Island of the Forbidden (9 page)

Chapter Fifteen

“Boy, Jessica has some appetite,” Paul said as they carried the dirty plates into the house. The little barbecue on the back patio had really hit the spot. Paul had also gotten the fire pit going even though it was early on a summer night. The whole setup reminded Eddie of harvest festivals in North Carolina in October.

“She does and there is no shame in her game,” Eddie joked, craning his neck to make sure she was out of earshot. Because of his misgivings about Paul, he made it a point to buddy-up to the man. In the past, he could have pried into Paul's mind as easily as opening a can of sardines.

He wasn't kidding when he told Jessica he was broken. Out here, especially, there was just too much psychic noise for him to center on any one thing. It was unsettling to think he was at the mercy of the horde of EBs congregating on Ormsby Island.

Just have to do things the hard way,
he thought, giving Paul a conspiratorial wink.
Or what the rest of the world would consider the normal way.

It didn't make things any easier that everywhere he went, he walked through the evanescent shade of a deceased child.

Why are there so many children here? Are Alice and Jason drawing them in? Is it Jessica? Or are they all trapped on the island? And if they are, what the hell went on here?

“I think I'll take Jessica out for a walk, try to burn off some of those burgers,” Eddie said to Paul after loading up the sink. Jason and Alice stood on little stools so they could wash and dry the dishes.

“Will you be back after we take our baths?” Alice asked.

He patted her head. “Of course. We have nowhere else to go.”

“Good. Then you and Jessica can read us a story.” Her smile nearly melted his heart. It was hard not to pick her up and give her a bear hug every time he looked at her. He'd never been this way with kids before. Actually, he'd never had much interaction with them.
Maybe my daddy instincts are waking up.

Smiling, he said, “I'd like that. You pick out the story.”

“I've got one in mind already,” Jason said, swiping a wet plate with his towel.

Eddie spotted Jessica in the yard. The sun was still out beyond the trees, but outside it looked like midnight. “See you two in a little bit.”

A large, though still childlike EB—he looked to be in his late teens—stood between Eddie and the door. He sidestepped the EB teen awkwardly and hoped Paul and the kids didn't witness his clumsy exit. There was something about the mass of that EB that made his unconscious mind think he couldn't just walk through it.

Getting weirder.

Jessica had put on a bright green windbreaker before dinner. He couldn't recall ever seeing her in anything quite so colorful and bright.

“Hey Gumby,” he said.

“Rag on the jacket, you better be wearing a cup.”

Unlike so many other threats she'd launched at him in the past, this one was said with a wry smile.

“Wanna walk for a bit?” he asked.

“That'd be cool. Is there anything you need to show me?”

He rubbed the back of his head. “Oh, how I wish I could show you all the things I see right now. Unfortunately, I don't have a pair of psychic glasses on me so you can look into the netherworld.”

“Like Roddy Piper in
They Live
,” Jessica said.

“What the heck is
They Live
?”

“Never mind. Eighties music, eighties horror movies. They're my thing.”

They walked side-by-side to the front of the house. The farther they walked from it, the more it felt like mid-summer at dusk.

“I don't remember you being this sarcastic,” she said.

“Yeah, well, I spent some time around this Long Island family a few years ago and picked up a thing or two.”

She gently elbowed him in the ribs.

“All kidding aside, what the heck happened here? I need you to come clean, now.”

Jessica stepped in front of him, studying his face. “How bad is it?” she said.

“I've never even imagined anyplace could be this bad. Jess, there are about a dozen EBs standing right behind you. And behind them are a dozen more, and so on. Everywhere I look, they're there. The worst part is, they're all kids.”

The world around him seemed to brighten as incorporeal bodies nudged closer to them. Hands reached out, touching Jessica. Blurred faces pressed against her legs.

“How do you feel right now?” he asked her.

“What do you mean?”

“There are five EBs touching you at this very moment.”

Her brows knitted, concerned. “Are you shitting me?”

“Nope. Others are joining in. It's like you're some kind of afterlife rock star.”

He knew she'd had several intense experiences, both being touched and physically assaulted by the dead. The power that she emitted gave any EB around her strength to draw on, allowing them the kinetic energy to interact with the world of the living, even if only for a moment. She may not have had his own gift of sight, but she'd been pretty damn good with discerning when an EB was present.

“I don't feel a thing,” she said.

“They must be too weak. If things go according to script, they'll siphon enough from you to make themselves known. Which brings me back to wondering what went down on this freaky island. I keep expecting Marlon Brando to walk out of the trees wearing a white kimono.”

Jessica looked around, hands splayed out before her, careful not to make any sudden movement that would startle the EBs. God, she was different. Eddie couldn't think of a single woman who wouldn't flinch after being told dead children were running their hands over her body.

“I might as well spill it. I know I don't have all the facts…yet. It's some pretty weird shit.”

“I kind of gathered that.”

They turned left at the darkened path, winding instead down what looked like narrow game trails through the trees. There wasn't much to the trails and no matter how far they walked, the Ormsby House loomed above them.

As they walked, Jessica talked. “Up until twenty-one years ago, Ormsby Island was a privately owned island populated by descendants of a wealthy self-made man named Maxwell Ormsby. They pretty much kept to themselves. The lavish lawn parties and blissful retreats for the rich and artistic that Maxwell had arranged ended a long, long time ago. He went from being one of the most important, influential and interesting people in Charleston to a seldom seen memory. The citizens of Charleston, who had once jockeyed for a chance to visit him on his island, had pretty much forgotten about the Ormsbys, they were so reclusive. Towards the end, it was said that the family money had dried up and the last male Ormsby, Alexander, was an old, sick, crippled man, counting his days.”

Eddie swatted a branch out of their way. It slipped from his fingers, swinging back and headed for Jessica's nose. It stopped in mid-swing as he held it with a quick burst of concentration. “Being alone and old out here is not an ideal situation,” he said.

Jessica stared at the unmoving branch. “I'll never stop being impressed by that mind of yours. You sure you can't teach me to do it?”

“You either got it or you don't. Continue.”

The moment she walked past the branch, his mind released it, allowing it to snap back in place.

“Well, the island suddenly made itself very known one night when a passing boat spotted a fire. They called it in to the harbor patrol and soon, responders were swarming the island. They thought they were just there to put out a fire. What they found was a pile of bodies within that fire. They were children. Ormsby's children. None of them survived.”

Eddie looked behind them. “The clearing the kids took us to.”

“I think it's safe to assume that's where it happened.”

“But you said Alexander Ormsby was an old man. How could he have so many kids? Better still, why? And where was their mother, or mothers?”

She kicked at a rock, sending it into a tree with a dull thwack. “No one knows. Autopsies revealed physical deficiencies in a good number of the bodies. They found Alexander in his room. He'd taken a lethal overdose. Police and fire officials couldn't determine if he started the fire, then committed suicide, but it seemed like a safe assumption.”

“Wait, he murdered his children?”

“All twenty-three of them. You wanted to know why the mothers were never found? People suspect he was having sex with his daughters the moment they became fertile. They were burned up in the fire. He gathered his shame in one place and scorched it from existence.”

“I think there's more to it than that,” Eddie said. “Urban legends couldn't make a dent in what really went on here. And how did I never hear of this? A mass murder like that would be major news.”

“Not so much a couple of decades ago before the internet and twenty-four hour news coverage. The keepers of Charleston did their best to bury their dirty secret.”

Eddie stopped. He leaned his shoulder against a pine tree. The bark was sharp, cutting into his skin. “The Last Kids,” he whispered.

“And now they're talking to Jason and Alice,” Jessica said.

“Jess, this didn't start and end with Alexander.”

Pale bodies filled the woods around them, phasing in and out of trees, shuffling through the underbrush without a sound. Many focused on Jessica, drawn by whatever power lived inside her. Others wandered aimlessly, limping, lurching wraiths gathering under a pink and purple sunset.

“This has to go further back. There were a lot of other children before the Last Kids. I'd say there isn't a plant on the island that hasn't fed off the remains of Ormsby children.”

As he said it, the EBs paused, as if to say
yessss, now you understand
.

The pain in his head flared up again. He turned from Jessica, vomiting on a pine tree, wondering if he could carry Jessica and the children on his back and swim them the hell off Ormsby Island.

Paul watched Jessica and Eddie walk back to the house, the skinny young man leaning against the girl with the New York accent, while the children brushed their teeth in the next room.

What a pair.
If what Nina says about them is true, things are about to get very interesting.

“Uncle Paul, we're done,” little Alice called out.

“Be there in a minute. Did you brush your hair?”

“Yes,” she answered in a sing-song voice.

“Jason, did you put your clothes in the hamper?”

“Uh-huh.”

Paul let the curtain fall in place. He hadn't bothered to turn the lights on in Daphne and Tobe's bedroom. Better to watch their guests without being seen.

He was about to tuck the kids into bed when the phone by Daphne's bedside table began to clatter. Tripping over his own feet, he clambered around the bed to pick it up before the second ring.

“Paul?” his sister's voice sounded heavy, her true southern accent coming through. That only happened when she drank. They must be having a good old time in the city.

“Who else would it be?” he snapped. As the day wore on, he'd grown more and more anxious. He hoped he didn't come across that way to the kids. He may have his shortcomings, but he loved Alice and Jason with all his heart.

Say it enough times and you may actually believe yourself.

Shut the hell up!

“Paul, we just ran across your friends at that tavern you told us about. It would have been nice if they didn't have so many televisions blaring every insipid sport known to man. You can't get away from them, even in England anymore.”

Paul's girth crashed onto the bed. He ran a heavy hand over his face. “Daph, I don't give a crap about the state of the modern bar.”

“You're no fun.” Her giggling sounded distant, as if she'd pulled the phone away from her mouth. “I just thought you should know that everything is in place. We won't be home tonight. And don't wait on us for breakfast.”

“Trust me, I won't.”

“We'll see you mid-morning. Give the children our love.”

She blew wet kisses into the receiver. Paul pulled it from his ear, disgusted. Stick-up-her-ass Daphne was about as much fun as the
Times
crossword. Tipsy Daphne irritated him to no end, especially tonight. He didn't have time for nonsense.

Swallowing the dozen replies he really wanted to say, he grumbled, “Fine.”

There was a pause, and he could hear animated talking in the background. She and Tobe must be in a restaurant. The clink of silverware on plates beat a steady rhythm. “You can sever this now. I won't be calling back. Good night, brother.”

He dropped the phone on the cradle, carrying it with him to the side of the bed. Ripping the cord from the wall, he stuffed the slim landline phone in a black garbage bag, tucking it between the box spring and mattress.

This was a part he didn't like. It made him feel like a jailer, or a kidnapper.

“Another sin, another string of Hail Marys,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. So much was riding on this. It could all blow up in their faces. If he was still a betting man, that's where he'd lay his money. Too many moving parts that weren't in line with one another.

Praying wasn't an option. God didn't have time for deceivers.

Chapter Sixteen

Jessica left Eddie in his room. His head was hurting bad enough for him to lie down for a bit.

She remembered the incredible headaches he got when they went toe-to-toe with the doppelganger and the EB of the suicidal pedophile in New Hampshire three years ago. The physical strain was incredible.

Later, when they were back in New York, she'd asked if that was the way it always was when he was in contact with EBs. She was glad he was honest when he said it had never been even close to that. Because of the energy she inadvertently fed lingering spirits, when he came in contact with them, it was like receiving a massive dose of feedback.

Yet another reason for her to tell him to get as far from her as he could. Of course, she could have been a bit more tactful back then, but it was too late to change the past.

She popped in to say goodnight to the kids. Paul nearly flew from his chair when she poked her head into the half-open door. He seemed…fidgety.

“You going to be up all night?” he asked.

“Not tonight. I'll roam a bit, but there are some things I want to do. It's the first night. It's better to just be quiet and get used to the normal sounds and feel of the house. I promise, Jason and Alice, I won't bang around like a clumsy bear and wake you up.”

The kids tittered, comfy under their sheets and quilt.

This is a good place to practice being Auntie Jess.
She waved her fingers at the kids and went downstairs. Her goal was to just sit in the center of the house and let it come to her. Nighttime was when houses settled. It was the best time to take those sounds in and file them away for when she heard them later. She didn't want to confuse wood groaning from a change in temperature with an EB trying to make itself known.

The stairs crackled behind her.

“I know, quiet time,” Eddie said. He looked much better than before. Although if what he said was true, the pressing presence of so many EBs wasn't likely to give him enough space to fully recover.

“I taught you so well,” she said. She dragged two straight-backed chairs from the breakfast room to the stairway that bisected the house. “One for you and one for me.”

“Thanks.”

A clock ticked in the great room.

Wood popped overhead as Paul left the kids room, presumably to his own.

Jason said something that she couldn't make out, followed by a loud shush from his sister.

“Eddie, can you hit the lights?” she asked, handing him a slim flashlight.

“What's this for?”

“So you can find your way back to your chair in the dark. You forget, not only are there no streetlights outside but even the moon is afraid to shine down on this island.”

He smiled. “The EB hunter rides again.”

Walking through all of the first floor rooms, he turned off each light until Jessica was enshrouded in pitch darkness. She spotted the little beam of light as he made his way from the breakfast room.

They sat in total silence, breathing through their mouths as softly as possible. Time was impossible to track during moments like this. Every small sound was magnified and catalogued.

Leaves swirling outside.

Refrigerator clicking on.

Wood floor settling.

She broke the silence, saying, “Eddie, it's going to get rough here, isn't it?”

Jessica was too shocked to react when he boldly reached out for her hand. “I don't know. I can feel them building strength. The kids are more of a fascination to them. You're the one that's charging them. The problem is, I can't tell what they're going to do with it.”

“Is there any way they'd harm Alice and Jason?”

He squeezed her hand. “No. These EBs are kids themselves.”

To her surprise, she squeezed his hand back. For the first time in her adult life, she realized she needed someone. And in a place like this, there was no one better to have than Eddie, even if he did say he was broken. “Jesus, what have we gotten ourselves into?”

He took a long breath. “Our fate. No sense running from it.”

Jessica and Eddie stayed as still as possible on the first floor for close to four hours. At one point, she caught her head from dipping onto her chest. The darkness was so complete, the house so quiet, it was hard to keep her eyes open.

Eddie was the one who snapped her out of it.

“No sleeping on the job,” he whispered with a soft chuckle.

“My internal clock is broken. After so many years prowling around the dark, I've settled into an early to bed, early to rise routine. I haven't been up this late since…”

There was no need for either of them to fill in the gap.

“I think we can call it a night anyway,” she said. “If anything weird happens, we'll be right here.”

He yawned, the chair cracking as he stretched. “I like the way you think. With any luck, I can actually sleep.”

She heard the serious doubt in his voice. Of course, how could he sleep when EBs were vying for his attention all the time?

“At least the EB kids here are quiet,” he said. There he was, seemingly reading her mind again. Her instinct was to grill him and reiterate her rule about staying out of her head. No, she trusted him. He had enough crap to worry about.

He continued, “They're so busy buzzing around you, I'm just a spectator. It's kinda nice.”

“Thanks for the imagery,” she said, carrying her chair back to the breakfast room. “It's nice to know I'll have them touching me while I sleep.”

“Scared?”

She huffed. “Hardly. I just hope they let me get a few hours in before doing anything to wake me up.”

For most people, those words would have been a complete bluff. Despite having experienced the paranormal at its worst and most dangerous, she was still more afraid of the living than the dead.

“Good,” Eddie said. “As much as I like the softer Jessica, I still need the old one with nerves of tempered steel.”

“Ha ha. Come on, we can really get cranking tomorrow, maybe find some names so I can help these child EBs on their way off this place.”

They crept up the stairs as best they could, still making a racket. Eddie retreated to the Yellow Room, saying goodnight and closing the door softly.

The tall bed in the Blue Room was too inviting to ignore. She quickly changed into a long Ozzy T-shirt over a Dokken shirt—layers were a necessity here—and tied her hair into a ponytail.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she said, “Blond? What were you thinking, Jess?”

It was funny how she'd spent years running from this kind of stuff. Now that she was back in the thick of things, she finally felt like herself.

She was tired but not enough to sleep yet. She'd listen to her playlist of The Cult and hope it would serenade her to La-La Land.

First, she had to unpack her clothes. She turned to the bed, eyeing her luggage. Lifting a bag with a grunt, she spotted her silver digital recorder resting against her pillow. The bag slipped from her fingers, hitting the floor with a loud thud. She tensed, listening for the sounds of the kids stirring. When enough seconds had passed to reassure her they were still snug in their beds, she walked around the bed and picked up the recorder.

It was ice cold.

“Is there something here you want me to hear?” she said to the empty room.

She knew she'd left it in the kitchen earlier. In fact, after turning it off, she'd intentionally kept it on the windowsill. She had a couple of spares and had decided to leave that one on the first floor.

Jessica rummaged through her knapsack until she found her noise canceling headphones. Sitting on the bed, she plugged the headphones into the recorder and checked the files. There was just the one audio file from her recording hours earlier.

I know you didn't bring this all the way up here just to be tidy. Actually, maybe you did.
A hard lesson she'd learned was that you could never know the intentions of an EB. In that way, they were very much like they'd been when they were alive. People and the EBs they became were unpredictable.

The light metal and plastic of the recorder was icy to the touch. In fact, it was so cold, she worried that it wouldn't work.

Her thumb pressed Play.

The sound was so crisp, she could hear birds chirping outside and the muted rumble of a motorboat passing through the harbor. She and Eddie's footsteps walked away from the kitchen.

Eddie had told her to turn the recorder on before they headed upstairs to look for the attic. He had a reason for it, even if it wasn't apparent to him at the time.

The kitchen was relatively quiet, aside from them walking about the floor above. After a while, even that stopped.

The recorder rolled on, capturing the silence with HD clarity.

To help her concentrate, Jessica shut out the lights. She'd found it helped sharpen her sense of hearing when her other senses were deprived of other stimuli.

As the recording moved forward, the static noise that filled silent gaps became deafening. She should have been catching more audio bleed from outside the house, but it was as if the room had been placed in a vacuum-sealed bubble. She checked the time of the recording and estimated she and Eddie would have been in the house walking around. There was no trace of them.

Maybe it malfunctioned.

Her audio recorders were top of the line and could even capture the sound of a moth's wings as it flew through a room. She'd never reviewed audio this long without capturing some ambient noise.

Could it be the Ormsby kids?
EBs generating a kind of sound repression was a rare thing, but Ormsby Island was a rare place.

Hunched over the recording on the bed, she closed her eyes tight, as if the mere act of concentration could force something to make itself heard on the recording. Eddie had said the Last Kids were quiet. Could this preternatural silence be their way of communicating with them?

Jessica was startled when the recording came to the end with a computerized beep that sounded like a shriek in the night over her headphones.

As much as she hated not having answers, that was part of the process. Sometimes, EBs had to get comfortable with you before they would interact. She contemplated listening to the recording again, opting instead to download it to her computer so she could run it through a unique program Swedey had designed for her to detect, enhance and analyze electronic voice recordings.

Settling back into bed, she thought about the Last Kids gathered around her bed, even now watching her as she gathered the covers to her neck. Without a fire, the room was ice cold.

I wonder if they're touching me now
.

“I'll see you all in the morning,” she said, turning onto her side.

A voice whispered in her ear.

“
Help them.”

It was not a child's. It sounded very much like a woman's voice. Or more accurately, several women speaking at once.

She bolted up in bed, flipping the bedside light on and scanning the room. Suddenly, the weight of the disembodied words and the ethereal hands pressed down on her, making it difficult to draw a breath.

How could she help so many?

Clasping her hands together, she prayed, asking for divine guidance to show her the way. She wasn't going to leave Ormsby Island until all of the children, alive and dead, were safe and where they needed to be.