Ghost Hunt: Chilling Tales of the Unknown (7 page)

“I—I can’t see anything,” she stammered. “What did you see out there?”

Lyssa couldn’t make out Jen’s reply. “What?” she called. “I can’t hear you.”

Jen appeared at Lyssa’s side. Lyssa jumped. Her forehead smacked against the hard window glass.

“Ouch!” she cried. “I’m getting beat up here!”

“Are you okay?” Jen asked.

“Guess I don’t have my sea legs,” Lyssa said, rubbing her sore forehead. “And I couldn’t hear you, Jen. Why were you whispering?”

“Huh? Whispering? I didn’t whisper,” Jen said.

“I… I heard you whisper something,” Lyssa insisted. “But—”

She stopped.

She heard it again. Another whisper.

Right behind her.

Jen’s mouth dropped open in shock. Her eyes went wide as she turned to Lyssa.

Jen heard it too.

A hoarse whisper. So close in the tiny, dark cabin.

Jen and Lyssa spun around. Lyssa fumbled for the switch on her flashlight and clicked it on. Bright light stabbed through the cabin of the houseboat. It caught the glass of the big window opposite where she and Jen stood.

“Turn it off. Turn it off!” Jen cried. “You’ll scare it away.”

Lyssa cut off the flashlight. “Sorry. It was so close. You heard that, right? Tell me you heard that.”

“I heard it,” Jen said. “It was right behind us. I couldn’t make out any words, though. Could you?”

“No, I couldn’t. Let me see if I can make contact.” Lyssa took
a deep, shuddering breath. “Is there anybody here?” she asked quietly, calmly. “I’m Lyssa and this is Jen. Is there someone else here with us?”

As if answering her, the houseboat lurched back and forth. Lyssa grabbed onto Jen. They both struggled to keep their balance.

“Weird. Why is the boat rocking so hard?” Lyssa asked.

“I don’t know,” Jen said. “I think we have to go out there and find out.”

“I
knew
you were going to say that,” Lyssa said.

Jen was quiet for a moment. Finally, she whispered, “We’re Ghost Hunters. We can do this, right?”

“Right. You go first.”

Jen opened the door. Cold air poured into the houseboat. “Don’t trip,” she warned before stepping out onto the outside deck. Lyssa followed. The rain had stopped, but Lyssa felt the force of the wind at once. It felt like giant hands trying to pluck the two TAPS team members right off the boat.

“Lyssa.” Jen spun around to face her. “Check this out.”

She held up her EMF meter. “It went all the way to over ten,” she said. “That’s a huge jump. It could mean something is here.”

“I don’t see anything, do you?” Lyssa asked.

“No,” Jen answered.

Bam. Bam. BAM BAM
BAM
!

The boat slammed into the dock. Only the outside railing kept Lyssa and Jen from tumbling overboard.

Jen shivered. “Maybe we should go back inside and wait for the wind to die down a bit. What do you think?”

Lyssa opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came out. As the winds howled around her, she stared straight ahead. Stared without blinking… without breathing.

Stared at the figure on the dock.

The man who was staring back at her.

As Lyssa stood frozen on the deck, everything went still and silent. She couldn’t hear the wind. She couldn’t feel the rocking and tossing of the boat.

She could only stare at the figure at the far end of the dock. A man… in ragged old clothes.

“Are you seeing this? Please tell me you’re seeing this,” she breathed to Jen.

“Yes,” Jen whispered back. “I see him.”

His face was lost behind shadows. But Lyssa could feel his eyes on her. She knew he was staring back at her.

He wore a cap. It looked like a Navy captain’s cap. She could clearly see the outlines of his large overcoat. The hem ragged and torn, falling over baggy trousers.

She sucked in a breath as the man started to move. Slowly he moved along the dock. Gliding closer.

Lyssa whispered, “He’s not walking. Look, Jen—he’s floating. Off the dock.”

Closer.

I am looking at a real live ghost,
Lyssa thought.

For the first time, face-to-face with a ghost.

What if he gets angry? What if he doesn’t want us here?

She gazed around, feeling panic. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

And then suddenly, the apparition stopped moving. It hovered in the air just inches off the dock.

This man… he’s just as Diana described,
Lyssa thought.

The figure became hazy. The storm winds seemed to blow him apart. Then he shimmered back together.

He’s dressed for sailing,
Lyssa saw. And yes, that was a Navy cap on his head.

Make contact, Lyssa,
she told herself.
Do your job!

“Um. Hello,” she called. “I’m Lyssa and this is Jen. Can you hear us?”

“We want to know who you are,” Jen spoke up. “Is there something you want to tell us? Something we can do to help you?”

The figure shimmered and faded. The wind seemed to blow him away. Then he reappeared, rippling, shaking.

“Is there a reason you return here?” Lyssa asked. “Is there something we should know about you or about this place?”

Lyssa gasped as the ghostly figure rose into the air. It floated above her. It swayed from side to side. Like a kite carried by a strong breeze.

Lyssa took a step back. But there was nowhere to go. No way
to escape from the spirit. Fear gripped her. She wanted to scream, but no sound came. She stood and waited for the ghost to board the boat…

Then he vanished.

Gone.

The sky was black. The dock empty. The wind howled all around.

Lyssa hugged herself tightly. But she couldn’t stop shivering. “Let’s g-go get J-Jason and Grant,” she stammered.

She let Jen lead her back into the cabin.

Out of the wind, she shut her eyes. But she still saw the ghost in front of her. Floating. Shadowy. And totally real!

“Let’s go over it again,” Grant said.

It was a few days later. The TAPS team was in the conference room back in their office.

Lyssa was glad to be back on land. But the excitement of the case hadn’t faded.

“Well, we had quite a bit of paranormal activity on this one,” Grant began. “The voice Lyssa and Jen heard comes through very clearly on the audio.”

“And Lyssa and Jen also had a sighting,” Jason added. “Unfortunately that was out of the range of the video camera. But they both saw the same apparition.”

Mike and his twin, Mark, stared at Lyssa and Jen. “How does it feel?” Mark asked.

“I can tell you how it
felt
,” Lyssa said. “I was absolutely terrified. It was like every shred of training went right out of my head.”

“The two of us…” Jen started. “It took us a while. Staring at that guy. But we finally got ourselves together. We tried to communicate with him.”

“But he sailed off with the wind,” Lyssa said. She motioned with one hand. “Poof.”

“Well, at least we can tell Mr. Martin that his daughter didn’t make the whole thing up,” Mike said.

“Actually,” Mark started. He flipped open a folder and pulled out several pieces of paper. “We can do better than that.”

The next day, Jason, Lyssa, and Mark returned to the Martins’ houseboat. It was a warm, sunny day. The storm clouds had moved on.

“We think we have some explanations for what your daughter experienced,” Jason told Diana’s parents.

“Not only that,” he continued, “Lyssa and her teammate Jen saw a figure of a man.”

Diana’s face filled with surprise. “You saw
him
? For real?”

“For real,” Lyssa said. “I’m going to remember it for the rest of my life.”

“Wow.” Diana turned to her dad. “So now we know I’m not going nuts!”

“Honey, I never thought you were going nuts,” her father said. “I just couldn’t understand.”

“Well, maybe this will help,” Mark began. “While these guys were investigating here on the boat, I did some research about Heron’s Point. This whole island was private property until just a couple of years ago.”

“Somebody owned the whole island?” Diana said.

Mark nodded. “The man who owned this island was named Peter Stone. He lived on a houseboat—something like this one. Until there was a tragedy. One day his boat caught fire, and he was trapped inside.”

“Did he die?” Diana asked. “Did he die in the fire?”

“Yes, he did,” Mark answered softly. “Right here at Heron’s Point Dock. We think the spirit you saw may be Peter Stone.”

“What about all the other things Diana told us about?” Mr. Martin asked. “The banging noises and stuff showing up in strange places?”

“The banging noise has a more everyday explanation,” Jason said. “It’s the bumpers on the dock. They’re old and loose. They make a lot of noise when your boat hits them just right.”

“Well,” Mr. Martin said. “So at least the bumpers aren’t haunted.”

“We
never
assume anything is haunted,” Jason said. “We always come with an open mind. And we actually
like
to debunk things. It makes the times when we do decide we’ve encountered the paranormal that much stronger. I’d like to play a recording for you.”

He turned to Lyssa. “Please play back the recording you made in the main cabin.”

“Will do,” Lyssa said. She pulled out the portable recorder. The sound was already cued up. She pressed the play button.

Everyone listened.

“I can hear footsteps. Is that you?” Diana asked.

“Yes.” Lyssa nodded.

Then the whisper came on. So clear and close by that even Mr. Martin jumped.

After the whisper—just silence. Lyssa turned off the equipment.

“I wish we could tell you we know what the voice says,” Jason said. “We can’t make out the words. But the voice certainly sounds like a human whisper. It’s a very clear recording…”

“A recording of a ghost?” Mr. Martin asked.

Jason nodded.