Ghost Hunt: Chilling Tales of the Unknown (17 page)

“Jake, turn on the flashlight already. It’s too dark.”

“What? And let the ghosts know we’re coming for them? I don’t think so, Eli.”

The boys moved deeper into the cemetery. Eli thought they might be getting a little lost. He didn’t know his way around the graveyard that well. A terrible smell hit Eli’s nose. A putrid odor forced its way up his nostrils. Eli coughed into his sleeve.

“Do you guys smell that? It’s
horrible
. Something’s rotting.”

“Yeah, I smell it too,” Jake said. “Like rotten eggs.”

Patrick made a face. “No, it’s worse. It’s like when a mouse dies in your basement. And it stinks up the whole place. And it takes forever to find it and—”

“Okay, okay, we get it,” Eli said. “Come on, keep moving. I don’t want to be here all night.”

They moved toward the oldest part of the cemetery. The ground felt like a damp sponge under his feet. He felt wet earth sucking at the soles of his running shoes. Every step seemed to pull him down into the wet soft ground. Pulling him into the cold darkness of the graves.

Eli’s right hand scraped against a headstone. His knuckles burned. He stopped to rub his hand. It was bleeding. But that was good. That meant he was still alive. He wasn’t sinking. He was just letting his imagination run away with him.

“What’s going on?” Patrick asked. “Did you get a boo-boo?”

“Shut up,” Eli said. He kept walking but more carefully, trying not to step on any of the graves… or touch any of the tombstones.

I’ll be fine,
he told himself.
As long as I don’t touch any of the graves. No problem.

Eli felt a flash of warm wind hit his face.

He looked over to the side and stopped. He was too startled to move any farther. His head felt light. He started to breathe faster.

In the distance, between two white headstones, Eli saw the figure of a tall man. The man moved back and forth. Like something trapped inside a cage. He paced and prowled between the two graves.

“Over there. Look!” Eli called in a low voice to his friends. Jake and Patrick swiveled around.

“Where?” Patrick asked.

“Shh, not so loud. About fifty feet to the left. That… shape… over there.”

Jake and Patrick squinted where Eli pointed.

“There’s nothing over there,” Patrick said.

“Yeah, I don’t see anything either,” said Jake.

Eli couldn’t believe his friends didn’t see it! The figure was moving even faster now.

“No… look. There it is again.”

“It’s probably nothing. Just shadows.”

The figure of the man stopped in its tracks. He looked straight at Eli. As if he was waiting for him.

“Are you blind?” Eli’s voice was hoarse. A cold sweat trickled down his chest. “It’s right there!”

“Then show us,” Jake said. “I dare you.”

Eli had never backed down from a dare in his life. He wasn’t going to wimp out now.

He edged toward the figure of the tall man. But he bent low. He didn’t want the man to see him. He didn’t want the man to look at him ever again. He moved quietly, keeping clear of the gravestones. His heart raced so fast, he could feel it pumping in his ears.

Eli gasped. Suddenly the ground right in front of his feet lit up with a bright light.

Jake stood behind him. He had turned on the flashlight.

“I still don’t see him,” Jake said.

Eli straightened up. “Right in front of us,” he said. But as Eli pointed, the shadowy figure vanished. Just as if it was never there.

They all walked over to the spot between the two gravestones. “This is where I saw him,” Eli said.

“You’re just seeing things,” Jake said.

“Here, let me give you some glasses,” Patrick said, making circles with his fingers and chasing after Eli.

“Hey, quit it!”

“Seriously. You think it was a guard or something?” Patrick asked.

“Maybe,” Eli said. “I don’t know. It was probably nothing.”

Eli was lying. He knew someone had been there. Someone who stared right at him. But he didn’t know how to make his friends believe that.

Eli glanced around. He heard a low sound like a raspy voice. It lasted only an instant and then it was gone.

“You guys say something?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Nope.”

A few seconds later the sound came back. It grew louder. And louder.

“Get out!”
it said.

Eli couldn’t help it. He jumped back away from the raspy voice. One foot came down on soggy earth. His other foot went straight down into a hole.

He bit back a scream and grabbed onto the closest thing he could. A gravestone. A gravestone that felt ice cold even though it was the middle of summer.

Eli pulled his foot out of the hole. He let go of the tombstone.

“What’s your problem?” Jake asked.

“Didn’t you guys just hear that?” Eli said.

“Hear what?” Patrick asked.

“That voice. It was clear as day. I’m not kidding around.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Patrick said. “Come on, Eli. Quit trying to freak us out. The bugs are eating me alive. I’m sweaty. I’m hungry. Let’s call it a night, okay?”

Eli was tired of feeling as if
he
was the one with a problem. He gave Patrick a friendly shove. “I think you’re the one who’s scared,” he said.

“Yeah, right,” Patrick said. “You’re the one imagining ghosts. I’m not scared, because there’s nothing out here to be scared of.” He pushed Eli back harder.

Eli tripped over his feet and stumbled. He snagged his foot on something hard and fell to the ground. A dull thud sounded next to him.

Eli sat up. He felt sick to his stomach. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. He saw a narrow trench in the ground beside him. He had toppled over a gravestone and it lay cracked in pieces that had scattered on the wet earth.

A mischievous smile came over Jake’s face.

“Maybe we’ve been going about this the wrong way,” he said. “Maybe these ghosts need to be woken up….”

“I wonder how long they’ve been waiting for us,” Lyssa said. She was looking out the window as the TAPS van pulled up in front of the house. Mr. and Mrs. Burton stood next to the wooden gate. Their fifteen-year-old son, Eli, sat on the front steps. Even their dog, a big woolly mutt, was standing on the path that led to the house.

“Maybe they feel safer outside,” said Grant. “From what Mrs. Burton said on the phone, all the weird stuff is going on
inside
the house.”

“You didn’t mention they had a dog,” Lyssa said to Mike as they got out of the van.

“Scared?”

“No,” she said firmly. “Allergic. Plus, it could be an important detail.”

“Ah, don’t worry, Lyssa. He’s an outdoor dog.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I got a strange vibration…” Mike said. “And the doghouse over there tipped me off.”

Lyssa laughed. She never minded when the twins teased her.

Mrs. Burton greeted them and led them up the path to the house. Jason set down one of the heavy equipment bags. It hit the floor with a thump. Mrs. Burton started at the sound and Eli’s eyes widened in alarm. Even Mr. Burton looked upset. Lyssa could see that they were all a little jumpy.

Inside, Lyssa and the Burton family sat down in the living room. The rest of the team split up to set up equipment and check out the house.

Lyssa looked around. The Burtons’ living room was cozy. She could see the sunset through a picture window.

“You have a lovely home,” she said. She pointed at a brightly painted clay candlestick on the end table. “That’s so pretty.”

“Eli made it for me,” Mrs. Burton said. “At summer camp a few years ago. We never use candles, but I always keep it there so it’s the first thing I see when I enter the house.”

“Mom, please!” Eli looked as if he were about to die of embarrassment.

Lyssa took out her recorder. “There are a few questions I need to ask. The answers may help us in our investigation.”

Mr. and Mrs. Burton nodded. They both looked worried. She
felt bad for them. Not too many people were like the twins, who had loved growing up in a haunted house.

Lyssa pressed the red record button and began the interview. “Okay, tell me what’s been happening. When did it start?”

“About three weeks ago,” Mrs. Burton said. “I was vacuuming Eli’s room. I felt something pulling at me—like someone was grabbing my elbow—except no one was there.”

“The next day we started hearing strange sounds in the night,” Mr. Burton said. “I grew up in an old house. So I know all the creaks and rattles that houses can make. But this house was built four years ago. We’re the only ones who’ve ever lived here. And we’ve never heard anything like those sounds before.”

“What were these sounds like?” Lyssa asked.

Mr. Burton rubbed his jaw. “Like a wheezing. Almost like the voice of an old man. I kept thinking that if I listened hard enough, I could make out his words.”

“And did you?”

Mr. Burton shook his head. “No. And this last week, I’ve heard those sounds every night.”

Lyssa said, “Do you know where they’re coming from?”

Mr. and Mrs. Burton looked at each other. Then Mr. Burton said, “The sounds seem to come from the direction of Eli’s room. Our bedroom is just down the hall.”

“Eli, do you ever hear the noise?” Lyssa asked.

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Do you hear it in your room or outside it?”

Eli stared at the carpet and shrugged.

“Does it come from anywhere in particular? The closet? Under the floor? From above?”

“Just in the room.”

Eli’s answers were short, as if he wasn’t very interested.
Maybe he’s just shy,
she thought.
Or maybe he doesn’t want anyone to know how scared he is.

“It’s more serious than noises,” Mr. Burton said. “Sometimes an appliance will turn on right after I’ve switched it off. Or water will be running for no reason. Then when I check, the faucet will be shut off.”

“And nothing like that has ever happened before? Have you had trouble with your wiring or your pipes?”

“Never,” Mr. Burton said. “Also—” He hesitated. As if he was afraid she wouldn’t believe him. “Things are being moved.”

“You mean, you see things moving?”

“No. We find things in strange places. Places they shouldn’t be. Every night, before I go to sleep, I put my wedding band next to the alarm clock. A few days ago, I woke up and it wasn’t there. I searched for it everywhere. We found it on the carpet in front of Eli’s room.”

“That’s not all,” Mrs. Burton joined in. “Eli, remember your lunch money? On the counter?”

Lyssa looked at Eli. He ran a hand through his shaggy red hair. “It was nothing,” he muttered.

“What happened, Eli?” Lyssa asked.

Eli shifted on the couch. He cracked his knuckles. “It really was no big deal.”

“Eli, they need to know,” his mother said.

“Fine. I put my lunch money out on the kitchen counter. The next day it was missing.”

“Not just once, Eli,” Mrs. Burton interrupted.

“A few times, okay,” Eli said, sounding a little annoyed.

“Tell me how it happens,” Lyssa said.

“I take my money and put it on the counter, next to my key. In the morning the key is there. The money’s gone. That’s all I know.”

“That
is
pretty odd. When did this start?”

Eli focused back down at his feet. “I don’t remember.”

Lyssa could see Eli was growing more and more uncomfortable. “When was the last time this happened?”

“Two days ago.”

“Has anything else of yours gone missing?”

“My pen. It’s a fountain pen. A gift from my grandparents. I never use it. So I just keep it on my desk in its box. But last week it just kinda disappeared.”

Lyssa turned to Eli’s parents. “Could these strange incidents
be connected to any other event? Maybe a death in the family? Or the anniversary of a death?”