Page 18 of Rattling Bone (OutFoxing the Paranormal #2)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Back in the van, Oscar stared out the windshield. It was starting to snow: big, fluffy flakes that adhered to every surface they touched. There’d be power outages if this kept up for long.

Christ, no wonder Miss Virginia fell out with her daughter for marrying a Corbett. She knew the family was cursed, dogged by the vengeful ghost of her murdered sister.

Had the long-dead Agnes recognized Barbara as kin, even though she was a Corbett as well? It hadn’t stopped her from ruining Mamaw’s life, but maybe it had kept her from killing her outright?

Agnes inherited the spring from her widowed grandmother. How long had it been in the family? White colonizers came to the area in the mid-1700s. Did a long line of mountain grannies stretch back to those times, passing the spring down from guardian to guardian until it came to poor, doomed Agnes?

The rage she must have felt when an interloper from up north tried to take that heritage from her…and then to be murdered by said interloper…

No wonder she was out for blood.

“The weather’s looking bad,” Tina said, from where she bent over her phone in the back seat. “They’re calling for six to eight inches and blizzard conditions. Widespread power outages are predicted; I imagine they already have trucks heading this way from other states to help out.”

“I don’t see that we have any choice other than to head back to the distillery, no matter the weather,” Nigel said. “If we can find Agnes’s bones, perhaps we can give her a proper burial, or at least force her ghost to move on.”

“Great,” Chris said. “So where are they?”

Oscar started the van. “On the property somewhere, I’m guessing. Maybe we can get Ivan to tell us where he hid them.”

“She stopped him last night,” Tina said. “Maybe she doesn’t want them found.”

“I don’t care what she wants.” God, he was tired. “She killed Ivan, and that should have been the end of it. He was the one who cut her life short. But she didn’t stop there. She’s murdered people who didn’t have anything to do with her death, who weren’t even born until generations later. Cousin Julie just wanted to see the place her daddy used to own—she didn’t deserve to die for that!”

Nigel leaned over and squeezed his shoulder. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Oscar wiped away unexpected tears. “We were so sad when she died. And her poor husband…”

“I know.”

“And Mamaw…if she’d just been left alone, if she’d lived, if I’d had the chance to know her…”

He’d come back to Marrow to get closer to his family. But the more he learned about them, the more isolated he felt. He’d turned over a rock, hoping to find gold but only exposing all the wriggling, slimy things beneath.

A part of him wished they’d just stayed in North Carolina. He could have taken Nigel up to Asheville or Boone, had a relaxing post-holiday getaway. Maybe ring in the new year at the Grove Park Inn, toasting the Pink Lady who haunted its halls.

But if he had, would some power from beyond the wall of death have drawn Dad close enough for the ghost to attack? Or hell, maybe she could find him anywhere. Maybe she just went for the easiest prey, the ones dumb enough to wander too close to her web.

“Fuck all of this,” Chris said. “It sucks, man, and we can’t fix what happened. But at least we can stop it from happening again.”

“What they said,” Tina added, glancing up from her phone.

Oscar blinked rapidly and smiled. “Thanks. I wouldn’t want to be doing this alone.”

“You could always show your appreciation with a raise,” Tina suggested. “Except wait, no one’s paying us to do this.”

“Mrs. Montague will,” Nigel said firmly. “She wants that footage.”

Chris leaned forward. “What do you think she’s doing with it?”

“I have no idea.” Nigel’s mouth pursed. “Dr. Lawson thinks we’ve made a deal with the devil, but clearly there’s a lot of personal history there.”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Oscar said. “For tonight, let’s just focus.”

The snow continued to come down, blanketing the landscape though it hadn’t yet started to build up on the roads. If it kept up like Tina was saying, they might not be able to get out on the distillery’s disused road tomorrow. Just in case, they stopped at the gas station, then the lone grocery store to stock up on food and water. With a full tank of gas and extra gas for the generator, they’d be set if they had to shelter in place for a couple of days.

The drive through the forest was beautiful, all white snow and gray trees. A herd of deer, possibly the same they’d seen on the night vision camera, bounded away gracefully as they approached. Even the distillery seemed transformed, some of its decay beginning to disappear under a fresh coat of white.

“Okay,” Tina said, climbing out of the van, “You get the generator going, and I’ll listen to the EVP from last night.”

“Sounds good.”

Soon the generator was up and running. Chris retreated to the tent. Nigel started to follow, but Oscar caught his arm. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Nigel looked surprised, but nodded. Snow speckled his knit cap and dusted the shoulders of his puffy jacket. “What is it?”

Oscar sighed; his breath turned to steam in the air. “I’m sorry my dad called you a crackpot.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve been called that.” Nigel smiled ruefully.

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

“It also doesn’t make it your fault.” Nigel took his hands and looked up at him seriously. “It’s not how I envisioned our stay with your parents, true, but they’re not the ones I’m in a relationship with. You are.” His grip tightened. “I want to support you, in this, with your family, with whatever. Just tell me what you need from me.”

Oscar’s chest ached. “You’re giving it to me.” He leaned down and kissed Nigel’s chilled lips. “I love you, you know that?”

“It had come to my notice. I love you, too.”

* * *

“I’ve enhanced the audio on the EVP session with Jeff Corbett,” Tina said. The rest of them crowded around her, Chris with their camera out and filming, and Oscar with a look of concentration on his face. Nigel rested his hands lightly on the back of her chair, careful not to block the shot.

He’d really wanted to like his boyfriend’s parents, and Lisa seemed like a good woman trying to do her best. But Scott had a black mark against him from the start for trying to suppress Oscar’s gift, no matter the reason. And now…

He truly didn’t care if the man thought he was a crackpot, but the fact he wouldn’t even listen to reason, wouldn’t listen to his own son, wouldn’t give Oscar a chance…

“Let’s hear it,” Oscar said, startling Nigel out of his reverie. He focused on the sound waves displayed on Tina’s screen.

She pressed play. Oscar’s voice issued from the laptop’s speakers. “My name is Oscar. I’m your great-nephew, through my daddy’s side. If you’re here, can you say your name into the device in my hand?”

“Jeffrey Corbett,” whispered the reply.

Even expecting it, a shiver went up Nigel’s spine. “That’s good evidence,” he murmured. Multiple words were less likely to be a trick of either audio processing or the mind.

“The next bit was where I warned you he was standing behind you,” Tina said, scrubbing through quickly. “Which was fucking creepy.”

“You should have tried it from our perspective,” Chris replied.

“No thanks. There’s a reason this girl stays in command center.” She stopped scrubbing and hit play.

“Can you tell me why you’re still here?” Oscar’s recorded voice asked.

“This is ours.”

“Was your fall an accident, Jeff, or were you pushed?”

“She did it.”

“Who killed you?”

“She did it; she did it; she did it; she did it; please help me…”

“And that’s it.” Tina cut the audio and sat back in her chair, her long hair brushing the backs of Nigel’s hands. He pulled them away quickly.

“What does he want help with?” Nigel asked. Chris swung the camera his way, and he tried not to wince. “Help moving on? Help getting rid of Agnes?”

“Falling to his death over and over can’t be much of an afterlife,” Oscar said.

“Still, he hasn’t moved on. And they’re all very focused on the idea of the distillery belonging to them,” Nigel pointed out.

“I guess when you do murder to get something, you have to convince yourself it’s yours by right.” Oscar shook his head tiredly.

Nigel pursed his lips. Ivan could have given up and built his distillery just about anywhere in the state with a source of pure water. But no, he had to have this one, even if he had to kill another human being to get it. No wonder such a grasping man was still here, on this side of the veil. “I wonder if they knew? Edwin and Jeff, I mean. Would Ivan have shared the secret?”

“With his son, maybe. His grandson?” Oscar shrugged. “Who knows. I suppose it depends on the story they told themselves. Did Edwin believe his daddy had fought for what was rightly his, and Agnes was just some hick standing in the way of progress? A witch? Some other gendered slur that made her life of less value than their desires?”

There was a long moment of silence, then Chris asked, “So what now, boss?”

“Our priority has to be getting Agnes to move on.” Oscar glanced at his watch. “We only have eight hours until midnight, and the sun is going down fast. It’s not dark just yet, but as overcast as it is, we may be able to pick up some EMF readings. Besides, she killed Julie during the day, so…” He trailed off.

“But where are we going to look?” Chris asked.

“On the tapes, she came from the direction of the creek and the mountainside. Ivan wouldn’t have hidden her body on the actual site, where a worker might find it. And he probably wouldn’t want to lug her corpse too far, assuming he did his own killing.” Oscar’s mouth twisted in disgust. “I say we take the EMF meters, fan out, and see what we can find.”

“It’s snowing harder every minute,” Nigel said, gesturing vaguely.

“I know, but it’s not deep yet. And we have our walkie-talkies, and we aren’t going to get too far from each other.”

Nigel bit his lip; he recognized the stubborn gleam in Oscar’s eye. And honestly, he didn’t have any better ideas.

Except for one, which Oscar wasn’t going to like at all. “Okay,” he said. “But I’d like for you to stay here.”

* * *

Oscar stared at Nigel, but before he could collect his wits to object, his boyfriend pressed on. “The Faraday tent is still packed in the van—I checked.”

After their failed attempt at the Matthews house to create their own Faraday cage with aluminum foil, Oscar had used some of their earnings to order a Faraday tent from an overseas vendor. According to the website, the tent was easy to set up, and designed for traveling. Specifically, it was touted to fit easily around a bed, though Oscar was less than convinced of that, since it would have meant picking up the bed and maneuvering it inside. A cot, maybe.

Why someone would want a Faraday tent around their bed, he could only guess. Mediums troubled by ghosts haunting their sleep? Conspiracy theorists who believed the government was embedding RFID chips in people? Paranoid types afraid of alien abduction?

Whatever the reason, the tent was perfect if they needed a Faraday cage at a location. It collapsed into a small bundle, set up fast and easy, and would serve to either keep ghosts out, or trap them inside as they’d hoped to do at the Matthews House.

What he was not going to do, was cower inside it while his friends faced down a vengeful spirit.

“Absolutely not,” he said, not bothering to hide his hurt. “Why would you think I’d do that?”

“I’m not trying to insult you.” Nigel held up his hands for peace. “But you’re the one Agnes is after. She has no reason to attack the rest of us.”

“Unless she sees you as in her way,” Oscar interjected. “Or lashes out because she can’t find a target. Or, hell, goes to find Dad because there’s no one more convenient!”

Nigel’s mouth tightened. “You don’t know for a fact that she’d pay any attention to the rest of us.”

“And I’m certainly not going to risk it!” Oscar exclaimed.

“And I’m not going to risk you!”

They stared at one another. Then Nigel took off his glasses and turned away. “I’m sorry. You have the right to make your own decisions; of course you do. I’m just…concerned.”

Oscar closed his hands on Nigel’s thin shoulders. “I know. But you can’t fight my battles for me. I’m not going into this blindly. And I’m going to be careful, I promise. Shields up and all that.”

Nigel’s shoulders slumped under his hands. “Please do.”

“You’d better get going before the snow gets too deep,” Tina said.

“Yeah.” He let go of Nigel. “All right, we’re going to want gloves, hats, and be sure to zip up your jackets to hold the heat in. We’re not going far, but if anyone gets disoriented, check in on the walkie-talkie and we’ll find you. Also if you get any hits on the EMF reader.”

Chris unzipped the tent enough to peer outside. “I’m not taking the camera—the snow is coming down so hard, it would cover the lens in seconds.”

“Makes sense. And it’s better you not get distracted and step in a hole. We don’t want any snapped ankles.”

“Way to motivate the team, boss.”

They pulled on their gloves and hats, and Oscar zipped up the coat he’d let hang open in the relative warmth of the tent. Once they were all ready, he opened the tent and stepped outside.

The wind scraped its teeth over the exposed skin of his face, and snow poured from the iron gray sky. These were no lazily drifting flakes, but a real snowstorm, and he felt a twinge of worry.

They trudged away from the tent in the direction of the creek and the hillside. “It’s so quiet,” Chris murmured once they were away from the generator.

The snow muffled all sound, seeming to encase the world in silence. It carpeted the ground in a blanket already a couple of inches thick and growing. The wet flakes clung to any surface they struck, coating one side of all the trees and their branches in white. Already, some limbs were beginning to bend beneath the weight.

An old stone bridge crossed the creek. “Let me test it out first,” Oscar said, though it looked solid. The stones were slick with snow, making footing treacherous, but they held. “It’s good, just be careful.”

Oscar scanned the hillside while the others crossed. He felt as if he’d stepped across a line, from the decay wrought by human hands to something older. Wilder. The cloven oak loomed over all the other trees, ancient and implacable.

“How do you want to do this?” Nigel asked, coming up beside him.

Something was watching him from the hillside, Oscar felt sure of it. But from where, exactly, he wasn’t sure. “Let’s fan out from this point. Turn up the volume on your EMF meters so you can keep your eyes on the ground. Walk carefully, and check in every five minutes. If you start feeling too cold, let us know over the walkie-talkie, and head back to the tent immediately. We don’t want to risk a case of hypothermia, okay?”

Nigel nodded. “Okay, but…please be careful.”

“I will.”

Oscar made certain he was as grounded as he could be under the circumstances, and strengthened his vision of the protection of his old football equipment.

His job back then had been to be an obstacle, to use his mass to keep the opposing team away from the ball. It wasn’t so different now, only he was using his gift to put himself between the vengeful ghost and anyone else she wanted to hurt. And hopefully keep himself from getting too knocked around in the process.

Snow crumpled under him as he started up the section of the slope closest to the massive oak. The wet snow clung to his boots, weighing them down and making the climb even more difficult. He strained his ears for any sound from the EMF meter clipped to his belt, but there was only the whisper of the falling snow.

“Five minute check in,” Chris said over the walkie talkie a few minutes later.

“I’m here,” Nigel replied. “Oscar?”

“Here. Nothing yet.”

He struggled higher, feet slipping as the slope became steeper. The light leaking through the storm faded even more; they didn’t have too long before the sun dipped below the mountains on the other side of the valley.

It had to have been at least five minutes since the last check in. He lifted the walkie talkie. “Oscar here. Y’all okay?”

Silence. Not even the crackle of static.

All the hairs rose on the back of Oscar’s neck. “Hello?” he said, making sure he was holding the transmit button down all the way. “Nigel, Chris, come in.”

His only answer was falling snow.