Ghost Hunted Read online

  Ghost Hunted

  Valley Ghosts Series Book 1

  BL Maxwell

  Dedication

  For everyone who encouraged me to write a ghost story. Thanks to my beta readers, proofreaders, and my editor for all of your help. Special thanks for Nic for reading this even though you’re not a fan of ghosts.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also available by BL Maxwell

  Copyright

  GHOST HUNTED

  BL Maxwell

  Copyright © 2018 BL Maxwell

  Editing provided by: Sam Jones Editing

  * * *

  All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permissions from the author, except for using small quotes for book review quotations. All characters and storylines are the property of the author. The characters, events and places portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Trademarks:

  This book identifies product names and services known to be trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of their respective holders. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of all products referenced in this work of fiction. The publication and use of these trademarks in not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Warning

  Intended for a mature an 18+ audience only. This book contains material that may be offensive to some and is intended for a mature, adult audience. It contains graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations.

  Chapter One

  “You ready to go?” I tried to act like it was any other night and we weren’t getting ready to go into what was rumored to be the most haunted house in the Sacramento area. But deep inside I was shitting myself. I tried to play along like I was excited about going and not dreading this trip. Why had I let Jason talk me into going in the first place?

  Actually, I knew why, because he was one of my best friends and I’d been crushing on him for years. He knew about it but brushed it off like it was a joke. Although there were times I caught him looking at me that made me wonder if he was interested in me as more than a friend. But I really did have feelings for him. And apparently, they were strong enough to follow him on another one of his bonehead schemes, and he had a million.

  “Yes. I can’t wait! I hope we see something, or something really weird happens.” He practically vibrated in excitement over the idea of going. “Come on, Wade, get it moving. Let’s go.” He ruffled my hair as he rushed by, and I gave him a good shove away from me.

  “Dork. You’d better behave once we’re there, or I’m out.”

  He straightened himself up to his full height of five foot eight and straightened his Giants ball cap over his short, cropped hair. “Oh, I’ll behave. You make sure you aren’t running out the door as soon as we see something.”

  We both grabbed the duffle bags we’d packed for our weekend trip to Coloma. A small gold rush-era town in the foothills of Northern California, close to Placerville. We’d heard stories for years about The Vineyard House and the previous owner, Louise Chalmers, who was reported to haunt the place.

  It had closed around twenty years ago and fallen into ruin. But lucky for us Jason knew someone, who knew someone, who knew the current owners, who were willing to let us stay there for the weekend. The only stipulation being that we didn’t make it public if we actually had a paranormal experience. That was fine with me, because I really didn’t expect us to see anything except a bunch of spider webs and lots of dust.

  “Did you grab our kit?” Jason asked.

  “Yes, I grabbed your toys.” We had all sorts of gadgets to give us proof, if and when we actually did see a ghost. There were night vision goggles, a digital voice recorder, cameras with night vision, an electromagnetic field detector, or EMF, a K2 meter, and a few flashlights and extra batteries.

  Jason’s obsession with the paranormal wasn’t a new thing; it had started after he’d watched an episode of Ripley’s Believe It or Not about haunted houses. He was instantly hooked. He went from not realizing there were so many haunted places to wanting to learn about them all. He was always checking out books at the library and forcing me to read them with him. Not that I minded spending time with him, but some of the stories he shared were truly terrifying and left me with many sleepless nights. As we’d gotten older he’d watched all the ghost hunting shows on television, which led to him purchasing the various ghost hunting equipment—just in case.

  This trip was just one of many we’d gone on. When we were teenagers, he’d insisted we go to Winchester Mystery House. I had to admit it was pretty cool, and huge! There’d been so much of it to take in it was almost distracting. But not for Jason. He’d had one thing in mind: to see a ghost. He’d also had the brilliant idea of sneaking off from the tour and exploring on our own. The only problem was we had no clue where we were. The house had so many twists and turns and doors that led to walls that in no time at all we were lost. After about three hours we ended up yelling for help and hoping someone heard us.

  A security guard eventually found us and led us out. He also informed us that we were never welcome back. That was one of the more embarrassing moments in our amateur ghost hunting adventures. Just thinking about it made me need to ask again about this arrangement.

  “So, you’re sure that it’s okay for us to go to The Vineyard House and stay the weekend? I don’t want another situation like . . .” I asked for the hundredth time.

  “Hattta tatata tat.” He plugged his ears and acted like he couldn’t hear me. “I told you not to mention that ever again. You know it was my most favorite haunted house that I ever wanted to go to. Now, due to an unfortunate situation, we can never return.”

  “Well, whose fault was that?” I mumbled.

  He rolled his eyes and blew out an exaggerated breath. “I told you, I have a connection. I told you about that girl I met at the bar a couple of weeks ago who said she knew the owners. She hooked me up with their number, and I called them. They don’t care if we go there as long as we don’t do some kind of live video post or something that brings more people snooping around. They also made me sign a release of liability agreement, so if we get hurt we can’t sue them. The place is a wreck, but it’s not a complete loss. They don’t want us to make it worse.”

  “Okay, since you’re so sure. I don’t want them sending the cops out there to investigate and not have any memory of giving us permission. We can’t afford to be arrested again for one of your plans gone wrong.”

  “Wade, it’s not my fault that when we stayed at Cary House none of the other guests seemed to be aware they were staying in a haunted hotel.”

  “Yeah, well you could have kept it down and not walked around with your EMF detector, freaking everyone out that there might be a gas leak.” He busted up over that. He hadn’t meant to scare anyone; he just really got into looking for ghosts and tended to forg
et to try to be cool about it.

  “Those cops in Placerville were not amused at all. They didn’t really need to arrest us and make us stay at the jail overnight, though. That sucked.” He was suddenly deep in thought, maybe remembering the crappy night we’d had and the equally crappy morning.

  “Perhaps it had something to do with two men in their late twenties totally wreaking havoc at the hotel. People don’t like to be woken up in the middle of the night and asked if they’ve seen anything suspicious. It was easier to get away with that crap when we were kids. People just thought we were weird kids; cute, weird kids.”

  Jason thought about that for a second. “You know you’re right, and the next time we stay there I will totally follow your lead.”

  I looked at him with my mouth hanging open. “You realize we are permanently uninvited there too?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He mumbled something I couldn’t understand.

  “What was that? I didn’t get that last part.” I knew without making him say it what it would be, and sure enough I was once again right.

  “I said, eventually they’ll forget what we look like, and we will return.” He puffed his chest out and tried to act a little more confident than he probably was. But the effect made him cute as hell.

  I realized he was most likely already planning our return, and I couldn’t hold back my smile. He really was adorable—especially when he was riled up—with his straight brown hair, cropped close on the sides and left longer on top, his eyes always full of mischief. We were of similar build, but my hair was a lighter brown, and if I let it get longer, it curled. I’d been told it matched my eyes exactly, which were boring to me compared to the bright green of Jason’s eyes.

  “Why are you smiling like that?”

  I wiped the smile off my face. “Nothing. Just thinking about something I saw on television earlier. You ready to go?”

  He gave me a long, hard stare before he started grabbing the supplies we had gathered in anticipation of staying in the abandoned house for the weekend.

  I tried to keep my feelings to myself. I knew Jason wasn’t interested in me, but he was irresistible when he was whipped up. That made it hard for me not to react.

  “This better not be a mistake, buddy. I’m not sure about sleeping in an abandoned hotel.” I wasn’t looking forward to that at all. Hopefully we didn’t freeze our asses off or starve, or get attacked by a ghost, or some other critter.

  “Don’t worry. I packed sleeping bags and mats for us to sleep on. I think there’re still some beds there, but they’d be over twenty years old, and I didn’t think that was something we should really count on.”

  I didn’t like that idea at all. Who knew what was living in those beds. Probably a rat or two, or some other creature that wouldn’t like sharing its bed. Yep, this was going to be another exciting adventure. One I hoped we wouldn’t regret.

  Chapter Two

  The drive to Coloma was beautiful, yet uneventful. It was early November and the trees were changing color, but it still wasn’t very cold during the day. Night was a whole different matter. We couldn’t spend the night in the house without bringing lots of warm clothes and the sleeping bags Jason had brought. We had also packed enough food for a week, but the way we ate we needed it. We were in our twenties, but we still ate like we were teenagers.

  “You know where you’re going?” I asked Jason. He was using his phone for GPS, but he seemed a little confused.

  “I have the address, but I’ve never actually been there. She said to watch for a sign on the right side of the road and a gate blocking the road.”

  Just as he said it we drove around a turn and there it was. He pulled up to the gate, which was held closed by a chain and lock.

  “Please tell me you have a key.”

  “Of course I have a key. Well actually, I don’t. It’s not really locked. They just put the gate up and put a chain and lock on it so people would stop driving down the road to the house.”

  He got out of the car and pushed on the gate; with a little effort it opened. He trotted back to the car and jumped in.

  “See? Easy peasy.”

  “Smart ass. Don’t be so smug. I have more than enough reason to doubt you.” I smiled at him fondly. Even though he always seemed to get me in trouble, he was still my friend. Nothing would change that. And the fact I constantly wished for more didn’t matter. Eventually I’d get over it, or so I told myself.

  We drove slowly down a road that was now overgrown with weeds and covered in branches that had fallen off the surrounding trees. When the house came into view, it was a lot bigger than I’d imagined it would be. We could clearly see the side of the house with six windows on each floor and more windows built onto a separate area at the back of the house.

  The house was overgrown with vines. They grew up on the porch, covered it and continued all the way to the roof. What we could see of the house had peeling paint and loose boards and trim. It was hard to tell exactly what color it had been painted, since there was so little paint actually left. It was a Victorian-style house, and I knew it was three-stories with a basement and an attic, since Jason had talked about it for years. Just thinking about what had happened in the basement gave me the creeps.

  That was the worst part for me. Most of the activity centered on the basement where the original owner had been chained by his wife and eventually died of starvation. Not that she didn’t feed him. He was crazy and believed she was trying to poison him, so he refused to eat.

  I wasn’t a fan of basements on a good day. Well, on any day. But knowing he had died down there and since there’d been multiple reports of him interacting with people, really freaked me out. Some people said he was sort of playful, moving a glass on the bar or blowing air on their neck. But some people reported much worse. I didn’t want to experience any of it.

  Truth be told, I was perfectly happy we hadn’t had an actual interaction with a ghost. But Jason couldn’t wait to actually have contact—that had always been his ultimate goal. To actually see a ghost or see it move something. To experience something that proved to him without a doubt ghosts were indeed real.

  He had always been so fascinated. From the time we were little, when all the other kids were busy reading comic books, he was reading ghost stories. It was our ritual to watch every episode of Ripley’s Believe It or Not together. We never missed an episode. That’s where we first learned about The Vineyard House, and now here we were, ready to experience it firsthand and alone. When the show was filmed here The Vineyard House had been open, but now it was closed and had been for more than twenty years, and it showed.

  Jason pulled up to the front of the house and stopped. We both craned our necks forward and stared up at the huge old building in front of us. It really was imposing, and not at all welcoming.

  Oh yeah, this was going to be great.

  Chapter Three

  Jason was mesmerized. He took in the house like he was seeing a Christmas tree for the first time. As though it held every answer to every question he never knew he wanted to ask. He slowly looked over at me, and an expression of awe passed over his face. He really couldn’t believe we were actually here. He shook his head before opening the car door and stepping out.

  “So you ready for this?” I asked him.

  “Are you kidding? I can’t wait to get in there. Come on, let’s go.”

  He jogged to the back of the car and started grabbing our stuff. I followed and carried what I could. We’d need to make another trip; there was no way we could carry it all in at once.

  With our arms loaded up, we climbed the steps to the front entrance. It was so grown over with vines it was not an easy feat especially with our arms full. When we got to the door, Jason set everything down and started feeling around the edges of the door for something; I wasn’t quite sure what.

  “Are you looking for a key?”

  “Yes. The owner told me it was on the ledge above the door, but I don’t feel it. You’re
taller. Can you check it out?”

  “Sure.” I put everything down and started running my fingers above the door frame. I didn’t feel anything, then: “Ouch!”

  “What happened?” Jason asked.

  “I’m not sure.” There was a dot of blood on the end of my pointer finger. “Must have been a nail sticking out.” Maybe it’s a warning, I thought absently.

  Jason didn’t look so convinced. “Are you sure? I didn’t feel anything sharp.”

  “Had to be. Let me check again and see if I can find the key this time.” When I put my hand up there this time, I felt a thin piece of metal and pulled it down where I could see it.

  “Here you go.” I smiled and handed the key to Jason.

  “Thanks, Wade. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

  “I’m sure, just a flesh wound.” I popped my finger in my mouth and sucked the tip clean. Jason was standing there with the key, ready to put it in the lock, staring at me with an odd expression. “What?” I asked him.

  That seemed to bring him back to reality. He cleared his throat and put the key in the lock. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that he was looking at me with interest, but that couldn’t be right.

  “Nothing, nothing at all. Let’s see if this key really does work or if we’re camping outside.”