Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (39 page)

“Please…”

“But, listen to me carefully,” I continued,
struggling to keep calm. “We need your help. We’re trying to find
you right now, but we don’t know where you are. Can you tell
us?”

“I don’t know…”

“Can you tell me what you see?”

“It’s dark,” she replied.

“Okay,” I said. “Are you in a house?”

“I think so,” she sobbed. “They come down
stairs to hurt me.”

“Did you see the house from the outside?”

“No…”

“Nothing?” I pressed.

“No…”

“So much for that,” I barely heard Constance
whisper to Ben.

“Kimberly,” I said. “You have to help us find
you. Is there anything at all you can remember?”

“They’re arguing again…” she replied, totally
bypassing my question.

“Ask her who,” Ben called out.

“Who is arguing?” I asked, completely
forgetting the earlier exchange.

“They are.”

I sighed and quickly reformulated the
question. “Kimberly, can you tell me who is arguing with who?”

“Her…” she said. “He’s arguing with her.”

“Her?”

“Yes, her…” she moaned.

“Who is she?” I asked.

“The dyke,” she muttered. “He’s upset about
what she did to my face.”

“What about it?” I asked.

“He’s upset that she burned my face,” she
whined. “He keeps saying ‘You don’t hurt face.’”

“That must be why the torture stopped,” I
offered to Ben and Constance.

“If we’re lucky maybe they’ll fuckin’ kill
each other over it,” Ben mumbled.

“Ask her if she remembers hearing or smelling
anything that might help?” Constance whispered.

I relayed the question.

“Sometimes the music…” she told me.

“What kind of music?” I asked.

“Death Metal.”

I flashed on the driving thrum that had
accompanied the onset of several of my episodes. I’d heard of the
particular genre she mentioned, but was unfamiliar with it, that
was until now. It would seem that the angry music not only had an
explanation, it had a name.

I was just about to press her for more when I
heard Mandalay’s voice, noticeably louder than before.

“Watch it, Storm,” she instructed.

“I see ‘em,” he returned.

“Wait a minute… Is that…” Constance’s
frightened voice trailed off.

“What the fuck…” Ben sounded confused. “How
the hell did she…”

I turned to see what was happening just as he
exclaimed, “Jeezus H. Christ!”

The van violently lurched as he yanked the
steering wheel hard to the right. I fell sideways as I twisted,
crashing hard against the side of the passenger seat. The van
shuddered and there was the sickening sound of locked brakes and
rubber squealing against asphalt as we careened off the side of the
road. In the split second before we slid nose first into the ditch,
I caught a shadowy flash of what had just put us there.

Directly in the middle of Route 3, with a
single palm pressed stiffly out toward us, was a petite woman with
pale skin and long, spiraling, auburn hair.

“E
verybody okay?” Ben
called out, voice not quite frantic, but carrying a definite edge
of concern.

“Yeah,” Constance replied, nodding her head
vigorously.

We hadn’t crashed so much as we had simply
skidded off the road. The van was angled diagonally into a shallow
drainage channel, causing us to pitch forward and to the right. We
were shaken up, but that was about it.

The headlights were now cocked at such an
angle that they were shining against a grassy embankment. The
autumn-paled vegetation was now reflecting some of the light back,
bringing a dim luminance to the interior of the vehicle.

“Row?” he inquired.

“I’m fine,” I returned, pulling myself up
using the back of Constance’s seat for leverage against the odd
angle.

“So did everyone see that, or am I goin’
fuckin’ nuts here?” Ben was continuing to talk even as he braced
himself against the steering wheel and twisted around in his seat.
I could see in his eyes that he was searching for Felicity. I got
the impression from my friend’s sudden silence that he actually
wasn’t expecting to see my wife still securely belted into her
seat.

As soon as I had made it to my knees, I was
turning to check on her myself. While I wasn’t at all surprised to
see her sitting there, I was relieved that she didn’t seem to have
been knocked around too badly. Her heavy-lidded eyes were half
closed, but she appeared to be conscious and was even looking in my
direction.

“I saw her. She was…” I heard Constance reply
hesitantly, her voice tainted with awe. “But now she’s…”

“What the fuck was that?” Ben almost
demanded.

I heard the query but was otherwise occupied.
I scrambled over to Felicity’s seat and gently touched her arm. I
wasn’t quite sure how to address her at this point, but I knew the
last person I’d spoken to had not been my wife—in spirit anyway.
And, even though voices were being shared through the ethereal
connection, whether or not physical experiences were as well was
still a mystery. I hedged my bet and simply asked, “Are you
okay?”

“I’m fine,” my wife replied, ignoring the
chatter in the front of the van. Although her voice was somewhat
weak, her unmistakable Irish brogue was fully intact and thick as
ever.

“Felicity?” I asked.

“Aye, of course. Did you bump your head then,
Rowan? Who else would I be?”

I smiled for what seemed the first time all
day. “Nice to have you back,” I said.

She gave me a puzzled look. “You’re sure
you’re all right?”

“I am now,” I told her.

“Hey,” Ben called out again. “One of you
wanna answer me? What the fuck was that?”

“A glamour,” I answered without turning.

“Ya mean like that time when you made me see
a spider crawlin’ on my shoulder?” He referred back to a bit of
impromptu hypnosis I’d once used on him to prove a point.

“Pretty much.”

“What’s he on about now?” Felicity asked.
“What glamour?”

“Yours,” I replied.

She wrinkled her brow and gave her head a
slight shake. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s talkin’ about you standin’ in the
middle of the fuckin’ road,” Ben interjected sternly. “You scared
the shit outta me. You coulda’ got us all killed.”

“What?”

“You. Road. Swerve. Ditch,” he replied, each
word punctuated succinctly by a sharp gesture of his hand.

“Like I said, a glamour,” I explained. “All
three of us just saw an apparition of you standing in the middle of
the road trying to flag us down.”

“No wonder I’m so exhausted then,” she said.
“Although I can’t imagine why I’d do such a thing.”

“It’s good to see you haven’t lost your sense
of humor.”

“What do you mean?”

“So I guess this means we’re close, huh?” Ben
interjected with a huff.

“I’d say that’s a safe bet,” I replied.

“Close to what?” Felicity asked.

“Close to finding Kimberly Forest,” Constance
told her.

“How so?”

“Are you sure you’re okay, Felicity?” she
asked.

“I think so,” my wife replied, trying to look
past me. “I’ve a few pains I can’t explain, but mainly I’m
confused.” She unlatched her safety harness and pushed herself
forward. “Rowan, help me sit up.”

“I’m not surprised,” I told her, fumbling for
the lever and easing the back of the seat upward. “Given what
you’ve been through.”

“Aye, I had a seatbelt on which is more than
I can say for you,” she said quickly. “Now what’s this about being
close to Kimberly? Can somebody please tell me what’s going
on?”

“What are you…” I gave her a puzzled look as
my voice faded. “Felicity, do you remember anything that’s
happened?”

“Aye, we’re supposed to be going across the
river to look for Kimberly, and apparently Benjamin just ran us off
the road.”

“Hey, don’t blame me,” my friend instructed
then popped his door open. The key alarm hesitantly blipped and
then began a sickly buzz. “All right, since everyone’s okay, I’m
gonna check outside and get an idea of where we are.” Before
climbing out, he cast a glance back over his shoulder and directed
himself at my wife. “And you, stay put, will’ya?”

“It wasn’t actually her, Ben,” I offered.
“You know that.”

“That doesn’t make it any less fucked up,” he
replied.

Mandalay said, “Storm’s right, you guys. That
was too weird.”

“Yeah, I’ll give you that,” I said. “But
trust me, I’ve seen weirder.”

Ben continued, “Weirder or not, lemme tell
ya’, two of her is one too many, ‘specially if one of ‘em is in my
head.” He looked back to Felicity again and said. “Like I said, no
more hocus-pocus.”

That said, he pushed the door fully open,
climbed out, then carefully eased it back shut.

Felicity let out a frustrated shriek and
suddenly appealed, “Dammit, will somebody please tell me what’s
going on?”

“Honey, we’ve been in Illinois for better
than forty-five minutes now.”

“Really?” she asked, the look on her face
deeply serious. “Then where have I been?”

“Mentally? With Kimberly, I’m pretty
sure.”

She grew quiet and looked as if she was
trying very hard to remember. In many ways, I was relieved that she
couldn’t recall the last hour; because it was one I suspected would
be better left forgotten. I knew for a fact that it was a memory I,
myself, wanted desperately to erase.

She finally muttered, “I suppose that would
be why the glamour then.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking so.”

She pressed, “Then where are we now?”

“Route Three,” I told her. “A couple of miles
north of Two-Seventy.”

“Is that where she is?”

I nodded. “She’s probably close by. And,
judging from your little out of body display, I’d say VERY
close.”

She started up out of the seat. “Then we have
to go get her.”

“Slow down,” I told her, leaning forward and
gently pressing her back. “We’re working on it.”

She looked back at me and suddenly furrowed
her brow. “Let me see your face.”

“What?”

“Let me see your face,” she repeated. “What
happened to your cheek?”

I reached up and touched the burn, wincing
slightly as my fingertips came in contact with the blistered flesh.
At this angle it was hidden in the shadows, but when I had leaned
forward she had apparently noticed the blemish.

I turned so that she could see it, then said,
“Same thing that happened to yours and Kimberly’s”

Felicity mirrored my motion, gently pressing
around the wounds on her own face. She closed her eyes and let out
a pained sigh. “Gods…”

“I know, honey,” I said. “But it just may be
the thing that buys us enough time to get her out of there
alive.”

“How?” she asked sullenly.

“For about the past ten minutes, Kimberly
Forest has been speaking through you,” I replied.

Before I could go on to recap the
preternatural conversation, the driver’s door of the van opened
with a pop and a groan. A moment later, Ben climbed back into his
seat and pulled the door shut.

“Okay, looks like we’ve got a farmhouse about
fifty or so yards off the road,” he told us. “Lights are on, but
that’s all I can really see at this distance.”

“Nothing else?” Constance asked.

“Nada.”

“So where does that leave us?” I asked.

“Pretty much nowhere,” Ben replied.

“There’s nothing we can do?”

“Legally, no.”

“But if Kimberly is in there…” Felicity
started, urgency now fueling her.

He cut her off. “That’s the problem. We got
no way to know if she’s actually on the property.”

“But, can’t you…”

“No,” he interrupted her again. “I
can’t.”

“Dammit, you don’t even know what I was going
to say,” she spat.

“Doesn’t matter,” he snapped back at her.
“We’re between a rock and a hard place.”

“Felicity, he’s right,” Constance offered.
“We need reasonable cause to enter the property. We can’t just kick
the door in like they do on TV.”

“I thought you could enter if you had a
suspicion that someone’s life was in danger,” I said.

“We can,” she replied. “But we don’t have
that, not a reasonably explicable one anyway.”

“Well, can’t you call someone and get a
search warrant or something?” my wife appealed.

“Again, based on what?” Ben asked,
turning in his seat to look back at her. Then he added, “Like I’ve
told ya’ before, the
Twilight Zone
stuff ain’t gonna cut it.”

“If I remember correctly, you’re the one who
asked us to help this time,” she snipped.

“Yes I did,” he returned. “And I’d freakin’
do it again.”

“Then listen to me!”

“I am, but what happens if we get in there
and they’ve moved her?”

“They haven’t.”

“You got physical proof?”

“I know they haven’t.”

“I wish that was good enough, but it ain’t.
Look, we just gotta be sure we can make it stick, okay?” he
explained.

“Then what do we do?” I asked.

Ben puffed his cheeks and blew out a hard
breath. “We try ta’ figure out a valid reason for entering the
premises.”

“We could try ‘consent once removed’,”
Constance offered.

“Entry by deception?” Ben queried.

She nodded. “It’s weak, but it might
fly.”

“Weak ain’t the word for it. We’re not
officially workin’ this case,” he argued. “Prosecutor is gonna want
to know why we did it.”

“Hey, it didn’t start out that way. We have
car trouble,” she replied. “It’s a true story. I go knock on the
door and ask to use the phone. I get in, look around, and we go
from there.”

“Yeah, besides the fact that you’d be lyin’,
even if you gain entry, what are the odds you’re gonna see anything
that’ll get us anywhere? Felicity… Kimberly… Crap… Well, whoever it
was said she was in the basement.”