Chapter Nine
Suddenly a lightness formed in the darkness in front of me. A shadow became a glow that became a walking person. A small person. A child. Her form flickered and was not quite solid. She was human and yet, not human. She was there and then, not there. As she exited the wall of the mist, walking into the comparatively clear air of the pocket, the sparks of her passing through the mist fell behind her.
She had an impish smile and a dark look of calculation about her. Her hair was stringy, like she had been sweating badly and it had not been combed in a long time. And her clothes were an assortment of tattered rags that stuck to her body in places without really seeming to be attached to each other. It was her eyes that required the most attention from a person, though. Deep, dark and almost endless in their depths. I say almost because they somehow beckoned me to jump into those dark pools and try and discover the bottom. There was an allure to her that belied the scruffy, tattered exterior and obvious fact that she was not human, or at least, no longer human.
She scared me. She also excited me to see her. Not just because I was alone in the dark. That was a part of it, I'll admit. The dark was bringing me down, seriously. But there was something about her that drew me to look at her. She had taken only a few steps before her image blew up and increased in size almost half again her original size. I was surprised by this inflation factor and it took me a minute to notice that she was no longer the little girl. In her place now stood a beautiful, young woman, maybe in her late twenties, early thirties. She had long, dirty blond hair and big, mesmerizing eyes hidden behind that same, unmistakable, impish grin. She wore no clothes, naked to the flesh. She was well rounded and everything a red blooded American man wanted in a woman. She moved with a delicate grace to finish her steps to stand a few feet in front of me. Then as quickly as she had become a woman, the flickering figure slipped back down to the little girl's size and the face and body of the little girl beamed up at me, if those dark, incipient eyes could ever be defined as beaming.
That was what held my attention. Those eyes. Their coming into being nature, the almost virgin existence of them as though they were a promise of something greater to come, called out to my soul to delve into and uncover its every surprise. The very nature of her being was contained in those eyes. Every part of her existence screamed out that she was ready to evolve and become whatever surprise was hidden in those eyes. She was a child in form and stature, to be sure. Even in their seeming new birth existence, her eyes held a depth of knowledge that women the world over desired to capture. She knew things and her eyes begged a person to seek out what she knew. She was a child and more than a child. She was not of this world and yet, so much a part of this world that she could not be separated from it. She was the opposite of her own parallels. She was the yin to her own yang. She was the answer to her own questions and every other question on the face of the planet. And he could see it all as he stared into her eyes. Then she flickered back to the taller, naked woman with the same grin still in place.
I saw it then. In the eyes of the older woman, I saw the one thing I did not see in the eyes of the young child. A hunger. Passion. The child had a passion about her disposition but not in her eyes. What the woman was letting me see was an unveiled passion of such design and intensity that no little girl could possibly imagine it or example it in fleshly form. At least I could not imagine a little girl having such thoughts.
The flickering continued and the form shifted back to that of the little girl again. Over the last few seconds the form had become more solid. I was considering running away but really had no idea how that would work. It was dark. There was the mist. I had no idea which way I had come or which way was out. I was not standing and waiting out of any form of bravery. It was more a matter of practicality. It simply was not a practical answer to run right now. Give me an opening and point the way, though, and I would show this apparition how I could run. Funny, that other ghostly visitor I had caused me to be unable to run. Maybe I was more adept at running from women. Freud probably had a whole chapter he wrote about this phenomenon.
I waited.
The figure flickered and shifted and glowed, changing from the child to the woman again and back to the child a little later. The show was becoming familiar but never boring. Each time the form shifted shapes, I noticed something different about the figures standing before me. The child had a sad, almost beaten look of distress written all over her face. The woman seemed idyllic, almost a dream of the perfect woman. She was no Barbie Doll but she was more than any Miss America. Outwardly the woman extolled all the virtues of the perfect woman. Inwardly the child exhibited all the fears and damage of an abused individual. Two opposites. One alternating form shifting perpetually before me and becoming more solid by the second.
When she was totally solid looking, she spoke.
“Why have you come into our Mist?”
Our mist, not our midst. So, the mist was theirs, whoever they were. She was unnatural so therefore the mist was unnatural. I started to answer but she cut me off.
“You search for the child.” The form of the child spoke.
“I search for Kathy.” I answered, feeling a dryness in my throat I had not realized had formed there.
“That is the name of the child.”
“She's a woman, but yes, I search for Kathy.” Anxiety choked my throat.
“It is too late.” The woman flickered back and had a husky, feminine voice that matched her form.
The dryness in my throat caught a lump and threatened to choke me to death right there.
“It can't be. Where has she gone?”
“He has taken her.” The woman still.
“Where? Who?” My mind was racing a hundred miles an hour and the clutch was not engaged. I felt like I was going to throw up or burn up or something.
“The Keeper has taken her.” The child was back now.
“The Keeper?”
“The Keeper of the Cabin.” The Child spoke like everyone knew.
“What cabin?”
“The Cabin in the woods.” She gestured with a pointed finger that was crooked with some kind of injury to it. Her direction was precise. I took note.
“What's the cabin?”
“His place.” The shape flickered and the woman came back.
“The place where he takes all his victims.”
The woman's smile was disarmingly brilliant and inviting. She had the ability to mesmerize, excite and mystify all in the same glance. She was like a brilliantly colored package, sitting beneath an exquisitely decorated Christmas tree on Christmas Day, just begging me to unwrap it.
“Someone's taken Kathy?”
“Yes.” Her voice was a mixture of prom date and barroom pick up. Her sexuality oozed forth from her like a tangible cloud, enfolding and entangling me in her web of desires.
“Why?”
“He's been waiting for her.” The little girl with the deep, dark eyes was back. She carried herself like she was a woman but she was obviously a child. It brought to mind those times I had heard parents identify their children as thirteen going on thirty. This little girl was all of that. A child standing like a woman of the world yet not really having lived much of the world.
“Waiting for her?”
“Yes. It has been a long wait. He knew she would come. He always said so.”
“Said so? Knew she'd come back. I do not understand.”
“That is correct.” The little girl admonished him. “You do not understand. And yet, you dare to come here and try to take what is not yours.”
“Not mine? Kathy?” I was getting mad. “Kathy is her own person. She does not belong to anyone.” Not yet, I was thinking. As soon as I get her out of here I am going to ask her to marry me, though.
“He possessed her for a moment many years ago and then she escaped. He has waited for her ever since.” The little girl's voice sounded far away and tired, like she was hurting from trying to do something, or maybe too exhausted to g
et the words out easily.
The form flickered and shifted and became the woman again. She was much easier on the eyes, I had to admit.
“Now that he has her, he will finish what he started all those years ago.” The husky voice of the woman filled the air like a sweet perfume that enchanted the mind of the listener. She was a sweet temptress, no doubt.
“Finish what?”
“Bringing her in.”
“In? In where?”
“Into the Cabin.”
“The Cabin? You mean where he has taken her?”
“Yes. She will become one of his and live forever in the Cabin with him. She brings new blood so they can continue. She brings new fluid so they can enjoy. She brings a new spirit so they can exist.” The voice swirled around him like soft fingers caressing his cheek.
“Blood? Fluid? Spirit?”
“Yes, the three elements of life. The energies.” The child was back.
I could not correlate the thoughts that arose when the woman was there with the shifted form of the little girl so it was like a shock to my mind each time they exchanged places. The allure of the woman invited me into a relationship of forbidden passions and then the eyes of the child attempted to draw me into a world I was not so sure anyone ever returned from. I could not stop staring into those eyes. They cried out for someone to delve into them and discover who she really was at the most secret place of her being. They begged for someone to want them and need them. I was intrigued at how closely the emotions of lust and love were related. One could live without the other but never achieve the fire of passions that make a relationship boil over. The other could not ever hope to become a fulfilling relationship without the deeper, more intriguing roots of the hidden self being discovered and opened. In the yin and yang relationship of the child and woman that kept fluctuating before me, I saw one other thing. They needed each other to be whole. The intriguing and deep knowledge of the child needed the alluring and fleshly surface passions of the woman. Together they created a package that if, human, would most certainly be the death of every confirmed bachelor. And they would die willingly.
“Blood is the eternal essence of life. Without it, no life can exist. Fluids are the essence of who we are at the core of our being. Our fluids are what we share with one another.”
The form flickered into the woman again.
“And Spirit is what excites the blood and fluids into action that makes life worth living in the first place.” The husky voice completed.
“What's this got to do with Kathy?”
“She was supposed to join us many years ago. She escaped and did not enter the Mist. He has waited for her to come back and now that she has, he will bring her in. He is no longer of the Mist but he desires to possess her still.”
“Bring her in?”
“He will sacrifice her blood to the existence of the Cabin. He will share his fluids with her and she with him in a ritual of accompaniment. Then he will require her to give her spirit to him as they share this plane of existence together. She will become like him. Part of the Cabin.”
Then the Little girl was back.
You're a part of this Cabin?” I searched for answers, confused by all this uncertainty and unnatural happenings.
“No. We are Mist.”
“You're part of the mist?” I asked
“Yes. Part. We are many.”
“You mean like...Legion?” I recalled the old bible story about the demons that possessed a man and called themselves, legion.
The little girl laughed. It actually sounded funny, too. A giggly, girl laugh.
“You humans are so funny. You read your stories and have so little imagination that you can not see beyond the written word. History is about a moment in time but it can not be written down in its entirety by the human words that have such great limitations.” Big words for a little girl.
“An event is more than a flash of a picture. It has depth and a myriad plethora of concepts and ideas arranged in an order that makes sense in whatever given plane of existence it is viewed in.”
The woman flickered back.
“This event is described by a human for your recorded existence and is decidedly skewed to help you understand your world as the one making the report has viewed it and understood it. This understanding limits you in your perspective and your ability to see past the accepted explanation.”
“That's nice, but does not answer my question.”
“Yes, we could be described as legion but we are not demonic or anti your god. We just are.”
“My God?” I was surprised to hear ghosts or demons or whatever this was talking about God. I had been taught that evil avoided all mention of God and even ran from his name being spoken. But this child-woman was speaking his name and not cringing under threat of hell fire.
“In the beginning everything began. Some in your plane of existence and some in other planes. We exist in many planes due to an ability to join others from those planes to ourselves.”
The child was back.
“We are Mist. The sparks you played with is our energy and the salt you smelled is our fluids and the metallic flavor is our blood.”
“I was walking through you?”
“Actually, we were swirling around you. We enjoy when a live human walks among us. It is a special treat to share our sensations with one who can still feel them at the level a live human does.”
“So that feeling of energized life I felt was you?”
“Sure. You can't have sex with someone without each of us sharing the joy and invigoration of the other, can you?” The child asked and giggled just like a child would do if she were caught talking about sex.
“Sex?” The question shot out of my mouth. I remembered my embarrassment at my involuntary erection.
“Of course, silly.” The little girl started. Then she flickered and winked out momentarily and was replaced by the naked woman.
“It was not a consummated act but you did stimulate us with your playful arm movements as you walked through us and we reciprocated with a tingling stimulation to arouse you in return. More like foreplay than sex, actually.”
Her husky voice and simple declaration of their intent as I walked through the mist made it seem surreal. But I was on a mission and I needed to continue. My life was already changed enough having Kathy in it. I did not need any sex hungry ghostly, spiritual entities to fulfill me. I needed direction to find Kathy or, at least, for them to get out of my way and allow me to continue my search.
“Well, that's...uh...all very nice and all. But...uh...I really need to get on with my search. Kathy's in here somewhere and I need to find her.”
“We told you,” the woman started and flickered back to the little girl.
“He has her and he's not likely to let her go until she agrees to become one of the Cabin.”
“Agrees?”
“Yes. A person from any plane must agree to be one of us before we will take them in. We do not ever force anyone to be with us. That is wrong.”
“But, she will never agree. She wants to be here. With me.” I tried to convince myself as much as them.
The woman flickered back to stand before me. This was getting disconcerting. Instead of getting used to the changes, I was getting more and more freaked out by them. My mind was racing to put this entire conversation in perspective and my ability to widen my perspective sufficiently was being sorely taxed. Somewhere inside me I was accepting the existence of otherworldly beings in otherworldly forms but the shifting changing of this girl and woman was unnerving me a little.
“He will convince her to stay with him. He always does. That is what he does. He convinces people from your plane that being with him would be preferable. Sometimes it takes a while but eventually he convinces them.” The woman said it like it was an ordinary job that people had.
“But I need to find her. She would rather stay here with me. I've got to go.”
“You can not.” The woman sp
oke.
“Why not?” I was starting to feel like the entity before me was sent to delay me or stop me altogether.
“You can not go through the Mist to the cabin.”
“Why not?” I felt like a three year old.
“We are the Guardians. It is our job to keep out all those who would harm the Cabin or the Keeper.” the woman said and then flickered back to the little girl.
“How can you stop me?” I was not really sure I wanted the answer to that question but it had to be asked.
This little girl ghost, or entity or whatever, was between me and my love. There had to be a way around her. God would not allow me to meet the woman of my dreams and then take her away like that. I was not consciously putting God into my thoughts at the moment. I just found myself falling back on old teachings from my youth.
“It is easy. The Mist is a maze and no one finds their way in the maze. When we tire of playing with you we dump you back outside and let you wonder whatever you will. No one gets through the maze of the Mist unless we allow it. Even the Keeper does not know the way. We change it constantly and all who enter must share a sacrifice to learn the way. That is our way and how we maintain the Mist energies.”
“Keeper? Sacrifice? So he is one of you?”
“Not any more. He was once but wandered the way of Dark, Now all that remains between us is his deal with us to protect the Cabin and consequently, him. For this he shares the energies with us.”
“So, he sacrifices people?”
“Yes. All of life is about three things. Blood, Fluid and Spirit. The energies. Without a sacrifice of one of those, we can not accept anyone into our Mist.”
The woman flickered back before me.
“When you stimulated us with your arm movements and walking, we enjoyed the sensation of contact but that only made us make sure you got back to where you started. Entry to the cabin would require a greater sacrifice.”
“You mean I have to die to get to the cabin?”
“No, silly. You must...”
The little girl flickered back into place.
“...offer us a sacrifice of fluids to pass through the Mist.”
The little girl giggled again. It was a strangely disconcerting laugh when coupled with those dark, knowing eyes and that tattered, beaten look of hers. I swear I saw her lick her dry, cracked lips, too.
“Fluids?”
“Yes. To pass through the Mist you must first offer up a part of your energies to join us.”
“Join you?”
“Yes. That is how you will learn the way. Only we know the way. Only we can share the way. You must share part of you in order to share us. It is the only way.”
“And then I will find Kathy?”
“We can only take you as far as the Cabin. We do not go into the Cabin. It is a maze unto itself. Our realm stops at the Cabin. Our job is to keep the Cabin safe from those who would harm it.”
The woman flickered back.
“I just want to find Kathy. When I find her, we will go.”
“You must pay the price to get through the Mist or you will never find the Cabin. When you find the Cabin you must navigate its dangers to find Kathy. Then you must deal with the Keeper. He will not want to let her go again.”
“You keep saying again. When did the Keeper have her before?”
“When she was a little girl. He brought her to these woods back then and then circumstances drew his attention away and she wandered out.”
“How did she get through the maze back then?” I was looking for a way in or out. I was trying to process the information that this Keeper was Kathy's original abductor when she was a child. My mind was whirling faster than any super computer looking for the answers to life's questions.
“She made the offering.”
“Willingly?”
“Yes. She wandered into the Mist from the Cabin and stimulated us with her walking and her presence. One so young has such a vibrant presence.”
“So, you let her through?”
“After she sacrificed herself.”
“Sacrificed? How?” She had lived through the experience. What had she sacrificed?
The little girl flickered back.
“She gave up her virginity to pass through. She said she just wanted to go home and did not care what we took from her or how.”
“You took her virginity?” I was incredulous.
“Uh...how? You're a ghost and a...female. She was only seven, not yet capable of giving of herself.”
“There's more than one of us guarding the Cabin, silly. Aaron, was happy to take her offering and share it with all of us. I remember she was a very sharing child, too. Usually they cry a lot and scream when they are so young. She was quiet and gave freely of her fluids while accepting Aaron's. Sharing the fluids is always important but sometimes we just enjoy being accepted as well.”
“So, this Aaron had intercourse with Kathy when she was a child and you let her pass through the mist to get away from the cabin? How? She was just a child, sexually undeveloped.”
“In the plane of Mist, we all are who we are destined to be and that was our job.” The little girl said. “For your human delicacies, it might help you to understand that when a human child offers to us, they slip into a sleep state and the dream is where the sacrifice takes place. Some humans call it a wet dream. I guess it is easier for you humans to categorize things like that. Small children rarely even remember the sacrifice, later. Their minds do not process the act. They just know they thought something to get something. We bring no harm to the human plane. We protect the coming and goings around the Cabin. Those who know to offer the sacrifice and accept us, do not harm us. They join us.”
The little girl flickered back to the woman again.
“Do you wish to make a sacrifice to pass through the Mist?” she asked me.
“A...uh...sacrifice?” My head was spinning. There was too much information being shoved at me all at once. I was learning things about Kathy that she probably did not know herself.
“Sure. I promise it won't hurt and you might even like it.” She smiled at me and that sultry smile definitely invited me to try her out.
Then the little girl flickered back.
“I would enjoy having you share your fluids with me,” She gave me a mischievous grin. “Would you enjoy sharing your fluids with me?”
Looking down at the little girl, I could not put the words of her mouth with the small frame of the child. I was being propositioned by a child. My mind was in a tormented state from chasing through the mist after Kathy. Now it was being further tormented by a child claiming the only way I had through the mist to find Kathy was to have sex with her. Bad enough it was sex with a child. Granted, judging by the cut of her tattered clothes, a child who was probably older than I was. Still, my mind grappled with the vision of a small child offering me sex. But it was sex with a ghost or whatever they were. There was nothing in my life experiences to prepare me for this. Nothing to even come close to helping me get my head around it.
The form flickered and changed back to the woman.
“It will not be so bad,” she cooed at me with her husky voice. “You have only to offer and we will see you through to the other side.”
Now she was bargaining with me. I felt like I was discussing prices with a ghostly prostitute, arranging for services. The more I thought about it though, I was the one asking for something for my services. I was asking them to show me the way to the cabin in exchange for my services. I was actually the prostitute here. Another blow to my mind. I was not sure how much more my head could take. The hits just kept coming. If this had been a prize fight, I'm pretty sure this was the opponent's knockout blow. Set me up with all the talk of getting through and explaining their existence and then knock me out with the price.
“What if I don't offer?”
“We will show you the way out.”
“I'll come back.”
“And we'll show you the way out
again.”
I was stuck. No way I could go back. There was a major stumbling block to go forward.
“I need to go to the cabin.” I wanted my will to make them take me.
“Say the words.” The little girl was back. “Say the words. Drop your pants and lay back on the ground. We will do the rest for you. We want you to be comfortable. We want you to enjoy it as much as we will.”
“Enjoy?” I could not believe I was talking about having sex with a child who appeared to be no more than eleven or twelve.
“Yes. During the sexual act, we share in your energy level and fluids and all the emotional state of the human condition. We actually like the human sexual act better than all the other entities we encounter. Your God truly gave you humans a special gift for enjoying the act.”
She was talking about God again. I was talking about God with a little girl who was asking me to have sex with her. This was crazy. My mind could not grab on. I was slipping away. I could feel it. I was losing control. My mind had decided I did not know what I was doing and was taking control and slipping away. What scared me most was that my mind was not considering Kathy. My mind was only considering me. It wanted me to be safe and in a place where things made sense. This was not that place. I could feel my awareness retreating into a dark, deep place in the back of my mind. It took all my strength of will to force myself to concentrate and reconsider things in the interest of Kathy's position as well.
Kathy had sacrificed herself to this … Aaron once to get home. I would have to make a similar sacrifice to this girl/woman to do the same. It was only right. I could not believe I was calling any of this right. None of this was right. All of it was wrong. It should not be happening to me and Kathy. But it was. I was a practical man for all intents and purposes. The practical thing was to assess the situation and make the best choice at the moment.
I forced my mind back to its preferred way of thinking. Practicality. That was me. Practical.
Kathy was at this cabin. The Keeper had her and I needed to rescue her from him, somehow. The only way to get there was through the mist of this entity. The price for getting through was to have sex with a little girl ghost. The answer was simple to reason out. Making my mind accept it and my mouth offer it was something else.