The Occupant: The Afterlife Investigations #3

by Ibsen, Ambrose

  Jane chortled. “You want to 'explore every option', do you? Considering what's at stake here, I think the only option we'll be exploring is the caliber of bullet we'll use in putting her down.” She stepped into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her and locking it. “Sleep well.”

  I sighed, laying into the headrest and staring at the ceiling. Gee, with a pep talk like that one, how could I possibly not sleep well?

  * * *

  Ragged and hungry for sleep though I was, I couldn't drift off for more than a few minutes at a time. I guessed this was what insomniacs had to deal with most nights; sleep would wander close—close enough to grasp—only to flutter off like a butterfly, out of reach.

  Resting uneasily in the recliner, listening to Jake's snoring and wishing I could sleep as soundly, noises in and around the trailer kept me awake. The scraping of a branch on the siding, the hooting of an owl in some nearby tree, knocked the heaviness from my eyes and left me on full alert whenever sleep began to feel like a certainty. I yearned for a pair of earplugs, anything to block out the noises of the place. The breeze—hard and bringing with it traces of rain from time to time—made the trailer groan as it settled in the night-time coolness.

  As the hours passed and I fidgeted in the chair, other things began to spur my wakefulness. Heavy eyes on the cusp of sleep would begin to fall closed, only to glimpse a dark shape in the corner of the room, near the kitchen. It was like something seen through the lens of a camera, appearing just before the closing of the shutter.

  The Occupant.

  I noticed it first during a particularly harsh burst of wind that left the trailer rocking and the light over the kitchen sink flickering. Bent and staring from the corner, its shape appearing to mar the wall behind it in a grotesque shadow many times larger than its wiry frame should have allowed, it was gone before I could sit up and cast my sleepless eyes upon it in full. Momentarily awake, my heart crashing in my chest, I stifled a yelp and took a slow pan of the room, finding nothing out of place. Only Jake was there with me, where he looked poised to remain in his coma-like state till morning.

  I shut my eyes again, told myself all the usual stories. I blamed my imagination, called it paranoia or a trick of the light, and began courting sleep once more, but with the drooping of my eyelids came another flash of the malign. Crouching in the corner, tangled, orange hair threading out into a wild mane, it cast its ebon eyes on me and loosed a soupy wheeze from its gaping mouth. The shape of its malformed face would have almost looked serpentine in the shadows if not for the enormity of its eyes. One, as big as a saucer, loomed large, as dark as a hole in the earth. The other, smaller, sank unnaturally down its paper-white face like the yolk of a cracked, spoiled egg.

  As before, when I jolted fully awake, it was gone.

  I covered my eyes with my hands, kneaded them with the heels of my palms, and was prepared to stay in that pathetic pose till morning when a curious noise sounded from above. Raindrops, or perhaps falling acorns, struck the roof, but from where I sat it sounded more like the pitter-patter of feet. A bleary upward glance yielded traces of movement, as of a dark smear, crawling rapidly across the ceiling. The tendrils of dark, orange hair that fanned out in its wake seemed to me the limbs of some exotic species of centipede.

  Mashing the pads of my fingers against the armrests, I stared up at the dim ceiling with wide eyes and realized I saw nothing, save for the beige, popcorn texturing.

  It's followed us, even here, I thought. It'll never leave. Not until it's gotten what it wants. Once you've been touched by it, it holds sway over you forever...

  I tried not to whimper, and ignored the sounds that reached my ears in the interim. The vague rustlings outside the window, as of a clumsy, groping animal... The whispers riding in on the wind as of several voices mumbling conspiratorially... The creaks of the exterior as the structure braced against the wind—or else against the hands of unseen visitors in the night.

  It wants to get under your skin. It's feeding on your fear... Don't give in. Ignore it. Sleep. You need to sleep! None of this is real... You're safe here...

  Sleep and I weren't on speaking terms anymore, though. I was going to be kept awake till my heart gave out from exhaustion—till my nerves couldn't handle the strain and my brain simply powered off like a television getting its cord pulled out of the wall. Sweat began to form along my brow. My throat tightened. Though my eyes were shut hard, the hairs on my arms and neck perked up in the draft, knocked this way and that as though something had just moved swiftly past.

  I don't know how long I remained in this state, quivering, before the exhaustion became too much and I began nodding off once again. I felt my head loll, my breathing slow. Sleep began to cement my eyes shut and I did my best to focus on nothing but the shabby fabric of the chair. My only job was to sink as deeply into the weathered cushions as possible and abandon these surroundings.

  I was very nearly there when I felt the cool hand close tightly around my mouth.

  I started violently.

  Seconds passed. Shaky breaths were taken.

  Still, the feeling of that hand did not abate.

  This, then, was real.

  I opened my bloodshot eyes and saw Jane standing to one side of me. It was her hand clasped around my mouth, and she herself was panting, staring straight ahead, through the kitchen, at the door to the trailer.

  In her hand was the black handgun.

  The words she spoke next were uttered so quietly I almost couldn't hear them over the roar of my pulse. “We've got company,” she said, slowly rising to her feet. The gun rose, too, and she fixed its business end upon the door.

  6

  The doorknob was moving. Someone was trying it furtively from the outside. It shifted to the right, then to the left, the mechanisms within giving off a faint rattle. The deadbolt had been thrown and the door didn't budge, but as the moments passed the would-be intruder began to force the door more overtly. The hinges quaked as hands were pressed against the exterior.

  “I know you're out there,” called Jane. Her voice boomed throughout the quiet trailer. It was this that finally woke Jake. The kid's eyes flashed open and in his surprise he fell off of the couch, burying one knee in the carpet and dizzily gaining his feet. With her finger resting on the trigger of that mean-looking piece, she side-stepped towards the door and placed a hand against the deadbolt. “Who is it?”

  Someone feeble-voiced stammered from the other side of the door. “It's m-me, Jane. It's Paul. Me and some guys from town... just wanna talk.”

  Jane had mentioned a Paul earlier that evening—Paul had been the evasive one in town, the one who'd known a thing or two about Milsbourne, but who hadn't been willing to tell her much. What he was doing trying to break into the trailer late at night—and why he'd brought with him 'some guys from town'—remained to be seen, but I hardly imagined they'd come all this way just to chat.

  Without a word, Jane unlocked the deadbolt, threw the door aside with her foot and gave the visitors outside a good look at the gun in her fist.

  From the chair in the living room I couldn't be altogether sure, but there looked to be roughly five or six men waiting outside the trailer.

  And most of them had guns of their own.

  Jake and I froze. One minute we'd been sleeping peacefully—or trying to sleep, in my case—and the next we'd been transported back to the O.K. Corral. The men outside the door were a slovenly bunch. All were dressed in ragged clothes—flannel, jeans, overalls—and had their rifles at the ready. A backwoods firing squad. Those who didn't have guns were carrying what looked to be either thick tree branches or pieces of rebar; I couldn't tell which from the seat I was plastered to.

  Jane didn't flinch, like being held up by an angry mob was an everyday thing for her. She kept the gun pointed at the mass of visitors ahead and looked ready to squeeze the trigger at the slightest provocation. Had the wind blown just the right way, she might've taken a few of their heads off without
the least hesitation. “Got ourselves a standoff, I see.” She licked her lips. “Now, I'd hate to send you back to your wives and daughters in coffins, so I'll ask you plainly...” She looked to the man at the front of the pack, unarmed, which I took to be Paul Coleman. “What've you brought this ugly bunch to my doorstep for, Paul?”

  Paul, a thin and sweaty man whose teeth were mostly missing and whose depleted hairline gave way to a sheaf of wispy, shoulder-length hair, looked real apologetic—though the gun in his face might have been the reason for that. He kneaded his hands at his waist and looked to Jane with sorrowful eyes. “Jane, I'm sorry. I... I wasn't t-tryin' to bother ya. You see, I was hopin' we could t-talk...”

  “What about?” interrupted Jane. “I take it this is the conversation you didn't want to have back at the bar? Why you feeling so talkative all of a sudden?”

  Before Paul could blather on, someone else in the group, a tall and solid man with a red, sweat-stained T-shirt and a shotgun in his beefy hands, spoke up. “I asked Paul here to introduce me to the woman who was asking him all those questions about that place in the woods.” He took a step forward, the gun lowered to his side. Jane shifted her aim so that a bullet from her piece would have sailed clean through his heart, but he seemed unbothered. “It's just that, when people ask questions about that place out in the woods, I can't help but get a little... overprotective, I guess you might say.”

  “And why's that?” asked Jane, not missing a beat.

  “Because there are things in those woods that ain't none of your business,” replied the tall man.

  Jane wasn't the kind of woman you talked down to, and it was probably just the fact that she was outnumbered that kept her from blowing his brains out and shutting him up for good. “Who the hell do you think you are?” she asked.

  The man took another step forward, and Paul, standing beside him, flinched in anticipation of a gunshot that, thankfully, didn't come. “As a matter of fact, I'm Eli Lancaster, and I'm going to say it again—those woods ain't none of your business. You'd do well to stay out of 'em. And if you can't, I'd be happy to help you stay out of 'em by putting your ass down right here and now.”

  Things had reached a boiling point. Someone was going to pull a trigger or take a swing any second now.

  I piped up from the living room and managed to ease the tension by a fraction when I asked, “Wait, your name is Lancaster?”

  The man and all of his goons looked past Jane confusedly. “Who the hell is he?” asked Eli before clearing his throat and answering, more loudly, “It is. What about it?”

  Jane was about to protest when I stood up and waved the man inside. “Let him in. We need to talk.” Jane's anger boiled over and for a moment I expected her to turn the gun on me. “Let him in. He may have the information we're looking for.” I glanced at Eli, arching a brow. “Care to talk? I think we may be able to help each other out.”

  Jane fumed as Eli stepped past her. He nodded to his band of grungy companions and stationed himself in the kitchen, shrugging. “So, who are you?”

  “He's a rude good-for-nothing who's wearing out his welcome—” began Jane before I managed to cut her off.

  “Who I am isn't important. Suffice it to say, you and I are probably on the same side.” I approached him, tried to shake his hand, but he wouldn't accept it. Undeterred, I pressed him once more. “What's going on in the woods? Tell me everything you know.”

  7

  To my relief, tensions thawed just enough for a conversation to take place. Eli lowered his firearm. Jane did the same. He pointed at me with a thick, stubby finger, the nail clotted with dirt. I wasn't sure what this guy did for a living, but I'd have bet he worked outdoors. “What do you know about all of this?” He looked me up and down, confusion and perhaps incredulity marring his rugged features as he did so. “You don't look like you're from around here.”

  “I'm not,” I replied. “I'm a college professor, from Ohio. But that's not what we need to talk about.” I buried my hands in my pockets and looked to him earnestly. “The thing in the woods. I've seen it with my own two eyes.” Nodding towards Jake, I added, “It's hitched a ride in a friend of ours and it led us all the way here, to Michigan.”

  Whatever calm may have existed within Eli's expression slowly faded away as he donned a sour frown. He looked down at the ground, giving a shake of his head, and then looked back to Jane.

  “It's true,” she said. “He isn't lying.”

  Wiping at his nose, Eli Lancaster adjusted his overalls. “Tell you the truth, I don't think you understand what it is you're poking around in. I don't know what you saw—what led you lot out here—but I recommend you get back to Ohio. It'll be safer for everyone involved. What's going on in these woods is no one's business but mine.” His jaw tensed, frame became rigid. “Do I make myself clear?”

  Oh, he'd made himself clear, all right. He didn't want to tell us what he knew of the Occupant. Maybe he thought we'd get in his way, or else he had some other reason to keep us in the dark. Whatever the case, I was getting annoyed with his replies. If not for the gun in his hand, I might've been pushier.

  Instead, I had to play the diplomat. “Listen, I'm not trying to give you a hard time. We're outsiders, and I know that we must seem like a real nuisance, but this is a life or death situation. Something—which seems to have a strong connection to these woods, and to the ghost town of Milsbourne—has taken hold of a friend. She's disappeared, into the forest. We need your help if we're going to have any chance of rescuing her.”

  Eli twitched at the mention of Milsbourne, but sympathy seemed to be lacking completely in his expression. He shook his head, took in a deep breath. His grip on the gun tightened. “I'm telling you, you don't know the half of it. Go back to where y'all came from, all of you. It ain't no business of yours. I'm sorry to hear that your friend's been having some issues. If she's lost in the woods, maybe she'll find her way to a road or something.”

  Jane looked incensed, and stepped up to challenge him. Standing beside Eli, looking up at him with a steely gaze, she crossed her arms. “We know what's hiding in those woods.”

  Eli tongued his molars. “I rather doubt it.”

  Years ago, Jane herself had been possessed by the Occupant. Her uncle had subjected her to hideous experiments in a cabin within these very woods. To be so easily dismissed by Eli sent her into a rage that she could barely contain.

  I spoke up before she gave into the impulse to shoot him. “We just want to know what you know, all right? Why has this thing come all the way back to Milsbourne? How did you first become acquainted with it?”

  “It's my family's business,” he replied curtly. “It's the curse of my family line, and I'm not about to give a bunch of outsiders a detailed history. I thought I made it clear to you that it's none of your business—it's mine, and mine alone. I don't know what mischief your friend has gotten up to, but let's just say that, if she's really walked into the heart of these woods, then she ain't coming back out. My family left Milsbourne behind with all the others, moved away from it, because of what lurked there. There's no reason why you—or even you,” he said, motioning to Jane, “should know about it. You leave the woods alone and you might just enjoy a long life. I assume you're smart enough to follow simple directions, ain't ya, professor? Now and then we get people poking around—think they know something about Milsbourne, about its history—”

  “People like Jamieson Monroe?” I chanced.

  Eli's eyes narrowed—possibly in recognition—but he didn't pick up that thread.

  “I don't know why you're being so secretive,” I said. “There's something out there, and it's—”

  It was his turn to interrupt me, and he did so with a not-so-subtle shifting of the gun in his hand. “If there is something happening in these woods, then I'll take care of it. Don't you worry about what's out there.” He looked to me, then to Jake. Turning towards the door, he paused only long enough to tell Jane, “I'ma tell you one last time.
Stay out of the woods. If I find you there, poking around where you ain't supposed to, it's very possible I'm going to have a hunting accident.” He paced through the kitchen, out the door, and gave a little bob of his head as he exited the trailer. “Y'all have a good night, now.”

  Jane was seething. I waited for her to unload her magazine into the throng of men outside, but they walked off, muttering, and she simply remained in the living room, quaking in anger.

  Jake cleared his throat, breaking the taut silence. “So, what're we gonna do? Are we going to have to stand down, then?”

  “Not a chance in hell,” spat Jane. “I don't know who he thinks he is, and I don't care. We're going in there after the Occupant and there ain't shit he can do about it.” She holstered her gun and strode to the door, slamming it shut and locking it.

  “He knows something,” I said, leaning against the wall. I peered through the window from between a crack in the blinds. The mass of roughs had walked far from the trailer now, could scarcely be seen as they meandered into the distance. “He said it was the 'curse' of his family line. Just what was that supposed to mean?”

  Jane was too enraged to answer, but Jake spoke up with a half-formed guess before trailing off. “Well, if this has to do with the Lancaster family line—and Elizabeth is supposedly descended from that line—then...”

  The surname “Lancaster” had been popping up an awful lot lately, like a crafty, grinning toy peeking out of the holes in a Whac-A-Mole cabinet. One of these days I was going to crack it in the skull and win the game, but not today. Enid Lancaster had been the Occupant's most famous host to date. Dale and Louisa Morrissey had shared with us the scarce details of Elizabeth's true parentage—she'd been born of a mother by the name of Ophelia Lancaster, and her probable birth location had been in the vicinity of unincorporated Milsbourne. Now we had this Eli Lancaster fellow, who was mighty secretive about the Occupant, and who wanted us to stay out of the woods so badly that he'd come by with his posse in the middle of the night to intimidate us.