Ghouls Gone Wild (2 page)

Ah, if only it were that easy. I don’t know how or why I ended up having that experience, but I truly believe there is a lot more to this paranormal stuff than meets the eye. And it was such a powerful experience that I knew someday I’d get around to telling the story. Or at least an idea inspired by that experience. (And on a quick side note, the village of Queen’s Close is a complete fabrication, just in case any of you were thinking of taking off for that particular part of haunted Scotland.)

Like with all creative projects, there is always more than one input. And again, this particular novel is no exception. So it is with great pleasure and profound gratitude that I would like to thank the following souls for their generous help to this novel.

First, my agent, friend, and muse, Jim McCarthy: Jim—I’ve said it over and over, but seriously, dude, I heart you somethin’ fierce! Thank you for all that you do on my behalf. The encouragement. The enthusiasm. The occasional insult . . . but only when I need one, right?
And of course, thank you soooo much for those wonderful Gilley lines!

My new editor, Sandy Harding: Sandy, all I can say is WOW! You came in, hit the ground running, and never lost a stride! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the fabulous feedback and wonderful insight.
Merci, merci, merci!

Claire Zion: Words cannot express how grateful I am that you worked so hard to find me such an amazing editor. Thank you for taking such wonderful care of me, Claire. It’s most appreciated.

Michele Alpern: As always, my fabulous copy editor . . . YOU RULE!

Betty Stocking: Betty, thank you for allowing me to bounce all things British off you. I adore you and I’m truly grateful!

Also, allow me to thank the many folks who assist with taking care of me on a regular (sometimes daily) basis so that I can focus and write these books!

My cousin Hilary Laurie: Tee, you’re so amazing and so special and you always say the perfect thing! You have given me some amazing perspective more times than I can count, and you’ve made me laugh just as often. Love you,
mia carina
.

Profound thanks to the rest of my family, but especially to Elizabeth Laurie and Mary Jane Humphreys. Aunties,
what
would I do without you?!!!! (I’d be a crumbling ruin, that’s what!)

And of course a huge thank-you to my peeps and close friends, who are amazingly understanding when it comes to the disappearing act I pull every time I write a new manuscript, not to mention the boundless enthusiasm they display when the latest and greatest hits the shelves. In no particular order they are Nora Brosseau (and the rest of the Brosseau family!), Karen Ditmars, Leeanne Tierney, Silas Hudson, Thomas Robinson, Jaa Nawaitsong, Jennifer Casey, Tess Rodriguez, Shannon Dorn, Christine Trobenter, Pippa Stocking Terry, David Hansard, and of course my very own security detail and the person responsible for controlling the
massive
(cough, cough) crowds at my book signings, Katie Coppedge.

Love you guys. MEAN IT!

 

 

 

I’m not really put off by the skeptics out there: people who believe that, for me to call myself a psychic medium, I must be something of a fraud. They see me sitting across from a client, struggling to come up with the name of a deceased loved one or a relevant and specific detail related to that loved one, and it’s easy to believe I’m making the whole thing up.

But they don’t know what I know. They don’t feel what I feel. They don’t hear what I hear or see what I’ve seen. And they never will. Well, at least until
they
cross over, of course. There are no skeptics on the other side.

Case in point, one of the best readings I ever did was for a woman who had just lost her father, and by
just
, I mean earlier that very morning. When she came to me, desperate to know that her dad was okay, I took pity on her and fit her into my schedule right away. When we sat down together, her father came through immediately, and all he kept saying was, “Holy cow! This stuff is real!”

Turns out that, for seventy years, he’d been the biggest, loudest atheist you’d ever want to meet, and been convinced that people like me were total shams. So imagine how surprised he was when he died and discovered a whole new world—
literally
.

And really, because of that experience, I no longer worry about the snarky little side comments I get from folks who think what I do is a big charade. They just don’t get it, and maybe, they’re not supposed to until they too drift off into that great night.

But none of that is going to slow me down or even give me pause. There’s
way
too much work to do for me to linger on what other people think.

I’ve got my regular work as a medium—connecting the living with their deceased loved ones—and my other job as a ghostbuster for a brand-new cable-TV show.

It seems that there’s a growing fascination among television-viewing audiences for watching the things that go bump in the night. And, truthfully, our world is chock-full of those poor souls that haven’t made it across yet. I’m talking about grounded spirits, better known to most as ghosts. There are millions and millions of them out there, wandering aimlessly about—and some places are more heavily populated than others.

Take Europe, for example: You can’t walk a mile anywhere on that continent without bumping into a ghostie or two. . . . They’re
everywhere
. Which is why our production company wanted to fly us “across the pond,” so to speak, and plunk us down somewhere old and spooky.

My two partners and I were part of a ghostbusting team recruited by a small production company headed by this guy named Gopher. Well, that’s not really his name. His real name is Peter Gophner, but everyone calls him by his nickname. I often wonder if that’s because sometimes he can be a real rat.

Anyway, with Gopher’s assistance we’d landed a major contract with the Bravo cable network to develop a ghost-hunting show called
Ghoul Getters
. Bravo wanted ten episodes to air every Saturday night beginning in January. If all went successfully, my team and I would be rich and famous in no time.

My ghostbusting squad was made up of my best friend and the team’s technical guru, Gilley Gillespie, and Heath Whitefeather, a brilliant medium in his own right and someone whom I’d recently worked another bust with.

I’d known Gilley since I was in first grade back in Augusta, Georgia. I’d found him on the first day of school by himself on the playground with a pair of G.I. Joes he was pretending were having a make-out session. Even back then Gil was featherlight in his loafers. We’d become instant BFFs.

After high school, and to get away from the dysfunction of my father’s house, I’d followed Gilley out to Boston, where he landed a full ride to MIT.

It was around that time that my psychic-medium skills had really sparked, and after three years Gilley quit school to help me run my business. He’d set up a Web site for me and managed my personal clients, and things ran smoothly until I got burned-out.

It was Gil who’d come up with the rather genius idea of opening up our own ghostbusting business. Unfortunately, the general public didn’t find the idea so genius, and we’d barely managed to eke out a living.

Then, about four months ago, Gilley had answered an online ad on my behalf to participate on a reality-TV show called
Haunted Possessions
—sort of an
Antiques Roadshow
meets
Most Haunted
.

I’d reluctantly agreed, but that had actually turned into the current opportunity with Bravo TV, so things had worked out in the end—at least financially.

And that first TV show had also been where I’d met Heath Whitefeather, who was a genuinely good guy.

Heath was an amazing talent as far as mediums go. He was American Indian, raised on a reservation in New Mexico, and he could communicate with the dead as well as anyone I’d ever met. Physically he sort of resembles Ashton Kutcher, but with darker, longer hair, and more-olive skin. His chin is also a little more square, but his body is just as finely chiseled . . . er . . . not that I’ve noticed or anything (ahem!).

Okay, so the truth is that if it weren’t for the fact that I was currently attached, I’d likely fall for Heath in a heartbeat.

Gilley and Heath were really geeked about the idea of venturing overseas. But I wasn’t so stoked, mostly because of whom I’d be leaving behind.

My sweetheart, Dr. Steven Sable, would have to stay in Boston and work, and lately, Steven and I hadn’t been doing so well. A lot of our issues had to do with our crazy work schedules. He worked days, and I worked nights, so lately we hardly saw each other.

Intuitively, I knew that what we really needed was to spend more time together and strengthen our relationship, but when I signed the contract with Bravo, there was little chance of that happening.

So, not only was I about to put my romantic relationship on hold, but I’d have to leave behind my beloved African Gray parrot, Doc, who would be looked after by a trusted friend while I was away.

Doc and I have been together for over twenty years and in all that time we’d never spent longer than a week apart. The filming schedule had our crew out of the country for the next eight to ten weeks, which was what had me so glum about the prospect of leaving. And it must have been obvious because as I sat in my office waiting on a client, Gilley came bounding in, took one look at me, and said, “Don’t pout, M. J. You’ll develop frown lines.”

I sighed. “Way to cheer me up, Gil.”

“Are you still moping about the trip?”

“Doc’s going to think I’ve abandoned him,” I said moodily.

Hearing his name, my bird gave a loud wolf whistle from his play stand in the corner and said, “Nice bum! Where you from?”

“He’ll be fine,” Gilley insisted.

“And I think Steven’s not real thrilled that I’m leaving either.”

“Distance makes the heart grow fonder,” Gilley sang, patting my arm sympathetically before showing me a small box that had just been delivered. “Look what came FedEx!” My partner tilted the box, which he’d opened, so that I could see the contents. Inside was a DVD.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Location footage,” Gil replied. “Remember when you insisted on approving each location before we committed?”

“Yes, and I thought I already approved all of them.” I distinctly remembered the three hours Gil, Heath, and I had spent viewing each location that’d been chosen by the production company to film each episode of
Ghoul Getters
.

Gilley nodded enthusiastically as he came around my desk, popped open my laptop, and slid in the DVD. “Gopher called me yesterday,” he explained, referring to our producer/director. “He found a new spot he thinks we should investigate first. He said the location team that scouted it is still freaked-out about what they saw, and he says we can’t pass it up. It’s the scariest place on earth!”

“Great sales pitch,” I grumbled, still moody over leaving home for so long.

Gilley ignored me and hit play. My computer screen filled with the image of a drizzly gray landscape. Old brick buildings lined a narrow cobbled street as rain dripped off thatched roofs and collected in puddles.

Someone off camera began speaking in a lovely Scottish brogue. “Before us is the infamous Briar Road, the most haunted lane in all of Europe and maybe even the world—while below our feet are the world-renowned caverns where countless hundreds lost their lives to the Black Death, starvation, fire, and murder. Pain lines this street and seeps up from deep underground. Here, the earth is so thick with it that nary a beast will tread down these cobbled stones. No bird, stray cat, or dog will venture here. Only humans are fool enough to walk this road.”

I wanted to roll my eyes at the theatrics, but before I even had a chance, a man appeared on-screen holding a cute, cuddly charcoal-colored puppy, shivering in the rain. The man, dressed in a long black raincoat with a black bowler, wore something of a wicked grin and I immediately disliked him. “What’s he doing?” I whispered as the guy came forward and held up the puppy to the camera so that we could get a better view of the adorable face.

“Aw, it’s a pug,” Gil said. “M. J., you love pugs!”

Gil was right, I did love the puggies, but something told me this guy was up to something, so I didn’t reply with more than a nod. And sure enough, in the next instant the man set the little pup down on the ground. Securing a leash to its collar, he announced, “I’ve selected this adorable pup from a local shelter to demonstrate what happens when an animal finds itself on Briar Road.”

And with that, the man turned and began to trot down the narrow street, leading the puppy behind him. At first the pug was all too willing to follow, but then, about ten yards into their walk, the pug stopped abruptly and tried to sit down. The man looked behind him, smiled, then stared keenly into the camera. “They all attempt to resist in exactly the same spot,” he said.