Shadows and Realms

By Charles Justus Garard

The lamiae have different names and images to cover their own insidious nature. Harper Paget knows this because they have been enemies of Harper's family for generations . . . even centuries. One of his ancestors was even executed as a witch because of the influence of the lamiae. Harper encountered them in China under the names of kuntilanaks and le-aks, Indonesian creatures who caused the death of a Canadian colleague and almost causes his own when he is attacked while confined to a wheelchair.

Back in the USA, he is startled to learn that one or more of them has followed him even to a mental health wing of a hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. His brother who is a patient in another hospital encounters one of them and almost loses his life. Harper tells a Nurse Practioner to beware of who she might encounter in the halls of the hospital where he is staying because they can be doppelgangers (which is German for 'double-walkers') who can look like him or others. She, it turns out, is in love with Harper, which puts her in even graver danger

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles Justus Garard
• Release date: Jun 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201590093

Book preview

[AKA:

D A R K

REALMS]

A Dark Journeys Novel by

––––––––

Charles Justus Garard

Copyright © 2019

Charles Justus Garard

All Rights Reserved

Friday evening when I was in the kitchen facing the counter and the window, I saw a shadow move behind me, creating a dark moving image across the cabinet and window shades. I was alone. I checked the dining room / living room. Nothing. If I moved in the living room, the shadow I threw was not large enough and created an outline of a human. What I saw was something that moved behind me in the kitchen. I realized this later. It was, I swear, rea

I wish to dedicate this novel to my brother, Sam V. Garard, for his contributions to this work of horror fiction.

I also wish to acknowledge my sister, Sally Jean Pierce (formerly Garard) for her contributions as well.

Chapter One

~

Harper was thrown out of his wheelchair.

Christabel guided him back into it; then she wrapped up Anjani’s body in the red blanket from his bed. Her hold on Adjani’s upper body had been strong. With the open tripod leg that Harper had dropped onto the bed, she had stabbed her again in the back of the neck.

Then, with considerable effort, she lifted the shriveled remains and carried them to the window to drop them into the darkness.

With this fast-decaying corpse here, she told Harper, you won’t be able to convince them of anything. I know Chinese people. You’re white, and I’m Asian.

Even the remains were able to emit one last howl as they struck the concrete patio below.

Then Christabel climbed up into the window frame, leaned out, and was gone, leaving behind the red blanket draped over the windowsill. Lights in two more of the windows in the female student dormitory across the way came on. . .

*

Here, uh . . . Harper.

Harper Paget took the cellphone from Susan. Thanks.

It had taken some time for her to refer to him by his name rather than as ‘Sir.’

Susan Neu was the NP from Laos, not far, she had told him, from Vientiane. The smile on her Asian face, he had told himself, was enough to illuminate the room.

I need to make a call, he told her. He meant it as a hint.

A faint smile manifested on her lips. Christabel?

No. I was going to call my brother.

But you and Christa are . . . were . . .

Yes. We were friends when I was over there. He felt awkward, anomic, and useless since he was in bed after twelve noon. He was accustomed to working at night on his writing, particularly now that he was no longer needed in any classroom, but that only meant sleeping late in the mornings.

Only friends?

He paused and blinked. I knew her before I ever went to China, but that’s kind ’ve strange. He made a flat, waving motion with his hand. She was in my dreams. . . sort ‘ve like dreams . . . even before we were in bed together over there.

Your face looks red. She laughed.

None of your fucking business, he thought.

She shifted on the cushioned chair that she had positioned next to his bed. Anyway, you told me that you had to swallow a mini-camera when you were in China.

Actually, yes. he said.

And they found what?

Whew. You’re asking me to remember all of that? Harper shifted toward the desk-side table and yanked open the wooden drawer. My Canadian friend Brady had to help them translate it for me. I don’t know if he spelled everything correctly. ‘Multiple biopsies,’ he read from a dog-eared spiral notebook. In my esophagus, a ‘hiatus hernia.’ Let’s see. ‘Gastritis’ in the antrum and body of my stomach. But two good things: ‘normal pylorus,’ whatever that is, and ‘normal duodenum.’

Susan stared at him for a long moment; then she turned her shoulder toward the door of his room. Good grief, Harper.

He loved the way she said’ good grief,’ an idiom she had picked up from the American staff members.

I know.

I should go, Harper. I’ll come back and—

Wait, he said. That’s not all, even though that was all that was in the main report. They found stuff that they didn’t understand themselves.

She frowned. And that was...

Something was messing with my brain, something that the Chinese doctors had supposedly never encountered before. Nausea. Dizziness. Brady said it had happened to diplomats from Canada visiting China, as well as when they were in Cuba. No one knew the source ...unless they were flat-out lying.

She gave him a blank look. No input. Ergo, no output.

She can be useless, he thought. Then his inner self relented. At times.

She pointed up at the television monitor mounted in a leaning position on the wall. Do you ever turn that on?

Is it hooked up?

Yes.

To what? HGTV? People looking at homes and talking incessantly.

You don’t like being entertained?

He stared at her. "Entertained? Entertained?"

Yes.

Do you know what I see up there?

She frowned. No. The screen is blank. The TV’s turned off.

*

She watched him from the audience, the woman with dark eyes and a riveting stare.

Harper Paget and the other cast members leaned forward to bow. They were on the stage, and the audience sat in what was usually the school gymnasium.

Out in the audience, on that vast floor where the movements of folding chairs could be heard instead of the usual squeaking of basketball shoes, sat Florence Doran. Flory, Harper called her. She, along with Harper’s parents, two sisters, and seven-year-old brother, applauded him and the rest of the cast. In a seat behind Flory and his family sat the solitary watcher, her gaze still fixed on Harper.

He still had the riding crop in his hand and was again wearing the three-cornered hat called a tricorn. He liked what he had fashioned from cardboard, so he wanted to show it off. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Virginia Corbett glancing at him. He, however, was looking at Angela Lockwood. He nodded beyond the temporary footlights. Who’s that? he asked Angela.

Very funny.

At first, Harper didn’t understand her response. Then he got it. Not Flory. Right behind her.

That lady? I don’t know.

He squinted nervously as the curtain came down. Then he saw Virginia.

Virginia stared at him. Miss Christopher, she told him. She teaches out at the college. Teaches Chinese or Japanese, I think. 

That made sense. She looked Asian. The directors of their play were Lakeview College students, so it made sense that others from the college might be interested in a local high school play. . .

*

Christabel let out a loud, prolonged sigh. "You still think that was me."

Yes, Baby, he told her. They were seated on his bed in his dorm room. Who else?

It was a psychic projection. You saw an image of someone who looked like me. That’s all. I’ve never been out of China.

I know.

You have a gift. You don’t want to admit it?

So, I am laughed at by my friends like Brady and Pierre. I not only saw you when I was in high school, I was with you on the beach in California, after my discharge from the U.S. Navy.

She touched his bare leg. For real. You were just an over-sexed kid then.

In his mind’s eye, he saw her. . .

~

What is it? said Christine in her Asian accent. Her voice sounded far away.

I can’t get it outta my head. Harper sat up in the sand. The military hospital.

Christine was a dark shadow against the night sky. Only her cheek was faintly illuminated by a dim bonfire further down the beach. Everybody becomes ill.

Not the way I was. You haven’t been in a place like that . . . not here in San Diego.

She shrugged. Okay, Har-puh.

She still had trouble with Rs.

You know, he told her, the doctors wanted me to draw a picture of someone – myself or someone I admired. I drew a picture of the actor Christopher Lee as a vampire.

Another Chris.

Yes. You’re right. Christopher instead of Christine.

Why did you draw that?

Don’t know. Later I was embarrassed when I realized that medical officers would be looking at it.

Christine leaned over and touched his upward arched leg with one of her breasts loosely contained in the one-piece swimming suit. If your mind ’s on that now, Yankee-boy, something’s still wrong with you.

You’re a yankee too, if you’ve been here in California since you were a child.

She smiled, a smile that showed edges of her teeth.

Harper looked nervously toward the bonfire. The surfers sat huddled around the glowing embers; their outstretched forms were barely visible on the sand.

They aren’t worried about us. Christine leaned over him. Don’t worry. Her black hair brushed against his chest.

~

Her black hair brushed his chest now.  

You were there, Harper told her. Not a doppelganger. You just don’t want to admit it.

A what? Dop-what?

A doppelganger. A double of you.

Christa rustled under the thin blanket and draped a corner over one of her shoulders. She slid her hand along the inside of his thigh. Your life comes back to you now.

Yes. Harper let his head fall back heavily onto the pillow. The edges of the pillow seem to spring toward