Forest (The Afterlife Investigations Book 2) Page 4

I hoped I'd get to where I was going before the sun fully set. Looking out through my windshield at the smalling light, at the snaking road, I wasn't sure that was going to happen, though.

  The thought of navigating these roads after dark sent a touch of acid inching up my throat.

  Or maybe it was just the Burger King.

  It was dark by the time I found the first in a series of winding dirt roads.

  Cut directly into the woods and marked only by a stubby wooden sign, the path ahead was dotted in patches of grass and gravel. It'd been twenty or thirty minutes since I'd last seen another car, which only reinforced my feeling of isolation. Slipping down this path, coasting between walls of hundred-year old trees on an unpaved road, I felt myself delving into someplace profoundly remote. As best I could tell in my headlights, there weren't any tire tracks to be seen on this dirt path. No one had been down this way in quite some time, by the looks of it.

  I kept the GPS app on, but it spent more time “calculating” my current position than it did actually offering directions. Pausing now and then to let its signal gain a foothold did no good; something about this place, the tree-cover, probably, kept getting in the way. Eventually I shut it off to conserve the phone's battery and to better focus on my surroundings.

  And my, what surroundings they were.

  I was thankful just then to be inside the car. It insulated me from the wilderness that spanned for miles in every direction just outside the window. Everywhere I looked the forest was ponderously still, but that something was watching me from within it was never in doubt. Now and then, scanning the treeline while negotiating the lazy bends in the road, I thought I glimpsed my headlights thrown back in my direction by the blank eyes of staring animals. As I slowed, insects became more numerous, with several large specimens dive-bombing the hood of my car to get at my headlights. I could hear their tiny bodies as they smacked the exterior.

  I kept the speed around fifteen miles per hour. There wasn't a posted speed limit, but the thought of going any faster—of bounding into unlit, uncharted territory such as this at full tilt—didn't sit well. What I would have given to run into a nosy forest ranger or highway patrolman just then. The road eased to the right, then back to the left, before branching off in two directions. Earlier in the day I'd done my best to trace the correct route in my head using a satellite view of the area, but as I idled at the fork in the road I drew a blank.

  The Cavalier sat in the open as I tried to make up my mind, and my feeling of vulnerability grew tenfold. I glanced down at a balled-up napkin I'd used earlier in trying to hash out the route. The crooked lines I'd drawn all over it held no meaning to me, and try as I might I couldn't pinpoint my current position on the makeshift map.

  I had no choice but to wander.

  Well, that's not true. I could have stayed put, remaining at the intersection until my phone deigned to pick up a steady reception.

  But I couldn't bear to sit still. The longer I waited, the higher the chances of my running into something in these woods. I wasn't sure exactly what I was expecting to encounter, but that the trees hid no shortage of threats seemed plain to me. I needed to keep moving. After hesitating another moment, I chose the path on the right and began to coast down the new stretch of road—narrower and grassier than the last.

  I looked out all of the windows, searching for some break in the trees by which I could orient myself, but found only two paths open to me. I could go forward or I could return the way I'd come. The forest offered no alternative.

  My foot sat more heavily on the accelerator than was wise and I picked up some speed. Panic was setting in. I wanted nothing more than to get out of these woods. Even if I arrived by some miracle at the cabin, I was still going to be surrounded by these trees, would still be forced to endure this oppressive darkness. What was I thinking, coming all the way out here...

  My eyes were burning and my limbs were sore. A day spent behind the wheel was taking its toll. I wanted to pull off, but knew I'd never be able to rest. Not here. I nibbled on a granola bar to try and perk myself up, but it sat in my stomach like a rock and I found my nerves so frayed that I nearly puked it up. My headlights kept bringing up nothing but tree trunks. One after another the trees flashed in and out of view, melding into a dizzying blur. Nausea welled up in me, made my mouth water. I slowed to a crawl, pawing at my sweaty brow and trying to get my phone to work.

  Not a single bar to be found. I tapped the accelerator with a grunt.

  Just then, as I threw my phone to the floor in annoyance, it came rushing out of the woods.

  Hopping across my path and narrowly avoiding a collision was a large deer. It leapt past the car and paused at the side of the road, eyeing me with wide, black eyes as I swerved. The front of my car very nearly met the treeline, and it was only by a firm mashing of the brake that I came to a stop on the edge of the road.

  As though it were irritated at my near-miss, the deer took off into the woods, disappearing from sight and leaving me panting in the driver's seat. I wheeled back onto the road and threw the car into park, resting my head against the steering wheel. “Sweet Jesus...”

  I'd had enough. I needed to take a break, get my head straight. Powering down the car, I leaned back against my headrest and cracked the window just a bit, allowing some fresh air in. I opened a bottle of water and took a small sip, holding it in my mouth till I was sure I could swallow it without throwing up. Slowly canvassing my surroundings, I switched on my brights to have a better look and decided to leave them on.

  Trees, trees and more trees.

  Massaging my tired eyes, I put my seat back just a bit and tried to relax. I needed to rest, take a quick catnap, if I was going to make it through this. I was too fatigued to keep going. I wasn't sure I'd be able to doze, but merely taking my eyes off of the dizzying sea of trees seemed to help calm me down somewhat.

  Before shutting my eyes, I made sure to lock all of my doors. I wasn't sure just what it was I intended to keep out by doing so, but I did it all the same.

  Then, as the saying goes, I slept with one eye open, curled up in the driver's seat.

  9

  I awoke in perfect darkness, and for an instant my heart seemed on the verge of bursting.

  The air was still—sour—and my surroundings were absolutely black.

  For that long moment, I thought I was in the asylum again.

  I jerked up in my seat, gripping the wheel and fixing my eyes on the scene through the windshield. I'd shut off my headlights at some point, and the only light I could see was that which drifted down from the moon and outlined the tops of the trees. There wasn't much of it to go around.

  You're in the woods. Still surrounded by these goddamn trees.

  The foliage seemed closer than before, as though the trees and bushes on all sides of me had taken a step towards the road. The branch of a nearby tree scraped the top of the Cavalier in the breeze, and the swaying of weeds cast faint shadows in the sparse, ghostly moonlight that set my dash aglow. I wasn't sure just how late it was, but that I was stranded somewhere deep in the night was clear.

  Wiping drool from my chin and putting the seat back into its upright position, I fired up the car and switched on the headlights, finding a large white moth crawling across my windshield. At noticing my headlights it flew off and began to kamikaze against them repeatedly. I had a crick in my neck, and my legs pulsed with soreness. There was only so much stretching I could do within the confines of the car, and yet the idea of stepping outside was repellant to me. When I'd rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I shifted into drive and continued down the dirt path, hoping to come across a clearing of some kind.

  Thirty minutes of driving passed and no sign of any such clearing entered into view.

  Eventually I found it necessary to stop the car and step out to take a piss. Fumbling with my new Maglite, I loaded a pair of batteries into the thing and tested it before exiting the car and doing my business at the side of the road. With the flash
light in one hand and the headlights shining at my back, I tried not to stare too deeply into the woods, but simply whistled a nervous tune. The air was surprisingly chill, and the sweat that'd accumulated across the small of my back turned to ice as I wrapped up my bathroom break.

  Was it wise for me to go further so late at night? The path ahead would not be much easier to navigate by day, I reckoned—even if I waited till sunrise to keep going it wasn't like I was going to encounter someone who could give me directions to the cabin. I looked up at the sky, a black expanse pockmarked with twinkling stars, and yearned for the sun.

  I'd barely zipped up when I heard something stirring in the brush. I looked all around me, nearly dropping my flashlight, while trying to nail down the source of the sound. Taking a step back, I bumped into the Cavalier's side mirror and painted the treeline with my light, holding my breath all the while. Another deer, I'll bet...

  But I didn't find another deer wandering through the woods. No, instead, I saw something else.

  A person.

  Bare, alabaster skin caught my light just inside the treeline across the hood of the car. The edges of a swaying arm, a listless hand with long fingers, caught my eye and was gone in the next instant. I thought to call out, but for the moment had forgotten how to speak. And so I shuddered against the car, watching. Weeds and bushes rocked in the individual's wake until, moments later, silence reigned once more.

  Dropping into the driver's seat, I hurriedly set about locking my doors. I stared through the windshield, hands still holding the Maglite to my chest in a death grip, and waited for the figure to reemerge. It never did; probably a good thing.

  I say it was a good thing because, unless my imagination was playing tricks on me, there was something a little too familiar about it. In the way it had moved, its gait jerky and unbalanced; in the paleness of its skin, I couldn't help but recall the thing from the asylum.

  The Occupant.

  Though I hadn't noticed it at the time, in retrospect I thought I could remember glimpsing a fluttering of black hair as it lumbered between the trees. My blood turned to ice, and for a time I sat frozen in the driver's seat, merely staring ahead like a statue. Had it followed me all the way out here? Was that even possible? When I finally built up the courage to pull ahead, I kept my eyes peeled for movement in the trees to my right, dissecting the black space between them for another look at the figure.

  I continued in this state of tense observation when, about a mile further down the road, I encountered something new in my headlights. It was a sight which should have brought me excitement or relief, but which, under the circumstances, amped up my dread considerably.

  It seemed I'd arrived at my destination.

  The side of a small wood cabin came into view, my headlights drawing it up out of the murk and casting a harsh, angular shadow across the ground. The grass that surrounded it was tall, calf-length, and several saplings looked to have taken root around the structure in spots where, ages ago, larger trees had been felled.

  There wasn't a driveway to be seen, and the road I was on hooked into a bend that seemed to take one even deeper into the wilderness. Sidling up to the tall grass, I parked the car and had a good look at the place through the window, my headlights penetrating the shadow. A faint mist drifted about this spot, hanging heaviest where the cabin met the woods. There were no lights on inside that I could see from the dirt path, and as best I could tell from a distance, this place had been undisturbed for quite some time. If the doctor was still hanging around out here, he'd been pretty lax about the landscaping.

  There was nothing left for me to do but step out and explore.

  You've come a long way to see this, I thought. You finally made it.

  And yet I was in no hurry to step out and enter the place. Looking to the cabin, and then scanning the wilderness in which it was couched, I made no move to shut off the car, to exit. I'd arrived, but suddenly I didn't want to be there. I would have rather been anywhere else in the world.

  It was as I stared at the cabin, eyeing a small, dusty window in its side, that the gravity of the situation really hit me. It was then and only then that I realized where I was, how far I'd come in search of answers, and how little business I had in being there.

  You've gone too far this time, I thought, my jaw tingling with pain as I clenched it. You should have quit while you were still ahead.

  I stayed in the car awhile, playing around with my cell phone and hoping that I might miraculously happen upon some service.

  No dice.

  I kept my eyes peeled also for that pale wanderer I'd glimpsed in the woods, but it, too, never showed up. Considering all I'd been through that day and my crappy sleep, it was entirely possible that I'd imagined the figure. My bleary eyes could have been playing tricks on me...

  Looking out at the cabin, the limbs of trees scraping its sagging roof in the breeze, I couldn't help but shudder. Whatever the Occupant was, it had seemingly originated right here, in this very cabin. Who's to say that, once freed from the halls of Chaythe Asylum, it wouldn't have chosen to return to this remote spot? I shot a glance into each of my mirrors, waiting for the thing to step out of the shadows, to give me a look at its misshapen, horrific face.

  The woods were still.

  Still as a goddamn painting.

  I fussed over my Maglite, testing its heft in my hands. I had a knife in my pocket, too, and I yanked it free, studying it in the beam of the flashlight. If I encountered a human being, then perhaps the knife would be of use in the event of hostilities.

  But its usefulness ended there, with the threats posed by the natural world.

  If I go in there and that thing is waiting for me, there's nothing I can do to fight it.

  It took me some time to summon the nerve to open my door. I stepped out into the brisk night, locking the doors behind me, and did a slow scan of the surrounding woods before creeping towards the cabin as though the ground were full of land mines. I listened as I walked, waiting for the tell-tale rustling of a pursuer, but instead found myself faced with pure silence—the purest, most jarring silence I'd ever been exposed to. Against it, the sounds of my sluggish advance sounded terrifically loud, doubtless broadcasting my arrival to anyone who might wait inside.

  Knife in one hand and flashlight in the other, I closed in on the front door of the abode. It was wood, deeply grooved for the battering of the seasons, and fronted by a curved metal handle. There was a rusted loop above it where I presumed it had once been fastened by a padlock, but was no longer. As best I could tell from my limited study of the exterior, the place boasted only a single window. There would be a fireplace inside, judging by the toppled smokestack protruding from the roof, but that was the only thing I could be sure of.

  I knocked. Don't ask me why. On the off chance that there was someone inside—someone who wouldn't automatically blast me in the face with a shotgun—I guess I wanted to make a good first impression. But it was clear, painfully so, that no one had been here for a very long time. The door shifted beneath my knuckles, and with a bit more pressure I was able to push it open without resistance. Apparently it wasn't locked from the inside, either.

  The hinges mouthed off as I eased the door open just enough to peek past the threshold, the rusted hardware groaning as though it might crumble. My light brought up dirty wooden floors, the gaps between the planks rather noticeable. Of the air I could only make out a pronounced earthiness. Dust motes were kicked up at my entrance and scattered in chaotic spirals in the glow of the flashlight. I led with the knife, ready to shank someone at the first sign of movement, and paused in the doorway, unearthing the one-room cabin inch-by-inch.

  Across from the door sat a simple hearth, the logs in it so burnt out and cobwebbed that they may as well have been petrified. There was a desk nearby burdened with papers, a tower of cigarette butts and a typewriter coated in dust.

  And then to my right, a sight that stole my breath and sent my knife-hand a-swinging.<
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  Bent and leaning in the corner nearest the door was a lone figure draped in flowing garb. With a gasp, I lunged to the side and buried my knife in what I took to be the figure's chest, acting before they could get the jump on me. The sound of the blade piercing fabric and meeting solid bone tore through the silence.

  I couldn't believe what I'd just done.

  10

  I pulled my knife out of what appeared to be a dust-laden coat.

  What I'd taken for a figure leaning beside the door had been in fact a coatrack burdened by a long, black coat and a matching hat. The tip of the knife had grazed the wooden pole, leaving behind a sizable nick. I took a step back and tried to calm my racing heart, peering past the rack and finding the remainder of the cabin empty.

  “Son of a bitch,” I muttered, closing the knife and slipping it back into my pocket. I shut the door behind me and stepped across the sagging floors to the center of the room, where I sized up the desk. It was half-hidden beneath stacks of books and papers, a Remington typewriter not unlike the one Jake and I had found in the sub-cellar of Chaythe Asylum sitting at its center.

  It was an encouraging sight.

  When I'd caught my breath and no longer felt quite so jumpy, I paced around and took in my surroundings. There was only one window in the place, as I'd suspected, and it looked out towards the road. I could see my car through it, and just beyond, the wall of trees. There was a bed stationed beneath it, but it was so weighed down by dust and what I figured was black mold that you couldn't have paid me enough to sleep in it. The walls were of bare wood, but here and there I spied tacks where things—important notes, or perhaps pictures ripped from skin mags—had once been hung. There were no light fixtures in the cabin whatsoever. No electricity. No bathroom.

  I focused on the desk, wondering if the stuff on it belonged to Corvine. There were books so caked in dust that their titles were unreadable, and papers stained with age in stacked manilla folders. I decided to take a closer look at them, holding my flashlight in the crook of my arm.