Forgotten Souls
By
Tim Arsenault

Chapter 1

Whispers of the dead passed through his little fingers.

Hushed exclamations suddenly erupted from all sides, echoing a fury of tangled words into a common center of boiling excitement.

It's him! It's him!

She could almost see their translucent fingers being pointed at the boy standing before her, their misty shapes surrounding him with arms that wanted, but were unable, to embrace him within the halo of their presence. They existed at the periphery of her vision, like the faint illumination of distant stars, quick to disappear if she should look directly at them.

He's the one! The bellow of a man's voice-commanding, powerful.

Oh, sweet goodness, it's almost time! Quivering syllables of an elderly woman on the brink of ecstatic laughter.

The Chosen One is here . . . A subtle whisper soon swallowed by the surrounding fever of discovery.

More whispers. Rising in pitch, quickly becoming shouts and screams of joy. They traveled the lengths of her fingertips, found their way through the tingling surfaces of her arms, neck, and head.

And entered Andrea Varney's mind, sending pleasant ripples of recognition fluttering through her body with searing pinpricks of heat, enough to all but eliminate the cold winter air the boy had brought with him inside the library only a moment ago.

Andrea felt her heart rise a few inches within her chest, and her eyes widen as if she were about to be hit by a truck. Severed breaths hitched within her throat as the boy began to remove his nervous fingers from her hand. His mouth opened in a silent gasp and cheeks flushed a slight shade of red.

He felt it too.

In the flash of time before their fingers lost contact, the moment so intense she felt her teeth painfully squeeze her lower lip between them, Andrea began to recollect her past.

Memories resurfaced and burned scarlet visions into her mind of the little girl she once was, making weekly rounds of visitation to the few cemeteries residing on the hillside. Cemeteries infested with massive overgrowths of grass, weeds, and whatever else that needed only sunlight to grow unhindered. Where headstones leaned at different angles and inscriptions were faintly visible, if at all.

Many of the plots she walked upon bowed upward, the caskets below rising a few inches, sometimes a few feet, in protest to the yearly erosion and frost heaving. But she didn't like to think about that. Instead, Andrea imagined the pocked and weed-filled curve in the ground as the roof of a new house, which the dead now occupied. Unsightly to some, but the glorious, frescoed arch of a Romanesque chapel to a certain eight-year-old little girl.

Soon enough, the visits became daily.

Andrea thought herself to be a different girl, not strange, as she so often heard from others. She knew she didn't do everything any normal girl would do at her age-too boring. At least, she didn't think it was strange. She only felt an obligation to pay these visits to the deceased, as no one else ever did. A big word for such a small girl, but one she understood.

At first, she just thought they were lonely.

She wasn't too young to notice during her frequent strolls through the hillside that very few people ever paid their respects to the dead. Aside from token flags being placed at headstones on Memorial Day, or the occasional burial she spied upon from the edge of the forest, a single visitor was extremely rare. A single rose, lucky enough to be placed next to a headstone, would soon wither and crumble, and at last scatter into invisible fragments with the slightest breeze, along with the memory of the individual below.

During the summer, daily visits grew into all-day adventures as she recited names she was able to decipher, had one-sided conversations with each, and placed gentle hands upon the chipped and weathered surfaces.

Every time she sat by the headstones, fingers tracing faded inscriptions, a cool chill swept completely through her body, as if these people actually knew she was there to visit. It wasn't a chill that scared her-not at all. In fact, it comforted her, as she thought the dead were speaking to her in their own special way, in a language only she could understand.

Sometimes, she even remembered to bring a damp cloth from home to wipe away any grime that had gathered since her last visit. And should moss creep along the base of a stone, a plastic knife kept in her back pocket could be used to cut away its congested fibers.

From each headstone she visited, and certainly only from those that allowed her the liberty without causing any more damage, she pried away a tiny, brittle piece of stone. Then blew loose particles of dirt from its edges and cleaned the entire piece with her shirt before placing it into her pocket. The stone eventually rested inside its own protective compartment of an old shoebox that hid underneath her bed. But, more importantly, it found a place inside a little girl's heart. And memory.

This produced a happiness inside of her that couldn't be achieved through her dolls or playhouses, a feeling which became the reason for her to return at every chance. To Andrea, these people were friends that wouldn't laugh at her and surely never tease her. They understood her. And would always be there to talk to. Always.

Soon, she began to hear their whispers.

And learned of a partner she must wait for, of a journey that needed to begin. Of the number of souls that needed to be remembered, and what happened to the unfortunate souls whose memories had been allowed to dwindle into the slightest flicker of a passing thought in the minds of their friends and loved ones.

The ultimate price civilization would have to pay on account of its negligence.

It frightened her.

* * * * *

The ring of the service bell released Andrea from the tightening clutch of her memories.

"Excuse me, miss?" Phil Jacobs said for the third time, muffling the bell with a large palm.

"Oh, I'm . . . I'm sorry. I guess I had . . . my mind on other things," Andrea stammered, words not coming out exactly as she had hoped. She picked up a small pile of papers and placed it back down, found the strength to smile before looking into the face of the man before her.

Her hands were shaking and she quickly brought them out of sight to toy with the brass handle of a desk drawer. It was something familiar, something she was used to, like home. It calmed her, and her nerves began to settle. She looked past the boy and his father, and let her eyes linger upon the shape of the card catalogue; computerized directories had yet to establish a need in such a small town. It was like admiring the antique table in her home that her grandmother had passed down. Familiar. And cherished, Andrea's fingers never tiring of the endless flipping through bent and ink-smeared cards. Fingers that were . . . now steady, no longer trembling.

Not completely relaxed, but close.

Andrea noticed the boy standing on his tiptoes, peering over the edge of the large mahogany desktop with a happy, but concerned look on his face. He rubbed his fingers together, inspected them with a gaze that quickly went from her to his fingers, then back again. Tufts of dirty-blonde hair wiggled on the back of his head in response.

"No problem. I was only getting concerned," Phil said, changing the stern look on his face to a friendly grin. "We just moved into town and I'd like to get my son, Darren, a library card," he continued as he placed a hand on his son's shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze.

Darren smiled.

"Absolutely," Andrea replied, trying her best to smile in return, fingers fumbling for the proper form. "If you'll just fill in the required information, I can get him one right away." The words sounded slurred and sluggish, like lead weights rolling off the end of her tongue and falling dead at her feet.

Phil nodded and chose a corner reading desk to use.

Darren watched his father with eager eyes, the episode between him and Andrea forgotten for the time being. Eyeing the thousands of books that occupied the small library's bookshelves, most beyond his reach, he waited on the balls of his feet for the nod of approval to explore this new territory.

Attempting to look busy behind the desk, Andrea kept a furtive gaze fixed on Darren. She couldn't help it, nor could she believe it. He caught her on one occasion and tucked his body into the side of his father, pulling his eyes away from hers, suddenly inspecting the toes of his sneakers.

Andrea wanted to know everything possible about the boy she had just met. Sure, he would be back again to take out more books of his liking, but she wanted to know everything now. The whispers of the deceased had never told her how long she would actually have to wait.

Andrea thought she had a right to know, since Darren Jacobs, still yet to see his teenage years, still yet to see a single hair magically sprout from his chest or reddened blotch of acne invade his forehead, would be that partner for the rest of her life.

Though only in her twenties, Andrea had grown up fast, and at times felt as if she had lost a lifetime to waiting.

The same year she graduated from high school, icy roads on the interstate killed her parents, leaving her alone with a house, a mortgage, and bills to pay. Except for the occasional night class, she had postponed college and found herself lucky to live in a town where a college education wasn't yet required to be a librarian.

Children. How she longed for them. But she knew the kids who frequented the library were the closest she would ever come to having any children. She treated every one of them as if they were her own, but a burning void would always exist and probably never be filled.

She only watched, amused, as mothers brought their bachelor sons to parade in front of her, thinking they were helping her, but in fact, were only making her that much more depressed. Of the few relationships she did manage to have, each had lasted only a few weeks, months at the most. She was terrified to settle down, to have a family, fearing the day she would have to pack up and begin a journey. Now, she just preferred to be alone.

And there was still a wait ahead of her.

Anger built up inside Andrea, but she managed to control it with minimal effort. The fact was simple: Darren was the Chosen One.

The only one.

With the completed form in hand, a glimpse of Darren's face remained as an afterimage as Andrea turned around to type up the library card.

She produced two loud clacks from an outdated Zenith typewriter when graying fingers suddenly clawed at the boundaries of her vision with hooked, blackened tips. She grasped the edges of the typing desk as an oncoming blackness surrounded her. Then swallowed her. Knuckles losing color, she fought to keep her breaths steady, counting the seconds in between.

The blackness pressed into her from all sides and pushed her through a shrinking, suffocating tunnel, like hundreds of giant fingers moving her along-poking, prodding. The deepest regions of the tunnel gave birth to a slight flicker of light, but complete darkness embraced her like the arms of a rotting corpse as the light extinguished.

A sickening groan formed within her throat and almost escaped. Her fingernails dug into the sides of the desk-the snap of one was the only piece of the real world she heard before that faded as well.

Andrea fought for control, now unable to count any time between breaths.

If pitch black could get any darker, it did.

Without warning, the face of Darren Jacobs swelled from the darkness, appearing as a milky image, undefined at the edges and strangely out of shape, eye sockets filled with a deeper shade of black than that from which they grew. Almost as suddenly, sparkling charges of energy rotated within the empty spheres, like swarms of bright, visible molecules, before developing into the clear blue eyes Andrea had seen only minutes ago.

The rest of his body grew from the base of his neck and expanded into the little boy she had recently met: young and unknowing, waiting to be filled with the knowledge of the world.

She watched as Darren aged.

It was as if he were an elastic form, expanding and distorting as he got bigger, like a comic strip image a child would pull and stretch on some legendary Silly Putty with a smile of satisfaction on his face.

Darren slowly expanded into an adolescent, wearing what looked like an athletic uniform: probably a hockey or football uniform, the image was too deformed to make out. A second later, he was wearing a graduation cap and gown.

Andrea had to smile, because she thought he was pretty handsome, distorted or not.

With another gradual change in his appearance-features swelling, melting, then reforming again-she witnessed Darren as an adult: suit and tie, the whole bit.

The image lingered only momentarily, as did her smile.

A frown trembled on Darren's face and a glimmer sparkled in his eyes. He seemed to be looking down at something, restraining his emotions with considerable effort. She wanted to reach out with a warm touch to his cheek, tell him everything was going to be all right, prevent that first tear from falling.

Her own emotions rising and falling, twisting and turning along the webbed grid of her nerves, she combined all of them into one: horror.

Hair disheveled, face burning with anguish, Darren appeared to be reaching with an outstretched arm for help, a frozen scream covering his face, pulsating veins straining at his temples.

Growing shapes and shadows were moving behind him, lumbering toward him. Reaching . . .

Andrea started to panic.

Hours seemed to have passed since she had lost contact with the outside world. The physical world was right under her feet and all around, but seemed to be on the other side of a magician's black curtain, waiting. She feared the surprise that would be unveiled when the curtain finally dropped. And the laughter that would surely follow.

Her self-control began to chip away, piece by jittering piece.

Remembering where her physical self really was, Andrea bit off an oncoming scream and only hoped whatever was happening would end soon.

It didn't.

Completely enveloped by this alternate reality, she squinted to see another flicker of light beginning to appear at the end of the tunnel. She released a sigh of relief, but sucked it back in just as fast, and held onto it. The light was not the fluorescent light of the library. The light she saw was red.

Fire red.

An unbearable heat penetrated her body, locating every pore, every orifice that led to her inner self, seeming to cook all of her inside organs, melding them into one. Something forced her closer to the light, the heat. The closer she got, the clearer her destination became.

Flames licked at the opposite opening of the tunnel like the slithering tips of serpents' tongues, the first step into the acidic bowels that craved her.

Closer, closer.

She was in Hell. She knew this with the same certainty that she'd sink to the darkest regions of the ocean if her legs were encased within a barrel of cement.

Hell. No other place could be this horrid.

Or as foul. The stench immediately brought tears to her eyes and an unpleasant clamminess to the back of her tongue, threatening to release her gorge.

Wiping stinging droplets of sweat from her eyes, Andrea stared into a blood-tainted sky, its horizon nothing that would place it under the laminated covering of a postcard. The land below looked like one vast, violent country, appearing to grow even as she watched, breeding within its very own shadows.

Smoldering stakes, each much taller than Andrea, lined the landscape, continued until they were mere inches above the horizon, and continued some more. Between some of these stakes, human flesh was stretched: taut, tanning.

An ominous presence remained unseen, but she could feel it pressing into her skin, tasting her, wanting to crawl under the thin layers of her flesh and consume her.

Andrea gazed with eyes that refused to blink and welled with sorrow.

To the right of where she stood, people, real people, were being burned on the stakes, surrounded by separate circles of figures clad in hooded robes. A muffled chant rose and fell in time with the crackling from each pyre and the screams emanating in piercing warbles.

From within one of these circles, a young girl searched for help. Her mouth was pulled from all directions, her teeth bared into an ugly attempt at a scream. The half-beautiful, half-charred face of a woman in front of her yearned for freedom from the stake to which she was bound, from the flames that swept across her face. The resemblance of the two was uncanny. The little girl could only kneel at the woman's feet and look on, open hands catching the crimson fluid that dripped from her mother's toes.

Andrea's body remained in place, yet somehow she got even closer.

The woman's skin blistered and popped, turning into a molten mess that began to sag. Andrea saw the burning, smelled it, the sharp odor burning holes into the tender flesh of her nose. She gagged then fell to her knees, vomiting until it felt like her insides were being ripped out with each convulsion, one organ at a time.

She stood back up.

Unable to endure the sight of the dying woman or the helpless child without another battle with her insides, Andrea turned a shamed face and ran.

Running, running.

Something followed her with thunderous footsteps she could feel as well as hear; powerful explosions that found their way into the inner caverns of her brain and squashed exposed nerves.

Running, running.

Refusing to look back, Andrea continued into the darkness ahead of her, the way she had come. Hundreds of questions probed her mind like invisible tentacles prodding for a source, searching for answers.

She remembered the whispers of her dead friends and searched for strength: Do not fear the presence, it only fears you.

Then why was she running?

The darkness fell in sheets around her.

Her shoulder-length brown hair hung in disarray, the underside of her bangs now sticking to her forehead. Blood pumped with heavy beats inside her ears, seeming to mask a fit of laughter.

* * * * *

Bewildered, Andrea stared at the completed library card.

The card slipped through her fingers as she tried to hand it to Darren's father. She had to push it across the desk.

Phil Jacobs mumbled his thanks, then disappeared into the Children's section with strides quicker than Darren could keep up with.

Pulled in tow by the hand of his father, Darren turned.

And his eyes locked onto Andrea's.

He smiled.

Chapter 2

Chin in palm, elbow resting against the arm of her office chair, Andrea watched the December sky darken early-and quickly, as though a cloak were thrown over the sun as an afterthought. A cold wind caused the window to buffet and chatter within its frame.

Hiding herself in the back office, Andrea had asked her assistant to work the desk for the rest of the day, claiming weeks of papers needed filing. She didn't want to encounter Darren or his father as they checked out . . . she'd be apt to buckle at the knees.

But, as she heard the deathly silent hush that comes when the last of the patrons have left for the day, she did wipe away frost from the window. And took one more look-as he climbed into the car by the sidewalk-at the boy who would change her life.

Andrea glimpsed an unsteady pile of books resting on Darren's lap before his father shut the passenger's door. His hands were casually placed on top of the pile. Not toying with the edges, not flipping back and forth between illustrations. Not running a finger slowly beneath each word as he read.

He wasn't even looking at the books.

His eyes seemed locked in position, locked straight ahead, only able to look elsewhere. As though being forced, his head turned slowly and faced the library's office window, cheeks much too red to be suffering from just the touch of winter.

Andrea turned away.

Tension filled her body and numbed her fingertips. She repeatedly grabbed the air at her sides and allowed her brain to develop a stunning mirage of a gin and tonic producing drops of moisture upon her desk blotter. The mere thought of the drink made her smack her tongue against the roof of her mouth in heavenly anticipation.

The tension began to ebb.

Andrea helped close the library with her assistant, ignoring the strange looks that were sent in her direction. She wasn't about to explain.

She grabbed her winter coat, scarf, and purse, making sure everything met her approval before leaving. Locking the door behind her, Andrea braved the cold December bite, heels clicking on the sidewalk as she ran to her car.

Just that brief time in the cold plagued Andrea's fingers with a very uncomfortable sting. She had a rough time trying to get her key to fit in the tiny hole of her car door. The key worked against her, as if refusing to succumb to its inevitable demise, thrashing within the grip of her shaking fingers. She finally managed, adding to the plethora of small jagged scratches that surrounded the keyhole, then hurried to open the door and escape the punishment of the cold.

Throwing herself into the car, the driver's seat producing a long, wheezing noise as the frozen vinyl settled around her position, Andrea slammed the door. Jammed the key into the ignition, refusing to let it fight against her, and willed the engine to start when she turned the key.

Like clockwork, her knees knocked together while she gunned the accelerator to bring the car to a weary winter idle. She cranked the heater full blast, waiting for it to build up steam, extremely grateful the aging Plymouth Duster still liked to keep her warm on the many cold nights she drove home alone. In a few minutes, Hell would be pouring from the blower. Until the car actually sickened beyond any fruitful attempts to fix it, she wouldn't even think about purchasing another. It was her first, and would be hard to part with.

She rubbed her hands together and thought about all that had happened. An unexpected surprise that almost left her breathless, the events of the day had really wiped her out. As much as she hated to admit it, she wasn't ready for this to occur today.

Andrea had gone about her business, leading a somewhat normal life, sometimes wondering if everything the deceased kept telling her was true, or if she even heard them at all. Maybe she really was crazy. She wanted to believe them, but after a while, she had almost lost hope, thinking she had only imagined everything, her growing mind refusing to filter out the imagination of her young self.

A wave of guilt now swept through Andrea, creating a frothing tide of shame for distrusting the only real friends she ever had. But it was quickly dispelled as the faces of those she had remembered began to appear, called up from distant memories, always forgiving. And she started feeling better, knowing that it was all indeed true.

The journey would someday begin.

It would make everything she had done, or not done, all worth it.

She spent much of her time at cemeteries, especially the older ones, knew the name on each stone and the person buried beneath it. She researched the past of each one-part of the reason she took the job as a librarian, knowing no better way to gain information than knowing exactly where each document existed that the town had produced. Not that it was strictly necessary . . . her deceased friends enjoyed telling her of their lives directly.

Her fingers tingled as blood began flowing within them, the numbness slipping away.

Knowing the car wouldn't stall, she placed it into drive and, looking over her left shoulder, pulled onto Gerard Street, heading home. At the only set of lights in town, she turned left onto a brittle section of Route 202 and forced a breath through tightened lips in an effort to relax for the somewhat long and bumpy drive home.

She listened to the monotone babbling of an unenthused deejay at WORC, a station just outside of town, known for its orchestra, while replaying the scenes of the afternoon over and over in her head-Darren's happy face, his distorted features, her visitation into Hell. What kept forcing its way to the forefront of her mind was the suffocating feeling of an unseen presence. She loosened her collar at the very thought of it, immediately angry with herself for even acknowledging the power it might have over her.

Despite the heat now pouring into the car, a shiver reached its icy fingers to the base of her spine.

She had started humming to a piece by Vivaldi when the radio station disappeared and only static crackled from the speakers. She looked down, confused-eyebrows coming together-and turned the dial all the way to the left, then to the right. Nothing. She was stunned. The idea of WORC going off the air diminished. Every station remained silent except for the venomous hiss that oozed from each frequency. Something was wrong.

"What in the . . . ?" Three words, the rest silenced when her head struck the steering wheel. The squeal of tires echoed somewhere in the distance as they locked up and slid upon a mixture of sand, snow, and rock salt.

She swayed back and forth, fearful of passing out. The world around her began to shimmer at the edges, but came back into focus at a pace equivalent to a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. And she did feel like a butterfly-one splattered on her windshield in all possible directions.

Andrea pinched the bridge of her nose in an effort to relieve the pain. It didn't work.

She still held onto the steering wheel with one claw-like hand that refused to open. Wincing, she felt a lump beginning to take shape in the middle of her forehead.

The car was silent. No lights. No power.

No heater.

Her breath soon appeared in front of her, forming a haze just thick enough to dim the glow from a single streetlight that stood alone for miles. Shadows seemed to grow from all sides, leaving the forest on spreading bellies, crawling over, through, and around the snow banks, closing in.

"Damn car," Andrea muttered, hitting the steering wheel with a balled fist. She looked outside for any oncoming vehicles, but saw none. Snow banks and pines on either side of the road outlined the black, patchy pavement. She instantly hated winter's insistence at being dark by five o'clock.

She tried to start the Plymouth again, but it politely denied her the favor.

Frustrated, she looked outside the rear window in desperate need of help. Turned the ignition a second time, a third, but again the car disapproved. Before her fourth attempt, she placed the car in neutral, jiggling the key as she turned-a trick that sometimes worked. Only a slow whine moaned from the engine and soon returned to an eerie silence.

Getting scared.

Andrea leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes.

She brought her cussing to a halt as a high, painful screeching sound came from in front of her.

Peering between squinting lids, she looked at the windshield and brought her head up with a painful snap of her neck. She rubbed her eyes with a vigor that didn't help much, bringing pain to her already aching head, and disbelieved what her eyes wanted to show her.

From outside of the car, her windshield was shattering under the pressure of steadily dropping temperature. Or so she thought. At first. When she noticed the peculiar way lines were forming within the glass, curving where needed and intersecting where appropriate, she also realized it wasn't shattering at all, but was being carved into.

The sound was almost deafening amid the blackened silence of the winter night. Andrea covered her ears with quivering hands and watched, eyes performing a wild dance within their sockets, as a message appeared. Very abstract, but it was there.

Among a series of scratches was the word: Dare.

"Oh shit! Oh shit!" Her pulse increased. She could hear it in her ears, feel it in her chest as short breaths grew in succession.

With a final squeal that threatened to shatter the windshield, the word was underlined.

She screamed.