“I’m down,” Kate said. “Besides, we drove all this way. Might as well make the most of it while we’re here.” They both looked at Michael. He knew he was outnumbered.
“Sure. Let’s go.”
Chapter 13
Once they were back in the car, Luke handed his iPhone to Kate and asked her to get online and see what she could find out about the haunting. She typed Bridal Barn Murder Waxahachie, Texas into the search engine and selected the first link that appeared.
“What was supposed to be a joyous occasion quickly turned into a family’s worst nightmare when Grace Bledsoe, a Waxahachie native and bride-to-be, was found slaughtered in her wedding dress. She was 24 years old,” Kate read. “Her body was discovered by her bridesmaids, who went searching for her after she failed to show up for a photo shoot.” Kate read on silently. “They found her fiancé’s best man, Daniel Ford, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head after someone reported seeing him leaving the barn. His fingerprints were discovered at the scene and they found a knife covered in Grace’s blood on his person.”
“Well, they definitely weren’t lacking evidence,” Luke remarked. “When did all this happen?”
“About two years ago.”
“What was her fiancé’s name?” Luke asked.
“Jim Loveday. Neither he nor his family made any sort of statement.”
“That’s okay. At least now we’ve got something to go on.”
“How long ago did they shut it down?” Michael asked.
“Only a few months. It says that the people who own it are hoping to reopen it again sometime, but after what happened, they just can’t find anyone interested in having a wedding there.”
A few minutes later, they came upon a weathered sign that read, Chapel at Bluebonnet Trail. Luke turned into the driveway. They drove through pitch darkness for another thirty seconds or so before a building appeared off to the right. Most of its windows were boarded up, but Kate could still make out the circle of stained glass just below the steeple. Luke parked a few meters away.
“If the chapel’s here, the barn can’t be much further,” he reasoned.
Again, they clamored out of the car and began to assemble their equipment. This time, however, the world around them was so dark that they each needed their own individual flashlight to see a few feet in front of them.
Kate wasn’t sure what it was, but as they trekked along the graveled pathway that Luke guessed would lead them to the barn, the familiar feeling that they were being watched by some unseen presence returned. She shone her flashlight into the surrounding woods, expecting to see a flash of eyes, or maybe even a shadowy figure darting through the trees, trying to evade her glance.
“Are you okay?” Michael asked.
“Yeah,” she replied. “It’s just creepy out here.”
“Don’t you love it?” Luke asked. Kate couldn’t see his face, but she was pretty sure he was grinning. “If I could visit locations like this and get paid for it - oh wait, I do!”
“I would so love to hit you right now,” Michael told him.
“I’ve told you before, Mikey. You want to be on the show, you just say the word.”
“Thanks,” Michael muttered.
“He’s offered you a spot on the show?” Kate asked Michael. That was new information. “Why don’t you take it? You’d have so much fun! You’d get to see a bunch of new places and you’d be on television!”
“See, Mikey? She has a brain,” Luke remarked.
“It’s just not my thing,” Michael told them.
“Whatever you say,” Luke sighed as a broad and very neglected building came into view. Unlike the chapel, no one had bothered to board up the windows, all of which were cracked, shattered, or non-existent. The brick-colored paint was chipping away to reveal the wooden planks beneath it.
Glancing up to the second story, Kate began to feel the world closing in around her. Something was watching them from that window. She couldn’t see it, but it was there.
Suddenly, that barn was the last place on Earth Kate wanted to be. She wanted to run, to climb back into the car, and get as far away from that horrible place as quickly as possible. Luke and Michael took a few steps toward the steps leading up to the porch. Kate remained frozen on the spot.
“You coming?” Luke asked her.
“I don’t know if we should do this,” she told them.
“What?” Luke asked. “Why not?”
“I just feel like whatever’s in there really doesn’t want us disturbing it.”
“Kate, if you were murdered, wouldn’t you want to be able to tell the world what happened to you?”
“Well yeah, but - ”
“If you‘d stayed dead after your car accident, wouldn’t you have wanted to talk to someone?”
“Hey, knock it off,” Michael snapped. “If she doesn’t want to go, then she doesn’t have to. You don’t have to bring up stuff like that.”
“What? She’s not sensitive about it. Are you?” Luke asked Kate.
“No, but - ”
“See? No problems.” Kate was still hesitant. “Kate, I promise. Nothing bad will happen. I do this all the time and under a lot nastier circumstances. Did you see the episode where we investigated the witch’s house where they used to perform Satanic rituals? Or what about the music hall with all those demonic entities?”
As a matter of fact, she had seen those episodes, and if memory served, Luke and his crew had spent the next weeks being haunted and scratched and God knew what else by those spirits that had decided to follow them home. A more skeptical person may have laughed over the idea of an invisible figure following them home from a haunted location, but she already had a ghost. She didn’t want another one.
Still, they had come all this way. And she’d been the one who’d said she wanted to make the most of a ghost hunt with Luke Rainer. She couldn’t back out now.
“Okay,” she agreed.
“That a girl,” Luke grinned.
~*~
They followed the porch around the side of the house until they finally found the front door, which had been chained and shackled shut by a large, rusted padlock.
“That looks locked,” Michael remarked.
“Never fear, Mikey. Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” Luke assured him, gently setting his camera on the ground. “Kate, may I see the backpack, please?”
She passed it to him. He rummaged around in it for a few seconds before he pulled out a pen and a large paperclip.
“Are you going to pick it?” Kate asked.
“Yep.”
“Wait, what?” Michael demanded. “We’re going to break in?”
“How do you think this business works, Mikey? As a professional, yes, I prefer to call ahead and get permission, but back when I was first starting out and no one wanted me inside their decrepit old buildings, I had to learn to pick a few locks.”
“Are you crazy? We’ll get caught!”
“By who, a possum? There’s no one out here.”
Michael exchanged a wary look with Kate before the soft click of the lock turned their attention back to Luke.
“We’re in,” he announced, pulling the chains off from around the handles.
“But - ”
“Don’t worry, Mikey. I’ll put it back just the way we found it,” Luke patronized, pulling the door open with a loud creak.
Although the air inside of the barn was much cooler than the humid summer night outside, it was still stuffy and musty from months of being locked up and undisturbed. While Kate and Luke shone their flashlights around, taking in the dusty decor, the brown leather couches, the old-fashioned fireplace, the western-themed tapestry that hung on the wall, and the narrow, winding staircase, Michael’s eyes drifted up to the second story, where the shadowy figure of a woman in a flowing gown watched them from the railing.
“Kate, turn on the recorder,” Luke whispered.
“Got it,” she replied. Luke cleared hi
s throat.
“Hello? Grace? Are you here?”
A swift movement out of the corner of Michael’s eye almost caused him to jump back. He turned his camera in her general direction and shifted his eyes just above the flip screen, praying silently that she wouldn’t notice him staring. She stood in front of the staircase, her pretty face screwed up in what could only be called contempt for her intruders.
“What do you want?” she hissed.
“Luke,” Kate said, unaware of the girl’s presence. “The recorder just died.” Luke’s face lit up.
“She’s here. I just put fresh batteries in that thing before we got here,” he said. “Did you just drain all the energy from this recorder?” Michael’s eyes shifted back to the girl, who looked confused and irritated. The way she stared at Luke reminded Michael of the way a girl might stare at someone who’d just used a really terrible pick-up line.
“Do you want me to change the batteries?” Kate asked.
“Actually, I was thinking we could try the Spirit Box.”
“I thought you said it was loud and annoying,” Michael said.
“It is, but it will spare us the trouble of having to go back and rewind to hear what she has to say,” Luke explained, setting his night vision camera onto a ledge. It made sense, Michael acknowledged, as Luke pulled a rectangular, black device out of the backpack. It looked a lot like a larger version of the digital recorder.
And Luke was right. It was loud and annoying. It was more than static, as Kate had described. It was like static slowed down so that you could almost make out certain sounds, and ten times louder.
“How are you supposed to hear her through this?” Michael had to yell to be heard above the racket coming out of the SB7.
“Trust me, you’ll be able to,” Luke replied. “Grace?” he called out. “Are you here Grace?” Michael glanced back at their spectral visitor. She was a beautiful girl with wavy dark brown hair and big dark eyes, dressed in an elegant yet simple lace wedding gown. She’d clasped her hands over her ears, clearly just as off-put by the device as they were.
“Turn that thing off!” she screamed. At the same time, her voice broke through the static of the Spirit Box.
“Off!” Michael stared at the device.
“It actually works!”
“Told ya,” Luke grinned. “Do you like this Grace?”
“What is that?” Grace asked.
“What?” the Spirit Box relayed. Grace eyed it curiously.
“What is it? This is a Spirit Box. You can talk through it,” Luke explained.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she snapped.
“Don’t want to.”
“Why does it only pick up fragments of sentences?” Michael asked, still competing with the disruptive volume of the Spirit Box. Both Luke and Kate looked at him. Michael instantly regretted asking the question. How would he know that a ghost was actually saying more than what the box conveyed? Quickly, he tried to cover for himself. “I mean, no one actually talks like that.”
“Maybe it has to do with energy,” Kate suggested.
“I think it has to do with that and with the device itself,” Luke replied. “Grace, why don’t you want to talk to us?” Michael glanced back to the spot where Grace had been standing. She wasn’t there. Michael looked around the room, wondering just how he’d missed her. “Grace?” Luke called again.
“Stop,” Kate yelled, grabbing Luke’s shoulder. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Luke asked. But Michael had heard it too. Above the roar of the Spirit Box it was almost inaudible, but it was there; the screech of a wooden chair being dragged across the floor above them.
“Turn that off,” Kate said, indicating the SB7. “Listen.”
With the sudden absence of the irritating static, the silence was almost deafening. It didn’t stay so for long. Footsteps, soft but distinguishable, paced anxiously back and forth across the floor above them.
“Come on, Grace. We just want to talk to you,” Luke called up to her. Seconds later, a small, hard object bounced off the ground near their feet. Kate shrieked and leapt back. Luke wasn’t as easily shaken. “What the hell was that, Gracie? You throwin‘ rocks at us?”
Grace appeared once again at the foot of the stairs, glowering fiercely at Luke.
“Don’t call me Gracie!” But without the Spirit Box, her harsh voice fell on (mostly) deaf ears.
“I’m going to turn the Spirit Box back on, okay, Gracie?” He pressed a button and again, the irritating static broke the silence of the barn.
“Who are you?” she asked. This time, the Spirit Box conveyed the entire phrase.
“Who are you?”
“‘Who are you!‘ Did you hear that?” Luke asked his companions. “My name is Luke. This is Kate and Michael. Do you have anything you want to tell us?”
“No. Get out!”
“Get out!”
Kate exchanged an apprehensive glance with Michael, but Luke pressed on. “Why don’t you want to talk to us?”
By now, Grace was seething. The temperature in the barn dropped even further, and as she growled in frustration, Michael felt the all too familiar rush of dizziness as she drained away his energy. Kate seemed to feel it too. She pressed a hand to her forehead, like she was trying to ward off a headache, and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Kate,” Michael tried calling out to her before another wave of dizziness nearly knocked him off his feet. He slumped against a wall and took a few deep breaths. Luke remained focused on the investigation.
“Come on, Grace. You don’t have anything to say?”
As his vertigo subsided, Michael glanced up just in time to see Grace summon every ounce of newly acquired energy and send something, probably a small vase, toppling off of the coffee table next to the couch. It hit the ground with a loud crash, heard even above the Spirit Box.
Kate screamed. Luke jumped back.
“Woah!” he cried. “Did you see that? Mikey, did you get that on tape?” Luke turned and looked at Michael.
He didn’t respond. He was frozen, staring into the virulent eyes of Grace Bledsoe.
Turn! Look away! Blink! Do something! a voice in the back of his mind screamed at him. His body didn’t obey. He’d seen her and she knew it. He could avert his eyes as much as he wanted, but it wouldn’t do him any good.
“Mikey!” Luke’s voice finally tore him away from Grace’s hostile gaze. “What’s going on?” he asked.
But before Michael could reply, Grace’s voice once again rang loud and clear, not only through his ears, but through the cold, loathsome speaker of the Spirit Box.
“He can see me.”
Chapter 14
Three things happened almost simultaneously.
First, the screens on both night vision cameras flickered before going completely blank.
Second, the Spirit Box short circuited with a loud pop and began emitting a penetrating, high-pitched squeal that continued even after Luke tried to turn it off.
Finally, a bright light, the color of a firetruck began to flash around the room, rekindling the headache that Kate had been fighting since before the vase flew off the table.
“What’s that?!” she yelled as a new loud buzzing noise began to pulsate through the already shrill atmosphere.
“It’s the fire alarm! She must have set it off!” Luke yelled back, frantically gathering all the equipment and stuffing as much as he could into the backpack, which he quickly passed off to Kate in order to grab his camera.
“I thought they would have taken the batteries out of it!” Michael shouted.
“They probably did!” Luke responded. “Come on, we’ve gotta get out of here!”
Neither Kate nor Michael argued with him. Less than a minute later, they’d abandoned the chaotic barn and were sprinting blindly through the darkness. It was difficult to see more than a few feet in front of her. Kate had to listen to make sure she didn’t get separated from the guys. She couldn’t
help but notice they weren’t on the gravel pathway anymore, and she hoped and prayed that Luke had a better sense of direction than she did.
“Come on, I think the car is this way!” Luke yelled from somewhere up ahead.
As Kate looked around, trying with all her might to pinpoint his location in the dark, she tripped over something and tumbled to the ground with a loud “Oomph!”
“Kate!” Michael called.
“Give me the camera,” she heard Luke say. Seconds later, Michael was standing beside her. He knelt down next to her, took her hand, and pulled her to her feet. A nasty jolt of pain shot from her knee down the front of her leg and she grimaced.
“You okay?” Luke asked.
“Fine,” Kate managed, hobbling along as fast as she could.
“Here, give me the backpack.” Michael took the backpack from her and slung it over his left shoulder. He then took her arm and wrapped it around his back, supporting her with the right side of his body. Together, they followed Luke back to the car.
By the time they got there, Luke had already loaded the two video cameras into the trunk and was waiting to take the backpack. Michael helped Kate into the backseat of the Lexus so she could prop up her leg while Luke finished loading the trunk. Both Michael and Luke had just climbed into the front of the car when the distant wail of a siren filled the air.
“Okay, we’re going,” Luke turned on the ignition and sped off into the night.
“How’s your knee?” Michael asked, turning around to look at Kate.
“It’s fine,” she replied. Truth be told, it didn’t feel as bad as it could. She was pretty sure she’d scraped it and she knew there’d be a nasty bruise there tomorrow, but nothing felt broken.
“We’re still going to put some ice on it as soon as we hit a gas station,” Luke told her. Kate didn’t object. “Guess you were right about something not wanting us there.”
“What happened back there?” she asked.
“Grace went ballistic. Not the first time it’s happened to me, but that was pretty violent. Not to mention it was totally unprovoked - ”
“No, before that. She said something. She said... you could see her.’” She turned to Michael. Everything had started happening so quickly after the EVP was captured that she hadn’t had time to dwell on it, but now she was curious. “Could you?” she asked.
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