Coalescence (Camden Investigations Book 1) Read online

  “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.”

  DESPITE 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 point of allowing it to be taken, especially after behaving so badly?

  Iris allowed the team no time to ponder, practically shoving each woman out the door. They contained the dial in the trunk where they waited for several minutes in observation. They had no means to record electromagnetic activity. Iris cautioned it could be emitting radiation and they should resist any further urges to inspect it. That was easier said than done. There were so many questions. They entered the car without further incident from their trunk’s cargo. Pulling away, Iris’s mind ever occupied in thought, she and her team failed to notice yet another anomaly. An orange-white light danced directly above the client’s home.

  TO QUIET the voices in their heads, the team pursued less otherworldly undertakings, namely alcoholic drinks at their favorite tavern.

  Rachel frowned after downing a shot.

  “Ah, a little too much whiskey for you, Rache?” Kassidy teased.

  “It’s my watch. It’s not synched with the bar clock.”

  “So,” Kassidy said, “we all know bar time is fast. They want to get the patrons out before the actual closing time.”

  “No,” Iris said. “It’s not that. My watch is off too. Wait a minute.” Iris asked a patron what time was on his Smartphone. When he flashed it to her, she grimaced. “We’ve lost time.”

  Kassidy grunted. “You mean like in those alien shows?”

  Iris didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She didn’t believe in beings that could change the reality of her world. Science was science. There was no time bending. No time halting.

  Yet the other unexplained events of the night competed against her obstinacy.

  Most haunts left a house chilled. Yet the team sweated as if it weren’t early spring but summer. Objects levitated through walls. A complete breach of gravity, or whatever, kept walls from dematerializing. Clocks had somehow stopped and restarted, despite being dropped to the floor. And what about that damned dial? It appeared so alien. Iris flashed back to Kassidy’s face, which had reflected on the dial as they bagged it. It remained obsidian despite its reflecting capability. What need would a ghost have for such an object? And it did seem, without too much conjecture from her team, the entire haunting generated from its existence. Drinks quieted Iris’s mind a bit, until the ever-inquisitive Kassidy began demanding an explanation.

  Kassidy probed Iris, perhaps a little too doggedly—thanks to two mixed drinks—for answers to this unexplained phenomena.

  “Guys, I really don’t know what we just dealt with. I think we have to consider this might not be a haunting in the strict sense of the word.”

  “What does that exactly mean?” Kassidy said. An alcohol-induced smile plastered on her lips.

  “It means we still have a ghost in a home who can explain the purpose of this dial. What is it for? How did a child come to find it? The mechanical breakdowns, the heated temperature inside the home . . . I hate to say it, but our artifact appears to have come from outer space.”

  Kassidy poked her arm. “You never believed in the little green men theory.” Kassidy broke her gaze with Iris after a staring contest. “You’re not kidding are you?”

  “You’re sloshed, Kassidy,” Rachel reprimanded. “And Iris quit shitting us. I know we’ve had a few, but it’s no time to be playing with us.”

  “No, Rachel, I’m not playing. I’m just realizing this investigation is beyond our capabilities. Maybe this thing is just space debris, maybe it isn’t. But either way we’re going to need to consult someone who is familiar with UFOs.”

  The slim bartender, who earlier had been towel-drying glasses behind the bar, startled them as he suddenly appeared at the women’s table.

  “Talk about unidentified,” Kassidy squawked.

  Rachel tugged Kassidy’s sleeve and mouthed, “Be quiet.”

  “It’s okay, guys,” Iris said. “We have nothing to hide.”

  “Hey, I’m Jim,” the bartender announced. “That’s what I’m here for, bar psychologist for the tipsy. So having ‘nothing to hide’ isn’t really new for me. But I will admit I did eavesdrop . . . a little.”

  Kassidy barked more than laughed. “So, you double as the bar’s soccer mom?”

  Jim rolled his eyes at Kassidy, then stared straight at Iris. “Now, what can I help you with?”

  “Oh, probably nothing,” Iris answered. “We’re ghost hunters, and we came across some unusual circumstances this evening. It seems we need the opinion of someone who fancies UFOs. But I suppose you wouldn’t know anyone . . .”r />
  “You’re in luck.” Jim fished a cell from his pocket and scrolled his contact list. “Yeah, this is the guy, Mitchell. He was in here a few months back asking everybody about a report of lights in the sky. Nobody here knew anything, but he left his number with me just in case. Anyway, he says all reports are confidential. I guess most of his informants fear they’re going to be taken away in nets or something.”

  The vision of the lacrosse stick corralling the dial, or whatever this artifact might be, flashed in Iris’s mind. Just how long could she contain this thing? In desperation, she scrawled Mitchell’s number onto a napkin. Although she was perplexed and probably dealing with something harmful, a small part of Iris felt as if she had come alive again. For so long she had lived as a ghost, in the past, wallowing in regret about DJ and Ron. For the first time, in a long time, Iris Camden felt as if she was living in the here and now.

  Chapter Two

  A SMALL VOICE in DJ Camden’s head spoke. It willed her to believe what she perceived as reality to actually be nothing more than the onset of another bad dream. DJ fought the voice as she did before. She was certain an accident had left her mother dead. She was quite sure she’d experienced some physical injuries herself as well as lingering mental trauma. She was adamant the accident’s consequences had put her through hell the past three months. In between the nagging voice, there were times DJ might consider herself normal as any of her other co-workers who worked a job for a paycheck and spent little time pondering the things that went bump in the night. The job helped put the voice in her mind’s backseat. Reality was winning ever so slightly in DJ Camden’s screwed up world. If she could keep it at bay, she just might get over the anger of losing her mom.

  But what if the voice was right? What if there wasn’t a car accident and everything was okay? She was just trapped in a dream state where time and reality could be altered. What if she had repeated the dream many times caught up in some sort of scenario resembling the movies Inception or The Matrix? So, was her life real?

  No. She had lived the past three months shaken from tragedy. DJ was certain of it. In fact, if she wanted, she could break the hold of this state, move her body off the bed and toward the garage where she would find the blue Chevrolet missing. Missing because the insurance company deemed it totaled. Or, she could call out for her Mom. Hear there was no response and even proceed to dial her cell number. Leave a message and wait for it never to be answered.

  At least not in normal terms . . . Ah, yes. That was it? She’d had conversations with her Mom recently. But those conversations were ghost whisperings. Positive those conversations had occurred in the paranormal state, DJ began to ignore the voice. She had been a medium for far too long to be confused. In fact, talking to the dead was nothing new for DJ—she started when she was six. But prior conversations with dead strangers had never angered DJ. Chats with her deceased Mom were another story.

  DJ played along with the dream, allowing it to continue like a movie. Maybe if she stayed here, she could learn something. Was the small voice the child inside her pining for a means to change reality? If so, she shouldn’t be too hard on it. She had already taken out way too much anguish on her sister, Iris. Still, she couldn’t be sure whom the inner voice belonged to. DJ even entertained the idea she might be psychically tethered to her sister at the moment.

  DJ believed Iris prayed every minute of every day that she could have interfered with the course of fate three months back. Often, the sisters shared the same thoughts, possibly a form of telepathy. It meant Iris, a psychic, might even be behind all of this. The possibility of having your psychic sister in your mind wasn’t evil or even bad. It was just a cry in the dark. DJ understood all too well the pang of guilt Iris lived with everyday. Iris could have altered reality by simply sticking to plan. Iris had offered to drive her and Mom to the mall. If Iris had been driving, maybe there would have a minute or two lag in their time of departure. Iris was usually late. Consequently, the small animal maneuvering across the road might have already passed. The blue Chevy would not have veered to miss it, causing its driver to lose control and allow the vehicle to steer itself into a tree.

  A different outcome sounded tempting. One that would alleviate all the guilt, the physical suffering, the anguish of losing a parent, and most of all, the post-mortem visitations. DJ never wished for one conversation with her dead mother. It just happened because she was a medium. She couldn’t pick and choose who would and wouldn’t visit her. But while less gifted people might pine for such a visit from a loved one, DJ Camden abhorred it. Because it brought back the fact, her mother was gone from this reality. That fact hit home with each and every visitation.

  DJ listened to the wind whistle through the trees. Her passenger window was all the way down. Her hair blew this way and that. Her senses were so alive they distracted her from the rest of reality. Her phone pinged. She ignored it. Distracted . . .

  “Aren’t you going to get that?” Mom said, glancing away from the roadway to observe her youngest daughter.

  “No. It’s probably just Iris. And I don’t think I should answer it. If she doesn’t agree with our décor choices she should have come with us.”

  “I’m sure Iris will favor whatever style of couch you choose.”

  DJ’s eyes grew wide. She was living a previous moment. This was how the accident happened. Whether she was living reality via dream was debatable. But she was certain she was experiencing déjà vu. The brain fog washed away in sun glare. This was the beginning of the end of her childhood.

  Mom returned her eyes to the road but squinted because the sun was beaming directly at them. The momentary lapse in visibility prevented her from seeing the animal crossing the roadway in time to stop. Instead, aware she had insufficient time to brake, Mom steered the vehicle away, a sharp left. It took the car across the oncoming lane and into a tree.

  Police estimated a speed of more than 30 mph. Fast enough to make airbags deploy, hard enough to allow the car to bounce off the tree and return to the roadway. They should have been all right if not for the driver who also traveled in their eastbound direction. He had been blinded from sun glare as well, he told the investigators. His car struck the driver’s side door of the blue Chevy, its deployed airbag no match for a second impact. Mom died instantly, a coroner had said. The left half of her face unrecognizable as it lay on an autopsy table a day after the accident. Iris had begged DJ not to visit the body until it could be reconstructed for viewing at a wake. She should have listened. Maybe Mom wouldn’t have been so insistent on coming back if she hadn’t appeared so devastated. Now things synched up, reality and dream state were one.

  DJ tossed the covers off her, coming to grips with the fact reality could not be altered. The past moments were a mere replay of a day three months ago where she’d lost her Mom and sprained an ankle, bruised some ribs and suffered lacerations about her skull.

  DJ ached for the same distraction she’d experienced moments before the crash. But DJ wasn’t seeking a mere breeze to blow back her hair. She wanted to terminate her gift. End any means of future communication with her mother, for good. DJ didn’t know how to quit being a medium. But she could put it on hold via distraction. Extreme focus often worked better than opting for an oblivious state generated from alcohol. Temporary disruptions, they would have to do.

  After the accident, she made everyone stop calling her Doris, her Mom’s name. She had often been referred to as Doris Jean to distinguish between the two. Her mother’s death terminated any chance of confusion. Iris wished her sister would retain the name Doris to honor her mother. DJ wondered, sometimes aloud in the dead of night, why everyone was so clueless. Didn’t they realize the name along with the promise of unending after-death conversations with Mom would only serve to accentuate each pain of separation like a knife dug repeatedly into an open wound? Mom was gone. A name wouldn’t bring her back. Ghost whispering wouldn’t make her whole. She was only a shell of herself. Yet Mom refused to b
elieve that.

  Mom refused to crossover. Tonight was no exception. She was back.

  “I guess the dream brought you back again. Is that how it works? Each time I think of you, you appear?” DJ’s voice was laced with sarcasm. “You know I try very hard to keep you away. You don’t live here anymore. Why don’t you get this?”

  Mom transferred from a wispy cloud to a more distinguishable form during DJ’s rant. “I’ll never leave you. It’s nonsense to think I would. Especially, since you are so capable of receiving me. I know the accident was—” She paused to ponder. “—an inconvenience. But it won’t keep us apart. I didn’t name you after me for nothing. We will always be together.”

  DJ stammered with frustration. “We walk in two different worlds. It’s not natural for you to stay in my world anymore. We will be together when I can join you.”

  “I saw the way you looked at me on that table. You need me now. Don’t deny it.”

  “I’m not denying that. It just pains me to have you around as a reminder . . . a reminder that you’re not really around. What can we do together except engage in small talk? Is this any kind of . . .?” DJ paused to emit a sarcastic grunt. “Is this any kind of life?”

  As Mom approached the bed, DJ scurried backwards kicking her blanket in front of her until she could pull it completely off the bed. “Mom, we can’t be close like that . . .”

  Mom extended her arms as if to embrace.

  “No.” DJ hopped to her feet and began thrashing the blanket to and fro matador-style. The pain in her ankle had nearly subsided. She wasn’t at full dexterity to dance, but she did a pretty good job at resisting mother’s advances.