Coalescence (Camden Investigations Book 1) Read Free

scarecrow.
    “I’m trying,” Rachel said through clenched teeth. It was
as if she were willing her arm to grow, the cam mere inches from her grasp. The
weight of Iris on her wasn’t helping matters. She had no flexibility to reach
over Iris. As if mocking them, the shower rod lay resting on the bottom stair,
lifeless and now harmless. Its mission of destruction completed.
    “Oh sh—” Iris didn’t have to finish her thought.
The question was answered by the camera. Its view screen was a mesh of static.
    Iris scrambled to her knees, retrieved the device, and
handed it to Rachel. “Bag it in the duffel. We’ll see if we can salvage it
later.”
    Rachel was busy inspecting the EMF meter and the digital
recorder Iris had dropped during her tumble. “They’re not working either.”
    The team traded glances. Evidence of the paranormal
activity, the extreme paranormal activity they just witnessed, might be
eviscerated. They had seen it. But who would believe the passing of objects
through walls? And besides the loss of visual documentation, the failure of the
recording device might very well spell an end to any thought of communication
between them and the poltergeist. Furthermore, it would be impossible to get
any electromagnetic readings from the strange object—if they should still
be able to confiscate it.
    The setback angered Iris. Her team seemed to feed on it.
    Rachel and Kassidy chimed in unison, “Let’s take that
dial.”
    “But guys,” Iris warned, “there’s no need for you to come
with. Without the equipment, you don’t need . . .”
    Kassidy interrupted. “Excuse us, but you still need us to
bag the dial. You didn’t exactly fare so great with the shower rod.”
    Iris would have smiled if the situation weren’t so
serious. She couldn’t. “Okay. I admit I could use a hand.”
    “Besides,” Rachel added, “this is the shit. I’m not
leaving.” This time Rachel’s innocence and determination forced a grin from
Iris.
    “Yeah, Rachel, this is the shit.”
    A stray glance up the stairs caught the dial again
hovering before them at the top of the stairs, as if sent there by an
intelligence that could read their minds and was toying with them. Iris had to
infer this was indeed a game, maybe one with no more intent than to humiliate.
    “Give me that stick, Rachel.” Iris retrieved the shower
rod the ghost had thrown at them and headed up the stairs, the team in tow. She
grumbled, “No more games.”

 
 
    D ESPITE THE team’s determination, the ghost opted for
nothing less than mischief.
    After ascending the stairs in calculated chess-like
maneuvers to avoid some more objects being hurled their way—among them a
fan, a wig, and a jar of makeup remover, the ghost hunters found the teen’s
bedroom to their right.
    The object, some strange, round obsidian dial with
protruding points reminiscent of hands on a clock—but with
arrows—seemed too foreign to be mistaken for a toy. Iris wondered what
grasping onto any one of the protruding arrows might produce. Toys were
technical marvels in this day and age, but this thing was something else. Any
fleeting thought that this was all a hoax evaporated upon brief inspection because
as soon as she maneuvered her stick, it hopped. Bug like. It gave the women
fits as each time Iris laid the stick’s wicket over it, it rolled and bounded
away. The cat and mouse game continued bringing the women up and down the
hallway from the teen’s bedroom to the master bed several times. Finally, Iris
managed to catch the dial in mid air, but in the process the butt end of her
stick caught Rachel in the stomach, knocking both the wind and final bout of
energy from the young investigator.
    Scooping it from blanket into bag was less remarkable.
The dial put up no fight. It seemed as if the ghost wanted the dial taken from
the premises. Yet it all made little sense. The poltergeist appeared in tandem
with the artifact as if it were pursuing it. So what was the