Never Dead (Welcome To Dead House Book 1) Read online

  “’Waywards?’ What are you talking about?”

  “Honestly, I wasn’t going to say anything, but as I am being accused of messing with the silver, I’ll just go on and speak my mind. Clearly, you have mediumistic tendencies, Tamara.”

  “What?” I laughed at his suggestion.

  “You wouldn’t be seeing me if you didn’t. To make matters worse, Chloe’s aura is getting brighter every day. You two need to tamp it down a bit, or we’ll have every stray in the county traipsing through the halls.” He sipped his coffee and gave me one of his head tilts.

  "Tamp what down? What are you talking about?" To think I missed him. He was so unhelpful I wanted to choke his ghostly neck.

  "You two need to cut out all this mumbo-jumbo stuff. You writing that ghost story, which is quite frankly not great, and Chloe and her meditation. Between the two of you, we are going to be inundated with ghosts. There’s a whole slew of ghosts in those woods, and they’re like dogs that caught the scent of something. You are something. They know you’re here, but so far, they haven’t been able to find you. Not many of them anyway. It doesn’t help that Linda Blabbermouth is playing with tools she’s not qualified to use next door."

  I couldn’t believe my ears. "Nobody's doing anything like that. I'm just writing a book, and Chloe is just being Chloe. She does yoga, Joey, as you well know. Besides, you were here when we got here. What slew of ghosts are you talking about?”

  He reached across the table and took my hand. His touch left it bone achingly cold. “You have no idea, do you? None at all. Oh, sweetie. You’re just blind.”

  “Enlighten me,” I said, trying not to feel desperate. I didn’t want to move my hand, but it was freezing. “Who is the person screaming on the second floor, Joey? One of those ghosts from the woods?"

  "Honey, you got me. I heard it, and I was like, gone."

  "Yeah, but you came back and were standing next to Linda with those ridiculous curlers in your hair. You were mouthing something to me. What were you saying?"

  He waved his ghostly hand absently. He suddenly appeared a bit faded, like he did when he was about to flicker out. "I can’t remember. That was forever ago."

  "No, it wasn’t. It was only yesterday. You’re telling me you don't know who was screaming on the top floor or how the silverware got stacked up on the table? What about the dead nurse? Surely you saw her outside. She was pushing a wheelchair."

  He leaped to his feet. "Just because I am not of the living persuasion, it doesn’t mean I know every dead person in the area. Give me a break. That's not how this works."

  I could see how this was going. I was supposed to be a good friend and pretend he wasn’t dead, just different. I couldn’t mention his death, but he could stick his head in the oven and try to kill himself in front of me. Like most of my relationships, this was extremely frustrating. I opened my mouth and let it all fly.

  "What the hell, Joey? I've got a Halloween party coming up and a teenager depending on me to keep her safe. Having dead nurses and random screamers hanging around isn't good for raising a kid. And she's all I got. I can't lose her, Joey. Do you understand that? It’s not about the money. I will always make it. As long as I have brains, I’ll make it. But I can’t do this by myself.”

  He sat back down, his glossy lips expressing his sadness perfectly. I sometimes forgot how handsome Joey was when he wasn’t wearing a doo rag or curlers. Even with gelled up hair, he was handsome.

  “Oh, sugar. I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were under that kind of pressure.”

  “Well, I am. And another thing: there is another aunt, her real aunt, who could at any moment say, ‘Hey, I want Chloe.’ Then she’d be gone, and she's all I got. You and her. How sad am I?" I sat at the table and fought the urge to cry like Chloe cried last night. Joey put his whole arm around me and tried to hug me without much success. I wanted to tell him he was giving me the creepy crawlies, but I didn't have the heart. He was trying to be a decent friend, bless him.

  "Nobody is going to take Chloe away from us. We're family. I know you don't know me that well, but I love being here with you too. It's just the rest of those dead people who worry me." He got up and wandered to the kitchen window to look outside. Joey Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was had become a true friend. I didn't want him to leave. Not ever.

  Joey's eyes widened as his mouth displayed a perfect O. "I know what we need to do! We need the Ghost Hunters to come! Call Quinton! He's so hot!"

  I couldn’t disagree fast enough. "No, I'm not calling anyone in, but you have given me an idea. We could have our own investigation. I have all the equipment: K2 meters, digital recorders, and even a thermal camera. Yes, we can do it all ourselves.” My mind raced with the possibilities.

  Joey twisted his lips thoughtfully. “Not Quinton?”

  “No. I don’t know Quinton, but I’ve got friends, or acquaintances, still in the field.”

  “Fine. We’ll try it your way first. I’m in, but aren’t you worried?”

  “Worried?”

  “About the ghosts in the woods. There’s a lot of them. If you start ghost hunting here, you might draw them in. Let me just say, if you think having a cat around is a problem, you’re really going to have a problem with some of them. They look completely wretched. Talk about the living dead. Disgusting!” He visibly shivered, and with every shiver, he faded a little more. His concerns were legitimate.

  “We’ll do it strictly by the book, Joey. Pure science. No Ouija boards, and I’m sure as heck not sanctioning a séance. No way, no how. I hate to break it to you, but we’ve already got a ghost here besides you. If you weren’t screaming and Chloe and I weren’t, someone else is already here.”

  “Oh, God! Don’t say that.”

  “They are already coming in, Joey.”

  He paced the kitchen. “Oh God oh God oh God!”

  "Calm down. Enough of that. It’s going to be okay. The sooner we figure out who’s here, the sooner we can get rid of them. I better go upstairs and talk to Chloe. I think she'll be on board, but if not, it'll be you and me. Can I depend on you? I don’t want to put you in a bad position. I mean, I don’t want you to get bullied because you’re helping the living.”

  He shuddered one last time. His faded appearance worried me. “This is our home. We can’t let some screaming banshee roam the halls. But no hinky stuff. I’m serious. I already feel kind of pale. Talk to Chloe, please. Her meditation crap is making me sick.”

  “Okay.” I had no idea what he was talking about. "How about 9 o'clock tonight? You rest up, and I'll get everything ready. I’ve got to dig all the equipment out unless you’d like to help me.”

  With a sad smile, he said, “Later.” He vanished, taking all the warmth of the kitchen with him. It was weird. Usually, rooms got warmer when Joey departed them. I’d think about that later.

  I headed upstairs and hoped for the best.

  11

  Tamara

  To my surprise, Chloe was down for ghost hunting with me. I didn’t think it prudent to mention Joey was tagging along too. She’d figure it out soon enough. She didn't have much to say about what happened last night, and I didn't want to pry. It was enough to know she needed me, once in a while. I liked that. We had fallen into an easy peace with one another that I was loath to disturb, so I didn’t ask her about whatever meditation activity was getting on Joey’s nerves.

  Joey showed up early and hung out in my bedroom while I got dressed in the closet. I didn’t mind. He insisted I wear one of my old ghost-hunting shirts, so I picked a black one with red lettering. It had been a gift from a team that brought Tina Louise and me in to investigate a school with them. It was one of those pay-to-attend deals, but it had been a great experience. I would never have imagined a school to be a haunted place, but that one had proved to be downright creepy. It was a deserted elementary school. The acronym for this particular paranormal group was laughable. PADS: Paranormal Agents and Detective Society. To this day, I had to shake my he
ad. I was so glad I wasn’t a member of the group. Joey got a big old kick out of it. I thought it was stupid too, but at least it was a clean shirt.

  Joey was wearing a Ghost Hunters t-shirt and black jeans with the same ridiculous-looking hairstyle. He’d been telling the truth. He’d gotten into my hair gel, but how he managed it I had no idea. He certainly wasn't going to tell me more than he wanted me to know. He showed me his shirt, and I gave him a thumbs up even though the back of the shirt was faded, like faded chalk, and his feet weren’t visible. I hoped he would be okay and this investigation didn’t affect him negatively. At least the mangy ghost cat wasn’t around. I did spend a little time before our appointment this evening digging around in my plastic tubs for the necessary equipment. Naturally, all the batteries were dead, so I made a trip to the dollar store and replaced them all. Then it took a few minutes to show Chloe how to use each item. The three of us gathered in the hallway, and I piled the devices on the rickety hall table.

  “Try the temperature gauge, Chloe. It’s easy to use. Just move it up and down slowly.”

  Her response was an eye roll. "Please. Like I don't know how to use this thing. It’s not rocket science, Tamara. It’s a thermometer. We don't even know if these things work.”

  Joey walked into the hallway with us. “Of course, they work, girlfriend. She’s just trying to show you how to work it.”

  “Great. He’s going to hunt ghosts with us? Do I need to state the obvious here? Give me the dang thermometer. I guess it's as good as we’re going to get since the ghost won’t help us. Why can't he just tell us where the rest of them are and shoo them away?”

  Joey swung around with his hand on his hip. Chloe stomped her foot as if it would frighten him away. The two were determined to have it out. “Again with the indirect questions, Chloe? His name isn’t ‘the ghost.’ It’s Joey, and he is standing right there. I know you can see and hear him. Why don't you ask him yourself because he's not telling me anything.”

  We both turned to our resident spirit, who was busy waving his hand over the antenna of a K2 meter and laughing about the lights coming on and off. "Oh, my God! This is fantastic. Look. You two try it."

  Chloe barked at him, "You’re not helping. You're going to wear the batteries out. Don't you know ghosts drain batteries? Do us a favor and don't touch anything."

  He gave her the stink eye. "Don't touch anything? How am I supposed to help with this investigation if I can't touch anything?"

  "Okay, you two. Just stay with me and watch yourselves. Enough of this chitter-chatter. Enough!"

  "This whole investigation is going to be a nightmare," Joey declared in an angry yet much quieter voice. Joey didn't get angry about much, but he didn't like being mistreated or reminded he was dead. Chloe was going out of her way to aggravate him.

  “Let’s stick to the facts then, Joey. You do have a tendency to drain batteries. You can’t help it, but that does mean no equipment for you. I know you don’t want to give off a false positive. It’s not you we’re looking for. Chloe, dial back the antagonism or we‘ll be chasing our own tails tonight. You haven’t heard the Screamer, but we have, and I wouldn’t want to meet that thing in a dark alley. It was on your floor. I’d think you’d want us to find it.”

  “Who named it the Screamer? I don’t like that.”

  “I did. Now shut up.”

  Nobody said a word, but they both glowered at me.

  Perfect. They hated me. I could live with that. It sounded like a perfect parenting plan.

  Chloe broke the silence. "Fine, we’ll start upstairs. That's where you guys said you heard the scream." Chloe instructed in a very grown-up tone of voice. She left Joey and me in the hallway and headed toward the stairs. He stuck his tongue out at her back, and it was my turn to roll my eyes and sigh in an exasperated fashion.

  "Sounds great to me, Chloe. Are you sure you’re up for this? You can’t take off screaming if you hear or see something.”

  "I'm ready, but do we really have to turn the lights off? Can we at least leave the hall light on?" When I was a newbie at investigation, I used to think the networks filmed these shows in the dark for better ratings. I mean, come on. It’s creepy to see those green, ghostly images on the screen. As it turns out, spirits prefer moving around in the darkness. Except for my friend. Joey didn’t like dark rooms.

  "We're going lights out. That's the way I've always done it, and that's the way we’re going to do it tonight. We’re just looking for evidence, that’s all. We’re not coming to pick a fight. Just a few hours."

  "Maybe he should go back to where he came from until we're through, or else we aren’t going to find a thing." Chloe flipped on the infrared camera as she turned out the lights on the staircase. At least she didn’t call him The Ghost. Once all the lights downstairs were off, I grabbed the K2 meter and the digital recorder. I put my finger to my lips to remind Joey to be quiet. His footsteps sounded extremely heavy.

  Joey lingered behind me and every few steps, he asked, "Did you hear that?" After the third time before reaching the top of the staircase, both Chloe and I turned and gave him the Look. “Yes, I hear you stomping up the stairs.”

  "What? I can't help it."

  As we stepped onto the top landing, I watched the lights on the K2 meter bounce. All the lights were out except for one small lamp in Chloe's room. She hurried inside to turn it off and I held my breath. Joey was right. There was nothing but blackness up here. No stars shone, and there was no moon out. There was nothing to illuminate the upper hallway. I held my ground and evenly moved the K2 meter left to right repeatedly, but the device picked up nothing.

  I felt Joey's cold hand on my shoulder. "Tell me that’s you," I whispered to him.

  "Of course, it's me. Who else would it be? What do we do first? You're the expert, right?"

  "I think we start with an EVP session. Let's start here in the hallway and then down there, in that room. That’s where I heard the voice."

  “When did you hear a voice? You didn’t tell me that, Tamara. Oh, my God! What did it say? Oh, I think I'm going to have a panic attack." Chloe stepped closer to him and shushed him. I ignored Joey's silliness and didn't take time to answer his questions. The more alarmed he became, the brighter he glowed. He looked like a drunken lightning bug at the moment, flickering on and off. Chloe was right. It was probably a bad idea allowing Joey to investigate with us, but how was I going to prevent it? I’d never investigated with a ghost before. His presence might have the opposite effect and attract a few ghosts. Or repel them. I couldn’t be sure, but I had to work with the crew I had. The dead and the living.

  “You two settle down.” I clicked on the digital recorder. “I'm here to communicate with whoever is here,” I said in a confident, loud voice. “I have a few questions I think you could help me with. Can you help me?”

  “Really? You talk like you want it to help you with a test or something,” Chloe criticized me with an edge of sarcasm as she held the camera up and fiddled with the buttons.

  Joey faded in and out and whispered, “She’s right, Tamara. This isn’t how Quinton does it at all. Maybe we should call in a professional?”

  I ignored their distrust. “My name is Tamara Garvey, and this is Chloe and Joey. What’s your name?” I asked as I waited a few seconds and ignored their mutual snickering. So I choked up. Why I gave my last name, I’ll never know. In a whisper, I instructed, “Chloe, keep an eye on that screen. Tell me if you see anything. Joey, try to stop glowing. It’s distracting." With the digital recorder in one hand and the K2 meter in the other, I began to go deeper into the session. Joey still glowed slightly but not enough to affect anything. Chloe pointed the infrared camera at him, and he scowled at her.

  “Stop it. That thing puts ten pounds on me.”

  “He looks crazy. Look at this. Wow, dude. You’ve got quite the aura. I’ve never seen this many colors on one screen before.”

  “I mean it. I don’t want my picture taken!” Joey gave he
r the stink-eye and snapped his fingers above his head, disappearing like he’d performed a magic trick.

  "Shoot. I ticked the ghost off. Sorry.”

  I side-eyed Chloe but kept going. “Is there anyone here? My friends and I are not here to hurt you, we just want to talk." I waited a few seconds, which felt like an eternity before asking another question. I forgot how long this process took. "What is your name? Can you say it really loud into this little light? If you do, I can play it back and hear it.”

  “Why are you here?" Chloe touched my arm as if to ask for permission, and I nodded at her. "Are you the screaming woman? Did you die up here? Were you murdered? Is that why you’re screaming?”

  Although I couldn’t see him, I heard Joey gasp at the question, and before I knew it, his invisible fingers were gripping my shoulder tightly. It was so tight I had to brush his hand away. “Stop grabbing me, Joey.” This was turning out to be a joke of an investigation. I played a little bit of the recording back at full volume, but there wasn’t anything to hear, just the sound of my own voice and the two smart asses with me. I sighed and paced the room to give myself time to think.

  “Please, you can’t hide up here. Tell us your name, at least. Don’t you have anything to say? Anything at all?”

  “Wait a second,” Chloe said slowly. “I’m picking up an anomaly. There! At the end of the hall. Like it’s poking its head out and then hiding again. That better not be you, Joey. See? In and out. In and out. Let’s get closer.” Fearless and determined, Chloe inched toward the room at the end of the hall. It was on the left side, exactly where’d I’d heard the voice whispering when I’d followed Deputy Patrick upstairs.

  “Wait,” I said as we got closer. I couldn’t say why, but this felt wrong. All of it felt extremely wrong. The atmosphere was heavy, and it was getting hard to breathe. A strange itchy feeling crept over me. I remembered I’d experienced this sickening sensation before at Pennhurst. Man, I hated that place. The pitch blackness up here didn’t dampen the escalating fear. My heart beat so loudly I was certain Chloe could hear it.