What Hides Inside: Bay City Paranormal Investigations, Book 2

what me and Dean found out researching today. Sit down, shut up and listen.”
    Andre’s relief was palpable. He laughed as he sat at his desk and swiveled around to face the room. “Okay, I’m listening. Shoot.”
    David and Dean looked at each other. “You start,” David offered, waving a hand at Dean.
Flashing a blinding smile at David, Dean began to speak. “We figured the best place to start researching the site would be with records from the monastery. So we asked if they had those, and they said yes.”
“The originals are locked up under glass in the display section,” David added. “But they had everything on microfiche. We went through most of the records from the first six months at the monastery.”
When David paused, Dean jumped in again. “Most of it was pretty dull. Stuff about who joined up, who died, how many prayers they had, junk like that. But there was also an account of finding and purchasing the property, complete with a hand-drawn map and description of the topography of the area.”
“And a blueprint of the original building,” David continued. “And here’s where it starts getting interesting—”
“There was a house already on the property when they bought it,” Dean interrupted, eyes shining.
David smacked Dean’s leg. “It was pretty much a ruin, mostly just a foundation and some walls. The roof had fallen in.”
Sam bit back a laugh as David and Dean started talking at once, their excitement spilling over to infect the rest of the group.
“When they went to take down what was left of the house,” Dean said, “they found a pit in the ground underneath it—”
“—the pit was about twenty-five feet underground, with a slanted passageway to the surface—”
“—but it didn’t look like it had been dug from the surface down—”
“—but rather from the pit up.”
Surprised silence greeted this breathless declaration. Everyone else’s faces reflected the same mixture of skepticism and interest that Sam felt.
“What made them think so?” Andre asked, frowning.
David and Dean both started to answer at the same time. Dean gestured toward David. “Go ahead. You’re the one who found this bit.”
With a nod at Dean, David continued the tale. “The floor of the house was still mostly intact when the monks found it, good solid hardwood planks. Between that and the piled-up rubble from the roof, the ground underneath was pretty well protected from the elements. According to the monk writing the account we read, the pattern of scratches and furrows in the pit and the passageway seemed to suggest digging from the inside. And listen to this. He said there was dirt piled at the bottom of the pit, as if it had been flung there during digging. Which of course wouldn’t happen if you were digging from the surface down.”
Goose bumps raised the hairs on Sam’s arms. “What did they think did it? And why’d they buy the property after that? I sure as hell wouldn’t have.”
“They blamed demons.” Dean leaned his elbows on the desk behind him and gave Sam a wry smile. “They performed an exorcism and declared the place clean.”
“Wow.” Cecile rubbed her arms. “That’s creepy.”
Rolling over to her, David put an arm around her shoulders. “Wait, it gets better.”
Andre’s eyebrows went up. “How much better?”
“Lots.” A solemn expression came over David’s usually smiling face. “You know Mr. Innes said the monks up and left in 1921, without telling anyone where they were headed. Well, according to the monastery records, twenty-three monks are listed as having died in the four months before the last entry.”
“That’s interesting,” Bo said, and his brow furrowed. “But I don’t see what it has to do with anything. Many groups of monks kept very much to themselves even that recently, and often refused modern medical care. Lots of things could’ve killed them.”
David nodded. “That’s true. But we read all their death records. In every case, the cause of death was listed, or at least what they knew to be the cause of death. Died in his sleep, collapsed and stopped breathing during prayers, things like that. But with these twentythree, the cause of death is listed as unknown. And, in each case, the burial place is also listed as unknown. With every other death, they have the exact burial plot recorded.”
“Why would they list it that way?” Cecile wondered. “That’s very strange.”
“It is,” Dean agreed. “And we wondered the