“I don't understand.”
“It needed someone fertile.”
“You're saying that...” I tried to figure out how such a thing might work—how some otherworldly presence might latch onto a human mind and then worm its way into a womb to be made flesh and blood. I laughed; that's how insane it sounded. “Wait, you mean to say that it wants someone who can give birth to it? Like a proper baby?”
“Well, I wouldn't say there's anything 'proper' about the situation, frankly, but yes. That is what I'm saying. It seeks out a particular host, one that meets its criteria, and then takes hold. What happens after that is anyone's guess—my uncle put down the Lancaster girl before she could escape, but I assume she would have run off to some remote, private spot to allow the thing to gestate.”
I was floored. My mouth felt dry as I smoked the Marlboro, and a potent nausea stirred to life in the pit of my stomach. “That's hideous... unthinkable,” I said. “And your uncle was fine with this? He thought that it would get him what he wanted?”
“My uncle thought that, once the Occupant had been born into the world—once it had a physical body of its own—that it would be able to bring the dead back to life. It told him, once, that it would use its abilities to give birth to his loved ones. Even if such a thing were possible...” Jane shivered.
“I noticed,” I continued, thinking back to the tape, “that the Occupant never talked a whole lot. Why was that? Was its connection to you just not strong enough?”
“So it seems. My uncle told me that it'd been much chattier when using Enid as a mouthpiece. He'd learned more from it at the asylum than he ever did with me, and her visions of it were clearer than mine.” She ground out her cigarette on the heel of her boot and tossed the butt aside. “By now I'm sure you've encountered the number '28', haven't you? In your reading... in my uncle's notes?”
“Yes!” I blurted. “What the hell does that number have to do with all of this? I keep seeing it everywhere. It pops up all over the place. I thought it was just a coincidence at first, but Corvine seemed to think otherwise.”
“It's a special number,” she explained. “I don't know the whole of it. Never was good with numerology, and my uncle only ever told me a few things about it upon his return in '89. He used to say something like, 'it's a perfect number', and realized somewhere along the line that there's—on average—28 days to a woman's menstrual cycle. All this mention of '28' early on had been intentioned as a hint in that direction, it seemed. The Occupant wanted someone fertile. Me? I'd never had a regular period in my life, even at that age. Years back I had to go to a specialist, even; they found I had PCOS. But Enid was different. She checked all the boxes. She was a perfect fit. Too good.”
Everything was falling into place. This entire ordeal was beginning to make frightful sense to me. “But what about the Occupant? You say it was left to wander the asylum after your uncle killed Enid.” I paused. “I saw it. Me and two students saw it, and it left the building with us. What was it, then? Is it a physical being, or merely a figment? Is it like a ghost?”
Jane crossed her legs and thought hard about this. “Its connection with Enid was so strong that my uncle feared it might remain on this plane even after her death. When her body died, it had gained enough of a foothold to stay behind. It didn't get dragged back to the other side—it isn't a weak, human soul. It's something more. But it probably wandered lost in that building for all those years, biding its time and saving up its power. Waiting for someone it could graft onto, escape with. You showed it the way.” The gaze she dissected me with made me feel guilty, but she continued, “I guess there's no way you could have known.”
“Well, what happens now? Is it on the loose out there? Is it looking for someone else to influence?” I gulped, wondering then if it wasn't in the room with us, eavesdropping, as Jane had claimed. “What can we do?”
“A million dollar question. I'm not sure there is anything for us to do.”
“OK. So, assuming it is out there, looking for someone, then what? What happens if it gets what it wants?” I hesitated before asking the question that was really on my mind. “What if the Occupant is born into this world, takes on a physical form?”
She took in a sharp breath through her nose and stood. “I don't think there's anyone on Earth who can answer that.” Shaking her head, she added, “For all we know, it's already found someone. It's already out there, taking root. Growing. You had students with you, right? Any of them female?”
I responded more defensively than I should have. “One of them, but she's fine. She's not Occupant material, anyway. It's not like I was trying to put her in harm's way, you know.”
“Of course, of course,” she said. “But who is and is not 'Occupant material' isn't for you to decide. That's the Occupant's job. If I were you, I'd keep her close. Watch her a little while. Just in case. When you all left the madhouse, it might've hitched a ride in her. You can't rule it out, can you?”
She was right. I couldn't rule it out. But I'd spoken to Elizabeth on my way into Michigan and she'd been fine. Completely normal. “Look, she's never taken the drugs or anything. There's no way it could get into her head.”
Jane shrugged. “Problem is, it doesn't need the drugs anymore. The drugs merely opened the door. The drugs are what let it through. Now that it's here, the drugs are meaningless.”
I found myself wanting to argue with her. “You don't know what you're talking about,” I nearly said, but I stopped myself. Jane knew a lot more about all of this than I did. She'd experienced it all first-hand, had been battling memories of the Occupant since before I was even born. “Well, thanks for the info. I appreciate it. Mind if I get going now?”
She stepped aside to let me through the door. “On one condition.”
“What's that?”
“That I never hear from you again. I don't want to see you here. If you come back, I'll shoot you. I swear to God, I will. When I first saw your pictures on my trail cams, I hoped you were simply a good-for-nothing, a lost tourist. Instead, you brought me this. I've had my fill of the the Occupant and will spend the rest of my life trying to put it behind me. I have no need of fresh reminders.” She opened the door and waved me out. “Take whatever you want and leave. You've never met me, and I don't know you. Got it?”
“Yes, ma'am.” Taking the rest of the books and papers off of Corvine's desk, I carried them out to my car, dumping them into my trunk with the rest. Shutting it, I noticed the bullet hole in the exterior and grinned. “Now, how the hell am I going to buff that out?”
Jane, though, was in another world. She was standing near the car, staring out into the woods. Her eyes, fierce just moments ago, had gone somewhat glassy. “You know, I still feel it, sometimes. The Occupant. Sometimes when I sleep, or when I'm alone at night. I can feel it watching me. Even after all these years, I can feel it when it turns its attention to me.”
I knew the feeling, but I didn't say anything.
Jane snapped back to attention and, after giving me some simple directions back to the highway, issued me a perfunctory goodbye.
The dirt road stretched on for another two miles past the cabin, where it would eventually branch off in a fork. I was to take the right side, which would transition after three or four miles into a paved road called Ottawa. Once on Ottawa Road, I needed only to continue straight until I reached the highway entrance ramp some ten miles down.
Jotting these directions on a paper napkin, I took off, leaving the rickety old cabin behind. Jane stared at the car as I pulled away. Eventually the surrounding forest crowded her out of my rearview, but something told me that if I'd doubled back, she'd have still been standing there, staring deep into the woods.
17
I'd never been more excited to see a stretch of asphalt in my life. Speeding down Ottawa Road, I found my way to the highway entrance ramp without difficulty and, some minutes later, into territory where I could pick up a reliable cell signal. My phone had a lengthy sei
zure in my cup holder as I coasted onto the highway, heading south.
Elizabeth had left me a handful of messages—both texts and voicemails—on the day of my arrival. Most of them were some variation on “Are you OK?” and “What did you find?” Cradling the wheel between my knees and making sure there was no one else on the road, I hammered out a quick response. “Heading back now. I've got a lot to share. I'll tell you everything in person, once I get back to Moorlake. Hope to be back late tonight.”
It was paranoia that saw me pick up the phone some five minutes later to see whether I'd gotten a response from her. There was none. I sent her a second text, asking, “How are you and Jake doing back home? Everything OK?” I hit send, but instantly regretted it.
Putting on whatever grainy Top 40 hits I could find on the local airwaves, I drove a good fifteen to twenty over the speed limit, except in those spots where Michigan cops hid out in speed traps. If I limited my stops, I could make it back to Moorlake by around ten or eleven at night. Or perhaps sooner, if traffic remained this light
I checked the date on my phone. It was April 2nd. Just six more days before this break ended and I went back to my normal life, that of the under-appreciated adjunct. Frankly, the 8th couldn't come soon enough.
The meat on my Double Quarter Pounder tasted like filet mignon. It was so good, in fact, that I ordered a second one to-go, scarfing it down as I started down the Mackinac Bridge.
Traffic tightened up early on, but not so much that I was going to make poor time. I pushed through the stretch between the forest and the bridge in roughly three hours, stopping only thirty minutes to eat, stretch my legs and gas up the car. I didn't stop to smell the roses along the way this time. My mind was elsewhere.
The sky was beginning to darken as I crossed the bridge. With night returned the paranoia.
I couldn't help but hear Jane's voice in my ear as I turned up my music and pretended not to be bothered by the impending night.
You know, I still feel it, sometimes.
“Mary Jane's Last Dance” came on the radio and I did my best Tom Petty impression during the chorus, fighting to shut out all the fearful thoughts pooling in the recesses of my mind. It was a swamp in there; I needed only to dwell a moment too long on my meeting with Jane, on the contents of the notes and recordings that presently rattled around in my trunk, to feel a nascent terror growing where only minutes previously I'd hacked down one such stalk. The fear in me was a many-limbed tree.
The way to Detroit was going to be four hours—four and a half if I hit any jams on the way. After pulling past a rusty UPS truck, I settled on a comfortable 80 MPH and looked out upon the dimming Midwestern scenery.
More than once, I'd looked down at my phone to see if I'd gotten a text back from Elizabeth.
OK, fine. I'd checked more like a dozen times.
But each time I swiped on the phone and glanced at my screen, I found nothing.
Again, the sewer of my mind began to swell with fear, threatened to spill over.
You let Jane get into your head. Elizabeth is fine. She's probably out watching a movie, hanging out with Jake. There's nothing wrong. You have enough to worry about as it is. Don't fret over this, too.
I still went ahead and peeked at my phone about five minutes later. It was becoming a reflex. No new calls, no new messages. There was an email waiting for me—I glanced at it before promptly shunting it into my spam folder. It was a publisher's newsletter I couldn't remember signing up for, announcing the release of some “exciting” new book by horror author Abraham Ebson. I'd read his last one, The Dweller in the Fog, and had hated it. A lot. Apparently I still owed him a one-star review. I glanced up from my screen just in time to spot a pair of highway patrolmen stationed along the shoulder, watching the traffic closely. It looked like they were in the process of setting up some sort of DUI checkpoint.
That was enough screen time for now. When Elizabeth replied to me—and she would, probably very soon—I'd answer during my next stop for gas. I tossed the phone into my glove compartment and forgot about it for a time.
I scanned the radio for something else to listen to, nursing the last of my canned coffee drinks. I skipped past countless news programs, a classical station I'd have been happy to listen to if only it hadn't been plagued with static, and skipped a low-quality broadcast of “Gloomy Sunday” on an oldies station because I was feeling pretty superstitious.
Eventually I just shut the damn thing off and focused on the road. Another five or so hours and I'd be back in Moorlake. Then the three of us could meet up and unpack all of this.
The gas station coffee I picked up just outside of Detroit tasted a hell of a lot better than the canned crap I'd been swilling. After topping off the tank and throwing a bit of extra air in my tires, I buckled up and prepared for the last leg of the drive—Detroit, through Toledo and into Moorlake. An hour and fifteen, tops.
Before I did so, I snatched my phone out of the glovebox and had a look at it, already preparing a witty response to the apologetic text that Elizabeth had surely sent me for not responding sooner.
Except there wasn't one.
Still no calls or texts.
The guy in line behind me at the gas station gave me a look, wanted me to drive off so he could use the pump. I started up the car and drove off to one side, near the attached convenience store, and welcomed the harsh glow of the fluorescents that shone from above. Idling there, I decided to give Elizabeth a call. I didn't want to nag, didn't want to seem like a creep, but with every passing minute of radio silence I was beginning to lose ground against the dread Jane had instilled in me.
I dialed her number, put the phone up to my ear, waited a couple of rings.
It went to voicemail.
I raked at my scalp, left my hair a mess, and tried again.
It rang a total of five times before the robotic voice urged me to leave a message after the beep. I did just that and tried, to the best of my ability, not to sound like a worried dad. “Elizabeth, hi. It's Professor Barlow. Listen, I'm outside of Detroit, heading back. I just wanted to touch base with you and Jake. And, uh... you know, make sure you two are doing OK.” I paused, awkwardly. “Er... Give me a call back, will ya? Thanks.”
No sooner had I set down the phone than I felt someone's eyes on me. My shoulders tensed up and my legs started to fidget beneath the steering wheel. I did a scan of each mirror, trying to single out the identity of my observer. The guy who'd been waiting behind me at the pump? No, he was filling up now. I thought I heard him bitching at the guy standing at the next pump over about the cost of gas. The attendant standing near the front window of the store? No, he was scanning lottery tickets for someone.
The more I looked around, not finding anyone's eyes on me, the more certain I became that the feeling of being watched was issuing from within.
You know, I still feel it, sometimes. The Occupant. Sometimes when I sleep, or when I'm alone at night. I can feel it watching me.
The phone went back into the glovebox and Weezer's “Buddy Holly” turned up on a local college station. I played it fucking loud and peeled out of the parking lot.
Another hour on the road and I'd be home. Everything would be comfortable and familiar soon enough. The wide, mostly empty stretch of I-75 South opened up before me and I gunned it.
Toledo was in the rearview. I was closing in on Moorlake, would be there within the next fifteen minutes. No longer was I watching the sides of the road, the well-known speed traps. Instead, I was locked in a race with something that I couldn't see, but which I could feel bearing down on me with every fiber of my being.
I'd broken my no-phone rule not long after leaving Detroit, placing a few texts whose spelling had been shamefully poor for a professor of English and waiting with bated breath for a reply. None had come, so far.
It was getting damn hard for me to pretend like something wasn't wrong. Usually, Elizabeth Morrissey was chatty as hell—I couldn't get her to shut up if I wanted t
o. The other day, when I'd lost service, she'd kept on texting me regardless, asking me if I was all right, if I'd made it to my destination. Though she had declined to come along, I knew she was interested in the outcome, and that she'd be waiting not-so-patiently for me to spill the beans on everything I'd learned.
That is, unless something had happened to her.
A light rain began to fall, blurring my windshield. I hit the wipers, smearing the drops against the glass, and simply focused on getting home. My exit would be coming up any minute, and from there it would only be a short way to Dorchester Hall, the dorm where both Elizabeth and Jake lived. I was going to pay them a visit. Best case scenario, Jake the jerkboy was deleting my texts and voicemails. He'd made it pretty clear that he wanted to stay out of this whole Corvine thing, and he didn't want Elizabeth digging any deeper, either. I hoped that was the case.
And considering all I'd picked up in Hiawatha, I couldn't help but admire the jock's wisdom. He and Elizabeth had probably done the right thing by sitting this out, whereas I'd lunged headfirst into the abyss without any regard for my sanity. Curiosity had done me in, had made it so that the weight of my knowledge would keep me shuddering wherever I found myself too far from the nearest nightlight.
I passed a car lot on the fringe of town that I recognized, passed by a Burger King and forgot the hunger that still persisted in me. I was in Moorlake now, passing a strip mall, a Chinese buffet, and rushing down moonlit streets that glistened in the light rain. I kept one hand on the wheel and the other locked around my phone. “Come on... come on. Call me back. Text me. Anything, for Christ's sake.”
After turning down some side streets and cutting through downtown, I passed my apartment building. But I didn't stop there. I kept on, pushing towards the edge of campus. The university library streaked by my rainy window. The gymnasium. Then, on my right, I noticed the tall, half-lit dorm building whose sign read DORCHESTER HALL.
Forest (The Afterlife Investigations Book 2) Page 9