Ghost Town

by Jason Hawes

  “What happened to him?” Amber asked.

  “Chief Hoffman figured Alex bumped into the hay elevator, and it fell over, knocking him to the floor. He struck his head on the concrete, and . . . the chief said it probably happened so fast that Alex hadn’t felt a thing. I wish I could believe that.”

  “I can see why you thought it was an accident at first,” Drew said.

  “And anyone would’ve chalked up the electronic distortion to the camera hitting the ground,” Trevor said.

  “No sign of the Dark Lady’s favorite word anywhere?” Greg asked.

  “No,” Erin said. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to turn this off. I can’t watch it anymore.” She reached for the keyboard, but Trevor stopped her.

  “I want to try something real quick, if that’s OK.”

  Erin hesitated, but then she nodded. She rose from her chair to give Trevor room to work. He popped a flash drive into her computer, downloaded a copy of Alex’s footage, and removed the drive. He took it over to his computer, uploaded the file onto his machine, and ran it through one of his programs.

  “What are you doing?” Erin asked.

  “I imagine he’s checking for EVP,” Carrington said.

  “Yep.” When he was finished, Trevor hit Play.

  They watched the footage again, but this time, after Alex was killed, there was a soft sound, almost like the sighing of a breeze. Trevor fiddled with the program a bit more and then replayed that section of film. This time, the sound, while still soft, was clearly audible.

  “Stop.”

  That was it. Just the single word, no more.

  Trevor stopped the playback.

  “If we had any doubt that the Dark Lady was responsible for Alex’s death, I think this clears it up.”

  “She started out small,” Greg said. “Tipping over the hay elevator and imprinting the word onto the film instead of speaking it aloud. The latter is far more difficult for spirits to accomplish. It requires more energy to move air molecules in such a way as to simulate a speaking voice. She sent her message, and when it was ignored, she sent a second one by killing Tonya in the bookstore. The message was more dramatic this time—using psychokinetic force to hurl books at Tonya—and it required a far greater expenditure of power. When that message had no effect, she recruited a human ally to help her, and she tried again, killing two people at the museum. And when she still didn’t get her message through, she decided to go big, resulting in the mass attack at the college and the psychic attack on us. Unfortunately, we still don’t know for certain what she wants us to stop.”

  “Which means she’ll send another message,” Amber said, feeling a chill in the pit of her stomach at the thought. “An even bigger one.”

  Greg nodded. “And she’ll do it soon. The more frustrated she becomes, the shorter the time interval between her messages. And by this point, I’m sure she’s royally pissed.”

  “It’s a good thing Chief Hoffman agreed that the parade should be canceled,” Drew said. “Can you imagine what the Dark Lady might’ve—Amber? What’s wrong?”

  A horrible feeling had come over her, a cold, nauseating fear. It came on her so sudden and strong that for a moment, she feared she might vomit. But after a few seconds, she managed to get control of herself, and the sensation, while not vanishing entirely, became tolerable.

  “It’s the chief,” she said. “I think something bad has happened to him . . . and something even worse is going to happen—soon.”

  “I’ll see if I can reach him.” Drew took out his phone and made a call.

  Trevor looked at her, a frightened, pleading expression on his face. “Amber, I know you’re still learning about your psychic abilities, but could you try to use them to find out where Jenn is? You said she’s still alive, but if the Dark Lady plans to go nuclear with her next message, Jenn might not survive it.”

  “I don’t know if I can, Trevor. Most of the time, I can’t control it. It just comes and goes. But I’ll try.”

  She closed her eyes and concentrated. She pictured Jenn in her mind, thought of how her voice sounded, how she moved, how it felt to be in her presence. She concentrated on Trevor, too, hoping that she might be able to zero in on Jenn if she could tap into the emotional connection between her and Trevor. She felt a hint of Jenn’s presence, but it was distant, as if she were looking at the woman through the wrong end of binoculars.

  She spoke without opening her eyes. “I can’t tell where she is, but if feels like she can’t move. Not much, anyway.”

  “Is she hurt?” Trevor asked.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t get any sense of pain from her.” Her brow furrowed as she concentrated harder. “Something’s keeping me from getting too close to her. It’s why I can’t get a feeling for where she is. She could be in the next room or a thousand miles away.” She opened her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  Trevor forced a smile. “It’s OK. You gave it your best shot, and at least I know she’s alive and uninjured.” And although he didn’t say it, she didn’t need psychic abilities to know what his next thought was: But how long will she remain that way?

  “It’s the Dark Lady,” Greg said. “She’s blocking you from connecting fully with Jenn.”

  While Amber had been trying to locate Jenn, Drew had been talking on the phone. Now he said, “Thank you,” and disconnected.

  “Chief Hoffman didn’t answer, so I called the police station.” He paused to take a deep breath and let it out before continuing. “He was killed this afternoon. It happened in the park. Someone . . . crushed his skull with a large rock.”

  “Oh, God!” The nausea returned with a vengeance, and Amber reflexively put her hands on her stomach, as if she might gain control of it that way. Drew sat down next to her on the bed and put his arms around her, and she leaned into his body gratefully.

  “Sounds like Mitch’s work,” Greg said. “No style at all.”

  Erin’s face went ashen, and she took out her cell phone and made a call.

  Drew continued while she waited to be connected. “I asked the officer who answered if the parade was going to be canceled. He said that the mayor has cautioned the department to be on the alert tonight but that it was too late to stop it. It’s almost time for it to start.”

  “Hello, Pattie? This is Erin. When you get this message, call or text me to let me know you and Sarah are all right, OK?” She waited a moment, in case Pattie might answer, Amber guessed, but then she disconnected.

  “I hope they managed to get away,” Erin said, but from the tone of her voice, Amber knew she doubted it. Amber wanted to reassure her, but she couldn’t. She had a bad feeling about the two women. Real bad.

  “We have to do something!” Trevor said. “Now!”

  “Like what?” Greg asked. “Run out into the street and ask everyone gathered for the parade to calmly disperse because a crazed spirit is due to attack any minute?”

  Carrington had been thoughtful for the last several moments, and now he said, “Trevor, you said you wrote an article about the people who came to Exeter not long after the flood to exorcise the spirits that were haunting the town.”

  “That’s right.”

  “When you researched that article, you found no information on the attempt to exorcise the Dark Lady?”

  “Not a single mention.”

  “I’m not surprised. I only found the one source, and as I said earlier, it was sadly lacking in specifics. But during your research, did you learn who the town’s most prominent paranormalists were during that era?”

  “Yeah, but . . . Wait, I get it! The account you read said that the mediums who came to town gathered at the home of someone local. It stands to reason that that someone would be one of the town’s most . . .” He trailed off, a mixture of dawning realization and shock on his face. “Lucille Decker. They called her the Eye of Exeter because her psychic readings were supposed to be the best. People came from all over the country to consult her. Hell, from all over
the world.”

  Carrington was nodding. “Yes, I remember her now. I’d forgotten her name, but who can forget a colorful title such as the Eye of Exeter?” He frowned. “Wasn’t she the woman who founded the Beyond the Veil Museum?”

  “So the museum is the focal point!” Greg said.

  “No, it’s not,” Trevor said. “Lucille did start the museum, but back then, it was little more than her personal collection of memorabilia, and she kept it in her home. After she died, her collection, which had grown larger over the years, was moved to a new location. That’s where the museum is now. But the place where she lived, and where the ceremony to exorcise the Dark Lady took place . . .”

  It came to Amber then, all in a rush. “Was Jenn’s bookstore,” she said.

  SIXTEEN

  “There. Can you see OK?”

  Jenn didn’t answer Mitch. Not because she couldn’t—he had removed her gag when he returned—but because she was too afraid. He was clearly crazy, and she didn’t want to do or say anything that might set him off.

  She was still bound to the chair, and he had moved her into the bedroom and sat her in front of a window that looked out over the street. He had drawn the curtains back to make sure she had an unobstructed view.

  He grabbed hold of her left earlobe with his thumb and forefinger and gave it a hard twist.

  She took in a hissing breath. Damn, that hurt! “Yes! I can see just fine!”

  He held on to her earlobe a couple of seconds more before releasing it. He patted her on the shoulder.

  “Good.” He sat down on the foot of the bed.

  The thought of him in her bedroom, let alone sitting on her bed, made her feel sick. When he had first picked her up, chair and all, and carried her in there, she had been afraid that he intended to rape her. She was relieved that he seemed to have a different agenda. For now, at least.

  Outside it was dusk, and crowds of people lined both sides of the street. Most were in costume, and while some of the outfits weren’t scary—a man dressed as Zorro, a woman garbed as the ubiquitous sexy nurse—most tended toward the macabre, and some were downright grotesque. Every year during Dead Days, there was a contingent of people who strove to outdo everyone else when it came to having the most bizarre, disgusting costume. She saw clawed and fanged creatures, distorted and misshapen figures, sinister demonic visages, and beings so malformed and surreal that they defied description. The bizarros had outdone themselves this year.

  The street itself was empty, but she knew it wouldn’t be for much longer. The parade would start soon.

  She fantasized that someone in the crowd would look up, see her sitting there at her second-story bedroom window, and call the police. But she knew that would never happen. As dim as the light was outside, she doubted that anyone could see her, and even if they did, what would they see? Just a woman sitting in a chair, ready to watch the parade. They couldn’t see that she was tied up, and she couldn’t yell to attract attention, not with Mitch sitting close by. She would barely get out any sound before he shut her up, and she doubted that he would be gentle about it. She might as well stop dreaming about rescue and see what she could do to help herself.

  “What are we supposed to be looking at, Mitch?” She turned her head to make sure he was looking at her face. She hated using his name, but she had read somewhere that when you were being held captive by someone, it was important to keep them from dehumanizing you. Using his name, facing him, saying we instead of I were all ways to keep him thinking of her as a person instead of an object. She hoped.

  “Nothing yet,” he said. “The show hasn’t started.”

  “What show?” She didn’t want to know, not really, but she needed to keep him talking. The more he talked, the greater the chance that he would begin to develop some measure of sympathy toward her.

  “I don’t know. She didn’t tell me. But whatever she’s going to do, you can bet it’ll be pretty goddamned spectacular.”

  The Dark Lady had vanished not long after Mitch had returned, and Jenn had no idea where she had gone. To prepare for the “show,” whatever it would be.

  “Why is she doing this, Mitch? What does she want?”

  He looked at her blankly for a moment, and she thought he hadn’t heard her. She was about to ask again when he finally responded. “I don’t know. She hasn’t told me.” He frowned. “It’s funny, but I hadn’t really thought about it before now. I suppose I don’t care what she wants, just as long as I get what I want.”

  “Amber.”

  “She belongs with me. She just doesn’t realize it yet, but she will.” He smiled. “The Dark Lady promised me it’ll happen. I just need to be patient a little longer.”

  “And you believe her?”

  He frowned again but didn’t reply.

  She went on. “I don’t know what she is, Mitch, but if she was human once, she isn’t now. She’s using you, making you do things you’d never have done on your own. Bad things. You’ve hurt people, Mitch. Killed them.”

  She was guessing about that last part, but Trevor and the others believed that Mitch had strangled the man in the museum, and if that was true, who else might he have harmed? When he didn’t deny it, she knew her guess had been correct.

  He looked confused now, uncertain. He glanced down at his hands, coiled them into fists, and then straightened his fingers, as if he were remembering the dark work he had done with them.

  “I . . . did what I had to. It was what she needed me to do.”

  “What about what you need, Mitch?”

  He frowned, not comprehending.

  “Do you want to be her servant? Her slave? Do you want to be a killer?”

  He thought for several moments, and then he grinned. “Why not? It’s worked out pretty well for me so far.”

  “Try the police again.”

  “Trevor, I’ve called five times now,” Drew said. “I can’t get through.”

  “It’s the same for all of us,” Amber said. “Maybe they’re all too busy with the parade.”

  “It’s the Dark Lady,” Greg said. “She’s jamming our phones. She doesn’t want anyone interfering with whatever she has planned.”

  Drew sat in the backseat of Trevor’s car next to Amber. Greg was in the front passenger seat, and Trevor was driving. Given his emotional state, Drew wasn’t certain that was a good idea. If he went any faster, they could end up in an accident, and then they might all become permanent additions to Exeter’s ghostly population. Not the most attractive of prospects.

  Erin and Carrington followed in her Volkswagen. Drew wasn’t sure she should be driving, either. She was convinced that she was responsible for the Dark Lady’s actions, which included the deaths of Alex and Ray and—perhaps—Pattie and Sarah. Her entire crew, men and women who would never have come to Exeter if she hadn’t been making a film about the town. That level of guilt could affect a person in any number of ways, none of them good.

  “But if Jenn’s at the bookstore . . .” Trevor began.

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Drew said. “Just because we suspect that’s the locus of the Dark Lady’s haunting doesn’t mean Jenn’s being held captive there.”

  “It’s the most likely place,” Greg said. “Jenn’s lived there for years. Her spiritual energy is bound up with that of the building.”

  “You mean she’s part of the locus?” Amber asked.

  “Possibly,” Greg said. “If so, that means there’s a simple way to sever the Dark Lady’s connection to this world.”

  “What’s that?” Drew asked.

  “Kill Jenn.” Greg spoke these words without any emotion, as if he were merely suggesting that they stop by a drive-thru on the way over to pick up something to eat.

  Trevor turned to look at Greg so swiftly that he jerked the steering wheel, causing the Prius to swerve and throwing Drew against Amber. Moving with a nonchalant, almost inhuman speed, Greg grabbed hold of the steering wheel and steadied the vehicle.

 
“Careful, Trevor. I’m not sure the three of you are ready to join me in the Great Beyond just yet.”

  Trevor got a solid grip on the wheel once more and looked forward, but when he spoke, his voice was tight with tension. “No one is going to hurt Jenn, not for any reason. Got it?”

  “Of course. Just thinking aloud. I’d never dream of harming Jenn. As Norman’s mother said, I’d never hurt a fly. Of course, the good news is that your girlfriend’s connection to the Dark Lady makes her the safest person in town at the moment.”

  Trevor seemed mollified by that, and he kept driving, although he did ease up on the gas.

  Drew and Amber exchanged glances. It seemed the tension was getting to all of them, even Greg, despite the aloof veneer he affected. Considering that they were racing to confront the Dark Lady without anything even remotely resembling a plan, Drew supposed it was only natural. But bickering among themselves would only distract them, and if they were to have any hope of stopping whatever fresh horror the Dark Lady had planned—and live to tell about it—they needed to stay focused.

  “How close to the bookstore can we get?” Drew said. He rubbed his sore ribs. They didn’t hurt as much as they had back at the library, but being thrown against Amber hadn’t done them any good.

  “If we’re lucky, within a couple of blocks,” Trevor said. “Forgotten Lore is right on the main parade route. Thousands of people gather to watch, and when the official parade is over, anyone in costume can take to the street and walk the route. Hundreds usually do. Because there are so many people on foot everywhere, the police block off all the streets leading to downtown. They’ll reopen them after the parade.”

  “But it’ll be too late by then,” Amber said.

  “Speak of the devil,” Greg said.

  A trio of wooden police barricades stretched across the street ahead of them, blocking the way. No one was standing guard.

  “It appears the Exeter PD are trusting sorts,” Greg said.