Trapped (13 page)

“Yes, Natalie is alive and she is not hurt, at least not when I left her
,
” Beth mumble
d again, not looking at Carlos.

“Who is after her?”

“I wish I knew. I am only a young school girl. I have no knowledge of this world I am b
eing forced into
,
” Beth raised her voice only slightly.

“What world are you being led into?”
Carlos continued questioning her.

“Another world, not the one you live in, not the one I live in but another one. One where I
shouldn’t enter, I
can’t enter,
”
Beth explained as she continued to walk, staring a head.
Carlos was confused. I
s she talking about
dimensions?
He had read about them before in science fiction books but never really thought much about
it, since all the ghosts he
ever encountered
w
ere here
,
in his world
, or so he thought
.

“Is Natalie in this
other
world or is she
still here with us?” Carlos asked, although he f
eared
the answer
she would give him.

“
The last time I saw her she remained
here but I am afraid I don’t know now, I only hope we can find her. As much as you think otherwise, I love Natal
ie
, just as you do
. She is my best friend. I’m
frightened by Stella. She can make us do things just by thinking it. I did
my best to protect her. I tried
Carlos, I tried
,
” Beth was starting to pick up her pace as
she
talked. Carlos
knew they were getting closer.

Beth cam
e to a sudden stop. The boys
stopped at exactly the same time
too
. Carlos and Hayden didn’t. They ran towards the opening in the woods.
Natalie’s coat was hanging on a tree. As soon as they reached it they realized im
mediately that she wasn’t there
and hadn’t been for some t
ime.

“I left her coat here to mark the spot where I left her. Something else has been here. I don’t kn
ow what, but it isn’t one of us,
” Beth
said as she
looked
into the woods, expressionless.

“What do we do now?” o
ne of the boys asked.
Hayden searched around the area. He didn’t see any other
signs
that Natalie may have been
there.

“It doesn’t look like there has bee
n a struggle. Maybe Natalie ran
away
,
”
Carlos
said as he
looked past the fir
st set of trees and saw a path.

“
Let’s
keep going.
Maybe she had
a head start,” h
e said hop
in
g that something would turn up.

As they ran down the trail they came towards a dirt road. Hayden and Carlos walked side by side, ignoring the invisible group they were in. Hayden stopped a few yards from the first farm house they came to. He looked down at the dirt ro
ad and studied the foot prints.

“I know the
se are from Natalie
’s shoes, I bought them for her,” h
e said excitedly. Carlos smiled as they picked up their pace.
As they approached the farm house they noticed the yellow po
lice tape. Hayden felt his heart
stop
. Carlos ran towards the house.

“It’s the Johnston farm house,” Carlos announced.

“Natalie! Are you in
here Natalie?” he
shouted. Hayde
n ran in
behind him. In their
fear of finding Natalie dead the
y lost control of their senses.

Beth stood in the living room as
they entered
. She was talking to the
farmer. Carl
os knew immediately that he
recently died
. Hayden ran through the house, completely missing the farmer
’
s wife sitting in the window seat
in the upstairs bedroom, looking out the window in
t
o
the
woods. As Hayden ran
ba
ck downstairs and entered the living room, he stopped abruptly
as Carlos
lifted his hand
for him to stop.

“He told me Natalie left
,
” Beth whispered.

“When was she here and w
h
ere did she go? What direction
did she leave in
?” Hayden shouted at the far
mer. He act
ed
a little
surprise
d that Hayden
could se
e him so clearly.

“She ran away when the police arrived. She thought she would be blamed for our murder
s
,
”
h
e replied.

“Who else is dead?” Carlos asked.

“My wife is upstairs. She is af
raid of me. She won’t come down,” h
e
said with a grin.

“Where did Natalie go?” Hayden asked c
almly. He knew that this ghost w
ould be
come hostile if he wasn’t careful
.
He understood
as quickly as Natalie did, that h
e
murdered his wife
.

“She ran back into the
woods. My wife was watching
her, b
ut th
en she disappeared. The police stayed
here for hours. I didn’t want to leave but my wife did. She is back if you want to ta
lk to her. She is just upstairs,” h
e pointed up
. Carlos didn’t trust him
but they needed to talk to
his wife
, just in case she saw something
.

“Beth, can you stay here with the boys, bri
ng them in and wait for us here,
” Hayden told her. The boys quickly entered the house and crowded arou
nd Beth. The farmer watched
them enter his house
, surprised by the number
.
He quickly backed up and sat in his chair in the corner
,
as he continued to watch
them.

The stairs
creaked
as Hayden and Carlos
ran up. Once they reached the top they focused on findin
g the
other ghost
.
Hayden felt the air change as h
e
walked back into the room he ran through earlier and pulled back the
curtain by the
front
window. She sat
on the roof
of the front porch
.
The o
pen,
window seemed
odd since she would have been able to go through it. He smiled realizing that she probably hasn’t grasped the fact
that she is a ghost yet.

“Hi. My name is Hayden. Can I talk to you about a girl tha
t was here earlier, a girl named Natalie?
”

“You can see me?” she asked.

“Yes mam. C
an we talk?” Hayden persevered.

“The police ignored me. They wouldn’t listen to me when I t
ried to tell them what happened,” s
he babbled on. Carlos was getting impatient.
Hayden held his hand up to him.

“I will tell them what happened after you tell me w
h
ere Natalie went,
”
Hayden persisted.

“
She didn’t stay long. She
seemed
frightened
by something
. She washed the
cupboard
handles
after getting a drink
then she washed
her glass. She left before I could find her a coat. All she asked for was
a coat, she
just asked for a coat. I was
so
surprised to see a strang
er in my house. I moved a
little
too sl
o
w I suppose
. Then my husband went and
gave
her such a fright. She went white as a ghost an
d she ran away into those woods,
”
she said as she pointed
to the woods they just came from.

“Do you hav
e any idea what time it was when she came here
?” Hayden asked as calmly a
s he could. He wondered what
scared Natalie so much. It couldn’t have been the fact that
they were
ghost
s. Or the fact that he is
a murderer. It
may have
brought back the memory
of her father
and
he knew that
would
just
have infuriated her, not frightened her
. Possibly it brought back memories of her mother
’
s dea
th. Or possibly Mr. Johnston kno
w
s
what
demon
is chasing
her
and
he
told her
so
.

“At
ten
thirty she entered my house
, bec
ause I
had just
sat down for
my
mid-morning
tea,
”
t
he lady continued.

“It’s bee
n
eight
hour
s
. Let’s go while we still have
some daylight left,
” Carlos ordered, feeling frustrated by their lack of information.

“I sa
w something go after her Hayden,” s
he whispered as she
continued to
stare
in to the woo
ds.

“Who went after her?” he asked,
frightened now.

“What went after her
is the question you should be asking.
It wasn
’t human. It wasn’t dead either
it was
something
dark
er
. It appeared to be
a dark cloud that
followed her in to the woods,”
s
he shuddered then closed her eyes.

“Thank you
,
” Hayden said
as they raced out of the room.
Downstairs, Beth stood
surrounded by th
e boys but the farmer wasn’t there.

“
Where did he go?” Carlos asked.

“He
went outside,
”
one of them replied.
Hayden ran out the front door and stopped on the
first step of the
porch. The farmer stood
in the fron
t ya
rd holding a shovel. He must have dug this hole
before he di
ed. He placed his gun in it
and then began to try
and
fill it with dirt
.

“Why is he doing that
?” Hayden
asked Carlos as they walked by
him
.

“I don’t know,
”
Carlos replied as they stopped and looked bac
k
at the farmer. He stopped
shoveling
and leaned on his shovel, looking
up at the sun as it began
to make its decent.

“It’s the eyes. They are watching us. I wish they would just come and take me. I c
an’t stand the waiting
. Don’t
worry about your little friend
, Natalie. S
he is safe from the eyes. She is hidden
from their sight still
, but
her demon is
looking for her
and when it
find
s
her
she will
be completely lost to you
. Ev
en one of your ghost friends that chased her here is
afraid of her demon
,
”
t
he farmer
warned as he continued burying his gun
.