“JAIMIE WATERS DIED just two weeks shy of her fourteenth birthday. Her body was discovered along a narrow dirt road on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, near the town of Porcupine, a severed noose still tied around her bruised neck.
“No one knows who cut Jaimie down from the tree or why they left her body next to the road. They probably didn’t want to get involved with BIA tribal police, or local authorities, but wanted to make sure someone found her body before the vultures and coyotes got to it. Official cause of death was listed as suicide, just another victim of the endless poverty, unemployment, depression and isolation plaguing the third-world environment of the reservation.
“Bullshit. No way Jaimie killed herself.” Aaron Looks Twice turned off the tiny voice-activated digital recorder he held in his right hand. The recorder had been a gift from his late mother after he announced he wanted to be a reporter someday, working for Indian Country Today or one of the other Indigenous newspapers. He carried the recorder with him everywhere, uploading his monologues into the secondhand desktop computer his mother also bought for him.
He wasn’t alone in his opinion about Jaimie’s death. Many on the rez thought there was more to her story than a simple suicide. The young girl was the daughter of a tribal chairman, an honor roll student, a Junior Miss Oglala Nation Powwow Princess, and very popular among her peers. She had no reason to take her own life.
Aaron didn’t think depression was the cause for Jaimie’s suicide. He had experienced depression firsthand after his mother was killed by a drunk driver, had even attempted suicide by slicing his own wrists. Somebody, or something, had messed with Jaimie’s head and corrupted her spirit, convincing the teenager to tie a noose around her neck and take a leap into empty space.
Nancy Waters also didn’t believe the medical examiner’s report about her younger cousin’s death. The day after Jaimie’s funeral, she showed up at the tiny mobile home Aaron shared with his grandmother. She brought along her cousin’s laptop, wanting to search social media for possible clues to her death.
Aaron was more than happy to help Nancy. After all, she had been there for him when he was at his lowest, the two of them actually meeting for the first time in the lobby of the Pine Ridge Indian Health Services Hospital the same night he sliced his wrists. She knew his mother was white and had teased him that cutting his wrists would not rid him of his wasicu blood. Her comments made him laugh, despite his pain, and they had been close friends ever since.
Turning on the laptop, they looked through Jaimie’s emails and instant messages, searching for evidence that she had been in trouble or had been cyberbullied by other kids. But they found nothing out of the ordinary, mostly just chatter with friends about school and daily life. She was excited about the upcoming powwow, looking forward to wearing her hand-beaded princess regalia. A person that happy does not kill themself.
They checked Facebook next, scrolling through Jaimie’s timeline. There were several photos of her taken at school, laughing and goofing around with classmates when the teachers weren’t watching. Other photos were taken during picnics, sporting events and when she was out riding horses. She was smiling in all the photos, nothing to indicate she was suffering from depression or having dark thoughts. There were also several links to music videos on her timeline, but the songs were all upbeat and not likely to send a thirteen-year-old spiraling downward into the depths of despair.
Continuing to scroll down the timeline, they came upon a grainy black-and-white photo of a large oak tree standing alone on a hilltop surrounded by endless prairie. Aaron thought it was an old photo from a history book, something taken on the reservation a long time ago. He started to scroll past it, but Nancy pointed at the screen.
“Wait. Stop,” she said. “Go back to that picture.”
“Why? Did you see something?”
“Maybe. Just go back.”
Aaron backed up to the photo. At first, he didn’t notice anything remarkable about it, but then he saw what had caught Nancy’s attention. Standing at the base of the tree, barely visible in the shadows, was a man. He appeared to be very tall and thin, but it was hard to see him clearly because the photo was dark. He also wore black clothing, making it even harder to see him. The man’s face was in profile, his features hidden in the shadows.
The man appeared to be looking up into the tree, at a smaller figure hanging from one of the lower limbs. Though it was also difficult to make out, the second figure appeared to be a girl. She wore a dress, her legs and feet bare, long dark hair hanging down and covering her face.
Nancy pointed at the screen, shocked. “Oh, my god. Is that Jaimie?”
“Can’t be. It has to be photoshopped,” Aaron replied. “Here. Let me zoom in.” He moved the computer’s mouse, enlarging the photo. The second figure did look like a young girl hanging from a noose. But if it was Jaimie, then who took the photo, and how had it appeared on her Facebook timeline?
“It’s got to be some kind of sick joke,” Aaron said, studying the image. “Someone’s idea of a prank.”
“It’s not funny.”
“Was Jaimie wearing a dress when they found her?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about shoes? Was she wearing shoes?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
Toward the top of the photo, in the sky just above the oak tree, was a light-colored rectangle about half the size of the tall man. It was probably just a flaw in the digital image, but it looked like a window or open doorway. The rectangle was filled with a random pattern of light and dark pixels, like static on a television screen.
“What’s that shape?” Nancy asked, pointing at the rectangle.
“I’m not sure. Probably just a glitch in the image. But I want to make a copy of this photo for the police. It might be important. If it’s legit, then maybe they can figure out who cut your cousin down and put her body by the side of the road.”
“Maybe it’s the same guy in the photo.”
“It’s possible. But I wonder who took a picture of him?”
Below the photo, Jaimie had typed the phrase Ota Keta.
Nancy said the words aloud. “Ota Keta. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” Aaron replied.
“Is it Lakota?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe.”
Neither Aaron nor Nancy were fluent in the Lakota dialect. Many young people spoke very little of their Indigenous language, a result of their parents, and grandparents, spending years in government-run Indian boarding schools where they had been punished for speaking their native tongue. Those who survived the ordeal of boarding school life either forgot how to speak Lakota or refused to teach their children for fear they too would be punished.
“The phrase seems familiar; I think I’ve heard it before.”
“Where?” Nancy asked.
He shook his head. “I can’t remember. Maybe I heard one of Grandma Emma’s friends say it. Her Bingo buddies from Kyle and Oglala rarely speak English when they come to the house.”
Aaron left-clicked the computer’s mouse, sending the photo of the oak tree and the two shadowy figures to a wireless printer across the room. As the printer powered up, it squeaked loudly. Nancy turned to look at the printer and didn’t see the image on the computer screen flicker and suddenly enlarge, wasn’t watching as the tall figure in the photo turned his head toward them. But Aaron was watching, shocked to see the man in the fluttering image move.
“He has no eyes,” Aaron whispered under his breath, stunned by what he saw. The man in the photo appeared to be eyeless, or at least none could be seen in the grainy image, his face almost entirely featureless.
Moments later, the image distorted, seeming to melt and burn like a filmstrip negative against a hot projector lamp. The image crumpled, turned brown, and disappeared from Jaimie’s timeline as if it had never been there at all.
Aaron crossed the room, grabbing the paper off his printer. The wireless signal had been sent before the image disappeared, but the printout was different from what they had seen on the computer screen. The tree and the valley beyond it were still there, a length of rope hanging from a lower limb, but the Eyeless Man, Jaimie, and the odd rectangle of light were no longer in the image.
“What the hell?” Aaron stared at the photo. “They’re gone.”
“What do you mean, they’re gone? Let me see.” Nancy took the photo from him. “I don’t understand. How could they just vanish? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Doesn’t make sense to me either.” He turned to look at Jaimie’s computer, but the image was no longer there. Maybe the person who posted it on the timeline had decided to remove it.
Nancy looked down at the printed photo. “The rope is still in the picture. This could be the same tree where Jaimie hung herself. The rope could be important.”
Aaron nodded. “We need to find that tree.”
The following morning, Aaron and Nancy borrowed horses from a neighbor and set out to find the tree in the photo. They spent most of the day searching and were about to give it up as a lost cause; the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation covered over three thousand square miles on the southern tip of the badlands. They assumed the tree would be close to Jaimie’s house, but the truth was it could be anywhere. They had just turned around to head back when Nancy spotted the tree in the distance, a severed piece of rope still hanging from a lower limb.
Galloping their horses across open grasslands and up a hill, they dismounted, and Aaron climbed the tree and retrieved the rope. Back on the ground, he and Nancy pondered the mystery of Jaimie’s suicide. Why had she done it, and who had cut her down? Had the person who cut the rope, and left the teenager by the road, also assisted in the suicide? That would explain why they hadn’t taken the body to the police. Maybe Jaimie’s assistant had also taken the photograph.
“Do you think the police can get DNA off this rope?” Nancy asked innocently. “Maybe they can find out if this is the rope Jaimie used to hang herself, and who cut her down.”
Aaron laughed, but his smile quickly disappeared when Nancy gave him a sharp look. “Let’s hope they don’t get any DNA off this rope, seeing how we both just handled it. But if it is the rope she used, they’ll be able to match it to the piece found tied around her neck. I’d be willing to bet—”
He was interrupted by an ominous chittering in the tall grasses that surrounded the hill. The sound rose and fell, rose and fell, stopped, and then started again.
“What’s that?” Nancy asked, looking around, trying to locate the source of the noise.
“It’s nothing,” Aaron replied. “Just the wind rustling dried grasses.”
She looked up at the leaves of the oak tree above her head. They were motionless, untouched by even the slightest hint of a breeze. “There’s no wind.”
“Then it’s insects. Grasshoppers. Cicadas, maybe.”
The noise grew louder, causing Nancy to take a step closer to him.
“Probably just a prairie dog,” Aaron said, looking around.
“Doesn’t sound like a prairie dog,” she stated.
Nancy was right. It didn’t sound like a prairie dog, at least none he had ever heard. They were both familiar with the wildlife that called Pine Ridge home, and this didn’t resemble anything Aaron had ever heard before. It seemed menacing, alien.
The noise appeared to be coming from a grove of pine trees, in a valley to the west of the hill. Aaron tried to see if he could spot the source of the noise, but the sun was already starting to set, casting long shadows across the area.
In addition to the chittering, they suddenly heard an odd whistling. It wasn’t the joyful harmony of an unseen bird. The recurrent three notes were shrill and grating, setting Aaron’s teeth on edge, like fingernails on a chalkboard. He felt a headache quickly forming behind his eyes and knew he would be sick if the piercing noise persisted.
Thinking that the unremitting racket might have been made by a boisterous songbird, Nancy stepped back and looked up into the tree. As she stood there staring, she noticed the air directly above the oak tree begin to ripple like waves of heat over a cooking fire.
The shrill whistling abruptly stopped, leaving behind a strained silence. The sudden quiet was foreboding, causing the hairs on Aaron’s arm to stand straight up. He rubbed his forearms and looked around nervously, almost expecting to see someone, or something, sneaking up on them, but all he saw was empty prairie.
“Aaron, look,” she said, pointing at the wavering air. Aaron stepped beside her, focusing his attention to where she pointed.
As they watched, the rippling condensed and took on shape, forming into a luminous rectangle a few feet above the top of the tree. The shape was about four feet long and three feet wide, filled with a flickering static.
“It’s like in the photo on Jaimie’s computer,” Nancy said, her voice laced with fear.
“Yeah.” Aaron nodded. “But what the hell is it?”
“It looks like television static,” she said.
“Maybe it’s electrical; maybe somebody is testing something.”
“Who?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. Maybe the government,” Aaron replied, shaking his head. He looked around again, suddenly feeling very vulnerable out in the open. “You know they’re always doing things on Indian land without permission. Just look at the bombing range they made back in World War II; they still haven’t given back all the land they stole for that. Maybe they’re testing some kind of particle weapon.”
“You read too much science fiction,” Nancy said, mocking him.
“I’m serious. If they are testing something, then it might have an effect on people. That might explain why people’s heads are messed up, why kids are killing themselves. Maybe the Eyeless Man stories are just a government cover-up for what is really going on.”
“If it is a weapon, then we probably shouldn’t be standing here.”
They watched as the static within the rectangle slowly faded, replaced by blurry, wavery images of an unfamiliar landscape. The landscape looked dead, haunted, like a nuclear bomb had gone off.
“What is that?”
“It looks like someone is broadcasting a video signal from somewhere.”
“But how is it appearing here?” Nancy asked.
“I don’t know. Some kind of freak anomaly, I guess,” Aaron replied.
“It really is a window to somewhere. Or a doorway.”
“Yeah. But to where?”
And in that strange, dead landscape something stirred. Dark shapes could clearly be seen moving in the nuclear barren countryside, but Aaron and Nancy could not tell if they were people, animals or something else entirely. There was something terribly unnerving about the unknown shapes in that rectangle in the sky, and it caused the two teenagers to step closer together, their shoulders touching.
Aaron and Nancy were so captivated by what they saw, they didn’t notice a silhouette separate itself from the darkness at the edge of the pine grove in the valley below. Tall and ethereal, the Eyeless Man looked like a being without body or form, fluid as India ink in water, moving freely in the spreading shadows of the approaching dusk, his clothing floating about his body like layers of night.
He looked upon the young people on the hill, seeing them without the aid of binoculars, glasses, or even eyes, making a peculiar chittering sound that seemed to come from a hollow void deep within him.
Aaron heard the strange chittering and turned to look into the shallow valley beyond the hill. At first, he saw nothing but tall grasses, pine trees, and the lengthening darkness, but then he spotted the wraithlike figure moving their way. The Eyeless Man appeared to glitch in and out of the fading sunlight, like a bad video feed, using the shadows and the darkness for camouflage as he drew closer.
Oh, my god.
And from the spreading night an invisible force seemed to reach out and touch Aaron’s mind, caressing his thoughts and subconscious like fluttering moth wings at a lighted window, seeking a way into his brain and maybe even into his soul.
Walking Sam.
Fear stabbed icy fingernails deep into his stomach. He wanted to cry out in terror but could not find his voice, wanted to run screaming in the opposite direction but felt his legs frozen to the ground.
The horses must have sensed approaching danger. Neighing loudly in fear, they tore their bridle reins free from the branches holding them and fled away at a gallop, leaving Aaron and Nancy momentarily dumbfounded.
“Run!” Aaron yelled, finally finding his voice and grabbing Nancy by the hand. “The Eyeless Man is coming!”
They ran for their lives, fleeing down the hill and across the flatland, pumping their arms and legs, too afraid to even look behind them, knowing Walking Sam might be snapping at their heels. They stumbled out of control, almost falling, onto a dirt road, oblivious to the pickup truck barreling their way.
There was the screech of brakes, followed by the deafening roar of a shotgun blast. Aaron halted and looked to his left, breathing heavy. Nancy also stopped running.
Grandma Emma stood beside her pickup’s open door, a pump twelve-gauge pointed in the air. But she didn’t get a second shot, the Eyeless Man dissolving back into the shadows. The doorway floating above the tree shimmered for another moment, and then it too disappeared from view.
“Where did he go?” Aaron looked around.
“I don’t know.” Nancy shook her head. “He’s just gone.”
“You kids get in the truck,” Grandma Emma called out, lowering the shotgun. “Be quick about it.”
Aaron and Nancy hurried across the road to the pickup truck. “Grandma, what did you see?”
“Just a shadow. Now, get in before it comes back. I’ll help you catch the horses, then escort you back to the house. We’ll talk as we ride.”
Aaron told his grandmother everything as they went after the frightened horses. She was mad at first, thinking they might have been trying to follow in Jaimie’s footsteps, but relieved to learn they weren’t thinking of committing suicide. And now she had more evidence to prove to the tribal council that the stories about the Eyeless Man were true.
That night Aaron recited all his thoughts into his digital recorder, listening to what the voice-activated microphone had captured earlier in the day. The strange chittering heard at the oak tree was clear as a bell, as was the whistling. Creating a new audio file, he uploaded everything from the recorder onto his computer.
After that, Aaron logged on to Facebook and discovered that someone had posted a photograph on his timeline. The photo was of the same oak tree, only now there were two nooses hanging from it. The broken length of rope was also missing, meaning the picture had been taken after he removed the rope from the tree.
“What the hell?”
Numerous hateful comments were posted below the image, telling him that he was a worthless half-breed Indian, a wasicu, and nobody liked him—especially his mother and father—that he should take his own life to make everyone happy. Aaron doubted the comments were actually from people he knew, seeing how one of the remarks was credited to the late Jaimie Waters. His Facebook page must have been hacked.
More comments appeared as he watched, including one with a blurry photo of Walking Sam. He stared in stunned silence as the portrait grew in size until it took up the entire screen. As it enlarged, the now familiar chittering came from his computer’s speakers. Aaron turned up the volume, listening carefully. It almost sounded like someone talking, but it was so alien he couldn’t be sure. He was reminded of the old monster movies from the 1950s that featured giant insects, like the ones they showed late at night on satellite television.
The chittering grew louder, and as it did, the screen on his monitor rippled and pushed outward as if something on the inside was trying to escape.
“It really is insects!”
Aaron pushed back his chair and jumped up, backing away, fearful his computer was about to explode.
A loud knock sounded behind him, startling him. Aaron spun around and saw Nancy standing just outside his bedroom window. She knocked again, wanting in.
“You almost gave me a freaking heart attack,” he said, opening the window and helping her climb into the room. “Why didn’t you come to the front door?”
“I was afraid your grandmother was already sleeping.”
He closed the window. Nancy straightened her clothing and smoothed her hair. She pulled her cell phone out of her pants pocket, turning it on. “I wanted to show you something.”
“I think I already know what it is.” He turned and looked at his desktop computer, but the monitor screen no longer bowed outward. The photograph of the Eyeless Man was also gone, making Aaron wonder if he had really seen the image or only imagined it.
“Think I’m losing my mind.”
“What?” Nancy asked.
“Nothing,” he replied. “Show me what you wanted me to see.”
Nancy also had hateful comments on her Facebook timeline, along with a duplicate photo of the tree with two nooses. “It’s the same tree we were at. I think those are meant for us.”
Aaron nodded. “The Eyeless Man must have done it. Maybe Grandma Emma is right; maybe he really is an evil spirit. I wonder if any of our friends have seen him?”
“Let’s look.”
They searched through the social media pages of their friends and classmates, discovering many had been the recipients of Walking Sam’s disturbing photos and verbal abuse. On a Facebook group page, they found another picture of the oak tree with eight nooses hanging from it. The image had been taken at night, a full moon shining in the background.
“Oh, my god,” Nancy said, her voice barely a whisper. “Look at all the nooses.”
As Aaron and Nancy stood there looking at the photo, they noticed that the nooses in the image swayed back and forth. It was not a photograph.
“It’s a video,” Nancy said.
Aaron looked closer. “Not a video. I think it’s a live feed.”
It took another minute or two before they noticed someone standing in the deep shadows at the base of the tree, tall and thin and dressed all in black, barely visible in the night. If it hadn’t been for the light of the full moon, they wouldn’t have seen him at all. They couldn’t see the man’s face, but they knew it would be devoid of eyes.
“He’s waiting for them,” Nancy said, her breath catching in her throat. “It’s happening tonight.”
“We’ve got to do something.”
“Get your grandma and her shotgun.”
“Can’t. She went with a friend to Bingo at the church in Batesland.”
“And her shotgun?”
“It’s here, but she always keeps it locked. And I don’t know where she keeps the key.”
“Great. No weapons.”
“I have a .22 rifle I use for target practice. It was my dad’s, but he left it behind when he left me. Guess he forgot about it.”
“It will have to do,” Nancy said. “Get your gun, and make sure to bring extra ammo. We’re going to need your grandmother’s truck.”
“I know where she keeps the key for that.”
“Meet me outside. I’m going to see if I can get a cell phone signal and call the tribal police, tell them what’s going on. Maybe they can get to that tree before us. I only hope we’re not too late. Eight ropes. Jesus.”
Aaron joined Nancy by the truck a few minutes later, carrying his .22 rifle and a box of ammo. “I left Grandma a note, telling her where we’re going and why. Did you get ahold of the police?”
She shook her head. “Cheap phone. No signal.”
Even if Nancy had gotten hold of the BIA tribal police, there was no guarantee they could make it in time. There were only thirty-two officers on the police force, covering a reservation the size of Rhode Island. The closest cop could be miles away.
Climbing in the truck, they pulled out of the driveway and headed for the hanging tree. They soon left all the houses in the town of Porcupine behind, driving across open countryside. Aaron gripped the steering wheel tightly, staring out the dust-streaked windshield into the heavy darkness in front of them.
Beside him, Nancy sat on the truck’s bench seat, clutching herself and shivering. She too stared out the windshield, trying to see what lay ahead in the darkness. “Aaron, I’m scared. What are we going to do if we find the Eyeless Man?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have to figure that out when we find him.” He reached forward and turned on the stereo. “Here. Maybe this will help calm your nerves.”
Aaron pushed the play button on the stereo’s cassette player, the soothing harmony of Native American flute music filling the cab. But halfway through the third song, the flute music changed into an eerie three-note melody similar to the whistling heard at the hanging tree. They also heard a strange voice speaking in an unfamiliar dialect.
“Aaron, what’s that?”
“I’m not sure. It sounds like someone chanting, but they’re not speaking English or Lakota. Or any Indigenous language I’m familiar with. Do you recognize it?”
“No,” she replied. “Is it part of the song?”
Aaron shook his head. “No. I’ve listened to this tape many times while riding with my grandmother. Strictly instrumental. No singing.”
Nancy removed the cassette tape from the stereo, the sounds of country music from KILI-FM replacing the flute music. But the voice was still there, overtop the music being played, speaking in an unknown language. Mixed in with the voice was a strange chittering, making it even harder to hear what was being said.
“It’s still there,” Nancy said.
“But that’s impossible.”
As they listened, they began to pick out individual words: “No… pain… join. Ota Keta.”
The voice was soothing, hypnotic and deadly. Aaron turned to look at Nancy. She had gone very quiet, staring motionless at the dash as if mesmerized. He quickly turned off the stereo. “Enough of that.”
Nancy blinked several times, like she was waking from a dream. She stared at him for a few moments, wide-eyed, then turned to look out the windshield. “Watch out!”
Aaron slammed on the brakes, bringing the pickup to a screeching halt. Six teenagers had come out of the darkness, suddenly becoming visible as they stepped into the glow of his headlights. He turned off the engine and climbed out of the truck. Nancy followed him.
The teenagers crossed the road in a group, walking as if in a trance, heading for the oak tree where Jaimie hanged herself. Two bodies already hung from nooses in the tree, clearly visible in the moonlight.
“Oh, my god. Look!” Nancy pointed at the bodies. Above the tree floated two more of the rectangles, doorways to another world.
“Two bodies, two doorways,” Aaron said, shocked, realizing what was happening. “The Eyeless Man is opening a doorway with each death.”
Nancy looked around, quickly counting the kids moving toward the tree. “What happens when eight doorways open?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a lot of things can come through from wherever the doorways lead. Or maybe Walking Sam can stack them all together and something really big can come through.”
“We have to stop him.”
Aaron glanced down at the rifle he held, which suddenly seemed very puny and insufficient. “I don’t think this is going to do us much good, but maybe we can shut down his power source.”
He ran forward, positioning himself between the tree and the hypnotized teenagers. “Stop. Don’t do this!” he yelled. “Walking Sam is lying. You’re not worthless. You are loved.”
“Please stop,” Nancy added, joining him. “This is not the way of our people. You are Oglala Lakota. Your ancestors did not give up when they were starved and driven onto the reservation. They did not quit when soldiers slaughtered their families at the Knee.”
“That’s right. Listen to her!” Aaron shouted. “Your grandparents did not give up when they were sent to Indian boarding schools, forbidden to speak their own language.” He held up his wrists for emphasis. “I know it’s not easy. I’ve been there, felt what you feel. But you have to fight him.”
The gang of teenagers continued walking toward the oak tree.
“They’re not listening,” he said.
“I’ve got an idea.” Nancy stepped in front of a tall boy, blocking his way and kneeing him in the groin. The teenager dropped like a rock, clutching his testicles and moaning in pain.
Nancy pointed. “See? He’s snapped out of it. Physical pain wins every time. I learned that in gym class, when a boy tried to get fresh with me.”
“Oh, hell. You’ve got my vote.” Aaron turned around, dropping the rifle and slapping a girl across the face. She fell to the ground, holding her face and crying. “Sorry, but you’ll thank me in the morning.”
They moved quickly among the other teenagers, slapping, punching and inflicting pain to snap them out of their trances.
They heard a cry of anger, and a tall shadow separated itself from the darkness at the base of the tree.
“He’s coming!” Nancy shouted, terrified. “Walking Sam is coming.”
“Don’t look at him! Finish what we started.” Aaron turned his back on Nancy and continued his work. He threw a slap, landed a punch, kicked a shin and kneed another groin. In a matter of seconds, all the teenagers were on the ground, crying and rolling around in pain. But they were no longer hypnotized. They would have bruises, welts and sore testicles in the morning, but they would be alive.
He had just slapped the last teenager when an unholy scream split the night. Aaron turned and looked around, but he saw no sign of Walking Sam. The Eyeless Man was gone, at least for now.
“We did it. We won. Hey, Nancy?”
Looking up, he was surprised to see three doorways floating in the night sky where there had only been two before.
“Three? But we stopped them. We—” His voice fell silent as he spotted a third person in the tree. “No. Oh, no.”
Aaron ran forward, his eyes filling with tears. He stopped in front of the newest victim, hanging lifeless on a rope.
“Dear God. No. Not you, too,” he cried out as he sank slowly to his knees.
He had momentarily turned his back on Nancy, and that was all the time it had taken for the Eyeless Man to claim her. Had the hypnotic voice of the suicide spirit filled her mind with sorrow and despair, causing her to give up all hope and take her own life? Or had he physically grabbed Nancy and hanged her in the tree?
Aaron would probably never learn the answer. All he knew was that he had lost his one true friend, the person who had given him hope when hope hadn’t existed. Her positive ray of sunshine was forever gone from his life.
As Aaron climbed up into the oak tree, slipping a noose over his head, he hoped his spirit would be able to find the same doorway Nancy had gone through. Together they would face whatever waited on the other side.
“Ota Keta,” he said, stepping off into space.