Ghost Hunt: Chilling Tales of the Unknown (4 page)

“Okay,” Lyssa said. “I’ll get the flashlight.”

Lyssa took a step toward the flashlight, then stumbled on the basement’s uneven floor. With a cry, she pitched forward. Her toe caught the flashlight, sending it spinning away. Over and over it turned, the beam of light making crazy circles on the ceiling and walls.

“Oh, no!” Lyssa cried.

The flashlight stopped. The beam winked out. The basement was plunged into total darkness.

“That’s okay. Everything’s okay,” Jason said quickly. “I think I
can use the light from the EMF detector to find the flashlight. Stay where you are.”

Hurry! Please hurry!
Lyssa thought. Her heart pounded. She hated this creepy basement.

She heard Jason move away. The red LED lights danced before her eyes like spots.

“Got it,” Jason grunted. The red lights dipped as Jason knelt. A moment later, the flashlight beam came back on.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Lyssa cried out. She was relieved—but embarrassed. Now Jason knew how nervous she was.

“You’re not kidding,” Jason agreed. He handed her the flashlight. Lyssa gripped it tightly. “I don’t really like small, dark spaces,” Jason went on. “Never have.”

Lyssa let out a nervous giggle. “I don’t like them, either,” she said. “I was having kind of a hard time being brave about it.”

“So we’re even, then,” Jason said. “Don’t be afraid to admit you’re scared, Lyssa. We all are sometimes. Now let’s see if we can find that hot spot.”

Lyssa and Jason made their way to the far corner of the basement.

“There, you see that?” Jason asked. “That’s the breaker box. Now check out the EMF readings.”

“Still off the charts.”

“Right. There’s a problem with this box. It’s leaking electricity. You know, a high EMF like this can sometimes affect people.
The high electronic field can make some people feel sick. Or it can make people feel nervous and strange. Maybe that’s what the Briscoes were feeling.”

“I know it made
me
feel strange,” Lyssa admitted.

“Me too,” Jason said. “I’m going to recommend they get an electrician in here. We’ll do a follow-up, but I think we can rule out the paranormal in the basement for now.”

He turned away from the breaker box. “Let’s head back upstairs. I wonder how Jen and Mike are doing in the boys’ room.”

Me too,
Lyssa thought.

“Do you see any pennies?” Mike asked.

He stood in the doorway of Scott and Jerry’s room, shining his flashlight around at the walls.

“Not yet,” Jen said. She took a few steps inside the room. “But you know, Mike, I’m thinking they’re going to be on the
floor
.”

“Yeah, okay, I know that,” Mike said. He aimed the flashlight beam at the light blue carpet. “Just trying to get a sense of the space, that’s all.”

“This is Jen and Mike,” Jen said so the video camera would pick it up. “The time is 11:10
PM
. We’re beginning our investigation of the boys’ room.”

Mike swept the flashlight beam across the boys’ beds, then over toward the window. The last place Jerry and Scott found the pennies was right in front of it. As he moved the beam across the window, the room suddenly seemed to explode with light. Jen threw a hand up to cover her eyes.

“Whoa,” Mike exclaimed. “Did you see that? What
was
that?”

“I don’t know. But we should definitely check it out. Go slowly, though.”

Carefully, walking on tiptoe, as if they were cats stalking mice, Jen and Mike crossed the room. They were almost at the window.

“Okay,” Mike said in a low voice. “Shine your flashlight on the window again.”

Jen ran the flashlight beam across the window. There was a second explosion of light. All of a sudden, Mike laughed.

“Oh, I see now. It’s those crystals Lyssa mentioned. I should have remembered about those. They’re reflecting the light from our flashlights. That explains that.”

“Uh-huh.” Jen nodded. “Weird flashes of light, check. But those crystals don’t explain the other weird things.”

They turned away from the window and looked around the room. A low howl sent a shiver down Jen’s spine. “Look. The wall,” she said, pointing to the space above Scott’s bed.

Jen saw strange dark shapes. They looked like long arms with
big claws. Shadows. The Briscoes said they saw shadows.
Okay, but shadows of what?
The shadows flickered in and out in rhythm with the eerie howls.

“What is that sound?” Mike asked.

Jen turned and gazed out the window. “I think it’s just the wind.” She watched the tree branches in the yard bend under the wind’s force. “The light from the streetlight is causing the shadows. But it only happens when the wind is strong enough to blow the branches in front of the light. The combination of the howl and those shadows could scare anybody. But there’s no ghost here.”

“Jen, you’re wrong,” Mike said.

“No, Mike. It’s the wind.” She turned around—and gasped.

Mike stood between the two beds, staring down at the floor. He was staring at a flower made of seven pennies.

“This afternoon we’re going to review the evidence on the Briscoe case,” Grant said.

It was about a week later. The entire TAPS team sat around a big table in the back room of the TAPS office. Jen had her laptop up and running, ready to play back the evidence recorded at the Briscoe home.

The team had spent three nights at the house. Every night, pennies appeared in Scott and Jerry’s bedroom.

“We were able to debunk a lot of what the family was experiencing,” Grant went on. “It was everyday stuff like cars going by, light reflecting off those crystals, or branches moving in the wind.”

“And the high EMF from the breaker box in the basement.” Lyssa spoke up.

“That’s right,” Jason said. “I told Mr. and Mrs. Briscoe to have the box repaired. They should feel better once that gets taken care of.”

“So that leaves us with just one area we still can’t account for, right?” Lyssa went on.

“Right,” Mike said. “The pennies.”

“So what do we tell the Briscoes?” Lyssa asked.

“Nothing just yet,” Grant replied. “The pennies are a clue. What do they mean? Do they belong to a spirit? What does the spirit want? We’ve got to find out about the pennies.”

“Maybe the answer has to do with the people who lived in the house before the Briscoes,” Jason told the team. He gave Mark Hammond a quick slap on the back. “Mark, that means you’re up. It’s time for you to do some of your research magic!”

Late that night, Mark was still at work at his desk. The rest of the team had gone home, even Mike. But Mark didn’t want to leave yet. Not until he solved the puzzle.

Who was leaving the pennies in Scott and Jerry’s room?

Why only seven pennies?

Why the same arrangement, time after time?

Mark was sure the history of the house held the answers. His fingers tapped quickly on the laptop keyboard. He found out that the house was built in 1925.

Good news and bad news,
Mark thought. From 1925 to the present is a pretty long time. He stared at the jar of pennies sitting on the table beside him. Jerry and Scott had let the team take the pennies back to the office to help with the investigation.

Mark unscrewed the jar lid and dumped the pennies out. He stared at them.
Do they hold a clue?

He turned all the pennies heads up. Then he placed them in a line. He took a magnifying glass from his desk drawer and looked at the pennies super close up.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said
.

All the pennies were from between the years 1955 and 1967.
That has to be important,
he thought.
Why those years?

Mark went back to the website on his laptop. About ten minutes later, he thought he had the answer.

Now all he had to do was wait till tomorrow. Then he could tell the others.

“All the pennies come from the same time period,” he explained the next morning. The team gathered around the long table the Hammond brothers shared as a workstation. They looked at the pennies, which Mark had lined up in date order.

“From 1955 to 1967,” he went on.

“Twelve years,” Grant said.

“That’s right,” Mark said. “During that time, two families lived in the house. One for five years and the other for seven.”

“Seven,” Jason echoed.

Mark nodded. “I focused on the second family, because the number seven seemed important.”

“What did you find out?” Lyssa asked.

“From 1960 to 1967, the house was owned by a family named—” Mark paused. But his hands were busy moving seven of the pennies into the same shape the boys always found in their bedroom. “A family named
Flowers
. Parents were Stan and Jessica. And one son, Daniel, who died in 1967. He was twelve years old.”

“Did he die in the house?” Jason asked.

“No,” Mark answered. “But he did die nearby. He was riding his bike along the road and got hit by a car.”

“So there’s a pretty good chance Daniel’s room is now Scott and Jerry’s,” Mike said.

“I think so,” Mark agreed.

“He might be trying to contact them,” Grant said.

“But why leave pennies?” Lyssa asked.