Chapter 4-
The nice moment I had singing in the car with James did not last long. James quickly got cranky from driving around all day and I could not stand talking to him, so I plugged my ear buds into my iPod and turned away from him, listening to the music so I wouldn't have to listen to him complaining. It took several hours to leave Alabama and James refused to stop at a hotel, so we drove late into the night. It was pretty stupid of him to drive all night, considering how unbearable it made him. I guess he was just being stubborn as usual. I myself drifted off around midnight, and when I woke up seven hours later we were already on the edge of Mississippi. At least we were making good time.
Finally in Faulkner we stopped at a hotel so James could sleep. I wasn't tired so I took a much-needed shower and drove down to the nearest Starbucks for some coffee and breakfast. At the counter an article from the newspaper caught my eye. The cashier must have noticed my staring because he asked if I wanted one. I left with the stuff I bought and looked at the newspaper curiously as I walked back to the car. There had been a murder at Faulkner High School yesterday in the boy's bathroom. The person had a huge gash on their head from being banged against the sink. This was the fifth murder like that. It sounded strange, my kind of strange.
While I waited for James to get his beauty sleep I read through the article a few times and searched the murders up on my laptop. There were pictures of the bodies and under each one was a small paragraph about the person who had died, who found them, etcetera. Finally, James woke up. I told him about the murders and he read the article in the newspaper thoughtfully.
"Sounds like one of ours, right?" I asked him. He shrugged.
"We could check it out. Might be a ghost or something." He paused and looked at me curiously. "How come all of a sudden you're okay with working a job? Last time you freaked out when I so much as mentioned one. What changed your mind?" he asked me. I shifted in my seat, wondering how to answer when I didn't know myself. Part of me still wanted to turn a blind eye and keep going.
"I dunno, I guess we just might as well since we're here. We can't let people keep dying without at least attempting to do something about it," I said. James grinned.
"There's the Ally I know," he said, playfully ruffling my hair. I bat his hand away with the rolled up newspaper, but I was holding back a smile myself.
"Don't call me Ally."
Once we were all suited up we drove over to the high school to check out the body and see if we could find something supernatural. Thankfully it was a Saturday so there wouldn't be any students or staff members there. I had the EMF meter with me in case it was a ghost. James and I walked up through the doors, flashing our fake FBI badges. Today we were Agents Nikelson and O'Reilly.
We found the student's body quickly, and as the newspaper said, his head had a deep gash in it. The sink was covered in blood where the student's head had hit it. It made me sad to see someone so young killed. All of the deaths had been students. Unfortunately, there hadn't been any witnesses. I pulled out the EMF meter and held it up to the body discreetly. Unsurprisingly, the reading indicated that there had definitely been something unnatural about the killings. I waved the meter around the whole hallway to be sure, and as I thought, it was everywhere. James caught up to me from talking to the local sheriff.
"What's the reading?" he asked.
"Definitely something. My bet is a ghost. What do you say we do a bit of research on past deaths here?" I said, and James agreed. We went back to our hotel and I was immediately on the computer. In many ways I was like my Uncle Sam, and my knack for research was one of them. James was more like our dad, enough where it freaked me out sometimes and got on my nerves.
Pretty soon I found something.
"Listen to this. A couple months ago a girl, Katelyn Roberts, disappeared at the High School. No one ever saw her after that. D'you think it might be her?" I asked.
"I dunno, maybe. Should we go talk to her parents, ask about her?" he asked. I nodded and looked at the article on the computer for her address, finding it quickly. I told James and he grabbed his coat.
"Let's go."
The Robert's had a petite house a few blocks down from the high school. And by petite I mean really small. James knocked on the door and soon a worn out man answered.
"Hello, sir. Are you Katelyn Robert's father?" I asked. The man nodded.
"I am. And you are?" he asked.
"We're Agents Nikelson and O'Reilly; we're here to ask a few questions about Katelyn's dea- uh, disappearance," James said as we showed him our badges. Mr. Robert's looked puzzled.
"That was months ago, I already talked to the police," he said. I nodded.
"Yes, but with the recent deaths at the high school we're wondering if maybe they're connected somehow. We're just following up on it," I explained. The man still looked a bit confused but he let us in.
"So tell us about Katelyn," James said as we sat down.
"What do you want to know?" Mr. Roberts asked. I handed him pictures of the kids that had died at the high school recently.
"Did she know any of these boys?" I asked. Mr. Roberts frowned.
"These boys always made fun of Katelyn because of her glasses. She'd come home crying more often than not because of them," he said angrily. I exchanged a look with James.
"There was another one, though. What's his name…" Mr. Roberts said thoughtfully. "That's right, Trevor. Trevor Hiatt. He was something like the ring leader."
"Hm. And uh, where does Trevor Hiatt live?" I asked. Mr. Roberts looked a bit surprised but he gave me an address and James and I stood.
"Thank you Mr. Roberts. And we're very sorry for your loss," James said, and we left. It was getting late so we decided to go to the house tomorrow.
"What do you want to bet this Trevor kid and his friends had something to do with Katelyn's death?" I said as we got ready to go to sleep. James nodded, and we both climbed into bed.
"Night," I said. James grunted in reply. Slowly, I drifted off to sleep.
The next morning we went straight to the Hiatt's house and knocked on the door. A woman answered the door and smiled.
"Hello, how can I help you?" she asked kindly. James and I showed her our badges.
"I'm Agent Nikelson and this is my partner, Agent O'Reilly," James said. I was getting sick of my fake name. I had to be the Irish one 'cause of my pale skin and reddish hair. "Is your son Trevor home?" Immediately Mrs. Hiatt frowned.
"He's not in any trouble, is he?" she asked, her voice full of concern.
"We'll see. Could we talk to him?" James asked. She nodded.
"Come in, he's up in his room. I'll get him," she said as we walked through the door. A minute later a teenage boy came downstairs.
"Trevor, we need to talk to you about Katelyn Roberts."
"I don't understand, why're you talking to me about her? I barely know her," Trevor said once we were seated in the living room. His mother was considerately keeping her distance.
"We understand that you and your friends made fun of this girl about her glasses?" I said. Trevor laughed confusedly.
"Since when do they send FBI agents about that? What're you gonna do, arrest me?" he challenged. James rolled his eyes.
"Two months ago Katelyn disappeared at school. Do you know anything about that?" he asked. Trevor froze.
"No. How would I?" he said, not meeting our eyes. I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration.
"Look, all I know is that that chick disappeared a few months ago and now five of my friends are dead. What does any of this have to do with me?" he asked. His act wasn't convincing me, and I knew James saw right through it too.
"Trevor, I think you know exactly what it has to do with you. Now please tell us what you know. And no more lying, you're not fooling anyone," James said harshly. Trevor looked at him stubbornly.
"I have nothing to do with it. Now leave me alone," Trevor said, and got up and left. I sighed exasperatedly. We walked back to our car and went back to the hotel. Obviously the kid wasn't budging.
"I still think the kid's hiding something," I said. James agreed.
"He's probably next on Katelyn's list. We should keep a lookout at the school tomorrow. Just in case," he said. I frowned.
"How're we gonna pull that off? We don't exactly blend in. Or you won't at least," I said. I was pretty small and could almost definitely pass off as a high school student, but not James.
"I could become a janitor or something," he said. I shrugged.
"Okay. I guess that should work."
The next morning James and I were at the high school. In my backpack I had the essentials: salt, iron, everything we would need to fight off a ghost. I was glad I didn't have to wear some dumb uniform to blend in, unlike my dear brother in the janitor's uniform. He looked ridiculous. I just had to hope no one would see the gun in my backpack.
We both followed Trevor at a safe enough distance. Nothing strange happened for most of the day. At lunch I shadowed Trevor discreetly, when he suddenly got up and left the cafeteria. I texted James, telling him to be on the lookout. Then I waited.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a text from James: Boy's bathroom, hurry. Immediately I dashed to the boy's bathroom and knocked on the door.
"James?" I called. James' voice came from inside telling me to come in. He and Trevor were standing in a circle of salt in the corner. The lights were broken and it was dark except for my brother's flashlight beam. Trevor looked horrified while James looked irritated.
"Still say you have nothing to do with Katelyn's death?" he asked Trevor angrily. Trevor looked at him with wide eyes.
"It was an accident! Really, I swear!" Trevor said anxiously, looking from me and James. I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration and shut my eyes.
"Dammit, Trevor, what happened?!" I growled.
"I stole her glasses one day 'cause she could barely see without them. I refused to give them back so she… she chased me around, trying to take them from me. She followed me into here where one of my friends tripped her. She fell and hit her head on the sink… I swear, we didn't mean for her to die! It was an accident!" Trevor looked on the verge of tears.
"And what happened to the body?" James asked.
"We- we stuffed it in a trashcan and took it out to the forest by the field. We hid it there until after school and we buried it," the teenager said. "Why?"
"Just take us there!" I said urgently. James grabbed a shovel from his stash of Janitor supplies. The boy complied and we rushed to the field as fast as we could. James filled me in on what had happened in the bathroom before I got there. Apparently James had followed Trevor there and was pretending to mop outside, when he heard Trevor scream and ran in. The ghost had appeared and tried to attack Trevor. James had dispelled it with and iron rod and made a salt circle, where he and Trevor stood as James explained everything to him.
We rushed into the forest just off the school grounds, and Trevor pointed at a big rock.
"We put that rock there, as a headstone sorta. This is where the body is," he informed us. James began digging quickly while I made a small circle of salt around Trevor.
"I don't understand, why salt?" Trevor asked.
"I dunno, salt repels ghosts. If you stand in a circle of salt ghosts can't get you," I explained quickly. I pulled out my gun, which had rock salt rounds in it. Trevor widened his eyes at it.
It took longer than I hoped but eventually James reached the body. It saddened me to see the poor girl, not decayed yet, with a gash on her forehead. She was wearing glasses.
"Hand me the salt," James said. I tossed it over to him, and he poured it all over the body. I squirted some gasoline on it, and then began rummaging around for the lighter.
"What're you doing?" Trevor asked, sounding repulsed.
"You have to salt and burn the body, it's how you-" Suddenly James was thrown into a tree by a pale young girl wearing glasses. Katelyn's ghost. I gasped and shot at it with the rock salt, and flickered away. But she wouldn't be gone for long. I finally managed to find the lighter and lit it, just as Katelyn reappeared. I threw the lighter onto the body. Katelyn stopped coming towards me and burst into flames, and with a final ghostly shriek she was gone. James still lay at the base of the tree and I ran over to him frantically.
"James?! James, are you okay?" I asked, shaking him. He opened his eyes and sat up, wincing. Above his eyebrow there was a cut, but it didn't look like anything too serious.
"You okay?" I asked him. James nodded.
"M'fine, just a bit banged up. Don't worry about it," he told me, and stood up. I turned back to Trevor, who stood in the salt circle, pale-faced and wide-eyed.
"You okay, kid?" James asked. Trevor nodded wordlessly.
"Good. I presume you've learned your damn lesson about bullying people?" My brother sounded really exasperated with the kid. Trevor nodded again. "Good. Now go back to school."
"Thank god that's over," I said when we were back in the car. We had already filled up the hole and packed our bags back at the hotel and we were, thankfully, leaving Faulkner. I felt bad that Katelyn's dad wouldn't know what had happened, but we couldn't really explain it to him. James snorted.
"No kidding," he said. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and pulled it out, answering.
"Hello? Who is this?" I asked.
"Allison?" said a familiar voice on the other end, and I froze with shock.
"Alex?" I gasped. Peripherally I saw James look at me in alarm.
"Ally, please, help me," Alex sounded scared.
"Alex I'm coming! It'll be okay, I'm coming," I said, panicked.
"Ally-" His voice was cut off by a cold laugh.
"Don't worry, Ally," the voice said my nickname full of sarcasm. "Your little boyfriend and I are having all kinds of fun." Rage filled my veins.
"Let him go!" I shouted. James started and put a hand on my shoulder, trying to calm me down, but I pushed him off. The demon laughed at my anger.
"Oh, but Allison, our fun's just getting started." And then the line went dead.