Joshua_Dyer_author

A Paranormal Excursion in Four Acts.
 
It should have been a simple field experiment. Go in, prove I can do what I claim, and walk out with the cash. If they could see what I see. Feel the helplessness I do when something else takes over. I’ll bet they’re not kept awake at night by the voices in this place. They don’t see the darkness with eyes that follows us all around this estate as we gather proof. This money was going to help my little sister with her surgery. Good intentions and the road to Hell.

Restless - the Horror Novel

With the stealth of bumbling idiots, we creep across the field behind the stable house.  My vision transfixed on the woman in the black dress. 


Doug whips his phone out of his hip pocket and holds in in front of his chest. "This is Doug Patterson. McAllister estate investigation. We're in pursuit of a woman – probably a full-form apparition – into the orchards behind the estate."


The choking weeds and underbrush give way to a shallow soft pad of dead grass, leading up the row of decaying fruit trees. 


Doug: "The figure's now moving to the west across the rows."


The woman looks back and makes eye contact with me. They say that your eyes are the windows into your soul. Emptiness. If that's the case, then she has no soul. 


"I think she's--" Doug stumbles over a bent root. "Damn it." 


His phone tumbles into the grass ahead of us. 


Dougie reaches down, never taking his gaze off the mysterious figure. "Go! Don't lose her whatever you do. I'll catch up."


Jake and I jog onward in chase. We make a left turn up another row and follow her deeper into the rising hills. 


Doug logs the events several paces behind. "Sorry. I dropped the phone. Still in pursuit. Subject made a left turn to the south. Appears to be slowing down."


She stops beside a tree and crosses her thin hands in front of her. Doug jogs to a halt beside me, panting.


Doug: "What's she doing? Did she stop?"


She looks to me and then to the ground at the tree. Screw common sense. I'm going. 


I shake my head. "Come on. I think she's trying to show us something."


Goosebumps all over. A sense of doubt, but my feet press on. 


Jake: "I doubt that there'll be anything good to come outa this, guys."


We're maybe ten yards away at the most. The dry blades crunch under my sneakers. Trunks of the other trees become visible through her fazing form. 


Doug (whispering): "Subject has stopped and knelt down next to a tree. Definitely a ghost."


Jake turns a concerned stare to me. "What does she want?"


As I approach her, the woman vaporizes into the passing breeze. 


I sprint to the tree and search the leaves and dirt for her clue. Nada. Jake and Dougie file in, flanking me on both sides. 


Jake (snaps): "Just like that. Poof. Fuckin' strange."


Doug hunches over closer to the earth and brushes the ground. "You think something's here?" His brown eyes rise up to mine. 


I'm drawn to the ground by an invisible magnetic force. "It's here. Something's here."


My cupped hands plunge into the dirt, burrowing down deeper. What is it? What are you trying to tell me? Small stones. Thin roots. Another larger stone. 


"Wait." I dust off my hands on my lap. "I think I found something."


It felt like another large stone at first, but as my fingers pry the object's edges free, I discover it's not. Jake's lower jaw drops as I lift the small axe head from the ground. 


Jake: "Let's not jump to conclusions. It could be something that the workers left out here in--"


Her bloody severed head appears at the base of the tree where I unearthed the murder weapon. Howls of pain. Faintly feminine, but interlaced with something catlike. Her face, a frozen sinister smile. I roll back away from the horror. 


Jake and Doug slam their heads against low-lying branches. 


A sudden stinging sensation hits the nape of my neck. Doubled over on the cool grass. Her maniacal laughter. What did she know? The phantom cold steel passes through my spinal column and windpipe. Can't breathe! Darkness consumes everything. 


Doug: "Sean? Sean, stay with us, buddy!"


His words glide along the lengthening corridor of nothingness. Fading. Converging into nonexistence.


Scene Fifteen