The Middle House: Return to Cold Creek Hollow (Haunted Series)

by Alexie Aaron

  “I have to go now. I’m supposed to be helping to find the Dark Heart box.”

  “We have it.”

  “I know. I watched the farmer and his dog take it. But they don’t have to know this. It will buy you time. The box contains more than the solution to this problem, Mia. It contains horrors yet to be. Guard it from those who would use its power,” she advised and disappeared.

  Mia sat down in the grass and absorbed all the woman had said. She lay back, looked up at the blue sky and concentrated on the clouds moving over head in order to settle herself down. Murphy walked up and sat down beside her.

  “How much did you hear?” she asked him.

  “All of it.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Pray.”

  ~

  Lorna and Tonia sat astride their horses staring at the gate. It didn’t take long before an armed man dressed in black approached them.

  “I’m sorry, you’ll have to move on, ladies,” he said, checking out the tight riding breeches on the dark-haired woman.

  “When did this all happen?” Lorna asked. “We just rode through here last weekend.”

  “I’m not at liberty to say, Miss.”

  “Shame, it was such a beautiful place before you fenced it in,” she said and clucked her tongue and her horse started to move.

  The wild-haired woman following her gave him a nod of her head as they moved off.

  Further down the lane Lorna waited for Tonia to catch up. “Did you read him?”

  “Oh, yes, he had a brain full of what he’d like to do to you until you asked about the fence, and then the gates opened and Brentwood’s plan spilled out. The intent is to keep the living out while they gather what they need, goats, children, women,” she listed. “You know, the usual maniacal shopping list. The guard thinks they’re needed for a religious compound. We need to warn the sheriff about the properties surrounding the boneyard in town. He intends to cut through the iron fence to enable the spirit population to do his dirty work for them.”

  “I’ll take care of that. You need to get that wagon back to the fairgrounds before it’s missed. We don’t need to be on the sheriff’s shit list when we come asking for favors.”

  Tonia saluted her partner before riding off in the direction of their encampment. Lorna walked her horse down the lane until she came to the last of the cyclone fencing. She encouraged Airgead to cross the ditch, and together they disappeared into the woods to do a little recon work.

  The edge of the woods was all new growth trees, the oldest being eight or nine years old. The forest had been cut back when new roads were made and water and sewer lines were laid for the proposed subdivision. But nature will always win out if you’re not attentive, Lorna thought when she saw the encroachment of the brambles and the saplings. Airgead followed a deer path, placing his hooves mindful of the rotted limbs and slippery moss. Lorna looked for indicators of spirit activity.

  “This is not holy ground,” a familiar voice said in her head. “Our people knew long ago that a place of great power is no place to bury their dead.”

  “But Great Grandfather, this is contrary to what I’ve been made to believe,” she argued.

  “Histories, even our histories, were written for the benefit of the teller,” he counseled.

  “What is it that lurks behind the stone walls of the house? Tonia says it’s a skin-walker, but the sensitive sensed a demon.”

  “They are both correct. A demon and a skin-walker reside in the middle house. One lives, the other is trapped. Skin-walker is a label,” her spirit guide educated. “It means many things. The Navaho are haunted by the old evil ones who take on the guise of the animals they kill. They knock on the walls and doors asking to be let in. Each tribe has these problems. The demon is another matter entirely. The lost tribe here was consumed by it before they had time to give it a name.”

  “Why does it stay behind the stone walls?” she asked.

  “It is tied there. It cannot leave. A generation of the people gave their lives to bind it there.”

  “It is bound there, but still it spreads its evil.”

  “There is not much you can do about that child,” her great grandfather cautioned.

  “I disagree. There is someone who can.”

  “Do not call her in haste, my great granddaughter. She will be angry.”

  “I do not fear her anger, Great Grandfather.”

  “Make sure this is bravery and not bravado, my child.”

  Lorna let his final words echo in the rooms of her memory palace. She moved Airgead away from the fetid swampy ground towards higher ground. As the horse moved out of the darkness of the deep forest, Lorna began to prepare herself. A cluttered mind could not communicate with the old ones. A weak body could not bear the transformation. She would have to build a sweat lodge, but first she must find the right place.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mia walked into the barn to find a wall of men’s backs between her and the silver box. It rested in the open lead-lined vault that was balanced on top of a Martin antique table that Mia had banished from the house. The priests, Angelo, Mike, Burt, and Cid were studying the artifact while Ted filmed them. Audrey sat perched on the workbench, engrossed by something she was reading. Murphy walked through the wall and leaned through Mike to see what had them all so interested. He reared back and motioned to Mia that trouble was afoot.

  “I was advised to not open it,” Mia said.

  Father Santos turned around. “By whom?”

  “Alice May Blackwell.”

  “Since when are you taking advice from the hollow crowd?” Mike asked.

  “Since today. To quote the spinster, ‘The box contains more than the solution to this problem, Mia. It contains horrors yet to be. Guard it from those who would use its power.’ I recommend we weigh her caution before opening what could be another Pandora’s box.”

  “Angelo could take it away…”

  Angelo shook his head. “I would not be the best candidate for this. My vault is over in Europe. This is of North American design. It draws its power from here. If I take it away from its power source, would I not enable the evil to escape?”

  “The man makes a good point,” Mia said.

  “I never thought I’d see the day Mia and Angelo are on the same page,” Mike said. “I’m not anything more than a mouthpiece, but I agree with them.”

  Burt looked at Father Alessandro who had picked up the box and tilted it back and forth. “It holds something organic.”

  “It’s a heart,” Audrey spoke up. “I have found references to this, the Dark Heart symbol, in six different North American tribes. They are similar in design to the hex signs the Pennsylvania Dutch had painted on their buildings, but I could find no symbols like these three in their history.” She held up a tracing of one of the symbols on the lid of the box. “This one,” she said, picking up another tracing, “I only found in three tribal communities. It is a warning symbol. It accompanies mention of great evil,” she explained. “And this is cannibalism,” she said, holding up the last symbol.

  “Why are all the entities of this area attracted to the eating of flesh?” Burt said with disgust.

  CRACK! Murphy slammed his axe on the cement in protest.

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said all, but we have Steele, his followers, the hag, and now this,” Burt said, pointing to the box.

  “Son, it was once thought in every group of men all over the world that consuming the heart of their enemy made them stronger,” Father Santos elucidated. “Barbaric, but they had no one to guide them. No light…”

  Mia smiled when the priest stopped himself from starting the sermon that was brewing in his mind.

  “He is speaking the truth,” Angelo said. “Societies go through stages in their development. The eating of enemies and sacrifice of innocents still happens in the more remote parts of this world.”

  “People get Kuru from eating infected human brains,” Cid in
formed them. “In New Guinea, it used to be part of the funeral ritual to eat the dead’s brains. People would get skin ulcers and worms. It’s fatal.”

  “But yet it still goes on,” Burt spat. “Why?” He turned his gaze on the men of the cloth.

  “I wish I could answer all your questions, but it’s above my pay grade,” Alessandro said, then comforted, “I assure you that this is very unusual. We have progressed, and the more we move toward enlightenment, then these kinds of things…”

  “I disagree,” Father Santos said. “The more good takes hold, then the more of this kind of thing will happen. Evil must have its place,” he argued.

  Angelo waved the others away from the arguing priests. “Don’t worry, this is an old argument. They will tire of it soon,” he explained. “I would like to consult with my elders. Is there someplace I can change in privacy?”

  Cid nodded. “Follow me. I don’t think I’ve shown you my bachelor pad, have I?”

  Mike waited until the two left before remarking, “Bachelor pad? You mean the nerd dates?”

  “Be nice,” Mia poked a finger at Mike. “He’s young.”

  Mike raised his hands in surrender.

  “He’s got a girlfriend,” Ted said, downloading the stored data from the camera into the workshop computer.

  “Who?” Mike asked.

  “Someone named Sandy. They met online,” Ted said.

  “And you got this information how?” Mia asked suspiciously. “Not from the diary…”

  “Cid has a diary?” Audrey asked.

  “Ahem,” Burt cleared his voice and pointed upwards. “Remember the boy has super hearing.”

  Cid walked back into the workshop where he found the priests still debating good and evil and the PEEPs huddled over at the end of the workbench looking very guilty.

  “I’m going to see if I can rustle up enough grub to feed this crowd,” Mia said, a bit too loudly.

  Cid winced at the memory of Mia’s last foray into cooking. “Let me help, please?”

  Mia smiled at Cid taking her bait. “Well, if you want to, I was thinking lasagna.”

  Cid fell into step with her. “I wouldn’t suggest something so Italian considering…”

  “Angelo’s gone, and the fathers are Spanish, I think?” Mia questioned herself.

  Cid held the door open for her. “I was going to say, considering it’s kind of difficult. How about chili?” he suggested. “Everyone loves chili.”

  “I like chili,” Tonia said, leaning against the support to the outside stairs leading to Cid’s apartment.

  “Excellent entrance,” Mia said. “The group’s inside. Go on in, don’t be shy,” she said sarcastically.

  “That’s me, the shy violet. Speaking of violets, I hear that you had a conversation with a certain flower collector…”

  “Murphy,” Mia growled. “He’s a worse gossip than Ted.”

  “No. This time I was eavesdropping outside the barn door,” Tonia admitted.

  “Okay, now you’re worse than Ted,” Mia said. “Cid and I are headed inside to make a vat of chili. You might as well come along. You can peel the onions.”

  Tonia frowned.

  “Yep, you’re in trouble,” Cid said. “Only the naughty get that task.”

  “Eavesdropping isn’t being naughty; it’s being informed,” Tonia argued.

  “Save it. We’ve heard all the excuses for eavesdropping. You’ll have to be very inventive if you’re going to escape onion detail,” Cid advised, holding open the door to the farmhouse.

  Tonia closed her mouth and followed Mia into the house.

  Mia waited until they had the chili on simmer before telling them both of her conversation with Alice May on the hillside.

  “So you have the box in the barn?”

  “It’s in a lead-lined box right now. Hopefully shielded from prying eyes. But I can’t seem to get the priests to stop looking at it,” Mia complained. “I think it needs to be taken somewhere, buried and forgotten.”

  “I agree with you. Perhaps the Council of Women has some idea of where would be a good place,” Tonia spoke.

  “Council of Women?” Cid asked. “Who, what…”

  “There is a group of former sages and sensitives that watch this world. I have two grandmothers that sit with the group. Mia has a grandmother that is also in the group,” she told Cid.

  “Mia, did you know this?” Cid asked, awed by the concept of the council.

  “I found out recently. Evidently, it’s my Grandma Fred.”

  “Does she talk to you?” he asked.

  “Nope. Should she?” Mia directed her question to Tonia.

  “I can’t answer that, because I don’t know. What I can say is that they don’t have power over the living, but they do have advice, lots and lots of advice, some good, and some bad, mostly given in these insane riddles. They fight sometimes. It’s a nightmare,” Tonia confessed. “But they do seem to be in touch with what needs immediate attention.”

  “Sounds like a sewing bee for ghosties,” Cid observed. “When I was a kid, there were these ladies at church. They would sit for hours sewing and gossiping. They dispensed bile and advice in equal measure.”

  “How traumatic for you,” Tonia sympathized. “I suppose you must have sat in the hot seat.”

  “No, my mother, she sat there sewing with the rest of them, taking in their advice. You see, she was stuck dealing with a short, fat, nearly blind kid that didn’t have any friends and refused to leave his room all summer. I’d like to find the horror that suggested me going to basketball camp and give her a piece of my mind.”

  “I’d like to be a fly on the wall when that happens,” Mia said. “But somehow, I feel that when you ran away from camp and ended up in the library, you found your way here,” she said softly. “First to Ted, and through him, you came here. Perhaps I should thank the old crow.”

  Cid’s eyes watered. “You mean that, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. I rarely tell lies, not since that nose growing incident of 2012…” Mia said, touching her face.

  Tonia, taken in by the scene, shook her head. “Honestly, I can’t figure you PEEPs out. I’ve been watching you for weeks.”

  “Weeks?” Mia challenged.

  “Okay, months, on and off. I had to know that you were what you advertised,” she defended.

  “What’s to know? We are simple, ordinary ghost hunters with a cable television show,” Cid said.

  “There’s Burt Hicks, the self-professed leader, and the handsome Mike Dupree, the mouthpiece, claiming the same position. We also have Theodore Martin filling the shoes of the technical supervisor with Cid here as his right hand man. Ted’s also my husband, and Cid’s our wife,” Mia explained.

  Cid looked over at her and shook his head. “Don’t forget Audrey.”

  “Audrey McCarthy is the researcher of our band of hunters. She can ferret out information from the most obscure publications and websites,” Mia said proudly. “She’s last in, but what a fine addition she is.”

  “And let’s not forget, Mia Martin. She’s our eyes and ears of the group,” Cid added.

  “Murphy! Don’t forget him,” Mia said.

  “Stephen Murphy, the spiritual advisor…” Cid started.

  “That makes him sound like a minister,” Mia disagreed.

  “Ghost. Don’t we have a better label?” Cid asked.

  “Friend, protector, advisor, muscle,” Mia listed. “He is PEEPs, Tonia. You understand what I mean, don’t you?”

  The woman smiled. “Yes, I believe I do.”

  “Time for you to spill your guts,” Cid said, getting up to stir the large pot on the stove. “Tell us about you and Lorna.”

  “I already did.”

  “Oh that spirit chaser malarkey? You can do better than that,” Mia insisted.

  “Well, as you can see, I’m from mixed parentage. My roots are very spiritual on both sides of the family. I sometimes wonder if I wasn’t bred for this
job I’ve taken on. The Buddhist pagan isn’t all I am. I’ve learned so much from Lorna. I’d like to think I’m more than a woman with strong ties to the spiritual plane, I’m a hunter and not just of ghosts. I have been entrusted with the task of bringing the paranormal to justice. It’s something I feel very strongly about.”

  “Where’s all the magic stuff come in?” Mia asked.

  “The ghost flower thing?” Tonia asked for clarification.

  “Yes, explain that.”

  Tonia blushed. “Actually, I came upon that accidentally. I was hanging out with a few friends after hours at a jazz club near the waterfront. Buddy Roy had run out of cigarettes, and we searched the drawers and cupboards. All we could come up with was some stale chaw we found in an old tin. I have to admit to being a little drunk at the time. So I pulled out of my memory one of my mother’s recipes for restoring dry herbs. I was laughing so hard that I had tears running down my face. They ended up in the tin that Buddy and I were holding together between us. I was astounded when we found ourselves twenty years in the past in that very club, and the joint was jumping. Buddy got scared, dropped the can, and we fell out of the memory of the tobacco. We all had quite a laugh about it. I stored the information away and have used it from time to time.”

  “So you’re a wizard,” Mia stated.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Are too,” Mia shot back.

  “Okay, maybe,” Tonia admitted. “It probably comes from the pagan side of the family.”

  Cid watched the two women a moment. “You two are so similar.”

  “He’s picking up on the sensitive thing,” Mia observed.

  “Nah, he’s looking at our racks,” Tonia teased, pushing her shoulders back and sucking in her stomach.

  Cid turned around blushing.

  “Now you’ve embarrassed him,” Mia said, getting up. “I’m sorry…”