“There’s evil in this house. I saw it when I passed. Listen to me, Carter. If you never listen to another word I say, take the family and get the hell out of this house.”
“Evan, I can’t take everybody out in this storm and I don’t even know what’s going on behind this door.” Carter turned back to the door and again tried jiggling the handle and pushing on it. “There was a scream and now there’s nobody answering. Bradley Oldman’s in there as well. He was sleeping over tonight.”
Carter turned around to look at Evan, but he was gone. The only things left were two wet spots. Whatever it was that Evan was trying to communicate to Carter was bad enough to warrant this hasty exit. The level of noise was off the charts and Carter continued to scream over it and pound on the door, but to no avail. He would not leave the house without his wife and the kids.
Against Evan’s advice, Carter stayed in the house. He returned to the garage to get the ladder, pulling it into the house without regard for the storm, which had decimated the garage. Evan told him to get out, but Carter would not leave his family. Since there was no answer on the other side of the door, instead of going down with the ship, Carter took the ladder outside with the high wind, heavy rain, thunder and lightning. If he was going to die anyway, he might as well give his family a fair shake at life.
He placed the ladder against the back of the house just below Adam’s bedroom and held it firmly so that it didn’t fly away. He needed to continuously apply pressure, hoping his body weight would be enough to keep the ladder on the house. He climbed up the first rung with both feet and looked up at the window. It never seemed that high under normal conditions, but with heavy wind and rain pounding away and handicapping his performance, whatever was normal was out the window.
Carter had to pull his head down whenever he looked up to the window because the raindrops were so hard that it felt like needles penetrating his eyes. He took a second step up, and then a third, stopping to get his balance. Up he went to the fourth, fifth and sixth rung, about a third of the way there. He knew that he had to pick up the pace, so he tried climbing up a couple rungs, before balancing the ladder and checking his progress.
When he reached the two-thirds mark, the wind gusts picked up considerably. Now it felt like someone was kicking the ladder at the bottom. He looked down and nobody was there. He believed it was just the gusts pushing and pulling, making this insane feat all the more difficult, and it got progressively worse the higher he climbed. The ladder shifted as he neared the window. He was so close to the window, but he felt like he could no longer rise to the occasion. Then the thought occurred to him that the window was locked. They always kept that damn window locked since the day Adam had disappeared.
If he did make it to the top and the window was locked, then all they needed to do was unlock the window and help him climb in. However, there was no answer when he had shouted to them and pounded on the door, and clearly they were in trouble because Brenda had desperately called out to him.
He was only a few feet from the window, but he had a funny feeling that if he went any higher, the ladder would tilt and he may come tumbling down. Loud thunder crackled above him. It was so loud that it almost knocked him off the ladder. He was fortunate, but he didn’t know for how long. He braced himself for the lightning strike, which usually followed thunder, and then he could calculate how far away the storm was by how many seconds separated the thunder and lightning. Carter was pretty sure that the storm was on him, so calculations were unnecessary. Besides, he needed to concentrate on things that mattered a little more.
Suddenly, a microburst twisted the ladder and only one of the two feet was on the ground. He reached for the house, realizing that there was nothing to grab a hold of that would do him any good, but he was desperate. He was somehow balancing as he awkwardly waved his arms around. He had one foot in the air and it went around in quick circles as he tried to maintain his balance and keep this thing under control.
He heard the loud crack of an enormous tree branch from one of the biggest trees in the yard. He didn’t see it, but he heard it. Then something pummeled his ladder, spinning him around and knocking him off balance, and he plummeted the length he had climbed. His body hit the ground so hard that it bounced a bit, ending in stillness. The ladder landed on top of his body and the enormous tree branch landed on top of the ladder, pinning him so that he could not move.
Carter was no longer struggling. He no longer felt precipitation, and after such a brutal fall from the ladder, he surprisingly felt no pain either. There was no feeling, actually. He could see that it looked pretty bad, but there was no pain to go along with it. He had thoughts of paralysis. He didn’t know why there was no feeling because from the looks of things he should be feeling something.
He drifted higher and began to separate further from his body. He saw that his foot was twisted in a way that it couldn’t normally bend, and there was a gash on his forehead. He looked at the house and realized that he was now above the height of the very window in which he had been trying to reach, and although he could see into it, he was unable to see Brenda, Adam or Bradley. He looked over and saw Dan and Victoria, and they were looking through their side window as he was lying on the ground, but there was no safe way in the world that they could reach him.
This was actually new territory for Carter. Sure he had reached this realm before, intentionally and unintentionally, but something was different about this time. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he was not very high in the sky and he was not seeing relatives who had pre-deceased him. It was almost like he was stuck closer to earth than he was to the sky. He had been high and he had been low, and he had zoomed from high to low and vice versa, but this time he never got very high at all and was not bouncing to and fro.
He looked around again. The Oldman’s couldn’t take their dam eyes off him. Nothing to see here, folks, so you can move it right along, he thought. Then he remembered that he and Brenda were in charge of their son, Bradley, so their nosiness was merited. He was going to let them have this one.
He saw the wind continue to push and pull on the trees. He saw himself below, his head resting very close to the house, and mouth-up to the rain. The rain was mostly plastering the ground from the bottom of his rib cage down to his feet.
He wanted to get a better look at the way the branch had landed on him, but his line of vision was blocked by another tree branch sprawling across the yard, attached to the same tree that had released one of its largest branches and was pinning Carter to the ground. He then was no longer blocked by this branch. Just like that, he was able to see the fallen branch without being blocked by its sister. It was the family tree working together for his benefit.
This was when Carter realized that not only was he being held prisoner in a lower realm, but he possessed the power of thought, which would allow him to think of something and move accordingly. He was being blocked by that branch, so he thought about another angle, and voila… there he moved. It was not so much a move, though, because he was not cognizant of any such movement.
He thought about a different perspective to allow him to better see how that branch crossed his body, and he was transported there. Nothing was whizzing past, and he wasn’t whizzing anywhere, but he had changed perspectives. He was not sure how this happened, but he thought that it might benefit him in this time of need.
He thought about viewing his body from a closer spot, which would allow him to check the way the branch was trapping him. This would also enable him to check on his head and ankle, and anything else that may not have been picked up on from his heightened viewpoint. Then he was there, right on the ground, actually, but with no pressure on his feet to give him the feel that he was walking. That wasn’t important to him at this time. The important part was the branch and his present condition. He took
a look back and the Oldman’s were still looking. He wondered if they could see what he was doing, but had to assume they could not.
The storm continued to rage, but not on his spirit. It was his physical body getting the brunt of it. His mouth was not yet filled up with water, so that was good. He looked at his twisted body. He had landed on his back and the ladder had crossed him around the knee area. The enormous branch pinned the ladder to Carter, and pinned Carter to the ground. He was not getting free in a hurry. He would need help, and it did not look like he would get it from the Oldman’s. By the time help did arrive, if it ever did, he surmised that he would be much higher than he was now, and might not return. Judging by the head wound, help might not matter.
The water began to pool around his body, overtaking the grass in some spots, so he thought that he was okay on his back. There appeared to be great pressure on his body as the weight of the tree directly pressed the ladder across his midsection and there did not appear to be any way out of this on his own, especially in the condition that he was in. It might even be a best-case scenario if he came out of this paralyzed.
It finally occurred to him that since he could be where he wanted to be simply by thinking about it, then he could attain his goal of getting into Adam’s bedroom. He remembered that Brenda had screamed, and then there was no answer from Brenda, Adam or Bradley. None of the three were answering his calls and he was banging hard on the bedroom door. Something had to be wrong. Evan had warned him to get out, but he wondered why. How would he know anything about his house? He had arrived out of nowhere to tell him to get out only because he sensed that something was wrong.
Carter thought about Adam’s bedroom, and he suddenly appeared in the corner by the bedroom ceiling looking down on it. He looked around, but could see nothing. Nobody was in there, the room was in shambles, and the bedroom door was still closed. He carefully surveyed the bedroom for signs of his wife or the kids, but there was nothing but signs of a struggle. He was confused because he heard Brenda scream, so he believed that they had to be in there.
Carter made landfall on the floor of the bedroom and took a peek into Adam’s closet, but there was nothing. He checked under the bed and found nothing. How could this be? he wondered. It wasn’t adding up. There was nowhere else to look. He moved over to the bedroom door, and he could see that it was locked from the inside. There was no possible way that anyone could survive a leap out the window, especially Brenda and two young children. This was becoming all too familiar, like when Adam disappeared that night.
He remembered the night Adam had disappeared. The window was open, possibly as a ploy by Martin to make it look like Adam escaped out the window. He apparently told Adam to open the window and toss a sheet out the window to the ground. Since Adam was under his spell, he did as he asked and didn’t question it, or he was afraid that he would be punished by a man putting terrible thoughts in his head. Although it was never confirmed, it appeared that Adam had escaped through the front door. That was the only plausible explanation, but yet to be proven.
Perhaps Brenda and the boys were similarly done wrong by Martin. Carter thought that in the time he had heard Brenda scream, Martin could have plied their brains with enough poison to get the hell out of the bedroom and through the front door and into the storm, but to where? Could he have forced them to the cemetery like he did with Adam? Could he have put them all in harm’s way during this ruthless storm en route to a cemetery where the trees made the ones in his yard look like dwarves?
Now that he had come up with a reasonable destination, he pictured the cemetery. He then felt stuck, unable to move. It wasn’t working like it had been. He did not make it to the cemetery. He was sure that he hadn’t, but kept on blinking. He was trying to find Brenda, Adam and Bradley, but he only found sharp jabbing spikes of water in his eyes. He began to feel pain, and lots of it, and then saw a ladder and a tree overhead.
Carter realized that he was back and again a part of what he had seen from above. He thought about what he had accomplished by reaching the room, but his work was far from over. His wife and child and neighbor’s child were missing. He wondered how he was going to tell the Oldman’s about their only son. He needed to return things to normal before they found out. That order was very tall because he was pinned under a ladder and a tree branch that was so heavy that he couldn’t move. Paralysis again entered his consciousness, so he tried to push it out. He tried to wiggle his toes, and was relieved that he could do that. If felt like they were moving, but for the time being that was okay by him.
When he looked up at the sky, he realized that the storm had subsided somewhat. It was still kicking up pretty good, but the severity decreased. The branch was the size of a tree, and the thickest part of it crossed his midsection, rendering his freedom a challenge. He tried moving his arms and he could not. He tried moving his legs and had some luck, but that didn’t appear to be of any use at this time. He needed to push the tonnage off of his torso, but without the use of his arms, he was in trouble until someone happened upon his body.
The weight of the tree was pressing into his chest, but was not impeding his breathing ability. Another inch and the result could have been fatal. The subsiding of the rain brought better vision, but he was still not in a good spot. He tried again to move his arms, but soon realized that there would only be wiggle room with his legs. He saw that there was an offshoot on the huge branch, which made it look like he was crushed and trapped by a gigantic wishbone. How ironic was that?
Carter wasn’t much interested in irony. He swung his head around and noticed that the Oldman’s had lost interest in his plight. That or perhaps they never saw him, and were just looking at the storm damage. It was very possible that they never did see him with all the chaos swirling around in that tumultuous weather. Now he needed them to be looking. Now that the weather was beginning to subside and they were able to see clearer, he needed them to be at that same window looking down on him. Then he could try to create movement with his legs to get their attention. He couldn’t wave his arms or legs, but he could move them a couple of inches in either direction. That might do the trick. Maybe the reflection of his watch would save his life?
From the hundred foot distance that separated their window from his body, they probably wouldn’t be seeing much of anything with all the mist, haze and dripping associated with the storm. That wasn’t the only tree or branch down on the ground, though, as pieces were strewn all about the yard.
Nobody would hone in on his branch first. It might very well be the biggest, but there was plenty of competition to attract attention. Besides, the only way he would be detected would be if someone was outside and heard him call out to them. Sure, the Oldman’s would eventually need their son back, but how long before they became concerned enough about him to make the trip.
Carter tried to size up his situation and realized that he could only count on himself to get out of this situation before he died. Evan was home, Brenda and the kids were possibly abducted for all he knew, and the Oldman’s probably thought that it was just a branch that fell down in the back yard, not realizing that the man watching their son was trapped underneath it with a head wound. He was at least fortunate that the severity of the storm had diminished and he could try to work his way out of this predicament. It was possible that Carter would be found only when the Oldman’s became concerned about their son not returning, but there were absolutely no guarantees, so he could very well be there until morning.
Based on the size of the branches and the way they crossed his body, he believed his only chance of freeing himself would start with his feet. He surveyed the dilemma before him and started wiggling his feet to see how much room he had. He then experimented by seeing if he could create any leverage on the branch to free his legs, and try to use his legs to free the rest of his body.
It wou
ld be an enormous task, based on the weight of the branch and the way he was pinned to the ground. After wearing himself out by trying unsuccessfully to gain some leverage, he needed to take a break and gather some more energy. He heard some stirring behind his head, but he was unable to move his head to see what was creating the noise as he was on the ground looking up. His head was closer to the house than his feet, and it worried him as to what could possibly have come out of the woods.
CHAPTER 28
Something touched the back of Carter’s head. Whatever it was that had come out of the woods brushed his hair and sniffed him. He tightened up and closed his eyes, awaiting the entrance and identity of whatever it was poking around on the ground by his head. Carter opened his eyes again, cringing as he could still feel the movement by his head. What a terrible way to go, he thought. Please don’t be a coyote or a rat, or a crow, for that matter. Whatever it was stirring around his head could not be good. He did not think that this scenario could possibly end well.
Carter opened his eyes and craned his neck, turning his head as much as he could, but it wasn’t much at all. Every move he made was painful. He did see something to his right, but it was just barely within reach of his peripheral vision. However, it was not nearly enough to identify the intruder. He tried torqueing his neck another quarter inch and writhed in pain, careful not to make any noise and scare the animal into attacking his defenseless head. It sounded like it was foraging for something to eat on the ground, and Carter hoped it was not him.
The animal closed in on his head, and it actually brushed its fur against Carter’s ear. He held his breath and tried not to move or make a sound. He tried to play dead, but wondered if that would backfire and the animal would take him for dead and begin munching away. It moved another inch down his head and entered his peripheral, just barely enough to be identified. He was having a close encounter with a skunk.
Desert Son Trilogy: Desert Son, Wayward Soul, Spiritual Intervention (Books 1-3) Page 70