The Haunting at Grays Harbor (The River Book 8)

by Michael Richan

  “Come on,” he said to Roy, walking forward to the grass. The moment his feet left the dirt and stepped onto the lawn, the overhead light returned.

  “That’s better,” Steven said.

  “What’s better?” Roy asked, still several steps behind him.

  “The light,” Steven said. “You don’t see it?”

  “I see the light in that window,” Roy said, pointing up. “That’s it.”

  “Step onto the grass, Dad,” Steven said, and Roy took four more steps, joining his son.

  “Oh!” Roy exclaimed once he was on the lawn.

  Steven walked back into the dirt, and was plunged into darkness. He turned to look at the house, and the upstairs room. It flickered, and he saw more movement behind the window. The figure had returned. It was standing still this time, looking down at him. He felt his chest begin to contract, then a coldness roll up his arms. Before he could say anything, he’d been pulled by the arm, and the light returned. The coldness began to melt away.

  “You saw her again,” Roy said. “I recognize that look of agony on your face.”

  “She was up in that window,” Steven said, turning to look at it again, this time from the lawn. There was no figure, just the fluttering of a drape.

  “She’s not there now,” Roy said.

  “She’s there,” Steven said. “You can see her if you walk back onto the dirt.”

  Roy released Steven and took a step off the grass, his feet landing on the hard ground. Immediately he was surrounded by darkness. He turned and looked at the window, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Once they did, he waited. No figure came, but the light in the room slowly dimmed until it was gone, and Roy was left in total blackness.

  “Now I can’t see anything,” Roy said, reaching forward, grasping like a blind man. Steven took hold of his hand and guided him back to the grass.

  “Damndest thing,” Roy said. “It went completely dark on me. Couldn’t see the room.”

  “Hold on,” Steven said. “Wait.” He stepped back onto the dirt, and the light evaporated. He looked up at the window, seeing the orange and yellow flickers of the dim light, dancing against the walls of the room. He waited to see if a figure would appear, but it didn’t. After another half-minute, he stepped back onto the grass.

  “I don’t like this,” Roy said, “all this stepping back and forth. Who knows what it might be doing to us.”

  “Wasn’t a blackout for me,” Steven said. “The room was still lit. Didn’t see a figure this time, but it was still there.”

  “This thing is obviously unstable and moving all over the place,” Roy said. “I’m not staying the night here.”

  “Come on,” Steven said. “Let’s check out the legend shelf and then we’ll get out of here.”

  They walked back into the house, grateful for the illumination. Steven grabbed the trivet, and they both took their flashlights from the table in the breezeway and walked to the library, activating the bookcase and accessing the stairwell to the basement.

  Once they’d completed their descent, they walked to the table containing the legend shelf. Then they both dropped into the River.

  Oh, look at that! Roy said, looking down at the shelf. It definitely moved!

  The yellow area they’d seen earlier near the western end of the house had shifted further back, correlating to where they’d just seen the curved line in the yard.

  Try the trivet, Roy said.

  Steven held the object, which now looked like a smooth glass plate, over the legend shelf. The moment he brought it near, his palms began to burn, and he reacted by dropping the plate. It fell to the floor as he held his hands in pain.

  What happened? Roy asked. Are you alright?

  My hands, Steven said. Where the markings are. They felt like they were on fire.

  Roy dropped out of the flow and picked up the cork trivet from the floor. He dropped back into the River and held the glass plate over the legend shelf, looking through it.

  I’m not feeling anything, Roy said. I’m not seeing anything, either.

  Roy dropped back out of the River, and Steven joined him.

  “I’m not sure it works,” Roy said.

  “Something about it works,” Steven said, still holding his hands. “And apparently I can’t use it.”

  “Maybe you have to have a certain skill to see through it?” Roy asked, examining the edges of the trivet for anything unusual.

  Steven walked around the table, looking for anything on the legend shelf that might offer a clue to the trivet’s use.

  “Dad,” he said, pointing to the back of the slate. Roy walked around to join him, and saw a thin slit in the back of the shelf, about the length of the glass plate. “I think it goes in there.” They dropped back into the River, and Roy raised the plate to the slit, sliding it in gently until it disappeared, like a CD player sucking in a disc.

  All of the lights on the legend shelf went dark. Steven panicked, thinking they might have broken the device. Instead, they heard a light humming coming from inside it. After a minute passed, an edge of the glass appeared out of the slit, and the lights returned to the top of the shelf.

  “Now it looks like glass, outside of the River,” Roy said. “Should I take it?”

  “I guess so?” Steven said back, unsure.

  Roy delicately grabbed the edge of the glass plate and pulled. It slid from the slit, and as it emerged, they saw that it had become opaque. He held it up for Steven to see.

  “It’s warm,” Roy said.

  “Can you see anything in it?” Steven asked.

  Roy turned it over in his hands. The plate looked as though a cloudy white liquid had been baked into the glass. “Nope,” Roy said.

  “Well, what do we do now?” Steven asked.

  “I don’t know,” Roy said. “Maybe we should have asked Eliza for more directions.”

  He handed it to Steven, who took it and turned it over in his hands. “You’re right, it’s warm. Doesn’t hurt,” Steven said, examining it, a little skittish that the searing hot pain might return to his palms.

  “Great, it’s an Easy Bake oven,” Roy said. “And about as useless.”

  As Steven held the plate, he began to see movement. He stopped turning it over, and held it still – the baked-in swirls of white began to move and twist inside the glass. “Whoa,” he said. “It’s not done.”

  “Maybe you should…” Roy began, but stopped as he saw the plate begin to grow in Steven’s hand.

  Steven placed the plate on the floor and stood back. They watched as it slowly grew in size, and the colors of the fluid inside it shifted. When it grew past two feet in diameter, Steven and Roy took another step back.

  “It’ll stop at some point, right?” Steven asked.

  “How should I know?” Roy replied.

  As it continued to widen, it also became thicker. It crossed three feet in diameter and the edges of the disc rose up off the ground, nearly ten inches. It began to bump into the legs of the table holding the legend shelf.

  “Help me move this!” Steven shouted, running to one end of the table and waiting for Roy to take the other end. They lifted it gently and slid it carefully away, giving the disc more room to grow. Soon its other edge was bumping into the legs of another table, and Steven and Roy moved to relocate that table as well.

  As it crossed six feet in diameter and the edges rose to almost three feet high, Steven began to wonder if it would ever stop.

  “Incredible!” Roy said, staring down into the surface of the giant disc as it continued to expand.

  “This room is only so big,” Steven said. “It might take it all!”

  They moved another table out of the way and soon the disc grew to almost ten feet in diameter. Its vertical growth had slowed, stopping at around four feet tall. The top surface of the disc had become translucent, and they could make out movement under it. As the growth of the disc came to a stop, the surface cleared and then disappeared, revealing a detailed three
dimensional map of the pacific northwest.

  “You know, I like to have something fun happen every day,” Roy said. “This counts for the next month.”

  Steven approached the edge of the huge disc. He reached out to feel it, but felt his hands warm as he did so, so he pulled back. “I don’t think I should touch it,” he said.

  Roy touched the side of the disc and a white ring appeared that ran around the entire circumference of the top of the object. He pulled his hand away, and the ring faded.

  “Touch it again,” Steven suggested. “And when the ring appears, slide your hand one way or the other.”

  Roy reached out again, following Steven’s instructions. The ring appeared, and he slid his hand slowly to the left. The map in the center of the disc zoomed out quickly, and they were looking at the Earth, hanging in space.

  “The other direction,” Steven said. Roy moved his hand to the right, the ring rotating under it. The map zoomed in, and soon they were looking at the state of Washington.

  “Keep going,” Steven said, and Roy took a step to his right, continuing to touch the ring. The image inside zoomed further until they saw Grays Harbor, with Westport and Ocean Shores on one end, and Aberdeen on the other. The sun was beginning to set, casting a deep yellow glow over the area.

  “This thing is amazing!” Roy said, gazing down into the disc. “Look how clear everything looks!”

  “Keep going,” Steven said. “Let’s see where this points to.”

  Roy took another step, and the images zoomed further, centering over a dark stretch of the harbor and the land between Westport and Aberdeen. As Ray continued to slide the ring, the images shifted further, and soon they were looking down on the neighborhood of Barbara Winters’ house.

  “I knew it,” Roy said. “They are connected.”

  “Will it go further?” Steven asked.

  Roy took another step, and they zoomed through the roof of Barbara’s house and into her attic. The movement stopped as the image came to rest on the strange object that had been behind the knee wall. The disc was magnifying the size of it, making it look three times larger than it was in real life. They watched as the thin wire coil surrounding the core tried to spin, scraping against the side of the core and leaving gouge marks. Occasionally a spark flew from the contact.

  “Not that we needed a reason to help Barbara,” Steven said, “but if we don’t figure out what that object is, it could destroy Eximere.”

  Roy removed his hand from the ring, and the disc rapidly shrunk until it was back to its original size. Roy and Steven stood looking down at the small cork trivet on the floor between them.

  “Do we have to give it back?” Roy asked.

  “No, I bought it,” Steven said.

  “Good,” Roy said.

  Chapter Seven

  As they rode in the elevator to Elliott’s floor, Steven could tell Roy was excited at the prospect of some fireworks.

  “I’m not going to get into a fight with this guy, like Judith,” Steven said, tamping down Roy’s expectations. “He’s been useful, and as far as I can tell, he’s been honest with us. The only reason you don’t like him is because you’re intimidated by the technology.”

  “First Eliza, and now you!” Roy said. “I am not intimidated by technology. I just don’t like it very much.”

  “Think of it this way,” Steven said as the elevator doors opened and they stepped out, “if we’d never met Elliott, we wouldn’t have met Victor.”

  Roy grumbled in response.

  Steven knocked on Elliott’s door and it opened to reveal the tiny, cramped condo that was the false front to Elliott’s workspace. Elliott was holding his phone and staring down at it as the two men entered.

  “Hello, Elliott,” Steven said.

  “Steven, Roy,” Elliott responded, not looking up.

  Roy gave Steven a disapproving glance, then turned back to Elliott.

  “I know I’m supposed to be nice to you,” Roy said, “but do you think you could put that thing down and make eye contact when you say hello?”

  “What?” Elliott said, looking up quickly and then back down to his phone. “I’ve got to monitor this.”

  “We need a database search,” Steven said, producing Roy’s sketch of the strange rod in Barbara’s attic. “We need to find someone who can help us with this.” He handed the sketch to Elliott, who took it with his free hand and began walking to the back of his apartment, where a door at the end of the hallway opened to reveal a large, open space. He continued to watch his phone as he walked to a laptop and opened it. Steven and Roy followed him, and Roy walked to the windows overlooking the Ballard locks.

  “Let’s say five thousand,” Elliott muttered as he set his phone down next to the laptop and began to log in. Steven could see rapidly moving images on the phone, but couldn’t make out what they were from his angle.

  “Five thousand for this search?” Steven asked. “Fine, take it from my credit.”

  “My object database has grown a little since you were last here,” Elliott said, “though it’s nowhere as comprehensive as it needs to be. Can’t guarantee anything.” He looked at the drawing Steven had given to him. “I tag everything when I add it, and I would have tagged something like this as a rod, I think.”

  He typed on his laptop and Steven saw a list appear on a larger screen next to Elliott. There were four items.

  “We’ll just take a quick look at each of these, and see if you recognize any of them,” Elliott said, opening the first one on the list.

  “Alright,” Steven said, noticing that Roy’s interest had finally been piqued and he had moved from the windows to stand right next to him, eyeing the monitor carefully. The first object had a similar shape to their drawing, but no coil.

  “That’s not it,” Roy said dismissively.

  The second object was similar to the first, but was larger and a different color. The picture showed it floating in someone’s kitchen, about four feet off the ground. A small child was in the background of the picture, sitting in a high chair, oblivious to the bizarre object.

  “No, that’s not it either!” Roy said angrily.

  “He’s just showing us the ones that got a hit,” Steven said to Roy, calmly. “Next one, Elliott.”

  The third image showed a long metallic casing sticking part way out of the ground.

  “Next,” Steven said.

  When the fourth image appeared, Roy reached out and pointed at the monitor. “There we go!” he said. The image showed a core with a perfectly formed coil. “I suppose that’s how it’s supposed to look,” Roy said, “if it isn’t busted up.”

  “What can you tell us about this one?” Steven asked Elliott.

  “Very little,” Elliott said, looking at the record. “There’s no additional data. I have it referenced to a contact, though. Let me check that.”

  Elliott tapped away at his keyboard, searching for the corresponding contact record. He had it located within a few seconds and brought another image to the screen. It was a picture of a man who had a bald head and a short, white, goatee. He had thin, wire-framed glasses with a well-defined bifocal line.

  “Maynard Stout,” Elliott said. “Lives in Utah.”

  “Can you give us his contact info?” Steven asked.

  “Another three thousand,” Elliott said, back to watching his phone.

  “Nickel and dimer!” Roy muttered under his breath.

  “Hey, I gotta keep this enterprise going somehow!” Elliott said without looking away from the phone. “It’s not like I get Yelp reviews!”

  “Fine,” Steven said. “Take it from my credit.”

  Elliott clicked print and carried his phone to the printer to await the document.

  “Utah,” Roy said to Steven. “Maybe we could get Deem or Winn to talk to this guy for us.”

  “You really don’t want to go back to Utah, do you?” Steven asked.

  “No, I don’t,” Roy grumbled.

  Elliott r
eturned with the paper and handed it to Steven. “He lives in Toquerville,” Steven said to the other two. “I wonder if I’m pronouncing it right. Any idea where that is?”

  “Never heard of it,” Elliott said, still watching his phone. “Whoa!” he exclaimed, a huge smile spreading across his face.

  Steven couldn’t stand it. “What are you watching?” he asked.

  “Twitch,” Elliott replied. “This guy is taking down a fortress in Far Cry 4 with a mod I can’t believe!”

  “What?” Roy asked Steven, completely baffled.

  “He’s watching someone play a video game,” Steven told Roy.

  Roy shook his head like he couldn’t comprehend what Steven was saying. “What?” he repeated, exasperated.

  “Never mind,” Steven said. “We’re out of here, Elliott. We know the way out.”

  “See ’ya,” Elliott said, kicking back in his chair, his eyes wide at the spectacle playing out on the tiny device in his hands.

  ◊

  “Hi, Deem,” Roy said, holding Steven’s phone. “It’s Roy.”

  “Oh, hello, Roy!” came Deem’s voice through the speakerphone. It was cheery and reminded Steven of how much they’d enjoyed being around Deem and Winn. “How are you?” she asked.

  “We’re fine,” Roy said. “Say, I’ve got you on speakerphone. Steven is here, we’re both in a car. Hope you can hear me OK.”

  “I can hear you fine, Roy,” Deem said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Well, we’re working on a problem up here, and we came across someone’s name who might be able to help us. The name is Maynard Stout, and he lives in Toquerville. I was hoping that was in your neck of the woods.”

  “It’s not far from here,” Deem said. “Just a few miles north of St. George.”

  “Well, that’s handy,” Roy said. “Ever heard of this guy?”

  “No, I can’t say I have,” Deem said. “But… wait a minute, I did hear the name Maynard recently. Trying to remember where.”