“Bog Hollow,” the driver called out. “And our last stop.”
I collected my things and fumbled through the accordion doors.
Chip’s Diner stood directly across the street, next to a dilapidated gas station where three teenagers passed around a vapor pen.
Judging by its architecture, Chip’s looked to have been built in the late ‘40s or early ‘50s, and wore its age with a detached acceptance. The orange roof sloped downwards, bowing slightly around the edges from years of heavy rain. A smiling, human-sized rooster eating a chicken leg guarded the glass door, and the parking lot was little more than an expanse of rubble. I didn’t need my psychic abilities to know the business was living on borrowed time.
I crossed the street, fingering the gold ring that hung on a chain around my neck. My wedding ring.
“Oh, Ryan,” I said, letting go of the chain. “I wish you were with me now.”
Squaring my shoulders, I pushed through the door, making my way to the counter. The waitress motioned that she’d be with me shortly.
Looking around to make sure no one was watching, I pulled the letter from my purse, slipping it from the envelope. Whoever wrote it knew of my ability to read energy, and had taken protective measures against it. Although I wrote about the paranormal, I never mentioned my own abilities on my website. The writer must have inside information about me.
I tucked the note back into its sleeve, disappointed that I’d learned nothing more.
I’d analyzed the letter, but what about the envelope?
I touched the corner to the center of my forehead. My third eye. This time, I was rewarded by a flash of amber light as I was pulled into the vision.
“Baylee!”
I heard my name and I looked around. Within the darkness a beam of white light appeared, expanding above me like a trapdoor opening from a bright room. I turned my head to avoid being blinded.
Several smaller lights appeared, encircling the beam. I heard crying accompanied by a chorus of murmurs. “Thar, thar, dear, it’ll all be over soon,” a woman said. “Your sacrifice will benefit all.”
A small female appeared beside me. I couldn’t make out any features, but her arms extended forcefully, as if trying to push something back. Her head turned in my direction.
“Baylee! Help me,” she mouthed, as the light devoured her whole.
Then suddenly, all was dark again.
The Chip’s Diner waitress stared at me. “You need a glass of water, hon?”
“No, thank you. I’m quite alright,” I lied. The truth was, the image had shaken me. It was so…vivid. I took out my notebook and jotted down the details as best I could remember. Psychic pictures were like dreams - they tended to morph from their original image if you let them sit too long.
“Do you need a table?” the waitress pressed, watching as I scribbled. “If you’re with the health department, we looked it up. 68% is still passing.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Do you need a table?”
I shook my head. “No, thank you. I’m meeting someone. I’ll just wait.”
She narrowed one eye then retreated into the kitchen.
I wandered around the family-style diner. Only half the overhead lights worked, but large windows kept the place bright, at least during the day. The tables were edged with metallic stripping and the booth seating was as much duct tape as vinyl. Small clusters of seniors nested in corners while a few younger people ate alone at the counter.
I checked my phone. I was precisely on time. Had the writer forgotten our meeting? Or had he backed out? Just then, a broad-shouldered woman entered the restaurant, clutching a briefcase to her chest. She glanced around, but didn’t seem to notice me. I stepped into the shadowed corridor that led to the restrooms.
The waitress greeted the woman and they exchanged pleasantries as they walked towards an empty booth in a far corner. After several minutes of conversation, the waitress took the plastic menu from the table and left. Once alone, the woman removed a notebook and a pen from the front pocket of her briefcase.
I frowned.
Not only was this person the wrong gender, she was using her right hand. She didn’t fit my profile at all.
But then she transferred the pen into her left hand and continued writing.
Bingo! At least on one count.
As for gender, I was glad Alex wasn’t here to say I told you so.
I studied the woman. She was a full-bodied redhead, with a strong jawline and steely eyes that darted towards the door every few seconds. She yawned occasionally, amplifying a heaviness that had nothing to do with weight. When she finished writing, she tucked the notebook back into the briefcase.
I took a deep breath and headed for her booth. “Hello,” I said, with a nod. “I’m Bayless Scott.”
The woman narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing me, then motioned for me to sit.
“Thank you for meeting me, Miss Scott. I’m Laura Price.”
There was a timelessness to her face. She could be twenty-five or fifty. But the slump of her shoulders, the dip of her chin, the arch of her brow, all told me she had lived many lives beyond her years. Her eyes softened, even as the worry lines around them deepened.
“Sorry about the secrecy and the location,” she said. “It was important that we meet alone.”
“I think you succeeded.”
“I’m one of the few social workers assigned to Bog Hollow.”
She removed a folder from her briefcase and laid it on the table. Opening it, she handed me a sheet of paper.
“I’m a longtime fan. You wrote this, correct?”
I cringed.
Yes, I’d written it.
It was one of the first pieces for my online magazine, an uninspired article on the 1946 alien landing at Roswell.
“This does bring back memories,” I said, sighing. “But it wasn’t very original. I just regurgitated some of what others were already reporting. I should take another crack at it. It would be much better now.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re a good writer and you make people think. I keep up with your site. Or at least I did, until you stopped posting.”
“Yeah, about that…”
“I’m sorry,” Laura quickly added. “I heard about what happened to your husband, but that isn’t why I called you here.”
“Then why did you?” I asked, feeling suddenly on guard.
“You’re an academic. Too many paranormal investigators believe without evidence, or they disbelieve despite evidence. But you tried, not only to prove the existence of paranormal activity, but also to debunk it.”
I sat up straight, my curiosity and ego piqued, as I listened to her assessment of my writing.
“Roswell was an adventure,” I said with a laugh. “Too bad I didn’t find an alien. I really hoped the mayor had one hiding in his basement.”
Laura continued, unamused by my attempt at humor. “Since then, you’ve written about other, more recent lights in Roswell that may be linked to UFOs.”
“Yes. I do believe Roswell has been visited repeatedly since the end of World War II. I’ve been studying UFOs for a decade now. I even wrote my college thesis on Project Blue Book.”
“Project Blue Book?”
“The infamous government-run program that documented hundreds, maybe thousands, of UFO sightings. It was formed to determine if UFOs posed a security risk to our country.”
I sighed, looking around for the waitress, hoping for coffee. Not seeing her, I returned my attention to Laura.
“Thousands of reports on strange lights and flying discs were collected over two decades beginning in the 1940s. These were witnessed by people from all walks of life, including pilots, astronauts, doctors, and even government officials. Project Blue Book was quite an ambitious undertaking.”
“And what did it conclude?”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “Let’s just say that one day the government was investigating whether these phenomen
a were a security risk, and the next they were attempting to debunk them all. Anyone who claimed to have seen a UFO was suddenly labeled ‘crazy,’ a label most people wanted to avoid, of course. People went from wanting to believe, to being afraid to believe.” I tugged at the tips of my gloves. “It’s too bad, really. Can you imagine the implications if we could prove we aren’t alone in the universe?”
A hopeful gleam appeared in Laura’s eyes. “That’s why I called for you. I need someone with an open mind. Everyone else will just think I’m crazy, too.”
She rifled through her folder. “In the last two years, there have been strange lights spotted over Bog Hollow. And after each sighting, a person has disappeared, never to be found.”
“You think Reed Hollow may be experiencing a wave of UFO abductions?”
“I don’t know. I feel foolish saying any of this, but it’s the only explanation I can come up with.”
I took a deep breath. UFO abduction usually followed a script: There are lights in the sky. The abductees are generally alone. They report missing time for which they have no memory. Sometimes they have dreams – nightmares - of unexplained surgeries. And the vegetation around the incident is often scorched. I went through the list slowly, asking her if any of this sounded familiar.
“I can’t answer these questions because the victims never returned. They were just…swallowed up.”
Swallowed up – just like in my vision.
“We shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” I cautioned her. “There are many reasons people go missing that have nothing to do with the paranormal. Reed Hollow is an unlikely hotspot. Repeated UFO encounters usually occur near areas of high technological activity, like airports, military bases and nuclear power plants. None of which we have.”
“You’ve also written that they can occur in mystical areas, too. Like, Giza, Stonehenge and Sedona.” She quirked an eyebrow. “Perhaps even Reed Hollow?”
She showed me another paper, with sections highlighted throughout. “You didn’t mention Reed Hollow as a mystical site, but you described it perfectly. You went into quite a bit of detail for a town you claimed was fictional.”
I had written this particular piece in college, and it had been submitted to an occult magazine by a well-meaning professor. It was a story on UFO sightings in a small town during the 1970s, written after a series of interviews with some of Reed Hollow’s more colorful locals. Though I never mentioned the town by name, Laura had correctly guessed its location. “
That article was not based on facts, but rumors and bad memories,” I insisted.
Laura leaned in and tapped a red fingernail on the table. “I’ve seen the lights, too. Hovering orbs that can’t be explained away. I think they may be connected to the sightings you wrote about, nearly forty years ago.”
She handed me a list of names. “Five people have disappeared from Bog Hollow in less than two years. And for one poor neighborhood, that’s an alarmingly high number. There may even be more.”
I carefully read the list, then took a photo with my phone:
Geraldine D, 45
Melissa Jones, 38
Monica S, 34
Carrie Brighton, 28
Kendra Mason, 17
“These were all women?” I asked, pausing at the last name. Kendra Mason, 17. She was probably still in high school.
“Yes, they were all women. I knew Kendra Mason; she was a runaway from Las Vegas. I worked with her, a sweet young woman trying to escape poverty and abuse. We were trying to find her housing and get her back into school. But then, one night about three months ago, the lights came and I never saw her again.”
“How terrible! And you’re sure her parents didn’t come and take her home?”
Laura shivered. “I hope not. From what I’ve heard, that might be worse than aliens.”
I checked the list again. Carrie Brighton was my age. “I went to school with a Carrie Brighton,” I said, swallowing.
“That was almost certainly her. She spent part of her childhood in Reed Hollow before she moved. She returned shortly after high school and worked at Chip’s. We chatted occasionally and I gave her my business card. She seemed troubled, but I never knew why. Man problems, most likely. I told her she could contact me if she needed anything, but she never did.”
Carrie Brighton
I hadn’t just gone to school with Carrie. We were best friends. In the second grade, Carrie jumped to my defense when the other kids taunted me with their endless witch chant. From that day on, we were inseparable, until her mother sent her to live with a relative in another town.
The last time I saw her, she was waving goodbye to me from the back seat of a Nissan Sentra. She never wrote or called, so I eventually let her go.
“I’m so sorry to hear about Carrie,” I said. “I didn’t realize she had moved back home. I wish I had known.”
“I didn’t know the other women on the list, but from what I’ve gathered, they all had problems. Homeless. Unemployed. One was an exotic dancer. These were disenfranchised women, which means no one really cared when they disappeared. The authorities just seemed to write them off. I’m not a superstitious person, but something unnatural is happening in our town. And you might be the only one who can help.”
Laura reached into her purse and produced a photograph. There were twelve amber orbs surrounding one bright white light, set against a pitch-black sky.
Just as in my vision.
I removed my gloves and laid them neatly on the table, then took the photo.
At first, the film was silent, guarding its secrets like a ghost ship adrift. Then the images came to me, sudden and sharp, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from crying out. I focused, peering closer.
Soon, I felt myself merging with the photograph, becoming a part of that moment in time. A warm breeze touched my shoulders as the pungent scent of fish assaulted my nostrils.
A slim, wild-haired woman appeared, standing before me on a sheet of black glass.
I squinted, noticing the glass was actually the surface of a lake, yet the woman didn’t sink below the water. Disembodied voices floated on the air, calling out to her from all directions. And orbs of light the size of beach balls rose up from the water’s edge, blinking off and on in sequence, as if speaking in code.
“Go on. Yes, yes. That’s a girl. It’s for the greater good.” The whisperers insisted.
The wild-haired woman glided towards the center of the lake. As she reached her destination, the sky above her opened up, releasing an arc of light that fell across her face. She trembled, even as she raised her hands upwards. A full yellow moon acted as her halo.
The light expanded and I shielded my eyes against it. Wind tore at my clothes and whipped my hair. The whisperings became an unpleasant humming that echoed like cicadas gathering after a long hibernation.
The woman was lifted by the wind, her body flattened as she spiraled up into the light.
It was a girl, I realized. No older than fifteen.
And I knew her.
I reached both hands up, calling to her. “Carrie!”
Chip’s Diner once again came alive. I was still in the booth. The photo had slipped from my hand. Laura’s eyes were wide and her skin pale.
“Are you alright?”
I dabbed my face with a paper napkin. “I’ll be fine. I just need some water.”
Without asking, I drank Laura’s entire untouched glass in one long swig. My bearings restored, I regarded Laura, while trying to form my thoughts.
“What did you see?” she asked.
“Lights,” I said, answering as honestly as I dared.
For some reason, I didn’t want her to know I’d seen Carrie. It felt too…personal. I took a picture of her photo, then slid the original back her way.
“I’m not sure what I can do,” I admitted. “My husband was the investigator. I’m just a writer. You need a professional.”
“I saw the look on your face when you were holding the pictu
re. You know I’m not making this up.”
My need for adventure had quickly dissipated. This wasn’t my problem; I had enough of my own. I didn’t even know these women.
Except Carrie Brighton.
My one true friend from childhood. Didn’t I owe her? My stomach knotted.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, remembering her spiraling image in my vision. “Though I’m still not sure I can be of any help.”
“That’s enough for me. Thank you, Miss Scott.”
Ten minutes later, I boarded the bus back to historic Main Street. My mind raced with images of pulsating lights and disappearing friends. Had I made a mistake in telling Laura I’d consider helping her?
I reached for the chain around my neck, massaging Ryan’s ring between my fingers. “Ryan, if you’re out there, give me a sign, one way or another.”
I sat very still, waiting, hoping, and was filled with familiar disappointment when nothing happened.
Even so, I knew the truth. Ryan would want me to continue our work. In fact, he’d insist on it.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” I asked myself.
The answer came: the image of a wild-haired girl spiraling into the light, never to be seen again.
SEVEN
On the ride back home, I had time to consider the implications of Laura’s request. As much as I didn’t want to care, I couldn’t help but be affected.
I pulled out my phone and checked Laura’s online profiles. I found her resume posted on a career networking site. It was several years old now, but did verify that she was a social worker in Reed Hollow. I then did a quick search for news relating to the disappearances, but, as Laura said, nothing was documented. Had I not experienced the photo vision myself, I might have thought Miss Price delusional.
I inspected the last picture taken on my phone. It seemed flat and harmless now, but I had been on the other side of that image. The girl in the vision– Carrie Brighton – had been stolen away. I had failed my friend by not trying to find her when she was sent away by her mother. I didn’t want to fail her again. I dropped my phone into my lap and pressed my shoulder to the cool glass.
Touch of Light: A Baylee Scott Paranormal Mystery (The Reed Hollow Chronicles Book 1) Page 6