Friday
Alyssa woke them up just before 9am. She said grandmom had breakfast ready and to hurry up getting to the kitchen. Erin and Teddy got up and went to the kitchen in their pajamas.
“Hello sleepy heads. I thought you were going to sleep all day,” said Grandmom.
The kids could have slept all day. When they were off school they slept in to at least 10. They ate their breakfast and went back upstairs to get ready for the day.
As Erin was walking to the bathroom an apparition appeared at the top of the stairs. Erin could see it clearly. It was a girl with long hair wearing a dress. She was about the same height as Erin and she didn’t move. She looked as if she was talking. Erin had a vial with her things and she thought about throwing it. She thought
“I could end this right now.”
Erin pulled out the vial and threw it at the specter. It faded and the vial hit the wall. Erin
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missed and now they were down to three vials. She got dressed and went back to the room and told Teddy what happened. Teddy went to the stairs and cleaned the area.
“We have about a day left and we’re down to three vials. We should think about calling Officer Bishop,” said Teddy.
“I know. Lets wait a little while longer. He only needs an hour or so notice and we still have a chance to stop her,” said Erin.
She took Teddy by the arm and led him over to the closet. She opened it and pointed to the dark brown box.
“You see that box. It’s a Ougi board. I think we can contact the girl,” said Erin.
“Why would Grandmom have a Ougi board?” asked Teddy.
“She probably bought it thinking it was a game. People think its just entertainment. They say that the players move the pointer and get the answers they want,” said Erin.
“Isn’t it dangerous to use one of those things?” asked Teddy.
“Not as long as you follow the rules. People usually quit before closing the channel and they end up with a spirit haunting them,” said Erin.
“I guess you want to try it,” said Teddy.
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“I think we should. We could have her right in front of us. We might be able to hit her with a vial. Don’t forget we’re fighting to keep an army of evil off the earth,” said Erin.
“You’re right. I guess it’s worth a try. When do you want to use it?” asked Teddy.
“As soon as we can. We’re running out of time,” said Erin.
Alyssa came into the room. She closed the closet door and said,
“No time for games right now. Grandmom is taking us out for the day. We’re going to the flea market. She goes every Friday and since you’re here you get to go too.”
“The flea market? What’s that?” said Teddy.
“It’s kind of like a giant indoor yard sale. You’ll see, lets go, she’s waiting in the van for us,” said Alyssa.
Erin and Teddy followed Alyssa to the van and they were on their way. They spent a few hours walking around the flea market. Erin bought a hat and glove set and Teddy bought a video game. They also had lunch. They liked the flea market and said they would ask their parents to bring them sometime. They got back to Alyssa’s house about 3pm.
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Erin wanted to use the Ougi board as soon as she could. She asked if Alyssa and Teddy were ready to try another game. They said sure and they all went to the guest room. They looked at the games and tried to pick one.
“What’s this one?” asked Erin.
She had reached down and pulled out the brown box.
“That’s a Ougi board. It’s said that you can talk to spirits with that board. Do you want to try it?” asked Alyssa.
“Yeah, lets try it. How does it work?” said Teddy.
Alyssa opened the box and put the board on the bed. She took out the pointer and set it on the board. Erin was reading the instruction booklet.
“We put a finger on the pointer and ask a question. The pointer will move to the Yes or to the No or it will spell words with the alphabet letters,” said Alyssa.
“It says here that you can call on a specific spirit, lets do that. We’ll ask to speak with the girl who haunts this house, ok,” said Erin.
“Yeah, we can find out who she is. I’ll write down everything that happens,” said Teddy.
“Sounds good to me,” said Alyssa.
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“Ok then, everyone put a finger on the pointer. We call on the girl who haunts this house. Are you here with us?” asked Erin.
The pointer shook a bit then slid to the Yes. The kids were surprised. They looked at each other.
“I didn’t move it,” said Teddy.
“Quiet, she moved it,” said Erin. “What is your name?”
The pointer moved again.
J-A-N-E
“Jane her name is Jane,” said Alyssa.
-T
“Janet,” said Erin. “Is your name Janet?”
The pointer moved to yes.
“Are you trying to scare us?” said Erin.
No
“Are you trying to get our attention?” she asked.
Yes
“Do you want something from us?” she asked.
F-I-N-D-K-I-L-L-E-R
“You want us to find what killer?” asked Erin.
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M-I-N-E
“She wants us to find who killed her. How would we do that? We don’t know anything about her or who killed her,” said Alyssa.
The pointer slid
B-U-R-N-S-G-U-N-T-O-O-L-B-O-X
“What does that mean?” asked Teddy.
The pointer didn’t move.
“Can you tell us the name of the killer?” asked Erin.
Again the pointer didn’t move.
“She’s gone, we have to close the connection. Thank you for communicating with us, we now close the link with your world,” said Erin. “We can take our fingers off now.”
“How do you know all that stuff? I thought you never used this before,” said Alyssa.
“I read it in the instructions before we started,” said Erin.
“She wants us to find out who killed her and she gave us ‘burns gun toolbox’ as the key. What do you make of it?” asked Teddy.
“Maybe who ever killed her burned the gun in a toolbox. Maybe we’re supposed to look for a burned toolbox. But where?” said Erin.
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“There’s a lot that we don’t know. When she was killed, where she was killed. All we know is that someone named Janet was murdered with a gun maybe,” said Alyssa.
Teddy and Erin knew when and where but they couldn’t tell Alyssa. They all had more questions for Janet and decided to try again later. Alyssa’s grandmom called to her to come down and help with dinner. They all went down together and Teddy and Erin went to the den. Teddy put in his new video game.
“We should call Officer Bishop now and tell him what we have learned. Maybe he knows something about a burnt toolbox,” said Erin.
“Good idea. Do you think he should get the grave ready?” asked Teddy.
“Not yet, I’m getting the feeling that Janet’s not evil. What ever is making her kill is evil but I think she doesn’t have a choice,” said Erin.
“Choice or not we can’t let her kill number ten,” said Teddy.
Erin called Officer Bishop and gave him the letters from the board. He said he would check the file for anything that might help solve the murder. He said he would call back as soon as he could.
Alyssa came down and said they had ordered pizza for dinner. She said that grandmom wanted them to call home and let their parents know
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everything was all right. They called their parents and everything was fine. Teddy set the game for three players and they played the game.
Dinner had come and gone. They went to the guest room and tried contacting Janet again. There was no reply to their questions. They put the game back where they found it and went back to the den.
“Did you check the cameras,” asked Erin.
“Yeah they’re fine. The batteries are charged and there’s plenty of film. I have them set on motion activate so they don’t use either unless something moves,” said Teddy.
“Good, I hope we get something,” said Erin.
“Maybe we should try contacting her using EVP,” said Teddy.
“What’s EVP?” asked Alyssa.
“You know, when they use tape recorders to capture voices on the ghost shows,” said Erin.
“Oh yeah. Do you have a recorder?” she asked.
“Yeah we have two of them but they’re not tape they’re digital,” said Teddy.
Teddy went to get them from the guest room. He took them out of the bag and started back to the den. At the top of the stairs he saw the apparition. The same one Erin had seen that
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morning. He reached in his pocket and grabbed a vial. He threw it but she faded and the vial broke against the wall. He cleaned it up and he went back to the den.
He told Erin what happened and she said she didn’t want to vanquish her yet. She wanted to get more information from the spirit. Teddy said they should kill it before anything bad happened. Erin said the spirit might not be evil and it would be wrong to kill her. She wanted to help her into the light instead of vanquishing her. They had two vials left and Erin wanted to save them one of their last resorts. Teddy agreed to wait for now.
“You know it’s not polite to whisper,” said Alyssa.
“Sorry about that, Teddy got scared again. We should think of some good questions before we start. What do we need her to tell us?” said Erin.
“We need to know who killed her and when she died. If we told the cops when she died they could find her file. Then we tell them who did it,” said Alyssa.
“Who and where, ok, do we need anything else?” asked Erin.
“What about why, do we need to know why she was murdered?” asked Teddy.
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“It could be important. We’ll ask why too,” said Erin. “Lets get started. We should both record.”
Teddy pressed record as did Erin and she started asking questions.
“Janet, please answer our questions. Who killed you?”
She waited about thirty seconds and asked, “Where did you die?”
She waited and asked,
“Why were you killed?”
They waited and then rewound their recorders. Both pressed play and listened for responses. They recorded the same responses.
“Burns gun toolbox”
Then two more responses;
“Taken”
“Money”
They had some new clues to think about.
“Can you think of anything else to ask her? She’s answering our questions so we should ask anything we can think of. I’ll press record and you ask whatever you want. Just give about thirty seconds between questions,” said Erin.
“I can’t think of anything. Tell us who murdered you,” said Teddy.
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“Help us solve this. Tell us anything you can,” said Alyssa.
Erin waited and then clicked the recorder off. She pressed rewind and play. Teddy’s voice asked the first question and the response was,
“Are burns.”
Then Alyssa’s voice asked the second question and the response was,
“He wanted money.”
“It seems like she was kidnapped for money, shot with a gun and then the gun was burned in a toolbox,” said Teddy.
“I think that’s pretty close to what happened. I wish she would tell us the name of the killer,” said Erin.
“My granddad is a retired policeman and I know he could figure this out. But if I told him about this he would think I went crazy. He doesn’t believe in ghosts,” said Alyssa.
“I know what you mean. Some people will see a ghost right in front of them and say their eyes were playing tricks on them. Lets go over all the clues again. Maybe we missed something,” said Erin.
The lights all over the house started flickering. The TVs turned on and off. The
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doorbell rang. Then it all stopped. Granddad called the kids up to the living room.
“What are you doing down there?” he asked.
“We were playing Teddy’s new video game,” said Alyssa.
“What happened with the power?” he asked.
“We didn’t touch anything. It just started flashing,” said Erin.
“Alright. I’ll take care of it,” said Granddad. “You can go play.”
The kids went back to the den. Teddy had a note pad with all of the Ougi board questions and answers written in it. He suggested that they write down all the EVP information so they could look at it all together.
“What’s the same and what’s different?” said Erin.
“We got Janet, find killer, burns gun toolbox from the first contact. We got burns gun toolbox, taken, money, are burns, he wanted money from the last contact,” said Teddy.
“She said ‘are burns’ this time. Could that mean ‘There are burns on the toolbox’,” said Alyssa.
“It could mean anything. I wish she would just tell us what happened,” said Teddy.
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“I’m sure she is trying her best. It probably takes a lot of energy to communicate with us. Try to think of it like you were trying to say something but you were limited to the amount of words you could say,” said Erin.
“I think each word I used would be important. Like each word would have meaning,” said Alyssa.
“Yeah that’s it. Now if you said what she said what would you mean?” asked Erin.
“I don’t know. I guess what we already thought of, a gun in a burnt toolbox. She was killed by someone who wanted money and put the gun in a toolbox,” said Alyssa.
“Time for bed kids,” Grandmom called.
Teddy closed his notebook and the kids went up to bed.
“We should call Officer Bishop and let him know we’ll have to burn the remains tomorrow,” said Teddy.
“I don’t want to burn her remains. I don’t think she’s evil. We have to find her killer and then we can release her to the light,” said Erin.
“I’d like that too but we’re out of time and we can’t risk the consequences,” said Teddy.
“I know. I’ll call Officer Bishop and tell him to wait until morning. She can’t kill just anyone. It
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has to be someone with a criminal record and no one here has that. That means the victim will show up here tomorrow. All we have to do is watch for visitors and hit her with the potion if she tries anything,” said Erin.
“That’s cutting it pretty close. If you think she’s innocent we can give it a try. Who knows, it just might work,” said Teddy with a smile. “If it doesn’t work how bad could it get.”
Erin laughed a little with Teddy. Then she called Officer Bishop and told him to wait until tomorrow before he did anything with the grave. Erin asked him to try to be in the area of Alyssa’s house tomorrow. They might need his help if the victim showed up. He said he would and that he looked into Janet’s case file but didn’t find any connections to the clues they gave him. Erin gave him the other clues they got from the recorders. He said he had the case file and he would look into it again.
“Set that alarm clock for 6am. We’ll get up early and keep watch,” said Erin.
Although he didn’t want to get up that early, he set the alarm. He knew tomorrow was the day something was going to happen and that they had better be ready.