Haunted Collection Box Set

by Ron Ripley

  Victor thought about the older man for a moment, and how he didn’t know what Victor was up to. Jeremy, Victor knew, would have wanted to accompany him, to prepare to the last detail.

  But the older man seemed off, the situation with Jean Luc and the position Leanne Le Monde had placed him in, occupying most of his time.

  With a sigh, Victor brought his attention back to the situation that had encouraged him to travel into West Virginia.

  Martin Luther’s death had been brought about by his interaction with a pen. A possessed Cross pen that convinced people to commit suicide. According to what he and Jeremy had been able to find out, the pen was responsible for the death of Luther and a janitor.

  Victor found he was more concerned about the possible psychological abilities of the ghost in the pen than about the brute strength of some of the others he had faced.

  But if the possessed pen could put a word of doubt into his ear, Victor knew he would be done for.

  He stood in the hall for a few more minutes, mentally running through the checklist of the items he had brought.

  Cotton gloves. An iron box big enough for the pen, but not too large. And an iron pry bar, not only for protection, but to open what was undoubtedly a locked door.

  Victor, his face hidden by a scarf and baseball hat, glanced up and down the darkened hallway. There were no cameras, and all of the other offices were empty, the occupants having gone home for the evening.

  It had taken two hours to drive from Fox Cat Hollow to the crime scene, and the lethargy he had felt at the end of the drive had vanished in a wave of adrenaline once he had entered the building. Victor had faced several ghosts, and none of the experiences had been easy or pleasant.

  He doubted that would change with the spirit he was about to encounter.

  Time to add breaking and entering to my list of doubtful skills, Victor thought, and he jammed the sharp end of the pry bar between the door jamb and lock. He pushed and hissed through his teeth, the wood cracking and splintering beneath the tool, and a second later, he tumbled into the office as the lock gave way.

  When he regained his footing, Victor glanced around, his heart hammering against his chest.

  The office was cold and uncomfortable, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the presence of a ghost, or from the fact that no one had bothered to turn on the heat.

  He wanted to go with someone’s forgetfulness, but he had a desperate suspicion that it was the inhabitant of the pen.

  Where is it? Victor wondered, clutching the pry-bar. The dull glow of fluorescent lights in the parking lot filled the office, streaming in through the open blinds. His eyes darted around the room, searching for any sign of the pen.

  After a quick scan, Victor caught sight of a second door. On a black office label was the name Martin Luther, and Victor knew the pen was behind that door.

  He advanced on it carefully, eyeing the silver doorknob the way he might a poisonous snake.

  Nothing good was beyond that door, and he knew he had to go into the inner office.

  Victor hesitated, then he put on the cotton gloves, switched the iron pry bar to his left hand, and tried the doorknob. It was unlocked.

  Taking a deep breath, Victor entered the office.

  Darkness greeted his eyes, and Victor knew there were fewer windows in the room. He came to a stop and let his eyes adjust, the light of the outer office filtering inside. After a minute, he could make out a desk and several chairs, a table lamp, and framed awards and recognitions hanging on the walls.

  On the desk was a pen, one that glowed a dull golden color on the leather blotter.

  “I don’t normally take walk-ins,” a man said behind him. “Rather gauche, if you ask me. Makes it seem as though I’m sort of a cheap hairdresser rather than a doctor.”

  Victor’s lips were suddenly dry, and he moistened them with his tongue before he turned around to face the speaker.

  The dead man was little more than a shape. There were no clear-cut features for Victor to identify and lock onto, and that lack of definition made his skin crawl.

  Just get the pen, Victor thought, and with growing fear, he turned his back on the dead man and took another step towards the desk.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” the dead man asked, a note of scorn in his voice.

  The vicious beating of Victor’s heart set his ribcage rattling, and he advanced towards the desk, touching the wooden top a moment later.

  Then the room plunged into darkness as the door slammed shut.

  “You’re here for the pen?” the dead man asked, chuckling. A faint light crept into the room. “Why don’t you sit down, and we’ll have a little chat about my preferred writing implement?”

  Unable to resist, Victor sat down at the desk.

  “Good, very good,” the ghost said in a pleased tone. “Now, do us both a favor, and pick up the pen.”

  Horrified, Victor watched his hand reach out and pick up the pen.

  “You have the look of a scholar about you, sir,” the dead man said conversationally. “Do you have some higher education?”

  The answer was torn from Victor’s lips.

  “Yes,” he groaned.

  The ghost chuckled again. “I can always spot an educated man. Indeed, I can. Now, tell me, have you anything you would like to confess? Some private sin, perhaps?”

  “Yes,” Victor whispered, and he nearly wept as he answered.

  “Of course, you do,” the dead man said, his voice rich with sympathy. “Who among us does not? You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t. No, my new friend, you wouldn’t be a member of the human race at all. And trust me, I have known a great many people, and I have helped them all to come to terms with their past misdeeds. Now, I want you to think of me as your father confessor. Rather than speaking to me, however, I want you to write out what you feel was your worst transgression against another human being. Or perhaps there are several. I’ll let you be the judge.”

  “Please,” Victor said, straining against the urge to write, the pen cold in his hand. “Stop.”

  “No, we can’t stop,” the dead man crooned. “This isn’t just for you. It’s for those who love you as well.”

  Victor whimpered in reply.

  “Do you have a wife?” the ghost asked in an oily tone. “A sweet, loving wife?”

  Erin’s face came to the fore in the darkness and Victor straightened up.

  “Yes,” Victor said. Her memory put courage in his spine and beat back the insistent voice of the dead man. “I had a wife.”

  “Oh,” the ghost said, chuckling, “you had a wife.”

  Then the dead man’s tone changed as if he could sense the shift in Victor’s voice and posture.

  “She wasn’t faithful,” the ghost said, the words smoothly and falsely spoken.

  “Liar,” Victor whispered.

  He felt the ghost move towards him, the temperature of the room shifting from cold to freezing. At the last moment, he swung the iron pry bar and was rewarded with a satisfying shriek.

  The air in the room rippled and sent Victor to the floor. Pain shot up through his knees and he felt his hold on the pen loosen. Panicking, Victor dropped the pry bar and clutched the pen with both hands.

  “Who are you?” the dead man hissed a moment later from across the room. “Tell me!”

  “Victor,” he answered.

  “Victor,” the ghost seethed, “I am going to torture you. Do you understand me? I am going to dig into your mind and find every sweet and wonderful memory, and I am going to pick it apart. I will destroy you, and I will use what you love most to do it.”

  The dead man moved closer as he spoke, and Victor shuddered, then snarled, “Go to Hell!”

  Victor’s free hand took hold of the box, and he slid it out of the pocket. Every word the dead man uttered was a hammer-blow against his thoughts. Victor flipped the latch on the small box up with the edge of his thumb and opened it.

  “I’m no–” but the rest of the gh
ost’s response was lost as Victor dropped the pen into the confines, and closed and locked the box.

  He remained on the floor, his head aching, his lips torn and bleeding from the cold in the room, and tears stinging his frostbitten cheeks.

  Chapter 40: Moran and Moran

  Major Samuel Nicholas.

  Each Moran could trace their lineage back to Major Nicholas of the Continental Marines, later to be the United States Marine Corps. And each Moran and the various cousins, who had been employed in the difficult work at Moran and Moran, had served in the Corps as well. The esprit de corps and the mental strength needed to become a Marine were necessary for the articles the descendants of the Major collected, housed and sold.

  James Patrick Moran III was no different.

  He had served ten years in the Marines before an injury forced him into an early, medical retirement.

  Memories of the Corps, and of the friends he made there, occupied a good portion of his mind when he was on his way to the shop. And occasionally they were all he thought about.

  But once he was at work, he was all business. To be anything other than fully alert and aware of his surroundings could prove detrimental to his health, and fatal as well.

  He and his cousin Marlene spent anywhere from ten to twelve hours a day in the shop, Monday through Thursday. The weekend was time to recover and prepare for the workweek to come.

  With a slight smile, James picked up his cup and had a sip of the hot water he favored. He did not drink caffeine or alcohol for that matter, but he did enjoy a warm drink.

  Marlene entered the back office and sat down across from him at her large oak, desk. At thirty-five, she was ten years younger than he was, but she had wisdom that far exceeded his own and a forceful personality that had allowed her to thrive in the competitive world of the Marines. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and she wore only the slightest of makeup on the high ridges of her cheeks. Marlene’s eyes were a piercing green, and her thin lips seemed to vanish when she was displeased.

  Few customers enjoyed that look.

  She glanced at his cup and shook her head. “One of these days I’ll slip some cocoa in there, really throw you off your game.”

  James raised his left eyebrow, gave a half smile and said, “Then you’d give me a heart attack.”

  “Really?” she asked, grinning. “From drinking hot chocolate?”

  “No,” James responded, “because I’d try to chase you down.”

  “I appreciate the ‘try’ you put in there,” she said with a snicker.

  “Try is right,” James continued, smiling, “but if I did catch you.”

  “That’s a big if, cousin,” Marlene said, laughing.

  He conceded and gave her a nod. “Anyway, all playing aside, what’s going on out there? Anything?”

  “Not much,” she said. “I had a hipster come in with a man-bun and a poor excuse for a beard. He said his coffee mug was haunted, said it made his coffee cold all the time and that a psychic told him it was the mug. Then he dug around, found us, and brought it in.”

  “And was he impressed with himself?” James asked, already knowing the answer.

  Marlene rolled her eyes as she said, “Of course he was. I took a good look at the mug. There was nothing to it.”

  Marlene, like James, had been taught how to examine an item, and they had learned how to spot a faint, telltale glow around it if it was indeed possessed. Some items, like a toy soldier that had come in a few days before, had been tinted ever so slightly. It was haunted, but the ghost would need some coaxing. Other pieces, such as a battered paperback, war issue copy of H.P. Lovecraft’s In the Mountains of Madness, had been occupied by the ghost of a female nurse who had been none too pleasant.

  That particular piece was under lock and key. As were seventy-six others. He and Marlene were in the process of assembling a new catalog. It would be the 141st Moran and Moran catalog. The first ever produced in 1876, and still haunted by a male relative who refused to leave for the next world, was kept in a glass display case behind the counter.

  The business line rang, and Marlene reached out, plucked the phone from its cradle and answered it. “Moran and Moran, this is Marlene speaking. Yes, hello, Mr. Rhinehart, it’s always a pleasure to hear from you.”

  James watched and listened. Jeremy Rhinehart was a warden, not a collector, but a jailer of haunted items. Occasionally, he purchased a piece to keep it out of someone’s hands, and he was an avid reader of their catalogs, subscribing to them and to the reports of sales made. He had also saved James early on in his career at Moran and Moran. Jeremy Rhinehart would always get what he needed as far as James was concerned.

  “Hold on one moment, Mr. Rhinehart,” Marlene said, pressing the receiver to her ear with her shoulder as she logged onto her computer. “Alright, give me that description, sir.”

  Her fingers flew across the keyboard, struck ‘enter’ and she waited a heartbeat for the response.

  “Yes,” she said, taking the receiver back in her hand, “we did sell that piece. In 1977, it was sold to Nicole Korzh. According to the description, it contains an active teenager. A particularly angry one as well. There was some suspicion that the spirit was responsible for fires, but there was nothing definite … Anytime, Mr. Rhinehart. Enjoy the rest of your day, sir, and thank you for calling.”

  She hung up the phone and shook her head. “He’s been calling with some pretty random questions lately.”

  “No,” James disagreed, “he never asks random questions. If he’s calling about a piece, it means he has either seen it or, more than likely, he is staring at it.”

  “Isn’t he old now?” Marlene asked.

  “In his seventies I believe,” James said. “But he’s been fighting and confronting the dead since before either of us were born.”

  A chime sounded, letting them know that someone had entered the shop.

  “I’ll get it,” James said, backing his wheelchair away from his desk. He smiled at his cousin and rolled past her, heading out to the storefront to see who had come in, and why.

  Chapter 41: A Congenial Discussion

  He had interrogated a great many people in his time, some of them for pleasure, but most for information.

  Stefan would be questioning the woman, Ariana Leckie, according to her license, for both.

  He knew it would not end well for her, and he wondered if she would understand that when she woke.

  Stefan had bandaged her wounds, secured her to a chair, and gotten himself a protein bar. He snacked, had some water, and waited.

  Time passed slowly, each minute dragging by. Finally, having decided that he didn’t want to wait any longer, Stefan prepared to slap the woman back into consciousness. Her eyelids fluttered before he could raise a hand, and he grinned as her eyes focused and fixed on him.

  Stefan leaned back in his chair and chuckled. “I was just about to wake you up.”

  Her eyes darted about the room, no sense of panic in them as she sought a way out.

  There wasn’t one. Not only had Stefan bound her to the chair, but he had covered the walls with tarps. Neither the room’s solitary window nor its door was visible. One bare light bulb hung from a fixture above her head, and the room was cold. More for her than for Stefan since he was wearing a full set of clothing, and she was clad only in her undergarments.

  Stefan waited a few minutes while she took stock of her situation. He knew that the loss of blood and the disorientation of having been unconscious would make her thirsty, so he took a leisurely drink from his glass of water. Her eyes fixated on it and he could see the longing for the cool liquid fill her face.

  “Tell me,” Stefan said, “what’s your name?”

  She stared at him for several seconds and then responded, “I’m sure you know it already. I don’t think you would have stripped me down and gone through my purse otherwise.”

  Stefan chuckled. “You’re right about that, Ariana. I appreciate tha
t. Okay, here’s one for you that I don’t know the answer to. Who are you?”

  She smiled, dragged her attention away from the water, and said, “No one in particular. Why do you ask?”

  “I have a feeling that you’ve been harassing me,” Stefan said. “Maybe not intentionally. But I doubt that. I think you know exactly what you’ve been doing.”

  “And what’s that?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I ask the questions. Not you. Now tell me. Who are you?”

  “Ariana Leckie. Not much more to tell, really,” she said, smiling. She winced, suddenly cognizant of the injuries her face had sustained when he had knocked her out.

  “That’s funny,” Stefan said, offering her a humorless grin. “Because you see, I feel that there is a little more to it than that. In fact, I don’t know why, but your face seems familiar. Like I’ve seen it before. Why is that?”

  She shrugged.

  Stefan let out an exaggerated sigh. “You know, Ariana, you’ve seriously interrupted my work. I have a lot of items that need to go out into the world, and your meddling has put a rather significant dent in my timeline.”

  The woman remained silent.

  Stefan leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Tell me why you’re helping Ivan Denisovich Korzh. What possible reason could you have for helping that ghost? In all honesty, you don’t look old enough to have run into him on the collecting circuit. You don’t even seem like a collector. There’s not that stink about you.”

  The muscles in her face twitched at the mention of his father and Stefan smiled. “You did know him. Curious. How so? And what sort of relationship could it have been?”

  She stared through Stefan and said nothing.

  Her silence bothered him. For the first time, he suspected there was something more to her than he had even considered, and his anger crept up. “Tell me.”

  She must have heard the anger in his voice, for she smiled at him. “You need to know, don’t you?”

  It wasn’t a question, but he nodded his assent.