Harold Goodwin - The Blue Ghost Mystery - A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story

Jan Miller let out a long-drawn, soft, shuddering sound from between clenched teeth. Barby's fingers clamped tighter on her brother's arm.

Rick fought to shake off the feeling of horror and dread. "There aren't any ghosts," he tried to tell himself. "This isn't a ghost. There are no ghosts."

Except that he was looking at one!

The apparition began to fade, holding out bloody hands. The phantom officer swayed a little, and the young face was distorted with agony. It grew dimmer and dimmer until only the white mist remained.

Rick was aware of Barby's soft sobs next to him, but his eyes remained riveted on the white mist.

A yell from Scotty snapped him out of his reverie.

"Let's go, boy!"

Without quite knowing how it happened, Rick found himself next to his pal, climbing frantically up the rocky slope to the shelf, hurrying to catch the Blue Ghost before even the mist vanished!

Not even bothering to draw themselves to an upright position, the boys flung themselves forward into the rapidly vanishing mist. Rick felt with horror a thin, icy tendril curl around his face, and he heard a gentle bubbling sound, like phantom laughter.

Scotty's flashlight probed with a bright yellow beam, and Rick saw, in the instant before the mist vanished and all movement ceased, that the surface of the pool boiled gently and then was quiet.

The flashlight beam disclosed solid rock, broken only by the pipe from which water trickled.

There was no ghost.

There was no place he could have gone.

There was no sign of human handiwork.

There was – nothing.

Rick, Scotty, and the two girls stood in silence and surveyed the scene before them. They stood on the brow of the hill, looking down at the picnic ground, at the trees under which they had stood and watched a hair-raising apparition the night before.

Even in daylight the place somehow seemed eerie to Rick. The sun was shining brightly and birds came and went without fear or interference on their normal business of gathering food. A slight breeze ruffled the foliage of the oak trees.

It was a fine, normal Virginia summer day, with no trace of the supernormal or weird about it. Yet, Rick felt somewhat less than relaxed, and he certainly felt puzzled.

Directly below them the pool created by the flow of spring water glistened in the sunlight. Between their feet and the pool was solid rock, with only a few weeds struggling for life in an occasional crack.

"This is going to be a tough nut to crack," Rick stated. "Look at that rock wall. Obviously, we'd have seen anything living that tried to climb down it, even in the darkness. If anyone had been standing up here, he'd have been silhouetted against the sky."

"There was no one on the hill last night," Scotty said positively. "I looked at every inch of it."

Barby listened to the exchange with an exasperated expression on her face. "Can't you two believe the evidence of your own eyes? The Blue Ghost appeared right under where we're standing. You can see for yourselves that nothing could be hidden by anyone to make a ghost appear. Besides, it was too real to be a trick."

"It was a ghost," Jan Miller said with quiet conviction. "Everyone has always known there was a ghost here."

Scotty shook his head. "Everyone has always known there were ghosts in a hundred places, if you want to consider all the folklore about spooks. A few people have even claimed to have seen one. But who ever heard of a haunt that put on nightly performances?"

"You have now," Barby said flatly.

"Maybe," Rick said. He didn't know why he was still skeptical. The apparition had been really blood-curdling in its apparent realness, but he still wasn't ready to buy a supernatural explanation.

Jan Miller replied with an appropriate quote from William Shakespeare. "There are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamed of in thy philosophy, Horatio Brant!"

Rick grinned. "That's true. No one knows better than I how ignorant I am. I can only say that I'm trying to learn. Let's climb down and look at the pool."

He led the way down the rocky slope to where the rusted iron pipe jutted from the side of the Hill, a thin trickle of water dripping constantly into the pool below. The pool was actually a catch basin in the rock.

Rick examined the pipe. It was ordinary, rusted but still sound. It held no secrets that he could see. He held his mouth under it and tasted the water. It was cold and good, typical spring water, with the taste of minerals in it. He knew from Dr. Miller that it was good to drink. Picnickers used it regularly.

"Expect evidence to float out with the water?" Barby asked.

"Never can tell," Rick said, unperturbed. His sister, even more than Jan Miller, was an incurable romantic. If the ghost turned out to be something other than the pitiful shade of Captain Costin, she would be bitterly disappointed, Rick knew.

He got down on his knees, Scotty beside him, and they probed in the water of the rocky basin with their hands. There was a layer of brown algae in the bottom, which was to be expected. It looked dead, but when Rick scraped it, there was green underneath the brown.

Scotty took out his jackknife and probed with the largest blade. Clearly, there was nothing in the basin but a solid rock bottom.

The boys' eyes met. "The pool bubbled a little last night," Rick recalled.

Scotty nodded. "I saw it, too. But there's nothing there to make it bubble."

Jan Miller shuddered. "I almost died when you two idiots scrambled up here. You went right into that awful mist!"

Rick remembered the icy tendril that had curled around his face and a little chill went through him. "It was cool," he said. "At least the Blue Ghost isn't warm. Maybe he's blue with cold."

Scotty used his jackknife to probe at cracks in the rocky hillside. It was seamed with them, but he found nothing unusual. "I give up," the dark-haired boy said, his face showing his bewilderment. "There's absolutely nothing here. So where did the ghost come from?"

"Where does any ghost come from?" Rick asked. "Same place." Their inspection should have settled it, but he wasn't ready to quit yet. To give up would mean admitting that the Blue Ghost was really a spook. He might have to admit it eventually, but not until all avenues of investigation were closed.

"Now what?" Scotty asked.

"Let's look around some more."

Barby thought this was nonsense and let them know it. "You two can prowl around all you want to," she said. "But I'm not going to get an overdose of sun spook hunting on the rocks. Coming, Jan?"

"Lunch at noon sharp," Jan reminded the boys. "We'll go help Mother. Good luck."

Rick and Scotty watched them go, then sat down next to the pool.

"What's on your mind?" Scotty asked.

Rick shrugged. "Nothing. I haven't the ghost of an idea about this ghost."

"It was pretty real," Scotty remembered.

"Too true." It was so real that Rick almost believed in it. But he was bothered by a vague feeling that something was wrong.

"Look, Scotty. I've read plenty of ghost stories, and I've read the book by Charles Fort that Dad has in the library. Nothing was ever said about this kind of ghost. I mean, a ghost that went in for public appearances promptly at nine whenever he had an audience. Of course, there's no rule that says a ghost has to behave in any definite way, but this is too … well, it's too perfect, if you know what I mean."

"I do. It's almost like a show, isn't it?"

"That's it. It's a performance more than an appearance, if there's any distinction. The ghost did exactly what he's been doing. Same act."

Scotty grinned. "Why not? The act is part of the legend, and it's a pretty convincing one."

Rick cocked an eyebrow at him. "Whose side are you on? The ghost's or mine?"