2 A Haunting In Oregon (2 page)

“I think I’m done for the night,”
she said, picking up her plate. “You can bus your own plates into the kitchen.”
Then she walked out. Steven and Roy heard her depositing dishes into the sink.

Pete returned from another room, carrying
a book in his hands. “I found it!” he said excitedly, sitting down. “Where’s
Sarah?”

“She’s turned in for the night,”
Roy said.

Pete sighed. “My apologies,
gentlemen. This isn’t her cup of tea. I’m afraid she’s pretty angry with me
over the whole thing. And she’s not the kind of person who believes in ghosts
or psychics, or that kind of thing.”

“I know how she feels,” Steven
said, remembering how his own skepticism had changed a few months earlier, as
Roy helped him solve a similar problem at his own house. “I’m guessing she
feels these deaths are all explainable in a logical and sensible way – not that
it will change the bad publicity.”

“That’s exactly right,” Pete said,
agreeing with him. “I told her why I asked you down, Roy, and she came unglued.
I should have warned you.”

“Nah, it’s no problem. They’re a
pain in the ass but I deal with skeptics all the time,” he said, winking at
Steven.

Just three months earlier Steven
would have been considered more skeptical than Sarah. His home had been plagued
with knockings in the middle of the night. He was convinced that he was
hallucinating, hearing things and seeing violent images and scenes that his own
brain was concocting. He hadn’t known his father very well at the time, but Roy
stepped in and helped him. Roy had a gift, something he’d suppressed the entire
time Steven was growing up, but he’d recently begun to use it. Roy helped him
rid his house of ghosts for good. In the process, Steven had learned to respect
Roy’s ability. He had gone from being a rational skeptic to being a 90%
believer. There was still ten percent in the back of his mind that he didn’t
think would ever go away – due to habit, or more likely from fifty years of
thinking a certain way.

“This book,” Pete said, handing an
oversized paperback to Roy, “was written about the place years ago. Sarah and I
never thought much of it, but I’m convinced it’s the reason the people who
bought the place from us wanted to market the ghost idea. There’s a lot of
money to be made in ghost tours and that kind of thing. People will stay at a
place just because they believe it’s haunted. People make up stuff as a way to
market their hotels. I’m too old school to think that was a good idea, and
Sarah was too rational to have anything to do with it. But the new owners, they
saw this book, read the stories, and ran with it. It worked for a while – until
the deaths.”

Roy handed the book to Steven
without looking at it. Steven flipped it open and starting browsing. It was
titled
The Ghosts of Mason Manor
. The first few chapters were about the
construction of the house.

“We called the place ‘Snow Meadow
Bed and Breakfast’ when we owned it,” Pete said, “and people liked the name.
But the new owners changed it back to the original name, Mason Manor, because
they could leverage that book you’re holding.”

“You’ve left it Mason Manor?”
Steven asked.

“Yeah,” Pete replied, “I guess we
should have changed it back. Now I’m glad we didn’t. I’ll change it back after
you fix what’s wrong here, Roy. That’ll give us a fresh start.”

Roy cleared his throat. “About that,”
Roy asked Pete, “I wish you would have mentioned the virus thing when we talked
on the phone. That’s a bit of a shock. I can understand why people don’t want
to stay here. I don’t think I would have come down if I’d known.”

“I apologize for that,” Pete said.
“I don’t blame you for being concerned. But honestly, I don’t believe that for
a second. I know it’s not a virus. It’s something else.”

“Why do you say that?” Steven
asked.

“Hard to explain,” Pete said. “But
I knew something was wrong the first day we were in charge again. When guests
would leave they looked tired, run down. When we ran the place before guests
would leave rejuvenated, enthusiastic about their stay. Now they leave almost
anemic. Everyone becomes crabby and unhappy. Needless to say we don’t get many
repeat visitors. What, is that a virus? Makes some people unhappy and kills
others? Bah. And the feeling in the place has changed. I notice it at night, if
I have to get up and walk the hallways for any reason. It feels wrong, not like
it used to feel. I’m not sure I know how else to describe it. What could cause
that?”

“Don’t know yet, Pete,” Roy said. “But
we’ll see what we can find out. What are the plans for tonight?”

“We’ve got a room ready for each
of you,” Pete said. “Sarah and I have rooms in the south wing, that’s where
your rooms are.”

“Are these rooms where the deaths
occurred?” Roy asked.

“No,” Pete replied. “All those
happened in the north wing.”

“Do you have rooms we could take
in the north wing?” Roy asked.

“Jumping right in, huh Roy?” Pete
smiled.

“That’s what I’m here for, Pete,”
Roy replied.

Steven found himself in a comfortable
room in the north wing with a private bathroom and a large window that offered
a view of the meadow surrounding part of the manor. Above the meadow the stars
were bright.
So hard to see stars in Seattle,
he thought. Here, there
was no cloud cover and no ambient light. The night was dark and the stars were
vivid.

He could hear Roy next door,
getting situated. There was an adjoining door which he’d try in a minute after
he let Roy unpack. Now he was mesmerized by the stars and he wanted to soak it
in a little.

He entered the River.  Steven had
learned how to enter it with less pain thanks to Roy and some tricks he had
taught him. The River was a moving flow, invisible to most people, but tangible
and navigable if you knew how to get into it and exit it. It offered a
different perspective on the world around them.

Steven had been resistant to the
River when Roy first showed it to him. Roy had used it for most of his life,
jumping in whenever he needed to, to help solve a problem for a friend or deal
with something unusual. He’d stopped using it when he was married to Steven’s
mother, Claire, since she had considered it an evil practice and didn’t want her
boys exposed to it. Claire had tried to counter Roy’s influence by taking them
to church and immersing them in religious activities their entire adolescent
lives, and Steven and his brother, Bernard, hated every moment of it.

Steven moved inside the River out
to the meadow that surrounded the manor. From here, the stars were even more
vivid, away from the lights of the house. He fell to his back and looked up. It
had been a long time since he’d done this, just lay and look at the stars. Seeing
them from inside the River they seemed to have color, and the longer he stared
at them, the more appeared. He began to get lost in them.

Looking at the stars calmed him.
When Roy had first suggested they travel from Seattle to meet with Pete, he
wasn’t sure he wanted to. Roy and Steven had just rid Steven’s house of ghosts
and Steven was exhausted from the ordeal.

He had been laid off from his job
several months back. He’d been married once, but that had ended years ago. He
had a son in college but rarely saw him; he was busy living his own life. So he
found himself with little to do, and what he really wanted was for Roy to
continue teaching him about the River. After a couple of silent nights in his
cleansed house, Steven had called Roy back and said he’d go with him to
southern Oregon.

Then he heard a knocking – Roy, at
the adjoining door. He moved back to his room and exited the River, feeling a
slice of pain in the back of his head. He had managed to reduce the effect of
the pain since his first experience, when it felt as though he was being
stabbed with an ice pick. Now the pain was slight and manageable. He rubbed the
back of his head.

“Open up!” Roy said through the
door as he banged on it. Steven walked to the adjoining door and opened it.

“It’s a good thing there’s not
anyone else here, you’d have woken them all up,” Steven said.

“You gotta check this place out!”
Roy said enthusiastically. “This is
fancy
!”

Steven walked into Roy’s room, and
indeed, it was much nicer than Steven’s room. It had a large living room with a
sofa, a small kitchen with stainless steel appliances and marble countertops,
and a sliding glass door that led out to a balcony. It was beautifully
decorated and Steven felt jealous.

“I just have a single room with a
bathroom,” he said.

“Well,” Roy said, “I’ll let you
come over and live the life of Riley if you behave yourself. Come look at
this!”

Roy led Steven to the balcony and
showed him a telescope on a tripod.

“Can’t see anything at the moment,”
Roy said, “but I intend to use it in the morning.”

“Probably spot some wildlife with
it,” Steven replied. Roy walked off the balcony and back to the kitchen.

“One thing I don’t like,” he said,
“there’s no coffee maker.”

Steven followed him into the
kitchen, checked the cabinets for him. “Sure there is, Dad,” he said, pulling
down a French press and setting it on the counter.

“What’s that?” asked Roy. “It
doesn’t have a cord.”

“It’s a French press,” answered
Steven. “You put the coffee in, you add hot water, and press this plunger
down.”

“How does it stay warm?” Roy
asked.

“Well,” replied Steven, “it
doesn’t. You only make enough to drink in one sitting. I suppose you can nuke
it if it gets cold.”

“I don’t like it,” Roy said.
“What’s wrong with a regular coffee maker?”

“I suspect they think this is an
upgrade, since you have a stove and can boil water.”

“How’s cold coffee an upgrade?”

Steven sighed. “I have a regular
coffee maker in my room. I’ll trade you.”

Roy smiled. “Would you? That’s a-boy.”

“As long as you’ll let me boil
water over here when I need to.”

“Why would you need to do that?”
Roy asked. “I’ll have regular coffee on. Just use that.”

Steven moved the coffee maker from
his room into Roy’s kitchen and didn’t bother to move the French press over to
his room.

“It was nice of Pete to give you
this big room,” Steven said. “It will make working on things a little more
comfortable. What did you think of Sarah?”

“She’s nice enough for an uptight
bitch,” Roy replied.

Steven laughed.

“I know her type,” Roy said. “Just
like you, it’ll take ghosts and demons coming out her ass before she’ll admit
they’re real. Even then she’ll be going on about dreaming or hallucinations.
You mark my words.”

Steven didn’t argue. When Roy
helped him rid his house of ghosts, Steven behaved the same way. He felt a
little sorry for Sarah.

“Maybe we can solve what’s wrong
here and leave her lack of belief intact,” Steven said.

“Are you sweet on her?” Roy asked.

“No!” Steven responded, surprised
at the question. “She’s half my age. Well, almost. I’m probably twenty years
older than her.”

“Been desperate since Sheryl left
you,” Roy said.

“Desperate?” Steven replied.
“Hardly. Besides, if you’re right about her being pregnant, she’s got someone
already.”

“So you are sweet on her,” Roy
said. “Could you tell she was pregnant?”

“No,” Steven replied. “I was
surprised when you said it. How did you know?”

“The next time you’re around her,
see if you feel it. Concentrate on it. If your woody doesn’t get in the way,
that is.”

Steven thought about responding to
Roy’s crassness, but there was little point. Roy was always crass, he wasn’t
going to change. Arguing with him about it would be pointless and go nowhere.
And, he supposed, Sarah wasn’t hard on the eyes. Her perspective on things
supernatural mirrored his own recent feelings and he could relate to that. But
no, he wasn’t going to pursue anything with someone twenty years his junior.

“In the meantime,” Steven said,
“what’s the plan for tonight? Do you want to stage a trance?”

“Yup, that’s the plan. We can do
it right here. I’ll get set up, you set up to watch me.”

Roy moved a chair from a small
dining table into the middle of the living room. He went to his bag and removed
a blindfold, which he handed to Steven. Roy sat in the chair, and Steven
wrapped the blindfold loosely around Roy’s head. Then Steven turned off all the
lights, and sat on the sofa in the living room to watch Roy.

Steven had become accustomed to
watching Roy during the trances he’d performed in his house. Roy used the
blindfold to help him keep his eyes closed, and Steven knew he should not
interrupt Roy until he removed the blindfold himself. In the meantime, it was
Steven’s job to make sure Roy stayed safe, didn’t get up and walk into things
or hurt himself.

They sat quietly for ten minutes. Roy
was breathing steadily, and Steven was keeping an eye on him, trying to stay
awake. Few things were harder to stay awake through than sitting quietly in the
dark at bedtime. Steven caught himself drifting off a few times and snapped
himself back to awareness. He couldn’t afford to have something bad happen to
Roy because he failed to do his job.

After another ten minutes, Roy
spoke.

“Steven? You there?”

“Yes, I’m here,” Steven replied
quietly.

“I think you might like to see
this,” he said.

“How do I join you?” Steven asked.

“Jump in, and I’ll open the trance
to you,” Roy replied.

“What about keeping an eye on you?”
Steven asked.

“We’re not going to go far.”

Steven lowered his head and felt
himself slip into the River. He could see Roy surrounded by a large bubble. He
felt a wash of light pass over him, and he found himself inside the bubble with
Roy. He could see what Roy was experiencing.

Roy was hovering over the manor,
about fifty feet above the most central part of the sprawling house. As they
looked down, Steven could see wisps of movement inside. They looked like large
cotton balls, but they trailed some of the cotton as they moved. There were
dozens and dozens of them. Some moved within a single room, others moved up and
down hallways, and some moved along a repetitive pattern between rooms. Many
were outside of the house, in other buildings and wandering the meadow.

What are they?
Steven
thought.

Ghosts,
Roy answered.

Jesus, there are a lot of them
,
Steven thought.

More than I’ve ever seen in a
single place before
, Roy answered.

What are they doing?

Typical ghost shit,
Roy
answered
. Watch them for a while.
We’re going to pick one and try to
communicate with it. Which one should we pick?

Steven wondered if this was a
test. Roy had been educating him on the gift, teaching him how to do some of the
things Roy knew how to do. While Roy had experience with ghosts, Steven only
knew them from the haunting at his house, and he had never interacted with one
other than to be scared shitless by them. Roy operated on a whole different
level with them that he’d have to learn.

He noticed one figure in the room
next to his. It didn’t leave the room; it just circled within it, seeming to
bounce off the walls as though it was caged.

How about that one?
he
thought to Roy.

Good choice
, Roy answered.
Let’s
leave the River.

In a second, they were both back
in Roy’s room, with the lights still out. Steven heard Roy stand. Steven
reached for a table light next to him and switched it on.

“OK, we know there’s one on the
other side of your room,” Roy said, removing his blindfold. “We’ll go talk to
it.”

“We couldn’t do that from within
the flow?” Steven asked.

“We could have gone to it, yes,
but we wouldn’t have been successful communicating with it,” Roy answered.

“Because a ghost responds to you
being physically in the room with them?” Steven asked.

“Excellent,” Roy said, “you’re
picking it up. And you picked a perfect one, because it stays in that room for
some reason. We can set up for a trance there and not have it wandering off.
Really, ghosts can be incredibly stupid. Most do the same thing over and over.
Makes you want to grab them and shake them and say, ‘Get on with it!’”

“I’m guessing that wouldn’t work,”
Steven said.

“If it did you would probably just
piss them off,” Roy said. “And it’s when they become angry that you have to
watch out. Stupid and angry don’t blend well. They can be extremely dangerous,
particularly when you’re in a trance. Then again, I have met some that were
unflappable, very calm no matter what you did or said.”

“Any way to know in advance?” Steven
asked.

“Nope,” Roy said, “that’s the
problem with ghosts. You never know what you’re going to get. You don’t know
until you talk to them. Let’s see if we can get into that room.”

Steven followed Roy out of their
room and walked down the dimly lit hallway to the room on the other side of
Steven’s. He knocked on the door, waiting to see if someone was inside. When no
reply came, he reached for the door handle and shook it.

“Of course it’s locked,” Roy said.
“This door frame is old. We might be able to get in with a credit card. You do
it.” He stepped back from the door.

“Why me?” Steven asked.

“You have credit cards, right?”
Roy said.

“Sure,” Steven said. “You don’t?”

“Don’t believe in them,” Roy said.
“And I don’t want to ruin my driver’s license.”

Steven stepped up to the door and
removed a card from his wallet. He angled it into the door frame next to the
lock and moved it up and down, trying to get the right angle. After a few
moments the door popped open.

Steven walked in and turned on a
light. The room was similar to Steven’s, with a single bed and a connecting
bathroom. Roy pulled a chair out from a desk and placed it near the foot of the
bed, then he handed Steven the blindfold.

“I can’t ask you in on this one,”
Roy said, as Steven tied the blindfold. “Too dangerous. I need you to watch me.
But you can jump into the River if you want, just be ready to exit and deal
with me physically if it comes to it.”

“Will do,” Steven said. He turned
off the light and sat on the bed next to Roy.

Another fifteen minutes went by.
Steven wanted to jump in and see if he could observe what was happening but he
decided he’d wait until it appeared that Roy had contacted something.

Several more minutes went by
silently. He felt something else in the room with them, and he turned to look
at the window. A figure was there, moving slowly in front of it. It crossed
back and forth a couple of times, then came closer to Steven. It stopped next
to him. It was thin and faint, like a projection from a very dim bulb. He could
vaguely make out feminine features. She was hunched over, as though she was crying,
but there was no sound. The figure turned and looked at Roy. There seemed to be
something passing between them. Steven entered the flow, and saw a woman
dressed in bedclothes from another era. Her upper body shook, heaving great
sobs which Steven could now hear. She was shouting things to Roy, who continued
to ask her questions. The questions seemed to be making her angrier. She would
turn to walk away from Roy, then turn back and shout at him. Steven couldn’t make
out the exact words they were saying, it was all inside the trance that Roy was
projecting, but it was clearly agitating the woman. The angrier she got, the
more horrifying her features became. Finally she stopped sobbing and stood
still. All emotion left her face. She raised her right arm; in her hand was a
revolver. At first Steven was concerned she was going to shoot Roy, but instead
she brought it up to her right temple, pressed it against her head, closed her
eyes, and pulled the trigger. The contents of her head hit the far wall and her
body crumpled to the floor in front of Roy. Steven rushed over to the light
switch and turned it on.