by JL Bryan
I covered my eyes and turned away from the spray of glass.
Something thumped to the carpet nearby, and I opened my eyes to see Giggling Gloria rolling toward me across the carpet. She came to a stop less than a foot away. The plastic shell of her face had cracked, and a chunk had fallen off. The flimsy metal and plastic mechanism within wobbled and scraped as her eyes and jaw moved up and down. A clicking whir echoed inside the doll's broken head, and the recorded baby sounds failed to play.
The back of my hand stung. Bits of glass had lodged there, drawing blood in three places.
I looked at the area around the crib, wondering what the ghost might throw at me next. The room remained quiet, although it was still freezing cold.
"Ellie!" Stacey snapped. "Did the baby attack you? It flew out of range. What happened? Did you bash the baby, or did it bash you?"
"Sh," I said. "Look now. Listen."
The little tiger mobile over the crib had begun to rotate, although I certainly hadn't turned the little finger crank to power it up and get it started. Gentle ringing-bell music played from it, fuller and more present than the otherworldly lullaby I'd heard earlier, because it actually belonged in this place and time.
"Who's there?" I asked, and the mobile immediately fell silent.
A moment later, I saw something like the face Mackenzie had described from the baby monitor—a simple, half-formed face, the eyes and mouth like black holes in raw white dough.
It was only inches from me, and transparent, so cold it hurt my skin, so close and so shocking that my heart nearly stopped. My blood seemed to turn to ice, the combined effect of the fear inside me and the deep cold closing in around me, condensing the humidity in the air into a layer of mist that clung to the floor beneath the floating face.
The lullaby voice sang out again. I felt a crushing pain in my head, then agonizing cramps down in my guts. I was moving slowly, feeling drained and off-balance.
Then I clicked on my tactical flashlight and twisted the iris to its narrowest setting, piercing the ghostly face with a dense, concentrated beam of white light.
The thing's scream was shrill and high, echoing inside my skull, maybe not even a physical sound so much as a psychic blast. I had flickers of a face, sputtering images like an old, dying film spool just before it rips apart on the projector. Female, her blond hair braided back over each ear. Lips parted, teeth bared as if hissing at me.
The face wavered and retreated, thinner than ever, beginning to break apart like a cloud melting in the heat of my artificial sunbeam.
I widened the iris, keeping the entity flooded with light. The whole room was lit up brighter than daytime.
The scream in my head ended abruptly. The face was gone. So was the pain in my head and stomach.
Across the room, the cabinet door I'd left open slammed itself shut, with a sound as loud as a shotgun, sealing off the crawlspace beyond.
"Ellie?" Stacey said. "I saw a cabinet door close itself. What's happening?"
"That was her," I said, catching my breath. "She was just leaving. Or going back to her little lair, at least. I'd say the bait baby worked. I would also say the entity is definitely dangerous." I looked down on the drips of blood across the back of my hand. "I think the entity that haunts the nursery up here is separate from what I saw downstairs. Down there, it's three entities sticking close together—possibly timid, possibly just really good at hiding."
"So what's next?"
"Well, we're going to need a new baby." I toed the Giggling Gloria doll with my boot. The exposed metal-skull mechanism behind its face had fallen still. "I think this one's broken."
"Guess the ghost didn't like being tricked."
"We're looking for a female. Blond, pretty face, a little heavyset. I'm not sure what era." I described the woman's braids. "A little rough, personality-wise, I think. Not a rich person. Strong hands."
"That's something," Stacey said. "Either the thermal camera up there is going haywire, or the temperature's climbing where you are."
"The nursery's getting warmer, yep." I confirmed it with my meter, but it was pretty clear to me that the place wasn't freezing anymore. "We're going to have to advise our client to leave the house for her safety, I think. This isn't a minor case. This entity is dangerous. And that's really inconvenient right now." I sighed.
"Because of Anton," Stacey said.
"Of course. We can't ignore him, and we can't ignore the danger here, either." I held up the broken-faced baby doll in front of the night vision camera so Stacey could see the damage. "I hope you weren't planning on getting any sleep for the next week or so, Stacey."
"After looking at that busted baby-doll face? Not likely. Yikes."
I wanted to go out, join Stacey, and spend the rest of the night in the safety of the van, but I didn't want to be that far away if the entity returned from the crawlspace to harass the real baby over in the master bedroom. So instead, after washing the blood and bits of glass from my hand in the hallway bathroom, I returned to the nursery. I sat on the jungle-print loveseat, less than fifteen feet from the entity that had just attempted to smother me with its cold fingers.
I doubted I'd be nodding off to sleep anytime soon.
Chapter Twelve
Mackenzie woke up at five-thirty in the morning, long before sunrise, which actually worked out pretty well for Stacey and me. We had to get cracking on our secret, forbidden investigation, after all, before Anton decided to start torching people.
Mackenzie looked in on me in the nursery, then invited me downstairs for coffee. I normally would have declined, hoping to sleep in my own bed soon after the sun was up, but I wanted to stay alert this morning.
"I like to get at least an hour of work done before Dylan awakens," she told me while she fixed the coffee. I stood near the coffee table, stretching and yawning. "The nanny doesn't arrive until eight-thirty, and sometimes as late as eight-fifty-one."
"She sounds wildly unpredictable," I said.
"No, not outside that range," Mackenzie replied, after seeming to consider it for a minute. "Sugar?"
"Just cream if you have it. So...we definitely collected some evidence for you. The baby doll successfully evoked the ghost from its nest—which I believe must be that crawlspace in the nursery—and it acted out. It threw some things around."
"Oh, no. Was anything broken? Were you injured?"
"It broke a mirror. I need to vacuum up the broken glass, but of course I didn't want to wake you or the baby. I'm surprised you didn't hear anything at all."
"I may have heard a small thumping, actually, but I thought I'd leave it to your expertise."
"We did catch some solid images, as I said. Stacey has clipped them out of the videos to show you. Do you mind if I invite her inside?"
"Of course. Inquire about coffee."
"Stacey, come inside," I spoke into my headset.
"Finally!" Stacey crackled back. "And no coffee for me. It's almost bedtime. Unless there's decaf. Or half-caf. Instant's fine. Or non-instant."
Sitting at the kitchen table, we caught Mackenzie up on the case, and Stacey showed her the cold spots captured by the thermal camera, and the half-formed white face on the night vision, hovering above the crib. Mackenzie jumped at the sight of it.
"That's what I saw," she said. She didn't look scared, but relieved. She said it again, as if to confirm. "That's what I saw. You found proof. I can prove it now. I need to tell my friends."
"Well, don't expect a few pictures to change anyone's beliefs," I said. "Skeptics will remain skeptical because it's not really hard to fake the kind of evidence we collect. Cold spots, footsteps, voices..."
"Oh." She frowned a little. "It puts me at ease. At least about my sanity. Not so much my safety, or Dylan's." She glanced at the phone-sized video monitor in her hand. The baby kicked and grunted, flexing his fists where he lay in the little crib. The sky had begun to lighten from black to deep blue outside. "He's rousing. He'll be up momentarily."
"Are you certain? Is that necessary even when the two of you are here?"
"It's your choice, of course," I said. "But there's one more piece of video we need to show you. I have to warn you, it's..." I wasn't sure how best to prepare her for a creepy video of a baby doll that hovers and then hurls itself at someone, then smashes a mirror. I took a moment, trying to choose my words carefully and delicately, and that was when Stacey piped up.
"It's super-duper creepy!" Stacey said, beaming. "Like probably the creepiest video I've ever seen. Watch!" She played it on the tablet for Mackenzie.
Even though I'd seen it in person and knew what to expect, my skin crawled all over again as the crying baby doll rose from the mattress, lying perfectly still on its back, then slowly, slowly rotated upright to a standing position.
The doll hung in the air, silently looking toward where I stood off-screen, then flew out of sight.
"That's when it broke the mirror," I said.
I reached into my backpack and brought out the doll to show Mackenzie its smashed face. She was already ashen. Now she closed her eyes at the sight of it.
"It's possible the spirit was simply frustrated at finding a fake doll, or angry at being tricked," I said. "We don't know that she would attack Dylan the same way, but...she has the strength to do it."
"You keep referring to it as a 'she.' Why do you believe it's female?" Mackenzie asked.
"Because I had a glimpse of her," I said. "She came at me, and she made me feel sick. I had stomach pains."
"What?" Stacey interrupted. "When? You didn't tell me—"
"I dealt with it," I said. "That's why we carry these tactical flashlights, you know."
"Yeah, but you didn't even mention—"
"I'm fine. Mackenzie, would it be at all possible for you to stay at a friend or relative's home, or a hotel—"
"A hotel," she said quickly. "If I told people I needed a place to stay because of a ghost in my house, they'd just me or, tell my husband, that I need medication."
"You could just tell them you're having the house fumigated," Stacey said. "You know, where they come and put the tent over the whole house? If you want, maybe we could find one of those tents and drape it over, you know, to really help sell the story."
"I think a hotel will be fine," she said. "I look forward to getting away from the house, honestly. I've been feeling unwell for some time, with colds and painful stomach cramps, as you described, Ellie." She took a breath, thinking things over. "Breakdown and rebuild of my workstation will be the main inconvenience. The nanny can help pack Dylan's things."
As if hearing his name, the baby finally began crying, and his eyes popped open. They seemed to glow blue in the baby monitor's night vision, as if he were possessed.
"Okay, then, it's just about daybreak," I said. "We'll go vacuum up the glass, and then we should get on our way. There's some historical research to be done, and, you know, data to compile—"
"Lots of data," Stacey said, nodding along eagerly. "Lots of compiling."
"We'll return in the evening, if that works for you."
"I understand." Mackenzie was already on her feet, heading for the front stairs. We followed her up and cleaned away the broken glass as quickly as we could, then hurried out the front door.
Outside, the street was still dark. The sky was still blue-black, and the earliest light was blocked out by the thick limbs intertwined into a canopy overhead, as well as the high walls of the old, tightly packed houses that lined the narrow lane.
We hurried to the van. There was plenty left to do this morning, and the more of it we could do in the dark, the better.
The drive took us through larger, busier streets as the city began to wake up and give its collective yawn. Coffee shop windows lit up and streetlights faded.
The early-morning light painted the gardens, wrought-iron fences, and stately old mansions a midnight blue, the sun not yet present enough to bring out all the colors. The sprawling old oaks and magnolias of the city had gone yellow and orange, carpeting the sidewalks and streets with their fallen leaves, but those colors were muted for the moment. When the sun finally rose, the city would blaze with the wildfire hues of autumn.
We hurried out of downtown and onto the highway.
The old gas station was just a dilapidated eyesore by the road, surrounded by scrub plants and spindly pines, backing up to barbed wire and railroad tracks. The police probably drove by the place every day without giving it a second glance. Hopefully they wouldn't give it one today, while we illegally invaded the place.
I pulled the van around back and parked as close as I could to the side of the building, next to the garage door to the bay where oil and tire changes had once been sold.
We stepped out of the van, careful to avoid the broken beer bottles and assorted trash all around us.
"Charming spot," Stacey said, looking from the litter on the ground to the graffiti coating the back side of the gas station. "You think they sell nachos?"
"You can try grabbing a snack from the rotating hot dog rack inside." I walked up to the back door, located on a slightly raised concrete pad between the sealed garage door and the roll-up door to the automatic car wash, which was also covered in graffiti.
"Look at this friendly face." Stacey pointed to the skull on fire with red-spiral eyes, painted on the metal door to the ladies' room. "Remind you of anyone?"
"Have a look inside," I said. "But get your flashlight ready in case anyone jumps out at you."
"Seriously?" Stacey drew her light from her belt.
I stepped closer, standing beside her as she reached out and pushed open the door.
Nothing came surging out at us, alive or dead. Stacey stared at the scene, taking in the dirty needles, the graffiti, the little heap of rotten clothes in the corner of the bathroom.
"Gross," she finally said, her lip curling. "This is extra gross, with gross on top. It's like Anton's bad vibrations are oozing all over the place."
"Yeah, I can't wait to see the main building."
"You haven't been inside yet?" Stacey asked.
"No. Calvin didn't want to risk it."
"But you're ready to risk it now? With me?" Stacey blushed. "You think that much of me, huh? This is a real moment for us."
"Uh...sure, Stacey. Just stand lookout while I pick this lock, okay?" I unfolded my leather pack of picks and went to work, opening the heavy padlock in less than a minute. I set it on the ground and backed up, drawing my tactical flashlight like Stacey.
"Just remember," I told her. "The sun might be coming up, but it's pitch black in there. And Anton doesn't always obey the usual rules. Right now, I don't know what the rules are for him. He seems a lot more self-aware and powerful than he used to be."
"And how do you think that happened?" Stacey said.
"It's a really good question." I took a deep breath. "Okay. Let's go on inside."
I grabbed the door handle and pulled. The hinges scraped and screeched. The door seemed reluctant to open.
Our flashlights found a concrete floor inside, darkened with years of overlapping oil stains. Thick dust had settled on top of that. There were some built-in tool shelves and tool mounts on the walls, but they were bare of everything except cobwebs, dead bugs, and more dust.
I checked with my Mel-Meter. There was no change as far as the instrument was concerned, but that didn't settle the deep, gut-level apprehension I felt about stepping into this place where Anton Clay's home had stood, where some residue of his energy might remain—where Anton himself might be waiting for me even now, waiting for us to step inside so he could burn us alive, probably smiling and whispering in my ear the whole time.
"Be careful," I told Stacey, which didn't begin to convey my level of fear about the place. I tried to look cal
m and cool as I led the way through the door, sweeping my flashlight from side to side.
"It's even worse on the inside," Stacey said, following behind me.
"I don't know. There's no graffiti."
"There's no light. None." She was right, too. Every window had been covered over in wood. Not a bit of the growing daylight outside leaked into the building.
"Just a quick look around," I said. "Then we set up the camera and run before anyone catches us."
"I don't see how anyone would care. I mean, nobody works here, nobody's probably even thought about restoring this place in years. What are the odds someone shows up today?"
"Watch your step." I pointed to a long, narrow rectangular hole in the floor a few feet behind the closed garage door. "Looks like there was a service bay under there. You don't want to fall through. There should be access stairs somewhere..." I swung my light around until I found the narrow, grimy aluminum stairs leading into the dark concrete underworld below.
"Ew," Stacey said, shining her light down into the open pit. It illuminated wadded clumps of paper and rusty debris. "Tell me we don't have to go down there."
"We don't have to go down there," I said.
"Awesome." She sighed, letting her shoulders slump.
"Not right now, anyway. Maybe in a minute."
"Don't give me false hope like that! It's not nice."
"Come on, let's find you that hot dog machine." I led us deeper into the old gas station. A metal door swung open into the old car wash. The roll-up doors at either end were chained into place. Stubs of old machine arms sagged overhead like the limbs of giant, long-dead insects. Most of the machinery—the scrubbers and rinsers or whatever you call them—had been removed. The floor was lined with drainage grates. My flashlight found the light-up sign near the exit, its plates colored green, red, and yellow, with instructions to PULL AHEAD, STOP, or BACK UP.
