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

by Rob Blackwell

  “That he would kill us if we kept pursuing the case,” Soren replied. “Also he promised me double whatever you pay if I would stop.”

  Annika looked surprised.

  “You going to take it?” she asked.

  He gave her a weary look.

  “Do you really need to ask?” he said.

  She shook her head, then massaged her throat.

  “Sorry,” she said. “You can go, you know. Get back to the case.”

  Soren frowned.

  “First off, it’s the middle of the night,” he said. “We both need some sleep. Secondly, I’m not leaving you here.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, putting her hand on her throat again. “The Institute will send someone to guard me.”

  “Then I’ll take off when they get here,” Soren said. “No way am I leaving you here alone so that the Association can take another crack at you.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, but if she meant it to sound confident, she failed.

  “And it’s okay for me to wait a couple days, too,” he said. “If Chastain thinks I’ve stopped, he’ll leave both of us alone. And it will give me a little time to get my head in order. This has been a hectic few days.”

  Annika smiled weakly at him and lay back on the bed.

  “Why are you doing this?” she said in a whisper.

  He crossed back to the chair by the door and sat down.

  “Because there are answers in that forest,” Soren said. “And I intend to find them.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Soren arrived at his office on Monday morning still wearing the clothes that he had been in during the accident. They were dry by now, and he thought nothing of it until Glen noted it immediately after he walked through the door.

  “Uh, you’re smelling really bad today, boss,” Glen said. “You haven’t given up showering, have you?”

  Soren had half a mind to throw something at him but decided against it.

  “It’s been a long weekend,” he said.

  “So I figured,” Glen replied. “From the look of it, you haven’t been home, which normally would be a positive development when an attractive woman is involved. Yet I can tell from your expression—and, honestly, the stink coming off you—that this wasn’t exactly a romantic rendezvous. Unless she’s into guys who smell bad or something.”

  Soren bit his tongue and sighed.

  “Someone tried to kill us,” he said. “There was a car crash. It’s a long story.”

  “Didn’t actually seem that long,” Glen said.

  Soren rolled his eyes.

  “You know that when you don’t wear your glasses, I can see you do that, right?” Glen said.

  “Shut the fuck up and listen,” Soren said.

  For once Glen appeared to actually do what he was told.

  “You’re in danger,” Soren said. “The guy who arranged for the crash specifically mentioned he might come after you.”

  “I’m flattered he cares,” Glen replied.

  “This is serious,” Soren said.

  Glen nodded.

  “I know,” he said. “But don’t worry; I can take care of myself. What else do you need?”

  “I need help,” Soren said. “I’m going to go home and change into something clean.”

  “And shower,” Glen said.

  “And shower,” Soren replied. “But while I’m out, I need you to head to the library and start digging deeper. I want to know more about the people who attacked us. I need you to find out everything you can about the Chickahominy Conservation Association and its leader, Randolph Chastain. And I mean everything. Hack his computers, whatever you can do.”

  “Awesome,” Glen replied. “But I can’t actually do that. I have no idea how.”

  “You told me you had computer skills.”

  “That meant I know how to type and manage playlists on Spotify; it didn’t mean I was a hacker,” Glen said, sounding defensive.

  “Fine, whatever,” Soren said. “Google them and figure out what their story is. Just find anything you can. While you’re at it, look deeper into the Wallace Institute. Annika’s been keeping secrets from me. This isn’t just a random case for them.”

  “Okay,” Glen said.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” Soren said.

  “Why didn’t you just call this in?” Glen asked. “You didn’t need to show up.”

  “Because my phone is somewhere at the bottom of a river,” Soren replied. “And I was concerned the hospital lines were being tapped.”

  “Jesus,” Glen said. “Paranoid much?”

  “These guys are dangerous,” Soren said. “There’s no telling what they might do.”

  He turned to walk back to the exit and then thought of something else.

  “One more thing,” Soren said. “Did you read all of Annika’s file?”

  Glen nodded.

  “Do you remember anything in there about a dead Boy Scout?”

  Glen furrowed his brow and then shook his head.

  “Nope,” he said. “Pretty sure I would remember that.”

  “I thought so, too,” Soren said. “While I’m gone, do some research on that as well. See if any Boy Scouts died or disappeared around that forest.”

  “You have a time frame?”

  “Not really,” Soren said. “At a guess, I’d say the past forty or fifty years. Just see if anything jumps out at you.”

  “You got it, boss,” Glen said.

  But Soren didn’t hear him; he was already out the door.

  Soren stood thinking in the spray of the shower, trying to process the events of the past few days.

  The problem was there were too many things to consider: the forest, the Association, the Wallace Institute, Annika Taylor, Father Coakley, the Boy Scout, Randolph Chastain, Evan Turner, Kael Jefferson, and the village of Bethlehem. They competed for space in his brain, and he was unable to focus on one without his mind flitting to another.

  It was like working on a massive puzzle with several different pictures but no clear idea how they fit together. He remembered as a kid that he liked to start on the edge pieces and work his way inward. He supposed this should be no different.

  But considering each item individually was frustrating. He didn’t know how the Association was funded or who belonged to it. Even if he somehow obtained that information, he doubted Glen could uncover the most critical element of the group’s story: the why. He didn’t believe it was just there to keep people out.

  But he was no more certain of the Wallace Institute’s agenda. Annika had lied to him. More importantly, she’d been told to keep him in the dark about certain elements of the case. It made him wonder what else the Institute was hiding.

  What the two groups had in common was that they both cared about the same thing: Reapoke Forest. The Institute wanted to investigate it, and the Association wanted to control it.

  Soren let the water cascade over him and closed his eyes. What could be so important that it was worth killing over? And why now? The forest had stood there for centuries and apparently was the site of several disappearances and murders. Why did it matter at this moment?

  Try as he might, he couldn’t think of a good answer. He had the feeling he needed to understand more about Reapoke Forest’s history if he was going to get anywhere. There were a lot of haunted places in the world, but he’d never heard of a place quite like this. He needed to understand why it was special.

  He wished he knew another expert in the field, someone who could give him a place to get started. He needed to find the edges of this puzzle, or he was never going to be able to put it together.

  Just as the thought came to him, the face of an older man in a bow tie surfaced in his memory. Soren couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of him earlier.

  He turned off the water and grabbed a towel. He had a call to make.

  Soren opened his office door promptly at noon to find Terry Jacobsen standing in the entrance.

  H
e thought he’d never been so pleased to see the older man in his life. Soren shook his outstretched hand and welcomed him inside. Terry looked with a critical eye and turned back to Soren.

  “I wish I could say I liked what you’ve done with the place,” he said. “But you haven’t done anything.”

  Soren shrugged.

  “I don’t think you gave me this place so I could sit around with color swatches,” he replied.

  “True, although a little decoration never hurt,” he said. “At least some paintings.”

  Terry looked pointedly at the reception desk.

  “Fired my nephew already, I see,” he said.

  “No,” Soren said. “He’s at the library doing research for me. He’s been very helpful.”

  Terry seemed mildly surprised at the remark. He scanned the rest of the office. Terry wore a crisp blue button-down shirt, tweed jacket, and the bow tie that had been his trademark back when this had been the Leesburg Science Society.

  “I did make one change,” Soren said, and gestured to the back hallway. “Your storage area is now my office. Come on back.”

  Terry walked with a slight limp. He was only in his midfifties, but something about Terry made him seem older. The limp only enhanced that effect.

  “You hurt yourself?” Soren asked.

  “Bit of gout, I’m afraid.”

  “Do people still get gout?” Soren asked. “I thought that was a nineteenth-century thing.”

  Terry didn’t bother to respond, which Soren supposed was answer enough. They walked back to Soren’s office and sat down.

  “You want to tell me why I’m here?” Terry asked.

  “I need to consult with you,” Soren said.

  “I’m retired, as I know you are aware.”

  “You’re one of the world’s most legendary ghost hunters, Terry,” Soren said. “You’ve written three books on the subject.”

  Terry sighed dramatically.

  “I wish people would stop calling me a ghost ‘hunter,’” he said. “For the last time, I don’t hunt ghosts.”

  “I know,” Soren said, and grinned. “I was just trying to get your goat.”

  Terry leaned back into his chair.

  “Why don’t you instead tell me what you want to consult me on?”

  “I’ve got a case I don’t understand,” Soren replied. “I think it’s about ghosts, but I’ll be honest—I’m not sure. I was under the impression that ghosts can’t kill people.”

  “They can’t,” Terry replied matter-of-factly. “They’re incorporeal spirits.”

  “Well, the ones I’m investigating can,” Soren said. “And apparently they’ve been killing quite a number. I remember what you told me about ghosts, and my own—albeit limited—experience has borne that out. They’re people who were hung up in life, unable to move on. Typically speaking, they got stuck wherever their most traumatic experiences were. That could be a house or building or somewhere like a—”

  “Battlefield,” Terry finished. “They’re quite common there.”

  “Okay, but if actual people showed up in the house or battlefield, could ghosts hurt them?”

  Terry paused for a moment.

  “I typically insist the answer is no,” he said, and sighed. “But it’s a little bit more complicated than that. On their own, ghosts are mostly powerless. More importantly, they are largely oblivious. They’re trapped in a prison of their own making. They don’t usually get involved in the affairs of the living unless something happens to draw their attention. Even then they would be hard pressed to have an impact.”

  “I sense there’s a ‘but’ coming,” Soren said.

  “Quite correct,” Terry said, nodding. “There are two exceptions. The first is that some other entity is involved, something that jars the spirits from their rather self-obsessed stupor and gives them the power to act against the outside world. But I have to say such entities are very rare.”

  “What kind of creature are we talking about here?”

  “The one that springs to mind is a banshee,” Terry said. “But that could be because I came across one several years ago. She sat in this office and talked with me, in fact.”

  Soren’s eyes widened.

  “You talked with a banshee?” he asked.

  “She wasn’t fully aware of who she was at the time,” Terry replied.

  Soren opened his mouth to speak but Terry stopped him.

  “It isn’t her, if that’s what you’re going to ask,” Terry said. “She only shows up on Halloween.”

  Soren paused a minute as another thought hit him.

  “Could it be a pretender?” he asked.

  Terry emphatically shook his head.

  “No, definitely not,” he replied. “They have many abilities, but not the power to interact with the dead.”

  It was a long shot, and Soren let it go.

  “You said there were two exceptions,” he said. “What’s the other one?”

  “Places—and even some objects—can absorb the psychic energy of human trauma,” Terry said. “Think of it this way: humans can be scarred by significant events in their history. Places are no different. It’s possible that if there was enough pain and misery in one particular spot, they could permanently impact the character of a location.”

  “Are you saying that if enough bad things happen in one place, it could turn evil?”

  Terry crinkled his nose.

  “Evil is a moral judgment,” he replied. “But your basic premise is correct. If enough tragedy occurred in one area, it could become tainted by it. Instead of being a passive part of the scene, the environment might assist in causing terrible things to happen. Again, the same has been true of particular objects. There’s even a word for it.”

  “Cursed.”

  “Exactly,” Terry said. “In 1954 there was a traveling show that featured the ‘Cursed Dagger of the Tsars.’ Most such things would be nonsense, of course, but the dagger was later found to have belonged to Nicholas II, the last tsar.”

  “I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that something bad happened to the show,” Soren said.

  “It was destroyed in a massive tornado,” Terry said. “Interesting thing about that particular twister was that it completely spared the town nearby. But nothing survived of the show, except—”

  “The dagger,” Soren finished.

  “Right again,” Terry said. “The opposite is also true. Have you ever been somewhere you felt peace and serenity? Not just because it was a beautiful location or you were with the right person, but because there was something intangible about the spot?”

  Soren nodded his head slowly. He had known such a place, one where he felt unexpectedly and completely at ease. It had burned to the ground eight years ago.

  “It takes an extraordinary amount of anguish or joy to produce this kind of result,” Terry said. “Are you sure that where you’re looking has that kind of past?”

  Soren filled him in on the history of Reapoke Forest, keeping it as succinct as he could. At the end of his recounting, Terry whistled.

  “So how about it? Could a place like that fit the bill?” Soren asked.

  “That is an unusual amount of tragedy for one location,” he replied. “It might be enough; I’m not sure.”

  Soren thought of the Boy Scout he had seen in the woods.

  “For the sake of argument, let’s say it is,” Soren said. “Let’s say Reapoke Forest has turned bad. Could it trap souls there if someone died?”

  Terry nodded his head.

  “Yes,” he said. “It would be cursed. Someone who happened upon there might not be able to escape it, even in death. Worse than that, it would attract unsavory people and creatures. Think of it as a spiritual black hole pulling darkness into its maw.”

  “Do I have to think of it that way? Because that scares the shit out of me.”

  Terry abruptly stood up and smoothed out his tweed jacket.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” h
e said. “I have to get going.”

  For a minute he worried he had offended the older man, but he noticed Terry anxiously checking his watch.

  “Hot date?” Soren asked.

  He watched as a small smile crossed Terry’s lips.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” he said.

  When Soren rose to follow him, Terry waved dismissively.

  “I’ll see myself out,” he said. “And I’ll do a little research on your problem. If I think of anything more, I’ll call. Do feel free to stay in touch, however. Just be careful. These kind of places are extremely dangerous. It’s the totality of them, I think. It’s not just one event that scars the land, it’s many. As William Faulkner once said, ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ I would add this: in such a place the past would be almost a living thing—and it would have very sharp teeth.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Soren spent the rest of the afternoon poring over the research file. He stopped briefly to call Annika to make sure she was okay. The doctors had decided to keep her for another day of observation, although she had bitterly fought the recommendation. In the end her employer had insisted she follow the doctors’ directive. Since they were paying her bills, as well as providing her with protection, she was forced to accept.

  He jerked up when he heard the front office door open. He stood and cautiously walked out to see who it was, only to have Glen surprise him at the door. He was carrying several books and looked pale.

  “You’ve been gone ages,” Soren said. “I was beginning to think you’d knocked off early and headed home.”

  “I found something,” Glen said.

  “About the Boy Scout?”

  Glen nodded. Soren moved out of his way, and Glen dropped the books on Soren’s desk. Glen seemed anxious, unlike his normal sarcastic self.

  “Is everything okay?” Soren asked.

  “You just need to hear this, okay?” Glen said. “I think you need to sit down.”

  Soren sat in his chair.

  “Hit me,” he said.

  Glen paused.

  “The Boy Scout’s name is Owen Leggett,” Glen said. “For the record, he didn’t disappear in what we call Reapoke Forest. He was across the river. There’s a campground there named Chickahominy Riverfront Park. According to police records, his troop was visiting Williamsburg for the weekend. One Saturday night some kids organized a snipe hunt. Ever heard of it?”