by Blake Crouch
“So we’re in bed, it’s two or three in the morning, and all of a sudden, I just feel this calm engulf me, like the rush of some incredible drug. The air was thick, a living thing, and I felt like I was being wrapped in it. That’s the only way I know how to describe it. Most intense and unconditional love I’ve ever felt, and I was smiling, and I looked at Emmett, and he was, too. We were experiencing it together, and we both knew exactly what it was. Ty had come to us. I felt my little boy’s presence just as strong as I feel you standing here in front of me, even though I can’t see you. He saved us, Abigail.
“Next morning at our local coffee house, Emmett saw a poster for a paranormal-photography slide show. We didn’t even know there was such a thing, but having just had our experience with Ty, we felt this conviction to go. Unfortunately, the photographer we went to see was a fraud. I could tell that right away. Most people who claim to be psychic are delusional. The stuff they shoot, it’s camera malfunctions, flash problems, dust particles on the film. But Emmett and I were inspired to buy a camera. We shot four rolls in our room that night—infrared film in total darkness. In the corner above our bed, we captured this fantastic pool of light, like this energy was watching over us as we slept.”
“Your son.”
“Emmett and I had always been artists. It’s why we lived in San Francisco. We threw ourselves into paranormal photography, never looked back. And it’s such a beautiful medium—a perfect intersection of art and history and service.”
“What do you mean by ‘service’?”
“See, it isn’t just about taking photographs of paranormal activity for the aesthetic value. These are suffering spirits who, for whatever reason, haven’t passed to the other side. Most important part of our job is helping them move on. It’s not about the thrills for us, or ‘ghost-busting.’ It’s our calling. If Ty hadn’t died, we probably never would have come down this road. Isn’t it beautiful and sad how these things work out?”
June placed something in Abigail’s hand—a small plastic cylinder.
“What’s this?”
“Emmett shot a roll of film on the hike in.”
“Of me?”
“Of you and Lawrence.”
“Well, that’s . . . Thank you, but to be honest, I don’t know that I want this.”
June squeezed her hands. “Do as you see fit.”
When Emmett finished shooting the Curtice homestead, the party moved on, six pairs of boots brushing through dry autumn weeds. They came down a slope, Abigail feeling guilty, convinced the death of the Tozers’ son had turned them out of their minds, yet knowing their story would make the heartbreaking core of her article.
Shapes took form out of the fog. They stood in the grassy lane, Abandon’s ramshackle buildings on either side, tendrils of mist drifting among them through the blaring silence.
“Let’s start in the saloon,” Emmett said, and Lawrence led them across the street, hopped over a few planks—all that remained of the sidewalk—and stepped gingerly into the shack.
“I haven’t been in here in awhile,” he said, “so I’m not sure how sturdy everything is. We’d better just start with the Tozers going in.”
Emmett and June joined Lawrence inside. After a moment, Emmett appeared in the doorway, said, “Would everyone please turn off their head-lamps? I don’t want any outside light getting in here, interfering with the shots.”
All the headlamps went dark except for Emmett’s. Abigail stood on the threshold, watching them explore the interior, the beam of Emmett’s light grazing the listing walls and a gnawed-board floor, littered with pieces of broken whiskey bottles, rusted tin-can scraps. The pine bar had toppled over and punched out a section of the back wall, through which the fog crept in, giving the saloon a natural smokiness.
“You can come on in,” Lawrence whispered to Abigail. “Just be mindful where you step and don’t go near the stove. If you look up, you’ll see a hole in the roof. The boards underneath get rained and snowed on. Amazing they haven’t fallen through yet.”
Abigail walked inside, the floor bowing beneath her weight. It smelled of mold and marmot urine and whatever the fog had carried in from the canyon. Emmett and June stood together by the wall opposite the potbellied stove, near an upright piano, half of the ivory keys missing, the rest cracked and jagged, like broken teeth.
Emmett turned off his headlamp, the darkness filling with the click of exposures.
While he shot the saloon, Abigail whispered to June, “Are these spirits ever—”
“Mean?” June laughed. “We get that question a lot. In all our years of work, we’ve encountered only one aggressive spirit. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they’re just confused, lost, and consumed in their own grief. It’s funny, because once you’re dead, all the beliefs you subscribed to while alive don’t mean a thing.”
Abigail turned on her tape recorder. “Tell me about this aggressive experience.”
“Few years ago, we got a call to clear a church outside Monterey. This spirit had been locking doors, moving furniture around, just making a nuisance of itself. So we showed up, and the preacher was there. This hard-core, fire-and-brimstone type of guy. He said, ‘You tell me when you feel the presence, and I’ll get rid of it, show you how it’s done.’ I told him, ‘Well, it’s here right now,’ and he said, ‘By the power of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave.’ A chair went flying across the sanctuary, shattered on the pulpit. That preacher ran out the doors. Scared the hell out of him. He quit the church and everything.”
“What do you think it was? A demon? Do you even believe in angels and demons?”
“Angels, yes. Demons . . . I’m not sure. Come to find out, this church had been converted from a nursing home. This spirit was probably tied up from whatever trauma it had experienced there when it was alive. But it certainly didn’t like the church.”
“How do you think it managed to throw a chair?”
Emmett piped up from across the room: “These spirits, when they die, become pure mind. You know what we could do if we had access to even eighty percent of our brain?”
“You talking about telekinesis?
“That’s right.”
“Have to say, I’m surprised by the lack of equipment you guys brought. I did some research before I flew out, expected to see you using thermal scanners and—”
“Geiger counters, ion detectors, an EMF alarm. Let me tell you something,” Emmett said. “That’s a bunch of garbage. All you need is a camera and film, because if you can’t walk into a room and feel it in your bones, you’re in the wrong business, wasting your time.”
When Emmett turned on his headlamp, Abigail noticed that June had been drawn over to one of the windows, where she stared at something across the street.
“Lawrence,” June whispered. “What happened up there?” They all walked over, peered up to where June pointed. Without light, they could barely make out a bay window on the second floor of a building across the street. “Did something happen in that room?”
“Not that I know of. It was just one of the nicer rooms in the hotel. Why?”
“Someone’s watching me from that window.” Even though she knew it wasn’t real, a subtle chill moved down through the vertebrae of Abigail’s spine.
“Can you get us up there?” Emmett asked.
“Never been, but we can certainly try.”
THIRTEEN
O
ne hundred and nineteen years of rain, snow, and high-altitude sun had bleached the block letters on the side of the building, so all that could be seen by the light of the headlamps was a faint OTEL. Excluding Bartholomew Packer’s mansion, it was the largest, most resilient structure in the ghost town, a two-story brick building with what had once been a lavish dining room on the ground level and seven suites on the second floor. The middle of the three rooms that faced the street was the “Presidential Suite,” identifiable by the large bay window that loomed over the entrance to the hotel.
Lawrence walked through the tall door frame, the others following, and soon the party had gathered in the lobby, a long but narrow room with two archways opposite each other, a front desk, and a wide staircase that ascended into darkness.
“This was the only brick building in Abandon,” Lawrence said, “built when the mine was still producing and people thought this town was going to last.” Abigail stepped through the archway on her left, her headlamp sweeping over the shambles of a lounge strewn with Victorian-style furniture and a long-dormant hearth. Draperies hung in shreds from the windows, and a billiard table stood at a severe slant, one of its legs having snapped off.
Abigail drew in a quick shot of oxygen.
Eyes shone back at her, illumined in the beam—the head and rack of an enormous elk, fallen from its mount above the fireplace, stared at her, mottled with mold and decay.
She returned to the lobby, where everyone had gathered at the other archway, this one opening into the dining room. It might have been the best restaurant in Abandon in the early 1890s, but tonight it lay before them in a mass of mangled tables and broken chairs. The three chandeliers had pulled out from their fixtures in the ceiling and shattered on the black-and-white-striped hardwood floor, the tiny shards of glass and crystal glittering under the lamps, as if the party had stumbled into an ice cave.
“Anyone care for a glass of hundred-year-old bourbon?” The headlamps converged on Scott, who stood behind the mahogany bar, a dusty bottle in one hand.
They made their way back through the carnage of furniture into the lobby.
“Here’s the deal,” Lawrence said. “I’ve never explored the second floor, so we’re gonna take these stairs one person at a time. Be alert, be careful, and walk softly if you can.”
His right hand glided up the rickety banister as he climbed. The first four steps were fine, but they grew progressively creakier the higher he went. The last three made no sound at all, and then he stood at the top, just a moon of yellow light fifteen feet above.
“Who’s next?”
June went up, followed by Emmett. Abigail took the path Emmett had chosen, straight up the middle, her headlamp trained on each step.
“You’re doing great,” June called out as the fifth step creaked loudly and she felt the wood give beneath her. The next three were even worse. She could feel her pulse accelerating and a shortness of breath brought on by the first stage of panic. Abigail climbed the final steps faster than she should have, but as she neared the top, Lawrence and Emmett reached down, each taking an arm, and pulled her to safety.
“That was sort of terrifying,” she said.
Abigail stood with Lawrence at the edge of the steps, watching their guide ascend. He climbed toward them, a model of patience and confidence, a man at home on dangerous terrain, even when he crossed the noisiest steps.
He was almost to the top now, and Abigail could see him grinning. He winked at her as he put his weight onto the last step. Then came a dry crack, and he simply disappeared.
The staircase collapsed in a fanfare of splitting wood, dust everywhere, people shouting in the darkness. Coughing, Abigail aimed her headlamp down toward the lobby, half-expecting to see Scott sprawled across the wreckage.
At first, she mistook it for a cry of pain, but then she saw the gloved fingers gripping the edge of the second floor and realized that Scott was laughing, even as his feet dangled seven feet above the fallen staircase.
“He’s right here!” she yelled. “Help him up!”
Lawrence and Emmett dropped to their knees, grabbed Scott’s arms above the elbows.
“Maybe I should just drop,” Scott said. “It’s not that far.”
“Bad idea,” Abigail said. “I see nails sticking out of the boards underneath you.”
“Abigail,” Lawrence said, “my grip’s slipping! Get him under this arm!” They strained to lift him, inch by inch, sweating, groaning, swearing. Finally, Scott’s knees cleared the ledge where the staircase had broken away and they all fell back into the corridor.
Jerrod yelled up to them, “Everybody in one piece?”
“Yeah, we’re cool,” Scott said. “Why don’t you come stand underneath us. I’ve got rope in my pack. We’ll hoist you up.”
“I think I’ll just wait down here.”
Lawrence helped Abigail and June onto their feet, and soon they were all moving down the second-floor corridor, testing with each step the fidelity of the floor. At last, Lawrence stopped at a closed door with a tarnished number 6 hanging upside down from a rusty nail.
FOURTEEN
T
he five of them filed in, their headlamps making swaths of light across the room, showing where the gingham wallpaper had peeled so thoroughly from the walls, it resembled the curling bark of aspen trees. Aside from the broken bedposts and an upturned writing desk, the furniture had been well preserved. Water had damaged the ceiling and the south wall, and picture frames lay on the floor, their canvases gone or destroyed.
On the door frame, Abigail’s headlamp fell upon some tiny scrawl that she wrote off as graffiti: Something awful happening.
“Honey, can you get over the heaviness?” Emmett said.
“I know. It’s much colder in here. Room’s really sagging.”
“Why are certain places paranormal hot spots?” Abigail whispered.
“Usually because of intense, unresolved emotion,” Emmett said.
June had wandered over to an enormous wardrobe, which she opened. Inside hung petticoats and evening gowns, so eaten by time, they’d have evaporated in a gust of wind.
In a corner near the bed, Abigail gazed at a collection of porcelain figurines on top of a bureau, wondering how they’d remained untouched all these years. Beside them, facedown, lay a small frame, its picture gone.
Lawrence came up behind her, whispered, “Do you feel anything in here?”
“Loads of bullshit.”
They turned and watched June approach the bay window, where, remarkably, only one pane of glass had been busted out. A divan stood in utter disintegration in the alcove.
“She’d sit here,” June said quietly, as if to herself, “watching the world go by without her.” She crumpled down on the floor and rested her head between her knees. After awhile, she rose into child’s pose and bowed her head.
Abigail muttered “Jesus Christ” under her breath.
Emmett walked over to Abigail and Lawrence. “You really don’t know anything about the history of this room? Even the smallest detail might help.”
Lawrence shook his head. “I’m sorry. I know a lot about Abandon, but there are gaps.”
“Why don’t you two go ahead and turn off your lights. I’m gonna take some photos.” They all turned off their headlamps. The room went dark, Emmett just a shadow now, quiet save for the floor creaking beneath his footfalls, the clicking of his camera, and the deep rhythmic breaths June emitted as she knelt motionless before the bay window. Abigail’s eyes had just begun to adjust to the darkness when Emmett finished.
“I can’t wait to process this film,” he whispered. “I think I got something.”
“What kind of camera are you using?” Abigail asked. “I’ll need to get all the technical information right for my article.”
“This is a Minolta X-700. Only reason I use the older stuff is because it doesn’t have all the electronic hardware, so it doesn’t fool with the film. Infrared is so sensitive, you can’t even shoot it in most of the newer cameras.”
“Now, what exactly is infrared? It keys off hot and cold, right?”
“No, infrared is just outside the visible spectrum of light, so our eyes can’t see it.”
“She hears a church bell,” June whispered. “She watches them all move past, but she won’t leave.”
“Any special lens?”
“This is a twenty-eight–seventy. Sometimes, I’ll use a fifty-millimeter, depending on the conditions. Here, take a look.” He lifted the strap over his neck and handed the camera
to Abigail. She brought the viewfinder up to her left eye.
“I can’t see anything.”
“Lawrence, turn on your flashlight.” Lawrence flicked it on. “Cool, it’s red,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s the number twenty-five filter.”
June got up suddenly and went back to the open wardrobe, began fingering one of the evening gowns, her face still radiating a blank, trancelike intensity. With June out of the way, Abigail took the opportunity to walk over to the bay window. From the vantage point, she could see down through old glass onto the street below.
She lifted Emmett’s camera and stared through the viewfinder.
“Lawrence, can you give me some light, please?”
He came over and shined his flashlight at the saloon across the street.
“You know, I want to apologize, Emmett,” Lawrence said. “For fucking with you last night about the spaceship and Abandon.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, I was being a dick. Let me share with you my theory on what happened.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Now, I’d have been laughed out of academia if I’d ever published this.”
Where the beam passed, the night glowed in deep reds, and Abigail suddenly knew she would write about this moment, what it felt like to gaze into the viewfinder, through the number twenty-five filter, searching for lost spirits in the sea of red. Maybe Emmett wasn’t actually looking for spirits when he snapped his photos, but she could embellish. Make his whole bizarre profession sound sexy and strange. She had the first inkling that this could be a phenomenal piece.
“But because of the way the town disappeared—everything abruptly abandoned, no record of what happened, no bones . . .”
Something stepped out of the saloon and ran up the street. She lowered the camera.
“I came to the conclusion that—”