Perception (Apparition Investigations #1)

Case #2: Hell's Gate: Part 8

Rose and I took up an entire table at the downtown library. They were made to seat four people, but with our laptops, books, and notepads, we ended up using the entire table.

"Here's one," Rose whispered, using her best library voice. She leaned closer to where I was so that her voice wouldn't carry. "But it's not on any credible website."

"What's it say?"

"It's a ghost hunting blog. That's since been abandoned."

"But what does it say?"

Her eyes skimmed the screen in front of her. "Strange smells. Eerie feelings. They took an audio recorder out there, but it didn't turn up anything. Judging from how terrible this sight looks, I bet they didn't have good equipment. Just what they could pick up at Best Buy for cheap. Maybe even Radio Shack by how outdated the website looks."

"Keep looking," I said, flipping through the book in front of me.

I'd checked the book out from the library, just in case I wanted to take it home with me. The more I read though, the less likely I thought that would happen. This book supposedly talked about haunted ghost spots in the city. But I'd been to a number of them without feeling or experiencing anything like what the author described. And I was the one living with ghostly roommates.

Granted, my perceptions hadn't begun to deepen until I'd spent time around Cyril and Oliver. So maybe I wouldn't have felt anything going to those places. Still though, I don't think the old amusement park outside the city housed spirits of departed children from a horrific bumper car tragedy—especially since I couldn't find any newspaper articles backing the story up.

"Who published this?" I grumbled after I finished another story about the library we were in at that very moment being the home to a demonic entity. I flipped the book closed and checked the spine but couldn't find any publisher's title.

"No luck?" Rose asked, looking up from her screen.

I pushed the book away with the same disdain I used when mushrooms were on my plate. "No. I don't think half the stories in there are true. And the other half use artistic license too liberally."

She tapped a nail against the keyboard of her laptop. "I can't find anything collaborating the events that supposedly took place at Hell's Gate. All these ghost hunting websites roughly mention the same things: train robbers throwing bodies off the gate, suicides, devil rituals. But I can't find any of the facts these stories are based on."

"Funny how everyone in town seems to know these stories by heart, though."

"Tell me about it."

"The stories had to have started somewhere."

"That's just it though," she mused. "Maybe they're just stories."

"Noah and I felt something out there though. Maybe not enough for it to have been a full spirit, like Oliver or Cyril, but there's something out there."

"Could be lingering emotions from all the people traveling out there," she suggested. "If enough people head out there to be scared, and then are scared, would it linger in the place?"

"You tell me. You're the ghost expert."

She let out a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through her hair. "I mean, it's possible. It could be a residual haunting. Where a place remembers events with a lot of emotion."