Nightmare (36 page)

I knew two things as I watched these nightmarish events:
something terrible and beyond all reason had just been unleashed,
and this might be my one chance to carry out the crazy idea I'd
gotten while listening to Dr. Simms talk just minutes ago.

"What is that?" Pierre asked.

Derek gave a slight shake of his head, not taking his eyes
off the beast.

Thinking fast, I whipped out my phone and glanced at it. "No
bars," I muttered, putting on a perfect performance. "Let's see if
we can get reception outside-we need to call someone!"

Derek and Pierre both nodded and I motioned for them to
lead the way.

Once they were out of sight, I ducked around the cubicle in
the opposite direction and made straight for the extractor while
the building shook and crumbled and the ghastly creature roared.
Its footsteps landed like lead on the cement floor, and I prayed
it wasn't moving in my direction.

The entire chamber's lights were flickering as I mashed the
buttons the same way I'd seen the technicians do it, opening
the central tube. Derek rounded a corner twenty feet away, but
Pierre wasn't with him.

"What are you doing?!" he shouted.

"I'm going to find her!" I glanced at him only for a second
but didn't give him a chance to stop me, knowing that this was
it. Now or never.

I hit the Activate button, ran around to the side of the tube, and slid in just as it was closing around me. The horrifying sounds
of the giant creature were quickly drowned out by the whirring
of the extractor, and I lay perfectly still, waiting. Derek caught
up with me and started pounding on the side of the glass tube,
trying to break it, but it was made of something much stronger
than standard glass. He looked at me like I'd lost my mind, but
I looked upward. I knew exactly what I was doing.

The needle pierced the back of my neck, and the flashing
lights illuminated the pod like a tanning booth on acid.

Then, I fell.

MAY 2ND

The calm, serene town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, imbues all
visitors with a sense of sadness. Though its battlefields are now
reverentially quiet, the enormity of the loss of life is remembered
via endless historical markers and monuments that dot the landscape across acres upon acres of land.

Over a three-day period in 1863, more than fifty thousand
men lost their lives in Gettysburg, staining miles of its fertile farm
soil red. But these were not slow, painful deaths stretched out
over days like those on record at other haunted locations. Many
were instantaneous deaths of terrible violence that cut short the
lives of young souls who had much to live for.

Gettysburg has to be the most haunted place in America, but it's a lot more than that. It's considered by many to be the most
haunted place in the world.

After the near disaster that was Alcatraz, I'd driven back to
San Jose alone so I could visit my folks again. I'd opted to not
take Jordin along, needing a break from her special brand of crazy.
After a couple days of sightseeing in San Francisco, she flew back
to New York to begin processing her evidence.

As soon as I returned, she called me, ecstatic to show off her
findings, which I had to admit were impressive. But I was just
relieved that the spirit that had attached itself to her seemed
to have lost interest when we departed Alcatraz island the next
morning.

She was ready for our final trip immediately, but when I
accused her of neglecting her studies, she got angry and didn't
speak to me for a few days. Which was fine by me. I was tiring of
her secrets and demands and her increasingly sour attitude.

We quickly regrouped and scheduled our last trip-which
I promised Jordin would be the best of the best and the most
haunted destination we'd ever visited-over a four-day weekend
in early May, just before finals. I arranged for us to spend not one
night but three, knowing that there was enough to investigate in
Gettysburg to take more than three times that long.

I booked our multinight stay at the Cashtown Inn, one of the
most infamously haunted places in the world, and a major hot
spot in Gettysburg. The bed-and-breakfast was so well-known for
its paranormal activity that I planned for us to spend our entire
first night in Gettysburg investigating just the inn itself.

I was particularly psyched for this leg of the trip. I'd been to
Gettysburg several times, but somehow never found time to visit
the Cashtown Inn-much less stay there overnight as a guest. Jordin, true to form, had never heard of it, so I had to brief her
on its history as we made our way through the old town after
having driven down from school.

"It's unknown exactly when the Cashtown inn was built," I
explained, circling the car through the doughnut-shaped road
in the center of Gettysburg, "but it's been here since sometime
around the year 1800. It got its name because the original owner
demanded cash payments for lodgings at a time when most establishments accepted bartering. Like everything else in Gettysburg,
it's most famous for its role during the Civil War. The Confederate
Army used it repeatedly as a respite. Confederate officers visited
often, trading information, filling their canteens, and buying
liquor. Even Robert E. Lee himself is believed to have spent many
a night at Cashtown Inn."

Jordin stared at the sights of Gettysburg as I spoke, and I
could see her eyes dance at every location we passed that advertised itself as haunted. The Farnsworth Inn. The Jenny Wade
House. Even Gettysburg College, which boasted an excess of
regular ghost sightings.

"So what kinds of ghosts do people see there?" Jordin asked
without turning her attention away from her window.

"All kinds," I replied. "Confederate soldiers are seen in guest
rooms, walking through the hallways, and venturing up and
down the main stairs. Several rooms are infamous for sights and
sounds that are very out of place, though virtually every inch of
the place has had endless activity for centuries. The Cashtown
Inn just never rests."

The inn was a bit out of the way, several miles to the northwest
of Gettysburg via Highway 30. But I reassured Jordin it would
be worth our time.

When we arrived, it was much more inconspicuous than
I'd imagined. I'd seen photos of it for years, of course, but it
sat almost in the middle of nowhere, with no special fanfare or
loud signs letting us know we'd arrived. Just a small, rectangular
wooden placard hanging over the door that looked like it had
been there since the place was first built.

The Cashtown Inn was a decent-sized two-story brick house,
with awraparound Cape Cod porch. Four vintage wooden rocking
chairs were perched there. I took special note of the five upstairs
windows, at least one of which had been photographed hosting
ghostly figures staring out at passersby.

We walked through the lovely front door with its rounded
window arch above, and were welcomed by the friendly staff.
They assigned us to the upstairs room that I had requested and
led us to it. There were only seven guest rooms at the inn, so even
though we weren't the only people staying there, the place was
hardly overrun with anyone who might get in our way.

Making our way to our room, I almost wished I was just a
visitor. The rustic simplicity of the stately old residence, with
its framed artwork and antique furniture, reminded me of the
Myrtles, but it wasn't as busy or colorful. We passed by a gorgeous
common living room that I would've loved to have settled into,
with striped carpet and comfy-looking wing-back armchairs.
Meanwhile, dozens of framed photos adorned the walls, highlighting the unique history of the place.

Our room was warm and welcoming. It had an A-frame ceiling with exposed beams, hardwood floors covered with well-worn
braided rugs, and a mixture of furniture comprised of antique
tables and more modern accommodations like floor lamps and
sofas.

Jordin mentioned how sweaty and sticky she was when we
got to the room, so I let her have first dibs on the shower. I
was still unpacking when she got out, but only moments after
I heard her turn the water off, the bathroom door opened and
she shouted, "Maia!"

Fearing she'd slipped and hurt herself somehow, I ran for the
tiny room. But she was fine, one towel wrapped around her torso
and another-which I hoped wasn't mine-circling her hair. She
opened the door wide as I approached, and let me in. The hot
steam filled my pores almost at once, and I couldn't immediately
tell why she had called out to me.

"Look at this!" she said, reducing her voice to something a
little above a whisper. She pointed to the mirror over the sink.

My heart hammered out of the blue. Why did it have to be
a mirror?

I could see where she'd wiped the fog off of the mirror, but left
behind was a very visible handprint off to one side of the glass.

"What'd you do that for?" I asked, feeling relieved that there
wasn't a creepy figure staring back at me from inside.

"I didn't," she replied. "Look closer."

She unwound the towel from her head and wiped down the
mirror again. It became dampened, but the handprint remained
exactly as it was.

I stepped up to the sink to get a closer look. I placed my own
hand against the mirror, overtop of the lingering print, and that's
when I saw it. The handprint wasn't on the mirror. At least, not
on this side of it.

"Whoa," I noted, feeling goose bumps on my arms. "Look at
that! It's on the other side of the glass...."

I ran and got my camera and took several shots of it before
the falling humidity in the room caused it to disappear.

We spent the better part of the night investigating every nook
and cranny of Cashtown Inn, but that handprint in the mirror
was the best evidence we captured.

The dead, it seemed, were still reaching out to Jordin.

Our second night was spent at a very well-known area of
the battlefield known as Devil's Den. The huge outcropping of
craggy rocks atop a steep hill made it a perfect sniper's position
during the war, and there were tons of reports suggesting that a
Civil War marksman might have never truly left.

In addition, a famous apparition was frequently sighted there:
a scraggly, war-weary frontiersman soldier believed to be from
the First Texas Regiment, which had taken heavy casualties at a
skirmish near Devil's Den. The soldier was usually seen barefoot,
and he would sometimes appear to offer tourists directions and
pointers, but then disappear into thin air.

We wandered around the Den, climbing and descending the
hill, inspecting the crevices between the rocks-which, sadly, were
strewn with tourists' litter-with all of our recording equipment
and the thermal imager going the whole time. We tried to record
some EVPs but wouldn't know until later if we were successful.

We made our way over to a rise called Little Round Top,
which was directly across a huge clearing from Devil's Den and
was the main site the sniper had trained his weapon on during
the battle. One of the biggest historical monuments in all of
Gettysburg stood there, and we took our time, strolling around it, calling out to any ghosts in the area and generally capturing
as much footage of the area as we possibly could.