The Forest of Forever (The Soren Chase Series, Book One)

by Rob Blackwell

  “Because they’ve already found us,” Soren said.

  Chapter Ten

  Soren and Kael walked silently through the woods at gunpoint, their arms raised above their heads.

  “Shit, dude, this is all a misunderstanding,” Kael said. “I got lost on my way to the powwow and this guy attacked me. Seriously. Really happy you guys showed up. I don’t know what he was going to do.”

  “Shut up and keep walking,” one of the men said. He nudged Kael with the barrel of his gun.

  “Nice try,” Soren said, “but they don’t care.”

  “I’m serious,” Kael protested. “I’m from the Chickahominy tribe, guys. You know my people; we stay the hell away from here. They’ll be seriously pissed if you hurt me.”

  “They don’t know you’re here,” the gunman said, chuckling. “We could do whatever we want to you.”

  The gunman looked to be in his midforties, and though he had large muscles, he was showing a little paunch around the middle. His head was so bald and shiny, Soren wondered if the man polished it every day.

  “Trust me, they’ll figure it out,” Kael said. “My brother knows I like to wander back here.”

  “Thought you said you got lost?” the bald gunman said.

  “You’re possibly the worst liar I’ve ever met,” Soren added.

  “You both need to pipe down, or something very bad will happen,” the bald gunman replied.

  Soren started laughing.

  “Something funny?” the gunman asked.

  When Soren turned, the man was pointing his gun at Soren’s head.

  “Careful with that,” Soren said. “You might hurt somebody.”

  “Like you.”

  “Doubt it,” Soren replied. “My guess is your employer doesn’t want another death out here. And unless you plan on killing both of us—”

  “Don’t give him ideas, dude,” Kael interrupted.

  “It won’t be hard to identify the killer,” Soren finished. “How fast do you think the Association will throw you under the bus if you kill us? Trust me, you’re not going to use that gun. Not unless you’d enjoy a trip to the electric chair.”

  The bald gunman lowered the weapon, then brought up the butt, trying to swing it like a club. But Soren dodged out of the way and leapt forward, grabbing the gun and wresting it out of the man’s hands. Before he could bring it up, however, the three other men all pointed their weapons at Soren’s head.

  “Drop it,” said another gunman, who was tall and thin with a straggly black beard.

  Soren grinned at the bald gunman, who looked both angry and shell-shocked.

  “The Association has first-rate gear,” Soren said, “but not first-rate people. That should’ve never happened. It was sloppy and stupid.”

  “Dude, what is your problem?” Kael said, but he sounded impressed.

  “I’m not going to tell you again,” the bearded gunman said. “Drop the weapon, or I will open fire.”

  Soren turned to him and nodded. He dropped the gun on the ground. The bald gunman immediately shoved Soren to the forest floor and loomed over him, looking like he was about to kick him.

  “Stop it now, Rick,” the bearded gunman said.

  Rick cast a dark and frustrated glance at his colleague. The bearded gunman ignored him and turned to Kael.

  “Help him up,” he said.

  Kael leaned over and offered Soren his hand, assisting him to his feet.

  “Are you trying to get us killed?” Kael whispered.

  Soren shook his head.

  “I needed to know more about them,” he said. “Now I do.”

  “They might have shot you. These are scary dudes.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of scary things in my time,” Soren said. “Rent-a-cops with guns don’t make the top twenty.”

  This time it was Kael who shook his head.

  “You don’t know them,” he said. “I do. Maybe these guys aren’t all that, but they’re more dangerous than you seem to think they are.”

  “Shut up and get moving,” the bearded gunman said. “And if you call us rent-a-cops again, I’ll let Rick kill you.”

  This time Soren complied, walking through the woods with his arms once again raised above his head. He was prepared to go quietly now, satisfied that he had both learned something and sent a message to whoever was in charge.

  But when they had taken only a few steps, Soren looked into the woods to see a boy staring back at him. He seemed to be around twelve years old and was wearing what looked like a Boy Scout uniform. He was skinny and pale and watched them with a glassy-eyed stare.

  The most unusual part of his appearance, however, wasn’t his expression or clothes; it was the fact that Soren could clearly see the trees behind the boy. He was looking right through him.

  “Hey, who’s that?” Kael said next to him.

  The men with guns turned in the direction Kael was looking, but by the time they did, the boy was gone. To Soren, he didn’t disappear so much as suddenly fade away. Instead of a boy, there was only a beam of sunlight where he had stood.

  “Cut that shit out,” Rick said to Kael, but he sounded spooked.

  Kael looked at Soren.

  “You saw him, too, right?” Kael asked.

  Soren nodded.

  He stared at the place where the boy had been. He was sure of two things. The first was that the kid had really been there. Soren wasn’t given to hallucinations. If he had seen a figure in a white robe or an image of Father Coakley, he might have dismissed it as a case of suggestion, given his research into the area. But the last thing he had been expecting to see was a boy, much less a Boy Scout. As far as he knew, there was no story about a Scout in the file Annika had given him.

  The second thing he knew for sure was that the boy hadn’t run away or ducked into hiding. He had been there, and then he simply wasn’t. The vanishing act had unnerved him far more than the encounter with armed guards. He could feel the goose bumps on his skin.

  Until this moment, everything he’d heard was secondhand, a mix of fact, legend, and superstition. The murders could have been committed by a disturbed college student, the guards the result of a paranoid organization dedicated to keeping trespassers out. But the boy was different. He changed everything.

  Something very strange was going on. Whatever else happened, Soren was now a believer.

  Kael and Soren were handcuffed and forced into a waiting SUV, then driven to a nearby warehouse. When they arrived, Rick pulled Soren out of the car and shoved him forward. The warehouse was an incongruous sight inside the pristine forest. It was ugly, constructed of gray metal siding, and large, with no windows of any kind. The only apparent entrance was up a concrete staircase that led to a small door.

  The area was deserted except for a few similar SUVs and one tiny car that looked very out of place.

  “The boss wants to see you,” Rick said.

  He reached down and uncuffed Soren while the second gunman did the same for Kael. The two prisoners climbed the stairway, and Kael opened the door.

  “After you, I insist,” Kael said.

  Soren smirked at him and walked into a small, windowless office. He was unsurprised to see Annika sitting in one of three chairs situated before a large mahogany desk.

  “Come in, gentlemen,” the man behind the desk said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  Soren eyed the man and his office. He was pudgy and middle-aged, with thin strands of brown hair on a mostly bald head. He was dressed casually, in dark pants and a white shirt, but everything about his office seemed strangely formal. The bookshelves behind him had exactly the correct number of tomes needed to fill the space, most with titles about Virginia history and conservation. The desk had only a single pad of paper on it, which was blank. It looked more for show than actual note taking.

  Soren and Kael sat down next to Annika.

  “When did they find you?” Soren asked her.

  “About five minutes after you too
k off,” she said. “Scared the shit out of me, too.”

  “I must apologize for that,” the man said. He gestured to the men still waiting in the office entrance. “You two can go.”

  “I don’t know if that’s wise, sir,” Rick said. “That one’s pretty quick.”

  Soren couldn’t see Rick but knew he must be pointing at him.

  “I promise I’ll be good,” Soren replied.

  “Go,” the man behind the desk said, and his expression darkened.

  “Sir,” Rick said, and he and the second guard left.

  “It’s so hard to find good help these days,” the man said. “I must apologize again for their rude treatment. But we have rules and we take them extremely seriously. I’m sure you understand.”

  “If I may ask, who are you?” Soren said.

  “Of course, how silly of me,” he said. “My name is Randolph Chastain. I am the president and chief executive of the Chickahominy Conservation Association. Most people around here just call us the Association for short.”

  “I’ve never heard of you,” Soren said, but he looked at Annika when he made the comment. She refused to meet his eyes and stared straight ahead.

  Chastain looked from Soren to Annika and then clapped his hands.

  “Oh, I understand,” he said. “You mean Ms. Taylor didn’t tell you this land was privately owned. How unfortunate.”

  “She may have left that part out, yeah,” he said. “I was under the impression that we were in the wildlife reserve.”

  “No, I’m afraid not,” Chastain replied. “We purchased the land about thirty years ago from the former owner of the nudist colony that was here. Since then we’ve been dedicated to keeping the forest in as pure a state as possible.”

  “You mean keeping people out,” Soren said.

  Chastain bowed his head in Soren’s direction.

  “Well, yes,” he said. “It was decided that this land was—how can I put it delicately?—unfit for human habitation. As a matter of public safety, we decided to forbid trespassers. Which you would have known had you come into this area through the normal route. But Ms. Taylor was quite clever. She used a back road I thought was long forgotten. We keep a few cameras there just in case, of course, but I’m afraid the watch staff wasn’t as vigilant as it could have been in preventing your entrance.”

  “Evan and his friends seem to have found a way in as well,” Soren said.

  Chastain looked at Soren sadly.

  “That was most unfortunate,” he said. “They came in from the river, and the security personnel failed to detect them. Had they arrived in the morning, I’m sure we would have found them first. But it was so late. It’s a tragedy, really.”

  Soren couldn’t detect any note of insincerity in Chastain’s voice, but he swore he could see a mocking look in his eyes.

  “And I gather none of your cameras showed where Alice McDermott went?” Soren asked. “That is a shame.”

  “Indeed,” Chastain said. “We’ve been very cooperative with the police and done everything we can for that poor girl.”

  “I’ll bet,” Soren replied, keeping his eyes on Chastain’s face.

  “Now, Mr. Chase,” Chastain said, and Soren noted that he already knew his last name. “We’ve done nothing to incur your judgment. You of all people should appreciate that things aren’t always what they seem in this world. I would think someone arrested and charged with murder would understand that.”

  Chastain said it as if he were revealing a great secret, but Soren was unruffled.

  “Congratulations, you can use Google,” Soren said.

  Soren felt Kael’s eyes on him, however, while Chastain just kept smiling.

  “My point is if I were to judge you just based on that incident, I could draw all sorts of nasty conclusions. I know there are stories about us locally, but I can only assure you they are mistaken. We are the good guys here.”

  “Generally speaking, the good guys don’t need to insist that they are, in fact, good,” Soren replied.

  “Just take Mr. Jefferson here,” Chastain said. “I’ve already called his parents and Chickahominy Chief Adler to let them know his whereabouts. I was worried that in the confusion of the powwow, they might have feared he was lost.”

  “Oh fuck, dude, really?” Kael said. “I’m going to get in such shit for this.”

  “My people have warned you to stay out before, Mr. Jefferson,” Chastain said. “We appreciated your help during the search, but it’s been called off. You need to learn to obey your elders.”

  “You sound like my mom,” he said.

  “Tabitha is a smart woman,” Chastain replied.

  He smiled at Kael, and Soren was again struck by the disconnect between the man’s tone, which was so sweet it was almost sickly, and his eyes, which looked hard as stone.

  “You know her name,” Kael said, and it came out almost as a whisper.

  “Of course,” Chastain said. “We know quite a lot about you, Mr. Jefferson. We’ve been trying to understand why you keep visiting.”

  “I just like it back here,” Kael said, looking down at the floor.

  “We suspect there’s more to it than that,” Chastain said. “You mentioned dreams to Mr. Chase. What do you see?”

  Kael looked up and seemed about to open his mouth.

  “Don’t answer him,” Soren said.

  Both Chastain and Kael gave him an annoyed look.

  “Stay out of this,” Chastain said.

  “I wasn’t going to tell him,” Kael said. “I’m not that stupid.”

  Chastain reminded Soren of an absurdly lifelike puppet. The expression of world-weariness that the pudgy man wore was technically correct, but there was something distinctly artificial about it. To Soren, Chastain looked like someone who was closely imitating how a person would interact with others but didn’t quite have it nailed down.

  “I’m afraid you are, Mr. Jefferson,” he said. “We’ve treated you gently because we wish to maintain good relations with the tribe. And, I must admit, we are curious why anyone would keep coming back. In any case, we worry our generous treatment of your behavior has only encouraged you further, or perhaps made you doubt our resolve.”

  “The men with guns were pretty convincing,” Kael said quickly.

  “Be that as it may, I wish to make our position clear,” Chastain continued. “If you visit here again, you may find that you become one of those unfortunate souls that never returns. And that would be sad for Tabitha, Mingan, and even Lacey, wouldn’t it?”

  Soren didn’t have to ask to know that Lacey was the ex-girlfriend Kael had referred to earlier. He could see it in the look on Kael’s face.

  “Oh yeah, you’re the good guys,” Soren said. “You just threatened to murder an innocent man.”

  Soren stared into Chastain’s eyes. When he examined them closer, he noticed something odd. They weren’t brown, blue, or even green. Instead, the pupils seemed substantially larger, making his eyes seem like they were almost entirely black. But Soren didn’t flinch or look away.

  “I did no such thing,” Chastain replied. “We just feel like Mr. Jefferson’s luck has run out. This is not a place to trifle with, and we are not people to disregard.”

  “Duly noted,” Soren replied.

  “We also have a recommendation for you, Mr. Chase,” Chastain said.

  Soren leaned back in his chair.

  “I think I’ve heard your song already. Can’t say I cared for the tune, so no need to repeat it.”

  “You might want to listen up,” Chastain said. He looked pointedly at Annika, who had remained silent throughout the discussion. “You might want to find out more about who you’re working for. We find it interesting she has neglected to share certain facts with you. It may not speak well of her intentions.”

  “I’d figured that out myself,” Soren replied. “Even if I part ways with the Wallace Institute, that doesn’t mean I won’t keep digging here. This place is a puzzle. And I’
m good at figuring those out.”

  Chastain smiled.

  “You are, of course, welcome to try,” he said. “But not to replay my ‘song,’ if you will, we cannot guarantee your safety. Tread carefully, Mr. Chase. There’s much more going on here than you realize.”

  Soren spared a look at Annika, who looked back at him defiantly.

  “I’m getting that, yeah,” he said.

  “With that, I bid you good day,” Chastain said. “My employees have left Ms. Taylor’s vehicle out front. We are happy to give Mr. Jefferson a ride back to the powwow.”

  Soren looked over at Kael, but he wasn’t paying attention to Chastain. Instead, he was staring at the bookshelf on the wall. Soren followed his gaze, but all he saw were a few history books.

  “Wait, what?” Kael said when he noticed Soren, Annika, and Chastain waiting for him to respond.

  “They want to give you a ride home,” Soren said.

  Kael seemed alarmed.

  “Would you guys mind taking me?” he asked Soren. “I have a policy against taking rides from people who have threatened to kill me.”

  “No problem,” Soren said, and Annika nodded.

  The three of them stood up and walked to the door. Soren waited as Annika and Kael left the office. Soren paused on his way outside. He looked back at Chastain, who was staring at him expectantly.

  “You always have to have the last word, don’t you, Mr. Chase?”

  “Who’s the Boy Scout?” Soren asked.

  He had hoped for an obvious reaction, perhaps even a look of surprise, but was disappointed.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Chastain said.

  Chastain’s face was a fixed mask, except for his eyes. For the first time Soren saw something other than disdain and mocking hostility there. He couldn’t be sure as he shut the door, but he thought Chastain looked worried.

  Chapter Eleven

  Annika pulled over to let Kael out near the entrance to the powwow. It was difficult to believe it was the same woods near where they had just been kidnapped and held at gunpoint. That place had been silent and spooky. This was alive with sounds.

  When Kael opened the door, Soren heard loud drums and then a cheer.