by Ron Ripley
One of the dogs dipped beneath the water, leaving the other to swim alone. Then a moment later that one too vanished. A minute passed before the two dogs, and the man broke the surface more than fifty yards away from the shore.
Floating.
No movement at all.
“Riptide,” William said softly, straightening up. He looked at Brian. “What the hell was that dust devil about though? There’s no wind.”
“Come on,” Brian said, ignoring the question. “Let’s go call the police. They’ll get a boat out there. They need to recover the body.”
William nodded.
Together they walked back to William’s house.
Chapter 11: Reviewing the Film
Brian and William gave their statements to the police officer who responded to William’s 911 call. The woman took the information dutifully and thanked them. Then she and another officer who showed up a short while later, went out and looked at the beach. From the house, Brian could see them taking pictures and speaking into their radios. Soon the police left, and Brian gathered up the recorders. Like those of the power packs, all of the batteries were drained.
He sat down in the chair and put his gear on the table. William waited silently as Brian first connected everything to a central power supply, then to the hub, and then the hub to the laptop. The laptop whirred as Brian brought it online and started to upload the information.
Soon everything was ready.
“Okay, William,” Brian said, smiling at the young man, “here’s the moment of truth.”
William nodded.
“We’ll start with the visuals,” Brian said. He turned the laptop so William could see it as well. “This is camera one, it was set up to catch the front door.”
Brian clicked on the icon, waited for the video player to open before hit play and sat back. He had only set everything for half an hour of recording time, but given the fact that they had heard Andrew, Brian was pretty confident they would see something.
The file started to play. The closed front door leaped into view. The only audible noise was the cracking of the logs in the fireplace. The camera had been set with its low-light filter on, which cast a greenish glow in the house.
A shadow flickered across the screen, and the power pack near the front door went dark.
A heartbeat later the video ended.
Brian frowned and leaned forward to check the file.
“What happened?” William asked.
“Looks like the battery was completely drained after only, hmm, let’s see. Thirty-four seconds.”
“What was that shadow?” William asked.
“Let’s look,” Brian said. He dragged the play marker back to where he thought the shadow had appeared and played it forward second by second until the image was on the screen.
Darkness filled the screen, and through it, they could barely see the front door and the power pack. But there was no definition to the shadow. Nothing identifiable. Brian couldn’t say exactly what they saw.
“Is that Andrew?” William asked.
“I don’t know,” Brian answered. “It might be. We’ve got the shadow, and then the complete draining of the power pack and the recorder’s power supply. But, if you said there are a lot of ghosts that come in here, it could be anyone.”
“But it’s not a power glitch?”
“No,” Brian said. “Not at all. Every electrical piece I set up to record was sucked dry.”
“Yeah. Anyway, let’s see what’s on the other recorders.” Brian leaned forward and moved the mouse around to find the next file.
The second video showed the same thing, a few seconds longer than the first. And the third was like the others, going black at forty seconds rather than thirty-four, or thirty-seven.
Brian frowned and opened the first audio file, then the second, and then the third.
The only sound was the fireplace, and each recording ended at three-second intervals following the last video.
Brian sat back in his chair and wished he had something a little harder to drink than water. William watched him expectantly.
“I wonder,” Brian murmured. He reached out and picked up the digital recorder he had first set up. He had stopped it before he set everything else up, but it had still been recording when he had first heard the noise William had identified as Andrew.
Brian brought the recording back to the beginning and played it.
His voice and William’s came out of the small speaker, the sound crisp and clean. Brian held the device and closed his eyes as he listened.
Soon he heard the click of Andrew, William identified it as such and --
“I’m killing the walker tonight.”
Brian stopped the recorder.
His heart started up its harsh pattern as he looked to William. The young man’s eyes were wide.
“That’s Andrew,” William said after a moment. “I’ve heard him a few times before, but never so clear.”
Brian nodded, started the recording again, and listened closely. The angry, hate filled voice of Andrew continued.
“I will drive them into the ocean. That which claimed me shall claim them. Mark my words, William,” Andrew said coldly. “Oh, and Brian,” he continued, his voice suddenly unable to control his laughter, “I’ve got a very happy little boy here. He’s been telling me all about this farm he lived on. He seems to know you, says he can’t wait to get back in touch.”
Brian dropped the recorder. Andrew’s voice was cut off as the device hit the floor. No, that’s impossible.
“Who’s he talking about?” William asked after a moment of silence.
Brian shook his head. This can’t be happening.
“Brian?” William asked, concern filling his voice.
“Do you have anything hard to drink?” Brian asked in a low voice.
“Yeah,” William answered. “I’ve got some vodka in the freezer.”
“If you could get me a drink,” Brian said, clearing his throat, “I’ll tell you all about...Paul.”
William nodded and got up. As he walked away, Brian looked down at his own hands. They were trembling.
Chapter 12: Waiting to Hear from Brian
Jenny sat in Sylvia’s kitchen, and the two of them worked their way through a pot of Earl Grey tea. It was a little past midnight, and Sylvia had recently returned from her visit with a couple in Amherst whose toddler had passed away from cancer.
Thankfully there had been no trace of the child’s spirit in the house, although there had been an old farmer who had been around for the better part of two centuries.
“He didn’t want to move on, not yet. I mean, he was open to the idea, but not right now. It was like he had adopted the family. He said he’d lost a son as well, to ‘the consumption,’ so he knew what they were going through,” Sylvia said, putting her teacup down.
“What did you do?” Jenny asked.
“I couldn’t force him, he was a really nice ghost,” Sylvia said with a sigh. “He didn’t want to go, said he liked the couple, liked being around real people, and he thought he could help out with the garden. I talked to him, and to them.”
“They’re okay with the farmer?”
“For now,” Sylvia said. Then she smiled. “The wife appreciated the farmer’s concern, then she burst out crying, and the husband practically fainted when he saw a box of Kleenex lift itself clean through the air and land right in front of her. Then they all laughed, even though the couple couldn’t see the ghost. The wife said she was going to do some research on the man. The husband thought it was a good idea.”
“Sounds like one of those days that never end up the way you think it will,” Jenny said. “At least, it’ll help them think of something other than their child once in a while.”
“I hope so.”
“So,” Jenny said, stretching. “I got a text from Brian saying he was safe in Maine. Waiting on how it’s going.”
“I know, I got a text from the ‘ghost phone',
” Sylvia said with a grin.
“Hopefully, it won’t be anything too big,” Jenny said. “I’m not exactly in the mood to go all the way up to Maine anytime soon. A little too cold up on the coast.”
“He didn’t send any details?”
Jenny shook her head. “No. Nothing more than what he texted to the both of us: Wells, Maine. Possible haunting.”
Sylvia nodded. Jenny groaned. “I just want a quiet weekend.”
“Me too.” Sylvia smiled. “But Wells is pretty old. Plus, the beach. The house could be a magnet for all sorts of things.”
“You know,” Jenny said, “this really isn’t helping my hope for a quiet weekend, Sylvia.”
“I’m sorry. Oh, I should tell you! I read some more of Leo’s journal.”
“How far are you into it now?” Jenny asked.
“I’m as far as finding out the first time he saw his grandmother, in her house, after she was dead. Apparently she was trying to kill her son.”
“Light reading, eh?”
Sylvia nodded. “It’s also right around the time Leo and I met each other for the first time.”
“Really?”
“Yes. We met in high school. He was pretty strange, as you know, and he didn’t have a lot of people to speak with. I was on the school’s literary magazine, and our advisor was a woman named Mrs. Marseille.” Sylvia paused to refill her teacup. “She had actually been published a few times. Books on the occult. No one really asked her about them except for Leo.”
“He joined the literary magazine?” Jenny asked. She tried to imagine Leo sitting around with other teenagers working on stories, but she couldn’t wrap her head around the idea.
“No,” Sylvia said, shaking her head. “Of course not. He barely had the social skills to function in school. He had nothing when it came to really small group interactions. But as odd as he was, he was terribly sweet and polite. I honestly didn’t think he was capable of feeling attraction. I’m still not sure if he left me everything because I was his only friend, or if it was because he loved me.”
For a moment, Sylvia stopped speaking, and Jenny thought her friend was going to cry. But Sylvia took a deep breath and continued.
“Anyway,” Sylvia said. “He showed up at a meeting of the literary magazine one day and asked to speak with Mrs. Marseille.”
Chapter 13: Leo visits Mrs. Marseille, October 4th, 1998
Leo stood outside of the classroom, not quite sure what to do.
He knew, of course, the polite thing to do was to knock. The door was closed, and there was a piece of white copy paper taped to the safety glass. In bold, bubble letters someone had written, “Lit Mag!”
Leo understood it stood for, “Literature Magazine!”
He couldn’t understand why someone had abbreviated the words. What if someone does not understand?
All of this was unnecessary speculation.
Leo had to speak to someone. Someone outside of his family and the normal demands of school and society.
He needed to speak with Mrs. Marseille.
Mrs. Jeannette Marseille, author of six books on the practical method of communicating with the deceased as well as tried and true solutions to dealing with unwanted hauntings, Leo recited to himself. Mrs. Jeannette Marseille deals solely with humans who have passed, he continued. She does not delve into demonology or other aspects of the paranormal.
She is married to a professor of Latin who teaches at Dartmouth College.
Leo shook his head. None of this is important.
Knock on the door, Leonidas, he told himself.
And so he did.
“Come in!” someone called.
Leo ignored the way the rhythm of his heart increased, and he opened the door.
He found himself standing in Mrs. Marseille’s classroom. A room which he had never been in before. All around were color copies of the dust jackets of classic books. Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Edith Wharton, Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Zora Neale Hurston, and half a dozen others.
The shades in the room were drawn against the light of the sun, and nine students and one teacher sat in desks which had been arranged in a circle. Eight of the students were girls, one was a boy. The teacher, thankfully, was Mrs. Marseille. Yet one girl drew his eye back to her.
Her hair was long, a light brown, almost blonde, and fell to her waist.
Leo had seen her before, in the hallways, but he had never been so close to her.
For some reason, he started to sweat.
The girl smiled at him, and he managed to return the smile. He knew full well how awkward it was.
Someone snickered, and the male student scoffed.
“Enough,” Mrs. Marseille said, her tone sharp. The students looked at her in surprise.
She does not speak to them so, Leo realized. She must always speak easily, friendly.
“May I help you?” Mrs. Marseille asked.
“You are Mrs. Jeannette Marseille?” Leo asked. He heard the crispness in his own words, but the woman didn’t flinch from them. “Married to professor Michel d’Arture Marseille”
“Yes.”
Leo took a further step in.
“I am Leonidas Moreland,” he said.
Mrs. Marseille looked at him. “How may I help you, Leonidas?”
“I would like to speak with you about your books, please.”
“Of course.” She turned to the students and said, “I will be back shortly. Please keep yourselves under a small measure of control.”
The students laughed a little, but they were more concerned with Leonidas.
Mrs. Marseille stood up and walked towards Leo. “Come outside with me into the hall please, Leonidas.”
“Yes,” Leo said, and he followed her out.
She closed the door behind them and then she turned to look at Leo.
Leo saw she was attractive, the glasses she wore low on her nose, and her red hair pulled back into a bun. She was taller than he as well. But the flicker of attraction he felt for her paled in comparison to that which he had felt when looking at the girl in the classroom.
“Are you alright, Leonidas?” Mrs. Marseille asked softly.
Leo was momentarily confused by the question. “Yes. Is there a reason why I would not be alright?”
Mrs. Marseille looked taken aback for a moment, and then a small smile appeared on her face. “Ah. You remind me of my brother. He was a very direct young man.”
Leo didn’t know how to respond, so he didn’t.
Mrs. Marseille formed a small smile. “How may I help you, Leonidas Moreland?”
Leo relaxed slightly. “Do you know how to stop a ghost from killing people?”
This question caused her face to go ashen and a vein pulsed suddenly in her neck. She cleared her throat nervously and then she asked, “How do you know it’s a ghost?”
“I saw her.”
“Do you see a lot of ghosts?” Mrs. Marseille asked, taking a step back towards the door.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Have you ever seen any here?”
“In this hallway?” he asked.
She shook her head. “In the school.”
“Yes.”
“Where?” she asked.
“The cafeteria,” Leo replied. “There is an old Indian woman. She likes to watch everyone eat. It reminds her of when she was alive.”
“How do you know?” Mrs. Marseille asked in a low voice.
“I have spoken with her.”
“Where does she sit?” the teacher asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“With whoever is wearing the most red,” Leo answered. “She loves the color red. Why are you asking me questions about her?”
“Because,” Mrs. Marseille said, her voice still low, “it is not often I meet someone who truly can see and speak with the dead.”
“Oh,” Leo said. He pulled at his left earlobe for a moment. “So you were testing me?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” He looked at her. “Did I pass?”
Mrs. Marseille let out a surprised laugh and nodded her head. “Yes, Leonidas, you passed. Come now, though. It will do you good to sit with other students. You must sit with us until the meeting is done. Then we can speak. Do we have a deal?”
“Yes,” Leo said after a moment of hesitation. “Yes. We have a deal.”
Chapter 14: The Calm before the Storm
Brian was on his second glass of vodka.
William had finished his first and pulled a pair of Budweiser’s out of the refrigerator.
The young man opened both of the beers, put one in front of Brian and sat down with the other. He looked at the digital recorder which was back on the table, and he shook his head.
“It’s unbelievable,” William said after a minute.
“I know,” Brian said.
“I mean,” William continued, “I do believe you. But it’s just unbelievable.”
“I’m hoping that it’s a whole lot of bull,” Brian said, and he finished his vodka. He put the empty glass on the table and picked up the beer.
“How could it be?” William asked.
“I have no idea. Oh hell.”
“What?”
“I have to let my wife know what’s going on,” Brian answered. He pulled out the ghost phone and sent a quick text. Still in Wells. Staying the night. Call if you’re awake.”
He put the phone on the table and looked at William. “So Andrew killed that guy.”
“Straight up murdered him,” William said with a nod.
“And you said there’s a woman named Kathleen?”
Again William nodded.
“And others.”
“Yeah. Plenty of others. Most of the time there are shapes, but there are a few I can recognize. Kathleen. Andrew. A little girl named Sarah. I know there’s a set of twin boys too, maybe five years old?”
“Jesus,” Brian muttered. He took a drink from the bottle. “Okay. So you’ve been okay here?”
“Sure.” William laughed uneasily. “I mean, they wake me up once in a while. I think it’s more of an accident than anything else. But they don’t do anything to me.”
