Ghostly Town (A Ghost Hunter P.I. Mystery Book 4) Read online

  “Stop it,” I said. “I’m ready to see this ‘amazing’ footage all of you seem so excited about.”

  “Chloe doesn’t even want to look at it,” Rachel admitted. “But it’s exciting for the rest of us.”

  Chloe was in the living room with a cup of tea in her hand. She had a far-off look in her eyes as if she was in a trance.

  “Earth to Chloe!” Rachel said. “Meredith and Kane are here. We’re about to show them the footage.”

  “I’ll be here,” Chloe said.

  “Don’t mind her,” Rachel said as we made our way to the control room of sorts. “I think she needs a few more cleansing baths before she’s completely back to being herself.”

  I didn’t notice much difference between her usual gloomy self and her current state, but I decided to keep my mouth shut. Obviously, it was important to Rachel that her baths were starting to work.

  “Hey guys,” Jacob said as soon as he saw us. “You won’t believe what showed up on tape after last night.”

  “I’m sure they’ll believe it,” Mike said. “And I’m sure Meredith has seen more impressive things with her own eyes. But it’s still exciting for us mere mortals.”

  “And since that’s what I am,” Kane said. “Then I guess I should be excited as well?”

  We gathered around the computer monitors. Jacob sat down and looked for the files he was about to show us. He started with the video.

  “This isn’t the best,” he said. “But you can clearly see faces coming out of those walls.”

  “If you look hard enough,” Rachel said. “It took some time for me to actually notice them.”

  Jacob did some technical wizardry and then started playing the video. Then he changed the settings from night vision to regular, and then he lightened the video up.

  “I gotta be honest,” Kane said. “I’m only seeing blurs, if that.”

  “I see them,” I said. I saw them as soon as Jacob started playing the video. I could see them no matter how he filtered the video. Maybe because I knew where to look for them.

  I stepped forward and pointed out the ghostly faces to Kane. He gasped in shock because now he could see them as well.

  “I don’t know how I could have missed that,” he said.

  “You’re not the only one,” Rachel said. “Even Mike had some trouble at first.”

  “Me too,” Jacob said. “The more I looked, the more I saw. And to think I was disappointed when I first looked at the footage.”

  “Has Chloe seen the video?” I asked the ghost hunters.

  Mike shook his head. “As soon as we started playing the audio, she ran out of the room. I hope the same doesn’t happen with you.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not as sensitive as Chloe is.”

  “Here it comes,” Jacob said and then pressed the play button on what looked like an audio file. Then he pressed pause just as quick. “Oh, just so you know, I already filtered out our voices. This is what the recorder caught below the surface. It sounded like white noise until I amplified it.”

  “You’re such a geek,” Rachel said. “Just play the damn audio already.”

  “Fine, fine,” Jacob said and pressed the play button.

  “Get out! Get out!” I could clearly hear. Which wasn’t a surprise. I had already heard that with my own ears.

  “But that’s not all,” Jacob said as if he had heard my thoughts. “I lowered the frequency even further. Listen to this.”

  “You will pay for disturbing us. You will pay with your life! You will pay! Merry! Death! Merry! Death! Meredith!”

  I felt chills all over my body. Now that I hadn’t heard last night. Maybe I would have if I wasn’t so busy running away.

  “That’s…that’s disturbing,” I managed to say.

  “Disturbing?” Kane said. “More like utterly mad. I told you we should have left this town. Maybe being thrown out of that inn was a blessing in disguise.”

  “You guys got thrown out of the Ghostly Inn?” Rachel said. “We knew Sheila could be harsh, but even I thought she wouldn’t treat her paying customers like that.”

  “Apparently, she saw us with you last night,” I said. “Now all our stuff is in the van and we have to look for a place to stay.”

  “You’re welcome to stay here,” Mike said. “Free of charge. We have plenty of room. You can even tell us some of your own ghost stories. I bet you have quite a few.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But we don’t want to impose. We’ll find a place.”

  “Will we? You heard that, didn’t you? They’re threatening your life, Meredith,” Kane said. “Maybe it’s time to just leave. Our stuff is already packed.”

  “No, I’m not going to run away from this,” I said. “I’m not going to lie and say that these spirits, whatever they are, don’t scare me. They do. But that’s exactly why I want to face them. And not to mention to stop them from doing any more harm than they’ve already done.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Rachel said. “You guys are staying with us until this is over.”

  “If it’s not too much trouble,” I said.

  “It’s no trouble at all,” Mike reassured me.

  “Could we talk somewhere privately,” Kane asked.

  “You can go out to the back,” Mike said. “The door’s right there.”

  Once we were in the backyard, which surprisingly had a pretty well-kept garden with all kinds of vegetables and herbs growing, I immediately spoke up before Kane had a chance to.

  “I’m not running away from this,” I said.

  “We just heard the same audio back there, didn’t we?”

  “I know you’re scared. So am I. But we have to finish this. I can’t let these spirits bully me. They need to be stopped once and for all.”

  “And how do you propose we do that? Without getting killed in the process that is?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m sure there’s a way. If the spirits didn’t think I had a chance of stopping them, they wouldn’t have bothered to threaten me. They’re threatened by me. I know it. I just have to find what their weakness is and get rid of them once and for all.”

  “Fine,” Kane said. “Let’s try it your way. But do you promise me that we’ll be out of here as soon as it looks like we’re about to lose?”

  I came in closer and kissed him softly on the lips. “You know I can’t do that. Besides, I never lose.”

  “This isn’t a joke, Meredith. Two people are dead,” Kane said, looking more than a little concerned. Apparently, my kiss hadn’t done much to soften his stance.

  “I know. But I think I know where to start now.”

  “And where’s that? Please don’t tell me we’re going back to that abandoned church…”

  I laughed. “No. Not yet anyway. I think we should find out what the church and the inn have in common. Once we find that out, maybe we can find a way of weakening them.”

  “That’s a pretty strong maybe if you ask me,” he said.

  “Do you trust me?” I asked him seriously.

  “Of course I do,” he said without hesitation.

  “Then I promise you that I won’t let these evil spirits hurt either me or you or anyone else ever again.”

  “I just hope you can keep that promise,” he said. He looked back at the house behind us. “Because it’s not just our lives that are in danger now.”

  Sixteen

  We were all in the living room, doing research on the inn and the abandoned church, trying to find any connections between the two.

  “I’m not finding anything,” Rachel said.

  “Me neither,” Mike said.

  “I’m not having much luck either,” I admitted.

  “Maybe there is no connection?” Kane said. “It feels like we’re looking for a needle in a haystack. Except, in this case, there might be no needle at all to find.”

  “There’s nothing online, I can tell you that,” Jacob said.

  “Maybe what we need is a
break?” Rachel said. “Maybe I should go brew us some tea?”

  “That sounds good,” I said.

  We’d been at this for hours, and we were no closer to finding any connection between the two properties. Whatever that connection was, it went further back than any of the research materials we had at hand.

  “Are those ghosts here?” Jacob asked while we were waiting for tea.

  “Not yet,” I said. “I left them a note back at the inn, so if they see it they should be here soon enough.” I tried not to think about what kind of trouble the two ghosts could’ve gotten into. Surely, they were well aware of how dangerous the cabal of spirits was now, so they wouldn’t do anything silly by going where they dwelled.

  Once tea came, we all took a much-needed break from the research. Chloe was still up in her room, not in the mood for human interaction. I thought about going up there and talking to her but didn’t really think it was my place. Kane and I were just here for a couple of days and while we were here, I wanted to refrain from being too intrusive. These four people already had their lives and they didn’t need me to come in and tell them how to live them.

  “Maybe they are like burial grounds,” Rachel said. “Maybe whatever happened there was such a long time ago, there’s no record of it.”

  She had a point but the question was how were we going to prove it. It was not like I could go there and ask the land itself. The evil spirits had taken over completely if my experience with Chloe’s vision was any indication.

  “We’re losing daylight,” Mike said. “From what you said, there’s going to be another séance at the inn tonight, right?” He asked me.

  “Yes, that’s what the inn owner said,” I said.

  “So don’t we have a duty to stop it?” Rachel said. “If we know somebody’s going to get hurt or even die, isn’t it our duty to do everything in our power to stop it?”

  “What do you suggest we do?” Kane asked. Though I had a pretty good idea that he knew the answer he was about to get.

  “Well, I was thinking we should just go and check out the abandoned church,” Rachel said.

  That did it. The whole room went quiet. Nobody knew what to say. I guess it was up to me to speak up first.

  “I don’t think Chloe is up to it, do you?” I asked the group of ghost hunters.

  “No, I don’t think she is either,” Mike said. “And I hardly doubt we can leave her here by herself.”

  “What’s all this about?” Chloe said, standing by the entryway. How long was she there? How much did she hear?

  “It’s nothing for you to worry about,” Mike said. “Just something we’re thinking of doing.”

  “You’re thinking of going to the abandoned church, aren’t you?” Chloe said.

  “It was just an idea,” Rachel said. “We’re stuck on what to do next and people’s lives are in danger.”

  “I understand,” Chloe said after a long silence. “Though I’m definitely not stepping foot inside that church. I can stay in the van while you guys go there. But I will ask you to do one thing for me.”

  “Anything,” Mike said.

  “Take something out from the church. I don’t care what it is, but something I can hold in my hands while we’re far away so that I can see if I can get any psychic impressions from it.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” I said. “What if the evil spirits are attached to it?”

  “Then we can put the item in a salt circle,” Rachel offered.

  “That’s actually a good idea,” I said. “What do the rest of you say? As much as that place creeps me out, I’m willing to go there.”

  “I’ll be there,” Jacob said.

  “Me too,” Rachel said.

  “Me as well,” Mike said. “Of course.”

  So it was decided. The ghost hunters packed their equipment, put it in the van, and then we were on our way. I still wondered where Rebecca and Charles could be, but I trusted that they knew what they were doing. Who knew, maybe they’d come back with some useful information.

  You could feel the dread of the people in the van as we drove toward the abandoned church, but Chloe’s dread had the strongest energy to it.

  Once we arrived there, we parked a little ways away from the church. I had the good idea to bring extra salt with us. While various people in the group offered to stay with Chloe in the van, she told us that she didn’t need any babysitting, even though she looked scared out of her mind. So after we were all out of the van, I put a small circle of salt around it.

  “You sure this is going to work?” Chloe asked me.

  “It should, as long as you don’t get their attention, so just stay here focusing on anything other than ghosts,” I said.

  “That’s easier said than done, isn’t it?” Chloe said.

  “Okay, let’s do this,” I said to the rest of the group.

  We made our way carefully to the abandoned church as if we were walking to the gallows. That’s exactly how it felt. Even though it was still sunny outside, it seemed to get darker and darker the closer we got to the abandoned church. We all had flashlights with us because the church’s windows were boarded shut. Of course they were.

  Kane and I were the first to go in because I could actually see the ghosts if they were there, and Kane wanted to be there by my side.

  I turned on the flashlight and looked around the abandoned, and not to mention filthy, church. I’m not sure what I expected to find, but all I found was a regular looking church that had been diminished by time. A few times I jumped up when I heard some noise but it was actually just rats making their way back and forth.

  “Are you seeing anything?” Jacob asked me, his camera right in my face.

  I turned away from the camera and looked some more around the church. “No, I’m not getting anything right now. What about you guys’ equipment?”

  Mike was in charge of that. He held one of those gadgets that was supposedly sensitive to spirit activity.

  “I’m not getting anything so far,” he said. “This is quite strange.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked him.

  “Because even in areas that aren’t known to be haunted, there’s usually a little activity, but this place feels completely dead. No sign of life at all. How is that possible?”

  I remembered all the blackness that I saw when I touched Chloe’s arm.

  “I think the spirits have the ability to conceal their presence,” I said. “That’s why I couldn’t sense anything at the inn, even though I spent several nights there.”

  “We’ll keep recording,” Mike said. “Because we did catch a few things back at the inn, so maybe the same will happen here. Maybe you should try talking to them?”

  “Knock yourselves out,” I said to Mike and Jacob. I knew I wasn’t going to start talking to these kinds of spirits.

  While they asked their questions and pointed their equipment and cameras trying to catch the answers, Kane and I just walked around slowly. I shone the light all around, but I saw no sign of any ghosts. Then I had the bright idea to shine the light up at the ceiling. As soon as I did, I saw a few somethings retreat like bats. But these weren’t bats, these were definitely spirits of some kind. I said as much to Jacob and he pointed the camera up at the ceiling. And just as he did, my flashlight gave out. The others pointed their flashlights up there as well and the same thing happened to them. The result was that we were in semi-darkness until Jacob turned on the light on his camera. As soon as he did, I remembered to breathe.

  “This place is giving me the creeps,” I said.

  “This is creeping me out,” Rachel said. “Do you think we should try throwing some salt around? Maybe that will get their attention?”

  “So that they can kill us like they did those mediums?” Jacob said, obviously more than a little scared if the quiver in his voice was any indication. I couldn’t blame him. Even I was creeped out by the whole situation.

  “I could try,” I said. “I don’t think they can k
ill us, though. That’s just a theory at this point, of course. But I think they need to have a way in. And mediums, when they get into trance, they invite the spirits inside. I’m not a medium, I just see them, but I don’t channel them or anything of the sort. So hopefully it’ll just piss them off enough so they could show themselves.”

  “Are you sure?” Kane said. “Are you sure you want to take that risk?”

  “I don’t think it’s a great risk to begin with,” I said. “If anybody has a problem with that, they’re free to leave right now.”

  Jacob looked like he was about to exit the building but he stopped himself. “Fine, I’ll stay here but if I become a ghost, I will haunt all of you until the day you die,” he said.

  We laughed good-naturedly at that. “That’s a deal,” Mike said. “Now just keep recording. Record everything you can, and hopefully when we get back home, we can get more out of this than we did back at the inn.”

  I took some salt out of my pocket. “Here goes nothing,” I said as I threw the salt around. Almost immediately, I could feel a change in the atmosphere. And then I heard screeching sounds.

  “They didn’t like that,” I said.

  “Maybe I should do the same?” Rachel said. And before I had time to answer, she took a bit of the salt she was carrying and threw it around to the other side of the room. The same result.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Rachel said.

  “But I did,” I said.

  “Who are you? What happened to you? What do you have against mediums?” I asked in a strong voice. No answers came, but as soon as I finished asking my questions, the gadget Mike was holding went off the charts.

  “Wow,” he said. “There’s some strong spirit activity here right now. Can you see anything, Meredith?”

  I instructed Jacob to shine a light around the church. I actually did see something. Retreating ghostly forms, going back into the walls, as if they were melting back into them.

  “There’s a lot of them here,” I said. “None of them look too happy. All these people had tragic deaths,” I said. “At least that’s how it feels.”

  “I can help you,” I said. “I can help you move on.”