The Eagle Hotel, a three-story stone hotel in downtown Waterford, looked peaceful enough. With its red, white, and blue bunting around the window boxes and the painted sign proclaiming its name above the door, it looked charming and lousy with history. It had stopped being an inn long ago, and now, while a restaurant claimed the downstairs, the top two floors were part of a local museum. I might have gone to the museum on a field trip as a kid, back before I knew ghosts were real.
I parked my truck a few blocks away and walked past the hotel and around the block to get a feel for the place. The small lawn had been neatly trimmed, and electric candles glimmered in the windows, shimmering more than usual with the old, wavy glass. Father Leo’s contact had given me a key, both to the restaurant and to the museum, but I wanted to scope out the whole setting before going inside.
The back gate wasn’t locked, and I let myself inside, crossing the yard for a good look at the rear of the old hotel. I’m not a medium, and I’m sure as hell not a ghost whisperer—I tend to yell loudly at ghosts when I encounter them. But I felt a shift in the air all around me when I got close to the stone building, and it sent a warning prickle down my spine.
Right before a gun blasted behind me, and I nearly lost the hearing in my left ear.
I dropped to the ground and rolled toward the bushes, trying to get out of the line of fire. Someone returned fire, and I kept my head down.
It took a few seconds to realize that one person was firing a musket, and the other a breechloader rifle. I know my guns, even the old-fashioned ones. I have a few friends who are die-hard re-enactors. And the volley of gunshots that had me pinned down shouldn’t have happened in the same century, let alone in this century.
I chanced a look over the bushes, long enough to rest assured that I was not about to die in a hail of bullets. Just as I gathered the courage to get to my feet, the gunfire stopped. I dusted off my pants and stepped into the yard, and that’s when someone tackled me from behind.
The weight of a man’s body knocked me forward as a strong arm came around my neck and pressed against my throat. Fortunately, Father Leo had warned me about Mad Anthony’s little trick, and I was ready for him. I grabbed the iron knife from my belt sheath and plunged the point backward, right into what should have been my attacker’s midsection.
The ghost let go immediately and stepped back. When I turned around, no one was in sight. I rubbed my throat, sure that if I hadn’t been prepared, I would have ended up unconscious in the middle of the yard and with a hell of a headache when I woke up.
So why, after all these years, was Mad Anthony Wayne so…mad? What pisses off a two-hundred-year-old Revolutionary War general? I didn’t know, but I needed to find out. Neither the restaurant nor the museum were going to do much business if the general’s ghost kept choking out their customers.
I headed for the back door, braced this time for phantom gunfire. Just as I put the key in the lock, I heard someone moving behind me.
“Halt! Police! Put your hands in the air.”
I had a split second to decide whether or not the cop was real or just a ghost. I erred on the side of caution and lifted my hands open and out to my sides.
“Turn around,” the cop ordered. I complied, still holding the key to the door.
“I have permission to be here,” I replied. “Father Leo sent me. I’ve got a key.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Is there a reason you’re here after the place is closed?”
I shrugged. “The owners wanted me to see if I could figure out why there’ve been some strange things going on. People have gotten hurt. I’m going to try to fix that.”
My answer seemed to satisfy him because he holstered his gun. His nametag read “C. Dougherty.”
“All right,” he said, eyeing the key in my hand. “But how about if I wait down here until you’re done, just to watch your back.”
It was a statement more than a question, and I didn’t think I got a vote in the matter. “Be careful,” I warned. “There’s a restless ghost who’s been hurting people.”
He nodded. “I heard about that. Don’t worry. He won’t get me.”
“Suit yourself,” I muttered, and opened the back door. The building manager had left the security system off, and the decorative candles in the windows gave me enough light that I didn’t need a flashlight.
I left Officer Dougherty outside and slipped through the restaurant’s kitchen and into the dining area. Everyone had gone home, but the faint scent of beef pot roast lingered, and my stomach growled. I made my way to the center of the room and then stopped. I didn’t sense any cold spots or see any orbs, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. In the distance, I thought I heard a baby cry, but the sound was faint enough it might have come from outside.
A second key got me into the museum upstairs. Where the electric candles’ glow had given the restaurant a comfortable hominess, here in the museum, they seemed to accentuate the shadows. The two upper floors housed both museum exhibits and offices. The staff areas weren’t high on my list since I figured they were unlikely to have any heirlooms or relics that might have triggered the haunting. The museum itself, however, was another matter.
Before my hunting days, I wasn’t all that interested in history. Now, researching legends and lore helps me get a jump on the ghosts and bad nasties that I put to rest. Along the way, I’ve become a bit of a history buff because you can’t make stuff that weird up. Who the hell boils his father’s bones and then takes the skeleton on a road trip, leaving bits and pieces along the way?
The small museum covered Waterford’s long history. George Washington actually did sleep here, in this very hotel, more than once. Several of the displays were dedicated to the French and Indian War, which—interestingly enough—did not involve the French fighting Native Americans. Instead, both the French and the native tribes fought the British—and since this was before the Revolution, that put Washington and his buddies on the side of the Redcoats. See? How weird is that?
The restaurant didn’t have any noticeable cold spots, but upstairs in the museum—where the heat rising should have made the rooms warmer—I felt cold all over. The sense of being watched was even stronger, and the sound of that baby crying grew louder, though it seemed to be coming from downstairs.
The display cases showed the history of the area from the original native tribes to the French fur traders who collaborated with them and then to the influx of the English with their forts and settlements. Although the Civil War didn’t range up this far north, Waterford’s sons signed up and headed to battle, earning them a commemorative display of guns, uniforms, medals, and tattered journals. A number of the Revolutionary War and French and Indian items came from archeological digs by nearby Edinboro University around the remains of Fort LeBeouf, and I wondered as I looked at the lead bullet fragments and other relics how much ghostly energy the pieces carried with them.
I turned and found myself staring straight down the barrel of a flintlock rifle. I heard the bang, saw smoke rise, and staggered as my brain insisted I must have taken a direct, close-range hit. The man in the British Red Coat uniform vanished before my heart stopped thudding.
A rifle shot behind me sent my pulse hammering again. My hand flew to my chest, certain it would find a bloody exit wound, but my shirt and jacket remained intact. I kept enough of my wits about me to swivel, facing my attacker, and found only empty space.
“That’s enough!” I yelled although the two ghosts had vanished. “The war is over, goddammit!”
That’s when I saw a hatchet fly right past my left ear, and I heard its steel blade sink deep into the wooden post behind me. I looked up to see a dark-haired, bearded French fur trapper, complete with a Davy Crockett-style coonskin cap, giving me a murderous glare. I don’t speak a lick of French, but from the stream of vitriol, I figured he was cursing his aim.
“You too!” I yelled, pointing at him. “Enough already! You’re dead! You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!”
He straightened up and squared his shoulders, surprised and offended. In the next heartbeat, he was gone.
My nerves might never be the same, since I had no idea when I’d get another ghost drive-by. The sound of shattering glass made me flinch, throwing up my arms to protect my face and head. After a second, I realized that none of the cases around me had broken, and the windows were still intact. I uncoiled warily. A woman shrieked, so close behind me I could have sworn I felt her breath on the back of my neck. I have faced down swamp monsters and wendigos, killer trolls and were-squonks with reasonable courage, but that scream in my ear nearly made me piss myself.
“What is your problem?” I yelled, turning to face empty air. “Geez.” I don’t know if shouting at ghosts actually does anything to them, but it makes me feel better.
The ghosts inside had been an annoyance, and they might give someone a heart attack, but otherwise, none of them posed a danger. Mad Anthony, on the other hand, might pull his cute little fainting trick on the wrong person and do some real damage.
I went back to searching the display cases, hoping that I would know what I needed when I saw it. The decorative candle didn’t light up the room enough, so I played my flashlight over the tagged items, looking for something that might give me a clue on how to send our troublesome ghosts packing.
Museums always make me a little sad. All the things in the cases used to be just what people used in their everyday lives, part of their daily routine. I felt certain that when they went about their business with their personal possessions, they never expected strangers to be gawking at the flotsam and jetsam of their lives, neatly displayed and tagged. I was certain that the rough trappers and beleaguered soldiers would be astounded, and probably dismayed. I tried to imagine myself coming back in two hundred years as a ghost and seeing my dishes or my DVD collection enshrined in a glass case and decided to put a note in my will to burn everything my friends didn’t want.
Brigadier General Mad Anthony Wayne had a whole display case of his own. A mannequin wore a reproduction of one of his uniforms, including the tricorn hat. Paintings and sketches pieced together his life, from his early days to the Revolution, and then sullying his legacy by battling the Native Americans. An odd assortment of his belongings was on display, but none of them looked like the kind of thing that would pull a man’s spirit back from the grave. On closer look, some of the items weren’t even really his—just period pieces like the kind he might have used. I sighed, having turned up a big, fat “zero” when it came to busting his ghost.
What was I missing? Mad Anthony hadn’t been hanging around the Eagle Hotel for the whole two hundred years since he died, so something must have changed. But the obvious answer—that one of his missing bones had been put on display—hadn’t panned out.
I wandered into the next room and found a history of Waterford after its colonial past. Sepia-toned photographs accompanied memorabilia from long-gone local companies, restaurants, and stores. A time capsule from 1968 that looked like a rusted metal box sat next to old milk bottles from a home-town dairy, cans from a now-defunct brewery, and framed pictures of Waterford-born men and women who had made good.
When I reached the end of the display, I slumped against the wall, out of ideas. I figured the ghosts were about due to show up and shoot me again, but this time, I was ready for them. With my back to a period cast-iron stove, they weren’t going to sneak up on me, and I waited for them to reappear.
Trapper Jacques was the first to show up, and when he pulled his arm back to throw his ax at me again, I hurled a handful of rock salt in his face. Poof! One down.
Musket Guy appeared to my left. Lucky for me, those old guns are a bitch to fire. Before he could get his shot off, I salted him, and he vanished. The Civil War soldier almost got the drop on me, but I had enough salt to take him out, too.
Downstairs, the baby wailed, and an invisible woman screamed. I had no idea what to do about ghosts I could hear but not see, and fortunately, they weren’t who I’d been hired to hunt. Which made me wonder how Officer Dougherty was holding up downstairs. I glanced out the back window and didn’t see him, but I figured he had probably decided to sneak off for a smoke.
Strong arms gripped me from behind. One arm went around my throat, and the other hand knocked my iron knife from my belt. I could feel a large, muscular body pressed up against me, and instinctively, I rammed my elbow backward, but instead of sinking into his gut, it met thin air.
Unfortunately, Mad Anthony’s arm around my neck felt entirely solid. I kicked back for his knee, but got nothing, and trying to stomp down on his instep did zilch. He held me, pinned, and no matter how I wriggled, I couldn’t get free.
Shit. I tried to pull his arm clear of my throat, but my hands couldn’t get purchase, although a force kept them from reaching all the way to my neck. Mad Anthony squeezed harder, and my vision began to blur, coloring my view with dancing spots.
Desperate to break his hold, I tried going limp. I almost slipped free, and then Mad Anthony had to compensate because if he was going to support my whole not-insubstantial weight, he needed to be more than a floating arm.
His body grew more solid, and that was my cue. I grabbed for the force around my throat with both hands, hoping I could keep from hanging myself, and lifted my feet from the floor, then pushed off with all my strength, shoving myself back against him.
We fell together, crashing into the display case. This time, real glass fell all around me, slicing into my scalp and hands, cutting my face. I was glad I’d worn a heavy coat and hoped that I didn’t manage to impale myself since the ghost’s body wasn’t going to take the brunt of our fall.
Mad Anthony’s hold loosened just enough for me to gasp in air, and then he tightened again. I tore at the energy with my right hand while my left grabbed for the iron knife I had glimpsed on the floor when we fell. All I got for my trouble were a bunch of glass splinters in my palm since the blade remained maddeningly out of reach.
Now would be a good time for Jacques the Trapper and Musket Guy to show up again, especially if their ghostly ax and bullets worked on another spirit. Just my luck, they didn’t show. Mad Anthony, on the other hand, felt more solid than ever before.
I struggled to breathe and knew I couldn’t take much more. No matter how I kicked and bucked, I couldn’t dislodge my Revolutionary assailant. Black edged my vision, and I wondered if I’d been the lucky one to push Mad Anthony over the edge into murder. I tried grabbing for the ghostly arm with my left hand and slapped out with my right to steady myself.
My hand came down on something solid and metal, and I realized it was the old time capsule. Mad Anthony felt more real than ever, and that’s when I knew I’d managed to find what I was looking for.
One of his missing bones was in that time capsule.
All I had to do was live long enough to open it up and give the damn thing back.
I grabbed the time capsule by the handle, swinging it at Mad Anthony. The box must have had some iron content because the ghost vanished, and I could breathe again.
I remembered a sign in the entranceway saying something about “new additions” to the exhibits. The display case sign, still standing amid the broken glass, said that the time capsule was part of a new “Twentieth Century” update. I stared at the box still held in a death grip and decided that I really needed to see what was inside.
The bang of a musket shot sounded close enough to make my ears ring, and if the bullet had been real, it would have either parted my hair or gotten me between the eyes. “Quit that!” I yelled. I knew the phantom ax was coming next, but to my surprise, instead of sounding like it hit the wooden support posts, I heard the thunk of metal on metal, and the lid of the time capsule sprang open.
Maybe the other ghosts were tired of Mad Anthony, too.
Trying to navigate around the broken glass, I lifted the open box and set it on one of the waist-high display cases in the middle of the room. I brushed the glass fragments out of my palms as best I could and tried not to bleed on anything historic. My flashlight revealed the contents of the capsule, and I had a little thrill of excitement, my very own Indiana Jones moment.
It’s funny what people think will be important in the future. The box held newspapers and a telephone book, along with political campaign buttons, a Sears catalog, and a list of predictions about what the world would look like when the capsule was finally opened. I was pretty confident that no one had predicted that the newspapers, phone book, and Sears catalog would be extinct, or that most people would spend all day walking around staring at the phone in their hand.
I shook the box, and it rattled, so I kept on digging. Beneath all the paper, I found a yellowed finger bone with a note wrapped around it and tied with twine. The note read, “found during the widening of Rt. 322, a bone believed to belong to General Anthony Wayne.”
Shit. This was it, the new arrival that prompted the spook-a-palooza. Now all I had to do was figure out what to do with the bone to make Mad Anthony go away.
The spirits downstairs had gotten quiet, and I could feel the presence of the ghosts around me, watching. Maybe Musket Guy and Frenchie had been roused from their long sleep by Mad Anthony’s ghost and just wanted to be rid of him so they could rest. Could it be that the Revolutionary War general had such a turbulent personality that he managed to even piss off his fellow ghosts? Then again, since Mad Anthony hadn’t perpetually haunted the museum, maybe unearthing the time capsule from wherever it had been buried had jerked him back from the afterlife and he was just trying to get home.
“Hold your horses,” I yelled at the empty room. “I’ve gotta come up with a plan.” For all I knew, Mad Anthony and the other spirits also had ghostly horses, and I envisioned them grabbing the reins and waiting for orders. I pulled out my phone and did a little research. In this case, hitting “pay dirt” was real.
“Hey, Mad Anthony,” I called out. “If you quit choking me, I can get your finger bone back to where your flesh is buried. Can we have a truce? Because if you strangle me, they’re going to put your bone back in the iron case and you’ll have to wait for another sorry bastard to figure the whole thing out.”
Nothing stirred, which I took to be a good sign. I looked around at the ruined display and the broken glass and figured that my bosses were going to get a bill from the museum. Still, if this solved their ghost problem, they might not mind, and I’d admit that this was probably the most unusual way I’ve ever been given the finger.
I tucked the bone into my pocket and headed downstairs. Officer Dougherty was still on watch, and I figured he’d headed off any unwanted police attention my noisy nocturnal foray might have attracted. I thanked him, and he gave me a snappy salute, then walked away.
Reburying Mad Anthony could pose a problem since his son had him dug up hired a doctor who boiled the corpse, scraped the flesh off the bones, and then reburied the squishy parts. The water and the tools used to do the deed were still in Erie, while his son took the bones back to Georgia, losing some—like his finger—along the way.
I was not in the mood to drive that far south, so the Erie site would have to do. A little time on Google revealed that while Mad Anthony’s bones had been reburied on the site of an old Revolutionary War blockhouse fort, the original fort burned down long ago. But a reconstructed blockhouse held the general’s tombstone. I figured that was my best bet. I pocketed the bone and headed back to my truck.
Fortunately, the Wayne Blockhouse wasn’t all that far from the Eagle Hotel, so it was still the middle of the night when I arrived. I slipped onto the grounds and grabbed a shovel and my hoodie out of the toolbox in the back of the truck. Once I got to the door, I hesitated, debating whether to break in and somehow return the bone to the tombstone inside or put it back into the ground in which Mad Anthony’s body had first been interred. It was three in the morning, and I was cold and tired. I opted for the easy choice, found a spot near the blockhouse wall, and started to dig.
I wondered what Mad Anthony had made of being dug up, boiled, and reburied. The stories about his ghost focused on the missing bones along what’s now Route 322, so I guess he was more attached to them than the rest, but still, it didn’t seem like the most reverent way to treat a hero of the Revolutionary War. Then again, he’d been part of the genocide against Native Americans, so maybe Mad Anthony got what he deserved. His choking kink made me wonder even more about just what sort of guy the general really had been.
I dug a suitably deep hole, about a foot deep and as wide as a shoebox, and bent down to put the bone inside. Maybe Father Leo would want to stop by and bless the spot, for good measure. All I cared about was that ghosts had stopped trying to kill me and that after a few more shovelfuls of dirt, I could head back to my comfy bed.
“Freeze and put your hands in the air.”
Fuck. I was busted, and there was no good way to explain why I was burying human remains. I dropped the shovel and raised my hands.
Just then, I heard the cop begin to sputter and gasp. I turned, keeping my hood up to shield my face, and saw the cop caught in the grip of an invisible madman. Before I could warn Mad Anthony to take it easy, the cop sank to the ground, still breathing but out cold.
“Thanks, but you’ve got to quit doing that,” I muttered, filling in the last dirt and smacking it down with the back of the shovel. “Go back to sleep. We’re done here.”
For a few seconds, the ghost materialized, looking like he did in his portrait at the museum, still wearing his Revolutionary War uniform and tricorn hat. Mad Anthony saluted me, then vanished. I grabbed my shovel and vamoosed before the cop woke up.
Once I headed back to my cabin in Atlantic, I called Father Leo, feeling not a bit sorry about the ungodly hour.
“It’s done,” I said and filled him in on the basics. “The part at the museum went a lot smoother with Officer Dougherty watching my back,” I added.
“Charles Dougherty?” Leo asked, but I couldn’t figure out why he sounded amused.
“Maybe. The nametag had a ‘C’ for the first name.”
Leo described the man.
“That’s him.”
“His daughter runs the restaurant at the Eagle Hotel. She’s the one who called us in on this. But Charles Dougherty’s been dead for a couple of years now. It’s really been your night, Mark, hasn’t it?” Leo replied.