I heard whispers all around but I could not decipher what they said.
“One at a time please,” I said.
But then I felt the spirits retreat even farther. They definitely did not want to interact with me. Although I sensed that they were scared of something. Me? I doubted it. I bet there was a more powerful spirit here that was in charge. But where was that spirit now? As I got the answer, I felt chills all around. The big bad, as ridiculous as that sounded, was back at the inn, probably preparing the way to murder another medium. And I had no way of going back there to stop it. The inn owner was onto me now, and I had a feeling I wouldn’t be welcome there while a séance was in progress.
“If any of you want my help, feel free to seek me out. I will do all I can to help you move on to the next world. I know you think this is the only world there is, but it isn’t. There’s a better world out there waiting for you. I’ve helped plenty of spirits move on to a better place, and if you’re interested, come to me and tell me how to stop this evil once and for all.”
“Do you really think that will work?” Kane asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But at least it’s worth a shot.”
We decided it was time to leave the abandoned church, at least for now. Rachel remembered that Chloe needed a piece from the church to do her work. We picked it out together, a piece of broken wood from the pulpit.
But as we slowly made our way out, I felt something pushing me back in.
The rest of the group turned around.
“What’s wrong?” Kane asked me.
“I don’t know. I think there’s something here that doesn’t want me to take this out,” I said, holding up the piece of wood.
“We better make this quick then,” Mike said. “Let’s all gather around Meredith so that we can help her get out of here.”
And that’s exactly what they did. They pushed me forward even though I felt something pushing me back. Once we were out of the abandoned church, I felt immediate relief. We ran the rest of the way back to the van.
“What happened?” Chloe said. “You guys look like you just saw a ghost.”
“You have no idea,” Mike said.
Seventeen
We were back at the house, getting ready to look over the recordings. Mike, Jacob, and Kane were in charge of that. Rachel, Chloe, and I were in the living room thinking about what we should do about the inn and about the medium that was probably about to die.
“Is there really no way for us to stop it?” Rachel said.
“The inn owner made it pretty clear that she didn’t want us back there,” I said.
Just as I said that, Rebecca and Charles came in through the wall.
“Finally,” I said.
“Who are you talking to?” Rachel asked.
“Rebecca and Charles are here,” I said. I turned to the ghosts. “Where have you been this whole time?”
“Out and about,” Rebecca said. It didn’t look like she was in the mood to say anything more than that. So of course, I prodded. “If you must know, we were thinking of ways to stop the next medium from dying.”
“That’s perfect because we were thinking about the exact same thing.”
“You were?” Rebecca said.
“We were,” I said. “So tell me if you found out anything.”
“Not as such, but Charles and I had an idea. Remember when I went through Mike to prove that I was here? What if we do something similar at the inn? I was thinking, maybe Charles and I can try scaring everyone away?”
“That’s an interesting idea. But I don’t think you two have enough power for that. We would need an angry ghost, or a very powerful one. I guess I could talk to the other ghosts and see if they want to get involved, but I doubt it. They seemed pretty scared of the cabal of spirits. They just want to move on.”
“You never let me finish,” Rebecca said. “We also had another idea. What if Charles and I tried contacting the medium before the evil spirits come? Maybe we could warn the medium to stop the session or something?”
It seemed that Rebecca and Charles had thought of everything. That was good because it meant that I didn’t need to think of ways to break into the inn.
“Are you guys willing to take that risk? You know what happened the last time we were there. That utter darkness and that monster, I don’t wish that on anyone. Living or dead.”
“I’m willing to take the risk,” Charles said. “Those spirits, or whatever they are, are responsible for my death. The only way I can move on is by stopping them. Please let us try.”
“You won’t get any protests from me,” I said. “But let’s run this by the others first, okay?”
Rebecca and Charles flew away somewhere, presumably to look around the house.
I explained to Chloe and Rachel what was happening.
“That’s actually a great idea!” Rachel said.
“I don’t know, I still remember the darkness. It was overpowering. And didn’t it overpower Charles the last time he tried getting close?” Chloe said.
She had a point. “I’ll tell them all the risks. I think our best bet is trying to scare the guests away by going through them.”
“Do you really think that will work?” Rachel said. “Aren’t those guests there for that exact reason? To experience a hunting? To see ghosts?”
“Well, we’re out of ideas, so it’s worth a shot.” Then I turned to Chloe. “Are you ready to read the item we brought?”
Chloe had been reluctant to even come close to the object. We had to drive with it as far away from her as possible. Right now, the piece of wood was encased in a circle of salt. If there was an evil spirit inside, it couldn’t hurt anybody. But I knew there wasn’t because I couldn’t see anything attached to it. The only thing that piece of wood carried was a secret history that could prove useful in helping us defeat this evil.
“I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Chloe said. “Bring it here so I can just get it over with.”
“That’s the spirit,” Rachel said. We both laughed. Chloe wasn’t amused. On my way to get the object, I ran into Charles and Rebecca snooping around.
“So you guys are actually staying here?” Rebecca said.
“The inn owner basically kicked us out, so yes,” I said. “Hopefully we won’t have to stay here longer than a few days.”
“What’s that?” Rebecca asked me when she saw me taking the plate with the piece of wood on it. I tried to make sure that the salt circle remained in place.
“It’s exactly what it looks like. A piece of wood. But it’s actually a piece of the pulpit from the abandoned church,” I said.
“That’s kind of dangerous, isn’t it?” Rebecca said. She took a few steps back, while Charles took more than a few. I wasn’t surprised in his case, what with what happened last time.
“Do you think Chloe will get anything from it?” Rebecca said.
“I hope so. That’s why we’re doing this. If you want to watch the show, it’s going to start now,” I said.
Rebecca followed eagerly, but Charles was more reluctant.
Chloe took a deep breath and sat up on the sofa. “I guess it’s now or never,” she said in her meek voice.
“You really have to work on your self-confidence,” I said. “You’re a gifted psychic, Chloe. Act like it. Don’t let the supernatural or ghostly world scare you. I know it seems like they’re a great threat now, but dead people usually aren’t so powerful. They can’t usually hurt us to the extent that they hurt the mediums. It’s very rare.”
“I know,” Chloe said. “But I’ve never felt such evil, such emptiness, such darkness, as I felt when we were in that basement. Give me that piece of wood and let’s see if I can get anything out of it.”
I handed her the plate with the piece of wood on it. She put it next to her and carefully took the piece of wood in hand. The room became real quiet as we waited to hear her impressions.
Chloe closed her eyes.
Rachel and I waited i
n anticipation to what she would say about the object she held.
After several minutes of silence, I was starting to get worried. I gave Rachel a look. She looked kind of worried herself.
“Chloe, what do you see? What do you feel?” Rachel said.
Chloe’s eyes were still closed.
“So many dead…” Chloe finally managed to say.
“Go on,” Rachel encouraged her.
“Fire. Before that, beatings. Misery. Pain.”
Suddenly Chloe opened her eyes and dropped the piece of wood. I picked it up and put it back in the salt circle, just in case.
“What did you see?” I asked her.
“That’s a very bad place. It’s always been a very bad place. It was a Native American burial ground before it was a church. And then it was a center of hate. I heard the preacher delivering sermons on why slavery was a good thing. Ugh, I think I need a shower after that.”
“Did you see something more recent?” I asked. “Something about what’s there now?”
“I’m sorry, but no I didn’t. I felt the darkness, but it didn’t have a face or anything tangible I could hold onto. Not that I wanted to after what I saw. I’m sorry, guys.”
“It’s all right,” Rachel said. “You did good, Chloe.”
“Thanks, Rachel,” Chloe said.
I picked up the piece of wood myself and closed my eyes. Nothing. “I’m definitely not a psychic,” I said. “At least not on that level. I guess my gifts only extend to seeing the dead and speaking to them.”
“You guys don’t know how lucky you are,” Rachel said. “When I was growing up, I’d watch X-Men, the animated series, and wish I had the powers of Storm.”
I laughed. “Flying and controlling the weather would be pretty awesome powers to have,” I agreed.
“Yeah, give me those any day of the week,” Chloe said. “Being sensitive to psychic information is not a fun superpower.”
“And seeing ghosts gets old after a while,” I said. “Sorry, Rebecca,” I added when I saw the look she gave me.
“Well, I’m not convinced. Anything would be more interesting than being just a regular old human,” Rachel said.
“How about we see if the guys picked up anything?” I said.
“Sounds good to me,” Rachel said, getting up to go.
“I’ll stay here,” Chloe said, holding herself close as if she felt a chill, even though it was kind of on the warm side in the house. “You guys can give me the cliff notes version later.”
“Holler if you need anything,” Rachel said.
The guys had set up in the dining room. They all had beers in hand.
“Did you get anything?” I asked Jacob and Mike.
“Actually, yes,” Mike said. “Did Chloe get anything out of that piece of wood?”
“Just the usual. Native American burial grounds and a history of slavery,” Rachel said.
“Is she okay?” Mike asked.
“She’ll be fine,” Rachel said. “She just needs some time alone.”
“I didn’t get much on video. Not much that I can make out anyway,” Jacob said. “But the audio recording was a gold mine.”
“I’m ready when you are,” I said.
Rebecca and Charles joined us then, apparently their interest piqued by the spirit recordings.
“Start at the beginning,” Kane said to Jacob. “It’s better if they hear the whole thing.”
Jacob did as he was told. He started the recording when we entered the church. Then he switched the audio so that we couldn’t hear the normal spectrum of sound. Our voices disappeared and were replaced by what sounded like white noise.
We waited in anticipation for the first ghostly voice to make itself known. We didn’t have to wait long.
“Get out…get out…not welcome…here…” a creepy voice said.
“That’s no surprise,” Rachel said. “Isn’t that what they said at the inn?”
“But wait, there’s more,” Jacob said, moving the cursor a bit further in the audio file.
“We are trapped! Leave this place! He will get you!” In quick succession. It sounded like several people talking at the same time.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
“That’s…new,” I finally managed to say.
“There’s more,” Jacob said. “This was the reply when you told them to come to you if they wanted to move on.”
“He won’t let us…he tricked us…we are trapped! Leave this place! He will trap you, too!”
“I wonder why I didn’t hear them when I was there?” I thought out loud.
“Even I didn’t see anything at the inn,” Rebecca reminded me.
“They must be on a different plane,” Mike said. “That’s the only thing that makes sense. Maybe this thing, whatever it is, has the power to take these ghosts to a different plane of existence where your gift can’t reach for some reason.”
That was a scary thought.
“How am I supposed to help them if I can’t even hear or see them?” I asked out loud, even though I knew that the people in the room had even less idea than I did.
Eighteen
Operation Friendly Ghosts was in full swing. Rebecca and Charles were ready; whether I was ready to let Rebecca take that kind of risk was another thing.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked her for the thousandth time.
“Of course I’m sure, if it’s the only way to save another person from becoming like me,” she said.
“I’m willing to take the risk as well,” Charles said.
“If you guys are sure,” I said again.
Both of the ghosts rolled their ghostly eyes at me.
“We are sure,” they said in unison.
“Are we ready?” Kane asked me. “Are they really doing this?”
“Of course they are,” I said. “Fine, let’s go before I change my mind.”
The rest of the ghost hunters decided to stay back because we didn’t want to attract the inn owner’s attention. This was supposed to be a clandestine mission. Whether it stayed that way remained to be seen.
We drove to the inn in silence. Once we were parked across the street, we were ready to do whatever needed to be done. People were already there, walking the street, laughing, on their way to another séance. Didn’t they know that two mediums had already died? I had a feeling they did, they just did not care. Maybe they even hoped that the medium doing tonight’s séance would die as well. It was a dark thought, but it wasn’t something I would put past human beings. I had seen far too much evil in my time dealing with dead people.
“Remember,” I said to Rebecca. “Tell any of the ghosts that want to talk to me to meet me outside. And remember, your main mission is to scare whoever is attending the séance. Go through them, make them feel chills or whatever. Only if that doesn’t work, should you try contacting the medium. Understood?”
“Perfectly,” Rebecca said. “This is only the hundredth time we’ve gone through this. Come on, Charles, let’s get this show on the road.”
I watched as the two ghosts flew toward the inn and disappeared through one of the walls.
“What now?” Kane asked. “Should I buy us a couple of coffees? This feels like a stakeout.”
“I guess,” I said. “Anything to keep my mind off of what’s happening in there.”
Kane did just that. He went across the street to buy us some coffees. From the looks of things, he was about to wait a long time in a line of people.
But I wasn’t bored for very long because I saw a group of ghosts headed my way. Apparently, Rebecca was true to her word. She had told them to meet me outside.
“Where were you?” A man in his thirties asked. “We were looking for you everywhere.”
“You didn’t see the note in my room? Well, either way, I’m here now. What do you need?”
“We need help moving on, of course,” he said.
“Could you do something for me first?” I asked h
im.
“We already did more than enough,” said another ghost, an older woman.
“There are two ghosts in there right now,” I said. “They’re there to stop another medium from being murdered.”
“But nothing happened to the other medium the other night?” The older lady said.
“That’s because I was there to stop them. But I can’t be there now, because the inn owner kicked me out. Anyway, Charles is in there right now with Rebecca, a ghostly friend of mine. They’ll try scaring the séance attendees away. If that doesn’t work, they’ll try contacting the medium and warning them to stop the séance. Otherwise, there will be another ghost haunting this inn.”
“That’s awful,” the man said. “But I don’t see how that’s our problem. We already have enough problems of our own, and you promised to help us with them. Did you do anything with the information we gave you the other day?”
The truth was that I did not. I simply did not have time, what with trying to stop the medium from dying and dealing with the abandoned church and not to mention the spirit recordings. But I had the time now and I had a cell phone in hand.
“I’ll get to it now,” I said. “Unless something more urgent takes me away.”
“I told you she didn’t care,” the man turned around and said to his fellow ghosts. “She’s just like that old lady that ignored our pleas.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “I’m nothing like her. I’ve already helped two of you move on. The little boy and the lady that looked after him. What makes you think I won’t do the same for you?”
“She has a point,” the older lady said. “Maybe we should just give her some time. It’s not like we haven’t been dead for a long time anyway. If she can prevent anybody else from dying, and joining that awful, awful man, then maybe we should be more understanding.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” the young man said. “I thought we were on the same page.”
“Wait, what’s this about the awful, awful man?” I asked the old lady.
“See,” the man said. “All she cares about is those mediums and that evil group of spirits.”
“I’ve already said too much,” the old lady said. “We should go.”
Ghostly Town (A Ghost Hunter P.I. Mystery Book 4) Page 12
