Dark Hollow Road (Taryn's Camera Book 3)

by Rebecca Patrick-Howard

  Taryn wondered that as well.

  “Miss Magill’s work shows promise. She is very good, but she has to work at it. Yours is very good and you know that. Therefore, you do not try. In the long run, I have much respect for the person who constantly works to achieve better. To work so hard at capturing the vision in their mind–that is more than technical skill; that is passion.”

  Taryn still worked hard at what she did and never felt like a painting was completed.

  There was a slight breeze outside and it ruffled what few leaves were left on the skeletal trees. She’d been able to hear Sade until she shut the door and then that sound, as well as all the house sounds, dissipated and she was left with the outside noises. Taryn had barely finished setting up her easel, however, when the other music started.

  At first, it sounded like the radio. The music was twangy with a distinctive electric guitar. It could’ve been Dwight Yoakam’s “Fast As You” and she found herself humming along with it, even growling to the “Aw, sookie” part. Maybe Matt’s changed his mind, Taryn thought to herself as she poured in a tiny bit of linseed oil. If she’d known he was going to put in Dwight (what that man did to a pair of jeans) she might’ve stayed inside.

  The music began fading out, however, and there was a stretch of uncomfortable silence that made Taryn’s mind start to wander again. To ward off any negative of unpleasant thoughts she began singing to herself, an old folk song about blackbirds her grandmother used to sing to her. But then the music started up, this time a woman. She would’ve known Patty Loveless’ “Timber I’m Falling in Love” anywhere. Matt must’ve found a classics station, she mused. The volume was turned up loud, loud enough for Taryn to catch an occasional lyric, and the comforting sound of a familiar song and voice she’d known all her life cut through the chill of the afternoon and warmed her bones.

  When she grew a little thirsty, though, and started back inside to grab her a drink she stopped in her tracks. Sade was still blaring below; all traces of Dwight and Patty were gone.

  “Well that’s weird,” she muttered aloud.

  In an experiment, she closed the bedroom door and stepped back out onto the balcony. Sade stopped, Patty returned, this time singing “Lonely Too Long.”

  Shrugging, Taryn went back to work, forgetting about her drink. She figured it must be someone on the other side of the woods, perhaps working outside. Maybe Cheyenne’s uncle working at the farm, getting things ready for the party the kids were going to have.

  Later, when she saw Matt come out of the house and head to the car to retrieve something, she called down to him. “Can you hear that music?” she yelled.

  Startled because he hadn’t known she was outside, he jumped a little and then looked up at her and grinned. “What music?” he asked, innocently.

  ‘The music playing outside. I think someone’s got a radio on or something. Sounds like Patty Loveless, but I can’t make out the song now.”

  Matt stood still, cocked his head to one side, and listened. “Nope, nothing. Maybe cause you’re higher up?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” she nodded.

  He went back in and she returned to her landscape. Her head and joints might be killing her, but at least it appeared her hearing was in good shape.

  Something woke her up again and it had Taryn sitting straight up in bed, gasping for breath like she’d been held underwater. Her lungs were full to bursting and she clawed at her throat in the dark, reaching for air her body told her she so desperately needed. In her half-dreaming state she panicked, fighting off an invisible attacker that was keeping her from moving, from breathing. But then she opened her eyes, her movements ceased, and she acclimated herself to the darkness. Once again, she was back in the bedroom with Matt snoring peacefully beside her, nothing out of the ordinary except for her heart trying to beat its way out of her body.

  Still, something had woken her up–something more than a bad dream. It was another sound, a sound that wasn’t quite right in the house.

  Straining her ears, she listened for a follow-up, fearful of hearing the pounding of heavy shoes on the staircase or the padding of unwanted feet below. The house was quiet, however, and the only thing she could hear was the white noise of the dehumidifier by the bed. Thelma’d installed it a few nights before. With all the rain they’d been having, she was worried about moisture and them getting sick with allergies and sinus problems.

  Although her body was still trembling and her mind was racing with horrible thoughts of death and rape, she lowered herself back to the pillow, sneaking her leg over to wrap itself around Matt’s. The warmth of his skin was heartening and a gentle reminder that she wasn’t alone. Still, she was by herself in her fears and thoughts and the fact that something had woken her up was unsettling. The numbers on the clock flashed 3:15 am, and she groaned aloud. She never should’ve watched The Amityville Horror as a kid.

  She’d nearly dozed back off again, lulled by Matt’s gentle breathing and the hum of the machine, when the room suddenly filled with sounds. This time, she was sure of it. The voices were low, conversational, and it sounded as though there were several people speaking at once. While she couldn’t make out what they were saying, try as she might to strain her ears, she could pick up on a word here or there.

  Puzzled, she listened quietly, rising up on her elbows to hopefully catch more. There was no sense of urgency in their voices, nothing menacing that should have caused her any alarm. And yet the simple fact that a random conversation was going on around here when nobody else should’ve been in the house was unsettling.

  At first she thought, hoped rather, that the voices were from Thelma and Jeff. Perhaps they’d needed something or were worried about her. But the thought was ludicrous; Thelma would never come into the house in the middle of the night like that. She wouldn’t have scared Taryn. Her next thought drifted towards another burglar, or somebody up to no good. But she was very good at reading tone and the conversation going on was light, airy, mild. It didn’t sound like people planning a sneak attack on the two sleepers.

  Then there was the fact that the voices seemed to be coming from every direction, surrounding her. An echo from outside perhaps?

  Softly letting her feet land on the floor, Taryn got out of bed and tiptoed towards the balcony door. It opened quietly and she stepped out onto into the night, gently pulling the door to behind her. The wood was cold under her feet, the October air bitter with a hint of moisture. There were no sounds, however, other than the night ones. She listened for a minute, willing them to start up again, but there was nothing. In something not quite fear, she walked back into the bedroom. The conversation immediately picked up again, the voices maybe just a little bit softer but still there nevertheless.

  Now she made herself walk out the bedroom door towards the stairs. Along the way she grabbed her curling iron. It wasn’t much but she might be able to beat someone off with it as she called for Matt if she had to and it was the closest object she could find.

  The humming of the dehumidifier trailed off behind her, growing quieter the more distance she put between her and the bedroom. Likewise, the voices diminished, too. Nothing drifted up from downstairs; whatever she was hearing had to be originating from the bedroom.

  When she turned around and started back towards the bedroom, Taryn came to a sudden halt. A candle burned in the room and its flame flickered, throwing odd-shaped patterns against the wall. From where she stood, the murky room looked distorted, like a carnival funhouse. Knowing what awaited her inside, her feet refused to move. She just couldn’t bring herself to go back in there. The fear of the dark she’d fought as a child was coming back to her now almost regularly and she was tired of it. She was going to be thirty-one soon, for God’s sake. She was behaving like a toddler.

  Having her back exposed to the staircase, where anything could fly up the length and attack her in the dark, didn’t seem much better. Panicked now, she turned in circles and weighed her options. Go downstairs and spend
the night on the couch, alone, or enter the bedroom and snuggle in next to Matt? The latter sounded more appealing but would she even be able to sleep?

  At last, after giving herself a firm and stern lecture, she gave in and walked back to the bedroom. Matt woke a little when she slid in next to him (okay, maybe it was because she poked him hard in the ribs and tried to wake him up) and his voice was hoarse and thick from sleep. “Everything okay?”

  “Do you think you could go downstairs and get my Benadryl?” she asked, embarrassed. “I’m spooked and don’t want to go alone.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he answered without any questions. “Be right back.”

  She flipped on the lamp while he was gone, unable to sit alone in the dark even for a few minutes. When he got back she popped two and then cuddled into the crook of his arm, wrapping her arm around his neck so that she could curl her fingers in his hair. “Matt?” she whispered when his breathing became steady again, a sure sign he was almost out.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do-do you hear that?” she stammered.

  “Hear what?”

  “The voices. There’s at least three. And they’re talking.”

  Matt listened and then patted her on the head. “I don’t hear anything. Must be the dehumidifier.”

  And somewhere, wherever they were coming from, someone laughed.

  Chapter 18

  As soon as she heard Rob’s voice on the phone, Taryn felt like she was reconnecting with a long-lost friend, despite the fact it had been less than a year since she last spoke to him. Of course, what a year that was!

  “Sorry it took me so long to get back to you,” Rob apologized. “I actually closed shop for a week and took the lady on vacation to Gatlinburg.”

  “Oh yeah? That sounds like fun!” It had been a very long time since Taryn had been on an actual vacation, staying in a motel room she didn’t have to work in and doing nothing but relaxing and having fun. “What all did you guys do?”

  “You know, the usual stuff.” Taryn could hear the grin in his voice. He sounded happy. “Go carts, mini golf, crappy buffets. Went through Wonderworks. Some of that shit just blows my mind. She dragged me through the Titanic museum–two hours of my life I’ll never get back again. Made me buy her a teacup, supposedly the replica of the exact pattern they had on the ship. She put it on the shelf with the shot glasses from Excalibur in Vegas and seashells she made me pick up off the beach in Daytona.”

  But he didn’t sound like he was complaining. In fact, he sounded excited and proud. Taryn was happy for him. Despite some of the crazy-looking paraphernalia Rob carried in his shop, he was just about one of the straightest guys Taryn had ever met and, outside of Matt, the only other person she felt she could be truly honest about her gift with.

  “It sounds like you’re really happy, Rob,” she said sincerely. “And I’m happy for you.”

  “Yeah, well, I hear you’re shacking up with my buddy now. Good for you guys!” Both had trained in engineering; Rob went the alternative route and now sold ritual gear to Wiccans and repaired the occasional iPhone screen.

  “Yeah, um, it’s going well,” Taryn agreed hurriedly. “So listen, I have some questions for you; things I’d like to talk about.”

  “Shoot. What’s up?”

  Taryn leaned back against the throw pillows on the couch and propped her feet up. She settled in for comfort–this was probably going to take a while.

  “I don’t know how much Matt filled you in on,” she began.

  “Very little. Just that you’re in Georgia teaching a class, kudos by the way, and he’s staying with you and taking some time off. Said a girl was missing and you were helping with that.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess that’s the gist of it,” Taryn agreed. “The problem is, I feel like I am supposed to be here, and yet I can’t pick up on anything. A noise here, a flash of something there. One night I was certain I saw her in my bedroom, crawling towards me.” Taryn still shuddered at the thought. “It was horrible.”

  “Are you doubting yourself now?”

  “Yes and no. I guess in the clear light of day it’s easy to think it might have been in my head, that maybe I was dreaming or seeing things or had one too many Benadryl or something. But at the time…”

  “Well, you’re a rational, logical-thinking human being,” he declared. “It’s no wonder you’d question such a thing. But after all that, what makes you think you’re not getting anywhere? Sounds like you’re getting into a lot.”

  “True. But I am no closer to giving the parents any answers than I was before. I know she’s dead.” Even just saying it aloud gave her chills. Cheyenne was dead, and someone had killed her. And maybe even tried to kill Taryn, unless she was being too melodramatic. “I know she’s dead,” she repeated, “but have no way of figuring out who, where, or why.”

  “Have you tried a clarity spell?” Rob suggested. “It might help.”

  As someone who’d never been a church-goer and rarely prayed, much less experimented with alternative religions, Taryn was still a little taken aback by some people’s casual attitude towards spells, rituals, and the Craft. “No, no, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you,” she smiled.

  “I have something that might work,” he mused. “But you’ll need quite a bit of stuff to do it well.”

  “I’m more of a kitchen witch,” she lamented. “Anything I could do that would just require a little garlic, a little olive oil? Maybe a nice tomato?”

  “I’ll see what I can come up with,” Rob laughed. “In the meantime, I’m sure you’ve had Miss Dixie out and put her to work?”

  “Yes, but only a few things and I don’t know how they fit into the big scheme of things.” She quickly filled him in on the image of Cheyenne she’d seen on the porch and the other subtle nuances her camera had picked up. Rob was as lost as she was.

  “I’m afraid I haven’t been much help,” he apologized with regret. “I can try to come up with a simpler spell, though, that you might be able to use.”

  “I’m willing to give anything a shot at this point.”

  For the next few minutes they talked about the weather, the new season of their favorite zombie post-apocalypse show, and Matt’s cooking. Before she hung up, however, she asked him one last question.

  “Oh, Rob, there was one more thing I wanted to run by you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know how you told me that sometimes you hear things that other people can’t?” she prodded.

  “And things that are far away?” he answered. “Yes, it happens. Why?”

  “I think I’m doing it too. Or else I’m going crazy,” she added nervously.

  “I highly doubt that. I figured the longer you went on, the more your gifts were developed. Interesting that it would happen in this way,” he mused. “Tell me about it.”

  Taryn filled him in on the voices, the music, and the other smaller things that she hadn’t even considered until she had him on the phone. When she was finished his end of the line was quiet. “You still there?”

  “Yeah,” Rob replied, “just forming my thoughts.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “It’s called ‘clairaudience.’ Now, some people interpret it as another way of channeling, like a medium would. It’s a way of communicating with spirits, but through sound. It’s part of being clairvoyant, only instead of seeing things or feeling things, you actually hear them. You’re basically picking up on another frequency that’s not accessible to most people.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Why did it start all of a sudden?” Taryn asked. Although she shouldn’t have been surprised. Miss Dixie had certainly started picking up on past images out of the blue.

  “My guess is you’ve always had a little bit of it, it just wasn’t very developed. Are you a big fan of music? Always have to have it on? Feel depressed when you can’t listen?”

  “Yeah,” Taryn laughed.

  “And my guess is th
at in a car you’re constantly changing stations, searching for that perfect song or sound. People might even complain about it…”

  Taryn thought of her parents and even Matt who were driven crazy by her radio channel-hopping. “That’s me.”

  “And it’s probably easy for you to pick up on other people’s voices and tell them apart that way, maybe even better than looking at them,” Rob pushed.

  “That’s so weird,” Taryn mused. “I never knew that was a ‘thing.’”

  “Welcome to the world of clairaudience.”

  “I notice it most in the bedroom,” she stated, remembering the overlapping of voices. “That’s where it was the loudest.”

  “Did you have anything on at the time? A heater? Fan? Snow on television?”

  Taryn didn’t have to think twice. “Yes, actually. I had the dehumidifier on. It’s been raining a lot.”

  “Well, a lot of people, and highly respected people, think that white noise is a conduit for picking up on other frequencies. And you don’t even have to be psychic to hear it,” he explained. “I wish I had a better explanation for you but I’d say that coupled with what you get out of pictures and your feelings, this is probably just the next step.”

  “So what you’re saying is that now not only can I see things through my camera but I can communicate with them through my microwave oven?”

  “Well, when you put it that way, yeah.”

  Travis Marcum sat in the booth across from Taryn at the Cracker Barrel. She tried, unconsciously, to watch him as he devoured his stack of pancakes and bowl of grits. They were both alone, and he sat at a table for two, shoved back into a corner by himself. She’d observed that, despite the fact his glass was empty from the minute she sat down, he was never offered a refill. Her server, on the other hand, badgered her almost to the point of annoyance.

  It was cold outside and even starting to flurry a little bit–not something she expected to see this far south. They didn’t get a lot of snow in Nashville. The last big snow she remembered was when she was a lot younger. But, a few fat courageous flakes slowly drifted down where they were immediately soaked up by the parking lot. The fireplace was going full throttle just a few feet away from her, though, and a grandfather was playing a rousing game of checkers with his little redheaded grandson. All in all, it was a pleasant place to park yourself, even if it was a chain and most of the food probably got delivered frozen.