by Alex Silver
August 10, 1932
Uncle F died. Father says we are moving into the big farmhouse soon. Aunt C will stay there too. I know I should feel sad, but I’m also glad he can’t hurt Aunt C anymore.
Now I get to live with Lettie, just like sisters. Pastor T won’t read Uncle F’s final rites. Lettie says he can’t rest in peace because he killed himself. Does that mean he’ll be a ghost? I don’t want him to haunt us. I hope he goes to rest.
“That’s the ones I wanted to share,” Annette shut the time-worn journal, set it aside, then folded her hands primly in her lap. “So you see? It sounds like my great-uncle suspected his wife and my grandfather of having n affair. I can’t confirm whether there was substance to those accusations, but the man had a mean streak and an issue with grandfather.”
“Sounds like it,” Daniel looked grim.
As well he might. My stomach roiled at learning Frank had been a violent man in life too. Somehow, that made everything seem more ominous. And it was up to Daniel and I to stop him from hurting anyone else.
FORTY-ONE
Dan
After talking to Annette I was ready to confront Frank. He’d had a clear problem with his wife and brother-in-law. The journal bore what we already suspected about Frank’s motives.
We had run into dead ends with Frank and Elmer’s other descendants. They were either dead or knew nothing more about the events surrounding Frank’s death. The only person left to ask about the details was Frank himself.
Around noon, Jane texted that Ben had come through surgery and was stable in the hospital now. It looked like he would make it. I felt profound relief at the prognosis. If I’d caused an innocent’s death because I’d drawn a ghost’s ire I wasn’t sure how I would cope with it.
I left a message with Tabitha to have Karen get back to me about how to use the information we’d gathered. Then Chad and I spent the rest of the day editing footage.
By the time Karen called me back the next day, we’d finished the video for this week for the Goodman’s approval and made a solid dent in a first pass on next week’s video too. I still needed to add in some FX and clean up the audio, but that could wait.
I answered Karen’s call on the first ring, not even caring that it made me look over-eager.
“So, what have you found for me, Daniel?” Karen asked.
“I can’t confirm the veracity, but according to a contemporaneous journal, Higgs suspected his wife of having an affair with his brother-in-law. The two of them both worked the family farm, but Higgs seemed to think Goodman was overstepping boundaries there too.”
“Good start, what else?”
“He took out his frustration with the situation on his wife.”
“I see. So it is probable then, that this spirit is seeking vengeance for perceived wrongs done him.”
“I suppose. What does that mean, as far as putting him to rest?”
“It means you need to give him justice, redress of his grievances.”
“Um, he seems to have moved way beyond forgiving and moving on when he started attacking people who work for his sister’s descendants.”
“Did I say anything about forgiveness? No, convince the spirit its vengeance is complete. Let it believe that it killed the man it attacked, did it?”
“No, looks like he will survive.”
“Well, you’re an actor—act. Time passes differently for the spirits. Tell your apparition he succeeded in his act of vengeance. Get him to believe what he wants to believe. Once he fulfills his purpose, his hold on this world may dissipate.”
“Don’t we have to like, find his remains and sanctify them or something?”
“Oh, are you turning priest on me now? That would be a shame. No. We aren’t exorcists. We are about giving the dead peace, not forcing them to cross over against their will.”
“So you want me to give a murderous old man peace?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Call me with your results. Oh, and Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
“If you insist on filming at least take precautions not to get anyone else killed.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Karen sighed, then she hung up on me.
“So, what now?” Chad watched my conversation with Karen with intense interest.
“Now we try to contact Frank.”
By the time we parked beside the barn and got our gear organized, it was mid-afternoon. I directed Chad to get the gear we needed, and we ventured inside to set up.
The bales of straw from our first day of filming still sat near the now bloodstained ladder. In Monday’s commotion someone had shoved them aside, but they remained untainted by Ben’s blood.
While Chad got my backup cameras set up on their tripods to film multiple angles of our attempt at communication, I pulled out the supplies I needed. My spare digital camera, my cell phone, and the IR camera were all training on the spot, then Chad adjusted the lighting kit.
I adjusted my EM meter. Then set up a mic to pick up and amplify any EVP. Chad had seen those before, so he didn’t comment as I arranged them.
When he saw me pull out a ouija board, though, he laughed.
“Are you serious?”
“Sometimes they work. If Frank has something he needs to get off his chest, why not give him an easy way to tell us?”
“You are serious. He tried to kill a man yesterday, Daniel. What about this situation makes you think he wants to sit down and give us a civil interview?”
I shrugged. It was more a hope than any real conviction on my part. And events around his death might have pissed off Frank, but the goal was to figure out what he wanted. This might be the best way to give him the chance to vent without violence. He’d already proven capable of interacting with the physical world.
“Can’t hurt to ask,” I favored Chad with a lopsided grin. He looked unappeased, but neither did he tell me what a terrible idea it was, so seize the day and all that.
“Are you ready?” I asked when Chad stopped fussing over the last light stand and returned to the cameras.
“We’re rolling,” he said, when he had gone to each one, I presumed to hit record.
“Frank, buddy, if you’re listening, we’re here to talk to you. We’re here to tell the world your story. About how those closest to you betrayed you. They tried to take everything from you, didn’t they?”
The temperature in the barn dropped.
“Did it just drop about a million degrees in here?” Chad demanded, he continued to man the camera though, so points for dedication. “Dan?”
“The meter says it dropped about eight degrees, yeah,” I read off the display as I held it up for the camera’s benefit, “Frank?”
The digital display on my EVP recorder jumped and bounced as a barely discernible scratchy voice spoke.
“What was that?” Chad demanded.
“He’s here!” I watched Chad’s reaction, but he didn’t show signs of bolting yet. I rewound and played back the EVP. Even listening close, I didn’t catch what Frank had said. Just a burst of sound. I rewound again, played it back at half speed
“Betrayed,” the tinny voice played through the speakers. I replayed it again—louder, and a touch slower.
“Betrayed.”
“Your brother-in-law betrayed you, right, Frank? With your wife? They went behind your back. Isn’t that what happened?”
Another burst of EVP. I backed up to replay it. EVP was a pain to decipher.
“Murder.”
“Dan?” Chad asked.
“Whose murder, Frank? Can you tell us what happened? Move the pointer for us?” I gestured at the board I’d set up on the straw bale.
For a long moment nothing happened. I was considering putting my hand on the pointer. Channeling spirits fell outside my wheelhouse, but it should make it easier for Frank to interact with the object if he had a living intermediary.
Before I could tou
ch the pointer, it flew between letters. I read them off to Chad as Frank paused on each one for a fraction of a second.
“S-T-O-L-E-T-H-E-F-A-R-M.”
“What?”
We took a moment to puzzle out what he’d spelled.
“Stole the farm?” Chad sounded puzzled by the words.
“That’s it! That’s what we’ve been missing, Frank, did you kill yourself?”
The pointer flew to the words printed at the bottom. “No.”
“Were you killed? By your brother-in-law?”
The plastic moved to the ‘yes’.
“They plotted against you to steal the farm that had been in your family for generations. That’s the wrong you have been working so hard to correct all these years? The farm belongs to the Higgs family, not the Goodmans. That’s what you’ve been trying to fix?”
The plastic pointer practically vibrated in place over the printed word ‘yes’. The ghost’s rage was palpable around us.
“How can we help you find peace, Frank?”
I watched, knowing we were close to the answer, as the pointer moved again.
“Y-O-U-C-A-N-D-I-E,” I read dutifully.
Chad mouthed the letters as I spoke them aloud, trying to sound out the message. Then, as the pointer landed on the final letter, several things occurred at once.
“You candies?” Chad said, sounding puzzled for a moment, “No, not candy… you can die!”
Chad’s eyes widened in fear. My expensive lighting rig surged impossibly bright and then shattered with the pop of bulbs bursting in unison. The yoke we’d hung on the wall crashed to the ground with an echoing thud.
In the darkness, Frank sucked all the remaining warmth from the room. My breath frosted the air in front of me. The interior of the barn was almost dark in the fading light of evening and as frigid as a midwinter midnight.
“Dan, we have to get out of here,” Chad dove for me, throwing my arm over his shoulder to support my weight as we ran for the exit. I just had time to snatch up the cell phone I’d propped up to get a closeup of the board before he dragged me away.
Frank Higgs manifested, a faded transparent version of who he’d been in life. He stood between us and the exit wielding a bloody pitchfork and laughing maniacally. We were about to die.
I pushed Chad behind me—it was my fault he was even in this mess, maybe I could buy him time to escape from the menacing apparition.
“Frank, we’re here to help you, buddy,” I raised a hand in appeasement.
The one with the cell in it, hoping to catch his image on video, despite the lack of lighting. My phone was still recording, it was possible the camera could pick out the soft glow of ghostlight on his form where it floated in midair. Was it morbid to think if I was facing death anyway, I might as well memorialize the event on my channel? Probably.
That would guarantee me loads of hits though. Until the community guidelines got the video removed. I seemed to recall they frowned on explicit violence, even if a ghost was the indisputable perpetrator. What a way to go though.
While I was thinking about the PR of being stabbed by a murderous ghost, Frank lowered his weapon and charged. A shriek of EVP came through my speakers, and I was glad my voice recorder was still recording from where I’d abandoned it. At a guess, I figured Frank was screaming something to the effect of, “Die, scum.”
I braced myself to face my death like a man and buy Chad time to escape.
“Wait!” Chad yelled, stepping around me to face the ghost, hands raised in a placating gesture. “Don’t kill us, we can help you. We can prove that Goodman stole everything from you. He ruined you, but we can ruin him right back. Wipe him out of local legend. Raise your name back up over the farm. That’s the justice you seek, right?”
The spirit flickered, wavering in the air a few feet from where I stood.
“It’s simple. All we have to do is expose him for the thief and murderer he was. We have the proof right here.
“That’s what Dan, and I have been recording these past weeks, the evidence of Elmer’s wrongdoing. He ruined you. And once we tell the world, we’ll ruined him. You’ll have your revenge. You just have to let us live to publish the story.”
The ghost wavered, not seeming to believe us.
“He’s right, let us go and we’ll tell the world what Elmer did to you, to Higgs Dairy. He won’t get away with it anymore, Frank. We won’t let him. We can prove he wronged you.”
Some part of the ghost must have believed us. Or he might just need someone to know his version of events, because he faded away. The barn’s ambient temperature warmed back to usual. Chad and I stood there alone, side by side in the dim interior of the barn. We exchanged looks as a final crackling burst of EVP came through the speakers.
I scrambled for the recorder to see what he’d said. Frank’s parting words were, “prove it.”
FORTY-TWO
Chad
“Oh, my god! You just almost got us both killed, you psychopath,” I accused. I was still a touch freaked out.
“How was I to know he’d try to kill us?”
“Hmm, I don’t know, perhaps the fact he tried to kill someone yesterday might have clued you in!”
“Granted. But we got through to him. Isn’t that what truly matters?”
“What truly matters is not taking stupid risks and getting ourselves killed, Dan.”
Daniel waved away my concern and hopped over to where he’d propped his crutches against the wall prior to filming. From there he moved around collecting the recording equipment we’d set up before Frank almost murdered us.
“Daniel?”
“What?” his calm infuriated me.
Did he not realize his obsession with getting the scoop on the ghost had almost gotten us both killed? I’d always thought the persona in front of the camera was separate from the real him. The Daniel I was falling for wouldn’t be so cavalier about putting our lives at risk.
Dan the social media personality would though. Maybe the two weren’t as separate as I’d begun to think.
“Shouldn’t we get out of here?” my voice sounded high pitched with an edge of hysteria and I hated it.
“I doubt he has the energy to appear again so soon. I just want to grab our gear so we can edit the footage. Did you see how awesome that looked?”
“You’re happy about how that went?” I was ready to break. The past hour had not been awesome—far from it. It was almost like he hadn’t just experienced the same series of terrifying events as I had.
“Yeah?”
“Dan, we almost died,” I resisted the urge to grab his shoulders and shake some sense into him.
“Yeah, but we didn’t. I can’t wait to see how amazing this segment turns out. This is shaping into the best Hauntastic Haunts yet. Come on,” Dan continued to gather his stuff.
I helped him, because hell if I would let him spend one more minute in that barn than we had to. We put the gear away in stony silence. An hour of seething to myself while I broke down and carried the equipment for Dan to stow did nothing to improve my mood.
Dan noted my irritation and kept his mouth shut, but as usual he wore his enthusiasm on his sleeve. A trait I didn’t find quite so lovable in this context. He was maddening.
When we’d put everything away we climbed inside the van to drive back down to the farmhouse. No way in hell was I sleeping so close to Frank’s ghost. I knew what I had to do.
I wasn’t cut out for risking life and limb to get the best camera angle possible. Dan had shown more concern with filming than with the fact Higgs was bearing down on him with a deadly weapon. A weapon he’d already used to put one man in the intensive care unit.
“Want to text Lara about dinner?” Dan asked me with blithe indifference. As though we’d completed a typical day’s work. He was grinning at his phone while he scrolled through footage from our confrontation with Frank.
“I can’t do this.”
Resolute, I gripped the steering whe
el and stared straight ahead. I didn’t want to see his disappointment.
“Do what, exactly?” Daniel stopped fiddling with his phone. His full attention turned on me.
“I am not cut out to take threats from ghosts in stride. You seem to get off on the thrill, I guess that’s something I always knew about you, but I don’t. I seriously thought you might die. And I can’t handle that.”
“Are you quitting?”
“Yeah, Dan. I’m quitting,” I force myself to meet his gaze.
Daniel pressed his lips together in a thin line, “and does that mean you’re also breaking up with me?”
“Yeah. For now. We can try to be friends. But I need time to wrap my head around the fact that ghosts exist before I can accept the fact that my boyfriend is bound and determined to become one.”
“I’m not.”
“Well, you sure could have fooled me. The way you acted back there? Like it was no big deal if you died? Not okay. And another thing, you said you insulated the van against ghosts, so why didn’t we take any precautions before filming? Did you seriously risk our lives to get a better camera shot?”
“No, I wouldn’t put you at risk on purpose, Chad. You’ve got to believe that. To be honest, I’ve never communicated with a ghost this powerful before. Or this angry.
“Never with such clarity, anyway. You’ve seen the show. This is the strongest spirit I’ve encountered. I’ll take precautions going forward. Salt or whatever. I’ll ask Karen what safeguards she recommends. Give me another chance?”
I wanted to. I liked Daniel. More than I should after what he’d just done.
But the past few weeks with him had upended everything I thought I understood about the world and I needed breathing space. Space that I couldn’t get if I stayed with him. Stuck in a tiny van without even the distance of the divider between our bunks anymore.
“I’m sorry, but I need space to think about things, Dan. Call Karen to help handle this, please. You’re in over your head.”
I bit my tongue. Forced myself not to tell him that I didn’t want him to die. That would be as much as declaring my feelings for him, something I wasn’t about to do in the middle of breaking things off. That would just be cruel.