Page 8 of Rattling Bone (OutFoxing the Paranormal #2)

CHAPTER EIGHT

They left the house the next day, using the excuse of visiting Josh and some of Oscar’s other old friends from high school. As they drove, Oscar filled them all in on his conversation with his mother.

“So the cycle was fulfilled in 1997,” Nigel said when he finished. Fear for Oscar gripped him, and he struggled to push it down. “But only after she chose to come to the distillery.”

“Assuming that’s what she meant to show her husband,” Tina countered. “We should try to contact him if we can. He could tell us what really happened, and where.”

Of course—Nigel was letting his fear run away with him. Just because Julie had died in Marrow didn’t mean it was connected with the distillery her family had once owned.

But it was a hell of a coincidence if it wasn’t.

The van passed through the tiny town in a matter of minutes. Beyond lay farmland, the fields bare beneath a light blanket of snow. It would be a beautiful drive in the fall, with the hillsides aflame with color, but at the moment it struck Nigel as almost mournful.

“That’s the Greenbark River,” Tina said, glancing from her phone to the snaking line of water. The road roughly followed its course, sometimes jumping a bend with a bridge. “The distillery is actually off a little side-creek called Lucky Run.”

“Just tell me when to turn,” Oscar said.

The valley narrowed, the mountains closing in until they loomed nearly overhead. The fields disappeared, replaced by dense woods.

“Slow down,” Tina said. “There should be a road on the left coming up around this bend.”

Oscar slowed as ordered and put his blinker on. Chris peered out the window as the van came nearly to a stop. “That’s not a road, Tina,” they said.

The gap in the trees was badly overgrown, grass sprouting from cracks in the asphalt. “Can we make it through?” Nigel asked dubiously.

“Only one way to find out.” Oscar turned onto the track.

Dead grass and brambles scraped against the van, alongside fallen branches. Oscar drove slowly, but even so it was a rough ride, with wheels dropping into potholes, equipment rattling threateningly every time.

“I don’t think we want to make too many trips out here.” Chris clung to the back of their seat, bracing a foot to help with the jolting. “The van won’t survive, let alone our gear.”

Though the road hugged the mountain’s foot, it was still on the flat land carved and deposited by the river, so at least they didn’t have to strain the engine going uphill. Within a quarter mile, the forest thinned, then abruptly opened up, giving them their first glimpse of the distillery.

The place was massive; no film shot from the ground could convey its true size. Nigel hadn’t realized how many buildings there would be. A huge edifice constructed of roughly shaped stone dominated the site, surrounded by a cluster of other structures: a grain silo made from corrugated metal, two brick warehouses, and another stone building sporting a tall brick smokestack towering over everything else.

It hadn’t been in perfect shape when Barbara Fox had come here, and another fifty years of abandonment had left their mark. At least one of the buildings had a caved-in roof, and any wooden shutters and doors that still clung to their frames were black with rot.

Nature was working hard to take back the site; trees and grasses sprouted wherever the concrete pavement ended, and skeletal vines climbed and twisted over every wall. In the summer, it would have been a riot of green; now, it made the place look strangely lifeless.

The complex stood on the last stretch of relatively flat land tucked hard against the mountainside. On the slope above loomed a truly gigantic oak tree. Some long-ago injury had caused the massive base to split into three pieces, about six feet above the ground. Each of the three sections had continued to grow until any one of them would have been a huge tree on its own.

“Cloven Oak,” Nigel murmured. “Do you think that’s where Corbett got the name?”

“Maybe?” Oscar pulled the van to a halt. “Some species of oaks can live centuries. That’s one of the biggest I’ve ever seen with my own eyes, so I’m sure it was here when the place was built back in the 1870s.”

They climbed out of the van. A chill breeze funneled through the valley, and Nigel tucked his hands into his pockets.

Chris studied the conglomerate of buildings in front of them. “This place is really falling apart, boss. We need to be careful.”

“That’s why we’re doing the initial sweep in the daylight.” Oscar swung open the back of the van. “We don’t know how badly the buildings have deteriorated inside, so I want us to stick together. Everyone wears a hardhat, and no one goes off on their own.”

“Do we have time for an initial sweep?” Tina interjected. “It’s December 29—that only leaves us two more days before New Year.”

“And if we go into it blind, we’ll be putting ourselves in even more danger,” Oscar countered.

Nigel didn’t want to agree—like Tina, he itched to get this over and done with as quickly as possible. “We know something happened in the aging warehouse, where Ivan Corbett died.”

“But Mamaw was attacked outside,” Oscar countered. “Maybe Ivan was warning her to leave; we just don’t know.”

Nigel wanted to argue with his logic, but couldn’t. “You’re right—flailing around blindly won’t help things,” he admitted.

“I thought we’d leave some stationary cameras overnight,” Oscar said. “How would you suggest we cover the site, Nigel?”

The question seemed genuine, rather than a sop to Nigel’s ego. “How many do we have?”

“Three night vision and one thermal,” Chris said. “Plus the regular camera, obviously.”

“I’d like to have at least one camera set up in a random area where we aren’t expecting activity,” Nigel decided after a moment. “Possibly two. If we use the laser grid, we can film it with the regular camera, right?”

“And leave it here overnight?” Chris asked, looking pained.

Tina elbowed them. “It’s a camera, not a baby.”

“Take that back right now.”

“That’s a good idea,” Oscar said, ignoring them both. “So we set up at the powerhouse, the aging warehouse, the distilling room, and two other locations. Should I select them if I feel something, or…?”

“No, I’ll pick,” Nigel said. “If you feel something, tell us after. And of course we can move the cameras to wherever you want after tonight. This way we’ll at least lessen some of the bias, and maybe learn something unexpected.”

“Perfect. Let’s gear up, then.”

Nigel secured his hardhat; it had a flashlight affixed to it, but he accepted a second flashlight from Oscar. Ghosts would drain batteries in a heartbeat, and even in the daytime he didn’t want to get caught in the crumbling buildings without a light.

Chris took the main camera, and the rest of them split the bags with cameras, tripods, and the laser grid between them. “Do you want to do any kind of intro?” they asked Oscar uncertainly. “Just in case?”

Oscar’s brow furrowed in thought, and he looked away. Then he frowned. “Does anyone else feel like they’re being watched?”

Nigel glanced around automatically, but saw nothing. “I don’t feel anything.”

“Are you picking up something?” Chris asked, camera half-raised as if they weren’t sure whether they should start filming.

Oscar hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a spirit; maybe it’s just nerves.” He put his hardhat on. “Either way, let’s get to work.”

* * *

Oscar looked around at the sprawl of buildings as they made their way toward the main stone structure. From what they’d seen on Mamaw’s film, it should house the distilling room, probably others as well.

To think, his ancestors had owned all this. Built it from the ground up, employed who-knew-how many men looking for work. Put Marrow on the map, from what Nigel had said.

He’d only ever known Marrow as a dying town, caught in a vicious cycle. People left for better prospects, so stores didn’t have enough customers to stay open. The stores closed, and the former employees went elsewhere looking for work, leading to yet more closures.

He’d never imagined what it must have been like in its glory days, or even wondered what people had done back then, and where the jobs had gone. The distillery hadn’t been the only industry in Marrow, no doubt, but clearly its decline and abandonment hadn’t helped anyone.

When he’d first planned this trip, he’d thought he might have a chance of reconnecting with Dad. But maybe, instead, he could reconnect with this lost history. With Ivan and his legacy. Maybe even do right by them, by moving on whatever had led to their early deaths and helping them rest in peace. The thought cheered him.

He stopped a short way from the entrance to the building. “I want everyone to ground and center before we go in,” he said.

They’d all worked on the exercise, even though he was the only medium, on the theory that staying calm would keep any destructive ghosts from feeding as much on them. Human presence gave spirits energy, but high emotions such as fear amplified that energy enormously.

Oscar focused on the earth beneath his feet and concentrated on his breathing. Once he felt steadier, he envisioned an invisible shield around him—in this case, his old football equipment. He didn’t put a lot of energy into the shielding yet, but hopefully it would be enough in the daylight, when any ghost should be much weaker to start with.

Of course, it would be dark inside the abandoned buildings.

“Ready?” he asked. When he got a series of affirmative murmurs, he started for the door.

Though the stone walls looked solid, the wooden shutters still hanging beside the big windows sagged, some barely clinging on by a single hinge. “Not a lot of broken windows,” Chris observed. “And no graffiti at all.”

Which could be a bad sign; some hauntings were so strong, so dark, that even non-mediums didn’t like to get too close, even if they couldn’t say why. But there were other, non-supernatural reasons, too.

“No one really remembers it’s here,” he pointed out. “I was born and raised in Marrow, drove past the turn-off a thousand times, and didn’t have a clue.”

The entrance was a rolling door set off to the side. The wood had rotted, and the whole thing sagged off its frame, almost ready to collapse. It was slightly open, enough for someone skinny like Nigel to slip through, but Oscar wasn’t going to fit. It took a few minutes of wrestling and cursing with the damn thing, but eventually he and Chris forced the gap wide enough for them to all get through.

The door let onto a wide, concrete hall. Oscar played his flashlight over it, revealing worn painted letters. DISTILLING ROOM read one set, with an arrow to the left, and FERMENTING ROOM read the other, with an arrow to the right. He went left.

The interior of the distilling room was cavernous, filled with metal pipes, catwalks, and other equipment. The copper distilling equipment, tarnished in Mamaw’s old film, was now covered with a diseased layer of green corrosion. Intact skylights above let in grimy sunlight, though shadows still clustered in the corners and beneath objects. Most of the metal work was rusted or had paint bubbling and peeling off in scabs. Along the back wall the windows looked like they led into interior offices of some kind.

Tina craned her head back. “Which one of these catwalks do you think Jeff Corbett fell from?”

“I have a feeling we’re going to find out,” Oscar said grimly. “Let’s use the thermal cam in here. We’ll set it up on one of the higher platforms to get a fuller view. Assuming it’s safe to get up there.”

Stairs were always one of the most nerve-wracking parts of exploring abandoned buildings. At least these were made of solid steel grating instead of rotting wood—but that didn’t mean none of the rusting iron bolts weren’t ready to snap the moment they had weight on them.

“I’ll stay down here,” Tina said. She glanced at Nigel. “I’m not a fan of heights.”

“Chris and I will go,” Oscar decided. “Unless you feel some need to climb up there, Nigel?”

He looked as though he wanted to go…but shook his head. “There’s not much I can add at this juncture.”

“You can be in charge of calling for an ambulance if something gives way,” Chris said.

Nigel paled and took out his phone, as if expecting to have to call at any second. Then he frowned. “There’s no service.”

“That’s not unusual out here,” Oscar said. “Not many towers, plus I think the mountains block the signal. Don’t look so worried,” he added. “We’re going to be careful. We’re professionals, remember?”

As usual, Oscar went first, on the theory that if the stairs would hold him, they would certainly hold Chris. He set his feet close to the wall, taking each step slowly.

The first set of stairs and catwalk were firm, so he signaled to Chris, who had their camera on their shoulder, filming. “Let’s go as high as we can,” he said, once Chris had joined him.

Grit crunched under their boots as they made their way down the catwalk to a second set of stairs. These were steady as well, and Oscar began to hope the place was in better shape than it had looked from the outside.

Until the steel of the third and final staircase groaned when he was halfway up.

Oscar froze instantly, senses straining. There was no movement, no treacherous bending of a bolt about to tear free of the stone wall it had been driven into so long ago.

“Boss?” Chris called up, though their tone remained calm.

“It still feels solid.” He shifted his weight, but nothing else moved. “Let’s go carefully, though.”

There was another groan or two as he finished making his way up, but nothing more. The steel had been heated in the summer and cooled in the winter, with nothing heavier than a raccoon on it for over fifty years. Probably it was just imperceptibly flexing back into shape.

He hoped.

As he stepped onto the highest catwalk, a wave of dizziness and nausea instantly swept over him. The room seemed to spin, and for a moment he was certain he felt something strike him from behind, even as shouts of alarm sounded from all sides.

Then his legs went out from under him, and he collapsed to the catwalk.