by Ron Ripley
"The answers to two questions, really," Shane said. "Is it possible to get rid of an entire prison's worth of ghosts? And, if not, is there a way to make sure they're all in there and seal it up again?"
"Okay," Brian said, biting on his lower lip. "Let me ask you this, why do you want to empty the prison?"
Frank explained the situation with his friend Ollie and his brother, Pete.
"Damn," Brian muttered. "Well, it may come down to them having to take a loss on this. Seriously, guys. You're talking about sealing the prison again, and then working through it, section by section. You'll need a medium who can spot the ghosts and someone who can bind them. Plus you have to think about the danger factor here. I mean, you've got the ghosts of prisoners. Some of whom, I think we can assume, were not incarcerated for stealing lollipops."
Shane nodded.
"That being said," Brian continued, "you'd have to defend yourselves, which means a big group. You'd need at least two to three shotguns. Plenty of iron, and a whole lot of patience. You can't rush a job like this."
"And what about sealing it off?" Frank asked. "Just closing up the whole damned building?"
"It would be your best bet," Brian said. "Now there's no way the ghosts can get out, right?"
"What?" Shane asked, confused. "What do you mean? I thought they were bound to where ever it is they died? Or at least to their bodies or an object?"
Brian shook his head. "Not necessarily. I mean, yes, most of the time that's true, but there are plenty of recorded incidents where ghosts have traveled. Especially if the property used to belong to them, or to the town."
"The town," Frank whispered.
"What?" Shane asked.
Frank nodded, looking from Shane to Brian. "The town. Gaiman was a prison town. Most of the people there worked in the prison, or for the prison. I think I read somewhere that some towns used to actually rent the prisons to the state."
"If that's the case," Brian said, "then they could easily drift out into the town. You're looking at a huge area to cover in order to get them back into the building."
Frank groaned and shook his head.
Shane sighed, the scar at the base of his skull itching. He scratched at it and said, "That is some bad news, my friend."
"Sorry about that," Brian said.
Shane shrugged and looked over at Frank. "So, what do you want to do? Ollie's your friend."
"Bring the information back to him and Pete," Frank said. "Then, if they still want to push the issue, well, I guess I can go talk to the Abbott."
"Abbott?" Brian asked.
"My boy here used to be a monk," Shane said, grinning.
"Honest to God?" Brian said, looking over at Frank.
"Yes," Frank said, nodding.
"And what'd you do before that?" Brian asked.
"Special Forces, weapons specialist," Frank said.
Brian opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head and then let out a laugh.
"Damn," Brian said, turning around and opening a cabinet door. "If that doesn't call for a drink, then I don't know what does."
The clink of glasses filled the kitchen, and beyond the windows, the snow continued to fall.
Chapter 13: Ollie Looks for an Angle
Ollie wasn't a rich man, but he wasn't struggling either. Over the years, he had made a decent amount of money by flipping houses, renting out apartments, and being able to find a way to make a good return on almost anything.
And I'll be damned if I don't do it now, he thought. Ollie had finished a call with Frank, and Frank had told him what Shane had said. Ollie, in turn, had asked for a couple of days to think about it.
Ollie tapped his fingers on his desktop, organized the papers, tapped his fingers a little more, and then looked at his computer. A smile spread across his face, and he straightened up. His fingers hammered on the keys, and he soon had a page of results that broadened his smile into a grin.
Ollie picked up the phone, glanced at the monitor and dialed the first number he saw.
It rang twice before it was answered by a woman with a youthful voice.
"Thank you for calling the Granite State Paranormal Society," she said.
"Hello," Ollie said, "I was wondering, does your organization contract out?"
She hesitated, then asked, "Are you talking about having us investigate a home?"
"Sort of," Ollie answered. "You see, I've recently purchased a large structure, and I've been led to believe that it may or may not be haunted. I was wondering if I were to fund you for the evening if someone from your organization would be willing to investigate it."
"Oh," she said, pleased surprise in her voice. "I believe that is definitely something we could do. I'm sorry, I didn't get your name."
"Oliver Dawson," Ollie said. "And you are?"
"Emma," she said.
"Fantastic, Emma," Ollie said, leaning back in his chair. "Now, is it possible you could send along your fee schedule, and we can get this ball rolling? I'd like to have you guys in there as soon as possible."
"I can definitely do that," Emma said, excitement thick in her voice. "And we can pretty much go in whenever is good for you."
"That, Emma," Ollie said, smiling, "is exactly what I wanted to hear."
Chapter 14: The Granite State Paranormal Society
The Granite State Paranormal Society had four founding members. Emma Schloss, Cherilyn Falte, Melissa Tork, and Gwen Nolt. Each of them had studied English Literature at the University of New Hampshire, where they had founded their own paranormal society after watching the first five seasons of Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel.
The transaction with Ollie Dawson had moved along at lightning speed. Gwen had gone to meet him with the proposal, and she had returned an hour later with a signed check for a thousand dollars.
All they had to do was go to Kurkow Prison in Gaiman, New Hampshire.
The four young women were crammed into Emma's beat up Jeep Cherokee. Most of the room was taken up by their investigative equipment. Some of the gear had been purchased, but most of it had been cobbled together by techies who had harbored crushes on the girls.
"There it is!" Gwen said, pointing from the back seat.
Emma jerked her head away from Gwen's hand, the Cherokee jumping in its lane on the highway. Melissa slapped the hand down, and Gwen yelped.
"Yeah, Gwen," Cherilyn said. "We can all see it. Sticks out like a sore thumb."
"The place is huge," Gwen said, her voice filled with awe.
"So's your mom," Cherilyn said, snickering. Then she yelped as Gwen punched her.
"Hey!" Emma said, looking in the rearview at her two friends. "Knock it off. I'm having a hard enough time driving without you two messing around back there."
"Yes, Mom," Cherilyn and Gwen said in chorus.
Emma rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to stomp on the brakes so she could send the two into a tumble.
"This exit here," Melissa said, nodding.
"Thanks," Emma said. She signaled, double checked the lane and eased the Cherokee down the ramp. The State plow drivers had done a less than admirable job with the road.
Several times the vehicle slipped, the back end kicking out a bit to first the left, then the right.
No, you don't, Emma thought, correcting the skids before they could get out of hand. You're not going to do anything like that at all.
She stepped on the brakes with light pressure and eased the Cherokee to a stop at the end of the ramp. To the right was the prison. Emma steered towards it, finally coming to a parking lot in front of the facility. When she put the Jeep in park, she looked at Kurkow in silence, and she realized the others were doing the same.
The building seemed to squat on the land. Every aspect of the structure was ugly. Hideous. A monstrous blemish that spoke of foulness and despair.
There was nothing about the prison which spoke of rehabilitation.
Nothing in its aura that said its purpose was anything other th
an punishment.
"This place," Melissa said in a low voice, "this place is haunted."
Emma and the others nodded their agreement.
For a moment, Emma wondered if the thousand dollars were worth it.
Yes, she thought. You know it is. If we want to do something other than work regular day jobs for the rest of our lives, this is the first step. You know it's worth it.
"You guys ready?" Emma asked.
A chorus of 'yes' was the reply, and the four of them got out of the Cherokee. They stretched their legs and Emma noticed that they all kept their attention fixed on the prison. The windows, Emma saw, were all broken on the first floor. And as Oliver Dawson had said, the front doors were open and unlocked.
She considered the foolishness of doors left unlocked in the modern world, and then she grinned. And who's going to break into a prison? Nobody.
"How do we want to start this?" Cherilyn asked.
"We've got plenty of daylight," Melissa said. "We should probably go in and see about doing a basic sweep. Find out what rooms are open, what areas are accessible."
They all nodded in agreement.
"I've got a digital recorder ready," Gwen said, pulling a small silver device out of her pocket. "You know, if we get any cold spots or anything."
Emma was about to give a smart-aleck response, but when she took another look at the building, she kept her comment to herself. We could definitely get a cold spot in there during the daylight.
There was a lot of snow on the ground, some of it gathered into drifts and some of those drifts as high as Emma's knees. The four of them slogged through the snow and made their way to the open front doors. Each of them entered the foyer and found, as Oliver had said, the next set of doors open.
Snow had slipped into the prison, a gradual slope leading to the hall beyond the next pair of doors. The temperature within, Emma realized, felt colder than outside.
How are we even going to be able to find any cold spots? she wondered.
"Wow," Melissa said, "this is decidedly unpleasant."
"One of us is going to have to go grab a kerosene heater or something," Gwen said. "There's no way we're going to be able to set up a camp in here without one."
"Yeah," Cherilyn said, stamping her feet. "It is cold in here."
"Let's not split into teams today," Emma said, turning and facing her friends. "We don't know how bad it is in here, and I really don't want to find out what the reaction time is for emergency services this close to the Canadian border."
"Sounds good to me," Cherilyn said.
"Take the lead, fearless leader," Gwen said, saluting.
Emma rolled her eyes, saying, "Come on."
With the others following close behind her, she led the way into the prison. Their feet were loud on the tile floor. Soon they passed through various steel doors, each one frozen open. Before Emma knew it, they were in the cell blocks themselves.
She stopped, an uncomfortable feeling sweeping over her. The doors to all of the cells were open, the bars painted a dull gray. Even in the cold, Emma felt as if she could smell fear and rage. Old desperation settled on her, the belief that she would never know what it would be like to be free again.
"This is horrible," Gwen whispered. "Absolutely horrible."
Emma could only nod. She didn't trust her voice. There were too many emotions fighting within her.
"I'm going to turn the recorder on," Gwen said.
Emma heard the click of the machine, and Gwen said in a loud voice, "This is Gwen with the Granite State Paranormal Society beginning our investigation of Kurkow Prison."
When she finished, Emma started to walk again. She moved at a slow pace. Part of her wanted to look in each cell as she passed, but a deeper, more primal part of her refused to allow her head to move so much as a quarter of an inch.
Someone whispered.
Emma stopped, half turned and asked in a low voice, "What?"
The others looked at her in surprise.
"What do you mean, 'what'?" Cherilyn asked.
"One of you just said something," Emma said.
They shook their heads.
"I thought you had said something," Melissa said.
"Not me," Emma said. "Did you hear what it was? I mean, what was said?"
"Hello. That's what I said. And I say it again. Hello."
The voice came from the right, and Emma looked into the cell.
A young man stood in the cell. His throat was slit from ear to ear, the flesh separated in a grin which mimicked his own. Blood, which looked fresh, stained his pale skin and the denim shirt and pants he wore. His sleeves were rolled up his forearms, revealing muscles and tattoos, as well as the fact that Emma could see through him.
From the corner of her eye, Emma saw Gwen's hand lift up, shaking as she held the digital recorder closer to the ghost. He looked at it, shrugged, and then turned his attention back to Emma.
He's cute, she realized, her thoughts numb. Strange. Even with his throat slit, he's cute.
He smiled at her.
"What's your name, Beautiful?" he asked, his voice almost a purr, sultry as it slipped past his dead lips.
"Emma," she whispered.
"I'm Tommy," he said, taking a small step forward. When she didn't back away, his grin broadened, and he took another slow and cautious step towards her. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Emma."
"A pleasure to meet you, too," she said. One of the girls tugged on her arm, but Emma jerked the limb free. With a blush, she adjusted her coat and asked Tommy, "Why are you here?"
"I'm dead," he replied. "They wouldn't let me leave."
"Who?" Emma asked.
"The others," he said, waving his hand around.
"Um," Gwen said off to one side, "how did you die?"
"I tripped," Tommy said with an exaggerated sigh.
"Really?" Gwen asked in surprise.
"No!" Tommy said, laughing and shaking his head. "Good God no. They cut my throat."
"Who did?" Emma asked.
"The other prisoners," he answered.
"But why?" Emma said. "Why would they do that?"
"For one thing," Tommy said, "we were all dying. And, for another, even in prison they don't like rapists."
As the last word slipped out of his mouth, Tommy lunged at Emma.
Chapter 15: George Gears Up
George hadn't slept well the night before.
He had spent hours researching ghosts on the internet, and he had learned far too much. His sleep hadn't been restful either. George had slept on the bathroom floor, wrapped in the down comforter and a line of salt across the threshold of the door and the window. He had even added salt to a bag and taped the plastic up over the air-vent. When he had finally drifted off to sleep, it had been with the brass handle of the iron poker in his hand.
George wasn't taking any chances.
He walked around the kitchen, going about the process of preparing his morning coffee. All the while holding onto the poker. George had called into the office earlier, letting them know he would be working from home for the day. He had texted Jess the same, and she had said the snow was terrible down in Dover. Twenty-two inches of snow overnight.
In storms, past George would have been upset if she had spent more than one night away.
This is different, he reminded himself, carrying both his drink and his weapon to the table. This isn't a girls' night out. This is her staying safe. Being safer there than at home with me.
And he hated it.
George sat down hard, rested the iron poker across his legs and waited. He hadn't bothered to shovel the walkway, or to snow-blow the driveway. None of it mattered.
At least not until I can figure out what to do about those ghosts, he thought. A chill raced through him, and he took a drink. The two ghosts had been prisoners at one time, their matching prison uniforms had shown him as much.
If they were prisoners, George had reasoned, then they had probably come from Kurko
w. Some of his morning had been spent searching the news sites, and he had come across several describing the events of the previous day in Gaiman.
The unexplained breakage of hundreds of windows in Kurkow Prison, George remembered. So how many ghosts left the prison? Was it only those two? Where there more? A lot, a little?
George stood up, leaving his mug on the table but carrying the poker. He paced around the small kitchen for a minute, then made his way into the television room. Walking to the sidelight to the right of the door, he looked out onto Monument Street.
The road was untouched, all of the snow pristine and unbroken.
Plows haven't been through, he realized. Why? What's going on?
The harsh sound of metal on metal caused him to jump, and George unlocked the front door and opened it. His breath and the heat of the house caused the glass on the storm door to fog up, and he wiped it away with his hand. George peered down to the left, towards where Monument intersected with Dell and swallowed back a cry of dismay.
Jammed up against a car was a plow, an old International truck with the cutting edge on the front mounted plow buried in a half hidden car. It wasn't the sight of the accident which had caused George to be upset.
What bothered him was the driver, a young man in his twenties or thirties. He wore a gray Patriots hoodie and a black knit cap, and his mouth was open in a silent, horrified scream.
Two ghosts had the man by the arms, and they were dragging him out of the broken, driver's side window. George watched as the young man kicked and flailed, the ghosts laughing, expressions of sheer joy on their faces. Soon they had the driver out and in the snow, and George saw them thrust the man's face down. They thrust his head in the snow until the young man ceased to move.
Then they held him up, shook him, and when his eyes opened, George could hear them cheer.
Then they shoved his face back into the snow.
George reached out, took hold of the handle to the storm door, and then he stopped.
"Don't," a voice said, from outside.
George looked to the right and saw an older man, a guard. He stood by the house, arms folded over his chest. His face was an abomination, like the others George had seen.