Ike Hamill - The Hunting Tree Trilogy

Pausing in the kitchen, Katie flipped through a stack of mail on the counter.

“There’s a bunch of stuff addressed to Trudy. Do you think she still lives here?” Katie asked.

“I still get stuff addressed to my grandparents, and they’ve been dead for years. I think he lives alone.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Katie.

“He’s got one plate and one fork there next to the sink,” said Mike. “I do the same thing. I have one plate that I eat from and then clean it right after I eat. I never go in the cabinet or use the dishwasher.”

To prove his point, Mike opened the dishwasher. The interior gleamed—dry and empty.

“What about pots and pans?” asked Katie.

“Don’t need them,” said Mike. He hunted through the cabinets until he found the trash can. When he pulled it halfway out of its space, he found what he expected. “Just frozen dinners and fast food. He’s a man after my own heart.”

“Ugh,” Katie stuck out her tongue. “How do you survive?”

“Fat and happy,” said Mike, patting his belly. “Do you feel anything weird in here? Any feeling of dread?”

“Not really,” said Katie. “But you and Gary seem to have a radar for that stuff. I’m like oblivious most of the time.”

“Really?” asked Mike, leaving the kitchen and heading back to the front stairs. “What about when we’ve seen legitimately paranormal stuff? Like Bruce’s grandmother.”

“Nope,” she shook her head.

Mike paused at the bottom of the steps. “Try to open yourself to it. Try to lower your defenses and just feel.”

“Okay,” Katie nodded.

They mounted the stairs and rose deliberately, looking up as they stepped. Mike noticed the cold shift in the air again as he crossed from the lower floor to the upper. He held up a hand and stopped, three steps from the top.

“Something feels different,” said Mike.

Katie passed him and ascended to the top, turning slowly and surveying the floor.

“I don’t feel anything,” she said. “This was what I was talking about.”

They heard a low giggle from the back part of the house. “Huh-huh-huh.”

Katie whipped around and moved her head from side to side, trying to see between the studs. She crept away from the stairs towards the source of the laughter and Mike jogged up the last few stairs to join her. They walked between rows of framed walls—what would eventually be a hallway—until they reached the outline of a future doorframe.

“I think it came from back here,” said Katie. She pointed towards the corner of the framed room. They stood in the back part of the house, where new construction had raised the roofline to accommodate this space. In the corner, the old pitch of the of the roofline made a triangle with the floor for the last couple of feet before the wall. In contrast to the bare rafters overhead, the rafters of the old portion were thick, hand-cut beams, darkened with age and chinked with dirty insulation.

Mike led the way to the corner and ducked down to his hands and knees to investigate the narrow space. “I wonder if there’s a speaker or something tucked into the old part of the ceiling here,” said Mike. He pressed back the insulation and pulled it away from where the ceiling met the plywood flooring. He found nothing but dust and cobwebs. “Could be under the floor I guess.”

“That laugh was odd,” said Katie. “It sounded like a kid’s voice, but it also sounded sad and, I don’t know, mature or something?”

“Weary,” Mike agreed. “It sounded weary from a hard life." Mike gave up his search in the corner and pressed up, out of the narrow corner to a seated position, facing Katie.

His young assistant stood a few feet back with her arms folded.

“I’m not sure,” she said slowly, looking up and focusing on nothing, “but I might be feeling something.”

“Oh yeah?” asked Mike. “What does it feel like?”

“Cold.” She breathed and hugged her arms in closer. “When I was little my dad used to hunt a lot. He’d drive back home with a deer in the back of his truck and then hang it up in the garage to gut it and bleed it out. I don’t know how to describe it, but this is how the garage would feel when a deer was in there. Sometimes I could feel it even in the summer when I was out in the garage. It just felt lonely.”

“That’s good,” said Mike. “You’re opening up. You’re allowing yourself to reach out with your senses. Keep going.”

Katie shuddered and blinked several times. “I’m not sure I want to,” she said. “It feels too desolate.”

“You can do it,” Mike said. “Just give yourself permission.”

Katie relaxed her shoulders and lifted her chin. Mike watched as she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and opened them again softer, less focused.

“Good,” he whispered. “What do you feel?”

“It’s cold,” she sighed, “like before. But there’s a spot that’s colder than the rest. It pushes the warmth away. It’s not just cool, it’s like the enemy of heat.”

“Excellent,” said Mike. “You’re doing great. Now reach out to the cold spot and describe it.”

“Okay,” she began. “Wait. I think it’s moving. Yes, but it doesn’t actually move itself. It’s like the world moves around it. I think that…” she trailed off.

“What do you…” Mike was interrupted when the lights shut off. An afterimage of the bare bulb burned in his eyes. He glanced to where the nearest light hung and saw the quickly dimming orange glow of the filament.

Before he could speak a loud series of thumps cascaded from Katie’s direction. When she screamed, he could tell her voice came from floor level. The thumps had been caused by her young body tumbling to the unfinished plywood floor.

“Aaaahhh, no! Birds! Birds!” she shrieked from the floor, several feet into the darkness in front of Mike. Her voice trailed as she wailed, but not because her words diminished in energy. He heard her rapidly moving away from him, into the unfinished hallway, and then towards the stairs.

Mike rose to his knees, prepared to make chase through the utter black when a second loud sound rang out in front of him. He heard the unmistakable whoosh of a heavy door swinging rapidly, followed by a thunderous slam as it clapped shut. Mike jumped to his feet and ran in the direction he expected to find the entry cut into the stud wall. Instead of space punctuated with naked pine studs, Mike’s outstretched arms crashed into a thick wooden door.

Something about the paint which coated the door made him recall his childhood bedroom. He found the cold brass knob, but it wouldn’t turn or pull. The door didn’t move even a hair as he pushed and pulled at the handle. If he hadn’t just heard it shut, Mike might assume it was an ornamental door, bolted to concrete.

Hand-over-hand, he felt his way to the right and found a cool plaster wall. He worked up and down the wall and then found the switch-plate slightly more to the right. His fingers paused when they touched the plastic plate around the light switch. Even in the complete dark, he could tell it wasn’t a plain rectangle. Sharp peaks defined its irregular, rounded perimeter. Suddenly, Mike could picture it perfectly. If there was any light he would be looking at the Scooby Doo switch-plate that had adorned his childhood-bedroom wall. He flipped the switch, but no light came from the overhead fixture. He tried the switch several more times before giving up.

Mike spun, put his back to the plaster, and sunk to a crouch with his back against wall. His eyes were useless. Open or shut, the result was identical. His heartbeat and breathing comprised most of what he heard. He reached out with his hearing and tried to pick up any sound from the room. He thought he could almost hear the sound of his own breathing, echoing off the surrounding walls.