“Correct. When word came to him that all of his closest friends were dead, so soon after losing his favorite child…it was too much for the poor man. He shot himself in his bedroom on the second floor.”
A shiver went down Oscar’s spine. Deaths in moments of extreme terror, pain, or grief often led to ghosts who fed on similar dark emotions—and thus would try to create them in the living. But perhaps he wasn’t being fair, or was letting his knowledge of Robin’s death cloud his judgment. They still didn’t know what had happened during the previous investigation.
Nigel looked up toward the second floor, as if he could see through it to the room where Ullman died. “And you think that was him in the mirror?”
“There’s a portrait of him on the second floor. You can decide for yourself, though I can’t imagine who else it would be,” Montague said. “After Ullman died, the island was abandoned. My family bought it, though if they planned to do anything with it, those plans never came to fruition. The island was largely deserted until 1983. A young family approached my father, wanting to buy the island and restore the house. They planned to make it into an upscale bed and breakfast.”
“Then ghosts happened,” Oscar guessed. “Or is Ullman the only one?”
“Investigate a bit more, then we’ll discuss,” Lawson said, before Montague could reply. “Tomorrow, we’ll set up the TV and VCR in here so you can hear the initial interview with what the Vanderwalls—that was the family—experienced in their own words.” She looked down at her lap. “I don’t think I can be here while you watch it.”
A rush of sympathy filled Oscar’s chest. Of course she and Ms. Montague wouldn’t want to view the tapes again. Any comfort brought by the sight of Robin’s face, the sound of her voice, would be negated by the knowledge that these were the last images of her before she died.
Montague reached over and squeezed Dr. Lawson’s hand. “Well. We’ll go back to our trailer, and you can get to your first night’s investigation. If you need anything, knock on the door, and Ethan will help you.”
If Ethan minded being at their beck and call, he was too professional to let it show. He moved out of the way while his employer stood up, then scurried ahead of her to open the front door. Dr. Lawson paused in the entryway, turning back to look at them. She seemed as though she might say something…then only shook her head and followed the other two, shutting the door behind her.
“She can’t decide if she wants to stay and help us, or leave the island and never come back,” Nigel said, tilting his head toward the door she’d gone through.
“I don’t blame her.” Chris crossed their arms over their chest, as if a chill had touched them despite the heat. “So what’s the plan?”
“We already caught Ullman hanging out in the parlor, so I want to try using the spirit box in there,” Oscar decided. “And I’ll pay a bit more attention this time.”
“You don’t feel anything in here, right?” Tina asked.
“Right. The dining room feels empty except for us.”
“Then let’s put down some salt lines and keep it that way.”
“Good idea.” The last thing they wanted was for a dangerous spirit to slip in and drain all their batteries or feed on the electricity from the generator. “After that, we’ll check the other rooms down here and see if I can sense anything. Maybe we’ll do an EVP, I don’t know. Then we’ll take a look at the second floor and Ullman’s bedroom.”
They geared up: Oscar and Nigel with head cams and lights, and Chris with their shoulder camera. Oscar clipped an EMF reader to his belt, along with a walkie-talkie to communicate with Tina while she watched through their camera feeds. Nigel grabbed a canister of salt—they’d taken to buying it in bulk—and poured thick lines across the doorways from the hall and kitchen.
Why salt disrupted ghosts, Oscar didn’t know. Nigel had mentioned theories about its crystalline structure, that it might somehow interfere with electromagnetic fields. Whatever the reasons, spirits wouldn’t cross lines of salt, and a handful flung at a manifestation would dispel or slow it down, depending on the ghost’s strength.
They tucked ziplock baggies of salt into their pockets, just in case, and headed out into the hall. The only light on the island came from their flashlights and the trailer windows outside, meaning the house was dark as pitch. Thunder growled off in the distance as the daily clash between hot air over the land and cool air over the ocean played out. At least the humidity had eased somewhat, and with the windows open it was almost comfortable.
The floorboards creaked under their feet. It was a shame the place had been left to fall apart—this must have been a beautiful home back when Ullman and his friends summered here. Though of course the salt-poisoned well made it a moot point now.
“Hey Nigel,” Chris said as they made for the parlor, “I have a question. If the ocean is salty, can ghosts not cross it?”
“I don’t think it’s salty enough, though I’m not sure?” Nigel shrugged. “Most ghosts don’t tend to wander, but some definitely do. And there’s always the Flying Dutchman. Assuming it isn’t a myth, then clearly it has no problem with the salty brine.”
“What about Blackbeard’s headless body swimming around his boat three times after he was killed?”
“Definitely a myth.”
“That’s good. I don’t want to have to worry about zombies as well as ghosts.”
Oscar tuned them out, taking a deep breath and letting his senses open. The scent of dust hung in the air despite the wind, underlain with the slick rot of algae. The boom of the waves on the shore seemed louder in the dark, as if the hungry sea had snuck closer while they weren’t looking.
The parlor was quiet when they entered, but it didn’t feel empty. He swept his flashlight slowly over the scene; the shadows shifted with the flashlight’s beam, but nothing else moved.
Still, he was certain they weren’t alone.
“Okay, I feel like there’s a spirit here with us,” he said aloud. Chris moved so they could catch both Oscar and the mirror with the camera. “I’m going to try the spirit box.”
The spirit box was nothing more than a radio that switched rapidly between channels. Ghosts could manipulate the radio frequencies to form words—or that was the theory, and it had worked for them in past investigations.
