Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

Chapter 15

Lame-o-rama. Ain’t that right, Momma?

Kendra had lowered her expectations for her dad, but this was a little embarrassing. She would have just given the two ladies their refunds and sent them on their way, but Wayne Wilson never let a dollar slide out of his pocket without a fight. Even the little melodrama with the fainting fat lady had turned dull. This whole conference was shaping up as nothing more than another wasted weekend.

The control room was in chaos, with the hunt schedule already thrown off barely two hours in. A dozen people were complaining about their groups, and one woman said her butt had been fondled in the dark. Wayne had tried to appease her by suggesting she’d been touched by the spirit, but apparently the woman’s feminist ardor trumped her belief in the paranormal.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll get back on track in just a minute,” Wayne shouted in his best barker’s voice, momentarily quelling the rebellion. The room smelled of menthol and stale tobacco smoke, with a faint tinge of body odor. As he huddled with Burton over a clipboard, Kendra sidled through the murmuring crowd to Cody, who was rattling the keys of his laptop.

“Hey, Future,” she said. “Got any goods yet?”

Cody’s brow furrowed as he studied the computer, which was perched on a card table and wired to a bank of video monitors. “Check this out,” he said without looking up.

He tapped some keys, bringing one of the video thumbnails to full size on his screen. The video began playing, and Kendra leaned over Cody’s shoulder to look. His neck smelled clean, with an outdoorsy freshness that made her a little light-headed. She debated brushing her chest against his back, but decided he was too deeply into his work to notice, and she didn’t want to waste ammunition.

She smirked to herself. Tiny bullets.

“The attic,” Cody said, stating the obvious as he pointed to the screen. The image showed rafters, dusty boards, a crumbling brick chimney, and fluffy piles of old insulation.

“Creepy.”

“No more so than any other dark place. Now look.” Cody pressed a key and the video began streaming.

Kendra saw no movement on the screen and couldn’t tell whether the image was a still photograph until a moth finally fluttered past the camera. Her dad, like most hunters, spent more hours poring over potential evidence than they did hunting, one of the mundane and overlooked aspects of the field. Ghost-hunting shows on television didn’t show the tedious research that went into gleaning the oddities; the audience would be clicking away to reality shows and other forms of instant gratification. Cody was as impatient as any teen, so he didn’t bother building suspense.

After 20 seconds, Wayne appeared on the screen, crouching and walking awkwardly toward the chimney. He placed his hand on the bricks as if sizing something up, then he retraced his steps.

“So, it’s just Dad being dorky,” she said. “Nothing special about that.”

“Wait.”

Five seconds later, a faint image of a person appeared against the bricks. The image had no movement, but appeared to fade in and out. Just as the woman’s features became distinct, showing her flowing dress and long hair, it blinked out.

“Whoa,” Kendra said. “Did I just see that?”

Yep.” Cody let the footage continue as Wayne herded the groups together and began sending them out of the control room. Cody stopped the streaming video and backed it up, then replayed the segment. This time, he zoomed in and increased the screen resolution so that the image was revealed in large rectangular pixels.

“Here’s the weird part,” Cody said, touching the screen with his finger. “See the digital information on the regular image?”

“Yeah. It’s pixelated.”

He froze the image just as the shadowy figure appeared. “Now look how fuzzy the blocks are.”

Kendra wondered if he was testing her skepticism. She couldn’t decide whether to call his bluff or act ignorant. “Well, if it’s a ghost, isn’t it supposed to be fuzzy?”

“It’s sort of like when you keep making photocopies of a photocopy. Pretty soon the image degrades.”

“You’re saying Dad rigged a fake image?”

“No. This is my personal video. I would know if somebody hacked it. He didn’t even know I’d set this one up because I did it before the rest of the crew hit the attic.”

Burton’s group was the last to leave, and Wayne came over to the monitor desk. Kendra was about to ask if he’d seen the video when Cody shot her a “Cool it” look and minimized the screen.

“Murphy’s law,” Wayne said. “The group hunts always work on paper, but people don’t hunt on paper.”

“Got it sorted out?” Cody asked, bringing up the split-screen view that showed small versions of all the live camera images.

“Trains are back on schedule,” he said. “Kendra, can I talk to you a sec?”

She rolled her eyes just enough for Cody to notice, and his lips pursed in sympathy. “Sure.”

Wayne escorted her to the hall and faced her, lowering his voice so Cody couldn’t hear. “You know I trust you and give you lots of leeway, and maybe that comes across as being inattentive, or ‘spaced out,’ as you like to say. And I’ve never worried about bringing you along on my hunts because you’ve always been so mature.”

Because when Mom died, somebody had to be the grown-up. That was the kind of response that would require years of psychotherapy, so she merely nodded.

“But this time I want you to stick close to me,” he said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this place.”

“It’s just a creaky old hotel,” she said.

“Don’t be so damned hardheaded.”

“Is this about Cody?”

Wayne’s eyes narrowed and flicked back into the control room. “What about Cody?”

Dad was so shut off from his emotions that he couldn’t recognize teen lust when he saw it. Not that she was quite sure what to make of it herself, or how far she wanted to go, but if two heterosexual teens were stranded on a desert island, somewhere along the way things would get natural.

“Nothing. He’s just a tech geek.”

“Cody can take care of himself. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Like I can’t take care of myself?”

“Look. Some stuff is happening, okay? Things I can’t explain.”

“I thought that was the point,” she said, then slipped into a mocking delivery of one of his marketing slogans. “‘All the shivers you can stand, or your money back.’”

“That was show biz, but this is real.”

“Digger Wilson calling something ‘real’?”

“Honey.” His features curdled, his pretense of patience drained dry.

“You said I was mature for my age, but I think you just forced responsibility on me so you wouldn’t have to bother with me.”

Digger slammed the bottom of his fist against the wall, the suddenness causing her to jump. “Damn it.”

“Great, a few more punches like that and this whole place is liable to collapse.”

Digger walked away just as Cody poked his head out of the control room. “Something fall?” Cody asked.

“Just my high hopes,” Kendra said. Dad had already turned the corner. Kendra was still flushed with the thrill of cheap victory. In younger days, she would cry, her tears driving him into helpless rage. She’d grown a little subtler since then, but he was just as vulnerable to his anger. The violence was a new manifestation, but nothing she couldn’t turn to her advantage.

“Thanks for keeping our little secret,” he said.

“Hmm?” She was only half listening, thinking of Dad.

“The superimposed image. I need to break it down a little to see if it’s legit.”

“And if it is?”

“Then somebody’s trying to set us up.”

“What’s the third alternative?”

“I don’t believe it’s an intelligent haunt. No interaction.”

“Well, you believe in demons, right?”

“Yeah, but–”

“Why couldn’t a demon superimpose an image, or manipulate your video data, if they’re so powerful?”

“It doesn’t work that way.” Cody looked a little less certain than he sounded.

“You have rules for everything, but not everything follows the rules.” The combative mood still lingered, and she couldn’t shake it, even though Cody had done nothing wrong. To her horror, she felt a surge of heat in her self-righteousness, and wondered if she had inherited the Digger’s anger issues.

She needed to get away before Cody wrote her off as a bitchy lunatic. A little down time with some paper and pencils was the cure for her mood.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m starting my period.”

Cody grinned, which she took as a sign of forgiveness. “My deepest sympathies.”

“Good luck with that image thing. Gotta run.”

“Later.”

Kendra headed for her room, yearning for escape into two-dimensional worlds and cartoon ghost faces, where the characters behaved the way she wanted.