Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Dinner consisted of ramen and coffee, eaten at the end of the dining room table not taken up by equipment.
The sun set as they ate, the shadow of the house across the sand fading into the general darkness.
The lights of ships appeared on the horizon, like stars bobbing on the waves.
Oscar felt a twinge of regret over the interrupted walk with Nigel.
Haunted house or no, there was something romantic about a beach.
As they finished dinner, the front door opened. A hand-held lantern cut through the shadows in the hall, revealing Ethan, Dr. Lawson, and Ms. Montague.
“I see you’ve got everything set up,” Dr. Lawson said approvingly once they reached the dining room. “Hopefully you can find something tonight.”
“We already have,” Tina said. “My phone’s haunted now.”
“The phone is not haunted.” Nigel looked to Dr. Lawson. “Tina took a selfie in the parlor mirror, and a man showed up in the photo, standing right behind her.”
“Like a creep.” Tina brought up the picture on one of the monitors, and Lawson and Montague crowded in to look.
“That’s him,” Montague said grimly. “Seth Ullman.”
“Patricia…” Lawson started.
“Don’t be ridiculous—they’ve already found the man and his ledger, so it doesn’t matter if Mr. Fox hears his story.” Montague moved toward one of the chairs, and Ethan hastily pulled it out so she could sit.
Dr. Lawson crossed her arms. “Fine. But stick to the basics about Ullman and the Pack.”
“As you wish.” Montague folded her hands on the silver head of her cane. “The Pack was what Ullman and his friends called themselves. A boy’s club sort of name, but that’s what it was, even if it was made up of grown men.
“As I mentioned before, Mr. Ullman built this house in 1908, to his own specifications. In that time, few of the wealthy retired to the Outer Banks during the summer—they preferred Newport and the like, places where there’s less humidity.
But the Pack wanted a more secluded place, one where they could renew their bonds of friendship and escape the pressures of society.
” She paused. “My great-great uncle was one of their number.”
“Wouldn’t they have been competitors in the tobacco business, though?” Chris asked.
Montague laughed. “Good heavens, no. They divided up the market, with Ullman advertising to businessmen and the like, and my family targeting the younger crowd, especially young women.”
“Cancer for everyone,” Tina said, eyes on her monitors as she brought up the feed from the static cams they’d already placed.
“So why was his name in Ullman’s ledger?” Oscar asked. “Did he borrow money from him?”
“Have you ever heard of the Panic of 1907?” She looked around at their blank faces.
“It was a financial crisis. The details don’t matter, but my family lost a small fortune.
Ullman’s investments remained on a sounder footing, so he agreed to loan his dear friend Noah Montague enough to keep him solvent.
I assume the ledger records his repayments. ”
It made sense. “And it got left behind in the house?”
“So it would seem, though I don’t recall seeing it when we were here in the 1980s.
Then again, we were hardly scouring the shelves of the library.
” Montague looked away for a moment, then back.
“At any rate, Ullman sailed through the panic and built this house the following year. He seemed to lead a charmed life. But in the winter of 1910, his youngest daughter, Gloria, died from a tumble down the stairs. Still grieving, he joined the rest of the Pack here that summer. Alas, tragedy wasn’t done with him.
At the end of the season, just before they were to return to the mainland, the other six took the yacht out for one last cruise of the islands.
Something went wrong, the yacht caught fire, and everyone on board perished, including Noah. ”
More bones for the Graveyard. “But Ullman wasn’t with them, correct?”
“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.
The spirit box came to life in a burst of static. “My name is Oscar,” he said to the air. “What’s your name?”
Nothing but static.
That was fine. The ghost might be reticent or even confused. “I know this device in my hand must look strange to you,” he said conversationally. “It’s safe—it just lets you communicate with us. Can you tell us your name?”
“Get out!”
The roar from the spirit box was so loud Oscar nearly dropped it in shock. Nigel jumped, then said, “I guess he’s not happy to see us.”
Oscar mentally firmed up his wards and got ready to grab for the salt if need be. “Is this Seth Ullman?” No answer. “Are you angry because we’re in your house?”
Nothing more. After a few minutes of trying, Oscar shut off the spirit box. “Either he doesn’t want to talk, or he used up all his energy to tell us to leave.”
“Can’t say I like how angry he is,” Chris said.
“We know the Vanderwall family was driven out, so it’s to be expected.” Nigel glanced uneasily over his shoulder at the mirror. “Still, I’d prefer—”
A child’s running footsteps sounded from the floor above them.