2 A Haunting In Oregon (7 page)

Steven and Roy located the
gravesite for Robert Maysill in the Medford Cemetery during the daylight,
knowing they would return after dusk to conduct the séance. Neither wanted to
be fumbling with flashlights in the dark, looking for a headstone, potentially
attracting attention. There was an above-ground Maysill crypt in a corner of the
cemetery. Several Maysills were interred inside, the foremost of them, Robert.

“This is perfect,” Roy said. “The
cemetery closes at dusk. We’ll come back when it’s dark and we can do it right
behind the crypt. No one will see us. We should have enough privacy to conduct
a full and proper séance. Be sure to wear dark clothing.”

They picked a section of the back
fence that looked the most navigable as their way in later, after the gates would
be closed. Then they left the cemetery.

While they were waiting for the
cemetery to close, Steven tried to examine the proboscis. He could press on it
through the baggie, and it felt spongy. He wondered if it could decay, like
normal flesh. He stopped manhandling it and decided to try the flow instead.

He jumped into the River and
picked up the baggie again. The fragment was about six inches long, thin and
black, with a sharp point at the end. Where it had broken from the creature
Steven could see a cross section of the material that it was composed of, which
was also black. In the center it was hollow. He slipped back out of the flow,
and shivered thinking of this thing invading a body, his body. Then he tried to
imagine how it would feel to have your entire body bleed.
Why do I do this?
he wondered.
Why do I creep myself out like this?

He put the baggie back down on the
motel table. Roy was next door, resting, preparing for tonight. He wondered how
different a séance might be from a trance. Steven had only controlled a trance
once, when Roy had needed help. He wasn’t sure he understood how to do it, how
to manipulate it. It was completely different than slipping into the flow,
which now Steven found very easy to do. It took a great deal of concentration
to control a trance. Roy seemed an expert at it. It was best to let him lead
the way. Roy would give him a chance when it wasn’t critical.

Steven and Roy agreed they’d try
the cemetery at 11 p.m. The streets of Medford were dark and the trees
surrounding the cemetery made the grounds even darker. The main gates had been
shut and a large chain run though its bars. They pulled the car to the back
side of the cemetery at the point where they had decided they could scale the
fence without attracting attention.

The trees were blowing slightly in
the wind and no one was around. Everything went well until they approached the
crypt. They could hear noises coming from behind it. Steven motioned for Roy to
wait, and he quietly walked around the side of it. When he reached the back edge
he peeked around the corner.

At first he couldn’t make out the
tumble of bodies on the ground. After a few seconds he recognized what he was
seeing and walked back to Roy.

“Kids,” Steven whispered. “I’d say
he’s rounding third.”

“Scare ‘em off,” Roy whispered
back. “I don’t want to be here all night.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”
Steven asked. “Yell at them?”

“Don’t yell at them, we don’t want
anyone to know we’re here. We just want them gone.”

Steven slipped into the flow and
hovered over the crypt, staring down at the couple.
Sorry man, I hate to do
this to you when you’re so close to home base,
he thought. He moved down behind
the couple and inside a large bush that blocked the view from the back fence of
the cemetery. He exited the flow and shook the branches of the bush from inside
it.

No reaction from the kids. They
were far too engrossed in their making out to be distracted by the bush.

Steven scratched his head,
thinking.
How am I supposed to do this?
He considered passing through
them, but that seemed a bit perverted. While he was considering options he
heard Roy think,
Oh for fuck’s sake.

Something lifted the boy up off
the girl several feet in the air. The girl was irritated, then horrified as she
saw him floating. He stared down at her, shrugging his shoulders, then flailing
his arms, trying to grab onto something or the person he thought was behind him. 
When he reached about three feet above her he was moved to her side and dropped
on the ground next to her. He pushed himself up off the ground and bolted for
the back fence.

“Wait!” the girl cried, running
after him.

Roy walked around the corner of
the crypt as Steven emerged from the bush. “It’ll be a story they tell their
kids,” Roy said, sitting down behind the crypt’s back wall in a cross-legged
position.

“I couldn’t think of anything,” Steven
said, joining him. “And besides, I don’t know how to do that.”

“Remind me to show you, another
time,” Roy said, reaching out to him. “Hold my hands.”

Steven reached out and grabbed
Roy’s hands.

“Our hands form a circle,” Roy
said. “No matter what happens, don’t break the circle. And stay quiet unless
spoken to.”

Roy closed his eyes and began
mumbling. After a while, Steven could tell the mumbling was actually Roy
calling for Robert Mayhill, requesting him to speak. They sat like this for
several minutes, Roy continuing to call. Steven’s arms were beginning to grow
tired, but he held them in place as Roy continued his chanting.

Another ten minutes passed before
anything happened. Just as Steven was beginning to think the séance was a bust,
he was shocked to see a figure materialize just outside the crypt wall. The
figure was tall and lean, with a long jacket and a moustache. He hovered a few
inches off the ground.

Roy spoke, his eyes still closed. “Is
this Robert Maysill, the builder of Mason Manor?”

No response.

“Did you contract a portal?”

Nothing.

The figure faded from view, and
reappeared next to them, sitting on the ground. Steven squeezed Roy’s hand. Roy
opened his eyes, looking at Steven. Steven motioned to the right. Roy turned
and saw Robert Maysill sitting with them.

“Can you speak?” asked Roy.

Robert Maysill’s lips moved, but
neither of them could hear anything.

“Steven,” said Roy, “jump in with
me.”

They both entered the flow. Robert
Maysill’s figure changed from one of dim light to a normal human being, as
though he was alive and sitting next to them.

“Can you hear me?” Robert said.

“Yes,” Roy replied, “we can hear
you now.”

“Ah, you’re like Albert!” Robert said.
“Most people can’t do that! They just run away horrified.”

“I’m Roy, and this is my son
Steven. Pleased to meet you. And yes, we’ve been in touch with Albert.”

“How is he, the old coot?”

“Same as he always is,” Roy said.
Roy had never met Albert before this past week, but it seemed like the right
thing to say to gain Robert’s confidence.

“Albert has been maintaining the
portal you contracted,” Roy continued. “It’s still going, and we’re a hundred
and fifty years past your death, Robert.”

“Yes, I know,” Robert said. “It’s
wonderful. It’s enticed most of the irritating folk in this graveyard over
there. I have several annoying relatives who left this crypt for it decades
ago. Best money I ever spent.”

“Well, about that,” said Roy, “I
think your portal has been co-opted. Unless you were using it to harvest
things.”

“I certainly did!” Robert said. “I
used it to harvest some of the biggest gold finds in the area. They’d open up a
new mine and I’d come along after they’d collected a fair amount and take a cut
for myself. They never knew where the gold went. Didn’t matter how many guards
they put on it. I made out like I had my own claim and was working it. But
really I was lifting it off theirs!” He slapped his knee, which made no sound.
“It was a lot of fun, let me tell you. And I raised enough to build that house,
and set my family up for life.”

“You know they had to sell the
house, eventually,” Roy said. “They were not good stewards of your fortune.
They went bust.”

“Yes, I know that,” Robert said.
“None of them had a head for business like me. None of them ever thought about
stealing for a living!” He turned to look at Steven.
He’s a sociopath,
Steven thought.

“Would you let us turn it off? The
portal?” Steven asked.

“Why would I do that?” Robert asked.
“It’s paid for.”

“Someone is using your portal to
do some horrible things,” Roy said.

“Like what?” Robert asked.

“Show him,” Roy said to Steven.
Steven broke the circle and reached into his satchel. He removed the baggie
containing the section of proboscis and showed it to Robert.

“This,” Roy said, pointing to the
baggie, “was found in the leg of a woman this morning at the manor. A creature
was trying to bleed some of her while she slept, harvest some of her blood.
Instead it got this stuck in her and it caused her to hemorrhage out her skin
over her whole body. She was completely covered in her own blood and died there
on the bed. It’s the sixth death there in the past few years.”

“So?” asked Robert, unmoved.

“So,” Steven said angrily, “the
creature that this came from is using your portal to enter the manor and attack
people. It originally attacked ghosts, harvesting matter from them. But
recently it’s developed a taste for human blood and it attacks the guests there
every night. Most don’t know they’ve been violated. Sometimes it screws up,
like this one, and winds up killing someone.”

“Your manor is the shame of the
county now,” Roy said. “They all think it’s some kind of virus.”

“What’s a virus?” Robert asked.

“It’s like a disease that can pass
from person to person,” Roy said. “They can’t figure out why people in the
manor die from this virus. What they’re likely to do is burn the place down to
try and eliminate it.”

This caused Robert to be more
concerned.

“That building was my life’s
work,” he said. “It’s the only thing left. It can’t be burnt down. Not yet.”

“Then let us shut down the portal,”
Roy said. “The deaths will stop, and it might salvage its reputation, spare it
from the wrecking ball.”

“Wrecking ball?”

“He means,” said Steven, “save it
from being burned down. All you have to do is tell Albert to shut it down.”

Robert mulled this over. “As much
as I don’t want certain people back in this cemetery,” he said, “I’m willing to
do what you ask. But only after you do something for me, first.”

“What?” asked Roy.

“There’s a large amount of gold
still in that house, raw gold that I lifted from the mines. I secured it in
case things went south, the banks failed, that kind of thing. I landed in my
grave before I needed to remove it. No one knows that it’s there. I want my
descendants to have it, not the people in the house now. If they burn down my
house, that gold might be found by someone else. I want you to extract it and
give it to Amy Maysill, no questions asked. She lives right here in Medford,
visits this crypt once a month, keeps the flowers up. I doubt she has two nickels
to rub together, but she still comes and keeps the front of it looking nice.
You remove those bags and deliver that gold to her, I’ll tell Albert to shut it
down.”

“Where is it? In the house?”
Steven asked.

“It’s in the basement. You’ll have
to remove bricks to get to it, and dig in a bit. It’s three or four feet into
the dirt. There will be a tin box, and inside it, two canvas bags filled with
gold. It’ll say Klamath Mining Company on the side of the bags. Get rid of the
bags before you give it to her, put the gold in something else. That way she
won’t be questioned about it and she won’t be able to say anything about where
it came from.”

“OK, we’ll do it,” said Roy.

“And gentlemen,” Robert added,
“don’t think about taking any for yourselves. If one speck of that gold doesn’t
make it into Amy’s hands, the deal’s off.”

“We understand,” Steven said.

“When you give it to her,” Robert
said, “tell her that Patricia is fine, and asks about Mangey. Oh, and tell her
more daffodils, please.”

“One more thing,” Roy said. “Where
does the portal connect to? Where’s the other end?”

“The last place I had it pointed
at was a shaft of the Johnson mine, owned at the time by the Klamath Mining
Company. The entrance is north of Johnson’s lake, by Mount Pitt. Good luck, gentlemen.
Don’t trample the flowers on your way out.”

With that, Robert slowly faded.
Steven and Roy exited the flow and saw the last of Robert disappear as a faint
glow, moving back toward the crypt wall.

Steven and Roy sat on the ground
for a moment longer.

“This shouldn’t be too hard,”
Steven said. “We talk to Pete, we go in and get the gold out of the basement,
we deliver it to Amy. Simple.”

“Let’s get up,” Roy said,
attempting to stand. “My legs are cramping.”

Pete had agreed to meet them at a
fruit stand several miles from the manor. Steven, Roy, and Pete walked between
the bushels of pears and cherries as Roy explained the situation to Pete.

“Once we find it and deliver it to
her, this will be over,” Roy said. “This is the solution you’ve been waiting
for.”

“But if there’s gold in the house,
isn’t it rightfully mine, since I own the place?”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Roy, “but
I urge you not to think that way.”

“Why not?” Pete said. “If what you
say is true, Sarah and I could sell the place and the gold would easily make up
for our losses. We’d be set for life.”

“If you do that,” Roy said,
“you’ll be haunted by the ghost of Robert Maysill and his descendants for the
rest of your life. I can guarantee that. You’ll have no peace. This way, you
can at least get your life back, and Sarah’s too. You didn’t know that gold was
there before. Pretend it’s just some valueless object we have to locate and
deliver to someone. Don’t let it tempt you.”

Pete thought about this. “You’re
right, I’m letting greed cloud my judgment. Do you really think it’s true? Can
you imagine finding a bag of gold in the house? It’s kind of unbelievable.”

“It’ll make an interesting new
chapter in
The Ghosts of Mason Manor,
” Steven said.

“Well,” said Pete, “if we’re going
to remove bricks, it’ll be noisy. I’ll tell Sarah there’s some furnace
equipment I need to repair. She’ll expect that to cause a racket. She monitors
the front door and the common areas, but there’s a side door to the basement
that I can slip you in, she won’t know you’re there. When do you want to do
it?”

“The sooner the better,” said Roy.
“If we can find that gold today and get it returned to his descendant in
Medford, you might have a portal-free house tonight.”

“And no more deaths?” asked Pete.

“No more deaths,” Roy said. “Just
a shitload of ghosts who’ll be a lot happier. And with the portal closed,
they’ll eventually drift back to where they came from.”

“All right,” Pete said, “let’s do
it. Park your car out of sight and meet me at the basement door on the north
side at noon. It’s the door that’s directly across from the gazebo. I’ll let
you in and we’ll get started.”

“Can you arrange the tools we’ll
need as well?” Steven asked.

“Yes, I’ve got everything you
might need down in my workshop.”

“All right then,” Roy said,
patting Pete on the shoulder, “we’ll see you at noon and put this to rest.”

Pete walked to his car and left
Steven and Roy next to the flats of blueberries. As he drove off Steven asked
Roy, “Do you trust him?”

“What do you mean?” Roy asked.

“I mean,” Steven said as they
walked to their car, “do you trust him not to bang us over our heads once we’ve
located the gold?”

“You watch too many movies,” Roy
said.

-

Steven stopped his car on the side
of the road a quarter mile before the driveway to the manor and they walked the
rest of the way, cutting into the woods that surround the north side of the
house. As they moved from the woods through the meadow and then the property’s
lawn, they scanned for anyone out walking the grounds. Seeing no one, they
walked past the gazebo and down three cement stairs to a large metal door that
was painted light blue. They waited in the stairwell for Pete to open the door,
but he didn’t come.

“It’s five after,” Steven said,
“do you think something happened to him?”

“He’ll be here,” Roy said, “be
patient.”

They waited another ten minutes,
and suddenly heard the heavy door begin to move. Pete’s head popped out from behind
it.

“Sorry boys, I got trapped. I’m
glad you waited.”

Steven and Roy slipped in through
the door and Pete closed and bolted it behind them.

Steven walked through the basement
checking the various rooms. He stopped at the wall of one in a back corner, but
he seemed perplexed.

“This is the room he told us,”
Steven said. “But there’s no bricks here.”

“What’s that wall made out of?”
Roy asked Pete.

“Looks like drywall to me,” Pete
said. “It’s been drywall as long as I’ve been here.”

“Any chance there’s bricks on the
other side of it?” Steven asked. “Can we cut out a section and see?”

“I don’t see why not,” Pete said,
“I’ll be right back.” He left the room and returned from his workroom with a
drywall saw. “Any idea where to do it?” he asked.

“Right here,” Steven said,
pointing to a spot about three feet off the ground. “Cut everything from here
down to the floor, about three feet wide.”

Pete punched a hole in the wall
and began cutting. He ran into studs and had to reposition the saw, knocking
out chunks of the drywall as he went. In short order they all saw red bricks
behind the studs, looking very old.

“That’s a good sign,” said Roy.

“I’ll get the pickaxe,” Pete said.
“Let’s try to save the studs, work the bricks out around them if we can.”

They took turns swinging at the
bricks, and Steven began piling them in a stack in the corner of the room to
keep the work area clear. Once they had knocked out six or seven bricks, Steven
shined his flashlight through the hole.

“Dirt,” he announced, pulling
back. “This might be it. We’ll need a space big enough to work a shovel into.”

Pete swung his pickaxe again,
knocking out more bricks. They worked at it another fifteen minutes and removed
almost all the bricks in the hole.

“OK, now we dig,” Roy said. “Do
you have a shovel, Pete?”

Pete was breathing heavily from
swinging the pickaxe. He walked into his workroom to retrieve the shovel.
Steven looked at Roy.

“One of us uses the shovel, the
other keeps an eye on him,” Steven whispered to Roy. At first Roy was going to
protest, but he thought for a moment and then shook his head in agreement.

When Pete returned with the
shovel, Steven stuck out his hand to take it and Pete passed it to him. It just
fit between the studs, and Steven began piling shovelfuls of dirt in another
area of the room. He worked at it for several minutes, building up a sweat. He
dug straight into the dirt, and after he created a hole about two feet wide and
two feet deep, he expected the dirt at the top of the hole to start collapsing,
but it didn’t. The deeper he dug, the more he expected a collapse. Just as he
was about to ask Pete and Roy to think up a way to bolster the top of the hole,
his shovel hit metal.

Each of the three men in the room
looked at each other. Then a smile spread to all of their faces.

Steven used the shovel to dig
around the metal object, and after a few minutes he was able to dislodge it
from the hole in the wall. It was a tin box, square, about a foot wide. It was
heavier than he expected. He placed it down in the middle of the room.

“Open it!” Pete said. “Let’s see!”

Steven pried open the tin lid of
the box. Inside were two bags. Each was about the size of two fists balled
together. They were both tied closed with twine. Steven removed one of the bags
and held it up for the others to see.

Roy stepped up to the bag and
inspected it. “‘Klamath Mining Company,’ just like Robert said.”

“Should I untie it?” Steven asked.

“Wait,” Roy said. “We need to
transfer the contents to something else, as Robert instructed. Pete, could we
ask you for a few more baggies like the one you gave us yesterday in the south
wing?”

Pete’s eyes were as wide as
saucers. “Sure!” he said, and left Steven and Roy to go upstairs.

“So far so good,” Roy said after
he left.

“He may not try anything, but
let’s just be ready if he does,” Steven said.

“I’m always ready,” Roy said.
“You’re the one I worry about in that regard.”

“Don’t worry,” Steven said. “If he
tries anything, I won’t second-guess myself. I’ll take him down.”

“Just be careful,” Roy said.
“Don’t misjudge his actions and create a problem where none exists.”

They could hear Pete coming back
down the stairs. He worked his way through the basement rooms and joined them, breathing
heavy. He raised his arm, holding a handful of plastic Ziploc bags.

“OK,” Roy said. “Pete, can you
hold open one of those bags while Steven pours the contents into it? We have to
be careful and not spill any of it, or Robert will not come through for us.”

Pete got down on one knee next to him
as Steven untied the twine on the bag he was holding. He positioned the canvas
bag over Pete’s open baggie and slowly tipped it over. The contents flowed from
Steven’s bag into the clear baggie in Pete’s hands.

“Would you look at that!” Pete
said. “Sure looks like gold to me!”

They stopped and switched to a new
baggie as the current one filled up. One canvas bag filled two of the Ziploc
baggies. Steven shook and inspected the empty canvas bag to be sure they had
emptied it completely.

They repeated the process and
wound up with four Ziploc baggies full of tiny glittering nuggets. Steven
placed them back into the tin box.

“Pete, do you have a way we could
burn these bags?”

Pete left the room once more and
returned with lighter fluid and a book of matches. He took the two bags and
tossed them into the hole in the wall, then squirted a stream of fluid onto
them. He lit a match and tossed it in. The bags began to burn and the smoke
rose up out of the hole.

“When I refill that hole, I’ll
leave the ashes in there,” Pete said. They watched the bags burning for a
moment. “Shouldn’t you two get that gold where it belongs? The sooner it’s out
of here the better I’ll feel.”

“Right,” Steven said, picking up
the tin box.

“I’ll let you out the same door,”
Pete said. “Don’t worry about this mess, I’ll fill the hole back in and get the
bricks back in place, then I’ll patch the drywall. Sarah will never know.”

Pete led them to the basement door
and opened it for them. “Will you let me know how it goes?” he asked Roy.

“Sure,” Roy said. “I’ll call you
as soon as we’ve delivered it.”

“Thank you,” Pete said. “I hope
this settles it.”

“So do I,” said Roy.