Jamis Bachman, Ghost Hunter Read online

  Jamis Bachman never stays in one place for too long. Retired from the reality TV show Ghastly Incidents, she’s now a social media sensation, chasing ghosts, demons, and inter-dimensional aliens—in an effort to avoid her own.

  When a desperate young couple sends Jamis a video of a poltergeist disturbance, she jumps on a plane to Sage Creek, Utah, not knowing her world is about to change forever. Ghost stories she can handle, but a violent poltergeist, a brutal unsolved twenty-five-year-old murder, and meeting the love of her life? She’s in way over her head.

  Jamis thought she was the one chasing ghosts, but it seems as though something is chasing her…

  Jamis Bachman, Ghost Hunter

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

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  Jamis Bachman, Ghost Hunter

  © 2020 By Jen Jensen. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-606-3

  This Electronic Original Is Published By

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, NY 12185

  First Edition: January 2020

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Cindy Cresap

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Tammy Seidick

  Acknowledgments

  I am so grateful to my family. Your unconditional support means everything. Special thanks to Leigh for teaching me to read and write when I was just tiny.

  Thanks to Sarah, who listened to me talk about this book for hours.

  Prologue

  She stood in an open field made of light, devoid of mass but clear in form, freed from the noisy confusion of her circular thoughts. There was a woman across from her. She wanted to walk toward her but could not move. Though unable to reach her, the woman’s presence gifted her with hope and love, the best medicine for suffering anywhere in the universe. It was enough to let them begin.

  She concentrated and willed a projection of her human form into being with the speed of intention. Her last significant memory of herself provided the prototype, and she wore her favorite yellow summer dress. She felt the soft breeze on her bare shoulders and breathed out a wish for grass to appear under her feet. It did and she wiggled her toes between the soft green wedges.

  She strained to hear the woman’s voice, carried across space and time to her, and smiled as the words touched her ears, “Where am I? Who are you? Am I dreaming?” She’d missed the sound of human voices.

  Somehow, in moments of clarity, she created this space. It began with simple questions, “Where am I? What happened?” It felt oddly familiar to dig through emotional pain and confusion, as though she’d pried back layers of dense darkness to find her truth before. It was then she realized she was dead but not finished. It was like everyone she loved waited for her. She could see them but as if they were on opposite sides of aquarium glass.

  Then her memory returned, and she relived the moment of her death in vicious repetition, until surrender was her only recourse to make it stop. So, she let go and sunk into her own pain. It was then she knew she was not alone. Someone stood behind her, quiet but seething. She reached out, but her attempt at comfort was batted away. She watched her and knew something connected them.

  Then, suddenly, she knew what to do. That always surprised her in life too—how answers assembled themselves, readying for emergence in their own time, without her conscious participation. Everything had always been so much better when she just let herself be.

  She called out for help and now saw her. They both had more work to do to arrive to each other, but she knew they would.

  Chapter One

  Drapes obscured Jamis’s view from the hotel room. A heavy fog settled across the mountains in the distance and suited her mood. Jamis had arrived in Sage Creek, Utah, the night before to follow a promising lead about a poltergeist, but instead of excitement, she felt forlorn. She’d been chasing ghosts for so long, without finding proof, her life’s vocation was either a grandiose psychiatric delusion or a complicated form of self-destruction. After a few drinks, she often insisted it was both to anyone who would listen.

  Her dreams also left her uneasy and tired, like she’d spent the night running through waist high mud. The images were recurrent the past few months, and the same two scenarios played out again and again. In one, Jamis struggled toward a woman, standing directly across from her, and in the other, a hooded figure chased her. The night before gave her both, together for the first time. The hooded figured pursued her and the woman in front moved farther away the harder she ran.

  Jamis pushed through the anxiety to focus on something tangible, and opened Facebook to scroll through the comments on the photo of the Salt Lake City skyline she posted the night before.

  Bill W.

  You’re a fraud.

  Jamis replied.

  But I’ve been told I have dreamy brown eyes and women love me. Don’t be jealous bc you can’t say the same. Xoxo, Jamis

  The computer chirped with notifications as followers liked her reply. Jamis routinely trolled her trolls and people loved it. She wasn’t as confrontational in person, but like the trolls who bashed her, the internet gave her courage. She closed the browser and poked through files to find the video clip that brought her to Utah.

  She watched the video at least one hundred times. She often obsessed like that, unable to move forward without resolution. The video began in the doorway of a kitchen. Cupboard doors opened and closed in heavy, jerky movements, out of sync. The fridge door opened so quickly the camera angle dropped to film the floor as the person holding the camera jumped backward to avoid being hit. What she saw on the floor was what drew her to Sage Creek. Between the cupboards and the shadow of whoever held the camera was another silhouette, disembodied from a source. It looked like the book cover of an old crime noir thriller, where an elongated shadow stretched across the cobblestone, framed by the streetlight. The light around it took on a yellowish glow, like it was lit from an old glass bulb.

  Jamis zoomed into the image and hit play frame by frame. The figure shimmered into existence in one frame and was gone the next. She replayed the video three more times before forcefully extracting herself from the compulsion to watch it again. The video was obviously from a cell phone camera, and her higher tech cameras would produce better video resolution. She’d visit the house and leave those behind.

  Something about the image in the video tugged her instincts. The figure in the middle of the swirling chaos of the kitchen provoked a sense of dread when she watched it in slow motion. It emerged from nothing only to disappear back into empty space. A skeptic might say it was the shadow of the person opening and closing the cupboards and fridge, edited sloppily from the footage. But there didn’t seem to be evidence of tampering, and as always, she wanted to assume benevolence and believe.

  She needed to see it in person. Jamis slid the laptop into her messenger bag and grabbed the cameras, secured in a heavy steel case, and left the hotel room. Outside, the cold air plunged into her lungs and she coughed. It was wrong to assume Utah would be warmer in early March. Late winter snow sat piled in
the corners of the parking lot, soiled with soot, the asphalt wet with melting snow. Pounding startled her. A woman stood at the hotel office window, waving for her to come inside. Jamis held up her finger and put the bags in the car first.

  “Morning,” Jamis said as the door closed behind her. The woman now sat behind the counter. There was a picture of a Chihuahua in a Santa hat on her sweatshirt. “I like that.” Jamis pointed and smiled.

  “My son got me this.”

  “Nice son,” Jamis said.

  “Well, I kept him.”

  Jamis jammed her hands in her coat pockets. Her arms felt too long. “What’s up?”

  “My son checked you in last night and told me it was you. I just wanted to say hi.”

  “You watched my show?” Jamis smiled, feeling more natural about the conversation. She never tired of talking about Ghastly Incidents. It ran for ten years and amassed a huge following.

  “Sure did,” she said. “It used to come on after the news. Sometimes I’d watch it in bed at night. I’m Tess, by the way.”

  “Good to meet you,” Jamis said.

  Tess gazed at her. No matter how often it happened, people’s reaction to meeting her in person, after seeing her on television, made her uncomfortable. She always heard, “I had no idea you were so tall.”

  Jamis braced for something like this from Tess, but instead she asked, “How long are you here for?”

  “I’m not sure. I checked in for a week.” If the poltergeist was real, she’d stay for however long it took.

  “Ghost hunting?”

  “Yeah,” Jamis said. Jamis liked Tess’s energy, a down-to-earth feminine pragmatism. She felt safe and wanted to linger. “It might be something or not. I’ll let you know.”

  “Can’t wait. Well, you let me know if you need anything,” Tess said.

  “I will. Where can I get some groceries? Just a few things for the room. I hate eating out all the time when I travel.” A peanut butter sandwich in the afternoon soothed her stomach and psyche.

  “There’s a place right up the road. Town Market.” Jamis queried her phone and held it up for Tess to approve. “That’s the one,” Tess said. “You’ll like the owner, Carmen. Let her know I sent you.”

  “Will do.” Jamis turned to leave and then paused. “Why’s it so cold today? It didn’t feel like this last night when I drove in from Salt Lake.”

  “You drove that canyon pass at night?”

  “Yeah, it was dicey,” Jamis said, understating her terror as the road narrowed, climbed, and then dropped. She pulled off the side of the road at a gas station to recover when it was over.

  “You know, there’s supposed to be ghosts at the highest point. Soldier Summit they call it. A bunch of Confederate soldiers died there trying to get through in August when a freak snowstorm killed them. You should check that out.”

  “I will, with a full search and rescue party.” Jamis pushed the door open with her shoulder.

  “And yeah,” Tess said. Jamis paused, half out of the office. “It’s cold because we have a few more weeks of winter. It always gives us a wallop on the way out. There’s a storm coming soon so be careful.” The phone rang behind Tess and she turned to answer it.

  In the car, Jamis turned up the heat and watched Tess through the window. She moved her hands animatedly as she spoke into the phone. She was a good local guide for her. She’d get groceries where she recommended later. First, she had a house to visit. If the video was staged, this would be her last ghost hunt. She’d promised her psychiatrist that before leaving San Diego the morning before.

  In the rearview mirror, she looked at the faint lines around her eyes and mouth, touched the few gray hairs mixed in the dark strands. They’d arrived with the major depression the year before, after her television show’s cancellation. The silent space without her show was more overwhelming than any ghost or paranormal phenomena she ever chased. The emptiness propelled her to a psychiatrist who did talk therapy. The question Dr. Frank asked during that first session still hovered over her head like a dark shroud about to fall. “Are you trying to find your mother, Jamis?”

  “I came home from school to my mom dead when I was eleven. I’d say I already found her. Who wouldn’t be fucked up by that trauma?” The question struck so close to her pain, lashing out was her only comfortable response.

  But she didn’t think it was fair to reduce everything to it. Not everything was about her mom. Jamis accused Dr. Frank of being Freudian. She preferred Jung. Not deterred, Dr. Frank insisted Jamis remain in therapy and consider it as a primary motivation. Jamis didn’t think the root cause mattered but kept talking anyway, took Wellbutrin each morning, and Klonopin when anxiety ran over her ability to deflect it.

  Eventually, her mood lifted enough to shower and brush her teeth daily. Jamis began to engage with her fans on social media again. The cry for help with the video arrived via Messenger late one afternoon. She almost deleted it, somehow sensing the stakes.

  Which led her to the front of the hotel, readying to chase one final poltergeist.

  What Jamis didn’t tell Dr. Frank was that she repeatedly found her mom. The night of her death, Jamis woke to her standing by the window, arms outstretched, mouth moving. The State of California became her guardian then, and her mom followed to all thirteen group homes, and eventually, to her college dorm and first apartment. Until Jamis turned twenty-seven and her mom disappeared. Saturn returns, one psychic told her. It was also the year her show began. Finally, life gave her what she needed to let go of her mom—a chase that allowed her to keep moving, when everything else inside wanted to give up.

  So maybe she was looking for her mom. Maybe she was looking for the part of herself lost that day. But Jamis was also looking for answers to reframe suffering. Because if humans were not just finite beings born only to slip into oblivion, then her loss had greater meaning. And it was possible to heal from every horrible thing that happened from that day forward. Jamis didn’t think Dr. Frank would understand that. It was always her secret anyway.

  She put the car in reverse. There was a poltergeist waiting.

  Chapter Two

  Jamis dialed Vince’s phone number. He and his wife, Darcy, sent the video. After just one ring, he answered. “Jamis?”

  “Yes. Hey.” Jamis set the phone on her leg, speaker on. “I’m in the car on my way over. Is it a good time?”

  “Yeah.” He breathed heavily into the phone. Muffled movement obscured his words.

  “I can’t understand you,” Jamis said.

  “Sorry. Is that better?”

  “Yeah, you’re good. Go again.”

  “Last night was so fucked up. We’re leaving to stay with some friends.”

  “Okay. Just wait there so we can meet in person? I’ll be right there.” Jamis rolled to a stop at an intersection and glanced at Google maps.

  “It’s fine now. I can wait,” Vince said. “Darcy is ready to move. I think she’ll insist we do after this.” He paused. A car door shut. Then hinges squeaked as another door opened. “No one can live here.”

  “I’ll be there shortly.” Jamis hung up the phone. The hairs on her arm stood on end. If it was scary enough for him to not want to live there maybe it was real.

  Jamis parked in front of the house, next to the curb. Brown grass peeked from beneath melting snow. The door opened, and a young man stepped into the yard. Despite the cold, he wore only a T-shirt.

  “I’m so glad you’re here. I don’t know if you can do anything to fix this, but maybe you can understand it.” He waved her into the house. “Darcy left and went to the school library to study. Said she couldn’t stay here.”

  Jamis’s first impression of a house was always the most important, so she slowed her thoughts and imagined that time held still with them. Vince continued to talk, but Jamis chose not to hear him. Light flooded the living room. Stairs split the room and led to a second level. The kitchen was in the back. The dining room was to the right.

&n
bsp; Jamis looked at the space without asking permission. Vince waited for her by the stairs. She walked around the house, one hand stretched outward to touch the walls. It was just a normal house in late morning. She pointed to the stairs, asked permission, and Vince waved her up. She began to climb.

  The central air hummed to life. Warm air wafted up from floor vents in the hallway. There were two bedrooms on the right and one on the left, at the top of the hall, and a window at the end. The open doors on the right let in light. The door on the left was closed. Jamis opened it. The room was empty except for a twin bed, positioned in the middle of the wall under a window. Something didn’t feel right. The space felt wrong, but she didn’t know why.

  Jamis stood in the middle of the hallway, hands on the walls. “What happened today?”

  “It started about three thirty this morning. Darcy woke me up. There was wailing and screaming. It sounded like someone getting tortured. I got up and came into the hallway and Darcy waited in bed.” He rubbed his arms and then his eyes. “I came to where you’re standing now.” She watched him, looking for signs he was lying. There were none. It was genuine distress.

  “I stood right there, looked down the stairs and it was so dark. I mean it was so dark. Like darker than when there is no moon. No, it was like, the dark of hell or something. I swear I’m not making this up,” Vince said.

  “I don’t think you are,” Jamis said. She touched his arm to redirect him. “Tell me what happened next.”

  “I came down the stairs real slow because it was so dark. I got to the bottom of the stairs, and in the middle of the front room was a woman and she was dead. She was on the ground and it looked like one of those scenes in a TV show, you know? When they find a body? And I was like, there’s a dead body in my house. How did it get here? But then I realized all around her body was so dark, but there was light from somewhere because I could see this dead body. So, I realized this had to be a dream or something. I looked away, and when I looked back, the body was gone. Then, from the corner of the room, down there,” he pointed into the living room, his finger directed at the far corner, “came this horrible thing. I can’t even describe it.”