Ghouls Gone Wild

  I thought about that for a minute, wondering about that poor man, caught down there in the throes of a heart attack, dropping his little radio as he stumbled down the close . . . and just like that, all those pieces came together. “Holy freakballs!” I said, slapping the table with my hand, causing several of my colleagues to jump.

  With trembling fingers I reached for the pink flyer and held it up as evidence. “It’s been right in front of us all along!” No one in the group seemed to understand what I was talking about, so I took a breath and tried to calm myself to explain my theory to them. “When Heath and I were down in the close for the first time, I remember stumbling over what I thought was a small transistor radio. At the time I believed that Jack had dropped it when he felt his heart attack coming on. Then, later, when we were chasing the van where Gilley was trapped, I remember seeing another small radio lying broken in the street!”

  Gilley’s eyes widened as understanding bloomed. “They weren’t radios!” he said. “They were miniature ghost enhancers like the one you found in the castle!”

  I nodded vigorously, turning to Heath. “Remember the energy on Briar Road?” Heath’s brow furrowed. “Remember how intense and overwhelming it was?”

  “You think it was being enhanced?” he asked.

  “I’m sure of it!”

  Heath’s eyes darted to the flyer. “Fergus,” he said. “Fergus has been using the gadgets to enhance the energy for his ghost tour!”

  I nodded again and pointed to the flyer. “This ghost tour starts at nine p.m.! The same time we felt the effects the other night in the castle!”

  “But what about the woods?” Heath asked. “We weren’t there at nine.”

  “If Fergus is controlling the devices, he could have a remote control or just flip a switch. He had to have seen us following him into the woods, and flipped one of his gadgets on. My thinking is that there’s another device hidden somewhere near where we saw the first broomstick in those woods.”

  “So Fergus called up the witch?” John said, clearly confused.

  “No,” I told him. “But somehow he convinced Rose to do it.”

  “But what’s in it for him?” Kim asked. “Why kill Jack McLaren and Joseph Hill?”

  Heath and I exchanged glances, and I knew, like me, he was remembering that conversation in the car we’d had with Fergus. “I think Jack was simply an unexpected casualty,” I said. “But I know why Fergus would want Hill dead.”

  “Why?” Gopher asked.

  “He wanted the castle,” I said, knowing it in my gut. “With all the competition of ghost tours in Edinburgh, his business was suffering so to lure tourists in, he needed to purchase that old ruin. And I bet he didn’t want to wait the year or two for Joseph to die, so he took advantage of the witch’s reappearance and Joseph’s depressive state of mind to kill him and make it look like a suicide.”

  Gopher eyed me skeptically, so I pointed back to the bottom of the flyer where a small map was drawn. “Look where the tour goes, Gopher! It starts on Briar Road, heads into the close, comes back up here, right next to the woods we got smacked around in, continues on to the giant oak tree where we found Hill, and ends at the castle!”

  “Holy cow!” Gilley shouted. “Why didn’t we see that before?”

  Kim and John looked at each other guiltily and then Kim said, “We overheard someone gossiping about Ericson yesterday,” she said. “One of Joseph Hill’s neighbors was saying that she believed Joseph was driven to suicide by Fergus. She said that Fergus tortured him constantly by vandalizing his home and that Joseph had even called the police on Ericson, but no charges were ever brought.”

  To cement my theory, I turned to Kim and John and asked, “When you guys first came here to scout the location, did you tell Fergus anything about our show?”

  The couple looked guilty again. “We did,” John admitted. “We even gave him your Web site, M. J.”

  I looked at Gilley. He was featured almost as prominently as I was on the Web site, because Gilley had a bit of an ego and he’d designed it, after all.

  “So he knew a Gillespie was coming to town,” Heath mused. “And our visiting the village was the last ingredient for this perfect storm. I’ll bet he was the one on the video the night of the accident caught sneaking along the side of the van and the one responsible for cutting the brake lines.”

  “He probably also placed one of the gadgets right under the van while he was at it,” I added.

  Heath nodded. “So, if he helped Rose kill Cameron, he would have wanted her quid pro quo help to call up the witch as a cover to kill Joseph Hill, purchase his property, and create the scariest ghost tour on record by using his gadgets. All he had to do was set the timers to nine p.m., wait for something really spooky to happen, and enjoy all the publicity Rigella’s reappearance was creating for him.”

  I nodded and beamed at Heath. He’d just given me a brilliant idea.

  “So what do we do now?” Gopher asked.

  I locked eyes with Gilley. “I have just the plan,” I said, reaching for Fergus’s flyer again.

  “Uh-oh,” Gil said. “I never like it when she says that.”

  At a quarter to nine p.m. that night most of our crew was gathered at the base of Briar Road. I’ll admit that I was pretty nervous, even after Gilley and Gopher had discovered and dismantled all of Fergus’s gadgets and Gil had worked feverishly to increase the magnetic field of each of our spikes. Our grenades were now supercharged, and we had to be careful getting them too close to the zippers and snaps on our clothing, and especially careful not to open up the canisters near any car or large metallic object. “If you get one of these near a car, you’ll never get it off,” Gilley had warned. “And I don’t think you want to carry your iPhones around with these babies. You’ll cause irreparable harm to the touch screen if you do.”

  Still, we’d had no time to test their increased power when the ghost enhancer was powered up, so I could only hope they worked better than before. Either way, there was no going back now.

  I looked around as the wind kicked up, blowing leaves and debris in small swirling circles. “Are you sure they’re coming?” I asked John.

  “They promised,” he assured me, but as he glanced at his watch again, he seemed a little unsure.

  “Is Gilley in position?” I asked Meg.

  She tapped the headphone that was all but hidden by her long hair. “He sounds like he’s in position.”

  “How’s his mental state?” I asked, still worried about the risk to my partner.

  Meg placed a finger over the hidden microphone by her cheek. “He’s a little frantic, but I think he’s okay.”

  Kim and Gopher were with Gilley. I’d wanted at least two people to guard my partner while he worked the ghost enhancer, which was repositioned back at the top of the castle. I knew Gil was as safe as he could be, with both Gopher and Kim to look after him while they all hid behind the sturdy wooden door with several fire extinguishers, flame-retardant clothing, and a bucket of magnets. But I was still terribly worried. “Let’s just hope this works,” I muttered.

  Heath moved over to huddle next to me in the biting wind. “Wonder where our host is.”

  “He’ll make a dramatic entrance,” I predicted. “At least, that’s what I’d do if I were him.”

  At five minutes to nine the rest of our party arrived: the barrister representing Gilley and Gopher, along with the inspector assigned to Cameron’s murder. They did not look happy to be there, but at least they’d come.

  Another couple I didn’t recognize hurried over to our group too, shivering but excited and flashing toothy grins. “Uh, Meg!” I whispered harshly, nodding toward the couple.

  “They bought the tickets before I had a chance to buy up all the rest!” she said defensively.

  I frowned. The last thing we needed here was innocent bystanders. “Okay, but keep your eye on them, all right? This could get ugly.”

  At that moment, Fergus Ericson stepped out of one of the local shops, looking smug and full of himself. In his arms he carried a small, rather sleepy-looking mutt. “Good evening!” he announce
d, looking round at us. For a moment I caught the look of confusion, and then disappointment, when he realized how few people were here, versus how many had purchased tickets. His eyes drifted skyward—the forecast had called for more rain that evening—and he seemed to make up his mind that the turnout was due to the weather.

  I hid a grin when I glanced at my own ticket, which clearly read, No refunds if weather permits the tour to continue. By my estimate, he’d made over a thousand pounds for just this one tour. Fergus was pulling in a pretty penny for an hour’s work.

  I pulled the hood of my jacket a little more over my head. I knew I was well disguised, but still, I wanted to be careful. Heath was also well hidden in a long raincoat that covered the cast on his arm, a pair of glasses that he had on hand when he wasn’t wearing his contacts, and a ski cap that hid his black hair.

  Fergus smiled pleasantly at all of us, rocking back and forth on his heels. A clock nearby chimed nine times, and Fergus’s eyes swept the streets, searching for more ticket holders. When none appeared and the time ticked to nine oh five, he called us forward to collect our tickets. Heath and I gave ours to Meg so that Fergus wouldn’t see us up close and John did the same for the inspector and our barrister. Fergus then walked us over to the corner of Briar Road and Waverly, and gestured dramatically before going into the same speech he’d given on the DVD recording we’d seen of him a few weeks ago. He then placed the mutt on the ground and began to walk forward onto Briar. The dog followed obediently behind as if it didn’t have a care in the world. I couldn’t help it; I smiled.

  “It’s working!” Heath whispered excitedly.

  “It is,” I agreed.

  As we watched, Fergus kept eyeing the dog, as if he was waiting for it to react or do anything other than follow obediently behind. Finally, the man paused and ordered the dog to sit. The dog sat, looking up at him and wagging his tail. The unknown couple who’d purchased tickets on their own began to laugh, and the inspector and the barrister kept eyeing each other like they didn’t understand what was supposed to happen.

  Fergus tried to cover his embarrassment by waving us forward. “The dog is old and frail,” he said with a forced laugh. “It’s obviously having trouble detecting the restless spirits who haunt these cobbled streets. But if you still yourselves, I’m sure you’ll feel the terrible energy that lingers here!”

  I kept my intuition purposely reined in, which was difficult because even though there wasn’t a gadget enhancing things, I could still feel the energy radiating off the walls as hundreds of grounded spirits begged for my attention. I’d hate to live in this part of town, and doubted highly if I could manage much more than to simply walk down this street, but somehow I held my senses intact and focused on appearing like any other tourist.

  “I’m with the dog,” John said loudly and right on cue. “I don’t feel anything,”

  The couple snickered and Fergus darted a menacing look at them. I only hoped that when the time came, I could protect them.

  Fergus then walked us to the middle of Briar, talking about the thousands who’d perished from fire and plague and how along this street there was regular poltergeist activity. Ever so subtly his gaze shifted to the small ledge along one window where what looked like an old radio with a red light was resting.

  Gilley and Gopher had discovered it earlier, and Gilley had disarmed it in under five minutes, but he’d left the timer alone and the power switch on so it would appear to Fergus to be working.

  At the end of Briar, Fergus placed the dog on a pillow inside his car parked at the curb, retrieved an electric lantern, and motioned for us to follow him to a nearby stairwell. We descended the many stairs and waited for him to open the door to the close. “Through these doors lies unspeakable terror,” Fergus was saying, the light from his lantern making his face look spooky. “Many are those who have come here only to be driven slightly mad by what they see and feel. Keep alert, my friends, for the Witch of the Village of Queen’s Close is said to lurk in these caverns, searching out her next victim!”

  With a dramatic flourish, Fergus threw open the door and quickly descended into the close. We gathered very near the spot where the poor maintenance worker had died and I could see Fergus’s eyes flashing with anticipation.

  “If you hold very still,” he whispered loudly, “and listen very carefully, you will hear the approach of the mob!”

  We all held perfectly still. Heath reached over and held my hand. I knew what he was thinking; down here it was especially hard to keep the spooks at bay without reacting to their energy. I knew they had the sense that we could hear them, and in the back of my mind I heard their pleas, and on the edge of my energy I felt them knocking against me. But we couldn’t show Fergus any sort of reaction. We had to keep up the ruse that we were just another bored witness to his tour.

  “This is lame,” Meg said, her voice carrying in the confined space.

  I gave her the smallest nod of approval. She’d said that really convincingly.

  “Yeah,” said the man who was part of the couple. “I agree. I thought we were going to see real ghosts,” he complained. “I mean, we paid, like, fifty pounds to see something scary.”

  Fergus Ericson looked near the boiling point. He kept glancing up and down the cavern, as if he was expecting someone. I knew exactly whom he was waiting for, but I was careful to keep my facial features neutral.

  “Let us continue!” he snapped, motioning everyone down the close to the opposite end.

  We followed behind him back to the surface and cut through two streets while he coaxed us encouragingly along, promising us many terrors within the haunted woods just ahead.

  I recognized the street we were walking down. It was the same one where we’d followed after Fergus the day of Cameron’s funeral. Gilley hadn’t wanted to go into the woods to locate Fergus’s ghost-enhancing gadget, but John had been willing, and he’d discovered it after only a short search and brought it out for Gilley to work on; then he’d kindly put it back in the birdhouse where he’d found it.

  I tried to remember that as we got close to the woods. “I’m cold,” the woman next to me muttered. She and her companion were about to become a liability if I couldn’t convince them to abandon the tour.

  “I know,” I told her in confidence. “It is freezing and this thing is totally lame. I think we got ripped off.”

  “We heard about this tour and how scary it’s supposed to be, but so far, you’re right, it is lame.” I was about to suggest that she and her partner ditch the tour, but she cut me off by pointing to the woods and saying, “Oooh, those look totally creepy! Maybe we’ll finally see something good in there!”

  I could only hope we didn’t. Those woods scared the crap out of me, but I marched forward anyway. Heath continued to hold my hand and press close to me, and that really helped. Otherwise, I didn’t think I could go in.

  Fergus walked us to the very spot where Heath and I had first seen the witch’s broom—the exact spot I’d sent John to in order to search for Fergus’s little gadget. I now saw the birdhouse that our guide stood right next to. And up in the house I could see a small red light.

  Fergus saw it too. I caught him looking up at it while he waited for the crowd to gather close. With a confident smile he told us the history of these woods. How many people reported being followed by strange dark shadows, while others reported disembodied footsteps chasing them from one end of the woods to the other. And recently, how several locals had reported seeing the witch, riding her broom through the trees, always searching out her next victim.

  Heath wrapped an arm around me and squeezed me tightly. Bending low to my ear, he said, “She’s in here.”

  My heart began to pound in alarm. “We’re not at our spot yet!” I whispered, my eyes darting around the woods.

  The atmosphere was getting to everyone else in the crowd too, because I could see their heads swiveling to look all about the woods, and their faces appeared nervous and concerned. Somewhere in the woods off to my left we all heard a noise that was rather indescribable. It
wasn’t a scream per se, more like an outraged cry. And it was terrifying.

  There were collective gasps among the small crowd, and Meg and John both moved in closer to Heath and me. “I thought Gilley had dismantled that thing!” John hissed.

  “Meg,” I whispered. “Ask Gilley if he’s sure he disarmed the enhancer.”

  Meg put her hand to her ear and turned her head discreetly away so that Fergus couldn’t see her. She then turned back to me and said, “He said, and I quote, ‘What does M. J. take me for? An amateur?’ ”

  I grinned, but any humor was short-lived, because in the trees right behind us were some aggravated rustling sounds. “What was that?” someone yelled.

  “I believe it is the witch approaching,” Fergus said, his creepy smile spreading wide.

  Very slowly and as discreetly as possible I reached into my raincoat and uncapped a grenade. Using Heath and Meg as a cover, I tipped out the spike and held it behind Meg’s back.

  The rustling stopped.

  We all waited quietly and were rewarded a few seconds later with another aggravated scream, but much farther away. “She’s a powerful one,” Heath muttered.

  “And quite dangerous,” I said. Then a thought struck me. “Heath,” I said. “If she’s that strong without the enhancer, then we must be close to another source of power for her.”

  Heath turned to face me and mouthed, “Her portal?”

  I nodded. “We’ve always just assumed her portal had been near the place where she’d died—in the close.”

  “But what if she’d didn’t die in the close?” Heath said, and something in the back of my brain ignited.

  I recalled the image Gopher had captured on tape at the castle of the three figures hanging from the huge oak in Fergus’s yard. I gasped, “The tree!” and unfortunately, I said that a little too loudly because Fergus snapped his head in my direction.

  And our ruse was nearly up until a quick-thinking Meg pointed to a nearby elm and said, “I saw it too! A shadow! Right over there behind that tree!”