Restless Spirit

Chapter Two: Unwritten Stories

John Egbert died on a windy night, (possibly) shot by his own father, in a freak accident. He died surrounded by criminals and police. He died a tragic, horrible death that would be talked about and discussed for months and months, until something more interesting came along, and he was, inevitably, forgotten. This came and went, just like every other death.

Tragic.

And forgotten. Everything that had happened wasn't current. It was in the past. The distant, distant past. In fact, he had died more than thirteen years ago.

Now, the scene changes to the wonderful city of New York, in a small apartment, cluttered with scarves, yarn, books, more books, and dirty dishes. It was, of course, Rose Lalonde's new household.

Well, relatively new. She had moved in last year. Before that, she had been roommates with Jade Harley for a while, while they both went to the community college. Rose could have done better than Skaia Community; her grades were certainly good enough, but she hadn't wanted to give up life with her old friends just yet.

In the current frame of time, in the current place of the story (Summer 2014 in the Lalonde apartment) the place sort of reeked from vodka, the aforementioned dirty dishes, and, naturally, shame.

After her first book, the Complacency of the Learned, was published, her life had sort of… veered off course. For one thing, the book, a major success, had been her only good idea in life. Now, her fans were expecting another project…

And try as she might, there was no way that she could think of one. It had been six months since CotL was published. Six. Six months that she had sat at her computer, typed about three words into the screen, and then deleted them, banging her head against the desk, only to repeat the process another thousand times before the day was up. Reading helped, sometimes. So did knitting. But like many other 'failed' writers, Rose had turned her failure into one thing.

An alcohol habit.

Some days, she was drunk by noon. She never went to bed sober- Hadn't for the past month, at least. It was sad.

Even ROSE knew it was sad.

And yet, the sharp tang of the drink was easier to get through than the shame of her career, the shame of not being able to think of another idea.

Some days, she would wake up with a document opened on her computer, clumsily typed words on the screen telling a story that she knew was the next big thing last night- but couldn't even remember the next morning.

But today- Today, she was determined. Determined to ignore the booze locked away in her liquor cabinet, to actually get some work done, and to try to NOT disappoint all her fans who were constantly begging for a new book.

"I hear you guys…" She muttered, as she scrolled down the page of ideas and prompts. "Believe me, I want a new RoLal book just as much as you do."

But the boring, done to death prompts were getting her nowhere. Until she found one that looked, well, if not promising, at least more interesting than the others.

'A small, haunted town, destroyed by the Ghost, will get itself back only if helped by a few old friends.'

She didn't know why, but the idea called to her. It was a good one.

But a ghost town? Should she make up a location, or use a real one? There were so many questions, so many things to wonder… But she had to start somewhere. Real one, Rose decided. That had more promise. Besides, then she could use real legends, build off of things that people had already heard of. That would make it all the more scary. It wouldn't be as worthless as most of the things that she had started over the last six months.

But research- ah, that was the key.

So, starting with a simple Google search, Rose left the slump that she had been in for the past months. There was a new idea in her head. The liquor cabinet was slowly leaving her mind, replaced by the 'Most Haunted Places' list.

Scrolling, Rose read the names idly.

Hotels, towns, streets, each one with a history that she could draw from, with a story that she could write. But none of them jumped out at her- yet. Soon, that was going to change.

She hoped.

After reading about a deserted amusement park, which Rose decided to use if nothing better came up, she saw another name. A name that was… strikingly familiar.

Skaia, Washington.

Her old hometown.

No- surely it was another Skaia. A coincidence. There was never anything haunted in the town when she lived there. It was just- normal. Normal people, with normal jobs. The history wasn't even that strange. Sure, there were the pirate raids, for a while, and that was interesting, of course, but what town didn't have SOME strange thing about it, one way or another? That didn't mean that it was HAUNTED.

But clicking the link, Rose found that it was, in fact, talking about her old home. The pictures matched up, more or less, to her memories. Same high school. Same abandoned warehouses. Same people. Sure, there was some new stuff, but she hadn't lived in the place for almost- eight years now?

Counting back, Rose realised that it was true. She hadn't even visited in almost four years. Wow. Time flies.

Drawn from her reminiscing, Rose looked over the page.

It read:

'Possibly the most haunted place in America, Skaia, Washington, a town near the beaches, has had some of the most convincing paranormal activity THIS blogger has ever heard of.

There have been multiple sightings of an alleged 'Windy Man', a silhouette that brings hurricane force winds in his wake. There have also been multiple occurrences of damage to houses, attacks in random places, and howling screams. Strangely, this seems to not be tied to any one building, street, or neighborhood, but rather, the entirety of the town.

Unlike most hauntings, people have actually gotten hurt. George Egbert, a man of 57, was nearly killed in one of the activities. He got his right leg severed off, and nearly bled to death in an accident with the supposed Wind.

News on his condition is not available, but the latest information on him was that he was, in fact, alive, but others, such as politician Diamond Droog and one woman, Ms. Queenie Snowman, were reported to be in more critical condition. More information, however, is needed.

Long story short, if you're in the ghost hunting game, Skaia isn't a place for amateurs. But who knows? Maybe it's just a trick of the wind...'

Wincing at the poor grammar, Rose stared at the screen blankly for a second before picking up her phone. She dialed a familiar number, the one belonging to Jade Harley. It was one that, when she first moved to New York, Rose had called every day.

Now? Now Rose was lucky if she got to talk to her old friends once or twice a month. But that wasn't the point. She had to know what was going on.

Luckily for the story, Jade had decided to stay in Skaia when Rose and Dave moved. She had a job, and a nice apartment, so there was no real reason to move yet.

Now, a phone in that nice apartment rung. And again. And again. No one picked up all three times. Jade wasn't home.

Rose sighed, and dialed her old friend's cell phone number. The first ring? Nothing. Second? Nothing. Finally, on the third, right when Rose was going to give up, she heard a familiar, normally happy voice on the other end of the phone.

"Rose? Sorry, but now isn't a good time, I-"

"Jade, I'm very sorry for bothering you, but it's important. Can whatever it is wait for even five minutes?"

"I'm not very sure… I'm in the hospital, Rose."

"The HOSPITAL?" Rose's calm demeanor slipped away as she imagined the horrible things that had happened to her friend. The Wind thing from the website… could it be true?

"Oh, no, not like that! I'm taking care of Mr. Egbert- Did you hear, Rose? I guess you probably didn't, but something awful happened!"

"Yes, he got his leg cut off, did he not?"

"...How'd you know that?"

"Saw it on a website. But that's not important. Please, can we talk?"

"Well… Hold on a sec." Rose, slightly worried, waited for three and a half minutes while Jade was off the phone. Finally, she picked up again.

"Okay, he's still not waking up. I guess it wouldn't hurt to step out into the hall for a few minutes…"

"Thank you. Now, what do you know about…" Rose felt silly even asking this "any hauntings? In Skaia, I mean."

"..." The line was quiet.

"Well?"

"You know, Rose, I don't know what to say."

"So you do know something? Jade, please, tell me."

"You'll think I'm crazy or something! Sometimes, I think I'm crazy for all of this stuff, too."

"Jade, please. Do you remember my childhood interests? I can assure you that no matter how farfetched your ideas might seem, I won't think you crazy."

"W-ell… I guess… There might be some weird things going on in this town lately. I mean, Rose, you wouldn't believe this wind. It's not normal sea wind, like they say. It's just… bizarre. And people are getting hurt, Rose. I'm, well… Sometimes it's a bit scary!"

"I can imagine. But go on. Have you ever seen a silhouette of a man?"

"Oh, the Windy Man? Yeah, one time I was out with some of my friends and we saw him." Jade's tone dropped. She remembered something. "And… And do you know what, Rose? I must have been more drunk than I thought that I was, because I thought that the silhouette was… John. But that's crazy, right?"

Rose was silent for a few moments. A ghost in the town… And now John? It made sense; he had died in the town, and from the little she had gathered, it wasn't a pleasant death. But why would the ghost wait so long to be active?

"Tell me, Jade, when did all this start acting up?"

"The ghost stuff, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Oh, about three months ago. In April, I think."

"April… like John's birthday?"

"Oh. Oh no. Rose, you don't think…"

"I'm not sure what to think anymore, actually. But hold on. I need to look something up."

Rose put down the phone, and went back to her laptop. Google. She typed in 'Skaia, April 2014.'

Up popped dozens of pages. Some were just event calendars, some worthless ads, but most of them were related to the fire of the CrockerCorp warehouse that had been occupied in the town. The date of the fire? April 13th. The same day as John's birthday…

...And, if Rose remembered correctly, the same day that he died.

She picked up the phone.

"Jade? Are you still there?"

"Yes! What'd you find?"

"Do you know exactly what day all this paranormal stuff started happening?"

"Um… it was somewhere near the middle of April, as far as I can remember."

"And do you know about the CrockerCorp fire?"

"Yeah! It was in that abandoned warehouse. You know the weird thing? I think that was the place where John… you know..."

No one in their group could ever bring themselves to talk about their deceased friend's unfortunate fate. But Rose knew exactly what she meant.

"Oh no."

"What?"

"Jade? I think that the Big Apple is giving me health problems."

"That's a bit off topic… What?"

"Yes… I'm sure that my manager wouldn't mind if I took a little vacation back home to Skaia… Just so that I could clear my head. Who knows? Maybe my next big project could be in the works soon…"

"What are you talki- wait. Are you going to come down here?"

"Yes, Jade. I think that I need to see what's going on back in dear old Skaia."

The line went dead halfway through Jade's reply. Rose, slightly worried, tried calling her back, but it went straight to voicemail.

And the second time. And the third. By the forth, Rose gave up, left a message saying to call her back ASAP, and started booking her plane tickets.

She was going home.

Yeah, sorry. Pretty crappy. But I did like writing for Rose- I hope I got her character correct. If I didn't, tell me in the comments and I'll change it! Other than that, tell me what you think, any characters you want to see, all that. Thank you! You guys are awesome!