Experiment in Terror 02.5 The Benson (6 page)

“Which was?”

“That he was dead, Miss Palomino. But not by his own hand. No, he that was murdered.”

“By who?”

“The sharks. Who else?”

My face must have contorted into a look of pure confusion because she continues, her voice and demeanor more impassioned by the second.

“The sharks are the fellas who he owed money to. You just don’t lose a boat without losing a few friends. These fellas meant business and I seen them threaten him more than a few times. Parker went and told the police but they do nothing. They don’t have no control. Parker would tell me he was scared. So scared. He’s a man who don’t get scared, you hear that. So if he’s scared, I reckon there’s a reason for it. They are after his life.”

The idea of Parker being murdered by men he owed money to is just as believable as suicide. I don’t know what to believe but I choose to give the ghost the benefit of the doubt.

“Did Parker leave any proof, any records, that these men were after him?”

She closes her eyes for a second and it’s then that I notice a strange transparency about her.

“There was his diary,” she tells me. Her eyes open slowly. “It’s his checkbook. But he would keep a log on the back of the checks he couldn’t write anymore. Most of it doesn’t make much sense to me…if I could talk to him, hear from him, he could tell you himself. I just need to talk to him. Can you find him for me? You said you knew the manager?”

“Yes…but I don’t think it will make much difference.”

“Why is that?”

“Do you know where he would have kept the checkbook?”

“On his person. Where else? What aren’t you telling me? What are you really doing here?”

I look down at the screen and aim it at her. She glows a translucent blue. It’s beautiful, for once, and not scary.

“What happened to Parker?” she goes on, her voice cracking over his name. I don’t say anything but I meet her eye and I know, in one look, that she knows the truth. Maybe not that she’s dead. But that he is.

Her face crumbles. She puts her hand to her head and stumbles backward.

Out of instinct, I go after her, my arms outstretched, hoping to reach her in time before she goes over.

I almost reach her when she smashes against the floor with a sickening thud. The world goes black. The lights go off and I find myself on my knees, my leggings ripping open on the cold hard floor.

“May?” I cry out and raise the camera, hoping to see her blue form through the darkness. I only read my own heat and no one else’s.

I slowly get to my feet and try to flick on the flashlight with my own hand.

Cold fingers reach over my elbow in a stealthy grasp. I can feel the ice through my jacket.

I am yanked harshly to the side until I crash into a wheeled laundry bin and another hand grabs me by the face and pulls me over the side and into it.

All I can think about is the painful cold that comes from the grasp, as if permafrost is entering my veins and creating a sheet of ice on my face. And then I find myself face first in a laundry bin, smothered by a million towels and pulled deeper and deeper into them until I can’t breathe and I can’t scream and I can’t move. I can only drown here.

The blackness behind my eyes grows darker somehow, as if the dark has a million different shades and nuances and I was only scratching the surface. It’s a different kind of obsidian, one that signals the end, finality. I don’t want to succumb to it, but all I can see is this blackness, and all I can feel are these hands that won’t stop pulling me deeper, that won’t let go, and my thoughts become less…and less…and less…

“Perry!”

I think I hear my name but it sounds too far away to be real. I think of May and wonder where she came from.

“Perry!”

My name again. It sounds familiar.

There is a rush of noise and light and commotion and I feel more hands grabbing me. Only these ones are warm and though they are strong, I can feel the care seeping through them.

I think of Dex. And remember where I am.

I put my hands at the bottom of the bin, and push myself off. As I do so, they come in contact with something beneath one of the towels. I’m afraid it’s the remains of whoever was pulling me down before, but I still close my fingers around it as Dex yanks me out of the bin and into the harsh fluorescent light of the room.

I cough wildly, trying to find my breath as Dex keeps his hands on either side of my shoulders, steadying me. As the air hits my lungs and my wincing subsides, I notice Pam standing beside the door, a key in hand, her face in
a look of
absolute terror.

“Perry,” Dex says. “Perry look at me.”

I manage to look at him. His dark eyes are searching mine relentlessly, his brow furrowed, his stance tense.

“Are you OK?” he asks.

I nod, feeling relieved and embarrassed all at the same time.

“Was I sticking out of the laundry bin?” I ask with trepidation.

He nods and I see a hint of a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. It would have been a comical sight, my giant ass in the air and all.

“I leave you alone for five seconds…” His tone is light but he knows there is more to the story. And that I’ll fill him in on it later.

“What’s in your hands?” Pam asks, looking at them with curiosity.

I glance down and see I am holding a rectangular cover of well-worn leather. I open it carefully and see what I thought I would see. A checkbook filled with writing. The possible proof that Parker Hayden was murdered and not a victim of suicide.

I walk over to Pam and place the item in her hands. She looks up at me surprised and confused.

“You may want to run this by a historian. Or even the police,” I say. “There’s a chance that Parker Hayden didn’t commit suicide after all. It could be a cold case file. A very cold case.”

I feel extremely cheesy as I tell Pam that. No surprise, Dex says, “Wow, I leave you for one minute and suddenly you’re CSI: Portland.”

I give him a tired smile. I’m ready to go home.

*****

A few days pass when I get a call from Dex. We’re not at the point where we call each other just to talk, but every contact I have with him is still important and I still get stupid butterflies every time I see his name pop up on the call display. This time, he’s calling to talk about our episode at The Benson.

“How’s it all looking?” I ask as I sit on my bed, listening to my younger sister Ada argue with my dad downstairs.

“Oh it’s looking fucking fantastic, kiddo,” Dex says, his voice coming in low and smooth over the line. “I just want to hug you for keeping that camera rolling while May was talking. I’ll have to run it over some other footage and do that little subtitle thing underneath but it really helps our case, especially when you get that blue shit on screen. That really is something.”

“Best show ever?” I ask, amused at his praise.

“Well,” he says slowly, “it probably would have helped had I been around but you did OK on your own.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“There’s something else, too, you should take as a compliment.”

My eyes perk up and I sit up a bit straighter, putting down my Spin magazine. “What’s that?”

“Pam just called me. She said she handed over the checkbook to the police who are having a division look into it or something. Anyway, the point is ever since
our visit
, all the haunting in the hotel has stopped.”

“What do you mean, all hauntings?”

“Well she says she usually gets some sort of feedback each day. Since our
shoot
, there hasn’t been any. I don’t know what that means but she seems to think that whatever you did down in that laundry room…well, I guess you cleared the place.”

“So I’m an exorcist now?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, kiddo. You’re miles away from being Father Merrin and for all we know the haunting could start up again. I’m just saying…next time you feel like being hard on yourself because we aren’t making a difference and there’s no point to any of this…I dunno. Don’t. Because you did good here. You did good.”

I let Dex ramble on a bit more to please my ego and then we hang up. Like the other times before, I still don’t know what to make of my ghost hunting. I don’t know how I got roped into doing the show, how I ended up being a magnet for the supernatural and what on earth it has in store for me. The only thing I do know is that it’s dangerous and I’m compelled to keep doing it.

But I also know that even though someone is dead, is doesn’t mean they’re beyond help. And for every ten ghosts that try and kill me,
if
I end up saving one of them, it might be worth it after all.

Though you may want to remind me of that, next time I’m locked in a coffin or something.

The End. For now.

Continue the ghost-hunting adventures of Perry and Dex by reading:

Darkhouse – Experiment in Terror #1

“There’s always been something a bit off about Perry Palomino. Though she’s been dealing with a quarter-life crisis and post-college syndrome like any other twenty-something, she’s still not what you would call “ordinary.” For one thing, there’s her past which she likes to pretend never happened, and then there’s the fact that she sees ghosts. Luckily for her, that all comes in handy when she stumbles across Dex Foray, an eccentric producer for an upcoming webcast on ghost hunters. Even though the show’s budget is non-existent and Dex himself is a maddening enigma, Perry is instantly drawn into a world that both threatens her life and seduces her with a sense of importance. Her uncle’s haunted lighthouse provides the perfect catalyst and backdrop for a mystery that unravels the threads of Perry’s fragile sanity and causes her to fall for a man, who, like the most dangerous of ghosts, may not be all that he seems.”

Buy on
Amazon

Red Fox – Experiment in Terror #2

“In the forgotten town of Red Fox, a Navajo couple is tortured by things unseen and by motives unknown. Wild animals slink through their house in the dark, a barrage of stones pound their roof nightly, and mutilated sheep carcasses are turning up on their property. Armed with a camera and just enough to go on, Perry and Dex travel to the desolate locale, hoping to film the supernatural occurrences and add credibility to their flailing webcast. Only their show has a lot more working against them than just growing pains. Tested by dubious ranch hands, a ghost from Dex’s past, and shapeshifting deception, the amateur ghost hunters must learn to trust each other in order to fight the most ancient of myths…or die trying”

Buy on
Amazon

Dead Sky Morning – Experiment in Terror #3

“With the Experiment in Terror show finding some success, amateur ghost hunters Perry Palomino and Dex Foray embark on their most terrifying investigation yet. A tiny, fog-shrouded island in the rough strait between British Columbia and Washington State has held a dark secret for decades: It was a former leper colony where over forty souls were left to rot, die and bury each other. Now a functioning campground, Perry and Dex spend an isolated weekend there to investigate potential hauntings but as the duo quickly find out, there is more to fear on D’Arcy Island than just ghosts. The island quickly pits partner against partner, spiraling the pair into madness that serves to destroy their sanity, their relationship and their very lives.”

Buy on
Amazon