a partially eaten cookie she’d found in her cup holder. Someday I would take her to Las Vegas for a gondola ride. I would repeat that day with our daughter.

  “And maybe with Sammy too,” I whispered, turning into the empty parking lot of the last bookstore on my list.

  The Antiquarian was a squat brick building with a wooden sign and a wrought iron eagle perched near the door. I glanced at the other five bookstores on my list - a slash through each of their names. No one had the book.

  I unloaded Isis from her car seat.

  “Last one, honey, I promise. Then we’ll go get a snack.”

  “A cupcake?” Isis asked, her brown eyes growing wide.

  “Sure, baby.”

  I pulled up her hood and tucked her tiny hand into my own. She hopped up and down as we hurried across the parking lot. The bookstore was in Ludington, two hours from Kerry Manor, and further than I had intended to travel. I should have called ahead, but the experience of driving, having a purpose outside of Kerry Manor, was oddly seductive. I dreaded returning to the shadowy house.

  I pushed the door open into a dimly lit store stuffed with old books. Bookcases stretched from floor to ceiling, crammed so close it was more like a maze than a store. As we meandered through the space, Isis trying to touch stacks of books I feared would topple on her head, a middle-aged man stepped from the shelves.

  Startled, he dropped the books in his hand.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “You must not have heard us come in.”

  He bent and scooped the books up.

  “Nope, these books are as good as earmuffs.” He adjusted his glasses and smiled. “What can I help you with?”

  “I’m looking for a book: The Summoning by Fletcher Wolfe.”

  The man stared at me, his eyes searching, and I knew he had the book.

  “You have it?” I asked, breathless.

  He nodded and frowned, patting the books in his hand.

  “It’s rather strange that you’d ask. I received this donation of books this morning. I had just set out to put them away.” He lifted a book from the top of the stack. I saw the black title on a dull gray background, an ethereal white figure set deep into the background.

  “May I?” I asked, reaching my hand out.

  He handed me the book, his expression curious.

  “How much?” I asked, though I didn’t care. I would pay a thousand dollars if he asked. Ten thousand.

  “It’s yours,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s meant to be yours. I couldn’t possibly take any money for it. But how about you, little lady? Ev
ery child gets a free children’s book just for walking in the store.”

  Isis tucked herself behind me, peeking between my legs.

  “She’d love it,” I said. “Isis, would you like a new story book?”

  She grinned and bobbed her head, yes.

  Isis picked out a worn copy of The Giving Tree, and we left. As we drove home, I fought the urge to pull over and open the book. I wanted to devour the pages, and yet felt strongly I had to read The Summoning at Kerry Manor.

  Sarah

  * * *

  “THAT WAS A VERY LONG TIME AGO,” the woman said, tilting her head to look at Sarah through narrow spectacles with stylish black rims. Her lips were painted a dark red, and silver streaked through her waist-length black hair. She wore a long black dress, and Sarah thought if she’d ever met a witch in real life, this woman was it.

  In Will’s Kerry Manor document, Sarah had found Delila’s story especially intriguing. After looking up her number online, she called the woman and asked for a meeting, surprised when she readily agreed.

  “But it happened? You’re the Delila from the story?”

  The woman laughed and shook her head.

  “Oh no, not at all. That Delila died many years ago, in Kerry Manor perhaps. But I share her name, yes, and her memories.”

  Sarah sat in the woman’s kitchen. A wall window revealed the forest, branches tangled, a little glass greenhouse nestled at the edge, bursting in green and color despite the November chill.

  Sarah drank warm cranberry juice sweetened with agave nectar - Delila’s secret recipe, she claimed.

  Delila held up her gray coffee mug painted with dark swirls.

  “I made these,” Delila said, nodding at the glass. “After that summer, I did so many things. For a moment, I feared I’d lost everything. Some days I expected to die, and other days I imagined I’d lost my mind and I would live forever in that huge asylum, listening to the mad cries of the other patients.”

  “You were committed then?” Sarah asked, returning to her seat.

  “Who told you this story, dear? Could they have skipped over that most important part?

  “A young man. His name is Will.”