Forsaken Repose: The Restless Dead (2 page)

Squaring her shoulders and steeling her resolve, Jenna looks down
at her son and announces, “We're going to your room. I'm going
to lift the box off the chair and then we're coming right back in
here. I want you to move quickly. Do you understand?”

When Bryce nods in agreement, Jenna takes hold of the door knob
and throws open the door. She only manages a single step into the
hallway before stopping suddenly as she realizes the floor is
completely dry.

“What the...?” Jenna trails off as she turns her head
side to side, her mind reeling.

“Mom?”

“We're going,” Jenna states firmly. Taking a few quick
steps, Jenna enters her son's room. Snatching the cardboard box from
the wooden chair with her free hand, Jenna then swiftly backpedals,
pulling her son along with her as she retreats to her bedroom.

Slamming shut her bedroom door, Jenna drops the cardboard box onto
the floor. Pointing at the box, Jenna instructs her son, “Get
dressed. We're leaving here as soon as you're dressed.”

“Why?” Bryce asks, looking up at his mother in
confusion.

“Something isn't right about this house,” Jenna
replies, casting quick glances about her bedroom. I'm not sure what's
wrong with it, and we're not staying to find out.”

Flipping open the box, Bryce pulls forth a long-sleeved shirt, a
pair of jeans...and the shoes he was wearing just before he went to
take a bath.

“How did these get in there?” Bryce asks, holding up
the shoes.

Shaking her head, Jenna tells him, “I don't know and I don't
care. Get dressed so we can get out of here.”

Lifting his shirt from the box, Bryce looks up at his mother.
“Where are we going?”

“Anyplace but here,” Jenna replies, helping her son
pull his shirt on over his head.

“Do we have to go?” Bryce asks, pulling his jeans from
the box and sliding in one leg.

“Yes.”

Bryce hoists his jeans, buttons them and then sits on the floor.
Lifting his shoes from the cardboard box, he looks up at his mother.
“We just got here.”

“And now we're leaving,” Jenna snaps. Looking down at
her son, whose lower lip quivers and whose eyes have gone wide, Jenna
says softly, “It's for the best. You'll just have to trust me.”

Bryce slips on both shoes, then stands and takes his mother's
hand. Jenna leads Bryce out of her bedroom and down the hallway. A
faint shuffling sound can be heard coming from behind the walls.
Stopping at the top of the stairs, Jenna peeks around the corner
before leading Bryce swiftly down the wooden staircase. The shuffling
sound in the walls follows them down the stairs and increases in
intensity, causing the walls to rattle. Reaching the front door and
throwing it open, Jenna prepares to race for the moving van.

Crows.

The porch, the railing of the porch, the yard and the roof of her
moving van all have crows perched and staring directly at Jenna.
Jenna slides to her left, and the eyes of the crows follow her. Jenna
slides to her right and, once again, the eyes of the crows follow
her. Slowly, Jenna lifts her foot in preparation to take a step onto
the porch. Suddenly, a mass of black-feathered bodies rush toward
her, squawking and flapping their wings as they dash in her
direction.

Slamming shut the door and throwing her back against it, Jenna
gulps in deep breaths as she tries to calm her nerves. The thumping
of avian bodies against the opposite side of the door does nothing to
help her in that regard, so Jenna fumbles in her pocket and pulls
forth her phone. After quickly dialing 911, Jenna's shaking hand
holds the phone to her ear.

“911, what's your emergency?” the operator asks.

“I'm trapped inside my house and I need help,” Jenna
exhales breathlessly. “I live at 1000 Deliverance Way.”

“Do you know who's outside your house?” the operator
asks politely.

“Just send the cops over, goddammit!” Jenna snarls,
before disconnecting the call and shoving her phone back into her
pocket. Jenna can still feel the door vibrate as crows slam against
it.

“Mom?” Bryce asks, backing away from the door with a
terrified expression on his face.

“We're going to be okay,” Jenna assures her son,
forcing a smile.

The pounding on the opposite side of the door comes to a stop and
Jenna pushes off the door and turns around slowly. Facing the door
but interposing herself between the door and her son, Jenna does her
best to maintain a calm exterior.

Several tense minutes pass before the sound of rapidly approaching
sirens causes Jenna to rush into her living room, Bryce in tow, so
she can stare out the window. The crows fly off at once, a mass of
black bodies racing not up into the sky, but off into the woods
surrounding the house.

Dashing to her front door and flinging it open, Jenna drags Bryce
out of the house, across the porch and into the front yard.

The police cruiser rolls slowly along the long, dirt driveway and
stops in front of the house, just behind Jenna's moving van. A pair
of uniformed officers, neither of them over the age of forty, step
out of the car. Jenna rushes up to the officer who climbs out of the
driver's side door, as he appears slightly older than the other cop,
leading Jenna to assume he's the senior officer.

“I need to leave here...right now!” Jenna demands.

“Calm down,” the officer tells her, looking up at the
house. “Tell us what's going on.”

“There is something inside that house and me and my son are
leaving right now,” Jenna explains, her tone as strained as her
patience.

The officers exchange suspicious glances before the officer who
exited the passenger's door walks around the car and says to the
other cop, “I'll go check it out. Why don't you and the son
stay out here while I take the lady inside and ask her some
questions?”

“Sounds good,” the other cop replies.

“Hell no!” Jenna exclaims. “I'm not leaving my
son.”

The cop who exited the passenger's door, smiles at Jenna. “My
name is Mike. I just need you to show me where the trouble is. Your
son will be out here, safe with Officer Nicholson, alright?”

“What the -” Officer Nicholson gasps. A moment later,
he's sent sprawling, face-first, onto the ground. Screaming and
clawing at the ground, Officer Nicholson is dragged underneath the
cruiser.

Mike drops to his hands and knees beside the cruiser and peers
underneath. Before he can act further, Mike is splashed in the face
by a gout of blood and viscera. Mike is stunned still for a second
before he gathers his senses and scrambles away from the car.
Shuffling backward on his heels and elbows, Mike quickly backs into
Jenna's moving van.

Jenna clutches Bryce close to her as Mike stares up at her in
total disbelief. In the next instant Mike is dragged violently
underneath the moving van, his torso thrown between his legs as he's
snatched backward by the belt.

Mike's screams of pain and surprise are cut off abruptly and a
torrent of dark blood and shredded flesh shoots out from underneath
the moving van. Jenna, unable to believe what's happening, stands
unmoving and mute. For a few seconds, the only sounds are the labored
breathing of Jenna and Bryce. Suddenly, the police cruiser shoots
into the air, spiraling once before falling to the ground and
crashing onto its side. The bloody, gruesome remains of Officer
Nicholson lie spread across the ground.

Jenna inhales deeply, preparing to release a terrified scream. Her
throat closes in shock as the moving van goes soaring into the air,
turning end over end before slamming into the ground. Mike's mangled
body is stretched on the ground in a pool of blood.

Jenna's arms lock tightly around her son and her mouth opens and
closes, yet utters no sound. The beating of dozens of black wings
grow loud as crows race from the woods toward the two fallen
officers. The crows descend on the corpses, jabbing their beaks into
the bodies and yanking out chunks of torn and bloodied meat.

A bone-rattling squawk near her ear as a crow rushes past her head
jolts Jenna to her senses. Were Jenna a stronger woman, she would
snatch Bryce off his feet and run off with him held tightly in her
arms. Instead, Jenna sprints, half-dragging Bryce behind her as she
makes a mad dash down the driveway.

Jenna is less than ten feet from the end of the long driveway when
a black, luxury sedan rounds the corner. Not breaking her stride,
Jenna races to the passenger's door and yanks it open. She shoves
Bryce inside the car, then falls onto what little of the seat is left
unoccupied by her son.

“What are you -?” the driver asks.

“Just get us the hell out of here!” Jenna demands,
slamming shut the door and then wrapping both her arms around Bryce's
shoulders.

The driver throws a quick glance over his shoulder before backing
swiftly out of the dirt driveway and onto the paved road. Dropping
his foot onto the gas pedal, the driver sends the sedan squealing
away from the house.

The driver looks at Jenna before turning back to the road. “Where
are we going, Jenna?”

“Anywhere but...” Jenna's words trail off as she
realizes the driver somehow knows her name. Staring over at the
driver, she finds herself looking at a man in his mid-fifties,
dressed in a dark-colored business suit and bearing a familiar face.
“Ian? What are you doing here?”

“I came to check on you,” Ian replies, smiling a
little.

“You came to check on me?” Jenna yells, causing Bryce
to flinch. Sliding a hand up and down Bryce's back, Jenna lowers her
voice and continues, “When you showed up on my doorstep to tell
me all about the house, you left out the part about something already
haunting it.”

“I didn't think it would move so fast,” Ian mutters,
furrowing his brow.

Jenna's eyes go wide and her jaw falls slack. Shaking her head
once, she slowly reaches for the door handle, only to have Ian press
a button locking all the doors.

Doing her best to maintain her calm, Jenna states in a low tone,
“Stop the car and let me and my son out.”

Any sense of cordiality Ian might have had instantly disappears.
He turns his head to face Jenna and fixes his glacier-cold eyes on
her. “You and I need to talk. Once you hear what I have to say
– every word – then you can do whatever you want.”

“I don't want to hear anything you have to say,” Jenna
shoots back.

“Not even about the boyfriend who abandoned you?”

Jenna regards Ian skeptically from the corner of her eyes. “What
do you know about Derick?”

“I know he's had more than a few girlfriends.” Ian
glances down at Bryce before looking up at Jenna. “Maybe we
should stop at this fast food spot up here?” Ian asks, nodding
up the road. “They've got a playground in there. We could eat
and then Bryce could play while you and I talk?”

Curious, yet suspicious, Jenna grudgingly accepts Ian's offer and
they make the drive to the restaurant in silence. Neither Ian nor
Jenna orders much, but Bryce orders a full meal and devours it
hungrily before being excused to run about on the restaurant's
playground.

Sitting sideways on the red, plastic bench, Jenna arches an
eyebrow at Ian. “So?”

After taking a final sip through the straw, Ian places his cup to
the side and answers, “Derick has had a bunch of girlfriends.
He uses women to have children.”

Scoffing and rolling her eyes, Jenna shoots back, “Derick
and I never had any kids. The only kid I have is the one he left me
with.”

“From his previous girlfriend,” Ian agrees, nodding.
“She didn't work out.”

Shaking her head and narrowing her eyes, Jenna asks, “What
are you talking about?”

“She wouldn't stay in the house. Derick needs someone who
can raise his son in his house,” Ian replies, leaning back in
the booth a bit.

“
His
house?”

Ian nods. “The house you inherited belongs to Derick.”
Shrugging, Ian adds, “Well, technically, the house belongs to
me.”

Folding her arms across her chest, Jenna huffs, “You're not
making sense.”

“I'm Derick's son. One of them, at least.”

Jenna bites her lower lip and shakes her head violently back and
forth as she suppresses the urge to hurl at Ian every profanity she
knows. When she finally feels she can speak without being vulgar, she
jabs a finger in the air at Ian and hisses, “You're a liar.
You're a terrible liar.” Looking Ian up and down, taking in the
sight of the man in his mid-fifties seated across from her, she
continues, “You're probably twenty years
older
than
Derick.”

A deep crease forms in Ian's brow. “You still think Derick
is a person? After everything you've seen?”

A pit forms in the center of Jenna's stomach. “What?”

Ian is silent for a moment. Finally, he asks Jenna softly, “You
do
know that the thing in the house
is
Derick, right?”

“No...that can't be...that can't be right because...”
Jenna stammers.

“When you met Derick,” Ian interrupts, “didn't
it strike you odd that you two had so much in common? The same
opinion about politics and religion? The same interests? The
same...everything? You were targeted because you're related to the
original owners of the house.”

Her mind enveloped in a thick fog, Jenna can only grunt, “Huh?”

Waving a hand through the air, Ian says, “Let's backtrack a
bit. Back in the mid-eighteen hundreds, a family settled in the house
you now own. They invited members of their own extended family to
build homes for themselves in the woods surrounding the house. The
thing is, that big, extended family wasn't alone. Among them was a
long-dead ancestor who served as a sort of patriarchal figure.”
Ian points a finger back and forth between himself and Jenna. “You
and I know him as Derick.”

Her head spinning, Jenna can only ask, “But...who? How?”