The Haunting of Emily Stone

by Amy Cross

  “I still don't get how it's going to help us,” Emily replied.

  “Mummy,” Lizzie whispered, “I'm scared. I don't like the book.”

  “Here's the page,” Douglas said, opening the book and turning to Jenna. “It's right here.”

  “Listen to this part,” Jenna continued, stepping closer to the book and looking down at the intricately handwritten, partially-faded and cracked pages. “There is only one way out of the dead place,” she read, “and that is through the souls of the living, for the souls of the living are as doorways to the souls of the dead. At the far eastern end of the dead place, there exists a wall, constantly shifting and changing with the souls of living people, who are stitched together in such a manner that they stretch far into the sky above. Those who wish to escape the dead place can be found massing at the base of this wall, trying to climb up so that they can find a particularly weak soul, through which they might be able to break back into the land of the living.”

  “Those affected souls,” Douglas added, turning to Emily, “are said to be aware of this to some degree. Not in a tangible way, but more of a sensation.”

  Emily felt a shiver run through her body. “So you're saying that one of these dead people climbed up a wall of souls until they reached... me?” She turned to Robert. “Why me?”

  “Sheer bad luck,” he suggested. “You just happen to offer a way through.”

  “Listen,” Jenna told them, still reading from the book. “Climbing the wall is not the work of a moment. It can take years for a dead soul to rise this way, and most will slip and fall, necessitating that they start again. Very few ever make it far enough, and their task is made more difficult by the fact that when one second passes in their world, whole days and even years pass in the land of the living. By the time a dead soul reaches its target, the target might be gone, since the soul might have passed on.”

  “So that might explain why the ghost left you alone for so long,” Robert continued, turning to Emily. “It climbed up and tried to get through you when you were a girl. If it fell and had to climb again, maybe it has only just got back to where it was before.”

  “And now it wants to break through me?” she asked.

  “It would need to drag you through and take your place in the wall,” Jenna explained. “It would literally pull you into its world and then climb through. Without a body of its own, it would most likely manifest as a ghost. I assume that, at some point once it entered this world, its soul would be patched into the wall, taking your place and leaving you trapped in the world of the dead forever.”

  “Or unless you managed to find another soul,” Douglas suggested. “One you, in turn, could break through.”

  “This is insane,” Emily replied. “I thought it was just a ghost. You that know, someone who died and then they came back and started haunting the house.”

  “If only it was that simple,” Robert muttered.

  “The implications of this are profound,” Jenna added. “If this part of the Myrkia is correct, then...” She stared for a moment at the vast book. “There are more than a thousand pages here. What if they're all true? This book might be an A to Z to the entire dead world, it might be a kind of Rosette Stone that lets us understand what's really happening all around us.”

  “Let's not get ahead of ourselves,” Douglas warned her, “there's -”

  “No,” Robert interjected, “let's definitely get ahead of ourselves. This is the most exciting thing that's happened to humanity in decades, maybe ever. We have to proceed with caution, but we also have a duty to push ahead and find out what the hell is really going on here.” He turned to Emily. “Besides, we have no choice. If we're right, this woman is going to try to get at you again tonight. She's desperate, she won't give up.”

  “Is there any way of stopping her,” Emily asked, “or is it best if I just...” She looked down at Lizzie and saw the fear in the little girl's eyes.

  “I don't know if we can stop her completely,” Robert replied, “but I think we can keep her away from you two.”

  Emily turned back to him. “How?”

  “It says right here,” he continued, pointing at the book. “A second in the dead place can equate to days, weeks, maybe even years here. If we can slow the creature down, maybe knock it back down the wall so that it has to climb again... By the time it gets back up to you, you could well be in your eighties, your nineties...”

  “Or dead?” she suggested.

  “Problem solved,” he pointed out.

  “But then it'd just go after someone else.”

  “Maybe by then we'll be able to communicate with it,” he continued. “It was a living person once, there's no reason to believe that it can't be reasoned with. Either way, we need to focus on keeping the pair of you safe, and right now this seems like the best option. We need to find some way to knock the creature back when it reaches through. It might be as easy as pushing a broom handle through, although I'd like to think that maybe we can make contact. Peace in our time, and so on.”

  “With the dead?” Jenna asked.

  “Why not?” He turned to her. “This creature, this woman, has apparently been nattering away to Emily and Lizzie for long enough, so obviously it's capable of an actual conversation. We might be able to reason with it, to learn from it, maybe even find a way to let it through without harming anyone.”

  “You're not serious,” Douglas replied. “Let it through? You don't even know what it is!”

  “It's a dead person,” he continued. “I hardly think it's some kind of evil creature from hell that's going to burn the planet to ashes. Everything we've seen so far suggests that it's something that simply wants to come back to the land of the living and, I don't know, feel the sun on its face again, something like that.”

  “Mummy,” Lizzie said, tugging on Emily's arm. “I don't like this. Can we go?”

  “I have to stay,” she replied, “but...” She turned to the others. “Lizzie doesn't need to be here.”

  “I'd hesitate to take her away,” Robert told her. “This thing has already shown a willingness to use Lizzie to get to you. I wouldn't want to tempt it again, especially since you broke the agreement you made. It might be angry.”

  “So we just have to wait?” Lizzie asked. “Last night it struck at around midnight.”

  “Then maybe it'll be the same this time,” Jenna said. “All we can do is wire you up and hope for the best.”

  “I want to talk to it,” Robert continued, looking down at the Myrkia for a moment. “Tonight we're going to make sure Emily and Lizzie are safe. Starting tomorrow, though, we're going to start using this book as a guide to help us explore whatever's out there.”

  ***

  “Mummy,” Lizzie said a short while later, as they sat in Robert's office and waited for him to fetch them, “why can't we just run away?”

  “This thing is just going to follow us,” Emily replied, reaching out and brushing the girl's hair back. “It's not haunting a house or a place. It's haunting me.”

  “Why you?”

  She forced a smile. “I guess I'm just lucky.”

  “But it won't take you away, will it?”

  “Take me away?”

  Leaning forward, Lizzie put her arms around her mother. “I don't want it to take you where it took me,” she whispered. “I saw...”

  Emily waited for her to continue. “You saw what, sweetheart?”

  “I saw...” She paused. “I thought I saw Grandma.”

  “When?”

  “On the other side.”

  “Last night?”

  Lizzie nodded. “But I can't have done, can I? Because Grandma's in that home.”

  “Your grandmother...” Pausing, Emily realized that maybe it was time to tell her about Joyce's death. In the rush of the day so far, she'd been more than willing to push all thoughts of her own mother out of the way, and she'd told herself that she'd focus on that point some other time. “What exactly did you see Grandma
doing?” she asked finally.

  “I didn't tell the man because I was scared,” she continued, “but... When I was on the other side, high up on the wall with the woman holding my arm, I looked down and saw all those people down below. They all looked gray and angry, and one of them...” She sniffed back tears. “It looked like Grandma.”

  “Well, Grandma's...”

  Before she could finish, Emily head the door opening, and she looked over to see Robert leaning through.

  “We're ready for you,” he told them. “It's time to put the plan into action.”

  ***

  “Wow,” Emily said as she and Lizzie followed Robert into the main lab, “you guys really didn't mess about, did you?”

  Ahead of them, a chair had been set up in the center of the room, with various wires running from the frame to a set of computers on a nearby desk. Monitors and laptops had been lined up to keep track of proceedings, and cameras had been positioned as far back as the rear wall, with more outside beyond the windows.

  “We're not taking any chances,” Robert explained. “At the house last night, all the cameras and monitoring equipment suddenly stopped working, but the gear in the car seemed fine. We figure there's a radius of potential interference, so we need cameras far enough back that they won't be affected. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work and we'll learn for next time.”

  She turned to him. “Next time?”

  “This is just the beginning. Day zero, so to speak. We're going to communicate with the people on the other side.”

  “And I'm going to sit in that thing, am I?” she asked, eying the main chair cautiously. “Why are there handcuffs attached to it?”

  “Why do you think?” he replied, stopping next to the chair. “If the creature tries to drag you through, we want to make it a little more difficult.”

  “By tying me down?”

  “Got any better ideas?”

  “Mummy,” Lizzie whispered, tugging on Emily's arm, “I don't like it.”

  “It's okay,” she replied, tousling the hair on top of her daughter's head. “It's just one time.”

  “Sorry, Lizzie,” Robert said, smiling at her, “but we figure it's safer for you to be here. You just have to trust that we know what we're doing, and that we're not going to let anything bad happen to your mother.”

  Eying him with suspicion, Lizzie frowned.

  “Do you really think anything'll happen?” Emily asked, as she sat down. “I mean, wouldn't this creature, whatever it is, stay away as soon as it saw all this equipment?”

  “I don't think it can,” Robert replied, grabbing the handcuffs and slipping them over her left wrist. “It's desperate, and it probably thinks there's nothing we can do to stop it. From its point of view, probably only a second has passed since last night and tonight. If there's a -”

  “Wait,” she said suddenly, reaching out at the last moment to keep him from clicking the cuffs shut.

  “Don't be scared,” he told her.

  “I'm not, but -” She paused, before sighing. “Okay, I am. The truth is, I've always been scared, even that first time you hooked me up to stuff all those years ago.”

  “I've spent half my life hooking women up to machines,” he replied. “Maybe I have a problem, huh?”

  “I'm serious.”

  “We were both younger then,” he pointed out. “We've both learned things.”

  “I'm sorry I lied.”

  “I'm sorry I didn't do a better job of getting to the truth,” he told her. “Still, we're here now and I'm convinced this is going to work. You just have to trust me.”

  She paused again. “I do,” she said finally, reaching out and clicking the cuffs shut around her left wrist. “Just don't lose the key, okay?”

  “I won't,” he replied with a smile, as he closed the other set of handcuffs around her right wrist. “Jenna, Doug and I are going to be here the whole time. We've got multiple plans worked out, depending on the various possibilities, and I wouldn't be putting you through this if I thought there was any substantial danger. I mean, being a pioneer in any field is always going to carry a certain risk, but I'm confident. We'll keep Lizzie safe too.”

  “But if it gets to the point where you have no other options,” she whispered, keen to ensure that Lizzie didn't hear, “and if there's any sign that my daughter's in danger... Just let me go.”

  “It won't come to that.”

  “But if it does...”

  He paused, sensing the earnestness in her voice. “Fine,” he muttered. “You have my word.”

  “She's all that matters,” Emily continued. “She's the only good thing that's ever come from my life.”

  “You'll need this,” he replied, fixing a sensor to her chest, just below her collarbone. “It's an all-in-one, we'll have more than enough data. Would you like a thumb-tack to stick in your shoe?”

  Smiling, she shook her head. “Good luck,” she told him. “You'll get your big break after all.”

  “Good luck to you too,” he replied, taking a step back, “and remember, this is uncharted territory. I think we're really going to make history tonight, but it's not about big breaks. That's not what's important.”

  She held out her hand for him to shake. “I guess we're finishing something we started a long time ago.”

  “I guess we are,” he replied, shaking her hand before turning and heading over to the desk where Jenna was working on one of the laptops. “Did I just say that? My big break isn't important?” He smiled. “If only the twenty-something me could hear the fifty-something me. He'd be shitting bricks.”

  “Language,” Jenna replied, nodding toward Lizzie, who was standing nearby.

  “You know what I mean,” he muttered, checking the instruments and seeing that all the readings were in order. “If you'd told me even a few days ago that I'd end up back in the same room with Emily Stone, I'd never have believed you. I'd have -”

  “Small increase in v-wave pressure,” she pointed out, tapping one of the screens.

  “What do you think it means?”

  “Nothing. Something. I'll keep an eye on it. It seems to be localized just a few feet from Emily, though.”

  “Seems a bit early for anything to happen,” he replied, checking his watch. “It's still a few hours until midnight. Still, maybe it takes a while to build up.” He watched for a moment as Jenna made some adjustments to one of the machines. “Sorry,” he added finally.

  “For what?”

  “For being a drunken ass twenty-four years ago.”

  She turned to him.

  “And ever since,” he added. “Oh, and also for driving you into the arms of a man as wet and boring as Tim or Tom or whatever his name is. The guy's an idiot. He doesn't deserve you.”

  “Her heart-rate's steady,” she replied, clearly preferring to steer the conversation back to more practical matters. “Blood pressure's a little high, but that's not exactly a shock. All other vital signs are fine.”

  “The calm before the storm,” Douglas suggested from nearby.

  “Is she going to be okay?” Lizzie asked, watching as her mother waited in the chair.

  “She's going to be fine, honey,” Jenna replied, smiling at her. “We'll take good care of her, I promise.”

  “That v-wave pressure's still rising,” Douglas pointed out. “Slow but steady. What do you think it means?”

  “It means we need to keep an eye on her,” Robert replied, watching Emily with caution. “No fuck-ups, people.”

  Jenna nudged him.

  “I mean, no mistakes,” he added, turning to Lizzie and smiling.

  For the next few hours, all they could do was wait. Jenna split her time between the laptops and Lizzie, while Robert kept his eyes fixed on Emily, watching for any sign of a disturbance. He glanced regularly at the nearby monitor, noting what seemed to be a consistent rise in some of the numbers, and once or twice he exchanged a nervous glance with Douglas. They both knew that the events of the previous night had
erupted suddenly, and that they were unlikely to get much warning. As midnight rolled around, they were all becoming more tense, while Lizzie had fallen asleep in a chair over by the door.

  “Maybe the ghost is shy,” Jenna said as she checked the readings for the thousandth time. “Or spirit, or demon, or... whatever this thing is.”

  “Are you okay over there?” Robert called out, glancing at Emily.

  “I'm fine.” She sounded tense. “How's Lizzie doing?”

  He turned to look at the sleeping girl. “She's taking a nap. I think she -”

  Before he could finish, the overhead lights started flickering for a moment before finally dying. He turned, just as the rest of the lights in the room blinked off, and a moment later some of the computer terminals went black.

  “Power cut?” Jenna suggested, with obvious concern in her voice.

  “I'll check the supply,” Douglas muttered, heading across the room.

  “Is something wrong?” Emily asked.

  Looking over at her, Robert realized he could barely make her out in the glow from the few remaining laptops that were running on battery power.

  “No,” he said cautiously, “it's fine, we just -”

  Suddenly the laptops shut down, leaving them all standing in pitch darkness.

  A moment later, Douglas could be heard tripping over something on the far side of the room.

  “You okay?” Jenna called out.

  “Fine,” he muttered, “just caught a chair leg.” He paused. “My goddamn phone isn't working.”

  “Guys?” Emily said nervously. “Is every electrical device off?”

  “Looks like it,” Robert replied, glancing around and realizing he couldn't see a thing. The main laboratory only had one set of windows, up at the top of the far wall, but the blinds were down. “I'm gonna get some light in here,” he continued, feeling his way past the workbench and starting to make his way over to where he knew he'd find the pulleys that operated the blinds. “Even if it's just from above, it might help. I doubt this thing can turn the goddamn moon off. Everyone just stay calm.”