The Forgotten Dead by Jordan L. Hawk
CHAPTERONE
“This isOscar Fox with OutFoxing the Paranormal! As usual, we’ll be bringing you a combination of urban exploration and ghost hunting as we investigate a location off the beaten path. Now, I can’t tell you exactly where we are for tonight’s hunt, because we’re here at the invitation of the property owner, who wants to keep his privacy intact. What I can tell you is it’s a farmhouse built in the 1870s and lived in by generations of the owner’s family. Unfortunately, they experienced more than their share of tragedy within these walls.”
The old woman hit pause on the remote, and the large screen on the wall froze. “Are you familiar with this internet show, Dr. Taylor?” she asked.
“No,” Nigel Taylor said, shifting in his seat uncertainly. “I’m not sure why you’re showing me this.”
This was supposed to be a meeting to talk about his grant proposal. The grant he desperately needed if he was to justify his continued employment as an assistant professor at Duke University’s Institute of Parapsychology.
“We need to tighten our belts,”the dean had said, and Nigel would have sworn he’d been looking right at him. “Cut the fat from the meat.”
Research into the survival of personality after death didn’t exactly bring in the big money, and hadn’t since the start of the Cold War. Telekinesis, telepathy, remote viewing…all of those could be measured in the lab, demonstrated with numbers and graphs to organizations with deep pockets.
Ghosts, though, were another thing.
Survival research had been hanging by a thread at the institute when his advisor retired and he was hired to take her place. If he wasn’t able to secure a hefty grant today, that thread would be cut.
This meeting was supposed to be his chance to salvage it. Patricia Montague was heir to a cigarette company fortune; her family had generously donated money to Duke University’s Institute of Parapsychology from the 1930s to the 80s, when they abruptly withdrew all funds. When she’d contacted him about a new grant for research into the survival of personality after death, it had seemed like the answer to his prayers.
And now he was sitting in a lavishly appointed hotel room with her, watching internet videos of all things.
“You teach a course on the history of parapsychology, do you not?” she asked. Patricia Montague was an imposing, pale woman in her 70s, her silver-white hair worn in a pixie cut, dressed in a tailored lavender suit. “Then you know as well as anyone that mediumship is not what it was in its heyday during the 1800s. Even then, most were frauds.”
“But some were—are—genuine.” Nigel looked back to the screen. The video showed a man’s affable face: white skin, dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a grin that invited you to smile along with him. He was a big guy in terms of both height and weight, but moved with the ease of an athlete. The abandoned farmhouse he stood in front of could have been found anywhere from North Carolina on south, its warped boards stripped of paint by sun and rain, century-old oaks towering overhead and dropping enormous branches in the yard and through the roof.
“Who is he?” Nigel asked, wondering what the hell any of this had to do with his grant. “That is, I caught the name, but I’ve never heard of him.”
A small smile touched the corner of Ms. Montague’s mouth. “I take it you don’t follow college football, Dr. Taylor? Back in his student days, Mr. Fox played defensive tackle at Clemson.”
“Right,” said Nigel, as though he’d ever heard the term ‘defensive tackle’ before in his life. “And now he makes ghost hunting videos?”
“Indeed. Keep watching.”
She clicked play again. The video had editing and production values that put OutFoxing the Paranormal above the usual amateur ghost hunting footage that Nigel had seen. Oscar and his camera person made their way through the dilapidated house, Oscar excitedly pointing out finds like an upright piano, in between narrating the tragic history of the house. He had the energy of a golden retriever; just watching him made Nigel feel exhausted.
They investigated the usual suspects: the basement, a bedroom where a woman had died, the stairway where a man fell to his death, a nursery where disease swept away a generation.
It wasn’t until they came to the kitchen, however, that Oscar paused. “Hey, let’s try an EVP—that’s electronic voice phenomena for any new viewers.” He went through the standard questions. “Is anyone here? What’s your name? Why are you here?”
EVPs could collect valuable evidence—or be faked by a bit of sound editing. Without access to the raw files, it was impossible to say which.
The video cut to Oscar listening to the enhanced audio in a studio. “Can you hear me?” seemed to whisper out of the laptop speakers. “Millie. I have to make dinner. It hurts.”
Ms. Montague paused the video and scanned back. “Look at his face immediately before he suggests trying to record any electronic voice phenomena.”
It was an easy face to look at; Oscar was pretty damn cute. With the video slowed down, it was easier to see the change that came over him in the kitchen. His pleasant face contorted, just a fraction of a second. Shock, fear, and pain all seemed to play over his features, before he wiped his expression clean and suggested the EVP.
“You’ll note he never mentioned any stories of the kitchen being haunted,” Ms. Montague said. “Despite the attempt at keeping the location secret, my assistant was able to easily track down the farmhouse in question. He found a brief newspaper article from 1901 about an elderly cook named Millie, who was scalded to death in the kitchen when she collapsed and accidentally pulled a pot of simmering stew onto herself.”
Nigel wasn’t at all sure he liked the direction this conversation was taking. “Maybe Oscar did the same research?”
“Then why not reveal it during the show?” She fixed him with sharp gray eyes. “Instead, Mr. Fox appears puzzled to have found anything in the location. Which in turn suggests the EVP is genuine, not faked.”
“He didn’t say anything about being a medium, though.”
“No, he did not.” She sat back, an almost triumphant expression on her face. “Mr. Fox has never made such a claim, and OutFoxing the Paranormal has never worked with a medium.”
Nigel had never worked with a medium, either, and wasn’t at all sure he wanted to now. Mediumship had been all the rage throughout much of the nineteenth century, and for the early decades of the twentieth. The science of parapsychology had been born through studying them. Hell, the original intent of founding the institute had been to investigate the big questions of life and death, hand in hand with mediums.
Unfortunately, problems cropped up quickly. A séance was hard to quantify scientifically; ESP was much easier to test in the lab. Then an argument arose as to whether mediums were even communicating with the dead at all, or unconsciously using telepathy to pick details about the departed from the minds of others.
Soon focus shifted to four subjects: telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and precognition, all of which could be more easily measured in a laboratory setting. It wasn’t like you could get a poltergeist to come in for testing.
Over the decades, mediums came to be looked at as entertainers at best, frauds at worst. As far as he knew, no one at the institute had worked with one since the 1950s, and he wasn’t keen to be the first to break that streak.
“I’m not sure what this has to do with my grant proposal,” he said warily.
“I’ve looked over OutFoxing the Paranormal’s other videos with a close eye. I believe Mr. Fox is a true medium, who is either ignorant of the source of his impressions, or simply doesn’t wish to associate himself with a profession rife with fakes and grifters.”
Nigel felt a sinking in his gut. “What exactly are you getting at, Ms. Montague?”
“It’s quite simple, Dr. Taylor.” Her hawk-like stare pinned him. “You require three things for your research. The first is money, which I am now offering to you, no strings attached. The second is a team to help you actually do the fieldwork. I believe OutFoxing the Paranormal would be an excellent choice—they’re professional, and they’re based in Winston-Salem, so relatively local. Naturally, this would depend on your finding them a good fit for you, and if they’re amenable.”
No strings attached.Relief swamped him—he was going to get the grant—he could still save his job. Then sense broke through: despite her words, Ms. Montague was very much attaching strings. “What if they don’t want to work with me?”
She shrugged. “We can hardly force anyone to cooperate with us, so I would leave it up to you to find a replacement.”
We,she’d said. Oh yes, this money was indeed coming with caveats. “And the third thing?”
“In the old days,” she said, apparently apropos of nothing, “mediums did more than communicate with the dead. They helped restless ghosts to cross through the veil, to whatever awaits on the other side.”
He stiffened. “I’m quite aware.”
“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to explain your own course to you.” She smiled. “The third thing you need is a location. I’ve looked into your past, Dr. Taylor, and I believe you can provide one.”
Shock froze him to his seat for a moment. “I, uh—”
“I refer to the Matthews house, which has recently gone into foreclosure. One of my shell companies has already acquired it.”
Nigel shot to his feet, heart suddenly racing. Memories kaleidoscoped through his head: riding his bike with Mike in the warm Georgia sun, a fit of childish rage, a haggard man smiling at him from the dinner table. “How do you know about that?”
“Oscar Fox wasn’t the only one I looked into before making my offer,” she said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I know all about you, Dr. Taylor. And I have a very good guess as to why you chose to study survival research, rather than any other field.”
His mouth had gone dry, and a part of him wanted to turn and march out the door. To flee this unexpected ambush. “Why?” he asked instead. “Why are you offering the grant? Why do you want me to go there? What are you getting out of this?”
“Is it so strange that a woman my age would find herself interested in whether our personalities survive after death?” she asked. Too lightly—he didn’t believe that was her only reason for a second. “As for the rest, don’t you agree that your personal involvement could lead to stronger manifestations?”
He swayed slightly, before catching himself. In his memories, a killer grinned at him over dinner. “I imagine you’re correct about that.”
“You need my help,” Ms. Montague said. “Or at least, my money’s help, if you want to survive the next round of budget cuts at the university. Work with me on this—interview the OutFoxing the Paranormal team, go with them to the house, discover whatever you can about both any hauntings and the possible medium—and I’ll make sure you still have a job waiting for you when you’re done.” She leaned over and extended a hand. “What do you say, Dr. Taylor? Do we have a deal?”
He didn’t want to go back to the Matthews house. Did. Not.
But it didn’t look like he was about to get much of a choice.
Nigel reached out and clasped her hand. “We have a deal.”