Ghouls Gone Wild by Victoria Laurie Page A

spots—or those areas where Heath and I were sensing a lot of activity. We intended to place our meters and thermal gauges and night-vision cameras in those locations where he and I felt they might capture poltergeist activity when we weren’t around. And as we edged into the tunnel, I knew almost immediately that we could pretty much plop our equipment anywhere, and something somewhere was likely to capture and record the activity.
    “Can you feel that?” Heath asked me. “It’s like it’s just radiating out of the walls!”
    “I can,” I told him with a slight shiver.
    “What are you two picking up?” Gopher asked, and he made a not-so-subtle gesture toward the camera.
    “Lots and lots of people died here,” I said to him. “Right now, it feels like Heath and I are wading through a sea of grounded spirits. It’s incredibly intense.”
    “As bad as up top?” he asked, eyeing us nervously. I knew Gopher was counting on us being able to explore the close, so I was quick to reassure him.
    “No,” I told him. “I mean, there are a lot of grounded spirits here, but it doesn’t have the same intensity. It’s not nearly as terrifying.”
    “In other words, it’s bearable,” Heath said.
    At that moment and from just behind us we heard a loud series of knocks, like someone rapping their knuckles against the rock. “What was that?” Gopher whispered uneasily.
    “Hello?” I called out. “Is there anyone who wishes to communicate with us?” There was no reply. “If you would like to talk with us, please knock on the walls to make yourselves heard.”
    For a moment, nothing happened, and then all around us came hundreds and hundreds of knocks. The sound was loud, and powerful and intense and freaking scary. “Ahhhhhhh!” screamed Russ.
    “Shiiiiiiiiiiit!” screamed Jake.
    “Holy Christ!” screamed Gopher.
    And as if all three of them had the exact same thought at the exact same time, they collectively shouted, “Run!” and bolted, leaving Heath and me standing in the middle of the cavern all alone.
    “Stop!” I yelled at their departing forms.
    In hindsight what happened next was pretty amusing; our brave crew didn’t stop, but the knocking did. “Good job,” Heath said with a playful smile. “Way to scare away the crew, M. J.”
    The situation was so ridiculous that I began to laugh. Heath snickered, then chuckled, then began laughing in earnest too, and before long we were leaning against the walls for support as tears leaked down our cheeks and we took turns pantomiming the terrified crew who’d just abandoned us.
    When we’d collected ourselves again, I heard Gilley’s concerned voice sound loudly into my ear. “M. J.?! Are you there? Over.”
    I giggled and clicked my headpiece’s microphone on. “Hey, Gil,” I said. “I’m here. Over.”
    “You guys okay?”
    “Fine,” I assured him. “And I take it the crew has made its way back to you?”
    “Yes,” he said. “And they’re totally shaken up. What happened?”
    “M. J.’s been working the crowd,” Heath said with a laugh.
    “What?”
    “Nothing,” I told Gilley. “I’ll explain it to you later. Listen, in my duffel is there a camera?”
    “Yes,” he told me. “You and Heath both have four night-vision cameras in each of your bags.”
    I set down my duffel and fished around inside, quickly locating the cameras. “Fabulous,” I said. “I’ve got them.” I motioned to Heath and he also set his duffel down to retrieve a camera. “Tell Gopher that we’ll record things from here. I doubt the crew will want to come back into the close tonight, right?”
    It was Gilley’s turn to laugh. “Russ and Jake have already quit,” he told me. “Gopher’s trying to talk them out of it as we speak.”
    “Figures,” I said. “Okay, well, we’ll get to work. You monitor from your end and make sure you’re getting readings from all our equipment.”
    “Roger that.”
    I swung my duffel bag back onto my shoulder