Shadows

The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one's own.

~Willa Cather

____________

“I didn’t get anything useful.” Erika sighed once they’d driven past the iron gates, shaking her head. “They made damn sure of that.”

“You think they’re involved?” Jacob asked, trying to keep his voice steady. The cold feeling and the ache in his head had stayed with him the whole walk to the car.

“I don’t know. But I know they’re hiding something. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to visit this place. There’s been whispers and rumors for a long time.”

He wasn’t too surprised to hear that. In his line of work he’d come across too many places where dark things happened behind closed doors.

“What kind of rumors?”

“That girls have been hurt there. There’s some pretty strange and sick stories about what goes on there, too. I don’t have any idea if any of them are real, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were.” She replied, pausing for a moment, her face turning cynical. “When I became a cop, I thought I was going to stop s**t like this. Then I found myself neck-deep in a sewer. Whatever’s going on in this town, it’s been going on for a very long time, and it’s too entrenched here to get rid of. Only thing I can do is keep trying.”

“I know, believe me. I grew up here.” He replied, and she looked over at him, eyebrows raising. “I never liked this place when I was a kid. Left the first chance I got.” He continued, before voicing a question that had been lurking in the back of his mind ever since they'd met. “Why did you stay?”

“Guess I didn’t want to give up on this place.” She said solemnly, staring out at the quiet, still buildings as they drove. The streets looked peaceful. Almost like a mirage, he thought. “Call me overoptimistic, but I believe things can always get better. Someone just needs to fight for it. I guess I’m that someone.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“Even I have trouble believing it, sometimes.” She smiled without humor. “Did you get anything helpful from the girls?”

“One of them was close friends with Mara. She mentioned the girl drew pictures of what she saw during her psychotic episodes.” He gestured to the box in the back seat, choosing his words carefully. “She didn’t think Mara was mentally ill. She seemed to think it was something else.”

“Something else?” She frowned. “Like what?”

“She doesn’t know.” He answered. “But she thinks what Mara was seeing wasn’t in her head. During one of her episodes, she said she felt the air in the room get cold.”

“Did she see anything else? Anything that the girl did?”

“No, nothing.”

“Then it seems like it would have to be in her head.” Erika replied. “It must be terrifying to watch someone going through what Mara was. I’m sure fear and adrenaline can play tricks on your mind. Maybe that girl thought she felt something in the heat of the moment.”

He did not respond. He wanted to tell her what he really believed and what he’d seen, but he kept silent. She wouldn’t believe him. He hardly believed it himself. There had always been that inkling of doubt inside of him, the thought that it had all been in his head.

Were the things that happened to them real? Or were they both unwell?

A silence settled between them until they reached a tall, pale building that looked like it had been there for many years. The parking lot was almost empty and most of the windows were dark and shuttered.

He vaguely recognized the building. He'd been a student here. Rosewater High School, a sign above the entrance doors read in large, grey letters.

“One of my deputies talked to the girl’s teachers the day she disappeared.” Erika said as they got out of the car and approached the doors. The building was quiet. “They said she didn’t show up to her 1:00 PM class. She was last seen at the class before lunch, which gets out around 12:30. Whatever happened to her, it happened during that window.”

“Did any of her classmates see her any time during that window?” He asked, unsure of what exactly they were supposed to be looking for.

“No.” She shook her head. “Other than the girls at the group home, she didn’t have any friends that I’m aware of. She’d been through much more than the average teenager, poor girl. Must have been hard to relate to the other kids.”

“You think we can find something if we take a look around?” He guessed, and she nodded.

“Exactly.” She said, pushing open the entrance doors, and they walked into the lobby. It was empty and still. “No one disappears without leaving anything behind.”

They made their way through the lobby and entered the main hall. It extended in both directions for some distance before curving forward and disappearing out of their line of sight.

“I’ll check out the second floor.” Erika said, handing him a radio before starting off down the left passage. “Holler if you find anything.”

“Got it.” He nodded, taking the right.

At first the search was slow and uneventful. There was nothing out of place in any of the rooms. Everything looked surprisingly clean and in order considering this school had been around so long.

He’d gotten halfway through the first floor when he came upon the classroom from Mara’s drawing. It took him a moment to recognize it at first; it wasn’t until he was inside and standing in the back of the room that the recollection stirred in his mind.

The room itself looked nothing like the drawing. As far as he could tell, it wasn’t any different from any of the other classrooms he’d seen so far. Everything looked normal and benign. Aside from a wooden crucifix on the wall above the blackboard and a few photos of the school’s faculty, there wasn’t much in the way of decorations.

Jacob stood still for a moment and watched the room, waiting to see if that cold feeling stirred within him again, but he felt nothing. Perhaps the room had nothing to do with it. Perhaps her episode just happened to come when she was here.

He quickly gave up trying to sense something, heading past the back row of desks and toward the door, before stopping at the desk at the corner. Something was written on the wood. The letters were faded, like they’d been mostly erased, and he bent down to get a closer look.

FREAK

LIAR

GO BACK TO THE NUTHOUSE

This must have been Mara’s desk, he thought, shaking his head. Kids could be just as cruel as adults, sometimes. Poor girl. Maybe she did run away. Couldn’t blame her.

He left the empty classroom and continued down the hall. He searched the second half of the first floor, finding nothing else of importance, before finding himself at the door to the stairwell. Erika had not radioed him once yet; her search must have been going the same as his.

He waited by the door for a moment before deciding to head into the stairwell. No telling when she’d be back, he thought, glancing up at the flight of stairs that stretched upward from the main landing. The stairwell was colder than the rest of the school, with dim, muted light. He might as well check out whatever else he could think of while he waited.

There was another set of stairs on the other side of the landing, descending to another floor, and he headed down until he reached a smaller space with a single padlocked door.

Electrical Room, a rusting grey sign on the door read. The door itself looked as old and rickety as the sign, with thin wood and faded blue paint. Authorized personnel only.

One hit with the butt of his pistol was enough to break the old lock, and he pushed the door open and headed inside.

It had probably been a long time since anyone had come down here; damp, musty air hit him as soon as he walked in. The lights above were dim, flickering intermittently, and the plaster on the walls was cracked and spotted with cobwebs.

He slowly made his way through what felt like a maze of narrow corridors between old machines and thick pipes that came down from the ceiling, pulling out his flashlight and using it to sweep the ground around him as he moved. Even with the flashlight it was difficult to see his surroundings clearly. The flickering lights above seemed to cast shadows everywhere.

Before long he came to the end of the room, where several boilers were sitting against the wall.

He’d only take a few steps toward the boilers when he noticed something shiny on the ground, approaching it and bending down to pick it up.

It was a silver-colored necklace of a rose, smudged with dust and dirt and something reddish brown that looked like blood. Mara’s? He frowned, turning the necklace over in his hand, but there was no writing or engraving on the necklace that identified its owner.

He rose to his feet, pulling out his radio and putting it to his ear.

“Erika, I think I may have found something.” He said. But there was no answer. Only static. “Erika?” He called again, feeling a shiver of unease. The air around him suddenly felt cold. “Erika, can you hear me?”

Nothing. All he could hear over the radio was a terrible, piercing static. Even after he tried turning it off, it didn’t stop, getting louder and louder. “Erika, are you there?” He repeated, raising his voice to try to be heard over the static. What the hell’s going on with this thing-

A sharp, banging sound echoed from the boiler, and he looked up, startled. There was a crack in the side of the boiler that wasn’t there before, hissing out white steam, and he took a few steps back.

A cold feeling was creeping under his skin, the same feeling he remembered as a child, and all of that old fear came rushing back through him like ice water. It was happening again.

His flashlight began to flicker before suddenly dying out, and a dark, red-tinted haze filled the room in its absence. In the blink of an eye it seemed like everything had changed; the walls were grey and covered in mildew and the hum from the boilers had fallen silent.

A symbol had appeared on the wall in front of him, a blood-red circle with strange markings inside. Something deep inside of him recognized it. It filled him with a fear he hadn’t felt in a long time. But when he tried to connect it to a memory, his head started pounding and it was like he was trying to find something in a deep fog.

The banging sound came again. The crack in the boiler widened. Something was pushing through. He could barely make out its silhouette through the mist of steam; a dark, fleshy thing that almost looked human.

He wanted to run. The instinct was ringing in his mind like an alarm bell. But he couldn’t move. It was like some force was holding him rooted to the spot, a cold, oppressive presence that felt strangely familiar.

The thing wriggled through the opening and fell to the ground before slowly rising to stand upright and emerge from the steam.

It did not have a face. There were two wide, empty gashes where its eyes should have been and its mouth looked like it had been stitched shut. Its skin was a charcoal-black color and it moved in a contorted, jerking manner, like a broken marionette.

Its head turned toward him, like it could somehow see him without eyes, and it started moving towards him. It had long, sharp fingers that looked like needles, and panic rushed through his veins like ice as he fought desperately to exert control of his body, to break the cold, suffocating pressure that held him still.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t-

Then just as suddenly as it had come, the heaviness was gone and he could move again. He reached for his gun, drawing it and aiming for the creature’s torso before opening fire.

He was not quick enough. The thing was already lunging at him by the time he’d gotten off the first shot, narrowly grazing its shoulder as it crashed into him and knocked him to the ground. Its fingers sank deep into his chest and he screamed, screaming until his breath ran out. The pain was overwhelming, paralyzing, burning his lungs like fire.

He was dying. He could feel his body getting weaker. The pain getting sharper. His vision grew murky-

Then everything went black.

____________

A child was standing in a white room.

Everything was bright; a pale, shimmering haze of light came through the barred window and from the fixtures above. But there was no warmth in the brightness. It felt cold and sharp on his skin.

There was a large bathtub in the center of the room, filled with still, clear water. Two men dressed in white stood on either side of it.

“Don’t worry.” The doctor’s voice beside him said, as if sensing the unease that was starting to stir in his stomach, and he looked up. The doctor was a tall, dark-haired woman, with a pale face and deep, glacial eyes. “They’re here to help you.”

It didn’t quiet his nerves. “What is this?”

“We’re going to give you something that will expand your perception.” She said, moving towards a table at the end of the room and picking up a cup of colorless liquid. He didn’t follow her. “This water will be cold enough to sharpen your senses, allow you to go deeper.”

“Deeper into what?” He asked, traces of confusion starting to bleed into his voice. His mother had told him he needed to stay here to get better. But the doctor hadn’t acted like he was sick. Ever since he’d arrived, he’d felt like he was being studied rather than treated. He didn’t like something about the way she looked at him. “I don’t understand.”

“Do you know why you’re here, Jacob?” She asked, and he was silent for a moment.

“To get better?” His voice came out uncertain.

“Yes, but not in the way you think.” She smiled, a faint, thin smile, like they were sharing a hidden secret. “You’re a very special boy, Jacob. You can see a world that most can’t even begin to imagine. It’s a gift, not an illness.”

“It doesn’t feel like a gift.” He said, shaking his head. He didn’t know what he saw. But it was never good. Whenever he’d have one of his episodes, everything felt wrong and cold and terrifying.

“Because you don’t understand it yet. But you will.” The doctor replied, and there was something terrible and piercing about her eyes now, like she could see deep inside of him. “You’ll need to undress.”

He kept still. The unease was crawling up his spine now, filling his lungs like smoke. He didn’t want to be special. He wanted to be normal.

“Undress.” She repeated again after a moment, sharper this time, more insistent.

He did not. “No.” His voice was shaky when he finally found it. The two men had started coming towards him now. “I want to go back home.”

“You are home, dear.” The doctor smiled. Her face looked cold and empty in the light. “Your mother didn't understand how special you are. She didn't want you. But we do. You belong here.”

The two men took hold of each of his arms, leading him over to the bathtub. Their grip was not painful, but hard enough to promise pain if he resisted, and the fight went out of him as an oppressive sense of fear and helplessness began to set in.

They let him go once they reached the edge of the tub, but hovered just behind him, a silent threat.

“It may be scary at first, but soon, you’ll see that what you see is not something to be afraid of.” Dr. Marshall said, adopting a warm, maternal tone, but the cold sharpness that had come just before made it all the more unsettling.

Reluctantly, he undressed, taking off the thin white clothes he’d been given.

The air was cold on his skin. The water was much colder, like ice, and his breaths came in ragged gasps as he entered the tub and sat down.

“We’ll be here with you the entire time.” Dr. Marshall said, handing him the cup. It was not a comfort. “Drink as much as you can.”

He drank. The liquid was tasteless, but he felt the effects of whatever it was just a moment later.

It started with a heavy feeling of immobility, like a sedative without the calming effect. The room began to get hazy, like it was a picture that was constantly changing, before that familiar cold feeling began to rise under his skin. It was strong, stronger than he’d ever felt it before, and terror gripped him.

Flecks of what looked like ash began to drift through the air, falling like snow. The walls began to turn grey, like the color was draining out of them, and cracks began to appear all along the surface. The lights flickered and dimmed before everything faded away into a semi-darkness.

“Focus on what you’re seeing, what you’re feeling.” Dr. Marshall’s voice came from beside him. He couldn’t see her or the two men anymore. There was a terrible, bleak emptiness to the room now. “The more you concentrate, the more you’ll get used to it. Let yourself go deeper.”

The cold was almost unbearable. Things were starting to move in the dark corners of the room, like shadows come alive, terrible things with misshapen silhouettes. Monsters.

Stop, the scream sounded like it came from far away. Hands were holding him down, keeping him in the water. Please, stop.

“Don’t be afraid.” The doctor’s smooth, serene voice. “Tell me what you see.”

Then the memory shattered, falling back into a white fog-

Jacob woke with a start, his heart pounding, a figure hovering above him.

For a moment, he was completely disoriented, like he’d just been deep underwater and had lost all sense of bearing.

Jacob. A voice called, piercing through the haze of confusion. Erika. Her face was suddenly coming into focus. Jacob, are you okay?

“Yeah.” He sat up, breathing hard as he looked around. He was back in the electrical room. Everything looked normal again. The boiler was intact and the symbol was no longer on the wall. The light was back to its pale, dim glow instead of the red haze. It was jarring. It had always been jarring, like he had lost control of himself for a time. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

“What happened?”

“I found something.” He replied, the memories all coming back like jumbled fragments in his mind. The necklace. The cold. The monster. “I radioed you, but all I got was static.”

“That’s odd, I didn’t pick up anything. I got static when I tried to radio you, too.” Erika was frowning now, but her eyes were still soft, still concerned. “When I tested it it was working fine. Something about this room must have disrupted the connection. There’s so much electrical equipment here, might have been too much for the signal to handle.” Her eyes fell on something beside him, and he followed her gaze. The silver necklace was still there, sitting on the ground. “Is that what you found?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, and she picked it up, shining her flashlight on the necklace as she took a closer look at it. “Is it Mara’s?”

“Could be. I’m almost positive one of her teachers mentioned she wore a necklace.” She replied, her face darkening as she held it up to the beam of light. “There’s something on the chain.” Her voice was grim now. “It looks like spots of dried blood.”

He felt a pit open in his stomach. What had her abductor done to her down here? Maybe she died here, he thought, unable to shake that sense of fear. She was hardly more than a child. Or he’d done worse than kill her. Those cases were the ones that haunted him the most.

“Someone must have been watching her for a long time.” He said, getting to his feet. “They grabbed her in between classes, when she was alone, and made sure there wasn’t a single witness on the way as they took her down here. It has to be someone who works here.”

“They’re the only ones who would be able to pull off something like that.” She concurred, turning away from him to survey the rest of the room. Her flashlight swept across the room in slow, deliberate arcs, playing shadows along the walls and floor. “Unfortunately, everyone in the school’s administrative staff has access to the key to this room, as well as the maintenance workers. Any one of them could have grabbed it for a quick period without anyone else being the wiser. We’ll need to interview all of them.”

He nodded, allowing the conversation to trail off into silence. She was still focused on scanning the rest of the room. She didn’t give any indication of it, but he felt like she was thinking and feeling the same thing he was. The disquiet hung there in the room between them like a quiet, heavy fog. We’ll need to do a more detailed sweep of the room with the black light. Check for any traces of semen.

After another moment passed, he left her to continue her search and looked down at himself, dusting his clothes off. There was no sign of any wounds on his chest and none of the terrible, burning pain he’d felt before slipping into darkness.

It had to be a dream, he thought. A nightmare. Even as a child, he’d never had an episode that intense, where one of those things had hurt him physically.

But it had not felt like a dream. It had felt real.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” He looked up to see Erika approaching him, her flashlight hanging by her side. “You still look really shaken up.”

“You’re going to think I’m crazy.” He replied, after a long moment of pause, sensing she wasn’t going to let the matter drop. “But…after I found that necklace, I saw something down here. I saw the room change.”

“What do you mean, change?” She asked.

“It…it’s hard to describe.” He started. “But the room didn’t look the same anymore. The walls, the light, the equipment…everything was different.”

“You were out cold when I got here.” She said, sounding like she was choosing her words more carefully. “Did you hit your head?”

“No, I didn’t. Something attacked me.” He said, hesitating. “I don’t know what it was. It didn’t have a face; it was like its eyes had been gouged out and its mouth was stitched shut.” He continued, chest tightening at the memory. “It had grey skin and fingers like claws. It looked human, but the way it moved…it wasn’t human.”

Erika did not respond. But her silence said everything.

“It’s not the first time I’ve seen something like this.” He kept speaking, and still she kept silent, looking taken aback. “When I was a kid, this used to happen to me a lot. Like Mara. I think…I think she’s seeing the same things I did.”

Or you’re unwell, like her. She didn’t say it. She didn’t have to. It was written all over her face.

“I know this is hard to believe, but-

“I believe that you believe it.” She said, finally. “But what you’re saying…Jacob, it’s not possible. Mara’s psychologically disturbed. What she’s seeing, it isn’t real.”

“What I saw was real. I don't know how I know, but...I just know.” He replied, though his voice wasn’t as strong as he wanted it to be, still laced with the old fear and doubt. His mother had thought he was sick, too. He remembered the morning she’d driven to the sanitarium. The heaviness on her face when she’d hugged him in the lobby. The long, bright hallway. He hadn’t been afraid of it back then. He’d thought things would get better. He hadn’t known what was going to happen.

Erika’s phone buzzed before she could reply, and she pulled it out and put it to her ear. He couldn’t make out what the voice on the other end was saying, but her face clouded and she said very little.

“One of my deputies.” She said once she’d hung up, putting the phone back in her pocket. “They’ve found a body.”

The pit came back to his stomach again. “Mara’s?”

“No.” She shook her head. There was a slight tremor in her voice. “One of the town’s councilmen. A good friend of mine.”

Reviews

[Gary]

I found chapter one intriguing, so I moved on to chapter two. There are, however, some things I would like to point out.

“I don’t know. But I know they’re hiding something.” She replied. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to visit this place. There’s been whispers and rumors for a long time.”
You have already established that Erika and Jacob are the only two talking, so "she replied" is not necessary.
Also, "she looked over at him, surprised." Don't tell me she looked surprised. Think about when someone is surprised. What are their facial expressions? What is their body language? Show me that. In the end it's more rewarding for your reader.

[WanderingWriter]

Thank you, appreciate your feedback!

[Thomas W Case]

Powerful work. Fantastic.

[WanderingWriter]

Thank you!