51: The Series

51: The Storm Chapter 14

Wren woke to someone gently kicking his foot. He looked to see Max standing at his feet.

“Sorry, man, but Hanna just took a call about one of those poltergeist things. I thought I would wake you up and see if you wanted to go. If you don’t, then you can wake up Lindsay because I am just not that brave,” Max said, nodding his head at Lindsay sleeping next to Wren.

Wren looked beside him and saw that she was still asleep. He was glad she could sleep for at least a few hours and hoped she would sleep a little longer.

“What time is it?” Wren asked, getting up carefully so he did not wake her.

“It’s a little after 6 a.m.,” Max said as Wren put on his boots. “A guy called in saying that his wife was cooking breakfast for the family, and just as she was finishing, things started flying around. He said they are all huddled by the front door, and he can hear things breaking in the kitchen.”

“OK, let’s go see if we can make this thing stop the same way she can,” Wren told him as he picked up his coat and put it on.

They went out to Max’s patrol car and got in. The fine snow falling looked like frost as it gently swirled around the streetlights. Max started the car and began to drive north of the department, trying to be careful on the now icy roads.

“Wren, is Lindsay OK?” Max asked just after they left town.

“No, but she never has been, has she?” Wren asked with a smile.

“I can’t argue with that, but I’m serious. Lindsay has looked so tired recently; it makes me wonder if something is wrong. Don’t forget that I have known her a lot longer than you have, and I’ve also known you a little longer than she has,” Max said as he drove.

“You remember the night Lindsay and I went and picked up Nim Jones after his camping trip went bad? His sister Maggie came to the department and picked him up,” Wren asked.

“Yeah. How could I forget? All three of you looked like a wood chipper had sprayed you,” Max told him.

“Well, that has triggered a few things with her, and she has been having nightmares and hasn’t been sleeping because of it. She has been remembering things about the night she was attacked,” Wren said.

“That explains a lot,” Max said. “I don’t know much about that night. She has never told me, and Little Bob won’t say a word about it.”

“Little Bob could only tell what he found after the attack. Lindsay could not remember what had happened. The hospital wrote it off because of the head injury and concussion. Now she is starting to remember what happened after it hit her,” Wren told him.

“I thought something hit her and knocked her out, and then Little Bob found her where it happened, and she was unconscious,” Max said, glancing over at Wren.

“She was attacked near the house. He found her in the woods.”

“Wait a minute, so if she was attacked near the house and knocked out, how did she walk into the woods?” Max asked.

“She didn’t,” Wren answered, pausing. “She was carried.”

“So that thing tried to carry her off? Why?” Max asked.

“I don’t know. From what we have been able to piece together, as soon as Lindsay’s flashlight hit one of them in the trees in front of her, another one hit her from the side, slamming her into the tree near the house. After that, it picked her up and carried her into the woods. Little Bob got there and found her flashlight in the yard, still on. He saw blood and followed it into the woods, where he found her. She was unconscious, and the side of her head was caked in mud. He stayed with her until the ambulance and Big Bob got there. Little Bob said while he and Lindsay were in the woods, those things were circling them, calling, almost talking to each other. It wasn’t until Lindsay got to the hospital and they started taking care of her that they found out that an artery had been cut in her head. The mud that had been packed in it stopped the bleeding and probably saved her life. Those things saved her life,” Wren explained.

“And now she isn’t sleeping because she is remembering bits and pieces of what happened,” Max said after a moment of silence in the car.

“You got it. The way she explained it to me, she could hear what was happening at times but could not wake up or do anything,” Wren told him. “And to make things worse, they are now not far from our home. At night, Lindsay can hear and sometimes even smell them, and it has not been easy for her.”

“I don’t know what I can do to help her, but if you can think of anything, just let me know. Also, tell her she is in trouble for not telling me any of this herself,” Max said as they pulled into the driveway where the poltergeist was reported.

“I guess now we get to find out if it will listen to us the same as it does, Lindsay,” Max said.

They got out of the car and cautiously walked toward the house. Before they even reached the porch, the family came pouring out into the cold.

The father told Wren and Max, “Oh, thank goodness you’re here. I don’t know what is going on in there, but I hope you can stop it. It’s in the kitchen, so please be careful. There is a knife stuck in the door frame in there because, whatever that is, threw it across the room.”

“Sir, I’m Agent Gold, and this is Deputy Cartwright. We will take care of it for you,” Wren told him. “You should all probably step back inside because of the weather. Stay by the door, and we will go have a look in the kitchen.”

Wren and Max stepped inside the house and immediately began to hear things hitting the walls and breaking on the other side of the house. The family followed them in and closed the door, staying beside it. Wren and Max made their way toward the noise, and Wren began to push the door open carefully. Just as he looked in, a loaf of bread flew toward him and hit the door next to him. He looked at Max and walked in.

“Go ahead, Agent Gold. Hope you’re as good at this as your wife is,” Max said quietly so the family wouldn’t hear as they took a few steps into the kitchen.

Wren took a deep breath and yelled, “Stop!” To his amazement, it worked. Everything stopped where it was. He and Max looked around as Wren paused. “Put everything down now,” Wren yelled again.

This time, it did not work. Nothing happened. Everything stayed where it was, including what was hanging in the air. Max and Wren saw things begin to move slightly, almost spiraling around the room.

“Stop this and put everything back,” Wren ordered.

Suddenly, everything came straight at them. Wren and Max were pelted with food and dishes. Max began trying to slap everything out of the air that was coming at him. He picked up a roll of paper towels and used it like a tennis racket, knocking things away. He hit a bowl of oatmeal, sending it flying all over Wren.

“Hey!” Wren yelled. “I don’t need it from you, too!”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to,” Max said as he knocked an egg out of the air before him.

Wren grabbed a skillet and began to do the same thing as Max. He hit a jar of jelly out of the air, shattering it and flinging jelly over the entire kitchen and themselves. After several minutes of battling things flying through the air, it finally stopped. They stood in the kitchen, looking around. It looked like the mother of all food fights had occurred. The entire room was covered floor to ceiling in food, and so were they.

Wren asked, “Max, are you hurt?”

“No, but I think I need to hose off,” Max answered, wiping egg and eggshell out of his hair and off his face.

“My wife is to never know about this,” Wren told him, looking at the mess.

“Good luck with that one. I won’t tell her, but something tells me she will find out,” Max answered.

“I will have someone come out and clean this up for the family. Hopefully, if I do that, they won’t call her and file a complaint.”

They turned and began making their way carefully toward the kitchen door, slipping and sliding as they did on the food and glass that coated the floor. They picked their way out of the kitchen and went back to where the family was waiting by the front door.

Wren said, “Sir, The problem has been resolved, and I will send a team to clean the kitchen for you, so if possible, don’t go in there until they finish. I will call them from the car, and they should be here within the hour. If you have any other problems, please don’t hesitate to call the sheriff’s department.”

“Sir, ma’am,” Max said as he walked past the family and out the front door behind Wren.

They went to the car and got in. Max began the slow drive back to the department. They were several miles away from the farm before either of them said anything.

“Well, Wren, we did learn one thing today,” Max said.

“Oh, really, and what exactly is that?” Wren asked as he wiped jelly off the side of his face with his hand and onto his pants.

“Your wife has more power than the two of us combined,” Max answered.

“That isn’t funny, Max. It might be true, but it isn’t funny,” Wren said.

“I didn’t mean for it to be,” Max said. “That thing has listened to her every time she has encountered it and followed her instructions. Then, when we encounter it and do the same thing that she does, it does this. It’s almost like it was mad at us because it wasn’t her.”

“I was thinking the same thing. I don’t know how, but it is almost as if these things are bonded to her, and for the life of me, I cannot figure out why they would be. This is not the first one that has done this with her. Do you remember the flying monkey that you didn’t see? Well, her name is Bow, and she lives in a lab on the base.”

Max carefully pulled the patrol off the main road onto a country road and put the car in park. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly as if trying to maintain his composure.

“As a kid, the idea of a flying monkey was the only thing that scared me. Now, you are telling me that it is real and living on the base?” Max asked.

“I am, but don’t worry, she is adorable. When a sighting was called into the department, Lindsay and I went out, and it came to her, crawled into her arms, and she carried it to the van to take it on base. It had never seen Lindsay before, yet it completely trusted her.”

“So, do you have any idea how Lindsay is connected to all this?”

“No, but if I do figure it out, I will let you know. Right now, it seems to be a good thing, and as long as that keeps going, I am not going to worry that much about it. Investigate it, yes, but not worry,” Wren told him.

Max just shook his head and pulled back onto the road. The rest of the drive back to the department was quiet. They were both thinking about what had happened at the farm and everything that had occurred over the past twenty-four hours. They pulled into the parking lot at the sheriff’s department and turned off the car. They sat and waited for a moment before they got out.

-

Lindsay woke up and saw that Wren was already up. She got up, pulled on her boots, and quickly rolled her hair back up in a bun. Lindsay walked out of her office and to Little Bob’s desk to get some coffee. As Lindsay reached his desk, Little Bob handed her a cup of coffee. She looked around and saw Max and Wren were both gone.

“Where did Max and Wren go?” She asked.

“There was a call about another one of those poltergeist things, so Max woke up your husband and made him go with him,” Little Bob told her, smiling.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Max was going to wake you up, but I think he was afraid to do it. He mumbled something about you making it throw things at him for not letting you sleep,” Little Bob said.

“I would never do that. I do not want that thing throwing stuff at any of you, even if you do wake me up. I would throw things at Max myself the same as I have always done,” Lindsay said.

Just as she took a sip of her coffee, the department door opened, and Max and Wren walked in. As they walked, food was dripping off them onto the floor. Max pulled a piece of eggshell out of his usually perfect hair, and Wren wiped what looked like oatmeal from behind his ear as they neared.

“Don’t ask what happened; we took care of it. I will say that next time there is a poltergeist call, you need to go because it will listen to you,” Wren told Lindsay.

Lindsay looked from Wren to Max and finally to Little Bob. She took another drink of coffee and walked into her office without saying a word to them about what had happened.