by Hunter Shea
“So, what kind of EB do you think we’ve got here?” he asked.
Jessica snapped a few pictures of the room. “At first I thought it was a classic case of poltergeist energy originating from one of the kids. My last night here proved me wrong. I was a little disappointed because it would have been my first. This isn’t a poltergeist at all, just a very active, pissed off EB or EBs. I couldn’t be so lucky to find another Enfield poltergeist.”
“You mean that case in England where the poltergeist activity tormented that woman and her two children?”
Eddie was proud of the look of shock on her face.
“See, I’m not a total novice. In fact, poltergeist phenomena is a special area of interest at The Rhine,” he added.
“Did you minor in it?” she asked.
“Nah. Just a passing interest. How could I resist? ‘Do not go into the light, Carol Anne!’”
Jessica gave a rare smile. “I love Poltergeist. Not too crazy about the sequel.”
“Not many people were,” Eddie said. His stomach growled, awake and seeking attention.
“If you want to step out and grab something, go ahead. It’s going to be a long night,” Jessica said.
“That’s okay. I’ll make it.”
He had to cover his stomach with his hands when it made another angry protest. Jessica reached into her backpack and tossed an energy bar his way.
“I have a bunch of them. That and Red Bull keep me going.”
“Thanks. What do you want to do until—”
Eddie felt the spirit’s presence storm into the room a split second before it marshaled its strength and slid a dining room chair into the wall. A sharp pain stabbed the back of his eyes just as the chair began to move. He dropped his head into his hands, squeezing his eyes so tight, bright sparks swam against the darkness.
“See, I told you,” Jessica said. She took in a sharp breath when she saw him lean back against the sofa in obvious pain. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head, blinking hard. “I’m fine. Whoa, that was strong. You’ve got one angry bastard here.” He’d never felt anything like it before. Contact with angry or upset spirits could sometimes bring a slight pressure to his head, but nothing like the whip-crack he felt in his skull.
“Or bitch.”
“I can assure you, that S.O.B. is a bastard. And I’m happy to report that it’s only one.”
“Only one?” Jess repeated, incredulous. “Then he must be one powerful spirit. I was beginning to think I’d stumbled into an EB clubhouse.”
A white-hot needle jammed itself into the center of his brain and a picture frame on the wall behind him shattered. Eddie paused to catch his breath. Jessica came to his side, concerned. The last thing he wanted was for her to perceive him as a liability.
Jessica leaned closer and touched his arm. “Do you need an aspirin or something?”
He shook her off. “Nah, it wouldn’t do any good. Trust me, the pain is temporary and it’s nothing medicine could cure. My mind will adjust to it the longer we’re here.”
They stood in silence, waiting. The pain ebbed, giving him a moment to collect his thoughts and better still, to try to piece together what he had gleaned from his brief contact with the spirit in the house.
“You said it was a bastard. Do you know who it is? Did you get a name? And please don’t tell me you see a name that begins with a W. I know how that con works.” Seeing that he was okay, Jessica was back in control, the hard-ass ghost hunter.
“I could feel that it was one-hundred-percent masculine, but I didn’t get specific details. I do know that it’s royally mad at you. It’s in a kind of disbelief that you keep coming back for more. It was content to just pull the occasional prank here and there, until the McCammons brought you in. It knows what you want and what you can do and it’s not about to go down easy.”
Jessica scratched her head. “So, you’re telling me I made things worse?”
Eddie was reluctant to answer truthfully, but he knew lying would get him in deeper water. “In a way, yes.”
She kicked over one of the empty camera cases. “Damn it! I was afraid that would happen. The longer this went on, the crazier things got. When the McCammons first called me, they were concerned because they would wake up and items on shelves were on the floors, either stacked on top of one another or arranged in weird patterns. Kristen said she saw a fork jump off the kitchen table once, but all in all, it was more bizarre than anything else. Things were quiet for me the first few times here, but then stuff started to move all over the house. I thought it might have been latent energy in the girls, but even with them miles away, it got worse. Damn it! How could I have been so stupid?”
Her anger with herself was put on hold when the case skittered across the floor, back at her feet. This time, Eddie got by with only a wince.
Inexplicably, the smell of burnt toast, the kind Eddie’s mother used to make by holding bread over the burners on the stove when his stomach was upset, filled the room. He dashed into the kitchen to make sure nothing was lit. He skidded to a stop when the floor vibrated beneath his feet. The flatware jangled in their drawers as if someone was running their hands through them, back and forth, back and forth.
He inched over to the kitchen drawers, the contents smashing around with increasing intensity.
“Be careful,” Jessica said, just inches behind him. He nearly jumped. He had no recollection of her following him into the kitchen. “The drawers in here have a tendency to fly open. It sounds like the knives and forks are being stirred up like a shaken bottle of soda.”
“That’s good advice,” he replied, willing his voice not to shake. They both took several steps back.
The noise stopped. The burnt toast smell disappeared. The house was still, possessing a sensation of absolute vacancy.
“Okay, that was weird,” Eddie said.
Jessica clapped him on the back of his shoulder. “Not for this place. You sure you can handle it?”
Eddie shrugged. “Can of corn. Especially now that I know what you do and why it’s so afraid of you.”
She put a hand on her hip, raising an eyebrow. “Oh really. And what would that be?”
“I’m not sure how you make it work, but it’s terrified of giving you its name, because if you know its name, you can banish it.”
A look of shock washed over her face. Her mouth hung slightly open. “How…how could you know that?”
He smiled. “I told you I have a gift. And judging by the ache in my head, I’m about to put it to good use.”
They both jumped when they felt a tapping right underneath their feet.
Tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap.
It did it again, the force behind the tapping stronger with each repetition.
Jessica looked down at the floor. “It did that the last time. I spent a week wondering what it could mean. I looked up Morse code on the Internet, and thought it was spelling out the initials E.S.I. I went through the records of the house and couldn’t find any past residents matchingthose initials. I guess it’s not Morse code.”
Eddie was about to answer her when she was lifted from the floor and yanked backward, flung against the far wall like a toy tossed by an angry child. There was a loud crack and he prayed it came from the wall and not her bones. As he rushed to her aid, he was jolted by a needle of intense pain in the center of his skull.
He dropped to his knees, helpless as drawers and cabinets opened and closed in a rhythm very much like an unholy applause, the house itself cheering over the swift defeat of the two strangers, urging the presence that gripped its fibers to deliver the final blow.
Chapter Eighteen
Jessica’s eyes fluttered open in time to see every kitchen drawer slam shut simultaneously. As they did, the refrigerator door opened with a loud, slow squeal of its hinges. She pushed herself up off the floor, balancing on her outstretched arm. Eddie was only a few feet from her, cradling his head in his hands, on his knees, oblivious to the
world around them.
There was a popping sound, followed by a sharp plink. A bottle cap spun in circles, having been tossed from inside the refrigerator. A two-liter bottle of soda came crashing down, emptying its brown, sticky contents onto the linoleum. The tops of other soda bottles, condiments and juice containers rained out of the door, tapping across the floor. Their contents joined the initial slick of soda until it was a soupy mess, a concoction of pop, ketchup, tomato juice, mustard, hot sauce, barbecue sauce, milk, pickle brine and salad dressing.
The goopy blob inched steadily toward them. The stench of things better left separate was nauseating.
Jessica got to her feet on wobbly legs and leaned down to help Eddie up. Eddie pulled his hands away from his face, staring at her with unfocused eyes.
“If you don’t want to ruin your clothes, you have to get up,” she said to him, tugging on his arm.
He turned to where her gaze fell, registered the pungent smell and got to his feet. Jessica held his hand and led him around the mess and into the living room. They both collapsed onto the couch.
“Are you all right?” she asked. He still looked dazed, his mind wandering somewhere off the reservation.
It took him a moment, but he replied with a dry rasp, “Yeah.”
Other than the mess being made in the kitchen, the rest of the house was relatively silent. It was usually like that with investigations—moments of extreme activity, followed by hours of unnatural silence. You never knew whether the EB was building its strength for another round or had decided to vacate the premises for a while. It left your nerves on fire, your senses straining to the point of exhaustion.
Jessica took an internal stock of things, realizing nothing was broken. She would have one hell of a bruise on the parts of her body that hit the wall and floor, though.
Eddie sat staring into the kitchen. He said, softly, “That was insane. Have you ever seen anything like that before?”
“Yes.”
He inhaled, about to say something, paused, seemed to think better of it and exhaled.
Jessica added, “But, I’ve never seen the EB in here do this. That was intense.”
Despite everything, she smiled. She’d been aware from a very young age that she was a lightning rod for EBs, the events in Alaska with her father having altered the DNA of her psyche or something, tuning her into frequencies unknown. It gave her a sense of satisfaction that she could cause an entity to put on such a massive display of power. It was a fighter. She liked fighters.
Eddie leaned forward and pointed. “It’s down there, in the basement.”
The cellar door was tucked into the back end of the kitchen, next to the door that opened into the yard.
“How do you know?”
“I just know. And it’s tired…and mad. Its defenses are down. If we can get close to it, I can get its name for you.”
Jessica rolled her shoulders and stretched her legs. She took a few healthy sips from a bottle of water, handing another bottle to Eddie.
“Then I guess we need to go into the basement,” she said, her mood surprisingly, disturbingly, chipper.
She grabbed a tripod by the legs and held it over one shoulder like a soldier and her rifle. The camera lens pointed at the ground. Gesturing at the living room floor, she added, “Grab one of those audio recorders.”
Jessica had to pull hard on the door to get it open. The old wood was swollen from the humidity and at first, she thought it was being held closed by the EB on the other side. When the edge of the door scuffed against the floor, she realized it was only the work of Mother Nature and old wood.
Eddie turned on the light from the outside wall. Eight wooden steps led down into the unfinished basement. One low-wattage bulb lit the stairs, and another one glowed feebly by the furnace. It smelled damp and musty, with a hint of mineral earthiness. This is a place where things go to rust and wither away, she thought.
There was a long, scarred workbench covered in boxes and dented, faded coffee cans. Ancient shovels leaned against it in one corner. Dusty milk crates jammed with old gardening tools, hardware supplies and magazines littered the floor.
“Doesn’t look like Tim and Kristen come down here very much,” Eddie said.
“They don’t. I was only down here for a couple of hours one night but it was my first time here and I got zippo. It feels very different right now.”
“This is where it goes when it’s really tired. It needs a place to regroup, undisturbed.”
Jessica felt a tingling at the base of her spine that danced up to the back of her neck. There was a heaviness to the atmosphere. Breathing felt like being at a higher elevation. The air itself was chilly, bordering on cold. This was the point where a lot of paranormal investigators lost their shit. It was easy to slide into a panic attack when your body was registering something before your mind had a chance to catch up.
Eddie let out a small gasp and she turned. He covered his eyes with a hand and had stopped walking.
“You getting anything?” she asked.
“Close,” he said, starting to pant. “He’s not making things easy.”
“Where is it?”
Eddie pointed to the recessed area beyond the silent furnace, a place where the light did not penetrate. Jessica took the tripod off her shoulder and set it up so the camera could face the back of the basement. She looked through the viewfinder, set it on night vision and did a quick scan.
“Well, that’s one good thing,” she said, her face close to the tiny screen.
“What’s that?”
“There’s nothing back there for me to trip on.”
She took two quick steps into the darkness. Eddie yelled, “Wait, don’t go back there!”
There was a loud pop, and the bulb by the stairs exploded, followed by another, bathing them in total blackness. A deep, malevolent growl emanated from the deepest recesses of the basement, gaining strength as it approached them.
Chapter Nineteen
Selena met her best friend, Julie Quintana, outside the elementary school that was down the block from her house. They had become friends when Julie transferred to the school in third grade and had been inseparable ever since.
“Girl, you look like you need a twenty-hour nap,” Julie said, alarmed at the dark circles under her friend’s eyes. She pushed a few stray hairs from Selena’s face with her fingers.
“More like twenty days. Even when I do sleep, I still wake up exhausted. I can’t shut my mind down, you know.”
The street darkened as an immense storm cloud passed overhead. Thunder rumbled ominously but the rain had yet to fall.
“If you want, you can sleep at my house,” Julie offered. A slight wind had come with the cloud and her pin-straight brown hair flew in every direction.
“You’re the best,” Selena said, pulling her into a tight embrace. “How about after we meet with Crissy, we stop at my place to pick up my stuff and get some pizza to bring back to your house? I might as well have some fun before I pass out.”
They walked toward Crissy’s house, which was only several blocks away. The sky lit up as lightning struck in the distance. Selena and Julie counted the seconds until the clap of thunder made them jump.
“It’s only about five miles away. Oh crap, my laptop bag isn’t waterproof,” Selena said.
“And it’s a hunk of metal in a thunderstorm. Come on.”
They ran the rest of the way to Crissy’s and the first droplets of rain misted on them. They huddled under the aluminum awning above the porch. The rain came down in earnest the second they rang the bell, followed by a bright flash.
“One, one-thousand, two, one-thousand, three, one-thousand, four—”
Selena was breathing hard and laughed. “That was close. I really, really hate storms.”
Julie said, “And I can’t afford to get my hair wet. You know how hard I worked on it today? Now it’s gonna get all frizzy.”
The door opened and the laughter died in their th
roats. Crissy Davies was wearing black jeans, a ripped, black shirt from the last My Chemical Romance tour and heavy, black boots that looked as if they could kick down a brick wall. Crissy was always Addams Family pale. She hated the sun and all things to do with the great outdoors. Her eyelids were done up in heavy purple eye shadow and the studs from her snakebite piercings were shaped like little spiders. She was the epitome of goth and was the de facto leader of the goth circle in school.
“Hey, Selena, hey, Julie. Come on in.”
The inside of her house looked like a cover from Better Homes and Gardens. Selena tried to think back to the last time she had been in Crissy’s home. It had to have been before her father left. Crissy’s mother had caught him cheating with someone from his office and threw him out of their perfect little home before he even had a chance to explain himself. It was no coincidence that Crissy became a goth not long after that. Before, she had been a regular kid, though a bit on the nerdy side, who thought listening to anything heavier than Gwen Stefani was a step away from devil worship. She loved her dad, but her mother got the better lawyer and forbid visitation. Crissy had been working overtime to annoy her mother ever since, but a steady supply of antidepressants kept her from breaking through her mother’s narcotized defenses.
All that being said, Selena still considered her a friend, though their paths didn’t cross very often anymore. It was just the way of high school. You spent freshman year finding your clique and stayed in their orbit until graduation. For now, she was thankful that Crissy was who she had become because she couldn’t think of anyone else better to help her.
“Your mom home?” Selena asked.
Crissy rolled her eyes. “Queen Davies is out at some book club meeting or something equally asinine. You got your laptop?”
Selena patted the bag that hung by her hip.
“You have something to drink? I’m always mad thirsty before my period,” Julie said.