Ghost Hunt 2: MORE Chilling Tales of the Unknown (31 page)

“I see it!” Jason exclaimed. “Holy cow! It looks like a woman in a long dress.”

Jason sprinted up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. The lighthouse echoed with the sound of his steps. The spiral staircase shook with the force of his climb. Mike and Grant clung to the rail.

“I see it!” Mike heard Grant say from right behind him. He added his light to Grant’s, trying to see what Jason was chasing. “I see it, too, now. That definitely looks like a woman’s long skirt. She’s moving so fast! We should help Jay. Come on.”

Mike raced several steps up. Then he stopped so suddenly that Grant crashed into him.

“What is it?” Grant demanded.
“What?”

“Shhh,” Mike said. “Wait a minute. Listen. Jason! Don’t move.”

From the very top of the lighthouse, he heard it again. The barest whisper.

“Oh my gosh,” Grant said.
“Do you hear that?”

“I hear it.” Mike nodded.

“Help me… help me!”
a woman’s voice sobbed.

Then it stopped. The St. Augustine Lighthouse was silent once more.

“What do we do now?” Mike asked.

“We go up,” Grant answered. “All the way to the top. That’s where the sound is coming from.”

Slowly, step by step, Mike, Grant, and Jason continued up the curving stairs. Mike kept his eyes focused upward. His ears strained for the slightest sound. The team was seven levels up now. Just three more and they would be at the top of the lighthouse.

“I gotta tell you guys, that was pretty incredible,” Jason said quietly. He was in the lead now. “Did you see how
fast
that thing was?”

“She,”
Mike said. “I definitely saw a woman in a long dress.”

“Me too,” Grant said. “And she was running up those stairs like somebody’s life depended on it.”

“Somebody’s might have,” Jason said. “Could she be the mother of the girls who died?”

“No way to know at this point,” Grant answered. “It’s certainly possible.”

“We should try to make contact again,” Mike said.

“Okay,” Grant said. “Go for it.”

“Hello?” Mike called out.

His voice seemed to bounce off the walls of the lighthouse. Slowly, carefully, the team continued to climb. Eight landings now. One more and they would be at the tenth level, where the lighthouse light was.

“Is there somebody here with us? We think we saw you just now, going up the stairs. And we think we heard your voice. We think we heard you ask for help. We’d like to help you, but we don’t know how. Can you tell us? Can you help us help you?”

In front of him, Mike saw Jason hold up a hand. All three TAPS team members stopped walking.

“What?” Grant said, so softly Mike could barely hear him. “What is it, Jay?”

Jason didn’t answer with words. Instead, he leaned out over the edge of the stair rail and looked up. Mike and Grant did the same.

At the very top of the lighthouse, a pale face gazed back down. Long blond hair streamed over her shoulders. Her ruffled skirt flowed through the railings on the staircase. Mike couldn’t see her features clearly, but he was sure he saw a pair of dark eyes, gazing downward.

Mike’s breath stopped in his throat. He felt as if he had taken a quick punch to the gut. “I cannot
believe
I’m seeing this!” he breathed.

“Look!” Jason suddenly said. He reached back and seized Mike by the arm. “Look at that! Do you see that?”

Jason aimed his flashlight. There was a hand on the railing. Like the face, it was pale and white. Mike could actually see the fingers curl around the rail.

Then, totally without warning, the hand moved. It slid along the rail so fast it was a blur.

“She’s coming!” Jason shouted. “Guys, she’s coming straight at us!”

Mike felt a surge of energy. He pushed past Jason and began to climb up to meet the ghost!

Jason and Grant followed close behind. They reached the ninth landing. Mike was traveling so fast he skidded around the corner. He clutched at the rail, desperately trying to keep his balance.

“Can you see her?” Grant called out.

“Not yet,” Mike called back. “But I’m almost to the top.”

Flash!

A bright light flooded the top of the lighthouse. Mike cried out and covered his eyes.

“What
is
that?” he cried. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Jason replied. He leaned over, resting his hands on his knees as he sucked in air. Then he straightened up and looked around. “Wait a minute. Check this out,” he said.

He pointed to a light attached to the curve of the lighthouse wall.

“That light must be a motion sensor. We set it off. Well, I guess that’s it, guys. Whoever that woman is, she’s gone now.”

“She may be gone
now,
” Mike said, “but I definitely saw something. We were not alone. There’s an entity inside this lighthouse.”

“I can’t wait to see what you’ve got,” Pete Abernathy said the next morning.

He and Mike were sitting at Pete’s table in the visitor center. Jason and Grant stood behind them. Mike had a laptop and an audio recorder all set up, ready to play back both images and sounds from the investigation.

“Let me start by saying that this is one of the most remarkable cases we’ve ever encountered,” Mike said. He glanced back over his shoulder. “I’m sure Jay and Grant agree.”

“Absolutely,” Jason said.

“I’m going to start with the audio,” Mike went on. He pressed the play button on the audio recorder. Instantly, the room was filled with sound.

“That’s us, running like crazy up the stairs,” Mike filled in.

“Shhh. Wait a minute. Listen. Jason! Don’t move,” Mike’s voice cried.

The sound of footsteps halted abruptly. There was a moment of eerie silence. Then a new voice. One so low it was almost impossible to make out.

Pete leaned toward the recorder. “That’s exactly what I heard the other night!” he said. “That woman, begging for help. I can’t believe you actually recorded her. That is totally wild.”

“We thought so,” Grant said as Mike turned off the recorder. “But we’re not done yet. Go ahead, Mike.”

“We set up several cameras inside the lighthouse,” Mike explained. “One of them was aimed straight up. What you’re about to see took place at the top level.”

Mike pressed a button on the laptop, and the screen came to life. It was very dark. But the spiral stairs were clearly visible.

“Okay, now watch right
here,
” Mike said. He leaned over and pointed to the screen.

At the topmost level, a pale form appeared. It leaned over the railing, as if staring down. Then it made a sudden, swooping motion down the spiral stairs. It rounded the first corner and disappeared.

“Oh my gosh!” Pete exclaimed. “That’s incredible. It’s going so fast!”

“And there’s another thing,” Jason said. “Play it again, will you, Mike?”

“Sure thing,” Mike said. He recued the footage, then played it again.

“See where that is?” Jason asked. He leaned over and pointed to the screen. “That’s the very top level of the lighthouse. We were about two levels down. We went running up there after that thing. Right before we hit the top level, our movement triggered the motion-sensor light.

“The figure we saw
moved,
” Jason continued. “It moved
fast.
You just saw that. It was right up at the top level. And its movement didn’t trip the sensor light. But just a few minutes later, when we ran up there, we did.”

Pete was silent for a long moment. “So you are saying that this woman didn’t set off the motion sensor, because she isn’t a human with a body. Is that what you mean?”

“Yes, that’s what it seems like to us,” Jason said.

“Well,” Pete replied, “you have just officially made a believer out of me, guys. I seriously expected you would come in this morning and tell me it was all my imagination. I sure didn’t expect anything like this. But what do I do now? What about my visitors?”

“We’ve been talking about that,” Jason admitted. “From what you’ve told us, these paranormal sightings aren’t new. People have been having unusual experiences in and around the lighthouse for quite some time.”

“Yes.” Pete nodded. “That’s right. For years now.”

“But there haven’t been any accidents, right? No visitor has ever been threatened or harmed?”

“No. No accidents.” Pete nodded again, more firmly this time. “I know that’s correct. I checked the records myself.”

“Then I think that’s your answer,” Grant said. “Whatever’s going on inside that lighthouse, whoever the entity is, she means you and your visitors no harm.”

“It could even be what we call a residual haunting,” Mike
filled in. “In a residual haunting, the spirit isn’t aware of the ‘real’ world at all. It’s just repeating the same actions, over and over again. Sort of like an endless loop. The spirit is literally stuck in time.

“It may be upsetting for you—particularly if the ghost is the mother of those two little girls who died. But she probably doesn’t even know you’re there.”

Pete was silent for several moments.

“So it’s really true,” he said. “I’m the caretaker of a haunted lighthouse.”

“Well, that was definitely one for the record books,” Mike said as Grant pulled the TAPS SUV out of the St. Augustine Lighthouse parking lot.

“Absolutely.” Jason nodded. “And I thought Pete handled the whole situation really well.”

“I think so, too,” Grant agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he starts including information about the spirit on his tours of the lighthouse.”

“There is just one thing, though,” Mike said.

“What?” Jason asked.

“Anybody but me notice that the weather down here’s a whole lot warmer than in Rhode Island?”

“That’s a no-brainer,” Grant said with a laugh. “Of course.”

“I don’t suppose you’d consider relocating the office,” Mike said.

“Nice try,” Jason said.

“Oh, well,” Mike said. “You know what we say.”

He leaned forward, extending one hand in a fist. Jason reached back and gave Mike the traditional TAPS fist bump.

“You bet I do,” Jason said. “On to the next one!”