A Babe in Ghostland

by Lisa Cach

By three o’clock, Eric still hadn’t gotten out of bed. Megan poked her head in his door to check on him and was greeted by a loud snore. The gray light of the overcast day, creeping through the windows, had not been enough to wake him.

  “Eric?” Megan called in a whisper. “You awake?”

  More snores.

  She gently shut the door and left him to it. Last night must have taken a lot out of him, and he was probably sleep-deprived to begin with.

  Earlier, Case had gone outside to do some physical work. “It clears my mind,” he explained. Now Megan went outside to see what he was up to.

  She found him a half-dozen feet from the front gate, digging at the base of the wall. A heap of greenery was behind him.

  “Gardening?” Megan asked, walking up the drive to him.

  He looked up from his work. “De-gardening. I’m pulling off the ivy. Nasty stuff, not native. Rats love to live in it.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Eric up yet?” he inquired.

  She shook her head. A chill passed over her skin, and she crossed her arms, rubbing the backs of them with her hands. She raised her eyes to the gray sky. “Looks like the weather is turning.”

  He balanced his forearm atop the shovel, looking upward himself. “My guess is it’ll start raining within the hour. The breeze has been picking up.” He took a step back to admire his handiwork. “Not much more to go. Looks better, doesn’t it?” he asked, grinning.

  “Much.” Megan tilted her head, looking at the wall. “That iron fence on top is a little strange, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve seen walls done like this before. Not quite in these proportions but a similar idea.”

  “It might look better without that iron. It’s sort of prisonlike, don’t you think? And it somehow doesn’t look quite right.”

  “You think I should take it down?”

  The wind gusted, and Megan felt a sprinkling of cold rain. “I wonder if the fence was part of the original wall or a later add-on. It might be truer to the original house to take it down.”

  “One of those old photos might show you.”

  She perked up. “You’re right! I’ll go look.”

  “I’ll be in soon,” he said, and went back to work.

  Megan hurried back toward the house, casting another look skyward. A crow coasted by, almost low enough to touch. Surprised, Megan skittered sideways, but it flew on to join its cronies in the maple. She regained the shelter of the house and went to grab a sweater before heading to the library to go through the photos.

  Rain pattered on the glass of the library window by the time she found an old photo with a good shot of the wall.

  There was no fence on top.

  What had possessed the Smithsons to put up the fence? The wall was much more pleasing without it. Inviting, friendly.

  Had that been the problem?

  Maybe Isabella and Penelope had put it up, two aging spinsters afraid of the big bad city outside their walled cloister. Maybe they’d had a break-in.

  She took the photo and an umbrella and went outside to find Case. The wind had picked up during the short time she’d been inside, a storm obviously blowing in from off the Pacific. She dashed down the drive toward the gate but stopped when she saw that Case wasn’t there. His shovel leaned against the wall, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  Cold wind pushed at her back. Her attention was drawn to the gates.

  The rocks propping them open to either side were gone, and they swayed in the wind. The one on the right squeaked, and then, in one long, slow movement, it swung to the center of the arch and shuddered to a halt against the small steel stop in the drive.

  Go, something whispered in her ear. Go now, hurry, while you can!

  The gate on the left began to swing shut, then opened again, its hinges as creaky as its twin’s.

  Go! Hurry! It’s your last chance!

  The same feeling of dread and being trapped that she’d had upon her arrival at the house overwhelmed her now. She could feel the very earth around her reaching up to grab her, to pull her down into the cellar, down into the fissure, where it would keep her forever.

  The gate swung again, this time closing all the way. Megan’s heart jumped, panic flooding her.

  The gate bounced open a couple of feet and hovered there.

  Go! Go! Hurry! Last chance!

  Terror rushed through her, obscuring all else, promising only that if she didn’t obey it, it would swallow her into the damp darkness where the spiders lived.

  Megan dropped the umbrella and dashed toward the gate like a spooked horse.

  Out, out, I have to get out! her mind screamed at her. Now! Now!

  She was almost to the gate when her eyes fell again on the shovel. She skittered to a halt, her heart jack-hammering in her chest.

  Case! Where was Case? She had to take him with her.

  She whimpered, looking madly around the empty garden. Where was he? Where was he?

  The gate creaked, swaying.

  “Case!” she cried out. “Case! Where are you? Case!”

  “Here! Megan, I’m right here!”

  Megan yelped and turned around. He was jogging toward her from where his pickup was parked. “Case! Let’s go! Go!” she cried, running to him and grabbing his arm, pulling him toward the gate.

  “Megan, what’s going on?”

  “We have to go! Now!” She got behind him and put her hands on his back, pushing.

  “Okay…” he said, letting her push him toward the gate.

  The opening was still there, still two or three feet wide. Still enough to get through. Megan’s vision narrowed to that one spot as she peered around Case’s back. That one opening through which they would escape was all that mattered.

  They were almost there. She pushed Case toward the opening, but before he so much as put one foot through it, the gate creaked, and, with surprising swiftness, slammed shut. The clang of metal on metal had the ring, to Megan’s ears, of shackles locking home.

  “No!” she cried, letting up on Case’s back. “No!”

  “Megan! Megan, calm down! It’s not locked!” Case grabbed her shoulders. “It’s not locked! We’re fine!”

  Rain trickled down her forehead and into her eyes. “We’re trapped!”

  “No, look.” He reached for the gate.

  A sudden, overwhelming instinct hit Megan, and she grabbed his arm, stopping him.

  He met her eyes in surprise.

  “Don’t touch,” she whispered, her body trembling. “Don’t touch it.”

  He slowly lowered his hand. “Why not?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. But don’t.”

  As they stood there, they heard the distinct sound of a lock turning.

  “It’s locked now,” Case said, his face losing a shade. And then a realization of some sort washed over his face. He turned slowly and looked back at the hole where he’d been digging out ivy roots. “Come look at this,” he said softly, and took her hand.

  She followed and looked down into the shallow hole. Something dark and straight cut through the bottom of it.

  “I think it’s an old power line of some sort,” he explained. “It’s coated in insulation. See that tiny shiny part, there?” he asked, pointing. “That’s where I hit it with the shovel. I went to grab my ohm meter to test if it was live.”

  Megan’s eyes went from the cable in the ground to the closed gates and then up to the fence along the top of the wall. “Electric fencing.”

  “I never felt it when I propped open the gates.”

  “Maybe they weren’t electrified then.” She pointed to the metal stops in the drive. “Maybe that’s the connection.” Her eyes went up to the archway that connected one side of the gateway to the other, iron fence to iron fence.

  In a mental flash, she saw the iron stubs of a fence around the fissure, their ends bent back down into the earth.

  “They would need a helluva lot of power to keep electricity flowing through that
much fence,” Case said. “There’s resistance in all that iron.”

  Megan shook her head, her eyes closing in understanding, her knees going weak. “They didn’t need much. Just enough to reinforce the circle with the same electromagnetic energy the fissure generates, to make sure their captive couldn’t escape.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Isabella and Penelope. Do you know why people used to put small iron fences around graves?”

  Case shook his head. “To keep dogs out?”

  “To keep spirits in. They thought that a spirit couldn’t escape a pen of iron.”

  Case looked up at the wall above them. “So the fence—”

  “Is an enormous pen for one dead man.” Megan’s grip on his arm tightened. “Isabella and Penelope weren’t trying to get rid of Zachariah’s ghost all those years. They wanted to let him out of the basement and into the rest of the house, where it would be easier to play with him. But they didn’t want their pet to escape the grounds and disappear into the ever after.”

  “And when they themselves died?”

  “Trapped in their own net.” Megan frowned. “No, that’s not quite it. Penelope was trying to drag Isabella beyond the gate. She didn’t want Bella dying on the grounds, because if she did, Bella would be alone on the Other Side with Zachariah. Penelope was trying to throw Bella out of the cage before she died—a cage that both keeps spirits trapped here on the estate and prevents outside ones from coming in. But now they’re both there with Zachariah.”

  “Poor son of a bitch.” Case turned his gaze to the shut gates. “And now they want us to come join them.”

  Twenty-Two

  “Where the hell is the power coming from?” Case asked for the third time, pacing back and forth in the kitchen. “There has to be another source. It was shut off to this house for years, but I’d bet my truck that fence was still humming, however quietly.”

  “They must have set up a pirating system off of city power,” Eric offered weakly, slurping coffee. His eyes were still glazed with sleep, despite having been awake now for half an hour.

  “Obviously. And obviously it’s been buried. That bit I dug up is just an arm of the octopus.”

  Megan had watched as Case chipped out enough of the stone wall to confirm that the cable went up inside the wall, not out to the other side.

  “So, where’s it connected? How do we unplug it?”

  “You’ll have to ask them,” Eric said.

  “It’s the last thing they’d tell us!” Megan said.

  “Zachariah would tell you. I’m sure he wants out of here.”

  “Out of the question,” Case said. “I won’t put Megan at that type of risk.”

  Eric shrugged and slurped. “Suit yourself. We’re stuck here, but suit yourself.”

  “We’re not stuck,” Megan protested, her gut churning at the thought. “Not really. It’s just a gate. We could drive through it.” She looked at Case. “Couldn’t we?”

  “Not quite through. But I’m certain we could get it pried open enough to walk out.”

  “If your truck will start,” Eric said. “They can mess with electricity, remember. You need your battery to start.”

  Megan’s eyes went from Eric to Case, her worry ratcheting up a notch. “He’s right, isn’t he?”

  “We’re in the middle of Seattle, not the Olympic Mountains. I have neighbors. We can stand by the gate and yell until someone calls the fire department or the police.”

  Megan’s eyes went to the kitchen window, where the day had turned to darkness and rain beat against the glass. No one would hear them yelling. Case’s neighbors were at least half a block away and facing the other direction. Their homes were large, set back from the street, and well insulated against sound. And no one would be walking by on a night like this.

  “Megan, please don’t worry,” Case said. “They can’t hurt us.”

  Lightning flashed outside, followed almost immediately by a crashing boom that shook inside Megan’s chest.

  “What if they could harness that?” Eric mused, undisturbed.

  “Then God help us.” Megan drew her feet up onto the edge of her chair, her knees high in front of her, and wrapped arms around them. “Case, I don’t know that we are safe as long as we’re inside this fence. All their noises and mischief of the past, that was all to play with you. To scare you off, and if that didn’t work, then to indulge their sexual appetites. But we know their secrets now. I don’t know what they might do to keep us from destroying the world they spent their entire lives building.

  “They locked the gate,” Megan continued. “They know we’ll eventually be able to dismantle the pen. The only way to stop us…”

  “Is to kill us,” Eric finished.

  Megan swallowed.

  “They weren’t murderers,” Case said.

  “Not while they were alive,” Megan agreed. “But they’re dead now. It’s probably not such a big deal to them now when people die.”

  Case ran his hand through his hair. “If we all stay right here until morning, we’ll be fine.”

  “We’ll get sleepy. Our mental guard will go down. We’ll be vulnerable, and they’re determined now. It’s just past dusk; they’ll only get stronger as the night progresses.”

  “Megan,” Case said, pulling out the chair next to her and sitting down facing her. He put his hand on her knee. “You can’t open yourself up to them in hopes of finding answers. That’s probably exactly what they want, and then they’ll take advantage of you as they did Eric, perhaps with worse consequences.”

  The concern in his eyes warmed her and at the same time undermined her. With each caring word, she heard, You will fail, you can’t win, you’re not strong enough.

  A slow anger at herself boiled in her gut.

  What kind of freaking useless medium was she?

  She was sick of it. Sick of it! She wanted to be the hero for once. She wanted to test herself against the enemy and come out victorious. She was bored to death with running when scared.

  She unfolded her legs and let her feet settle on the floor. She sat up straight, then pushed back from the table and stood. “Eric. You up to this?”

  He looked up at her and brightened. “You bet your sweet ass I am! It’s time they got a taste of their own medicine.”

  Megan turned to Case. “You can’t stop me. Even if you physically barred me from going down those stairs, you can’t stop me from going into a trance.”

  “Don’t do this, Megan,” he said, standing. He put his hands on her upper arms, looking into her eyes and holding her gaze. “The house doesn’t matter. You matter. I’ll give up the damn house if that’s the only way to keep you safe. You hear that?” he suddenly shouted to the room. “You hear that? The house is yours! Take it! We’ll leave in the morning!”

  Nothing happened.

  “This isn’t just about the house for me,” Megan said softly. “It’s not about ownership of my building or picking out twenty antiques and selling them. It’s about who I am and who I want to be.”

  And who I want to love without fear.

  If she could face this challenge that awaited her beneath the cellar, she’d never fear any other challenge in life. She might fail, she might get hurt, but she would have learned not to let fear paralyze her or send her screaming into the night.

  “I don’t want to see you harmed,” Case said, brushing his fingertips along the side of her face.

  “It would harm me more to sit here helpless through the night.”

  He nodded, although it seemed to pain him to do so. “It’s your decision.”

  She smiled, trying to reassure him, even as she felt her own bravado quaking with the realization that the path was now open for her to go down to that fissure and face the dead on their own grounds. “The helmet will help me,” she said. “In some ways, it opens up my defenses, but in many other ways, it helps me. I have better control of my gifts, and they’re stronger. I’ll be a match for the Smithsons.” />
  “More than a match, I hope.”

  She smiled faintly. “I hope so, too.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Eric said, moving past them with a flashlight at the ready. “She’s not departing on the Titanic. We’re going to the basement.”

  Lightning flashed again, the thunder simultaneous with it. The lights flickered and went out, leaving them dimly illuminated in the light of the oil lamp on the table.

  When the rumble had rolled away, Case took her hand, and together they followed the bobbing light of Eric’s flashlight.

  “It’s just a basement,” Megan said under her breath as they descended the stairs. “Nothing here to fear but us spiders.”

  Twenty-Three

  Case watched in sick trepidation as Megan prepared herself for the helmet. “What about the EM blaster?” he asked, seeking some alternative. “Isn’t there something we could do with that? Send a blast into the fissure—maybe that will break them apart. At the very least, it could disrupt the electrical flow.”

  “I have it right here,” Eric said, nodding toward the piece of equipment on the ground. “I’ll have it powered up and ready. One way or the other, it’s time to put an end to this.”

  Megan slid the helmet over her head and sat on the ground, leaning against a boulder for support. She flashed Case a reassuring smile and lowered the dark visor over her face. “Ready or not, ghosties, here I come.”

  Eric’s laptop was perched on the boulder, behind Megan’s head. He tapped keys, and the screen filled with line graphs of brain waves. He picked up the EM blaster and stood beside Megan’s sitting figure as if standing guard.

  Case’s hands were clenched into fists, helpless to do more than stand by and watch.

  The first day he’d met Megan, if he’d known that this is what his proposal would have brought her to, he would have walked out of her shop and never bothered her again. His stomach turned at the thought that she was doing this because he had been so obsessed with the house and making it into the perfect haven he envisioned for the future.

  A future that would mean nothing if he had no one with whom to share it.

  “I see someone approaching me,” Megan said, her voice breaking into the quiet anticipation of the room.