“You seriously think this guy is innocent?” Peter asked.
“Yeah, I do,” Luke said. “Until I see hard evidence to the contrary, I’m choosing to believe his story. And I think Mikey is, too.”
Oh, please don’t drag me into this, Michael wanted to say. Unfortunately, it was a little late for that. He was already about as far in as he could get.
“I think he’s telling the truth,” he answered, choosing his words carefully. “I think he’s lonely, confused... I think he needs help. Whether we’re the ones to give it to him is another matter.”
“Why?” Luke asked. “Who better to give it to him? We’ve got four professional ghost hunters, a psychic medium - ”
“I’m not psychic,” Michael interrupted, but Luke ignored him.
“A sensitive who has actually experienced the afterlife, and, well, Gavin,” Luke concluded.
“Hey, I’ve got experience. Any of the rest of you know what it’s like to have a ghost sucking the life out of you every day?” Gavin asked.
“Fair point,” Luke acknowledged.
“So, how are we going to help him?” Kate asked.
“We make him see reason and help him move on. Since his life seemed to revolve around his love for Joanna, I’m guessing that’s what’s holding him here in death.”
“Obsessed,” Peter murmured.
Luke threw him a look, but didn’t say anything. Michael, on the other hand, didn’t care all that much about Peter’s theories. He was more concerned about how Luke intended to make Sterling “see reason.” It was hard enough to make the living see reason, and they didn’t come with all those fun supernatural tricks like draining energy and making a whole room full of people nauseated. True, it was easier for the living to throw things, but in Michael’s experience, angry spirits could be just as dangerous and sometimes twice as quick-tempered as their living counterparts.
“Well, whatever we do, it’s going to have to wait until tomorrow. I’m beat,” Gail announced.
“That might not give us enough time,” Luke said.
“What? You want to do this tonight? Luke, we’ve already had one bad session with this guy, two if you count the one where Michael finds out this guy’s a head case, and we’re going to be up late again tomorrow night for the last investigation. We need to get some rest.”
“Fine. Go get some rest,” Luke told her, sliding his feet into his old green Converse shoes. “I’m going to take a camera out and see if I can find him. Mikey, you with me?”
Somehow, Michael figure that no wasn’t the right answer, so he pulled himself off the bed and said, “Let’s go.”
“I’m going too,” Kate said, standing up beside him. JT also volunteered.
“Have fun,” Gail told them as she, Peter, and Gavin headed back to their rooms. Michael couldn’t help noticing Kate’s eyes following her brother out the door. Although his rendezvous with Gail hadn’t come up since that afternoon, Michael could tell that neither Luke nor Kate had forgotten about it.
“Don’t you want to turn on the lights?” Michael asked as they ventured out into the dark hallway.
“Night vision,” Luke reminded him. “Just follow the glow of the screen.”
“Easy for him to say,” Michael muttered to Kate, who snickered and took his hand.
“So, where exactly are we heading?” JT asked. “Does anyone know where we’re supposed to find this guy?”
“Mikey, any ideas?”
Now why would Luke even ask him that? Did he ever have any ideas as far as ghosts were concerned? Sterling hadn’t revealed anything deep or personal enough to give him any sort of insight on things like where he liked to hang out when he wasn’t tormenting the living.
Although, if there was one thing anyone knew about Sterling, it was how his life had revolved around his devotion to Joanna.
“My guess would be anywhere that reminds him of his wife,” Michael said.
“The master bedroom?” JT suggested.
Even though deep down, he knew that was where they were headed, Michael was reluctant to return. Kate seemed equally hesitant.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked.
“Now that we know a little more about him, we should be able to communicate more effectively,” Luke explained. “This evening, we thought he was just another asshole spirit throwing a hissy fit. If I had known just how confused and crazy he was, I would’ve tried to have been a little more sensitive.”
“Sensitivity. Who knew?” Michael quipped as they approached the dark and abandoned master bedroom.
“Alright, now I know we didn’t have the best experience here a few hours ago, so maybe if we just stand in the doorway, we can still get in touch with him,” Luke said.
“That is fine with me,” Kate said, snuggling closer to Michael. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders with a very false sense of confidence and bravado.
“Okay Mikey, since you’re the last one he talked to, I think you should try summoning him. Who knows? Maybe he trusts you,” Luke said.
Michael highly doubted that, but he figured it was worth a shot.
“Okay,” he agreed. Then he remembered that he had never actually “summoned” a spirit before and had no idea how to go about doing so. He knew he couldn’t dwell on it for too long without seeming incompetent, so he cleared his throat and mumbled, “Um... Sterling?”
No response.
After a few moments of silence and stillness, Michael decided to try again. “It’s me, Michael, the uh... decent young man from the kitchen. I’m here with my friends. We’d like to talk to you.”
Still nothing.
“I told them what you said... about the house and Joanna. We don’t want to hurt you or upset you any more than we already have. We just... we need to talk to you. We think maybe we can help you.”
“Why do you keep insisting that I need help?”
The voice cut through the darkness so suddenly that Michael gasped. Kate looked up at him, the alarm on her pretty face visible even in the poor lighting.
“Is he here?” JT asked.
“Yeah.” Michael squinted, trying desperately to make out a form or a shadow, but his eyes were no match for the pitch blackness of the master bedroom.
“I thought it might go without saying that I don’t appreciate you talking about me as though I were not present, but I see that it in fact does not.”
“Sorry,” Michael said. And he really was. He hadn’t realized up until then how rude they would seem to a ghost. Sterling must have thought they were a few of the most inconsiderate folks on the planet.
“Sorry for wh - oh, right. Never mind,” Luke said after he figured out that Michael wasn’t talking to him. “Listen, Sterling, we’re not here to offend you or to try to take over your house. We just need to talk to you. We think there are things that you... well, that you don’t quite realize about yourself.”
“What are you talking about?” Sterling asked.
Michael wasn’t sure if he should repeat what Sterling had said or not. He knew there was no way Luke could answer him unless he knew about the question. But he wasn’t sure that repeating what Sterling had just said wouldn’t upset the spirit even more. Nervously, he cleared his throat again and muttered, “What are you talking about?” to Luke.
“You know, Sterling, there are some things.... Well, there’s no easy way to say them. And I’m not one for beating around the bush.”
“Then don’t,” Sterling snapped.
“Don’t,” Michael repeated.
“Sterling, I want to ask you a question. Have you noticed anything strange about the way you spend most of your days? People don’t talk to you. They don’t even look at you. The world is changing all around you and yet, you’re still about the same as you were, say, a hundred and fifty years ago.”
Michael held his breath as he anticipated Sterling’s response, but the ghost remained silent.
“Anything?” Luke hissed back at Michael.
“N
ope,” Michael murmured. He felt Kate tense next to him. He held her closer.
“Sterling, look, I know this is hard for you to accept. I know you probably don’t want to accept it, but death is just a part of our existence. You know, everything that lives eventually has to die.”
Michael longed more than anything to tell Luke to shut up, but he couldn’t make his mouth form the words. The master bedroom, which only moments prior had been as quiet as a tomb, now radiated a terrible and violent energy, so intense it was almost tangible. A near-crippling wave of nausea washed over Michael, as he leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths and willing himself not to be sick.
Kate meanwhile took his clammy hand in hers and gripped it until he thought she might cut off the circulation. Her fingers were cold and trembling.
In that moment, Michael hated Luke for dragging them into this, hated Sterling for what he was doing to them, and most of all, hated himself for going along with all of it, especially because he knew how dangerous it could be.
JT, meanwhile, seemed utterly unaffected. “Luke, the camera’s dead,” he said, apparently unaware of the spirit’s powerful attack.
He must not be a sensitive, Michael thought bitterly.
“Yeah, so is mine,” Luke replied, but he sounded a little uncomfortable, which gave Michael an admittedly sick sense of satisfaction. If he and Kate were going to be miserable, at least Luke was suffering right along with them. “Sterling, I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but if you wouldn’t mind, could you maybe dial it down a bit on the psychic attack? I’m really not in the mood to lose my lunch.”
That was it.
A screeching, ear-piercing howl arose from the center of the room as a gust of cold air engulfed them in a strange cyclone of despair and heartache. In the midst of everything, Michael managed to flip the lights on just in time to witness every boarded up window in the master bedroom bursting open, sending splinters and chunks of wood showering down into the center of the room.
Kate screamed.
Luke was so startled that he stumbled backwards, catching his foot on one of the old pieces of wood sticking up out of the floor. With a panicked yell, he and his camera toppled to the ground.
“Luke! Oh my God, are you alright?” Kate asked.
“Yeah, fine,” he grunted. “Ow...”
“Man, why are we not getting this on tape?” JT moaned.
Definitely not a sensitive, Michael thought again as he scanned the bedroom for Sterling, but the ghost had managed to slip away in the midst of all the commotion. Finally, the dust in the room started to settle and the sickening heaviness of Sterling’s psychic assault slowly but surely began to lift. Michael turned to face his friends, still wide-eyed and weary from the encounter.
“Well,” Luke said, pulling himself back up to his feet. “That could’ve gone a lot better.”
Chapter 20
No one said a word as they all made their way back to their own rooms for a few more hours of sleep. For Kate, the silence came as a substantial relief. She didn’t want to talk or think about how she was feeling after that confrontation.
Truth be told, she didn’t really know how she was feeling. She just knew that coming to Stanton Hall Manor had been a mistake. She couldn’t say how or why she thought that, just that she wanted nothing more than to be back home, safe in her own bed, miles and miles and miles away from that horrible place. Kate wondered if maybe, just maybe, Luke would consider leaving a day early. Surely, they had more than enough footage for their episode.
After Luke and JT bade them listless goodnights and disappeared into their bedrooms, Michael walked Kate back to hers. Of the four of them, she knew that he’d been the most affected by Sterling’s attack. He was still shaken and pale as a sheet, with dark circles under his tired eyes.
Naturally, though, Michael was more concerned for her well-being than his own.
“Are you going to be alright?” he asked her as soon as they reached her room. She wanted to tell him, yes, that she was totally fine, having the time of her life, and so happy that they’d come on this exciting adventure. But she couldn’t lie, especially to him.
“I don’t know,” she replied, her voice small and timid. “I - I feel like this is my fault.”
“How could it be your fault?” Michael asked.
“Because I pushed you into this. I knew you didn’t want to come, but I made you come anyway.” She could feel a knot forming in the back of her throat, but she tried to swallow it. She didn’t want to cry. She was too exhausted to cry.
“Kate...” he whispered, sounding heartbroken. “How could you possibly think that?”
“Because it’s true. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...” Kate whimpered as the tears that had threatened finally began to flow freely down her cheeks.
Michael had her in his arms immediately.
“Kate, listen to me. This is no one’s fault, not yours, not even Luke’s. Well, okay, it’s sort of Luke’s, but in the end, it was still my decision to come. But still, that doesn’t matter. None of us could have known what was waiting for us up here. We all thought this was going to be a great experience.”
“You didn’t,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, but it’s me. I never think anything is going to be a great experience.”
Kate managed to choke out a laugh. It was kind of true. And she loved him for it. She looked up at him through the tears clinging to her eyelashes.
“Will you stay with me tonight?” she whispered. “Please. I don’t want to be alone.”
“Of course,” Michael replied.
In that moment, Kate couldn’t imagine being more thankful for one person. She wrapped her arms around his torso and buried her face in his T-shirt. He would be there, and he would protect her. From the very beginning, she’d found comfort in his arms, in his scent, in his warm eyes.
Feeling that she could drift off at any moment, Kate unwillingly pulled herself from Michael’s embrace to unlock her bedroom door.
“Kind of silly, isn’t it?”
“What is?” Michael asked.
“Locking a door in a haunted house,” Kate replied dryly.
“Oh, yeah. Whoa.” He stopped and stared once she finally opened the door. Kate felt her blood freeze in her veins. Had something followed them back to her room? She waited, terrified, for some sort of explanation. Finally, he said, “That is a lot of green.”
Kate breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He was just talking about the color of the room. At least, she thought that was what “green” meant. Ever since her car accident, it was pretty safe to assume that any word she didn’t understand was the name of a color. But at least there were no ghosts.
He must have sensed her weariness, because he glanced down at her and asked, “Are you alright?”
“Yeah. You just scared me,” she said. “The way you reacted, I thought you’d seen a ghost. Literally.”
Michael managed a mild chuckle.
“I’m sorry,” he told her, taking her back into his arms.
She savored his embrace for only a moment before she pulled away and looked him in the eye. “What if Peter’s right?”
“What?” he asked, her question clearly having caught him off guard.
“What if Sterling did do something to Joanna and he’s acting this way because he doesn’t want anyone to know? Or maybe he doesn’t realize that he did it. I mean, obsession... it can be a scary thing. And he’s so aggressive with these attacks. I just... I can’t help thinking that there’s something we’re missing... something that maybe he doesn’t want us to know, that maybe he doesn’t want to acknowledge himself, and that’s why he’s acting like he doesn’t realize he’s dead.”
“I don’t think that’s the case, at least I hope not. He really seemed to believe that he was still alive,” Michael replied, but Kate couldn’t tell if he really believed that or if he was just trying to make her feel better.
“Did he say that?”
“Not in those words. But he did talk about how no one ever acknowledged him, even when he was standing in front of their eyes. I figure that’s kind of the same thing.”
“I guess,” Kate said, still not entirely convinced. “I wish we were back home. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“I don’t either,” Michael said. “At least we only have one more night.”
“Thank goodness,” Kate murmured as she slipped off her bedroom shoes. Glancing at the clock on her bed-stand, she saw that it was almost four in the morning. Thinking about how little rest they would actually be able to get that night made her even more exhausted than she already felt.
But even after she was nestled safely in Michael’s warm arms, she still couldn’t relax. Her mind was racing and her nerves were completely shot, and for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why. By all reasoning, these encounters should be nothing compared to storming into an open field to save Michael from a mad woman with a gun, and she’d slept just fine after that -- once she knew that Michael would be alright, that is.
But, a small voice in the back of her mind whispered, you did have trouble sleeping whenever Trevor was around.
Was that it, then? Was she really that scared of ghosts? She didn’t think she was. She thought she understood that ghosts were simply people, not the monsters or unearthly beings that horror movies portrayed. But if she knew that, really and truly knew that, then why did the presence of a spirit still send unpleasant shivers down her spine? Why was her initial inclination to flee rather than to embrace? Was it because of some innate fear of the unknown? Or perhaps even a fear of death? It sort of made sense. The human body was designed for life, after all, and every instinct and function was geared for self-preservation. Maybe what she called a “fear of ghosts” was actually her body’s primal response to the presence of death.
Or maybe you’re just scared of ghosts, that rational little voice argued again.
I have no reason to be scared of them, though, she argued back.
You have no reason to be scared of roaches either, and yet you were ready to chop your own foot off after one crawled across your shoe.
Between Worlds (Cemetery Tours Book 2) Page 15