Ike Hamill - The Hunting Tree Trilogy

He swallowed and considered yelling for help. After a few seconds, he reasoned that it was unlikely that calling for help would yield any results—he wasn’t even sure he was still in Bill’s house. As he finished his swallow, his dry throat clicked. He heard a radio switch on.

With just this one clue, Mike could put a time to the place. The texture of the painted door and the Scooby Doo light switch had given him the place—his childhood bedroom—but there was only one time in his childhood when he would turn on the radio in the night. That had been when Mike was eleven: the year after his baby brother had died.

Mike lowered his butt the last few inches to the floor and pulled in his adult feet as he listened to 102.9’s version of classic rock for the middle of the night. After his brother and roommate, Charlie, had passed away, Mike would wait up past midnight, until he knew his parents were asleep, before turning on his bedside radio.

In the dark, the adult version of Mike listened to the classic rock for just a few seconds before the dial changed position, turning the music into static. This had also been part of the eleven-year-old Mike’s routine. The classic rock station had been just a placeholder, so he could remember the position where the static came in best. Soon the room was filled with scattered white noise.

“Charlie?” a young voice whispered. Mike recognized it as his own. “Charlie?”

The white noise changed shape, flowing in waves through the room.

“Charlie?” eleven-year-old Mike whispered in the dark.

Adult Mike pressed his back harder against the wall.

The radio static began to swirl again, and Mike heard the envelope of a syllable. “Miiikeeeey,” the white noise whispered.

“Charlie? Is that you?” asked boy-Mike.

“Yessssssssssssss,” the white-noise-Charlie trailed off.

“Where are you Charlie? Are you in heaven?” boy-Mike pleaded.

“Yesssss, ehhhhn nooooh,” Charlie shaped the noise.

“What do you mean?” asked boy-Mike.

Adult Mike cradled his head with invisible hands in the pitch black and heard a low moan coming from his own throat. He suppressed the noise—he didn’t want to call any attention to himself.

“I’m nahhhhhht,” said Charlie. “I’m nahhhht all-a-way deeead,” he hissed through the noise.

“I don’t know what you mean,” boy-Mike’s voice began to break as he tried, and failed, to hold his voice to a whisper. “You had the leukemia. You were in the coffin.” His voice hitched.

“I gahhhhhht,” Charlie paused, “awaaay.”

“Away?” asked boy-Mike. “Away from what? Charlie—where are you?”

The white noise flared, but the shapes within the noise decreased, and Mike was only able to make out the long words. He pushed away from the wall and moved towards his childhood bed, accessing his ancient mental map of the room.

“I gahhhhht … graveyard,” he heard, “… inna crahhhhwl spaaace.”

“Charlie, you’re scaring me,” blubbered boy-Mike. “Why are trying to scare me?”

Mike took to his hands and knees and started to crawl towards the sound of his young voice. He reached out a hand, expecting to find the edge wooden bedframe. A hot hand clamped around his trailing ankle and he was jerked back, with his hand swinging through empty space before slapping down on the unfinished plywood floor.

He opened his mouth to scream and warn his young counterpart. Before he could make a noise, he heard Charlie shape the white noise one more time—“Onnna khiiiiilll yooouuuu toooo,” hissed Charlie.

Mike clawed at the plywood, but was helpless to slow his backwards progress. Light flooded around him, forcing him to squint and raise his arms defensively as he was roughly rolled over.

“Mike!” yelled Gary, inches from his face.

Mike lowered his arms and saw his friend.

“Gary? What happened?”

“Come on,” said Gary, extending a hand to help him to his feet. “Let’s get going.”

Once standing, Mike blinked against the bright light and found himself at the top of the stairs. Gary brushed at the sawdust and dirt clinging to Mike’s shirt, and Mike joined in, the two of them raising a small cloud. Gary led the way down the stairs and Mike followed slowly, gripping the handrail tight and moving one step at a time.

Before descending too far, Mike took a look around and found the unfinished second floor once again completely unremarkable.

“Where’s Katie?”

“Garage,” said Gary.

Mike glanced back once more before pulling the extension cord from the outlet at the bottom of the stairs, killing the upstairs lights.

“What happened to you?” asked Katie, once they had closed the door to the garage.

“I don’t know,” said Mike, shaking his head. “But are you okay? I heard you scream and then it sounded like you were being dragged away.”

“No,” said Katie. “When the lights went out I called for you, but you didn’t answer. I went back to the stairs and then came down and found Gary. He told me to wait in the garage.”

“Thanks for coming back for me,” Mike said to Gary, patting him on the shoulder.

“No big deal,” said Gary. “The lights were on, and you were just lying there, whispering about a crawl space and some other stuff.”

“Me? Really?” asked Mike. “What else did I say? Did you hear?”

“Sorry, that’s all I could really make out. You were whispering really quietly. So what do you think? Is it real?” asked Gary.

“Oh yes,” said Mike. “I think it’s definitely real. Did you find anything outside to change your mind?”

“Nope,” said Gary. “Looked clean. This house is pretty remote, and I couldn’t find the sign of any accomplices.”

They looked to Katie to see if they had consensus. “Well I didn’t experience anything except the lights going off,” she said, “but I did feel something, and that’s unusual for me.”

Headlights flashed against the wall and the three researchers heard the approach of Bill’s car.

“I’ll do the talking,” said Mike.

Bill lifted the garage door and pulled it shut behind himself before addressing the group.

“So? Did you make up your mind? Is it just me?” Bill asked.

“We definitely heard the laughter again, and we’re convinced that it doesn’t need you around to perform,” said Mike.

“Good,” said Bill. “So you’ll let me study your methodology?”

“Yes,” said Mike. “But I will ask you to sign a non-disclosure agreement before I explain how it works. And we’ll have to bring it here to dial it in for your entity.”

“Wait, wait,” said Bill. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. That thing is strong enough as it is.”

“I think we have to,” said Mike. “Each time we’ve had success, it has only been after carefully testing everything and find just the right combination of inputs.” He looked to Gary to back him up.

“It’s true,” confirmed Gary. “We have to adjust the frequency, amplitude, pulse-width.”

Mike held up his hand, to stop Gary from revealing too much.

Bill rubbed his temple and bowed his head for a second. “I’m just trying to get rid of this thing. Boosting it up seems like a really shitty idea.”

“I hear you,” said Mike. “It’s the only way though.”

“Okay, shit. Okay,” said Bill. “Can you set up in the daylight though? It doesn’t seem to be very observant in the daylight.”

“No problem,” said Mike.

“And I want to do this as soon as possible,” added Bill. “I want this done.”

“Saturday?”

“Good enough,” said Bill. He extended his hand to Mike. “Thanks, man.”

“Thank you,” said Mike. “Here’s my phone number. You call if you have any problems between now and then.”