The Hunter Chronicles : The Beginning

Chapter 14

I’m aware that I’m dreaming…

A young man with black hair and few piercings drives down a dark highway in the middle of the night. He is listening to some metal songs. He spots a beautiful woman with dark hair and a white dress walking on the side of the road. He stops to ask her if she was having car trouble. She turns to him and tells him to take her home. The man immediately agrees and she gets in the car with him. He asks her where she lives and she replies at the end of Hummingbird road. He nods and starts driving then asks her if she had just come from a party. She doesn’t reply. The man warns her that she shouldn’t be out alone at night. She looks at him and spreads her knees then pulls the dress up off of her knees and says that she isn’t alone that she was with him. The man grins and she leans over to stroke his cheek with the back of her hand asking him if he thought that she was pretty and if he would like to do home with her. The man smiles and tells her yes then starts driving faster. They reach an abandoned farmhouse. He stops the car and asks her if this is really where she lived. She tells him that she could never go home. The man gets out of the car but when he turns the woman is gone. He looks around frightened and walks up the five steps to the front of the door and peeks through one of the windows. Something suddenly moves in front of the window and the man screams and falls backwards. He gets up and runs to his car. He starts driving away as he looks in his rear view mirror he sees the woman in the backseat and screams.

I can’t see what happens next. I only hear his terrified screams and scream myself awake.

“What’s wrong?” Jared asks panicked holding me tightly against him.

“I had a nightmare and this one I can remember clearly.” I tell him what I dreamed about, he sits next to me motionless thinking I assume then gets up and grabs a laptop from the table.

“What are you doing?” I ask. Maybe he is going to google mental illness?

“I don’t think you’ve changed.’ He replies deep in thought.

“And how is the laptop going to help us?”

“I’m not sure yet but let me check on something.” He says and begins typing. I watch him search the internet but I have no idea what he is looking for.

“Got it!”

“Got what?” My diagnosis?

“Look.” He says turning his laptop to show me what he has found. There on the screen is an article about strange disappearances of both men and women stretching over twenty years.

I gasp, “It’s real?”

“Looks that way.” He replies lost in thought.

“Now what?” 

“We can always go and check it out?” He suggests.

“And do what?” 

“Help the humans.”

“Wait, are you saying we should kill whatever it is?” I ask in disbelief. Why?

“If we need to.” He replies staring at the article. “If it’s killing humans then they don’t deserve to exist.”

“Okay.” It’s all I can say I feel very uneasy about what he is suggesting.

“We will leave when the sun sets.”

I’m still not sure how I feel about this. 

                                                                                            ***

We reached the town a few hours later. He stops when we reach the bridge and see a few police cars with their lights on. “Have you ever acted?” Jared asks me with a small sly smile.

“No.” I answer wondering what his plan is.

“Follow my lead.” He says getting out of the truck.

I feel very nervous. What Is going to happen if we get caught?

Jared introduces us as out of town cops on a vacation. The sheriff buys his story which amazes me actually. Surely he can see I’m not old enough to be a cop. I glance over at the car parked across the bridge. The car looks exactly like the one I saw in my dream.

“There seems to be no sign of a struggle, the second disappearance in as many months.” The Sheriff says.

“Did you know the person that the car was registered to?: Jared asks.

“Yes of course. This is a small town. Everyone knows Jeffrey Mars. He was on the phone with his girlfriend but he told her he had to go and that he would call back later but he never did.”

“When was this?” 

“Last night.” The sheriff replies. I try to hide my shock. This happened  a day after I dreamed about it. How is that possible?

“Do you know if there is any connection between Jeffrey and the others that have gone missing?” Jared asks.

“We don’t know yet, maybe a kidnapping or a serial killer.”

“If you need any help just let us know.” Jared says extending his hand to the Sheriff. 

“Appreciate it.” The Sheriff replies shaking his hand. We walk back to the truck and Jared says, “We need to talk to the girlfriend.”

“This is weird, isn’t it? I had a dream and here we are.” 

“Do you feel up to it to let this one play out?”

I nod. I have to know where this is going.

We meet Jeffery girlfriend Crystal and her friend Sally at the only diner in town.

“I was on the phone with him and he told me he would call me right back but he never did.” Crystal says.

“Did he say anything out of the ordinary?” Jared asks.

“No.” Crystal replies.

“I like your necklace.” I tell Crystal.

“Jeffrey gave it to me.” She smiles and twists it between her thumb and finger, “Mostly to piss off my parents, you know, with all the devil stuff.”

“Actually it means just the opposite. A pentagram is protection against evil, really powerful if you believe in that sort of thing.” Jared says and the three of us just look at him.

“There was something strange about the way he disappeared so if you heard anything?” I ask the girls. They look at each other strangely. “What is it?” 

Crystal’s friend who is wearing even more black than she is says, “Well, it’s just with all the people disappearing. People talk.”

“What do they talk about?” I ask curiously. Could my dreams be able to help people?

“A local legend around here.” Sally replies looking at her friend briefly.

“There was this girl that got murdered out on Hummingbird Road ages ago and supposedly she is still out there, she hitchhikes and whoever is dumb enough to pick her up disappears.” Crystal tells us.

We thank the girls and leave.

“Let’s check out the library.” Jared says when we get into the truck.

“Isn’t it too late for the library to still be open?” It’s nearly ten at night no way this place is still open.

“Small towns like this I doubt they even lock it.” He smiles.

“What do you expect to find there?” 

“Small towns don’t usually have a lot of news so everything that happens in them gets recorded thoroughly.”

The library wasn’t locked just like Jared said, we went inside and looked through all the records we can find.

“Angry spirits are born from violent death so maybe it’s not a murder.” He says after a while of not finding anything. He enters ‘female suicides’ into the old computer and the only name that popped up is from 1990 where a woman named Clarice Patterson that jumped off of a bridge and drowned in the river.

“Does it say why she did it?” I ask. What would drive someone to kill themselves like that?

“Yeah, an hour before they found her, she called the cops and said that her kid died in the bathtub, she left him alone for a minute and he drowned. Her boyfriend, Jesiah Waltz, said that she couldn’t bear losing her child so she killed herself.” I can’t imagine what she must have felt. It’s heartbreaking.

We went to the bridge that Clarice jumped off of luckily there were no more cops on it which doesn’t surprise me as it's nearly 3am. “This must be where she went over.” Jared says stopping.

“Now what?” I ask. How do we stop a ghost?

“We keep looking.You have to accept who you really are.” He says looking at me. He is right. But how do I accept something I don’t know?

We walk out onto the bridge to the place the article says Clarice jumped off. I look to the side and see the woman from my dream standing on the railing. I call Jared over and Clarice turns to me. I freeze. Oh s**t! She is quite beautiful though she has long brown hair that comes down her back and big sad brown eyes. She starts tipping forward and we run to her but she has already fallen. We lean over the railing but I don’t see anything. The truck starts and I try to make out who is driving.

“Did you leave the keys in the truck?” I ask Jared.

Jared holds up the keys not taking his eyes off of the truck. The truck starts driving down the bridge towards us, Jared yanks me out of the way and we jump over the side of the railing, I lose my footing and slip, I hit the freezing water and struggle to stay up. Jared jumps in after me and helps me up to the bank. I start shivering. We make our way back up to the bridge and the truck is silent. Clarice has also disappeared again.

“What a b***h!” I yell through chattering teeth.

“She obviously doesn’t want us digging around.” Jared says smiling at me.

“It’s not funny! I’m soaking wet!” I scream, throwing my arms open and looking down at my clothes sticking to my skin.

“I can see that.” Jared grins. 

Crap. I hold my arms over my chest again then Jared looks up. “More bad news.”

“The sun?” I ask.

“Yes but there is still enough time to get you checked into a motel.”

“Where will you go?” I ask. I haven’t even thought about that.

“Don’t worry about me, beautiful.” He says as we drive into town. He stops at the first motel we see and I get checked in as I unlock the door Jared says, “Women in white.”

“A what?”

“Woman in white. She is a spirit. We need to find her corpse and burn it.”

“Where do we find it?”

“We talk to the boyfriend if he is still alive.” Jared answers.

“Okay. I will find him.” 

“No. Please stay here until the sun sets. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

How could I not agree when he says that? I watch him through the window as he walks away, he is suddenly surrounded by a group of cops and I hear them ask him where his partner is.

“Don’t know.” Jared shrugs and thankfully doesn’t resist as they cuff him. I know that he could kill them all in a split second if he wanted. I scramble out of the bathroom window and follow them. I need to get him out of there before the sun sets.

I look through the skylight on the roof. At least I’m a good climber though it wasn’t that hard there is a dumpster in the alley  and the roof is not that high up.

“Who are you?” The Sheriff asks.

Jared doesn’t reply.

“You are in a lot of trouble,son.” The Sheriff tells him.

“What kind?” Jared asks. What is he playing at? If he pisses them off how in the world am I going to get him out?

“Serious trouble. Do you think this is a game?” 

“No sir.’ Jared says, shaking his head.

“You are a suspect in a series of disappearances.”

Jared laughs, “Yeah because when the first guy disappeared I could have done it while I was in diapers.”

“Maybe you had a partner, an older guy and you took over from him.”

“Are you gonna lock me up?” 

“Yes.” 

“In a dark place that the sun won’t be able to shine in?” 

“What?” The Sheriff asks frowning.

I can see Jared scan the room and his eyes rests on the cells. I think I know what he’s thinking. He looks up and smiles at me. How does he know I’m here? He jumps up breaking the handcuffs and hits the Sheriff in the face. A couple of officers run into the room and pull out their guns shouting at him to freeze. My heart stops. Jared puts his hands in the air.

“You just assaulted a police officer. We’ve got a nice dark hole for you in which you can regret your actions.”

Jared smiles slightly as they throw him into the cell and he scrambles into the corner just in time. The sun doesn’t reach inside and I feel that I can breathe again.

I make my way back down and go to the last known address of Jesiah Waltz. I know that Jared is safe for the moment so I need to get this solved quickly so we can get the hell out of this place. I still don’t know how I’m going to get out of jail. I spot an old man doing some yard work when I reach the farm. I walk over to him and he smiles. It makes me a bit uneasy but I suck it up. 

“Hi. My name is Jessica. I’m a student at the University of Brentwood and I have to write a paper about an old suicide and what could have driven a person to do it in in the first place.”

“Aren’t you a long way from home?” He asks.

“My professor always tells me to think out of the box.” I lie. The old man seems to buy my story and I relax a little. I ask him a few dull questions first that he answers without hesitation.

“Where did you bury her?” 

“By our old house out on Hummingbird road.” Jesiah replies.

“Why did you move, sir?” 

“I wasn't going to live in the house that my child died in.” He responds looking angry.

“Did you ever get married?” 

“No. She was the love of my life.” 

“Were you happy together?”

“Most definitely.”

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Waltz.” I smile and turn to leave but I turn back and ask, “Have you ever heard of a woman in white?”

“Huh?” He asks surprised.

“A woman in white. Sometimes the weeping woman. It’s a spirit.”

“I don’t care.”  He mutters.

“They are woman whose boyfriends didn’t want to marry them so they suffer from temporarily insanity and murder their children and once they realize what they have done they take their own lives, that’s why they are cursed and if they find an unfaithful man or woman they kill him or her and they are never heard from again.” I say. Damn that knowledge just popped into my head

“You think that has something to do with my Clarice?”

“You tell me.”

“I’ve made mistakes but she would never kill her own child. Now, you get the hell out of here and you don;t come back.”

I know that’s my cue so I leave. I got what I came for. I get back to the motel room and take a shower and put on some fresh clothes. I look at the clock. There are still a couple of hours left until the sun sets so I lay down across the bed and fall asleep. I wake up a few hours later and jump up when I see the time; there is only a couple of minutes left until the sun sets. I back up everything in the room and get going. I know exactly how to get Jared out of jail.

                                                                                            ***

I hear Jared’s cell phone ring as I drive down the highway. I answer it.

“You do know it’s illegal to make fake 911 call, right?” Jared laughs and then adds, “Where are you? We need to get the hell out of this town.”

“You were right. It seems we are dealing with the woman in white. She is buried behind their old house and I’m on my way there now to burn the bones.” I say excited. I can’t believe that I figured it out and now I can put a stop to these disappearances.

“How did you…”

“Kind of just popped in my head.” I smile. Freaky but helpful.

Jared laughs and I drop the phone to put both hands on the steering wheel, The woman in white appeared in front of me as I turned the corner and I had no time to stop. I drive straight through her.

“Jessica! Jessica!” I can hear Jared call from the phone. 

I turn and see the woman sitting in the passenger seat and I almost scream.

“Take me home.” She says.

“No.” I say slamming on the brakes.

The truck doors lock and I can’t get them open, the truck starts up and drives itself. I’m in trouble now. The truck goes faster and I feel my heart beating faster too. The truck stops in front of Clarice’s house. “Don’t do this.” I say.”

“I can never go home.’ Clarice says and disappears.

I look around the become startled when she suddenly appears on top of me, “Hold me.” She says, “I’m cold.”

“You can’t kill me, I'm not unfaithful.” I try and reason with her.

“You will be.” She whispers and then kisses me. What the hell? I push her off of me and then  I try reaching for the ignition and she disappears again. I look around then feel a sharp pain in my chest and I let out a scream. Clarice flashes in and out of view. The pain is too much it feels like she is going to rip my heart out. I try reaching for the ignition again. My life depends on it. I try a few times and fail. I heal fast but I can still feel the pain every time she reaches inside my chest. I feel like I’m about to pass out. :I’m taking you home!” I yell as I am finally able to turn the ignition.  I slam my foot on the gas. I see Jared in the rear view mirror as I drive us straight into the house.

“Jessica!” Jared calls as he runs into the house, “Are you okay?” He asks reaching me and helping me out of the truck. 

“Yeah.” I reply looking down at my shirt I can see the dried blood on it. I know I’ve healed.

Clarice picks up a picture and looks at it. She looks sad and I can;t help but feel sorry for her. An old wardrobe moves pinning me and Jared to the truck. Jared is not able to move it.

Clarice appears in front of us and she looks pissed. I look up and see a small boy walking down the stairs. Clarice vanishes and reappears at the bottom of the stairs, water begins to trickle down the steps and pull at her feet. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. The child makes his way down, “You’ve come home to me mommy.” He says then hugs her when he reaches her. Clarice screams and just like that they are both gone. All that is left is a puddle of water.

Jared pushes the wardrobe away freeing us, “So she did drown her own child.” 

“That’s why she could never come home. She was too scared to face him.” I say and then Jared hugs me. I melt into his arms. Glad it’s over.

“You found her weakness. Nice work.”

I smile up at him, “Let’s get the hell out of here.” 

“Don’t have to ask me twice.” He says and we get into the truck.