Nightmare (24 page)

We were up in the mess hall when we picked up cold spots all
around the room. I had brought along a handheld temperature
meter I still had from the old days, and discovered a handful of
spots twenty or even thirty degrees cooler than the rest of the
room. And they weren't moving. In my mind's eye I could almost
see the residual ghosts of navy crewmen sitting at the old tables
and eating their meals.

"Okay, I have a question," said Jordin softly.

"Shoot."

"The shadow person we saw the other night was hot. He
showed up as a heat source on the thermal camera. So why are
these-whatever they are-so cold?"

I had no answer for her. It was one of the many mysteries
of the paranormal. Sometimes ghosts were hot, sometimes they
were cold. I'd heard theories about temperature being related to
temperament, where the entity's light or dark character could
affect how they manifested. But as with everything else, there
was a frustrating lack of hard facts on the matter.

One of the spots literally gave us a charge.

I was feeling the cool air in a cold spot at one of the tables
when I suddenly yanked my hand away. "Whoa. Hey, come here.
You gotta feel this."

Jordin, who had been across the room doing EVP work, came
over quickly and looked as I pointed at the empty cold space.
"This one's different. Put your hand in there."

She obediently stretched her hand out and felt the air where
I showed her. Nothing happened at first, but then she pulled
back with a start. "Ow!" she said, but then stuck her hand out
again. "Oh wow..."

"I know!"

"Is that ... ? It almost feels like static electricity," she observed.
"You ever encountered this before?"

I nodded. "Just once. It's a very rare phenomenon, from what
I understand. My dad told me that sometimes positively charged
ions are found in certain cold spots. It feels like a weak electrical
current in the air. Dad said it was almost certainly a sign of an
intelligent haunt."

"Wow ..." Jordin took out her digital camera and snapped
several shots of the cold spot while I talked. She held out her
digital recorder and asked several questions, like "What's your
name?" and "Did you die on the ship?"

I snapped my head around quickly, looking into the far corner of the room.

Jordin spun as fast as I had, searching. "What?"

"I guess it was nothing," I said. "I thought I saw something
out of the corner of my eye."

But there was nothing there. I couldn't help wondering if
this heart thing was making me paranoid.

For a few hours, we wandered through the onboard hospital,
the machine shop, a rec room. We scanned for EVPs and took
plenty ofvideo, but the old ship seemed quiet tonight. I wondered
if we'd finally found ourselves a haunted site where the deceased
just weren't in the mood to come out and play.

We passed by a set of stairs leading back down into the
ship's bowels when Jordin screamed. I spun to see her land on
her back.

I ran over and knelt down. "What happened? You okay?"

She looked up at me, startled and confused. "That wasn't
you?"

"I was in front of you, Jordin." I helped her up to a sitting
position. "What happened?"

Her mouth hung open, and she leaned around me to look
down the corridor ahead. Her complexion was paler than I'd
ever seen it.

"Somebody-something knocked me down," she hissed.
"Like, shoved me out of the way!"

My eyebrows went up at this and my heart thumped, but I
was careful to take deep breaths to keep calm. "Did you feel a
hand push you, or was it something else?"

Jordin glanced down the hall again, searching for the words.
"It was just like somebody was running down this hall, and I was
in their way, so they kind of... pushed past me. It might have
been shoulder first, I don't know...."

I saw it again. In my peripheral vision, something dark moved.
My head spun in its direction, and my eyes landed on the stairs
going down.

The sound of shoes on metal reverberated up the stairs, and
then came to us from farther away.

Okay. This was too good to be true. Which meant it couldn't
be.

Somebody was messing with us. Had to be. Someone had
snuck onboard the old ship tonight and was having fun at our
expense. I pulled out my phone to give Carl an earful about his
lackluster security. I had my thumb on the Send button when
Jordin jumped to her feet.

"Listen! It's underneath us!" Jordin whispered. "It's under
us right now!"

Despite my better judgment, I followed her to the stairs,
flashlights and cameras in our hands. We paused there, looking and listening, and sure enough, we heard it again. I swept
my flashlight back and forth down the stairs but couldn't see
anything.

This was a bad idea. A real person was here trying to play
with us. Things could get dangerous very fast. I needed to find
a way to keep Jordin from pursuing this, but I didn't want to
freak her out by sharing my suspicions that we weren't the only
living people on the ship.

Jordin took a few steps down the stairs.

"Stop, what are you doing?" I asked.

"Going toward the stuff other people run away from," she
quipped and continued down the stairs.

"Jordin, I don't have a good feeling about this," I whispered.
"I think we should call it a night."

"Something's playing with us, Maia." Her expression told
me what she thought of my desire to leave. "It's intelligent and
it knows we're here, and it's all but invited us to follow it. This
may be our best chance of getting solid evidence tonight. Isn't
this exactly what we're here for?"

She turned and continued to the bottom of the stairs, and
then disappeared down a corridor.

It was too late now. My heart was thudding madly, and
though I was trying to keep my composure, I was sure I felt it
skip a beat or two.

So I ran. I caught up with Jordin and we chased it down a
long corridor and then stopped, listening. We heard it again
down another set of stairs to our right, and we went again. There
was no sign of it at the far end of the next hallway, so we froze, repeating the pattern of listening for signs of its presence and
scanning the area with our flashlights.

I took deep breaths, clearing my mind and trying with all my
might to relax, to force my heart to calm itself. In all likelihood,
we were just chasing some punk kid who would later be having
a lot of laughs with his buddies over the two girls he scared in
the middle of the night.

I looked into a large room to our right marked "Post Office,"
and against the far wall I saw something dash impossibly fast to
the left, and out of sight. I couldn't tell for sure what it was-it
wasn't quite black enough to be a shadow person, and I think it
might have had some detail and definition to its form.

But it moved much too fast to be a living, breathing
person.

The sight of it sent my heart into random sputters. It forced
me to double over.

"I saw it! In there!" I gasped, pointing to the words "Post
Office" that were now over my own head.

Jordin-who seemed to think I was just out of breath-stepped
past me into the large room, flashlight raised in one hand and
video camera in the other. "We know you're here," she said in a
nonthreatening voice. "Could you please talk to us?"

I was having trouble breathing, barely aware of what Jordin
was doing, and sank down to my knees. I clutched at my chest
and rubbed the beads of cold sweat from my forehead. My heart
was pounding so fast it actually made my rib cage hurt with each
strike. I backed up against the bulkhead, still in the hallway outside the room Jordin had chased the apparition into, and lowered
myself slowly to the ground.

"I see it!"Jordin hissed in my direction, still inside the post
office. "It's running, Maia, come on!"

"No!" I called out. "I can't-I need to go back!"

"Are you nuts!" Jordin didn't even bother to look back in the
room. "We can catch this thing! I just saw it run through another
door! Come on, Maia, let's go!"

"I can't, I need some air," I said, the world spinning around
me, barely able to choke out any words. My voice was failing me,
as well. "I need..." I croaked.

"NO!" roared Jordin with a shocking level of anger in her voice.
"I have to do this! If you won't help me, I'll do it by myself!"

"Wait!" I tried to say, though it felt like there was an obstruction in my throat. I was holding my chest with both hands and
seeing spots in front of my eyes. `Jordin!"

She never answered.

I fell into an abyss.

Something had its rock-hard fingers clenched around my
heart and dragged my whole body down into the void with it.

Not literally, but that's what my mind pictured while I felt
these strange sensations surge through my body, rendering me
all but powerless.

It was what drowning in a stormy sea must be like. Fighting
an endless battle against nature, trying to keep my head above
the water only for another massive wave to crash down on me,
all while the entire ocean spun around me like a waterspout.
And the worst part was knowing that every time I might catch
a moment of rest, that hope would vanish with the next wave
of nausea and fear. The terror seemed as if it would never stop coming, and knowing I was defenseless to keep it from happening immobilized me completely.

Where had Jordin gone? How could she just leave me?

I suppose it was partly my fault for not outright telling her
about my heart problem, particularly now when I was having
this ... attack, or whatever it was.

I tried calling out to her a few times, but I was so weak that
I couldn't raise my voice.

I focused on breathing. IfI could just get some deep breaths
into my lungs, maybe I could relax enough to get a handle on
this and drag myself back up topside for some fresh air.

Slowly, the dizziness came to an end, but not until after I
threw up. Afterward, my skin felt clammy and tingly, and I knew
my face had to be ashen white.

I thought of my pragmatic father, and tried to imagine what
he would do in a similar situation. It didn't take long to come up
with the answer-he would never have allowed himself to get into
a situation like this. He would have prepared better than I did,
packing walkie-talkies for Jordin and me in case we got separated.
It had never occurred to me to bring corns of any kind, because
Jordin and I had always investigated together.

I thought then of my strong-willed mother and her take-noprisoners attitude. Her feisty, quirky demeanor had endeared
her to legions of TV fans everywhere. She would never let a little
thing like a weak heart slow her up.

Okay, Mom, this is for you.

I shined my light around the dark hallway, searching. I crawled
in a circle to the door to the post office and grabbed the handle
that opened it, hoisting myself slowly up.

Getting on my legs again seemed to help the blood flow, and the world quickly righted itself. I was still sweating, but my heart
was resuming normal operation, as well.

Cautiously and with exhausting effort, I worked my way
back down the hall the way we'd come, and ascended the stairs.
It took a good ten minutes, and by the time I reached the next
set of stairs, my strength was spent. I caught the slightest whiff
of the glorious North Carolina coastal sea air, drifting through
the upper decks of the ship. I thought I heard the sound of rain
tapping against metal. But I was powerless to reach it.

Just as the darkness was taking me again, I thought I saw a
tiny bright light shining in my face and a familiar voice saying,
"Now what have you gone and done to yourself, young lady?"