Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
“Ugh, that was so…” Tina trailed off and shuddered theatrically. “What a creeper.”
They’d hauled all their gear into the dining room and were getting it set up. Ethan helped hook up the generator, and Tina booted up one of the computers and connected her phone. The rest of them crowded around as she brought up the picture on the monitor.
She stood framed in the old mirror, phone in hand, grinning for the camera. Just over her shoulder loomed a dark human-shaped figure, a man’s face suggested by the variations of gray in the shadow.
“Is my phone haunted?” Tina asked. “I bet it’s haunted.”
Nigel pushed up his glasses; they kept wanting to slide down his nose from the sweat. At least the open windows were beginning to cool the house. “Your phone isn’t haunted.”
“You don’t know that. If I was a ghost, I’d rather hang out in a phone than a dusty old mirror.”
“We definitely need to set up the thermal cam in the parlor.” Oscar leaned in to look at the image. “Maybe do an EVP or use the spirit box later.”
“Did you sense the spirit?” Nigel asked him.
Oscar grimaced. “I was so focused on getting the windows open to cool off the room that I wasn’t paying attention to anything else.”
Nigel bumped him lightly with his hip. “We won’t tell Ms. Montague.”
Chris glanced at the bay window; the shadow of the house lay long across the dunes outside. “Let’s get the cameras set up before the sun goes down. It’s going to be dark out here without any streetlights.”
Oscar and Chris left to get the static cams in place. While they did that and Tina finished setting up her monitoring equipment, Nigel unpacked their hot plate, cookpot, and coffee maker. They needed water, so he carried the pot outside to the water tank.
The heat had eased as the sun headed westward.
Storm clouds massed to the west, but fortunately they were far off.
He got the water and put the pot on the hot plate, though he didn’t turn it on yet.
The island might be covered in dead trees, but the ocean and sky were still beautiful, and it seemed a shame to waste them.
So when Oscar and Chris came back, he caught Oscar’s hand.
“Want to go for a short walk before dinner?”
Oscar grinned and squeezed his hand in return. “I’d love to.”
Chris announced they were going for a shower, and the three of them left. “Come back before dark!” Tina yelled after them. “I’m not sitting in this house alone with a creepy ghost at night!”
“We will!” Oscar called back.
They went down the hall, through the library, and onto the veranda. Stairs led down to the dunes, and the beach lay just beyond.
Oscar and Nigel walked slowly, pausing now and then to pick up a shell. A pod of dolphins broke the waves not far off, driving fish into the shallows to be eaten. The air smelled of salt and seaweed.
“The Graveyard of the Atlantic,” Oscar mused, gazing out over the waves.
Nigel slipped an arm around his waist. “A lot of ships went down in these waters. Imagine what it must have been like, back in the day, when the only people who lived on the Outer Banks were fishers and wreckers. Watching a ship founder from afar, wondering if anything valuable would wash up on the next tide.”
“They’d tie a lantern on a horse to trick ships onto the shoals sometimes.” Oscar shook his head. “That’s how Nags Head got its name, or that’s the legend, anyway. Anyone who didn’t drown would have their throat cut on shore.”
Nigel shivered despite the warmth. “This whole coast must be haunted.”
“There certainly are enough stories.” Oscar draped his arm around Nigel’s shoulder, drawing him closer. “But we’re alive, and the evening is beautiful.”
Nigel looked up at him, a smile tugging on his lips. “That it is.”
Oscar bent and kissed him softly. They needed to have an actual romantic getaway sometime soon. Maybe they could rent a cabin in the mountains or something.
Someone loudly cleared their throat from nearby.
They both started, and Nigel almost stepped guiltily away, before remembering that he was an adult and could kiss his boyfriend on the beach if he wanted to. Jump-scare Ethan stood a few feet away, expression neutral, his hands folded before him.
“It isn’t safe to wander the island,” he said.
Nigel looked around in confusion. There was just the ocean, the beach, the grass, and the ghost forest. “What do you mean, not safe?”
“The trees could fall. And there may be rip currents.”
Oscar frowned. “I guess? But we aren’t near the trees or getting in the water.”
Ethan switched tactics. “Ms. Montague would like everyone to remain focused on the house.”
She must have been the one to send Ethan after them. Nigel didn’t see why it mattered if they spent some time on the beach…but she was footing the bill. No doubt being back here had put her on edge, so if she wanted them to remain more or less in sight at all times, that’s what they would do.
He cast one last look at the deceptive waters, calm and beautiful but with hidden shoals beneath. Then, hand in hand with Oscar, he turned his feet back toward The Cottage.
Ethan’s gaze bored into him the whole way back.