Shrouded Souls: Shrouded Lake

By Dani Simmonds

Phantasm or Fantasy?

 

Maralise Hunter's parents have finally left for their first extended vacation, leaving her in charge of the Whisper on the Moor Resort. She works diligently to make her parents proud and to make sure that everything runs smoothly at the family resort. However, she encounters a strange phantom presence in the caverns under the resort that makes her question what is real. Blowing off the strange stories her parents told her about the ghosts at the resort, she feels determined to find a logical explanation. When one of her employees suddenly dies at the resort under mysterious circumstances, she realizes that some situations are completely out of her control. Trying to find answers, Maralise discovers that some of the other employees have also encountered similar apparitions around the resort. After the police reveal the details of her employee's death, she worries about the safety of the other employees and guests.

Meanwhile, Emory Lin has started his new job at a similar resort. He too runs into an inexplicable ghostly presence in the storage area. While trying to find his own answers, he experiences open hostility from his co-workers. Eventually, they give him strict warnings to avoid the lights in the forest, hinting to dangerous evil spirits that roam between the trees. When someone murders one of his co-workers, Emory also begins to worry about protecting the employees and guests. When one of the guests disappears, he heads to the woods to search for her, not realizing the danger he is in.

Will Maralise and Emory find the true nature of these ghostly specters and put a stop to the growing number of deaths? Or will they become one of the many victims?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dani Simmonds
• Release date: Jan 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781733838047

Dani Simmonds

Dani Simmonds has always loved reading mysteries and horror, which was later fueled into writing them when she moved into her first haunted apartment. She's held a wide variety of jobs over the years, from working at the School of Drama, to working in a psychiatric hospital, to her current position in the art industry. This has given her quite an extensive range of interesting people and experiences to draw from. She lives in Everett, Washington, near her children and grandchildren. Check out her website at https://danisimmonds.com/ for news on up and coming books.

Book preview

This book is dedicated to my three wonderful children:

Rachel, Devin and Aedrych

And to all of my awesome grandchildren:

Jacub, Khadin, Kasai, Amelia, Dylan, Sakura, and of course, Marelise

Copyright © 2021 by Dani Simmonds - Shrouded Souls

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted 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.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you did not purchase this book or have it purchased for your use, please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The places and characters in this book are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual places or persons living or dead are entirely coincidental.

ISBN-13: 978-1-7338380-4-7 eBook

ISBN-13: 978-1-7338380-5-4 Paperback

Shrouded Souls is the next book in the Shrouded Lake Series, following Shrouded Lake.

CHAPTER ONE

——————

Prologue—

The fire was still raging. He stumbled down the stairs into the caverns, trying to keep from collapsing. The smoke made it difficult to breathe. He knew he only had a short amount of time before he’d run out of usable air. Despite everything, the sheer momentum of the fire’s growth surprised him.

Shock made him numb. The agonized screams as the flames overtook the men upstairs still rang in his ears. Even after death, their faces still registered the pain and terror of their demise. The image was forever seared into his memory.

As he lurched across the atrium, he spotted a figure enshrouded in smoke. He shuffled a few steps further and saw that it was a woman with blond, curly hair. With the fire still burning above them, it wasn’t safe down here. Perhaps she’d also come down to escape the flames.

Miss, there’s a fire burning upstairs! We need to leave. He stopped to let loose a hacking cough into the sleeve of his shirt. To his surprise, the woman was staring down at his battered boots, her mouth slightly open in shock. He followed her gaze but saw nothing amiss. Come on, we really need to go. He took a step away, but instead of following him, she remained rooted to the spot, still staring at his boots. We don’t have time for this. He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away from the stairs. To his surprise, she shrieked and stepped away from him, dislodging his grasp. She suddenly flickered in front of him as if she was a heat mirage projected before him. Then she turned and ran toward the stairs, disappearing as she hit the bottom step.

He gasped and stumbled back. Holy shit. He blinked and took another involuntary step back, looking about wildly. She had simply vanished before him.

Realizing he didn’t have time to theorize the matter of the disappearing girl, he turned and shuffled down one of the corridors. He needed to find a way out. However, he wasn’t at all familiar with the tunnels. He kept trudging along the pathways, hoping to find an exit. Eventually the air began to clear as he headed away from the fire.

After what felt like hours, he finally stumbled upon one of the outlets of the caverns. Relieved, he pushed aside the ivy covering the entrance and climbed out of the tunnel.

Stumbling through the forest, he headed back toward the resort. His thoughts felt vacant and paralyzed as he struggled to push out the memory of the men’s dying screams.

From here, he couldn’t see any signs of smoke or flames coming from the resort. Yet. Perhaps the fire was traveling slower than he thought. Hopefully, they could extinguish it before anyone else died, and keep it from spreading out into the woods.

Finally, he reached the parking lot of the resort and headed toward the main lodge. Looking up, he spotted a red-headed young man heading slowly towards him, looking down at an object in his hand.

He took several quick steps to catch up to the redhead, who had reached his car. Hold up! Can you assist me? There’s a fire at the resort! I need your help to warn everyone and put it out.

The young man lowered himself into the driver’s seat and grabbed the door handle to close it. Thinking that perhaps the man hadn’t heard him, he grasped the door and held it to prevent the driver from shutting it. The young redhead looked up at him in shock as his mouth dropped open. He realized that he must look rather frightful with small twigs and leaves sticking out of his disheveled hair and his face covered with soot.

Please, sir, we need to put out the fire, or at least evacuate the guests from the main lodge. The young man remained seated in his car, staring up at him. Are you gowed up or something? Please, we don’t have much time! He grabbed the young man’s left wrist to pull him from the car. Let’s go!

Instead of getting up, the young man made a strange gurgling sound in the back of his throat, clutching at his left arm. His eyes rolled back, showing only the whites as the frothy wheezing became louder.

Sir? Are you feeling jake? What’s wrong?

Heavy beads of sweat began to course down the young man’s face, trickling into the foamy bubbles that sputtered from his lips. He made another burbling sound as he leaned out of the car.

Thinking that the driver was trying to get out, he took a step back to give him some room.

Instead of standing up, the redhead simply fell out of the car, hitting the ground hard.

Then he laid still.

CHAPTER TWO

——————

Present Day—

Catriona Hunter grabbed the suitcase off the bed and looked back at her daughter. Could you get that case by the closet, Maralise? I think that’s the last piece of luggage.

Maralise picked up the suitcase and followed her mother through the hallway toward the common section of the cottage. When they reached the living room, Cat stopped to take a look around.

Cat’s sister, Mirin, who was an architect, designed the cottage using an open plan design. The cabin contained two large wings connected by the common living room and full chef kitchen. Mirin and her husband Kurt lived in one wing, while Maralise and her parents lived in the other. Polished cedar lined the cottage interior, glowing with their own inner light. Above the fireplace hung a large wooden compass rose that contained different colored pieces of wood inlaid into it.

Maralise followed her out to the driveway. Gordon, their British Shorthair cat, trotted alongside Maralise like her personal gray shadow. Her father, Ash, was loading a duffel bag into the back of the car.

A wrap around porch enclosed the perimeter of the cottage, which opened to an extended wooden deck outside the living room and kitchen. During good weather, opening the oversized French doors to the deck would extend their living space to the outdoors. Their personal dock stretched from the deck over the lake.

Oh, thanks, hun. I got it. Ash took the suitcase from Cat and eased it into the cramped space of the trunk, smiling with satisfaction when it fit.

Cat stared up at the clouds as she ran through the checklist in her head. Yeah, I think we’ve got it all. She looked back at Maralise. You’ve got the phone numbers for all the hotels we’re staying in, right?

Maralise nodded and tried to refrain from rolling her eyes again. Yes, I have them all in my phone included with your itinerary. I feel like you’ve set me up to be your personal stalker.

Don’t forget that your cousin Sandy will arrive here tomorrow afternoon.

Maralise groaned. I still don’t know why you want her coming all the way out here to babysit me. I can handle this.

She’s not babysitting you. Ash grunted as he placed the last piece of luggage into the backseat of the car. Helping you run the Whisper on the Moor Resort will be really good work experience towards her business degree. It’ll probably be good for both of you.

Alright hun, keep out of trouble, okay? Since your Aunt Mirin and Uncle Kurt have already left to run some errands, they’ll probably beat us to the airport, so we don’t want to be late.

Maralise kissed and hugged each of her parents. Tell them happy nineteenth wedding anniversary for me. And happy twentieth anniversary to you guys. Try not to wreck havoc on Europe. Make sure that you send me pictures.

Will do. Cat chuckled. Take good care of the resort while we’re gone!

With that, they got into their car and gave her a quick wave as they drove down toward the resort’s main driveway.

Maralise watched the car until the lane turned and the trees filtered the view. Ah, freedom at last. She sighed turning away from the road.

She paused to gaze out at the lake. Quiet and secluded, the lake at the resort enjoyed its privacy. Originally named Hidden Lake, it was renamed it Shrouded Lake because of the ever-present fog which sometimes burned off around noon, only to roll back later in the day.

Nothing ever happens around here. I’m sure this place will bore Sandy to bloody tears within the first couple of hours. She sighed and glanced behind her. Well, come on, Gordon.

Gordon looked at her and snorted. The bluish highlights of his thick gray coat shimmered in the early morning light as he glanced back at the departing car. Holding his head high, he followed her into the cottage, his legs stomping along as he tried to exude authority. Maralise often swore that he took his British Shorthair heritage just a little too seriously.

Let’s go, Gordon. I need to put some stuff into storage this morning before work and get more coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

Their office assistant , Jade Vega, was out of the office today. This gave Maralise an opportunity to bring their semi-annual allotment of documents for the resort down to the caverns for storage. Their digital records were automatically backed-up to the cloud, but they still needed to keep hard copies of certain records for repository purposes.

The Whisper on the Moor Resort sat on top of land riddled with natural caves, caverns, and tunnels. These tunnels created natural passageways that stretched out for miles. The caverns directly beneath the lodge hosted the resort’s extra storage.

As a young man, her grandfather Brandt Moor had started the resort. An expert woods craftsman, he put in the secret entrance to the caverns before the resort’s opening day. Only a few employees knew about the caverns: the three generations of Lingenfelters who worked as their maintenance team—Hans, Ehren and Bardric, and their head chef Scott Miller.

Maralise locked the office door and grabbed the banker boxes full of documents. Stepping over to one of the bookcases, she hit the activation panel hidden behind the books. Hearing a faint click, she pulled the edge of the bookcase toward herself, revealing the steps that led down into the darkness.

Turning on the lights to illuminate the stairs, she carefully made her way down the steps. At the bottom, she flicked on the lights for the atrium. The large chamber contained a series of room-like caves along the sides, which they used for storage. The caverns themselves stretched far back into the darkness, and eventually turned into more natural looking caves and tunnels.

Readjusting her load, she made her way to the fifth chamber on the left. Carrying the boxes to the back of the cave, she gently set them down.

As she headed back across the atrium, she thought she caught the sound of footsteps. She stopped and looked around. Listening carefully, she could hear someone walking in the darkness. She tried to see where the sound was coming from, but the echoes made it difficult to determine the direction.

Noticing movement in the shadows, she finally spotted a pair of blue luminescent footprints crossing the stone floor toward her.

What—what the fuck—! She sputtered.

As the footsteps drew near, her panicked instinct to run went unheeded as her legs remained frozen in place. She stared down at the glowing prints as they approached, trying to decide whether to scream. The air around her plummeted into a drastic chill, and she could see her breath as it puffed out before her in frantic gasps.

Eventually, the glowing prints stopped before her. She squinted into the darkness, trying to see if she could determine who or what stood before her. The air seemed to move and shift, creating a faint shimmer, but otherwise gave no hint to whose footprints these were.

She’d heard the odd stories from her parents about seeing her grandparents’ ghosts down in the caverns. Of course she never believed them. She honestly thought they were just stories of entertainment, meant to give her a shiver. Was this Brandt or Maralise, her grandmother whom she’d been named after?

The potent smell of smoke suddenly invaded her nostrils, making her eyes water. It didn’t smell rustic and clean like the bonfires they’d have along the shores of the lake. Instead, it gave off a base odor of fish and sulfur, with a coppery, metallic stench. It smelled stale, like the remnants of an old fire. She looked around but didn’t see any physical sign of smoke.

Abruptly, she felt the firm grasp of a hand on her arm. Without warning, the unseen hand yanked her away from the stairs, and she stumbled a few steps to keep from falling.

Her moment of bravery broken, she shrieked and wrenched her arm free, bolting for the steps leading up to the office. She sprinted up the stairs, stumbling once, afraid to look behind her to see if someone or something was pursuing her.

Finally, she burst into the office with a crash, startling Gordon who laid curled up on the couch. Closing the bookcase entrance behind her, Maralise leaned against the shelves, breathing heavily. Gordon blinked at her and snorted.

Holy crap! She gasped, collapsing into her chair. She took in several deep breaths, trying to relax and steady her madly beating heart. Maralise had no idea what she had encountered down there, but she’d never experienced anything like that before.

I wonder if mom and dad are still going through security at the airport. I’ll call her and see if she’s ever seen—whoever that was. She glanced around the room, then finally sighed and shook her head. Wait, I can’t call them. They’re finally leaving for a much needed vacation, and mom would just use this as an excuse to come back home. No, I’ll just have to prove that I can handle it myself. I can’t show them that I’m failing after only a few minutes on my own.

She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, her eyes studying the ceiling as she absently chewed on her lower lip. Wait, I could ask Bardric. Perhaps he’d seen something like this before. She grabbed her phone to send him a quick text message. She’ll simply ask him to come and check it out. There’s probably a simple explanation that she was overlooking.

The smell of smoke should be incentive enough for him to investigate anyway.

Maralise had just hit send on the message to Bardric when she heard the dull thud of someone trying to open the locked office door. A string of curse words followed the sound of rapid pounding on the door.

Maralise! Are you there? Bardric Lingenfelter shouted through the door.

The urgency in his voice brought Maralise to her feet and she quickly opened the door. Bardric stood towering over her, breathing heavily as his face flushed red.

Maralise, it’s Zack! I think he’s had a heart attack!

Oh my God! She ran down the hallway with him, still holding her phone. The hanging lamps above began to swing wildly as she passed beneath them. Did anyone call for an ambulance?

Yes. Dad called them. They’re on their way.

Does anyone know what happened? Maralise asked as they passed through the lobby.

Bardric shook his head, which sent his beard braid flying. No. Dad went to get something out of his truck and found Zack collapsed in the parking lot

When they reached the front steps, Maralise spotted a group of people gathered at the far end of the parking lot.

As she neared the bottom of the stairs, someone grabbed her right wrist and pulled her to a stop. Shocked, she stumbled back and looked at her arm. There was no one touching her. The grip tightened, feeling distinctively icy against her skin. She gasped and quickly looked around, but there was clearly no one near her. After a moment, the hand released her wrist.

Blinking rapidly, she turned and ran after Bardric.

When they arrived at the scene, Maralise saw that Bardric’s father, Ehren, was doing chest compressions on Zack.

Ehren, what happened? she asked. In the distance, she could hear the sound of sirens.

28 . . . 29 . . . I don’t know . . . 30 . . . He paused and blew two breaths into Zack’s mouth. I found him collapsed on the ground, and his heart’s not beating. 16 . . . 17 . . . I hope the ambulance gets here soon.

Let me know if you need me to jump in. She patted Ehren’s shoulder and he grunted in reply.

Looking down at Zack, she noticed something on his wrist.

Whoa, what the hell is that? She crouched down and rotated Zack’s hand to get a better look. There was a dark red handprint scorched around his wrist, transitioning into darker purple tones in some places.

Hans, Bardric’s grandfather, squatted down to get a better look. Oh, my God, that looks. . . burned in.

Standing behind Maralise, Bardric bent down. "Yeah, it does indeed, Opa. It looks like a fresh burn. Do you think that it caused his heart attack?"

But—how? How could someone burn their handprint onto his skin? Hans turned Zack’s wrist to see the extent of damage.

Maralise, Ehren gasped, leaning back.

I got it, Bardric announced. He took over for his father and resumed performing CPR on Zack.

What on earth could cause that kind of burn mark? Maralise asked.

There’s nothing out here that could produce that. Hans shrugged. And I don’t see how someone could inflict such a wound.

The screech of the sirens cut out as the ambulance pulled up. The crowd quickly stepped aside to allow the EMT personnel access.

In a flurry of movement, the emergency responders took over. After doing a quick assessment of Zack’s condition, the taller one quickly cut open Zack’s shirt and wiped down his chest with an alcohol pad. Then he applied the AED pads to his chest and let the machine analyze him.

Clear! The technician shouted. He waited for a moment then pushed the button. Zack immediately arched his back and went rigid as his extremities jolted randomly. The EMT looked at the readout and gave a brisk nod. Okay, we’ve got a rhythm.

Working together, they quickly got Zack onto the stretcher and began strapping him in.

Maralise got the attention of the shorter EMT. I wanted to show you this in case it’s relevant to his condition. She turned Zack’s hand over, revealing the burned handprint.

The EMT pulled Zack’s wrist closer to get a better view. Whoa, I’ve never seen anything like this before. How’d he get this mark?

Maralise shrugged her shoulders. We don’t know. I spotted it when they were doing CPR on him.

Okay. We’ll point it out to the hospital ER doctors.

Thanks. Which hospital are you taking him to? she asked.

Silverstone Community Hospital, he replied as he got into the back of the ambulance.

Great. I’ll head down there as well.

The EMT gave a curt nod and shut the doors.

She turned to Bardric who immediately nodded. Yes, I’ll be happy to drive you.

Thanks. Let me grab my purse.

Maralise still couldn’t imagine why Zack collapsed, nor how on earth he had received the burn mark. Hopefully, the hospital could provide some answers.

While Bardric drove them to the hospital, Maralise called the number for Zack’s emergency contact.

Crap, the number’s disconnected. Maralise growled in disbelief. When we get back, I need everyone to update their emergency contact information. I have no idea who to call for him.

Bardric grunted in agreement.

After checking in with the emergency room nurse, Maralise and Bardric took seats in the waiting area and prepared for a lengthy stay.

Time stretched out. Maralise tried to pay attention to the sitcom that was playing on the old television on the wall, but couldn’t pay attention enough to figure out what was going on. Bardric got up several times to pace the floor or stare out the window at the parking lot.

After a long wait, the interior automatic doors finally swung open and a frazzled doctor in a white coat stepped through. He glanced around the waiting room. Family of Zack Gifford?

Maralise got up. Uh, yes, right here.

Please follow me.

The doctor escorted them down the hallway to a private room.

Please have a seat. He pointed to the chairs around the table as he shut the door behind them then took a seat across from them. My name is Dr. Mahn. I understand that you’re family members of Zack Gifford?

Maralise glanced at Bardric. Well, we’re . . . Uh, yes, yes we are. My name’s Maralise. This is Bardric.

He nodded curtly and leaned forward, folding his hands on the table. I’m so very sorry, he began.

Maralise felt the air whoosh out of her lungs. It wasn’t possible. Surely, Zack was okay. This must be a huge mistake.