Eerie

by C. M McCoy

  Chapter Thirty

  The Trap

  “Our pleasures were simple - they included survival.”

  - Dwight D. Eisenhower

  For her term project, Hailey might have undertaken a jaunt into a dark tunnel, rehabilitated a needy creature, written her report, and been done in a few hours. Instead, she decided to build a better ghost trap.

  And it was Giselle who’d given her an idea for how to do it. As the two walked from their ParaComm class, Giselle stepped a little too close to the Chattering Gazebo, which immediately recoiled, saying, “An acoustical nightmare as usual, Giselle. How I wish you’d keep your loathsome vibrations away. You really do know how to repel any creature, don’t you? Oh, I suppose it comes naturally to a—”

  Giselle jumped back before the gazebo finished.

  “I hate that thing,” she muttered.

  After a whole class of forced conversation with Giselle without a single accidental insult, Hailey’s foot jumped in her mouth.

  “So, what kind of monster are you?” she asked in an innocent voice, and Giselle slowly scowled. “Insensitive . . .” Hailey mumbled. “Was that insensitive? I’m sorry,” she said as fast as she could.

  “You need a blurt filter. Maybe that should be your term project,” Giselle growled. The day’s ParaComm discussion topic had been “My Term Project,” and Giselle thought redesigning a ghost trap bordered on suicidal stupidity. She hadn’t been shy about sharing that opinion, either.

  “Why did the gazebo say you vibrated?”

  “Because I do.”

  Hailey frowned. She figured she only had one more shot at this before her roommate clammed up for the rest of the night and tasked her every last brain cell to contemplation. Finally, and with only another minute or two before they reached Eureka Hall, Hailey’s gray matter came up with a humdinger.

  She bit her lip, made a curt, confident nod, drew a breath and said, “Wha—”

  “Banshee,” Giselle burst out.

  Hailey’s mouth fell open. No wonder she didn’t have any friends.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why would you need to know? It has nothing to do with you!”

  “Sorry,” she said quickly, her eyes wide. “Okay. No big deal. You’re a harbinger of death, that’s all.”

  In trying to wrap her mind around it, Hailey imagined Uncle Pix’s reaction. He would never believe it. If he did, he’d probably blow a gasket. But Giselle wasn’t a murderer. Matter of fact, she could warn Hailey if there was a murderer lurking about . . .

  Giselle frowned. “I can’t tell when someone’s going to die,” she snapped. “That’s why I’m here—my family’s ashamed of me, and this whole college thing is a huge joke to them.”

  A silver string flew out of her eye.

  “They told me to study medicine and—quote, ‘figure it out’.”

  Another thread of silk let loose and blew away.

  “That’s why I look like this.” She uncrossed her arms and threw her hands up then hugged herself again.

  “Don’t all banshees look like you?”

  “No!” Giselle yelled. “They only go ‘hag’ like this when they’re about to die!” She pulled a cobweb from her eye, balled it up and let it fall. “I’m just an ugly, useless abomination that nobody likes.” She cried softly as Hailey walked next to her.

  “Well, I like you,” Hailey offered, stroking Giselle’s hair. “And look.” She held a golden lock in her hand, staring at it with one eyebrow up. “Your hair’s turning blonde.”

  Giselle rolled her eyes.

  “And I saw David staring at you in class today. Like, staring in a good way.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Don’t you remember, when you almost laughed . . .after I said the thing about Professors Mum, Loon, and Starr, and the whole class turned to see who the idiot was, only you were already staring at me with daggers, like normal—that’s why you didn’t notice—and then you stifled a laugh and everyone looked away, except for David. He kept looking at you not me, and he even moved his head a little to see more of you.”

  Giselle went silent, but at least she wasn’t crying anymore.

  “Anyway,” said Hailey, getting to her point, “I think someone’s being a little hard on herself,” she peeped as if she were encouraging a three-year old. “You’re not useless. In fact, I could sure use your help.”

  “How?”

  “The gazebo gave me an idea. Tell me more about these vibrations.”

  Giselle shrugged. “Every creature has a death frequency, and I know it instantly—it vibrates inside me. A real banshee would know when someone was about to bite it and wail out their frequency.” She looked tentatively over at Hailey.

  “Do you get a vibe on ghosts, too?”

  “Yeah. Ghosts are easy. They all have the same frequency. Why?”

  Hailey pressed her brow down. “If there’s a frequency that repels all ghosts, could there be one that attracts them?”

  “How would I know?” she yelled.

  “Can you control it—you know . . .the vibrations you give off?”

  Giselle whirled around. “What good is it if I can control it? I can’t tell when to wail—I’m useless,” she spat. “Just ask my mother.”

  “If you can control it, I can measure it,” Hailey said excitedly. “I know a friendly poltergeist we could use as a test subject. You throw different frequencies at him, and we’ll observe his response . . .see if he’s attracted to one. Then I could reproduce that very frequency in a crystalline matrix, so a ghost would be drawn into the trap, surrounded by vibration, stuck there forever, and there you have it—ghost trap,” she concluded, looking sunnily to her roommate. “So?” she sang. “Whaddya say? Will you help me?” she begged, lightly touching Giselle’s arm.

  Stopping dead in her tracks, Giselle glared at Hailey’s hand for what seemed like an eternity before she sniffed loudly.

  “Fine,” she snarled.

  With Giselle’s cooperation, it took less than a month to figure out which frequency to use for the new, Hartley Hook-a-Haunt (that was what she was calling it). Growing the crystals proved a bit more challenging, but with Asher’s guidance, she was making great progress. And that progress did not escape the attention of the mostly free and healthy population of specters at Bear Towne, who quite liked the ineffective golden ghost traps currently in use.

  As Hailey worked late into a chilly October night, alone inside Asher’s lab at Olde Main, she got the feeling someone was watching her. More than once she got up from her work station to investigate, but the place seemed deserted.

  After her third security check, Hailey threw down her goggles and rubbed her eyes, deciding it was time to call it a night.

  It was just after midnight when she stood up to go. She didn’t know Asher had left the campus. She didn’t know the poltergeists knew that, and she sure didn’t know that Asher kept in his lab no fewer than five desktop staplers and two staple guns.

  But when she turned toward the door, she found, hovering in midair and blocking her path, all seven—locked, loaded, and unhinged.

  She stared at them for a good three seconds as two of them flanked her left side and a roll of tape moved on her right. Poltergeists—too many to count—swooped across the ceiling, sharp wisps of wind-swept fog, and, ironically, they had her trapped.

  Hailey broke for the exit, batting down one stapler as six others stung her in the back and arms.

  The tape sprang to life and unwound with a shrill “ZZZZZ!” flinging itself around and around her wrist so tight it cut off her circulation. While she battled that, the six staplers hit her back and arms over and over while the seventh darted for her neck.

  Hailey staggered for the door.

  The tape caught her other hand, binding both together, yanking them u
p and away from the latch, as the staplers slapped against her with an unrelenting click-click-click-click-click and periodic ka-chonk of the staple gun.

  “Tomas!” she yelled, looking desperately into the glass of the door she couldn’t reach. “Help me!”

  Immediately, Tomas appeared, raised his eyebrows, shot into the room, and created enough of a distraction for her to high-tail it out of there.

  Hoping to find Asher, Hailey punched the out-between, and with her hands bound tightly with Scotch tape, stumbled outside and headed straight for the observatory, moving her torso as little as possible . . .trying not to think about a thousand staples lodged in her skin, especially the ones from the gun, which felt like they’d splintered bone.

  Asher will help, she told herself, but when she reached the tower door, she found it locked.

  “Asher,” she called, but he didn’t answer.

  After shivering and bleeding for thirty seconds on his doorstep without a response, Hailey spun around stiffly and walked as gingerly as she could toward Eureka Hall. The temperature hovered around ten degrees that night, and Hailey’s breath came out in curt, painful puffs.

  Shaking violently and holding her arms as still as she could with her hands still painfully bound, she trudged up the stairs, trying not to disrupt her shirt, which, along with her bra, was pretty much sewn into her back and glued into place by dried, frozen blood.

  At last she reached the third floor, and thankfully, Fin’s door was wide open; his light flooded the hallway. When Hailey stepped onto the landing, he shot out of his room.

  “Where have you been? It’s past midnight—where’s your coat—”

  He cut himself off and rushed across the hallway, ripping the tape off her wrists and rubbing them gently. Hailey sighed as blood returned to her fingers.

  “I got stapled.” She turned rigidly around to show him.

  “Oh, Hailey,” he breathed. “Come in here.” He led her to the community room opposite the stairs.

  “Wait here a sec,” he told her. “I’ll go get the tweezers.”

  Hailey stood still until he returned.

  “Oh, man,” he said as he looked at her back again.

  “How bad is it?”

  “There’s several hundred,” he estimated, and when she pivoted to look at him, he gave her a half-frown. “Surprised you didn’t run to Asher.”

  “I did,” she grunted as she sat on top of a table. “He wasn’t home.”

  Fin’s face tightened, and he curled his tongue as he yanked the first staple out of her neck.

  “Ouch! They’re all over me,” she breathed, remembering to count to eight before she exhaled.

  “ . . .lucky staples . . .” Fin muttered softly, as he removed another one from her back.

  “Ouch!”

  “What are you doing?” Giselle demanded, appearing in the doorway.

  “Removing staples . . .?” He jerked a big one out of Hailey’s arm.

  “Ouch!”

  “You know what I mean,” Giselle spat.

  “Shouldn’t you be in the lab getting your bolts tightened?” he jeered.

  Huh. Giselle actually did bear a striking resemblance to Frankenstein’s bride. Really. She was only a couple of black hair streaks and some stitches away from moaning, “Fire—Bad.”

  Giselle glared at him for a beat before spinning on her heel and gliding out of the room. “I’m bringing the first aid kit,” she grumbled over her shoulder.

  “Why are you so mean to her?” Hailey asked him.

  “Because,” he said as he drew one from her scalp, “she deserves it.”

  “I wish you’d be a little—ouch!—nicer. I think it hurts her feelings that everyone’s so mean.”

  “Clearly you don’t know your roommate.” He made a third attempt at a staple that embedded itself near Hailey’s underarm. “Come ‘ere,” he said under his breath as he tried to grab it again.

  Hailey looked over her shoulder to see how things were going, and that was a mistake. Among the sea of bloodied staples strewn across the table, one still had a chunk of flesh attached.

  “Uh-oh,” Hailey said, woozy. Darkness crept into her periphery and her ears felt like they were full of water. The whole room tipped like a canoe, and she fell forward.

  “Whoa!” Fin lunged to catch her before she hit the floor. The tweezers clanged against the table, and Fin grabbed her by the shirt, ripping at least twenty staples out at once.

  That was enough to put her the rest of the way out.

  When Hailey came to, she was sprawled, belly-down, shirtless, braless, and mostly skinless on Fin’s bed—she recognized the cologne. A soft and peaceful Moonlight Sonata vibrated through Fin’s guitar. His humming joined it in perfect pitch as she stirred.

  “Giselle dressed your wounds. Your clothes were ruined, but on a brighter note, I found you a new roommate.” He tossed her one of his t-shirts.

  “What?” She groaned as even the slightest movement stretched the raw skin on her back. “I don’t want a new roommate.”

  “You’re still out of it.”

  “No, I’m not. I like my roommate.” Hailey turned away from him as she sat, painfully lifting the t-shirt over her head.

  “Nobody likes your roommate,” he told her. “She’s a raging bitch.”

  “She’s not . . .” Hailey heaved an aggravated sigh. “She’s not . . .raging.”

  “Yeah, she is.”

  “Well, I like her,” she said decisively, and Fin cocked his head, studying her for a moment.

  “How come you came here instead of waiting for Asher?”

  “I would have waited—I did wait . . .long enough anyway, outside the observatory,” she told him, and he looked away. “It was weird,” she continued. “I called his name, and he never showed. I mean, the other day, I tripped going up the stairs in the Trinity Center, and he caught me before I fell—he got to me instantly, coming all the way from Olde Main,” she told him forlornly. “Guess he must be pretty busy tonight, huh.”

  “Maybe he’s bored with you,” Fin said with an edge. “ . . .or maybe he’s dead,” he added in a way too hopeful tone.

  Hailey rolled her eyes, but inside she worried. She’d just lost half her skin in his lab. She’d cried out for him, and he’d ignored her. Maybe Fin was right. Maybe Asher changed his mind again and now wanted her dead. She felt guilty for thinking it, but maybe he was off conspiring with Cobon.

  “Can I just sleep here?” she sighed, falling forward onto Fin’s pillow.

  “Sure,” he said. When she turned her head to him he was smiling. He pulled a blanket from his cupboard, curled up on his recliner, and stared lovingly at her until she fell asleep.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Cobon asked rather anxiously as Asher appeared in his home uninvited.

  “I cannot help but imagine your interest in my girl,” he answered coldly. “Do you wish to kill her?”

  “Straight to the point, as usual,” Cobon observed as he gazed out his window at his home near Pittsburgh. “I should return the favor, but I enjoy your conversation too much to skip the pleasantries. I’ve grown quite fond of this place,” he said, sounding more content than he had in decades. “See here, Asher,” Cobon said, pointing out a tall window. “One can hardly see civilization through the autumn leaves. Is it not beautiful here?”

  “There is much beauty in this world.”

  “How right you are, and yet . . .” Cobon flicked his hand at the breathtaking landscape. “It is not this beauty that interests you—and certainly not the beauty of our home in the Aether. It’s that girl, isn’t it?” Cobon sneered. “But she must die. And you know this as well as I do.”

  “She will die. When her time comes. But that time is not tonight at the hands of the poltergeists.”

  “Time . . .” Cobon repea
ted with a far-off gaze, “a mortal creature’s enemy, but what do we care of time until the absurdity of love grips us, eh brother?”

  Cobon turned a knowing eye to Asher and wiggled his finger at him in time with the pendulum of a grandfather clock in the room. “How is your little romance with that skinny Irish cow going—a hopeless endeavor, if you ask me. Borders on desperate, does it not?”

  “You cannot understand it, Cobon.”

  “I understand more than you think,” he scowled, but then he smiled brightly. “If I were you, I would disembarrass myself from such a bauble. A human cannot love an Envoy—we are . . .” Cobon drew a great breath. “ . . .too powerful, too wise.”

  “I will protect her from any that would harm her, brother, even to my own demise.”

  Cobon pursed his lips. “I admit, I’ve tried to hasten her death—the ghosts in the lab—that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? There was the fall from the Luftzeug, a deadly in-between, a splinter, a poisoned quill—none of it worked,” he shrugged, laughing. “She is resilient—and of course you keep rescuing her, though you haven’t given her the gift...yet.” Cobon narrowed his eyes. “—a good thing, and I’ll tell you why, but first you must know I have protected the Sullivan line for centuries. In the end, her energy belongs to me. But you can keep her body and soul—I have no use for them.” Cobon paced the room with his brow furrowed. “You keep her at your zoo in Bear Towne, but I cannot figure out how you hold her there—I saw no cage, no chains, no rope . . .? Will you tell me?”

  “She is free to leave.”

  “And yet she stays. Why hasn’t she run from you? Is it because she fears the others?”

  “She stays not from fear.”

  Cobon grimaced. “Really? You believe she stays because she loves you, but does she know you stood by while her dear sister perished . . . No?” he taunted. “I thought not. And what of your challenger, that mutt Pádraig? How did you win her away from him?”

  Asher ignored him.

  Cobon paced with long strides across the room.

  “You are a fool, Asher. You mistake your girl’s fear for love, but what does it matter? As long as the others are here on Earth, you will never be free to love her. The others would destroy you and the girl if they knew.” He faced the great clock, staring hatefully at it. “There is a way, though. You could complete the black rock with her energy without killing her completely—send the others home but remain here on Earth...with her . . .”