Return to Darkness by Laimo Michael

Author:Laimo, Michael [Laimo, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2012-06-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Farther along into the woods, I ask Shea, “What was that thing I saw in your basement?”

“What did you see?”

“Your brother and you. You were either packing away, or setting up, some sort of apparatus. It looked like a pulley system, and a block with thick hook-eyes in it. There was a rope…and then I saw huge deep-sea fishing hooks.”

She nods, biting the half of her bottom lip that doesn’t have a bandage. “You know, I should be pissed off at you for looking in at me…but I’m not. From the moment we met, I couldn’t help but think that you were sent to me, and that you are now here with me for a reason—just as my family was brought here to Ashborough for a reason. I’ve never been one for fate, but Bonzo did run away to your house, and now here we are, together, just me and you, alone in the woods. And you’re telling me that you’re the only one I can trust. And I believe you. If that’s not fate, then I don’t know what is.” She paces to a huge elm and rubs a gloved hand against the rough bark. “My life has pretty much sucked up until now. But ever since coming here, I’ve felt an incredible amount of allure. The woods, the house, you. Everything!” She spins around, hands held out as she makes her way back to me. She looks like a battered ballerina, something right out of a Tim Burton film. “For the first time in my life, I feel a sense of happiness.”

Her shouts trigger mixed emotions in me: fear of drawing the Isolates to us, and happiness for the girl of my dreams. “It’s more than likely because you’ve escaped the past where all your unpleasant memories were created.”

She stops spinning then zig-zags over to me and grabs me by the coat. The bunny-in-the-bag leaps about a bit, and I have to grip the pillowcase more tightly to keep from dropping it. “It’s the woods, Michael. They speak to me. And they make me happy.”

Despite her feeling happy for the first time in her wounded life, I’m very concerned for her. The Isolates have begun to weave their dark magic into her. Soon she’ll be having dreams, hearing voices, seeing things. She’ll follow all these enticements, blinded to the evil lying just beyond its cloak, ready to pounce. I can’t let this happen—she’s all I’ve got—so I go back to the original subject to distract her. “Shea…the pulley. The block. The hooks. Is it all some sort of hunting tool? Something to hang a kill from? What is it?”

She giggles, light and airy like a child being tickled, then pushes away from me. “No, not quite. It’s…it’s probably the only thing from my past that I’ve brought here with me. It’s something I couldn’t leave behind.”

“What’s it for?” I ask, all of a sudden conscious of the fact that it might be some sort of device for self-mutilation, for exerting pain into the body in return for "spiritual awareness.

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