Othernaturals Book One: Possessed

By Christina Harlin

When a ghost-hunting episode of the popular paranormal web series Othernaturals goes bad, two cast members quit, and Othernaturals producer, telepath Rosemary Sharpe, finds herself carrying the ghost of an axe murderer on her shoulder. Now she must hire two new members for her team before her show moves on to investigate a haunted dormitory at a state university, all the while keeping her angry companion at bay. Disgraced psychic Andrew Fletcher and renowned healer Kaye Whittington sign on, joining Rosemary’s team which includes an animal empath and his traveling companion Vladimir the cat, a psychic vampire who is more cheerleader than bloodsucker, and a haunted medium who shares head space with his best friend who died twenty years ago. Even the show’s director can see ghosts. Though she is empowered with the telepathy that made her grandfather famous, Rosemary feels that the supernatural need not be real, as long as her viewers are intrigued. But the murderous spirit she carries has other ideas about avenging himself on those who abducted him from his haunting grounds – and on any innocent spirit they may encounter. Passions and paranoia are all part of the package, when filming an un-reality show. Possessed is the exciting first book in the new series by Christina Harlin, author of paranormal thrillers Never Alone and Deck of Cards and the romantic adventures of legal secretary Carol Frank in the “Boss” series. In addition to the book itself, the Othernaturals series also has a website that includes pictures, ghost stories, additional information about the characters, and some fun things for fans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christina Harlin
• Release date: Oct 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310340208

Christina Harlin

Christina Harlin is the author of the "Othernaturals" series, featuring the adventures of a ghost-hunting team, each with his or her own otherworldly talents, passions and secrets. Her stand-alone works of supernatural fiction are "Deck of Cards" and "Never Alone". With co-author Jake C. Harlin, she has published the outrageous parody of romantic thrillers, "Dark Web." Together, Christina and Jake conduct the podcast "Underground Book Club", where they present talk and advice about self-published writing and writers. Having worked for over twenty years as a legal secretary and paralegal in law firms in Kansas City, Christina's experiences there have played no small role inspiring her comic mystery series of Boss books chronicling the ongoing misadventures of Carol Frank. Christina enjoys computer games, puzzles, great television, movies, and novels. Christina lives in the Kansas City area with her family.

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Othernaturals

Book One: Possessed

Christina Harlin

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Christina Harlin

Visit the author at http://www.christinaharlin.com;

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Prologue

The White Bend Hotel, December 2013

Othernaturals: Season Four Finale

At the end of Season Four of Othernaturals, a popular paranormal web show hosted by 26-year-old Rosemary Sharpe, the show’s psychic Oliver Channing and its clairvoyant Kelly Stroyland both quit. They blamed this dramatic action on their harrowing experiences at the White Bend Hotel. Though the Season Four finale did indeed show the team investigating a gruesome and disturbing haunting, this was not actually the true reason for the split. Oliver Channing quit because he got a better job offer on a HoloNetwork TV series about poltergeists, and he had an eye toward hosting his own paranormal show, maybe contacting dead relatives for audience members. Kelly Stroyland quit because she was Oliver’s girlfriend and thought that he would keep her for the duration of his career.

Regardless of the truth, the White Bend Hotel investigation was suitably horrific to make a good excuse for their leaving, at least for the audience’s sake. Oliver and Kelly bore the brunt of the haunting’s wrath. Kelly almost ended up in the hospital and Oliver was damn near arrested for assaulting her – a crime for which he was innocent, despite how things looked.

But as much of an ordeal as the White Bend Hotel might have been for them, being a celebrity, even a mid-level Internet celebrity, was gratifying payment for the trouble. This was a facet of her show that Rosemary Sharpe was counting on. She put her cast through some grueling exercises and trusted that money and relative fame would keep them content to continue. Usually it did. Oliver and Kelly left when it was high time for them to go anyway. They had worn out their usefulness.

Despite what the web show Othernaturals claimed, Oliver and Kelly were fakes, meaning that neither Oliver nor Kelly was actually psychically gifted. They enjoyed the benefits of pretending to be a psychic and a clairvoyant because these things are easy enough to fake. Rosemary hadn’t cared that they were faking; she was powerful enough to carry the show’s scares herself. What bothered her was that they weren’t even faking it very well, there at the end of things. How long did Oliver Channing suppose he could coast on his killer looks alone? How long did Kelly Stroyland think that Oliver was going to carry her?

Rosemary Sharpe was not a fake. If anyone came out of the White Bend Hotel in real danger, it was her.

*****

In 1934, in the town of White Bend, Illinois, middle-aged farmer Treff Hurley took his wood-chopping axe and killed his wife and two adult daughters. The four of them had always lived in their big farmhouse together, making a break-even living farming corn and chickens. No local tales could tell of their personal history, nor what might have led to the man’s break, nor if Hurley had seemed a likely candidate to pick up an axe for something other than chopping wood. The popular theory was that Edna, the oldest girl, had cut her hair short, an act that Treff Hurley saw as irredeemable. When her body was pulled from the well, the axe marks on her were particularly brutal and her hair was jaggedly short, probably chopped by the axe blade. Edna’s sister and mother therefore must have died trying to protect her.

To Rosemary’s thinking, the inexplicable point in the tale was how this one man had managed to force three grown women to the well and over its edge into darkness. According to the investigative report from the White Bend Sheriff, the struggles of the women were evident in the wreck of the house and the torn yard around the well. It seemed that Treff Hurley had thrown one of them down – Edna, probably – and the other two had tried to help the first out, sustaining mortal injuries in the process as Treff Hurley swung and swung his axe so that they could not escape. He was a huge man who had spent his life chopping down trees, and the bodies of women were no challenge to him.

The women, even hurt, had grasped the sides of the well or its top lip to keep from falling in. That was when Treff Hurley had chopped off their hands and sent the women hurtling to the bottom. The well was deep but there was enough water at the bottom that the falls did not kill them. They died from shock and blood loss in the water. Treff Hurley finished his gristly work and then killed himself with his rifle, the correct way, after having finished the peach pie his wife had baked the day before.

When Rosemary Sharpe read this morbid tale (courtesy of the White Bend Hotel’s website of course) she immediately put herself in the place of the women: grasping the lip of a well with a maniac towering over her. If he had cut off one hand, would she have held on with the other, to keep from falling into the darkness, even if she knew he’d do the same thing again? Because he had cut off all six hands. He had managed to do it somehow, because when the town doctor came to see the crime scene, he reported six severed hands lying about the well’s lip like discarded gloves, the well’s stone walls turned brown with the blood of Hurley’s victims. Maybe Hurley had cut off some hands when the women were still above ground, but then the question again: how did he manage it? How was it that not even one of them had seen what was happening and run for help? Something about their helplessness was more disturbing to Rosemary than the act of the man himself. Or, she had theorized, perhaps the report was exaggerated. Or a bald-faced lie.

This was the goriest murder Rosemary had ever dealt with: a triple homicide and a suicide that surely took superhuman strength and willpower for one crazy man to accomplish, a long and horrible death for three women. How much of it was actually true? Probably only a tenth, especially considering the story’s loose ends. These local scary stories were almost always based on details wildly exaggerated and dramatized, especially if tourism was involved and the real records long since lost or burned or buried somewhere. Didn’t matter to Rosemary, not really. The manner of the murders wasn’t nearly as important as the legend of them.

Tourism was certainly involved this time, for the White Bend Hotel was built out of the renovated Hurley Farm and the ghost story was their claim to fame. On cold nights, women’s screams can be heard coming from deep inside the well, said the website. It also said, Guests have seen apparitions of disembodied hands, and more rarely, the image of an enormous man stalking through the grounds with an axe in the middle of the night. Could this be Treff Hurley himself, searching for his family?

Whether or not one believed in ghosts, the White Bend Hotel had an aura of bloody disturbance about it. The well behind the hotel was a tourist attraction only during daylight hours. To appease the women’s ghosts, coins, pressed flowers and comforting notes were dropped between the cracks in the well’s locked cover. The locals swore they could hear screaming coming from down there, cold night or not, flowers or no.

*****

Light, panicked knocking and a strained voice brought Rosemary to her feet near ten o’clock on the first night at the White Bend Hotel. She was lying on the bed and concentrating hard, alone in the room she shared with Sally Friend. At the time, Sally was downstairs in the hotel’s tiny rec room running on a treadmill.

The voice on the other side of Rosemary’s door said in a rush, It’s Greg! We want you to come look at something!

Opening her door, Rosemary found Greg looking keyed up and nauseated, but of course he had his digital camera pointed right at her. Even scared, he was always professional, meaning that he was usually filming, and everyone in their group knew better than to answer the door undressed. Almost thirty years old, Greg was three years Rosemary’s senior, but when he was excited, his round clean face looked like a little boy’s.

What’s the matter? Rosemary asked.

Please, go to Stefan and Judge’s room. You’ve got to look in the sink. There’s something there, we can all see it.

Who’s getting footage?

Footage. Good joke. More like hand-age. Stefan started filming as soon as he saw them.

Rosemary left her room’s door open and hurried toward Stefan’s and Judge’s room.

Rosemary, Greg said, behind her. She turned back to him. He had turned off the camera and lowered it. He whispered, Are you making them appear, or is this the real thing?

They’re mine, Rosemary mouthed, nodding. We need to get things started.

"So soon? Oh well, season finale and all. They’re really good, said Greg. He raised the camera, warned her, Film’s on." She nodded again and hurried away.

Instead of following her, Greg went to find Oliver and Kelly on the upper floor; the two of them had doubtless snuck off to take advanced anatomy lessons together. The White Bend was a small but charming old-fashioned hotel, renovated out of the huge country farmhouse, with four rooms on each of the two floors. Still, the place would have sunk into bankruptcy were it not for the ghost story that came attached. Rosemary and her crew had taken up half the hotel’s space, and the five team members besides Oliver and Kelly had been more than willing to let the couple have the upper floor to themselves.

Stefan and Judge’s room was only a few steps from Rosemary’s own. The room’s door stood open and Rosemary entered and turned toward the bathroom where her two coworkers waited. She saw a pale Stefan standing steadily in the bathroom doorway with a digital camera aimed toward his sink. Judge was beside him, his arms wrapped around his small body as he stared. Judge’s cat Vladimir, who accompanied them whenever possible, was nowhere to be seen; likely he was hiding under the bed watching them.

Silently Stefan gestured for Rosemary to come over and look.

The lights were on, fluorescent and luminous. There was a heap of severed hands in the bathroom sink. Rosemary couldn’t count them exactly. They were piled on top of each other in a tangle of loose fingers, but she guessed there must be as many as twelve of them, a gruesome tossed salad. The hands looked solid, human, and dead: they were a ghostly white, as if all the blood was gone from them, and each seemed severed raggedly from its appendage, a gaping, sloppy cross-section of gore at each wrist. The gristly dark maroon shouted out from the white porcelain.

Rosemary’s vision blurred as light-headedness overtook her. She grasped the frame of the bathroom door to keep from taking a tumble. Making her team see this illusion was no simple task. The hands were hideous, plain as day. The manifestation was gorgeous. It wouldn’t show up on film, but she hoped that the expressions on the faces of her cast would be enough to convey the magnitude of the illusion. Besides, if they actually had a sink full of dismembered hands to show, viewers would only assume it was created with special effects anyway. This was going to make a great episode. Now Rosemary felt watched, and she turned looked back to see that Stefan and Judge were looking at her, not at the sink.

You see them? Stefan asked very softly, as if his words might disturb the image.

Rosemary answered, I see them. Are they solid?

Don’t touch. We want to make sure everyone can see them first. Do you hear anything?

No.

I do. They’re vibrating. Or Brentley is. Stefan was referring to the ghost that he believed lived inside him, the spirit of a young man whose death Stefan had witnessed twenty years ago. The group had long since stopped thinking it odd, if Stefan should mention something that Brentley was doing or thinking. Brentley had better intuition about these situations than most of them, including their so-called psychic Oliver.

Rosemary gestured to the sink. What does Brentley say about this?

"He says don’t touch. He says they have no soul of their own, they don’t belong to anyone."

Impressed with Brentley’s savvy, Rosemary asked, So why can’t we touch?

Stefan paused. He often paused before answering a question directed at Brentley, plainly giving Brentley time to answer. Then he relayed the response: Because the illusion will break and they’ll vanish.

Judge, who had been silent until now, said, Illusion? Damn, they look real. Don’t they look real? Are they moving? Tell me they’re not.

Stefan said, I don’t know. Brentley says it’s an illusion, nothing solid. And something is buzzing in here. Or in my head.

My head too, said Judge. He put small hands to his temples.

From behind Rosemary came a gasp and a shudder; Rosemary realized Kelly and Oliver were there, and she moved aside so they could see. Kelly’s face twisted with revulsion, Oliver grew very pale. They were both in silk pajamas, what appeared to be a matched set. She noticed that Kelly had taken the time to put her long dark hair in a chignon and swipe on lipstick before she came to the scene. Oliver looked rumpled and a bit flushed. Rosemary suspected the pair had been in the middle of their favorite activity lately: making love loudly and letting everyone know about it. Rosemary was glad she wasn’t bunking in the room under theirs.

Greg hung back, having chosen to film the group as a whole.

Everyone sees the dismembered hands? Rosemary asked.

They nodded in turn, and Judge asked Rosemary, What are we supposed to do now?

Oliver? she asked respectfully, looking back at the handsome dark-haired man behind her. They all looked to him then, as if glad to take their eyes off the ghastly vision in the sink. He was supposed to be their psychic; their show’s standard of practice was that he announce their next move.

Oliver stood so tense he looked breakable. He did not want to be in charge of next steps. He collected his thoughts and then declared, The hotel is sending us a message. Our presence has been acknowledged. These are like calling cards. Someone should try to make contact. I guess. I think I’d better not, the energy is too intense.

Rosemary had figured as much. I’ll do it, she said, stepping into the bathroom. Got a camera on me?

Two of them, said Greg, checking with Stefan to affirm this.

Rosemary went to the sink and steadied herself. Stefan, any word from Brentley on whether I should do this?

Stefan sighed hard. I already told you. He says don’t. Those are not calling cards, or an invitation to make friends. Touching them will shatter the illusion. And you don’t know what you’ll be accepting, if you do it.

What she’ll be accepting? asked Oliver skeptically.

Stefan shot an impatient look at Oliver and clarified as if he was speaking to a child. Like a challenge, or a dare, or the ghosts in this hotel getting a taste of human skin. If you’re so certain it’s harmless, Oliver, why don’t you put your big manly hand in there?

Because I’m too sensitive to the spirits. I think it’s all right for her to touch them, argued Oliver, who would of course be willing to argue, since he was not the one who had to do the touching.

Even if these hands weren’t showing up on film, as such things seldom did, Rosemary knew a powerful charge of fear was revving up her team. This would make a good scene for the show. Would it be too much for the hands to grab back at her? She closed her eyes as if gathering her courage. Doing these things took some focus.

Kelly chose to speak up. Just do it. We can’t just stand here. We’re supposed to be paranormal investigators.

But Rosemary, Stefan said, giving her an imploring look over the top of the digital camera he held.

Knowing that he wasn’t on the spot to touch anything scary, Oliver was more confident than he had been a moment before. We’re all here for you Rosemary. We’ll take care nothing happens.

Resisting the temptation to ask him exactly what he would do to take care that nothing happened, Rosemary lowered her own hand into the sink, holding her breath when her eyes told her she should be making contact with the illusion. Her hand disappeared into the pile of severed hands as if they were made of nothing but mist.

Feels like putting my hand in ice water, she gasped. The fingers in the sink, dozens of fingers, moved slightly but deliberately to touch her, putting the pads of their fingertips against her skin and then looking as if they might begin to climb her arm, if they could find purchase. Judge oofed out something like a shout, Kelly hissed through her teeth, there were various curses and exclamations and Rosemary put her free hand to her mouth to keep from shrieking – well, that was how it was meant to look, anyway. She could almost feel the tickling of the fingertips and was so impressed with herself that she could barely keep from smiling. This was the expression she needed to cover.

I told you this place is a live wire! Kelly assured them all in a high panicky voice. I knew it before we ever came inside. But in my visions, the hands were beckoning us.

From their show’s website, Rosemary knew that fans had commented about Kelly’s visions and how she always seemed to remember them after she’d seen something interesting. It did not bother Rosemary that Oliver and Kelly were both faking it, but that they were no better at faking than this. Sometimes she felt like they were more comic relief than anything else. They used to be more subtle (or maybe a better term was shy) back before the show had gotten popular enough to stoke their egos.

Oliver said, But this doesn’t follow exactly. There were three murders at the most, but there are a dozen hands in this sink.

Someone should tell Treff Hurley that his count is off, remarked Stefan.

With a grimace Greg said, Rosemary, take your hand out of there. They’re too forward for a first date.

He’s showing off for us, deduced Oliver.

We’re losing them, said Rosemary. Look!

The hands were gone in no more than five seconds, dissipating exactly as mist would. Nothing was left behind. As if sticking his finger into a mouse trap, Oliver approached and poked at the sink. Rosemary withdrew and rubbed her arm, shivering.

Holy shit, Judge breathed, moving away to sit down. I don’t need to see any more crap like that, thanks very much.

What’s going on? asked a new voice, and they all looked out to see Sally, clad in a white t-shirt and shorts, perspiration darkening her blonde hair.

We got a manifestation— Rosemary began, and then sucked in a breath of shock which came out in a shriek as pain sliced through her wrists. Wound tight, the group reacted with chaos as Kelly and Sally fell prey to the same pain.

The film they took of the scene would show better detail of what happened than what anybody could see on their own. There were three women in the room: Sally, Rosemary and Kelly, and all three of them were attacked simultaneously. Each appeared to suffer sudden inexplicable pain in her wrists or forearms, as if their bodies had decided to mimic the dismembered hands they’d just witnessed.

The three of them each had different reactions: Kelly began to scream at her own hands, imploring Oliver to help her; Sally dropped to her knees and pushed at her skin, whimpering, and Rosemary collapsed against the wall behind her, shaking her slim arms as if she could shake the pain loose. Judge rushed to try helping; Oliver rushed to try escaping; Greg and Stefan following their instructions and continued filming, though inexpertly, even as they barked questions. The room was roaring by now, the buzzing that Stefan had reported audible to everyone, the air shimmering with vibrations of unknown cause.

Kelly seemed to get the worst of it, her pain or fear so severe that she clawed at her own skin, leaving great red scratches, tears streaming down her cheeks as she wailed for Oliver to help her. Oliver had actually backed away, looking scared shitless, shouting at Stefan, What the hell is going on? because while Oliver claimed to be the group’s psychic, it was Stefan who could always tell.

Jesus, said Stefan, his hold on his camera listing to the left. It’s the ghosts of the dead women, they’re trying to take their hands. We need to get the girls out of here!

Kelly first, said Rosemary, her voice hitching with hurt. I can walk myself.

Kelly was bleeding from her scratches, her shrieks growing higher and higher in pitch until they rang against the air. When Oliver gathered the nerve to touch her, she clawed at him, taking a fair amount of his skin too. She pleaded for help and fought anyone who tried to give it to her.

I can’t control them! Kelly shrieked. I have no control!

In one last ditch effort at taking charge, Oliver made a firm grab for Kelly’s hands, snapping, Kelly, stop it right now! Don’t let them win!

The sound of Kelly’s fist connecting with Oliver’s jaw drowned out the chuff of laughter that escaped Rosemary. Oliver’s head snapped back and he yelped, scrambling away from his girlfriend.

Stefan said above the din. Judge, can you help Oliver? Rosemary dear let me—

No, get Sally. Please. It’s not so bad for me.

Stefan always did what Rosemary asked. He dropped the camera and flew to Sally’s side, kneeling next to her. Rosemary checked to make sure that Greg was still filming. Greg was.

She’s trying to take my hands! Sally’s voice was not so much pained as it was shocked and hurt, quite as if the hotel had wounded her feelings by attacking. From her kneeling position on the floor, poor Sally looked ready to faint; it was only Stefan’s offered support that held her up.

I sense them! Oliver cried, backing into a corner. They’re in the room with us! Oh god, the three women, they’re here! They’re here!

Will you stop yelling? Stefan snarled at Oliver. Rosemary, I’m taking Sally out, and I want you to follow me? Do you understand?

I have to stay, she told him. I’ll be all right.

Stefan took a deep breath that shook audibly. Then let me take care of her, and I’ll be back.

Stefan tried to help Sally stand and walk, but she wasn’t with him. Her face had gone listless with shock and she merely rubbed at her arms, murmuring. Finally, Stefan just hauled her to her feet and dragged her out the door, the motion apparently waking her from her trance. Oliver stared after them in blank incomprehension. Quick Judge, who could dodge the blows of a hysterical woman, continued to try helping Kelly, who was losing steam and gasping for air and had finally gathered the wits to move herself toward the door. Yet Judge was an unusually petite man and Kelly a tall, strong-boned woman. Since she outsized him by seven inches and fifty pounds, Judge was at a disadvantage.

Can you see them, Greg? Judge cried he struggled to direct Kelly’s stumbling movements.

I can, said Greg, with a sound like a sob. He actually was watching something in the corner with great care, even though he pointed the camera elsewhere. He warned, Rosemary, it’s looking right at you.

"Oliver," Rosemary snapped. Her sharp voice woke the man