Nightmare (26 page)

Derek finished his story and we drove again in silence until he
added, "I haven't thought about that in years. I told my parents
once and they just sort of ignored me."

"My dad says everyone has a ghost story," I replied.

"I don't know what it was," Derek insisted. "But it was different than seeing Jordin last night. She was terrified. Something
is wrong."

We were both quiet for a while, contemplating the world of
ghosts and spirits and what parts of it were real and what parts
were the products of overactive imaginations.

"What I don't get is the why," Derek said, breaking the silence
twenty minutes later. "DHI or whoever's behind all this ... what
would they get out of creating a disembodied soul?"

I shook my head. The question had already occurred to me,
and I was bothered that I couldn't come up with an answer. It
made no logical sense. I couldn't imagine anything to be gained
from such a scheme. "I have no idea."

"Equally troubling to me is the idea that technology to do
something like that could even exist," Derek continued. "I mean,
you'd need to have developed brand-new tech in a number of
different fields. For starters, you'd have to pinpoint the exact
physical location of the human soul. If there even is a physical
location where it resides."

"Maybe they just found an access point," I suggested. "Like
a port on a computer that they could plug into to get at what's
inside."

Derek kept his eyes on the road but kind of shrugged. "Then
you'd have to find a way to separate the soul from the body. To
literally reach inside-maybe through that access point you mentioned, which apparently is at the back of the neck-and extract the soul. The thought that something like that could be possible
I find profoundly disturbing, because it's not in keeping with my
understanding of how God made us. And if it is possible, what
becomes of the body? Can it live without a soul to inhabit it? Is
Jordin dead?"

I had to agree, it was a troubling thought. In my mind, the
thought of rending a soul from a human body was something
that had to be a violent procedure.

"Then there's the whole `binding' thing," I said, picking up
the conversation. "A soul freed from its body, its mortal coil,
would be, in a word, free. Doing this runs the risk of not producing a bona fide ghost if the spirit they free has the ability to move
on to the next life. They would need to have a means of keeping
a spirit tethered to mortal soil."

Derek agreed. "Exerting control over a spirit this way should
be impossible. It's simply not how the universe works. If it's true,
if someone has found a way to do these things ... then they're
perverting God's creation in ways that are so profoundly wrong,
the word `sin' is not big enough to describe it."

I fell silent, thinking.

"A few decades ago," I said after a few minutes, "things like
genetic engineering and cloning were impossible. Until technology caught up with science fiction and made them possible.
We live in a universe governed by science and scientific laws.
I happen to believe that science and religion are pursuing the
same goal: understanding the nature of the universe and our
existence in it. Science looks for the mechanics of it, while religion seeks the meaning. But they're both looking at the same
universe for the same answers. Everything we can't explain about
this life-including ghosts and spirits-has a rational, scientific explanation. We just haven't found it yet. The soul is no different.
If it exists, then there have to be mechanical functions behind it
that make it work."

For the first time, Derek looked away from the road to glance
at me. He had a stern expression on his face, as if considering my
words but finding them hard to swallow. "Can't a miracle ever be
just a miracle? Does it always have to have a scientific explanation or cause? The miraculous power of God himself requires
no scientific basis. I don't accept that everything that happens,
and has ever happened, occurs only for scientific reasons. It's like
those people that try to explain away the ten plagues God sent
down on Egypt for refusing to free the Hebrews, or the theory
that a `land bridge' exists under the Red Sea, and that with just
enough hurricane-force winds, the Israelites may have been able
to walk across that `bridge' without it ever actually parting. Why
can't it just be a miracle? What is God, if not miraculous and
omnipotent?

"Science may be the glue that holds the universe together ...
but who or what caused those laws to work and gave them the
power to govern the universe, to begin with? Who wrote them
into being? Who made science? Science can't explain everything,
and it never will, because it, too, requires a Creator."

I was quiet. Unlike our past discussions, this one hadn't
left me feeling cold or frustrated toward Derek. I didn't entirely
agree with his ideas, but he'd delivered them so passionately, so
fervently, that I suddenly understood why he had such a bright
future ahead of him as a minister.

I didn't feel like disturbing the silence he'd created with his
impassioned speech. I thought it deserved too much respect to
argue with.

It was Derek who spoke next, but his sermon voice was gone,
replaced by a sad, lonely young man.

"Maia, how are we going to find Jordin?" he asked. "You said
DHI's offices are in Copenhagen, so it stands to reason that that's
where they're taking the people they abduct and doing this ...
procedure ... on. They have money, resources, and mega-security.
They're untouchable."

I couldn't disagree, but decided on a logical approach. "One
hurdle at a time. Let's consider what we know. Someone-probably
Howell Durham and his evil little empire-is abducting lonely college students and turning them into, as crazy as it sounds, ghosts.
Each of these students has gone missing after three alchemical
symbols have appeared on the back of their necks, which directly
follows a week full of terrifying nightmares when they sleep. I
can attest to this personally."

I swallowed, not wanting to linger on this point. I soldiered
on. "It stands to reason that the symbol is more than just a
symbol-it may be part of the technology that makes this whole
soul-extraction-and-binding thing work. Jordin disappeared from
Martha's Vineyard around the beginning ofAugust. We can safely
assume that she was conducting solo paranormal investigations
every night while she was there, and it's entirely possible she was
abducted during one of those investigations. You and I have both
seen her disembodied soul, asking us for help and warning us of
this `nightmare' that's coming. Whatever that means.

"We also know that she was keeping a detailed journal of
her experiences. A journal that hasn't been seen since she disappeared, and-if it wasn't carted off with herwhen she was taken-it
could provide some clues about the circumstances surrounding
her abduction.

"Then there's Ghost Town. You saw Jordin in your dorm
room, but I saw her at this amusement park and I don't think
that her being there was a fluke. I did some digging online and I
don't believe that Jordin is the only genuine ghost to appear there.
A number of tourists have reported encounters with realistic
apparitions that said `the nightmare is coming' to them."

Derek sighed. "It's a start, I guess."

Since things were going so pleasantly between us for once, I
decided it was the perfect time to make a request I'd been considering for a while now.

"If and when we find the journal," I said slowly, "ifyou should
come across it before I do ... I want you to let me read it first.
Before you do."

He glanced guardedly into my eyes. "Why?"

"I just think ... there might be things in there that Jordin
wouldn't want you to see. Inner thoughts that she never meant
for anyone but herself to read. And I don't want whatever we may
find ... to change your feelings for her."

Derek offered a meager smile. I think he was genuinely
touched. "I appreciate the concern, but I promise you, there's
nothing Jordin could ever say or do to make me love her less."

I was undeterred. "All the same ... You wouldn't have gotten any answers at all without my help, and I haven't asked for
anything in return. Just let me have this."

He kind of frowned, but said, "Okay, all right. You can read
the journal. I'll keep my hands off."

Satisfied, I let the matter drop.

"Here's something I've been puzzling over," Derek said after
a moment. "About Jordin. And ghosts."

"Shoot," I said, warming up a bit to this nice, new Derek. We would never be best friends or anything, but I was finding it more
tolerable being around him when he was playing so nice.

"Most hauntings seem localized to certain buildings, right?
What is it about a piece of property or a house that can confine
a ghost?"

I knew this was another devil's advocate question, along the
lines of his earlier test of logic about sightings of ghosts who
wear clothes. But he wasn't being antagonistic this time, so I
decided to humor him.

" `Structural possession' is the formal term," I said. "Genius
Loci-the spirit of the place. Most investigators think that 'confinement' may not be the right word to describe it. I mean, there's
no direct evidence to indicate that a ghost is strictly unable to leave
a certain place. The more accepted explanation is that they're
unwilling."

"Right. But Jordin isn't confined right now. That seems important somehow. She's able to go wherever she wants."

"That's true. I don't know what it means, but you're right."

"And I've never understood it from a logical side. If a ghost
could choose to leave, why stick around."

He had me. There was no way I was going to wiggle free of
this one. "No, it doesn't make logical sense. This is something
I've always hoped to find a better explanation for. I've been to
so many haunted locations where the owners or residents claim
to know the identity of the dead person that's haunting them,
and every time I would hear that, those claims made me wonder
how they could possibly know for sure who the ghost was, when
visible sightings are so, so rare. It seemed more likely to me that
ghosts, as you said, would want to explore, to come and go as they
please, wherever and whenever they want. I certainly wouldn't feel compelled to stick around a site where some terrible thing
happened to me."

Derek was reveling in his small victory when I made a slight
addendum.

"But then again, I've never died before."

It was a five-hour drive to Martha's Vineyard, and we talked
theories and debated the paranormal most of the way there. I
saw the intelligence Jordin loved-and saw how much he loved
and missed her. Derek and I still barely qualified as friends, but
I think we had grown to respect each other.

We arrived at Jordin's beach house around one in the afternoon. Derek knew exactly where to find it, having been there
before, and was frustrated to find the house in shambles. The
furniture was dirty; the kitchen was filled with filthy or broken
dishes. And by all indications, it had been this way for a while.
Either Jordin's friends had been utter slobs and left the place
without cleaning up after themselves, or somebody else had been
here looking for Jordin's journal. Or both.

I started by turning over sofa cushions, looking under furniture, and searching the kitchen cabinets and drawers. Derek
said not a word as he marched to the staircase and up to the
second floor.

Twenty minutes in, I'd had no luck at all when Derek returned
from upstairs.

"It's not in her bedroom," he declared.

"You sure?"

"I turned it inside out. And I know where she keeps things
she doesn't want anyone to find. When she was growing up, she kept a diary hidden in her pillow cushion. I'm confident in saying it's not in that room. And if it was going to be anywhere in
this house, I'm sure she would keep it there."

I sighed. "All the same, let's finish searching the house. Just
to be sure."

He scowled but agreed to pitch in.

A thought occurred to me. "I think this is actually good news.
If we'd found the journal here, it would mean she was taken from
here, right under the other girls' noses. It would make all of this
a dead end. If the journal's not here, then chances are it's still
wherever she was when she was abducted. And finding it could
lead us straight to her."

Derek said nothing, but had a little more spring in his step
as we combed through the house.