Sundown Rising Read online

  At the back of the house I turned to look at my willow. I had to pinch my eyes shut and then look a second time. What I saw just couldn't be. I walked over to it and held out my hand, palm up. There was a red liquid dripping off the ends of the leaves. It was as if it had rained blood last night. I looked around, even up in the tree. I'm not sure what I was expecting to find, maybe another dead cat that had been ripped apart by the storm. There was nothing that explained what I was seeing.

  I held my hand up to my nose. I could smell the metallic of the copper in the blood. The heme group. In fact, now that it crossed my mind, I'd been able to smell it since I stepped out of my door. I had just been too intent on getting to the mysterious building to realize it.

  Bending over, I wiped my palm off on the grass, then stood up, still puzzled and a bit amazed at what I was looking at. I've heard that some people believe that trees and things have souls, but I've never heard they could bleed. This was one for the books and I had no idea what it meant.

  Giving it one more look, I headed over to the bushes behind the cemetery plot. They were thick and prickly. Getting through them wasn't going to be easy. I thought about doing an end run, but I could see that they were pretty full all the way around. Nothing for it but to push through. Steeling myself for their sharp resistance, I closed my eyes, held my hands in front of my face and pushed forward.

  I actually got though easier than I had expected. There were a few scratches on my forearms and hands, but overall, I weathered it pretty well. I just hoped the same would hold for the trip back. And I had been right about the bushes. They wrapped completely around the building, the sole occupant to their center.

  It was made of solid stone, from foundation to roof. It looked like some kind of homemade mausoleum. What struck me the most about it though was the fact that it was in such good shape. There were places where it had been recently re-pointed. The ivy that grew around the base was clipped, keeping it a bay. At first I thought that the yard crew I'd contracted to take care of the lawn did it, but that didn't make any sense. Nobody was going to jam themselves through those sticker bushes just to cut some ivy. Yet, the fact remained, someone had.

  I circled the building slowly, taking in its architecture. At the base of it in the back was, what appeared to be, a kind of door. It measured about three feet at its widest and only about two or two and a half tall. I rapped on it with my knuckles. Solid iron, which I'd guessed just from the brownish-red rust that covered it. But it was more than just iron. It was solid. I'd expected to hear an echo reverberated through the inside chamber but there was none. It was as if someone had just added an iron plate to an already solid stone wall. Once again, I was at a loss as to why anyone would want to do that.

  "Sure is flippin' odd." I said. I rapped again, first with my fist and then with a stone. Same results. If the inside was hollow, as I was certain it was, someone had gone to an awful lot of trouble to keep people out. I ran my hand over the stones. I'd expected them to be cool, the way stone usually was, but these were cold. And there was something else about them too. I don't know why, but I got the distinct feeling that this building was in some way connected with my mysterious lady – and maybe my mysterious attacker too.

  I knelt down and examined the iron door more closely. There was no handle of any kind and it was cemented into the stone on all sides. One thing was for sure, this plate was never intended to be removed. I ran my fingers along the edges, checking to see if any of the cement had loosened, but that was a wasted effort. If joints were maintained, as evidenced by the re-pointing, then I could expect that the plate was kept solid too. And it was.

  "Well, Richard, there's always a sledge hammer, you know." I thought about that. I got the mental image of myself out here beating on the stone with a sledge hammer to break my way in. "Into what? Probably end up looking as foolish as the Capone's Vault folly." The thought didn't cheer me. As with many things lately, I didn't know why, but I had to get into that...vault?...chamber?...whatever it was.

  By the time I was done with the building and had wormed my way through the thickets (they seemed a lot harder to get out of than into) it was getting dark. I looked at my watch, but in my haste to get to the building I'd forgotten to put it on.

  Over the horizon, the top edge of the sun was still visible, an inverted bowl of orange and pink. For this time of year, that meant that it had to be around eight o'clock or so. I was almost to the front door when I realized that I'd left my flashlight back on the ground at the building. There wasn't much point now to go and get it. I could do that tomorrow. I just hoped I didn't blow a fuse during the night, which I figured would be my luck.

  Not that most of them in this house weren't anymore, but that night was a very strange night for me. I found it hard to get to sleep. I wasn't tired at all. Of course, I had slept most of the day. But I tried anyway. I didn't want to fall into the rut of being up all night. Yet, try as I might, I couldn't fall asleep.

  I didn't know what to do with myself. I was restless and bored. For the longest time, I just wandered aimlessly through the house. Up to my office, down to the kitchen, sit in the living room until I couldn't sit still anymore (which was usually about ten minutes), back up to my office, out on the porch – nothing seemed to satisfy me and I wasn't nearly ready to sleep.

  By four-thirty I was starting to wind down. I could feel a drowsiness begin to settle over me like dust in an attic. When I finally laid down, I made sure to set the alarm for eight o'clock. Tired or not, I had to get up and break this cycle before it really took hold. I put my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes.

  7

  It was the heavy pounding that brought me awake. I sat up and rubbed my face. Bang-bang-bang, bang-bang-bang-bang! It took me a moment or two to realize that there was someone pounding on my front door. I looked at my alarm. 3:45 P.M. I'd done it again. I'd slept through the alarm, and if it hadn't been for my, as yet unknown, visitor, I don't know when I would have awakened.

  I threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and padded downstairs, still in bare feet. When I opened the door, I was surprised to see Jacob Waters standing on my front porch.

  "Jacob? What brings you out here?"

  "C'n I come in?"

  "Uh...sure." I stepped back, dragging the door open as I did.

  "Won't take too much-a yer time. Just a few things."

  "Take all the time you need, Jacob. What's up?"

  He stood just inside the door, head down looking at the floor. He reminded me of a school boy standing before the principal.

  "It ain't easy fer me. There's things I think I should be tellin ya...bout this place mostly. But other things, too."

  "What kind of things?" I asked. He turned away, as if he couldn't look at me.

  "Dunno. Well, I do know. Just dunno if I should be tellin ya. That's all. Like I said, it ain't easy." He fiddled with the strap on his overalls.

  "Well, why don't you come into the kitchen and have a beer and we'll see if we can sort this out."

  "NO!" he shouted. "I mean...no thank ya. I think maybe I made a mistake. I'd better git goin."

  "Hold on. Hold on. You can't do that. You can't come here, tell me there're things you should tell me and then high-tail it out without an explanation. What's going on? What's got you so spooked?"

  "Spooked," he almost coughed the word out. "That's it all right. Spooked. There's things here in this house...on these grounds that ain't natural; ain't meant t'be in this world. I been comin here-"

  Crash! Something in one of the rooms behind us smashed to the floor. It caught us both off guard and stopped Jacob in mid-sentence. I turned and looked down the hall, wondering what...or who...it could have been. When I turned back, Jacob was closing the door to his pick-up truck. I thought about calling out, but watched him drive away instead. After his truck disappeared down the driveway in a cloud of dust and cin
ders, I closed the door and headed down the hall to find out what had been broken.

  In the reading room, a glass globe paperweight with a butterfly inside had been smashed. Pieces of glass were spayed across the floorboards. But the butterfly – the butterfly was sitting on the wall, opening and closing its wings. Under normal circumstance, I would have been surprised. Instead, I just walked over to in and picked it up. It had a sticky feel to it, like it was coated in resin or plastic.

  I carried it out to the front door and let it go. It fluttered out then dropped to the ground, its wings folding back up into the position they'd held all these years inside the globe. There was no need for me to check it. I knew that it was dead – that it had always been dead, even when it flew out the door.

  That was the final straw. I had to find out what was going on here. What was happening and why. I knew, inside, that the answers were in that building out there. And I knew something else; I knew that I already knew what was in there, I just couldn't remember.

  It was at that point that I felt it. A deep cold settling over the room, and I knew what that meant. I was in for another confrontation. But I was ready this time. My mind was made up and nothing was going to stop me from getting to the bottom of all this.

  "I know you're here, goddammit," I shouted. "And you know I do. Come on...what've you got for me tonight?"

  There was a deep and booming laugh that filled the entire room. I couldn't tell where it came from; it was coming from everywhere – all around me at once.

  "That's it?" I cried. "A laugh. That's all you have for me tonight?"

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth a cold hard hand slammed across my face. The force turned my head but I remained in place. I could feel the sting, like dry ice on my cheek. I could also feel my anger building. I couldn't ever remember being so angry before. My eyes were burning; they felt like they were going to burst into flames at any moment.

  "Where are you, you bastard?" I yelled, but it came out more like a snarling growl than yell. "You can't intimidate me...and I'm not leaving. So whatever you're going to do...get on with it and let's see what you've got."

  I moved across the room, sweeping my hands out from side to side. Nothing. I moved back again. Nothing. But the cold hung on. The booming laughter rang out again and then died slowly away, taking the cold with it. I was alone again.

  I was alone, but I was still angry. Angrier than I'd ever been in my life. I couldn't seem to get control of it. I moved swiftly over to one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and, with one hand, toppled it to the floor. "Arrrrgh!"

  When the case hit the wooden planks it split and sent books sliding across the room. The crash of the case and swooshing sound of the books gliding over the wood brought me back to myself, and I could feel the temper easing. I could also feel – or sense – something else. I still wasn't alone. She was here. I knew it. And I knew something else, too. It wasn't me that had frightened him off; it wasn't me that made him leave; it was she.

  I circled the room with my eyes, squinting, hoping against hope that I'd be able to see her. There were no windows in this room. I saw nothing, until my eyes fell on the small mirror that hung on the wall. And there she was, two feet to my left. She was looking at me the same way a mother might look at a frightened child. There was deep compassion and tenderness in her eyes.

  She reached out her hand, and in the mirror I could see where to place mine. Our hands touched. It was cold, but comforting. She waved her other hand over her mouth, telling me what I already knew. With no windows, she was unable to speak to me. I wanted in the worst way to turn and face her, but without the mirror, I wouldn't be able to see her.

  Suddenly, it dawned on me. She couldn't speak, but I could.

  "Meet me upstairs," I said. I watched the mirror closely, waiting for her to nod agreement, but she just disappeared. "Ok, see ya there."

  I got as far as the doorway before being slammed backward. I'd let my guard down and paid the price. I tumbled across the floor, literally head over heels and landed hard against the far wall. Before I could get up, my opponent, the unseen man, had me by the front of my shirt, lifting me off the floor. Whatever it was, it was incredibly strong.

  I brought my fists down hard on where its wrists should have been, and I was dropped. I'd broken its hold, but I was still at a disadvantage. I couldn't see it, but it sure as hell could see me. Another strong blow landed on the side of my head sending me staggering sideways. I could feel the rage building up; I could feel my eyes starting to burn again.

  I spun around, and now the room looked different. It was bathed in a bright red glow, as if I were looking through one of those infrared cameras. And there it was, on the other side of the room. I could see it – could see him. He was hunched down, his knees bent as if he were getting ready to broad jump. Suddenly, he pushed off and came flying across the room at me. I waited. When he was no more than a few feet from me, I moved to my left and he went crashing into the wall. I wasted no time. Swiftly, I reached out and grabbed him by his throat and hoisted him up into the air above my head. His arms were thrashing wildly at mine, trying to break my hold and his legs were kicking the air. His mouth was open in what appeared to be a soundless scream, and there was surprise on his face. I tightened my grip.

  It seemed I had gained some kind of strength I never knew I had. With one hand, I held him in the air, jiggling like a puppet. His face was contorted in anger and, what I took to be, fear. He desperately clawed at my hands and wrists, but it didn't help him, I held him firm.

  For a moment, I had no idea what to do with him. Then, I started toward the door, dragging him along with me. The sound of his pounding and kicking on the walls as we struggled down the hallway echoed in my ears. At the front door he made one last attempt at breaking free, raking his cold, sharp fingers down my face. I didn't let go. I held him tightly by the throat as I opened the door, then tossed him out as easily as if I'd been throwing a beer can across the lawn. I watched his reddish shape sail helplessly through the air and slam into an old oak that stood thirty yards from the porch. When he hit the tree, he disappeared in a spray of mist. It was as if he had been a giant water balloon. He was gone – for now – but I knew it wasn't the end of it.

  I turned and dashed up the steps; I was somehow able to take four and five at a time. When I got to the room, I knew she was gone. I had no sense of her.

  "Shit!" was all I could think to say.

  I sat in my desk chair, swiveling from side to side as I attempted to make some sense out of what just happened. Not the encounter, that didn't need understanding. What I couldn't get my mind around was me. Where did I get that strength? How was I able to see him? I had no answers. Adrenaline might be responsible for my burst of strength, but I didn't think so. And adrenaline wouldn't explain the vision. I was more confused than ever, but at the same time, that unexplainable sense that I knew more than I thought sat deeply inside me.

  And then there was Jacob. What the hell was that all about? Without realizing it, I sat in my chair lost in thought for the rest of the night. At around five-ten in the morning, I felt I was ready to try to get some sleep, but I wasn't comforted by that. I was falling into the exact pattern I wanted to avoid.

  Realizing I needed some rest, but not wanting to sleep all day, I compromised. I set my alarm for noon. Hopefully, that would help get me back on track with the appropriate sleeping hours.

  8

  I'd never suffered from nightmares before, but I did that night – or day – or whatever. They came in waves, each worse than the last. The first began with me taking a shower. I'd just started washing when I noticed the tub was filling with blood. The metallic smell filled my nostrils. I tried to pull the shower curtain open to get out, but I couldn't. The tub kept filling with blood, inching up my legs, until it started to overflow the sides.

  In the second dream,
I was lost in the woods – deep in the woods. I was surrounded by trees that pressed in on me. I could feel the heaviness of their bark squeezing against my chest. I couldn't turn, I couldn't move. The branches slashed at me, ripping open my flesh and when I tried to fight back, they entwined themselves around my wrists. I was being crushed to death by trees.

  I floated from that dream into the last, into the most terrifying one of all. My eyes were closed and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't pry them open. A steady thumping sound reverberated in my ears and I couldn't get my hands up to shut it out. I was locked in a small, confined space. When I realized what was happening to me, I did my best to scream, but nothing came out. I was being buried alive. Locked inside a coffin. The thudding sound that kept getting louder and louder was the sound of dirt being shoveled onto the casket as the hole was being back-filled.

  I awoke, sitting straight up in bed, clutching my chest and gasping for air. It was cold, too cold for a September morning – or evening, as it turned out to be. It was seven o'clock at night when I came out of my dreams. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and just sat there for a few minutes regaining my composure. I thought about taking a shower, but after the first dream, I thought I'd skip it.

  When I was finally able to stand, I walked over to the window and looked out. My bedroom was also in the back of the house, and I could see the willow over to my left. The fact that there was no breeze tonight was evidenced by the willow's branches hanging down, absolutely still. I let the curtain I was holding aside drop back down and turned to go downstairs. I half expected another fight when I turned, but nothing happened. I crossed the room to the door, then stopped. As I passed the mirror, I noticed something odd. I went back over to it. What I was looking at shouldn't be.

  I reached up and ran my fingers across my cheeks. They were absolutely smooth. But they shouldn't have been. There were several scratches in them when I'd gone to bed. Leftovers from last night's brawl. But they were gone. Completely healed, as if they'd never been there.