Sara forced herself to focus on escaping this nightmare. She was inside the Croftmore Theater, that much was certain. A highlight on the North Bay Harbor Ghost Tour and another creepy location where they’d shot a segment for the show.
The place had made her feel deeply uncomfortable, and that had been during daytime hours surrounded by the hustle and bustle of a television crew. Now she was alone, naked, and covered in occult tattoos that some freak in a demon mask had painted all over her body.
What did the sick bastard want from her?
The same thing he wanted from Haskell , her inner voice answered. Your life .
She fought back another wave of fear. She couldn’t give in. Couldn’t break down.
Sara now understood what must have happened to her beloved. The demon-masked freak had attacked John and taken him to the Krippner house, in the same way he’d brought her to the Croftmore theater. The bastard had undressed Haskell, painted his naked body with occult symbols and then…
Deep down, she knew how this story would end. The cops would discover her broken body on this very stage, the second murder in a deepening mystery.
Well, she wouldn’t make it easy for the killer. To her amazement, Sara found both the strength and courage to stand up.
As she took her first wobbly step, her whole body trembled with fear.
To reach the main doors in the lobby, Sara would have to cross the deserted auditorium. It seemed like an impossibly long trek down the center aisle. She stole a half-hearted glance to the backstage area. There had to be an emergency exit somewhere in the back of the theater, but she wouldn’t dare venture into those shadow-soaked areas. No, she would make a go for the box-office.
Now , Sara told herself. Start walking. Run!
The moment she took her first step, the shadows in the auditorium parted, and a bone-white figure appeared. From this distance, all Sara could make out was the luminous silhouette of what appeared to be a red-streaked wedding dress floating above the seats of the theater.
But without even seeing the apparition’s features, she knew who she was looking at.
It was the spirit of Susan Hax.
The actress had starred in several productions in the 1930s at the Croftmore theater. She’d also started a torrid affair with her married director. The forbidden relationship had come to a head when she realized she was pregnant.
Hax had confronted her lover, and when he’d turned her away, she’d returned to the theater, pregnant and wearing a white wedding dress, and plunged a knife into her swollen belly.
It happened right here, on this stage.
The stage manager had discovered Susan Hax’ lifeless body the next day, the white wedding dress soaked in the blood of both mother and unborn child. Not long after that, the reports of the first hauntings hit. Sightings of a mysterious woman wearing a scarlet wedding gown who left messages written in red all across the theater. According to the colorful local legend, her cryptic blood messages told the future and vanished as soon as you read them.
Sara had thought it a suitably cool story that would make for an even cooler episode of Haunt Chasers . Now that she stood face to face with the cursed spirit, the tale had lost all of its charm.
Ironically enough, Sara had waited all her life for this moment. A chance to catch a glimpse of a world beyond the material one. She’d never imagined in her wildest dreams that it would happen like this. Alone, vulnerable, a victim of a power beyond her understanding .
Sara recoiled, eyes glued to the glowing white figure in the back of the auditorium. The ghost of Susan Hax watched her like some faceless theater critic appraising an ingenue’s performance.
As she took a step back from the apparition, her bare feet stepped into a sticky substance.
Sara stole a glance downward and forgot to exhale. Thick red liquid pooled around her feet.
Susan Hax’s blood.
Sara’s head swiveled back to the auditorium, only to realize that the white figure was gone.
The stage curtains billowed out as if stirred by some invisible gust of wind. Sara sensed sudden movement from the center of the stage.
Her terrified gaze fixed on the small opening on the stage floor, which offered a view of the orchestra pit and also acted as prompt area.
There was a face framed in the opening.
Not a muscle stirred in the waxen features peering up at her from the hole in the wooden floor, but the bloodshot eyes squirmed with unbridled hatred.
As a mottled hand reached out from the stage pit, the lights turned off.
“No,” Sara moaned.
He body shivered all over, her feet frozen to the stage, limbs refusing the orders of her brain.
She felt trapped in a black void from which there was no escape .
But his time she wasn’t alone in the darkness. Now, she had company.
A moment later, a bony hand clasped around her shoulder, and something pointy and sharp pierced her stomach in the same spot where Susan Hax had stabbed herself almost a century earlier.
Chapter Eleven
A quick rule of ghost hunting—spirits and technology rarely make great bedfellows. Somehow the electromagnetic field specters generate interferes with electronic devices. Malfunctioning tech is spirit’s way of announcing its presence—think of it as a high five from beyond the grave.
Unfortunately, the proximity of Haskell’s spirit pretty much guaranteed that my Maglite wasn’t going to turn on. Trapped in a freezer with a ghost and without any source of light? Not exactly my idea of a good time.
Without warning, my shoulder tattoo pulsed with a current of energy, and I sensed movement in the dark. The surrounding blackness throbbed like a massive, straining heartbeat.
I wasn’t alone.
I prayed it was just Haskell.
Not to say that the dead reality star’s spirit was harmless. Haskell wasn't a killer, but he was lost and desperate and liable to lash out.
I couldn’t afford to let my guard down.
Especially since Krippner might join the fun any moment now. He’d been a monster in life, and now he was something even worse in death. I’d seen firsthand what his spirit had done to Haskell.
Blood roared in my ears as I imagined a phantom hand reaching through my rib cage and ripping out my heart. During past encounters with ghosts, the magical tattoo on my shoulder had protected me from such invasive attacks, but Krippner wasn’t your average wraith.
I couldn’t count on anything but myself.
Ashen fear coated my tongue. My fingers whitened around the Hexblade. The knife had proven effective against phantoms in the past, but I wondered if the blade’s magic could stop Krippner.
I steeled myself for the worst.
Okay, bud, I’m all ears , I thought. What do you want to share?
“How can I help you, Haskell?” I asked. “Where’s Krippner? Is he holding you prisoner in this house?”
I received no answer. The darkness grew heavier and tightened around me, almost as if it was solid. I struggled to breathe and then to form coherent thoughts. Was I about to meet Haskell’s fate? The image of his broken form, not much more than a bag of skin filled with crushed bones, dominated my imagination.
“Stop playing games, goddamnit, and talk to me!”
The same unnerving, pervasive silence greeted my outburst.
Screw it! I reached for my cell phone and turned on its flashlight, knowing full well the device might meet the same fate as my Maglite.
A lone island of light formed around me and struggled to push back the encroaching darkness. I clenched my jaw and pressed toward the freezer door. The temperature had dropped, and I hugged myself against the cold air. My teeth chattered, and my lips grew numb.
Man, I hate hauntings.
I tore the door open and stopped dead in my tracks.
Haskell blocked the exit, his bloodless features grotesquely distorted in the beam of light emanating from my cell phone. The dark orbs of his eyes bo
red into me, seemed to penetrate my soul.
Before I could react, his icy fingers clamped around my throat and squeezed without mercy. A wave of cold crashed down on me, and my surroundings morphed.
Abruptly, I was somewhere else.
Someone else.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins as my car hurtled through a nocturnal forest landscape. One tire was thumping and flapping against the road. The constant sound grated on my nerves, and I clutched the steering wheel so hard it hurt my hands.
The car slowed to a screeching halt. I started cursing. Judging by my slurred speech and pounding head, I was drunk or at least buzzed.
My breath came in rapid, sharp bursts as the rental car ground to a complete halt. Where the hell was I? All around me, the forest landscape loomed. No street signs, no signs of cars or houses.
A glowing mist swirled around skeletal trees as if alive. Terror constricted my chest as a ghostly figure coalesced from the fog without warning.
I wasn’t alone out here in the dark forest!
A tall man briskly strode toward me with grim purpose. A red demon mask covered half his face.
Even from this distance, I could tell the mask wasn’t some cheap Halloween item. There was a handmade, timeless quality to it—someone had carved this monstrous visage with both skill and devotion. I was looking at the work of a true fanatic.
As the figure drew closer, I spotted the ax in his hand. The medieval weapon wove through the fog like the dorsal fin of a shark emerging from the ocean, promising carnage and bloodshed.
The executioner in the devil mask raised his weapon.
And then the ax tore towards my windshield.
I screamed…
Some part of me—the real me—recognized that the cries of terror exploding from my lungs belonged to Haskell. I was reliving his nightmare. I hoped it would end as soon as the hapless Haunt Chasers host blacked out, but we weren’t done yet.
I found myself back in the freezer, but I was still experiencing reality through Haskell's senses. Horror constricted my chest as I took in the occult markings daubed across my bare skin. The light of my cell phone (it was Haskell’s Android, not my iPhone) cast erratic shadows against the metal walls. I couldn’t shake the horrible sensation that I was inside a tomb and that the walls were closing in on me.
I knew what was about to happen. I was about to die.
Without warning, a shape morphed from the wall, reality stretching and bending until Erik Krippner stood before me.
In life, Krippner had been completely nondescript. Just your average white male, harmless, unmemorable—a guy who blended in. His non-threatening appearance had convinced his victims to get into his car and take a ride with him. They never suspected that the man behind the wheel was a beast in sheep’s clothing.
Now that he’d been dead for two decades, the man’s inner darkness had distorted and twisted his appearance, transforming his once conventional features into an emaciated mask. His eyes bulged from their hollowed-out sockets and gleamed with inhuman hunger.
As I watched the fast approaching entity, Haskell’s thoughts echoed inside of me, his shock and terror were becoming my own. And below those raw emotions, the deeper realization that not every ghost story was made up. Some of the tales were real.
Horror washed over me. I’d become a protagonist in one those real ghost stories.
Oh God, this can’t be happening!
Bony hands tore into me with superhuman strength, slammed me against the metal wall before driving my head into the steel ceiling.
I heard my neck snap, and suddenly I was myself again. Yet I was still trapped in the recent past, watching Krippner manhandle Haskell’s broken doll form. I glanced to my right and saw Haskell’s ghost standing next to me, bearing witness to the horror. The ghost hunter’s spirit had been trapped here along with his killer, forced to watch the degradation of his body.
Help me, the ghost of Haskell mouthed.
Reality warped, and I was back in the present. Haskell loomed before me, eyes squirming with mad desperation, hungry for the peace which Krippner had denied him.
“Get me out of here, Kane!” the ghost screamed, the cadence of his voice building into a sonic assault. The shrieking made me want to cover my ears. But I couldn’t let go of my knife and cell phone.
If you’d just shut up for a second, buddy, and let me think, I might be able to help!
The spirit’s dead eyes fixed on my athame. They narrowed, glittering dangerously. Before I could react, Haskell’s viselike fingers tightened around my wrist and drove the ceremonial blade into his shimmering spectral form.
The effect was instantaneous—and devastating.
His phantom body lit up with an unholy red light and exploded in a shower of blinding sparks. I blinked, the knife humming in my grip, as the afterimages of Haskell’s ghost faded away and I was once again alone in the walk-in freezer.
Haskell was gone. This time for good.
I focused on my breathing, doing my best to regain my equilibrium. The chilling experience of being a disembodied spirit lingered, and I was grateful to have a physical form. Grateful to be alive. To be me.
Haskell had been trapped in this house for days, and I didn’t blame him for seizing on the chance to end his torment. Not the way I would have chosen—there are more peaceful methods to help the dead cross over—but the athame got the job done.
My eyes remained alert in the darkness. I couldn’t let my guard down. The evil entity that had murdered Haskell was still prowling this house — biding its time, waiting to strike when I least expected it.
Haskell’s tormented face was seared in my mind’s eye. Hatred simmered inside my heart, every muscle wound tight. I wanted to hurt the monster who’d done this to a man who had been the closest thing to a friend and colleague a guy like me can have .
I wanted to avenge Haskell with all my heart.
Anger boiling over, I tore the freezer’s door open. I would face Krippner on my terms.
I burst out of the walk-in freezer like a man escaping the jaws of death. Using my cell as guiding beacon, I thrust up the stairs, whipped open the door, and came face to face with…
Detective Winters, her service weapon drawn.
She screamed at my sudden appearance. It was a small miracle that her gun didn’t go off.
For a beat, we just stared at each other. I must’ve looked like a wild man with my crazed features bathed in sweat and hair standing up in spikes. Contacting a spirit, reliving their last moments and witnessing them commit spectral suicide can take a lot out of you.
“I thought you would wait in the car?” My voice sounded hoarse, as if I’d been screaming for hours.
For a moment, Winters didn’t answer. She lowered her gun, but she didn’t return it to her holster.
Smart girl , I thought. Don’t trust appearances in a haunted house.
“I heard screams coming from the house.”
Had they been my screams, or did they belong to Haskell? I guess it didn’t matter at this point. You would think facing monsters would make the fear go away or would at least help you control it. The opposite holds in my case. The more I face the darkness, the more I grasp what’s it capable of and the worse the fear becomes .
Winters’ face had become a cold mask in the light from my phone. Now here was a person who could control her fear. This house represented her greatest nightmare, but she’d overcome her terror and had risked her life to come to my aid anyway. Winters was a cop who deserved my respect, and I regretted the way we’d gotten off on the wrong foot.
“What happened?” she asked.
I shook my head. This wasn't the time nor the place to rehash the horror I'd experienced in the basement. We weren’t safe in this house. Krippner could attack any second now…
Picking up on my tension, Winters’ expression darkened.
“What’s going on, Kane?” she demanded. “You sense something, don’t you? It’s Krippner, isn�
��t it? He’s here now.”
Before I could answer, something changed. A shift in the oppressive atmosphere. The darkness in the house dissipated, and the temperature jumped by twenty degrees. Even more telling, my ouroboros tattoo had gone dormant.
My gaze swept the house, probing the shadows, but I saw nothing to hint that Krippner’s ghost was playing a trick on us. My senses had deceived me many times in the past, but my tattoo never failed me. Winters and I were the only ones in this house now. No evil entity was gearing up to murder us, which raised a very interesting question in my mind: Where the hell was Krippner?
Winters holstered her weapon, looking around with confusion etched between her brows.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” she said. “I don’t feel that heaviness anymore.”
She was right. Each breath came easily now. The chill had left the air, and no inhuman whispers called out from the dark.
“What happened?” she repeated. “Where did he go?”
I didn’t know. But I planned on finding out.
Chapter Twelve
How do you follow up a ghostbusting session in one of the eeriest haunted houses on Earth? You find a watering hole and let the booze flow freely. That’s pretty much what Winters and I were doing. We had to celebrate the simple act of being alive.
It didn’t hurt that Mike’s Crab House also served fantastic fried shrimp and calamari, not to mention lobster rolls. At least I’d be able to report back to Vesper on whether the Maine delicacy was as good as the rumors suggested.
It was time to stuff our faces, pickle our livers, and forget all about ghosts and undead serial killers.
Yeah right, like that was possible.
Even though beer was burning down my throat, my mind refused to let go of the case. Our server had been nice enough to lend me a pen, and I was busy proving to the world that skipping art school when I was eighteen had been a good idea.
Okay, maybe I’m too modest. I don’t completely suck. The horned mask I was drawing on the paper napkin was a decent rendition of the one I’d seen in the memory Haskell had shared with me.
The Paranormalist- Servants of the Endless Night Page 8