Ghost Town

by Jason Hawes

  Erin was pleased when Carrington switched over to audio recording. “Makes for better footage,” she had said. She and her crew kept busy filming the investigation. They spent a good portion of their time focusing on Carrington, but Erin had them shoot footage of Trevor and the others, too, something Carrington was clearly displeased with, but he kept his complaints about not being the absolute center of attention at all times to a minimum.

  Connie trailed along with the group, seeming content to watch everyone with an amused smile, although from time to time, she would frown and cock her head to the side, as if she were listening to something that none of the rest of them could hear.

  “In a way, what happened at the Lowry House made me even more determined to investigate the paranormal,” Trevor said. “It’s the same for Drew and Amber. None of us is eager to repeat what we went through—who would be?—but once you know that Darkness is real and that it can reach out from the Other Side and hurt people, you can’t stand by and do nothing anymore. At least, we can’t.”

  Jenn looked at him for a moment. “You’ve changed. You’re more confident, more focused.”

  “More mature?”

  She smiled. “I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

  He smiled back and continued scanning for EMF energy.

  The group took its time getting to the room where the murders had taken place—or as near to the room as the chief wanted them to go. Yellow police tape had been stretched across the entrance to the room, and a pair of crime-scene techs were still busy processing the scene. The bodies had been removed, and instead of chalk outlines indicating their positions, the techs had set up small plastic markers with numbers on them and were taking photographs. The markers were probably more efficient and less damaging to the crime scene than chalk lines, but Trevor thought they lacked the morbid melodrama of the classic approach.

  They all couldn’t stand in the doorway at the same time—one of the downsides to investigating the paranormal en masse, Trevor thought—so they took turns. Jenn might have steeled her nerves to enter the museum with them, but she wasn’t up to actually viewing the scene where the deaths happened. She hung back, and Trevor stayed with her and let the others take the first look. Carrington stepped up to the tape right away, naturally, and he made a show of leaning forward, as if he were a master detective scanning the room for clues. Erin made sure her crew filmed the action, such as it was.

  Carrington stretched his arm over the tape to get his recorder as far into the room as he could. “Is there a presence here?” he said loudly. Then, after a pause, “Are you responsible for the deaths that occurred here?”

  While Carrington did his thing, Drew, Amber, and Connie came over to join Trevor and Jenn.

  “Jenn, what can you tell us about the exhibit in there?” Drew asked.

  “Peter pretty much covered it. It’s all about the flood and its effect on the town. It’s really more of a historical exhibit than anything else.”

  “It does talk a bit about the ghost sightings in the years following the flood and how spiritualists and mediums were drawn by reports of paranormal activity,” Trevor said. “But Jenn’s right. The exhibit’s primary focus is on the flood.”

  “Did the town have a reputation for strange occurrences before the flood?” Amber asked.

  “No more than any other town,” Trevor said.

  “So the murders took place in the one room dedicated to the death of old Exeter and the town’s rebirth as a nexus of psychospiritual energy,” Connie said. “I doubt that’s a coincidence. I wonder if whatever is responsible for the murders was trying to send a message by committing them here.”

  Trevor exchanged glances with Drew and Amber. For someone who supposedly had zero interest in the paranormal before that day, Connie was picking up things fast. Maybe too fast.

  “What sort of message?” Amber said.

  “ ‘I’m here’ would be the simplest one, wouldn’t it?” Connie said. “To us, death is the worst thing that can happen, but to something who’s already dead, maybe not so much. Such a being might not even see murder as a form of aggression, merely as a way of introducing itself.”

  “Interesting insight,” Drew said with a slight frown, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of what Connie had said.

  She smiled. “I didn’t go to psychology school just to have a fancy diploma to hang on the wall.”

  “It could be a warning of some kind,” Trevor said. “Or maybe retaliation for some transgression. Folklore around the world is filled with stories of dark forces that attack and kill people for some kind of wrong they did, whether real or perceived. Like in just about every episode of Tales from the Crypt.”

  “Now, there’s a scholarly source,” Connie said. “But the principle is sound enough.”

  “We need to know more about the victims,” Drew said. “Who they are and what they did in town before coming here. If we can retrace their steps, we might—” Drew broke off and looked past Trevor’s shoulder.

  Trevor turned to see what had caught Drew’s attention. Erin was watching them, a smug smile on her face. Ray had his camera trained on them, and Sarah held the mic out to pick up their conversation. Carrington was still asking questions of any ghosts that might be lingering about and pausing to give them a chance to speak, without any idea that Erin and her crew were no longer filming him.

  “Don’t stop on our account,” Erin said. “That was good stuff.”

  Carrington turned then and saw what was happening.

  “Are you having a discussion about the scene without me? Not very collegial of you.” He turned off his audio recorder and came over to join them.

  “My turn,” Trevor said.

  He walked over to the room’s entrance and, like Carrington before him, held out the EMF detector as far as he could without breaking the police tape. The readings were a little higher but nothing to get excited about. Sarah had put Carrington’s infrared thermal scanner down on the floor, and Trevor picked it up and scanned the room with it. The IR scanner sent out a thermal beam to check for unusually cold or hot spots, which might indicate a ghostly presence. This was a high-end model, one of the MX Ranger series, with a built-in laser pointer to help aim the thermal beam more precisely. Trevor had never used an IR scanner before. As a struggling freelance writer, he had never been able to afford one. As much fun as it was to use the device, it would have been even more fun if it picked up anything. But aside from the crime-scene techs, there were no significant temperature variances in the room.

  Trevor figured the presence of the techs made it impossible to get any clear readings, so he lowered the scanner and examined the room the old-fashioned way: with his eyes. The techs, a man and a woman, shot him dirty looks, as if they thought he was some kind of crime-scene voyeur, but evidently, the chief had informed them that Trevor and the others would be coming, because they didn’t say anything and soon returned to their work. There was nothing of note to see in the room, no bloodstains or anything like that, and he didn’t feel any sense of foreboding. No chills down the back, no feeling that unseen eyes were watching him. He was considering asking Amber to join him to see what she might be able to pick up from the scene, when Connie walked over.

  “You made the right move coming over here as soon as Carrington joined the conversation,” she said. “The man has an ego almost as big as his mouth. Right now, he’s regaling the others about a case he investigated twenty years ago that has absolutely no bearing on what happened here.”

  Trevor saw that Erin and her crew were filming Carrington’s monologue. “At least he’ll give Erin some footage for her film. I didn’t get anything with either the EMF detector or the IR scanner.”

  Connie shrugged. “So? Even if you had, it wouldn’t have told you anything you don’t already know. Something supernatural occurred here, and it resulted in the deaths of two people.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in the paranormal.”

  She flashe
d a smile that could have been on a magazine cover. “Let’s just say I’m doing my best to keep an open mind. There is something about the murders that I find curious.”

  “Oh?”

  “The woman died in a way that seems impossible. She drowned in a room that contains no water, and there was no water on the outside of her body or on her clothes. And this happened in a room dedicated to the Exeter flood. Very mysterious and darkly poetic, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I suppose.”

  “But the man was strangled to death. A very mundane way to die, with no sense of style at all. It’s almost as if they were killed by two different forces: one spiritual, one physical.”

  Trevor hadn’t thought of that, but now that Connie had pointed it out to him, he had to admit that her observation made a lot of sense, even if he wasn’t sure where it might ultimately lead.

  On impulse, he asked, “What’s your game, Connie? You’re way too knowledgeable about this kind of stuff for someone who up to now has had no interest in the supernatural. And don’t try to tell me you’re some kind of savant with instinctive insight into the paranormal.”

  “I do like games, Trevor, I must admit. But I’m not playing any now . . . at least, none that isn’t necessary. I only want to help. After all”—Connie’s supermodel smile took on a sly edge—“that’s the reason I traveled so far to get here.”

  The next room they went to was dedicated to malign female spirits in folklore, such as the Irish banshee, the Welsh Hag of the Mist, the English Black Annis, the Scottish Cailleach, the Indonesian Pontianak, the Dominican Soucouyant, and others. Trevor had visited the museum before, back when he had been dating Jenn, but this exhibit was new to him. Any other time, he would have stopped to check it out, but he had better things to do right then than learn about some obscure supernatural folklore. That was why God had invented Wikipedia.

  Drew, however, had stopped before a painting of a pale-skinned, dark-haired woman garbed in a black dress.

  “The Dark Lady,” he read from the placard next to the painting. “Looks like she’s a local version of the myth. According to this, she predates the flood, but her appearances increased dramatically after it. Unlike the other spirits in this exhibit, her manifestation doesn’t seem to be linked to death or disaster. As spirits go, she seems fairly benign.”

  Amber stared at the painting for a long moment before whispering, “It’s her.”

  Drew frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Carrington was standing before the banshee’s picture, going on about a trip to Ireland he had made to investigate reports of a headless ghost haunting a castle. Erin had her crew dutifully filming him, but when she saw Amber staring at the painting of the Dark Lady, she shushed Carrington and motioned for Ray to turn the camera on Amber, and Sarah moved the boom mic to pick up her voice. Carrington scowled, but he didn’t protest.

  Trevor left Jenn and hurried over to join Amber and Drew.

  “I’ve seen her twice today,” Amber said. She glanced at Ray, noticed that he was filming them, and frowned slightly but kept talking. “The first time was in front of the coffee shop, and the second time was outside the hotel before our presentation. At least, I think it was her the second time. Her form was less distinct then, like a smear of shadow. I almost had the sense that she was trying to hide from me, but it was her. I felt it.”

  “What did she do?” Trevor asked. He was aware that the camera was trained on them, but this was the first lead they’d had so far, and he was too excited to care.

  “Nothing,” Amber said. “She only watched me, but she did so intensely, as if she were trying to . . . I don’t know, take my measure, I guess.” She paused. “And there’s . . . something else.”

  Her tone changed. She sounded almost embarrassed now. No, Trevor thought, it was more than that. She sounded ashamed.

  Drew picked up on her emotional shift, and he reached out to take her hand. “Whatever it is, you know you can tell us.” He looked at Trevor. “Maybe it would be best if you could give us some privacy.”

  Trevor tried to hide his surprise. He understood that the dynamic among the three of them had changed since Amber and Drew had become a couple, and he didn’t expect them to include him in every conversation they had, by any means. But for Drew to ask him to leave when Amber was about to reveal something that might be important to the investigation . . . well, it hurt.

  He struggled to put his feelings aside and was about to leave when Amber said, “It’s OK, Drew. She was with me outside the hotel.”

  She? Trevor glanced over his shoulder and saw that Connie had joined them. He hadn’t been aware that the woman had followed him over. He was relieved that Drew and Amber hadn’t wanted to send him away, but he was irritated with Connie for insinuating herself into their conversation without being invited. Before today, neither Amber nor he had met her, and now she was acting as if she were an intimate member of their group. She might be attractive as hell, but beauty only went so far, and she was beginning to piss him off.

  Connie didn’t appear to feel awkward at all about intruding. Quite the opposite. She seemed relaxed and comfortable, as if she felt she belonged there. But if Amber wasn’t going to protest, Trevor decided he wouldn’t, either. At least, not this time.

  Amber continued. “Both times I saw the apparition, she wasn’t alone. She was with a man. A living man, not a ghost, and . . . I know him. We dated for a short time about a year ago. He’s . . . not a nice person.”

  She hadn’t said much. “He’s . . . not a nice person.” Only five words, but they spoke volumes. Trevor felt as if he had been punched in the gut. Amber was his friend, and he loved her dearly, and the thought of anyone being not nice to her filled him with rage. And if this revelation hit him that hard, how much worse was it for Drew? He looked to his friend and saw that his expression was blank. Anyone who didn’t know him might think that he felt nothing about Amber’s confession, but Trevor knew better. Drew was struggling to control his emotions, not because he was reluctant to display them but because he didn’t want them to get in the way. He would deal with his feelings later, but right now, he needed to focus on Amber.

  “Do you want to leave and go somewhere to talk?” Drew asked.

  She smiled and put her hand on his chest. “We can talk later. Right now, we have work to do.”

  “Some things are more important than work,” Drew said.

  “Three people are dead. What could be more important than that? We can’t afford to get distracted, not if we hope to prevent any more deaths. Whatever we’re up against here, it’s bad. Remember the warning Greg gave me.”

  Trevor wasn’t sure he had heard right. “You mean Greg, as in our deceased friend Greg?”

  Amber turned to him. “I haven’t had a chance to fill you in. We haven’t had much alone time lately.” She nodded toward Erin and her crew.

  Up to this point, Connie hadn’t spoken, but now she said, “You boys don’t have to worry about Amber. She’s a lot stronger than either of you think.” She said this with conviction, almost as if she felt she knew Amber better than either Drew or Trevor did.

  Some people think they know everything once there’s a PhD after their name, Trevor thought.

  Amber told Trevor about seeing Greg’s spirit in the restroom of Burial Grounds.

  “Who would’ve thought that Greg would end up haunting toilets?” Trevor said. “More than a bit of a comedown for a guy who was once a lord of Darkness, don’t you think?”

  Connie gave him a strange look that he couldn’t interpret, but she didn’t say anything.

  Trevor went on. “So Greg tweeted at us from the Great Beyond to warn us about some vague threat in Exeter. Why do ghosts always give cryptic warnings? Why can’t they just come right out and say, ‘Your house is built over an ancient Indian burial site. You might want to think about relocating’?”

  “Maybe because the Other Side is a complicated place,” Connie said. “You know how when Americ
an tourists visit other countries, the people who live there ask if they know so-and-so from East Nowhere, Idaho, as if all Americans are best friends? It’s because they don’t really grasp just how big America is. Maybe it’s like that in this case. Maybe your friend didn’t give a more specific warning because he couldn’t.”

  Trevor had to admit that she had a good point. “Maybe. Or maybe Greg is playing games with us. He’s been known to do that. Or worse, maybe he’s responsible for the murders.”

  “He did tell you that he carried the Darkness that had possessed him to the Other Side,” Drew said, “and that he’d merged with it.”

  “If that’s true, then maybe he only wants us to think he’s helping us,” Trevor said. “Maybe he’s been biding his time for the last couple of months, waiting for a chance to get revenge.”

  Connie let out a derisive snort. “You watch too many bad horror movies.”

  “I believe he’s sincere,” Amber said. “He didn’t have to admit that the Darkness was still a part of him. If he intended to manipulate us, why would he plant doubt about himself in our minds?”

  “Games within games,” Trevor said. “It’s a classic ‘lull them into a false sense of security’ ploy. By sowing doubt, he appears to be confessing everything to us. Paradoxically, because we doubt him, we end up trusting him more.”

  Drew thought about that for a moment. “Your reasoning is psychologically sound. Unfortunately, there’s no way to determine the truth for ourselves. And that’s assuming the spirit that appeared to Amber was even Greg in the first place. It could have been something else masquerading as him.”

  Amber shook her head. “It was him. I’m sure of it.”

  “Fine,” Trevor said. “But that doesn’t mean we can trust him.”

  Amber sighed. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

  Connie looked irritated, although Trevor couldn’t understand why. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could speak, Carrington said, “I think you should all hear this.”

  They all turned their attention to Carrington. He walked into the center of the room but without his usual air of showmanship. He looked shaken, and when he held up his digital audio recorder, Trevor could see that the man’s hand was trembling.