Old Bones (Haunted Series)

by Alexie Aaron

  “It looks old and valuable.”

  “It’s priceless. I wonder why my father let her have it. It should be in a museum or a vault pending documentation.”

  “Who is this?” Ted asked tapping the tablet.

  “No one I’ve heard of before. There is a similarly sized tablet with a Birdman on it. It was found on the east side of Monks Mound in the seventies. That one dates back to 1310 AD. My parents found a twin to the Birdman in the west Missouri dig they were working on. I think that Amanda found this there and took it before it was documented.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t ask her. I suspect it was a whim, and she forgot she had it. My mother lives in her mind most of the time. I’m sure there is a diagnosis that fits her and medication that would help. Unfortunately, she prefers to be this way, and my father loves her so much, he enables her behavior. We Coopers love deeply, Ted.”

  “Do you love me like your dad loves your mom?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I want you to tell me, Mia,” he said, looking intently at her.

  “I love you more than I ever thought I could love. I go through withdrawal when you’re out of my sight. Hearing your voice in my ear both gives me a thrill and makes me feel safe. I want to give you everything you ever wanted.”

  “Do you see my faults?”

  “I see them as personality traits, probably some of them are the reason we are together. I worry that if I’m this obsessed with you, will I be a good parent to our children?”

  Ted blushed. “The big difference, I hope, is that I’m not a self-absorbed asshole. We will love our babies together, Mia. I’m honored to be your heart’s desire. You have been mine since we met.”

  “All this mush is very entertaining, but it isn’t getting us closer to the mighty Mississippi,” Cid commented behind them.

  Ted and Mia, who forgot where they were and whom they were with, blushed and felt like naughty school kids. Mia glanced over at Murphy, and he winked in understanding. He felt the same about her as she did Ted. Ted regarded Murphy as a friend and he him. What a wacky threesome they were involved in.

  Mia climbed in her truck and started it. Ted rode shotgun. Murphy, contented to ride in the back, took in the scenery as they headed towards St. Louis.

  ~

  Audrey looked across the room at Burt and Mike as they wound up the last of the cables while she listened to Mary, Bernard’s overqualified secretary.

  “One of the missing students has severe mental problems.”

  “How severe?”

  “Did you ever see A Beautiful Mind?”

  “Yes.”

  “That bad. When Scott is on his meds, he’s tolerable, but when he is off…”

  “How long has he been missing?”

  “Three months.”

  “Three months and no meds make him a danger to himself,” Audrey started to say.

  “And to others. His delusions brought on bouts of violence,” Mary stressed.

  “We’ll keep that in mind. Are there any photos of Scott?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll look into it for you and email them to…”

  “PEEPs,” Audrey supplied. “We’re heading down to St. Louis as soon as I complete my assessment here.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks, Mary,” Audrey said and put her phone down.

  Mike looked at her face and said, “Spill it.”

  Burt stopped what he was doing and faced her.

  “I just got off the phone with Bernard’s secretary,” she paused, took a moment to consult her notes, and continued, “One of the missing researchers suffers from schizophrenia. He’s been missing for three months. They think he’s off his meds so…”

  “He could be violent,” Burt supplied.

  “Or so lost in his own world that reality and time don’t mean anything,” Mike suggested. “I had a kid in my freshman dorm room that got that way from time to time, even with his meds.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Doctor Enrich and two grad students, one from New Mexico and the other from here in Chicago,” Audrey listed. “They were all working on Mound 72 when they disappeared.”

  “Give Mia a call. Mike and I should be packed up and ready to go in an hour tops. How about you? Would you like to come on this trip?”

  Audrey beamed. “Of course! I will work on my report for the charity on the road if that’s alright with you.”

  “Why don’t we meet up at PEEPs headquarters about three? This way you can grab your gear, and Mike and I will do likewise.”

  Audrey smiled and picked up the phone to give Mia her information.

  ~

  Mia shaded her eyes as she gazed upon the river. The midmorning sun danced upon the murky waters. Cid remarked that this was the spot he and Patrick had waited for her and Ira. She agreed. “I suspected the ley line may have been the path the ancients traveled. Maybe that is why they are here. My father stood here and watched them cross the river. I bet if we go to where you dropped me off, I’ll be able to pick up his trail there.”

  Her phone rang, and she saw it was Audrey.

  “Mia here.”

  “Audrey… of course, you know it’s me from the caller ID. Anyways, I have a bit of info for you…”

  The two of them exchanged information. Mia wasn’t sure that the other missing people had anything to do with her father because she didn’t see anyone corporal with him in her vision. “Thanks for the heads up.”

  “We’re going to be down there this evening. Burt wants Ted to make arrangements for us three,” she told her.

  “I’ll give him the heads up. Give us a call when you’re close,” Mia said before ending the call.

  “The gang is all heading down. Better get three more rooms if you can,” Mia called over to Ted who was skipping stones with Murphy in the shallows at the edge of the river.

  “Will do. Can you believe Murphy’s never been across the Mississippi?”

  “I imagine in his day, bridges weren’t common place. I expect a ferry would be needed,” Mia surmised.

  “Actually, the Eads Bridge was completed in 1874. It was the longest bridge of its kind. They tested it by leading an elephant across it,” Cid reported.

  Murphy dropped his axe and lumbered around like an elephant towards the water.

  Mia started laughing. “Ted, catch him before the current takes him.”

  “I take it Murphy is…”

  “Pretending to be a pachyderm,” Mia finished.

  “They can swim you know?”

  “Really, I assumed they would be too heavy,” Mia said, walking back to where they left their vehicles.

  “Actually elephants have been seen swimming for pleasure in the ocean off the Andaman Islands.”

  Mia was surprised by this information. Trying not to feel stupid because she never heard of the Andaman Islands asked, “How do you know all this stuff?”

  “YouTube,” Cid answered and explained, “If you surf the net as much as I do, eventually you’ll come across an elephant swimming.”

  Mia raised an eyebrow and asked, “How about an elephant surfing?”

  “No, but I’ve seen a lot of dogs who surf.”

  “Dogs are cool,” Mia said.

  “You ever have a dog?”

  “No, my parents forbade pets,” Mia said simply. “When I was on my own, I worried that the critters would be too freaked by the ghosts that seemed to be attracted to me.”

  “Can dogs see ghosts?”

  Mia nodded. “Most animals can actually. They may not understand what they are seeing, but the energy they can pick up. Ever see a cat stare intently at the wall?”

  Cid nodded and rubbed his arms as the goose bumps raised.

  “Probably watching a spider,” Mia said and sidestepped when Cid figured out she was having him on.

  “You little, imp,” he said as he chased her.

  Ted watched Cid catch up to Mia, pick her up under
one arm and head towards the river with her. Murphy moved to help Mia, but Ted said, “They’re just playing around, Murphy. Look how Mia is laughing.”

  Murphy watched as Cid dangled Mia over the edge upside down. Mia was hysterical with giggles as she reached down and splashed Cid with the cold water.

  He pulled her up and set her on the riverbank. “These are my clean pants,” he complained.

  Mia just hiccupped before replying, “Looks like you had an accident.”

  He looked down at his soaked crotch and moaned.

  She rolled away from him and got to her feet, running towards Ted and Murphy.

  “We’re not going to protect you, pumpkin,” Ted warned.

  Murphy nodded, and Mia saw mirth in his eyes. She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “Some knights you are.”

  Ted and Murphy bumped fists and started walking towards the trucks. Mia fell into line and encouraged Cid to come on with a wave of her hand. “Time to cross the river,” she called.

  He ran over to the group in good spirits. A little horseplay was good medicine for the soul, even if you ended up with wet pants.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Hands reached out to grab Mia. She shuddered as they moved through her body, not connecting with her flesh. The road was filled with the dead. What was it about this part of St. Louis that attracted the dead for hundreds of years? The most recent had needle-tracked arms and emaciated bodies. How sad it was to die addicted to the needle or the bottle.

  Murphy moved closer to Mia, trying to protect her from the hordes of ghosts not wanting to move on. They were just hanging around, drifting along the littered street. It was enough to suck the very will out of a person. He wondered if this was one of those rings of hell that Eye-Talian poet wrote about. He struggled with the man’s prose. Ted suggested a few movies, but they horrified him. Murphy thought he had seen mankind at its worst in his very own backyard, but if the movies were to be believed, there was worse.

  “Stick close to me, Murph. We don’t want to engage with any ghost younger than 863 years at this time. Look for what you would have labeled an Indian in your day. Yes, I know, Native Americans, but these will look more like…”

  “Aztecs,” Ted filled in. “Remember the MesoAmerican room in the Field Museum? The dudes you fought to save Mia from,” Ted explained.

  Murphy nodded and gripped his axe tightly.

  Mia looked over at Ted and said, “That’s a big leap for a techie.”

  “Not for a player of Civilization,” Cid argued. “We aren’t just pretty faces, Mia of little faith. We are smart and pretty.”

  Mia couldn’t help smiling. “Yes, you are.”

  Murphy hissed, “There.”

  Mia followed his outstretched arm and watched the line of ancients move through the throng. They walked in a straight line, moving towards them. “Guys, stop here a moment.” She stood and flattened herself against the wall as the procession moved past her and into the crumbling warehouse they just passed. “In here,” she said as she fell in line with the last of the basket holders. “Watch your step, the floor is crumbling and…” Mia looked down and shuddered, “it’s a death drop if you fall through.”

  “Mia, look,” Cid said, pointing out a pair of sunglasses at the edge of a collapsed area of floor. He took a piece of pipe he found and used it to move the pair of Ray Bans to a stable area where he could pick them up. “Too expensive to be junkie fare. A dealer maybe but…”

  “Maybe fit for an archeologist,” Mia finished. She took off a glove and held out her hand. Images of her father filled her mind. “He fell through the floor, caught himself and climbed out. He was following a similar group of people. We are on the right track. Let’s find a safe way down there. Perhaps he’s hurt and holed up in a dark corner. Ted, we’re going to need your lights.”

  Ted moved to leave, but Cid stopped him. “Dude, stay with the chick, I’ll get them.” He left, moving quickly, keeping to the stable parts of the floor.

  Mia put the Ray Bans in her pocket and pulled on her glove. She watched as Murphy moved at ghost speed searching for stairs sound enough to take them down. She caught Ted looking at her with concern. “I don’t think he’s dead. If he was, he’d be hovering around my mother. She’s his heaven, like the farm is Murphy’s,” she explained. “He’s not a bad man; he’s a good one. I remember him trying to be a father, he just didn’t know how. He took me to museums, digs and the odd shopping excursion. When he remembers, he sends me a birthday present. I realized recently that the ineptness of his gifts shows that he bought them himself. He could have relegated the purchase to a grad student or secretary, but he did buy them himself.” Mia wanted to say more, but tears fell instead.

  Ted put his arm around her and held her close, handing her a crumpled tissue from his pocket to wipe her eyes. “Don’t worry, Munchkin, we’ll find him.”

  Cid returned with a backpack bulging with gizmos, including climbing gear. “I found this in the back,” he said holding up the colorful but strong rope.

  “I purchased this after your well-diving incident in Lund,” Ted explained. “I’ve even had a class.”

  Mia looked at him and said with appropriate awe, “You are Batman.”

  CRACK!

  The three followed the sound to where Murphy had signaled. “He’s found a way down,” Mia said. She took a page from Cid and edged her way along the wall to the rusted staircase.

  Cid flipped the weighted rope over a beam, secured it, tested it with his weight, and handed it to Mia, instructing, “Wrap this around you so you’ll have something to hold you up if the stairs give way.”

  Mia scrunched up her face, aware that the big strong men were going to let her go first. “You know, guys, you can dispense with the manners at any time. I won’t mind.”

  “You’re lightest, and Murphy is more able to catch you than one of us,” Ted pointed out.

  Murphy nodded.

  Mia looked at him and said, “You’re not helping. Send the ‘little lady’ into spider heaven.” She sucked it up and started down the stairs, jumping on each step. The men thought she was testing them out for their weight. Mia was doing it to warn the creepy crawlies that she was heading down.

  Mia landed on hard ground. She looked at the floor and saw that a set of footsteps had disturbed the dust. She followed them until the footsteps became drag marks. Ted came up behind her, and she pointed out the trail. “I’m not certain this is my father, but by the size of the footprints earlier, I’d say it was male. The next question I have is, why no other set of footprints?”

  They waited for Cid and accepted the flashlights he handed out. Mia let Murphy lead the way, his aura of blue steel helping to guide her where the flashlight beam didn’t quite penetrate.

  “The air’s getting bad down here,” Cid mentioned.

  Mia stopped and held up her hand. “Listen, do any of you hear wind?”

  Ted nodded. “Odd place for it. Does St. Louis have a subway?”

  The three of them followed the sound. Murphy was waiting at a break in the foundation wall. He put his hand up to stop them.

  “What is it?” Mia asked, peering around him. “Oh, shit.”

  “What?” Ted and Cid asked together.

  “It’s a vortex. Do you have any of Ted’s special lenses in that bag of tricks?” Mia asked Cid.

  He nodded and pulled out the Wayfarer glasses and a child’s telescope. “Ted adapted this,” he explained.

  Mia took the toy and held it up to her eye. “Bloody hell, it’s a doozy.” She handed the telescope to Ted and stepped aside so Cid could see with the glasses.

  “It looks like blue Jell-O being flushed down the john,” Ted said.

  Mia pondered for a moment how he would know what Jell-O would look like flushed down the toilet but decided some things weren’t worth knowing.

  “Dude, do you see the flashes of light?”

  “Pulses, they grow and dim,” Ted corrected. “Question is, what
is it?”

  “It’s a vortex. Not dissimilar to ones you find in ley lines,” Mia explained. “But the nearest ley line took a hard right a block back. Unless this is an older passage.”

  “You travel ley lines, correct?” Cid asked.

  “Yes, but the ones I have traveled are different… surface lines. I think we should backtrack; this is no route for the living, or once living. Come on, Murph.”

  Stephen Murphy looked once again at the vortex. He saw the drag marks end at the vortex. If it was Mia’s father who had been dragged into that thing, he feared they would never find him again.

  ~

  They moved day and night, resting only to eat. When Charles’s legs gave out, the traveler tossed him over his back and carried him as if he were a sack of grain. In his delirium Charles heard people milling about them. Why didn’t anyone come to his aid? The mere size and dress of the madman should have sent up signal flares that something wasn’t right. Let alone the fact he had another man slung over his back? This type of behavior could have been ignored in New York City but not in the Midwestern United States.

  “Help me,” Charles cried through parched lips.

  The traveler stopped and lowered him to the ground. “Are you in distress?”

  “The pace will kill me. If you want me to validate your existence, then you must let me rest.”

  “I need no validation, only an explanation. I see you are in poor physicality. I shall give you tonight, but tomorrow we will return, and you will give me answers.”

  Charles felt there was an “or else” silently attached to that sentence and shivered. “I need a bed, food and clean water or you’ll have a corpse by morning.”

  The traveler smiled. “I know of a place. Come.”

  Charles tried to stand but fell to the ground. The traveler picked him up and tossed him over his shoulder again. Charles felt him start to walk before he felt faint. The ground disappeared beneath him, and soon there was nothing but blackness.

  The traveler felt the man slip from the world of the waking. He was an old man, but his pulse was strong. He would survive the trip. He had to.