by Drew Hayes
“The generally what? Racist?”
“No, the General Lee, the car from Dukes of Hazard,” Topher explained. “I mean, it’s not the real one, obviously. Someone who worked here just loved the show enough to copy it.” Topher kicked one of the tires, surprised to find it still held. “Wonder why they left it.”
“Or why none of the maintenance people stole it,” Kay added in.
Auggie made a beeline for the front of the car and popped the hood in a single motion. “I can answer that easily. It’s because this thing is more shell than automobile. It would take thousands of dollars to get this engine fixed, and that’s assuming one could find parts for a car that I’m assuming is older than I am.”
“I guess this place isn’t really tow-truck friendly, either,” Topher added, recalling the thin, weaving roads Auggie had been forced to navigate.
“Should we get some shots of it?” Kay asked. “Abandoned car is sort of creepy.”
“I’d rather you didn’t. Even if it’s a reproduction, the image is likely still trademarked, and that means a lot more paperwork for me,” Auggie said.
“Let’s plant a static camera in here, just to see if there’s activity,” Topher said. “If not, then we won’t use any footage with the car. If there is, well, we can try to edit around it.”
“I suppose that’s reasonable,” Auggie agreed. “I’ll set one up, and then go tend to the rest of them.”
“You better hurry; the sun will be setting soon. Once it goes down, walking all these trails is going to be a lot more dangerous.”
Topher had no clue just how correct his statement was.
Chapter 4
“Should I . . . should we be scared?” Irwin’s voice was uncharacteristically subdued, his post-death combativeness pushed away by the curious combination of fear and awe that wormed its way through his incorporeal brain.
“Don’t know. Seems like we ain’t got much to worry ‘bout, being dead and all. Still, I can’t help but think this is something nobody, livin’ or dead, should be too near.”
“The humans I saw looked and didn’t react. That means it’s in the realm of the spirits, and that means that yes, I think we should be at least a little worried,” Clinton surmised.
The three ghosts were no longer standing on the dock; that location now felt too close to the swirling, sweeping, storming miasma of fog that had covered the island and about a quarter of the lake. While Clinton’s estimates about the slowing expansion had been spot on, the data could hardly have allowed him to predict what came next. What the mist lacked in growth, it made up for in activity. What had begun as a sedate cloud, now keenly resembled an orgy of tornados whirling at every angle and in all directions, crashing into one another and dissolving, only to spawn new ones. Faces could still be seen taking shape in the chaos, but now, they were attached to torsos, with hands stretching out until their shapes dissolved from view. None of the ghosts knew what those things were reaching for, and that was a dearth of knowledge each would be happy never to fill in.
“Should we try to warn ‘em?” Art looked away from the shifting carnage to his friend, who responded with a meek shrug.
“Neither of us is that great at moving stuff, and Irwin hasn’t picked it up at all yet. The most we could do is write ‘run’ or something in the dirt.”
“That would scare most people off,” Irwin said, the faux-toughness in his tone making it clear that he didn’t consider himself to be among that grouping.
“Clinton heard ‘em talking; apparently, they’re here lookin’ for ghosts. If we give ‘em a show, they’ll probably dig their heels in.”
“Seems like we should at least try,” Clinton said. “Just because we’re stuck don’t mean they have to be.”
“Agreed. It’s the right thing to do,” Art said.
Clinton turned to Irwin, who sat mesmerized by the cloud vortex. “You coming with?”
“Why? I can’t move anything.”
“And if you don’t practice, that will always be the case,” Clinton said.
Irwin considered his options. He didn’t really care if some idiot trespassers got their comeuppance for breaking in, but he also wasn’t too keen on being near the lake when sunset came. Whatever happened, it probably wasn’t going to be good.
In the end, cowardice won out over apathy.
“Fine, I’ll tag along. Might as well give moving things another go.”
The trio began wandering up the hill toward the main hall, unimpeded by the overgrowth the way the humans were. They didn’t even need to touch the ground; following a marked trail was just one of those habits that one grew accustomed to after several decades of living. It would only take them minutes to make it up to the hall, which was a shame.
Had they been just a bit slower, they might have noticed Auggie walking toward the woods, away from the hall, heading off to set up a camera, and things might have turned out very differently.
* * *
She checked the sky, watching as the sun began flirting with the barest edge of the horizon. In terms of logic, sunset as a trigger point never really made sense to her. When one thought about it, why would the angle of a burning star’s light hitting this hunk of space rock be a factor in anything as arcane and ill-defined as magic? For that matter, sunset was really more of a general period than a precise time. If she climbed a tree on top of the cliff, extending her view, then the sun would vanish several minutes later for her than if she were watching from the edge of the lake.
Reasoning like that was why she’d never fit in with the supernatural community. They could take all this magic mumbo-gumbo crap at face value, but she wanted to understand it. Sometimes, she wondered what her life would have been like if she hadn’t been born with her gift or of her bloodline. The two were distinct things, after all. Mediums came in every shape, sex, and race. Supposedly, it had to do with the phases of the moon and the energy levels at birth, though genetics could play a role in passing the gift from generation to generation.
Not that such was the case with her. She was the first medium in her family. Really, though, it had only been a matter of time. Her family was different. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always different. They just never seemed to be playing by the same rules as the rest of the world. Occasionally, she wondered if they were even playing the same game.
Perhaps that was why her gift had manifested in an unusual way. Even among other mediums, she was an oddity. For that quirk, she was thankful. It seemed like it would be hard for the others, living in a world of disembodied spirits and being almost powerless to deal with them. She didn’t love her gift, but at least she didn’t have to just take all the ghost-bullshit like the others. She could shut them up.
The purple coat found its way from the ground to her body as the air chilled around her. Part of it was due to the setting sun, part of it due to her position near the lake. It was a shitty place to sit for an ambush, but two days of scouting had assured her this was the right place to be. At sunset, The Emissary would rise, and it would be hungry. Originally, she’d assumed it would gobble up the animal spirits and maybe down a couple of the humans’ too. That was before real, live humans had shown up. Now, it would go directly after them; they’d stand out like infernos of energy to that twisted monster. All she had to do was wait and make sure she was the first human it saw.
Most likely, it would go after her first. Only the oldest and most powerful ones she’d encountered ever seemed to have a clue about her uniqueness. If she was very lucky, the damn thing might try to full-on possess her.
A soft, vicious smile warmed her face at that thought. That would make her job much easier, which meant it probably wouldn’t happen. Only the odd spirit with that rare combination of dumb and lucky had both lasted long enough to learn a trick like possession and was so impulsive as to leap into a body without testing the waters first. From what she’d been told, The Emissary wasn’t going to be stupid. Odds were, it would be the oldest and most
powerful of evil spirits: a wraith.
No, tonight wouldn’t be easy. That was okay by her. She wasn’t all that good at dealing with easy in the first place. She didn’t like it, didn’t trust it. A hard, bloody, deadly fight: . . . now that was something she could get behind. Because, when those were over, at least she knew where she stood.
The sun dipped another few inches, and she pulled the coat tighter around her body. One of her hands reached into the duffel bag and came up with a plastic bottle filled with milky-looking liquid. With a careful hand, she partially unscrewed the cap so it could come off with just the flick of a wrist. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, but she didn’t underestimate wraiths. Not anymore.
As the sun continued its languishing fall from the sky, the miasma around the island grew more frantic in its activity.
It wouldn’t be long now.
* * *
Though he didn’t tell the others, setting up the remote cameras was actually one of Auggie’s favorite jobs. It was the last break of solitary serenity before the bedlam of shooting began. Once the cameras were rolling, Auggie became the nerve center for Topher and Kay’s efforts, coordinating and directing them so that the time and camera memory could be used most effectively. He enjoyed his role in the team, balancing two creative types along with all the logistics necessary to make a trip worthwhile, but there was no doubt that by the end of the night, he’d be mentally worn out. Setting up the remote cameras was his time to re-center himself after a plane ride and afternoon of dealing with his more energetic colleagues.
Despite all the blustering, he liked his job—even if it wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind when he’d graduated college. It was a gig that offered constant travel, adventure, and independence. Working with his oldest friend was an added bonus. If pressed, and liquored up a bit, Auggie might even be persuaded to admit that Kay wasn’t so bad either, underneath all her antagonism. She was just the type that liked to rebel, and in a three-person company with lots of independence, he was the only outlet for that inclination.
He’d left the dock camera for last; both because he wanted to double-check the fitting on the improvised zoom scope, and because he thought it would be pretty at sunset. Since his mundane vision couldn’t pick up on the swirling mass of supernatural energy centered over the island, it was indeed a breathtaking sight. The fiery reds and golds of the sun’s last valiant attempts to light the sky were reflected in the cool, clear water of the lake.
As Auggie took in the scene, he realized that the lake was strangely choppy, considering there was almost no wind in the air. He wondered if there was some sort of cave system connecting it to more turbulent waters and creating an unseen current. Auggie always searched for the scientific explanation in their outings, and even if he didn’t, guessing that the water was being churned by an unseen cloud vortex would have been a bit of a stretch.
With nature thoroughly appreciated, Auggie turned his attention to setting up the final remote camera. As he anchored the tripod in place, the sun finally lost its fight with inevitability and dipped below the horizon. It was just as Auggie was beginning to fuss with the lens that the last sliver of sun vanished, signifying the official end of the day.
And, more importantly, the beginning of night.
* * *
She saw him just as the sun was setting. One of the humans. One of the normal, non-ghost-seeing, totally-defenseless-against-the-paranormal humans. He was standing on the dock, fiddling with some inconsequential piece of machinery as the vortex stormed and reality tore. Him being out was bad, him being mundane was worse, but the most terrible strike against him was one of simple geography: he was closer to the island than she was.
It would go after him. This was neither conjecture, intuition, nor paranoia; rather, it was a hot melding of all three in the fires of her gut. She was moving before the thought had fully formed in her mind, those impetuous legs of hers getting a start on what needed to be done. They were right, too. There was no time to think, to fret, or to wonder. Already she could see the crackling lines of black energy rippling through the mist. The swirled cloud was rotating so fast that it almost seemed to be standing still, making the whole thing resemble a great big, misshapen, red egg perched in the center of the lake.
That meant the black lines of energy were cracks in its shell, and too soon, they would give way to a true break. Her breath came hard as she ran, leaping over roots and shrubbery with all thoughts of stealth abandoned. She could lie her way out of trouble for being in the restricted area; hell, even if they didn’t buy it, she would be out of jail in no time. What she couldn’t do was protect someone from a quarter of a mile away.
And if she didn’t make it to him in time . . . well, there was probably no helping whatever would be left of him.
* * *
Clinton and Art had discovered that ghost investigators, much like other professionals, seemed to lose every job-related skill they possessed when off the clock. In the same way that a doctor will go right ahead and eat bacon after giving a lecture on cholesterol, and a psychologist will miss his son’s cries for attention until they reach arson level, Topher and Kay’s attunement and attention to the supernatural was nowhere to be seen as they prepped for the night’s shoot. After ten minutes of subtle knocking sounds and the occasional rolled pencil that all went unnoticed, the spirits decided it was time to change tactics.
Clinton was trying to find something to write on, while Art busied himself attempting to knock some doodad off the table. Due to its weight, this took a steady amount of concentration and energy to achieve, which pushed Art to the limits of his ability. Ironically, had the device he was trying to send tumbling been turned on, it would have (at least according to its inventor’s claims) allowed him to freely speak to the living, saving everyone a lot of time and effort.
Irwin watched their activities with rapt attention, hoping this would be the time when the trick finally clicked for him. They’d explained to him in theory countless times: spirits gathered energy from the world around them. The most plentiful source was humans’ emotional energy: good spirits getting power from positive emotions like love and friendship, evil spirits drawing from anger, hatred, and fear. Since they lived in an abandoned camp, neither had ever really been an option. Instead, Art and Clinton drew on the naturalistic power that resided in the forest. It wasn’t as easy to work with or draw out, but it gave them enough juice to affect the corporeal world in minor ways. Silly a trick as it was, Irwin still burned with jealousy every time he saw them do something as simple as moving a rock. Even that simple gesture was more than he could manage.
“I can’t hold a pen,” Clinton declared, his last-ditch effort of trying to write on a notepad failing as the implement slipped through his grasp. “Which means a note is out.”
“We could write in the dust,” Art suggested.
“They didn’t notice you knocking objects to the ground, I don’t think weird shapes in the dirt will help,” Irwin said.
“Hey, shouldn’t Auggie be back soon? The sun is basically down already; we’re burning night.” Kay’s words rang clear and audible; it was a voice that all the residents in the room could hear, not just the dead ones.
“We’ve got time,” Topher replied. He was running checks on a piece of equipment meant to flash bright blue when ghosts were nearby. It seemed to be working fine as far as Topher could tell, though the fact that there were three spirits nearby and it gave up nary a blue blip spoke to its true quality. “Out here, the sky will stay gray for a while, even after we lose the sun. Probably be another half hour until it’s dark enough to shoot.”
“I hope he hustles,” Kay replied, glancing at the digital clock on her wrist.
“Hot damn, don’t tell me you’re actually worried about Auggie. There might be a heart in there yet.”
“Worrying about Auggie is like worrying about your dad’s accountant. Whatever he’s doing, you know he’s doing it with all the safety and boringness o
f a minivan. I just like being the most irresponsible member of the team, and if he shows up late, then I’ve got to go out of my way to outdo him. It’s a bit of a hassle.” Kay turned back to her laptop, glancing at the bay of monitors where Auggie would normally be sitting.
Kayla Krupchyk still very vividly remembered her grandmother, Marta Krupchyk, and the old woman’s penchant for wild tales. In spite of the fact that she worked for a team of ghost investigators, Kay had a sort of ambivalence toward the supernatural. She wasn’t a devout believer like Topher, nor was she an ardent doubter like Auggie. Kay merely thought there were some things in the world she didn’t understand, and whether they were magic or not was for minds greater than hers to determine.
Her grandmother, in contrast, an old world immigrant, had been a constant supporter of the supernatural. The half-mad matron of her family had made many crazy claims during Kayla’s youth, but the one that she said most frequently, and with the most stubborn certainty, was that the Krupchyk women had a bit of “the touch”. They were connected with the magic of the old world, and as such, they were gifted with certain benefits. The most common, she would tell young Kayla as the girl sat at her feet, was the gift of premonition. Nothing so base as actual divination; that flowery bullshit was for lesser cultures. They were sturdy, proper people. All they needed or wanted was a bit of warning when things were getting bad.
Kay didn’t want to think about why that memory was surfacing right now. It was the same reason she’d asked Topher about Auggie, the same reason she was trying not to look at his station. For the past few minutes, ever since she lost sight of the sun, any thoughts of Auggie produced a faint ebbing pain right in her stomach. It probably meant nothing: just an after effect of eating fast-food burritos from the shop outside the airport. But that was the trouble with being open to a magical world; it meant one couldn’t just rule things out. Not with certainty.
She was about to say something again, probably to volunteer and go find Auggie, when a noise like roaring thunder tore through the cabin. It rattled the floors and walls, unfortunately coinciding with the exact moment Art succeeded in knocking the gizmo off the table. The noise and shaking lasted only a few seconds, but when it ceased, it seemed to take all other sound with it. The world was perfectly quiet as Topher and Kay exchanged confused and worried looks.