by Etta Faire
“Bruce Darcy, huh? Sylvia’s brother? I’m sorry, but why do you even care about this 40-year-old gossip, anyway?”
“Because Sylvia’s my client, and I promised her I’d figure this out.” I sucked out a piece of orange chicken that was stuck between my teeth and continued. “And I’m going to.”
I thought I heard crickets.
“So you don’t know anything about the blackmail?” I said, breaking the silence. I had no time for skeptics or people who labeled me a devil worshipper just because I hung out with ghosts all day.
“Sorry, I do not,” he said. “All I know is Jay was a good man. I still use a lot of the principles from his club in my teachings today.”
I pictured an entire congregation of little old ladies trying to hold in their pee during Sunday services.
I tried to keep my voice calm so he wouldn’t hang up. “One more thing. I almost forgot to ask you about the smoke grenade. The night of the incident, there was green smoke coming from the forest. I know you served in Vietnam so you’re familiar with military smoke grenades. Did you know anything about that? Did you supply anyone with those?”
“No,” he said very quickly. “And I never heard about any smoke grenades. Where are you getting all of this information?”
“Sylvia.”
“Your ghost.”
I tried to keep him talking. “Okay, ghosts aside. I’m pretty sure one of the pieces of litter even looked like a grenade spoon and there was also a McDonald’s cup. I saw a video on Youtube where you could rig those up to create a tripwire on a smoke grenade.”
“A spoon and a cup? Sounds more like someone had lunch on couple’s path.” He laughed. “Sorry, the only reason I called you back is because my secretary was going to nag me to death if I didn’t. She’s probably still listening at the door,” he said loudly for her benefit. “But I can’t help with things that don’t matter to the present. God bless.”
He said “God Bless” in the same way others said “F-you.” This man was hiding more than he was helping. I was pretty sure the Dead Forest made everyone crazy. Or maybe, Paul Gelling knew more than he was letting on.
Chapter 30
Something doesn’t seem right
Justin and I slid another table out of the back of his truck while Rosalie pointed to a spot near couple’s path where our seance would be.
“I hope you’re making a good amount on this,” he said as we pulled the legs of the folding table out. “It’s a lot of work.”
I glanced up at the clouds. It was still very light for a seance, even with the darkening sky. “It’s not that bad. Parents do this kind of thing all the time, setting up birthday parties in a park… by old dilapidated buildings where murders have occurred. And when it might rain and there are no bathrooms.”
The trees were doing their swaying, beckoning dance in the wind again like they wanted me to come in there already. “Okay,” I admitted. “This was a terrible idea. Let’s just get through it.”
But, there was something else too. Something I didn’t want to say out loud. Everything seemed off, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Rosalie shook out her black fabric tablecloth then handed her cousin a side and they spread it over the table. She motioned with her head toward the big wigs sitting in the three nondescript sedans on the other side of our setup. “They could at least help,” she said, waving to them. They didn’t wave back.
I pulled the battery-operated candles that I bought just for a windy outdoor seance out of the box by my feet and set them on the table. Rosalie stared at me.
“They give off a realistic flicker, or that’s what the box says,” I said, dropping one. “Those bigwigs are making me nervous. Among other things.”
It was mostly the other things. And as if on cue, crows cawed from a nearby tree. I looked up, searching the branches for the mutant ones.
“Why are they watching us anyway,” Rosalie replied, making me think she was talking about the birds.
She wasn’t. She made a child’s bug-eyed face at the men in the cars. “What do they think we’re gonna do? Take off into the forest? What is wrong with these damn people?”
Jean reached into the box and pulled out the crystal ball stand. “They were here when Rosalie and I came to this neck of the woods the other day, too. The police barrier was down, but there were still a couple of cops sitting in their cars, watching us.”
“And it’s not even like we did anything that day but stare off at a damn forest. Just sat around and waited. Nothing happened,” Rosalie added as she mindlessly tucked and straightened the tablecloth, staring at the police the whole time.
“So, it was a lot like fishing. Maybe you just needed safety pins and leaves,” I said, eyebrow raised.
“I should’ve known you’d tell her that story,” she said to her cousin.
“It’s why you’re here, and you know it,” Jean replied. “It’s why any of us are here. We’ve all had run-ins with the Dead Forest. And we want answers.” She looked to me like I was the answer-lady.
A cold wind blew by my face, making my nose run and my curls fling in all different directions. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to give anybody answers. Not to the stuff they wanted.
I put my hair up into a ponytail, not even checking how it looked in my camera app. I didn’t have time to care. I looked down at my watch. 2:30. One hour until answers were expected from the answer-lady.
We all set up the chairs next in rows along the uneven terrain. Rosalie pulled a bur from her leggings, adjusted her seance moon dress and sat in one of the chairs.
“Thanks for coming and helping,” I told her as I set up chairs around her. “I know this is hard. You never liked any of these people. And Mr. Peters wasn’t the only one who hurt you back then.”
“Yes, I am the bigger person here,” she said, looking over at Mr. Peters who was frantically bringing out food trays and putting them on the tables while he swatted at the tall grass he was working in. “But really, it’s a lot like what that damn unicorn at the Purple Pony represents. When you get hurt in life, retaliation doesn’t do anything for you except keep those old wounds open. And everyone knows you only get stronger when you let yourself heal.”
That unicorn had a lot of meanings.
I pulled one of the old articles about the incident from the back pocket of my skinny jeans, trying to put the seance together in my mind. How I was going to recreate things and fake things. It was time the whole town healed from this one.
I just wished something didn’t seem off.
When the guests started arriving and turning their noses up at the place by the drive-in Justin and I told them to park, I got that bad feeling back.
Paula Henkel’s smile was as large as she probably hoped my failure was going to be today. We’d done two seances together at the bed and breakfast. Both were pretty successful, despite the damages. But she was obviously sensing impending doom here, and she was loving it.
“Pretty light outside for a seance,” she said, sashaying her way to the hors d'oeuvres. “Sure you want everyone to see your sleight-of-hand tricks?”
“I’ve got nothing to hide,” I said. “Unlike a few polar bears I hear have been lurking around. Jean saw one by the bed and breakfast. You’d better watch out.”
She put a couple bacon-wrapped shrimp onto her plate. “Yes, you never know what you’ll find in Landover, and in this place, I’m guessing fleas,” she said. She bumped into Rosalie on her way to the pasta.
Rosalie smiled. “Keep your fleas to yourself, Paula, and we’ll all be fine.”
But Paula was right. We all knew this was probably going to be my worst seance ever. The one everyone remembered as that time we all caught Rocky Mountain spotted fever from tick bites.
But the worst part of this seance was the fact that I only had two ghosts, Sylvia and Jackson. And one of them wasn’t even there at the time of the incident. I was going to have to fake the crap out of this thing.
/> Jackson and Sylvia appeared by my side as I made my way over to greet some of the guests.
Sylvia looked around. “I don’t see them here. My mother, Bruce, Rebecca…”
“I invited them,” I said. “All I can do.”
I passed by the mayor, who also happened to be Jackson’s uncle on my way to say hi to Shelby and her dad. I knew it was hard for Shelby to be here, too, in the spot where her fiancé likely went missing. It was hard for everyone.
The mayor was a thick 80-year-old in a tight windbreaker and round glasses. “Don’t think I am here because I believe in this hogwash,” he said, wiping garlic shrimp from his chin as I passed him.
“I know you’re just here for the food. I’m guessing the good people of Landover paid for your ticket.”
“Clyde was asked to be here,” his wife said by his side. “Isn’t that right?”
“A lot of people asked me. Yes, they did. There’s been a huge police presence in this area. Old George passed out right over there, and now this.”
He did have a point.
“Food’s good too, though,” he added, turning to his wife. They nodded at each other.
“It’s starting to get chilly. Are there heat lamps?” Mrs. Nebitt asked from behind them. She was wearing an oversized wool coat and scarf, but she rubbed her shoulders.
“Justin brought extra blankets and jackets,” I said.
“For fifty dollars a ticket, we should all be relaxing in a jacuzzi at the Hilton…” The mayor’s wife laughed like she paid for her ticket.
I needed to get started and fast. I hustled back to my seance table and told Justin to break out the blankets and jackets. “Mrs. Nebitt needs one, for sure.”
I looked out into my audience. Since it was daylight, I could actually see them clearly. Not a good thing. They all looked cold and worried about Lyme disease. Most were bundled in coats, scarves, and hoodies. I could barely tell who was who.
Reaching into my bag, I pulled out the battery-operated mic I bought online so I wouldn’t have to worry about electricity, and I heard Paula Henkel snicker from across the audience.
“Hello? Hello?” I said, fiddling with the knobs on the handle until my voice came out slightly louder than me yelling through cupped hands.
“Where are the bathrooms?” Someone yelled from the back.
I gulped and pointed to the forest, resisting the urge to give them a mind-over-matter speech.
“We’re all here for one reason, so I’ll make this quick,” I began after brief introductions. “To find out what happened Friday, October thirteenth, 1978. We know the details. During a showing of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Rebecca Torrance and Curtis Sumner parked right here in front of what is known as couple’s path. Their friends were waiting for them just inside the forest to play a prank.”
I tried not to look at the forest around me and the things that were probably lurking there. Instead, I focused on Shelby’s pink hair, blowing softly in the wind as it peeked out from her hood, her dad’s arm around her shoulders, comforting her.
I continued. “We all know Rebecca Torrance was the only one who made it out alive. Danny Kahl, Jay Hunt, Curtis Sumner, and Sylvia Darcy all died that night. Some people think it was Rebecca who did it. She was the one charged with the murders, her trial ending in a mistrial. Some people think shifters did it. Monsters lurking in the forest.” I turned to the bigwigs when I said that. I knew I was supposed to keep the bears out of this.
I went on. “But here’s the part you don’t know. Neither of those is true.”
Mrs. Carmichael gasped loudly from somewhere in the middle of the audience and yelled, “Oh, here we go. Here we go. I told you. This should be good.” I squinted against the afternoon light that was now peeking through some of the clouds. She was there, next to old George, Marylou Marvelton, and Mrs. Nebitt.
I led the audience in a short ritualistic chant that, much like the crystal ball I was rubbing while I chanted, was just for show. Rosalie held the mic by my mouth because I was too cheap to buy a mic stand. “We call on all spirits from the incident to come forward with their versions, please.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sylvia, hovering by the table along with Jackson.
I swallowed hard. “Curtis Sumner and Sylvia Darcy are here.” I lied, describing them both.
I pointed toward my Civic. “If you can turn your attention to my car, Curtis is ready to re-enact what happened.”
“Re-enacting by ghosts.” The mayor laughed. “Only in Landover, folks.”
My Civic was the lone vehicle parked at the edge of the Dead Forest, and everyone turned to face it. Jackson rolled his eyes before hovering over. “This is so degrading.”
“Curtis and Rebecca got out of the car after hearing a noise,” I said when he reached the back of my car. “Curtis grabbed a tire iron.”
“I heard it was a baseball bat,” someone yelled.
Jackson opened the hatch to my car and grabbed the tire iron I had placed in there. He slammed the hatch shut again. “I wonder if this is how Blackfish felt,” he said, twirling the tire iron before dropping it by the car. Some people in the audience clapped and gasped. Not enough, though. I had to jazz this thing up.
Jackson faded out. I knew it was hard for him to move things in the physical world. So that was probably going to be it for him tonight. Or maybe he was just refusing to be my monkey.
“Sylvia tells me,” I said, through my mic, getting the crowd’s attention again. “At this point, she was waiting with Danny and Jay just inside the forest on the path to scare Curtis and Rebecca. But she thinks there must have been a bunch of other people waiting in there too. She remembers thick green smoke coming from behind her and also from the side. At first, she thought it was paranormal. Then, she thought it was a smoke bomb.”
I reached into the bag under the table and pulled out the old metal green canister I got on eBay for a great deal, and held it up to the crowd. “From the way she describes it, it was actually an M18 smoke grenade. And I don’t think it was several people in the forest waiting for the victims. I think it was one. Paul Gelling.”
Sylvia laughed by my side. “What?”
I also pulled out an empty McDonald’s cup, plopping the grenade into it. “Using a trip wire connected to the cup and a long branch, a boobytrap of sorts can be made. When someone walks into the wire, the bent branch straightens, sending the cup flying into the air and releasing the lever on the smoke grenade, causing the grenade to go off. Paul Gelling was a Vietnam Vet who would easily have known how to do something like that. And a fast-food cup was part of the evidence collected and presented at trial. But who knows?”
I yanked the pin and let the lever release. Smoke trickled from the grenade and I felt it heating in my hand. I tossed it off toward the path, but it plopped very close to the seance table.
Just like in the channeling, bright green smoke began billowing out from the grenade and surrounding me.
“While the smoke was creating confusion,” I coughed. My eyes watered and my mouth went dry a little. “The group was ambushed… But why?”
The green smoke was shooting out over the first few rows of the audience now. I stepped away from it and continued. “Just like the notes in the locker indicated, Rebecca and Jay had been having an affair in the vet’s office. And Jay was being blackmailed with photos of it.”
Sylvia was a bright green ghost against the haze of the smoke bomb, her expression twisted, her eyebrows furrowed. “Do you know this for sure?”
I nodded but continued talking to the crowd. “Sylvia did not know this part.”
“You’re lying,” she said to me.
I turned to her. “Rebecca admitted to having the affair. She said it happened twice. Once when you were at a convention, another time when you were visiting an aunt.”
I went back to the crowd. “Bruce Darcy is her brother and he followed Rebecca and Jay to the vet clinic one night and took pictures of their affair. His cousin
, Myrna, developed the film, and they began blackmailing Jay Hunt together.”
The smoke was trickling out now. “The smoke never lasts long, which is why I think more than one canister was used that night.”
The deal I got on eBay was a two-for, so I pulled the second grenade out of my bag and set it off too, tossing it almost in the same spot as the first.
Sylvia lifted the chair I used to be sitting on at the seance table. “Rebecca. She was my friend. I am going to destroy her,” she said. The chair flew through the smoke and landed right next to my car.
The crowd gasped and stood, trying to see my destructive ghost better through the second grenade’s smoke that was going full force now. I turned around to face my coughing, blurry-eyed audience again. At least, no one was shivering anymore.
I continued. “Jay Hunt knew someone was blackmailing him, but he didn’t know who. He thought it was Rebecca and Curtis. So, he asked a couple of friends to rough them up. I’m pretty sure that was all it was supposed to be. Right before she took her own life, Myrna told Sylvia’s mother that it wasn’t supposed to happen that way. As Paul’s girlfriend and alibi that night, Myrna knew about it. She probably didn’t know that somebody was bringing guns.”
I pulled the article from my back pocket, the one with the evidence table and the police officer in front of it. I pointed to the hat in his hand. “This article shows the beanie Paul was wearing the night of the incident. It was found here in the Dead Forest. He was there.”
“How do you know what the guy was wearing that night?” Someone yelled out. I ignored him because I couldn’t admit that I saw it in a channeling.
A shot rang out from couple’s path behind me, and I screamed and dropped to the ground. My knee hit what felt like a small rock hidden in the thick weeds, pain shooting over my leg and up my spine. The smell of gunpowder penetrated through the smells of smoke and grass.
What the hell was going on?
Screaming. That’s all I heard as everyone took off through the still extremely thick smoke. People pushing each other, people helping each other. Locking arms and yanking older people. Just like the incident, my seance had turned into mass chaos quickly.
