Chapter 2: Wayfinding

Shane finished his coffee. Three more state police vehicles passed during his time in the diner. He could only imagine what they were doing up the road. If the town repelled people, it was done so with feeling more often than not. The cops involved would have a gut instinct that something was wrong, but that was hardly enough for them to avoid an active investigation into a missing family.

Cops dealt with bad feelings all the time. Something else had to have happened in Burkitt to make the police fall back and create a barricade, if that was indeed what had happened. Of course, the locals in Wallaceburg would be left out of the loop on the details. The police were trying to keep something under wraps.

“Do you think the town killed some police?” Herbert asked, as though reading Shane’s mind.

“Not openly,” he replied.

Smart ghosts stayed hidden and worked in shadows. Just because a cop couldn’t shoot a ghost didn’t mean that the living couldn’t cause problems for the dead, especially in a situation like this. Maybe the whole town of Burkitt would get bulldozed as a result.

Nothing suggested the ghosts in Burkitt were geniuses, but a haunted town had to do something to stay under the radar for so long. Unless things had changed. Maybe the missing family was a tipping point, and now the spirits didn’t care. If that was the case, something could have happened to the police.

“Then what?” Herbert asked.

“Missing?” Shane suggested, keeping his voice down so as to not draw attention. “A few uniforms go in and don’t come out. The rest get spooked and block the town because they can’t find anything. Now, no one wants to go in, but they can’t admit it. Seems cowardly. So, they’re working on the idea that someone is in town. Crazed gunman, terrorist, whatever. Some excuse where the proper procedure is to stay outside the town limits.”

“But then their men don’t get rescued,” Herbert pointed out. Shane shook his head.

“Not until backup arrives. They’d call in some big guns. SWAT, or something heavily armed and armored. They’ll light Burkitt up once they feel they’re strong enough.”

“Then what happens to the family?”

“They’ll try to find them. Save them. But if they are alive, and the ghost we’re looking for has them, it’ll use this as an opportunity. Put on a show, make a scene. It likes chaos, right?”

“From what I recall, yes,” Herbert replied. The ghost turned a bunch of regular townspeople into a bloody revenge riot. It could do a lot worse with anxious, heavily armed police.

“We need to get in there before the police do anything rash,” Herbert added.

“We do,” Shane agreed. They needed another way into town, past the police barricade. They needed someone who knew about Burkitt.

Shane put money on the table and stood, giving Dorothy a quick wave across the room. She smiled and returned the gesture as he made his way back outside with Herbert.

“Do you have a plan?” the ghost wanted to know.

“Go to the library,” Shane said. Louise, the town librarian, had a lot of local knowledge. She was also the only other person in town that Shane had really spoken to.

They walked down the street from the diner toward the massive house that served as Wallaceburg’s library. In the light of day, the place looked a little more welcoming than it had when Shane first arrived. Louise was outside on the porch, sitting in a chair reading a book with a cup of tea on a table next to her. She watched Shane approach without saying anything until he reached the porch steps.

“Mr. Ryan, back so soon? Seems like our town has charmed you,” she said, smiling over her book.

“It’s true; I couldn’t stay away.”

“At least you came during daylight hours this time.”

“Trying to be considerate,” he explained. Herbert said nothing and inspected the garden instead while Shane gestured down the street. “Seen what’s happening today?”

“I have seen some police,” she confirmed. “Something to do with you?”

“No. Something in my way.”

Louise’s eyes narrowed. Her bird-like features looked even more prominent in the light of day. She reached for her tea and held it in both hands as though savoring the warmth.

“Of course,” she said. “You want to go back to Burkitt.”

“I do,” Shane replied.

She sipped from the cup.

“Does this have something to do with Daschel Hooks?”

Herbert perked up then, returning his attention to the conversation.

“She knows about Dash?” the ghost asked. Shane ignored him.

“In a roundabout way,” Shane told her.

“That’s a bit vague, don’t you think?”

Shane smiled and nodded, looking back down the road toward Burkitt. It was much too far to see from the library, but it was waiting out there.

“It has to do with why I was here before. What I was researching.”

“Murder,” Louise said. “The murder of someone from Burkitt.”