Chapter One
Finn laid out his ghost hunting equipment on the bed: the EMF meter, the motion sensor, the infrared thermometer, the motion camera, the copper divining rods. Most of it was not new or even that expensive, but he was always careful to pack everything in a small padded chest of his own design, which he had lined with high-impact foam that squeaked when he put anything in or pulled anything out.
The EVP recorder was new, as his last one had broken when he’d dropped it the week before in the middle of a ghost hunt at Pioneer Cemetery in Old Town Harlin. Of course, ghosts didn’t haunt graveyards—everybody knew that—but he’d been invited by the Spirits of Harlin group to be an expert during a ghost hunting party made up of a busload of Japanese and Korean tourists.
The hunt had been a blast, and he’d enjoyed the tourists’ enthusiasm and curiosity, so while the whole evening had been more laughter and chatter than quiet attentiveness to the spirit world, it had been great. That kind of experience, ghost cred, would go a long way towards when he would finally be able to submit his audition package to Ghost Force, a growing Youtube channel with thousands of followers.
The audition package was why he was staying at the Harlin Hotel, only half an hour’s drive away from the house he grew up in, and still lived in, much to his own dismay. He’d taken English Lit as a major without really thinking about where it would take him. Now, college was over and he had the summer to figure out what he was really going to do before he packed up his bags and boxes and moved on with his life.
Everything felt like it was standing still, waiting, holding its breath. The only thing moving in his life were the ghosts, or at least the search for ghosts. Nobody had proof and everybody wanted some. Finn aimed to be the guy who got it, though he half-suspected that the hunt was the thing, the excitement of the chase. Just like the guys on that show about the bottomless pit who were always looking for evidence that there was buried treasure, there was always tons of evidence, but nothing that proved anything. The chase itself was the thing.
When his cellphone blared out the theme of Grim Grinning Ghosts, he answered it.
“Hey, Dad,” he said, flopping into the old-fashioned looking armchair in the corner. He grabbed the EVP recorder to heft in his hand, enjoying the sleek, new feel of it.
“Hey, Finn,” said Dad. Finn could hear the smile in his voice and smiled back, as he usually did.
“How are the bees?” he asked.
“They’re still buzzing,” said Dad. “How are the ghosts? You set up yet?”
“Not yet,” said Finn. “Thank you again for the loan to pay for the hotel room.”
“It’s not a loan, son, it’s a gift.” Dad sighed; they’d been over this before. “I just wish I could have afforded a room at the Stanley Hotel for you.”
“That’s not it, Dad,” said Finn, sighing right back. “They didn’t want me up there. Didn’t want me messing with their predetermined level of spookiness.”
“Is that what they said?”
“Not exactly.” Finn traced the On/Off button on the EVP recorder with his thumb.
It had been hard to swallow his disappointment over the Stanley Hotel’s refusal to let him openly hunt ghosts in their hotel. Sure, he could have snuck his equipment in and pretended he was an ordinary tourist. He could have skulked around, joined the Haunted Tour group like he was just anybody out for a lark and a scare, and not who he really was: a real ghost hunter.
“They just didn’t want the intrusion, I think. You know, Stephen King did his thing up there, and now the hotel will never be the same.”
“I think it’s the better for it,” said Dad, stating his mind as he always did. “They’d not have half the business they do if not for him.”
“You’ll meet him one day, Dad,” said Finn. “I know you will. Just keep writing those letters.”
“That was one time,” said Dad, his voice rising in mock self-defense. “One time, damn it, one time I wrote him, and it was a letter that needed writing.”
“I know, I know. Elba is a god, and the movie was a dud.” Finn laughed. “The Dark Tower should never have been made into a movie.”
“That’s right, son, and don’t you forget it.” Dad chuckled, soft and low, letting Finn know that all was right with the world. “Well, anyway, the Hotel Harlin is plenty haunted, isn’t it? You could get a brand new scoop rather than pacing in Mr. King’s footsteps.”
“He would be honored to have me pace,” said Finn, pretending to be all serious about it. “But yes, I’ve got three lovely ghosts to find and capture on film. I think they did the lobby up since the time you and Mom stayed for your anniversary. Did you hear about that?”
“No,” said Dad. “What’d they do?”
“They’ve got a little, I don’t know, tableau with three portraits in these fancy wooden Victorian frames. There’s a little table with a notebook for each ghost with articles pasted in, and newspaper clippings, and letters from folks who stayed at the hotel who say they’ve had encounters.”
“Nice. Did you take the tour yet?”
“That’s later,” said Finn. “It’ll probably be one of the cute kind of tours, you know, so as not to scare the residents overly much.”
“Not everyone enjoys being scared,” said Dad. “Just us’ns.”
“And Mom,” said Finn, laughing a silent laugh. “Even though she won’t admit it.”
“Mia’s the only hold-out,” said Dad. “All My Little Pony and not enough Scooby-Doo.”
“She sullies the Keating name,” said Finn, laughing out loud this time, though it was absolutely not true. His sister Mia was the nicest person on the planet, with a smile that could charm angels and devils alike. “She home yet from the big city?”
“Tomorrow for two weeks,” said Dad. “Though I’m not sure if she’s still bi or if it’s boys this summer.”
“She’s always bi, Dad,” said Finn, kindly but firmly. “But I think she’s seeing a guy named Toby.”
“You know,” said Dad, conversationally, “I don’t care who she loves, to be honest, as long as they’re nice.”
“Can you imagine Mia putting up with someone who’s not nice?” asked Finn, arching his brow even though his Dad couldn’t possibly see the sarcasm on his face.
“No,” said Dad. “At any rate, your Mom packed you some lavender honey and she says to be sure and have a spoonful every day.”
“Thank you,” said Finn. Lavender honey was the most sought-after flavor of honey that his Dad’s farm, Finnwood Farms, produced. “Tell her thank you for me, will you?”
“I sure will. And listen—” Dad paused, and Finn knew what was coming. “I sure as heckfire hope you get this audition thing with the ghost folks—”
“The Ghost Force,” said Finn, being helpful.
“The Ghost Force will love you and your ghost hunting skills, but you know you can always come home to Finnwood and work on the farm with me and your mother. There’s plenty to be done here. You could write about ghosts, too.”
“I know, Dad.” Finn couldn’t think of more words to say than that. Finnwood Farms was a family business. Dad and Mom had bought the property north of Harlin years ago from an elderly widow whose husband had died. They’d renamed the farm after him when he’d been born and replenished the soil and planted a small assortment of crops that they sold at local farmer’s markets, but their big sell was honey, local honey, drawn from bees who danced in the air above the lush rows of lavender and the green swaths of alfalfa.
There was no better smell in the world than those fields, no better sight than the green and purple against a blue sky, no better thing than to lie awake in bed on a warm night in August and hear the rain pattering on the plants.
There was nothing better than the farm, but it wasn’t the whole world. It couldn’t be everything. At least it had started feeling that way, when Finn had been halfway through college. Now that he was done, having just graduated in May, he wanted to test that theory. Hence the audition tape to Ghost Force, who could hire him on to be the local man in the field, so to speak.
The applicant who was chosen would cover hauntings and spirit activity in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Utah. Ghost Force would cover half the cost of setting up a van that he could live in, a van that Finn intended getting painted up to look spooky and evocative. Dad had joked he should get it painted to look like the Scooby-Doo van, which would be fun, of course, but it would be too noticeable and not suitable for a serious-minded ghost hunter like himself.
“You need to spread your wings, and I get it, son, I do.”
“I know you do, Dad,” said Finn. There was nobody more supportive than his Dad, unless it was his Mom or Mia. “And I love the farm, but I just feel I need to do this. It’s all so perfect there, but I need to know if there’s more.”
“There’s always more, Finn,” said Dad, perfectly serious. “The question to answer is whether it’s worth it.”
“I know.” Finn put down the EVP recorder and checked his phone for the time. “All right, I’m off. Dinner’s at seven, and then the tour starts at eleven.”
“Whooooooo,” said Dad, making his best fake ghost sound. “I’m a ghooooost!” Then he laughed. “Try the chicken, I’ll be here all week.”
“Love you, Dad.”
“Love you, too, kiddo.”
Tapping the phone off with his thumb, Finn got up to put the EVP recorder back on the bed. He evaluated the equipment, all lined up in a row, and knew that while he might want an SLS camera, he didn’t need more stuff. What he needed was a chance, a chance to prove that his life could be interesting, that he wasn’t just a farm boy born to cut alfalfa and tend to bees. Sure, it had been fun when he was a kid, but it felt dull, now, compared to the dream of hunting ghosts.
The ghost bug had hit him hard two years before when his Nana had died. Nana Agnes Richter had lived in Denver in a retirement community, playing bridge with her gal pals, and going to dances, living her best life. It had been after a New Year’s Eve dance that she’d gone home and died peacefully in her bed with a smile on her face. At least that’s what Nana’s friends told him, and he’d believed it, wanted to believe it. Then he found out it was true.
He’d been staying in his old bedroom at the farmhouse before going back to the college dorms. The funeral was an oddly cheerful and well-attended event with many people devoted to Nana in attendance—more people than he realized had been her friends. That night he had gone to bed missing her so much that he felt like he’d been whacked up one side of his body and down the other with a very large broom handle.
Sleep had been restless and evasive, and he’d sat up at one point, thinking that his Mom had come in to comfort him. That was like her, except the person standing at the foot of his bed had not been Mom. Mom didn’t have goofy, curly hair like that, nor retro cat-eye shaped glasses, nor a house dress that had been artfully altered to look stylish. Nana did.
As Nana stood there, the shape of her was vague, like she’d been outlined in a soft grey crayon. Finn had looked at her with his mouth open, arms shaking beneath him. His heart raced, not with fear but with the joy of seeing her again.
He’d been a little remiss in visiting her since he’d started college, but when he had taken the time to drive to Denver, she’d always greeted him with the same warmth, with the same offer of chocolate covered graham crackers and milk, as though he was a small boy of seven or twelve instead of a fully grown man in his early twenties.
That kind of love was hard to come by and he’d treasured it, always. And then she’d been there, at the foot of his bed, looking at him like she had a secret to tell.
“Nana?” he’d asked, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb anybody in the house, as they had all been a little worn out by the funeral and needed their rest.
She had seemed to move toward him—to float, really— until she was close by his side. His brain had fired off questions, alight with amazement, but he could hardly find the words to speak as she reached out and seemed to touch his face. She didn’t really touch him; he didn’t feel any physical sensation, but he had sensed it. The hairs on his neck rose up and all of him tingled.
“I’m all right, Nana,” he’d said, not really understanding why he felt he needed to soothe her in any way. “Are you all right? Are you happy?”
He had sensed that she was. He’d sensed that she nodded at him, tipping her head to the side, in that way that she had, as if she was appraising him to see if there was anything he needed or wanted.
“I got the cookie jar you left me,” he’d said, wanting to cry at the thought of the five dollar cookie jar Nana bought from Target years and years ago. The thing was old and a little rusty around the edges, the plastic lid had a chip in it, but it was Nana’s cookie jar. Even empty of cookies, it had been full of memories when he’d held it in his hands. “But I gave it to Mia. She’s the one who’s going to have kids, not me. You know that, right?”
Nana had seemed to shake her head. She knew all about him being gay, though they’d never really talked about it. She didn’t seem to care about that, only that he was lonely, only that he needed someone in his life to love him.
That he was practically a virgin had seemed to be an easier topic of conversation between them. She’d been forever getting phone numbers off waiters and busboys in restaurants they’d dined in when he visited her. Most of those dates had gone well, and he’d had some fun, but nothing had ever come of them.
“Are you going to visit Mom, too?” he’d asked. “She misses you. I heard her crying.”
The question had seemed to move through Nana’s form and the energy shifted in the room, as though she was already walking to the door to open it, even as she stayed where she was.
“You can go, Nana,” he’d said. “I’m going to be okay, but she needs you now.”
As her form had drifted into nothingness, her energy had shifted, moving around in a little circle before going out the door, leaving him with more feelings in his heart than he’d known what to do with. He’d gotten up in the dark, not turning on the light as he paced the room, until he came to a stop in the place where Nana’s ghost had stood. He’d stood there for a good, long minute before he crawled back into bed.
The tears that had waited and waited came in a small storm, then. He buried the sounds in his pillow, and in the morning, was as cheerful as could be expected, though he looked at his Mom, waiting to see if she would say anything about Nana visiting her in the night. But she didn’t.
Nana had come to him two more times, looking fainter each time. She left traces of herself in his heart as well as the very strong feeling that she would always be looking out for him. Finally, when Nana wasn’t coming to his room anymore, having said her final goodbyes, it seemed, he brought it up to Mom. She’d cautiously admitted that yes, she’d felt something, but she had not known what it was, only that she wasn’t scared.
Dad had been asleep in the bed beside her, but when he found out about Nana’s ghost he’d pretended to be annoyed that he was the only one who had not seen a ghost—he, who adored Stephen King more than any of the author’s other readers.
This was, of course, to distract Mom from her grief and give her something else to focus on as she joined the playful teasing about the letter to King that Dad had written. But later, when she’d pulled Finn aside and wanted to know more, he told her everything, every detail, from the warmth of Nana’s presence to the love he’d felt filling the darkness of his room.
After that, after everything had settled down from the funeral, he’d started researching ghosts and hauntings and everything he could think of for an explanation. Right away he’d found that those who passed on typically wanted to be sure their loved ones were okay, so they would come back and visit for a few nights before floating off to the afterlife, or whatever it was that awaited them. Some ghosts came back for revenge and carried dark feelings and energies with them, wanting only to do harm.
Nobody knew, of course, what was really there after a person died, be it a heaven or a hell or a limbo of some kind. There was was tons of evidence to indicate that something was going on, and that spirits and ghostly energy hung around for a while—or even forever— depending on how they died. Nana had died happy, by all accounts, so he figured she was in some Big Bopper Heaven where dances were held every day and her dance card was never empty.
But what about other ghosts? Did he have a gift, or had he just been close with his Nana, who loved him, and was therefore able to see her after she passed away?
He’d wanted to know so he started watching YouTube vids about ghost hunting, and read all the books. Finally, he’d bought an EMF meter on Amazon for around twenty-five bucks. There were more expensive ones of course, but he was a college student on a budget and needed to be sensible. He’d also made sure to get his homework done and to show up at his work-study job in the library on time before allowing himself to play with the EMF meter.
He’d gone into old buildings on campus first, figuring they’d have energy—and yes, they did. Of course, the EMF could pick up electrical signals from wires, too, but he made sure to do readings in dark corners, and at different times of the day.
If the signals came from wires, they’d be the same readings each time. If the signals didn’t come from wires, but from paranormal energy, the readings would shift and move, and then—yeah, baby—he had a ghost on his hands. Or at least the revenants of a ghost, as some weren’t as potent and tended to move on more quickly than others.
He’d felt he could sense them talking to him, their voices coming across like faint whispers that he couldn’t understand. That was when he bought an EVP recorder so he could listen to their voices.
Not sure what to do with the results of his solitary ghost hunts, he’d joined several local ghost hunting groups, most of which were silly excuses to go drinking in graveyards and to brag about their encounters to anyone who would listen.
The group he liked was a small group of guys and gals in south Boulder who, when they’d found out he wasn’t the drinking-and-bragging type of ghost hunter, welcomed him cautiously and taught him what they knew. They called themselves the Boulder Paranormal Society and it was they who had shown him the possibility of being a ghost hunter for a living.
Of course, there were those who hunted ghosts to be Instagram or Youtube famous or whatever, but then there were those who truly wanted to know about the unknown, who wanted to help people. Then there was the Ghost Force, a group on Youtube who had it all: a great rep, cool gadgets, and were making money.
By the time Finn had been involved with the Boulder group for a year, auditions for Ghost Force had opened up for additional members. Finn was determined to be the one picked. You had to turn in an audition package that consisted of three EVPs with analysis, ten pictures of ghostly apparitions (only three of which could consist of just orbs), a night time infrared recording with temperature readings from the night of the recording, motion sensor data, and a writeup of the whole thing.
For extra oomph, you could document any personal experiences from your own life, so Finn intended to tell them about Nana. Finn also sensed that the Ghost Force was looking for authenticity rather than anything showy, so he fully intended to admit any data, even if it didn’t support proof that there was life after death.
Which was why he was staying at a fancy hotel only half an hour from home, looking for ghosts and feeling a little lonely. But then, he was always alone. Why? Because he was the kind of guy who lived in his own head and was currently the type of guy who holed up in an old hotel just so he could chase after ghosts. Nobody wanted to be with a guy like that. Right?
