by Adam Dark
Then all the open files disappeared, and the monitor went fully black again.
—So you know I’ve seen pretty much all the secrets you’re trying to keep. Everything Ben told you was true. You keep your mouth shut about it, and I’ll keep all your fun little mysteries right here where you put them. Nice and safe.—
Then all those words disappeared, replaced by one more.
—Checkmate.—
A sharp laugh burst out of Ben’s mouth. Chase turned to look at him, frowning now like it might help him see a tiny Ian in there behind Ben’s eyes. Ben laughed again and spread his arms. “He’s serious, dude.”
The guy reached out for the armrest of his chair, pulled the whole thing behind him, and sat. Then he just stared at the keyboard in front of him for a few seconds and licked his lips. “Is he gonna stay in there forever now, or…”
The monitor Ian had somehow hijacked blinked back to the scrolling lines of whatever Chase had pulled up on it originally. “No,” Ben said. “That was just your proof.”
“This is like…” The guy shook his head and puffed out another breath. Then he scratched his eyebrow and added, “Okay, so what did you want me to try to find?”
He didn’t look up at Ben again, but they both already knew the same thing. They’d finally come to an agreement.
‘That was cool, right?’
Yeah, I’d totally high-five you right now.
23
Ben stayed there with Chase until after lunch, which had been a delivery to the house of subs and chips and like five cookies Chase ate on his own. The guy had chilled out pretty quickly after Ian’s revelation, but he dived right into whatever the heck his gigantic system was set up to do. At least he hadn’t lost his enthusiasm for the list or the next demon they’d picked. And after a couple hours spent listening to Ben’s ideas and searching through places Ben had come to accept he’d never be able to access on his own, Chase had already proved way more helpful than stumbling blindly through the library catalogue. Ben found himself even preferring the guy to Anita librarian, which was a step in the right direction.
This level-two demon they’d chosen had apparently made its home in this world among the graves and headstones of Forwaithe Cemetery in Brighton. Yes, a totally cliché place for a haunting or demon infestation or whatever. Ben could admit that much. Chase dug around a little into the background accounts of those anonymous people recording their sightings to these dark-web forums. That was literally the way the guy described this, and if they found what they needed to do this right, Ben didn’t care one way or the other how ridiculous it sounded.
What they found was enough to call it a good start. The reports had listed two suicides and one attempted suicide in the cemetery over the last two years. The most recent had been posted almost a week after Ben was released from the hospital in Oakwood Valley, so it was fairly new. All three people who’d taken a trip to the cemetery with the apparent intention of taking their own lives had been regular visitors, leaving flowers and trinkets and whatever else they’d hoped would bring them some type of deeper closure after losing their loved ones. And every reported sighting was essentially the same—green flashing light from literally under the dirt of the graves, some sort of damage to the headstone, and the visitor ending their life—or trying to—shortly after.
The detail of these accounts Chase pulled up for them to read creeped Ben out just a little more than the content itself. Cemeteries were private, quiet places. Little plots removed from the technology and noise and bustle of city life. He couldn’t help but wonder how these anonymous people posting what they witnessed had even seen what happened in the first place. He imagined hidden cameras placed in unlikely spots around the cemetery or silent drones flying overhead to record videos. Or maybe there were people just creepy enough themselves to hang out all day in a cemetery and spy on the mourning visitors just on the off-chance that they’d see something weird and paranormal and be able to talk about it all over the internet. Ben had an odd feeling that Chase would be able to tell him exactly how these people had discovered what was happening at the cemetery, but he didn’t really want to know. Chase and the dark web could keep their secrets when it came to that.
Around 2:00 p.m., Chase all but kicked him out of his house, saying he had some other work to get to but that he’d keep looking into this level-two for any other helpful information. At that point, Ben liked the idea of taking a little breather from the guy; he’d never expected to spend almost four straight hours with him, alone, doing something productive. So he told Chase to let him know if he found anything else, and they’d come up with a date to visit Forwaithe Cemetery themselves. Then he headed home.
Yes, he felt just a little guilty that, after everything that had happened with Chase, he’d kind of forgotten he’d left April at his apartment with a pot of coffee, a note, and no car. But she hadn’t texted him to ask where he was or when he’d be back, which he seriously appreciated, and he figured she was totally fine.
When he got back to his apartment, April was definitely gone. Her shoes were gone, the door to his bedroom was open, and the dirty dishes in his sink were all now resting upside down and clean on a towel laid out across the counter. Jeeze, she’d washed his dishes. Ben didn’t quite know what to think of that; either April had done it as nothing more than a kind gesture, or she couldn’t stand the way he lived in his own apartment and was trying to clean him up too. That part might have been an issue, until he glanced at the note he’d left her on the counter, which now had another note written below his in small, neat handwriting. The first line made him laugh.
‘Don’t get used to it.’
Below that, she’d written: ‘Your coffee is really strong. I like your bed. Took an Uber home. Thanks for the jacket.’
Ben realized he was overanalyzing half of her note, but he couldn’t help it. She liked his bed. It could have been a statement of fact—that she’d slept really well in it and appreciated him offering it to her for the night. That was simple enough, right? Or it could have been an invitation. ‘I like your bed. Next time, you should be in it with me.’
‘Woah, woah,’ Ian said, sounding just on this side of panic. ‘I don’t wanna see that.’
“Oh, does my imagination make you uncomfortable?” Ben replied, smirking as he stepped away from the counter and headed to the coat closet by the front door. Ian had signed up for this when he’d proposed the whole ‘sharing Ben’s body forever’ deal. Eventually, he’d have to just shut up and deal with it.
‘Yeah, well, I hadn’t really been thinking about any of that when we were seconds away from the Guardian adding you guys to its collection of flesh puppets.’
Gross. “Minor oversight, huh?” Ben opened the closet door and scanned the jackets he’d hung up in there probably when he’d first moved into this apartment and hadn’t touched since. He thought there had been four, which would make sense if April had actually taken one of his jackets. Then he realized the missing one was the old brown leather aviator jacket that had been his grandfather’s. Definitely cool-looking, but the zipper had broken last year and he’d never gotten it fixed.
Grinning, he imagined April walking around in it and thought it probably looked a lot better on her, anyway.
That night after he’d stuffed his face with two boxes of mac ‘n cheese, April did text him.
—Did you go see Chase?—
It was definitely a surprise, and Ben’s immediate reaction was to ask her if she was stalking him and put a bunch of laughing emojis afterward to make it clear he was joking. But even that awful joke was definitely too soon, seeing as the whole reason she’d spent the night at his place was because she did actually have someone else stalking her. So he dropped that idea for something simpler and, yes, more honest.
—How’d you know?—
—Dream.—
Well, okay. She’d been sleeping in his bed and dreaming about him. He couldn’t help feeling a little flattered.
—Really?—
—Really. You, Chase, a bunch of computers, and a kid.—
‘Holy crap, she’s dreaming about me too,’ Ian said.
“Yeah, that’s not exactly a good thing,” Ben muttered, slumping back against his couch. April had been prying a little on her own when she noticed things not quite right about what Ben was telling her—case in point, their conversation at the library on Thursday when he’d lied just well enough to convince her to drop it. But if her dreams were showing Ian right there with him—and her dreams had gotten them out of more than one sticky situation—she probably wasn’t going to drop it anymore. He knew her well enough to be pretty sure of that.
—Weird.—
And then that text all on its own looked way more avoidant than he wanted to be with her right now, so he offered a little more truth.
—I figured Chase might be more helpful with the next project than trying the library again.—
—Was he?—
—Yeah. We found some stuff. He’s still looking. Dude’s house is insane.—
The three dots on his phone blinked, disappeared, then April starting texting again.
—Not the same apartment as the brothers?—
—Nope.—
—Crack house?—
Ben laughed.
—Trust fund kid.—
—Oh… makes sense.—
Yeah, it definitely did. And with all the stuff Ian had pulled up on the monitor—despite the fact that Ben had been the slow one out of the three of them and didn’t know exactly what it was—he had the feeling Chase was living on his trust fund and probably “making his money” by tapping into other people’s. It was just a hunch, but the less he knew about that, the better. Ian had played that game pretty well.
‘Thank you.’
“Don’t get cocky.”
His phone went off again.
—We gonna meet soon to lay out a plan?—
Boy, she was really into the whole gig, wasn’t she? Granted, Ben definitely appreciated that part; he liked having her there with him and Peter when they opened that metal box and really didn’t have much of a clue about what they were putting in it. And they needed her. Apparently, she seemed to need it too.
—Sure. When?—
—Tomorrow? Not trying to be a weekend warrior, really, just… school.—
Yep, of course. Everyone was still busy with school. And maybe Ben was letting his own work slip a little because of what he knew they could do now, especially with way more demons running around Boston than he’d ever imagined.
—I’ll check with Peter. And Chase. I guess.—
Really, at this point, he couldn’t afford to leave the guy out of anything. He and Chase had found themselves in a standoff earlier today, which by default had become an unspoken agreement. And the guy really was good at finding things most people couldn’t.
—Cool.—
Seemed like a pretty good place to stop. And then Ben realized she was probably back home now, maybe trying not to talk about it because she didn’t want to “drag him into her stuff.” He could drag himself, so he sent another text.
—You home?—
—Yeah.—
—Everything okay?—
—Yeah, actually. No sign of the creep.—
—Good. I probably scared him off.—
April didn’t reply to that for a while, and Ben started to think maybe she still wasn’t in the right head space to be joking about her ex problem just yet. Man, and he’d been feeling so confident that he’d made the right moves, as small as they were. Almost ten minutes later, his phone went off again.
—Ha ha.—
Yeah, okay.
The next morning, Ben stopped to glance at the goofy cartoon man churning up a Road-Runner cloud of dust above Speedy Joe’s front door. They could probably get away with making the thing their mascot at this point; even demon-hunters needed their coffee. Because Peter and Chase had both been free to meet up, and by default, they’d just picked the same meeting place again.
April was already sitting at their table in the far corner, Ben’s old aviator jacket draped over the back of her chair. By the time Ben had his latte, Peter and Chase walked through the door together. Both of them seemed highly uncomfortable with that fact. Chase stopped to order a coffee, and Peter went straight to the table to join Ben and April.
“Feeling any better?” Ben asked.
“Worse.” Peter slumped into the chair.
“You want to wait to do this thing until you’re a hundred percent?”
Peter glared at him, coughed into his elbow, and said, “Dude, I’m never at a hundred percent. I’ll be fine.”
Ben shrugged, and Chase headed their way from where he’d doctored his cup of coffee. “Morning,” he said and took the fourth seat. Thankfully, he didn’t make any comment on the crappiness of Peter’s appearance. Ian must have knocked more sense into the guy than Ben thought.
Then Ben jumped right into it and gave them the rundown of what he and Chase had learned about the demon at Forwaithe Cemetery. Pretty straight forward with actual facts to back it up, which made this a first.
‘Don’t forget the spirits,’ Ian added.
Right. Ian had done his ‘slipping into the spirit realm’ thing that morning to check the place out. He’d returned to say yes, there was an actual demon there at the cemetery, though it looked like it was spread out between a bunch of different gravestones like an underground lake. And he’d seen spirits there, lingering around what could safely be assumed were their own gravestones, standing perfectly still like they were waiting for something. Each one of them also happened to be within the area said demon apparently occupied.
Of course, Ben couldn’t tell them all this. Chase would get it if he said Ian had delivered the info, but it wouldn’t fly with April and Peter. Not yet. So instead, he just added to the end of his explanation, “And I think there might be a few spirits there as part of the whole thing too.”
Peter shrugged. “It’s a cemetery. I don’t think anyone’s surprised by that.”
“I found some other stuff,” Chase added. Peter stared at him like he didn’t know the guy could talk.
“Pete, I asked him to help,” Ben said. “The library’s not really cutting it anymore.”
Peter just shrugged again and sat back in his chair. “Well, great.”
“Turns out,” Chase said, apparently oblivious to Peter’s sarcasm, “people have been killing themselves in this cemetery for like the last two hundred years.”
“Woah,” April said.
“Yeah, and guess where they’re buried when they die.”
“Right next to the people they were visiting,” Ben offered. Chase just nodded.
“People don’t find that a little weird?” April asked. “All the suicides in a cemetery.”
“Not really when you know who owns it,” Chase said. He got blank stares all around. “Okay, it’s like a private estate cemetery, only the guy who owns and runs it now opened it up for anyone to use like thirty years ago. Not a state-run place. Just exclusive. And the woman who tried to kill herself there in December is the guy’s cousin.”
“And?” Peter asked.
“And the guy’s probably been paying a bunch of money to keep all the suicides quiet.” Chase adjusted himself in his chair and leaned forward over the table. “Then I went back and looked at the graves where all these suicides happened. There are like three different branches right now. I don’t know if they’re all still aware of each other. But they all come from the same family that’s been here like almost three hundred years.”
“Can’t really call that coincidence, huh?” Ben said.
‘It’s weird,’ Ian offered.
“I guess not,” Chase replied. “So I guess this could be a demon,” he said, lowering his voice. “Or maybe just a bunch of ghosts.”
‘It’s both,’ Ian said.
“Or both,” Ben offered.
“Well
if we can get the demon into a stone,” April said, “we might have a better chance figuring out what the spirits need, right? And Ben, one of them might say something to you at that point.”
Ben nodded, as if he hadn’t already considered that option, then glanced briefly at Chase. The guy was already looking at him with the same half-assed expression of thoughtfulness. No, he hadn’t told Chase that Ian helped him slip in and out of the spirit realm, but he had a feeling the guy had put the pieces together all on his own. “It’s worth a shot,” he said.
“Probably work,” Chase added.
“You all seem pretty confident about this,” Peter said, looking completely unconvinced.
“We just know a lot more about what we’re getting into this time,” Ben said. “It helps.”
“Whatever.”
“Okay.” April looked around the table from one guy to the next. “So when do we wanna go?” Yep, she looked just as eager as he’d thought when she’d pretty much texted him the exact same question.
“I’m free now,” Chase said. Ben already knew how ready this guy was to get going again.
“Now’s good for me,” April said. “Probably can’t swing it during the week. I have so much work to do.”
“Pete?” Ben asked.
His friend rolled his eyes, then stared up at the ceiling. “I mean, the box is in my car.”
Ben laughed. “That’s convenient.”
“It’s empty with a new stone. Might as well be prepared.”
“Okay,” Ben said. “So, head out, then?”
Everyone kind of mumbled agreement and stood from the table. As they headed for the door, Peter said, “Hey, April. How’s it going with that jerk following you around?”
“I actually haven’t seen him since you guys picked me up the other day,” she replied. “Uh… I’m trying not to think about what that means.”
