Pennies for the Ferryman - 01 (23 page)

It’s not just a single ghost, but many of them! I was stunned, walking onto the battlefield. I counted at least twenty milling around. It makes me wonder what the graveyards look like. Tomorrow, I am going to see if I can interact with them.

I paused the digital recorder. The low battery light was on, and neither Rusty Fletcher nor I had any AAA batteries handy. All I could do was stare at the digital recorder and USB drive until we arrived at his Uncle’s house in Wilkes-Barre. Hopefully I’d be able to cobble something together up there.

Rusty was pretty excited on the drive to Wilkes-Barre. Once the immediate threat had died down, he treated it like a particularly thrilling ride at an amusement park. Me, I ached in several places, and had the after-incident jitters that I’d lived with for years in Iraq. The worst time to let down your guard was after repelling an attack, because the bad guys often came back. I was on edge, looking everywhere, both with my good eye and with my ghost eye. I didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean much and I sure as hell wasn’t going to relax any time soon.

Begging off by pretending to be sick and wanting to rest, I went upstairs to the room they prepared. My arm ached from the gash where Vincent tried to gut me with a fireplace poker. My wallet was aching too. Rusty’s busted windshield ate up what little money I had left. At least the patch job on my arm looked pretty good, so I still had my health – whatever that was worth.

It wasn’t too hard to do the math – Iraq time is eight hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. Darren’s painful migraine plus the time difference between here and Iraq matched too closely with my worst day in the US Army. On the day that Darren began to see ghosts, I was getting blown to smithereens by a roadside bomb. My army days led me to look very, very suspiciously at coincidences – because many times they hid things, deadly things.

The poor schmuck would only live another seventeen days, but he sounded like a kid in a candy store. That wasn’t exactly my reaction when I first started witnessing the paranormal. Of course, I hadn’t spent years chasing after things that other people didn’t believe, only to finally be vindicated. Looking at the blank notepad, I jotted a note to myself about Darren’s headache and my war injury. Rusty’s uncle had some fresh AAA batteries, so I fumbled with Darren’s recorder and replaced the dead one.

March 9, 2006 – Field research notes of Darren Porter. I followed that same Union Private. Finally in a fairly secluded area near the monument to the 19
^th
Indiana, I called out to him. He paid me scant attention for the first few attempts, but then realized that I was speaking to him.

He was rather surprised that I could see him, which actually made two of us. Carefully, I approached him. I tried to get a picture of him with my digital camera, but proximity to him seemed to drain the batteries in my camera, temperature probe, and voice recorder. The only device that didn’t fail was the EMF detector, which provided some very good data considering I was out at the Battlefield with no real sources of electromagnetic energy around.

I’m babbling again. I know it. So anyway I just stood there and asked him a bunch of questions, mostly yes or no stuff. He was a member of the 19
^th
. He died on the first day of battle against Pettigrew’s 26th North Carolinians. I scribbled the alphabet on my notebook and several common words so we could communicate better.

His name is Peter Foust f-o-u-s-t though the Gettysburg records list him as Faust f-a-u-s-t and he died just shy of thirty from a head injury. We talked, with him spelling out words by pointing at my chart for the better part of two hours before he said he had to leave for a ‘muster’ of all things. I asked to come, but he adamantly refused, instead telling me to meet him back at the 19
^th
’s memorial tomorrow. Private Foust was willing to share the details of his life, but somewhat reluctant to discuss his current state of existence. Needless to say, all of this has piqued my curiosity. It appears that I will have to earn his trust.”

I’d borrowed a notebook computer from Rusty’s family and went looking through what was stored on the USB drive. There were backups of audio files from his digital recorder and MS Word documents. I made another note about that on the scratch pad, though I doubted that I would ever hear from Karla Thompson again or that she’d consider giving me his laptop. I started skimming through the text files immediately. The first thing that caught my eye was an organization chart. General John Reynolds and Colonel Strong Vincent were at the top of hierarchy with several question marks grouped together above them. For a change, I actually knew something Darren didn’t. Someone called “Lord Justice” was calling the shots.

The next day’s recording were Darren asking questions of the Private and repeating whatever the Private’s responses were. Sadly, he seemed to lack my ability to speak directly with them and so the recordings captured the clunky flashcard and alphabet board spelling that Darren had cobbled together on the spot. If I were more academic, I’m certain that this probably would have been thrilling, but I found it a bit annoying. Darren clearly enjoyed the sound of his own voice and lacked the ability to summarize things neatly.

Reminding myself that I shouldn’t be so hard on the deceased Mr. Porter, I started the audio again. Again, it was interesting, in a dweeby academic fashion, but I was looking for something that was both interesting and helpful.

March 11
^th
, 2006 – Field research notes of Darren Porter. I have ascertained that Peter remains here because he is somehow anchored to a small silver cross that his wife gave him to keep him safe. This object was in his hand on the morning of July 1
^st
, 1863 and, according to him, it is located under some bushes. He says that he can be free to travel on to the next life when this object is recovered and taken to his grave site. Peter refers to it as a focus. It is confirmation that spiritual energy can be tied to a particular object and not just a place or person as some theories have suggested. I have begun to take notes and record data in earnest so that I can write the most important book of my life. Karla is out of town until next week and is unfortunately unreachable by either cell phone or email.

Peter still remains rather circumspect about the other ghosts that I have seen wandering around. When pressed, he says that I should stay away until after he has been freed and allowed to pass on to the afterlife. I am uncertain as to whether he is being selfish, knowing that others will seek to be released, or if he is wary of the other spirits’ motives. Tomorrow, I will attempt to excavate the silver cross from the bushes.”

Inside the USB drive I found a pictures directory. There were several photos of a dirty, tarnished silver cross, so it looked like he was successful.

March 12
^th
, 2006 – Field research notes of Darren Porter. Light rain today. I unfortunately was forced to run several errands, which prevented me from going to meet with Private Foust. By the time I finished, it was already too late to wander out to the battlefield.

March 13
^th
, 2006 – Field research notes of Darren Porter. Still unseasonably warm, by afternoon it could get up to eighty degrees. Perhaps I should ask the Private his opinion of global warming. I’m heading out to retrieve the cross.

Onsite roughly one hundred yards from the 19
^th
’s monument. The cross has been found! It’s just where the Peter said it would be. In contact with his cross, Peter’s image seems to be more defined. I’ll attempt some digital pictures.

There is a haze on the camera where he is standing. That’s a very good sign. Holding the focus in my hand, I can hear Peter’s voice, but it’s very faint. I’ll try to see if I can capture it on the recorder if I am holding it against him. The most remarkable result of this is that I can actually feel him, provided that I am holding the cross.

Finally, something I could use! Next time I was with Elsbeth, I’d try it out, holding her ring and see if I could hear her without all the painful touching. I listened as he tried several questions. To a couple of the questions a faint whispered ‘yes’ or ‘no’ could be heard. Anything longer than a couple of syllables seemed to drop off.

The results are quite promising. I can hear him just fine, but the recorder only seems to pick up tiny bits. I’m back at my house and have brought the cross home with me, after begging Peter to allow me to conduct some non-destructive tests on it. I have purchased a comparable silver cross and will use a multi-meter to determine whether the conductivity is significantly different, though given the impurities and tarnish, it might not tell me a blessed thing.

I have negotiated a few days for my testing. Peter is quite eager to be allowed to pass on. He accompanied me back to my home for a brief time. I was forced to help him enter into my house. He indicated that there was a barrier here. I suspect this has to do with the numerous blessings performed here over the years.

I’m searching various sites on the internet to see if anyone else has reported powers similar to this. In my euphoria to interact with Peter, I have neglected to investigate the genesis of my newfound abilities. I wonder if I can convince my doctor to give me a MRI. I’d be curious to see what my brain activity is like, although I definitely would be upset to discover a brain tumor.”

Me, I’d had plenty of scans done due to the damage to my head and subsequent reconstructive surgery. If there was a tumor, they’d have found it. No one ever mentioned anything unusual to me, but then again, I’d never been accused of having too much “brain activity” to begin with.

Still, Darren’s ponderings touched something that I hadn’t considered. There were the obvious threats to my life, but the thought that the powers might have a not-so obvious effect on me was just a bonus. Yeah, I was a glass half full kind of person, only given my life; I’ve learned that the water is usually contaminated with untreated sewage.

March 15
^th
, 2006 – Field research notes of Darren Porter.
 
I spoke with Ian Wells over lunch today and let him know that big things were coming soon. We have our first tour of the season booked for March 25
^th
and I am excited.
 
This could very well be the greatest tour season ever. Imagine being able to take people right up to the ghosts! If I can get a haze with my off-the-shelf digital camera, imagine what I could get with a professional grade HD camcorder. It’s rather presumptive of me, but I could see a network TV show emerging from this. After all, the Sci-Fi channel promotes those Rhode Island folks quite a bit.

I suppose I shouldn’t be thinking too far ahead. I spent all day yesterday examining the cross with every instrument at my disposal. My brass rods seem to point me towards it, but that could just be unconscious on my part. If I can convince Peter to let me hold onto it until Karla returns, I’ll have her hide it and attempt to locate it in an objective test. The cross does seem to have a slight EMF reading to it, thirty percent higher than my comparison cross. I wouldn’t mind bringing in some other people, but Karla deserves to be the first to see this.

March 16
^th
, 2006 – Field research notes of Darren Porter. With Karla due to return in just four days, I have delayed Peter’s request until she can meet him. Again I approached Peter about what the rest of the ghosts are up to and why he has to ‘muster’ with them. At first, I’d thought that this muster was just a formality that connected him and the others with their former life, but now I am less certain. He again cautioned me against approaching the others.

I walked in the hour before meeting him and spotted the person I believe to be Colonel Strong Vincent of the 83
^rd
Pennsylvania walking near his monument on Little Round Top. I resisted the urge to go and speak with him, partly because of Peter’s numerous warnings and also due to the fact I was uncertain of what to say to an actual hero. No offense to Peter, but he wasn’t exactly famous. The prospect of asking questions to legendary figures makes me giddy with anticipation.
 
I must confess to already jotting down a few questions that I intend to ask him in the near future.”

The next several days don’t really have much to offer, more experiments and more of Peter avoiding questions.

March 20
^th
, 2006 – Field research notes of Darren Porter. Today, with Karla’s assistance, we were able to capture some remarkable footage of Peter. He becomes more visible when I am in contact with him and holding his focus.

Karla hid the cross as I requested and in four out of five tests, I was able to locate it with my divining rods.
 
We reversed the test and Karla was only able to locate it on two of the five tests with one I can surmise as being a lucky guess.