She limped quickly away from the stairs, stretching out a hand to guide her. She had to find the door, and hope to hell she wouldn’t open it to a wall of dirt.
Suddenly, the sounds around her stopped. No thumping and dragging, no moaning. Again, she was enveloped in the deafening silence. She glanced around blindly, every tiny hair on her body standing on end. The sounds had stopped, but she sensed the things that had been making them were still there, surrounding her in the pitch black, waiting. She braced herself for contact from any direction. She tried to breathe quietly, to somehow shrink herself to as small a spot as possible, to be just a little harder to find. She doubted, though, that the things in the cabin with her were as sightless as she was. They had probably found her already.
Then there was a rapping sound, like someone knocking on the door. The sound came from in front of her. She didn’t move. She didn’t think she wanted to know what was on the other side. Maybe it was what the things in the cabin had been waiting for. She held her breath and waited, too.
After a few seconds, the knock came again, louder, and she jumped, her nerves tingling. Goose bumps rippled across her skin. That knock had sounded somehow more real than anything else she’d experienced since getting lost, and the hopeful thought gradually began to take hold in her mind that maybe it was Pete—Pete, or someone else come to rescue her. This might be her chance to finally get out of Nilhollow. When a third knock parted the silence, she edged toward the door in its wake but made no move to open it. What if it wasn’t someone come to rescue her? Her heart pounded in her chest.
“Julia?” The voice wasn’t one she recognized, and it was somewhat muffled by the closed door. However, the voice sounded as real, as promising as the knock.
Her hand found the doorknob. She hesitated for a second, then turned and pulled the knob. Dim light, but above-ground light nevertheless, fell on the hallway floor as the door eased open.
What she saw on the porch dragged a scream out of her, and the air in her lungs with it. The world swam away from her before she could get it back, and she collapsed in a small heap in the doorway.
The tall, skeletal thing on the porch, the thing with just enough flesh over the skull to still cling to one of Darren’s eyes, screamed, too. It was the high peal of wind, the roar of pounding surf, and it shook the crude furniture of the cabin with its force. The costumed surface of bone material crumbled away to reveal a skeleton of vines and sticks which swung the ax it was holding and buried it in the door frame. Its eyes glinted coppery, triumphant light. Then, satisfied for the time being, it crumbled to a pile of kindling on the porch across the doorway from Julia.
NINE
Mallon had already put a call in to the missing persons division to discuss organizing a ground search for his missing officers and the girl, Julia, and her ex, Darren. He’d also phoned the Brendan T. Byrne ranger station to solicit their help, as well. Mallon believed the circumstances of the four disappearances could easily be categorized as suspicious, and further, it was a wilderness situation, which meant risks to the safety of the missing were naturally higher. He didn’t have much to go on in reference to Julia and Darren beyond what Grainger had filed in the system; neither seemed to have family locally, he didn’t know what either was last wearing, and he wasn’t sure beyond a guess based on the abandoned car report how long either had been missing. As far as Grainger and Perry, he at least knew where they had been headed, when they’d left the station, how they were dressed, and what they were driving. He thought he’d start with finding his own officers first. With any luck, all four were already together, and he could bring them all home at once.
On a grid-lined map of Nilhollow spread out on his desk, he started making notes regarding which of his remaining officers and which park rangers would search which sections. Nilhollow itself was about a square mile, a manageable size provided they hadn’t moved beyond that area. He suspected they hadn’t; beyond Nilhollow was a lake and a river, as well as numerous hiking and biking trails. If they had managed to wander into the state forest proper, it was likely someone would have found them already.
He’d send the cops and rangers out in groups of four. He’d have them sweep Nilhollow top to bottom until his officers and the two civilians were found. If there were cultists in there or drugged-up crazies or rabid bears or even some kind of government experiment in biological warfare with plants, he’d be ready for it.
On his laptop, he had a .pdf file sent by email from an old friend, Kathy Ryan. She was an expert in the most obscure aspects of the occult and a freelance consultant to police forces on matters that had... extenuating circumstances, he supposed one might call them. It was his gut that had made him contact her in the first place, because his gut, with each passing hour, seemed more and more certain that he was going to need the kind of information she could provide. He suspected Kathy had been surprised to hear from him, but she didn’t ask questions. She was good like that. And fortunately, she was familiar with the legends of Nilhollow and of its sordid history. Although she was away on a case, at his request she had sent some information he might be able to use. The document contained a thorough history of what her sect of elite paranormal experts believed was really happening in Nilhollow, plus the words and procedures for binding and healing rites and clearing negative energy, just in case cultists, crazies, bears, or genetically enhanced plants were not the problem.
And the problem, as suggested by the document Kathy had sent, was two-fold. The first issue was nature spirits—elementals—and some pretty powerful ones, from the sound of it. He didn’t know if he believed that nature spirits had killed a man in his jail cell or abducted two civilians right out of their cars. But then, he wasn’t sure what to believe was happening out in those woods. Regarding the second issue, there was far less information on it. The ancient tribes of Lenni-Lenape in the area had called it the Turning of the Earth, and from what he could gather, it had something to do with a widespread change that seemed to negatively affect everything, including, Kathy’s researcher friends believed, the elemental spirits. Kathy’s notes seemed to indicate that the Turning of the Earth, according to Lenape folklore, had a maddening effect on those exposed to it for too long. It drove people to murder and suicide, among other things that closely and uncomfortably echoed his old nightmares.
The idea of a kind of force that infected people did serve to back up what Grainger had said about spores or seeds or something that got into the heads and hearts of people like Todd Mackey and made them crazy. What this force, this Turning of the Earth really was, though, Mallon could only hazard a guess.
Was the document more of the same mumbo jumbo that he’d found over the years, suggesting useless tactics like those stacked up in that clearing in Nilhollow? It was hard for him to say, but he didn’t think so. He’d known Kathy a long time, and although he knew little about her experiences in relation to her job, he knew people trusted her abilities, and she made a pretty damn good living from helping cops with circumstances outside the normal human experience. He wasn’t sure if humans were able to affect the super- or preternatural, or if they were even meant to, but he believed Kathy knew her stuff. If anything could transcend the piss-poor attempts at magic he’d already seen, then Kathy’s recommendations would be solid examples.
At the moment, despite what his gut and Kathy’s notes were suggesting, Mallon was more interested in the document for educational purposes. If the problem was a human one, he needed to understand the kinds of humans he was up against. If he could glean from the document the means to either reason with or scare off any delusional deep-woods nut jobs with elements from their own belief systems, all the better. If they truly believed they were summoning spirits, perhaps he could arm himself with the right thing to say or do to make them think their efforts would fail.
And if the problem was not a human one . . . ? Well, he would educate and arm himself for that possibility as well, he supposed. His gut demanded that.
&nb
sp; He figured he was going to feel silly, but he knew of a shop a few towns over where he could pick up white sage and some other items mentioned in Kathy’s document, if it came to that. His gut told him it would. His gut, at least, was one thing he always believed. And there was also a hardware store where he could pick up a few more items that would give his head some satisfaction as well.
He clicked the print button on his laptop and the printer near his desk whirred to life. He wasn’t ready to tell his officers just yet about Kathy’s group’s research involving Nilhollow, but he wanted it with his paperwork for reference. The printer dropped several papers into the tray and Mallon picked them up, leafing through them as he made his way back to his desk.
The first six pages had printed correctly, and he gave a little satisfied grunt as he shuffled each page behind the last. Then he came to the seventh page, and nearly dropped the whole stack. On his laptop, he scrolled down to the end of the document. It was only the six pages; that last message wasn’t there on-screen. He put the other pages down and stared at the words on that seventh piece of paper as if he could make the illusion go away beneath his gaze. Those words were there, though, and the slightest trembling in his hand made them bounce across the white surface.
It read:
Can’t take the whispering anymore.—Joe
Mallon peered through his office window into the bullpen where his officers sat, scanning their faces and body language for tells that one of them had played some weird, sick joke on him. It wasn’t likely. Most of these young officers didn’t even know Joe Franklin, and none of them was the kind of guy to do something so tasteless, not even Perry. So where had the note come from?
Spores and seeds, old man. Spores and seeds, he thought, and then brushed the thought away.
He crumpled up the paper and threw it in the wastebasket. Then he gathered up the papers and was about to head out to the bullpen to brief his officers on how the search would go, when his phone rang. He paused, deciding to answer it only on the off chance that it might be Grainger or Perry. He put down the papers and snatched up the phone with a hurried, “Captain Stan Mallon.”
“Hiya, Captain Mallon.”
The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it. It wasn’t Grainger or Perry, though. “Hi. Can I help you?”
The voice gave a dry, papery chuckle. “I doubt that. You couldn’t before. But maybe I can help you.”
Mallon frowned. He was in no mood for games. “Look, I’m in the middle of something right now. Wanna tell me what this is about?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t remember me, Captain.”
“Should I?” Mallon sank back into his chair and switched the phone to the crook between ear and shoulder. He did remember the voice . . . or thought he did. But the owner of that voice wasn’t around to use it anymore. He clicked on the phone’s recorder.
“Did you get my note? You did, I think. You told me I was welcome back if I changed my mind about quittin’. ’Member that, Captain?”
Mallon leaned forward. “I remember telling someone that, but you’re not him.”
“How’ve you been, Captain?” the voice asked in a pleasantly conversational way. “How’s the station? Ooh, how’s O’Malleys? Gee, I miss that place.”
“Fine. All fine. Who is this?”
“I’m fine, too. No more dead girls whispering. Guess they ain’t got nothing to say to a guy who’s dead, too.”
“I’m going to ask one more time. Who is this?”
That dry chuckle came across the line again. “I think you know. After all, you helped cut me down from my dining room rafters, ’member, Captain?”
“You’re not Joe Franklin. He’s dead.” Mallon was surprised by the vehemence in his own voice. He considered hanging up the phone but didn’t.
“Awww, Captain. Say it again.”
“What?”
“What you just said,” the voice responded, fraught with unspilled laughter. “Say it again.”
“I said that you’re not Joe Franklin, because he’s dead.”
“You’re right,” the voice agreed. “Couldn’t pull the wool over your eyes.”
“You’re just some sick asshole disrespecting the memory of a good man.”
“Was Joe a good man? Maybe, but he was weak. It didn’t take long to ruin him beyond all hope of helping him.”
Mallon was silent, contemplating the possible meanings of those words. It didn’t take long to ruin him. What the hell did that mean?
“Tell me,” the voice went on. “How are Grainger and Perry?”
“It sounds like you might know better than I would,” Mallon said evenly. His heart rate sped up a little. What did this guy know about Grainger and Perry? If only the trace on his phone were working, dammit.
“Seems to me they’d be easy to ruin, too. Time is running out. Doors are opening and closing at the same time.”
“Are you threatening officers of the law? Because if you are, I will personally bring hell down on your head.”
“Your law doesn’t matter. Nor do its officers. And neither do you.”
“And who the hell are you again? I didn’t catch that.”
“I am the voice from beneath the woods, the will of chaos. I am the true divinity over those who speak for the trees because they have no tongues.”
“So you’re a crazy person? Out in Nilhollow, maybe?” This was the guy; everything in Mallon was screaming that this guy, whoever he was, knew all about his officers’ disappearances, and maybe those of Julia Russo, her ex-boyfriend, and others, too.
“Perry has no tongue either. Not anymore,” the voice said, and then did the hanging up for him.
Mallon sat with the receiver in his hand for a long time, staring dumbly at it. When he finally replaced it in its cradle, he noticed the tremble in his hand was a full-on shake.
He rewound the recorder and played it back. He heard his own voice answering the phone, but the reply came through only as a low whistle, like wind over an opening. The entire recorded conversation went that way—his voice, and the wind-whistle in response. It unnerved him, hearing what sounded like the unraveling of a man’s mind, his own mind, as he grew increasingly more and more upset with nobody.
When the conversation ended, he played it back again, listening for anything remotely like Joe Franklin’s voice, or any voice. Again, all that had recorded was his voice and the whistling of... what? Bad phone lines? The great beyond?
He played it back a third time, turning it up to listen intently. And there . . . there it was, beneath the interference. It was faint, but it was there . . . a whispering of words. He couldn’t quite make out all of them, but he caught a few, and scribbled them on a nearby notepad:
ANCIENT
TREES
CHASM
SPIRITS
TURNING
Mallon frowned. The guy on the phone hadn’t said any of those things, to the best of his recollection. Frustrated, he pinched the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache coming on. Maybe he hadn’t heard those words. Maybe he was losing his marbles. Maybe stress had finally caught up to him . . . or Grainger’s spores and seeds.
He scanned the pages of the printed document again, comparing it to his notepad. One by one, he found the words in the document, all except “chasm.” He wondered if that was significant. Was there a chasm in Nilhollow? A chasm . . . a chasm . . .
He looked at the sectioned map, scanning the topographical features for a chasm. He’d never seen anything like that in those woods, unless a person could count that ditch under the altar, which gave Mallon the idea that what he’d talked to on the phone was not so much a who as a what. He wasn’t sure how the pieces fit together yet, but he was pretty sure that the Turning, the force behind the horrors in Nilhollow, had been communicating with him through suicide notes and phone calls. And if it could reach him all the way out here . . .
He grabbed the stack of papers and stormed out of the office.
TEN<
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One of the frustrating things about forests as big as the Pine Barrens, Pete had noticed growing up, was that sound bounced. It was difficult to tell which direction a sound came from, and he figured that was often why people got disoriented. They listened for sounds of running water to find rivers, or of traffic to find roads, and often, they ended up heading in the wrong direction. The scream he’d heard could have come from anywhere. In fact, it seemed to come from everywhere. It was his instinct to run toward the source to help; he supposed that instinct was why he’d become a police officer in the first place. However, he wasn’t so sure where to go—or if he should even go at all. His sense of duty quickly won out over his mistrust of the forest’s illusions. It could have been Julia screaming, after all. He thought the scream originated from somewhere behind him, so he turned and headed that way.
Most days, he felt like a pretty good cop, confident that in his own quiet, awkward way, he was making the right decisions. What authority he did wield came precisely from the assumption by other cops and civilians alike that he was the kind but dim-witted deputy of a backwoods New Jersey town, so when he stood up for himself, he was personally gratified to find they paid attention and did what he told them. But this situation was so beyond the pale that he would have welcomed leadership and instruction, particularly from Mallon. He had great respect for the man, who had given him chances and trusted his judgment well before Pete believed he’d earned it.
He also once again wished for his firearm. Few things made a guy feel safer than a Sig Sauer P228. More so, he wished Perry was there, too, cracking jokes or making blatantly obvious observations or just humming to himself, as usual. There was something about being alone in the wilderness, this particular wilderness, that made him feel just on the verge of panic, as though at any second, something would rush at him from the woods and overwhelm him. The silence was part of it; he didn’t even want to chance talking out loud to himself, for fear that he might draw the wrong attention. He also thought talking to himself might just be the first slide on the slippery slope to the pit of Nilhollow’s madness.
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