Page 34 of The Mare Rider of Cornwall Cove
Well, at least one of them had an ounce of compassion. I pulled out my phone, found the map of Cornwall Cove, and stormed along. An incinerator was situated in a small cinderblock building far from the main hospital. A brick chimney poked at the moon. How it was still standing was a miracle in itself, as the rest of the incineration building was rotted beyond safe entry.
“This is where they took whatever needed to be burned.” I waved a hand in the general direction of the incinerator. Stopping by the northern wall, where a massive furnace hadonce roared day and night, I reached out with my senses, easing my mind open a crack. The first shiv hit me right between the eyes. I groaned. Phil grabbed my arm. Another cry for help, then another, and another, and another, and another, and another…my knees buckled. “They’re so scared,” I coughed out as Phil slid an arm around my middle, easing me into him. The camera light fell to the ground as he hoisted me upward. They were begging for release. For justice. For peace. Bile rose up the back of my throat. I swallowed the acrid liquid down.
“What is it?” Phil eased me away from the incinerator, my steps sluggish as I fumbled along beside him, on the verge of passing out. So many voices…
“Something bad, so many souls…” I whispered. He pressed my back into a tree. Clumps of wet snow fell to the ground, hitting the piles of white with soft poofts. “Oh God, I need to be sick.”
“I got you,” Phil said, and he did. He held me as I brought up my dinner and about a quart of coffee. Dark roast racing through your nose is not pleasant. I spit and sputtered when my stomach was empty, just realizing the camera was on me. “Bet I look…good,” I tried to tease, but the pounding in my brain and the cries from beyond the grave erased any trace of humor I may have possessed. “She was telling the truth. Behind the incinerator building. So many lost souls. Phil, we need to get some help on this.”
“Right, yeah, shit, okay. Tray, peeps, can someone get us some info on…oh, the mustache dude is Representative Theodore Snippens.”
“Representative Snippens was a racist. Just so history knows,” I wheezed as I pulled my sleeve over my lips. Gross. So gross. The only thing worse than puking was having the runs. Both at the same time? Just shoot me now. “Thanks for the info, subs. We need to get someone out here tomorrow. And yeah, I know…I’m going to have to tell them a ghost told me they were there.”
“Cops will love that,” Phil muttered while taking snow in his hand, melting it, and then rubbing it on my overheated face. It felt pretty good. He threw up air quotes and said sarcastically, “Hey, Sarge. Gay Asian seer is at the front desk talking about ghosts and a mass grave. Should we lock him up or send him to the psych ward now?”
“Yeah, it’ll be fun.” I sighed, taking a second to rub my hot cheeks. “Let’s go back inside. The rider was telling the truth. We need to talk more with him.”
Phil watched me carefully as I took his hand to stand. “You’re pale and warm. We should go home. You’re going to pass out if you burn up more of your life force.”
“Nah, I’m golden,” I lied. But I did make it back inside. Just. When my legs went rubbery at the fountain in the lobby, Phil handed me the camera and tossed me over his shoulder in a bridal carry that not only surprised me but included a good sixty seconds of the camera on his fantastic ass. A treat for the viewers. Once I was placed back on my feet, I gave him a dark look as I shoved the camera into his chest.
“I know when you’re fibbing,” he informed me and turned the camera on my pasty face. I didn’t have to see it to know it was pasty. It felt pasty. Just as your skin does when you realize you might be coming down with a fever. Oh, fun times! “Tray says we need to talk to the cops about the mass grave. Unless they’re watching this stream, then they’ll meet us at the gate probably.”
Probably so. “Okay, we’ll do that in the morning.” I turned to find the mare rider still in the circle, his arms folded over his chest, the dirty workman’s coat he wore slipping in and out of visibility. It was wholly unsettling. “We found the grave, or I guess we should say we got close to the pit. The voices of the wrongfully buried made me ill, but wewillget the authorities on it as soon as we can tomorrow. Those souls will be laid to rest in a manner that frees them.”
It stared at me for the longest time. “Good. Then my work here is done. Open the door. I wish to go through it.”
“Oh.” I threw Phil a look and got a shrug. “Oh, well, sure. I mean, I can try to call forth Papa Legba, but I’m not sure he’ll reply. I’m not a Houdon practitioner. I’m just a college kid with a genetic anomaly.”
“Try.”
Sure. Well, I could certainly try. After a sip of water. I grabbed the slushy spring water bottle out of my shoulder bag, rinsed my mouth, and then made my way to the card table that held all the ritual paraphernalia that was needed to speak to a Loa. I was hoping that this would take place. Not the throwing up. The being able to lead this entity to a better place, whatever that may be. Yes, I was a ghost hunter, a Kee, but I was also a seer who was trying not just to eradicate any spirit with an attitude. Much like angry people, an irate phantom generally had a reason. If you could find that reason, then you could lead the spirit to a positive place. I hoped.
“If it’s willing to move to the land of the dead, Papa Legba will open the door between the human world and the spirit world.” I looked back over my shoulder at Phil as he spoke. “That’s what Monique is saying.” I gave Phil a thumbs up and turned to the rider. The forms of the other specters that were trapped in this terrible place appeared, gliding through the walls. Timothy came to stand beside me as he surveyed the offerings on the table with mild curiosity. “If you’re lying or trying to free yourself to continue harming others, then a darker fate will await you.”
I had no clue what that would be. I’d never dispatched a phantom that was fighting to remain in this realm. To be honest, the only tussle I’d ever had with a specter was at Lake Killikee, so maybe I should stop shit-talking the big, scary resurrected boogeyman.
“How do you propose to release me from this place?” he asked, his question grabbing the attention of the other spirits.
“Well,” I said as I looked down at the paraphernalia spread out before me. “With the aid of the great Mambo Kiwi, I will invoke a might Loa that may grant you and these others, if they wish to move on—”
The phantoms packed into the game room all spoke at once. I winced. They quieted and budged Timothy forward. He seemed leery of the rider, for good reason, and gave him a nice wide berth as he came to float beside me.
“We would like to move on, all of us,” he whispered. I smiled down at the ghostly boy.
“Then we’ll do our best to send you over,” I replied, the vow one I wasn’t sure I could actually make good on, but I was going to give it the old Kee try. “Phil, can you reach out to our friend, the awe-inspiring Mambo Kiwi, to find out how to ask a deity to come chill for a bit?”
“Suuuuure,” Phil said, but he seemed less than happy to pass along the request. Calling forth a divine being might be the cherry on top of the “what the fuck am I doing here?” sundae for my boyfriend. And hey, I’d not fault him if he called this whole paranormal investigation thing done. Two cases. Two rounds of being mauled and misused by the undead. Maybe we needed to look into something less mentally and physically dangerous to make money. Like selling knitted socks with ghosts on Etsy.
“Okay, so there we are then.” I looked right at the camera. “We’ve got a large group of phantoms here who wish to be freed from this awful place. I’m going to try to reach out and see if I can make contact with a godhead, I suppose you’d call him. Bet when you dropped that twenty bucks for a few hours of spooky streaming, you never thought you’d see what you’ve seen so far!”
My fake cheerfulness felt…well, fake. I was exhausted, ready to crumble, and was in severe need of a bed.
Phil slipped in beside me, his arm brushing mine. The touch was so nice. I’d be happy to curl up into his arms for the rest of January. Classes be damned.
I picked up the cold coffee, glanced at the rider, and took a massive chance. “Before I start, I need you to break the circle of blue paint and let the rider free,” I said to my boyfriend. His eyes went as big as manhole covers. “I know it’s risky—”
“Risky?!He was in my head just last night. He made me, and hundreds of other people, cry or worse. He probably pushed some people into losing their minds, and you want me to let him out?!” Phil barked, his arms waving madly as he spoke. Good thing we had static cameras.
