Jessica jogged to the top of the stairs, the beam from her flashlight jittering across the walls like a nightclub light show.
“Eddie, it’s hot.”
He was more cautious making his way up the ancient wooden steps. When his head was level with the floor, he said, “Now this is summer in the south. Is there a window anywhere?”
She swept her beam around the attic. “Nope. We’re going to be sweating our asses off in no time.”
“The EBs won’t come up here. That’s why it’s not like the rest of the island.”
“I think we’re going to need more light.”
A dangling chain glittered in the narrow shaft of light. “Now let’s hope the bulb isn’t blown out.”
It took several tugs for the clear bulb to buzz to life. The tiny filaments sizzled and there was hesitant but expanding light. The attic came into focus.
Jessica’s jaw dropped.
“All that’s missing is Vincent Price,” she said, filled with a leaden awe.
The attic was a vast space, spanning the width of the entire house. It was crammed with tables cluttered with leather bound books and glass tubes, vials resting in metal holders, pencils used down to their nubs, loose papers, medical supplies and tools both mundane and strange. Two long gurneys sat side by side opposite them with long IV poles. Shelves had been built into one wall, all of them stacked with folded sheets, blankets and surgical scrubs. On a coat rack in another corner hung several long, yellowing doctor’s coats, the pockets bursting with rubber gloves and needles.
Along another wall was an enormous mahogany desk and leather chair. Two tiffany lamps were poised on each end of the desk. She walked closer to it, the floor creaking. Again, the lamps worked, casting kaleidoscopic light on the desk. A curling ink blotter was littered with notes and scribbles that meant nothing to her. It was like staring at a foreign language. It reminded her of what her doctors wrote on prescription pads.
“What the fuck is this?” she said.
Eddie plucked an appointment book off the desk, flipping through the brittle pages. “Looks like there wasn’t much on the calendar. Just a bunch of numbers on the notes pages in the back.”
She gently touched the wood of the desk, the objects scattered on it, the leather spines of the books as if she could glean their history through the pads of her fingers.
“This looks like a doctor’s office or lab,” she said. “Were any of the Ormsbys doctors or scientists?”
Eddie winced, grabbing his head. He shook it off and said, “They were. The EBs won’t come here but they’re seeing and hearing everything through me somehow. I can’t keep them out. When you asked that question, they all screamed yes at the same time.”
“It’s going to take a long time to find some answers. I mean, look at this place. Aside from the medical stuff, there’re enough books to fill a small library. What the hell went on up here?”
Eddie stared at the beakers and glass pipettes. “Nothing good.”
Wiping sweat from her forehead, Jessica said, “So, where do we start? I can take the desk and you can hit that table over there.” She pointed at a folding table that sagged under the weight of books upon it.
Something thumped against the floor. One of the gurneys rolled across the room, coming to a soft stop against the coat rack. There was a squeak of wood as they watched a wooden panel swing away from the wall. Inside were three shelves. A thick book the size of an atlas, held shut with a metal clasp, rested on each shelf.
“Thank you,” Jessica said toward the stairs and EBs below. She picked up the book on the top shelf and carried it to the table under the ceiling light. A haze of dust billowed from the cover when it hit the table. “Looks like it’s a good thing you’re their closed circuit TV,” she said to Eddie.
“Easy for you to say when you don’t have to feel the pressure of dozens of EBs within your own skull.”
“Have you always complained this much?” She gave him a wry smile, in case he thought she was being serious. Eddie grabbed the book on the middle shelf and went to the desk, settling into the overstuffed chair.
There was no lock on the clasp of the book before Jessica. The spine and pages crackled when she opened it.
“I’m almost afraid to look.”
She began to read, the stifling heat of the room fading into the numbness of unreality as she scanned page after page.
What the heck am I looking at?
Then she saw a familiar name scrawled underneath a paragraph written in a shaky hand, the words almost impossible to decipher.
Alexander Ormsby.
An old black and white photograph was tucked into the book. It showed a middle-aged man dressed in surgical scrubs, a pipe in one hand, the other stuffed into a hip pocket.
Is that you, Alexander?
There was no smile on the man’s gaunt face, nor in his eyes. He looked like a man…consumed.
Jessica gasped.
He looked as if he could be Tobe Harper’s brother. The resemblance was chilling.
She was about to tell Eddie when the house below them became unhinged.
Daphne absentmindedly caressed the cheek Tobe had struck, the skin still prickling and hot to the touch, when the entire house shook. It felt and sounded as if it had been hit by a speeding dump truck.
A glass of water fell to the floor. Daphne reached out for her children who jerked awake.
She heard a scream, and quickly realized it was her own.
Jason and Alice stared at her with sleepy, uncomprehending eyes. They didn’t ask her what made the noise or acknowledge the shattered water glass.
“Everything’s all right,” she assured them, hearing the high-pitched quiver of her voice and realizing how poorly she was masking her fear.
“I know, Mommy,” Alice said, and turned over in her bed, settling back into the covers. Jason did the same.
Did I fall asleep and dream it? Maybe my scream and the breaking glass is what woke them up.
She bent down to pick up the shards of glass, using Jason’s dirty shirt from the nearby hamper to sop up the water.
She had convinced herself that the house’s quaking was all in her head when she heard Paul downstairs asking what the hell had just happened. Like her, he couldn’t hide the unease in his voice. She wanted to go downstairs but didn’t dare leave the children.
So she cleaned the floor, returned to her chair and waited like an expectant sentinel, growing increasingly unsettled the more she thought about Jason and Alice’s torpid reaction.
Mitch turned the camera around so he could see the lens. The thick glass was busted. “It’s like it exploded,” he said to Rusty.
“Night vision is out on mine,” he said, switching on the powerful light atop his camera. The breakfast room was bathed in harsh light that birthed angular shadows.
Tobe had run outside with a flashlight the moment the house was struck. Once he recovered from the initial shock, Paul joined him.
Nina took a seat, one hand over her chest.
“I thought the whole place was about to explode,” Mitch said. “Christ, I hope we caught all that.”
“It happened right when Nina was taunting them,” Rusty said. He glared at her with bloodshot eyes. “You shouldn’t have done that. They’re children, for God’s sake. Would you talk to a living child like that?”
She swallowed hard, her throat dry. “I only wanted them to show themselves again. Sometimes you have to push the spirits to get them to do what you want.”
“You ever think that maybe they’re not here just to do what you want?”
Mitch said, “Everybody calm down. For all we know, a tree just slammed into the side of the house or the furnace backed up.”
“There is no furnace in the house,” Rusty shot back.
They remained under the shroud of an uncomfortable silence until Tobe and Paul returned, both winded.
“There’s nothing outside,” Tobe said.
Paul threw up his hands. “That’s it, we’re done. We’re messing with something we don’t know enough about. We’ve obviously pissed the ghosts or whatever off royally. I say we call it a night, a wrap, check the gate, we’re done. Tomorrow, I’ll swim to goddamn Charleston if I have to.”
Mitch watched his friend lose his shit. Rusty paced in a tight circle, teeth worrying at what was left of his fingernails. Even Nina looked as if she’d been punched in the gut.
You better get their heads out of their asses before the whole thing implodes, he thought.
He stepped between Paul and Rusty. “Hey, hey, hey, everyone just take a breath. If I’m not mistaken, isn’t this what we all came to document? You can’t set out to make a dog bark and run for the hills the moment he does.”
Paul pointed at Nina. “You didn’t say we’d get anything like this. Maybe some EVPs or an odd shadow. This place is becoming a damn fun house. What did you do?”
Nina leapt from her seat. “What did I do? What did you do? I told you that Jessica would empower the spirits. You wanted her as an insurance policy to make sure we didn’t come away with nothing. They’re feeding off her like starved parasites. The children aren’t making it any easier.”
Paul’s expression darkened. “What children are you talking about?”
“Alice and Jason. They have a small part of the same ability as Jessica. It must be too much, like an unchecked circuit. That’s why the spirits can interact with the physical world with such force.”
“Did you know about this?” Paul asked Tobe.
Tobe sniffled, the frigid air having turned his nose bright red and watery. “Yes, but whatever they’re adding to this is miniscule. Nina assured me of that before we even bought the island.”
“You son of a bitch!”
Paul lunged at his brother-in-law, landing a hard right to his jaw. The tall man went down in a heap, covering his face with his arms. Mitch dove to break them up.
“You all need to stop giving off such negative energy,” Nina shouted.
“Shut up,” Rusty barked.
“Rusty, you’re not helping,” Mitch said.
He didn’t have time to block Rusty’s punch to his midsection, folding him in half. He dropped to his knees beside a wounded Tobe who was trying to cup the blood pouring from his mouth into his palm.