It was as good a hiding spot as any.
My breath was some time in returning to me. I looked down at my gun and wondered how many bullets I had left. I gave it a shake as though I'd somehow be able to hear them, and wiped the sweat from my brow. Doesn't matter how many bullets are left if you don't start hitting something with them, I thought. How differently things might've gone for me if only I'd spent a few days at a firing range, practicing. Jane's crash course had kept me from shooting myself in the foot, but I was hardly a marksman.
My body craved water and food. I realized I hadn't had a drink since leaving camp, and suddenly my mouth was feeling dry as a cotton ball. For most of the night I'd been running almost non-stop, and if I wasn't careful, dehydration was a real possibility. I hoped to encounter some source of clean water and, recalling the well we'd seen on our walk into Milsbourne, I wondered if it would be safe to drink from. But then Paul's story came to mind and I nixed the idea. He'd told me the water in Milsbourne had gone bad due to the Occupant's meddling. I wasn't sure if that was still the case, but didn't want to end up drinking any dangerous pathogens. My only hope for clean water was to get back to camp.
I was dreaming of guzzling a gallon jug of water and smashing a whole box of granola bars back at the tent when I heard a voice from up above. It damn near stopped my heart.
Sinister and smooth, the androgynous voice slipped into my ear and chilled my bones. “I've had my eye on you for so long.”
Though my body protested violently, my eyes were drawn upward, to the pale, orange-haired figure that hung above me, suspended on the branch of a tree like a bat in a cave. Drops of blood from its stub of a chin struck the ground like red rain, and I felt some strike my arm. The thing leered, a low laugh oozing from its depths. The chorus of the dead was welling up again, streaming from the specter's eyes and mouth.
I was cemented to the ground, my legs fried by equal parts fatigue and fear. The air in my lungs just sat there, a check my body couldn't cash, and I felt the color drain from my face.
The Occupant touched down on the ground with otherworldly grace, slipping from the branch and arriving at my feet in a neat crouch. It was upon me in the next instant, its movements so fast and fluid that my feeble eyes couldn't keep up. It seized me by the shoulders with the force of ten men and brought its face up next to mine. I could hear the voices issuing from within its body, could smell something emanating from it, too—a mix of sulphur and sun-warmed carrion.
Its mouth fell open and a long tongue parted my lips, probing the inside of my mouth, my teeth, and slipping some ways down my throat, where it wriggled like a worm. It was the most repellant thing I'd ever experienced. Gagging on the thing's tongue, tasting traces of Paul's blood as its ragged lips pressed mine, I wished I was dead. The Occupant would soon consume me, would unhinge its jaw and swallow me head-first like some Amazonian snake, and it was just as well.
It pulled away, and I gasped in a deep breath.
“I can taste your fear,” it said, its black eyes widening ever so slightly. “I'm going to kill you now, Stephen.”
Though the feeling was gone from my body and I was wreaked with disgust, my right hand brought the gun to the Occupant's abdomen and my finger set upon the trigger.
The specter was amused, laughed as if to say, “You haven't got the balls to kill your student.”
I drowned out its laughter with a gunshot.
The bullet slammed into the Occupant's waist, and suddenly the thing was scrambling away from me, clutching at the new wound. A shrill scream pierced the night air, but it sounded less distorted than any of its previous vocalizations. It sounded almost human.
It sounded like Elizabeth.
Falling onto its back and squirming, the figure thrashed and howled. I stood up, pointing the gun at it once more and watching—with no little horror—as the thing's monstrous visage morphed into something more familiar. The black eyes were gone, and the mouth shrank back into its proper proportion. I was staring down at Elizabeth Morrissey.
I couldn't explain it. I'd gotten a good shot in, but was unsure why the Occupant's sway over Elizabeth should have waned after the blow. Elizabeth's eyes sprang open, full of tears, and then promptly rolled into the back of her head. She sucked in air between sharp cries of pain and clawed at the grass.
“Elizabeth!” I said, kneeling beside her. “Elizabeth, it's me!”
She looked in my direction, but there was little recognizance in her eyes. She was a creature fully consumed by her pain, and I got the impression that her mind was somewhere else, battling for dominion against the dark thing that'd been present until just moments ago. I looked at the wound, feeling a tsunami of guilt. Studying it more closely, it didn't appear to be a mortal wound—I'd gotten her in the side but had probably—hopefully—missed her vital organs.
I was considering how best to help her up, how to get her moved back to camp, when she fell silent and suddenly lurched upward. The wound poured blood down her leg as she rose—levitated—to her feet, and her mouth opened wide to loose the bloodcurdling screams of the tortured dead. A black eye sized me up, then another, and before I knew it I was staring the Occupant in the face once again. The thing struck me in the gut with a wild swing, knocking the air out of me, and then made a mad dash for the woods, clutching its side. The figure had disappeared into the fog by the time I looked up, and the sounds of its flight evaporated soon thereafter.
Shaking, I holstered my weapon and slowly stood up, the world spinning around me.
I was still alive, somehow.
And Elizabeth was still in there.
20
I wandered the forest, exploring the rolling hills and the edges of the mines. In my dazed state I had no business going anywhere near abandoned mine shafts, but found myself in the vicinity of not a few as I tried to find my way to civilization.
There wasn't any place in particular I wanted to go. I just wanted out of this mess entirely. Returning to camp would have suited me just fine, and I'd have quenched my thirst and hunger, happily reclining in the remains of the tent while awaiting my ultimate fate. A road or public camping area, too, would have been a welcome sight, and I wondered whether I wouldn't be able to spot one in the distance if I climbed to the tops of the highest hills.
My thoughts were dominated by two things: my unrelenting thirst and Elizabeth.
I solved the first problem when I came across a clear-looking puddle in a mossy divot of land and damn near drained it. Falling to my knees, I sucked up the water like a horse at a watering hole and almost wept as it flowed down my throat. I didn't mind the grit, the sediment, but drank deeply till I no longer felt like a dried-out husk inside.
The Elizabeth problem would not be easily solved, however.
Let me be perfectly clear: After everything I'd witnessed, after all the challenges I'd faced, I no longer had any problem with the idea of killing Elizabeth Morrissey. That isn't to say the act wouldn't haunt me for the rest of my days, or that it wouldn't instill in me great sadness. It would. However, at this point, I saw it for what it was: A necessity. Killing Elizabeth was probably not optional, despite Jake's wishes to the contrary. If the kid was even still alive, I hoped he'd been through enough to convince him. He'd been stubborn for too long, entertaining peaceful means of dealing with the Occupant. I was ashamed to have followed along for so long. Putting down Elizabeth was likely our only way out of this.
But then, killing her would only get us so far.
The townspeople of Milsbourne had burnt an Occupant-possessed Sarah Lancaster to death at the bottom of a mineshaft, but that hadn't been enough to return the spirit to the hovel it'd initially crawled out from. The spirit had gone on haunting the Michigan woods for a hundred years, impotent without a Lancaster to latch onto, but present nevertheless. It had done the same at Chaythe Asylum, lingering in its halls long after Enid Lancaster had been struck down.
Killing Elizabeth would get us out of immediate trouble, but so
long as the Occupant walked the Earth—and the Lancasters did as well—it would always pose a threat. Though murdering every descendant of Joseph Lancaster might very well send the Occupant back to Hell, I doubted that it was possible to do so. His descendants had fanned out, possibly across the State—the country—and would be damn near impossible to trace. Never mind the serious problem I had with mowing down perfect strangers just because they shared a common last name.
There was something else bugging me, too. When I'd shot the Occupant the night before, I'd gotten a glimpse of Elizabeth. Somehow, she was still in there; her mind hadn't been totally squashed by the invading presence. I didn't have enough information to be sure, but I suspected there might be a way to oust the Occupant whilst simultaneously sparing Elizabeth. Dr. Corvine had evidently thought so—upon springing Jane from the sanitarium in '89, he'd set his sights on somehow sending the entity back to the shadows, and was looking to use Jane to do it. I wasn't sure of his plans—whether he had any reason to believe such a solution existed to the Occupant problem—but the possibility of a peaceful resolution, though far-fetched, intrigued and enticed me. I'd had enough of bloodshed, of senseless killing. I'd have loved nothing more than to return to my old life, with my students in tow.
I wasn't sure what day it was anymore. Making it back to Moorlake in time for the start of the semester was pretty much out of the question. If I survived this at all, I was going to be cashing in some serious sick days—consequences be damned.
The woods were so much easier to navigate during the day, I looked up and pleaded with the sun to stay out forevermore. It's possible, too, that I was talking to the sun because I was hallucinating, but a part of me was just happy to be able to see where I was going. Eventually, I was going to find something—our campsite, a familiar Milsbourne landmark, a paved road—and things would improve. I kept telling myself that, and even fed myself the lie that Jake and Jane were still out there somewhere, probably safe and sound, when in all likelihood their carcasses had probably been pulled apart like boiled chicken and their intestines had been strung up like Christmas garland.
There was a large, craggy outcropping ahead, and as I drew near I made out what appeared to be another mineshaft. I sidled up to it, taking a breather, and had a look inside. The sun rendered the opening in harsh light and gave me a decent idea of its total depth. A fall into such a thing would kill a man, easy. I stared down into the pit, giving my tired feet a rest, and then spied something white and brittle jutting out from some crag. I shouldn't have thought anything of it—it was likely an abandoned pickaxe, or some feature of the rock, but the longer I stared at it the more interesting it became to my fevered mind.
It was a bone.
I blinked, knelt down, and looked at it more closely. It was well out of reach, but I felt certain of it. It was a bone. Human, judging by the size.
I looked deeper down and discovered a couple more. Some were shaped like ribs. Further below, the round tops of what appeared to be skulls sat aglow in the morning sun.
This mineshaft was full of bones.
My heart skipped a beat as I stared down into the aperture, realizing where I was. There were loads of bones in this shaft—bones that had been weathered by the elements for a very long time. This, then, was the spot where Joseph Lancaster had had his near-death experience, and where his daughter had been burned alive for her sins.
Something shifted below, and I nearly pitched forward into the hole.
A pale, disordered face turned to meet mine from the bottom of the chasm, and a wan hand beckoned me to hop in.
The Occupant.
By day it lives in the Earth. That was what Eli had said.
I didn't waste a moment. The sight of the bone pit inspired in me some lucidity I hadn't known I possessed and I was soon running full-tilt away from the mineshaft. I started down a hill, my heels sliding down the steeper parts and leaving deep ruts in the soil. It was then, as I burst through a copse of trees, that I entered into some familiar territory by sheer, merciful chance. A primitive road opened up before me and two rows of shabby cabins lined it on both sides. I'd been here the night before, had been chased here by the Occupant. I eyed the cabin I'd taken refuge in and felt a chill wander down my spine as I realized Paul's body was probably still inside. I had no interest in finding out what the Occupant had done to him after I'd left, and I put the cabin behind me, taking the road in the opposite direction, away from the hills.
An hour's walk through medium growth led me to still more promising scenery. The path I was on, which was punctuated with fewer trees than I'd expected, had probably been a long trail once used by the townsfolk. It was an hour's walk down this path before I spied the black spire of the church rising above the trees in the distance, but prior to that lovely sight I'd glimpsed a number of squat, tottering shacks and a collapsed well that solidified the feeling in my gut. You're going the right way!
The sight of the church really put some spring in my step, and after a short jog, I found myself standing outside it. The gore still remained in place, though the local fauna had seemingly gotten to the most conspicuous bits. Shoving the carnage out of mind, I stopped in front of the church and tried to gauge the direction of our camp. I wasn't sure what state I'd find it in, or if the others would be there, but I had to find it. Stepping into the dense woods, keeping my eyes peeled, I trudged on in search of the clearing we'd chosen and hoped that the blue tent would give it away from afar.
The tent, eventually, entered into view. It had been damaged severely by the boiling downpour the night before, but still remained standing. I ran towards it, my eyes crowded with tears, and burst into the clearing with a cry of joy on my lips. The site was still a mess, but I found some evidences of a fire that—judging from the warmth still issuing from the mass of spent wood—had been put out only recently. Had Jane or Jake started the fire? Were they still alive?
Hope really does spring eternal. I'd witnessed unutterable evil in these woods, but still held out hope that my companions had survived. The tent shook a bit as someone within moved to exit. I placed a hand against my holster and prepared to draw the weapon if necessary. “Who's there?” I asked in a tremulous whisper.
21
To my surprise—and delight—both Jane and Jake crawled out of the tent to meet me.
The way they looked at me you'd have thought I was Elvis Presley.
“Professor?” blurted Jake, his black eye still prominent on his face and his arms scored in burns for the previous night's rain. “Is it really you?”
Jane's welcome had been less warm. She'd come out of the tent with her rifle in hand, but at verifying my identity had set it aside. “Well, I'll be damned.”
Because I surely looked like hell and was awfully unstable, they helped me into the tent and offered me food and water. The water from the gallon jug tasted a whole lot better than the puddle shit I'd swilled, and even after slamming four granola bars my stomach felt like a bottomless pit. I reclined, stretching out and allowing my pulsating limbs to relax. My heart was racing, but for once, it wasn't out of fear or fatigue. I was overjoyed to be reunited with the two of them.
Being separated from the group, forced to face the horrors of the Occupant on my own, had been unbearable for me. I thought to tell them about everything I'd learned, everything I'd experienced, but before I knew it I'd fallen fast asleep.
Well, more like a coma.
They were good sports about it and let me sleep until the early evening. Frankly, unless they'd planned to carry me on their backs, or else abandon me in the tent, they had no choice but to let me rest. I was in terrible shape and wouldn't have been able to make it out of the woods without passing out on the trail. Jane roused me with a gentle nudge as the sun was beginning to dip in the sky. “OK, professor,” she said, peering down at me. “Can't wait much longer. Get your ass up.”
I looked up at her with heavy eyes, not sure if I was awake or dreaming, dead or alive. “What's up?”
Jake leaned over me, too. “What happened to you last night?”
My sleep had been dark and sterile. My brain had been too busy patching things up to dwell on the night's events, to waste time on dreams, but as I sat up in the tent, the memories came rushing back and with them came the concomitant terror. A question like, “What happened to you last night?” was not one that I'd be able to answer concisely. Gulping down some water, I sighed. “It's a long story.”
* * *
I hydrated and took it from the top. I told them about how I'd gotten lost while running from the Occupant, and how I'd tumbled down a steep incline and hit my head. I described my wanderings through town—the old buildings I'd seen and my encounter with Paul. They were both surprised to hear that anyone from Eli's party had survived, and they listened closely as I unpacked the details of my talk with him. Recounting everything he'd told me about the history of Milsbourne, the Lancaster family and the fate of Jamieson Monroe, I saw the lights come on in their heads as they put the pieces together. After that, I described my hours of wandering in the hills, where I'd stumbled upon the mineshaft where Sarah Lancaster had been burned to death, and my eventual return to the campsite.
Jane, her gun never far, lit me a cigarette and reclined in the tent, deep in thought. “The Occupant was inside the pit this morning?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. I looked down into it. The sun was just right, and I could see her waiting down there, probably nursing the wound I'd dealt it. I was so terrified I started running.”
She grumbled, taking a puff from her cigarette. “That's a missed opportunity. You should have done something. You could have burned her alive—tried shooting her from up above.”
I couldn't help but roll my eyes at that. It was possible that I could have killed the Occupant by taking potshots from the top of the aperture, but most every other shot I'd taken in my brief history as a gunslinger had been complete shit. More likely, I'd have simply used up my bullets and missed every time. And as much as I'd have liked to burn her the way the people of Milsbourne had done in the 1800's, it hadn't crossed my mind to try. Except for a crappy, spent Bic lighter, I'd had nothing to start a fire with.
The Occupant: The Afterlife Investigations #3 Page 12