The Ghost Chronicles (11 page)

At Ron’s request, Maureen attempts to stir things up at the cemetery by drawing tarot cards on an aging tomb while Brian Bates looks on.

“Maureen, what’s the crystal ball for?” Brian asked.

“You have a short memory,” I chuckled. “Remember last week, when I used it at Ethel’s? I use it to help connect with the energy, and when I do multiple readings, it helps to break the connection from one person to another.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot.” The darkness couldn’t hide his embarrassment.

“So, Ron, what do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Here’s the deal. How about if we each draw a card, and we’ll start by doing a reading for the person buried here?” Ron answered.

“What…are you nuts? You want me to read on top of a crypt? It’s over someone’s body, for God’s sakes. You do want me to go to hell, don’t you?”

“Better you than me.”

“Somehow I think it’ll be both of us.”

As I suspected, the cards revealed more about the person who pulled the card and less about the soul buried here. It didn’t take long before the group began asking questions. The questions became less and less about our investigation and more about those who were present. Tired with the way the reading was progressing, since it was not revealing anything about the person buried there, and opening my mind’s eye once again, I splayed my hands over the cards. This time, I began to feel a surge of energy. It felt thick, weighted. The closer my hands came to the cards, the stronger the pressure repelling them away, like matching poles of a magnet. It was the strongest energy I’d felt all night. “Ron, I’m beginning to feel an intense wave of energy. I just can’t place where it’s coming from.” But just as I finished my sentence, the energy dissipated, as if it didn’t want to be discovered. “Wait. Forget it. Whatever it was, it’s gone.”

“Shit!” Ron said. “The first damn thing we pick up on all night, and it decides to play shy on us.” Ron pouted. “Brian, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think this is the best we’re gonna do tonight. Investigations are like this sometimes. Unfortunately, spirits don’t perform like trained monkeys.”

We stood there for a moment, hoping for something to happen, until the cold finally took its toll on us and we decided to call it a night.

We packed up our gear as Brian did his closing piece. “We didn’t see any heads coming out of the ground tonight, but it was definitely one of the spookiest places I’ve been to so far. So if you happen to come across this particular graveyard in Newburyport and you feel a little spooked, there’s a good reason. There are over fifty sailors who fought in the revolutionary war buried right here. They’ve come back a number of times, to haunt not only Ron, but locals as well. Happy Halloween. I’m Brian Bates, News 9 night team.”

“I’ve got one shot left.” Ron turned back toward the cemetery and clicked the shutter on his 35mm, ending our night.

Ron’s last infrared photo reveals what appears to be an ecto mist in the shape of somebody waving good-bye.

The next day I called Ron. “Did you see the news piece?”

“Yeah,” he said, “I thought it was decent.”

“I watched it with Stephen,” I said, mentioning my husband.

“It was too funny. Right in the middle of the broadcast, he turned
to me and said, ‘Did I see that right? Did Ron just do what I think he did?’” I waited for Ron to respond, which he didn’t, so I continued. “I told him, ‘No, Steve, you weren’t hallucinating. Ron rubbed the skull and smelled his fingers.’” I laughed.

“So what’s the problem?” he replied. “You know you have to use all your senses. Well, the nose is just another tool.”

“You and your tools.” I chuckled. It was only my fourth investigation with the team, and already I had learned to expect the unexpected with Ron, or at least I thought I did.
Never
in the darkest corners of my mind did I suspect that our next case would be to assist a Franciscan Monk in an exorcism.

M
aureen, Maureen. Wake up.” I heard the sound of my husband’s voice in the distance. “Wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

Heart still pounding in my chest, I bolted upright. Finding it difficult to swallow with the lump in my throat, I stared at Steve. The whites of his eyes were more pronounced, a look of concern etched his face. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” I lied. Still gasping for breath I looked past him at the clock. 7:00 a.m. I scrambled out of the tangled covers and ran into the bathroom. “If I don’t get a move on, I’m going to be late.”

“What is up with you lately? Maybe it’s all that speaking with the dead you do. You know. Affecting your brain.”

Truth be told, the nightmare had scared the hell out of me. As I stood looking into the bathroom mirror, a kaleidoscope of colors and fragments of disjointed images twisted before my eyes. For the moment, I was back, standing on the deserted street of my nightmare. I felt a rush of panic. It was all too close to home. There, in front of me, stood my teenage son. I struggled to make sense of what I had seen. Why had he been in my dream? I’d have never allowed my children to partake in an exorcism. A tear slid down my cheek as I once again saw Josh’s wide-eyed stare as he reached out and cried, “Mom—please!” Just as in my dream I was once again forced to helplessly watch as his pale body was being clawed at by dark, soulless figures with unseen
hands. They whipped around him, pulling him down, deeper. Deeper. Until the pavement swallowed him whole.

The images of the nightmare were way too vivid, way too colorful, way too coincidental. It must be a warning. My thoughts ran to the discussion I’d had with Ron a few nights ago, when I’d agreed to attend an exorcism with him and Brian the Monk, a friend of Ron’s I hadn’t met. Brenda, our client, had called for help after finding our website, and we thought Brian’s services might be needed.

Steve’s voice carried over the sound of running water as I splashed my face. “Don’t you think it’s time to give this up? I mean, come on. What’s it going to take for you to realize this isn’t healthy for you?”

I’d known the truth when I first met my husband all those years ago. He was terrified of the idea that souls actually existed after death. I witnessed his fear every time I talked to him about my experiences. His eyes would tear up and his usual jovial demeanor would turn solemn and gruff. Since we’d met so young, he had assumed I’d grow out of it, like the habit of biting nails. Bad assumption. These days, though, our conversations of the dead and dying are few and far between. He likes it that way.

Trying to make myself sound more upbeat, I forced a smile. Smiles have a way of lightening a voice. I don’t know why, but they do. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Maybe it’s that horror flick I saw the other night? Really, I’m fine.”

I glanced in the mirror, the terrible visions of moments ago now gone. I gasped at my reflection. Visine for the redness, makeup for the dark circles, but only time would heal the puffiness.

Later that night, after wrestling with the images of the nightmare plaguing my mind, I called Ron. “Ron, I had another nightmare.
I’ve been thinking…I don’t know that I can make it with you and Brian on Wednesday.”

“What do you mean? We need you. Brenda needs you.”

“Look, I really want to help. But this time ‘it’ went after my son. I couldn’t stop it.”

“Maureen, it was just a bad dream. Besides, Brian said for it to work right, he needs the three of us.”

My heart thudded in my chest. “My son, Ron. Did you hear me?” My voice cracked as I swallowed back the tears. “Look, to you it’s just a ‘bad dream’…I do want to help. But at what cost? It was my son, Ron.”

“You know, if you have a bad dream and tell someone about it, it’ll go away.”

Not fully convinced, but on the off chance that he was right, I shared my dream. “I saw the townhouse looming in the darkness in downtown Boston. The house seemed alive. The moment a blonde woman opened the front door, I felt evil oozing out of it. Josh was there. He was being attacked by dark, soulless figures. I was helpless as my legs disappeared into the molten pavement. There was a man standing near the woman, wearing a long, woolen, brown robe. The front of his brown hair was cut short, the back pulled loosely into a ponytail. He had a diamond stud on his left ear and wore wire-rimmed glasses. With a bible in his left hand he started praying over the blonde woman in a foreign tongue. I think it was Latin. ‘
Exorcizámus te, omnis immúnde spíritus
…’”

The phone went silent when I finished.

“Ron, are you there?”

“Yes. I’m here.” He hesitated. “It must have been just a dream, because Brian doesn’t wear glasses. And I’m not sure if they pray in Latin anymore.”

“What?” I’d never met Brian so I had no way of knowing. Besides, I was just relaying the dream like he’d asked. “Ron, I don’t know. I’m just telling you what happened.”

“Well, you hit on a couple of things. Brian has dark hair and he does have a ponytail. He wears an earring, but he doesn’t wear glasses. So see, you’re worrying over nothing. It was just a dream. Actually,” Ron’s voice faltered, “he’s been having dreams of you, too. In fact, he described you to a T.”

My blood ran cold. “Okay. Say no more. I’m out of it.”

“Brian thought you would feel that way.”

“What are you talking about? When were you planning on sharing this little tidbit of information?”

“Don’t get all huffy about it. It’s just that I didn’t want to scare you. Brian figured you’d be calling me to cancel. He told me that it’s up to you. But he said that he’d protect us. That the demonic entity is just trying to scare you. You know, like when we’ve gone on investigations and the number 66.6 appears on the temperature sensors. It’s just its way of trying to intimidate us.”

I swallowed hard. “Well, it’s doing a damn good job of it.”

“Maureen, if you don’t want to come, I understand. Why don’t you think about it, and let me know sometime tomorrow? If you feel you can’t go through with it, I’ll find someone to take your place. No matter what, Brian and I are still going. We’d prefer it be you with us. But if you can’t, you can’t.” Ron’s voice sounded softer somehow. “When I first met you, you told me how much you want to help people with your gift. Don’t let this thing get the better of you.”

I lay awake all night, tossing and turning. I shivered when I thought of the years I’d spent being a medium for séances. One night, at the age of nineteen, when a negative entity followed
me home and tried to suffocate me in my sleep, I’d felt firsthand the evil that lurked, waiting for an open door.

My thoughts turned to Brenda, the woman who contacted us through the Ghost Project website. She needed our help and had nowhere left to turn. As much as I hated to admit it, Ron was right. Not one to be bullied, and suddenly angry that this “thing” would sink so low as to hit me where it hurt, I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer to St. Michael for the protection of my family, for Brenda, and, most of all, for strength.

* * *

Unlike Maureen, I was excited about tonight’s adventure. Sitting in traffic, my mind began to wander. I thought about when the movie
The Exorcist
came out. After I’d watched it, I’d had nightmares for weeks, its images festering deep within my mind. Just thinking about it now, though, doubts bubbled to the surface of my consciousness, and a dull panic nipped at my confidence.

But this is what the NEGP had set out to do, and I knew I couldn’t back down. Slowly my confidence returned, aided by Tom Petty on the radio: “
You can stand me up at the gates of hell but I won’t back down.
”

I had one more stop to make before picking up Maureen. Saint Francis Church. Van Helsing might be brave, but he isn’t stupid. I was stopping to get a blessing from the parish priest. One more silver bullet in my arsenal of protection. I tucked the infrared film that I had just purchased into my duffel bag, got out of the car, and made my way through the church basement to the parish office.