EJ06 - Maze of Souls

by JL Bryan

  Jeremy kept asking questions, and it was a little hard to tell by his tone whether he was genuinely curious or mildly hostile to our presence.

  “We're able to improve things for most of our clients,” I said, answering Jeremy's question. “Sometimes a ghost can be pressured into moving on. Sometimes we trap them and take them away.”

  “How do you trap a ghost?” Jeremy asked. “Prop up a cardboard box with a stick? Put a bowl of Boo Berries underneath?”

  “You must have discovered our operations manual,” I said. “We also have a variety of complicated gadgets from the Acme corporation. They were originally designed to catch roadrunners, but I'm sure they'll work fine.”

  “They didn't work that well for the coyote,” Jeremy said.

  “Wile E.,” Castor said without looking up from his phone. “His name is Wile E.”

  “The key is to bait the trap properly, and for that, we need to determine who's haunting this house and why,” I said. “Maybe you can help with that, Mr. Neville. Your family has owned this farm for generations. Do you have any idea who the ghosts might be? Their names, specifically, would be a huge help.”

  “I heard the legend of the horseman ghost growing up,” he said. “But I only visited this place a couple of times, when they had family reunions here. That's it. It belonged to my great-uncle, and I happened to be his closest living relative when he died. When they told me I'd inherited the farm, all I planned to do was sell it off.”

  “Why did you change your mind?” I asked.

  Jeremy seemed hesitant to answer. For a moment, all I could hear was the swarms of crickets in the night, and then Amber spoke up.

  “We came out to look at the place,” Amber said. “It was really run-down then...not that it's in great shape now, but we have put a lot of work into it. At the time, it was like the old place spoke to us. I'd been working as a claims adjuster, you know, car insurance, and that job had literally given me an ulcer. Too much stress, and too many hours, and I never saw my kids...I needed a change. We all did.”

  “And Corrine got arrested for selling drugs,” Castor added, still not bothering to look up from his phone. “So we had to blow town.”

  “Shut up!” Corrine snapped. She stood abruptly and stomped out of the room, muttering, “This is so stupid.”

  Amber flushed red, and her husband shook his head, not looking at anybody.

  “It's true,” Amber said. “Kids, if you're finished eating, you can go.”

  “I'm still eating!” Maya said. “I want to hear about the ghosts and how Corrine got in trouble.”

  “I already know all about it,” Castor said, sounding bored.

  “Castor, why don't you take Maya and go play?” Amber said.

  “I don't want to go play,” the boy replied, still staring at his phone.

  “Castor!” Amber snapped, and the boy finally rolled his eyes and took his little sister out of the room.

  “Corrine was fourteen,” Jeremy said, giving a shrug when Amber glared at him. “She was supposed to be at her friend's slumber party. The police called us at three in the morning. She'd been caught—pulled over in a car driven by a couple of boys. Seventeen-year-old boys. In Corrine's purse, they found twenty ecstasy pills and a lot of cash. We're lucky she only got community service and probation.”

  “You didn't have to tell them all that,” Amber said.

  Jeremy shrugged. “Augusta has too much crime these days. This place seemed safer.”

  “Corrine grew up in a daycare center while we were both away at work,” Amber said. “I felt like I'd missed her childhood and I wasn't there for her. I wanted a chance to do better with the younger kids. The farm seemed like a more wholesome place.”

  “Do you really believe you can help?” Jeremy asked. “How many of these have you done? How many ghosts?” He winced a little as he said the word, as if he couldn't believe this was really happening. That's totally normal.

  “I've worked scores of cases,” I told him. “Most of them resolved to the clients' satisfaction.”

  “And what about the others?”

  “Sometimes a situation is intractable,” I said. “Sometimes the living have to surrender to the dead. Move out and move on. I can't say much about your particular situation because I don't know much yet.”

  “I'll tell you one thing,” Jeremy said. “These mashed potatoes are the best thing that have happened to me all day.” He ate another spoonful of them, chased it with tea, and sat back. “I didn't want to believe any of this was happening. I mean, I like horror. I've got a dedicated shelf out in the front room. It's the one with the raven perched on top. I've got H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Peter Straub, Bentley Little, Clive Barker...but I never believed any of it. On the other hand, I've read enough to know there's no safety in skepticism, am I right? The guy who refuses to believe in the monster always gets killed by it. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want Amber or the kids to be that guy, either.”

  “I think we need to see what these ladies can do,” Amber said to him. “Everything's getting worse around here. I dread turning out the lights at night. I'm scared to take my eyes off the kids for half a second. This was supposed to be safer than life in the city.”

  Jeremy nodded. “I think we should go ahead. I'm not crazy about being backed into a corner like this, but as long as they're here, let's see what happens.”

  After supper, Jeremy started asking questions about the cameras and other gear set up inside the house. I let Stacey explain all of it to him while I checked around the house again.

  I took more electromagnetic and temperature readings in the upstairs hall, focusing on the area from the top of the stairs to Maya's door. Castor drifted back to his room, ignoring me and appearing to be absorbed in his phone, but he left his door open and sat on his messy bed at an angle that just happened to let him watch me as I worked.

  Back downstairs, I found Amber and Maya finishing a quick clean of the kitchen.

  “I'm putting Maya to bed,” Amber said. “Jeremy's outside with your partner.”

  “He seems okay with us being here,” I said.

  “Very okay.” Amber glanced at the kitchen window, as if trying to see what her husband was doing with perky blond Stacey out in the yard. The van's interior light was on, but Jeremy and Stacey were somewhere in the back, probably looking at the bank of monitors and other equipment. “He's asking her a million questions about your ghost work. Sorry.”

  “I'll go check on them,” I said. “Good night, Maya.”

  “Are you going to stop the bloody lady tonight?” Maya asked, her face solemn as she looked up at me.

  “I will personally stand in her way,” I said. “But if you see anything in your room that scares you, just say something out loud. We'll hear you over the microphone and come help right away.”

  I headed outside and approached the van. The rear doors were open, and Jeremy stood there, leaning on one of them while he watched Stacey and the array of monitors inside.

  “But how do the more powerful ghosts get that way?” Jeremy was asking her as I approached. “What's the difference between a weak haunting and a strong one?”

  “It's all about energy,” Stacey said. “The bad ghosts can learn to feed on the living. They can also learn to understand and control some of their, you know, ghostly abilities. Calvin says that the worst thing is a ghost that's old and powerful, one that probably doesn't even remember its time as a human...”

  “What about good ghosts?” Jeremy asked.

  “They're usually trapped here by their relationships with not-so-good spirits,” Stacey said. “Like murder victims who get tangled up with their murderer's ghost.”

  “Ghosts obsess over certain moments of their lives,” I said, by way of announcing my presence. Jeremy and Stacey both jumped, having been too busy to notice my approach. “They all do. Whether they're 'good' or 'bad' is just a question of what effect they have on the living, really.”<
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  “You scared me,” Jeremy said.

  “Ellie spends a lot of time around ghosts, so now she acts like one,” Stacey said. “Moving silently, creeping up on people, dragging chains around in attics—”

  “She's joking,” I said. “Mostly. So here's the plan, Mr. Neville. You and your family should go about your typical night as if we weren't even here. We'll stay out here in the van and keep watch on all the cameras we've set up. When your family goes to bed, I'll come inside, sit on the stairs, and watch for the ghost that your daughter's been seeing. We'll work outward from the ghosts invading your house to the ones wandering your land.”

  “Hey, you know,” Jeremy said, “when I watch that Ghost Investigators show, they usually have the residents of the house leave during the investigation.”

  “I don't do that,” I said. “I want the family to follow their usual routine, because I want the ghosts to follow their usual routine. Sending the family away could change the ghosts' behavior. Maybe the ghosts would just lay low until we left. We wouldn't want that.”

  “No, we like them to come right up and grab us in the dark,” Stacey said. “It saves time.”

  A shriek sounded over one of the audio monitors in the van. A little girl's voice.

  “What was that?” I asked, drawing my flashlight as Stacey turned toward the monitors.

  “It came from Maya's room,” Stacey said.

  “Help!” Maya's voice whispered over the speaker. “A ghost! There's a ghost in my room!”

  Jeremy bolted away from the van toward his house. Up on the second floor, the window to Maya's bedroom was pitch black.

  I told Stacey to stay in the van and watch over the monitors, and then I ran along just behind Jeremy.

  Maya's voice cried out a third time over the speaker in the van, begging for help.

  Chapter Six

  Jeremy and I burst through the front door, startling Amber, who joined us, bewildered, as we ran up the stairs, our shoes and boots thundering on the wood-plank steps. The noise was enough to make the two other kids open their doors and look out.

  The door to Maya's room remained closed, the lights turned off inside.

  Jeremy had been in the lead since we left the van—he was a husky, tired-looking guy, but he'd moved with lightning speed at the sound of his daughter in distress. Now he shoved open the door, calling her name as he flipped on the lights.

  Maya was sitting up in bed, watching everyone crowd into her room. She smiled and looked generally non-terrified despite her recently screamed claims of seeing a ghost.

  “It worked!” she said.

  “Are you all right, Maya?” Amber asked.

  “Just trying it,” Maya said. “They told me I could yell if the bloody lady came back.”

  “So you didn't really see anything?” Jeremy asked.

  “Not yet,” Maya said. Her smile slipped a little. “Maybe later.”

  “Okay, good, uh, systems check, everyone,” I said. “I'm glad you're safe, Maya.”

  “Can I get up and watch the Muppets?” Maya asked.

  I eased out of the room, letting her parents deal with that one. Corrine and Castor gave me questioning looks, and I told them everything was okay, but they still looked puzzled.

  I was actually a little upset but I kept it to myself. Maya was just a kid. She had no way of knowing that I'd seen a ghost murder my family when I was a child, that I was here to keep her from suffering the same fate, if the ghosts on the farm turned out to be truly dangerous. Her scream instantly stirred deep emotions and visions of Anton Clay—always smiling, always impeccably dressed, except when I saw him as a charred skeletal corpse coming to burn my soul from my body. Even then, he seemed to grin.

  I returned outside and climbed into the van, where Stacey was on her drop-down cot. I lowered the cot on my side and sat down. It was extremely uncomfortable, as always, but very slightly better than sitting on the van's rubbery floor.

  When Maya was squared away and back in bed after her false alarm, the house began to fall quiet. From what I heard over the microphones, Jeremy and Amber spent their last hour before bed in the reading room at the front of the house while a scratchy Stone Roses album mumbled quietly on their old record player—acting like everyone was normal, just as I'd requested. They seemed like a nice family, I thought, the parents making some career and financial sacrifices to try to provide a warm, close-knit life with their kids.

  On the little black and white monitors, small shapes moved in the cemetery. We had two night vision cameras out there, plus a microphone that picked up intermittent dry leaf-crunching sounds. Nocturnal scavengers nosed past the tombstones, first a pointy, white-faced possum, then several minutes later a raccoon, one of nature's cutest and most hostile critters. The microphone began to pick up a low buzzing sound, as if flies were getting active, too.

  “Okay, looks like the family's all gone to their rooms,” Stacey said, while I hooked on the radio earpiece that would keep me in touch with her. “You shouldn't just sit on those old stairs all night. You'll get sore glutes.”

  “I'm bringing my air mattress.”

  “Don't forget to stretch and walk around, though. You want to stay loose and limber in case Bloody Betty comes crawling inside.”

  “Is that what we're calling her?” I asked.

  “I like the sound of it,” Stacey said. “So what do we call the headless horseman?”

  “He's not headless. He's Hessian,” I reminded her. After strapping on my utility belt, I hopped out of the van and onto the gravel.

  “Okay, so something German. Hans? Headless Hans?”

  “He's not headless—”

  “Hansy the Horseman? Horsey Hans? Work with me, Ellie.”

  “Maybe Lars.” I closed one of the rear doors to the van.

  “Lars Horseman?” Stacey frowned. “No way. That's not alliterative and it doesn't rhyme—”

  “Keep working on it.” I closed the other door and headed back to the house.

  I eased the house's front door open and shut as quietly as I could and tiptoed across the aged hardwood floor. I inflated my air mattress at the foot of the steps, wincing at the loud whine of the little electronic pump. No family members came down to complain, though.

  With that loud chore done, I climbed a few steps and sat down on the staircase. I'd brought my tablet, which enabled me to check our video feeds from around the farm, but I left it off for the moment.

  I turned off all the lights and sat in the quiet house, listening to the occasional low creaks and moans of the old wood, the scrape of fallen leaves pushed across the front porch by the wind. Someone walked around upstairs, ran the water for a moment, returned to bed.

  The house shifted into a different character by night. The handmade rustic feel, with lots of exposed planks, bricks, and timber beams, was charming by day. At night, in the heavy shadows broken only by moonlight, it took on the feeling of a place with odd angles and warped boards, where things did not quite fit together and something darker could reach out from between the walls or through the floorboards.

  I rubbed my hands together as if cold, trying to ward off the growing sense of foreboding. This house had presence, history, layers of emotional energy accumulated over the generations. In the stillness and silence of the night, the soul of the house could emerge, along with any spirits that had been dormant during the day, waiting their turn to creep out under cover of darkness.

  “Ellie, I caught a shadow figure in the maze,” Stacey whispered. “I'm watching it at quarter-time now. It was on the camera near the maze entrance.”

  “Was the figure going into the maze or coming out?” I whispered back.

  “It was inside the maze. Just passing by the entrance, but not coming out.”

  “I don't feel like getting lost in that maze by myself tonight,” I said. “Let me know if you see anything else, but I want to wait right here for Bloody Betty.”

  “Okay. It's getting spooky, Ellie. I forget h
ow silent it gets out in the country.”

  “Would you feel better if I told you a ghost story?” I asked. “I know one about a girl alone in a van on an old farm. It was all quiet until the wind started to blow, and then she heard the barn door creak—”

  “Hush your face,” Stacey said.

  “You missed the part where it turned out to be a friendly unicorn with a pizza. Your loss.” Joking was a way to avoid acknowledging my growing sense of foreboding, tinged with a glimmer of fear that could grow into full-blown panic. Nothing had actually happened so far, aside from a possibly-natural cold spot and shadows in the maze, but my nerves were firing off like I was under attack by a pack of rabid monkeys.

  I took some deep breaths, then distracted myself by making another orbit of the first floor, checking for unusual temperatures or other activity. I passed through the dining room into the brick kitchen, where it looked like most of an interior wall had been knocked out to open the kitchen up to the living room. A large old brick chimney and fireplace sat next to a shining chrome-and-black modern stove that looked brand new.

  The walls had been pretty recently painted, a buttery yellow in the kitchen area giving way to a silky blue over in the living room space. Their furniture was an eclectic mix, a jumble of modern sleek-lined black chairs and handcrafted antique pieces of heavy dark wood, probably a combination of the house's original furniture and whatever the family had brought from their old suburban spread back in Augusta.

  I swept my Mel-Meter around the old chimney, but I picked up nothing except the ghostly smell of old smoke, which was perfectly normal for a fireplace that looked like it had hosted centuries of flames and ash.

  The living room didn't offer any exceptional readings. I opened the door at the far end, down four thick lumber-slab steps into the laundry room. The walls were all brick, with remnants of old plaster clinging to them here and there.

  Spirits typically like the dark, lesser-used places in a house, little spots where they can nest without much interference: the basement, the attic, the crawlspace, the small area at the very back of a sloped closet. The dusty, little-seen space under the bed.