by J L Bryan
Melissa crept off along the steep shore of the creek, snapping pictures of ice formations and “tree stuff” with her phone.
I holstered my flashlight and stood there with Michael. I could barely see him in the gloom of the night. The moon was coming up, but the trees were thick overhead.
I could feel him there, his arm around me, my cheek against his chest for warmth. His hand touched the back of my head, and I looked up and let him kiss me.
Because this felt right, I decided. We were mismatched, we didn't have a lot in common, and he liked his chicken wings way too hot (I mean way too hot)...but when I was with him, I felt almost at peace. I felt like I belonged somewhere, for once.
After our long kiss, I pulled back and looked up at him, his face silver and angelic in a beam of moonlight that had made it through the stick-like canopy.
“Michael,” I said, “I—”
Somewhere down along the creek, Melissa's voice rang out.
She was screaming.
Michael and I broke it off and ran down the narrow trail along the gurgling water, our flashlights slashing through the darkness ahead. He yelled for her every few seconds, pausing each time to listen for a response.
“Down here!” Melissa said.
My light found her first. She was about eight feet down, dripping wet, standing on a muddy creek bed and looking into the icy water.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I think I lost my phone!”
“Are you hurt?” Michael asked.
“Um, yes! My phone is a vital organ! It's not like I just punctured my appendix or something. Come on, help me find it.”
Michael sighed.
We found a better place to cross a little farther down. It wasn't great—a fallen tree trunk, slippery with bits of ice, but some low-hanging branches helped us keep our balance.
“This is more adventure than I signed up for on this hike,” I muttered to Michael. “Remind me not to spend Easter with you two.”
“But we go gator-wrestling in the Okefenokee,” he said. “It's tradition.”
We dropped to the cold, muddy other bank and caught up with Melissa.
“My phone is gone!” she proclaimed, stomping around angrily.
“Where's the flashlight you were carrying?” I asked.
“Probably next to my phone! Ugh!” She stomped, spraying ice-cold mud everywhere. “I need a...break.”
“You seem overly agitated,” Michael said. “Is there...anything else you want to talk about?” Clumsy, but he was trying.
“I'd say I'm underly agitated,” she said. “I haven't even starting thinking about how boring the rest of this trip is going to be without a phone. Ugh! Now I'm thinking about it.”
We spent some time shining our lights into the water and the weeds, but we couldn't find any sign of the phone.
“Here it is,” Michael finally announced, lifting it up. “Dry as a bone. It must have caught against a root here on the bank.”
“Yes!” Melissa said, jumping up and down. “Gimme!”
“Who were you calling?” Michael peered at her phone. “New boyfriend?”
“I was just Instagramming the stupid woods and ruins. Give it back!”
“Be more careful from now on,” he said.
“Sure, Grandma,” Melissa replied. She glanced quickly at the screen, as if checking what Michael had been doing. “Who's ready to go back? Everyone, right? I'm totally freezing here.”
Since Melissa was wet, we wrapped her in our jackets to try to keep her warm on the hike back. My teeth chattered the whole time.
We made it to the hotel alive, though, and I took a minute to warm up and change to less muddy shoes before telling the two of them I was on the way back to work.
“You're not going to do anything risky, are you?” Michael asked me, while he and Melissa walked me back to the van. “You said something about setting a trap tonight.”
“It probably won't work,” I said. “Even if the location's right, and the bait's right, it can be days before the ghost takes enough of an interest to get drawn inside and trapped. I won't be in the same room as the trap, either. Or even on the same floor of the building.”
“And what if it does work?” Melissa asked.
“Then I'll have a Snake Man trophy to add to my collection,” I said. “And the most troubling ghost will be removed from Ryan's house. No more harassing his kids.”
“Won't the girls miss their little buddy Amil?” Melissa asked.
“I'm pretty sure their lives will be better for it,” I said. “The Snake Man has two faces—one inhuman and monstrous, the other an innocent child. Those just happen to be the two most common forms that demonics take when they present themselves to the living. Horrifying or helpless.”
“Demonics?” Michael said. “That doesn't sound like something you should be alone with.”
“It just means an entity that has lost all touch with its humanity,” I said. “It may have forgotten its life, or it may have grown so twisted and evil over time that it no longer identifies as human.”
“You're not really comforting me here,” Michael said.
“Do you really think you're going to capture the Snake Man? How?” Melissa asked.
“Just a standard ghost trap.”
“But we still haven't identified who the Snake Man really is,” Melissa said. “Didn't you say that was an important part of your investigation?”
“The ghost's identity can help me figure out how to bait the trap,” I said. “But in this case, I may already have some useful bait to attract the ghost's attention. If not...well, on to Plan B. Which I haven't really put together yet. So wish me luck with Plan A.”
“Good luck.” Michael kissed me again.
“Enough with the public affection,” Melissa said, nudging Michael aside. Then she embraced me herself. She was feeling much warmer now. “Take it easy, seriously. Be safe. Don't do anything too crazy tonight.”
“You, either,” I said, looking into her green eyes. Which she promptly rolled.
“Uh, okay. Like there's anything to do around here,” she said. “Maybe I'll get wild and watch a horror movie in your hotel room, since you won't be using it.”
“As long as it's PG-13,” I said. “I wouldn't want you to have nightmares.”
She gave me a long smile before she headed back inside the hotel.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“What did you say this was for?” Ryan grunted as he lifted the heavy base of the stamper from the rear of my van. “You crush ghosts under its weight?”
“It's for slamming the lid down on a ghost trap.” I picked up one of the cylindrical traps to show him. “It's pneumatic. This overall ghost trap design is actually from the nineteenth century. With some modern improvements. Like the ability to add temperature and electromagnetic field sensors inside the trap to help detect when a ghost is in there. I can set it to close automatically when it detects one.”
“Sounds crazy, but if it works...”
“Sometimes it works,” I said. “No guarantees, but it's worth a try.”
“Where are we setting it up?” He lugged it through the loading dock door.
I showed him where to place it, directly in front of the open door to the Tomb of History exhibit. I'd seen Snake Man going in and out of there, and it was the place to which he'd lured Polly. Maybe the Snake Man ghost dwelled down in the caves when he wasn't busy stalking and deceiving children.
Ryan watched me assemble it, asking lots of questions as I set it up. I felt nervous around him, and kept adjusting my hair, which felt like it had come loose around my face.
“I'll be watching the area on video, so I'm not putting the trap on too much of a hair trigger,” I told him. “I've got a remote control. But if the bait happens to lure Snake Man inside while I'm not looking, it ought to slam shut and lock him in.”
“Okay.” Ryan looked into the empty trap. “So you're using some kind of...invisible ghost bait? Gho
st treats? Scooby Snacks? What?”
“It's not baited yet,” I said. “I need your help with that. Would you mind grabbing the keys for the display cases?”
“You got it.”
While Ryan went up to Leydan's old office on the second floor, I walked into the Hall of Monsters, past dead predators and once-deadly serpents, past the Largest Crayfish Ever Caught and the six-legged possum, slowing as I reached the cast of Bigfoot's footprint and the blurry images of the Bear Lake Monster.
I stopped, naturally, in front of the thick plastic cube housing the hand of the Snake Man. The bandaging was yellowed and dusty, and bits of dried reptilian skin were visible between the gaps.
“Okay, Amil,” I said. “If this is really your hand...I hope you'll, uh, reach out for it. I can help you find peace.”
“Peace is all I want,” a voice hissed. “The sweet peace of death...”
“Ryan!” I turned to see him behind me. “Don't...sneak up on me, or pretend to be a dead person, or...any of it.”
“Sorry. I figured you'd be impossible to scare.” He carried a key ring thick with a couple of dozen keys.
“Yeah, that's me, the fearless hero.” I said.
“You definitely seem that way to me,” he said. He began testing one key after another on the display box's lock; the keys weren't labeled.
I looked up, ready to retort his comment away somehow, but my sarcasm died on my lips when I saw the sincerity in his bright blue eyes.
“You are courageous,” he said, looking me over. “And intelligent. Insightful. You're different from anyone I've ever met.”
“Yeah, most people don't spend this much time hanging out with the spirits of the dead.”
I braced myself for the reek of decay as he finally opened the rear panel of the dusty display box.
“The girls really like you,” he said. “Especially Polly.”
“Well...” I didn't know what to say to that.
“How serious would you say you are with the other guy?” Ryan asked. “On a scale of 'nearly married' to 'free to go see a show in Knoxville with someone else'? There'd be dinner involved. There's this place called Sapphire that's in a renovated jewelry store, and it's supposed to be great. But most of my dinners out are kind of at the Chuck E. Cheese level. I've been kind of dreaming about hanging out with an intelligent, interesting, full-grown adult person who I'd like to get to know better. But you're the first one I've met in a long time.”
“I...don't know,” I said. “I mean, you're a client, and I'm working, so...”
“Yeah, sorry.” He took a step back, as if trying to exit my personal bubble, which he really hadn't been invading in the first place. “I shouldn't have...I mean I'm basically hitting on you at work here, so I shouldn't do that—”
“No, it's okay.” My face was flushed. The thing was, I did really like him. I was interested, or would have been, but I'd just told myself I was committing to Michael. Ugh. I hadn't dated anyone in years, so why had my dating life suddenly mutated into a multiple-choice problem?
I reached into the display with a large pair of tongs he'd brought from the workshop, and I lifted out the Snake Man's hand.
We both looked at the old bandaging. Dried reptilian skin flaked out, despite my attempt to handle the nasty old thing as gently as possible.
“I kind of thought it would be more...” Ryan began.
“Rotten?” I asked. “Brittle? Blatantly disgusting?”
“Yeah.”
I turned the hand this way and that, trying to get a better look.
A piece of dried bandaging near the wrist fell loose, revealing a big piece of the hard green hand under the bandages.
“No way.” I set the hand down on the display with the Bigfoot cast. Then I pinched the loose piece of bandaging with the tongs and pulled.
The bandaging came loose, along with a shower of dried reptilian scales.
Beneath it, the hand was solid and green. It hadn't decayed at all.
Because it was plastic.
“What?” Ryan said, watching closely.
I put the tongs aside and unraveled the bandaging with my fingers. Many more stiff, dried reptilian scales fell out.
“It looks like he wrapped it in old, shedded snake skins before bandaging it,” I said as I peeled it all away.
Then I held up the mannequin's hand, which had been spray painted green. We both looked at it for a moment.
“Well,” I said. “I guess we found the Hook Killer's missing hand.”
“It's a fake?” Ryan asked.
“Like half the stuff in this museum,” I said. Then I sighed, thinking it over. “Which means I'm back to square zero. Zero leads on Snake Man's real identity. Zero bait to lure him into a trap. I'd hoped a piece of his remains would do it, but this couldn't lure anything.”
“Maybe the ghost of an old department store,” Ryan suggested. “One that died in a liquidation sale. That's probably where all these mannequins came from.”
“Ugh. This is useless.” In my frustration, I pitched the green-painted mannequin's hand all the way up the Hall of Monsters. It struck a taxidermied owl, then fell and clattered to the floor. Because that's the sound useless plastic imitation hands make when they hit the floor—they clatter.
“So now what?” Ryan asked.
“Back to watching and listening. Two more investigators are joining us tomorrow, including a medium. He should be able to help us make contact with the entities here and figure out what they want.” I sighed. “Don't worry. I'm not leaving here until the ghosts are gone. Just keep all your kids out of the museum. And the caves.”
“I've already told them it's all off limits,” he said. “And that's slowing down my renovation from its usual turtle's pace.”
“Hopefully I'll figure something out soon.” I looked at the empty display case where the fake hand had been and resisted the urge to smash it. Instead, I walked back up the hallway of creatures. “I'm going to dig into your uncle's records some more. We have to figure out where the Snake Man came from.”
“Sounds like a fun night,” he said. “Want some help?”
“No, thanks,” I said quickly. “I don't mind digging through old paperwork alone. And I'd feel better if you were up on the third floor, closer to your kids. You know?” I started up the cobwebbed old stairs to the second floor.
“Works for me. I'm pretty wiped out as it is. But text me if you change your mind. I might still be up. Being tired doesn't necessarily mean sleeping well, not these days.”
“I understand,” I said. “Thanks for the offer, but I'll concentrate better alone.” Especially after I'd decided not to encourage his apparent interest in me. Realistically, too, the guy had three kids, so he needed someone much more stable than me, someone less likely to get followed home from work by dangerous ghosts with murderous intentions. Like a kindergarten teacher. There had to be lots of nice unmarried kindergarten teachers who would make great, non-evil-ghost-attracting stepmoms out there.
We reached Leydan's old office, and Ryan split open the cupboard and vanished up the hidden stairway. After he was gone, I pushed the cupboard halves back together again.
It was going to be just me and the ghosts tonight. Maybe it would get a little lonely, but at least I wouldn't be distracted.
I walked over to an old file cabinet and pulled open a drawer.
Chapter Thirty-Three
We'd previously focused on employment, accounting, and legal records, trying to find the identities of people who'd worked here or had conflicts with the owner, trying to find why anyone might want to haunt the place.
This time, I dug into an old gray file cabinet full of paperwork related to the items in his exhibits.
Most of the information was incomplete, if not fully lacking. There were a number of receipts for animals purchased from taxidermists, a bill of sale from a dental college, and scribbled hand-written receipts for assorted other items, more than one of these written on stained bar napkin
s.
I found other bills of sale for the snakes, the coyote, the bobcat, and even the six-legged possum.
As the night dragged on, though, it became more and more obvious that there was no file for the Snake Man's hand. Why would there be? All Leydan had done was take a spare mannequin hand, paint it, and wrap it in some old snakeskin and bandaging. There was nothing to record.
But I wanted to know why. Why he'd chosen to make a fraud from that particular local legend and put it up in his museum. Davey Bawden had claimed to die from the Snake Man attacking him in the woods not far from the museum itself. It seemed like Leydan would have wanted to take the public's attention off that particular day in history.
Then again, maybe it had been a kind of reverse psychology. By putting the Snake Man in an exhibit of obviously fake things, he could undermine belief in the local myth by making it seem like just another ridiculous item in the museum.
But why would he want to do that?
Maybe I was overthinking it. Maybe he'd heard the story, been inspired to capitalize on it for his museum, and mocked up something for a Snake Man exhibit. I wasn't even sure which had come first—the Snake Man exhibit in the museum, or Davey Bawden's drunk raving about the Snake Man on his deathbed. Since there was no file on the exhibit, there was no clear way for me to figure that out.
I took a break and checked the monitors in my makeshift nerve center.
As far as I could tell, things were momentarily calm, both up in the apartment and down in the museum. The museum was shadowy and eerie at night anyway, but I saw no cold spots, no strange shapes in the amplified gaze of the night vision cameras. The microphones reported nothing but the clunking of the heater upstairs.
I waited a few minutes, watching the apartment to make sure Snake Man wasn't creeping around, in any of his forms, and that Polly wasn't trying to sneak out again.
Through the night vision camera, I looked at the entrance to the Tomb of History.
What had Polly said? “He wanted to give me something that would make us...closer together.”