Vengeful Spirits series Box Set

by Val Crowe

  “Interesting,” said my mother, furrowing her brow.

  “So… okay, what I’m wondering is if it works differently than we think. What if, after something really traumatic happens, like a violent death or molesting children in an amusement park, there’s powerful energy that’s created? And what if ghosts are just things that are attracted to that energy. They come to find it, and they get absorbed into it, and then they give life to the energy there, reliving the traumatic events again and again? I mean, wouldn’t that explain why we see ghosts of people who aren’t dead?”

  “But if that’s the case,” said Lily, “then you’re saying it’s not my sister in the park?”

  “We haven’t even seen your sister,” I said.

  “But your mother contacted a spirit that said that she’d seen Molly,” said Lily.

  “Right, but…” I shook my head at her. I had told her that was fake. Why wouldn’t she believe me?

  “That spirit might have been confused,” said my mother. “Didn’t it admit so at the end of the seance before I lost it?”

  “Well… well, that’s good,” said Patrick. “If it’s not really Molly, but just some echo of her, some impression left behind, that’s good.” Patrick raised a finger. “Hey, maybe that’s why the spirit we spoke to said she had moved on. Because she’s gone off to a better place, and the things here are just imprints. I’d like to believe that my sister is at peace.”

  “Of course,” said my mother. “If she isn’t, we will help her find peace.”

  I shot my mother an annoyed look. She was not helping things. “But maybe it’s not like that at all,” I said.

  “Except for the fact that you often speak to spirits with unfinished business,” said my mother.

  “Yeah, but… maybe it’s not like that exactly. Maybe it’s the energy that gets resolved. Maybe if the trauma is taken care of in some way, then the energy dissipates, leaving the ghost free to find some other form of energy and take another form.” I wished Mads was around. I could ask her about this. Of course, if it was true, it didn’t explain Mads at all. Nor did it explain Negus.

  I remembered Mads saying that there were different kinds of spirits. So, maybe, all I was describing was a certain type of spirit, the most commonplace form of ghost. However, I was pretty sure that I was right.

  “Well,” said my mother, “one thing I’m sure you’re right about is that the trauma left in this place has caused a great deal of power. And from what I understand, things like molestation and perverse sexual activity are very powerful and very dangerous. So, it’s no wonder that the place was able to hurt your sister.” She turned to Lily.

  “So, we do think she was hurt by ghosts,” said Lily.

  I thought to myself that it explained a lot about the way the place felt. It was so enticing, but then underneath it seemed awful and rotten. Like candy from a sinister stranger.

  “What else could have happened to her?” said my mother.

  “Maybe Molly’s not even dead,” said Lily. “If what Deacon is saying is true, then there can be ghosts of people who are still alive.”

  “We haven’t seen Molly’s ghost,” I said.

  “I had that dream about her,” said Lily.

  “I know that, but we have no real, hard evidence that she was even in the park. Any number of things could have happened to her.”

  “Wait a second,” Patrick spoke up. “If whatever is here is simply a reflection of Molly, not the real her, then will it have all her memories? Will it know about the jewelry?”

  “Of course,” said my mother. “Don’t worry about that at all.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Mom knew she couldn’t produce the jewelry, and yet she made these assurances to Patrick. Was she that desperate to keep him here?

  * * *

  That night, my mother set up for another seance. I guessed she had some trick up her sleeve to try to repair the damage that she’d caused thus far. I wasn’t entirely sure it was a good idea at this point. She had to see that Patrick and Lily were not going to be taken in by her typical tactics. She had to see that she was setting herself up for a fall here.

  Oscar didn’t come to the seance. My mother sent Patrick to go and get him from his tent. She said that she would have sent me, but that she didn’t know if Oscar would come with me. She said that maybe we owed Oscar an apology. But Patrick said that Oscar wasn’t in his tent. Since he also wasn’t around the camp area anywhere that we could see—unless he was hiding inside one of our campers—that meant he was somewhere inside the park.

  I wasn’t sure why that made me feel so uneasy, but it did.

  My mother’s seance began in the same way. She had Lily and Patrick hold hands and then she began to call the spirits and ask them to show themselves. She got smoke flowing into the room, she knocked over the same book, and then she started asking the questions that required knocks.

  “Is there a spirit among us? Knock if you can hear me,” said my mother.

  Abruptly there was a cacaphony of knocks. My mother must be banging her foot against the pedal underneath her table over and over again to get so many of them and so fast.

  Except that when I looked at my mother, I could see from her face that she wasn’t doing it.

  She took a deep breath, though, and gathered herself. “It seems that we are joined by many presences tonight. But we seek only one. Molly Fletcher. Are you among the spirits here? Knock if you can.”

  One knock.

  I looked at my mother, trying to tell from her face if she had made the knock happen or not.

  “Molly?” said my mother. “Are you at peace? Once for yes, two for no.”

  One knock.

  Then two, right on the first knock’s heels.

  “What does that mean?” whispered Lily.

  My mother looked a little unsettled. She turned to me. “Deacon, do you see anything?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t.” I got up. “Do you want me to check outside the tent?”

  “Should we all go?” said Lily.

  “No, don’t break the circle.” My mother raised her hand, which was clutching Lily’s. Lily was holding hands with Patrick, and Patrick was holding hands with my mother.

  “I’ll be back,” I said. I stepped out of the tent. There was nothing there. But the lights were on in the amusement park. I turned to take the place in, a feeling of icy unease crawling up my back.

  Everything was lit up. All the rides. But the place still looked rundown and decrepit, and the lights only illuminated all the choking vines and the peeling paint and the rust. In the light, the place looked sinister and dangerous.

  I stepped back into the tent. “Uh… so the park?”

  “What about it?” said Lily, straining to see me while still clutching the hands of my mother and her brother as tightly as she could. “Did you see Molly?”

  “No Molly,” I said. “But the lights are on. All the lights are on.”

  “What are you talking about?” said my mother.

  “Holy shit,” said Patrick. “I can see them through the tent.” He was looking in the direction of the park. He got up, dropping hands with the others, his chair clattering to the ground behind him.

  “Don’t break the circle!” screeched my mother.

  And right at that second, something burst through the tent. It came right through the wall as if it was nothing, so I knew it was a ghost. The ghost was a running young woman, her hair streaming out behind her in a braid, but pieces were falling out of it. Her face was red, and she was breathing hard. She glanced over her shoulder in terror, as if she was being chased.

  “Molly!” Lily reached for her, but her hand went right through Molly.

  And then Molly’s pursuer came after Molly, but the pursuer was difficult to make out. At first, he was a man I’d never seen before, one with a gun and a bald head and a dark beard. But then the features of the man twisted and changed and he was the man I’d seen earlier, the one who had grabbed Theo, Jaso
n Wick.

  Molly went past us, and then disappeared through the other side of the tent.

  The man went after her.

  Mid-stride, the man changed from a man to a woman. She had long, matted, dirty dark hair and her teeth were bared. “Get back here, you little shit!” She was my mother, only my mother years ago, when she had been possessed by Negus.

  She dove out of the tent as well.

  My mother—my real mother—let out an audible gasp.

  I turned to her.

  She was sitting stock still in her chair, her face frozen in a look of shock, of disturbance.

  “What the hell was that?” said Patrick. He was shaking.

  “Mom.” I went to her. Knelt down next to her. “You saw that. Now that you’ve seen it, you can’t deny that it happened.”

  My mother didn’t answer. She didn’t even blink. She was practically catatonic.

  “Mom.” I nudged her.

  “Molly,” said Lily, and she picked up her feet and sprinted out of the tent.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Wait, Lily, what are you doing?” Patrick screamed.

  I grabbed my mother by the shoulders and shook her. “Mom!”

  She shied away from my voice. I was screaming too. “Don’t yell, Deacon.”

  Patrick took off out of the tent after his sister.

  My mother gestured. “Go. Go after them. Get them back.”

  I hesitated, looking from my mother to the door of the tent. Then, not even sure why I cared one way or the other about Patrick and Lily, and I ran out of the tent after them.

  I was just in time to see Patrick veering left to go under the archway into the park. Picking up my speed, I huffed and pushed myself to catch up with him. And after several minutes, I did.

  We were now deep into the heart of the place. I grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him. “Patrick!” I gasped. I was out of breath.

  He was panting too. “You scared the hell out of me, Deacon.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Where is she?”

  “Lily?” I said. Or did he mean Molly?

  He nodded. He had started to move again, but he wasn’t running now, just walking quickly, looking this way and that.

  “Did you see what direction she went when she came into the park?” I heaved.

  “I didn’t see her at all when I got out of the tent. She was too far ahead of me. She could be anywhere.”

  “Let’s check the carousel,” I said, and I changed direction so that we were heading toward it.

  It took Patrick a second to switch too and then to catch up. “The carousel? Why?”

  “She had a dream about it,” I said. “She made me come out here with her to look for Molly, but, uh, we didn’t see anything.” No way was I going to tell them that I had gotten distracted by debating whether or not it was okay for me to make a move on his sister or not. I doubted that would go over well.

  “You think this dream meant something?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Really, I don’t know anything. I’m as clueless as you are.”

  “Well, your mother acts like she knows what’s going on,” said Patrick.

  “She doesn’t,” I said flatly.

  Patrick didn’t react to that.

  We continued to walk through the lit-up park. We went past a haunted house ride, and the upper windows were lit up with a greenish light. The lower lit up purple. The house looked cartoonish, and it shouldn’t have been creepy at all, but there was something unearthly about it, as if it was watching us, as if there was a secret grin on an unseen mouth. I didn’t like it there, and I didn’t like to turn my back on it.

  I actually turned and walked backwards when we went past it, keeping my eyes on it for several paces before turning around.

  “You see something?” Patrick’s voice had become a hoarse whisper.

  “No,” I said. I was whispering too.

  “Why is it all lit up like this?”

  “I told you, I don’t—”

  “You know know,” he muttered. “No one knows anything.”

  We reached the carousel. The lights were all on around the top of the thing, except a few which had been shattered or fallen off. They were spots of darkness in the pattern. The carousel stood there, overgrown and still, trees coming up through the floorboards, choking out the faded horse figurines, and when we saw it, we stopped too.

  Neither Patrick nor I spoke. We stared at the carousel for a moment.

  And then Patrick lurched forward.

  I reached out to stop him. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because I didn’t like the way he was moving. Maybe he seemed different now, sort of robotic and out of it. But my fingers didn’t reached him.

  So, he went forward anyway.

  And he laid a hand on the carousel, on one of the figurines. He flattened his palm against the horse’s flank.

  The carousel made a groaning noise, and then it started to move.

  Patrick cried out. He stumbled backwards, struggling to keep his balance.

  I should have gone to help him, but I was rooted to the spot, watching this thing.

  It was moving, and the trees and vines that had been growing over it for years were ripping free. A distorted music was starting to play, carousel music, only it was like someone had stretched it out in some place and bunched it up in others. And whatever the case, it was tinny and distant, as if it had been filtered through the years to reach us.

  The carousel came round, and there was a man standing on it. He had a crew cut and he was wearing a stained white undershirt.

  When Patrick saw him, he flipped out. He ran to me and grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out of there.

  I didn’t want to turn my back on the carousel either, or on that man, but it was either that or trip over my feet, because Patrick was pulling me away, and I had to go with him.

  I turned forward, and the music cut off.

  I looked back, over my shoulder.

  The carousel was still lit up, but it was as if it had never moved. The trees and vines were all back in place. There was no breakage.

  “Come on,” hissed Patrick.

  I went with him.

  When we were out of sight of the carousel, he stopped. He let go of me. Bending down, he breathed noisily.

  “Who was that man?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” said Patrick.

  “Bullshit,” I said. “You recognized him.”

  Patrick looked up at me. “I think… it was my dad.”

  “Your father?”

  “I don’t know.” Patrick straightened, nostrils flaring. “There’s something there. Some memory right on the edge of my consciousness, but whenever I try to prod it, there’s nothing to remember. My brain shuts down and won’t function. And I feel this… terror. Sweaty, heart-pounding terror like nothing I’ve ever even imagined. It’s too much terror to feel and survive.”

  Um… okay. Well, what the hell did that mean?

  * * *

  We met my mother, who was striding down one of the paths in the park with her arms crossed over her chest, looking like an exasperated schoolmarm. “There you are,” she said. “You should have waited for me. I don’t think it’s a good idea to split up.”

  “You told me to go after them,” I said defensively.

  “Well, I wasn’t thinking clearly,” she said.

  Patrick was still walking. He’d barely acknowledged my mother, only giving her a nominal wave. He was still bent on finding Lily.

  “We’re going to to the roller coaster,” I told my mother. “The one where you tried the seance.” I went after Patrick.

  “Oh, you think she’s there?” said my mother, falling into step with me.

  “We can’t search the entire park,” I said. “It would be good if she’d gone to a place that had already seemed significant.”

  “But she was chasing Molly,” said my mother. “She would have gone wherever Molly led.”

&n
bsp; “Well, hopefully Molly’s already led us to these places before,” I said.

  Patrick cupped his hands around his mouth. “Lily!” he called. “Lily, where are you?”

  My mother hunched up her shoulders. “I don’t know if he should be yelling like that. We’re not even really supposed to be here, you know.”

  “We have to find Lily,” I said.

  “You’re right,” said my mother, letting her arms drop to her sides. She raised her voice. “Lily? Lily, are you there?”

  “Answer us!” yelled Patrick.

  Only silence greeted us.

  We kept walking and calling out for her, but we got no response.

  Finally, we arrived at the roller coaster.

  Underneath a tall, banked turn there was a huddled figure lying in a heap on the ground. We couldn’t make out any features, but it looked human-shaped.

  Patrick ran for the figure, screaming Lily’s name.

  I hurried after him. I didn’t know what was there, but I could imagine all kinds of awful things. I wasn’t sure it would be good for Patrick to get there first. I needed to see it, not him.

  Drawing on what energy I had left, I surged forward in a burst of speed and went past him to skid to my knees next to the motionless heap.

  Now that I was close, I could see the shape of a woman’s body. I could see that she was lying on her side, and her hair was spilled out all over the grass. She was still, so still. She looked like a doll.

  There were no wounds I could see. No damages.

  Carefully, I reached down and nudged her hair away from her face. I sucked in breath. It was Lily. Her eyes were closed.

  Patrick arrived next to me, also on his knees. “Lily?” He sounded practically on the verge of tears.

  “Wait,” I said to him, and my voice was thick too.

  “Is she…?” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

  My mother arrived too. She peered over Patrick at Lily’s body. She didn’t say anything.

  “Oh, hell,” said Patrick. “What happened?”

  “I… I don’t know,” I said. Uh, what should I do? I needed to take her pulse or something, right? Well, that was all well and good, except I’d never taken a pulse in my life. I remembered that I had tried to figure out how to do it when I was in high school, so that I could check my heart beat before I gave blood. If it was beating too fast, they wouldn’t let you give blood, and they sent you back to class, which was not cool. But half of the time, I would feel around on my wrist for an age, and I never found anything, and I knew I was alive. So, how good would I be at verifying Lily’s death?