NaNoWriMo, Part 23: In Which We Meet a Ghost

Today's word count: 1,710 words
Running total: 38,248 words
Summary: The gang meets Grindstone.

Also, when I was writing this I had the voices of Chrisopher Eccleston and Nathan Fillion as the voices of Jake Waters and Brian Wells respectively.  Talk about weird.

    “I see…”  Jake leaves that hanging just long enough that there’s an awkward silence, but not long enough for me to actually reply or continue.  “That’s cool, that you’ve at least taken some classes.  Trust me, if you can find a good teacher, they’ll be invaluable to your growth.  I’d still be in the little league of drink mixing if it wasn’t for the people I’ve met.  Maybe you just haven’t met the right teacher yet.  But give it some time, you know?  You’re young.”
    “…Yeah, I guess you’re right.”  I sound pretty condescending but I know the truth of his words.  It just doesn’t feel like you’re ever going to meet the right teacher sometimes.  I wonder if some people never meet the right teacher.  That’s kind of sad to even think about—I get depressed when I try.  Instead I focus my attention on the path and see where it takes the two of us.  Eventually we’re led back to the lodgings of the news casting club.
    “Ah!  I recognize this place,” Jake announces.  Well that’s good, at least.
    “So where do we go now?”
    “We head… the other way on this path!”
    I sigh.  I wish I had a watch right now, but I don’t own a watch.  All I have is my cell phone, and since we get no reception here, I haven’t been bothering to charge it.  Now I really wish I had.  I hope we’re not too late to the party.  Metaphorically speaking, of course.  There’s no real party other than one that’s about to kick some ethereal ass.
    But that’s not a party party.
    You know what?  I’m going to stop now while I’m still ahead.  I could rant about this party thing forever.  Dunno why I even brought it up in the first place.

~~~

    Eventually Jake and I get to the Sugar Shack.  Everyone else seems to be waiting impatiently for us.  Wonder how long we were lost out there.
    Chase says, “What took you guys so long?  Where the hell were you?”
    I rub the back of my neck and shrug.  “We got lost.”
    Jake defends me before anyone else can say anything.  “You can blame it on me.  I have a terrible sense of direction, but I insisted on leading the way… thought I knew my way around here better than I actually did.  Heh.”
    “What time is it, anyway?”
    Chase turns checking his techie glowy watch into a large, over-gesticulated action.  When he’s finished, he says, “It’s 8:45 right now.  We could have been in there at least twenty minutes ago… it’s not that far from the mess hall…”
    I don’t say anything.  I’m smart enough to know that I lose if I make any comment on this situation at all.  After some silence, Scarlett sighs, exasperated, and speaks.
    “Well, whatever.  Mr.—guy that Brian found.  Do you have the keys?”
    “You can just call me Jake,” he says, tipping the bill of his newsboy cap.  “It’s nice to meet anyone who I haven’t yet met… and I indeed have a key to the shack.  I’ve been in it once or twice.  If someone can come here with a flashlight—“
    I accompany him to the door, and everyone else crowds around.  As he fumbles with the keys, he tells us what little he knows about the myth.  “The shack has a few threshers in it.  Most of it is eerily close off.  Apparently they’ve tried to renovate or remove it but people on the team are always found later with axes in their head or the like.  It’s not fun stuff.  There aren’t a whole lot of weapons left on the wall, but apparently no one wants to remove them out of superstition.  I recommend you don’t try to take any yourself.  Just a look around, okay?”
    I look behind to see that Chase has started filming again.  Scarlett says, “Um, would you mind introducing yourself for the camera again?”
    “Oh, I’m on film?”
    “It’s part of the project,” I quickly say.
    Jake takes it pretty well for it have being sprung on him suddenly.  “Well, I’m Jake Waters.  I work in the mess hall at Sandstone, and I’m the only one with keys to the Sugar Shack here.”  He beams.  For a minute he gets a confused expression on his face.  “Wait, did you already go over the significance of the name—“
    “Yes, we have,” Scarlett says.  Geez, girl, a little patience.  It’s not like he could have possibly known we had already gone over this.  “Ready to go inside?”
    Jake pulls the key out of the door and turns the handle, although he keeps the door shut.  “Ready whenever you are.”
    “Kenny, you lead the way.”
    “Will do.”  He pushes his way to the front of the small crowd.  Jake pushes the rickety door open.  It swings open very fast; he nearly falls forward from the shock.  We all push our way inside.  I hand my flashlight over to Jake; I don’t think I’ll remember to turn it on myself.
    I’ve been able to see ghosts from the beginning of the fiasco.  I seem to be the only one to see the ghosts besides Kenny.  But my power is getting stronger. It’s kind of spooky to be honest.  There are tons of glowy trails everywhere in the shack.  I maneuver my way to Kenny.
    “Do you see that?” I whisper.
    He looks at me with surprise.  “You mean—?“
    I nod.  “The ectoplasmy stuff.”
    “That’s ectoplasm,” he confirms.  “I just—wow, I didn’t think you’d be able to see it… no one else can.”
    “Still trying to work that out,” I chuckle.
    While we’re having this conversation, Jake moves over to one of the walls in the shack.  “This is what you’re looking for,” he said.  We all look—lining the wall on various racks and shelves are tools.  All kinds of them, too—axes, sickles, hammers, machetes, hoes.  I notice there seems to be a disproportionate amount of tools that can hold an edge—what did they need so many things that could be used to cut through human skulls or throats for?  But it’s a bit too late to consider that now.  Maybe Grindstone had planned this from the very beginning.  I notice in one corner is a big wheel in the center of a strange wooden contraption—it seems to have a higher concentration of ectoplasm on it than anything else in the room.  I absentmindedly wander over to it and reach out to touch it.
    “Don’t touch that!”  It’s Jake’s voice.  I turn to look at him; the ectoplasm lights his face enough for me to see that he looks genuinely concerned.  “That’s Grindstone’s grindstone.  No one has touched it since his death.  It gives us all an eerie feeling… the air around it is cooler than anywhere else in this shed.”
    Hey, it is.  Huh, I didn’t even notice that.
    “Are the supports for this made of wood?”  I ask, mostly to myself but I say it aloud in case anyone has any input.
    “Yes…”  Scarlett answers, in a tone that entirely says “Wow, Brian, you are the stupidest man I have ever seen or met.”
    I stoop to get a better look at the device.  “There’s no damage.”
    “…What?”  Scarlett’s standing directly over me now.  I can feel her presence.  It’s kind of like I’m one with the world, only not as one with it as when I’m high.
    “There’s no damage on any of the support beams.  This shack is at least—what did you say, Ashley, a hundred years old?”
    “It’s closer to a hundred fifty,” she says.
    “No one’s touched it since he died.  It should have rotted through by now.  But instead, it’s good as new…”  I almost reach out and touch it, but I catch myself at the last minute.  I’m spooked, too.
    Jake’s voice now.  “The shelves are the same way.  That’s odd… Wait a minute.”  I turn to look.  He moves over to a rocking chair in the other corner of the cabin.  It, too, has more ectoplasm on it than other areas of the cabin.  Chase follows him as he gives a bit of explanation.  “Grindstone’s rocking chair.  In the first few murders attributed to his ghost, the ones who found the body report seeing a dark shadow in this corner and the chair rocking softly…”  As he bends down to get a closer look, he confirms his suspicion.  “It’s the same.  No damage… perfectly preserved after all these years…”
    Unlike me with the grindstone, he touches the chair.  Not even a second later he removes his hand.  “Ah!  Cold…”
    I look over.  Before our eyes and the camera lens, the chair ages, cracks, rots, and eventually crumbles to dust.  And at that moment, a terrible scream can be heard.  A long, deep, moaning wail from the very foundation of the cabin.  The air suddenly gets much colder.  I’m sure of it—that sound was from Grindstone, and the other kids didn’t hear him, but they can certainly feel it in the air.
    “You know, I think we should go now,” Chase says, backing toward the door.
    “That’s a good idea, Chase,” says Kenny.  His voice is high and squeaky—doesn’t give me much confidence in how this show is going to finish.
    I notice that Chase does not actually leave—he just shuts off the camera.  I give him a look that says “Oh, really, now,” and he just shrugs.
    “Didn’t want to get any more bodies on camera.”
    “Wait, bodies?”  Jake sounds tense.  I kind of feel bad for him.  It’s not like we really told him what we were getting into.  Then again, he was the idiot who wrecked Grindstone’s favorite chair.  “Should I be worried?”
    Kenneth is very tense now.  He’s trying to sense where the ghost will appear, and I can see he’s already changing to that ‘specialized for killing ghosts’ form.
    I shrug in Jake’s direction.  “Yeah, probably—“  Then I see it.  To my surprise, I have enough integrity about me still to yell, “Everyone, get out of the center!”
    They back away just as a ghastly glowy hand emerges from the floorboards of the shack’s center.  Slowly, the form pulls itself all the way up.  It’s very slow, as if it is even aging badly as a ghost.  I get my first good look at a spectre.
    It isn’t pretty.  It looks a lot like a zombie, really, only a single glowy color instead of flesh and blood.  Some of its “bones” and “muscles” are exposed.  It looks like he’s wearing