No Ghouls Allowed (10 page)

And even though the day had been crazy stressful, I found myself actually intrigued
by the crime scene. I wondered how the boy had died. I suspected that his end had
involved something sinister, and that sinister had probably been at the hands of one
of the Porters, because why else would the family have sealed him inside this room
and pretended that he’d simply gone missing? It seemed likely that if the young man
had had a seizure or had died of some other natural cause, or even by accident, the
family would have reported it to the authorities. No, they’d sealed this room, and
told the police that he’d wandered off, and as the Porters were such a well-respected
family, of course the sheriff at the time had taken their word for it.

As I photographed every inch of that room, I was convincing myself that some older
cousin or uncle had perhaps done something wicked to the poor young man, and perhaps
he’d panicked and then he’d inadvertently killed Everett, and the wealthy family hadn’t
wanted the scandal, so they’d covered it up.

Yes, I had a nice tidy theory going when I began photographing the last corner of
the room. I lifted my foot over a pile of stuffed animals and nearly stepped right
onto a beautifully crafted Ouija board. For several seconds I simply stared at it.
The board was coated in dust like everything else, but even through the layer of film,
I could see the ornate hand-painted design.

It looked nothing like most Ouija boards out there, which were really quite simple
creations with the words “Yes” and “No” and the letters of the alphabet and numbers
one through ten painted crisply on their surfaces.

This board had all the letters and numbers on it, but surrounding those was a dazzling
nature scene with beautiful flowers, plants, and even a pair of birds.

Resting in the center of the board was a gleaming silver planchette, cast in the shape
of a heart and with a beautiful light purple crystal set in the tip of the heart,
which was clear enough to read a letter or number underneath.

After realizing exactly what I was looking at, I studied the board with caution. I
don’t like Ouija boards, and I personally think the major game manufacturer who peddles
them should seriously reconsider giving children the opportunity to play with such
a potentially dangerous and damaging thing.

A shiver traveled up my spine as I bent down to take a closer look. If someone had
been playing with this board fifty years ago, I thought, it might explain why the
house had taken on such sinister energy. Glancing over at Heath and Beau, I saw the
deputy squatting down by the body, poking at the clothing on the skeleton with his
pen. “Heath,” I said softly.

He glanced up from looking over Beau’s shoulder and gave me a questioning look.

“Come here,” I mouthed. I didn’t want to make Beau aware of the Ouija board yet. There
was something about it being in here and out in the open that was unnerving me and
I wanted Heath to take a look before I decided what to do about it.

“Whoa,” my sweetheart whispered the moment he saw what I was kneeling next to. He
looked over his shoulder at the deputy, who was still poking around the body. Heath
squatted down too. “You found this just like this?”

I nodded. “It could mean nothing,” I said. Plenty of children played with these things
without a single thing happening; however, in some cases, the Ouija board was notorious
for opening up avenues of communication to some of the lower realms, and every once
in a while we’d hear about some poor kid who was in fact taken over by something evil
after playing with a Ouija board.

If any parent knew the potential risk for that to happen, they’d never, ever let their
kids within a hundred feet of the thing. “Do you think—,” Heath began, but then his
breath caught as he stared at the board.

I looked at it too and could hardly believe my eyes.

The planchette was moving.

Heath and I both stood up together and took a step back, transfixed by the fact that
the little silver plank was tracing small lines in the dust on the board all by itself.

And, given that Heath and I were wearing enough magnets to make that insanely difficult
for any spook, I was totally stunned and petrified. Something big, bad, and terrible
was working to communicate with us.

The planchette moved at a snail’s pace over toward the far end of the alphabet where
the amethyst crystal hovered over the letter
T
. We waited for it to continue, but it didn’t and I felt a tiny wave of relief. Maybe
that’s all it was, just a small burst of negative energy that allowed the planchette
to swerve over to the letter
T
before it lost steam.

“T,”
said Heath, and it was more of a question than a statement, but the second he said
the letter out loud, the planchette began moving again.

My shoulders tensed. Whatever was moving the planchette hadn’t run out of steam at
all. In fact, it was now moving at breakneck speed and Heath was sounding it out,
the planchette making it easier for him as it paused at the end of every word. “The . . .
Sand . . . man . . . has . . . come . . . back . . . to . . . play . . . kiddos.”
I gripped his arm.

“M.J.? Heath?” we heard Beau say. “You guys okay?”

Neither of us answered. We just kept our eyes on the planchette, which kept moving.

Heath continued to sound out what it was saying. “Little . . . d . . . d . . . come . . .
to . . . play?”

A terrible note of intuition burst into my mind and I knew the Sandman was referring
to me, and not my mother.

“Guys?” Beau said.

I held up a hand to get him to stop talking, and Heath and I both focused on the planchette.
“Sand . . . man . . . will . . . play . . . with . . . little . . . d . . . d . . .
if . . . she . . . takes . . . off . . . her . . . coat,” Heath whispered, and then
he stiffened and turned to look at me. “He means
you
!”

I nodded. Heath turned his gaze back to the board, and before I could stop him, he
kicked the planchette with his boot and it skidded across the floor and under a bookshelf.

My attention went from Heath, to Beau—who was looking alarmed—to the bookshelf, then
back to the board. “How did it connect me to my mom?” I asked Heath.

He gripped my arm, and he gave the crack under the bookshelf a furious glare. “Don’t
know, but we’re leaving.”

Beau’s jaw dropped and he looked close to panic. “But I’m not done!”

Heath’s grip on my arm remained firm. “I don’t care,” he said. “I’m getting M.J. out
of here, and if you’re smart, you’ll pack it up and head out with us.” And then he
looked at me as if to see if I’d object, and I nodded to show him there was no way
I wanted to stick around.

“Well, what the hell happened?” Beau asked, his voice going up an octave.

“I’ll explain outside,” Heath said, turning with me toward the door. But just as we
took our first steps, a silver blur flew right at us and Heath and I both ducked just
in the nick of time. A loud THUD sounded at the far wall and we glanced up from our
crouched positions to see the planchette embedded in the wall.

From its position, I estimated that it’d missed Heath’s head by a fraction of an inch,
and if it’d been moving fast enough to embed itself in the wall, I shuddered at the
thought of the damage it might’ve caused him had it made contact with his head.

“On second thought,” Beau said, staring at the planchette, “maybe we should go.”

Heath and Beau paused long enough to each grab one end of the body bag containing
Mike Scoffland before the three of us made haste out of the house. As we moved through
the front door, we nearly bumped right into two additional deputies. “Beau,” said
the first one up the steps with a nod to his comrade. “We came as soon as we could.
There’s a hell of a mess on Eighty-four. And what’s this about Cook attacking Kogan?”

“I’ll explain later,” Beau said, still holding firm to Scoffland’s feet. And then
he seemed to realize both the new deputies were taking in the scene—the three of us
in our colorful fishing vests and a body bag slung between us. Their expressions went
from confused to barely veiled humor.

“You headin’ to the lake after dropping that off at the morgue, Beau?” asked the first
deputy. His name tag read
WELLS
.

Beau’s face reddened, but after he motioned to Heath to set Scoffland down, he made
no move to take off the vest. “Shut it, Matt. I ain’t in the mood, and where the hell
is the coroner?”

“Griswald has his hands full with that accident,” Wells said. “Three dead at the scene
and another died en route.”

I felt a pang of sadness. That did sound like a bad accident.

“We hear there’s a second body?” the other deputy, whose name tag read
CARTER
,
said.

“Yeah, but I’m not going back in there to get it, Roy,” Beau told him. This got him
more funny looks from the newly arrived deputies.

“What’s going on, Beau?” Wells said in that way that suggested he was wondering if
Beau had lost his marbles.

“It’s a long story, and I ain’t talkin’ ’bout it here.” Beau glanced nervously over
his shoulder before he added, “Roy, Matt, help me get this guy in the trunk. I ain’t
waitin’ for the coroner.”

Matt’s eyes bugged wide. “Beau, what the hell’s going on?” he demanded.

Suddenly the door behind us slammed shut so hard that the five of us jumped. For a
moment there was silence, and then doors began to slam inside and all over the house.
Wells and Carter looked toward the house and their faces drained of color, and they
both put their hands on the guns at their side, ready to draw their weapons, but Beau
had seen enough for one day to know there was no point in that and he grabbed Scoffland’s
feet again and motioned to Heath with his head. “Let’s go!” he commanded.

Heath grabbed his end, and to help things along I took up the middle. Scoffland was
heavy and we struggled with him over to Beau’s patrol car. “Beau!” Wells said above
the noise echoing from inside the mansion. But the deputy ignored him and wriggled
his keys out of his pocket while awkwardly holding Scoffland with one hand and his
hip.

“Beau!”
Wells yelled again just as the lid opened and we half rolled, half shoved Scoffland
into it.

Beau brought the lid of the trunk down hard and motioned to the backseat of his patrol
car. “Get in,” he told us, and it suddenly dawned on me that Gilley and our rental
car were nowhere in sight. Neither Heath nor I was about to argue—we both wanted badly
to get the hell out of there—and we hopped into the back of the car, leaving the other
two deputies to stare in shock after us.

Beau got into the driver’s side, started the car, and pressed hard on the accelerator.
The car bolted forward, spinning dirt and skidding slightly down the drive, but Beau
didn’t slow down. In fact, right before hitting the road, he turned on his light box
and siren.

We hauled ass to the county morgue and on the way I called Gilley and told him where
to meet us.

“You want me to come to
the morgue
?”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” I said drily.

There was a prolonged silence on the other end while Gilley debated the merits of
leaving Heath and me to find an alternate way home, I imagined. Finally he grumbled,
“Okay. See you in five.”

Beau pulled up into the rear lot of the municipal building and we came to a stop outside
two double doors, where, presumably, dead bodies were taken from the coroner’s van
inside to be dealt with. Once Beau had thrown the car into park, he turned in his
seat to stare at us for a few moments before he spoke. “Can either of you tell me
what the hell this is all about?”

“Not yet,” Heath said honestly.

The deputy ran a trembling hand through his hair and shook his head as if he couldn’t
believe what he’d seen that day. “I feel like I’m going crazy.”

I sat forward. “You’re not.”

He raised his eyes to me, and they looked so haunted and pained that I reached up
to put my fingers on the cage separating us. “You’re not,” I repeated firmly. “Beau,
Heath and I have seen stuff like this before, and it’s not your imagination. Everything
you saw and experienced today was real.”

He swallowed hard before he said, “But, Mary Jane, I don’t even believe in ghosts.
How can
any
of this be real?”

I felt the corners of my mouth quirk. It must be really hard to remain skeptical in
the face of what we’d all been through that afternoon. “I know it’s hard to believe,
but the sooner you accept that what you saw today was real, the sooner you’ll be able
to come to grips with it.”

Beau nodded; then he shook his head, and went back to nodding again. “I need a drink,”
he confessed, and then he eyed me a little ruefully. “Too bad I gave up booze five
years ago, huh?”

Heath and I both smiled at his attempt to lighten the mood. At that moment Gilley
pulled up in the SUV. “Would you mind?” I asked Beau, pointing to the locked doors
that could only be opened from the outside.

“Sure—sorry,” Beau said, getting out to open my door for us. We shuffled out and stood
for a moment in front of the deputy, but it seemed no one knew what else to say. “Oh,
here,” Beau said, shrugging out of Gilley’s vest. “You guys should take this back.”

“Thanks, Beau,” I said, taking the vest.

Before we could turn away, the deputy added, “Is there someplace where I can buy one
of those?”

I handed him back the vest. If he returned to the Porter house, he was going to need
some protection. “Keep it,” I said.

For an awkward moment the deputy looked like he was going to hug me, but then he sort
of thrust out his hand and shook both mine and Heath’s before turning to head up the
ramp to the double doors, where, I suspected, he’d recruit someone to help him with
Scoffland’s body.

Heath shrugged out of his vest and helped me with mine. Then we headed over to Gilley,
who seemed rather impatient to get a move on, if the little honks to the horn he kept
sending us were any indication.