Wow, he really is frightened. Erin looked up and studied the windows. What is in there?
After unlocking the front door, they entered the parlor. Erin knew it was the parlor because like every other item in sight it was clearly labeled. It was spookily dark inside, and she guessed that the drapes were always kept shut to prevent sun damage, and very little sunlight ever penetrated the gloom. Holtzmann had already started filming with a camera. Abby pulled out something that looked like a cross between a tuning fork and a whirligig.
“What is that?” Erin asked.
“PKE meter,” Abby replied, holding it aloft. “If there’s a ghost around, this baby’ll let us know.”
Erin scrutinized the apparatus closely. PKE stood for Psychokinetic Energy Meter, which they had theorized would detect the presence of paranormal entities. “Does it work?”
“Umm, yeah, it works,” Abby insisted, a little affronted. Then under her breath she added, “We just haven’t seen it work because we haven’t had direct contact with the paranormal. Yet.”
Same old, same old, Erin thought.
Holtzmann’s camera panned toward her. The book was dangerous enough to her career; Erin sure as hell wasn’t going to be caught dead—so to speak—on camera. She nudged the lens in the other direction, making sure she was well out of frame. Abby held out the PKE meter like a dowsing rod and followed its readings through the parlor. Erin watched as she reached a door on the other side of the parlor. Abby tried the knob. It was locked. She cocked her head at her meter.
“Sealed shut,” she announced. “We’ll come back to this. Erin, be useful and find a sledgehammer or something.”
Erin threw up her hands, unsure how to deal with her ex-bestie at the moment. Was that a joke, or did Abby seriously intend to destroy a national historic landmark door? They should have gotten more information from Ed Mulgrave before they’d entered the house. Abby had insisted that they had to go in blind, or their expectations might affect their results. That was a sound scientific approach, given the unknown range of variables they faced. Why did it rankle her so much to admit it?
She decided to give herself some space to think things through. But just as she drifted out of Abby’s orbit, she happened to glance up at a portrait on the wall. Yikes. Chills washed down her spine. A truly horrifying face with a rictus smile like The Joker’s glared down at her. She had never seen insanity rendered so perfectly in two dimensions. It had to be none other than Gertrude Aldridge, the family psycho who had murdered all the servants. Holtzmann and Abby had pulled up the museum’s Web site back at the lab before they’d left to come here. Gertrude was apparently the resident ghost and main tourist draw to the museum.
Freaked by the sourpuss glaring down at her, she walked back over toward Holtzmann and Abby. Holtzmann, standing nearer, said quietly to her, “It’s a fantastic book, you know. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
No doubt, if you’re teaching someplace like Kenneth T. Higgins Institute of Science, Erin thought. Shame is relative.
They followed Abby as she slowly scanned everything in the room with the PKE meter. Eyes on her readout, she said, “We got asked to be interviewed on University of Michigan’s local news show, you know.”
Holtzmann perked up. “Oh, really?”
That’s just wonderful, she’s not done with me, Erin thought dispiritedly. She’s going to tell Holtzmann the whole miserable thing.
Abby nodded. “That’s right. Erin had started grad school, but she was gonna come back for it. Man, it was exciting. I was so proud of that book.”
She is never going to let this go.
“Well, I’m nervous this is headed somewhere bad.” Holtzmann didn’t sound nervous at all; in fact she sounded like she was having a blast.
“No, it was fine,” Abby assured her. “I saw some people snickering—it turned out they didn’t really take it seriously. But it was all right because Erin showed up and we showed them.”
Erin sighed.
“Except that she didn’t show up!” Abby announced, setting her jaw. “And I was made fun of all by myself and I never even heard from her again!”
“I left you a message that I couldn’t make it,” Erin blurted. “It’s not my fault that your machine didn’t record it!” Oh god, what a stupid thing to say. It was also a lie. But how could she go into the full story here? There was a valid reason she hadn’t shown up. A very personal and private reason. And as it turned out, her decision to boycott the show had proven a good call. Abby still wouldn’t be able to see that, to understand why she should have allowed the ashes of the only two physical copies in existence to rot at the bottom of the Hudson River. The career-destroying albatross was her pride and joy. Had Erin tried to explain it on that fateful evening, they wouldn’t have remained friends anyway. Abby would have been just as hurt and angry, would have talked Erin into participating, and her career would have been demolished before it had even started.
Abby shook her head sadly at Holtzmann and said, “Let’s go check out the parlor. Too much negative energy in here.”
Erin watched in dismay as Abby and Holtzmann swept through a large archway into the parlor. No, she couldn’t just leave it like that; it made her seem so pathetic. She had to try to explain; she owed Abby the truth. When she started to go after them, her shoe slipped on something. She stopped and examined the sole. It was coated with something green and slimy.
“What is this…?” she murmured to herself.
She looked up at the ceiling for the source of a drip, and then shifted her gaze forward. What she saw made her whole body jerk.
The basement door stood wide open.
She started to lose it, big time. Then she caught herself. It was another prank, of course.
“Wow. Really. Again?” she said, rolling her eyes.
Erin walked into the parlor. Abby was hard at work with her PKE meter. Holtzmann was filming and munching on Pringles potato chips. Exasperated, Erin said, “Is there anything that isn’t a joke to you guys?”
Abby and Holtzmann looked at each other as if confused. Erin wasn’t buying it for a second.
“Well, that’s rude,” Abby said.
She sounded genuinely affronted. Now it was Erin’s turn to be confused. “You didn’t open the basement door?”
Abby’s eyes widened with excitement. “The basement door is open?”
There was a noise, muffled and distant. Maybe a creak. Or a footfall. Or a foot creak. Or all three. Whatever it was, it made them all jump in unison. When they slowly turned and looked through the archway into the foyer, it was just as Erin had said: the basement door stood wide open.
The absolute surprise on their faces told her it hadn’t been any of their doing. Erin provided the only other obvious explanation: “Well, if it wasn’t you it’s probably just Ed or the—”
Then Abby’s PKE meter lit up and the antenna started to spin. It looked like a fuchsia and teal Venus’s-flytrap. Abby flinched at the sudden movement and stared down at the machine in amazement.
“I didn’t even know it did that,” she confessed.
Creeeakkk. Erin caught her breath at the screechy sound. Abby’s and Holtzmann’s eyes opened comically wide. Someone was coming up the rickety remains of the staircase, from the basement where the tour guide had sworn he’d seen a ghost.
Creeeakkk.
When Abby and Holtzmann cautiously moved forward, Erin followed.
“Oh my god,” Abby said. “My ears just popped. Definite AP-xH shift. I don’t think we’re alone. Holy crap, holy crap. Give me the camera.”
She grabbed the video recorder from Holtzmann and advanced, with Erin close on her heels. As Erin continued to move forward there was a loud crunch right behind her. She jolted, then half turned, every fiber of her being dreading what she was about to see. But it was just Holtzmann, munching another chip.
Erin said beneath her breath, “How are you still eating?”
Holtzmann mumbled back through a full mouth, ??
?‘Once you pop’ …”
You can’t stop. Erin knew the Pringles slogan.
She was about to admonish Holtzmann when a dim greenish light began to glow and pulse from down the stairwell. Erin’s mouth fell open. So did Abby’s and Holtzmann’s—with an uneaten Pringle stuck to her lips. Abby’s face turned red with excitement.
A spectral form began to float upward in the stairwell. A vague, filmy presence at first, it rapidly thickened and took a human shape: the figure was a young woman’s, and though her facial features were strikingly beautiful, there was a definite hint of a resemblance to the monstrous portrait on the wall. She was wearing the same fancy gown.
“Please tell me you’re seeing that,” Abby said.
Erin was. Oh. God. She was.
“Good god,” Abby wheezed. “It’s a Class Four, distinct human form apparition.”
In other words, the Holy Grail they had been seeking for so long.
Erin’s heart hammered. She couldn’t move. She could only stare at the shifting form, overwhelmed, struggling to summon a defense. Her highly trained rational mind tried to squirm out of the logic trap it found itself in. Mass hysteria, she reasoned, that had to be it. They were seeing what they expected to see, based on past experience and the situation they found themselves in. Or maybe their very presence was altering the normal course of events—Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to the max.
“This isn’t happening,” she murmured.
“Oh, it’s happening all right,” Holtzmann said.
“And it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Abby’s tone was awed, reverent.
Erin had to know, one way or another. Her life, her sanity depended on it. She somehow found the courage to take a step forward. “It can’t be real,” she said, as if denying it could make it vanish. It didn’t vanish. She reached out her hand.
“Careful! It could be malevolent,” Abby said. “We’ve never made contact before.”
Apparently caught up in the thrill of the moment, Abby had forgotten all about Mrs. Barnard. Erin had survived her previous spectral experience, despite being scarred for life by it. As scary as this situation was, she saw it as a chance to take control in the moment, to cease being a victim for once.
“No,” Erin said. “She looks peaceful somehow.” She took another step forward, approaching the floating form with respect and all the humility she could muster. “Hello, ma’am. My name is Erin Gil—”
The ghost tipped her head, seeming to notice Erin for the first time. Erin stopped dead in her tracks.
As she watched, spellbound, the phantom’s sweet, tranquil face blasted into a skull adorned with two bulging gleaming eyeballs. It shrieked. Terrified, Erin tried to take a step back, but her feet were rooted to the floor. As the specter raged and reached for her with stretchy arms and claw fingers, it opened its mouth wide and a torrent of glowing green goo sprayed Erin with the force of a fire hose, knocking her back on her heels.
“Get down!” Abby cried, way too late.
Erin stood dripping in slime. She could feel it sliding from her matted hair down her face and neck; it squished between her fingers. At least she’d had the foresight to close her mouth. It was a familiar sensation, like Mrs. Barnard all over again, except the goo wasn’t red this time. What the hell, she thought, how did I become the designated slime target?
Then without warning the ghost flew straight at Erin, arms outstretched. To avoid further contact, she dropped to the floor with a thud. So did Holtzmann and Abby. The ghost sailed over their heads, flew straight at the opposite wall, and seemingly disappeared right into it.
In unison, Erin and the others leaped to their feet and dashed out the front door. She was stunned to see the ghost flying down the street away from them. No way could it be a prank or a trick. It was visible in broad daylight. A Class 4 distinct human form apparition.
“Dear lord!” Abby cried as it vanished around a corner. She snatched the camera from Holtzmann and frantically hit the rewind button.
“Did we get it?” Holtzmann cried. “Lemme see.” She leaned close to Abby and together they peered into the tiny view screen.
“Yeah, but it only appears as a color form,” Abby said, somewhat deflated. Erin could barely process what they were saying. Her brain was so overrevved it felt like it was vibrating, a tingling that matched what was going on in her fingertips and toes. Almost to herself, she said, “What just happened?”
Abby looked up from the camera. “‘What just happened’?” She grabbed Erin and shook her. “We saw a ghost!”
That rattled her right out of her stupor. “We did!” Erin cried, goo sluicing off her in swaying strands. Not just goo, she realized. Ectoplasm! “We saw a ghost!”
They jumped up and down, shrieking with joy. “Ghosts are real! Ghosts are real!” Their chant echoed down the street; pedestrians turned their heads, passing drivers looked puzzled.
For Erin it was more than the most astounding discovery in the history of humankind, it was redemption, absolute redemption. I’m not crazy! I was never crazy! I didn’t make it up!
Ghosts are real!
8
The Mercado, one of Manhattan’s iconic Art Deco structures, loomed over Forty-ninth Street like a falcon on a cliff. Commuters rushed through its wide shadow, absorbed in the mundane and the trivial, unaware that deep in the bowels of the building, doomsday had already dawned.
He could see them in his mind’s eye—the staggering drunks, the bullying teenagers, the women decked out like fashion models, the Wall Street wolves—sheep, all of them, lambs to his slaughter. He fervently hoped in their death throes they suffered the torments of hell, but he knew advancing The Plan was far more important than the extremis of individual agony. To everything there was a season—and an expiration date. The time was nigh to open the mythic gates, and he could not miss his window of opportunity.
Soon, he thought, the word both a promise to those insectoid humans scurrying inanely several stories above him, and the mantra that animated his every waking moment. But it was not a prayer. Prayers were never answered; he had firsthand knowledge of that. All through middle school, he had prayed for an end to the bullying, the beatings, and the shame of his public torture. Although the little Ohio town of Middlebury had been started by Quakers, there was no brotherly love anywhere in sight. Night after night he had fervently prayed for a towering volcano to emerge like a monstrous pimple from the flat ground of the town square and spew white-hot lava all over every inch of it, paying special attention to the football stadium. No volcano had appeared.
Nor had the zombie apocalypse.
And Julia Roberts had ignored his selfie video inviting her to prom.
But down through history many of his fellow Illuminati had been similarly abused, scorned, and reviled. He saw now that his trials and tribulations had been tests, and that he had proven himself worthy by reaching deep down to find the means to survive. And to prepare his unthinkable revenge.
The headquarters of this impossibly great but nearly invisible man was located in the apartment building’s cluttered basement maintenance room. The humble cot and rust-stained sink told one story about his life, but the framed diplomas from Stanford and MIT on the cracked and peeling wall told another: here dwelled authentic genius. Unappreciated, overlooked, hounded, ridiculed. They would pay for dismissing him so easily. Those who had directly done him harm and all their kin—down to the last monkey standing, they would pay. If only Dr. McNulty, his old physics professor at MIT, could see him now, on the verge of rewriting the very nature of existence, he would have been so proud.
Donning his official jacket, he meticulously fastened the row of brass buttons. Chin lifted, he gazed at his reflection in the mirror and recited his morning affirmation:
“You will do a great job today.”
Though he wore the uniform of a high-end maintenance man, to him it was a kingly robe, the mantle of his station. Though his face was a little on the round
side, his bearing and the unholy light in his eyes was that of an emperor. His name was Rowan North, and no power on earth could stop The Plan. As had become his habit, he continued programming his brain:
“Your potential is matched only by your ambition. Trust in your abilities and the universe shall bend before your will.”
A voice blared from the tiny speaker hanging from a nail on the wall.
“Rowan, we’ve got a clogged toilet in eighteen forty-three. It’s bad. Like, biblically bad. Get on it ASAP.”
“Absolutely,” Rowan said. “Nothing would make me happier.”
With a flourish he picked up his tool kit. Couldn’t forget the rubber gloves and plunger, though; he’d definitely need them. Soon he would use a far more powerful plunger and send this planetary cesspool swirling and sluicing down the drains of hell. The very same hell that was constantly moving and shifting behind the many mirrors in his room—agonized shapes, melting faces, claws, immense scales, yellow fangs, leaping flames. As he smiled into it, his own reflection was superimposed upon the shadowy creatures of the abyss. Oh, how he would rejoice when the world burned.
“And the universe shall bend before your will,” he finished in a voice gravelly with emotion.
As he turned for the door, ready to go to work, the things in the mirror slithered, rustled, and pulsated, pushing against each other impatiently.
* * *
Erin Gilbert’s fingers dug into the arms of Dr. Filmore’s office chair as she stared in horror at the video playback the dean of her department was showing her. Never had one woman soared to such dizzying heights of discovery only to plummet to the depths of abject horror. There she was, jumping up and down with Abby and Holtzmann, shrieking, “Ghosts are real! Ghosts are real!” at the top of her lungs, like she’d just won the Powerball.
Dr. Filmore put the video on pause. Her face was in close-up, smeared across the entire screen. To quote some of her students, she looked “way dorky.”
“Dr. Bronstein saw this on Reddit.” The dean’s expression was stern. “It was reblogged from a Dr. Abigail Yates’s Web site—Ghost News. I hadn’t heard of that publication.”