The Lost: Book Two, The Eddie McCloskey Series (The Unearthed 2) (10 page)

An
a
capped her pen and closed her notebook.  She put them on the coffee table. Her hands were shaking and she felt jittery. If all this activity represented her dead sister’s attempts to communicate, Ana didn’t want to screw up her one chance at connecting with Tessa.

She also wanted to look good in front of Eddie.

“You know what I don’t understand?” she said. “Colin doesn’t want his wife to get involved in this, but he’s willing to talk to a reporter?”

Eddie stopped tinkering with the tape recorder. “That’s a very good point.”

“So what gives?”

“Maybe he didn’t think it through. Maybe he wanted to see his name in print but didn’t consider the ramifications. Make sure you write that thought down.”

She smiled, happy to receive his approval.

Eddie handed her the tape recorder. “This is a brand new tape in here, right?”

“Yeah. I made sure of it.” She’d learned a few things online, like the absolute necessity of clean tapes for every recording. You couldn’t just record over a previous session because then you ran the risk of mixing old sounds with new.

“I never put much stock in EVP,” Eddie said. “Too many natural explanations. The brain tries to make sense of all stimuli for us, and sometimes it works too well. You hear random, meaningless sounds and transform them into something familiar, like words in a language you know. There’s a potential for interference from other devices, and even from the device itself. This tape recorder will make electronic noises while it’s recording, and these can make their way on to the tape. That’s where white noise usually comes from.”

Ana tried to absorb everything he was saying but she was so new to this and a little intimidated by him. She wanted to say that EVP had helped them break their last case but stopped herself in time. EVP had also set the final, murderous chain of events into motion leaving Eddie’s brother dead.

“You okay?” Eddie asked.

“I don’t want to screw this up.”

“You’ll be alright.” Eddie smiled reassuringly and went into the kitchen. “So where’s Colin going tonight?”

“Probably getting his freak on.”

She heard him laugh. Jimbo never laughed at her jokes, not anymore.

“I’m going to kill the power,” Eddie said. “You ready for this?”

If by ready he meant nervous and excited and even lustful at the thought of being in a dark house alone with him, then yes. She was very ready. Ana looked around the room one more time, trying to memorize where everything was so she didn’t have a blond moment and bang her shin on the coffee table.

“Okay.”

“Here goes.”

She heard him flip a switch and the house went dark. The heat coming out of the vents stopped. There was no light from outside. All she heard was the howl of the wind.

Then the sound of Eddie’s tentative footsteps. He laughed.

“What?” she asked.

“Just remembered an old case where I accidentally walked right into somebody after we went dark.”

“Who?”

“Moira.” The word was filled with meaning.

She sensed him near her. “Is that you?”

“That’s me.” He stopped walking.

Her hands were shaking again. Her stomach in knots.  “Okay, I’m already creeped out.”

“It’s normal. Strange house, no light, and we’re waiting for weird noises.” He seemed to move closer to her in the darkness. “How long does the Mill have?”

“Maybe till spring.”

“You’d think a guy like Colin would have his next job lined up or be looking for work.”

She knew he was just making conversation to ease her nerves. And she was grateful for it. “Maybe he’s in denial.”

“But he’s not,” Eddie said. “You heard what he said when I asked him. He knows what’s happening but isn’t in any rush.”

He sounded like he was right next to her. Her knees were weak, though now she couldn’t tell if it was just from nerves or something else.  Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness and she could almost make him out.

Eddie continued. “Colin said that life was change.  He’s accepted the Mill closure but doesn’t have anything lined up. I’d understand if he was a drifter like me. But this guy has a mortgage and an ex-wife. He’s been tied to this town his whole life.”

Like me, Ana thought. Not for the first time, she wondered how exactly she’d get out of this town, what kind of career she could make for herself.  Paranormal investigation was a lot of fun, but there wasn’t a lot of money in it.

Maybe she could leave with Eddie when he was ready to move on.

She could almost see his profile now.  He was more a presence than a tangible thing. What was it about the dark that made it so much easier to be reckless? Where in the light of day you’d be cautious, rational?

“Maybe he’ll call Victor,” she said. “I hear he’s got a soft spot for ex-cons.”

Eddie laughed. The murky darkness shifted. Shadows grew out of shadows. She could see the walls and the shapes of stuffed animal heads.

“Okay. Let’s get that recording going,” Eddie said.

She brought the tape recorder up to her face and used the light from her cell phone’s display to see better and pushed RECORD.

“You gotta turn that phone off. And get comfortable,” Eddie said. “As my brother used to say, now we hurry up and wait.”

Sittin
g
alone in the dark with a young woman reminded Eddie of his first youth group retreat. Their church had arranged for the freshmen to spend a long weekend at a camp in the Jersey Pinelands. Two cabins. One for the guys, one for the girls. Of course the braver kids snuck out to meet up after lights out. Eddie had scored points with everybody because he managed to procure a half dozen forties.

He could trace the beginning of his crush on Moira back to that night. Before that, he’d always seen her as a goodie-two-shoes, but she’d snuck out of the girls’ cabin with the others. That made her something of an anomaly and when it came time to play spin-the-bottle, Eddie hoped he’d get lucky and be matched with her. As a freshman, she was a head taller than the other girls and had long, volleyball-player legs.

The gods did not favor him that night. He’d been paired up with a girl whose name he didn’t even remember now, and they’d shared a minute of hopeless, sloppy kissing. He’d barely gotten hard, and that was saying a lot because being a teenaged male meant walking around with a constant erection. After spin-the-bottle, everybody went skinny-dipping but Moira didn’t want to. Normally he’d jump at the chance to see naked chicks but instead he stayed with Moira, alone in an unoccupied cabin.

They talked about their teachers and how much she liked to read and they shared half a forty. He put his arm around her, and she let him, and from that moment on he was hooked. He was about to make his move but then the other kids came running back, half-naked and dripping wet, trampling through the woods as flashlights cut through the darkness. The chaperones had woken up and were hot on the trail.

He came back to the present and put his back against the wall and sat down. The house was starting to get cold because the heat had been off an hour. He didn’t feel nervous. He’d been on too many jobs and nothing could ever be worse than the last one.

Ana’s voice was a whisper in the darkness. “Eddie?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m getting sleepy.”

“Stand up, walk around.”

She got off the couch and moved into a darker part of the living room. Her feet padded quietly along the carpet. “Is it usually like this?”

He didn’t want to talk too much because he didn’t want the tape recorder to miss anything. “Yeah. Most times, nothing happens. We’ll be lucky to hear anything.”

“Can we try to get a reaction?”

It felt strange to be the patient one in the room for a change. He’d always been the one pushing his brother to go faster.

“Give it a few more minutes.”

“... Okay.”

He could hear her thinking. “You might as well say it.”

“What if we don’t hear anything?”

“Then we don’t hear anything.”

“Okay.”

She fell silent. Eddie waited a few minutes and stood. He went into the kitchen for a few minutes. Waited some more. He thought about the woman he’d be meeting for a late night rendezvous later, Elsie. She was nothing like Ana. She was tall and full-bodied and a mom. He wondered if a night with her would be enough to slake his libido, so he didn’t direct it at Ana.

“I’m going upstairs,” he said.

Each old step groaned under his weight. The upstairs had no real hallway. At the top of the steps he stood in an open space that had been converted into a bedroom, and a doorway led into the master bedroom. He went in there and waited some more. He heard nothing except the wind and Ana walking around downstairs.

Ten minutes later, he went back down and found Ana still on her feet. She stood in the middle of the living room and twisted herself from side-to-side like she was warming up for an aerobics class.

“They still offer aerobics at the gym?” he asked.

“What’s that?”

He groaned. God, he was old. “Forget it.”

“Just kidding. I know what aerobics is.”

He laughed. “Alright, let’s try to get a response.”

“Wha
t
do I say?” Ana asked.

She panicked like she’d been called on in class without having done the homework. To calm herself, she kept repeating that Eddie was just like any other guy.

So what if he’d been in some dumb book written by some hack author?

She’d imagined a different future for Eddie the character than this. The man in the book had left his home town, never to be heard from again, was living on the west coast somewhere, was dating a nice girl who grounded him. He didn’t have a degree, but he made a good living in the trades. He’d invested the money from his brother’s life insurance policy. It wasn’t a lot, wasn’t enough to tell the world to fuck off, but it was a security net. And though the emotional scars were still visible, though he’d get a faraway look in his eyes sometimes when someone referred to an older brother, though he’d hastily change the channel when one of those ghost-hunting shows came on, his wounds had healed. He was better. If not whole, he was on his way. He’d learned how to mourn his brother without allowing the grief to sink him in a pool of drink and drugs and self-destruction.

She knew so much about him.

And yet she knew nothing at all.

“Take a deep breath,” he said.

Eddie remained in the shadowy corner, more a vague shape than a human being. Her throat had gone dry and she felt her pulse in her neck.

“What do I say?” she asked again.

“General questions. Like you’re talking to somebody you’ve never met before. Be polite and mind your manners.”

She shook her hands to fight the jitters.

“Hello, my name’s Anastasia. Is there anyone here?”

A finger of ice ran down her spine.

“Eddie. I’m cold.”

“Deep breath. It’s okay.”

The chair he was sitting in creaked as he stood. The weak light from the window trapped the side of his face, making him appear ghost-like.

Eddie said, “Keep going. You’re doing great.”

“If you’re here,” Ana said, “can you do something to let me know?”

She waited for that wave of cold to flash through her body. But it didn’t. She looked over at Eddie who approached her and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Keep talking. Pretend like you’ve just met a person.”

His touch calmed her. She held the tape recorder out, as if the ghost would press its pale, tenebrous lips against the machine and speak. She wondered what ghosts actually did look like. Eddie had seen them on his last job but she didn’t dare ask out of fear of bringing up the past.

“How long have you been here? … Do you want to tell me about yourself?”

Hopefully they’d get some EVP. Something.

Anything.

“I’m from this town. Are you? Did you live here?”

Eddie took his hand off her shoulder. She missed his touch immediately as he walked to the other side of the room.

“I’m twenty-one, how old are you? … Do you know Colin? … Did you live in this house before?”

She took deep breaths and slowed herself down with the questions. The hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention as she waited for another cold flash. She’d read somewhere that ghosts could do that to people.

But now the only cold she felt was the sweat that had broken out on her back.

“How long have you been here?”

“Is there anything you want to tell us?”

“Could you tell me your name?”

And on.

“Is there something I can do for you?”

And on and on.