by Hunter Shea
Mr. Murphy’s brow crinkled, then he replied, “Just the three. Like I said, it’s probably nothing.”
The tingle in Eddie’s skull had turned to a winter chill that permeated his entire head and cascaded down his neck and into his shoulders. A picture was forming, hazy, disjointed, but he could feel it weave itself like a sentient tapestry, and the more he concentrated on it, the less he felt as if he was in the room with the others. Their voices became hollow, distant. Jessica and Greg pressed Mr. Murphy for more details, but most of what he needed was already here, hovering, unseen, in the atmosphere around them. He just had to tap into it, absorb it, concatenate the images until they coalesced into the face of the EB that refused to let go of its earthly craving for Selena.
He interrupted Jessica’s line of questioning. “Thank you, Mr. Murphy. You may have given us something to go on. For now, I think it’s best we get Greg back to his family. Would it be all right with you if I needed to come back at a later time, just to pick your brain a little?”
They all rose from their chairs and headed toward the front door with Mr. Murphy at the rear. He said, “That’s not a problem at all. Like I said, I’m happy to help in any way I can. You all be careful. I don’t pretend to understand what you’re in the middle of, but it sounds like it has a nasty side. The best way not to get bit by a junkyard dog is to stay out of the junkyard. But if you have to go in, make sure you’re wearing good shoes and you know where the exits are.”
Mr. Murphy watched them go from behind his screen door, sipping on his beer.
As they crossed into his yard, Greg asked, “What do we do now?” The time spent in his neighbor’s house had calmed him somewhat, but he still looked ready for a fight.
“Eddie was right, we need to get you back to Rita and the kids first. Maybe we should all head back to regroup.”
“I don’t think that’s the best way to go,” Eddie said. Jessica raised a finger in protest, so he decided to head things off at the pass. “I’ll go back to the hotel with Greg. I can get anything we need from your room and bring it back here. Jess, you should stay at the house in case something happens while we’re gone.”
Greg ran his hands through his hair, tugging on the ends in frustration. “Jesus, I bet Rita’s flipping out right now. I didn’t exactly tell her where I was going. Then again, I hadn’t planned on all of this. I thought I’d be back in a half hour, tops. Do you think what Mr. Murphy said about the red Thunderbird really means anything?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Eddie replied. “Why don’t you start the car up while I get the list of things that Jessica needs and her room key.”
“Yeah. I can drop you back off when you’re ready.”
When he got Jessica alone by her Jeep she whirled on him. “What are you up to? I don’t like being left in the dark.”
He held up his hands. “Hold on a sec. I don’t want to push Greg to DEFCON one. Mr. Murphy was right on about the car. It has something to do with our rogue EB. I can feel its energy all around here, like it’s rooted to this local area. I don’t want to risk it attaching itself to you as a power source and leading it right to Selena. It’s better if you stay here. I’ll reunite Greg with his family, then I plan to get them out of the hotel and as far from the EB as I can. I’ll know they’re at a safe distance when I feel the break in its, for lack of a better word, pulse. Right now, it’s sending out waves all over this place, and I think I’ve gotten familiar enough with it now to distinguish it from the usual spiritual white noise that I see and feel every day.”
“I can’t believe I’m the one making things worse,” she said, kicking a tire with a dull grunt. “Well, I can’t just sit here. I think I’ll drive around while we still have some light, see if I can find any vintage Thunderbirds on the street or in a driveway.”
“If you do, just note where it is and get the hell away. I don’t want you too close to the source. It could be bad for you as much as Selena. It knows you know, and it doesn’t want you in the way.” There was more he wanted to tell her, needed to tell her, but it had to wait. If he did, he worried how she would react, and he needed her to remain strong and convinced they could end this.
“Got it. See you back here in about an hour?” Jessica said.
“That should be enough time. Remember, if you see the car, write down the address it’s near and haul ass.”
She gave him a mock salute. “Aye-aye, Captain.”
He knew she wasn’t used to taking orders and was encouraged that she seemed to have enough confidence in him to not fight him every step of the way. He whispered, “John Backman, what did you get me into?” as he walked to Greg’s car. All the way back to the hotel, he could feel the EB’s life-force as it cast a wide net, searching for its prey.
Chapter Forty-Four
Moments after Jessica’s Jeep pulled down the street in search of the car Mr. Murphy had described, Selena and Crissy rolled into the driveway with a suspension-groaning stop.
“Good, no one’s here,” Selena said, grabbing the plastic bag from the back seat.
Crissy followed her into the house. “Don’t you think you should call your mother now?”
“I thought all you goths were anti-authority?”
“Yeah, we are when our moms are emotional wrecks that think the sky is pink. Your mom is actually nice and I’m sure ready to call the cops.”
Selena turned the phone over and over in her hands, pondering. On the one hand, she didn’t want her mother or father to interfere. This was something she had to handle on her own. Jessica and Eddie were nice and seemed super concerned, but she had a strong feeling that she was the only one that could put an end to this. The ghost had attacked her in her sleep. Now it was her turn to attack it.
On the other hand, she was terrified, and she wasn’t too old to crave the strength and comfort of her parents at a time like this.
She grumbled in exasperation, and hit speed dial for her mother. At the very least, she could assure her that she was fine and would be back soon.
“Smart decision,” Crissy reassured her.
The phone rang until voicemail clicked on. “Hi, Mom, it’s me. I just wanted to let you know not to worry. I had to get out of that hotel room, so I decided to call Julie. Her sister picked me up and I’m at her house now. I’m gonna stay for dinner, but I’ll come back right after. Love you.”
Crissy rolled her eyes, “Oh, that’ll make things way better.”
“If she listens to my message soon, at least it’ll buy us some time. I’m a big girl. I can deal with the consequences. Come on, let’s go to my room and get this started.”
She was at first taken aback by the state of her room, especially her bed. It looked as if people had been dancing on it. She hoped those people were the living kind, like Jessica and Eddie, and not her double walker or the other thing that they were going to try to communicate with.
Selena unwrapped and laid out the Ouija board she had purchased in the toy section at Target. She placed the plastic planchette in the center of the board.
“You’re sure you know how to work this?” she asked Crissy.
“I used to do it all the time with my cousin Dee when we would visit them in Bridgton. We talked to all kinds of crazy spirits.”
“And you’re positive it wasn’t just your cousin messing with you?”
“No way. There was this one time we tapped into the spirit of some dude who said he had died in one of the mills that used to be all over the town. He wanted to know if we could tell him where his wife was. Dee was so freaked out, she started crying. She may be a drama queen, but even she can’t act that well.”
Selena nodded. “Okay, you’re the expert. What do we do first?”
Crissy reached out and held Selena’s hands. “First, we need to get real quiet and think positive thoughts. We have to prepare ourselves so the spirit knows we’re ready to talk.”
Earlier, Selena had asked Crissy if she was worried about the ghost attacking them again. Remarkably,
Crissy found the entire thing too cool to pass up. She had assured her that the Ouija board, in giving the spirit a channel to communicate with them, would focus its energy on that, rather than lashing out physically. Selena assumed that goths knew more about these things than anyone else, maybe even more than Jessica who seemed pretty normal (at least for someone who looked for ghosts for fun), and she was very glad for the company. As much as she wanted to confront this ghost, she wasn’t sure she would have the guts to do it alone.
When they were younger, Crissy had always been the strong one, the first one to seek out adventure, like the time they explored the abandoned house on Verner Street and the floor gave way under their feet. They’d ended up in the basement, shaken but not hurt. Crissy had laughed her head off and continued to explore the house as if nothing had happened.
Selena had always admired that in Crissy, and she was hoping to steal a bit of courage from her today.
“We’ll just sit here for a few minutes and stay as silent as possible,” Crissy continued. “When I let go of your hands, place just your fingertips on the planchette. I’ll start asking questions and if we make contact, you can jump in any time. You ready for this?”
Selena took a deep breath, as if she were about to dive into the deep end of the pool. “Not really, but let’s get this done.”
They closed their eyes and turned inward. For her part, Selena thought of her grandmother who had passed away when she was ten. She used to love helping her make cookies from scratch. Crissy said to think positive thoughts. She couldn’t imagine anything more positive than visiting her grandma’s kitchen on a sunny afternoon, laughing while they mixed a batch of Boston drop cookies and listened to salsa music on her old radio perched on the windowsill. She could almost smell them baking in the oven.
The vision was as real as the mattress beneath her. For the moment, she was in that kitchen and felt the warm softness of her grandma as they danced and laughed. She looked up at her grandma and said, “You’ll watch out for me forever, right?”
Before she could answer, Crissy’s hands fell away and she opened her eyes, gently placing her fingers atop the planchette.
“Just keep your hands and arms loose. When we make contact, it’ll start to move a little, then build up steam until it starts pointing to different letters. We should both pay attention to the order it goes in so we know what it’s trying to say.”
A hard gust of wind came whistling into her window, blowing some loose papers off her desk. It startled them both, but they regained their composure.
“Hello, my name is Crissy, this is my friend Selena. We’d like to make contact with the ghost that keeps coming here to this room. We don’t mean you any harm. We just want to talk to you. Can you please let us know if you can hear my voice?”
The planchette didn’t move. Selena stared at it, biting her lip. Crissy persisted.
“I know that you’ve been trying to connect with Selena. She wants to know who you are and what you want. Don’t be afraid. We’ve opened ourselves to you and only ask the same of you. Please follow my voice and move the planchette to the ‘yes’ on the board to confirm that you understand.”
They waited ten seconds.
Thirty.
Then several minutes. Nothing happened.
In fact, Selena was beginning to feel comfortable in her room for the first time since seeing her double walker in the closet. Maybe Jessica and Eddie had come back and done something to send the ghost to the light.
“Maybe you should try asking it something,” Crissy suggested.
Selena swallowed to clear her throat. “Um, if it’s me you really have been wanting to talk to, I’m here to listen and I’m not afraid this time.”
She drew in a sharp breath when she heard, rather than saw, the planchette begin to move. It slowly scratched along the board, tilting to one side, then moving with more force as it settled into a counter-clockwise rotation, stopping at nothing in particular.
Crissy’s eyes were wide and sparkled with the thrill of opening communication with a spirit. Selena’s heart was racing so hard, she found it hard to breathe.
The planchette settled into a steady figure-eight motion, now moving with incredible ease. Even when Selena decreased the pressure her fingers exacted on the planchette until it was just a feathery connection, it continued as if it had a will of its own.
It tilted to the right, zeroing in on the first letter.
“W,” Crissy said.
It moved up the next row and to the left, settling on the letter H.
Then back down to Y.
“Why what?” Crissy asked.
The planchette slid across to the letter N, followed by the O and T.
It moved back to the center of the board and stopped.
“Why not?” Selena whispered. She looked at Crissy. “What does that mean?”
“I forgot to warn you. Sometimes, they talk in riddles or half thoughts. It takes a while to decipher what they mean.”
Selena asked aloud, “I don’t know what you mean by ‘why not’. Can you explain?”
This time, the planchette moved to the YES on the upper left corner of the board so fast that she had to dive toward Crissy to keep from losing all contact with it.
Crissy started calling out the letters again.
“A…F…R…”
The planchette stalled for a moment, and before Selena could ask if it was still with them, it glided to the letter A.
Then I, and settling on D.
“Why not afraid?” Crissy said.
It circled back to the YES.
“Holy crap, I started by saying I wasn’t afraid,” Selena said. Was it asking her why she wasn’t afraid? Could it see into her soul and know it was just false bravado?
“Maybe because we’re alive and you’re not,” Crissy said. “We don’t even know who you are. Can you confirm that you’re the one that keeps coming here?”
The planchette jerked hard to the right, then circled back onto the YES.
Selena was no longer sure that she wanted to talk to this ghost. This was all too much. From seeing her double to being attacked by something in her sleep and now talking to a ghost that wondered why she wasn’t afraid was more than she could handle.
“Crissy, I think we should stop.”
“Don’t you want to know for sure? Maybe we can get it to cross over or at least get the point that you want to be left alone.”
“I really don’t—”
Both girls recoiled as an electric charge shot from the center of the planchette. They stared in horror as it began to move without the need of their touch.
This time, it shifted with incredible speed, lingering on a letter only long enough for them to say it aloud in fear-struck tones before darting to the next.
“Y...O...U…B…E…M…I…N…E,” Crissy read the letters aloud.
Selena’s hands flew to her open mouth. “Oh my God!”
The planchette continued to move while Crissy backed off the bed.
“M…I…N…E.”
Selena screamed. “No! You can’t have me! I won’t let you!”
It veered back over to YES, backing off and landing back on it over and over, as if to emphasize its malevolent promise. She shouted when Crissy pulled her off the bed and onto her feet. The room smelled like freshly struck matches and the air felt as if it had been vacuumed out of the room. It was difficult to draw a solid breath.
Crissy yelled, “We have to get out of here, now!”
Selena’s legs shook, but she willed her feet to move as fast as they could.
She stumbled against the bedpost and stifled a cry when she felt a cold hand pull at her shirt. The fabric was taut against her chest. Selena watched in horror as a dent the size and shape of a fingertip moved from her belly to between her breasts.
“Crissy, help,” she whimpered. She couldn’t move if she wanted to.
Something was holding her in place.
A deep, malevole
nt cackle rumbled from every corner of the room.
The finger made a slow circle around her right breast, moving closer and closer to her nipple.
Crissy let out a cry and slammed into Selena with a sharp hip check. It hurt like hell, but it also broke the entity’s grip.
Selena grabbed hold of Crissy’s hand and they struggled to remain upright. Her legs had never felt so leaden.
“Run!” Crissy ordered.
One simple word was enough to send up the last bits of adrenaline left in her body.
As they sprinted toward the door, the planchette shot forward, missing Selena’s arm and burying itself two inches deep into the thick wood. They jumped when it snapped with a loud crack.
The floor buckled, like the vinyl of a loaded bouncy castle. It almost made them fall headfirst down the stairs. Selena’s body swiveled into the stairway wall as she gripped the banister. Somehow, she managed to hold on to Crissy and keep her from pitching into a deadly plunge.
They fled from the house, their voices paralyzed. Neither heard the resonant laughter that chased their heels to the front door.
Chapter Forty-Five
“Holy shit, Jessica, do you want me to come up there?” Angela Bastiani said after Jessica unloaded the details of their New Hampshire insanity. She’d decided to use the time cruising the neighborhood to make a few calls and let her friend know she was still alive, but definitely in the weeds with the investigation.
“Ange, if you were here for this, you would go running right back to Long Island.” She laughed for the first time in days. It felt good.
“How are things with Eddie? It sounds like he’s been a pretty big help.”
“I have to admit, I’m kinda glad he’s here. I think I may be learning some things about myself, and you know how much I hate introspection.”
“It’s not one of your stronger points. From what you tell me, I’m surprised you’ve let him take the reins. That is so totally not your style.”
Jessica had to slow to look down a driveway, past a parked Toyota. There was a red car in front of it, pressed against the tan garage door. It turned out to be another Toyota. Not what she was looking for.
