It Was Born in the Darkness of the Wood

by J. L. Hickey

  She clicked the phone off, dropped it onto the floor. She had to see her sister. She had to.

  Haylee, ready for the worse, approached the basement stairs. She stood, peering below at the madness beneath her. There at the foot of the stairs, the man’s legs lifelessly sprawled atop the last few remaining steps. He was half-naked, blood and brain matter spread about the stairwell. His head had caved in where the bullet entered, which left his facial features unrecognizable. But those dark blue eyes from before, his voice, mad, hysterical, but familiar.

  It was Robbie. Her sister lay dead one room over in Robbie’s man-cave, his home workstation. Without thought, Haylee descended the stairs. The man was killed; her shot was fatal. Yet terror filled her body. She carefully stepped over his corpse, half-expecting his to rise from the dead, grabbing her leg. She couldn’t look into his face, or what was left of it.

  She found Camille...defiled, mutilated, her beautiful sister. She had been excited for the first day of her new job. Her life robbed from her, stolen, slaughtered like an animal. Haylee fell to her knees. Her gun dropped to her side. Her hand reached out. She placed it gently on her sister’s shoulder. At first, she wept, she cried hard and ugly. Her mind was failing to process the events that unfolded. Then the tears suddenly stopped. A numbness rapidly spread over her body, like a fierce ocean wave crushing her beneath it. Then, blackness

  Officer Clent Moore and his partner were the first to report to the scene. They approached the house with caution. There was no answer at the door, no answer to the phone that placed the distress. Clent, sensing something wrong, peered in through the back door, a perfect view into the kitchen. There he saw the blood. They acted fast.

  They found Haylee, unresponsive next to her sister. Awake, but not aware. Two bodies, one mutilated, the other fatally shot in the head. Clent called dispatch, this was a homicide, and they needed Detective Pike out right away.

  FOURTEEN

  “So, you ready?” Aaron shifted the car into park. Once again, a drizzle of snow salted the windshield, a familiar scene throughout the last few wintery Michigan days. They parked in front of a small brick building just inside the town limits. The sign outside of the offices said Dr. Phillip P. Feldman Psychologist.

  Haylee especially hated the sight before them. Doctors were not Haylee’s friends. They looked at her as an enigma, a faceless puzzle waiting to be stuffed with pills and wrong diagnosis’. Time and time again, they failed her.

  It was always the same.

  Either she was crazy or faking it.

  Or both as one specialist from the University of Michigan declared.

  That one was her favorite. The doctor’s name was Frank Rosenberg, an obese man who spent an hour with her one summery afternoon. He looked at her charts, her history, rallied off failed medications, without even talking to her. Then he had the audacity to claim she was making it all up. She was looking for attention. That she wouldn’t be getting the attention from him, she needed therapy, perspective. She needed the truth.

  “I don’t want to go in,” Haylee took a deep breath. Her eyes fixated at the glass door leading into the office; her anxiety was building. Her heart raced faster, her palms sweating, she nervously wiped them on her jeans.

  “I can turn around. We can leave, you know? You’re a grown woman, you don’t have to see this guy, fuck him,” Aaron cracked open a can of Monster energy drink, it fizzled loudly. He took a large gulp.

  “No,” Haylee shook her head. “If I miss another appointment, my dad will kill me. He may even stop paying my rent and car insurance. He’s been threatening that a lot lately. So, I need to do this, for his sake, so he can have a false sense of helping me.”

  “You sound bitter for him wanting to help,” Aaron frowned. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “No,” Haylee peered out the window, away from the building. “He’s as bad as the doctors. He doesn’t listen to me either. Never has. It’s always his way.”

  “Sounds like my dad too.”

  “Two peas in a pod,” Haylee sighed.

  “Well, we’re a bit early,” Aaron placed his Monster in the cupholder. “Wanna wait in here? Or go in?”

  “I’ll stay here if you don’t mind, and thanks again for taking me. There’s no way I would have driven myself here.”

  “Not an issue. I don’t go into work at the café until noon, so consider it a favor,” Aaron smiled, he had a natural boyish charm about him. When he wanted to turn it on, he did it well.

  “So, I mean, what’s up with this guy? Dr. Feldman? Is he not helping you? Like he is a shitty doctor or something?”

  “No one helps me,” Haylee was blunt, anger beneath her words. “I’m fucked in the head, and these doctors love stuffing me with antipsychotics. They don’t work—only the Norco works. I think because it numbs me, and I can blackout with them. Alcohol used to work, but it doesn’t anymore, it’s not enough. I think I built up a tolerance to it now. So, I tell them they don’t listen. They think I’m just an addict. But the pills they give me, the therapy, it doesn’t help with the visions, the dreams.”

  “Like the nightmare you had?”

  “Yeah, it’s except its not just nightmares. Sometimes, when I get bad episodes, I see things when I’m awake too…” Haylee shook her head in disbelief. Why was she telling him this? She hadn’t spoken this out loud to anyone in a long time for good reason. She gave up confiding in people. But this was different, therapeutic.

  “This all stems from, you know? The incident?” asked Aaron carefully.

  “Yes, and no,” she shrugged. “Only my family really knows about this, a small handful of others. It’s not something you talk about over dinner. Or sitting with a friend, waiting in a car, outside of a psychologist’s appointment.”

  “I mean? I’m cool with it, no judgment here. If you wanna talk, I wanna listen,” Aaron was intrigued. He’d known Haylee for a little over a year, and she’d never really opened up to him, despite plenty of him trying.

  “I never even told Robbie, but I’ve always seen weird things, you know? They went away when I was in middle school but after the murders? Yeah, it came back tenfold. Every night was torture for me when I was a kid. Then it got better. I started feeling normal, well, sort of, I was never normal. But then after the murder, it was like the flood gates opened. Maybe even before that, it was getting bad again. I was losing control of a lot of things. Doctors like Feldman, they throw every pill at me, Abilify, Saphris, Risperdal. Nothing works. Every diagnosis they gave me, Schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder, they even thought I might have a tumor. They did so many tests. Nothing worked, no answers. Just a crazy psycho attention-seeking little girl that’s making up stories of monsters and ghosts.”

  “Jesus,” Aaron frowned.

  “The only one who listened to me was my mother. My dad thought I was nuts, sick in the head. He made me see the doctors, the specialists. Even now, he’s making me see Feldman. My mother, though, she was a spiritual person. She had other ideas. She listened to me.”

  “Was spiritual?” Aaron asked.

  “I lost her when I was thirteen. I don’t want to talk about it,” Haylee glanced at her watch; they still had ten minutes to kill. She wasn’t sure what was going to be more uncomfortable, the waiting room, or sitting in the car with Aaron. Now that Haylee was starting to open up, she wanted to backtrack, erase what she had already said. She was vulnerable now. She did not like it.

  “So, like…” Aaron began the questions she knew would come, “How did your mom help? Like, compared to your dad?”

  “You really want to hear all this?”

  “Only if you want to tell me,” Aaron added. “I have my own shit, and I know it mak
es me feel better to have someone to vent to.”

  “Okay…” Haylee took another deep breath. “Well, where do I begin? We tried pills when I was little too, and nothing worked then either. My mom, she listened to me about the things I was seeing. It wasn’t the same nightmares back then. I was seeing these shadow-like people. Sometimes they were angry, ugly, deformed. Other times they looked just like you and me, some even talked to me. For a while, I just ignored them, but it got harder. My dad wouldn’t hear it. But my mom, she pulled me aside, told me she wanted me to see someone special. Not a doctor, someone she thought could help. She reached out to a famous clairvoyant behind my dad’s back, set up a few sessions.”

  “A clair-who-ant?” asked Aaron.

  “Ever seen the show from a few years back on cable called the ‘The Talking Dead’? The one about the lady who would go into people’s homes suffering from hauntings? She could sense the spirits, talk to them?”

  “Yeah,” Aaron spent many drunk nights living in his small Hollywood apartment with his buddies watching reality shows on cable, just like that one. “She had a retired detective with her, he would do research, and she would do the ghost stuff. Good show, fun to watch high with your buddies.”

  “—Well, before she got sort-of-famous with that show, my mother paid her a lot of money to have some sessions with me. She was kind, listened, didn’t look at me like I was crazy like the doctors do.”

  “Oh shit, really?” Aaron seemed excited. “I think she was cute too, for a bit of an older lady. Had tattoo’s all up her arms. Cougar and whatnot.”

  “I suppose?” Haylee shook her head. She didn’t find the humor in the statement.

  “I’m sorry, go on, I wanna hear more,” replied Aaron.

  “Yeah, well, it caused a lot of problems with my family. My dad, he’s a former detective, you know? That stuffs all bullshit in his eyes. Her name is Lydia Cayce. I only saw her maybe a half dozen times, if that. I was thirteen, so I had started experimenting with stuff, drinking, drugs. Getting into trouble as kids do. I learned that if I drank, and drank a lot to where I would blackout, it would keep the nasty stuff away. The pills the doctors gave me, the antipsychotics, had too many side effects and didn’t work. Good old liquor was keeping me sane. Thirteen-year-old Haylee, the boozer.”

  “I mean, I drank a bit when I was a kid too, but that sounds heavy,” Aaron added, taking another sip of his drink.

  “Well, Lydia explained to me why alcohol worked. But it was too dangerous. I couldn’t binge drink the rest of my life away. I needed to find other ways to help keep this-what she called a gift-at bay until I was ready to let it in, to conquer it.”

  “This all sounds so fucked up. You were just a kid dealing with this shit?”

  “Yeah, well, according to my dad, it was just a means for me to get attention. To skip school, to drink. My parents constantly fought over me. My sister resented me because of it, and I resented her for being so perfect. Why did I get the fucked-up shit?” Haylee was getting emotional; her hands trembled. She hadn’t spoken this stuff out loud for a long time. Not even to her psychologist, she didn’t trust them. They would use it against her. They wouldn’t listen. Aaron, at least he was paying attention, he seemed to care.

  “So…” she continued “—this Lydia lady, she gave me all sorts of stuff. Burn this sage twice a day where I sleep. Wear this necklace, put these stones in your pockets at all times. She gave me things. Things I could do, and you know what?” Haylee looked directly into Aaron’s eyes. “They worked. The crazy shit stopped for a long time. They stopped up until a few weeks before Robbie killed my sister. Things grew weird again by then, but of course, my dad didn’t believe me. He wanted me to call Dr. Feldman, get seen right away. Of course, I didn’t...Instead, we compromised, I was going down to see him, my dad, to get away. He thought maybe it was the stress of the engagement, not finding a job.”

  “I’m sorry, I thought you and your dad had a good relationship?”

  “Yes and no.” Haylee lips pursed together. “My mom died, and suddenly he pretended to listen a bit more. He wants me to get help, he wants me to be happy, but he wants it on his terms. He’s always right, knows what’s best. It’s the detective in him. To him, I feel more like one of his cases he’s trying to crack; that’s how he treats me most of the time. I need him, you know? He’s my dad, he’s all I have left, but it’s hard…” Haylee was feeling the anger again. “We pretend a lot.”

  “I think it’s time for your appointment,” Aaron pointed to the car radio where the bright blue numbers signaled the time.

  “No,” Haylee frowned. She pulled her cellphone from her inner jacket. She swiped it open, scrolled to her fathers’ number, hit dial.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Hold on,” She mumbled. “He’s not answering…” she waited for the answering machine to pick up.

  “Haylee?” Aaron asked again.

  She angrily shoved her index finger towards his face, shushing him.

  “Dad, I’m sorry you didn’t pick up. I’m outside Dr. Feldman’s office. My friend, Aaron, my neighbor, I had him drive me. We talked. I’m not going inside.”

  “What?” Aaron shook his ‘no’ to her, waving his hands to cut the phone off. “I don’t want any part of this…”

  “—I’m sorry,” she explained, turning away from Aaron. “I know we’ve never seen eye to eye on this, on most things. You’ve been so great to me after Robbie and Camille, but Dr. Feldman can’t help me. It does more damage than good. So, I’m sorry...I’m sorry your too stubborn to listen to me,” Haylee’s cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry we’ve pretended everything is fine between us, and that we haven’t talked about what happened with Robbie, Camille, and hell, even mom. I know you’re going to hate me, maybe not speak to me, cut off my rent. Whatever it’s done. I’m done. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t handle it. It’s getting worse, and it’s getting out of control...” Haylee clicked the phone off, tossing it between her legs onto the floor of the car.

  “Jesus,” Aaron froze, unsure of how to respond.

  Haylee breathed deep, almost hyperventilating. She fought the tears, wiped the few that escaped away. She counted her breaths, centered herself before speaking very softly. “Sorry about that.”

  “Hey,” Aaron reached out, taking her hand in his. Not in a romantic notion, but as a comforting, I got your vibe. “You’re damaged as fuck, girl.” He smiled childishly.

  Haylee couldn’t help it. She blurted out in a mixture of crying and laughing. “You think?” she rubbed the tension building in her temples.

  “Let’s get back home,” Arron shifted the car into reverse and pulled out of Dr. Phillp P. Feldman’s office parking lot.

  FIFTEEN

  Detective Pike sat in his office alone at his desk, a hot cup of black coffee kept him company. It would be his fifth cup of the day, his bladder already an issue. His office was messy, paperwork littered everywhere, strewn about his desk. Yellow sticky notes plastered everywhere. Organized chaos is what he called it. In reality, organization was the last thing he worried about at the end of the day. His thoughts were organized, and he worked well within his means. So, why tamper with something that’s gotten him this far. He tossed his sports jacket over the back of his chair and rolled up his sleeves, readied himself for another long night.

  Hell, it was already a long week, day five since the double murder and the pursuit of the mad man. He hadn’t much sleep and way too much coffee—dozens of questions, with little ways of answers. To make things worse, the sick fuck responsible was still missing out there somewhere. He thought the body would have turned up by now, a frozen corpse in the woods. They sent out multiple search parties, k-9’s and even a copter to search the woo
dlands over the past few days. Zero results, nothing, the tracks went cold.

  Where the hell was this kid? How would he have survived that storm?

  A few of the many questions that kept Pike awake and his mind restless. His gut told him his body just hadn’t turned up yet. People get lost in the woods; it happens in these parts. They may never find him. Yet, in the back of his mind, there was the probing notion, like the sting of a pesky hangnail. He could still be out there; he could strike again.

  More death.

  More victims.

  That was unacceptable.

  Pike stared at the monitor emotionless, drumming his fingers on his desk, waiting, somewhat patiently for Clent to show up for the fun. The Emmet County Police Department was quiet at this time of night. It was late, nearing midnight. Only a few souls inhabited the after-hours of the station. Pike was burning the clock; it didn’t matter if he was home or in his cramped, messy office. He couldn’t focus on anything outside the case.

  He spent the last few nights sleeping in the office. His bed of choice on these long nights was a small little love seat that sat at the far side of his office. It was old, dusty, and hurt his back something fierce. Only a handful of cases kept Pike working into the wee hours of the night. This one, as well as the Leveille Murders a few years prior: two perfect examples of such cases.

  Something wasn’t adding up. Somewhere in deep crevasses of his mind, near that pesky little hangnail, there was an annoying little thought: too many coincidences between the Leveille case and the current. Maybe he was pulling at strings, wanting to connect them when there really wasn’t anything there. Yet, that damn gut of his, it told him differently.

  Pike already stayed two nights on that cramped love seat. Curled up in the fetal position, the only way he could fit on the damn thing. He kept a Detroit Lions fleece blanket in his office for those types of nights. His body needed a decent night’s rest, somewhere he could stretch out. He wanted to call it around ten pm. He told himself he would head home, have a few choice strong drinks, hopefully, catch a few hours of sleep before hitting the office again bright and early.