The Dark Trials: A Supernatural Thriller Read online

  The Dark Trials

  A Novel | Book One

  T. James Kelly

  Invictus Booksellers, LLC

  Copyright © 2020 by Invictus Booksellers, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For anyone battling demons.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  DANTES

  Join the Club

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  1

  Three loud taps tore me from sleep. Panic gripped my lungs almost as tight as I gripped my bed sheet. My chest heaved. Cold sweat dribbled down my temple, the residue of my nightmare fading, but the sounds still filling my mind. Squealing tires, crunching metal, exploding glass…

  I released my sheet and pressed my sweaty palms hard against my ears until the sounds stopped.

  With one deep breath, I glanced back toward the bedpost where the tapping sounds came from. The same bedpost where they always came from. Same three taps that woke me up every morning for weeks.

  This sad excuse for a house was constantly groaning, creaking. So, the first time I heard those three boney clicks against the old wood, I wrote it off as nothing.

  Then they got louder. Unignorable.

  Another heavy breath, and the tight grip of panic eased up a little. I fumbled around the nightstand for my phone. It wasn’t there.

  Weird, because I always plug it in before I go to sleep.

  I reached beneath my pillow and around the bedsheets. Peered down the narrow slit of space between the bed and the nightstand. The lightning cable was still attached to the wall, but nothing attached to the end of the cable.

  Maybe Em came into my room last night and grabbed it?

  A cold chill washed down my back. There was no way Em could’ve. Not without me hearing. Since moving here, my sleeping ears had become fine-tuned to any disturbance coming from her side of the house, like those stories about new moms who can hear their baby’s unique cry from the hospital nursery even from the far end of the hallway behind double-paned glass and heavy doors.

  I sat up, forced my legs off the edge of the mattress and started picking the nail polish off a still-shaky finger until it resembled a scarlet silhouette of the Rocky Mountains. I sat there, swimming through my thoughts until a sound like wind chimes pulled me back to reality. The sound came from across the room. My chest tightened up again. I slid off the bed and onto my feet.

  Faint light shone from beneath the dresser in the corner. I crept over, peered underneath on hands and knees.

  My phone lay face down on the dingy carpet, alarm tinkling. At some point during the night, it had traveled off my nightstand and slid through the small gap between the dresser and the floor. And somehow, I didn’t hear…

  I must’ve hit it during the night, while I was sleeping.

  But I would’ve had to really smack it to send it that far. Plus, it’s not like it’s a straight shot from the nightstand to the dresser. There’s a bed in the way.

  I swallowed hard.

  “I hit it during the night.” As if whispering to myself would make it true.

  You know that feeling you’d sometimes get when you were little, when you’d switch off the light, then make that nerve-racking run and leap into bed before the invisible monster hiding underneath could grab your ankles? That’s how I felt, psyching myself up to reach under the dresser for my phone.

  I steeled myself, shot my arm under, grabbed the phone and yanked it out quick—before the monster could grab me—scraping my knuckles against the dresser bottom.

  “Ouch.”

  I stood, silenced the chiming alarm, shook my head and slid the phone on the dresser.

  Get it together, Hannah.

  I sucked in a breath and held it before exhaling slowly. The morning checklist began materializing in my mind. Shower, Em, breakfast, bus, softball… I went for my phone and almost knocked over the picture frame that sat atop the dresser.

  Inside the frame, a piece of greenish-black chalkboard. Pale cream chalk formed block letters across the center: I-L-Y. The tension in my shoulders melted. My booming heartbeat slowed a little. I thumbed the frame’s corner.

  “I miss you.”

  I turned, padded over the crunchy carpet through my dim, gray bedroom and into the dim, gray hallway.

  Outside the tiny bathroom, I banged my toes against a mostly empty glass liquor bottle. I let fly a venomous cocktail of curse-words and glared into the bedroom across from the bathroom.

  Her gaping mouth released liquor-laced breaths before snoring them back in. Smeared makeup and a nappy nest of brown hair, fingers attached to an arm dangling from the bed, brushing the dingy carpet. To put it kindly, my aunt Sarah was a human lump of wasted skin.

  “You’re pathetic,” I muttered. Didn’t matter that she had passed out again and couldn’t hear me. I would’ve said the same thing to her face. In fact, I did. Often.

  But it was either Sarah or foster care.

  Sarah was my mom’s sister and our only living immediate relative. And she was more than happy to accept the foster check from the State of Colorado every month, which was supposed to go toward our support, to buy us food, school clothes and supplies, stuff like that. Instead, she usually drank it, or burned it off in a puff of weed smoke or cooked it into whatever she needled into her veins.

  I shook my head, slipped into the bathroom, slid in my contacts, plugged in the straightening iron, twisted the shower knobs—the thing takes forever to heat up—and snagged a hairbrush. Made my way through the chilly living room and kitchen where Sarah had left all the fixings from her midnight munchies on the kitchen counter. Congealed tomato blood pooled next to some rapidly browning lettuce, crusty mustard, and a peppering of bacon bits.

  I’d be cleaning that mess up later, I knew, like Cinde-freaking-rella cleaning up after her evil stepfamily but without the mice for friends. Not that there weren’t mice. They just weren’t my friends.

  Through the kitchen, I peered into the crack in the doorway of the last small bedroom. She always seemed so peaceful in the mornings, curled in a ball under her covers, breathing. I couldn’t help but smile. I creaked the door open, made my way around the little mounds of clothes on the floor to the edge of her bed and rocked her balled-up body.

  “Em,” I whispered. “It’s time. Hop up.”

  She stirred, stretched, freeing a yawn the same way kittens do, with her tongue stretched out. She sat up slowly, wrapped her skinny arms around my waist and rested her head on my shoulder. I stroked her silky hair.

  “Good dreams?” I asked.

  “No,” her voice a whisper.

  “No? What did you dream about?”

  “Mommy. And Daddy.”

  An invisible hand pried my ribs open and squeezed my heart. I glanced toward the small bookshelf against the wall. On top sat a silver, filigree frame encasing a handsome, middle-aged man whose smiling green eyes shone like big green maple leaves on a summer day. His salt and pepper hair a little messy like usual, his smile lines proof that he was happy. And what made him happy was standing next to him—a beautiful, blue-eyed red head clutching his arm. While his gaze was fixed on the camera, she was fixed on him, beaming, laughing like he had just told another one of his terrible dad jokes.

  Mommy. And Daddy.

  No tears, Hannah. Em thinks you’re strong, and you’re going to keep it that way. She needs you strong.

  I choked the emotion back down and cleared my throat.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie.” Squeezing her shoulder, “I didn’t have good dreams either, if it makes you feel better.” It didn’t. Why would it? I tried again. “Want pancakes?”

  “French toast.”

  “What eleven-year-old doesn’t like pancakes?”

  She met me with her green, puppy dog eyes—Dad’s eyes—and shrugged.

  “French toast it is.” I tousled her hair and she giggled. “Oh, and by the way, did you come into my room last night? You’re not in trouble if you did.”

  She shook her head.

  “You didn’t come in and move my phone, maybe?”

  Another head shake. “Why?”

  I forced a smile. “No reason. Just checking.” I hopped off the bed and took the covers with me. “The shower’s already on.”

  Em slid off the bed with a tiny groan.


  I pulled out the last quarter-loaf of bread from the bread box. It had expired. Fuzzy little patches of mold formed on the loaf’s corners. Grocery shopping was supposed to be Sarah’s responsibility, so it’s no surprise that all we had was some expired bread and enough milk for a couple bowls of cereal.

  Plenty of cigarettes, though!

  Outside, a motorcycle engine died. Em, on her way to the shower, jumped with a yelp when someone banged their fist hard against the front door.

  “Sarah!” a gnarly, slurred voice called from outside followed by more banging. “Sarah!”

  Em ran to me. “Come on,” I said, voice calm, “let’s just hang out in your room for a little bit, okay? He’ll go away if we don’t answer.”

  Em stared for a moment, skeptical, then slowly nodded and led me back to her room. I gave her a reassuring wink and snicked her bedroom door closed behind us, then pulled her close to me. The man outside pounded.

  “Have you thought about what you want to be for Halloween?” I asked in a poor attempt to distract Em. She didn’t answer. I pulled her in tighter. The pounding noises stopped.

  We stood in silence for a few moments, listening, waiting for the sound of an engine roaring to life and pulling away. What we heard instead made my breath catch.

  The back door squealed open.

  How had I left it unlocked?

  Sarah.

  “Stay here!” I whispered sharply, then peeled away from Em, rushed through the kitchen and pressed myself hard against the quarter-open back door. The man on the other side grunted and pushed until he squeezed himself through the narrow opening.

  “What do you want!” My yelling did wonders for his obvious hangover.

  Sarah’s boyfriend or dealer—I neither knew nor cared—winced. “Where is she?”

  “Not here.”

  He rubbed his temple behind his blacked-out sunglasses. He was short and lanky, and showed all the classic signs of little man syndrome. Big motorcycle, black leather jacket, boots, his bald head wrapped in a black and white paisley pattern bandana. He pursed his lips. His creepy red mustache rippled.

  “Move.” He forced me aside and stumbled toward Sarah’s room.

  I huffed and went into Em’s. She was holding her knees on the floor in the corner.

  “Is he gone?” she asked.

  “Not yet.” I tried to slow my breathing, remain calm. “Why don’t you start picking out some clothes for school? You can hop in the shower in a minute. Oh, and the bread’s bad, so—"

  A staccato snap reverberated from down the hall. Em’s eyes widened, terrified. Adrenaline singed the inside of my veins.

  “Em, don’t move.”

  I bolted through the kitchen and down the hallway. The man was yelling something I couldn’t make out through the rush of thunder in my ears. He raised his hand again.

  I gripped the bedroom door jamb, then slingshot myself into Sarah’s room, slamming my shoulder into his back just before he landed another blow to Sarah’s reddening face. He crashed against a lamp, then onto the floor.

  Sarah’s arms and hands were outstretched, flailing, fending off an invisible attacker. She only appeared semi-conscious.

  The man started to stagger back to his feet. Moving fast, I went for the glass liquor bottle in the hallway and raised it above my shoulder.

  “If you want to keep your teeth, you better leave.” I glared.

  Sarah’s heavy, drunken voice raised from the bed, “Hannah, wait—”

  “Save it, Sarah!” I lowered the bottle to point it at her.

  I shouldn’t have done that.

  The man saw an opening and lunged for me, but he was hungover and slow. He charged like a bull, but I sidestepped like a torero. He flew past me and slammed his face into the corner of the door jamb.

  He spat blood and cupped his face in pain. “My tooth! You busted my damn tooth!”

  “Shut up.” I grabbed his grimy leather jacket and pushed. “Out, or I’m calling the cops.”

  I would never have called the cops, because calling the cops only leads to more visits from Child and Family Services, but he didn’t need to know that.

  The man, still gripping his busted mouth, stumbled out the back door before turning back to face me.

  “You watch yourself,” he said, snarling, “I’d hate to have to mess up that pretty face.” He bared a bloody smile, then slammed the door in time to block the bottle I’d sent flying. Shattered glass fragments rained down onto the peeling linoleum floor. I tiptoed through the shards, flipped the deadbolt, pressed my back against the door and released a weighty exhale.

  A small face materialized from around the corner, eyes wet, hands shaking.

  “Stay there, Em,” I told her, voice trembling. “There’s a mess over here and I don’t want you to cut yourself.”

  The house was balmy from the shower left running. “Why don’t you go hop in?”

  Em bunched her eyebrows.

  “Go. I’m fine.” I forced another smile, which dissolved the moment Em clicked the bathroom door shut. I scraped shards of broken bottle off the floor with shaking hands and tossed them in the trash, then swept up the particles.

  By the time I had calmed down enough to wipe the blood spatter off her bedroom door jamb, Sarah had once again journeyed to the land of unconsciousness. Would she thank me later for saving her life? Her snoring suggested she probably wouldn’t even remember.

  Em left the bathroom. I poured her cereal and milk, then shed my pajamas and jumped into the shower myself. It was cold—like, glacial runoff cold. But for some reason, the freezing water felt good, waking me better than coffee, shocking my senses back into focus. The sharp cold prickled my skin and contracted my lungs and yet I stayed, shivering, for as long as I could stand it.

  Two soft taps on the door meant shower time was up. I wrapped in a towel and opened the door. Em had dressed herself in jeans and her navy-blue sweatshirt, the letters UCONN emblazoned in white across the front, fading with every wash. My smile returned, real this time.

  “Very cute, Em.”

  She smiled back, her first of the day. We shared the hair dryer and straightener. Minimal makeup and matching ponytails were the best I could do before the bus arrived. I threw on some jeans, a long cream top, black jacket, and vans. We hustled out the front door as the bus squealed to a stop on the corner.

  “Hey,” I said, holding her cheeks before she ran to the street corner, “I love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  We locked pinkies for a couple seconds, she ran to the bus, found a window seat and gave me a half-hearted wave as the bus carried her away. A stiff fall breeze rattled the leaves on the trees that lined our street, bright yellow against the overcast sky.

  I ran back inside and stuffed homework into my worn backpack. I slung Em’s softball bag and aluminum bat over my shoulder, then snagged the camera bag with my Nikon inside. On the way out the door, I swiped a banana that had to either be eaten today or decompose into a soggy science experiment tomorrow. I tossed the backpack and softball gear into the back seat, carefully placed the camera bag in the passenger seat, and started the old Honda Civic.

  It wasn’t until I adjusted my rearview mirror that I noticed a man draped in a black leather jacket mounted on a matte black motorcycle two or three cars behind me.

  ‘You watch yourself. I’d hate to have to mess up that pretty face.’ I heard the man’s noxious voice in my head. A nervous pit formed in my stomach. I couldn’t see the rider’s face. He wore a black helmet with an ink-black reflective visor.

  I pulled away from the curb. His engine rumbled to life.

  I turned left.

  The rider followed.