Carrie didn't look any more reassured. I did something thoroughly out of character and put my hand on her shoulder. It was awkward, and I couldn't seem to relax it enough for it to feel natural to me, but Carrie's reaction indicated that she drew strength from the gesture.
"I'm going to figure this out, okay?" I said. "We're going to find Jordin, and we're going to figure out what this thing on you is. In the meantime, I want you to go to Health Services and have a doctor check you out. Have them look at that ... mark ... on your neck, and make sure it's not infected or anything." I stood up and took out my cell phone. "If you don't mind, I'd like to take a picture of it."
Carrie nodded and wordlessly pulled her hair up while I quickly took a close-up shot of the ugly black marking on her neck.
I had already opened the door to go when I turned back to look at Carrie, another thought jumping to mind. She still sat on the bed right where I'd left her, as if frozen and afraid to move.
"Do the words `the nightmare' mean anything to you?" I asked.
Carrie looked up at me, fast. Her eyes were huge. "That's what it says-the figure in my dream!" she whispered, her voice quivering again. "Over and over! It says, `The nightmare-' "
" `-is coming,' " I finished with her, the two of us saying the phrase in chorus.
Silence hung in the air between us, lingering with a thick, indescribable dread.
Early that evening, after informing Derek of what had happened in Carrie's room, I went back to use a computer in the library since my own had been destroyed. Besides, I was grateful for an opportunity to work without Derek's prying eyes watching. This particular search was something I just wasn't prepared to discuss with him. Not yet.
I typed the words "The nightmare is coming" in the browser's search pane, placing the entire phrase in quotes, and I was surprised to see several hundred entries pop up. I scanned through a dozen of them rapidly, learning that most of them were written by people who had visited Ghost Town amusement park. Their stories were similar to mine, with strange specters appearing to them at various random locations throughout the park and saying the foreboding phrase. But no two experiences seemed to be the same, and none of them matched mine.
Next I found a message board that was dedicated to the phrase, and most of the people that posted there were collecting utterances of the words at the amusement park, chronicling the times and locations that it happened. The consensus seemed to be that it was all some kind of interactive experience meant to excite fans and build curiosity about the amusement park. That wasn't what I was hoping to find.
So I ran a search for the exact phrase "Ghost Town amusement park."
The park had its own website, of course. But after spending a few minutes surfing through some of its features-a dedicated page all about the Haunted House, a look at some fan-written reviews of numerous attractions at the park-I found it didn't contain any info that was all that helpful. I looked for a staff application page, wondering if Ghost Town was hiring new employees, thinking that might be a possible justification for Jordin's appearance there. It made no sense to me that super-rich Jordin Cole would get a summer job working at an amusement park, but I wasn't ready to consider any explanations yet that ventured outside of what was natural.
Coming up dry, I decided to try a different tack. I typed some new terms into the search bar: "Ghost Town," "funded," and "owner."
Several news stories came up from about a year ago, announcing the forthcoming opening of Ghost Town in New York. I clicked on the first one. It was an article from the Times.
The article identified the primary investor in Ghost Town to be something called DHI, though it failed to explain just what DHI was.
I typed the three-letter acronym into the search bar and several possibilities came up. There was the Door and Hardware Institute. Definitely not that one. DHI Water and Environment. Doubtful. There was an advertising firm, a hair loss clinic, a home building conglomerate.
I was about to give up when at the bottom of the page I spotted Durham Holdings International. The link gave no indication of what kind of business Durham Holdings was, so I clicked on it.
Up came a snazzy website that described DHI as an international investment firm, with partners in industries of all kinds, from around the world. I clicked a link labeled "Assets" and scanned the long list of company names.
There it was. "Ghost Town LLC."
I spent the next half hour reading up on Durham Holdings International, absorbing all that I could. I walked away knowing that the company had been started by one Howell Durham, a world-renowned wild game hunter and venture capitalist, and that his company's interests were extremely diverse but mostly based around new product development. I was disappointed to discover that its corporate headquarters were in Copenhagen, which eliminated any chance that I would be able to pay them a visit. From a world away, DHI was virtually untouchable.
All the while, a nagging thought kept tugging at the back of my mind.
What if I was making too much out of nothing? Did I really see and hear what I thought I did that night at the Haunted House? What if it was just a psychosomatic response?
The thought kept intruding on my research to the point that I finally decided to give in. Abandoning the web, I stood to my feet and exited the library.
I had to know.
Ghost Town was located out on Long Island, just east of Queens. It'd be a trek, but I wouldn't be deterred by this; it was only six in the evening when I jumped on the train and I knew Ghost Town would be open much later than most amusement parks. This place was one of a kind, and scaring patrons was easier to do late at night than during the day, so its operation hours stretched deep into the night.
The place wasn't quite as packed as I remembered it from the other night. That was a Saturday; this was a Tuesday, and with summer over, visitors seemed less enticed.
A taxi from the station dropped me at the entrance, and I paid the thirty-five-dollar admission fee, though it pained me to turn that money loose for the sake of confirming what had probably just been a kooky coincidence. But I did it, and made a straight path for the Haunted House.
My theory was simple. If I walked through the tour again and the events inside unfolded exactly as they had before, then that meant the attraction was nothing but smoke and mirrors, and my overactive imagination was seeing patterns and connections to things in my own life that weren't really there.
If it played out differently, however, then ... then that thought led to dark places I didn't hope to explore.
Despite the park's diminished attendance, the wait in line for the Haunted House was almost as long as before. At the entrance, I was admitted with a pair of teenagers who looked like they were on a date. They screamed and held each other tight at all the predictable places. I tried to ignore their over-the-top reactions, focusing instead on watching the attraction's events unfold with a clinical detachment.
Most of it occurred exactly as before. The red eyes in the kitchen. The dining room apparitions. The creepy hallway.
When I got to the living room I made a point of being the first one in so I could take up my position in the center of the room before the teenagers did.
Just like before, the room was dark and a mist entered the room. But this mist was different. It was a much brighter white and it seemed to dart from one side of the room to the other. Just when one cloud would disappear, another would dart past, going a different direction. It happened again and again, and my eyes traced its origins to a system of ducts hidden near the ceiling on all four walls.
It was programmed, precise, very well executed, and ... unquestionably artificial.
As the double front doors opened and I followed the teenage couple out into the cold night air, I felt a numbness fall over my skin. It wasn't a supernatural sensation; it was my own emotions allowing the horrible truth to sink in.
I'd seen Jordin Cole here three nights ago, and whatever she was, she wasn't part of the attraction.
>
So what was she? What happened to her? And if she really was a ghost, how did she wind up in this park, of all places?
And then, the worst thought of all entered my mind.
I was going to have to tell Derek.
MARCH 3RD
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, provided a surprisingly warm and welcome respite from the frigid winds of New York. In fact, it was downright sticky as we exited the Baton Rouge airport and headed north to St. Francisville, the first of three stops on this trip.
I still couldn't believe I'd let Jordin talk me into this one. It was spring break, for crying out loud. We had a whole week, and I could have been sunning at the beach or catching up on studies or visiting my family. Instead, Jordin offered to pay me triple for a week-long adventure at multiple haunted locations far away from New England.
There was just no sating this girl's thirst.
So I chose three of the most haunted locations in the deep South and plotted a trip that would give us time to spend at least one night at each.
The Myrtles Plantation was first on the itinerary. Once a stately plantation home, it was now a converted bed-andbreakfast nestled in the backwoods of rural Louisiana. I had briefed Jordin about the place on the plane, and though she'd never heard of it, she had stopped questioning my choice of haunted locations. The place overflowed with legends, and it's anybody's guess how many were true.
Surrounded by five thousand acres of cotton fields, the Myrtles was supposedly built over an Indian burial ground. ("Why are so many places built over Indian burial grounds?" was Jordin's comment when I told her about this.) There was a large mirror in the foyer in which many have claimed to see the images of people who died on the grounds-an unpleasant thought for me.
The most famous Myrtles legend concerned a slave girl named Chloe who was owned by the plantation's owners in the early 1800s. Over five hundred slaves lived and worked and died on the plantation, but Chloe was by far the most famous. Reports of how and why she died varied greatly, but the story told most frequently said that Chloe had had her ear cut off for spying on the plantation owner, who kept her as his mistress and then later killed her for accidentally poisoning his wife and daughters. But whatever happened to her, it was probably pretty awful, and she was the apparition seen most often on the property, a mournful figure wearing a green turban.
At one time, the owners tried to downplay the rumor of hauntings, hoping not to scare customers off, but in recent years they'd begun to embrace the legends, welcoming paranormal enthusiasts as regular guests.
We drove through the short white picket fence that surrounded the place and past the tall white guard house, and I pointed out the many statues throughout the property. Long strands of gray Spanish moss hung from the canopy of trees surrounding the plantation as we drove up the dark, narrow driveway. The white main house ahead was so lovely, Jordin mentioned how impossible it seemed that a place this quaint and welcoming could be haunted.
"And I thought it would be bigger," she added as we unloaded our gear and luggage from the car.
I couldn't criticize her for that. I'd told her so much about this place, and it had such an infamous reputation, it was easy to overestimate how big it might be. The Myrtles was a small plantation house, made up of just twenty rooms total, including the guest rooms.
The two of us slowly made our way up the short stairs that led to the picturesque north porch. It was still midafternoon, so there was no need to rush to check in. Blue wrought-iron railings with intricately patterned details surrounded the porch and extended all the way up to the overhang. Seven or eight white wooden rocking chairs sat empty on the humongous porch, rocking themselves by inches due to a mild wind blowing.
I was glad I'd brought warm-weather clothes with me. My sweater and jeans I'd worn on the plane from brisk New York were already making me sweat. Changing would be the first order of business when we got checked in.
We got to the front door, but Jordin hesitated, looking back over her shoulder at the surrounding grounds.
"Have you ever met a witch doctor or voodoo priestess?" she asked.
I shook my head.
"Me neither. I guess being in Louisiana, the feel of it, just made me wonder. How about witches? Or Wiccans? Ever met any?"
"Only once or twice. Made me uncomfortable," I confessed. "All the rituals and stuff-too dark, too weird. Seems to bring them close to dark forces that no one should get close to."
"I think the most paranormal thing I ever did was play with a Ouija board at a sleepover when I was eleven."
"Bad idea," I said. "I can't believe they still sell those things. As if they're harmless board games! They're incredibly dangerous. You wouldn't believe how many people have used them to accidentally invite dark entities into their homes."
Jordin didn't argue. "It was definitely creepy, though we never had anything bad happen afterward. But my dad was furious when he found out. Called it a witch board, said it was of the devil."
"Guess he wouldn't care much for his daughter going out ghost hunting, then."
Jordin looked away. "No ... he'd probably say we're playing with fire. Just like Derek."
I still hadn't met Jordin's fiance, and the two of us hadn't discussed him since what Jordin had told me at the Stanley Hotel. It was a touchy subject, and even though she gave me an opening, I tried to steer things in a safer direction.
"Does he remind you of your dad? Derek?"
Jordin's face was a mixture of sadness and elation. "Yeah. He really does. I guess that's a good thing. They say you always pick a mate that reminds you of your parent."
"So what did it tell you?" I couldn't resist asking.
"Hm?"
"The Ouija board."
"Oh, urn. .." Jordin's eyes darkened and her voice dropped to a mumble, "it told me my parents were going to die."
The friendly staff at the Myrtles checked us in quickly and showed us to our rooms. Jordin had gladly put up enough funds to ensure that we would have the building entirely to ourselves overnight, with no other guests and even the front desk clerk being paid extra to take the night off.
Jordin also gave them enough money to allow the two of us to have our own private rooms on the ground floor, and when she mumbled something about needing to rest after the long plane ride, I silently agreed and shuffled into my own room. Best to get a good nap now to prepare for the long night ahead. And talking about Jordin's parents had seemed to cast a gloom over us both, so I was glad for the break.
I was about to lie down on the comfy-looking bed, having drawn the curtains closed and turned off all the lights, when I saw in the sunlight still stubbornly filtering through the brightcolored curtains that my door was still open.
I could've sworn I'd closed it, but gave it little thought as I pushed it closed again. This time I locked it.
Finally, I gave myself to the gloriously soft bed and handcrafted quilt on top.
Three hours later, I awoke to the sound of crying.
I opened my groggy eyes and noted that while the sun was still out, my room had grown a bit darker as I slept. So deeply asleep had I been that it took a few seconds to remember where I was.
Then I saw it. The door to my room was cracked open. Again.
Even though I'd locked it.
Beyond the small opening between door and post the distant sounds of painful sobbing drifted into the room.
My first thought was that it was Jordin, in her room several doors down the hall. She must have still been upset about speaking of her parents dying. I rose slowly from the bed and slipped out into the hall, my barefoot steps tapping lightly on the hardwood floors as I glided toward Jordin's room.
But Jordin opened her door before I could reach it and cast a significant gaze at me as she, too, listened intently to the sound. Oddly, it seemed no louder at this end of the hall than it had from my room, even though I had been certain that it was coming from this direction.
When we were close enough to speak, Jord
in whispered, "You think it's her? That slave girl, Chloe?"
I shook my head, having no answers for her. "Grab your digital recorder."
Jordin spun on her heels to zip back into her room.
I stood very still and listened from my perch in the hallway, trying to get a bead on the direction of the sound. It showed no signs of stopping. It was a pitiful, soft wailing.
It suddenly hit me just as Jordin returned with her recorder in hand and already on.
"It's outside," I said.
Jordin listened and nodded eagerly in agreement, so the two of us located the nearest exit and walked around the building until we got closer to the sound. We rounded a last corner to face an empty wall of siding. Nothing was visible, but the sound was very close now.
I quickly pulled out my phone and snapped some photos of the area, set to the highest resolution my phone would allow. I didn't stop to review them; there would be time for that later. I just kept snapping until my phone ran out of memory.
"I don't see anything," said Jordin, and though her words came out in a whisper, the grounds had been so quiet aside from the sobbing that I nearly jumped when she spoke.
Apparently I wasn't the only one. Because just like that, the crying stopped and all was quiet.
"I think you scared it off," I observed. It seemed as though Jordin's statement had gotten the ghost's attention and caused it to flee the area. "Come on, let's head back inside. We won't see or hear her again anytime soon. If that really was her. Now she'll be watching for us."
Jordin hesitated, staring all around. "Sorry if I frightened you," she said quietly as she searched the landscape for any signs of the apparition.
I was a bit surprised at Jordin's soft-spoken words. Maybe there was hope for her as a genuine paranormal investigator yet.
Dusk approached rapidly, and since we were already outside, I directed us to the gazebo. The Myrtles had a man-made pond with a small island in the middle. Sitting atop that island was a tiny white gazebo, and it was the site of a lot of reported activity.
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