Chapter Five: The Trapdoor and the Ghost
With her gun in hand, Sue led the way down the hall to the last office. Ellen wasn’t sure who was in the most danger—her and her friends or whatever animal was likely trapped in the chimney, because if the animal did manage to crawl out to safety, Sue would likely shoot the poor thing before even knowing what it was.
Ellen monitored both the thermometer and the electromagnetic frequency detector as they crept down the hall. The temperature fluctuated between sixty-five and sixty-six degrees. The EMF detector hovered at 0.5 mG.
As soon as they entered the room with the fireplace, Ellen felt a chill in the air. Her thermometer read fifty-two degrees. Such a drop in temperature was unusual. She wondered if a draft could be coming from the chimney, or if they were in the presence of a ghost.
Glancing nervously at one another, they quietly navigated around an old desk, past an old mattress leaning against the wall, toward the fireplace. As Ellen neared the hearth, the needle on her EMF detector moved to 3 mG. She showed it to Tanya and Sue, who lifted her brows.
Ellen turned on the flashlight app on her phone and shined it into the firebox.
“I don’t see anything,” she whispered.
Then Sue whispered, “Tanya, crawl in there and shine your light upwards. I’d do it, but we all know I can’t.”
“I’m not so sure you would,” Tanya said. “Why does it have to be me? Ellen’s skinny now, too.”
Although she was far from skinny, Ellen got down on her knees before the hearth, realizing that Tanya still wasn’t over being attached to and nearly possessed by the ghost of Cornelius Nunnery. Ellen set her thermometer on the floor beside her, noticing it read fifty degrees. The EMF detector had also begun to fluctuate between 5 and 6 mG’s, emitting a dull sound to indicate the increase in radiation.
The firebox was about three feet wide and two feet deep and relatively clean, considering how old it was. Glad she was wearing blue jeans—a pair that hadn’t fit in years—she leaned her head into the opening, pointed her phone upward, and peered up the brick chimney for signs of what might have caused the clattering noises.
“There’s nothing here,” she said, seeing only the soot-covered flue liner. “I can’t see very far, though. There could be something higher up.”
“Should we go upstairs and check it out?” Tanya asked.
Ellen climbed to her feet and picked up her devices. “I think so.”
Sue relaxed her arm, holding her gun to her side, which made Ellen feel a thousand times safer. As they left the office for the stairwell, Ellen kept an eye on her thermometer and EMF detector. Both returned to baseline levels of sixty-five degrees and 0.5 mG in the hall and stairwell, but as she neared the brick fireplace in the loft, her instruments fluctuated again.
“There’s something significant about this brick fireplace—both this one and the one downstairs,” she said, showing them her readings. “I think we need to make it the focus of our investigation tonight.”
Sue laid one hand against the brick and closed her eyes. After a moment she said, “I’m definitely sensing something unusual. Why don’t you take a peek inside, Ellen? We need to make sure there’s not an animal stuck in there.”
Ellen agreed. She was not one to assume that abnormalities were paranormal. In fact, she believed that there was a logical explanation for most anomalies and would only consider the possibility of a spiritual presence when everything else had been ruled out and the evidence was incontrovertible.
Setting her instruments on the floor beside her, Ellen kneeled before the firebox, turned on her flashlight app, and leaned through the opening. Again, she found nothing unusual, just a soot-covered flue.
“There’s nothing up there, that I can see,” she said.
As she leaned back on her heels, her elbow hit a loose floorboard, and suddenly the floor dropped out from under her, and her instruments crashed to the story below. A shrill scream flew from her throat as she hooked her arms on the part of the floor that hadn’t fallen open. Her body hung through the opening of a trapdoor.
“Oh, my God!” Sue cried.
Tanya was at Ellen’s side, holding her arms. “I won’t let you fall.”
Ellen wasn’t very confident in Skinny Minnie’s ability to keep her from falling. And Ellen’s own arm strength was next to nil. They ached from the weight of her body already.
The trapdoor had popped back up, against Ellen’s legs. She tried to use it as leverage to help take weight off her arms, but the door moved away from her every time she kicked at it.
“I can’t hold myself up much longer,” she muttered as she gasped for breath.
Tanya sat on the edge of the opening and hooked her feet beneath Ellen’s armpits, but it didn’t take any of the weight off Ellen’s arms.
“Help me, Sue,” Tanya said.
Sue put down her gun and got on her knees. She leaned her weight on Ellen’s arm. “Should I call 9-1-1?”
“They won’t get here in time,” Ellen said. “I can feel myself slipping.”
Tanya tried pulling Ellen up with her legs, but it was futile.
“Hello?”
It was Brian, calling out from downstairs.
“Brian!” Sue shouted. “Help! We’re up in the loft!”
“What’s wrong?” he cried back.
“Hurry!” Sue screamed. “Ellen’s falling through the floor!”
Then Sue said to Ellen in a lower voice, “I’m so glad it’s you and not me. You, at least, have a chance of surviving.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” Ellen muttered between gasps. “I’m losing my grip.”
Brian was soon beside her, pulling her up by her arms. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”
As she met his concerned and determined gaze, she never felt so helpless—or so grateful. Tears sprang to her eyes—tears of relief. He slid her up, until her legs were no longer dangling.
She lay on her stomach, panting, before she rolled over and sat up. Her arms hurt, and she had to struggle to catch her breath. As soon as she had cleared the trap, the door shut itself and seemed to disappear in the floorboards.
“Are you okay?” Tanya asked.
Ellen nodded. “Thank you. God, that was close.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Brian said. “I can only imagine what might have happened if I hadn’t been here.”
Ellen didn’t want to think about it, but she did, wondering which bones she would have broken. With her luck, it would have been her neck.
“Did you know about this trapdoor?” Sue asked Brian.
“No. I had no idea.” Brian used one foot to press on the door. When it didn’t move, he added more of his weight. Then he stepped off it. “It seems to hold. How did you open it?”
“I think I triggered it there.” Ellen reached over and pushed down on the floorboard that her elbow had hit. It was positioned between the trapdoor and the hearth. Once again, the trapdoor fell open and then closed itself again.
“Thank God no one was hurt,” Brian said. “This must be how the hay was delivered to the stables below. But it sure is an odd design.”
“It looks more like a secret door,” Sue said. “Too elaborate for a stable.”
“Hmm,” Brian said. “But what else would it have been used for?”
The ladies shrugged.
“Maybe one of the ghosts will tell us,” Sue said.
“Ghosts?” Brian repeated. “You agree with me that this building is haunted?”
“It sure feels like it,” Ellen said.
“Before we set up and take our preliminary readings,” Sue began, “we should consult the Ouija Board.”
As per Sue’s orders, Brian returned the office chairs to the back office—the one with the fireplace—and positioned them around the old desk. Sue arranged the cupcakes on one side of the desk, and Tanya laid three candles beside them before setting the wicks aflame. Ellen placed the Ouija Board in the center, and, after taking a moment to sip their coffee, they all sat around the desk with their fingers on the planchette, including Brian, who was eager to participate.
Sue, as usual, took the lead and began: “Oh, spirits of the other realm, we mean you no harm. Please look for our candlelight and for the smell of our humble offering, to find your way to us. We come in peace to ask for your help. Is anyone there?”
The candlelight flickered, but it could have been a draft from the chimney.
Brian glanced at each of them and asked, “Is something supposed to happen?”
“Shh,” Ellen said. “Be patient.”
Ellen hadn’t meant to scold him. He may have just saved her life—or, at the very least, saved her from a painful injury. She needed to be nicer to him, even if it didn’t come naturally.
“Sometimes it takes a while for them to muster up enough energy to make contact,” she explained more gently.
“Spirits of the other realm,” Sue continued. “Can you hear me? Is anyone here with us today?”
The candlelight flickered again, and this time, the overhead lights did, too. Ellen smiled at Sue and Tanya, because that was a promising sign.
Then, very slowly, the planchette began to move.
Brian narrowed his eyes, and Ellen could tell he suspected that one of them was moving it.
The planchette stopped at “Yes.”
“That’s wonderful news,” Sue said. “Would you mind telling us your name, spirit of the other realm?”
The lights overhead flickered again as the planchette spelled out, “D-E-N-N-Y” and then stopped.
Sue said, “Denny? Is your first name Denny?”
The planchette moved to “Yes.”
“What’s your last name, Denny?” Sue asked.
The planchette spelled out, “M-O-Y-E-R.”
“No way,” Brian said, removing his fingers from the planchette and sitting back in his chair.
“Does that name mean something to you?” Tanya asked.
“Like you don’t know,” Brian accused.
All three ladies stared back at him in surprise.
“Should we?” Ellen asked. “I didn’t see his name in that timeline you prepared.”
“Come on,” Brian said. “Be straight with me. Did one of you move that thing? Is this a trick?”
Sue scoffed. “Why did you bring us here if you don’t believe we can do the job?”
The planchette began to move again, without Brian’s fingers on it.
The lights overhead flickered and went out as the planchette spelled, “T-E-L-L.”
“Tell,” Sue repeated.
Then it spelled, “M-Y.”
“Tell my…,” Sue said.
Then it spelled, “D-A-D.”
“Tell my dad…,” Tanya said, getting excited.
The planchette moved to “I-T” before pausing and then continuing to “W-A-S.”
“Tell my dad it was…,” Sue said.
“N-O-T,” the planchette spelled. And then, “H-I-S.”
“Tell my dad it was not his…,” Sue read.
“F-A-U-L-T.”
“Tell my dad it was not his fault,” Ellen repeated. Then aloud, she asked, “Denny Moyer, what is your father’s name?”
The candlelight flickered wildly. One of the flames went out as the planchette spelled, “H-A-R-R-Y.”
“Harry Moyer?” Sue asked.
The planchette moved to “Yes.”
Brian shook his head in disbelief but said nothing.
Sue said, “Denny, we promise to look for him, and, if we find him, we’ll give him your message.”
Then Ellen said, “Denny? We’re looking for a man who disappeared over a month ago and was last seen in this building. His name is Mike McManius. Do you know where he is?”
The candles began to flicker wildly again as the planchette moved to “No.”
All three ladies sighed with disappointment. Brian shook his head again. Then the planchette began to move.
It spelled, “L-O-O-K.”
“Look?” Sue asked.
Then the planchette spelled, “I-N.”
“Look in,” Tanya said.
The planchette spelled, “T-U-N-N-E-L-S.”
“Look in tunnels?” Sue asked.
“What tunnels?” Ellen asked.
The flames on the last two candles flickered until they were extinguished.
“What tunnels?” Sue repeated.
The planchette didn’t move.
“Denny?” Sue asked. “Are you still here?”
They waited a full minute before Tanya said, “I think he’s gone.”
Brian shook his head and rubbed his chin.
“Did any of that mean anything to you?” Sue asked him.
“Not in a way that will help us find my brother,” he said. “You ladies swear you’ve never heard of Denny Moyer?”
“I haven’t,” Tanya said.
“Me, either,” Sue said.
“We swear,” Ellen said, allowing her annoyance to come through in her tone. “Why would we make this up? Either we find your brother, or we don’t. We couldn’t care less whether you believe in ghosts or believe that we can communicate with them.”
“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’m sorry I questioned you. I’ve just never seen anything like that before. Can I be forgiven if it takes me a minute to process?”
“Ellen of all people should understand,” Sue said. “It wasn’t that long ago when she didn’t believe.”
“I believe,” he said. “Or I wouldn’t have hired you. I’ve just never seen anything like that. Listen, Denny Moyer was a famous boxer from Portland. He and his brother Phil were both trained by their uncle and encouraged by their father, who were also boxers.”
“When and how did he die?” Ellen asked. “And where?”
“He died in 2010, I believe,” Brian said. “He had been living in a nursing home. His brother’s still there. They developed CTE, from repeated blows to the head. In his final years, Denny could barely talk, barely recognize anyone. His brother’s dementia is just as bad.”
“How sad,” Tanya said, before taking a sip of her coffee.
“What about his father?” Sue asked. “Is he still alive?”
Brian nodded. “I believe so. He blames himself for his sons’ condition. He never developed CTE. His brother Tommy didn’t, either. Some boxers do and some don’t, but Harry blames himself for encouraging his sons to box.”
Sue picked up one of the cupcakes and peeled back the paper cup, one side at a time. “Do you know where to find Harry?”
“I don’t know where he lives, no, but I know which nursing home Phil lives in. I’m pretty sure someone there can help us.”
“That’s one mystery solved,” Ellen said. “Now, tell us about the tunnels.”