“I have to agree,” Sarah said, holding the mason jar of holy water close. “Now I’m more scared than ever.”
Jonathan glared at me. “Did you really have to repeat that?”
“Kane asked,” I said, throwing him under the bus. “Blame him.”
“Guilty as charged,” Kane said, accepting his responsibility for the scary digression. “But how are we going to find them if they could be anywhere? This hotel isn’t exactly cozy.”
“You can say that again,” Jackson said. “This place is downright scary.”
“Follow the flickering lights,” Sarah said.
“What?” I asked her.
She pointed up. “They’re flickering, aren’t they? Isn’t that a sign that they’re close?”
The lights were flickering, but only slightly. “You’re a genius,” I said to Sarah. “I didn’t even notice that.”
“Me neither,” Troy said. “Good catch, cuz.”
We looked back toward where we came from and saw that those lights weren’t flickering. Only those leading to the next hallway.
Jonathan took the lead, but I stopped him. “You’re the one they want most,” I said. “You’re going to be walking in the middle of the rest of us.”
“I don’t think that’s…”
“…a good idea,” Sarah finished for him. “I don’t want to become a widow on my wedding day. Johnny, do what you’re told for once in your life.”
Jonathan didn’t look happy about it, but he obliged his wife. From the look on her face, it was clear that Sarah wasn’t about to take a no for an answer.
“Johnny?” Troy said. “That’s sweet.”
“Only she gets to call me that, got it?” Jonathan said.
Troy held his hands up, phone and mason jar and all.
“Dude, chill. It was just an observation.”
“Yeah, Jonathan, there’s no need to bite his head off,” Jackson said, coming to Troy’s defense.
“Thanks, man,” Troy said.
“Yeah, yeah, get a room,” Sarah said. “Let’s get this over with, all right?”
“Touché,” Troy said. “Someone’s being a little emotional right now.”
Sarah glared at him.
“Which is entirely understandable, of course. It’s been a long day, hasn’t it? Is anybody else hot? Cause I’m burning up.”
“Stop talking, Troy,” Sarah warned him. “Or you’ll force me to waste this holy water on you.”
“I’ll pretend that I did not just hear you say that,” Father Young said.
“Sorry, Father,” Sarah quickly said. “But Troy is getting on my last nerve. And you know what, instead of throwing the water, I think I’ll just take that phone he’s so fond of and smash it.”
Kane looked from Sarah to Troy. Then he turned to me. “Are they being influenced by the evil ghosts now?”
“I wish I could say yes, but no, they’re not. This is just their regular selves. They used to fight like this all the time when we were kids.”
“You say that like you were little miss innocent. You got in on the fights too, if I remember correctly. That is, unless you were too busy playing with Rebecca and shutting us out,” Troy said.
“I remember that,” Sarah said, suddenly in a reminiscing mood. “That used to piss me off so bad. Oh, I can’t come now, Sarah, I’m too busy talking to my invisible best friend.”
“Very mature, guys. This is neither the place nor the time for this conversation. And besides, I never said I was perfect in the first place. So can we just drop it?”
“Yes. That’s the smartest thing I’ve heard you say, Meredith,” Jonathan said. “Now can we please start following those flickering lights? The ones above us are already back to normal.”
I looked up and by golly, he was right.
“Good catch, deputy,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“I’m starting to rethink my opinion of you,” Mrs. V said.
“Oh bite me, you old…” I stopped myself just in time. “Sorry, that was the evil spirits talking.”
“Was it really?” Kane whispered in my ear.
“Nah, but she doesn’t have to know that,” I whispered back.
“I heard you,” Mrs. V said, giving me the side eye, ghost-style.
“Good for you,” I said right back.
“I’ll see what’s up ahead,” Rebecca said. “Please don’t do anything too entertaining while I’m gone.”
I rolled my eyes.
She came back a while later.
“There’s some up ahead. What’s the game plan?”
“How many?”
“How many what?” Jackson asked. “Are you talking about…them?”
I ignored him and turned to Rebecca.
“Maybe four or five. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself so I kept my distance.”
I explained to the others what was up ahead.
“Crap, crap, I don’t know if I’m up for this,” Sarah said, holding her mason jar close.
“Do we have a plan or are we just winging it?” Troy asked. “I mean, I’m fine either way, but I’d prefer it if we had a plan, you know?”
“We definitely need some kind of plan,” Jonathan said.
“I agree with that,” Jackson was quick to say. “We shouldn’t face them until we’ve come up with one.”
“Sounds reasonable enough to me,” Sarah said.
They were all just standing there like fools, obviously scared out of their minds.
Kane turned to me. “So what will it be?”
“Let me think,” I said, trying to think of all my past encounters with ghosts. But only one kept coming to mind. My encounter recently, the one Kane was privy to. That scary ghost I had to use the ever rare iron-salt combo on. The only problem was that I had no iron.
“We need to work together, all of us,” I said to the group. They seemed happy enough that someone was taking charge of the situation. “We all have some salt with us, right?”
They nodded.
“We’re going to use that salt to trap a spirit. I’ll distract one of them, while you guys try the holy water on the others. If it works, maybe we can use that as well.”
I explained to them that they needed to create a salt circle around the rogue ghost while I distracted it.
“What do you want us to do?” Rebecca asked, meaning her and Mrs. V, of course.
“You two will be distracting the ghost as well. Try circling the thing. Make sure its attention is on me and you and not on these guys, got it?”
Rebecca nodded.
“Fine, but I want to make it clear that I’m doing this for Jonathan, not you,” Mrs. V said.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you,” I said. “So are we ready for this?” I asked the whole group, ghost and non-ghost alike.
None of them looked ready for what was to come, but they nodded their heads anyway.
“Good,” I said. “Let’s catch ourselves a ghost.”
Nineteen
The rogue ghosts noticed me as soon as I entered what looked like a back room, with all kinds of odds and ends in there. Tables and chairs were strewn all over.
While I zeroed in on one of the ghosts, the others decided to get the attention of the remaining ones.
“I just want to talk,” I assured the ghost. From the corner of my eye, I saw that the others were trying their best to deal with the other ghosts. The holy water actually seemed to annoy the spirits, at the very least.
“I don’t want to hurt you, I want to help you,” I told the ghost.
It was still a blurred out form. It didn’t have any individuality, but by the time I was done with it, it hopefully would.
Rebecca and Mrs. V were on either side of the ghost.
The others looked like they were doing a good job driving the other ghosts away with a combination of salt and holy water, I just hoped they had enough salt left for a salt circle.
I found out sooner rather than later, because Jackson
and Troy were already starting to build the circle, careful to not draw too much attention to themselves.
“Hey, are you scared of me now?” I asked the ghost when it started to turn toward them.
“You’re dead,” the ghost hissed and charged at me.
“Now!” I yelled to the others as I blew some salt into the ghostly form in front of me. It immediately dissolved before my very eyes. Pretty soon it was going to reform itself, and then it was really going to be pissed.
I used the salt I had left to complete the circle on my side. It was actually kind of cool to watch all of us working in unison.
Once the circle was complete, the ghost reformed in front of me. I didn’t have any iron, so I couldn’t control it. But I did have it trapped. Now all I needed was to get through to it, which wasn’t an easy task even if the ghost was recently dead, in some cases.
Jonathan kept his eye not on the ghost, but on our surroundings. He held the remaining holy water he had. “We have to make sure we’re ready if they decide to come back for their buddy here.”
So Kane, Sarah, Jonathan, Jackson, Father Young, and Troy kept watch for the other spirits. Mrs. V did as well, taking care of the exit for us. Rebecca stayed by my side just in case I needed her.
I looked at the lights above us. They were flickering. But only slightly. This ghost wasn’t strong enough by itself to break through the salt barrier. Not without its little friends, that is.
“Do we have any salt left?” I asked the group.
“Not much,” Jonathan said. “But enough to dissolve a ghost or two if they try to come back. The holy water doesn’t dissolve them, but they do try to avoid it, and we have some of that left as well. We’ll be good. Just focus on getting through to that thing, okay?”
“I know you’re in a lot of pain,” I told the blurry ghost in front of me. “But the only way to stop that pain is to let it go. How does that sound?”
“Never!” The ghost hissed at me.
It got so close to the edge of the circle, I thought it would attack me. But thankfully, it backed away when it felt the barrier there.
“This won’t keep me for long,” the ghost said.
I smiled.
This was a good start. It meant that the ghost had some thinking faculties left. It could think logically, it wasn’t just roaming around, attacking anything it came into contact with.
I had an idea.
“Valentine, Mitts,” I said. “Do those names mean anything to you?”
The ghost became agitated as soon as it heard those names spoken.
“What happened to you?” I asked it.
“Bad things,” it said.
“What bad things? What did they do to you? This was an insane asylum, wasn’t it?”
The ghost actually laughed at that. “No. This was hell.”
“What do you mean by that? Do you remember your name?”
“Of course,” the ghost was quick to say.
“Then what is it?”
Silence.
The ghost seemed to think about that.
“I had a name…” it said after a long silence.
“Yes, yes you did. And they took it from you, didn’t they? And now you want revenge, don’t you?”
The ghost nodded.
“But the people that did you harm are long dead now. You don’t have to be angry anymore. You can let go and move on. How does that sound?”
“Move on? Not until I’ve had my revenge.” The ghost then turned to Jonathan. “He needs to die.”
“No, he doesn’t. He didn’t do anything to you. It might have been someone related to him a long time ago, but it wasn’t him.”
“He looks exactly like the monster that tortured us and took pleasure from it,” the ghost said.
Jonathan gave me a worried look.
“You already killed his grandmother, and she didn’t do anything to you, either. What about the sheriff? Did you kill him as well?”
The ghost’s blurry face actually formed into a smile, which was actually beyond creepy.
“We won’t rest until they’re all dead. And if you get in our way, you’ll be dead as well.”
I took my mason jar filled with holy water and poured some of it in my hand. Then I threw it straight at the spirit.
It screeched and cowered at the edge of the circle.
“I can do this the whole night, but I’d rather you start talking. So what do you say?”
“No,” the ghost simply said. “They’ll come for me soon enough.”
I looked around.
“They’ll have trouble getting to you if they do. So tell me, what exactly happened to you here? You used to have a name, a face, and now you’re just an empty shell whose only purpose seems to be revenge. There’s more to life after death than that.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. He says that those doors of light lead to hell and that the only way for us to get out of here is to kill anyone who has wronged us.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s the one in charge and he doesn’t like you one bit.”
“You must have been very young when you died.”
The ghost turned its head. Its blurry form became more defined. I could make out long hair starting to form. A sad face was almost obscured from view. The ghost transformed from a blurry mass to a young woman or girl in her teens.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her voice no longer harsh and distorted. She sounded like herself. She sounded scared and uncertain, like she was trying to convince herself of what she was saying.
“Look at yourself,” I said. “You’re returning to how you were before he brainwashed you.”
“He didn’t…he helped me see the truth. The reality of life after death.”
“He lied to you,” I said. “He took your happiness away. Those doors of light he told you led to hell? Well, they led to the afterlife. What exactly happened here? Was there a fire here after you died?”
“After? I died in a fire. We were all locked in our rooms and the staff didn’t care enough to let us out. I wasn’t lucky enough to pass out. I felt the flames lick my skin.”
She got up then, the rest of her blurry form reforming into a girl with scars all over her body. She wore a simple dress, which was dark and sooty. This was how she saw herself: like the day she had died.
“The people that let this happen, the people that treated you so badly, they’re all dead now. It’s time to move on. Do you remember your name?”
“Molly,” she said.
“Molly, that’s a nice name. Don’t you want to move on? Don’t you want to go to a better place?”
“He says that this is all there is,” she said. She actually started to sob.
“Over a hundred years have passed since you died, you do know that?”
She looked taken aback by that. “You’re a liar. He says…”
“What’s his name?” I cut her off. It was pretty clear that she was just repeating what the man had told her. She didn’t seem to think much for herself.
“They used to call him Mad Jack. We never saw him while we were alive, but we did hear his screams. He got the worst of it from the staff.”
“And after the fire, he made himself known to you?”
She nodded. “He was the one who gave us a purpose. Revenge. But we were stuck here. We never did get our revenge. Not on most of those who did us harm anyway. A few came back to gawk, but they didn’t gawk for long. Mad Jack took care of them. After that, no one came around here for a long time.”
A door of light formed outside the salt circle. The afterlife police weren’t making this easy for me, that was for sure.
“Look, Molly, your door is back,” I told her, pointing to the door of light behind her.
“It’s a trick. It’s not real,” she said, refusing to even turn around and look at the thing.
“I promise you it’s not a trick. I’ve done this enough times now. I’ve he
lped a lot of lost souls find their way home. Your home is waiting for you.”
She turned around and looked at the door of light. “My sister…”
“She’s waiting for you.”
“It looks like a beautiful summer day,” Molly said, tears in her ghostly eyes.
“Better than this cold darkness, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “But what if it’s not real?”
“It’s real,” Rebecca reassured her. “I’ve seen it plenty of times but never my own door. You should count yourself lucky that your door came for you. Don’t you want to leave all this anger and death and sadness behind?”
“Yes,” Molly said. She got up to go toward the light, but the salt circle stopped her.
I walked around the circle. I faced Molly. “I’ll let you go, I just hope you make the right choice.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jonathan said.
I gave him a look that hopefully told him to mind his own business. I turned to Molly again. “Are you ready to leave this darkness behind?”
She nodded, tears streaming down her face.
I broke the circle of salt with my shoe.
“You’re free now,” I said to her.
She faced me. For a second there, I thought she was going to turn back into that formless creature she was before, but she didn’t.
“Thank you,” she said. “But can I ask you one favor?”
“Anything.”
“Can you help the others, too? We all followed Mad Jack, and now I’m not so sure that was the best thing. Can you promise me that you’ll help them find their doors of light as well?”
“I’ll certainly try my best,” I said honestly.
“That’s all I’m asking,” she said as she headed for that door of light. As soon as the light shone on her, her scars evaporated and her sooty dress looked brand new again.
She turned around and had the most blissful smile on her sun-kissed face. She passed through the light and disappeared with it.
There was only darkness here now.
Kane came to my side, wiping away the tear that streamed down my face without me realizing it.
“You okay?” He said.
I nodded. “How much did you guys see?”
Ghostly Wedding (A Ghost Hunter P.I. Mystery Book 3) Page 13
