10
In the 1700's a church had occupied the site, but a fire had scoured the earth sometime later and eventually a tavern had occupied the approximate spot. For over a hundred years there had been tales of minor alleged incidences mostly attributed to the consumption of alcohol until the 1960's when a group of students interested in spiritualism began experimenting with table-tapping and achieved some interesting, though not exactly definitive results. There was an old story about a barmaid who'd tried to conceal a pregnancy and died in childbirth in an upstairs room. Others were familiar with the story of a quiet man not known for his brilliant wit who'd been crushed by a stack of champagne barrels that had been stacked poorly before a New Year's Eve party. There was even the tale of the traveler who'd drunk more than his fill by the fire on a cold, rainy night and found himself unable to pay. He was kicked out after a minor altercation and hailed a cab right outside the entrance. The driver was reported to've been grey-green of coloration with a hollow, uncomprehending stare, his team starved to near skeletons hitched to rotted timber by decaying leather. The drunkard had climbed aboard and demanded to be taken all the way to the Pine Barrows—an unlikely destination on such a night, only to be found the next morning stiff and cold in the local cemetery, revived enough to tell his story before shuffling off his mortal coil.
Truth be told, the area had been a hotspot for paranormal activity long before that with proto-Indians avoiding it like plague and later tribes discerning that game would make grand efforts to go around it even when pursued, and neither horse nor hound would remain by any campsites over night. Now and then pretty, strange, glowing, colored "fogs" were known to engulf the area and travelers seeking a shortcut through it often discovered themselves miles off course by the time they'd regained their bearings. Dead man's lanterns beckoned the unwary toward the steep edges of the Hudson River. Stones were sometimes found stacked precariously for no reason at the edges of the recognized area. In an effort to dispel the silly stories of savage pagans, early settlers had erected a rather small and claptrap chapel in the approximate center of the site. Rather than convert the natives, the tribes had sensibly deduced the Europeans were not terribly bright and migrated to more remote areas instead.
Sometime during the late-1600s the surrounding area had fallen plague to a bizarre thumping or pounding noise that managed to rattle glassware from shelves and keep babies up at night. It went on day and night until an official church was raised, and for nearly half a century life was good in the area, crops were plentiful, game returned to the land, and the settlers thrived.
The fire came about when a rector's niece thought it might be fun to try and hold a séance in the church on All Saint's Evening. She'd thought to conceal lantern-light with heavy drapes, forgetting how hot they'd get until the whole building was in flames. It wasn't just the church that went; flames spread into a birch grove at one corner of the building, and flaming branches fell and rolled toward her uncle's abode. A burning horse escaped his barn and fled into the remains of a gleaned cornfield. By the time the sun rose again, it shone down on quite a nice stretch of scorched earth.
A better building was built closer to the center of town and the land lay vacant, the ruins abandoned until a relative from the Old World arrived to inherit and saw its commercial value. Thus the tavern had arisen and done well for several generations despite the growing trend of ghost stories connected with it. Because no one could prove anyone had ever actually been hurt or died at the spot, the haunting was treated as a gimmick to draw in the adventurous sort—particularly around All Hallows.
But six years ago a small New Age shop rented out one of the nearby structures, and late at night, several times a year, small groups or covens gathered to celebrate successful endeavors and encourage hope for oncoming seasonal markers. When the owner passed away, her son who was business savvy though not especially spiritual-minded decided to keep the place running for a lark. He hired an all-new staff who quickly dismissed the former coven and found a group willing to pay more for use of the location on specific nights. Two of his employees were friends of members of the new group. Under their guidance, the friendly, quirky, shop full of herbs and oils and books that celebrated life, healing, and nature soon sold tobacco blends, tinctures and remedies they blended themselves in the back, death metal, creepy statuary, pickled small animals and the parts of larger creatures, and subleted space to a guy who specialized in black light jewelry piercing and crappy, satanic-themed tattoos performed by his underaged nephew.
Normally, a place such as that might have well flourished despite turning off the clientele of the shop's previous incarnation. Under other circumstances, even a Walmart located in that general area might have successfully provoked whatever malevolent energies lurked about and caused the paranormal riot that finally burst like an over-ripe pimple, but whatever straw it was that broke that particular camel's back, it built momentum slowly until even long-time locals used to bizarre happenings in the area recognized the need for something drastic and started calling the constabulary to demand that some semblance of peace be restored.
Now police and other emergency responders are likely to first be skeptical, and then, if pressed, to seek more logical explanations to what hysterical citizens might be calling paranormal activity. Ambulances were sent out, fire trucks when the calls grew too numerous, and the town's tiny police force was stretched to its limits trying to deduce what all the uproar was about. One ambulance got into a race with what appeared to be an occupantless hearse. Two fire rescue teams tried to locate an address that they'd been to before, but for some odd reason could no longer locate. A police cruiser driving slowly down an elm-lined street hit a fire hydrant when what appeared to be a flaming corpse dropped from the sky and landed on the windshield (it was later determined to have been nothing but a scarecrow…a scarecrow far from local fields…and engulfed in flame with a noose about its neck). The Chief was called. He was unhappy. He drove into city limits to find frightening jagged cracks coursing along Main Street, shops closed for the evening blinking with colored lights from unknown sources, mailboxes uprooted and littering sidewalks, trees cracked and threatening collapse, stray dogs yelping and fleeing with tails tucked between their legs, and a halo of pretty, undulating colors highlighting the location of the oldest local bar.
The Chief called the Mayor. The Mayor accused him of drunken tomfoolery until the covers were yanked abruptly off his bed and cast through a closed window while he and his wife froze in terror and their aged Boston terrier finally managed to scratch his way free through a solid wood door and out into the street.
But meanwhile, back at Ghostbusters Headquarters, Winston had discovered that Amanda would stay still in front of the television, and so he'd discovered a channel featuring a marathon of bad 80s movies and popped a bag of corn he left beside some Dr. Pepper he'd thoughtfully poured over ice for her. Then, propping himself up comfortably in an oversized recliner with his laptop, he listened to some of his favorite tunes through a single earbud while trying to research clues regarding the teen, what she might be, and where she might be from. The work was tedious and he found himself having difficulty concentrating in part because he liked some of the films that came on and enjoyed re-watching especially exciting scenes, and also because despite the trust in his level-headedness that his co-workers had expressed in him before departing (two of the three anyway), he couldn't stop thinking of all the cool things he wanted or could do if Amanda proved to be a genie and was just waiting to grant each of them wishes.
Frustrated with a lack of hits, he eventually looked up the area his colleagues had been called to, seeking historic value to the claims of hauntings thereabouts. "Local tribes called it Land Of Forest Sickness and Poison-soul. Poison-soul? Wow. Could that be any more ominous?"
Amanda ignored him, eyes glassy, her mind millions of miles away.
He looked longingly at the untouched popcorn, shook his head and continued. "Let's see, here's something about a fire…and a séance. In a church? That's messed up. Colored lights and fog…well, it is next to a river. Several haunted houses reported in the area…." He clicked on a list from a site that specialized in trying to promote allegedly haunted real estate, and then dumped out to return to where he'd been. "Okay, here we go…a three-hundred year old farmhouse…old man walks around at night…floors squeak, doors slowly close and open…well, that could be anything," he decided. "Okay, here it says there was a circus that set up in the area back in the fifties, and none of the animals would go anywhere near this one specific small plot of ground…and then a giraffe keeled over dead for no reason whatsoever and its head landed in the precise center of the spot. Huh. Wonder what's buried there?"
Amanda looked like someone in a vegetative state. Curious, he lifted the remote and changed channels. A man hopped about clapping his hands in a dress shirt sans tie, trying to promote the health benefits of a liquid diet. Zeddemore watched her. She failed to register she was watching something different. He changed channels again. A handsome, grandfatherly type was speaking to a rapt audience about God's Word, one hand raised like he was trying to halt traffic. Nothing. The next channel was a commercial in Spanish. He turned the TV off. After a moment or two the girl blinked and smiled, turning her head his way. "You okay?"
"'m okay," she replied, nodding.
"There's popcorn and soda."
She noticed it. "Oh, thank you.'
He inhaled sharply. "Wow."
She took the room-temperature bag in her lap and crunched away.
"You wanna watch TV?"
She shrugged. "'kay."
He sighed and flipped around until he found a PBS station. If she was going to act like she was hypnotized, at least he could try and get something educational to saturate her brain.
He continued his research. "Okay…whoa. That's scary…there was an old mansion back in the 30's that was turned into a finishing school for girls. The fishpond on site was found drained one day and all the fish in it appeared well rotted. Small fires erupting in unoccupied parts of the house…terrible smells manifesting in the middle of the night…'course that happens here, too, on burrito night." He glanced over toward the girl. She was mesmerized by the mating habits of purple martins, popcorn spilled across her lap.
He was considering breaking out one of their gaming systems to see if she'd care to challenge him when he heard his cell start playing a Willie Hutch tune. The phone identified the caller as Egon.