Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper

by JL Bryan

  “Ellie!” Stacey shouted again over my headset.

  “I’m following her. What do you see in the main house?”

  “There’s a shrinking cold…nothing,” Stacey said. “I see nothing on either camera. It’s like it melted away.”

  “Mercy?” I stepped through the open security door and looked up and down the hall. No blue mist, no cold spot racing away from me. The hallway felt warm, the way it should have on a June night in Savannah.

  “Sorry, I lost her,” Stacey said.

  “She did what she came to do,” I said. “She’s retreated into the gray zone for now. Maybe for the night.”

  “Shoot,” Stacey said, disappointed. “Well, what happened? I saw your hair blow back. You looked like you wanted to scream.”

  “I’m surprised I didn’t,” I told her. “She went right past me.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine. A little shaken. I’d better go check on Lexa.” I stepped back through the security door, then closed and bolted it.

  “So what do you think?” Stacey asked.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I’d say this house is definitely haunted.”

  Chapter Seven

  Stacey and I stayed up the rest of the night, but there was no more activity at the house.

  We joined the family for breakfast, which was bowls of cold cereal and some Pop-Tarts. The kitchen had a shiny new oven, but it looked like it had never been used.

  Stacey had extracted and combined the important video clips from the various cameras, and she played them for the family while I ate my first bowl of Captain Crunch in who knows how many years. Hello, sugar-packed carbohydrates!

  The family watched quietly as the cold blue mist drifted up the hallway in the main house and stopped at the security door. The footage flipped to the night vision camera on the other side, where I’d been sitting. An invisible hand drew open the bolt, and the heavy door creaked open by itself.

  I watched Dale as he stared at the footage, wondering how he would take it. Not well, as it turned out. He turned pale, his spoonful of Oat Flakes forgotten halfway to his mouth. A little milk dribbled out of the spoon as his hand shook.

  “That’s…that’s…” he said.

  “Just what you and your family reported, Mr. Treadwell,” I said. “The entity opens the door a little after midnight.”

  “You can see it again on thermal.” Stacey showed him the cold blue mist flowing out of the door and up the stairs, followed soon by my warmer, redder shape.

  “That’s what the ghost looks like?” Anna asked.

  “That’s where it’s sucking heat out of the air,” I told her. “Ghosts need energy to manifest, or to pull PK tricks—that’s ‘psychokinetic,’ sorry—like opening a door. They pull the energy from the room, so you feel it growing cold. Sometimes they’ll put out candles or small fires in their hunger for energy.”

  Anna shook her head. “I just can’t believe I’m seeing this,” she whispered.

  The footage switched to another camera—the thermal one upstairs, showing the mist moving toward Lexa’s room. It grew darker blue, bordering on purple, while my shape came up the steps after it.

  “That’s when she opened my door,” Lexa whispered.

  “Here it is on night vision.” Stacey played another clip with the same time stamp. In the greenish world of night vision, I approached the door, taking the temperature and energy levels around me. Something small flickered across Lexa’s doorknob—just a tiny orb, a pale circle no bigger than a shirt button. It vanished as Lexa’s door opened.

  I hadn’t seen the orb in person, but that’s why we use night vision. It’s extremely sensitive.

  We could hear Lexa’s voice, then mine. The cold blue mist pulled itself together into a dense, dark shape vaguely suggesting a woman.

  Her voice, seething with anger, played over the speakers on Stacey’s laptop: “Leave.”

  Anna gasped, and Dale finally lost control of his spoon. It dropped back into his cereal bowl, splashing him with oat flakes and driblets of milk. He jumped in surprise at the clanging and splashing.

  “That was her,” Lexa said.

  “Lexa and I both saw an apparition here,” I told them. “But the night vision camera didn’t seem to catch it.”

  “Really annoying,” Stacey commented, nodding. “I should have come in, brought my handheld—”

  A ghostly shriek sounded from the speakers. On the screen, the cold mass flung itself at me. It rushed past, blew back my hair, and swirled away downstairs, trailing long threads of ice-blue cold behind it.

  The family watched in rapt silence as I chased the ghost into the main house, where we lost all sign of it.

  “And that’s pretty much all that happened,” Stacey said, sounding a little sad about it. She ejected a CD from her laptop and snapped it into a plastic jewel case. It was labeled ECKHART INVESTIGATIONS, with our contact info and the current date. She slid it it across the table toward Anna. “That’s your copy.”

  Anna looked at the CD as if it were a maggoty fish lying on her breakfast table.

  Dale was uncharacteristically silent.

  “So…any questions?” I asked.

  “Can we get rid of her now?” Lexa asked. Smart girl, right to the point.

  “That’s our next step,” I said. “From what I’ve seen, it looks like we have a territorial ghost here—she’s obviously trying to make you leave. That’s what she said to me, too. We know that Mercy Cutledge was some kind of servant or employee to Captain Marsh in his later years. We don’t know for sure whether she actually lived in this house…but if she did, she probably feels that you’re intruders in her home.”

  Dale and Anna gave each other a worried look.

  “What often happens is that ghosts don’t realize they’re dead,” I continued. “If she understood that, she could move on from the house rather than clinging to it. In these situations, it’s good to try and communicate with the spirit and make it understand that it has died. That’s what I tried to do last night, but direct dialogue rarely works—the ghost is already in serious denial, obviously, and not ready to give up its delusion of being alive.”

  I took a breath, hoping I’d prepared them enough for my proposed solution. Some clients tend to freak out at the idea.

  “Ritual and symbolism connect better with the dead than analysis and hard facts,” I said. “In these situations, we can create what we call a ‘mock funeral’ for the restless spirit. This can help them realize they’re dead and move on.”

  “Wait,” Dale said. “You’re telling me you want to have a funeral for this thing? With a minister and all that noise?” I could see the dollar signs weighing him down.

  “No, Stacey and I can take care of it,” I said. “You don’t have to bring in anyone else. I’d recommend doing it in the front room of the main house. That’s where she died.”

  “Can I wear my black dress?” Lexa asked, raising her eyebrows.

  “I don’t know if we should get in the way…” Anna looked at me.

  “To be honest, it would help if the homeowners are there,” I said. “Or at least one of you. Being the current owners gives your presence some authority.”

  “I’ll go,” Anna said. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “Stacey and I can come back this evening and set things up,” I said. “We’ll do the funeral as soon as the sun goes down, make it an early night.”

  “And then all this will be over?” Dale asked. “That’ll solve it?”

  “I hope so,” I said. “If we can’t convince the ghost to leave, then we have to catch her and forcibly remove her. And that can get…messy. I recommend trying this first.”

  “It just sounds freaky,” Dale said.

  “You don’t have to decide right now.” I stood up, and Stacey stood with me. “But honestly, it would be better if you did. We need time to prepare.”

  “Dale?” Anna said. “If there’s a chance it could work…”
/>
  Dale sighed. “I don’t pretend to understand what’s going on. I don’t even know if I believe any of this…but yeah, if it’ll fix the problem, we might as well fix the problem, huh? That’s what we’re paying you for.”

  “That’s true.” I nodded. “Then we’ll be back tonight.” That’s me, closing the sale.

  “Okay.” Dale shook his head. “Just get it done.”

  I double-checked my toolbox on the way out—thermal goggles, night vision goggles, Mel Meter, flashlight…everything was there. We’d loaded all the cameras back into the van before breakfast.

  I drove us back to the office. Hunter barked upstairs, where Calvin keeps his personal apartment on the second floor. The dog would probably wake Calvin, who might come down in his elevator.

  I hurried to close the garage door and lock the van inside. I didn’t want Calvin showing up and revisiting our conversation about the psychic guy.

  Driving home in my own car through the sun-dappled streets, under archways of live oak dripping with moss, I could finally breathe freely again. After a dark night in a haunted house, there’s nothing as sweet and soothing as golden Georgia sunlight.

  I went home. I live in a second-story apartment on Liberty Street, in an old brick building that was a glass factory in the nineteenth century. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. Reaching my apartment required unlocking a gated side door, then climbing a flight of interior stairs to my door.

  My cat dashed over to greet me when I walked inside, which meant he’d probably run out of dry food during the night. He purred and rubbed against my ankles.

  “Morning, Bandit,” I said, picking him up. He purred and batted at a long brown lock of my hair. Bandit is a black and white little creature with black patches around his eyes, giving him a raccoon-mask look. I’ve always thought he looked untrustworthy, hence the name.

  I set him down, and he followed me to his two bowls at the corner of the kitchen nook. Plenty of water, no food. I poured him some kibble, and he immediately lost interest in me.

  My apartment was a studio, shaped like a ship’s galley and equally spacious. Two walls were raw nineteenth-century brick, while the other had been plastered over. At some point, I’m sure, some real estate developer had visions of selling the building off as high-priced condo lofts, like developers all over the city had tried to do at one point, but then the real estate bubble broke and the swarms of rich hipsters failed to materialize.

  I could probably afford something bigger if I were willing to live with roommates, but I need my little pocket of privacy.

  The walls are decorated with an assortment of dreamcatchers and Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs, like stars and trees. They’re meant to be hung on the outside of barns to ward off bad luck and evil spirits. I painted the wall a color locally known as “haint blue,” meant to resemble running water, which is also supposed to stop unwanted ghosts. I can’t say whether any of this works, but I need all the help I can get. I also replaced my original cheapo window panes with heavy leaded glass, which I know is a barrier to ghosts.

  I stripped out of my jeans and turtleneck, flopped down on my bed, and closed my eyes. Nap time. Sweet relief.

  Naturally, my phone rang.

  I grunted, annoyed, and clambered over to fish my phone out of my jeans. Even exhausted, though, I couldn’t help but smile at the name on the caller ID. Grant Patterson.

  “Good morning, Grant,” I said, trying not to sound as grouchy as I felt.

  “Good morning, dear,” he said. Grant has all the grace and charm of a Southern lady from an old-line Savannah family. He’s a research fellow at the Savannah Historical Association, which is a hobby for him. In his day job, he’s a semi-practicing lawyer. His true calling, however, is gossip—whether it’s two minutes old or two centuries, it’s all juicy to him, as long as it’s about our city.

  Grant had helped us with our cases for years. Not only could he navigate the byzantine rooms of the Historical Association’s old Federalist mansion, digging up long-lost details about old houses and properties, but he knew all the old, prominent families in town, since his family was one of them. He can dig out dirt with a few phone calls that nobody would ever share with lowborns like Calvin and me. Grant was always good for extra insight into the history of the haunted properties, and I think he gets a kick out of working with ghost hunters.

  “Are we still meeting today? Tell me you’re not calling to cancel,” I said.

  “Not to cancel, but merely to delay,” Grant said. “Ellie, I am ashamed to say that I had no idea what a pit of sin and scandal we had in that Marsh house. I didn’t even realize there still was a house under all that moss—I assumed it had rotted away years ago. You must tell me about the new owners.”

  “As long as you can tell me about the old ones,” I said.

  “And I will, but I want to collect just a bit more hearsay and rumor before I do,” Grant said. “You’ve got me interested now. If you give me until lunch tomorrow, I will have unearthed the whole story for you.”

  “What are you learning?”

  “It is wonderfully sordid, dear. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I hung up, only mildly annoyed at his delay. It meant an extra hour of sleep today, after all.

  I slept.

  The events at the Marsh/Treadwell house replayed in my dreams—this kind of work brings lots of nightmares. In mine, the ghost didn’t simply blow past me and vanish. Instead, I was trapped inside the old house, running through smoke-filled rooms while a fire swept through behind me. Somewhere, a dark voice was laughing.

  Chapter Eight

  So, you know what can get awkward? Putting together a mock funeral for a creepy ghost of a person who died decades earlier. It’s especially awkward when you have to be the funeral director and also give the eulogy. My goal is usually to get it over with ASAP.

  Stacey and I arrived at the Treadwell home about seven in the evening, with a vanload of weird stuff. Anna and Lexa watched from the kitchen as we carried it into the house and set it up in the foyer—Lexa looked curious, while Anna appeared disturbed. Natural reaction.

  First, there were the flowers. A couple of wreaths, a pink and purple “memory bouquet” of lavender and pink carnation blossoms, a few baskets of assorted blooms, slightly withered. We set the wreaths on the flimsy wire stands from the florist, put a basket on an old wooden side table, and arrayed the rest of the flowers on the stairs.

  The flowers cost us zilch because we’d dumpster-dived them from behind the Pierce Funeral Home. Well, Stacey did it while I stood guard—part of her initiation as the new kid.

  Swiping used flowers from a funeral home or cemetery might sound both ghoulish and cheap, but we did it for a reason. They’d already been part of a funeral ritual, imbuing them with that particular tone and energy. Secondhand funeral flowers are better than fresh ones for our purposes.

  We brought in a couple of little easels, where we set up large, blurry posters of Mercy Cutledge’s face drawn from the newspaper account of her arrest, since it was the only image we had.

  I found Dale on the couch in the living room, wearing a sweat-stained Cubs shirt while watching the Cubs on television. He also wore a Cubs cap and held his beer bottle in a Cubs cozy. Big Cubs fan, old Dale.

  “Hi, are you busy, Mr. Treadwell?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding?” he asked. “Cubbies are down by two, you got this Puerto Rican snake at bat for the Brewers—”

  “I was hoping you could help us carry this coffin into your house.” I tried not to crack a smile as his jaw dropped at my question.

  “You guys have a real coffin?”

  “A real one,” I said with a solemn nod. It’s not real, though it’s carved and painted to look that way. It’s made of plywood, just a stage-set coffin, but it’s still hefty enough that I’d prefer to get a guy to lug it for me. It wouldn’t kill Dale to help us out in between bouts of implying that we were all crazy.

  “This is getting weirder
all the time.” Dale grunted and shook his head, but he paused the TV and stood up to join me.

  I led Dale out to the blue cargo van, where I gestured through the open back door at the five-foot-long mock coffin waiting inside. I’d used this same one a few times, though usually with Calvin officiating instead of me.

  “That thing looks heavy as an elephant,” Dale complained. “I’ve got a bad back. Why don’t you and the other girl carry it? What am I paying you for, anyway?”

  “I’ll get the other end for you,” I said.

  “It’s just too big…” Dale slipped his fingers under the foot of the coffin, gritted his teeth, and tugged it upward, testing its weight. The light plywood coffin rose easily in his hands, clearly surprising him.

  He helped me carried it inside.

  “Is there a real dead person in there?” Lexa asked as we carried the coffin past the kitchen. She and her mother were at the round table by the old river-stone fireplace, ostensibly playing Uno but stopping to watch Stacey and me each time we passed.

  “You bet it’s a real dead person,” Dale said, with a wink at me. Ugh. “A scary dead person, and it’s gonna get you!”

  “Dale!” Anna snapped. “Not funny. Not right now.” She took Lexa’s hand—the girl looked thoroughly frightened.

  “Nothing funny about missing the Cubbies, either,” Dale grumbled as he carried the coffin down the hallway and through the security door.

  As usual, the portion of the hallway past the door was noticeably dimmer and cooler than the portion before it.

  In the foyer, Stacey had already set up the two sawhorse-like wooden supports for the coffin. Dale dropped the coffin into place and shook his head.

  “Sick stuff,” Dale muttered, looking around at the withering flowers and the row of folding director’s chairs we’d brought. We could have used the Treadwells’ own folding chairs, but it’s better to remove every element of the mock funeral afterwards, to totally strike the set. Otherwise, the ghost might attach itself to some funerary object, and you don’t want to leave your clients with a set of haunted lawn chairs. They really ruin the family barbecues.