Title: These Haunted Hills
Author: Jana Denardo
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 02/20/2024
Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 88800
Genre: Contemporary paranormal, contemporary, paranormal, ghosts/ghost hunters, academics, mystery, steampunk, cosplay, nerds and general geekiness, haunted houses, violence/ malevolent spirit, grieving, suicidal ideation
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Description
Young wildlife conservation professor, Joshua Zimmerman, adores foxes, steampunk, and paranormal investigation. As a geek of the first order, Josh is a collector of nerdy memorabilia and tattoos, and he’s an avid steampunk cosplayer. When his favorite author hires him for some ghost hunting for his new project, Josh can hardly believe his luck.
As an author of the wildly successful urban fantasy series, The Green Tablet, Brendan Halloran should have it all. And he did until his young son, Connor, died of cancer. Heartbroken and drowning in grief, Brendan stops writing, stops living his life. His marriage has disintegrated, leaving Brendan trapped in the moment Connor died.
When Brendan rents a cabin in Ohio’s Hocking Hills, it’s ostensibly to research his next book, an adult paranormal tale. Brendan hires a local professor who is an expert on the paranormal, thinking if he does pull out of his tail spin and makes good on his plan to write a new book, he might as well do it right. And the perfect place to investigate could be the remains of an old hotel constructed to suit the serial killer who built it.
Brendan finds himself swept away, completely unprepared for the joy and enthusiasm Josh brings to everything he does. Step by step, Brendan reenters life. His head might not be convinced he’s ready to love again, but his heart disagrees. Unfortunately for him, the ghost is every bit as vicious as the killer was in life, and he and Joshua have a target on their backs.
These Haunted Hills
Jana Denardo © 2024
All Rights Reserved
“Check your phone. Got bars and battery life?”
Brendan pulled it out. “Two bars and almost full on the charge. Expecting trouble?”
“Always. In the mundane world, one of us could fall through a floorboard, which is my biggest worry. It pays to be cautious. As I said earlier, test those floorboards before putting your full weight on them, especially any of the spongy ones.”
Brendan’s skin creeped as if trying to flee his body. He swallowed past his tightening throat. “Being trapped after falling through a floorboard, lying hurt in a haunted murder hotel just rocketed up my list of fears.”
“It’s a worst-case scenario but a real concern when you’re exploring abandoned buildings. Keep your wits around you.”
“Yeah.” Brendan took a moment, mulling the situation. He was being ridiculous. He was getting a chance to live the life his characters would, not something he got to do on a regular basis.
Josh led the way inside. Enough light spilled into the lobby through the empty windows. They didn’t need flashlights but only just. Dust tortured Brendan’s nose, leaving him fighting not to sneeze. Layers of mold and musk choked him. No doubt, raccoons and other animals lived in the building’s skeleton. Fear of rabies tap-danced over his brain. He cast his gaze over to Josh. He embodied Buddha, utterly Zen in the face of rabid raccoons lurking, waiting to eat his face and leaving him to the ghost of a serial killer.
I’m being ridiculous. Brendan turned on the camera and the EMF reader. He snapped a few pictures in case his mind didn’t retain all the details. He’d studied abandoned mansions and whatnot online. Many still had peeling paint or stained wallpaper, signs of previous life. Here, whatever had been on the walls had returned to nothingness long ago. The walls were bare wood, drawing the eye down to the piles of leaves and other detritus. It had been too long since this place last had life.
“When was this abandoned?” Brendan scowled. He should have done his research more thoroughly first.
“Midfifties. It had been a lot of things after they discovered what happened here.”
Brendan stared at the wall, fighting back the disappointment. This wasn’t eerie. Instead, it carried a somehow generic atmosphere. Reality, as it so often did, let him down. Such bad luck, and there was nothing to do about it. This was the reality, but on the page, it could be exactly what he’d been hoping for. Brendan walked on cat feet deeper into the building. A bit of railing clung to the wall, but the staircase had collapsed, the skeleton of the upper floor splayed out over its remains.
“Are there blueprints?” He edged around the rubble.
“None showing where the kill rooms were, but back when this was uncovered, someone mocked up existing prints to indicate where they were found. I have copies I can give you or at least point you to the URL I got them from.”
Josh’s camera clicked, kicking Brendan’s memory. He had not only a camera but also the EMF reader.
“Does this really work?” Brendan wiggled the device.
“Out here, it should work beautifully. There’s no electricity, so you won’t get a hit off power lines.”
“I’m getting a hint of how edited the ghost TV shows are to make it more exciting.”
“I guess it can be tedious.”
The hurt tone made Brendan turn to face Josh. He looked suddenly younger and as if his dog had been kicked. “I’m not bored,” Brendan said hurriedly. “I suppose I expected a little more…action? I don’t know…or maybe you yelling like a bully at the ghosts. I’ve never understood the concept of provoking.”
“It’s a bad idea. I don’t provoke, normally.” Josh perked up. “But honestly, it is usually a lot of tedium interspersed with moments of craziness.”
“How crazy?”
“Depends on the ghost.”
“Not reassuring,” Brendan muttered, and Josh cocked up his eyebrows. Brendan turned away, easing his way down a corridor. Fewer leaves and random crap clogged this hallway, but the cloying scents of mildew and dust clung tight to the corridor. At least the flooring remained more or less firm underfoot. A door peeled nearly free of paint stood cracked open. Brendan gingerly pushed it, but it didn’t move much.
He held the EMF reader in the opening. Brendan nearly dropped it as it lit up, red lights racing across its face. He pulled it into the hall, and the lights died. Heart jackhammering, he thrust it into the opening again, rewarded by red. He sucked in a deep breath, fighting for calm. Brendan didn’t sense anything. He inched his hand in farther. No appreciably colder spots greeted his fingers.
“Josh!” he called, his voice sharper than he’d prefer, noticing Josh was no longer behind him.
Josh popped around the corner. “Find something?”
“Think so. Look! If I put my hand through the door, the EMF goes off.” Adrenaline shocked Brendan’s system. He felt more alive than he’d been in a year or more. “Promising?”
“Very! Okay, I’ll record. You can put away the EMF and try to get some digital photos.”
Brendan demonstrated one more time how the lights only lit up inside the guest room—because it was cool—and then pocketed the device. “The door is a bit stuck.”
“Let’s see if we can get it far enough open so we can slip in there.” Josh put his shoulder into it, forcing the door open enough, allowing them to sidle through. Luckily, they were thin men, he more than Josh, who had muscle on him. “Okay, turn on the digital voice recorder too. Never hurts to have all the guns out.”
Brendan fished it out of his pocket, turned it on, and then squeezed through the opening after Josh. The guest room had the remains of a dresser along one wall and the rusted corpse of mattress springs with tatters of its cloth flesh clinging to them. “Depressing in a way.”
“Most abandoned buildings feel this way,” Josh agreed. “Hi. Anyone here want to talk to us? We’d love to have a chat.”
Brendan assumed asking aloud was for the benefit of the recorders, but it made Brendan’s heart run like the Lamborghini he’d once considered buying until his wife pointed out he had a baby on the way and he was likely to turn her into a single mom when he wrapped it around a tree. Heather had a point, but man, the test drive had been sweet.
He dutifully took pictures while Josh held a conversation with thin air, introducing them both, asking again if someone wanted to talk.
“Can you ever hear them in real time?” Sometimes—at least on TV—the ghosts could be heard only on recording.
“Yes, occasionally. It’ll freak you out the first time.” Josh cocked his head to the side. “Or every time.”
“I’m not sure how I’ll handle it.” Brendan kept his ‘not well’ to himself. He rethought the whole ghost-hunting thing. He’d been bored, but if something did happen, his whole manhood could take an embarrassing hit.
“Give us a sign you’re here,” Josh entreated. “If you can hear us, give a little knock on the wall.”
Brendan caught his breath, waiting. He started breathing again when nothing happened. He nearly bowled Josh over when a faint knocking sounded.
“Oh my god, was that real? Did you make the knocking sound?” Brendan glared at Josh’s feet as if he could spot him stamping them now after the fact.
Josh glanced over at him, a huge grin on his face. “Not me, and I heard it too. Do that again. We hear you. You can talk to us; tell us what you need to! We’re listening.”
The door slammed shut, and Brendan’s knees weakened. “Josh, we couldn’t even open the thing. It couldn’t have blown shut.”
“No, it couldn’t.” Josh’s grin was gone, frightening Brendan more than the doorway. “Keep recording.”
Brendan had no idea if he was still recording, and fear kept his brain from figuring out how to check. “How are we getting out of here?”
Josh made a shushing motion. “Do you want to say something about Diane and what she did to you?”
A broken bit of board slid across the floor aiming right for them. Brendan ran for the door and tried to pull it open. It refused to move. A cold sweat drenched him.
“I hope you got the board on camera,” Josh said.
“I have no idea. Can you quit upsetting the ghost now?”
The board rattled on the floor as if it were ready to launch again. Josh beckoned Brendan closer. Brendan had no intention of letting anything get between him and the door until Josh pointed at the glassless window. Brendan jogged across the room, paying no heed to the sponginess of the boards. Josh went out the window first, holding up a hand to halt Brendan. He stomped around in front of the window, mushing down the grass with his boots.
“Okay, don’t see any snakes. Need a hand?”
Was there a hopeful tone in the question? Brendan dismissed it, handing Josh the camera before levering himself out the window into the overgrowth around the building.
“Amazing, wasn’t it?” Josh brandished the camera “I can’t wait to see what shows up on this.”
“Your insanity,” Brendan muttered, but if Josh heard and was hurt, he showed no sign.
“I bet we get something cool on the digital recorder.” Josh continued through the weeds toward the front of the hotel.
“When will you listen to it?”
“Tonight, or we can do it this afternoon once we’re done.”
Josh meant to return inside, so Brendan asked, “Should we go in there when that thing is acting full-on poltergeist?”
Josh paused, twisting to face Brendan. “It’s the best time to gather evidence, but if this is too much for your first time, we can go.”
Brendan regarded the hotel. He wanted to go, but wouldn’t it leave his research in the lurch? He was here to document the ghost-hunting life. He wanted authenticity to his characters’ fear in their haunted house, and he wouldn’t get it if he ran off. “We can go in, but maybe it would be in our best interest not to end up in a place with only one exit.”
“Fair enough.”
Brendan steadied his nerves and followed Josh inside. “I want to hear the recordings.”
“We can stop off at my place or yours.” Josh frowned as he beelined for the room they had been in. “I want to see if there might be places to set up the cameras for the foxes near your cabin. But if you’re not okay with me being there, fine. We can go to my place or even my office on campus if you want somewhere more public.”
“I’m following you into a building that tried to trap and kill me. I’m fairly sure I can trust you in my cabin.” Looking into those blue eyes, could Brendan trust himself? What was he thinking? Of course, he could. He wasn’t ready for anything remotely romantic. Still, Josh represented one hell of a temptation. Maybe it was the innocence he wore tighter than his geeky T-shirt. It’d been so long since Brendan had entertained even this vanilla level of attraction and doing so now overwhelmed him.
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Jana is Queen of the Geeks (her students voted her in), and her home and office are shrines to any number of comic book and manga heroes along with SF shows and movies too numerous to count. It’s no coincidence that the love of all things geeky has made its way into many of her stories. To this day, she’s disappointed she hasn’t found a wardrobe to another realm, a superhero to take her flying among the clouds, or a roguish starship captain to run off to the stars with her.
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