Ghost Hunted

by BL Maxwell

  “Oh, I remember. I keep trying to forget but it hasn’t worked yet. Come on, let’s go check out your creepy graveyard.”

  He smiled at me and led us out of the bedroom and back into the hall. We made our way outside to the front of the house.

  “Any idea where the cemetery is?” I asked Jason.

  He surveyed the area with his hand on his brow to shield his eyes from the sun.

  “I think it’s right over there. See that metal fence?”

  I looked in the direction he indicated, as I squinted my eyes from the glare. “Yeah, I see it.” It was across the street from the house, but it was easy enough to see. “Okay, let’s go.” I hoped once again I wouldn’t soon regret saying those words.

  Chapter Five

  We started off across the driveway, headed back toward the road we’d driven in on. The old Coloma Cemetery wasn’t very big, but it had a lot of old gravestones from the pioneer days. Many dated back to the 1800s. There were family plots all separated by either a small fence or some large stones, and most of them seemed to have the same family name—Chalmers.

  “Looks like they had a pretty big family.”

  Jason knew most of the history of the house and the family. He’d been seriously obsessed for years and had watched anything on it and read most of the eyewitness testimonies. “Yes, they did. The Chalmers had a few children but they all died very young. When Robert Chalmers started losing his mind, his wife thought she’d keep him safe by chaining him to a wall in the basement,” he continued to explain, while staring down at the large gravestone.

  “I thought you were kidding about that.”

  “Nope, someone was over here in this exact same cemetery digging a grave when Robert Chalmers came running over and laid down in the grave, yelling for the man to bury him.”

  I gaped at him with my eyes bulging out. “Are you kidding me right now?”

  He stared at me for a second before he busted up laughing, slapping himself on the knees and bent over at the waist. Laughing so hard he could hardly get himself under control. When he finally met my eyes he immediately tried to sober up. “Sorry man, the look on your face . . .” And he was laughing again.

  “Glad you find my fear so amusing. I’m thinking this might be a good time for me to head back to Sacramento. Much less chance of ghostly encounters there.”

  He considered me from his once again bent over position, and wiped a little bit of spit from the side of his mouth before responding.

  “I know you’d like to think that, but there are some very haunted places in Sacramento too.”

  “Are there more wives who like to keep their crazy husbands chained in the basement?”

  “No, no, this is the only one of those.” He smiled at me then, not his usual joking smile, but a sweet smile I hoped meant something more than friends. But I knew by now that wasn’t what it was at all.

  We walked around the cemetery and read most of the names and dates. So many of them were California’s first settlers, pioneers coming here to either find their fortunes in the gold fields or homesteading on a plot of rich farmland in the valley.

  “I wonder how long the Chalmers lived in this area.”

  “I’m not sure. I know they were around for quite a while though. They started a family and ran a winery for a few years.”

  It really was beautiful out here. The fall leaves were at their most colorful. It was easy to imagine why someone would pick that plot of land to build their house on. Harder to imagine why they’d want a cemetery so close.

  My eyes roamed the landscape, following the distant river and imagining how it might have looked long ago. The gold miners who all traveled here hoping to find the motherlode, or at least a few nuggets. I glanced over at the house when movement at one of the windows on the third floor caught my eye.

  I strained to see what it was, but we were too far away. I kept my eyes trained on where I thought I’d seen the movement. I was so intent on seeing something, and so focused, I realized I was holding my breath.

  “Wade? What’s going on?”

  I caught movement again. Taking my phone out of my pocket, I snapped a series of photos of the house.

  “I thought I saw something on the top floor.”

  I opened the photos and zoomed so I could see more detail than I could from this distance.

  “What did you see? Did you get a picture?” He squeezed in close to my side, trying to look at my phone.

  When my mind finally worked out what I was seeing, I jumped back. My hand immediately flying to my mouth to cover my shock, or to keep me from screaming. There on the third floor in one of the front windows was a woman. She had dark hair pulled up away from her face, and I could see she wore a white blouse. But her face was what had shocked me most. Her skin was pale, so pale that it was nearly translucent. Her eyes were dark, so dark I couldn’t really see defined eyes, just dark holes where they should have been. And from what I could tell she was looking directly at us with a severe frown on her face.

  Jason looked at me, then looked over at the house. He repeated this a few times. I realized he couldn’t see her, even though she was still there looking at us. He came over to me and pulled my hand away from my mouth.

  “What’s wrong? What did you see?” he asked me frantically. He gripped both of my arms and shook me. “Wade, tell me what you saw.”

  That snapped me out of it.

  “I . . . I.” I couldn’t get my shit together. What the fuck were we thinking coming up here alone? Jason thought we’d be “lucky” to see something. I didn’t feel lucky at all right now. I felt like we were fucked.

  “Wade! What did you see?” Jason sounded frantic. So I took a deep breath and tried to answer him.

  “I think I saw her, Louise Chalmers. I think I saw her in the window.”

  He regarded me like I had given him the best Christmas present ever, then taken it away from him.

  “You saw her? Are you sure? ’Cause I didn’t see shit.”

  “Oh I’m sure. It was exactly like the pictures we saw online. Same hair, same pissed-off, annoyed look on her face.”

  He gave me a look of awe.

  But my thoughts kept going back to the fact we were supposed to stay the night here.

  “Are you sure you saw something?” Jason asked again, squinting over at the house and scanning one set of windows then another. When I didn’t answer immediately, he turned to face me. “You’re sure?” he asked for the third time while taking my phone from me and thumbing through my pictures. “I don’t see anything. Is this the picture you mean?”

  I took the phone back from him and scrolled through the pictures. Opening one I’d taken of the house, I once again zoomed in on the window.

  “It’s gone. I swear I saw her, she was right here.” I pointed at the upstairs window in the picture. “I’m sure. I don’t know how else to tell you, but I saw what I saw. I wish I didn’t see anything to tell you the truth because just thinking about sleeping in that house is creeping me out even more now.” I tried to stay calm while I said this, but it wasn’t easy. We’d already had weird things happen, and it was still daytime. Every story I had read about the house said it seemed to come alive after dark. I once again questioned what the hell we were doing here.

  Jason seemed to realize he was about to lose me in this adventure. He stood closer to me and put his arm around my shoulders.

  “Don’t worry, Wade, I’ll protect you.” He looked at me with an adorable grin on his face. Dammit! Why did he have to be loveable? It made it so much harder to say no to him. I shoved his arm off me and stepped away, giving me some much-needed space.

  “How exactly are you going to protect me from a crazy ghost? You’ve read the stories too; Louise Chalmers is not known for being a happy ghost. She’s chased a few guests out of the hotel and that was when there were other people staying there. It’s just you and me. What if it gets really crazy?”

  He wore a serious expression before he look
ed down at the ground and dug the toe of his shoe into the dirt. “You’re the only one who has ever really taken any of this serious. Of all our friends, you’re the only one who never laughed at me when I started really getting into this stuff when we were kids. You know how much shit the other kids gave me. And it didn’t stop after we grew up; my own parents think I’m nuts. I didn’t even tell them we were coming up here this weekend. They would have freaked out and made me feel so stupid that I would have canceled.”

  He seemed to deflate while he said all this, where a few minutes before he had been full of excitement and brimming with curiosity. Realizing I was the one that had taken all his enthusiasm away made me feel like shit. So I did what I always did, I did what would make him happy. No matter how miserable it would make me, and it would make me miserable.

  I reached over and squeezed his shoulder. “Come on, man. Let’s go set up our room, then I want to eat something.”

  Once again he was overjoyed. I would never understand why the idea of seeing a ghost made him this happy. Maybe he didn’t understand it either. But either way, we were in it for the weekend . . . if we could survive it.

  Chapter Six

  We made our way back to the house, but the closer we got the more uneasy I felt. Jason didn’t seem to notice this at all. He was too excited about the prospect of seeing a ghost.

  “Don’t worry, Wade, if anything crazy happens, we’ll leave. I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay here if you’re not comfortable with it. I know you’re not into this shit the way I am.” He sounded so sincere; there was no way I was leaving him here to do this alone.

  I ducked my head and wanted to grab his hand so bad in that moment it was all I could do to not reach out and do it. But I didn’t; instead, I started walking toward the front entrance and put my hand on the knob to open the door.

  “You ready for this?” I glanced back at Jason and waited for his confirmation.

  “Hell yes, I’m ready.” He walked past me and into the house.

  The last of our things were still sitting there where we’d left them. The sun was starting to set, so I knew we needed to get settled in.

  “You still good with the room we chose earlier?”

  “I think it’s perfect. We’re in the middle of the house, so we’ll be able to hear if anything happens down here, and also on the other floor above us. What do you think?” He waited for my answer. He always wanted my opinion. Even if he didn’t like what it was, he still wanted it.

  “Sounds good to me, but this is your show. I’m just along for the ride.” I smiled over at him.

  He picked up his duffle and another bag that held all of our equipment and started for the stairs, while I slipped on my backpack and picked up the ice chest. We’d have to come back down for the sleep pads and sleeping bags.

  We made our way down the hall to the room we had chosen. Every surface was dusty, but the beds weren’t falling apart, and it had two windows that looked out on the side of the house. Hopefully from here we could hear anything that happened during the night. Which I had to admit, I hoped nothing happened at all, but I think even then I knew something probably would.

  We put our stuff on the floor, and I started looking for a good spot to put the ice chest.

  “I’ll go get the sleeping bags and pads,” Jason volunteered, and rushed out of the room, leaving me alone.

  Looking around, there wasn’t much to it, just two beds and a dresser. There wasn’t a closet, only some hooks on the wall and a small bathroom that had to have been added by the last owners. I looked out the window and over the trees and bushes, and I could clearly see the cemetery across the street. That was so creepy. I couldn’t imagine living so close to a cemetery.

  I heard footsteps coming from the hall and walked over to the door to open it for Jason. But when I opened it, he wasn’t there. Thinking I must have been mistaken, I closed the door and started digging through the ice chest looking for something to drink. Again, I heard footsteps just outside the door in the hall. I stopped to listen again. I needed to be sure what I was hearing, was actually happening. Only they didn’t stop at our room. They kept walking to the end of the hall, then they seemed to stop and turn around, only to return and walk in front of the room from the other direction.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. Jason was outside the room, but I was afraid to open the door and run straight into Robert or Louise Chalmers. I counted to ten in my head, quickly walked over to the door and put my hand on the knob. I took a few deep breaths before I whipped the door open.

  “Agh! Jason! What are you doing? You scared the shit out of me.” I slapped at him blindly, more of a reaction to being scared than trying to actually hurt him.

  “Dude, I was just reaching for the doorknob. What’s got you so on edge?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe that we’re in a haunted house in the middle of nowhere and every time I turn around I either hear or see something. Oh, and let’s not forget almost getting nailed in the head by a flying glass.”

  “Wait, tell me exactly what happened.”

  Immediately he was in full-on ghost hunter mode. It only mattered to him that he might have missed something paranormal, and he fully intended to find out all the details.

  “I heard footsteps in the hall and thought it was you, but when I opened the door there was nobody there. I heard it again right before you got back here.”

  “No way! Why do I keep missing all the good stuff?” He really was frustrated, which I thought was crazy. He was more than welcome to see and hear all the weird shit. I’d seen enough for a lifetime in the few hours we’d been here.

  “I have a feeling you’re not going to be disappointed if this much has happened already . . .”

  He seemed to be considering it, and then realized he was still holding the things he’d brought up clutched in his arms.

  “Here, take some of this. Let’s get our beds set up and have something to eat. We can discuss where we’ll set up cameras and the motion detectors. I can’t believe I actually get to use all this stuff we’ve been collecting for years.”

  I put the sleeping bags on one of the beds, before I opened the ice chest and started rummaging through it for some sandwich fixin’s. There was no way to cook here, so we’d brought all cold foods. We were actually close enough to Coloma that we could walk into town and get anything we’d forgotten or ran out of. But I was pretty sure Jason wouldn’t want to leave the place for the rest of the weekend.

  “Sandwiches sound good?” I smirked at him, knowing that was all we had to eat.

  He grinned back at me. “Sounds delicious.”

  I grabbed the meat, cheese, and veggies out of the cooler and put it all on the lid to keep it off of the dusty floor. We’d brought a big bag of French rolls to last the weekend and to make sure the sandwiches were filling enough we didn’t need to leave here until we were done on Sunday.

  We’d packed a few different types of meats and cheeses, so I mixed it up a little and made us ham and turkey with Swiss cheese and all the fixin’s.

  Jason helped shift everything around, and we were finally somewhat organized. I spread one of the sleeping bags on the bed closest to the door, and we sat on it to eat. It felt more like a picnic than dinner, but it was something we were used to. We’d done this many times in the past.

  “Reminds me of hanging out in your backyard in the summer,” Jason said absentmindedly to me.

  “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? It’s like we’re camping out, only inside.”

  We were quiet for a few minutes while we dug into our sandwiches.

  “So what are you thinking? I think we need to put up some perimeter alarms, just to let us know ahead of time if something is coming. And what about setting up the infrared camera and the audio recorder?” Jason asked between bites. He probably should have been in some sort of security job; he was completely invested in finding out all there was to find out about this house and the others we’d tried to invest
igate.

  “I think we should put the audio recorder in the basement to begin with. There’s something down there for sure. Maybe the infrared down the hall and the perimeter alarms at the entry doors, just to be safe.”

  “That sounds good. We can always move them around later on, and tomorrow we’ll try something different. I’m so glad we get to stay two nights. This place is so big. It would be hard to investigate it all in one night with just the two of us.”

  “How many rooms are there anyway?” I asked, more out of curiosity than actually needing to know.

  “I read that there are eighteen rooms. It’s three stories, an attic, and a basement, so it really is huge. I’m hoping we’re able to actually get through it all in just the weekend.” He had a worried look on his face that would have been absolutely endearing if it didn’t actually involve being worried about not seeing anything that involved ghosts. I was more than happy to never hear or see anything more for the rest of our stay.

  I took out one of the notebooks we’d brought to document anything and to also keep track of any settings or information we thought were important.

  “I’m going to sketch out a rough floorplan, so we can keep track of where we have everything and where we move it to and when.”

  “That sounds great. We’re not used to doing this on such a big scale or doing it for two days.” He gave me a serious look then grabbed my shoulder and squeezed. “Thanks again, Wade. I know this isn’t your thing. I want you to know I really do appreciate you being here with me. It wouldn’t feel right if it was anyone else. You’ve always been there for me through all of my crazy ideas.”

  If I was being honest, the best part of this weekend was getting to spend time like this with Jason. He worked as a delivery driver for a big box store, so he was used to going out to different places to work. But my work was in the same office, at the same desk, doing the same work daily. I worked in a lab testing cement cores. It wasn’t super exciting, but I actually enjoyed it. I did get tired of always working at the same place and seeing the same faces day in and day out. So our weekend adventures were a welcome change, and I got to hang out with Jason. Which reminded me, I needed to put myself out there more and start looking for a relationship that could hopefully grow into something beyond friendship.