Darker than Dark (Haunted Series)

by Alexie Aaron

  “Your children?” Beth questioned.

  “The golden child from whom we learned speech called them, Beanie, Bubba and Blast.”

  “We will try to help you,” Burt promised.

  Chenille closed her eyes and let go of Mia’s hand. She moved her foot off of the sensitive’s and, as she did, became the drapes once more. She then lost all human form. The drapes rustled as she moved to the floor and became the carpet before she moved into the kitchen forming one large dust bunny.

  Mia ran ahead and opened the door and watched as Chenille let herself be blown down the steps, landing on the lawn before she became the grass. A loud sound reverberated through the kitchen as Blast announced himself. Mia stepped aside still holding the door open. He and his two brothers Beanie and Bubba followed their mother out of the house and into the yard. She watched as they moved quickly after the moving grass towards the foundations of the barn.

  She felt a set of hands on her shoulders. “Well, that’s not something you see every day,” Mike said. “How are you feeling?”

  Two things surprised her. One, they weren’t Ted’s hands. The other, Mike was concerned for her welfare. “I’m actually, okay. I figured out at the last minute, if I bilocate out of my body there would be more room for the entity to maneuver. Souls I just found out may not weigh much, but they are very large. Mine appears to be pear shaped.”

  “Come on, there is a room full of questions, and I have no answers.”

  Mia nodded. She shut the door and followed Mike into the dining room.

  Ted was busy drawing something on the backside of Beth’s printouts. He was into super designer mode and didn’t notice when Mia came back into the room. Beth was conversing in rapid fire PhD with Angelo, who picked at the remaining duct tape on the empty jar. Mia apologized to him in her head for letting his pets free. He smiled, recognizing the joke she made.

  Martha sat next to Ted looking paler than before.

  Mia sat down and asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m beginning to regret I didn’t go to Disney World with the others,” she said.

  “Me too. I’ve never been,” Mia admitted.

  “Was that the thing that…”

  “I don’t think she meant to hurt or frighten you. When you threw the jelly at her, she turned into jelly, and then when she pulled you in, she didn’t understand that you couldn’t breathe. That’s why she chose the drapes this time,” Mia explained. “I won’t lie to you and tell you I wasn’t afraid.”

  “Why did you do it then?”

  “Why did you stay here?” Mia didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s because we know what we can do to help. You are here to take away Julie’s worries and deal with the house. I have a natural way with ghosts.”

  “So that thing is a ghost.”

  “Spirits of the dead in my opinion are still ghosts. The DTDs may have a totally different form, but they aren’t demons - well one of them may be, but Chenille was a ghost. She had to draw energy to transform. That’s why she didn’t stay too long. She would have tapped me out and put me in a dangerous situation. As it is, I have one hell of a headache,” she admitted.

  She felt a set of eyes on them. Since Angelo was eavesdropping in her mind, she ruled him out. Burt stood leaning against the opposite wall watching her. She looked at him, and he gave her a silent “Bravo.” Mia winked back. He clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention.

  “I think we have learned something about the DTDs. Angelo, do you still think they follow the pattern of the ATzxes?” Burt asked.

  “Let’s look at their behavior. It took them a long time to rise. Hundreds of years. Once the trees were made into lumber, they learned about the men handling the wood. They have been adapting and learning all the while. Remember the hag? She didn’t follow any religious laws as she came before the prophets. The shadow spirit the woman spoke of is definitely an ATzxe. It recruited the chief, and he in turn offered his people to it. ATzxes were responsible for the Boer War. Another, Chernobyl. They roam the world looking for ways to bring about fear and anguish. They feed on it.”

  “Can you destroy an ATzxe?” Ted asked looking up from his calculations.

  “No, but you can their followers. Without them, they will then sink back down into their holes and wait for the next opportunity to rise. Fortunately for the world, it takes hundreds of years for them to break the surface. But once they do, they invariably run riot.”

  “So if we concentrate on taking out the supporters we will solve this problem?” Mike queried.

  “But now that we know that some of them are unwittingly pulled into the fray,” Mia asked, “how do we help them?”

  “This is where the repenting man comes in. Several hundred years ago a man rose and used his anger to move millions. No, this was not Nazi Germany, a much much older situation. He was made to see that his anger was wrong. His tears defeated the ATzxe, and his followers were saved.”

  “How do we convince a man who saw the near genocide of his tribe that he is wrong to hate the ones perpetuating the act?” Beth questioned the group.

  “You have to make him see that not all of the Iroquois and the Fox knew about the attack. Or that the attack was isolated,” Martha offered.

  Beth shook her head. “My research says otherwise.”

  “You may only have the point of view of the men recording at the time. History is written by the victors according to Winston Churchill,” Martha said sagely.

  Beth pondered this awhile, obviously not upset by Martha’s challenge.

  “We ask them,” Mia said breaking the silence.

  “I beg your pardon,” Mike said shaking his head. “How?”

  “Murphy has been tracking Indian spirits for a while now. Seems to be a pretty great coincidence that we have a rise of the DTDs, sorry, ATzxe,” Mia corrected, “and at the same time, Iroquois and Fox hunters have been camping out not too far from here.”

  “But they are spirits. Dead men, who if they were alive wouldn’t share a language that we can understand,” Mike argued.

  Ted who had been following the conversation while two-fingered typing into his smart phone spoke up, “There are seven Iroquois languages. I can’t get anything on the Fox.”

  “They talked to each other. If they are from the same time. They would have some language or signs in common,” Beth reasoned.

  “Angelo could talk to them,” Mia piped up. “He has an ability,” she paused and thought mind reading before continuing, “that could help in this.”

  The group turned and looked at the handsome Italian. He smiled and agreed, “I could try.”

  “What do we do in the meanwhile? According to… ah… Chenille, they are coming for us. We’re in danger. Let’s not forget us little people in the big scheme of things,” Mike reminded them.

  Burt scratched his day-old beard a moment. “I say we divide up. Ted, you and Mike find a way to stop them, destroy them if you have to. Mia, you hook up with Murphy to see about the feasibility of communicating with those spirits. Beth, you get her solid information she can use. Martha, I want you out of the line of fire. Stay with Beth over at the motel until you can make other arrangements. Cid I believe is working on your children’s home. As soon as he has all the old wood removed, perhaps you can stay there,” he suggested.

  “I hate to leave my home, but I’ll go. I’m a survivor. If anyone spun this yarn to me a week ago I’d say it was hooey. But seeing that thing that came out of the drapes and talk to us, well, it certainly has me looking at things a bit differently.”

  The landline phone rang, and Martha went to the kitchen to answer it. By the tone of her voice, the group could tell it was Julie and everything was fine. They also heard her tell Julie that she’d decided to spend the week at the Kowalskis’ house if it was alright with her. After that, the six of them stopped eavesdropping and started to form plans.

  ~

  The smoke from the burning tobacco was thick. Murphy watched as one of the
Iroquois who sat motionless during the burning opened his eyes. He got up and walked over to an old poplar tree and started to carve into it. He seemed intent on his task. The others that shared his ritual moved to other trees and began to carve too. They chose strong trees. The others that did not wear the same symbols sat and watched them with narrowed eyes. It was as if they did not believe in such malarkey.

  Murphy puzzled over the ceremony but was even more bewildered when the men extracted their carvings from the living trees and brought them over to others. He waited for the group to move back to the larger group before inspecting the trees.

  The Iroquois spirits did not carve into trees of the past. They were not ghost trees. They were living trees. Trees planted by bird and wind during Murphy’s time of life. How was this possible? Murphy picked up his axe and took a swing at the tree. Even though the sound of the axe landing rang through the woods, he didn’t make a dent.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cid laid the remains of the child’s bed in the bed of the truck. The last thing to go was the work bench. For this he would need help. He put in a call to Ted.

  “Dude,” Ted’s voice rang out of the speaker.

  “I need some muscle here.”

  “And you called me, I’m honored and I suggest you get your prescription checked.”

  “I have all but the workbench stripped and loaded. I think the whole thing’s got to go. No telling whether whatever has been burrowing in the top has buddies in the bottom,” he explained.

  “K. Help is on the way.”

  Cid decided to take five while he waited for the cavalry. He nosed in the kitchen earlier and found a coffee maker and a ton of gourmet coffees. He started the brewer and opened the refrigerator to look for cream. Milk would do in a pinch, but he thought since he was treating himself to Himalayan Java Jump, he should go all the way and top it off with some cream. He didn’t think they had coffee growing in that neck of the woods. Maybe it had to do with the mega amount of caffeine infused in the mix. He smiled, a caffeine high equal to the elevations of Mount Everest. The refrigerator offered him skim, for mommy, two percent, for daddy, and whole for the kiddies. No cream. He opted for whole milk.

  He closed the door, and before he could right himself, he faced a wall of moving darkness. He dropped the milk to free his hands to defend himself. A shock of pain beyond his imagining hit his back, and he was sent twitching to the floor. Before he blacked out he heard Mia’s foreboding, “Who’s the redshirt,” echo in his mind.

  ~

  Beth picked up her laptop and marched off.

  “I was using that,” Ted complained.

  “You have a MIT amount of equipment in the command vehicle,” she said over her shoulder.

  “But it’s outside and it’s cold,” he whined. He looked around for support and found the room empty.

  Mia had left with Mike in the van to help Cid carry out the workbench. Mike was going to go alone, but Mia insisted on going along to be there if they ran into any kin of Beanie, Bubba and Blast. Burt okayed the endeavor, not that he would have been able to stop Mia otherwise. Mia asked him more as a formality. He noticed that she was trying very hard to boost Burt back into his team leader persona. The rest of them knew it was only a matter of time before she would go off script, and he would get pissed at her. There was a betting pool between he, Beth, Mike and his mother with a considerable monetary amount resting on Mia and Burt getting into a pissing match.

  Angelo was sitting in the front room making a few calls. Burt had borrowed Martha’s Jeep and headed to the motel to get a few hours sleep. Martha was upstairs packing for an extended stay at Julie’s place. Ted picked up his coat and cautiously opened the backdoor. He looked down. It looked like a normal poured-cement porch with a two steps leading to the frozen yard. He took a tentative step down and smiled as nothing grabbed him. He moved quickly towards the command post which Burt had up and running. Inside, the temperature was a chilly fifty degrees. That would change quickly as Ted brought all of his systems up and running.

  “The truck’s gone,” Mia announced as they pulled up. “Didn’t Ted say that Cid was waiting for us here?”

  “That’s the word I got. Let’s go inside and see if he left a note.”

  “I hope it’s unlocked.”

  “Shit, I didn’t think about that. Surely there’s a key hidden around somewhere?”

  “Well no time like the present to look,” Mia said and braced herself for the cold before she opened the door of the van.

  Mike watched as she ran over to the front door. She tried it and shook her head. She looked around and didn’t seem to find anything. Mia went over and tugged on the garage door. He could have told her that wouldn’t work. He decided, he better get out of the van and help her. No sleep had him in a near zombie state. His mother would be ashamed that he was letting Mia do all the work. He caught up to her at the rear of the house. She tried the patio doors, and they too were locked.

  “Wait. I learned this in college.” Mike walked over to the glass door and put his two bare hands on the glass and, when he had suction, moved the door up and out of its tracks enough to unlatch it.

  “Did you say college or Joliet prison?” Mia asked suspiciously as they entered the family room.

  “My housemates used to lock me out of the frat house. Okay, I was past curfew. Anyway, I always ended up in my bed by dawn.”

  Mia smirked and figured out he probably was in some girl’s bed before that. Mike was what the internet would label as a serial fornicator. He wasn’t a sex addict ,but he was addicted to women. He loved women but never found it in him to love just one woman for more than a week. It was the challenge and the newness that drove his libido towards a world record of sexual escapades and an expensive condom habit.

  “Do I smell coffee?” Mike asked and walked into the kitchen. He didn’t notice the milk spilled on the white tile floor. He lost his footing and fell crashing to the floor. Mia tried valiantly to save him and managed to cushion his head with her body. She had the air knocked out of her and Mike’s head between her breasts.

  “Mike,” Mia managed to squeak out. “Are you alright?”

  He flexed his muscles and twisted his head to answer her. His voice was muffled, “I can’t decide.”

  “What?” she said, wiggling uncomfortably under the weight of his upper body.

  “Whether I’m in a world of hurt or in heaven. Man, girl, you’re stacked.”

  Mia smacked him on top of the head. “Get off me.”

  Mike sat up and rolled his head back and forth. Next he tested out his limbs and got to a standing position. Something white was staining the bottoms of his jeans. He reached down and touched it and brought it to his nose. “Milk,” he announced. “Why is there milk all over the floor?”

  Mia, freed from Mike’s body, crawled under the table and came up with an empty carton. She handed it to Mike as something else had caught her attention.

  “Why would Cid leave this mess?” Mike asked. “He’s not the type of guy to be so irresponsible.”

  Mia got up off her knees and displayed Cid’s glasses. “He’s not the type of guy to drive blind either. Something bad happened here. Let’s check out the house, but I think someone’s got our boy and stole my truck.”

  They moved quickly through the house, checking it from the attic to the basement. No Cid. Mia picked up her phone and called Whitney.

  “Someone stole my truck and kidnapped Cid Garrett,” she reported before Whitney could finish saying hello.

  “Where are you?”

  “Wheybridge,” Mia answered and proceeded to give a brief summary of the situation.

  “I’ll call the locals and Tom. We’ll have a BOLO out on your truck in minutes. You want me to come over?”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Sitting, getting a manicure.”

  “No really.”

  “Getting my nails done. The hygienist told me about this new place…”

>   “I have Mike with me. I’ll be fine. Call Tom. Thanks, Whitney,” Mia said, hung up and called Burt.

  He answered and listened to Mia’s whole story before speaking, “Stay there and meet with the police. You know how to deal with the sensitive nature of some of the information better than Mike does. I’ll head over with some clean clothes for Mike.”

  “Thanks, Burt. I know you’re tired.”

  “Hey, it’s what I do,” he said and hung up.

  “Would we be disturbing a crime scene if we had some coffee?” Mike asked.

  Mia smelled the enticing aroma and wondered the same thing. “I don’t know.”

  The sounds of activity at the front of the house brought them out of the stupor caused by the siren song of the coffee pot. Mia went to the door and stood aside as a few of the Wheybridge police walked in.

  ~

  Cid opened his eyes and struggled to see what was in front of him. He reached for his glasses and found his hands would not move. His feet too were bound to whatever he was sitting on. He felt cold and acknowledged the acrid smell of urine-soaked trousers. Was he tasered? Is that why his kidneys hurt and his bladder let loose? Why? He heard movement somewhere in the blur in front of him. “Hello?”

  “He’s awake,” growled a man’s voice.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he asked.

  “No cause to be dropping the ef word, son,” a higher-pitched male admonished.

  “Why am I tied up? Who are you people?”

  “We will be asking the questions here,” the deep-voiced man insisted.

  “Then ask them, and let me go!”

  “What government agency are you from?”

  “I’m not from the government.”

  “What were you doing at 1634 Hillside Drive?”

  “Tearing out wainscoting,” Cid answered.

  “What is your relationship with PEEPs?”