Chaos flipped back the comforter and tossed it on the floor. She then lifted the sheets and peered underneath. The sheets looked clean. Whew. The last thing she needed was to get grossed out by bugs, or worse, in the bed. Putting them back in place, she grabbed the remote from the side table, grabbed her snacks and sat cross-legged on the bed.
She flipped on the television and was rewarded with a full digital cable choice of channels. She found a do-it-yourself landscaping show and relaxed into a world she knew and felt comfortable with. Meanwhile she waited for Dead Bill the rapist, stalker ghost, aka creepy figment of her imagination, to show up.
Chaos awoke with goose bumps all over her body. It was freezing in her room. She’d forgotten to turn on the heat when she'd come in. She looked at the clock. Two fifteen a.m. “Son of a bitch,” she groaned. “I fell asleep.” That wasn’t part of the plan. If the clock was right, she still had fifteen minutes. He seemed to show up like clockwork at two thirty every morning. She looked around the room for signs that he’d been there. The television was still on. No sign of Dead Bill.
The lamp beside her bed was off. She’d left it on. Chaos turned on the side table lamp, slid out of bed, and looked for the thermostat. She found it by the bathroom. Squinting, struggling to see through sleep blurry eyes, she noticed the thermostat was set at seventy degrees but the reading was forty and it was dropping as she stood there. “Guess this is what I get for thirty bucks a night.”
Chaos pressed the button to increase the temperature setting and heard the fan kick on. Warm air flowed freely from the unit. She turned up the fan and enjoyed the heat on her face. The air felt heavy, almost oppressive and she wondered if it was snowing outside. Relaxing a touch, Chaos padded over to the window. She pulled the curtains open. Dead Bill looked back at her through the window.
“Found you,” he laughed.
Chapter Eleven
A Colorblind Lumberjack
The doorknob rattled. He was trying to get inside. She wondered why he didn’t just float through the wall. Isn’t that what ghosts did? Some untalented ghost he turned out to be. He had to use the door. Chaos wanted to laugh at his ineptitude but she couldn’t relax enough to find any of this funny. Clenching her fists, Chaos took a step back. Looking around she saw that she didn’t have anything to use as a weapon. There was nothing but a TV remote and an empty Fritos package, everything else in the room was bolted to the floor. The door knob stopped rattling. Maybe he's given up, she thought and then mentally smacked herself. He was dead and he was stalking her. Or she was nuts. Either way, he wasn't giving up. It was up to her to make him go away. Smoothing her hands on her jeans, Chaos grabbed her cell phone from the bedside table. Chaos set her phone to record and positioned it on the far side of the bed. It would catch the door and anything that happened between the bed and the door. It would record something or nothing. Either way she’d have an answer. That set, she sat on the edge of the bed and waited. Dead Bill would find a way in and when he did whatever happened would happen.
Chaos clutched the necklace around her neck. Symbolizing victory and strength, the Nike pendant felt warm in her hand. She’d worn it since she was a toddler. Her mother had died wearing it and it gave her comfort. Still holding her necklace, Chaos wasn't surprised when Dead Bill simply appeared inside the room. Guess he figured out the floating through walls thing, she thought. He stood less than five feet from her, directly in front of the windows and in line with the recorder on her phone. Perfect. She glanced at the clock radio, not sure why but certain it was important to mark the time. It was exactly two thirty in the morning. Maybe it would be the time of her death, she thought. But she didn't feel ready to die and certainly not by the hands of this...this...jerk.
“Are you a ghost?” She asked, not waiting for him to speak.
“What do you think?”
His whisper touched her neck and sent chills down her spine. “I think I’ve lost my mind. You’re dead.”
“You killed me.”
Chaos nodded. “That I did.” She crossed her arms. “It was you or me. So now what? Why are you following me? Are you in my head? Maybe the attack was so traumatic I’m reliving it or feeling some sort of stupid guilt about it.” Chaos shook her head. She couldn’t believe she was talking to him. It’s the only way, she reminded herself. She needed to find out if he was a figment of her imagination.
“Make it right.”
“Make it right?” She heard it clear as day, though the image of Dead Bill was starting to fade. “You caused this. You attacked me. I was defending myself.” Bill’s face contorted. His eyes hardened. The image of him solidified. The grey t-shirt he wore tucked into his black jeans, the same clothes he’d been wearing on that awful night, seemed to shift as he moved. She knew he wasn’t real but he sure as hell looked real. Chaos wanted to leave the room and keep running until it all disappeared. “All in,” she reminded herself.
Bill crossed the room. His eyes never left her and his legs never moved. If she was imagining this she was doing a damn creepy job. He stopped just inches from her face. Leaning in, his mouth opened. Chaos could smell the stench of whiskey on his breath. Down the dark cavern of his mouth she saw never ending blackness. “Murderer,” he rasped.
The sickly cologne smell danced around her like a wraith. It enveloped her. She gagged. “Back up. Now.”
“Or what?” he said, leaning in closer. “You’ll leave? I’ll find you. There’s nowhere you can run that you'll be able to hide from me. “
She was going to vomit. “Make the smell go away!”It disappeared. Like a fart in the wind, she thought. Weird how he could turn smells on and off.
“Now you do something for me,” he said, sliding back away from her.
“What?”
“Let me see you naked.”
“Fuck you.” Bill shrugged and grinned. Tired of being taunted and bullied, Chaos shoved her fear aside. She wasn't going to be bullied by this man, alive or dead. She was ready for him to be gone. “You’re dead. Go away.”
“Confess.”
“No,” she shrugged and shook her head. I'm not giving up my life for you, she thought. Besides, she didn’t know where his body was and she sure as hell wasn't going to drag Paolo into this.
“See you tomorrow, chica.”
Dead Bill disappeared. Heart pounding, Chaos clamored across the bed and snagged her cell phone from the bedside table. “Please let it have recorded something. Please don’t let me be crazy.” Of course as soon as she said that she wondered which was worse, being crazy or actually finding out that ghosts existed and she had one of her very own. Fingers shaking, Chaos stopped the recording and pressed play.
Her hope slid to the ground. All she could see was her back sitting on the edge of the bed. No Dead Bill. Sorrow filled her as she listened to her own voice on the recording.
“Are you a ghost? I think I’ve lost my mind. You’re dead.”She didn’t hear his responses. This proved she was crazy. She was imagining the whole thing. “What am I going to do?” Rewinding it, Chaos turned the volume up as loud as it would go and pressed play.
“You’re dead.”
“ahkilledme.”
Chaos froze. Her heart skidded to a stop. She heard something. She rewound it and listened again.
“Killed me.”
There was an inhalation before he said it and the voice sounded almost electronic but there was no mistaking it. She had Dead Bill’s voice on her phone’s recorder. “I’m not crazy.”
Halfway through the third playback, Chaos didn’t hear any more voices but she realized something wasn’t right in the video. There were two shadows in the room. With the bedside table light behind her, it made sense to see her silhouette on the wall but there was another one beside it. A larger, taller shadow. It had mass and form too, like it wasn’t really a shadow at all but a large black cloud. True, the image quality on her phone was pretty crappy but still. She put the camera back on the table, pressed record and sat ba
ck in the same place she’d been when Dead Bill had been in the room. Chaos waited sixty seconds and then grabbed the camera and pressed play.
“One shadow.” Dead Bill wasn’t a figment of her imagination. He was a ghost. A stalker ghost. She wanted to cry, both from relief and from the terror that was bubbling up inside her. “How do you get rid of a stalker ghost?” On the one hand it wasn’t so bad because it sure as hell beat a live stalker. Ghosts couldn’t do bodily harm, right? But she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life being haunted by such a vile man. He had to go. He’d said confessing would end it. If she went to the police he would go away. But that wasn’t really an option. If she did that, not only would she go bankrupt spending the little money she had on legal counsel, she’d also be sacrificing Paolo and the people who helped her. She was indebted to them. Betraying them wasn’t an option. Trusting Bill would be stupid anyway. If she confessed and ended up in jail, he’d probably haunt her in her cell and she really would go crazy
No, she had to get rid of Dead Bill on her own. Glancing at the clock, she regretted not bringing her laptop with her. Not that she'd have wireless internet connection in this motel in the middle of nowhere.
Slipping into her shoes and coat, Chaos grabbed her room key and wallet and headed for the registration building. She remembered seeing a computer for guest use there. She crossed the poorly lit parking lot and shivered. It probably wasn’t a great idea to be running around outside in the middle of the night. She reached the building and turned the knob. “Locked. Damn.”
She tried her key hoping it would work to let her in. No luck. Remembering that the laundry room connected to the registration area, she made her way around the back of the building to the laundry room. An orange security light cast long shadows down the alley between the registration building and the motel. Anxious to get safely inside, Chaos inserted her key and held her breath. Her room key worked. She opened the door, stepped inside and shuddered. The laundry room wasn’t any less creepy than the alley. She locked the door behind her and crossed the room. She tried her key in the room between the laundry room and the registration area. “Pay dirt.” The door opened. “Piss poor security if you ask me,” she muttered. Now she just hoped she'd be able to log onto their internet and get online.
A dying palm stood in the corner by the window. “Too cold,” she said aloud. People always put their trees right in front of the window thinking they needed the sunlight. But in a climate like Colorado nine months out of the year it was too cold for them. They needed to be away from drafts. While she waited for the computer to boot she made a mental plan of her approach. A password was required to log on but it took her all of five seconds to guess - it was the name of the motel. Once on she headed to Google and entered "getting rid of a ghost". There were more than nineteen million results. “This is going to take a while.” She narrowed her search and while the light from the computer monitor cast an eerie glow in the lobby. Chaos was grateful that she was alone. She didn’t want to have to explain why she was searching for information about ghosts.
An hour later Chaos wished she had coffee. Fishing a dollar out of her wallet, she settled for a diet coke from the laundry room vending machine. Sipping her coke she clicked on the next search result. “Blessings to get rid of ghosts. Looks like a place to start.”
“Good morning.”
Chaos turned to see the same clerk who registered her yesterday standing in the door. She was holding a steaming coffee and a bag of bagels. Onion by the smell of them. Chaos’s stomach growled. “Morning.”
Without hesitating the woman walked over and peered at the computer monitor. “Seeing ghosts, huh?”
“Just doing research.”
“Uh, huh. That’s why you’re sitting here making a fashion statement in my office and looking up ghosts on my computer. Get in through the laundry?”
Looking at her orange and green flannel pajamas and the untied work boots on her feet. Chaos nodded. She looked like a colorblind lumberjack.
“I need to change that lock,” she said setting the coffee and bagels down on the registration counter. “How long you been in here?”
“What time is it?”
“Six thirty.” She peeled off her coat and hung it on a hook by the door. She wore white tennis shoes that looked like they’d been purchased in the late eighties. Her faded jeans barely reached her ankles. Garfield socks filled the space between the tops of her shoes and the bottom of her jeans. A white long sleeved t-shirt tucked into her high waist jeans completed the outfit.
Chaos had no room to judge considering what she was wearing at the moment. “Then I’ve been in here for more than three hours.”
“You must be hungry,” the lady said. She moved over behind the registration desk and opened the bag of bagels. “I have a coffee pot in the back. I’ll make you some if you want. Help yourself to a bagel.”
Hunger propelled Chaos out of her chair and over to the counter. She grabbed the bagel on top and closed the bag. “Onion. I was right.” Chaos bit into the still warm bagel and stifled a moan. “Thank you. These are really good.”
“Coffee’s brewing. My sister owns the bagel shop down the street. She makes ‘em fresh every morning. My other sister, she may be able to help you with your ghost problem.”
“Who says I have a problem?”
“Ha! You’re kidding, right?” She put a hand on her ample hip. “You’re in my motel lobby in the middle of the night in your pajamas researching how to get rid of ghosts. I’m Janet, by the way.”
Chaos took her outstretched hand, “Chaos.”
“What kind of a name is that?”
Chaos grinned. She liked the lady’s straightforward nature. “The kind you earn. Tell me about your sister. How can she help me with my ghost problem?”
Getting comfortable, Janet took a sip of coffee, leaned against the counter, and prepared to share her story. “Judy, that’s my sister, she lives up in Rollinsville. That’s west of Boulder and up a bit higher. Judy had some ghosts in her home. She thought she was going crazy. She’d leave her keys on her desk and she’d come home and find them on the floor. She’d hear things, feel things.”
“She ever see anything?”
“Patience, dear,” she said. “Judy is a pragmatic woman. All of us are. I have seven sisters. We’re down to earth and grounded. And not much scares us. One day, she comes home and can’t find her keys. She says out loud, “Give me my damn keys.” The keys flew across the room at her and hit her in the face. She had a black eye for days and needed six stitches. Well that scared her. But she didn’t back down. She did what you’re doing right now. She started searching for information on how to get rid of a ghost. Turns out she had five ghosts living with her. Apparently, back in the 1920’s a group of men were killed there by a disgruntled employee.”
“How’d she find that out?”
“Judy called this group in Boulder called the Spirit Savers. They came in, did an investigation. They also researched the history of the home. Then they cleaned the house, sent the spirits away.”
“Cleaned it?”
“Yep, did some sort of ceremony that got rid of the ghosts. Sent them on to hell or heaven or wherever it is they were supposed to go.” She waved her free hand in the air over her head and took a sip of coffee. “You should call them to get rid of your ghost.”
“Maybe I will.” Chaos drained her coffee cup and set it down. “Thanks for the coffee. And the information.”
“Google them.”
“What?”
“Google them. Get their number and call them. Now. You need help. I can see it in your eyes. Don’t waste time, honey. Today is Halloween, the day the veil between the spirit world and our world is at its thinnest, or so they say. Get rid of your ghost today, before he gets stronger. Make him go away so you can go back to your life.”
Chapter Twelve
Suck it Up, Sister
Chaos drove past the house three times.
; It looked nothing like what she'd expected. She imagined that the headquarters for a ghost hunting organization would look spookier, or more professional. The adorable bungalow wasn't at all what she had in mind. White siding with pale yellow shutters, a large covered porch and an arbor laced with climbing roses were as far from creepy. It was about as supernatural a feeling as a pizza. There weren’t even any Halloween decorations on the house. Chaos checked the address again on her phone. Yep, she had the right address. Finally, sucking up her courage, she parked on the street in front of the house.
Maybe it made sense, she thought as she made her way up the driveway. The last thing a group like this wanted was to attract attention, right? They’d spook their neighbors and perhaps even attract hostile attention if they had skulls and crosses in their front yard. A wind chime tinkled on the porch. Chaos noticed small crystals hung from the otherwise traditional Celtic wind chime. She also noticed a large Celtic cross beside the door. On any other house Chaos knew these small symbols wouldn’t have been noticed but on a ghost hunter’s house they seemed important.
Chaos reached the front door and took a deep breath. She knocked hard three times and then stuffed her hands into her coat pockets. Even with the bright sun shining, the air was cold and the wind was colder. She could smell the faint scent of snow and knew a storm wasn’t far away.
The door opened. Chaos took two steps back and repressed a sigh. He was tall - more than six feet and naked from the waist up. Worn jeans clung to his thighs and he was barefoot. Jet black hair hung to his elbows. His hair caught the sun and shimmered like a blackbird’s wings. A vibrant eagle tattoo consumed the span of his wide chest. Muscular, she thought, but not like a gym rat. This guy worked with his body. Touching her own hair, she met his eyes and found a scowl waiting for her.
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