Burt stopped the tape because he started to feel melancholy. Could they have prevented Beth’s path? He wondered if he should have used this second chance of his to look up the former investigator, maybe plant the idea of finishing her studies instead of becoming a paranormal investigator. She became fixated with a false sense of persecution. She was convinced that Mia was trying to take Ted away from her. All Mia did was fall in love with the object of Beth Bouvier’s obsession. It wasn’t deliberate.
“How did Mia and Ted end up together? I think if Ted hadn’t pushed the issue, Mia may not have even noticed that Ted was alive. After all, she was dating Whitney, her schoolgirl crush. Turns out that after Mia and my breakup, Whitney was her rebound man… They broke up. Hmmmm, that’s my fault. How much of this is my fault?” he asked himself. “Come on, this isn’t productive,” he scolded himself and pressed record.
“Three: Roustan Rose. The mansion with the pocket dimension inside. It was controlled by an evil little girl who pulled us into her sick little game.
“Two: The Hofmann house. It had so many ghostly attachments that it took us awhile to figure out what exactly was going on. It was the first real challenge after the hollow.
“One: Cold Creek Hollow. The haunting of what we now call the Murphy farmhouse was just the tip of the iceberg. This is where Mia Cooper - now Mia Martin - first became associated with PEEPs. What a complex haunt. It not only spread out to four other residences of the hollow but never really went away. We had to return years later to rest the other spirits who had been dormant until the arrival of a skin-walker. We had the help of a pair of bounty hunters sent by the Council of Women, Tonia Toh and Lorna Granger. Lorna Granger was possessed by a Native American demon called the deer-woman. This deer-woman was a very effective assassin when she fully transformed into a stag. I know it’s odd to use a male term such as stag to describe the female demon, but she had a full eight-point antler rack one normally associates with a male deer. The deer-woman could kill humans, demons, and ghosts. It was a fight that we lost a good friend of PEEPs to, but he has since been returned to us. Let’s see, the hollow has been destroyed, but I’ll always remember it as the place where if not for Mike and Ted, I would have perished.”
Burt was satisfied and stopped the recording. He labeled it and dropped it into his bag with the other tapes he had made. He listened to the squeaky wheels of the gurney moving above him. As a precaution, he had relocated his safe zone to abut the window he was working on. His thoughts were, if the ghosts sent a gurney down into the room, it would not batter him in his sleep.
He felt tired. He knew he shouldn’t sleep the day away as it made the night last longer. The only thing he could do at night was sit in the dark, watching and waiting.
~
Mia sat in the back seat. She trusted the boys to get her to the Smoky Hill River area in one piece. Ted had found a geographical map of Kansas. It was ten years old, but they would manage. Mia studied the map of where she remembered the facility to be. She tapped the map with her finger.
Murphy manifested and said, “If we could come in and hug the river and come up under here, we may be able to enter the building without going through the front door.”
“I agree. I don’t want to make that mistake again.”
Cid turned around and said, “I think we may have to draw the king out of his castle. This way, he won’t be aware of you trying to come in the back way.”
“I don’t know?” Mia said honestly. “I think, when he thought the cavalry was coming, that’s when he decided to execute his prisoner. Until that moment, Burt had kept himself safe with the salt.”
“That very same salt that keeps Murphy from rescuing him,” Ted said.
“What if Ted and I just walk in,” Cid said. “Play the mischief-maker card. You know, juvenile delinquents looking for a place to set some fireworks off.”
“Um, where did the fireworks come from?” Mia worried.
“I had some left over from New Year’s Eve,” Ted said.
Mia looked at Murphy and back down at the map but didn’t say anything.
“We’re worried you’re going to blow yourself up again,” Murphy told Ted.
Ted gave them a lopsided grin. “I appreciate that, but I assure you these aren’t homemade bombs, and there aren’t any M80s in the group I brought. No vibrations to fool Burt into thinking that’s what opened the door. Just some pretty roman candles to draw the ghosts out and get them focused on what Cid and I are going to do next.”
“We’ve tried to put ourselves in Burt’s mindset,” Cid said. “He’s a guy who’s used to making decisions. He’s kicking himself for making the wrong one and ending up in that cell. He’s going to react when that door pops open. Mia, you need to get to him before that happens.”
“That’s my intention,” Mia said.
“Do you want to stop for supper before we get there?” Ted asked.
“Just someplace to pee,” Mia said. “I don’t want to waste any more daylight. I’m worried about how dark it gets in those woods after the sun goes down.”
Ted pulled into the diner that they had stopped in before. He had no idea he’d been there the
