LITMIR.BIZ

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snapped a hard look at Buck. “Hey, is Dallas playing a joke on me? Are you helping him set me up?”

      “No, ma’am. I swear. That thing is definitely picking up the…something.”

      “Freaky,” she muttered. “Are you a woman who used to live here?”

      Nothing.

      “Are you the man who built the house?”

      Nothing.

      Desi pulled a disgusted face. “Figures. An anomaly.” She shook her flashlight. It was dead.

      Buck asked, “Are you a boy?”

      The bank of bulbs lit up.

      Buck’s penlight died. He shook it and pressed the button a few times. The only light came from the DVR camera screen and from outside street lamps shining through the windows. Spirits needed energy in order to manifest and interact with the physical world. Batteries were an easy source of energy.

      Buck struggled to come up with yes and no questions Desi wouldn’t consider woo-woo. They learned the child was nine years old. He had three sisters and two brothers. He was the youngest. He liked this house. He liked the people who lived here.

      Desi waved at Buck to be quiet. Buck thought for somebody who scoffed at ghosts, she was certainly excited about talking to one. “Are you the one making noises?” She asked. One bulb barely flickered. “Does that mean you only make a little bit of noise?” A definite yes. “Are there others with you?”

      Heaviness settled around Buck like a heavy velvet curtain. A feeling so oppressive, so…angry, it made him dizzy. The little boy’s spirit fled. Desi’s questions seemed muffled, as if sound waves had to swim through sludge to reach his ears.

      Buck turned his head slowly. He spotted it in the corner by the bathroom door. A Dark Presence. His mouth filled with dust and his skin crawled. He kept his head down, not looking directly at the shadow within a shadow.

      “Are you lonesome?” Desi asked.

      Buck mentally begged her to shut up. If he warned her, it would notice him. It would know he could see and it would focus on him. It moved toward Desi. It flowed, absorbing the thin light as it passed the windows, slithering along the wall, powered by malevolence. They needed to get out of here. He could not let it notice him. Could not allow its dark attention to focus on him. Could not allow it to pick and probe at his mind.

      The glow of the handheld camera vanished, plunging the room into darkness.

      At the same time, Desi said, “You poor thing. Why don’t you come home with me?”

       Chapter Two

      Buck sensed the Dark Presence’s sick interest in Desi’s invitation. He stepped between it and Desi, clenched his fists and shouted, “Get out!”

      It lacked face and form, but Buck felt its dark attention focus on him. Its dark energy surrounded Buck, pressed on his chest and head as if a giant vise had clamped him in its jaws. His muscles quivered.

      “Get out of here! Get out! You don’t belong here.”

      “I thought you weren’t scared of the dark,” Desi said. Metal clinked against metal as she shook dead batteries out of her flashlight. “Calm down. Take a deep breath.”

      “I’m not talking to you,” he said. “I can’t believe you asked that thing to come home with you.” He faced it, blocking Desi from its malignant attention.

      “Oh, please, it was a joke.” Her flashlight brightened. She rose from the bed. “You have to calm down. Do you need to go outside?”

      It disappeared. The room felt empty, tomb-like. Buck struggled to control his breathing and racing heart. Relief weakened his entire body, and his joints ached with the sudden drop in adrenaline. Icy fear remained. It had seen him and it knew what he was. Knew he could be used.

      A touch on his arm made him flinch. Desi folded her small hand around his forearm. “What in the world is wrong with you?”

      Underlit by the flashlight her face was harshly shadowed and openly concerned. But she was not, Buck knew, concerned about the right thing. “Don’t you know what you just did? You’re supposed to be experienced. You’re supposed to know!”

      She went rigid, fairly vibrating with anger. “I am experienced.”

      He searched the shadows and listened hard with his inner ear. It felt gone. He prayed it was gone. “That was the stupidest thing you could have done. You have no idea what’s in this house!”

      Footsteps clomped up the stairs, startling them both. Dallas called, “Desi? You aren’t answering the walkie-talkie. Desi? Buck?”

      “Power drain,” she called in reply. She shot Buck a withering glare and left the room.

      

      A T THE HEADQUARTERS of the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Team, in the windowless tech room, Desi rested her forearms on the back of Dallas Stone’s chair. Dallas and Ringo, with some help from other members, had spent the last week watching every second of footage from the IR cameras and handhelds, and listening to every audio recording from the eight hours the team had spent investigating the Moores’ house.

      Desi thought the investigation had been a train wreck. After babbling about dark entities, Buck had left the house and refused to go back inside. A big bad cop, unafraid of the dark. Right. He’d spent the rest of the investigation in the command center van.

      When he told Dallas the place had two ghosts, one friendly and one malevolent, Dallas had been so credulous, so accepting, Desi almost quit the team right then and there. Judging by the group e-mails shooting back and forth among the team members this week, everyone was excited about Buck’s claims. Where was the objectivity? Where was the proof? It disgusted her that Rampart teetered on the verge of turning into one of those freak shows that attributed every squeak, creak and feeling to ghosts.

      She peered over Dallas’s shoulder at the computer screen. John Ringo sat on Dallas’s right. Pippin O’Malley sat in the chair to the left. All stared at the lines of spikes and waves on the screen.

      “Play it again,” Pippin demanded. She pushed red curls off her forehead and she flashed a big grin at Desi.

      Dallas touched the keyboard. Through the speakers Desi’s voice said, “Did you see that? It lit up.” A long pause, then “Can you make the lights go on again?” Childish laughter rang out, loud and clear. Dallas looped the recording, isolating the laughter. The laugh was so clear it could have been recorded on any playground.

      “That gives me chills,” Pippin said. She scrubbed her upper arms with both hands.

      Dallas looked over his shoulder at Desi. “What do you think? A ghost?”

      All eyes on her, Desi straightened. After she and Buck lost every bit of battery power in the master bedroom, and even the IR camera cut out, Buck had turned on her. Her feelings still stung at his switch from nice guy to stern cop, chastising her about doing something so stupid as to invite a ghost to follow her home.

      It was stupid. She’d been so caught up in the moment, so fascinated by the apparent responses on the K2 meter, the invitation had slipped out of her mouth without a single thought behind it. The lingering sting turned into fresh anger. Just because Buck Walker believed he had an in with the spirit world didn’t mean he had any right to tell her what to do.

      He had no right to wreck Rampart with his woo-woo crap.

      “It’s outside noise,” Desi said. “The old coal chute in the furnace room lets in outside noise and it goes straight up that heating vent to the bathroom. There could have been kids playing in the house next door. Or it might have been a television.”

      “It was responding to questions through the K2,” Pippin reminded her.

      “My mistake for not rechecking power

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