ghost backup

    Phil Garris watches as the moving truck up the road leaves with the last of the furnishings. They got those girls moved out quickly. They are staying at a hotel last he heard; but they arn't his concern any longer. Luckily the girl, Shelly, was willing to go along with the story about vandals destroying her car, the priest agreed to stay silent (with some bribing). Phil however tells himself that he is not his parents.

   He looks back at the lake as the water truck pulls up. The driver gets out with an assistant.

   "You wouldn't know it," says the driver his assistant, "this was a ball park not long ago, my kid's little league team played on it. After we saw that sink hole swallow it on the news my wife had nightmares for weeks...man...could you imagine if that happened when the kids were playing...in only seconds...whoosh, whole thing became this lake."

   "Damn," says the assistant.

   "Well Phil," says the driver, showing familiarity with Phil Garris the current owner of the property, "like I told ya on the phone, we can try and drain this thing; but if its some underground cave sinkhole deal. It could take forever...or not even work. Could end up costing you a lot more than ya think."

   "I don't care," says Phil, "I want it gone."

   He is glaring at the water with an intense hatred.

  "Okay," says the driver as he and his assistant hook up the large hose and lower it into the water.

   -The hose sucks away for a few minutes when it suddenly loses suction.

   "Something's blocking the filter," says the driver, "probably trash,"

   He nods to his assistant to turn off the suction and haul the hose. As soon as the suction is off the hose suddenly jerks, shaking the whole truck.

  "What the fuck!?" exclaims the drivers as the hose is jerked a few times, let limp, and then slowly pulled on. The truck starts to be dragged backwards despite being in park.

   "Fuck no!" yells the driver hitting the release.

  The hose is pulled into the water and vanishes in the depth.

  "What the hell?" says the driver..., "Phil?"

   Phil is backing up watching across the bank as the land is being eroded around a tree whose trunk is about as wide as a man. The tree falls into the water and glides upright, its roots in the water, across the lake and smacks falls over in the shallows smacking into the truck.

  "That's not possible..." says the driver backing away from the truck, "trees don't..."

  The tree rights its self and glides back a good distance into the lake and then rushes to the shore like a speed boat. The driver, his assistant, and Phil run out of the way as the tree smashes down on the truck denting the water container. The tree trunk breaks on the truck, the base is sucked down into the water.

   "Now that is really fucking impossible," says the driver, "I've....fuck that!"

  He dives into the cab as the other two men noticed the ground looks to be being chewed away at leading to the truck, even into the asphalt. He drives the truck out of there quick down the road before parking. The sinking of the parking lot stops and the assistance swears he saw something moving in the water.

  As the driver comes back Phil is yelling at the lake, "I will drain this pond you fucking bitch! I don't care what it takes!"

  "Alrighty," says the driver, "Phil...what the fuck man?"

  Phil is glaring at the lake.

  The driver looks between him and the water and back at Phil still glaring at the lake, "Sooo, I take it the ghost from the mall is still here then? Damn, really turned up her game didn't she?"

  "What?" says the assistant.

  The driver looks at the water, "Hey...you probably don't remember me, name's David Anderson, I was a security guard for like a week like three or four years ago at the mall...you really spooked me good that week...so respect. I aint messing with your lake..."

  Phil looks at him, "I told you about that right?" asks David.

  "Oh...right," says Phil eying the water.

  "Uh," says the assistant, "should we still be here if that...was a ghost...maybe it was some sink hole..."

  "sinkholes don't pull back and rush you with a tree," says David, "something did that, and sorry Phil, but I'm not risking our equipment, or our lives pissing off something that can do that."

  As David and his assistant drive away Phil is left looking at the water, still now like nothing happened. He narrows his eyes as he swears he hears a soft laughter on the wind.

    ******


     "You really think a ghost did that?" asks the assistant as they drive away.

    "I don't believe in ghosts," says David

    "Then what was that back there then?"

   "I'm not saying there ain't supernatural stuff out there," says David, "just don't believe dead people are going to live in a lake, causing sinkholes, and smashing trees into shit. Or that shit I saw at the mall...no way. Whatever weird paranormal bullshit is back there, its killed people before, made folks right up and dissappear...only a few came back. It ain't no urban legend, that shit's real. I'm not about to go pissing it off, it wants a lake...fine whatever...it can sit down there doing whatever the fuck it is does whatever the fuck it does; so long as it aint breaking my shit. That hose wasn't cheap, neither is fixing a dent in one of these tanks. That it could even do that with a tree...shit."

   ******

   "Yurei," says Erica.

   "You what?" asks Shelly sitting beside Erica in the college computer lab (where they met)

  "Looked up the description of those ghosts," says Erica, "they match a Yurei...or...specifically, Onryo."

  "Is that a type of fairy?" asks Shelly.

  "You and fairies," says Erica, "No...its a Japanese ghost, Onryo, ghosts of vengence."

  "What would a Japanese ghost be doing in middle America?" asks Shelly.

  "Immigrant..." offers Erica, "I don't know, what would an Irish monster to being here?"

  Erica is refering to the various long haired robe wearing creatures Shelly had been looking up this last week.

  "Look," says Erica showing her tab, "matches what was on the camera and...mostly...what you described even the hair stuff."

   "Huh," says Shelly, "wait...this is that thing from those movies?"

  "Popular over there," says Erica, "also explains a priest not being able to get rid of it, looks really hard to get rid of."

   "What if..." says Shelly, "its all the above...like its all just roles in a game to them..."

  She has stopped typing on her paper, remembering what the entity said to her, "it acted like it was playing a game...like we started something that night...and then again with the priest."

   "Well..." says Erica, "its all academic, heard Mr. Garris was going to bulldoze the house, and had guys out there to drain the lake."

   "Yep," says someone on the other side of the computers, "and he has to get some big out of town company to come out there, the local guy quit after big momma smashed a tree into his truck."

  "What?" asks Shelly standing up, but no one is there in that row.

  Erica also stands up and looks around, "what...I heard her too...what is going on?"

  Erica stops as she sees a rolled up old looking paper sticking out of her satchel.

  "Uh," says Erica holding it up, Shelly wide eyed.

  Erica *gulps* and unrolls it, [We come play with you]

 Erica and Shelly look around, no one else is around who could have put that there, and they both know someone just spoke to them.

   ******

   That night Shelly is sitting at the desk in the hotel room frustrated, "this doesn't make any sense,"

   "What is it?" asks Erica turning down the tv, Erin stops typing on her laptop.

   "I've gone over all the sites, the historical stuff I could find, this...backstory doesn't add up. No matter how many times I go over it, its not exposition worthy even, it barely even qualifies as a legend. I mean...everyone in town knows the jist of it, but its like...there is nothing else."

   She turns and holds the laptop, "I mean what I told you...I thought was just the stuff I knew...but nothing else is much better. I even checked downtown at the court house...Its like...people found a town, there's a lake...some vague mention of weird stuff in a fog when it floods....no mention of deaths or graveyards or suicides or anything; just they fill the lake in...what kind of response is that to spooky fog? No names...nothing. Next thing you know its like someone just builts a Bed & Breakfast ontop of the hill they piled onto the lake...I can't even find dates for the legend...like there might not have even been a lake there if not for the photographs of it...but no photographs of the town when the lake was there...but get this I can't find anything about the Bed & Breakfast, no hauntings, incidents, nothing while it was open. But it was open for decades before it closed down...I mean like closed down like seventy years ago, as in only forty before those Ghost Finder guys were murdered...and that's it. Aside from that guy that lead to them going there I can't find anything about other dissapperances or murders there. The fact the mayor ordered the hill torn down is the most insane thing on here...and the Garris family inherited the land from the a grandmother Lane...no name other than that apparently, back just before that kid dissappeared, but apparently she had the final say on letting the Ghost Finders go there...and she is just gone from everything after that...probably passed away...then the mall...lots of accounts on here from security guards of spooky stuff happening, including those really out there accounts from this head of security who went missing for like a year...which...Barbera and Daniel Garris...Phil Garris's parents who owned the mall had it torn down after he went missing and turned it into...public land...what the hell."

   "What..." says Erica.

  "Wait a minute," says Erin, "he gave up the rights to the land to the city? So how'd he rent out a house?"

   "After the sinkhole swallowed the park," says Shelly, Daniel Garris bought the land back...then he and his wife dissappeared, leaving the land to Phil Garris in their Will....holy shit..."

   "Weird," says Erin.

   "Yeah..." says Shelly, "but...why is it haunted? It was haunted before these dissapperances...there is nothing here to explain why an Onryo or fairy that looks like one, or demons, or ghosts, or anything would be there....I can't even find the Native American legend that this story claims the local tribes had about the area. This story is litterally the only source claiming that anyone had any pre-existing legends about the lake...and it doesn't even say anything other than monsters emerging from fog when the lake floods...no specifics...why the hell is it haunted?"

    ******

    *click, click, click, click*

    Shelly turns in her sleep as she hears a clacking and clicking sound, as she drifts from her dream about being violated by tentacles...consensually, she *groans* as she slowly comes back to reality. Across the tiny divide in the hotel room is the bed Erica and Erin are sleeping in, spooning there, not a care to reality, Shelly sees them through blurry eyes in the darkened room, although there seems to be a bit more light than she expected. The sound continues behind her, she assumes its the bathroom faucet or another room as she snuggles with her body pillow, the sound however is so familiar.

   "A keyboard," she thinks just as she is about to drift to sleep, "its a...keyboard,"

  She realizes the sound is coming from the desk behind her, its slower than a normal person typing and the light...is not unlike the light of a computer screen when facing the wall behind her. Which is clear as the light in the room has only a vague shadow, something moving, something typing on her computer. The light vanishes, and Shelly closes her eyes tight, her mostly asleep mind not able to come up with a better plan. She lies still pretending to be asleep as she feels a weight on the bed, a hand on her shoulder, hair brushing against her skin and hearing it over the sheets. She can feel its warm breath as it leans down, and the soft warm lips as it kisses her on the cheek. It seems to just vanish after that.

   After a moment of silence, she doesn't know how long exactly, she opens her eyes, the room is dark except for the bathroom light and what little light manages to get in through the closed curtains. She gets up, Erica and Erin are still sound asleep. Her laptop has been moved so the screen is facing the wall. She opens it and turns it on, finding a shortcut to a saved document on the desktop.

   [There is no haunting, if you really want to know; go to the old town chapel's basement, find the mark of an hourglass within a circle upon the wall, hidden there is the truth.]

   "Okay," whispers Shelly as she turns off her laptop.

  She turns to the bathroom, not sure who forgot to turn the light off. Inside however she finds it steamy, and the tub is full of water that is very warm to the touch, a soothing feeling on her arm. Shelly takes off her pajamas and slips into the tub, a shiver of pleasure through her spine as the warm water laps at her labia, and again at her tits; not to mention all over her body. The water feels medicinal, and even a bit tingly as she finds herself drifting off to sleep, unaware of a woman with long black hair watching her with piercing blue eyes from behind a fogged up mirror over the sink.

   ******

    Shelly awakens in an empty tub to the sound of Erica peeing, the curtain is drawn.

    "What the hell?" asks Shelly, "How'd I...."

   "Got to get to class," says Erica finishing up, "pretty sure you overslept."

   "Oh shit," says Shelly scrambling to her feet and walking out to the hotel room naked looking at the time, "how'd I sleep through my alarm?"

  "Found you asleep in the tub," says Erin heading out the door, "you refused to get up, something about princess charming...seriously...watched you masturbate in your sleep...it was awesome."

  "Oh my god," says Shelly as she gets dressed and packs up her laptop to head out.

    ******