Spooked on the Gulf Coast (Gulf Coast Paranormal Trilogy Book 3)

by M. L. Bullock

  “That’s fine, and no offense to anyone, but I’m dying to go first. You have no idea how excited I am to be here. Don’t you guys love this?” I rubbed my hands together and practically jumped up and down. Yep, I was a bit extreme for some folks, too much enthusiasm for one person, but not these people. They were clearly into it too.

  “All right, you guys go in first. We will go next,” Pete said unhappily as if he had any say-so about it. He gave me those sad eyes again, but I wasn’t going for it. I could see right through Peter Broadus, and he knew it. Time to move on, Pete.

  As everyone left us, Midas and I went through the house turning off the remaining lights. There was no basement and no attic, so the job went pretty quickly. He’d handed me the IR camera while he carried both an EMF detector and a digital recorder. As always, there was a walkie-talkie on his hip.

  In some places, it was difficult to get started on an investigation. You had to kind of wait for the air to shift, for the spirits to show up, but not tonight. I wished I had my camera with me, not that it would do much good in the darkness. There was still a little bit of light left, but it was already about eight o’clock. All the light would be gone soon, and we’d be in the pitch black. It was going to be a long night, but we were going to see something. Something amazing.

  We didn’t have long to wait.

  Chapter Twelve—Cassidy

  “Pete? Did you hear me?” Aaron was hunched over the desk and waiting for Pete to hand him some cable he needed.

  “Yeah, I heard you. Check the case over there before you ask me.”

  “I did,” Aaron snapped back.

  “Well, did you really?” Pete swiveled in his chair and gave Aaron the dirtiest look he could muster. “Let’s think about that for a minute. If I packed a twelve-gauge cable, where would it be?”

  Aaron shoved the bin back on the shelf. This was getting heated quickly. “Would I be asking you about it if I hadn’t already looked for it there? What’s your problem, Pete?”

  Please don’t answer that. We all know what the problem is.

  Pete still had feelings for Jocelyn, but she had obviously moved on and now Aaron was interested in her. Like some guys, they had to play these complicated who’s the alpha here games.

  “Hey, it’s too crowded in here for you guys to argue over a cable. Hop up, Pete, and help him find that cord.” I bossed him around just like Sierra would’ve done if she had been here. I kept my eyes glued to the monitor and refused to give them the time of day. We had six cameras going, and we had no time for this nonsense. So far nothing had happened, but it had only been a few minutes and as we all knew, things could go sideways fast.

  The van shook without any notice at all. All the electrical supplies and carefully stacked bins shook too. Pete looked at Aaron like he was responsible.

  “Jesus!” Pete said as he held onto the shelf. “What the hell, man?”

  I immediately went into debunking mode. “Did we just have an earthquake?” Everyone got still, but I hardly believed that was really an earthquake. Something smacked the side of the van. “Could that have been a deer? We saw tracks earlier.”

  Before Aaron could answer me, the van shook again, this time on the opposite side, and I swear I heard grunting. I reached for the walkie-talkie and called Midas. “Hey, guys. Something is rocking the van out here. Can you look out the window and see what it is? Can you see anything?”

  I tried not to sound panicked, but I sure as hell was. I hadn’t expected something to be out here—we weren’t prepared for this sort of thing. I heard a low rumble, like the kind you would hear if you got too close to a dangerous dog. Only this wasn’t a dog. This was bigger, much bigger. Both of my fellow investigators had squatted down and were frozen in position, and I held onto the metal desk. We were getting nothing accomplished like this. In a furious whisper, I said, “Guys, get a grip! Where is your camera, Pete? Do you have anything we can use as a weapon?” They immediately snapped to attention and began assembling the items we needed. I clicked the walkie-talkie again, but there was no sound at all. Not even feedback. “Is there another radio? Is the battery dead?”

  Aaron barked at me, “Too many questions, Cassidy. Pick one and let me answer it.” In the meantime, heavy footsteps were circling the van. They were so heavy that each movement made the ground shake. I felt sure we would get another good smack at any moment. All I wanted to do was hide under the seat, but that didn’t seem like the smartest option.

  Instead of waiting on Aaron or Pete to help me, I reached for another walkie and flipped the button to turn the power on. It came right on and screeched a little. “Midas! Can you hear me?”

  “Go ahead, Cassidy.”

  I wanted to cry because I was so happy to hear his voice. The van shook, and it sounded like two heavy fists were banging on the back doors. Aaron and Pete grabbed the handles and pulled to prevent whatever was outside from getting in.

  “Midas, there’s something out here! It’s shaking the van! Can you look out the window and tell us what it is?” And as if it heard me and understood what I was asking Midas, the shaking stopped. I heard footsteps on the panel behind me, and then there was a fluttering of leaves and branches as if something had run into the tree line.

  I crawled over into the front seat and then onto the floorboard of the passenger side. I peeked out the window, but it was so dark now I could barely see. “Aaron,” I whispered, “hand me a flashlight!”

  “Here.” He handed me the flashlight and climbed into the driver’s seat. I could see he had a flashlight too.

  I tapped the back of mine and flicked it, waving it around, but the light was diffused by the glass. No way was I going to roll the window down just to get a better view of the woods. That thing moved so fast, it could clear that wood line in just a few seconds and get beyond me before I could secure that window.

  Midas called me on the radio, “I don’t see anything. We’re coming out to you.”

  “No! Stay there and watch. I don’t want you coming out here because it’s not gone. I think it’s on the other side of the van and that wood line.”

  “You mean the one with the Y-shaped cedar?”

  “Yes.”

  He was silent for a minute and then said, “Okay. We’ll watch for a few minutes. But the first sign of anything, you guys let me know. We are watching.”

  I kept my flashlight focused on that tree. I couldn’t shake the sensation that we were being watched, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t discern any figures or shapes besides the trees.

  “Man, that was freaky,” Aaron said.

  Pete called from the back, “For sure. The only thing I found in the way of weapons is this metal bar we sometimes use to support overhead cameras. Are you sure it was the creature? Could it have been a bear?”

  Aaron answered for me, “Maybe. We do have bears out here, and I didn’t get a good look at it.”

  I shook my head and didn’t answer either one of them. The truth was I hadn’t seen it either, but I was pretty damn sure that was no bear. Unless this particular bear liked to run on two feet.

  We waited for another ten to fifteen minutes, but nothing else happened. Midas called to check on us and offered to swap us out, but we said no. Team 1 had thirty more minutes left inside the house, and then we would swap out and Pete and I would be up. I climbed back to my desk to try to prepare for our shift. I was already rattled, but the more time passed after the incident, the more curious and uncertain I became. What the heck was that? Could it have been a bear? Or did I just have an encounter with Bigfoot? Or something else?

  Aaron kept watch but had moved to the passenger seat while Pete shoved the rod through the back-door handles and peeked out the back window while I watched Jocelyn and Midas on the monitor. They were walking around doing all the things they were supposed to do. But there wasn’t much happening. All the action seemed to be outside. I watched as they began to walk down the hallway toward the bedroom. There had really be
en only one incident in that room, and it was a questionable one at that, but Midas was a thorough investigator.

  And that’s when I saw the table move. “Guys! Look at the table! Peter, where is your 3D mapping thingy?”

  Aaron swung around in the passenger seat to see what I was talking about, and Peter reached for his tablet on the shelf beside him. “What is it, Cass?” Peter asked.

  He knew I hated to be called Cass or Cassie, but this just didn’t seem to be the time to correct him. “Keep your eye on the table right there by the—yes! It moved!”

  “Tell Midas. I’m pulling up the camera now. Oh gosh! We’ve got an anomaly. Hitting record now.”

  “Midas, this is Cassidy. You need to head back to that front room. You’ve got action there.”

  Midas couldn’t hide the excitement in his voice. “What is it?” I watched them on the camera as they walked back down the long hall to the front room. Midas was cautious, and Jocelyn hovered in the hallway holding up her IR camera to locate the source of the activity.

  “We have an anomaly by the front door,” Pete said to me, and I relayed the message to Midas. “He’s right next to that table.”

  And then we heard the table squeak like it was being dragged in front of the door. Midas said calmly, “That table just moved. I’m right here looking at it. You guys are recording, right?”

  “Yep. We are recording everything.”

  Midas nodded and waved Jocelyn to come stand next to him. “Let’s start an EVP session and try to communicate with whoever this is. Look at that! The table has moved at least six inches since we left this room. See the tape on the floor?”

  Jocelyn said, “I do see it. That’s amazing. Okay, I’m starting the session.” She started the recorder and said confidently, “My name is Jocelyn, and this is my friend Midas. We can’t help but notice that you’re moving this table. Is there a reason why? Is it in the wrong place?”

  Jocelyn’s eyes traveled around the room, and I watched her pretty face as she tried to zero in on the activity. She had no way of knowing where the anomaly was hanging out, except that Pete said it was near the table. But I saw her draw closer to the same exact spot. She even put her hand out as if she knew where the figure was waiting and watching.

  “Why are you here?” she asked as she held the camera up with one hand and raised the audio recorder with the other. “Can you tell us your name?”

  We did not hear anything, but that’s often how it went with EVP sessions. It was not until you hooked the equipment into the computer that you could detect the hidden sounds, the sounds that the human ear often missed. I didn’t want to jinx myself or the team, but I believed that we’d caught something. It was just a “knowing” that I had, and I have learned to trust those knowings.

  The timer on my desk went off, which meant it was time to swap out teams. “Come on, Pete, we’re up.” No sooner had the words gotten out of my mouth than we heard a loud, guttural growl coming from the same woods that I’d believed the creature or bear or whatever it was had run into.

  “Grab your crap and let’s run. Do not stop! Do not look back! And for God sakes, don’t fall!” Pete was by the back door, gripping it and holding his 3D mapping camera in his other hand. I still had my flashlight and did not bother picking up anything else. Aaron was behind me, his hand on my shoulder. “On the count of three, run!” We all took deep breaths, and Pete looked at us and said, “Three!”

  The doors sprang open, and I almost fell out of the van but managed to stay on my feet and raced to the house. Aaron was beside me holding my hand. I didn’t know where Pete had gone, but then I heard the van door shut.

  “Pete!” That idiot had stayed behind.

  “Come on, Cassidy! Don’t look back!” Another growl erupted from the shadows, and I did as Aaron asked me to. I raced up the steps and only hit my shin once. I was sure I was bleeding, but it didn’t matter. Midas opened the door, and we ran through it and collapsed on the floor in a clumsy heap. It was not that it was such a long run, but our hearts were pumping and my leg was throbbing.

  And all I could think about was Pete.

  Chapter Thirteen—Midas

  I immediately called Peter on the walkie-talkie. “Hey, Pete. What are you doing?” The rest of my team was perched in front of the windows that faced the van. Like me, they were concerned about our teammate’s well-being. Especially now that we were hearing what could only be described as unearthly growls.

  “I’m filming. I think I’m going to—shoot! Hold on.”

  “Pete!” I yelled as I watched the van rocking. Whatever animal was responsible for this, we couldn’t see it. It kept its distance from us and remained on the other side of the van. I was not having this. Not at all.

  “Does that gun have any bullets in it?” I asked Aaron as I pointed to the weapon above the doorway.

  “It should. What do you have in mind?”

  “I’m not leaving him out there. It’s out of the question.”

  Cassidy grabbed my arm. “Midas, it’s huge. I’m not sure that gun is going to be enough.”

  Jocelyn added, “And if this is a paranormal creature, it’s certainly not going to be enough. I’m with you. We can’t leave Peter out there.”

  Cassidy said, “Then we all go together. I mean it. You’re not leaving us in here, and I’m certainly not letting you go out there to get killed by yourself.” She stormed off to the kitchen and came back with a butcher knife. “Let’s do it, then.”

  I tapped the radio and called Peter. “Were coming to get you. We’re on the way.”

  He did not answer, which was not a good sign. “Are there any weapons in the van?” I asked Cassidy. “I wouldn’t like it too much if he shot me.”

  “There’s nothing except for a metal bar. We lucked out.”

  “Good. Let’s go.” I shoved the door open, and we crept out on the porch.

  “Stay together. Jocelyn, stay with Aaron.”

  I heard her say under her breath, “You mean, ‘Aaron, stay with Jocelyn.’” But now was not the time to argue about who was the biggest and the baddest. I hurried toward the van; as I cleared the edge of it, I ran faster and cleared the second corner just in time to witness the disappearance of a large black creature.

  I was damn sure that was not Bigfoot. For one thing, it was taller than I imagined Bigfoot would be. Its hair was black, jet-black like charcoal. Plus, it had pointed ears and massive arms with hands like mine.

  “Come on, Pete! No more heroics,” I shouted,

  Pete jumped out, and I slammed the door behind him. There was not much I could do about saving the van. I knew that if that thing wanted to tear it to pieces, it could. It wasn’t after the van; it wanted what was inside. And wanted us. We raced back to the lodge and closed the door behind us.

  “You know what, I think moving this table is a good idea. That door does not look like it could stand up to that thing. Help me move it, Pete. Aaron, grab the chairs. Jocelyn and Cassidy, check the other doors and windows. I don’t want any gaps or weak spots.”

  Cassidy’s voice wavered as she asked, “Do you think it’s coming back?”

  I could not lie to her. “Yes. I do.” And that was enough for her. She and Jocelyn raced through the house checking the windows and doors; I even heard furniture moving. When it was all over, we gathered in the living room and waited to see what would happen next. Nothing happened, and we all took a spot on the couches and chairs that faced the front door. Surprisingly, it was a bit chilly and I toyed with the idea of lighting a fire in the fireplace…I hoped this creature was afraid of fire.

  Before I could suggest it, Jocelyn spoke up. “This is exactly what the ghost wanted. See?” She had been staring at the front door and sitting quietly, which was very unlike her. The old Jocelyn, the girl I used to know, would be jumping up and down and begging to go outside to track down that creature. This woman was much more thoughtful and sedate.

  “What do you mean?” Aaron asked her in a w
hisper.

  “The ghost was moving this furniture. He wanted that table in front of the door. He was trying to protect us. He must know what’s out there.”

  “You say he. How do you know?” Aaron asked her as he kept his eye on the door.

  “It’s just a thought. Let’s listen to the EVP session. Maybe we can hear something.” She played it back all the way through, but the volume was too low to detect anything. I imagined I heard a faint something, a scratching or something, but I was not able to discern it.

  “Let’s try it with my tablet. I think the audio is better on this device. You have the cord for this?” Pete asked hopefully.

  “Yes, I think so.” Jocelyn immediately stood up and began to empty her pockets. It was amazing all the things she carried around. Thankfully, one of her treasures was the HDMI cord that went to the tablet. Pete grabbed it and connected it all up.

  “Here we go. This should do it.”

  The volume was so high I almost jumped when Jocelyn’s voice came over the tablet’s speaker. “Why are you here?”

  Help you…

  “What is your name?”

  Tobias.

  I would never have imagined it and had never seen it before, but Jocelyn began to cry. She drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. Instinctively, I reached for her to comfort her, but Cassidy beat me to it. She sat on the floor in front of Jocelyn’s chair and stretched her arms out as the blonde fell into them.

  “I know. I know,” was all she said. After a minute of Cassidy whispering into Jocelyn’s ear, the two of them left the room. I could hear the sink in the restroom nearest us and assumed that they were in there talking about whatever had affected Jocelyn so deeply.