Coalescence (Camden Investigations Book 1)
Read Coalescence (Camden Investigations Book 1) Online
Authors: Gary Starta
Coalescence
Copyrigh
t © 2015
Gary Starta
First Edition January 2015
Published in Australia
Digital ISBN:
978-1-925296-00-6
Also available in trade paperback:
Print ISBN:
978-1-925296-01-3
Driven Press
www.drivenpress.net
Cover
Art by Mumson Designs
© 2015
Cover
content used for illustrative purposes only, and any person depicted is a
model.
This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, business establishments,
events, or locales, is entirely coincidental
.
The following story is set in the United States of
America and therefore has been written in US English. The spelling and usage
reflect that.
All rights reserved. No
part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the
Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and for all
other inquiries, contact Driven Press by email: [email protected]
“We only have to look at ourselves to see how
intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I
imagine they might exist in massive ships . . . having used up
all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become
nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can
reach.”—
Stephen Hawking
I
RIS
C
AMDEN, LEAD
investigator of Colorado Ghost Hunters, resisted the
urge to shield herself with her hands. It would only serve to spook her team.
Besides, it was only a paperback book that had been hurled down the stairway.
Nothing too heavy, it splayed open, careening harmlessly against a wall before
sliding down a banister. Missed her by a paranormal mile—
this time
—but
what if the next projectile was less scholarly and a whole lot pointier?
In her gut, Iris felt the book had not been merely
levitating despite the poor aim of the poltergeist. The book came from the
upstairs of the client’s home. The intent was clear. Someone wanted the investigators
out of the house. But who? She was certain her team was in danger. The thudding
of the book on wood flooring did nothing to alleviate the pounding of her
heart, which she imagined expanding in size and revealing her fear to the team.
Iris felt her heart knocking against her ribcage, paralyzing her with fear, and
cutting the tether that kept the ghost hunters glued to reality. She was in
charge, but she felt just barely.
Reality was debatable. But Iris
liked
to think
reality divided the partition between the living and the spirit world. Iris
existed only in the alive, real world. Her mentor, Ron, had drilled this notion
into her ad nauseam for not only her safety but also the investigators of her
future team. Now in charge of that future team, three years after leaving Ron
and the paranormal society that educated her, she believed maintaining a grip
on that tether was paramount. It was the imaginary rope that kept her sided
with reality, joined with rationality. It was also her responsibility. Her team
depended on her. Yet, as if she were an astronaut floating precariously close
to a cold, undefined abyss of space, Iris struggled, imagining the invisible
tether becoming more and slippery and her hold of it weakening by the second.
The question screamed.
What should we do?
Her team
did not verbalize this. Yet Iris knew they were asking it. The team remained a
step behind Iris, as if awaiting her instructions. She half turned to view
them. Kassidy, at twenty-six, one year Iris’s junior, who continued to aim her
camera up the stairway, ready to record. Her curly blonde locks bounced,
tension and excitement conspiring to keep a shaky hold of her recorder. Iris
believed the digital equipment had the ability to compensate for Kassidy’s
gyrations. She wasn’t about to reprimand her. Not when her team had never
experienced a poltergeist scenario prior, and especially not when she had only
one—
count that one
—firsthand experience with an unruly
spirit.
A glint of sun fading in late afternoon twilight
illuminated Rachel’s face briefly. Enough so Iris could recognize Rachel’s
expression as one she might have worn three years prior. The young woman, thin
as a bone, who wore her hair in a simple bob, struggled to maintain a brave
face in the wake of body consuming emotion—feelings unruly as the
misbehaving spirit, feelings tugging from within, forcing themselves to the
exterior, until the corners of Rachel’s mouth twitched, as Iris imagined her
own face had once done. At twenty-three, she was the same age as when Iris encountered
her first poltergeist. The gleam of youth kept Rachel baby-faced, invoking an
image of innocence. Guilt pangs competed with Iris’s other unwanted emotions.
It was a cacophony of internal chatter bound to force Iris to make a mistake.
In this situation, one mistake could cost a life. She already felt guilty
enough about her younger sister, the absent fourth member of the Colorado Ghost
Hunters. She couldn’t allow self-doubt to hurt her team because she was lost in
a guilt fog.
Iris willed the poltergeist to keep the projectiles aimed
at her. Foolishly, she’d opted to wear glasses today instead of contacts.
Glasses with frames so damned big they might have been fashioned in the 80s. No
matter. She would let the next object smack her in the face, smashing her
lenses, impairing her eyesight, if it meant keeping Kassidy and Rachel from
harm. Okay. Now she felt as if she were a leader. Leaders made sacrifices.
Besides, Iris never imagined herself to be a beauty. She had the kind of eyes
boys would love to drown in, Kassidy often joked. She liked to think boys, at
least one boy, might want to know her for her mind.
Ron, her mentor, and a man she once had a crush on, had
led her and a team of inexperienced investigators into the Stanley Hotel, the
Estes Park haunt that inspired the infamous Stephen King novel. Ron epitomized
leadership never letting his voice waver or doubt nag his confidence. Not even
when the team confronted child-sized apparitions who lobbed spheres of red
glowing light their way. Ron allowed one of those translucent red objects to
penetrate his body, keeping his team shielded in the process. The Society never
quite figured out what the red ball of light contained, but it changed Ron, a
once confident investigator who soon fell into a stupor, too inhibited to make
a mark in either the conventional world and most definitely not as a paranormal
investigator. It forever altered people’s conceptions of him. His refusal to
ever talk about the encounter led Iris and many others to conclude Ron was mad
at himself for allowing the translucent orb to shatter his confidence. He not
only sequestered himself away from ghost hunting but from Iris. Iris wished he
had opened up. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he had been demonized. Just what could
a ball of light do to a person? It seemed insane to even ask this question. But
the event forced Iris to bury her feelings for Ron and move on.
Iris couldn’t blame anyone for the predicament she was
in. She came into it voluntarily. If some other object or projectile would strike
her, violate her, she would allow it.
But was this sacrifice forged from bravery or nagging
waves of guilt?
“W
E’RE NOT
here to harm you. The owners of this home
do
not
want to harm you.” The words rang oddly in Iris’s head. Sure, they
weren’t here to harm, especially since they were the ones on the receiving side
of the spirit’s angst. A break in its restlessness allowed Iris time to say
those words for her team’s benefit. Reinforcement to keep the team believing
they could reckon with the force that set things in flight one floor above
them. They had a chance to negotiate with it because it was intelligent. It had
maneuvered the Morses out of the home, and it was doing a pretty good job at
keeping the ghost hunters at bay. All were crouched low in the small foyer
located between the front door and the upstairs staircase.
Their proximity to safety tempted Iris to give Kassidy
and Rachel her permission to escape through the front door. That door, Iris
reminded herself, was their path to reality. The staircase, eerily swathed in
shadow and light, led to what the ghost falsely perceived to be
its
reality. The ghost had no business trying to live in the upstairs of a
three-bedroom, two-bath, single family home. It was supposed to live in the
confines of a dimension reserved for souls who crossed over. It was all pretty
simple, really. Iris just had to convince it to leave—to crossover.
Things would be a whole lot easier if they could establish a dialogue, but they
didn’t have the means any more.
Iris’s younger sister DJ, a medium, had left the team
some months ago. She had a valid reason. Iris could not dismiss her sister’s
profound sadness because it affected her almost just as much. The very fact it
didn’t quite affect Iris
as much
as it did DJ was the whole problem in
itself. Guilt washed over her each time she replayed the events leading up to
the tragedy. As a psychic she should have been given a warning, but possessing
supernatural abilities didn’t mean you always had an unfair advantage. This
realization hovered over Iris as if a shadow from the forthcoming night. It
blanketed her with continuous doubt. She could only sense a presence in the
client’s home. Knowledge veiled just like it was prior to DJ’s accident.
Who was this ghost? She had no clue. No advantage. The
homeowners were the original occupants. No one had ever died here. She had no
idea what the spirit wanted. There was one straw to grasp at, however.
The teen boy of the home had purportedly found an object
on the roadside. Curiosity and inexperience conspired to leave the boy no
choice but to claim it as a bedroom trophy. It could very well be the reason
the ghost had appeared simultaneously with the advent of the unidentified
object. “Is the object the reason for your presence?” Iris asked. She would
have to wait for technology to bring her an answer. If the ghost did answer,
its voice would be recorded on the team’s digital recorder as an EVP,
electronic voice phenomena. Iris balled her fist in frustration. She needed
real-time answers. She needed her sister’s ability. She needed DJ back on her
team.
The arrival of this unknown dial-like thing and the ghost
were too coincidental to dismiss. Iris wouldn’t wait for answers. She believed
finding out what the dial-like thing was—something she could only label
as The Object—would give pretty good clues. She would ascend the stairs
and take it from the home for the safety of her clients. As if the ghost was
reading her mind, the dial-like object appeared, paranormally, hovering. It
swooped and rose, left and to the right, in the hall just above the stairs. It
swooped like it had intelligence. Was this an illusion? Possibly the ghost was
simply moving the dial with its intent. And maybe this was all about
intimidation.
Okay, so you know what we came for? Question is: are you going
to let us take it peacefully, or will we have to battle you?
Iris wondered
if the ghost was in her head. She had just presented one very unfavorable
option. Would the poltergeist choose war over peace? The likelihood was probable.
Why else would it have terrified the Morses? It might be protecting the object
as if it owned it. It might perceive the teen as a thief. But if so, why just
scare the family? Why not bloody them? For that matter, why not do the same to
the ghost hunters? There had to be a missing piece to this puzzle. Iris
resolved she would confiscate the dial-like object for study.
Iris raised a hand to signal Rachel. Screw trepidation.
“Rachel, please retrieve a blanket, duffel bag, and lacrosse stick from my trunk.”
She fumbled keys from her pocket and handed them to her wide-eyed colleague.
“We’re going to take the dial forcibly. I suspect we’ll have to do it
unconventionally.” Rachel nodded as if a child lost in a snowstorm. Iris
concluded the young ghost hunter comprehended her instructions but was failing
to register them as reality. Iris had to admit chasing a flying object with a
lacrosse stick smacked of desperation, but it was a plan. Iris wondered many
times if she had taken action three years ago, could she have spared Ron?
Iris had failed to save Ron, her sister, or her
stepmother for that matter. She had two women at her side at the moment. Women
she valued more than just mere colleagues. She had to give them an option.
“Guys, I wouldn’t think any less of you for leaving right
now. We’ve possibly bitten off a lot more than we can chew.” The crunch of
splintered wood from above interrupted. “You can leave the supplies at the door
for me . . .”
Kassidy mouthed the word “no” from behind her camera.
Rachel placed her hand on Kassidy’s shoulder, conveying a gesture of
solidarity.
The dial had left their scope of vision. They would have
to hunt for it—as a unit.
“Okay, then we march those stairs as one. Rachel, we’ll
wait right here for you. Please hurry.” Rachel nodded and skidded herself
backwards, knees as skis on the wooden flooring. In a second, she was out the
door. Now came the waiting. Seconds dripped by as slow as coffee seems to drip
from the brewer when you need a caffeine hit. And Iris needed time to move
quicker. She needed to make a move before she let the same fear that now
engulfed her sister take charge of her as well. She couldn’t let her reality be
taken from her. But up above, away from the terror in the home, a glowering
orange ball of light escaped her notice. She was lost in a time fog.
A
SLAM OF
the door from behind signaled Rachel’s
return. But things had changed in those slow-moving minutes. Items were still
being hurled; books were replaced by a hair dryer, a soccer ball, and a box of
Kleenex. But it was the temperature changes and the way Iris perceived time
moving differently that forced her to think outside of the paranormal box. The
conditions were not the norm for any kind of a haunting, even one that involved
a poltergeist.
Kassidy scratched at her neck with a free hand, the other
still filming. “You feel it too, don’t you?” Iris asked Kassidy in slow
monosyllables.
“Feel what?” Rachel asked. She paused. “Oh, this is
weird. I’m sweating. We should be feeling cold right now.”
“This
is
weird,” Iris answered. As soon as she
moved her eyes from a handheld device back up the stairs, the situation
intensified from weird to weirder.
“What’s going on?” Kassidy asked, almost as if she were
pleading with her camera to tell her what was transpiring. A bottle slipped
through a wall. A back scrubber danced in mid-air. Weird became weirder as
Kassidy continued to record what a realist might dub the impossible.
