Matt looked back at the mausoleum with a grimace on his face.
First the bell tower and then the mausoleum; Matt was starting to show his cracks, Jonas thought. “How intense were the EVPs?” he asked.
“About the same as the bell tower,” Matt admitted then shrugged as he stepped towards the stone structure.
Jonas followed and just like the bell tower he could feel the oppressiveness of the mausoleum as the door swung open.
“Well at least there aren’t many places to hide such a device,” Jonas said as he stepped inside behind Matt.
“No, but I’m not looking forward to looking into the few places where one could be hidden,” he said as he looked at the tomb in the center of the small room.
Jonas looked at the tomb as well and fielded another shiver. “I doubt that thing has been moved in a few centuries. And even if someone were so inclined to place something inside, I doubt that any kind of signal would make it through the tomb itself. It’s too damned dense.”
“There’s no way to know for certain just how thick the thing is without opening it,” Matt said though did not budge. In spite of his cool demeanor it was obvious that he didn’t want to look inside the tomb any more than Jonas did himself.
After looking around the dusty room, Matt peered outside the mausoleum and glanced around the cemetery and eventually passed through the door, leaving Jonas momentarily alone with the sole tomb in the center of the small structure. It was definitely a creepy feeling being alone with the tomb but it certainly didn’t feel paranormal; not that he had much experience in that field.
“I apologize in advance,” Jonas said to the stone tomb. “I know that if you are still hanging around here in a…noncorporeal form you probably won’t like seeing your tomb disturbed, but Matt seems to think that it’s important and he’s probably right. To be honest I can’t say for sure that good ol’ Stanly Cushman didn’t just go ahead and have the caretaker of this god-awful place plant a few more devices than was planned, but I do know that if Seth finds out he’ll probably kill the bastard…” Jonas said then grimaced at his language, “…pardon my French.”
“Who are you talking to?” Matt asked quizzically when he stepped back into the mausoleum.
Jonas was about to answer when he turned and found the man holding a thick, four foot long tree branch like a baseball bat. “Are you going to beat the tar out of me if I don’t say?”
Matt looked from Jonas to the branch then back again with a wry smile. “No. The thought never occurred to me,” he said evenly.
Yeah right, Jonas thought.
“Well?”
Jonas took as deep a breath as the musty air would allow and looked back at the tomb. “I was apologizing in advance for the intrusion upon the Father’s privacy that we are about to commit.”
Matt couldn’t have looked more doubtful if he had been surgically operated on to do so. “Yeah,” he said then swung the branch down towards the tomb. “Give me a hand with this,” he said as he started to wedge the branch in between the lip of the tomb’s lid and the ornate ridges that surrounded the upper edge of the tomb.
“I really don’t…think that this is…a good idea,” Jonas grunted as they tried to pry the lid from the tomb.
“Probably not,” Matt grunted as well. “But we need…to know for certain.”
For a good five minutes the two men wedged, jammed and pushed the branch into every crease along the tomb in an attempt to remove its lid but each attempt yielded nothing. The damned thing would not budge.
“Somehow I doubt that the caretaker would have been able to move this damned thing, plant a recording or playback device then replace it, even if his entire family helped,” Jonas pointed out rather obviously, but he couldn’t help himself.
Matt dropped the branch and rested back against the tomb. “You know how much I hate to agree with you, but you’re right,” he snarled then grunted a curse. “Come on,” he said after a moment he used to catch his breath. “There’s nothing here.”
Jonas had to bite his tongue to keep from saying “I told you so” and quietly he followed Matt out of the mausoleum, where he secured the door, then the two of them headed for the gates of the cemetery. When they got there, however, they were surprised to find that Jorden was nowhere in sight.
Immediately the smug expression that seemed to be super glued onto Matt’s face fell off and was wholly replaced by worry.
“Jorden, where are you?” he asked into the radio all of the team members carried with them when they were on the hunt and that Matt, Jorden and Jonas all took with them when they left this morning.
An indiscernible crackle filled the radio.
“Say again?” Matt called, but this time there was no response.
“What is it?” Jonas asked.
Matt shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said calmly, though his eyes revealed that inside he was anything but calm. Again he raised the radio to his mouth, “Jorden, where in the hell are you?”
Again there was a crackled response, “-tory-”, was all that could be made out.
“Sounds like she went to the refectory,” Jonas said displaying his true calm.
Matt glared at him but didn’t waste any time arguing. Instead, he took off at a quick jog in the direction of the refectory.
It only took a couple of moments to make it across the compound to the last stop on their search of the monastery grounds and sure enough, when they got there, the door was open and someone was inside. It could have been someone other than Jorden, but Jonas doubted it and when they went inside to investigate he found that he was right.
Inside the dining hall Jorden was scanning over each seam in the wall, looking beneath each table and chair in her search to find anything out of the ordinary.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Matt scolded as he quickly approached. “You know better than anyone else on this island that you don’t go anywhere by yourself!”
At first Jonas thought that Matt was just mad but when he gathered Jorden in his arms he realized just how scared the man had been. “Don’t ever wander off like that again. Not after what we’ve been experiencing on this damned island.”
Jorden was clearly perturbed but she didn’t immediately pull away from Matt. “If you don’t like it then don’t ditch me next to a cemetery again,” she scolded then gently pulled away from him.
She must have forgotten that Jonas was with them because when she looked over at him she flushed a deep red and looked away.
“So did you find anything?” Matt asked.
She shook her head. “Not a damned thing, though I haven’t been in the kitchen yet.”
“That’s where I found both devices from this building,” Jonas volunteered.
“I doubt that there’s…”
Jorden’s words faded off when she looked up at the far corner of the room and fixed her gaze on something.
Both Jonas and Matt followed her gaze to find the same thing she did.
A sudden flash stunned Jonas and from the corner of his eye he could see that Jorden jumped as well.
“What in the hell was that?” Jonas cursed.
“I always keep a digital camera with me when I’m in an allegedly haunted place. You never know when you’re going to see something,” Matt said calmly.
Jonas could not understand, when just a few moments ago he was ready to break a land speed record to get to Jorden because he thought she might be in trouble, how he could be so calm now.
“What in the hell is it?” Jonas asked.
Both Matt and Jorden shook their heads. “It could be an entity struggling to manifest,” Jorden said first.
“Or it could be steam from a broken pipe…or fog,” Matt argued.
“It’s just partly cloudy outside,” Jonas pointed out, unable to take his eyes off of the pulsing mist.
“Steam?” Jorden questioned.
Matt shrugged and the three of them stood there for a moment before Mat
t snapped another picture and the mist disappeared as suddenly as it seemed to appear.
No one said anything, but when Matt headed to the corner and started to look around both Jorden and Jonas knew why and immediately they pitched in to find any explanation into what could have caused the apparition.
For the first time since he started helping out on the investigation Jonas finally started to realize that there was more to this island than met the eye and for the first time since his arrival he felt true fear. The others could be right and whatever was on this island could very well be responsible for his mother’s death. How many more could or would die was now the question.
Jonas needed to get the hell off this island.
Caretaker’s Cottage – 9:45am…
Tony sat in the living room with Matt and Jorden and compared the picture the kids took in the refectory several months ago to the one Matt had snapped less than an hour ago. They were virtually the same.
Tony shook his head and sat back. “Aside from the fact that it’s clear one was taken during the day and the other at night, they’re nearly identical. About the only other difference that I’ve seen is the shape of the mist, and even that’s just a subtle difference.”
“Those were my thoughts,” Jorden said as she gave each photo a close look then shook her head as well. “I wish I knew what it was.”
“Well we couldn’t find anything in the corner of the dining hall to indicate a natural explanation. There was no dust on the lens, no water pipes running through the area, no steam from rain on the roof mixing with the warm sunlight and seeping in through a crack because there weren’t any cracks of any kind in that area, and there were no atmospheric disturbances anywhere near the island,” Matt explained. “There were clouds passing in front of the sun all day but no fog that could have made it in through an open window and again, there were no windows in that area of the room.”
Tony nodded then took another look at the photos on the screen. “I’ll do what I can to enhance it some more, but I’m not going to make any promises. To be honest, I don’t know what it is I’m looking at and I don’t know if any digital manipulation is going to change that.”
Matt clapped him on the shoulder as he stood from the chair beside him. “Just do your best, that’s all I ever ask.”
Tony gave both him and Jorden a nod as they headed out of the living room.
“Interesting morning,” Jorden said as they stepped into the foyer.
“And we still haven’t gone over the hospital grounds yet,” Matt pointed out.
Jorden didn’t want to think of searching for any more playback devices but knew that they didn’t have a choice. She knew that Matt was probably on the verge of calling the whole damned investigation off and to be honest, part of her wished that he would. She didn’t like what had been happening on the island since the day they arrived and deep in her soul she knew that it wasn’t over; that what they had experienced on the monastery grounds so far was just the tip of the iceberg.
“Well we might as well take our own equipment with us,” Matt said. “I don’t want to look too suspicious by searching the damned hospital from top to bottom with no reasonable explanation, not to mention the fact that it would take too long to search the hospital then return later with the equipment. We might as well kill two birds with one stone.”
This was a point of contention between Jorden and Matt. She felt strongly that they should tell the others about what Jonas’s people had done, but Matt was adamant about the fact that he did not think that they needed to know; that it would only upset the team and take away from the true investigation.
And as much as she hated it and in spite of the fact that they were supposed to be equal partners in the firm, usually what Matt said was law, though rare were the times she complained. She certainly didn’t want to shoulder the responsibilities that Matt seemed to relish.
“Fine,” she sighed and headed to the kitchen where their equipment was arranged on the table and around on the floor; each batch going to a different area in the hospital. “Where to first?”
“I thought that we’d start with the hospital itself. We’ll start on the top floor then work our way down. Once that’s clear, we’ll take care of the outbuildings.”
Jorden nodded. “Sounds like a plan,” she said then reached for one of the cases when she stopped suddenly and stood.
“What is it?” Matt questioned; his brows knit with worry.
“Where’s Jonas?” she asked.
Matt hadn’t realized that Jonas wasn’t in the kitchen where they had left him, though before either one could inquire further, Jonas jogged down the stairs.
“Where’d you go?” Matt questioned.
Jonas’s eyes narrowed and it was clear that the tight leash Matt was keeping on the man was wearing heavily on his nerves. “Changing my clothes,” he said. “After our trip into the cemetery and all of the fussing with the tree branch, I was a tad dirty and wanted to change.”
Jorden completely ignored Jonas’s snarky attitude and turned to Matt. “Tree branch?” she asked. “Something you forgot to tell me?”
Matt’s cheeks flushed and he suddenly looked as though he was a kid who just got caught sneaking a pack of gum out of a convenience store without paying.
When Matt didn’t readily speak up Jorden turned to Jonas with her best “teacher” look and waited. “Well?” she asked.
Jonas motioned with just a quick snap of his neck for Jorden to follow him outside onto the small porch and out of earshot of the others who had started milling around the living and dining rooms.
“There were very few places in the mausoleum where anything could have been hidden away, and one of those few places turned out to be the tomb in the center of the room,” Jonas explained quickly after the door shut behind them. “So it was our intention to remove the lid and take a look.”
Jorden’s eyes went big and she could feel her heart drop as she turned and shot a stunned and worried glare at Matt. “You did what?” It pissed her off that her voice actually cracked and she had to choke the question out, but she was both pissed and worried and she supposed that she should have been happy that she managed to get the question out at all.
“We never got the thing off,” Matt quickly defended.
“Thank God!” Jorden snapped then smacked Matt in the arm. “That’s just asking for trouble and you know it!”
“I had to know!” he defended.
“No you didn’t! Not that bad!” she argued further. “We have enough problems here without having to piss off the dead!”
Matt didn’t argue but for a moment the two of them stood and stared at one another. “You’re right,” Matt said suddenly. “I’m sorry.”
In the years she had known Matt, Jorden had never heard him admit that he was wrong about anything; there were times when he would not continue an argument if he realized that the other person’s point held more water than his own, but never had he come out and admit that he was ever wrong.
Jorden’s awe and confusion must have been clearly evident on her face because Matt took a step back with a curious look of his own. “What?”
It took a moment but Jorden finally shook away her surprise and she flashed him a light smile. “Nothing. It’s just that I’ve never heard you admit that you were wrong about anything before.”
Matt’s brows furrowed a bit and he donned a mischievous grin. “I never said that I was wrong,” he said evenly. “I only said that you were right.”
Jorden loved her verbal sparring matches with Matt and she took a step closer to him. “Is this you splitting hairs again?” she questioned with an impish grin of her own.
Matt also took a step closer to her until they were just a couple of inches apart from one another and he looked down into her face. “I would never. I’m simply stating fact. Saying that you were right and saying that I was wrong are two completely different things.”
“Really,” Jorden said and stared up in
to his deep brown eyes. It was like looking into two bowls of chocolate pudding and her heart started to beat faster, though she forced herself to remain calm.
“Really,” he confirmed calmly. “You’re point was simply more valid than mine, that’s all. I’m not saying that I was in the wrong, just that you might be right.”
She jumped on that. “Uh-uh, you said that I was right and you can’t take it back now.”
Jorden thought that Matt might get frustrated with the conversation but instead of getting annoyed or snapping at her, his lips curved upward and he smiled at her. But he said nothing.
Jorden didn’t know how long they stood on the porch staring into each other’s eyes, and it might have lasted all day had Jonas not stepped up to them.
“I don’t mean to interrupt whatever might be going on here, but don’t you think that we should head over to the hospital before the others start out?” Jonas asked.
Still, neither Jorden nor Matt wanted to be the first to budge, but Jonas was right; damn him.
“Let’s go,” Jorden said while she only barely managed to keep her tone even in spite of her racing heart.
It took a moment before Matt would budge, but eventually he headed back inside then quickly reappeared with the first cases of equipment meant for the top two floors of the main hospital building.
It didn’t take long for Jorden to get her head back in the game. “Where exactly are we going to be setting these up?” she asked as she took one of the cases from Matt.
“The first case has two IRs and a thermal. I want the first IR pointed at the atrium where Doctor Klaus hung himself, keeping the particular window where he did it in the center of the frame. The second IR is to be placed at the other end of the floor in the psych ward where they performed their various therapies. There’s a cluster of rooms there where they performed both shock therapy as well as lobotomies and I want all those rooms in view. As far as the thermal goes, I want it placed at the end of the opposite hall and facing back towards the nurses’ station at the center of the floor with a wide angle. If there is something or someone wandering those halls I don’t want to miss them.”
The Haunting of Isola Forte di Lorenzo Page 20