A Brady Paranormal Investigations Box Set

by Harper Crowley

  Beau stops on the crest of a hill overlooking a small valley. Even in the fading light, I feel like I can see for miles. Sunburnt red soaked grass, squat-barrel cacti, towering agave bushes, and twisted mesquite trees dot the landscape.

  “This is gorgeous,” I say. On either side of me, Jess and Russ pan the valley with their cameras. It’ll make a great addition to any video we post. Unencumbered by a camera, I hop off of my ATV and join Beau on the ridge. Jess trains her camera on us, and Russ gets a different angle.

  “Is this where you saw the lights?”

  Beau nods. “It’s so bizarre. I’ve lived here all of my life, and I’ve never seen anything like it. The way they dip and dive over the hills is just crazy.” He stares out over the valley, and I follow his gaze, trying to imagine a strange disc-like object full of little green men landing on the rocky earth.

  “Have there been reports of strange lights like this around here before?”

  “No,” Beau says. “And that’s what makes this so strange. Nobody’s seen anything like this. I think the closest I’ve heard of strange lights has been around Phoenix, and even those don’t look much like these.”

  “Yeah, we’ve gotten a lot of requests to investigate the Phoenix lights. The only problem is they’re so sporadic. We really need someplace with regular sightings or hauntings or whatnot—we can’t afford to stay in one place for weeks or months while waiting for something to happen.”

  Beau nods. “That makes sense.” He gestures at the area around us. It’s a ridge, but it’s mostly flat and not too rocky, overlooking the valley and surrounding hills. “I thought you might want to set up here. We’ve seen the lights over this valley and the next one, but you should be able to catch a glimpse of them from this vantage point either way.”

  “About what time do you usually see them?” The closer we can get to the recorded times, the better.

  “About two or three in the morning.”

  “Good. That gives us plenty of time to do our base readings.” Luckily, we’re our own bosses, and we can sleep until dinner tomorrow if we really want to.

  Beau tilts his head quizzically. “You still do that even if it’s not a ghost?”

  I shrug. “I like to cover our bases. Besides, we might find something we didn’t even know we were looking for. It’s happened before.” I flash him a quick grin. “And remember, this is the Wild West. I bet there are ghosts everywhere.”

  Beau takes his hat off and runs his hand through his dark hair. “Yeah, you’re probably right about that.”

  Something about the sight of Beau with his hat off makes my heart beat in double time. Good Lord, Mer. Get a grip. Seriously. It’s not like you’ve never talked to a guy, before.

  For the next couple of hours, we busy ourselves by taking EMP readings, video of the entire valley and anywhere not covered in too many cacti, and enough pictures to create a couple of southern Arizona guidebooks. The rocky scrub brush hides any prints, which is disappointing, but if we’re not looking for human trespassers, then it doesn’t really matter. I look anyway and take pictures of any area where there appears to be enough dirt to leave something behind.

  “I tried looking for prints, too,” Beau says as he observes my efforts. “Every time, for a while there, but I never found anything, so I just gave up. Most of the time, however, the lights stopped when we got too close. It’s almost like they heard us or knew we were coming.”

  I kick a gnarled mesquite branch on the ground. “That sucks.”

  “I’m just glad I got the videos and pictures I sent you.”

  I crack a grin. “And those were great, honestly. A lot better than we normally get.” Not altogether true, but hey, if it gets him to smile again, then I’ll do it.

  Beau glances at Russ and Jess as they tape the intro about a hundred yards away. I guess I’m not photogenic enough after all, which is fine by me. The intros aren’t live, but they’ll tack it on to the live feed right before we start recording. It saves time and keeps the viewers from getting too bored. That is, if the hotspot booster will even work out here. I wonder if Russ has tried it yet.

  “Anything else I can do to help?” Beau asks.

  I shake my head. “No, I think we’re good. Are you going to stay with us for the investigation?”

  He pauses then ducks his head a little, as if shy. “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

  Oh man, I don’t mind at all. “No, that sounds great.” Better than great, actually, but I’m not going to tell him that.

  The sun’s barely visible at the very top of the mountains, and a rich, deep blue takes over the sky, except for the wisps from the sunset still struggling to keep hold. I spin around slowly. From here, it feels like I’m part of the universe. The stars are everywhere, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much sky before. It’s amazing.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Beau asks, his deep voice startling me out of my awe.

  I jump. “Yeah, it is.”

  His eyes pierce mine, and I wonder what he’s thinking. I wonder if this is why he’s lived here his entire life and why he chose to come back. And I wonder if Jess and I will ever find a place we love enough to do the same, or even if we want to stick around in one place long enough. I don’t know.

  After Russ and Jess finish taping the intro, they join us on the top of the ridge.

  “I thought you were going to make me do all the work this time,” I say.

  Jess rolls her eyes. “Yeah, you suck on camera. I mean, sure, anyone can ask questions, so you’re okay at that, but I’m much better at intros than you are.”

  Russ shrugs after I look to him for moral support. “She’s not wrong.”

  I stick my tongue out at him. “Thanks.”

  Beau chuckles.

  “Hey, now.” I turn, rounding on him. “You’re not helping, either.”

  He holds his hands up in mock surrender, and I stomp over to one of the tripods, pretending to fiddle with the cameras so I don’t have to talk to any of them.

  Bear follows me on his long line and trots over to the nearby mesquite trees. He sniffs around the base of one and lifts his leg. Yeah, that’s about how I feel too.

  A full, deep darkness falls quickly after that. The millions of stars in the sky glow brighter and brighter.

  “This is amazing.” Jess joins me, her words echoing my earlier thoughts. “Why have we never been here before?”

  “I don’t know, sis.” I sling an arm over her shoulders. “But it’s pretty awesome, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is.”

  A breeze picks up, and with it, the cascading, lonely howls of a pack of coyotes. I shiver.

  “It’s all right,” Beau says. “They won’t hurt us. They’re probably a couple of miles away, at least. Sound travels out here in the desert.”

  Russ grabs a camera and a tripod and says he’s going to set one up on the other side of the valley, just to be sure we get all the angles in case something shows up.

  “Be careful,” I say.

  He flashes me a wide grin. “Always.” He hops on an ATV and zips across the valley to the opposite ridge.

  “He’ll be fine,” Beau says. “I wouldn’t bring you out here if I thought it was too dangerous.”

  “Define too dangerous.” He reaches over and squeezes my hand. I freeze. What is he doing? I can’t remember the last time a member of the opposite sex actually touched me anything other than platonically. Scratch that, I can. Cam. Darn it. He’s just trying to make you feel better, don’t read too much into it.

  “I promise.”

  After Russ sets up the camera, he comes back to our side of the valley, and I’m relieved that he’s back in one piece. “I can’t do the live feed,” he says, “so we’ll have to upload it when we get back.”

  I pull out my phone, and sure enough, there’s no reception. Oh well, we’ve dealt with this before. “It’ll be fine. It gives us the chance to do some editing too, in case Jess trips again.” My sister gives me t
he middle finger in response.

  We wait for a couple of hours, alternating between sitting and standing, walking when our legs get too stiff, and watching the stars twinkle, waiting for one of the mysterious lights we saw in the videos to appear. The desert around us comes alive with howls and grunts and hoots and whistles, sounds I would swear were more at home in a rainforest than a desert.

  When it starts to get cold, Jess wraps her arms around her waist. “Can we go back now? I don’t think we’re going to see anything.”

  I feel her pain. I should have known to bring a jacket, but I had no idea the desert would get so cold.

  I glance at my phone: it’s 4:21 a.m., later than Beau said he usually saw the lights. “Yeah, I guess.” I turn to our host. “Do you think the cameras will be safe if we leave them out here?” I definitely don’t want them stolen. We don’t have a generous benefactor this time who will replace them.

  Beau sighs. “Yeah. They’ll be fine as long as we come and get them in the morning. We don’t get a lot of people crossing the border over here, but we do get some, and it’s better to be safe than sorry. And if the cartels are in the area, our lights and activity probably scared them off. Like I said, though, we’re pretty safe for the most part. People find the mountains too dangerous to cross unless they’re really desperate.”

  Before we leave, we check the batteries on the cameras to make sure they’ll have enough charge to last until morning, and then we load up the rest of our gear and hop on the ATVs.

  “We’ll try again tomorrow,” I tell Beau, seeing the disappointment in his eyes. “Don’t worry. We’re not going to leave here without figuring out what’s going on.”

  “I know,” he says. “It just stinks because I’ve seen the lights the last couple of nights, and now there’s nothing.”

  I shrug. “Maybe they sense our presence, or maybe it’s a fluke. When you’re dealing with the paranormal, anything can happen. You pretty much have to roll with the punches.” I call Bear over and scoop him up to tuck him into my hoodie. He gives me an exasperated grumble at having been thwarted from his explorations but nuzzles right in when he’s nice and warm.

  We ride back to the ranch in silence, the only sound the roaring of the ATV engines. As we pull up in front of the cottage, my sister stops me.

  “Um, Mer?” she asks, grabbing my arm.

  “What?” I snap, my voice shorter than usual. Truth be told, I was hoping to see something too, and now I’m way beyond tired, cold, and now I’m hungry, and I swear if Bear digs his claws into my chest one more time, he’s going to pierce something, and then I’m really going to be pissed.

  “Look,” she says, pointing back the way we came.

  I turn slowly like an actor in one of those movies where the bad guy’s waiting right behind her, holding an ax, only it’s not a bad guy I’m looking for, it’s the bright red and white lights zipping faintly across the night sky. Figures.

  Beau lets out a whoop in excitement. “I knew they were going to come out! We should have waited a bit longer.” He waves at Russ, getting him in on the excitement. “Isn’t it awesome?”

  “Holy crap.” Russ trains one of the cameras on the lights. “Planes don’t move like that, and from here I don’t think they look like the Phoenix lights, either. We’ve got to get back out there.”

  Beau claps him on the back. “You read my mind.”

  “I’m game,” Jess says. “As long as I get to sleep in tomorrow.”

  “You’ll do it anyway.”

  Russ snorts. “Let’s get back out there, then, and catch us some aliens.”

  “Um, I don’t think that’s quite how this works,” I say.

  “Who cares?” Russ says with a smirk. He jumps on the ATV and revs the engine. “Last one there has laundry duty.”

  “No fair!” I yell as he and Jess roar out of sight.

  Beau laughs. “You really should do some outtakes. Viewers would love this stuff.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I tuck Bear farther into my hoodie so he doesn’t get any ideas about jumping out. There’d better be some aliens at the end of this. I’m not going out there a third time tonight.

  Chapter 4

  The race to the valley feels like it takes forever, even though I know it doesn’t. I frantically keep my eyes on both the darting lights and the terrain so I don’t run into a cactus or one of those wild pig-looking things Beau calls javelinas. Russ holds the GoPro camera in one hand and steers with the other. I make a note to ride tandem in the future so one of us can record more easily without crashing. Hindsight is twenty-twenty.

  The roar of the engines is so loud that I can’t hear any nightlife, and it’s unnerving. Even the lonely call of the coyotes would assure me that there aren’t any other predators out, but I can’t even hear them over the din of the ATV.

  Despite having just left, the trees and outcroppings look foreign. For all I know, we could be going in a completely different direction. Good thing we’ve got Beau leading the way, and the lights. The light on the back of his ATV winks in and out of view as he crests one hill then disappears behind it. As long as we don’t get lost, I’m good. Sure, lost is lost, but it’s still better than Middle-of-nowhere, Oklahoma. Though that could be because of the Mullet Boys.

  Up ahead, Beau’s lights flash, then Russ’s, and then Jess’s. Oh good, we’re here. I guess I’ll have to contemplate my own boring-as-hell death another day. I park next to them, and it’s not until I get off of the ATV and hear Russ swearing that I look up. The lights are gone. Great. He and Jess crouch around the tripod while Beau scans the valley, a flashlight in one hand and his revolver in another. He’s cloaked in darkness, so I can’t see his expression, but if it matches the litany of curses coming from my teammates’ mouths, it’s not good.

  Bear wriggles in my jacket, but I hold him tightly. If something bad happens, I don’t want him to get lost. “Sorry, buddy.” I scratch his ears absently as I join Jess and Russ.

  “Damn it!” Russ crouches and picks something up from the ground. The tripod. Russ picks it up. One of its legs is bent, jutting out at an unnatural angle, and the camera’s gone. What the heck? We’ve only been gone for an hour at most. What could have come through here and knocked it over since then? I scan the ground to look for other signs of intruders, be they aliens or otherwise, but remember Beau’s earlier comment about it being too rocky for prints.

  “Son of a bitch.” Russ kicks a clump of brush out of the way.

  Jess brandishes her flashlight like a club. “Want to go with me to check the other one? Whoever did this might have missed it.”

  Russ’s face twists in a fierce grimace. “They better have. Bastards. We can’t afford to replace more gear right now.”

  “I’ll search around here with Beau,” I say, panning my flashlight around our feet. “Maybe they left something behind that we can use to identify them with.”

  “Good idea,” Russ says.

  Beau and I watch my sister and Russ hightail it around the valley and to the other side where the other camera was. It’s faster to go straight through, but if we’re looking for evidence, the ATVs will destroy it.

  “There goes my alien theory,” he says. His shoulders slump, defeated. “I guess it could have been the cartels. But I swear, they’ve never done anything even remotely like this. And what were those lights? A helicopter? The cartels have money, but I’ve never heard of them using a helicopter.”

  “I don’t know who was responsible.” I try to keep my tone even and noncommittal. “But I’ve never heard of an alien stealing camera equipment before.”

  He sighs. “Yeah, me neither.”

  Bear wriggles inside my hoodie, and I decide to let him out. It doesn’t look like there’s much danger out here, so it should be relatively safe. Even the coyotes have fled from whatever stole our camera. Once he has four feet on the ground, Bear trots ahead of us, his tail straight up in the air.

  Beau and I scan the ground with our flashlights. I re
cord everything on my phone, even though I don’t have reception, and it’s almost as good as having the GoPro. But it’s pointless. There’s no evidence to be had. The ground is so rocky and uneven that there’s no way I would find any signs or tracks unless someone purposefully left them, and whoever stole our camera wasn’t that considerate.

  Across the valley, Jess and Russ’s lights bob up and down as they sweep the terrain. God, I hope they find the camera. If they’re both gone, then we’re down to one, and not one of the good ones Graham bought us in Oak Cliff, either.

  “Hey, I think I found your camera,” Beau calls from about twenty feet away. He holds a small rectangular object up in the light.

  I hurry over to his side. “Thank God. Lemme see it.” He hands over the camera, and I turn it over in my hands. It’s a bit scratched up, and the lens looks cracked—it’s hard to tell in the dark, even with a flashlight—but it’s here. I try to power it on. Nothing. “Huh. The battery’s dead.” I hope that’s all it is. The other option is that the whole camera is fried, and then it’s as good as gone.

  Beau clears his throat. “You know, I heard electronics sometimes go haywire around aliens. Cars stop in the street, cameras stop working, stuff like that.”

  Geez, the cowboy really won’t let up on the alien thing. “Same thing happens with ghosts, too, and you don’t see me pulling my EMF meter out.” At his wounded expression, I soften my tone. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.” I run a hand through my hair then shove the camera in my pocket. “Truth is, I don’t know what happened, or whether it was people, aliens, or Bigfoot. Russ will know what to do with the camera. He’s a wiz at these things.” But wiz or not, if it’s broken beyond recognition, there’s only so much he can do. “Let’s check out the rest of the valley and make sure whoever or whatever it was didn’t leave anything behind.”