OUR LAST NIGHT: an edge of your seat ghost story thriller (25 page)

Northern Idaho

March 25, 2015

We scoured Holden’s backyard for pieces of the Head-Scratching Rifle, collecting every last shard and splinter in a plastic bucket, and then we drove fifteen miles north to the White River. There, we descended a bank of slippery rocks and hurled every last fragment into the moving gray water. Five or six big splashes and sprinkling handfuls of little ones. The current carried away the ripples. In thirty seconds it was all done.

Kind of poetic, I supposed. This cursed weapon had infiltrated minds and crafted seven decades of grisly suicides.

And we’d tricked it into committing suicide, itself.

My mind was still thick with codeine, so maybe I was seeing poetry where none existed. Forty-six stitches, nine staples, and a concussion. But I hadn’t lost any fingers or eyes to the explosion. It would take three full weeks for cellular service to return to the local area, and our phones were still bricked. This was actually a very good thing, since Holden had made a false-alarm 911 call with his.

On our way back up the moss-covered rocks, he smacked my back and asked if I finally believed in ghosts now. It was just a joke, and the extra-dimensional entity attached to the Head-Scratching Rifle wasn’t really a ghost anyway.

But Addie had given me no choice. By supplying the first few letters of a word I only learned afterward via Google (
squi-
), she’d proven herself to be more than just my imagination. Ben Dyson had been right about a lot of things, but he’d been wrong about her. She wasn’t a goldfish in a bag. She was real. She’d really been there with me, in my memories, embarking on one more adventure with me. Our last night. The squib-fire was just another card she’d held in her hand, concealed even from me, and this ramification was the beautiful final reveal. Say what you will about abrasive, know-it-all Adelaide — she’s a planner. She’s a thinker. She saved me.

She’s my ghost.

Maybe I was her unfinished business.

I shrugged, hands in my pockets, as we crossed the gravel road and returned to his Explorer. “Ghosts, yes.”

“Great.” He unlocked the passenger door for me. “Let’s talk about Bigfoot.”

“You did
not
see Bigfoot.”

“I did.”

“Ghosts are real. Bigfoot is not.”

He stomped the gas, skidding southbound. “Baby steps, Dan.”

Speaking of, Addie’s parents came and went from Birmingham and I still have custody of the savannah monitor. I can’t say I’ve emotionally bonded with Baby — she’s not exactly a golden retriever — but our pet/owner relationship has improved. She’s a living, breathing headstone for Adelaide, waddling around the house on crocodile feet, and I’ve accepted it. You can’t give it away, but you can’t build a shrine around it, either. You just have to share your space with it, and feed it a dead mouse every two days.

Use tongs.

And yes, I’m back on
Haunted
, because motion is life. As of this writing, we’re up for a regional Emmy and scored a new timeslot in what the TV station calls “weekday prime access” (also known as 7 p.m.). Darby is an on-air investigator now. Two new HD cameras grace our fleet, plus sturdier boom microphones and a revamped website. This year’s season finale, we investigate the hotel they filmed
The Shining
in. Check it out.

And in exchange for my renewed loyalty, LJ enlisted the technical wizardry of Kale (whose burnt face is fully healed now) to perform a special favor for me. He accomplished what the teenagers at the Apple Store couldn’t — he extracted the data from my EMP-fried phone and accessed the text messages I’d received over those strange, dark hours between March 19 and 20. Naturally, I used them as little timecodes in the writing of this memoir; my best guesses at chronological landmarks.

And, as we discovered, I’d received one more text.

It was from her.

NEW TEXT MESSAGE

SENDER:
Unknown

SENT:
1:06 p.m. Mar 20 2015

Hey Dan.

I’m sorry I had to leave the party without saying goodbye. I wish I could have stayed.

But I can’t do anything more. It’s all you now. I wish I could fix you, make you happy again, but only you can do that.

I don’t know how to say this, but here it goes: I love you. I’ve loved you since before we ever met. Every day, I thank God that I was brave enough to venture back into that lame-ass Total Darkness Maze with you. Maybe someday we’ll get to be those kids again.

But, for now . . .

Just, well, do me this last favor: please stop trying to live in the past.

I’m not there anymore.

A

THE END

MORE ABOUT TAYLOR

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