J.R. Erickson
Dead Stream Curse
Author’s Note
Thanks so much for picking up a Northern Michigan Asylum Novel. I want to offer a disclaimer before you dive into the story. This is an entirely fictional novel. Although there was once a real place known as The Northern Michigan Asylum - which inspired me to write these books - it is in no way depicted within them. Although my story takes place there, the characters in this story are not based on any real people who worked at this asylum or were patients; any resemblance to individuals, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Likewise, the events which take place in the novel are not based on real events, and any resemblance to real events is also coincidental.
In truth, nearly every book I have read about the asylum, later known as the Traverse City State Hospital, was positive. This holds true for the stories of many of the staff who worked there as well. I live in the Traverse City area and regularly visit the grounds of the former asylum. It’s now known as The Village at Grand Traverse Commons. It was purchased in 2000 by Ray Minervini and the Minervini Group who have been restoring it since that time. Today, it’s a mixed-use space of boutiques, restaurants and condominiums. If you ever visit the area, I encourage you to visit The Village at Grand Traverse Commons. You can experience first-hand the asylums - both old and new - and walk the sprawling grounds.
Prologue
Liv
Liv tripped down the stairs, her satin gown tangled in her mother’s shoes. At the last step, plunging toward the open door and the lawn beyond, she kicked the shoes off, her breath pluming in the cold night air like little explosions. At the tree line, she fell, landing hard on her outstretched hands. She glanced down. In the moonlight she saw the dark flecks splattered across her chest. It was too dark to see their color, and yet she knew: deep crimson, blood.
She hiccupped and let the sob curdling in her belly rush into the night. It was swallowed by the heavy foliage. The wet, matted leaves took her cries and extinguished them as quickly as her halo of breaths.
She stood and looked at the soaring peaks of the Victorian house deep in the woods.
Candlelight still flickered from the windows. People moved inside, laughing, drinking, and oblivious to the horrors committed only two floors above them.
A curtain shuttered in the third-story window and for a moment, Liv saw a shape there. The silhouette of a young man in a horned goat mask. The rounded spirals of his horns ended in points as sharp as knives.
Liv closed her eyes against the memory of blood splashing across the polished golden floor.
Her stomach turned and she retched in the grass, vomiting the champagne she’d drank that evening.
When she found the strength to move, she walked numbly into the forest.
Chapter 1
Liv
“I’m hot,” Arlene complained, tugging on Liv’s hand.
The girl wore a yellow smock. Two yellow bows captured her light brown hair in pigtails. Liv never understood why their mother insisted on making Arlene presentable when the seven-year-old dirtied her dress within five minutes of putting it on.
“Me too,” Liv grumbled. “But we’re almost there, peanut,” she assured her little sister as they trudged down the dusty road.
The fast, cool water of the Dead Stream was not far away.
The summer had started early and furiously hot, with temperatures reaching seventy degrees in May. Now in July, ninety-degree days were common.
“This way,” Liv urged Arlene, who dawdled, her feet dragging as they plunged through tall grass into the woods.
Beneath the canopy of trees, the temperature was five degrees cooler.
Arlene plopped on the ground, stretching her legs out on a bed of pine needles.
“I’m tired.”
Liv leaned against a tree.
“Okay, we’ll take a little break, then.”
Liv looked into the high pine above her. Sharp green branches fanned out, offering respite from the stifling heat.
Liv pulled a jar from her leather bag and scooped pine pitch from the tree.
“Pine sap?” Arlene asked wrinkling her nose. “It’s so sticky.”
“It’s also great for burns and sores. We can put some on those blisters of yours.” Liv pointed at an angry red blister on Arlene’s little toe.
Their mother had been given a pair of hand-me-down dance shoes for her youngest daughter, and Arlene had worn them for a week even though they pinched her toes.
“They don’t hurt anymore,” Arlene said pushing a finger into one of the blisters.
“But they’re also not healed. “We’ll put some pitch on when we get home.” Liv tucked the jar into her bag. “Ready?” Liv extended a hand to her little sister.
Arlene nodded and took Liv’s hand. Thick foliage shaded the last quarter-mile of their journey.
When they broke through the trees to the steep bank of the river, Arlene clapped her hands and laughed.
“Wait for me,” Liv told her.
Liv stripped out of her shorts and t-shirt and spotted a good branch to drape them on. She slung them over the branch and turned back just as Arlene stepped from the sand into the water.
“Livvy, watch,” she called, bending to scoop a handful of water.
Her green eyes opened wide in surprise as her feet slipped from beneath her and the river swallowed her.
Liv let out a shocked scream and jumped over the embankment. As she raced into the water, she saw Arlene’s small, tanned arm reach up. Her head popped up and then the undertow pulled her beneath the surface.
The icy water took Liv’s breath away, and the current’s strong hands clutched and pulled her down.
George had taught her years ago how to handle fast-moving currents, but she ignored his advice to float on her back, legs in front of her. She’d never get to Arlene that way. She let the current take her, paddling only to keep her head above the water while searching for her sister.
Liv dunked under, rose up for a breath, and spotted a flash of movement at the water’s edge.
Had Arlene made it out?
Liv watched a young man plunging into the water just as Arlene’s head bobbed up and disappeared again.
The boy splashed into the river, his hands reaching for Arlene.
Liv knew her sister was panicking. She’d be thrashing her arms and legs, pushing herself beneath the water, unable to surrender to the flow.
That’s how people drowned, but it was too late to tell her that now.
The man dove forward, arms outstretched as Arlene’s hand shot above the water. Liv saw the man reach out and clasp the little girl.
Liv slipped beneath the water, struggling back up as the man hauled her sister against his chest. He reached for a branch that stuck out from a dead tree at the river’s edge.
He caught it, and Liv cried out in triumph, allowing a flood of water to fill her mouth. She hacked and spit the water out, choking, but relieved as she saw the man pulling Arlene toward the shore.
Liv tried to direct herself to the same tree, but the current surged as she neared them, and it pushed her by.
Beneath her, a tangle of branches caught Liv’s foot, and she felt herself jerked to a stop and thrust underwater. The stream rushed around her, but the branch held firm to her shoe. She tried to bend and release her foot, kicking her leg in the thick, rapidly moving stream.