Sparrow Hill Road 2010 By Seanan(62)

"Angela, Tom, you go west. Marla, take Katherine inside and start setting up the camera."

Marla may not be happy, but she doesn't argue with him. She moves quickly and efficiently. So does everyone else. In a matter of minutes, it's just me, Jamie, and the salt.

"Come on," he says. "Let's get started."

"I can't wait," I reply, and follow the crazy ghost-hunter into the night.

***

Their approach is a weird synthesis of traditional and technological. Cameras to catch any apparitions, gauges to catch any unexpected fluctuations in the local temperature...and spirit jars with honey and myrrh smeared around their mouths, to catch any wayward, wandering ghosts. Salt circles with just a single break in their outlines. Half-drawn Seals of Solomon on the broken asphalt. Even scattered patterns of rapeseed, fennel, and rye, guaranteed to attract any poltergeists who happen to be in the area. They aren't missing a trick. If I weren't already wearing a coat, I'd be worried.

"So what are we hoping to achieve out here?" I ask Jamie, as we walk slowly around the edges of the old parking lot, throwing down torn carnival tickets and bits of broken glass. "This doesn't seem very, y'know. Scientific."

"That's why we're going to succeed when nobody else has," he says, seriously. "We're pursuing synergy between the spirit and material worlds."

"I have no idea what that means," I say, in all honesty.

Jamie smiles. "It means keep scattering those ticket stubs, and by morning, you're going to see something you'd never believe."

"Oh, I can believe that," I murmur, and keep scattering.

***

The sun's been down for a little more than an hour. Everyone seems sure that nothing exciting will happen until midnight--which they insist in calling "the witching hour," which is making me want to scream--so people are mostly just checking equipment and taking walks around the grounds, making sure everything has stayed in place. So far, the valiant ghost-hunters have managed to successfully attract two raccoons, a stray cat, and a hitchhiker who isn't quite as dead as I am.

"Spirit world, one, college kids with a high-tech Ouija board, zero," I say, sweeping my flashlight around the edges of the blacktop. They're letting me patrol on my own now, probably because they don't really think there's much I can do to disrupt things if I'm on the other side of the yard. Marla's probably hoping I'll see something mundane and scream, thus proving that she was right and Jamie was wrong.

I don't think she'll be getting her wish tonight.

When I actually do see something, it's not mundane at all. One of the spirit jars is closed, rocking gently back and forth with the weight of its pissed-off contents. I stop beside it, squatting down, and tap the glass. The rocking stops. "Yo," I say. That's about as much ceremony as I can muster at the moment.

There are no words—bottled ghosts don't really communicate in words, per se—but the spirit jar manages to communicate, clearly, that it would like to be opened. Immediately.

"That's nice," I say. "What'll you give me?"

Some of the suggestions the spirit jar makes are anatomically impossible, even for someone as flexible as I am. At least one of them would require my cutting off one or more limbs. Still, I have to be impressed at how articulate it manages to be, given its current lack of vocabulary.

"Nope, that won't be happening," I say. "How about we try this: I'll let you out, and you'll go far, far away, and not bother any of nice, incredibly stupid people that are here with me. And in exchange, I won't hunt you down and shove you back into the jar. Deal?"

The jar mutters something sullen.

"Deal?"

Grudging assent this time. I reach out and remove the lid, ready to fight if I have to. I don't. Some innocent backwood haunt too new to know to avoid the scent of myrrh and honey blasts out of the open vessel, chilling the air around me for an instant before it vanishes, racing back into the twilight, where it will presumably be safer than it is out here.

"It's always nice to meet the neighbors," I say, returning the lid to its half-open state. With luck, they'll never guess the jar was tampered with. I retrieve my flashlight and resume walking.

By the time I finish my first circuit around the lot, I've freed two haunts, a spectral lady, a will-o-wisp, a pelesit, and a very confused poltergeist that takes half the carnival tickets with it when it goes. It's like a weird naturalist's cross-section of the ghosts of the American Midwest, and it would be a lot more interesting if I wasn't expecting one of the ghost-hunters to appear at any minute and demand to know what I was doing.

Instead, a high, horrified scream rises from the direction of the diner. It sounds like one of the Physicists. I stop where I am, turning toward the sound, and wince as the taste of ashes and empty rooms wafts, ever so slightly, across my tongue. "Oh, God, these idiots are going to get themselves killed," I say, and break into a run. The screaming escorts me all the way.