Hours later, Lacey woke up on the bathroom floor of the motel room. She didn’t remember passing out, but it must have been after a shower, as she was completely clean. She walked out and what she saw destroyed her. She had missed it again. She failed herself. She failed her childhood friend. But most of all, she failed her loving father. Unable to live with what she was witnessing, she grabbed her knife and raised it to her throat. With a swift swipe, she spread her own flesh, bleeding herself out in hopes that she could finally end the terrors that haunted her. She fell to the ground, a final tear emerging from her eye as she crashed. While she viewed her suicide as a failure, she had no idea that she was actually avenging her father’s death by finally killing the monster- herself.
*
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Chapter 12
“Night Cache”
Cheryl C. Ramirez
Cisco, Texas, USA
She knew it would be dark by the time she got to the last cache but she had her flashlight and was going to give it a shot.
She had found a Geocache near the cemetery at Taylor Chapel. It was a small ammo box that another geocacher had hidden and then published the coordinates online. It had been there for a few years and several other geocachers had tracked it with their handheld GPS devices. They all logged their find in the little journal inside the box. It was like a treasure hunt but without any objects of value. Just the challenge of the hunt and an "I was here". Geocaching was a little-known past time that had quickly spread all over the world for those who knew about it.
She left Taylor Chapel and took a back road toward Sipe Springs. The road deteriorated until she thought she had accidentally wound up on someone's pasture road. There were just two tire trails in the sand with grass growing between, a fence to the left, and large trees stretching over the passage to form a dark tunnel. Her GPS device still showed that she was on a marked road. She kept driving but had her doubts.
The sky was completely dark now and what would have been a lovely country drive in the day began to seem more like a mistake.
There was a thumbnail moon low in the West. She had already decided to skip a particular cache because of the creep factor of finding it alone in the dark. She thought she was headed for the one at Sipe Springs but when she rounded a corner, she knew she had come upon the one she had intended to avoid.
The cache was called "Pains of the Wagon Train". It was near a grave from 1870, right next to the road. It was where a wagon train had passed through and a three year old girl had died on the journey. They had buried the little girl and had moved on.
She imagined what it must have been like for the family to leave their little girl behind. To drive off in the wagon toward their destination and leave her body buried alone in the woods. She could picture the mother staring at nothing with empty eyes from the wagon seat.
There was no cemetery and she had been expecting just an old grave marker near the road like the one she had seen on the way to Moran. Neither grave had ever been moved. They both remained in their original locations as part of history.
When she rounded the corner and the jeep lights panned across the darkness, she saw more than just a grave marker. Several stones outlined the tiny grave and over the many decades people had left things; tokens of memorial that now covered the grave. There were Virgin Mary statues, tilted or fallen completely, weathered and dark. Old dolls in various stages of decay, a small chipped cherub statue, silk flowers faded and torn, and rosaries draped over everything. These things seemed to burst from the road in black and white, illuminated by the stark headlights, shadows thrown deep into the darkness beyond.
This would have been an interesting stop in the daytime with other geocachers. They would have looked over all the things that had been left; taken the time to make out the dates on the lichen covered stone. But alone at night in the back-country, gooseflesh slipped down her spine.
Part of her wanted to say "Forget the geocache. I'm not getting out of this jeep." But she didn't; she would have felt silly. There was nothing out here but trees and dust covered toys.
She dug out her flashlight, left the jeep running and found the cache across the road under a fallen fence post. The night was still and quiet as she retrieved the little log book from the metal box. She took it to the hood of the jeep to note her geocacher's handle and the date. She turned to replace the log book but was halted by a glance at the grave. The hair raised on the back of her neck. The Virgin Marys were upright and all facing her.
She felt a strong urge to drop the log book and get in her jeep. She thought the statues had been toppled over and disheveled when she pulled up. She wasn't sure now. She forced herself to walk back to the cache and replace the log book. Her hands trembled and she fumbled with the latch. She just wanted to be done and gone. She shoved the box back under the fence post and stood up, patting her pocket for the reassurance of her cell phone. It wasn't there. She had left it on the hood of the jeep. Panic quickened her heartbeat and shaking legs nearly betrayed her as she stumbled back across the road.
She didn't want to look at the grave again. She tried to focus on the jeep. But something had changed. She clenched her jaw and turned her eyes to the grave. The dolls were sitting up, their arms outstretched toward her.
Her heart pounded. This was a sick joke. Who would do this? Who could do this so quickly and silently? She slapped the hood of the jeep with both hands. No cell phone. She was so out of breath that she was getting dizzy. She searched the ground but could barely see anything now. Inside, she must have left it in the seat. She yanked open the jeep door. A small cry thrust from her mouth and the heat drained from her body. A dirt-covered doll lay in the seat.
She stumbled back a step. She was losing her senses and felt like she was no longer completely there, as if in a dream. She spun around off balance, arms out, her breath jerking in and out in gasps. Something else had changed. She felt faint. A dark shape lay in the ditch by the fence post. She had just come from there. She stared until realization settled over her. She was looking at her own body, her own blond hair soaked in blood, draped over a rock.
Her heart stilled. The cold night air stole through her soul. She felt thin as a wisp of wind. A hand slipped inside hers. She looked down and the solemn girl looked up. Her mouth did not move but her words crawled into the woman's mind. Don't ever leave me again.
*
It is Geocache #GCTM7K. Stop by if you're ever in Texas. Any time. Day or night.
*
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Chapter 13
“Linda Vista Hospital…In Memoriam”
Martin Reaves
Auburn, California, USA
Beyond the door, in shadowed hallways where paint slowly peels itself from the walls to expose what never should have been hidden, dust motes almost form something recognizable as shredded curtains stir in the absence of breeze. On the memory of my skin sensations prickle, invisible breath stirs unseen hairs on my neck, calling forth phantom gooseflesh.
They are in the hall, at the far end, their heavy footfalls and artificial light shattering the calm.
Abandoned here in a time that was but is no more; once comatose, then awake, then away again. And later the straps—restraints, they said, for my own good, for my safety and the safety of others. But that was then, long before the doctors fled and the others begin to scream their pain into the plaster walls and ceilings, those screams turning to pathetic
cries of grief and finally to pleading whimpers that someone, anyone, if there’s a God, please let it end.
For some it did end, a flame extinguished, a final exhale, release. And for some of us that flame sputtered but did not die; we found ourselves suspended in the space between breaths, just past some cruel tipping point, over-balanced and falling but never landing. Lodged between a life of horror and a deferred eternity.
Out there…whispers in the dark, calling for reply, like a hesitant liturgy, their call at once hoping for and fearing response…the probing voices, scuffling shoes, jittery bouncing lights stabbing into darkened rooms. Their queries shatter the silence, becoming more insistent with each step: Is someone here? Anyone? Can you hear us? Please make yourself known if you can hear us. Two doors down now, shambling closer, their ragged breath propelling a cushion of distress ahead of them, that terror they push forward like a desperate barrier that will keep them safe or somehow prepare them if their entreaties should be answered…closer now, nervous giggles jagging on the air.
In the dusty murk, long ago hidden away from hurting hands, away from dirty needles and barbed straps, away from the taunting scalpels, safe in my small shadowed corner—apart from it all, I crouch, but no longer cower. Huddled into myself, I wait.
They are closer now, closer to my space, my sanctuary. One door away, the dread clear in their childish words of bravado, Come out, come out, wherever you are.
I will not disappoint them.
*
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Chapter 14
“The Voice Beckons”
Erik Gustafson
Story City, Iowa, USA
Stacie had lived with voices inside her head for her whole life and it was exhausting. A shrill, echoing voice that didn’t command her to hurt herself, or even to kill her friends as one might assume is the nature of auditory hallucinations. This eerie murmur deep inside her core beckoned to be found, begging Stacie to rescue her, to save her.
When she was a child and quite a literal person still, she searched for this imaginary person high and low. Instead of being afraid of closets and dark spaces like under her bed, she always checked for the mystery person calling out to her. She peered down into storm drains—whenever she could get close enough to one without her mom flipping out, that is. The darkness seeped out from the opening, but there was, of course, never anyone down there. Once she about had a heart attack when a family of raccoons—a mother and three tiny babies—came scurrying out and hurried across the street. She stopped checking gutters after that.
An overweight, bald therapist had once tried to help. Even gave her pills. Not a bit of relief.
As a teenager, she was embarrassed by the voice and did her best to pretend she didn’t hear the woman. She was sure it was a female voice but regardless of who it was, her little follower had no business in her active social life. There was no way she was going to let on to her real friends that she had an imaginary friend. She would be mortified and everyone would surely avoid her just as sure as they avoided the girl who picks her nose and eats the gooey snacks that she pulls out. So Stacie became fairly adept at snubbing the inner turmoil.
Ignoring the voice did nothing to ease her burden. In fact, it probably made life more stressful. Made her feel crazier than she probably already was.
She went off to college, not with a career goal in mind or to pursue higher learning but with the hopes that moving far away might quell the demon screaming to be saved. It didn’t, but she made friends and managed to cope. Managed to pass her classes and squeak by. The availability of alcohol in the dormitory helped a great deal, much more so than the anti-psychotic medication she used to take.
Stacie was pretty loaded on energy drinks and vodka, in fact, on the night she went with her new friends to a haunted house located clear on the other side of the city, on the outskirts of town. An abandoned farmhouse.
The haunted house started at the side of the house, descending concrete steps into a pitch black cellar that looked like a angry mouth. There were plenty of twists, turns, and other frights. Stacie heart was racing from the spirits jumping out at her and her head was spinning from the spirits she had drunk earlier. Happily, the voice was silent.
Until the end.
Somehow, the journey had led them into a large barn. The expansive structure reeked of old hay. At the final turn, they had to run through chickens were hanging from the ceiling. The chickens were wet and somehow kept warm, which grossed out the girls as they pushed the dangling birds out of their way to get to the exit. As she pushed away the final rows of chickens, she was confronted with a large mirror that someone had written in red lipstick-looking paint: “What does fear look like?”
People were staring at themselves and making faces and giggling, then exiting.
When it was Stacie’s turn, however, she stopped cold and her chest felt like her heart stopped. There in the reflection, stood an emaciated figure in tattered clothes that hung off bony limbs, pressed up to Stacie’s side, stroking her hair, as if she were a lover. The figure had thin messy hair and wide yellow eyes.
“Why won’t you help me?” The haggard form in the mirror shrieked out. Stacie felt spittle on her cheeks from the creature’s coarse words, as if it came through the mirror. Its eyes were not glaring out at her; they were burrowing into the eyes of Stacie’s mirror image.
Her skin went cold and drained of color.
Stacie bolted from the barn, past her chuckling friends.
“Did you guys see that?” She asked when they finally caught up to her.
“See what? You running in a panic?” One girl said and they all roared in laughter.
Stacie tried to ignore them, but her face burned with shame. She would never be free of the voice, free to be herself and enjoy life. It just wasn’t meant to be. Her shoulders drooped like dead flowers and she turned toward the car. Her stomach lurched and she vomited on the gravel.
She wiped the hot liquid off her chin and stood. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the years of only hearing the voice and never actually seeing the speaker that drove her, but Stacie took a deep breath, pulled her hair back, and marched past her friends into the barn.
Someone in dark overalls tried to tell her that this was the exit, that she had to go around, but Stacie ignored him and pushed through the door into the gloom.
Eyes tightly closed, she faced the mirror. Deep down, she knew it had been her imagination and when she opened her eyes she would only be staring at a pathetic loser.
But she wrong.
The poltergeist waited in the reflection, grinning. What teeth weren’t missing were brown and cracked. “Save me, Stacie!” Its words drifted from the mirror like an icy breeze.
“What do you want from me?” Stacie shouted. People around her were keeping their distance, avoiding her by walking in a huge arc. Stacie figured they probably thought she was part of the haunted house.
The woman’s arms reached out for her.
Stacie found herself reaching back, but her efforts were blocked by the surface of the mirror. She half expected her hands to pass through.
“Save me!”
“Shut up!” She screamed, making fists.
She pounded the mirror and the entire wall wavered briefly and then everything shattered. Silver shards of mirror exploded, showering her feet. She was crying, staring at a brown plywood wall. She looked at her hands, blood coated them. She could feel the stings of glass embedded in her face and legs; could feel the soft tickle of blood.
People around her were gasping and fleeing for the exit.
She continue
d staring at her hands as fingers became blurry. She saw two sets of hands, oscillating from her wrists. She felt sick and knew she was about to vomit again.
The double image of her hands solidified and an extra set of arms extended down from the extra hands. She fell to her knees, barely aware of the glass tearing into her.
A ghostly image was yanking its way out of her.
The hands clasped around Stacie’s wrists and pulled. She sat helpless on the broken glass, feeling the stretching and struggling of this thing jerking its way out of her body. When it was completely out of Stacie, it continued to clench her wrists.
It was the woman from the mirror.
“Hey, sis,” she chortled. It was the voice from her head coming from person standing before her.
The woman stank of putrid flesh. Her eyes widened and her shoulders rose as she pulled on Stacie’s wrists. Hard. Stacie spilled forward, tumbling inside the woman.
Stacie vanished.
People rushed past the old lady in the torn garments as she shuffled out of the haunted house, smiling. She heard a few of them calling for Stacie and chuckled at the irony. She savored the crisp night air and headed for the fields.
*
I wrote this down for all those who continue to search for Stacie. She is safely tucked away deep inside me. I hear her screaming sometimes, begging me to let her out. I love the sound of her voice.
*
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Chapter 15
“The Fog Cemetery”
Matthew C. Nelson
Jacksonville, Florida, USA
The fire was the first thing built when the Tallow's finished setting up camp. Having heard about the campfires that got out of hand several years back encouraged them to even take a class the week prior instructed by one of the rangers. Before the class ended, Mr. and Mrs. Herb and Willow Tallow, along with their daughter, Jasmin, all knew the proper ways of fire construction, as well as the proper way to put it out.