Chapter Twelve
A call went out to the Sheriff's office. Less than an hour later, Detective Mercer once again stood in the campground. He had investigated the bodies found the previous year. He had also stayed outside the Mist and held vigil until John had returned with his soon to be wife in hand. He did not know the full extent of what went on inside the Mist but he knew that the story John and Kathy told was not the whole truth. He had been content to accept what they had given him at the time. He had no choice. But he still held a small desire to get to the bottom of it in the back of his mind. Tall Pines Campground was still a blot on his radar screen as well as his career, to his way of thinking.
John shook hands with Detective Mercer, renewing the relationship, this time without Kathy being around. The detective let John know that he noticed the missing Kathy, too.
“Sorry to hear about your wife,” Mercer offered.
“Thanks detective.” John answered.
“Any thoughts on what is happening here?” Mercer inquired.
“Confusion mostly.” John told the truth.
“Seems like a familiar scene to me.” Mercer was hedging for some inside information he felt sure John might be privy to. He did not suspect John of the abduction or the murder. But he had a suspicion that John knew more than what he would tell.
“Too familiar.” John gave him nothing. “You think it's some kind of copy cat?” He ventured.
The detective looked at John with a slight smile and thought about what John had offered him.
“You thinking it might be someone trying to revive old times around here?” Mercer asked.
The detective was running scenarios through his head. Missing child. Dead woman found behind her camper partially disrobed. All too familiar. Too close to events from a year ago.
Mercer didn't believe in coincidences. When things were familiar there was always a reason. This felt familiar. Child abduction in a place where known child abduction victims had been found. A place where bodies of sacrificed children had been unearthed. A place where a strange mist had hindered him and his men from searching the woods fully. A mist that John went into and then came out of after some kind of obvious struggle. John had brought Kathy out with him but no other answers. It was that lack of other answers that still tickled the edges of his mind and begged for completion.
“Could be.” Mercer admitted. He had seen strange things in his career. But copy cats were far more rare than television made it seem.
John held his position and his silence. He could only wait for a chance to enter the Mist and go after the child and Rita. He was sure that Rita was in the Mist, too. Maybe that was where the real trouble lay waiting. Maybe this was not the trouble. Facing the Keeper inside the Cabin again. That was real trouble.
Three Sheriff's deputies and two local police officers approached Detective Mercer where he was talking with John. The deputy in the lead was all business. He had been rounding up volunteers from the two departments because detective Mercer believed they needed to be doing something.
“There are five of us willing to go into the woods and find this kid.” The lead deputy announced when he got close.
“Flashlights?” Mercer asked.
“Everyone has one. Brought you an extra one.” The deputy seemed proud of the fact he had thought ahead.
“Give it to him.” Mercer indicated John standing beside him.
John looked at the detective with surprise.
“Hey, you're the one that found the girl last time.” Mercer admitted. “Thought you would be helpful this time, too. After all, this is your property. You know it better than any of us.”
John nodded slowly and said nothing. He didn't trust his voice to not give him away. Getting into the woods was exactly what he needed to do. He did not want to seem too anxious to get there.
The deputy didn't seem to think too highly of the plan but he nodded his ascent.
“Need us to get you another light?” The deputy wanted to fulfill his original plan to include the detective even if he was forced to allow a civilian into the search.
“No. I'll coordinate from the edge of the road. I can track your flashlights for a while. I'll be here if anyone finds anything. Yell out or fire your weapon in the air. Let us know where you are. Everyone has their radios, right?”
The officers all nodded, yes.
“You want a radio?” Mercer asked John.
“No, I wouldn't know how to use one anyway.” John answered, affirming the lead deputy's assessment of having a civilian along.
“Well, good luck out there, guys.” Detective Mercer released them to their duty.
John let them get in front of him and followed them along the road. Every fifty feet or so another officer went into the woods and headed east, deeper into the darkness of the woods, letting their flashlights lead the way. After the last officer disappeared from John's view he made his way deeper into the campground and found his place of entry into the woods. He shut off the flashlight and laid it against the backside of a tree by the road. He knew where he was going. A minute later he felt the tingling sensation of the Mist around him and saw the play of myriad sparks as he moved his arms through the dampness of the Mist.
“Kathy? Marcie? Emil?” John called out in his head.
“We're here, John.” It was Marcie.
“The child? Rita? Are they in the Cabin? Does the Keeper have them?”
“Yes, John. But there's more that you need to know.”
Suddenly a roaring yell erupted from the darkness and John felt himself being hurtled backwards. He felt a tree slam against his back and for a few precious seconds he could not understand what had happened. There was a loud stomping of debris and sticks and other things that made up the floor of the woods. The buzzing in his ears was like an electrical wire had come loose and was swinging around wildly threatening to electrocute him if he moved wrong or it flicked his way.
He shook his head to dislodge the muddy, murky feeling that was filling him up to the ears. Sounds came sporadically, like something was moving back and forth across his ears blocking them. The darkness was a maze of sparkling explosions of white light and red-blue colors everywhere. He recognized the excitement of the Mist reacting to someone moving amongst them but could not understand who was there. He felt the pain of the impact with the tree on his back but could not remember how the hurt had come to be there. He was on the ground but did not know when he had fallen. Nothing was making sense to his mind. It was like he had woke up inside someone else's body.
The roar filled his ears again and he felt hands grappling with his shoulders and pulling him upright. Immediately, he felt a shaking, vibrating pain coursing along his spine and down to his legs. It was like little electric knives fileting his skin back and revealing all his insides to the world. The pain served to quicken recovery of his senses.
Another shake of his head and his vision came back. The form before him was surrounded by excited sparks and a halo effect of movement within the Mist. John assessed he was being attacked. That kicked in his reactive thoughts of self preservation. The who and why could wait until later. The Keeper of the Cabin and two abducted people came to mind. Right now, all that mattered was getting free of this attacker. He could assess things later.
Shaking loose of the powerful grip the attacker had on him, John was reminded of his battle with the Keeper the first time. The Keeper had used air to attack him then. This was not air. This was solid whatever it was. Whoever it was.
Once loose, John slipped sideways and ran forward, deeper into the Mist putting distance between himself and his attacker.
“Marcie? Can you protect me from the attacker? Hide me?”
“No, John. The Keeper has commanded us to reveal all who are in the Mist to him.”
“Is it the Keeper who is attacking me?” John inquired while he kept moving away and deeper into the woods.
“It's not the Keeper, John.” Marcie answered him. “You need to be aware that I a
m limited in how much I can help you. The Keeper of the Cabin controls the Mist. You are connected. The more you are connected with the Mist, the more he may control you.”
“He can use my connections against me?”
“If he has control in those areas.” Marcie warned him. “You have got to concentrate on using the areas you have authority in and using that against him.”
“What areas?” John asked and then the roaring attack came out of the darkness again.
Flashing arms of movement reaching for him and knocking him sideways as he attempted to dodge left. The blow caught him in mid stride and thereby off guard and off balance. Again John felt the ground coming up to meet his side and brush against his face as his hands spread before him to soften his landing. Before he could recover fully, the attacker was again on him and this time he was pinned to the ground under an enormous weight that struggled to get control of him and turn him over.
John gave in to the attacker's desire to turn him and released himself to turn in the direction the attacker was forcing him. But he did not stop. When he felt the attacker had him where he wanted him, John continued turning until he had rolled out from under the weight of the attacker's body and gotten free. Standing immediately, John jumped sideways expecting another stab at him from the big arms that had held him down in the first place.
The brush of the attackers hands as they reached out for him but could not quite get a grip on his legs, left John with a tingling sensation of electrical proportions that signaled his brain of a spiritual presence. How was he going to get away from someone who was spiritual and solid?
He tried to peer through the darkness. Too dark to see anything clearly. He had to think fast.
The fight. Like in the Cabin that first time. He had to think quickly and use the planes against the Keeper.
“I'm not the Keeper!”
The shout startled John. Familiar. But not familiar, too.
“Who are you then?” John asked. “And why are you attacking me?”
“Surely it has not been so long since you last saw me that you have forgotten me, have you, John?”
John listened to the voice. The cadence of the words. The formation, the accent. The authority. No one he could remember with that specific tone of authority. He searched his mind for people he knew from his church days under his father. He had met many people who were in charge of many things back then. No one came to mind.
“Who are you?” John demanded. He was getting impatient. He had the Keeper to contend with. He didn't have time for twenty questions. “Why are you here?”
“I am here to kill you, John. As to who I am, that is the reason I am here to kill you.” There was an underlying pain in that voice this time. It had a slower, measured cadence. The voice was more familiar then. It sounded hurt. He knew that voice. But he knew it differently. Meek. Resigned. Shy.
“Paul?”
Immediately John remembered the dream where Paul was chasing Rita.
“That's right, John. It's me. You came between my wife and I and now you are going to pay with the ultimate sacrifice. You'll join us in the Sand.”
“Sand?”
“That's right. I made a deal with the Sand and now I supply them with the energies I collect. You got between Rita and me and that was wrong. She belongs to me. She's my wife.”
“That's a human plane deal, Paul.” John assessed.
“So? She's still mine. Until death do us part.”
“In the spiritual planes, deals are unbreakable without stiff consequence, Paul. In the human plane deals are only as good as the person wants them to be. She can change her mind and take back her words. She can ask to be unmarried. Besides, if you are of another plane, she needs a physical relationship to be healthy.” John thought of Rita running from Paul in her dream and calling out for help. He had no idea what it was all about, only that it looked serious.
“I am all she needs,” Paul said.
“You have to have an area of authority to force her back, Paul. You have no such authority in the human plane. It doesn't exist here. Only in spiritual planes.”
“I plan on bringing her into the Sand plane so she can serve me forever.”
“Serve you?”
“Of course. What else is she good for?”
“You're supposed to love her and want the best for her,” John reminded him.
“She's the one that stopped loving me. I gave her everything a woman could want.”
“Then why was she running away?”
“Because she could no longer control me like she wanted to do. Now I can control her and she doesn't want that.”
“You've changed a lot, Paul.”
“So I've been told a lot lately. For the better I think.”
“Rita doesn't think so?” John was guessing.
“She'll come around.”
“Where's she at, Paul?”
“The Keeper is holding her for me. We're going to have one last meaningful experience here in the human plane.” Paul chuckled in a manner not altogether humorous. “Then she will join me in the Sand.”
“What about her choice, Paul?”
“I'll make that for her. She doesn't know what is good for her. But when she looks into my eyes she'll know what she really needs. Me.”
Eyes? John didn't understand that reference. What was so special about his eyes?
Paul made another rush at John. John dodged and slipped sideways behind a tree using the trunk of the tree to block Paul making any adjustment and coming after him. With a few quick steps, John was several feet away before Paul could adjust and navigate the obstacle John had placed between them. John made his way toward the Cabin. He knew instinctively where it was. He ran toward the cloud on the horizon in his mind. He was sure the trouble lay there. And there was where Rita and an innocent child were being held. He was sure of it.
“Don't make me get angry with you, John.” Paul bellowed from behind him.
John pressed on. He knew that the fight, the real fight was with the Keeper. He did not know how he knew that. He just knew. Paul was a danger. That was certain. But he was more a distraction than the root of the problem. He knew that, too. Somewhere in his mind he focused on the cloud. Paul was not the cloud. He had to deal with the cloud first. Deal. That was the word. Deal.
John reached the Cabin and was about to lift the window and reveal the entrance when Paul attacked again. The crushing speed and ferocity of the blow pushed him beyond the grip of Paul's big hands, tossing him against the side of the old building like a rag doll being thrown by a child. He bounced. That was probably what kept him beyond Paul's grasp. Recovering before Paul did, John jumped to his feet and swung his leg in Paul's direction attempting to smash his foot into Paul's face. It was a fight instinct and nothing John had planned. Just a lashing out. His mind was tired of running. He wanted to confront the Keeper. Paul was between him and the Keeper.
John's foot slipped sideways off Paul's head, barely connecting. Paul made a show of dodging the blow, his movement taking him away from his prey, not towards it. John stepped back a few steps as Paul got to his feet.
“This is not going to end good, John.” Paul warned him.
“For who?”
John was tired of running. This was his land. This was his life. Paul may have some spiritual connection but so did he. He thought of a place he had rowed out to about a week ago. It was a rock outcropping at the end of one of the island strips that created all the beach areas where the tourists flocked to. The image of the place was fresh in his mind and he could easily imagine it. He had tried this before and it had worked. He connected with it because he had been there. Once he had the connection in his mind, he forced his physical body to lunge at Paul.
Flash. Or more accurately, absorption. A greater hole of darkness in the already dark woods. And the two men were gone.
On the other side of John's cloud connection, two bodies rolled out onto the rock outcropping in the dead of night. The moo
n overhead threw shadows of their falling struggles across the jagged rocks. A strong wind blew continuously from the water. Paul landed on his back as a result of John's attack. The sharp rocks and jagged outcroppings dug into his flesh and caused him to momentarily forget the need to kill John. The need to stop the pain took center stage in his mind. He had grabbed John at the onset of the attack but now released him to tend to the matter of getting up and away from the pain digging into his back.
With a loud roar, Paul stood erect and looked around, searching for his prey and wondering what had just happened. He was alone. He stood with the sea all around him in every direction. Waves lapped at the rocks only thirty feet away from him. He had no idea where here was.
“J-o-o-o-o-h-h-h-h-n-n-n-n!” Paul screamed into the air. “I'm going to kill you and you are going to die slowly, now.”
John returned to the Cabin before he had even fully let go of Paul's arm. He was hurrying and hoped he did not drag Paul back with him. He didn't think he could surprise him with the same trick twice. Looking at the empty space around him, he knew he had succeeded in moving Paul away from the Cabin. If Paul swam to shore it would still take him a while to figure out where he was and another long while before he could make his way back to the campground. John knew the fight with the Keeper would be over by then. One way or the other, it would be finished and he wouldn't care if Paul was back.
John moved to the window and raised it. Nothing happened. He shut it down and raised it again. Nothing. The Keeper must have changed the entrance.
“Marcie?” John asked for her presence in his mind.
“Here, John.”
“Why did you not warn me about Paul?”
“I was trying to, John, when he attacked you.”
“Did he kill someone back at the campground?”
“Yes, and he shared the whole of her energy with the Mist and the other planes involved here.”
“So the Mist is in a deal with him, too?”
“No. He is in a deal with the Keeper and Sand. Sand is the Keeper's new plane of existence. He does not have form. He has substance but not form.”
“How can that be?”
“He exists in the sand plane but does not materialize as such. He moves back and forth faster because he does not hold form. He can jump the planes quickly as he needs.”
“Convenient,” John thought.
“Also makes him very elusive.”
“And dangerous.” John added.
“He has no ties to the human plane without Paul.” Marcie assessed for him. “No deals of substance. He has his place at the Cabin because of his deals with Rock and Wood. His deal with Air still controls this section of Mist.”
“Paul's still around. I just dropped him off on an inaccessible rock island in the waterway.”
“I know,” Marcie answered. “What I am trying to say is that the Keeper's authority and power stem from his deal with Paul from the Sand plane. He can take what he can control, of course. That is a human plane characteristic.”
“Well, he's not taking my land. This is mine and I am the authority here.”
“Exactly.” Marcie stated.
“Exactly.” John repeated, claiming his land.
Then the thought built into an idea.
“That's right. I am the authority here.”
“Exactly.” Marcie stated again. “Now, you've got the idea and I didn't have to break any deals to get you there.”
“Marcie?” John started.
“Yes, John.”
“Would you have broken a deal to help me?”
“It was part of my plan, if it came to that. I was kind of hoping it wouldn't. But if it did, I was hoping I could convince the Creator of Life that I was keeping my deal with you and that the Keeper's deal was wrongly made.”
“Thank you, Marcie.” John was truly thankful. “And I would have gone before the Creator of Life to plead your cause, too.”
“It may still come to that.” Marcie announced.
“How so?”
“The Keeper demanded that we cut all connection to you with the Mist.”
“But we have a connection of our own. I am part of the Mist. You said so. How can he say one part of the Mist can not connect with another part?”
“He can't. Legally. But if you do not complain or can not complain, like locked away somewhere he controls, he can get away with it.”
“What's that mean for you, if I fail and he wins?”
“I'm afraid he can do whatever he wants with me, then. He'll control this section of the Mist plane.”
“Then we can not allow him to win.” John said it as a fact, not a boast or a false claim.
“I'm betting on you, John. Do what you do best.”
“Which is?”
“Out think him. Use the holes in his deals to break up his plan. To defeat you he can not kill you. He has to control you and he can only do that by keeping you in his area of authority somehow. If he kills you, you can choose to come into the Mist or to the Creator of Life Himself, since you have a connection with him since Kathy's situation. He'll keep you alive somehow. Then, he can claim the deals any way he desires.”
“I thought I couldn't choose Mist if I died inside the Cabin?”
That was before you had a relationship with the Creator of Life. He has the ability to send you anywhere you choose at your death, now. He will be one of those who gather if you die now.”
John nodded his understanding.
“So, how do I get in?”