“Don’t worry,” he assured me. “This will be a wonderful addition to the episode, and you’re already a fantastic addition to our team.”
I was happy he wasn’t having second thoughts about hiring me, but I still wasn’t sold on being a paranormal investigator for a living. As relieved as I was to find a job so quickly, I’d pictured something more along the lines of filing in the county clerk’s office or even manning the cash register in one of the shops on Main. Working on a TV show about ghost hunters was never on my list of career goals. But then, I’d never really had a list of career goals to begin with.
When I was a little girl, adults always asked me the same questions: “How old are you?” “What grade are you in?” and the dreaded “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The other kids in my class had very exciting answers, careers like painter, geologist, architect, and Batman.
I’d just wanted to be, well, a grown-up when I grew up. With that vision in mind, I rushed into adulthood as quickly as I could. Despite my father’s objections and his concerns about my grades suffering, I got a job in high school, bagging groceries and stocking shelves. It was horrible and I hated it, but I soldiered on because I wanted the money. Little did I know that was exactly what adulthood would bring in spades.
Then I went to college because that’s what every adult told me to do. I felt very grown up, standing on the quad with my bags and my class schedule, looking forward to four years of learning, partying, and maybe even meeting some hot college guys.
Like my first job, college wasn’t what I’d hoped it would be. I certainly learned a lot, but I hopped majors so many times that I was barely able to cobble together a bachelor’s degree in English. And even the frat parties fell short, not quite living up to the expectations I’d developed from watching too many ’80s movies.
I did, however, meet a guy. Josh seemed amazing. He was smart, funny, and could play the guitar. I was immediately smitten, and when he got a job in Utah after graduation and asked me to go with him, I followed. It felt like a very grown-up thing to do. Not to mention, I had no idea what I’d do otherwise.
Josh put his marketing degree to work with an ad agency, and when I failed to find a job on my own, he pulled some strings and got me a job as a receptionist at the same place. The money was good, so we bought a couple of decent cars and a lot of high-end electronics. Then we found ourselves strapped for cash, so Josh went to work for a competing agency that paid more. And we bought more stuff and moved into a better apartment. Pretty soon the money stopped feeling like enough. I got trapped in a loop, chasing after money the way a dog chases after its tail. That was one of many promises I’d made to myself when my dad died: I wouldn’t be ruled by the almighty dollar anymore.
“I thought I was done with homework,” I grumbled to Striker.
She blinked up at me in what I decided was a sympathetic way then continued to knead my stomach with her paws.
We were sitting on the window seat in my apartment while I steadily worked my way through a pile of books Kit and Yuri had given me. In the two days since our visit to the Grimshaw Public Library, I’d read about famous hauntings, the evolution of ghost hunting, and the different types of equipment used.
“That’s it,” I told Striker. “I can’t take this book anymore.”
I set Haunting Hypothesis: The Application of the Scientific Method to Modern Paranormal Investigative Techniques by H. R. Watkins down on top of a pile of books in the turret and got up to stretch. The word “modern” in the title made me laugh; the book had been published in 1978. It was a heavy tome, filled with cramped lines of 9-point text and zero photos or illustrations.
There was one more book on my pile that I hadn’t even started yet. It was about psychics and the different types of recognized psychic abilities. The inside jacket listed some of them: precognition, ESP, and even levitation. Levi-freaking-tation.
I wasn’t ready for any of that yet. My job title, as far as I was willing to admit, was just production assistant. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of applying for a loan and having to list my occupation as “Psychic.” I hadn’t even been able to make myself call or visit Gabrielle to talk about any of it.
The thought of walking into Nine Lives and saying, “Hey, so it turns out I’m a psychic like you, and I can see ghosts. Isn’t that nifty? Mind showing me a few tricks?” was terrifying. I felt like a child again, standing in front of a haunted house attraction at an amusement park and trying to work up the courage to step inside. Only this wasn’t a fake castle full of teenagers in vampire costumes. This was my life. Once I opened that door, I wasn’t sure what—or who—would be waiting for me on the other side.
Striker stopped kneading my belly, and I looked down to find her staring up at me with her eyes narrowed. It was a stern expression.
“What?” I asked, feeling suddenly defensive.
She cocked her head to one side as if to say, “You know very well what.”
I sighed. “Alright. Fine. I’ll call Gabrielle today. Just one episode first, okay?”
There was a second part of my homework that I didn’t mind doing at all, and I switched to it whenever I needed a break from the textbooks. Every episode of Soul Searchers was available to stream through the ScreamTV website, and I had four seasons to catch up on. I sat down cross-legged on my bed and booted up my laptop. By the time I pulled up the episode in the second season where I’d left off, Striker found my belly and resumed her feline version of acupuncture.
On my screen, a plaintive melody on a tin whistle began to play as white smoke filled the frame. The smoke disappeared, and an up-tempo bass line gave the intro music more energy while black-and-white footage rolled of Yuri knocking on walls and shining a flashlight around an empty attic. Eerie images of a white form moving down a staircase and a shadow at a tall, narrow window flashed on and off the screen. Finally, the last picture dissolved into the same Soul Searchers logo that was painted on the side of Kit’s van.
At first, I’d thought the opening sequence was super cheesy, and I felt a little embarrassed about working on the show. But after three episodes, I’d fallen in love with everything about Soul Searchers. Now I hummed along with the theme music as I looked forward to seeing what Yuri would be doing in this episode. He exhibited the same calming manner on screen as he did in person. Even if I didn’t already know him, I felt sure that his empathy toward the homeowners who were trying to cope with living in a haunted house made him instantly likeable, and he seemed to have an endless knowledge of all things paranormal. Every once in a while, Kit would join him onscreen to help him with something, and they were so cute together on camera, with their matching brown eyes and boundless energy. Somehow even the difference between Kit’s vibrant green hair and her father’s graying high-and-tight enhanced their family resemblance.
In this episode, Yuri and Kit were investigating the home of a fashion model named MaryBeth who claimed her downtown St. Louis condo was haunted. It opened with Yuri giving an overview of the history of the building, which oddly didn’t include any unusual deaths or tragic incidents.
Over black and green footage from a night vision camera that had a wide-angle view of a living room, Yuri spoke. “MaryBeth often wakes up in the morning to find her belongings broken against the walls. We set up a camera to find out what’s happening while she’s asleep.”
On screen, a china teacup rose up from the table, flew across the room, and smashed into the wall opposite the camera. The hair on my arms rose and I shivered. If I’d been watching this show a week before, I would’ve immediately started trying to figure out how they’d managed to fake that shot with fishing line or something. But that was before I’d seen the ghost in the library, and before I’d met this crew. They had too much integrity to fabricate evidence of a ghost.
The show switched to a handheld camera shot of MaryBeth leading Yuri on a tour of her condo.
“I think I’m just unlucky.” MaryBeth held a brown
beaded curtain aside and ushered Yuri into her small kitchen. “Everywhere I’ve lived for the past three years has been haunted.”
Yuri raised an eyebrow above his wire-framed glasses. “That’s unusual. Did you have paranormal investigators come to any of your previous homes?”
MaryBeth shook her head, and her dark curls bounced around her face. “No. The first time I moved, I thought I got away from it, but it started happening there too. So as soon as that lease was up, I came here.”
They took seats across from each other at a small dining table. MaryBeth’s large, brown eyes filled with tears, and she stared down at her slender hands.
“I just don’t know what to do. I can’t move again. But I can’t stay here either!” Her voice cracked. “How do I keep picking these haunted places?”
Yuri furrowed his brow and reached across the table to cover MaryBeth’s hand with his own. “I don’t believe you’re simply moving from haunted house to haunted house,” he said. “From the activity in your living room, I think we’re dealing with a poltergeist, not a typical ghost.”
“A poltergeist?”
Yuri nodded. “Yes. Ordinarily, spirits attach themselves to a particular place: their home, their grave, the place they died. But a poltergeist is a different level of entity. They attach themselves to a person, not a place. So even if someone like you moves out of what they assumed was a ‘haunted house,’ the poltergeist may follow and continue to pester them.”
I shivered, riveted by Yuri’s explanation. The thought of not being able to outrun a spirit terrified me.
Thud.
Striker jumped off my lap with a growl, and I realized the sound hadn’t come from my laptop speakers. It had been in my own apartment. I paused the Soul Searchers episode and looked around for the source of the noise.
Haunting Hypothesis was resting on the hardwood floor in the turret instead of on top of the pile of textbooks where I’d set it down. I stared at the book for a moment before deciding I must have stacked it too precariously and gravity had taken over.
“Come back up here,” I told Striker. “That book won’t hurt you.” I unfolded my legs and stretched them out in front of me, trying to get more comfortable before going back to the show.
Thud. Another textbook landed on the hardwood floor.
“Striker, if you’re going to knock books around…” I realized she was sitting directly in front of the bed, staring into the turret. She wasn’t nearly close enough to the pile to make the books fall over.
Could the wind be knocking them down? I reached behind me to close the window that sat open above my bed.
Slam! The sound was much louder than the previous light thumps. I whipped my head around just in time to see a fourth book lift into the air then drop to the ground with another bang. Three more books rose at once, flying toward the ceiling before reversing direction and hurling themselves back down at the floor. They all landed at the same time with a resounding boom!
I froze in place. My limbs went numb, and I couldn’t even blink. Only my heart moved, pounding steadily in my chest like the bass line from a techno song. My brain buzzed, and I groped for any rational explanation for what had just happened. Anything but a ghost. Anything but a poltergeist.
I came up empty. My mind only seemed capable of issuing a single, repeating command in time with my thumping heartbeat: run, run, run, run!
“Mrrrroooooooowwwwww.” Striker hunched her back, ears pinned flat against her head. She stared at the pile of books with wide pupils.
Her growl unfroze me, and I bolted away from the bed, scooping her up as I ran for the door. My foot slipped on a wet spot on the floor—Where did that come from?—but I regained my balance before falling. I grabbed the handle, twisted it, and yanked on the door. It wouldn’t open. I whimpered. I’d never made that noise before.
Striker hissed. The sharp sound spurned me into action like a slap in the face. I looked at the door and realized the dead bolt was still latched. I fumbled with it for a moment, using one hand to hold on to Striker, and then the bolt clicked back. I pulled open the door and threw myself into the hallway. The door slammed shut behind me, as though blown by a sudden, strong wind.
I didn’t stop to look behind me. Instead, I poured every ounce of strength and energy into my legs and raced down the stairs. I slowed at the second-floor landing and ran to Kit’s apartment.
“Kit! Kit!” I shouted, banging on the door.
No answer.
“Kit!” I kept pounding my fist against the wood.
A hand touched my shoulder.
It’s too late, I thought.
The world went dark.
Chapter Twelve
“Mac.”
I was underwater. Someone called my name from outside the pool, but I didn’t want to come up yet. It was so peaceful sitting on the bottom like this. How dare they interrupt this moment?
My mother’s silhouette shimmered through the water. She was at the edge of the pool, watching me, making sure I was okay. I felt so safe with her standing there.
Something wet and rough scratched at my forehead. What was it? The pool was empty, except for me.
My eyes fluttered open, and all I saw was fur. I smelled a floral perfume mixed with a less pleasing scent: cat breath. Striker was licking my forehead, cleaning me with such vigor that it felt as if my skin was being scraped off.
“Mac!” Graham’s pale, worried face appeared behind Striker. He helped me sit up a little bit and stuffed a pillow behind my back.
Striker settled onto my lap, having apparently decided my face was clean enough.
I was in a narrow, high-ceilinged living room with gray walls, lying on a floral-printed couch I didn’t recognize. Graham was perched beside me, on the edge of the cushion. All around me, tall vases and statues took up most of the floor space. “Where am I?”
“You’re in my apartment,” Graham said. “You passed out in the hallway in front of Kit’s door. You don’t have a fever. Do you faint often?”
Do I faint often? It was a good question. Before I’d come to Donn’s Hill, the answer would be a resounding “never.” But since coming here, I’d fainted twice in one week. I pressed my wrist against my forehead, trying to confirm my temperature. Kit’s door. Why was I…?
The memories of the flying books came flooding back into my mind, and I gasped. “Kit! I need to see Kit. There’s something in my apartment. I don’t know what to do!” The words flew out of my mouth at auctioneer speed.
“Something’s in your apartment? What is it?” Graham’s eyebrows knitted together behind the thick black rims of his eyeglasses.
“I don’t know. I think it’s a…” A thought struck me. “You asshole,” I spat.
“Me? What?”
I struggled to sit up straighter. What a jerk! He was probably just eager to rent the place before anybody figured out it was crawling with ghosts. “Why didn’t you tell me my apartment is haunted? Isn’t that something you should have disclosed in the lease agreement or something?”
“Haunted!” His face registered shock. “Mac, don’t be ridiculous. This house isn’t haunted.”
My head was pounding, and images paraded through my mind. I remembered Kit saying she checked the building out before moving in. I thought about the sopping footprints in my motel room, the drowned-looking man in my nightmare, and the wet spot on my floor as I fled my apartment just moments ago. Could they all be connected? Poltergeists don’t haunt places—they haunt people, my brain sang, always helpful in a crisis.
Fantastic.
“Can you please call Kit?” I asked Graham. My cell phone was sitting upstairs in my apartment, right on the window seat, and I had no desire to go back up there yet. “I need her help.”
Graham let me borrow his phone, and I was able to reach Kit. Unfortunately, she couldn’t help me very much from where she was.
“I’m in LA, remember?” she said.
As soon as she said it, I remembered tha
t I’d already known she was out of town. In my panic, my brain had dumped that information. She and her dad had gone to Los Angeles to talk to ScreamTV about their show’s contract.
“When are you coming back?” I asked.
“Saturday.”
I sagged into Graham’s couch. It was only Wednesday. I couldn’t wait that long to go back to my apartment.
After I told Kit what happened, she said, “Ooh, I wish we were there!” Her excitement surprised me. “It would make for such a great episode. We haven’t had a poltergeist since season two.”
“Your client was MaryBeth, right? Were you able to help her?”
“Yeah, we had to bring in a specialist. It was Gabrielle, actually.”
“I already have a ghost, Kit. I don’t need her help to summon one.”
“No, she can help you get rid of it. She banished the one that was following MaryBeth around. That was a couple of years ago, and we haven’t heard anything from MaryBeth about it coming back.”
It didn’t make sense to me. Gabrielle was a medium, so shouldn’t her specialty be bringing spirits into our world, not getting rid of them?
I should’ve read that damn psychic book. Or called her three days ago.
“Okay, I’ll call her. I have her number…” I remembered that her business card, like my cell phone, was in my apartment. I’d tucked it inside my purse, which was now guarded by a book-wielding poltergeist. “Actually, do you have it?”
Kit gave me Gabrielle’s phone number then made me promise to tell her how it all went. “Don’t leave out a single detail!” she ordered.
I dialed Gabrielle’s number and bit my lip as I waited for her to answer. When she finally picked up, I skipped all pleasantries.
“I need your help.”
“What’s going on?”
“There’s some kind of presence in my apartment.”
She asked me to describe exactly what had happened. I told her about the books flying around my apartment, and about how the entity seemed to have followed me from the motel.
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