by JL Bryan
“Thanks for carrying that,” I said. “Can you open the windows and the front doors for us?”
“I have to get the key.” Dale thumped the padlock and chain sealing the heavy double doors from the inside. He made no move to actually fetch the key, instead letting his comment hang in the air as if he’d identified some difficult or impossible obstacle.
“Please?” Stacey asked, giving one of her annoyingly cute grins. She was dressed in light summer clothes, a t-shirt and shorts, for the heavy-lifting portion of the evening.
Dale shrugged, looking indifferent to her perky hot blondness. “I’ll send the girls to help out. I’m already behind on the game.” He trudged out of the room.
“Thanks!” Stacey called after him, with an aggressive cheerfulness that made me want to laugh. “He’s a chivalrous type,” she whispered to me.
“Okay,” I said, hurrying to change the subject from the lunky schlub Dale before we started really making fun of him. “Is the music ready?”
“I’m loaded up with old-school Gospel. All the old rugged crosses and trips across the River Jordan you could ever want.” Stacey gestured at her iPad on a side table. We didn’t really know anything about Mercy’s religious beliefs, if any, so we were betting on statistical probability and going for a general Southern Protestant vibe, with elements she would likely have seen or heard at local funerals.
Anna and Lexa arrived, both of them looking a little stunned at how we’d turned their dank, dark foyer into a makeshift funeral parlor. It actually fit the motif pretty well, with all the old woodwork and narrow Gothic windows, if you ignored the graffiti on the walls.
“Dale said you needed this key?” Anna asked.
“We’re going to open the doors and the windows,” I told her.
She cast at doubtful look up at the second row of windows, some broken and leaking, high above us.
“Just the ones on the first floor,” I added. “Open doors and windows will help encourage the ghost to leave.”
“But can’t they walk through walls?” Lexa asked. She was slowly approaching the mock coffin with a mixture of fear and fascination on her face. “Why do they need doors and windows?”
“They don’t always need them,” I explained. “It’s a psychological thing for them. Especially with ghosts who may not fully realize they’ve died.”
Lexa reached the coffin and stared.
“Can I open it?” she whispered.
“Lexa, don’t get in the way,” Anna said.
“There’s nothing in there,” I told Lexa. “But you can open it if it makes you feel better.”
Lexa carefully placed her fingertips under the edge of the coffin lid. Shivering, she raised it up to peer inside. The lid’s hinges squeaked, startling her.
“It’s all fake inside.” Lexa frowned. The interior was plain, unpainted plywood. “Can I get in?”
“Lexa!” her mother shouted, looking understandably disturbed by the question.
“That’s not a good idea,” I said. “It’s flimsy. It could break or fall.”
“Help me raise the windows, Lexa.” Anna pushed open the double doors. Warm air and the rich, green smell of their overgrown jungle of a front yard wafted into the room. The place already felt a little better. Certainly less smelly, anyway. The music of thousands of crickets and cicadas filled the darkness outside.
“I guess we’re ready,” I said, after Stacey and I helped them open all the first-floor windows.
“Except for wardrobe.” Stacey nodded at my jeans and black turtleneck. “Unless we’re doing a beatnik funeral.”
“It’s not a beach funeral, either,” I said, pointing to Stacey’s revealing work outfit.
“I’m wearing my black dress!” Lexa announced, dashing out of the room.
“We’ll go get ready,” Anna said. “I’ll try to get Dale off the couch, too.”
“Good luck,” I told her.
Stacey and I changed in the van. She kept throwing nervous glances at the windshield, worried that Dale would creep out and try to spy on us. Something told me he probably wouldn’t leave his Cubs game just for that, especially after his complete lack of reaction to her charming smile.
Stacey put on a black cocktail-style dress trimmed in black silk lace. It looked pricey. She also had matching stiletto heels and an actual hat with a little veil. I, on the other hand, wore a frumpy brown dress with a high collar and chunky old walking shoes. Don’t laugh—I was going as a traveling tent evangelist type. That would have been the most common sort of Southern female preacher when Mercy Cutledge was growing up in the 1930s and 1940s. I mean, I couldn’t exactly pretend to be a Catholic priest.
When it was time, we stood with the Treadwell family in their hall by the open security door. Anna and Lexa wore black dresses, too. Lexa kept mentioning hers until everyone had complimented it.
Dale wore a business suit, and weirdly, had applied a fresh splash of some oaky cologne, like he was really going out in public. I expected him to grouse and complain, but he now seemed deeply worried, like a man waiting for results from a cancer lab.
“Let’s get it over with,” he mumbled.
“We’ll go in silently, as a procession,” I said. “When we’re done, we leave the same way. Once we step through that door, we need to act like this is real.”
I led them through the door and up the hall toward the foyer. The electric lanterns spaced along the hallway cast tall, weird shadows on the walls.
Dale was behind me, then Anna and Lexa, the girl grasping her mother’s hand tightly, with a look of determination on her face. Stacey followed at the end, keeping the family bookended in case of any sudden attack from the Other Side.
The foyer was silent despite the open doors and windows, as if all the night insects had gone on strike. Despite the electric lanterns, the cavernous room seemed much darker than the hallway. The air, as rank as ever, felt stiff and thick with a cold tension, like something tragic was waiting to happen.
Nobody said a word as we entered. The iPad played a rather sweet version of “In the Garden” sung by Dolly Parton. I paused it after Stacey and the Treadwell family members took their seats, Lexa perched in between her parents.
We’d arranged the coffin area at the dead center of the room. I stood behind it, facing the little congregation. The open doors behind them looked out onto blackness. Old, vine-choked trees blocked any view of us from the road, so the Treadwells didn’t have to worry about passing motorists witnessing our bizarre funeral ritual through the open windows and doors.
Stacey had set up three cameras behind the chairs to capture the funeral—as you’d expect, there was one regular video, one thermal, and one night vision, just in case the ghost decided to attend her own funeral. We certainly hoped she would.
Next to me was one of the big, blown-up pictures of Mercy. Behind me were a couple of closed doors leading deeper into the house. Above them ran the second-floor walkway where Mercy had hanged herself.
I looked out over my congregation of four, and I raised the big old 1859 leather-bound Bible we use for this stuff. I opened it to a bookmarked page and set it on another easel beside me.
I adjusted my reading glasses and took a breath. Get into character, holy roller.
“Brothers and sisters,” I began, “We are gathered today to celebrate the life of Mercy Cutledge, and more importantly, her return to her Creator. Mercy has passed away. Mercy has died.” I was being repetitive for emphasis. Hey, I had a specific message to get across here. “Mercy is now free of this mortal world of suffering, and can now ascend into the Light of God. Mercy can leave behind this home, though she may have loved it well, because another, greater home awaits her. Peace and happiness await her the moment she departs.”
Lexa smiled at me and seemed to relax in her chair, as if taking comfort from my words. That warmed my heart.
“We know a few things about Mercy,” I continued. “We know she lived fifty-three years, and twenty-eight of t
hem were spent in a state asylum. Her life could not have been an easy or pleasant one. We know she…” I paused, trying to think of a delicate way to say murdered somebody. “Had conflict and violence in her life. She must have felt great fear, and confusion, and pain, maybe sadness, regret, and guilt. We know she chose to end her life. We also know that she is now free to move on…” I made a sweeping gesture toward the open doors and windows. “Mercy can now leave us in peace, and go to find a greater peace of her own. Amen.”
“Amen,” Stacey and the Treadwells repeated, as I’d instructed.
“Now, let’s pray…” The Twenty-Third Psalm is always a good one in situations like this, so I hefted the old Bible and read, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want…”
When that was over, I started the music again, and Stacey and the Treadwells filed out. I left after them. The coffin remained in place—we would leave it all in place for the ghost to contemplate.
I was disappointed. The first time I’d done this, operating the cameras while Calvin performed the little ceremony, we’d all felt the spirit flee the room halfway through, parting the window curtains on its way out.
Nothing so obvious had happened this time. The room still felt cold, the air still oppressively heavy. It felt like a failure.
I blew out the candles as I left.
Chapter Nine
While we waited for that funeral to sink in—and for the ghost of Mercy to depart for happier trails, hopefully—Lexa invited us to play Uno with her and her mom. It didn’t sound like a half-bad way to pass the time. Stacey and I sat down with them while the Cubs game blared in the other room, punctuated by Dale’s frequent unnerving shouts, moans, and howling profanity.
“How many ghosts have you caught?” Lexa asked me while we played.
“I’d actually have to check the files at work,” I said. “Maybe a hundred?”
“Whoa.” She leaned back, widening her eyes, apparently impressed.
“Sometimes there’s more than one ghost in a house, so that helps up your numbers,” I told her with a smile. “I’ve been doing it for a few years, too.”
“Don’t you ever get scared?” she asked.
“Not her,” Stacey said.
“I get scared all the time,” I said. “It’s scary work, but it’s something people need, and there aren’t many people who can do it for them.”
“What’s the scariest ghost you’ve ever seen?” Lexa asked.
I had a ready answer for that, but I wasn’t going to talk about it, for a whole batch of reasons, only one of which was to avoid giving nightmares to my client’s ten-year-old daughter.
“It’s hard to pick,” I said. “Most ghosts aren’t really dangerous, though. They’re like old memories that won’t leave a house. A lot of them are just repeating parts of their lives again and again. They all seem kind of scary, but it’s rare to find one who can really hurt you. Mostly they’re just wrapped up in their own problems and not thinking about you at all.”
“Like regular people,” Lexa said. Combined with her serious, thoughtful nod, her comment made me laugh out loud. “What?” she asked, looking confused.
“You’re smart, Lexa,” I said.
She beamed at me.
Then the crashing and banging began.
First, it sounded like dishes spilling out of kitchen cabinets—a sound I’ve specifically heard before, it’s a favorite trick of your more drama queen-ish ghosts—but we were sitting in the kitchen, and the cabinet doors hadn’t stirred.
Then the true hammering started, like a series of cannonballs striking the front of the house, shaking the timbers, the walls, the old hardwood floorboards. It was like a stampede of angry bulls crossing through the house in the middle of an earthquake. Plaster crumbled and rained from the ceiling. Lexa screamed.
“Under the table!” I shouted, taking Lexa by the hand. All four of us crowded under the sturdy maple table while the house shook as if under attack. Dale clambered into the room, looking pale and screaming for his wife and kid. He finally saw us and crammed his way under.
Then everything stopped. I could hear scattered rattling and banging around the house as the last of the shuddering energy worked its way through and fell quiet.
“Is it over?” Lexa whispered.
“What the dog-crap was that?” Dale asked, his voice thin and reedy, his face as white as cream cheese. He grabbed my sleeve with a look of desperation. “Tell me!”
“I hope we got that on video!” Stacey gasped. The girl had her priorities. She scrambled out from under the table, grabbed a handheld camera and her flashlight, and dashed to the hallway.
“Wait!” I took off after her, grabbing my flashlight and Mel Meter from my toolbox.
“Dale, go with them,” Anna said. I glanced at Dale, but he continued huddling under the table. His head moved slightly from one side to another, like he wanted to refuse but didn’t want to admit it.
“You can all stay here,” I said, mentally adding a few hundred bucks to Dale’s bill. I ran to catch up with Stacey.
She was sliding open the bolt on the security door. We’d left it sealed, and regardless of whatever had just happened in the main house, the ghost hadn’t come back through the security door this time. Stacey heaved it open.
“Come on!” she shouted, and then raced into the dim hallway, waving her digital video camera excitedly.
We ran together through the main house hall. The electric lanterns spaced along the wall had gone dim, as if all their batteries were dying. It was possible. While ghosts have always fed on ambient heat, fire, and even the physical energy of the living, some ghosts in modern times have also learned to suck energy from batteries and electrical devices. This can obviously cause huge problems, not just for the victims of the haunting but for ghost hunter equipment. That’s why I prefer pneumatic ghost traps.
We flicked on our tactical flashlights, lancing the darkness with a pair of high-powered beams. By the time we reached the foyer, our flashlights were the only illumination. The electric lanterns we’d left had turned completely dark.
“Whoa, this place is trashed,” Stacey whispered, slowly shining her light around the room. She was right. The folding chairs had been knocked over, as well as the antique table and most of the easels. The old flowers had been shredded as if by a mulcher-mower, then scattered like bright bits of confetti all over the room, their flimsy wire stands toppled and twisted. The three video cameras had been knocked down, too, their tripods jutting out like the stiff legs of dead insects. The coffin lay on the floor with its lid open, as though some zombie had escaped from it.
Only two things remained standing: an easel with a blown-up image of Mercy Cutledge, and the easel with the old Bible on it.
Turning toward the front of the house, I found the source of the barrage that had shaken the house. The front doors had slammed closed, and so had each one of the windows we’d opened. Some of them had dropped hard enough to crack their panes.
“Well, that didn’t work,” Stacey said. She grabbed the iPad from the floor and shook off a few crumpled flower petals. We’d left it playing hymns, but now the tablet was dark and silent. “Looks like the battery’s dead,” she told me.
“Great,” I said, taking in the mess. “We have a confirmed squatter. We’ll have to evict.”
“Ghost trap?” Stacey asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Unfortunately.”
“I’ll get one from the van!” She started for the door.
“Hold up, Stacey. Let’s wait until we meet with Grant Patterson tomorrow. He might know something that helps us customize a trap for our ghost.”
“Oh, fine.” Stacey stopped where she was, shoulders slumped. “So what now?”
“We break the bad news to the family—this isn’t over, and we have to come back for a third night. And then we clean up this mess.”
“Thanks a lot, Mercy!” Stacey shouted up at the second-floor walkway.
We told the disappo
inted Treadwells we’d be happy to stay until sunrise and monitor the situation, and they accepted the offer.
After Stacey and I cleaned up the wreckage and reloaded all our funerary junk into the cargo van, we set up cameras inside the east wing hallway to watch the locked security door again. Stacey, bless her heart, offered to stay in the house with me for the night, instead of staying out in the van with all her monitors again.
I agreed. I didn’t feel like sleeping alone with an angry tornado of a ghost lingering around.
We reviewed the footage from the three cameras in the foyer, which Stacey had fixed up again so she could watch them from her laptop all night. We didn’t see much—the cameras had been knocked to the ground early, so all they really caught was bits of flowers raining onto the floor.
“Maybe we’ll get some more tonight,” Stacey said, disappointed. She was wrong. For the rest of the night, nothing stirred. I didn’t even hear much in the way of the usual creaks and cracks you might expect in an old house at night, no tree limbs scraping at windows, nothing. The house was silent as a tomb.
I imagined the ghost of Mercy Cutledge, exhausted from her outburst, retreating into some dark and quiet corner of the house to plan her next move.
Chapter Ten
Stacey and I decamped at sunrise, leaving the quiet, exhausted Treadwell family to their breakfast. None of them looked like they’d slept well. Stacey and I hadn’t slept at all, though, and we were ready for our own homes and beds.
“We’ll be back before sunset,” I assured the family as we stood by the door, ready to leave. “We’re going to capture that ghost, I promise.”
“Are we safe now?” Lexa asked.
“Your ghost doesn’t come out during the day,” I reminded her. “Most don’t. By tonight, we’ll be back, and we’ll get rid of her for you.”