Old Ghost Swamp

Authors Note: hey guys! This one's set in Dale County, a fictionalised region in America that I'm hoping to use for most of my future horror stories. Should be fun. A review would be greatly appreciated, and thanks for reading. Jacob. 

PS AngelLily thanks for the advice for indenting, but I'm afraid my computer is fighting me on that one. It doesn't like formatting very much.

Shane Mikaelson shivered as the flames dimmed; he inched a little closer, hands held over the cherry glow of the fire. The trees watched from the edge of the clearing – gnarled, haggard sentinels, and shadows lurked behind them. Stars glittered above him in the midnight sky.

It had been hours since the sun went down on Old Ghost Swamp, and his initial excitement had faded with the dying sunset. He’d set his camera up on a tripod, on the far end of the clearing, and he saw the red eye was still blinking. It was set on a time-lapse, which took up a lot of battery power – from the looks of tonight, that would be a lot of battery power down the drain for nothing. Charlie Frost had promised Shane boogeymen; but he’d yet to see so much as a goddamn Brownie.

‘Frost was full of shit,’ Shane muttered as he threw a log on the campfire – it crackled as the wood shifted, and embers floated up into the night sky.

He’d heard about Frost from the bartender at Dale River, a small American town with a nasty reputation. Haunted houses and missing children; ghost stories and UFO sightings and a few cold cases that sounded like they’d come straight out of the X-Files – most of the stories had been hushed up, which was a good sign in Shane’s book. Meant they probably weren’t hoaxes. Shane had seen his fair share of hoaxes. He’d travelled the world looking for ghosts, and while he’d seen strange things in his time, he’d only ever seen one ghost – and he wasn’t even sure it had been real.

According to the bartender, Charlie Frost was a more than a little crazy. Shaggy blonde hair, blue eyes – always wears a beanie and a flannel shirt, the man had said. You can’t miss him. Runs this shitty little museum on Main Street.

Charlie Frost’s Museum of the Occult – more commonly known as the Ghost Museum. It was full of knick-knacks Charlie had collected over the years, objects Charlie claimed were all either haunted or had been at some time or other. After a couple more drinks at the bar, Shane had gone down to meet the guy. The bartender was right. He was hard to miss. He was every bit as wacky as had been described. A redneck hippie, self-proclaimed believer in aliens and Bigfoot, and a full-time government conspiracy theorist, the man explained to Shane that Dale River was a hotbed for ghosts and monsters.

‘It’s the tunnels,’ he explained to Shane. ‘Some kind of haunted energy, living in the caves below the town. No-one knows what it is, but I suspect it came from outer space. Came outta some asterite –’

‘Asteroid,’ Shane corrected.

‘Asterite,’ Charlie continued, ‘that smashed into planet earth a couple million years ago and created the entire cave system below us. Those tunnels extend underneath all of Dale County, you know? From Halifax to Dale River, all the way down to the Gloucester sea-caves – they’re all connected.’

Shane had done some research into Dale County before travelling there, and he had heard about the caves. Geologists had theorised that the numerous caves dotting the region were all interconnected – they had no way of finding out, however, as the cave systems were unstable and prone to collapse. It was entirely speculation.

Still, Shane felt himself being drawn in to Charlie’s stories. He knew he should have been more sceptical, but the truth was, he wanted to believe them. When he’d asked where the best place would be to see a ghost in Dale River, Charlie recommended Old Ghost Swamp – a fitting name, at the very least. There’d been reports of ghosts, weird lights and even some kind of swamp monster down there. He’d find it off Mad Hallow road, the old road between Dale River and Halifax that people used before they put the highway in. It ran alongside the old coach road.

He spent the night in a motel, and got up early the next day. He explored the town for a little while. Shane was an early riser – most mornings he got up around four-thirty. No rest for the wicked, Shane thought to himself. He took a morning stroll through the cemetery, visited Dale River’s very own haunted house on Seventh Street. He saw the old Dale County School, which hadn’t been used since 1949 after several students were murdered there – some kind of ritual killing, Shane had been told. He decided he might stay a few more days, after he’d visited the swamp. There was some pretty fascinating (if morbid) history buried beneath Dale River’s quiet small-town veneer.

He drove down to the swamp in the late afternoon. His makeshift camp-site was near the bank of a large, stagnant lagoon. It was in a clearing only twenty metres from where he’d parked his old pickup truck, on the shoulder of Mad Hallow Road. Charlie said it was named after Danny Hallow, a highwayman from the eighteen-hundreds who used to rob and pillage along this stretch; he claimed that outlaw’s ghost haunted the road still.

Not that Charlie’s claims were amounting to much. Here goes one more night of my life I’ll never get back, the man thought to himself. Shane lived for adventure, but he also hated wasting his time. Unfortunately, ghost-hunting was a trade that was much more of the latter than the former.

He amused himself for the next few minutes by clicking his torch on and off, shining it into the gloom beyond the clearing. He shone it on the bank, just five metres from where he sat. Yellow light glimmered as it reflected off the dark, still water.

Shane stood up, bored. He picked up a flat pebble from the slightly damp ground, tossed it around in one hand. Then he flung it at the lagoon.

He shone his torch on it – sure enough, a trail of ripples spread out across the water, concentric circle patterns wavering on the glossy black surface. Shane laughed delightedly – it was beautiful to watch. Shane loved nature, almost as much as he loved the supernatural. His dad always used to take him out on hunting trips, when he was a kid. Nature was his home away from home, and Shane was always away from home. He liked the backpacker’s life too much to settle down. He’d gone to college and gotten a psychology degree, mostly to appease his parents – but he hadn’t really wanted to get a permanent job. Instead, he travelled. He’d settle down in a town that he liked, and he’d get a job that paid well – he’d stay there for a couple months, then move on, and move around until he found another temporary residence. He’d been doing that for almost five years, now. And he hadn’t gotten bored of it yet. He wondered if Dale River might not become his next short-term home.

Shane watched as the ripples began to subside; then frowned. His torch was flickering. Weird. He’d just changed the batteries this morning... he banged it with the flat of his palm. The flickering stopped. Looks like I’m gonna have to buy some new gear, he thought to himself.

But the ripples didn’t stop. As Shane shone his torch back on the water, he noticed little wavelets lapping at the shore of the bank. A cold breeze picked up, and Shane stepped a little closer to the water. Were those... bubbles, rising to the surface? Shane felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

Crack.

Shane whirled.

But it was just the fire – the wood had shifted, again. The flames wavered a little in the breeze. Shane laughed a little. For a ghost-hunter, you sure are easy to scare, Mikaelson. He shook his head ruefully.

The man walked back to the campfire, the ripples on the water forgotten – he hit the torch a couple more times, trying to jostle the batteries. It had started flickering again. He tried taking the batteries out, putting them back in. Eventually, he just gave up, tossing it onto the ground beside him. He sat down, scooting himself closer to the warm fire –

Something moved behind him.

Shane’s head turned. Something had flitted past the corner of his eye, behind one of the trees encircling him. Something close. He felt gooseflesh rising on his skin.

He could hear the sound of sloshing water, now. Wavelets against the bank. The cold wind grew a little stronger, and the fire sputtered, dimming to a dull red glow. Shane’s breath shallowed. He glanced at his tripod camera – he saw its little blinking light, and couldn’t help but feel a little excitement mixed in with the fear.

Something’s here.

Shane scrambled to pick up his torch, shining it on the shadows lurking behind the trees. The branches were gnarled, skeletal – Shane whirled again, as he caught a blur of movement from behind him.

‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered. ‘Show yourself. Show yourself!’

Shane turned in a slow, full circle. Weird shadows were dancing in the firelight. They seemed to be moving closer. Getting braver, dancing their way towards the fire.

Shane felt his skin crawl, his heart thudding against his ribcage. It was getting closer. He could feel it.

The light from his torch wavered, and died.

The shadows reached towards him, slowly converging –

White light seared Shane’s eyes – a white-hot blaze, like a lightning flash, blasting away the shadows for the briefest of seconds. A deafening roar shook the night.

Shane tried to shield his eyes, holding up a hand – he stumbled, blinded by the lights as a metal behemoth thundered by on the road. For just a second, he thought he saw something. A silhouette in the glaring light, wearing a cowboy hat.

Then it was gone. The semi-trailer rumbled on into the darkness, the bright lights fading and soon, vanishing entirely. Scorching after-images were blasted onto Shane’s eyelids – dancing blue-green splotches, etched into his vision.

But he knew what he’d seen in the light.

Mad Danny Hallow.

Shane shivered. The fire had almost gone out. Shadows crept warily back into the clearing, and the man rubbed his eyes. He laughed out loud. He’d seen a ghost! He was sure of it. He wouldn’t see it on the camera – it had just been a shadow – but it was enough. Charlie had been right. Years of plumbing the shadows and moonlight, finally paying off. Shane had seen his ghost.

‘YES!’ He hollered into the night, pumping his fists in the air. He did a little dance around the campfire, his fear forgotten. He’d seen a ghost!

Before this, the closest thing Shane Mikaelson had ever come to a ghost was in an old mansion in Somerset, England. A four-hundred year old house called the Batch. He’d spent the night there. He’d fallen asleep, and was woken some time in the early hours between dark and morning, to a faint tapping sound on the windows. The moon had sailed out from behind the clouds, cold light streaming in through the glass.

He couldn’t move from his bed. It was like his arms and legs were tied together – a heavy weight pushing down on his chest. He was frozen. Only his eyes could move, and in the corner of the room he saw a rocking chair – sure enough, it had begun to rock gently back and forth. Shane felt a chill go down his spine, and he closed his eyes, then opened them again, sure he was seeing things.

When he opened his eyes, a woman had been floating above him. She shone with a faint, silvery glow – wispy shreds of clothing hung from her skeletal form. He couldn’t quite make out her face.

Then he blinked.

Gone.

He’d fallen back asleep. When he woke up the next morning, he shot out of bed, the half-sleeping memories all flooding back to the front of his mind. It might have all been a dream. He knew that was a possibility – no, a probability. But he raced to check his trusty camera, and uploaded the video on to his computer.

His excitement had faded four hours into the time-lapse. He’d yet to see a thing – he’d barely stirred in his sleep. But then, at the exact moment of 3:07 a.m. in the morning, he saw something move.

It could have been nothing. Some kind of camera distortion? A trick of the light. Shane still wasn’t sure what it was – but something flickered by the camera – slowed down, it appeared as a shapeless translucent sphere, flitting by the lens for just the briefest of instants. And as it did, Shane saw his sleeping self open his eyes.

A dream and a weird camera distortion. That was all there was to it. Could have just been coincidence and wishful thinking... but it had given hope. Hope to keep trying. And this time, it had paid off.

This time, there was no doubt about it. The flickering torch, the silhouette... and Shane hadn’t been sleeping this time. He’d been wide awake. He might not have gotten much on camera, but he knew. That was what mattered.

When Shane went to sit back down at the fire, he noticed a faint sound coming from the direction of the swamp bank. The sound of ripples. He laughed – this time a little nervously. Could he be that lucky? A second encounter?

He didn’t bother with his torch. It was dead. He walked over to the bank to investigate the sound. He saw bubbles rising to the surface. Of course, it could be nothing, Shane thought. Could just be an alligator under the water or something. In which case he might want to get a little further away from the bank. He took a couple steps back.

‘Shane,’ a voice whispered in the dark.

His gaze snapped upwards – on the surface of the lagoon, a little ball of blue flame had appeared, floating above the black-glass water.

Spook-lights, Shane had heard his father call them once. Saint Elmo’s Fire. His dad had seen them once on a hunting trip with his friends. They were strange, and eerie... beautiful, in a way. Science attributed them to some kind of marsh gas – but dad had told him stories about them, as a kid. They were the ghosts of old hunters and fishermen who died there – sometimes benevolent, sometimes dangerous. Sometimes they tried to waylay passers-by, and lead them to drown in the swamp like they had.

As if summoned from the grave, Shane heard his father’s voice again.

‘Shane,’ it whispered, from somewhere in the gloom.

‘Dad?’ Shane called back. His voice trembled a little.

More of the lights began to appear – a little trail of blue-and-green flames, leading to the centre of the lagoon.

He saw a familiar form standing on the water.

‘I’ve missed you, Shane,’ it called. ‘Come here, my boy. Come to me.’

Shane moved closer to the bank, small steps. His eyes were wide – his mind was strangely blank, foggy. His dad had died from lung cancer five years ago. Just before his son left college. Shane had missed him so much. But it was okay, now. His dad was here. It was going to be alright.

As he inched closer to the bank, the water started to stir. More bubbles rising to the surface, making ripples, though Shane barely noticed it. He felt the ground crumble a little as he neared the very edge of the lagoon. His father stretched a hand.

‘Come on, Shane. Just a little further.’

Then, just as Shane was about to step into the water, he caught himself. A brief instant of sanity. What was he doing? The ghost-lights vanished, and his father along with them. The lagoon was dark again. Shane shivered.

Something grabbed his leg.

Shane screamed – his right leg slipped into the icy-cold water, and he felt bony fingers tighten around his ankle. He fell over, his hands scrabbling for a hold on the sandy earth.

‘HELP ME!’ He shrieked. But he knew nobody was there. Another hand grabbed on to the upper half of his leg – it was dripping wet, covered in weeds and algae.

He was slipping further into the bank. He was halfway in the water, now. The bony fingers tore into his skin, dragging him slowly downward. His own fingers were slipping on the dirt –

Shane kicked back. His foot collided with something, and it made a strange rattling sound when he hit it. The hands loosened their grip a little – Shane pulled himself free of their grasp, and scrambled back onto the bank, his heart hammering.

He looked back just in time to see it disappear. It was wrapped in weeds, like a mummy’s bandages – wrapped around a hollow rib-cage, and thin, reaching arms. Two dark, hate-filled eye-sockets stared back at Shane as the skeleton slipped back into the water.

Shane didn’t move from where he lay on the bank, his breath still shallow. His eyes were wide. Bugging out of his head. His teeth were chattering, and his body shook uncontrollably. Ghost-hunting was the furthest thing from his mind. Gone was the adventurous spirit who’d ventured into this swamp before sundown, before the dead came out to play. It was cold out here. He wanted to go home.

For what seemed like hours – though it could have just been minutes – Shane stood up. His legs shook when he did, and he almost fell over again. He stumbled back to the dying campfire, grabbing his dead torch, and he went to turn off the camera. He folded up the tripod to its usual compact size, and pocketed the camera – he didn’t bother putting out the fire.

He headed back for his truck. I think that’s enough ghost stories for one night, sonny boy – Shane laughed hysterically as the memory crossed his mind. That had been his father, telling him bedtime stories when he was younger – he’d told little Shane about the spook-lights, and the dead fishermen. Sometimes, late at night, they’ll rise from their watery graves – they’ll hold their ghostly lanterns aloft, and wait for passers-by. Waiting for their next victims. More true than you know, daddy-o. He laughed again.

Shane felt the hairs on his forearms crawl, and he cast a furtive glance around the gloom. In his mind, shadows with cowboy hats were watching from behind the trees. And he thought he heard something behind him. An odd squelching sound. He quickened his pace – he could see his pickup truck just a few metres away from him.

Looking up, he saw a billion stars above him. Cold, distant lights in the blue-black heavens. Never had he felt so small – so insignificant. He was just a lonely backpacker, with no friends nearby. Alone in the wilderness. The only person that knew he was here was Charlie Frost, and that was no consolation to Shane. The man was crazy. He might have forgotten all about Shane by this point. He could go missing here and nobody would ever know.

There was that sound again – the squelching shuffle of feet in the darkness, not far behind him. Shane threw his belongings in the back, and slammed the door as he jumped into the driver’s seat. He turned the ignition – the headlights turned on, and the engine made a whut-whut-whutting sound as it stuttered to life –

And then it fell silent.

‘No, no, no, NO!’ Shane yelled, banging his fists on the dashboard. He tried it again – whut-whut-whut-whut –

Silence.

There was something up ahead on the road. A hulking, shadowy form – it was dripping water on the asphalt. Shane’s heart skipped a beat.

The headlights quavered a little. Oily, black-green skin. Water dripped from vertical gashes in its cheeks – gills. Its hands were webbed, and its eyes were bottomless lagoons. Its mouth was a gaping, black hole.

The headlights flickered, and died.