by Jason Hawes
“I think we should keep searching,” Grant decided. He and Mike went back to their sides of the yard.
“Right.” Jen shone her flashlight in front of her. She wasn’t going to let herself get spooked. Great horned owls were a little scary. But they weren’t monsters.
Jen had only taken a few steps before she heard the strange panting sound again. She approached the fence. She swung the flashlight. The beam moved across the diamond pattern of the chain-link fence.
What’s that?
Jen froze. Just outside the fence, something caught the beam of her flashlight. Caught it and reflected it back!
Two glowing red eyes. There was no mistaking them.
The eyes were round. They looked big to Jen—about the size of quarters. In the light of her flashlight, the eyes gleamed bloodred. They looked exactly like what the girls described.
And they were staring right at Jen.
“Guys,” she called out. Her voice sounded funny, even to her own ears. “I think I’ve got something.”
Instantly, Grant and Mike swung their flashlight beams in Jen’s direction.
“What is it?” Grant asked. “What have you got?”
“Whoa,” Mike said. “I can see it now. What is that?”
“Eyes,” Jen said. “Just eyes. Just like the girls said.”
“We’ve got to move in closer,” Grant said. “See if we can figure out what we’re dealing with here. But go slow. We don’t want to spook it. Frightened animals can be very dangerous.”
Jen began to walk forward, still shining the light out in front of her. Abruptly, she saw the eyes wink out. Then they returned again. Winked out again.
“Whatever it is, I think it’s moving,” she said. “Maybe turning its head from side to side?”
“Like it’s trying to track us,” Grant said, his voice low.
As if Grant’s words had been some sort of signal, the eyes stayed still. They were gazing straight ahead at Jen once more. Then, slowly but steadily, they began to move toward her.
Jen’s heart shot straight up into her throat.
It’s coming right at me!
“Stop!” Grant commanded. “Jen, Mike. Stop right where you are! We still don’t know what we’re dealing with. Don’t get too close.”
One. Two. Three. Four.
Jen counted silently as the thing outside the fence got closer and closer. Her arm ached with the effort she was making to hold the flashlight steady. She felt a trickle of icy sweat creep slowly down her spine.
“But what is it?” she asked again in a low voice. “It’s so close. Shouldn’t we be able to tell what it is by now?”
“I would think so,” Grant said. “Unless maybe its fur is dark.”
Totally without warning, the eyes seemed to shoot forward. They were right outside the fence now! As if whatever was out there had taken a giant leap closer.
Jen couldn’t help herself. She stepped back with a cry.
“Jen!” Grant was at her side in an instant. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Jen gasped out. “It’s just—why can’t we see it?”
“It’s definitely still out there,” Mike said. “I think the fence stopped it. But I didn’t hear anything hit. If anything hits that chain link, it would make a noise.”
The eyes were moving again now. Back and forth, right outside the fence.
“What’s it doing?” Jen said.
“Pacing,” Grant answered shortly.
“Big cats do that,” Mike said. “Could it be a mountain lion?”
“Mountain lions have light-colored coats,” Grant said.
“What about a wolf?” Jen suggested. “We’re pretty far north.”
“We’ve got to identify what we’re dealing with,” Grant said. “But now I’m thinking only one of us should try and get closer. Lots of animals pace when they’re frightened. Maybe all of us getting closer at once wasn’t such a good idea.”
“I’ll go,” Jen offered. “I saw it first. And I feel like it’s been staring at me all along.”
“You’re sure?” Grant asked.
Jen nodded, though her stomach was all tied up in knots.
“I’m sure,” she said.
“Be careful, Jen,” Grant warned.
“I will,” Jen promised.
Slowly, carefully, she began to walk toward the fence once more.
“It’s okay. It’s all right. I won’t hurt you,” Jen murmured as she walked. Closer. Closer. Closer. “I just want to see what you are.”
She was almost at the fence, holding the light straight out in front of her. Grant and Mike’s flashlights were shining to the left and right of her. But all she could see were those round, red eyes. They had stopped moving. They were right on the other side of the chain-link fence, gazing right at Jen.
Like whatever it is, is waiting for me, Jen thought.
And then, all of a sudden, the eyes were gone.
Jen’s heartbeat pounded in her ears. As if from very far away, she could hear Grant and Mike yelling. But Jen couldn’t understand the words. All her focus was directed at just one thing.
The eyes.
Where were they? Where did they go?
Then Jen heard the strange, deep panting sound again. This time it was right behind her.
The creature was in the yard!
Jen spun around. The beam of her flashlight swung crazily. For a moment, she thought she caught a glimpse of Mike’s terrified face. Then her light found the eyes. Red and glowing, they stared right at her.
The creature stood between Jen and the house.
Grant and Mike had stopped yelling. Except for the sound of the wind in the trees and the frantic pounding of Jen’s own heart, the night was absolutely silent.
Jen tried to swallow, but she couldn’t. Her throat was too dry. The glowing eyes moved closer. And closer.
This was all wrong. Most wild animals fled when humans got close to them. They didn’t jump a fence to come after you.
Unless you were their prey.
Jen backed up. One step. Two steps—until she felt the cold metal of the chain-link fence press against her back.
She heard the panting sound again. She felt the animal’s hot breath. Jen couldn’t help what she did next. She reached her hand out to touch the creature.
She only touched air. There was nothing to touch. No fur. No head. No body.
And then Jen knew. The reason she couldn’t see or feel the body was because the creature didn’t have one.
It’s not an animal. It’s a ghost.
Slowly, hardly daring to move, Jen took a step sideways to the left. The burning red eyes also moved to the side. And then slowly, relentlessly, they began to move toward her.
The ghost had her trapped!
“Grant,” Jen said urgently. “Whatever this thing is, it’s coming straight toward me. I’ve got the fence at my back. I don’t know what to do.”
“Stay calm, Jen,” Grant said at once. “Don’t make any sudden moves. I’m going to try to distract it. If you see the eyes turn away from you, run toward Mike.”
“Will do,” Jen said. Hurry! she thought.
“Here. Over here!” Grant cried out.
Jen could see him waving his arm back and forth. For a long moment, the glowing eyes stayed steady, staring at Jen. She held her breath.
“Here!” Grant cried again. He moved the flashlight beam in fast, tight jerks. The light danced wildly. The eyes turned toward Grant. Jen heard a deep-throated growl.
“Go!” Grant shouted.
Jen sprinted toward the light of Mike’s flashlight. She felt a strange current of ice-cold air move past her.
Then, nothing. The night around her was perfectly still. Perfectly calm.
“Whoa,” Grant said.
“What happened?” Jen gasped out.
“The eyes vanished,” Grant said. “Whatever that thing was, it’s gone.”
“Please tell me that we got some of what happ
ened in the backyard,” Grant said several hours later. The TAPS team was gathered in a motel room. They wanted to review the evidence right away.
“I’ve been going over the video from outside,” Mike said. “Take a look.” He tapped on the keyboard and the laptop screen went dark. A moment later, three flashlight beams appeared.
“Okay, that’s us,” Grant said.
The TAPS team watched in silence for several moments. Jen realized she was holding her breath.
“There!” Mike suddenly said. He pointed at the screen. “Right there. You can see the eyes. They’re as spooky on-screen as they were in person.”
Jen kept her attention on the center flashlight beam. That’s me, she thought. She watched as the light moved closer and closer to the fence and to those gleaming red eyes.
Totally without warning, the eyes seemed to rise in the air. They sailed over the fence, then came down on the other side.
“Wow,” Jason said. “That’s incredible.”
“How tall is that fence, would you say?” Mark asked.
“At least five feet,” Grant replied.
Mark scratched his head. “What kind of an animal can jump a fence that high?”
“That’s the million-dollar question,” Jason said. “A mountain lion or a bobcat could do it. And maybe a wolf. Bears can climb trees.”
“But it wasn’t a normal animal,” Jen said. “It was some kind of paranormal being.”
Things were happening very fast on the playback now. Jen watched herself make a sudden movement, then come to a screeching halt. And those eyes…
“You’re sure it was paranormal?” Jason asked.
“I’m positive,” Jen said. “The eyes were practically staring into my face. They looked like headlights, they were so bright. I could feel its breath. But when I tried to touch it—there was nothing there. The next second, it was as if the eyes went right through me. That creature wasn’t normal, Jason. It was definitely some kind of ghost or spirit.”
Mike hit a key and the laptop screen went dark.
The next morning, the TAPS team returned to the Coopers’ house. But they didn’t go inside. Instead, they headed for the woods behind the fence.
“What do you think is going on?” Jen asked Grant as they walked through the bare trees.
The path near the Coopers’ yard went straight for a while. Then it branched off. The TAPS team divided up into the same groups as the night before: Jen, Grant, and Mike in one, Jason, Lyssa, and Mark in the other.
“Have you ever investigated an animal haunting?” Jen went on when Grant didn’t reply. “Whatever was out there—I know it didn’t have a body. So where does that leave us?”
“With a ghost,” Mike replied. “There are lots of stories about animal spirits and ghosts. They’ve been around forever.”
Jen stepped carefully to avoid a big tree root that stretched across the path.
“Grant still hasn’t said anything,” she commented. “He’s hoping I won’t notice.”
Grant smiled. “I don’t know any more than you guys do,” he reminded her. “But I think your conclusions are right. I think we’ve pretty well debunked the idea that this is a living animal.”
Grant’s walkie-talkie suddenly came to life. “This is Jason to Grant. Come back. Over.”
“Grant here. What’s up, Jay? Over.”
“Double back and follow the second path to our location,” Jen heard Jason’s voice say. “I think we’ve found something.”
“Wow, check it out,” Mike said about twenty minutes later.
He and Jen and Grant were staring at a small, wooden building in a clearing. Its tar paper roof had holes in it. A few boards were missing from the front door.
“It’s an old cabin of some kind,” Jen said. “It’s practically falling apart.”
“Hey,” Grant said as Lyssa, Jason, and Mark stepped into the clearing. “What did you guys find?”
“We’re not sure,” Jason admitted. “That’s why I wanted all of us to look at it together. Lyssa’s already taken some pictures. We’ll let you guys go in first. We’ve got some strange readings here. I think something’s here, inside the cabin.”
Jason pushed open the door. It sagged on old, rusty hinges that made a sound like something screaming in pain.
Jen stepped inside first. The cabin’s floor was made of dirt. On the far side, across from the door, there was a window. Jen could see jagged pieces of glass sticking up like broken teeth. There wasn’t any furniture, only a rusted metal tube that looked like a stovepipe from an old wood-burning stove.
Jen stepped all the way in, pausing for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dim light. The cabin felt small and cramped. Had someone actually lived here? There was barely enough room for a table, a chair, and maybe a bed. And the smell—
The air had a strange smell. Like rotted leaves… and something more. As if something got trapped here and never got out.
Jen had a bad feeling about this place. Something had died here, she was sure of it. She wanted to run outside, back into the sunlight.
But she couldn’t move. She just stared at the floor. There was a big pile of bones just a few steps from where she stood. Jen felt as if a piece of ice just slid down her back. Was this the creature whose spirit had come after her last night?
“Grant,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “I think you’re going to want to see this.”
Jen stepped out of the way so Grant could get a closer look. After a couple of minutes, Jason and the others crowded in, too. The TAPS team filled the small, dusty space.
“Do you know what it is?” Jen asked.
“Whatever it was, it was big,” Jason answered.
No kidding, Jen thought. Bones of a huge rib cage curved up into the air. The skull was long, the teeth enormous. And there were large bones that were clearly legs.
“I don’t think it’s a mountain lion,” Grant observed. He pointed to the head. “See, the head is too long. I think a cat’s skull would be shorter and flatter.”
“Could it be a wolf?” Lyssa asked.
“I suppose it could be,” Grant said. “We wondered about that last night. But why would a wolf come inside a cabin to die?”
“To get out of the cold?” Mike asked, his tone only half joking.
Grant shook his head. “Wolves are too wild for that. There’s got to be a connection between this place and the animal.”
“Maybe it was injured,” Lyssa suggested. “With just the bones, there’s no way to tell.”
“I wonder how long it’s been here,” Jen said.
Grant frowned. “There’s no way to tell that, either. Not by just looking at the skeleton, anyway. We would have to send the bones to a lab.”
Jason turned on his flashlight. “Let’s make sure there’s nothing else in here.”
For the next half hour the team searched the cabin, inside and out. But aside from the bones and the old stovepipe, there was nothing to find.
“All we know is that a big animal died here,” Jason said at last.
“And,” Jen added, “we’ve got a pretty good idea that its spirit is still around.”
“An old cabin?” Holly Cooper echoed an hour or so later.
The TAPS team had gone straight from the woods to the Coopers’ house. They told them what they found.
“Oh, I know,” she said. “It must be the old Maguire place. People always called it a hunting lodge.”
“Do any of the Maguires still live around here?” Grant asked.
Holly shook her head. “No. They moved away years ago. Right after…” Holly sat up a little straighter, as if she had been poked by a pin. “Wait a minute. Oh my gosh. You don’t suppose…”
“What?” Jen asked.
Holly turned to Grant. A frown creased her brow. “You’re absolutely certain those bones aren’t human?” she asked.
“Mom,” Cynthia and Amanda said at the same time.
“The four legs rule out huma
n,” Grant replied. “We’re just not sure what kind of animal it was. From what we saw, I’d say we found the remains of a wolf, or maybe a very large dog.”
All of a sudden, the frown on Holly’s face smoothed away.
“Of course,” she said. “Edgar Maguire’s dog.
“Edgar Maguire was my grandfather’s age,” Holly went on. “He was kind of a local legend. Always prowling around in the woods, even in the wintertime. One year, he went out during a storm—the worst storm of the year—and never came back. Everyone around here searched and searched. But they never found him. To this day, I don’t think anybody knows what really happened.”
“And…” Cynthia prompted. “Come on. Don’t be so mysterious. Jeez, Mom.”
“I don’t mean to be,” Holly answered with a smile. “If somebody I know would stop interrupting…”
Amanda gave a snort of laughter.
“I could get to the part where Mr. Maguire had a dog. I think its name was King. He went everywhere with Mr. Maguire. I remember King seemed absolutely huge, big as a wolf. But then, I wasn’t very old at the time. Everyone thought that dog was with Mr. Maguire when he disappeared. No one ever saw either of them again.”
“Maybe the dog survived the storm,” Jen said softly. “And it came back to the cabin, looking for its master.”
“You think the skeleton in the cabin might be King?” Cynthia asked.
“I’m still not sure what I think,” Grant admitted. “Is there a vet in town?”
“Of course,” Holly said. “I can give you the address.” She got up.
“But if you found bones, shouldn’t we bury them?” Cynthia asked. “I mean, even if it isn’t Mr. Maguire’s dog. I’d want somebody to do that if I lost an animal.”
Amanda nodded. “Maybe that’s why the ghost came to us. He was trying to let someone know that he needed help.”
“I think burying the bones is a great idea,” Jen said. “If a human body isn’t buried properly, sometimes the spirit will wander. I don’t see why it should be any different for a dog.”
“Where do you think the dog should be buried?” Grant asked.
“Right outside the cabin,” Cynthia said at once. “That was his home. I think King’s ghost was roaming around, looking for his master.”