Return to The Quarry

Chapter Seven

Grace and Anton told the group everything, from the grim disclosures of what actually happened to Ed Benson, to the strange reason why they came to the forest in the first place. Everyone listened as they mentioned that the disappearance of an actress and writer were at the heart of the strange things happening at Hackett's Quarry, and as they finished telling about their conversation with whom they believed was Ann Radcliffe, the missing hiker, Nick was numb. He looked around at the others and they appeared to be shocked as well. Even Ryan had stopped breathlessly simpering.

Max cleared his throat. "Y-you know about what happened to us?"

Anton blinked. "You?"

Collectively, the group explained who they were and what had happened to them six years prior. They explained the need for the resort to bring them back and why Braden had assembled them there on the property once more. They even dared to use the word werewolf.

Grace sneered at Anton for all the ribbing she took over the werewolf angle falling flat.

"Come on," he groaned. "We don't even know if they really are the counselors."

Grace wanted to ask them a zillion questions, but realizing her time in the building may come to an end any moment, she felt that interviews could be put off for now.

"Okay. Here's the general experiment. I don't know how else to say it," she said, pulling out her phone and hooking it up to a small LCD projector, "but it seems that we might have stumbled upon a clue as to why you were attacked back then." She began swiping through her phone.

"What are you doing?" Abi asked.

"Calling up a video file. And . . . there."

Anton knelt down and turned the LCD projector so that its rectangular beam filled a blank part of the nearby wall. As blobs of motion came across the screen, he adjusted the focus.

"We found a copy of An Outlaw's Daughter online," said Anton. "The film Ann told Grace and me they were playing right here at the classic film festival the night guests swore they saw an apparition."

Kaitlyn was intrigued. "And that movie is supposed to, what, summon a spirit?"

Anton frowned. "Not exactly. The description of the woman given to us by the eyewitness has all the hallmark signs of a residual haunt."

Dylan had found a paper cup and was busy trying to balance it on his finger. "Ladies and gentlemen, you have choices when it comes to your preference of ghosts."

Grace elevated the volume as the standard copyright screens played. "Actually, yeah. Intelligent haunts are ghosts that move about independently and can interact with the living. Then there's the misdirected energies that cause objects to move and such. We call them Poltergeists. And then there's residual haunts, which are kind of like a recording on loop in three-dimensional space."

Dylan looked up suddenly and let the paper cup fall, forgotten. "Wait, are you suggesting, like, the 'Stone Tape Phenomenon?'"

Emma pulled over a lone, unstacked chair and sat down. "You guys are just making things up. What are you talking about?"

"'Stone Tape Phenomenon.'", said Dylan. "It's the proposed theory that places surrounded by certain kinds of stone can imprint these sorts of memories in space, the same way old VCRs used to record on magnetic tape. The stones contain similar mineral makeup as the tape. There've been cases where highly emotionally charged events were, I guess you could say, remembered by English castles and monasteries. When conditions were right, the events could be played back."