Ghost Hunt 2: MORE Chilling Tales of the Unknown

by Jason Hawes

  She glanced over at the windows. Sure enough, they were shut tight. But still she felt cold air sweeping through the bedroom.

  That meant the draft was coming from another room. Angie took a step toward the bedroom door, then stopped. She had done this in her dream, too! She had gone out into the hall to see where the cold air was coming from.

  She didn’t want to do that now, but she was so cold that her teeth were chattering. She felt as if her blood were turning to ice. She had to find the open window or she would freeze. She had to go out into the hall.

  The upstairs hallway was long and dark. Angie blinked. She couldn’t believe it. Before she went to sleep, she’d put night-lights in every outlet. They should have been shining, lighting the hall. But every single light was out. The hall was so dark, she couldn’t see a thing. She didn’t know where the wall was—or the railing for the stairs. Slowly, carefully, Angie started down the dark hall.

  She stayed close to the wall on her right. She brushed her fingers against it to keep her bearings. The air was even colder now. Angie could see her breath making white clouds—even in the deep darkness of the hall.

  She stopped abruptly, a sob trapped inside her throat.

  This was in the dream, too, she realized. And then she realized something else.

  In the dream she’d been here, feeling her way along the pitch-black hall. And the shadow woman had been right behind her.

  Angie’s fear turned to pure panic. She wanted to turn around and look. She needed to see the shadow woman’s face. But she was terrified of what she would see. And she was sick of being so scared.

  Maybe I’ll turn my head, just for an instant, Angie told herself. Maybe there’s no one there after all.

  She heard a soft, rustling sound. Like long skirts brushing against the floor.

  Angie could feel the shadow woman there, standing just behind her. She dared a quick glance back over her shoulder. She saw only darkness—and something glittering, like a dark gem on a necklace.

  “No!” Angie screamed. She tried to run—and felt her knees buckle under her.

  Angie stumbled and fell. She hit the floor hard, landing on her side. Her hip hurt. She knew she should get up and run. But she was so terrified, she couldn’t get her muscles to move.

  That’s when she heard the sound. It started low, then swelled until it seemed to fill the house.

  Horrible, mocking laughter. A woman’s laughter.

  Frantic now, Angie pushed herself to her feet. Her legs felt weak, as if they were made of rubber bands. She stumbled down the last few feet of the hall, still using the wall as her guide. The rustling sound came closer. The laughter grew even louder.

  Without warning, Angie’s right hand met open air. She teetered, windmilling her arms to keep from falling down the stairs. Her right hand smacked hard against the banister. Bright spots of pain danced before Angie’s eyes. But she gripped the banister and held on tight.

  The laughter stopped, as if it was a recording and somebody hit the off switch.

  Angie started down the stairs. One. Two. Three. Clinging to the banister, she counted the steps as she made her way down. The house was silent now. The only sounds Angie could hear were her own breathing and the pounding of her heart.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Angie could see an eerie glow. That’s the living room, she thought. She started toward it.

  She gave a little cry of fear as she remembered. In the dream she’d gone into the living room—to find out what had been causing the strange glow.

  Do something else, she told herself. Do anything else.

  But somehow she couldn’t. It was as if there were a script that Angie had to follow and she couldn’t change one line. In the dream she’d gone into the living room. She knew that was exactly what she had to do now.

  Angie walked to the living room, then stopped in the doorway. The big sliding doors were open. The window shades were up, even though Angie always pulled them down at night. Light from the big streetlamp flooded into the room, bathing it in a cold, white glow.

  Just a streetlight, she thought. Not so scary.

  In fact, she didn’t remember this from her dream. Angie felt herself relax a little. Maybe the nightmare was over. She could turn on the lights. Check out the rest of the house, and maybe even go back to sleep.

  Then Angie’s eyes were drawn to the fireplace. That’s where the light was strongest. Above the mantel hung a portrait of a woman. Angie’s friend Ellen, who owned the house, said that the woman in the painting was named Eloise Cavanaugh. Angie knew that Eloise was the first owner of the house.

  Angie stared at the portrait. And she noticed something she hadn’t before. In the painting, Eloise Cavanaugh was wearing a pin. It was a spot of color on the high collar of her black dress. The gem in the pin looked like a ruby, sparkling at her throat.

  The shadow woman wasn’t wearing a necklace, Angie realized. She was wearing a pin.

  Just like the one in the painting.

  Angie made a strangled sound. That’s her, she thought. Angie remembered now. She remembered the pin. She could see it in her mind’s eye. Pinned to the front of the dress the woman wore in the dream.

  The shadow woman, the woman in Angie’s dreams, the woman who haunted her dreams, was Eloise Cavanaugh.

  Slowly, Angie walked to the fireplace. She gazed up at the portrait. Eloise’s sharp blue eyes seemed to glare down at Angie.

  “It’s you, isn’t it?” Angie whispered. “You’re the one in my dreams. You hate me, don’t you? But why? What have I ever done to you?”

  CRASH! BANG!

  Angie whirled around at the sudden explosion of sound.

  CRASH! BANG! BANG! CRASH! BANG!

  The sliding doors at the entrance to the living room slid open and closed with terrifying force. They smashed together, then hurtled back along their tracks to slam into their hiding places inside the walls. The whole room shook. The windows rattled.

  And over it all, Angie heard laughter once again. Eloise Cavanaugh’s laughter. Angie clapped her hands to her ears to shut out the sound.

  “Stop it!” she cried. “Why are you doing this? Please, please, stop!”

  CRASH!

  With a final explosion of sound, the doors slammed shut. Silence filled the house once more.

  Angie crossed the room until she stood before the closed doors. What would happen when she tried to slide them open? Was Eloise Cavanaugh waiting for her on the other side of the door?

  Angie curled the fingers of her right hand into the little groove that was the handle for the door, then tugged. The right door slid open without a sound. Angie darted through it.

  She ran as hard and fast as she could for the kitchen. She knew what she was going to do now. There wasn’t a sleep doctor on Earth who could help with what was going on inside this house.

  But Angie thought she knew who could.

  She skidded into the kitchen. Her fingers grabbed the wall switch and turned it on. Angie blinked in the bright light. There! The newspaper article was on the kitchen table, right where she’d left it.

  Angie snatched up the phone. She punched in the number listed in the article. Who cared if it was the middle of the night? Everybody had voice mail or an answering machine. They’d get the message. They’d come and help.

  “Thank you for calling The Atlantic Paranormal Society,” a pleasant young woman’s voice said in Angie’s ear. “Please leave a message, and we’ll be in touch as soon as possible.”

  “Help,” Angie said into the phone. “You’ve got to help me. I have these dreams… these terrible dreams. You’ve got to make them stop.”

  Lyssa Frye tossed her purse into her desk drawer and sat down. The light on the TAPS answering machine was blinking off and on.

  Time to find out who needs our help today, Lyssa thought. She pressed the button to play back the messages.

  There was only one.

  Lyssa listened to the message once, twice, then started
on a third time. And still she didn’t write down a single word. Instead, she sat, her eyes wide open, tingles running up and down her spine.

  As she listened to the message for the third time, Jason and Grant came into the office.

  “Hey, Lyssa,” Grant said. “How’s it…” Lyssa swung around to face them, and Grant got a good look at her face. “Whoa.”

  He crossed the room quickly, with Jason right behind him.

  “It’s okay, Lyssa,” Jason said. “Just tell us what came in.”

  “You guys,” Lyssa said, finally finding her voice, “you really need to hear this one for yourselves.”

  “This team has a decision to make,” Jason said a little while later. “We got a disturbing phone message overnight. It’s clear the woman who called us, Angie Larson, is very upset.”

  “She’s more than upset,” Lyssa put in. “She’s terrified.”

  “No doubt,” Jason agreed. “But she says she’s having bad dreams. The question is, is that really a case for us?”

  “You spoke with Angie this morning, right, Lyssa?” Grant asked. “Did she explain why she called TAPS and not somebody else?”

  “Yes.” Lyssa nodded. Quickly, she looked at her notes. “For the past few months, Angie Larson has been having really scary dreams. They began soon after she started living in her friend Ellen’s house. She’s staying there for a year while her friend is overseas.”

  “What kind of disturbing dreams?” Mark asked.

  “All the dreams have one thing in common: They all take place inside the house. Sometimes, there are strange sounds. And strange things happen. Drawers open and close on their own. Lights flash on and off. That’s freaky enough. But that’s not what’s really scaring Angie. The thing that scares her the most is what happens when she wakes up.”

  “So what happens when she wakes up?” Mark asked.

  “There’s really no other way to say it,” Lyssa said. “The dreams come true.”

  “What?” Jen exclaimed.

  “The dreams come true,” Lyssa repeated. “If Angie Larson dreams about something, the exact same thing happens once she wakes up. Every single time. It’s gotten so bad she’s afraid to fall asleep at night.”

  “That is spooky,” Mike said.

  “I used to have nightmares when I was a kid,” Grant said. “I woke up really scared, but my dad would say, ‘It’s just a dream.’ And that always made me feel better.” He shook his head. “It would be so weird to know that it’s more than a dream, that all the scary things don’t go away the second you wake up.”

  “Angie’s dreams are getting scarier and scarier,” Lyssa added. “She says there’s a woman in the shadows—a woman who is after her, or at least that’s what it feels like. That’s why she finally called us last night. She’s afraid the woman in the dreams means to do her harm.”

  Lyssa turned to Jason. “I think we should take the case. Angie Larson is frightened. She needs our help.”

  “She certainly needs help,” Jason agreed. “I’m just not sure she needs ours. There are a million reasons for dreams. There may be nothing paranormal here at all.”

  “But how will we know that if we don’t investigate?” Lyssa asked. “And we’re not the first people Angie’s turned to for help. She’s been to a sleep doctor, and she’s more frightened now than ever. My instinct is telling me there’s something here, Jason. I think we should take the time to find out what.”

  Jason took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

  “Okay,” he said, “since you feel that strongly about it. Check our schedule and find out how soon we’ll be in Angie’s area.”

  “I already did,” Lyssa said. She flashed Jason a grateful smile. “We’ll be close to Angie’s house next Tuesday.”

  “Tuesday it is, then,” Jason said. He stood up, signaling the meeting was over. Just as he did, the telephone rang.

  Lyssa moved quickly to the phone on her desk. “Hello?”

  “Lyssa?” said a breathless voice on the other end of the line.

  “Angie?” Lyssa said. “Is that you? Are you all right?” She turned to face the others. “It’s Angie Larson,” she mouthed silently.

  “Fine. I’m fine,” Angie’s voice said. “It’s just… please tell me that you’re coming.”

  “Of course we are,” Lyssa said. “But I’m afraid we can’t get there until next week.”

  “No,” Angie said. Lyssa could hear her voice rise. “That’s not soon enough. You have to come now. Tonight.”

  “I’m sorry, Angie,” Lyssa said. “But we’ve checked the schedule and—”

  “Listen to me, Lyssa,” Angie interrupted, her words tumbling over one another she was talking so fast. “I was so tired this morning that I fell asleep on the couch. I had another dream. You have to come…”

  “I understand, Angie,” Lyssa said firmly, “but we can’t just drop everything. Other people need our help, too. Tuesday is the first day we can come.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Angie insisted. “I’m sorry. I think it’s my fault. You guys were in the dream I had, Lyssa. It was nighttime. I saw the date on my phone. The fifth. That’s tonight.

  “You have to come. You have to come now.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so much,” Angie Larson said as she opened the front door. It was late that night. After Angie’s frightened phone call, the TAPS team rearranged their schedule, then headed straight for Angie Larson’s house.

  In the glow of the porch light, Lyssa could see that Angie had shoulder-length blond hair and dark brown eyes. She looked tired and worried.

  “Hi, Angie. I’m Lyssa,” Lyssa said. She held out her hand, and Angie shook it. Her fingers were icy cold.

  “I’m really happy to meet you,” Angie said. Quickly, Lyssa introduced the rest of the team. Angie opened the door wider. “Everybody, please, come inside.”

  She stepped back so the TAPS team could enter the house.

  “Go on into the living room,” Angie said. “First door on the left.”

  The living room looked warm and cozy. Its walls were covered in creamy wallpaper. Floor lamps gave off warm light. But as she chose a place on the couch and sat down, Lyssa didn’t feel warm and cozy. Across from her was a huge brick fireplace. Above it was a striking portrait of a young woman dressed in a simple black dress.

  The woman’s dark hair was swept back from her face. She had icy blue eyes. They seemed to be staring at Lyssa—almost as hard as Lyssa was staring at her.

  “That’s quite a painting,” Lyssa said. “Do you know who she is?”

  “Of course I do,” Angie said. She sat up straight, as if she expected to bolt right out of the wooden chair she sat in. All the furniture in the room was old-fashioned and not very comfortable.

  “That’s the first owner of the house, Eloise Cavanaugh,” Angie went on. “My best friend, Ellen, is Eloise’s great-granddaughter. She inherited the house last year, after Eloise died.”

  “So you’re the first person to live in the house after Eloise’s death?” Jason asked.

  “The first person who isn’t a family member,” Angie corrected him. “Ellen and her parents lived here for a little while.”

  “Did Eloise die in the house?” Grant asked.

  “Yes.” Angie nodded. “Ellen told me a little about her. Eloise died right here, in the living room.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  “Eloise’s husband, John, built this house for her when she was just a bride,” Angie went on. “It’s the first house they lived in after they were married. It was her pride and joy.

  “But John was a very successful businessman. He wanted a bigger house right in the middle of town. So the couple moved, but Eloise was never happy about it. She always pined for her first home. She refused to let John sell it. She moved back here after he died.”

  Angie paused. “You’ll probably think I’m losing it,” she said. She gave a funny little laugh. “I pretty much think that myself. But
lately, I can’t help wondering… what if Eloise is responsible for what’s been happening to me?”

  “What makes you think that?” Jason asked.

  “Lately the dreams are getting scarier and scarier,” Angie answered. “Before, I just dreamed about the house. That was freaky enough! But now it’s like there’s someone in the dreams with me. Someone watching from the shadows all the time. But I can never get a good look at her face.”

  “Then why do you think it’s Eloise Cavanaugh?” Grant asked.

  “Because the one thing I can see is something glittering at her throat.” Angie pointed at the portrait.

  “The pin,” Lyssa said.

  Angie nodded. “At first I thought it was a necklace. But now I think it’s that pin she wears. I’m sure of it now. The shadow woman in my dreams is Eloise Cavanaugh.”

  “What about your most recent dream? The one with the TAPS team in it?” Lyssa asked. “Where did that take place?”

  “In the kitchen,” Angie answered. “I can show you where.”

  “What happened in the dream?” Jason asked.

  Angie shrugged. “We were all in there together. Everything was going crazy—the drawers and cabinets opening and closing.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Grant said. “Let’s get some equipment set up so we can start our investigation.”

  “You got it.” Jen stood up and gestured to the Hammond twins. “Okay, guys, let’s roll.”

  Several minutes later, Mike and Jen were in the kitchen, installing cameras and audio recorders. “How cool is this?” Mike asked. “For once, we actually know right where to aim our equipment.”

  “It’s definitely not the typical case,” Jen agreed. “It’s amazing that Angie can tell us exactly where to expect paranormal activity.” From her position on the ladder, Jen adjusted one of the cameras. It was pointing at a set of kitchen drawers. A second camera was aimed at the cabinets just above them.

  “Still, I really feel for Angie,” Jen continued. “She’s acting brave, but it’s pretty easy to see she’s scared to death.”