This one was a request from Thefreakoutsideyourwindow. And dude, I took your advice and watched two episodes of Ghost Adventures in the middle of the day, and as much as I enjoyed it holy hell it freaked me out so bad hahaha
This could probably be a lot better and expanded more, but I am very quickly running out of time if I want to post it tonight so here we go. All throwaway OCs in this chapter have joke names and I'm not sorry
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The Unsolved Disappearance of Jackson Overland
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In recent years, Burgess had become a centre for the unexplained. Stories about supernatural creatures, inexplicable weather phenomena, and the like had seemingly popped up overnight, and had only been growing since. The most common ones were about 'Jack Frost' – a character from folklore that the local children used to explain anything out of the ordinary during winter, of which there were many examples. Obviously 'Jack Frost' wasn't to blame, but that didn't mean there wasn't some supernatural entity behind the mantle.
Jerry and Ben Burlington had been paranormal investigators for years. And it was high time they investigated Burgess, Pennsylvania.
It was a few weeks into winter when they arrived, a decent layer of snow already piled up on the ground. They kept their eyes peeled for any sign of anything out of the ordinary as they drove towards their first destination: a research centre, where a local meteorologist had agreed to meet with them. But if there was anything to see, they were moving too fast to get a good look.
The research centre was relatively small. When their van pulled up out front, there was already a short man in a beige knitted sweater waiting for them in the doorway.
"Paul Vane?" Jerry asked as he and Ben exited the van, their small team and camera crew following behind.
"You must be the Burlingtons," Vane returned, offering a hand in greeting.
"We hear you might be able to help us out with our investigation," Ben said.
"I certainly have some information, though I don't know how helpful it'll be. Come on in."
Vane led them through to the main part of the centre: a room filled with computers, and a large table covered in papers and archive boxes.
"This centre has been studying and recording local weather patterns for over a hundred years now, but still retains some of the records from previous meteorological studies in the area," he began, indicating the files set out on the tabletop. "What's interesting is that Burgess has had a stereotypical, perfect winter consistently for almost as far back as the records date. Always the same amount of snow, and very little temperature fluctuation. But when we compare this data to even the closest surrounding towns, we can see plenty of evidence of varying weather patterns, and in some cases considerable effects of climate change."
"Is this just winter, or do you see the same stagnant patterns in other seasons, too?" Jerry asked, leaning down to inspect one of the records Vane had indicated.
"Only winter," Vane replied.
"You said 'almost as far back as the records date'," Ben pointed out, and noted the way Vane seemed pleased that he'd pointed it out. "So it hasn't always been like this?"
Vane rifled through one of the archive boxes, and pulled out a file yellowed with age. "1712 is the furthest we can trace back Burgess' bizarre winters," he said, handing Ben the file. He opened it, expecting standard reports, and was surprised to find several old newspaper clippings as well. "Before then, the weather was far less consistent."
One article in particular caught Ben's eye, and he nudged Jerry, tilting it towards him so he could see. The headline read 'Overland Boy Drowns In Lake'. A quick skim revealed the boy, Jackson Overland, had gone ice skating with his sister at the local lake – an activity that was popular with the children – but the ice had not been as thick as it appeared, and Jackson had fallen in and not made it back out again.
"Kids have been ice skating on that lake for as long as there have been people living here," Vane nodded at the article. "No one has fallen in since Jackson Overland. Lake freezes every year, earlier than it should, and thick enough that you could drive a couple of semis over it without a crack."
Ben met Jerry's even gaze, and it was easy to see that his brother was thinking the same thing: this might just be the lead they needed.
"What do you think about the local legends about Jack Frost?" Jerry asked Vane. Jack was a common short version of Jackson. Coincidence? Possibly. But a kid falls through the ice, and it never cracks again? Definitely worth investigating.
"Honestly? The kids came up with it to explain the weird things that happen here in winter. I don't think it's any kind of 'Jack Frost', but I wouldn't rule out some kind of... of spirit, or something. Not after seeing the things I've seen."
"What kind of things?"
"Ice appearing out of nowhere, snowballs that nobody threw, random gusts of wind on a still day..." he trailed off. "A few years ago a boy went on an unexpected sled ride. Witnesses said an ice path was appearing under him like magic. Swerved him straight out of the path of a truck."
Ben turned to Jerry in surprise. "Do you know who he was?"
"Bennett's son. If you want to get in contact, my wife works with her. I can ask her to pass along a message."
Ben nodded eagerly. A first-hand encounter was absolutely something they wanted to hear.
"What about Jackson Overland?" Jerry asked. "Do you know where we might be able to find more information? Does the library stock newspapers from that far back?"
"The library has a pretty decent newspaper archive – that's where I got that photocopy in there," Vane pointed to the file Ben was still holding. "Better yet, one of the volunteers has a background in genealogical research. She helps the kids with school projects sometimes, but I'll bet she'd be happy to talk to you."
Perfect, that gave them two new leads to follow.
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They ended up splitting up. Ben, with help from Vane's wife, managed to get in contact with Mrs Bennett, who'd agreed to allow a short interview with her son, so long as she was allowed to be present. Ben had thought this more than fair, but he couldn't help but feel her notable reluctance when they'd spoken on the phone had had to do with more than just meeting up with a stranger.
Jerry, in the meantime, was heading to the library to track down the volunteer Vane had mentioned. Their biggest lead so far was the timing between Jackson Overland's death and the start of Burgess' perfect winters. Was it possible that Jackson's spirit had lingered in Burgess after his death? Was he the cause of the strange weather? If so, the consistently solid lake and the experience Jamie Bennett went through could indicate that this ghost wasn't hostile but protective. It would certainly make for a nice change of pace from their usual investigations.
Mrs Bennett had set their meeting place as a popular cafe in the centre of town. Ben spotted her fairly easily as he entered – she was the only one there accompanied by a teenage boy whose table still had a spare seat. Her wariness had made him decide to leave the camera crew with Jerry, so he'd brought with him one of the smaller handheld cameras and a tripod, and at her okay he set it up to record the interview.
"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me," Ben started, looking first to her and then to Jamie. Jamie looked caught somewhere between excitement and the same nervousness his mother was displaying.
"I watch your show," Jamie admitted. "I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to meet you!"
Mrs Bennett smiled fondly. "Ever since he was little he's been interested in the supernatural. His investigations haven't been as... extreme as yours, but he's no less enthusiastic."
It was always nice to meet a fellow enthusiast. "Yeah?" Ben grinned. "You want to be a paranormal investigator, Jamie?"
Jamie flushed under the attention. "Sort of. Not really ghosts and stuff. More... legends."
"Legends like Jack Frost?"
Both Jamie and Mrs Bennett became visibly unnerved at the mention of the name. The eyed each other out the corner of their eyes.
"Yeah," Jamie replied after a moment. "And Bigfoot, and things like that."
"Well, you know, legends like that are exactly what we're looking into at the moment. We heard Burgess has some pretty interesting weather, and a lot of stories about Jack Frost." He watched them both for a reaction, but beyond a general nervousness, they were unreadable. "Apparently you had a firsthand experience a couple years back."
Jamie huffed a laugh, and a small smile split Mrs Bennett's face, too.
"The sled?" Jamie guessed knowingly.
"Can you tell me what happened?"
"It was a snow day," he started, glancing at Mrs Bennett as if seeking permission. When she only watched him silently, he continued, "We get a lot of those here. We were walking on a hill, and I slipped. Landed on the sled, and ended up sliding down onto the road."
"That must have been scary," Ben said. The traffic in Burgess wasn't as bad as some places, but the roads were far from deserted.
"It was fun until I saw the truck."
Mrs Bennett grimaced.
"What happened then?"
"The truck swerved, and my sled suddenly went left, and I did this massive jump off a snow bank in front of the statue in the park. And then I got hit by a couch."
Mrs Bennett buried her face in her hands.
Ben wasn't sure how to react. "Hit by a couch?"
"It was in the truck."
"Were you okay?"
"Yeah. I lost a tooth though."
That was... insane. Maybe whatever spirit they were dealing with wasn't as protective as he'd first assumed. "Witnesses said they saw ice appearing under your sled 'like magic'. Did you see anything like that?"
"Not really," Jamie shook his head. "I was more focused on what was in front of me than underneath me."
"Did you feel anything, like there was something with you that you couldn't see?"
"No," Jamie said, and again looked to his mother as if to make sure he wasn't doing anything wrong.
"What about the Jack Frost legends?" Ben asked, switching tracks. "What can you tell me about those?"
"He's popular among the kids," Mrs Bennett said, smiling. "Sort of like their patron saint of fun."
"Do you believe in Jack Frost, Jamie?"
Jamie's answer was without any hesitation. "Yes."
"Do you think Jack Frost was there when your sled lost control?"
"He was, yeah."
Ben tilted his head, interested in the conviction in Jamie's voice. "What makes you so sure?"
Jamie turned to Mrs Bennett, and then slowly back to Ben. For a long moment he seemed to consider whether or not he should answer. But then, finally, "He told me."
.
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It didn't take long for Jerry to conclude that they'd been right to look further into Jackson Overland. With the genealogist's help – a woman named Jean Reynolds – he'd managed to find the newspaper Paul Vane had had a copy of, and then several more from later dates that had articles on Jackson Overland.
What really caught Jerry's attention, though, was that Jackson's grave had been empty. They hadn't been able to retrieve his body. And not for a wont of trying, either. They'd regularly broken the ice trying to find a body on the surface, and had even sent in divers once the weather started to warm up. But they never found the body. And the lake always froze solid again after every attempt right up until early spring; much faster than it should have.
That left Jerry with two theories: Jackson somehow survived, and made it out of the lake, but disappeared; or he didn't, and something had happened to his body. If he had made it out, he wouldn't have made it far in the cold and drenched in icy water without help. Burgess was the only town in the area close enough to walk to, and there was no access to a road without first going through it. Someone surely would have seen him.
Far more likely, Jerry thought, that he had died. So then what had happened to his body? His sister, who had been with him at the time, had immediately run back for help. The lake would have only been unattended for a short time. And the snow would have made footprints obvious.
"Are there any animals living in the lake?" Jerry asked.
Jean thought for a moment. "Only small fish, I would say. It's cut off from any rivers, and there are only small animals in the surrounding woods, so it wouldn't be able to sustain anything too big. Definitely not something that would have eaten Jackson."
"So what do you think happened to his body?"
"No idea," Jean shrugged. "I don't know what the environment was really like back then. There might have been carnivorous predators in the woods, like wolves, who saw an easy meal, but then again the townspeople would have seen evidence of it in the surrounding area." She tapped her hand on the tabletop. "If I were to take a guess, I'd say it's probably still somewhere at the bottom of the lake, buried in the mud. The divers couldn't go in the water until spring came – plenty of time for the water they stirred up to settle and sediment to bury him."
It might be worth modern technology scanning the lake floor to see if there were still bones or not, but that was beyond the scope of what he and Ben did, and wasn't overly relevant to what they were trying to find out here.
"We think Jackson might still be haunting the area," Jerry said. "I've never heard of a spirit being able to control their environment so strongly, but I think he might be the reason why that lake freezes so quickly, and why it's never cracked on anyone since."
"Like, protecting the kids who skate on it, you mean?"
"Maybe more than that. Paul Vane said a boy was saved from getting hit by a truck by a trail of ice that appeared 'as if by magic'."
"You mean Jamie Bennett?" Jean raised a brow. She bit her lip. "You know, I helped him with putting together a family tree for a school project once. His family has been living in this town for as long as it's been here."
"He had an ancestor around when Jackson was alive?" Jerry asked, surprised.
"Yeah," Jean said heavily. "Jackson's little sister."
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It wasn't often Jack saw adults in the woods. It was even less often that the adults were there at sunset, and weren't just supervising kids. There were five in this particular group, and three of them looked like some sort of camera crew for the other two. Were they filming a movie out here?
Interested, he followed them from above as they made their way deeper into the trees, until a suspicion as to where they were going began to form in his mind. A suspicion that did nothing to answer his ever-growing list of questions.
Sure enough, they stopped at the little graveyard, and started talking in low voices with the cameras fixed on them. Jack crept closer, staying out of the camera's view, until he could hear what they were saying.
"This graveyard hasn't been used since the town started expanding in the mid 1700s," the taller of the two being filmed was saying. "Jean said only very few people know about it now, let alone bother to come out here, but clearly someone has been recently."
The camera panned to Jack's family's graves, all kept as tidy as possible thanks to his and Jamie's combined efforts. Admittedly, he didn't put anywhere near as much effort into taking care of the other plots, but he did at least refrain from dropping snow on the headstones.
"Jackson's grave is empty," the shorter one continued. "The townspeople did extensive searches for his body but never found anything. What happened to it, we just don't know. But maybe we can find out if another part of him is still here."
Jack stared at them, certain he had heard that wrong. They couldn't have been talking about him. Surely.
"Jackson, are you here?" the tall one called out, much louder than he had been speaking before.
Jack flinched. "Me?"
But they evidently couldn't hear him.
"Are you the one who's been keeping the lake frozen?"
"Are you talking to me?" Jack took a step closer, caught somewhere between shock and uncertainty. His staff knocked against one of the headstones with a dull thunk.
All the adults tensed at the sound.
"Did you hear that?" the tall one hissed, attention darting in Jack's direction, but eyes clearly not seeing him.
"I heard it," the shorter one confirmed, and the camera crew nodded as well.
"Jackson? Did you make that noise just now?"
"What the hell is going on?" Jack whispered to himself.
"Do it again!"
Do what again? Knock his staff against the headstone? Seemed a bit disrespectful to do it deliberately.
The taller one started walking towards him. Jack watched cautiously, taking a step back when he started getting way too close.
"There's a definite cold spot over here," he said, glancing back at the cameras.
"Uh, yeah," Jack frowned. "Cause I'm here."
"I've got goosebumps all up my arm." And then he put his entire hand through Jack's chest.
"Wh- Hey!" Jack leapt up into the branches of the nearest tree, well out of the man's reach. "Rude!"
The man flinched, looking quickly back at his companions and waving his arm around. "You guys felt that, right?"
"That wind came out of nowhere," the shorter one said.
"Cold spot's gone." He scanned the area, once again completely missing Jack. "Jackson? Was that you? Are you here?"
"You're talking to me but you can't see me?" Jack asked pointlessly.
"Can you make a sound if you're here?"
Not certain it was a good idea, he knocked the end of his staff twice against the trunk of the tree. A spiral of frost ran down towards the ground.
"Oh my god," the shorter one breathed. "Oh my god, did you see that?"
"Did you get that?" the taller one asked the camera crew. "Frost just appeared on that tree there, when the knocks came."
"I'm going to try the spirit box," the short one announced, pulling some kind of black device out of a bag one of the camera crew passed him. When he switched it on, it made short static bursts. Jack couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was supposed to do. "Jackson? Was that you just now?"
Jackson. Geez, hearing his full name made him feel like his mom had caught him doing something she'd explicitly told him not to.
"Did you save Jamie Bennett from being hit by a truck?" he tried again, when Jack took too long to answer.
"Jamie?" Jack parroted. How did they know about Jamie?
"Jamie?" the spirit box said, in Jack's exact voice.
Jack flinched. The two men and their camera crew were immediately on high alert. They'd heard that. That box had echoed his voice, and they'd heard it.
"Jamie Bennett," the man repeated, visibly excited. "He said you talked to him."
"Yeah?" Jack frowned, and was somehow still surprised when the box copied him. He dropped back down to the ground, wanting a better look.
"Do you feel that?" the other man whispered. "Cold spot's back."
"Are you the reason the weather here is so consistent in winter?" the first man continued.
They couldn't see him. Jack even waved his hand in front of their faces, but they didn't react at all. They could only hear him if their box did. Which meant they were nonbelievers. He supposed that made sense, seeing how they were trying to talk to Jack Overland, and not Jack Frost. But then why were they asking about the weather?
"Do you keep the lake frozen?" He'd taken too long to respond again.
"Yes," he admitted. He had even before he'd known why. It had always just been a compulsion, especially when he'd discovered kids skating on it a few years after he'd first woken as Jack Frost. In hindsight, maybe it had taken them so long to go back out there because of what had happened to him.
"You protect people?"
"Yes," he said. Then, correcting himself, "Kids, mostly. I'm a Guardian."
"Yes. Kids," the spirit box echoed. Then static again. "Guardian."
Interesting. It didn't catch all of that. Why? How did it even work?
"This is unbelievable," the man not asking questions whispered, attention fixed on the cameras. "We've never gotten so many responses. It's hard to understand what's being said right now, but I'm very much looking forward to playing the recording back later."
"What happened to your body?"
"What?" Jack blinked. There was a question he hadn't been expecting.
"They couldn't find your body," he elaborated. "Why?"
Jack looked down at himself. How was he supposed to explain that? "I'm still using it." He crept a little closer. The box was just a small, black, electronic device. There was nothing obvious to it that could explain how it worked. He reached out a finger to touch it.
The man holding it immediately jolted backwards. The box slipped from his hand, and the static sound it was producing silenced.
"What?" the other one asked, alarmed. "What happened?"
"It moved," he gasped. "Something moved it." He stooped down to retrieve the device, turning it over in his hands. "It's not broken."
"Sorry," Jack apologised, but without the spirit box on, there was no way for them to hear him.
He watched them a moment longer as they quickly swapped the spirit box out for some kind of scanner. He'd probably lingered long enough; he'd had more than enough bad experiences to know how humans typically responded to ghosts, regardless that he technically wasn't one. It was safer to stay hidden. And he had more than enough believers now to not feel the ache of invisibility as strongly as he used to.
And speaking of, maybe he'd swing by the Bennett's place. The men had mentioned Jamie; maybe he had some answers.
.
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Jerry and Ben sat in front of their laptop, the camera crew looming over their shoulders as they loaded the recordings they'd managed to catch at the graveyard. The recordings and the knocks responding to their calls had been the only things they'd managed to catch on camera, but Jerry still swore up and down he'd seen frost travel across the bark of a tree, faster than what could be called natural.
"Are you ready?" Ben asked.
"Ready," Jerry nodded.
"First recording."
"Did you save Jamie Bennett from being hit by a truck?"
"Jamie?"
"He responded to the name," Jerry noted.
"Sounds confused, though," one of their cameramen said.
Confused by the name, or confused by their mention of it?
"Second recording," Ben said, and hit play.
"Jamie Bennett. He said you talked to him."
"Yeah?"
Jamie said he'd talked to Jack Frost. Ben had gone out on a hunch when he'd said it had been Jackson Overland who'd talked to Jamie, but Jackson's response confirmed the hunch: the kids of Burgess had become aware of a spirit in their vicinity who seemed to have some control over the weather (something Jerry still couldn't explain), and had concluded that it must be Jack Frost. Not quite, though the names were similar.
But more importantly...
"You know what this means, right?" Jerry said slowly.
"Jamie Bennett found a way to communicate with a spirit," Ben finished.
The question was how. Jamie had told Ben that he was a fan of the show, which meant he'd be at least partially familiar with the equipment they used, but that didn't mean he had access to any of it. What method had he used? They might have to go back for a follow-up interview.
The next two recordings confirmed Jerry's own hunch. Jackson Overland was somehow responsible for the strange weather patterns in Burgess, and that he was doing it to protect people – a rare, benevolent spirit. It was almost unheard of in their career.
"Okay, last one," Ben said.
"What happened to your body?"
"What?"
Confusion. Did he not understand the question? Even in the recordings they'd taken at other sites where the spirit box had gotten results, it was rare to get anything as cohesive as what they were hearing here. This was a spirit capable of complex thought; it was more than just residual energy. With enough time, the things they could learn from Jackson Overland's spirit could be monumental.
"They couldn't find your body," the recording continued. "Why?"
"I'm still using it."
Jerry felt a chill go down his spine that had nothing to do with proximity to the dead. He turned to his brother to find his own wide-eyed expression looking back at him.
They played the recording back a second time, and then a third, but the words were too clear to deny.
And, suddenly, he wasn't so sure it was a ghost they were dealing with.