Could Nina have somehow put those marks there? No, there hadn’t been enough time.

Not to mention, Paul was pretty shaken up.

Rusty looked at his watch, catching the dial in the moonlight. Almost two. Mitch snored away as if nothing had happened.

The air in the room was so cold, the exposed flesh of his face felt like ice. I’ll be the first person to get frostbite in a house sleeping several feet from a roaring fire.

Something was very wrong with Ormsby House. Of that he no longer had any doubts.

Gotta check that boat tomorrow, see if it works. If he could beat it off the island, he would. Mitch could handle things all by himself just fine.

“I shouldn’t be freezing in the middle of the fucking summer,” he said into his pillow, burrowing deeper under the blankets.

He wanted no part of the place, or Nina, or the Harpers, or even Paul. He thought of offering a ride to freedom to Eddie and Jessica, but she seemed determined to guard the kids.

But how do you guard children from a ghost?

The question gave him a chill deeper than the unearthly frost that permeated every molecule of the house.

The next morning, Mitch woke up early, brewed a pot of coffee and woke Paul up with a steaming mug. “Rise and shine, butterfly.”

Paul woke with a start, overcome by a hacking cough. It took him a minute or so to settle down and find his voice, scratchy as it was.

“What, no oatmeal and eggs?” he said, sitting up in the bed.

“We need to talk, outside. Get dressed.”

Mitch walked out, not allowing any room for question or discussion. He waited for Paul by the entrance of the path to the dock. Paul shuffled out the front door several minutes later clad in gray sweats. His hair and beard looked windblown.

He squinted at the rising sun.

“What time is it?” Paul asked.

“It doesn’t matter. What the hell are we really dealing with here? I know you didn’t fake that little attack last night because you were never that good an actor. I kept the camera rolling, by the way. Talk about a goddamn hook! You told us this place was haunted. How haunted is it?”

Paul cast a quick glance at the house. “I’m not sure. When they found the bodies twenty years ago, the place became off limits. That was horror enough. There were whispers of strange stuff going on before then, but no one is alive who could verify a thing. Somehow, an urban legend grew about the whole island. Don’t go near haunted Ormsby Island. They say a reporter went out alone one night just after the mass murder had been discovered and never came back. Since anyone who had committed the murders was either dead or gone at that point, it had to be the island itself that offed the reporter. Mitch, Ormsby Island isn’t even on most maps of Charleston Harbor. Locals will turn away the moment you even say its name. Whether it started as parents telling their teen kids ghost stories to scare them the hell away from the place or what, I don’t know. The moment my sister and brother-in-law saw it, they knew it was the perfect backdrop for what we wanted to do. When they sent me the pictures, I couldn’t have agreed more. Man, look at the place.”

The flakes of paint peeling from the house held the orange rays of the sun, appearing as tiny flames wavering in the early morning breeze. Mitch wished to hell he had his camera with him now. If ever a place looked like it was straight from hell itself, it was Ormsby House at this very moment. He made a note to come out early tomorrow and film some B roll.

“After they bought it for next to nothing, they brought Nina on who verified that there are definite ghosts trapped here.”

Mitch said, “I’m not saying I believe in all that horse crap, especially anything that comes from your little gypsy’s mouth, but whatever it is the two of you are doing, you have to not only keep it up, you have to get it in overdrive. This is platinum stuff. Once we get inside, I’m not going to have a waking moment without a camera rolling. I’ll even bring it in with me when I take a piss. If you can prove it to me that this shit exists, you’re gonna have millions of people eating out of your hands. If it gets hairy again, don’t lose your cool. If you do, we’re done for. You got me?”

Paul nodded, taking a long gulp of his coffee that had already gone tepid from the frigid air.

“I’m serious, Paul. We’ve been buddies for a dog and cat’s age, and I know how you can flake out at times. Rusty and I put our asses on the line for you. Lose your cool, and we’re gonna have another conversation. A very unpleasant conversation.”

Paul held his steely gaze, feeling him out to glean even a hint of jest in his words. Mitch made sure to give no quarter. It had been a long time since he’d felt the rush of working on a project destined for more than straight-to-video.

Breaking into an edgy smile, Paul said, “Yeah, I get it. I’ll be cool as a well digger’s ass.”

He jumped when the front door slammed shut, the harsh bang echoing around the trees.

Mitch shook his head. “That well digger must be working in a hot spring.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The moment Jessica’s alarm chimed on the pillow just inches from her face, she felt the difference in the house. A palpable press of bodies surrounded her bed. She may not have been able to see them…yet, but she knew they were there as surely as she knew there was a bed beneath her.

Walking to the window, she became aware of the absence of something that should have filled any silence this time in the morning.

The air was devoid of birdsong.

“Even Tweety is steering clear now,” she said as she muscled the window open. The fire in her room had died while she slept. The air outside was refreshingly warmer.

We have to find out who these kids are, get their names. I have to get them away from here before Nina and Paul make an international spectacle of the place.

She could picture it easily, as the same process had happened with so many other reportedly haunted places around the world over the years, though she suspected very few had the type of EB manifestation that lingered on Ormsby Island. Eddie said Nina had some abilities, which meant she would be poking a hornet’s nest. Paul and his little film crew would capture enough compelling footage to catch a producer’s attention. Before they knew it, Ormsby Island would become a paranormal attraction like Waverly Hills or Houghton Mansion or the Whaley House. The place would be crawling with people anxious to catch a ghost on camera or audio. The children of Ormsby Island would never find peace. And through it all, Tobe, Paul and Daphne would ring in the profits.

Unless Daphne meant what she said yesterday.

Gathering her clothes and toiletry kit, she padded down the hall to the shared bathroom. The hot water was room temperature at best. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a bath instead of a shower.

She toweled off, brushed her teeth, tied her hair back, put on a plain, long-sleeved shirt and slipped into a Cinderella Long Cold Winter tour T-shirt. It seemed apropos. There was a group that may have looked like a hair band but had the heart and boozy soul of hardcore bluesmen. On the way back to her room, she knocked on Eddie’s door.

He surprised her by yanking it open, ready to go.

“You’re up early,” she said.

He ran his fingers along the stubble of his scalp. “I don’t sleep much anymore, so being up is a constant state of being. What’s the first order of the day?”

She motioned for him to keep his voice down. “Shh. I think the kids are still asleep.”

Confusion creased his brows.

“The living kids,” she said.

He slapped his forehead. “Holy cow, how could that slip my mind?”

“It might be because your mind is overflowing with image of the EBs that are everywhere. I won’t hold it against you.” She closed her door softly. “First, I’m starving. Let’s go downstairs and forage. Later, we need to keep a close eye on Alice and Jason. I also need to find a way to get some alone time with Daphne. And we have to be real careful about staying out of Mitch and Rusty’s line of fire. They can’t show our faces because we won’t sign releases, but I don’t even want my elbow to be part of their bullshit.”


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