Nightmare (23 page)

It was after four in the morning when I woke up. Someone
was shaking me by the shoulders.

"Maia!" the voice shouted.

I opened my eyes reluctantly, unwilling to give up my rest.
Jill was leaning over me with her hands on my shoulders.

"You were screaming," she said with a worried expression.
"Were you dreaming about what happened to you the other
night?"

My head was still swimming in the dream I'd been having,
which was definitely not a dream about the attack I'd suffered in
my dorm room a couple nights ago. I sat up slowly.

"Yeah," I lied. "Just a bad dream. Don't worry about it. Sorry
I woke you."

Whatever last vestiges of sleep that pulled at my mind were erased as I realized that my sleeping bag was stuck to me, because
I was covered in sweat.

As I lay back down and smiled reassuringly at Jill, my heart
skipped a beat as my mind revisited my dream in vivid detail. In
it, I was alone in a murky, empty place, running in abject terror
from a dark, terrifying figure that was uttering a single phrase,
over and over.

I ran a shaking hand through my hair when I was sure Jill
was no longer watching me.

The nightmare is coming, the phrase passed through my mind,
like fingernails on a chalkboard.

The nightmare is coming true.

MARCH 7TH

Docked in its own dedicated harbor off of Cape Fear River in
Wilmington, North Carolina, the USS North Carolina was a great
metallic beast of a ship. The old warhorse did not welcome our
arrival; her one hundred thirty-seven cannons and guns were a
harsh, threatening reminder of just how intimidating this vessel
had been in her day. Much of the seven hundred twenty-eight feet
of her gray hull and her enormous towers loomed high over the
shoreline, and those cannons on the deck were pointed outward
in an unspoken warning.

Her teeth were bared as our car neared the welcome center.
But she didn't smile.

The ship was visible long before we got close to her, and Jordin whistled at the sight. I told her what I knew of her history
while we approached the visitors center, and she took copious
notes. She grew very hushed when I warned her about the small,
confined spaces we would find inside the ship; I'm sure I saw her
swallow. But I was genuinely happy to be there.

This was going to be a special treat. The USS North Carolina
had always been one of my favorite places to explore, having
investigated it on four separate occasions with my parents. It was
more than just the ship-there was a dear friend I was looking
forward to seeing here, as well.

I'd really stacked the deck for this investigation, knowing
it would be the final stop on our week-long trip through the
South. I'd used my connections to get special permission for us
to roam far outside the visitors' tour, so we could explore every
nook and cranny at will.

"It was only in service for six years...." Jordin mused as I
continued my rundown of the ship's past. "So how many people
died on board?"

"Only ten are on record. But the ship was a part of every major
naval offensive of World War II. And she survived. So I suppose
you could say death has surrounded her since her birth," I said
in a quiet voice.

Good grief, Maia. Over the course of all this, I'd somehow
turned into a hackneyed tour guide, getting my kicks by giving
goose bumps to sightseers.

And it actually annoyed me thatJordin kept referring to the
ship as "it" instead of "her." I knew it was stupid, but it just got
under my skin.

The sun was beginning to set behind an overcast sky as we
parked in the tourist lot adjacent to the dock and began the long trek through the gigantic visitors center and across the causeway
that ran out across the water to the ship. Our hands were full
of duffel bags and backpacks, because I'd insisted that we bring
along every piece of investigative equipment we had. I'd even
talked Jordin into stopping at an electronics shop and buying
a slew of new digital video cameras so we could disperse them
throughout the ship.

And I was interested in putting the new equipment to use,
but truth be told, I also hoped that the extra "eyes" would minimize our need to move around so much during the trip. I'd done
everything I could over the last two days to shove thoughts of my
weak heart aside, but it was always there, lingering on the edge
of my mind. It was the last thing I thought of before sleeping at
night and the first thing to come to mind in the morning. I just
couldn't escape it.

There would be time to get fully checked over when we got
back to New York. For now, I had one more investigation to conduct. I'd just need to try and keep from overexerting myself. It was
a perfect time to let Jordin step up to the plate a little more.

She had really surprised me this week. Jordin's annoying
enthusiasm never wavered, but neither did her dedication. And
she had proven to have solid instincts, which was one of the most
useful tools a paranormal investigator could have.

"What is that?" she asked, looking out over the edge of the
bridge into the river.

"Alligator," I replied with a glance.

She recoiled slightly. I think the idea of spending the night
in the claustrophobic spaces onboard the ship suddenly sounded
better than staying outside.

We were met at the far side of the causeway by Carl Swift, an elderly gentleman in a navy dress uniform. Though it wasn't the
first time I'd seen his medals, I couldn't help but allow my focus
to slide down his chest to land on the purple heart affixed there
beneath a dozen other badges and medals.

"Maia!" he shouted, though I was only a few feet away. He
was a kind man with a big heart, but an old-school navy man,
too, who tried his best not to show too much emotion. I'd known
him for ages, and he felt like part of my family-only with none
of the baggage. "Good to see you, young lady, good to see you!
How are Malcolm and Carmen?"

"They're great," I said with a grin and forced him into a bear
hug. I really adored Carl. "They send their best, and promise to
come back to shoot a new episode for next season. Apparently
there have been quite a few fan requests for another investigation here."

"Well, what do you know about that," he said in a conspiratorial tone. It was the closest Carl ever got to sounding playful.
If he'd been anyone else, he would have been winking and smiling at me right now. And I knew why: those "fan requests" had
probably been arranged by the old codger himself.

"This is Jordin, the one who asked for the private tour," I
said. It was only partly true, since Jordin had had no idea what
our three destinations would be on this trip, but she had asked
to visit the most haunted places I could come up with. I had
to stroke Carl's ego a bit, because he was so proud of the North
Carolina that my parents called her his mistress. Which might as
well have been true since he was unmarried and actually lived in
a stateroom on the ship as her primary curator and historian.

He offered a tight-lipped smile. "Pleasure to meet you, miss,"
he said, extending his leathery hand. "Just listen to Maia tonight and be extra careful while you two are poking around. She's a
smart one, this girl." He put his arm around me as if to emphasize his point.

She offered a captivating smile in return, no doubt giving
the old man a little flirting for what she thought was his concern
for our safety. But it wasn't our safety he was worried about. He
just didn't want us breaking anything on board.

"And if you get anything good, I expect you'll get me a copy,
young lady," he said, turning back to me. It was the same arrangement as with my parents; we could investigate, but always had
to provide a copy of any ghostly audio or imagery we captured.
The tourists who visited the ship just loved that stuff. The Battleship Commission, the group that owned and oversaw the ship,
had even begun giving monthly "haunted tours" based on the
growing number of paranormal enthusiasts who'd begun making inquiries.

I nodded and reassured him that the agreement between him
and my family still stood.

Carl was about to take his leave when he stepped forward
as if about to impart some great secret that only the two of us
should hear. "You both take great care belowdecks," he said. "A
lot of strange things have been happening lately-even more than
usual. See that you don't lose your heads."

As he walked away back along the bridge that led back to
shore, Jordin asked, "He didn't mean that literally, did he?"

It was long into the night before things got interesting. We
spent over an hour placing our newly acquired high-def/low-
light cameras in eight paranormal hot spots all over the ship. They were motion-sensitive, so they would only record if they
detected movement.

Then we set up our sleeping bags and other essentials in crew
quarters just off the main deck. We'd planned to set up our little
home base out on the deck itself and enjoy the cool night air, but
the threat of rain changed our minds.

Our tour began in the boiler room, deep belowdecks. The
most interesting areas of the ship were naturally the ones that
were hardest to access, but I decided it would be easiest-especially
for my health needs-to start at the bottom and work our way
up, so we wouldn't have to backtrack, and we'd end the night
back in our crew quarters.

Having barely set foot through the hatch to the boiler room,
we both nearly gagged.

"Oh man! "Jordin moaned, trying to cover her nose. "It smells
like an outhouse down here!"

The pungent odor was strong and offensive, and it saturated
our sinuses. I suggested we take a look around, see if maybe an
animal had found its way down there and left a little something
behind. But ten minutes of shining our flashlights into every
corner turned up nothing but pristine steel catwalks. Nothing
else happened in the boiler room, but the smell was so strong it
seemed to follow us as we left.

"I feel like I need a shower," Jordin said.

I didn't want to be a wimp and say it out loud, but I'd been
thinking the same thing. The smell had left me feeling completely
soiled.

We trudged on.