A Ghostly Ride in Gulfport (Gulf Coast Paranormal Book 10)

by M. L. Bullock

The guy working the ride put his hand to his ear like he couldn’t hear me.

  “Stop this thing, you bastard! Brittany!” I yelled as I leaned forward in the bucket. That’s when the wheel swung and began to rise higher in a wicked, lurching sort of way. I smothered a scream of frustration as I banged my hands on the metal bar in front of me. This was the perfect location to watch helplessly as my little sister left the Gulf-A-Rama Amusement Park. I could see her easily enough. She was still wearing my jacket.

  Oh, hell. The keys are in my jacket!

  Not only was my sister ditching me, but she was stealing the family car. I couldn’t have that. Not at all. Now I wasn’t thinking about anything but getting down from the wheel. I banged on the bar and screamed at my sister. She didn’t hear me, and neither did anyone else. The speakers were blaring “The Zoo” throughout the park, and who the hell could hear over all that noise? I hated The Scorpions. Appropriate that this song was playing now. How was I going to tell my parents about this? What the hell was wrong with Brittany? Had this been her sneaky little plan all along?

  “Brittany!” I yelled from my perch at the top of the Gulf-A-Rama. I felt tears in my eyes, but no way was I going to cry. Not while I could see the car pulling out of the parking lot. Granted, the Integra wasn’t much to brag about, but it was paid for. Brittany didn’t even have a driver’s license, as Mom pointed out. And then it suddenly occurred to me that all those nights when Dad thought someone was siphoning off his gas, it must have been my sister stealing the car. Sonofabitch! Things started adding up. The keys being moved, my sister and her secretive phone calls. And she wanted me to find that note! Damn it! What was she planning and why? I’d bet money that the kid in the bathroom, the one I’d punched in the gut, had no idea what was going on. He probably just saw her drop the note and decided to take a peek.

  I’d been had. Not just by Kendra but by my own sister. And even though I was mad as hell, I also felt responsible for her safety and for the car. Why, Brit? Guilt washed over me like I’d let her down some kind of way. Clearly, she was in trouble. Big trouble. I shoved on the metal bar, and to my surprise it came open. And that’s when the wheel began to lurch again.

  The last thing I remember, I was falling through the air.

  Chapter Seven—Cassidy

  “Maybe a car stereo? That could explain it.”

  “I thought so too, but when I took a look at the layering, that didn’t make sense. See this track here? That’s the music. This is the wind. That’s Midas, Bruce and Brittany talking.” Joshua clicked on the screen, and I heard the music more clearly now. “Hear that? It’s beneath everything. It’s on the bottom layer. Then your vocals and then the wind and other noises. I think it’s solid.”

  I shook my head at hearing the sound of eighties music coming from the digital handheld recording. I knew that song, even though I didn’t know every word. Brittany Pettis clearly knew it. She was crying her eyes out, and I heard Bruce trying to comfort her.

  “Poor lady,” I whispered. Sierra and Joshua were in the back seat of the SUV. I think Sierra was catnapping, but Josh was still tinkering with his laptop. Bruce, Jocelyn and Aaron were in the van behind us.

  “What’s up, buttercup?”

  “Buttercup? That’s a horrible nickname, dude,” Josh said with a laugh at Midas as he closed his laptop. Sierra woke up and swatted his arm, but Midas didn’t seem to notice any of it. He was busy navigating and looked distracted.

  “I’ve heard worse, Snuggles,” Sierra scolded him playfully.

  “Ha ha,” he barked back. “When have you ever called me Snuggles?”

  “I don’t know, Pumpkin.”

  “Okay, okay,” Joshua complained good-naturedly. Midas hadn’t said much, but I knew he had plenty to say. Hm…what’s up with him? Come to think of it, he’d been reserved during the planning session earlier today; I thought for sure he’d perk up now that we were headed to the park. His quietness made me anxious for some reason. We’d be setting up in the dark, but everyone seemed kind of excited about it…except Sierra, who had her reservations about encountering an undead clown. And I wouldn’t put it past Joshua to have a rubber clown mask stashed somewhere.

  “Seriously. What’s up?” I asked as I leaned over the seat to be nearer to Midas.

  He reached over and squeezed my hand. “I wish I could put my finger on it. When I figure it out, I will let you know.” And with that, the subject was officially changed.

  “Any drawings, Cassidy?” Sierra asked as if she too felt a growing uneasiness.

  I sat back and dug around in my backpack for my bag of batteries. I meant to change the old ones in my LED flashlight before I left but never got around to it. Now seemed like a good time. “Yes, but not a lot of detail to share yet. I’d like to keep it under wraps until tomorrow afternoon. How are you doing?” Which was code for, “Are you feeling anything?” Sierra was the sensitive in our group. She and I did not always see eye to eye on investigations, but I liked and respected her. We’d spent a lot of time together before baby Emily joined Tribe McBride, as Sierra referred to her growing family.

  “Yeah, kinda.” She rubbed the palms of her hands together as she sometimes did when she was getting “in tune” with the otherworld. “I feel sadness, but I guess that’s to be expected.”

  “Here it is,” Midas said, and I turned back around to see the most decrepit, terrifying amusement park ever. It was a lot scarier at night. There was a tall chain-link fence surrounding the place, which made it even more unwelcoming.

  “Holy crap,” were Joshua’s words. I agreed with him. For some reason, that fence didn’t look so much like it was keeping people out as it was keeping something in.

  “Let’s unload the gear and get everything set up,” Midas said. He sounded down, and I couldn’t understand it. He was always so excited about these investigations. Even the lame ones. Always. Even the most foreboding locations couldn’t deter that excitement. Tonight was so very different.

  I slid out of the SUV and let the wind blow on my face. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine excited families streaming in and out, the smells of popcorn and candy. It wasn’t an easy image to summon.

  Since Midas wasn’t forthcoming with whatever gray cloud hovered above him, I decided to chat with Bruce. Something significant must have happened during the walk-through because Midas was all smiles and sunshine when he left for that, and he wasn’t prone to being this moody. Maybe I’d hang out with Bruce for the next little while until I could get a better read on my fiancé. Joshua had climbed into the van and was opening cases. “Who gets the IR camera? I don’t have the list in front of me. Sierra? Where’s that list?”

  “Right on the seat, but I can tell you who gets what. I have a photographic memory, remember?”

  Joshua snickered at her declaration, but she wasn’t backing down. “Seriously, I never need a grocery list, do I? Why? Because it’s all up here.” She pointed to her head as if she were dead serious. I kind of got the impression that this topic had been discussed more than once in the McBride household and recently. I wanted no part of their family disputes, which could at times be legendary. Stepping in between Sierra and Joshua during a “discussion” was always a bad idea. A seriously bad idea. “Cassidy has the IR, Jocelyn has her personal camera. Aaron is using the handheld with the stick-figure widget. Bruce is strictly audio tonight, and Midas has the ghost box.”

  “The what?” I asked incredulously. This was news to me. “Ghost box?” And that’s when everyone stopped and stared at me like I had two heads.

  Jocelyn said, “You know what a ghost box is, don’t you? It’s a gadget that scans through radio signals really rapidly. The theory is that ghosts can use the sounds to speak.” She clamped a lens on her camera and hopped out of the van beside me. Her blond dreadlocks shone bright in the van’s interior light.

  “I know what a ghost box is, I think, but why are we using one?”

  She shrugged and nodded toward Midas as he wa
lked up. “You should probably ask him.”

  So I did. “What’s this about a ghost box? First I heard of it.” Why did the idea of using one of these devices bother me so much? Or was it merely the fact that Midas didn’t even mention it on the drive over?

  “It belongs to Bruce. He suggested we use it to contact Benjamin Pettis. He knows Ben’s voice; if we did hear someone on the box, he might be able to identify him.”

  I shrugged but couldn’t hide my flushed cheeks. Yeah, this whole idea bothered me. Nobody else seemed to have a problem with it, so I kept my mouth shut and checked the battery in my camera. It was full.

  Sierra eyed me curiously but tended to her own toys. “Cassidy is with me,” she announced as she grabbed a walkie-talkie and we headed toward the midway. “We’re team one. Aaron, Jocelyn and Joshua, you guys make up team two. You hit the rides. Midas and Bruce are going to the carousel to play with their ghost box. You’ve got one hour, folks, then we meet back here and switch up. Okay?”

  Everyone agreed, and the two of us headed toward the midway. I pulled up the stopwatch app on my phone and tapped on the screen. “I’ve got it set for an hour. I guess we should stay away from the carousel area since that’s where they found the body. What year was it? 1983?” Unlike Sierra, I didn’t have a “photographic” memory…and honestly, I didn’t think she did either, but I wasn’t going to challenge her.

  “1987, actually. Cassidy, did you see that?” Sierra and I were only twenty feet into the park.

  I hadn’t even looked up from the screen yet, but I hadn’t seen anything on the thermal imager. “No. What did you see?” I paused as I scanned the grounds for whatever it was she saw. “Someone in here?”

  “Yeah, there is. I saw a kid over there. She was about six or seven, small, you know? She was wearing some sort of costume, like that show with Laura Ingalls in it.”

  “She was wearing a prairie costume, you mean? That’s one of the reports.”

  “Geesh, talk about record time. Yeah, come on. Over this way. By the Duck Shoot! Keep your eyes on that camera!”

  We took off at a fast clip and completely ignored everyone else. I was glad to be away from Midas for a few minutes, glad that I wouldn’t be investigating with him tonight. Gosh, that felt so weird. So not like me at all.

  “Anything?”

  I moaned as the screen blurred. “It’s hard to see when we’re running. Let’s stop here. I think we need to do a thermal sweep here at the Duck Shoot.” Sierra agreed with me, and we walked side by side staring at the camera. “Nothing, nothing, nothing. Wait! Look at that! I’ve got a heat signature, but it looks weird. It’s a small shape, the back of a head, an arm…and is that a dress? Just disappeared out of sight. Whoever it was ducked behind the building. Let’s go!”

  We raced toward the back side of the Duck Shoot, but nobody was there. I checked the IR, but there were no heat signatures at all except a rat running under the building.

  Sierra rubbed her palms together furiously. “Shoot, someone is close. I can feel it. Do you have a digital?”

  “No, just the IR, my phone and a flashlight.” I was surprised at how completely dark it had gotten. There wasn’t a light in the place except the stars.

  “Chances are we’ll pick up audio with your camera. Let’s keep it rolling. I’ll ask some questions.”

  “Sounds good, Sierra. Go ahead. I’m recording.”

  The pretty blonde cleared her throat and shoved her hands in her leather jacket. “My name is Sierra, and this is my friend Cassidy. We’re here to talk with you. I like your costume. Can you let me see your pretty dress again?”

  We waited, but there was nothing to see. Or at least I thought there was nothing to see. The IR wasn’t picking up anything, but there in the darkness, just a few feet away from me, I saw a small dark figure. It wasn’t a shadow person; it was something else. It was like whatever this spirit was, it was made up of not just shadow but a living substance. Only dark as the darkest night. No, that wasn’t quite it either. Before I could say anything else, the image began to take an outline. A thin silver outline.

  The ghost girl was taking shape right before our eyes!

  Chapter Eight—Jocelyn

  As far as I knew, nothing remarkable happened at the rides except for the incident with the security guard the other night. Imagine getting stuck on that Ferris wheel with a ghost in the seat beside you! I couldn’t. I’d had enough close encounters at the Leaf Academy. Was I ready to say I would never solo investigate again? Uh, no. But I would be more selective about where I investigated. Who knew I would encounter a ghost so rare that only a few people have recorded them? A maelstrom, of all things.

  Okay, sister. Get your head in the game. You’ve got people you’re responsible for, so keep your eyes on the ball.

  “Aaron, where do we start?”

  Aaron wore his dingy red ball cap backwards. Not my favorite look, but he was still cute. C’mon, focus! “Jocelyn? Why don’t you step in front of me? I need to make sure this thing is working properly. I keep getting a message that an anomaly has been detected, but so far, no anomalies. So just walk in front of me and, like, lift your hands up. Let me see if I can get you to register on here.”

  “Sure, why not?” I stepped in front of him and struck a funny pose. “What about that?”

  “Your antics aren’t appreciated at the moment. Just walk around and try not to look goofy.”

  “Hey, no criticizing. I’m a proficient actress, but I’m only as good as my director,” I said playfully.

  “I had no idea you were an actress. Have you been in anything I would have seen? You’ll have to tell me about it.”

  Joshua intervened, “All right, you two. Stop it or you’ll end up like me, married plus one, before you know what day of the week it is. Shall we start at the Ferris wheel? That’s where that security guard fell, isn’t it?”

  Aaron and I gave him horrified looks. Mine was because of the “married plus one” comment. He better hope Sierra wasn’t hearing that. Aaron apparently had an abject fear of Ferris wheels. “I’m not going up in that thing. No way, no how. And I don’t care who calls me a coward. I’ve already talked to Midas about it. He knows I don’t do high places unless I have a rope tied around me and a harness on.”

  “So, you’re okay climbing up Mount Kilimanjaro, but a dinky old Ferris wheel is out of the question? Dude, follow me.” Joshua was aggravated with the two of us. Or Aaron. Or maybe it was life. Who knew? I snapped photos along the way as we trailed after him, and I kept flipping through the photos hoping to catch evidence of something.

  Aaron whispered, “Whoa! Anomaly detected! He’s tall too. Get your digital out, Joshua. Let’s talk to him. Or her.”

  I poked my head over his shoulder to see. Sure enough, there was a purple stick figure on the screen. It was not ten feet behind Joshua and obviously not happy about us being here.

  “Josh, you should freeze. I think you’ve got a buddy. Are you feeling anything strange over your right shoulder?” I asked as I bit my lip. I couldn’t see anything with my naked eye, but there was certainly something on the SLS.

  He laughed nervously. “Maybe it’s the bearded lady, and then what do I call her?” Joshua joked as he removed the digital recorder from his pocket. Suddenly, he grimaced in pain, his back arched in a strange contortion. “Son of a…something burned me. Did I walk into something? One of you pull up my shirt and check.”

  I did as he asked and saw a small handprint on his back. It was red and getting redder by the second. “Dude, you’ve been touched,” I said in an amazed voice. “Someone or something didn’t like your comment, I’m guessing.”

  “Man, it feels like my skin is on fire. What should I do?”

  “Nothing. You can take your shirt off, but that might not help. I’d say go get an ice pack, but we don’t have one. I packed batteries but no ice. Sorry, Joshua.”

  “No, it’s fine. Note to self, though. No provoking at the Gulf-A-Rama. Definite
ly a presence here in the ride area.”

  Aaron said quickly, “Please follow those rules. Crap! Where did the anomaly go? Damn it! It’s gone. Well, let’s keep walking. Maybe we’ll catch it again.”

  I radioed to the other teams to check in. “Hey, this is team two. Or are we team three? I can’t remember. Anyway, Joshua got touched on his back. We thought we saw something on Aaron’s SLS camera, but now it’s gone. Should we go back to the van?” I waited to hear something from Midas, but it was Sierra who answered.

  “If Crybaby Josh wants to go back to the van, he can. There is a first-aid kit in there with lidocaine and ibuprofen. But take pictures of the spot before he doctors it up. Let us know what you’re doing.”

  Joshua snorted his outrage and held his hand out for the walkie. I handed it to him. “I’m fine, darling. We’re going to continue. Over.” I got the feeling that “darling” comment wasn’t sincere. Geesh, these two.

  “Roger that, over.” And that was that.

  I accepted the walkie-talkie back and slapped it on my hip. “Let’s motor on, then. So, we’ve got at least one touchy ghost out here.” We walked through the wreckage of rides and scoured the grounds but didn’t get anything else. Then the hour was up, and we all reported back to the van to get new batteries if needed. We would review the preliminary evidence and swap out teams. Sierra and Cassidy were punctual, but there was no sign of Midas and Bruce. That was completely weird…Midas was never late for anything as far as I knew. Sierra tried to raise him on the walkie-talkie, but he wasn’t answering. We decided to go check it out for ourselves. The two men were supposed to be at the carousel with that ghost box. What could have happened?

  “Come on, Midas. Bruce? You’re scaring everyone. Answer me, please,” Sierra said sweetly, but I could hear the fear in her voice behind the fake confidence.

  Cassidy wasn’t having any of it. She immediately began walking toward the carousel. She’d set her camera down in the van before she left, so she was going in without anything except her flashlight and phone. What if the men had encountered something here that was not ghostly? It was totally possible for vagrants to be hidden out here, or people who were up to mischief. I hoped Midas had a weapon. And just as I had that thought, I heard a gunshot ringing through the cold air.