The Suicide Forest (The River Book 5) (14 page)

“I want you to start collecting them,” Roy said. “After we’re
past this mess, I want you to make your own batch and see how it works.”

“Then I can try a good vodka instead of this shit,” Steven said.

Roy glared at him again, then softened. “I improved my
father’s formula, so you will too. But wait to do it until we’re in a risk-free
situation. Don’t mess with what works when we’re in the middle of the shit.”

“Makes sense,” Steven said. He picked up the bottle and held
it up to the light. The liquid was clear; he couldn’t see any particles in it.

“Everything dissolves completely,” Steven noted.

“That’s the Popov,” Roy said. “It’ll eat through anything.”

◊

“It was bound to happen,” Eliza said. “And it’ll happen
again. You’re going to run into a lot of strange things as you return these
books, Roy. You’ll see a lot of things you normally wouldn’t run into.”

“I suppose,” Roy said. “But I’m sure you run into lots of
strange things down in California with your barrier, no?”

“Oh, I do,” Eliza said, smiling at him. Her wildly chaotic
hair was even more wild, having survived the plane flight from Sacramento. She
leaned back into the sofa at Steven’s house and sighed. “Sometimes I’m amazed
at the characters that try to dig things up inside the barrier. I wasn’t sure
if you were prepared for the variety of characters you might run into, that’s
all.”

“Comes with the territory, I guess,” Roy said.

“Are we allowed to talk openly about your barrier here in my
house?” Steven asked. “I have a few questions. I don’t want to violate my
oath.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Eliza said. Steven and Roy had
taken an oath to not reveal anything about Eliza’s work in California, and he
wasn’t sure if he could discuss it openly in front of her given their current
circumstances. “We shouldn’t discuss California unless we’re in a protected
area where others couldn’t overhear us. I’m guessing your house isn’t
protected, in light of the recent demon appearance.”

“Not to mention Ben’s death here,” Steven said. “My house is
probably still full of bad mojo.”

“You should consider getting it professionally cleaned when
this is over,” Eliza said. “I know some good people who could do it for you
that are experts. They can tell you right up front if they can do it, or if
your house is beyond hope.”

“Really?” Steven asked. “Beyond hope?”

“It’s rare,” Eliza said, “but some houses are. They’re better
off torn down. They can tell you. In the meantime, I can institute a temporary
protection. It’ll only last a short while, and we’ll have to converse in the
River in order for it to be private.”

“Let’s do it,” Steven said, closing his eyes. Soon he slipped
into the flow, seeing both Eliza and Roy. He glanced around the house, looking
for signs of trouble or the demon from last night. Everything looked normal.

Within a few moments, Steven felt that the consistency of the
flow around him had changed. He saw Eliza open her eyes, and they started
communicating.

We’re OK to talk now?
he thought.

Yes
,
she thought back.
We’ve got a short while to talk openly.

I wanted to ask you about demon fighting in general, given
your operation in California. What do you think of our plan? Do you think it
will work?

What I’m doing in California,
she thought,
is a little different
than this. The demon buried there has been underground for centuries. It was
buried by others; I don’t have any direct experience with how they
incapacitated it enough to bury it. The people I work with now are all focused
on keeping people away from it – that’s one of the reasons for the barrier.

As if it could be set free, if someone could get at it?
Steven thought.

Yes,
Eliza thought.
Exactly. So my experience has been all about that.
I’ve never had to face the thing directly, since that work was accomplished
years ago. As for your plan, I can only guess that the book you’ve got here is
correct. It seems consistent with other things I’ve read about demons. I know
they can be shocked, I’ve heard of people doing it. But I’ve never done it, and
I’ve never seen it done.

I wonder if there’s a way to bury Aka Manah
, Steven thought,
the same way
that your demon was buried years ago?

It was done by people with greater knowledge than I,
Eliza thought.
It might have been
a whole team of people who had been trained for generations to fight it. They
might have been executing a huge plan. I don’t think we’ve got that kind of
firepower here. If your plan is enough to put Aka Manah off so he moves on to
easier targets, you should go with it. It’s something we might be able to
achieve. I don’t think any of us has the expertise or ability to actually kill
or bury it. We’ll have to stop talking about the California demon now, I can’t
keep the protection going much longer.

Steven let himself slip out of the River and soon Roy and
Eliza joined him. He felt a sharp pain shoot down his back; the exit was more
painful than normal.
Maybe because of the protection Eliza was using,
he
thought.

“Where did you want to do this?” Eliza asked.

“Well,” Roy said, “maybe you’ve heard of this place in Japan,
it’s a forest at the foot of Mt. Fuji. People go there to commit suicide by the
hundreds. The tops of the trees form a canopy that makes it hard to know where
you are, so it’s easy to get lost. Years ago the Japanese would abandon their
elderly there to die. The ground is riddled with holes into the earth, a result
of volcanic flow. It’s said the place is a home to demons, because of the
deaths and because of the holes.”

“Japan is a long way away,” Steven said.

“What many people don’t know,” Roy said, “is that there’s an
American equivalent, right here in this state.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Steven said.

“That’s because the authorities quashed it before it could
become popular, like the one in Japan,” Roy said. “The Japanese try to
discourage people from killing themselves in that forest, but it’s become too
well known to suppress. There are signs encouraging people to remember their
families, contact help lines, that kind of thing. When people began to kill
themselves in the forest here in Washington state years ago, the state
government kept it quiet so it wouldn’t become an attraction.”

“Where is it?” Eliza asked.

“It’s just like Japan,” Roy said. “It’s a forest at the base
of Mt. Rainier. It’s got a canopy that makes it easy to get lost, and the
ground is full of volcanic holes. Hundreds of people died there more than forty
years ago. It’s east of Eatonville. It’s had the same reputation for demons as
the one in Japan, to those of us who know about it. I can’t think of any other
place close by where a demon would be more comfortable.”

“So we go into this forest,” Eliza said, “and set up our
trap.”

“Essentially,” Roy said. “We’ll take camping equipment, since
it might take a while to work. I’m going to rig two large mirrors that we can
raise with ropes. All we have to do is get the demon between them when Steven
is ready to perform the amplification.”

“Can I see them?” Eliza asked Steven. “Your markings?”

“Sure,” Steven said. “Let me get the glass.”

Steven walked into his bedroom and retrieved the planchette
he’d brought back from Eximere. He showed it to Eliza.

“Oh, I remember seeing this!” she said as she took it from
his hands. “These markings are quite beautiful.”

Steven held out his hands, and Eliza held the glass up to
them and looked through it.

She tried to suppress her surprise, but Steven could see her
suck in air as she got a glimpse. He waited for her to say something, but she
didn’t. She moved the glass closer to his hands, really examining the detail.
After a minute, she stopped looking and leaned back. She handed the planchette
back to Steven and looked up at him.

“Wow!” she said, and smiled. “You’re special! But we knew
that already.”

“I don’t know why I have them,” Steven said.

“It’s something you’re born with, right?” she asked.

“I think so,” Steven said. “Have you ever met anyone with
them before?”

“No, never,” she said, and smiled at him. If he felt any
concern that the marks might somehow change their friendship, her smile put it
to rest. “So, demons avoid you because of them?” she asked.

“That’s what I was told,” Steven said, “and it’s what seemed
to happen at June’s house. Somehow I made myself ‘intriguing’ to Aka Manah
during this whole process and they don’t seem to repel him like the others.”

“Well,” she said, “repelling demons seems like a good thing
to me. Sounds like they’re useful.”

“Unless the demon wants to cut them off,” Roy said, “as a
trophy. Not so useful then.”

“When do we go to the forest?” Eliza asked.

“Tomorrow,” Roy said. “I have a few more things to pick up in
the morning before we go. We should be able to get set up by the afternoon,
well before it gets dark.”

“Alright,” she said. “What will you want me to do?”

“Well,” Roy said, “we’re hoping we can set Steven out, like
bait. The demon should feel comfortable there, and we’re hoping it’ll approach
him.”

“What if it doesn’t?” Eliza asked.

“I’ll try to invite it, somehow,” Steven said.

“How?” she asked.

“The book said that openings are mainly mental,” Steven said.
“I’ll try to trance or at least concentrate on inviting it.”

“And then what?” she asked.

“I’ve built the mirrors on hinges,” Roy said. “We’ll cover
them with leaves. As soon as the demon is between them, Steven can perform the
amplification and we’ll raise the mirrors with ropes. If he gets a good enough
shock, he should back off for good.”

“That is according to the book,” Steven said. “Provided it
works.”

“It’s too bad we can’t run the plan past an expert,” Eliza
said.

“In a way, this plan has come from an expert,” Steven said.
“Judith gave me the book. I think she knew I’d come across the interior book. I
don’t know why she didn’t just tell me about it.”

“Since it took your markings for it to manifest,” Eliza said,
“she must have known you’d figure it out. And perhaps it’s important to keep
the information as secret as possible?”

“Who knows with that nut job,” Roy said.

“I don’t know any other experts,” Steven said. “Dixon seemed
to think she was the best around.”

“I’ve heard of her,” Eliza said. “She was a big deal years
ago. Haven’t heard much about her recently though.”

“I think she’s retired,” Steven said. “Every time we saw her,
she was resting on a day bed. She hardly moved.”

“Do you trust her?” Eliza asked.

“I don’t,” Roy said.

“I think I do,” Steven said. “She steered us in the right
direction with Evie. And she’s been right about a lot of what’s happened. She’s
probably right about this.”

“OK then,” Eliza said. “Let’s hope you’re right.”

By noon the next day they were in Roy’s truck, traveling east
of Eatonville on a small road through the national forest. Steven was
navigating from an old faded map that Roy handed to him, a red ‘X’ penciled on
it.

“How did people ever get to this?” Eliza said. “It seems so
remote. I can’t believe anyone would even try.”

“It was easier to get to back then,” Roy said. “The forest
service has cut back on the number of roads in here and made it hard to pull
off to the side. There’s nothing but a deep ditch down there,” he said,
pointing to the edge of the road.

“They used to send out patrols,” Roy said, “back when people
would come out here. They wanted to remove the bodies before wild animals drug
off the remains. It wasn’t hard to do, practically no animals come into this
part of the forest. Don’t know if it’s because of the ground itself, the
demons, or what. But the bodies would stay hanging in trees for weeks until
someone cut them down.”

“Hanging?” Steven asked. “That’s how they’d do it?”

“It was the main method,” Roy said. “It was the surest way to
do it. If you didn’t snap your neck, you’d eventually strangle to death. Sure,
people would shoot themselves, or try to overdose on something. But those
methods didn’t always work, not unless you put the gun in your mouth, which
most people can’t bring themselves to do.”

“It’s got to be around here, on the left,” Steven said. “Your
red ‘X’ is off the road in this area.”

Roy drove the truck until he found a pull off, and parked the
truck about two hundred feet off the main road. “That’s far enough it shouldn’t
catch a ranger’s eye,” Roy said. Steven removed his handheld GPS from the glove
compartment and marked their location. “I hope that thing will work in there,”
Roy said. “The rumor was that a compass wouldn’t work. One of the reasons people
got lost.”

“Looks to me like we’ve got a good hike to reach where you’ve
marked,” Steven said.

“Come on,” Roy said, “let’s load up.”

◊

“Maybe people still come out here,” Roy said, holding a bit
of plastic tape in his hand. The tape stretched into the forest beyond him and
twisted out of sight.

“What’s that?” Steven asked, looking at the tape Roy was
holding.

“They’d use this to find their way out,” Roy said. “The trees
in this part of the forest are different. They spread out at the top to make a
canopy. Everything starts to look the same. You can’t just look up and see
Mount Rainer or the sun and have some idea of which direction is east. If they
got inside and changed their mind, they could follow this out.”

“Wouldn’t they remove the tape as they came out?” Steven
asked.

“Look,” Eliza said, “there’s another tape over there, heading
in a different direction.”

“I don’t know if they’d remove it or not,” Roy said. “People
are lazy. But I know I don’t want to follow one of these to its end. I’m pretty
sure they lead to something unpleasant. I’m surprised rangers haven’t cleaned
these up.”

They followed Roy as he followed the tape deeper into the
forest. He had a heavy backpack and was carrying several large planks, as was
Steven. “Watch your step,” Roy said. “The ground here can be full of holes. You
don’t want to get your foot caught in one.”

The trees around them began to all look the same, and except
for the red plastic tape running ahead of them, the green and brown of the
forest blended together.

“It’s peaceful in here,” Eliza said. “And beautiful. I guess
if you were going to go out, this is as good a place as any.”

“More tapes,” Steven said, pointing through the trees away
from them. “Over there.”

“Christ,” Roy said. “I thought this place was long forgotten.
Looks like some people still use it.”

Under the canopy it was dimmer and a little cooler. They were
higher in elevation than Seattle. Hiking through the woods kept them warm.
Steven trudged behind Eliza, trying to keep up. She was behind Roy.

“How much further?” Eliza asked.

“I’d say we’re halfway,” Roy answered. “The place I’ve marked
on the map was a clearing I remember from a visit here many years ago. We
should be able to set up there.”

“If there aren’t people camping there already,” Steven said.
“These tapes trailing off into the distance are unnerving, and they make me
think there must be people around.”

“Oh no,” Eliza said, stopping. “I think we’ve run into
someone.”

“Where?” Steven whispered, walking over to her.

“There,” she said, pointing upward through the trees to the
right. “About a hundred feet. Do you see it? I think those are legs.”

In the distance a body was dangling from a rope. The
unfortunate victim had climbed the tree some twenty feet off the ground before
tying their noose to a branch and jumping. It was far enough away that they
couldn’t make out anything but its shape.

“Christ,” Steven said, observing the image, unsure if it was
a body until he noticed it sway in the breeze. “Can you see if it’s a man or a
woman?”

Roy set down the planks he was carrying and removed a small
set of binoculars from his backpack. He glanced up into the trees. “Can’t
tell,” he said. “The body is too bloated.”

“Should we cut it down?” Eliza said, sounding somewhat
reticent to do it.

“Not right now,” Roy said. “We’ll report it on our way out.”

“I’ve been in some creepy places over the years,” Eliza said,
“but this has to be one of the worst. Everything is so quiet and peaceful, then
you run into that!”

“That’s the effect we’re hoping to recreate for the demon,”
Steven said. “Extreme reaction from peaceful to shocked.”

“So this forest is haunted with demons already?” Eliza asked,
looking around.

“Yes, that was always the reputation,” Roy said. “I remember
talking about it with my father. He said the holes in the ground combined with
the high levels of human misery and death were perfect for them. He told me to
never come here.”

“And here we are,” Steven said.

A mist began to develop in the forest, causing trees in the
distance to become fuzzy and disappear. Now they couldn’t see quite as far as
before. The effect heightened Steven’s claustrophobia and he swallowed to keep
his anxiety in check.

“I hope it doesn’t rain,” Steven said. “It’ll make being out
here even more miserable.” He stepped over a single tennis shoe, lying on its
side, partially overgrown with moss. He wondered to whom it had belonged.

Steven decided to drop into the River and see if he could detect
anything. The effect startled him – instead of a flow around him, there was no
movement in the River at all. Things had come to a stop.

“You might want to try jumping in,” Steven said to Roy and
Eliza. “Something’s wrong here.”

Roy and Eliza both stopped walking, and Steven saw them enter
the flow with him.

Boy, really wrong,
Eliza thought.
Nothing’s moving.

It’s like everything’s dead here,
Steven thought.

The trees aren’t dead,
Roy thought.
The forest is completely alive. I think the
River is just different here. It doesn’t move the same way. Probably why
animals don’t care to hang out here.

And probably why people feel compelled to die here,
Eliza thought.
It’s not normal.
It feels so stagnant, like nothing has changed in years, and nothing will ever
change. Just the kind of feeling that makes you depressed.

Come on, let’s keep moving,
Roy thought, slipping out of the flow and continuing
his trek.

Steven and Eliza dropped out too, and began to follow him.
After another ten minutes the tapes began to disappear. The monotony of the
forest began to make Steven feel tired.

“Here it is,” Roy said, emerging into a small clearing around
ninety feet in diameter. The sun was able to get through here, lighting up the
middle of the area. Steven looked up and saw little beads of mist moving
through the sunlight, reflecting and refracting the light as they moved. It
looked like the sunlight was full of a fine, powdery dust.

“Things are flat enough here that we can set up a tent and
our trap,” Roy said, walking to the center of the clearing.

“I can honestly say I hate this place,” Eliza said. “And I love
forests.”

“I know what you mean,” Steven said. “This is nothing like
when we dug up Samuel Stone.”

“Well,” Roy said, “that was a normal forest. This one is
abnormal. Demonic.”

“Hope we can get this done and get out of here soon,” Eliza
said.

“Let’s not waste any time,” Roy said. “Steven, give me a
hand. We’ll arrange these planks and the mirrors.”

“You’re going to need trees for the ropes,” Steven said.
“We’ll have to set it up just inside the periphery.”

They scanned the edge of the clearing. “How about over
there?” Roy said, pointing back towards where they’d entered. “It looks
relatively flat.” He started carrying the planks toward the spot.

“Sure,” Steven said, following him.

“I’ll get the tent going here in the middle,” Eliza said as
they walked off.

◊

Steven assisted Roy as he constructed the hinged mirrors and
arranged the ropes that would raise them from the forest floor. It was starting
to get dark.

“You know,” Steven said, “if Aka Manah doesn’t show up on his
own, I’m going to need to call him somehow.”

“Uh huh,” Roy said, trying to adjust a hinge. “Hand me a
screwdriver, will you?”

“Are you listening to me?” Steven said, retrieving the
screwdriver and handing it to Roy. “I’ll have to trance.”

“Yeah, so?” Roy said, taking the screwdriver. “No, no, no! A
Philips head!”

Steven rummaged through the bag of tools until he found an
old Philips head screwdriver and handed it to Roy. “So, I don’t know how to
trance,” Steven said. “You’ve never taught me.”

“Sure I did,” Roy said, fighting with the hinge. “When we
were dealing with Lukas.”

“I don’t remember being taught,” Steven said. “That seemed
more like an accident.”

“It wasn’t,” Roy said. “You tranced because you had to. You
knew if you didn’t, I’d be a goner.”

“I don’t get it,” Steven said. “When you trance, you imagine
something that extreme?”

“No,” Roy said, “the extreme situation helped to focus you
solely on what you needed to do. That’s all trancing is. Focus.”

“I wasn’t able to do it with the others at the Unser Estate,”
Steven said.

“What were you thinking about?” Roy said. “I’m guessing you
were thinking about the other people in the circle, how you were supposed to do
it, why it wasn’t happening, all that. Am I right?”

“Yeah,” Steven said. “That’s right.”

“You’ve got to be focused on the single act of entering the
trance and the purpose of the trance. Nothing else. When you tranced with
Lukas, you were focused. You need to have the same focus. Then it’ll start to
form around you, and you have to maintain the focus until the trance is fully
formed. If you stop and start marveling at it happening, it’ll go away. You’ve
seen it takes me five or ten minutes just to get calm enough to start it, and
it takes a couple of minutes more for it to be fully formed. Once you get to
that stage, you’re good. You can invite others in. Don’t rush it, just stick
with it until it’s complete.”

“Should I practice?” Steven asked.

“Sure, go practice,” Roy said. “I got this.”

Steven walked back to Eliza, who had finished setting up the
tent they planned on sleeping in that night. “Done already?” she asked as he
approached.

“I’m going to practice trancing,” Steven said. “Roy gave me
some pointers. I think I’ll do it over there, so I’ve got some privacy.” Steven
nodded to a spot away from the tent.

“Take one of the camping chairs,” Eliza said. “It’s a lot
easier if you’re comfortable.” She gave him a big smile.

Steven grabbed one of the chairs and marched off towards his
selected spot. He placed the chair down and looked around. Eliza was fifty feet
away in one direction, and Roy was about fifty feet in the other. He faced the
chair away from both of them, and sat in it.

OK, let’s clear the mind
, Steven thought.
What do I concentrate on? Not Aka
Manah, surely. The trap isn’t ready yet. I need something else to focus on.

He looked around. Directly in front of him was another twenty
feet of clearing, and beyond that, the edge of the forest.

I’ll focus on this place,
Steven thought.
Might as well understand my
surroundings. That’s probably how Roy does it when he trances at a new place
we’re exploring – he probably just focuses on the place, to see what’s hidden
within it.