When I exited the parking lot of the medical building, my head was telling me to turn left toward home. After all, Felicity would be expecting me, and there were still a million things that needed to get done before the gathering tomorrow evening.
My gut, on the other hand, asserted its newly assigned leadership and pre-empted the turn with a pair of rights before finally making that left, and I was soon motoring north on the Innerbelt. Thirty minutes later I awoke from an absent-minded daze as I found myself pulling off onto the shoulder of an isolated section of Highway 367, not far from the Clark Bridge and Alton, Illinois.
I sat for several minutes, engine running, while I pondered the autopilot that had brought me here. I had traveled this road more times than I could remember and had even pulled off along the side to watch the eagles that would winter in the area. However, it wasn’t yet the season for eagle watching, not to mention it was a bit late in the day for the activity. Besides, the prime spot for it was much farther down the stretch of asphalt anyway. This particular spot on the roadside had attracted me for a far more sinister reason, and though I’d never stopped here before, I had arrived at this exact location with only my subconscious as a guide.
I sat staring through the passenger side window, peering past my own reflection in the glass and allowing my eyes to adjust to the cold shadows. In what little was left of the fading light, I could just barely make out a twisted ribbon of yellow and black crime scene tape stretched between spindly tree trunks in the distance.
I finally switched off the headlights and cast a quick glance at the radio before twisting the key to kill the engine. The digital clock on its face showed it to be almost 5 p.m. With tomorrow being winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, official sunset was rapidly approaching. In fact, it was less than an hour away. However, considering the thick blanket of grey clouds that was acting as a barrier to the sun’s rays, dusk had been abbreviated, and for all intents and purposes nightfall was already upon us. The miniscule amount of illumination still available would be completely gone in a matter of heartbeats.
I felt more than a little queasy about being here. I wanted to believe that I was simply following my instincts by coming to the spot where Debbie Schaeffer’s remains had been found. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was actually being guided by a tortured soul who had recently discovered she held a healthy measure of control over me, even in this world. Realistically, she was probably pulling the strings and was the one directly responsible for bringing me to this place. What was left for me to come to terms with was whether or not I was capable of handling what she wanted to show me without first asking for outside help.
The events of the previous night screamed, “No.”
My clouded judgment shouted back a resounding, “I don’t know.”
Debbie Schaeffer’s haunting voice just kept echoing in the back of my skull, “I’m dead, Rowan. Do something about it.”
I continued to sit there, staring out the window while the grey shadows faded to inky black as if condensed into a single minute of time-lapse video. Taking a deep breath, I weighed my options and considered what was being presented. I was in no way naive enough to believe that I was going to stumble across some enlightening bit of physical evidence that would break the case wide open. That was the sort of thing that always happened in dime store mystery novels-but almost never in real life. Trained crime scene investigators had already been over this area with eyes sharper than mine, so the odds of my finding anything more than a pile of dead leaves were beyond astronomical.
Unless, perhaps, that mythical piece of evidence was simply invisible to the unaware-a latent clue, hidden from the view of those not able to see beyond this plane of existence. Still, it would need to be tangible for it to be worthwhile, and such a thing was far from likely.
Besides, something about that idea just didn’t feel right either. No, evidence was not why I was here. Not by a long shot. I was here for the connection-for the proximity to ground zero. I was here for the express purpose of reliving someone else’s nightmare-as if I didn’t have enough of my own already. Deep down, I was beginning to resent the fact that these visions were being imposed on me against my will. I’d already had more than enough of them to last me a lifetime, but there seemed no end to the horrifying pictures that begged my attention. It was no wonder I felt like I was going mad.
I engaged in a few more moments of restless indecision before finally surrendering to the idea that I was already here so I might as well get out and take a look. I’d already wasted enough time so as to deprive myself of any natural lighting, so I rummaged about beneath the seat and eventually extracted a flashlight before climbing out of the cab and starting down the shallow embankment.
I wasn’t entirely sure if it was just the darkness, or the place, or even if the temperature had actually dropped, but it felt far colder than it had just an hour or so before. I stopped for a moment to zip my jacket, shrugging it closer and turning up the collar to fend off the slight breeze. Standing there on the side of the small hill, I looked to my left and in the distance saw the muted glow of the lights from the Clark Bridge just peeking over the barren treetops. Exhaling a frosty breath, I watched the foggy luminescence disappear from view as I ventured the last few steps down the grade and into the stand of trees.
My feet crunched noisily through the dry layer of leaves, and with each step I kicked up the damper stratum beneath, filling the air with the sharp, “composty” odor of decay. The flashlight wasn’t the most powerful in the world, but I’d expected better performance than I was getting. The batteries were apparently just this side of dead, so the faint yellow beam quickly dissipated less than two yards ahead, making my progress slow and unsteady.
To my back, commuters were making their way home from jobs on this side of the river, and an occasional car would rush by, the beams of its headlights cutting a swath through the trees well above my head. Totally useless for illuminating my path, however, they did create oblique shadows that would quickly arc through a semicircular pattern as the vehicle approached then flitter to obscurity when it passed. I’m sure it was nothing more than my anxiety-fueled imagination, but some of those visual artifacts seemed to possess lives of their own-and they didn’t look friendly.
I carefully picked my way through the scrub, tripping twice on the same fallen log and only narrowly regaining my balance before almost being pitched to the ground. Leaning against a tree for support, I decided to stop once again in order to get my bearings. The crime scene tape had looked to be some thirty or so yards from the roadside. In my estimation, I had probably managed to cover half that distance so far.
With each step, the world had seemed to close off behind me, creating an isolating darkness. Even the swish of randomly passing vehicles had faded so far into the background that the only sound left for me to hear was my labored breathing and pounding heart. As I stood in place, wheezing in the cold air, my body screamed for a dose of nicotine. I reached my hand inside my jacket at the impulse but then thought better of the idea before fully withdrawing the pack of cigarettes. Shoving it back into my breast pocket, I panned the dying flashlight across the landscape in search of a trail or break in the undergrowth.
A flicker of bright yellow lashed quickly through the weak beam as the wind swelled and then fell off in a rolling wave. I had apparently made it farther than I’d suspected. I cocked my head to the side and listened carefully as a static-laden hum began inside my head. Eventually my ears filled with a faint whisper.
Dead I am. Dead I am. I do not like that dead I am.
“I know you are.” I found myself answering the voice aloud. “Trust me, I know.”