Ghost Hunt 2: MORE Chilling Tales of the Unknown (6 page)

“This is Mike. We’re in the hallway,” Mike said. He was setting a base level for the voice recorders. He glanced at his brother. “Are you getting any kind of a reading?”

“Nope,” Mark answered.

Mark had an EMF detector in one hand. He held it out in front of him, moving it slowly back and forth.

“Let’s check out the bathroom,” Mark suggested.

“Okay.” Mike nodded.

The two brothers walked down the short hall. The bathroom was to the right. Joe’s bedroom was straight ahead, and the door was closed.

“The dog’s in the bedroom, right?” Mike asked.

“Right.”

Mark stepped into the bathroom first. Mike followed. It was kind of a tight fit. Like the other rooms in the house, the bathroom was small.

Mike shone his flashlight onto the bathroom mirror.

“This is Mike. We’re in the bathroom now,” he said for the recorder. “The mirror is clear. No sign of any handprints. I’m going to try and establish contact.”

“Go for it.”

“Hello,” Mike said. “My name is Mike, and this is my brother, Mark. Is there anybody else here with us?”

Mike waited. He looked over at the EMF meter in Mark’s hand. The readout was holding steady; just one light was glowing.

“If there is someone here, we’d really like to meet you,” Mike continued. “We think you like dogs. We do, too, and so does Joe, the guy who lives here. If you like dogs, can you give us a sign?”

“Whoa!” Mark suddenly said. “Did you see that?”

In the darkness of the bathroom, the EMF meter suddenly flared to life. All of its lights came on at once. The brothers could hear Ralph begin to bark and scratch at the bedroom door.

Mike spun toward the sound. He stepped quickly into the hallway, sweeping the flashlight back and forth.

“What are you reading?” he asked Mark tensely.

Mark stared at the meter. “Nothing, now,” he said. “It’s dropped back down to level one. Anything out in the hall?”

Ralph continued to bark. The dog sounded frantic.
Let me out. Let me out. Let me out.

“I think Ralph senses something,” Mike said.

Mike opened the bedroom door. Ralph bounded out and ran straight into the living room. Curious, Mike followed him.

Mark stepped out into the hall. “What is it?” he called to his brother.

“I think you’d better take a look for yourself,” Mike said.
Squeeeeak.

“What gives?” Mark said.

“Sorry,” Mike replied. “I couldn’t help it. They’re kind of… everywhere.”

Mark came into the living room. He pointed his flashlight down to the floor. It was covered.

Every square inch of the wooden floor was covered with squeaky toys.

“And you didn’t see anyone bring the toys?” Joe asked the next morning. He and Jen and the Hammond twins were sitting in his living room. They each had a large mug of coffee.

“No, they were just there,” Mike answered. “We didn’t see or hear any activity, but then one of our meters went crazy.”

“Which can mean paranormal activity,” Mark explained. “And Ralph went crazy, barking at the same time.”

“So we let him out of your room,” Mike filled in. “And that’s when we found all the toys.”

“Well, you
did
ask for a sign,” Jen reminded them.

Joe gave them a shaky grin. “I’d say you got a pretty big one.” He gazed around the living room and shook his head. “I just counted seventeen new squeaky toys.”

He smiled at his dog, who was chewing on a fuzzy pink pig.

“Ralph thinks this is all great.”

“Well, it’s not the worst haunting we’ve ever seen,” Jen admitted with a smile.

“Did you get anything on the cameras?” Mike asked her.

“Nothing definite,” Jen said. “I’ll show you.” She cued the laptop to play back what the digital video cameras had recorded during the investigation.

On the screen, Mike and Mark entered the bathroom from the hall, and the lights on the EMF meter Mark carried lit up all at once.

Jen paused the playback.

“Okay,” she said. “You see the time?” At the bottom of the screen, a readout displayed what time the events occurred:
12:32
AM
. Jen tapped on the keyboard for a moment. “Now, here’s what was going on at that same time out in the hall.”

For the first few minutes after the brothers stepped into the bathroom, the feed from the hallway cameras showed nothing at all. Then, from out of nowhere, there was a sudden streak of something moving. But they couldn’t tell what it was. It just looked like a blurry streak.

“Wow!” Joe exclaimed. “What is that?”

“Good question,” Jen said. “But look at the time.”

Once again, the bottom of the screen showed
12:32 AM
, from the hall cameras this time.

“So at the exact same time the EMF went crazy…” Mark began.

“Exactly,”
Jen finished. “That—whatever that is—was going on out in the hall. It’s too bad we didn’t have cameras set up here in the living room.”

Mike was staring at the laptop screen. “Can you get a still image out of that?” he asked Jen. “Clean it up at all?”

“Give me a minute,” Jen said. Her fingers worked rapidly on the keyboard.

Joe took a big gulp of coffee. On his doggie bed, Ralph rolled over with a sigh.

“Do you think that’s a ghost?” Joe asked.

“Hard to say,” Mike admitted. “I’d definitely lean toward
some paranormal explanation, though. It’s just too big a coincidence. The EMF spike and whatever that is happening at the exact same time.”

“Whoa!” Jen suddenly exclaimed. “Okay, guys, check this out.”

She played back the video again. For several seconds, there was absolute silence.

“It’s still hard to be a hundred percent sure,” Jen warned. “The image isn’t clear enough for that.”

“Okay, I buy that,” Mike said. “But look.” He leaned over, pointing at the screen. “Those have got to be stripes. I mean, it really looks like—”

“A little boy’s shirt,” Joe said.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Mark asked. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “It’s research time.”

“Okay, thanks, Jason,” Mike said into the phone. “I think we’ll be able to wrap up today. Then we’ll head back to the office. Yeah, I will. See ya.”

“Jay and the rest of the team say hi,” Mike said as he ended the phone call. “New York is going well, but he thinks they have to be there another day or so. I think we’ll be done first.”

The twins, along with Jen, were still at Joe’s house, where
Mark had just done some online research. Now Mike turned to his brother. “So, what have you got?”

“Plenty,” Mark replied. “About thirty years ago, this house was owned by a guy named Steve O’Leary. Steve had a young son named Paul, who died in this house from pneumonia. He was eight years old.”

“How do you find out this stuff?” Joe asked.

Mark smiled. “Steve O’Leary was a firefighter. He got a special award for bravery not long before his son died. So when Paul passed away, the newspapers covered it. One of them even ran a picture. According to the article, it was Steve O’Leary’s favorite photograph of his son.”

Mark turned the laptop so everyone could see it. On the screen was a photograph of a young boy. He had on a pair of blue jeans and a blue-and-white-striped shirt. He was kneeling down with his arms around a dog’s neck. Paul O’Leary was grinning, as if it was the happiest day of his life.

“Wow,” Joe said softly. “Oh, wow.” He cleared his throat. “So, what do we do now?”

“That’s up to you,” Mike said. “We can keep on trying to make contact. If it really is Paul O’Leary’s spirit, maybe we can find out what he wants.”

“I think we already know that,” Joe said quietly, his eyes on the image of the boy. “He just wants to play with a dog.”

“How are things going with your friend Joe?” Grant asked a couple of weeks later. Grant was reviewing that month’s case files.

“Great,” Mike replied. “Mark and I are heading to Boston this weekend to visit him.”

“So he and the spirit worked things out?”

“So far, so good,” Mark spoke up. “He struck a bargain. Paul can have as much playtime with Ralph as he likes during daylight hours, but not after bedtime. So Joe is getting sleep. And Ralph is getting as many toys as a dog could want.”

“Sounds like a win-win situation.” Jason chuckled.

“You know what?” Mike said. “I really think it is. And it also goes to show that thing you guys are always saying: Ghosts are still people, just like us.”

“Well, maybe not just like
you,
” Mark said with a laugh.

T
he boat carrying the TAPS team rocked up and down on the choppy waters of the San Francisco Bay. Mist sprayed up from the water onto Lyssa’s face. She grabbed hold of a railing and looked out into the distance. A small island covered by thin fog loomed directly ahead. Through the haze, Lyssa could see trees and a road carved into the side of the island. As the boat got closer, Lyssa made out more details. There were a tall lighthouse and a water tower. Behind them was a huge, wide gray building.

“There it is,” Mike said. “Alcatraz. Also known as the Rock. The most famous prison in American history. They say it’s impossible to break out of it.”

Lyssa could now make out the razor wire spiraling over the tops of the fences surrounding the buildings.

“Is it really?” she asked.

“Well, even if someone was able to get out of their cell, get around all the armed guards, and somehow climb over the walls, they would still have to swim across the San Francisco Bay. Which is near freezing half the year,” Mike said.

“And they also say there are sharks in the bay,” said Jason. He broke into a smile. “But I don’t know how true that is.”

Lyssa scanned the water, looking for any fins skimming the surface. All she saw were small waves foaming up around the boat.

“But it hasn’t been used as a jail since 1963, when it was closed down,” Mark continued. “Now it’s open to the public. It’s actually a national park. Over a million people visit each year.”