Bump in the Night

by Meredith Spies

  I sat up and watched him head for the door. He stopped, hand on the knob, and half-turned towards me again, his face in profile like he didn’t quite know where to look when he spoke next. “Just so you know… She didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Huh?” I thought of Jessica and her giddy urgency, of CeCe and her injury. It would be just like my sister, I thought, to feel like she had to apologize for getting hurt. “Who’s sorry?”

  He exhaled sharply. “The maid. She didn’t think you’d see her.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Oscar

  “Your man’s acting weird,” Ezra muttered as he checked batteries in our meters. “I mean, more than before.”

  “He’s in denial.” Weems was, to a casual observer, just fine, but I’d been staring at him like a stalker for going on three days now and I could tell something was amiss. I mean, there was that and also the fact I probably just confirmed for him that yes, he had seen a ghost. I was a coward and didn’t stick around in his room to see his reaction after passing on the maid’s apology. That probably made me the worst kind of asshole, just dropping that bomb and running. I should apologize. Like really apologize and not just dirty-apologize with sexy tongue stuff. Though I’d totally offer that option if he’s cool with it. I sneaked a peak in Weems’ direction and caught him as he jerked his head away, pointedly not looking at me. Got ya.

  “About what?” Ezra followed the direction of my gaze. Weems was feigning interest in whatever Ernest was talking about, nodding and doing that finger-crooked-over-the-mouth thing people do when they want to look intense about whatever is being discussed. “Christ, that guy is weird. Ernest,” Ezra said before my sharp inhale could turn into a dressing-down. “Ernest is weird. He’s been lurking around for the past two days, refusing to come in the house after dark and now he’s all eager beaver about us filming up here and wants to hang out.”

  Ernest was practically glowing, all pink-cheeked and glistening with sweat despite the chilly temperatures in the billiard room. I would never, as long as I lived, understand why people were so willing to believe a room the approximate temperature of the inside of an ice box was a perfectly normal occurrence even when circumstances dictated otherwise by a wide margin. As it was, the house had no central air system and the windows had all been closed up as the next round of rain passed us by. We’d shut off the floor fans to prevent noise from ruining our shoot, but still the air in the room made goosebumps race down my exposed skin. “Maybe he’s just warmed up to the idea,” I suggested, though even to my own ears it sounded half-hearted. “Or, more likely, Jacob bothered him in some way and he’s more comfortable now that Jacob’s off property.”

  Ezra hummed thoughtfully as he replaced the batteries in one of the EVP meters. They’d been fresh the day before, but like many others before us, we’d discovered ghosts drained batteries like nothing else. Whomever had been in the attic with us yesterday did a number on our little copper tops, meaning Ezra had to dig into the big bag o’stuff he hauled around to every shoot. It included what always seemed like an excessive number of batteries and cables until the moment when we needed those exact items. I was pretty sure he had some sort of a bulk buy deal with battery manufacturers and whomever made the charger cords for all our equipment.

  “What? You don’t think so?”

  “What I think,” he snapped the back of one of the meters closed and handed it to me, “is that we should get this show on the road so we’re not up here when Jacob gets back with his pet camera crew.”

  “Do I need to remind you that doing this show was your idea?”

  “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he muttered, flashing me a grin that was all teeth before popping to his feet and carrying some equipment over to Weems and Ernest.

  Ernest was an enthusiastic participant in the set up, we found. His skittishness of the house seemed confined to nighttime hours only, and he had zero problems holding into a digital voice recorder and following us into the billiard room proper, not just the tiny sliver of space we’d eked out in the doorway to set up our equipment. “Matthew Hendricks is supposed to haunt this room in particular,” he informed us in the hushed tone of a churchgoer. “Plays a game once in a while with a house guest or sometimes on his own. We’ve heard the balls clacking around and, whenever we’ve come to check, it’s all racked and ready for the next match.”

  “Who’s we?” Weems asked, taking up his assigned spot near the windows overlooking the gray evening. “You said we.”

  “Me an’ the other caretakers,” he said stoutly. “Some of ‘em have been here since they were wee ‘uns and their folks worked for the Hendricks family.” His smile twisted into a snarl as he spoke. “Most of us have long ties to Bettina and Hendricks House itself.” He sniffed, a wet snuffling noise. “It’s been a rough time, since I was a boy really. Bit before that, too. After the war…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “Well. The historical society was kind,” something about the way he said that word felt wrong, “enough to keep most of us on, seein’ as we didn’t have another way to make a living. Gets kinda hard to find a job when all you’ve done for fifty years. Me, Bella, Davis… Our families have been part of Hendricks House since before Bettina incorporated the land.” He sniffed again. “Well. Might say I’m a bit possessive of the place. Even the ghosts.” His smile was fleeting and not very kind. A quick baring of teeth more than anything. “I just don’t trust the place after dark these days. Not since the film crew mess last year. Stirred up a buncha shit should’ve stayed buried.”

  “Such as?” Three pairs of eyes snapped towards me. “What got stirred up?”

  Ernest raised one gray, shaggy brow. “You don’t know?”

  “I only know what they tell me or show me,” I said, my pat answer when people wanted to challenge me, demanding why I couldn’t just pluck details from their mind when it came to their dearly departed. “If a ghost has no wish to communicate with me, there’s little I can do to get anything from it. I may see them, or sense them, but if they have nothing to say to me…” I spread my hands. “Just like a living human.”

  “Huh.” Ernest looked around billiards room, his expression distant, focused on some point far in the past or maybe something that never existed at all. A soft thump sounded from the cabinet near the window, a tall and upright thing meant to store cues and other billiards accouterments. Ernest jerked back so violently, he tripped over his feet and landed on his rear in front of Weems.

  “Whoa, you okay there?” Weems asked, reaching to help him up only to get his hands violently slapped away. “Hey, calm down. Things shift. It’s not someone back from the dead to play a game of pool,” he chuckled. My skin prickled, the weight of Ezra’s stare hard and hot on my face as I pretended not to hear Weems’ easy dismissal, pretended not to hear how strained his laugh sounded. Why are you pretending it’s impossible? I know what you saw. She told me herself!

  “Keep your mouth shut about things you don’t understand,” Ernest snapped. He tugged his sweater down over the slight paunch of his belly and turned towards Ezra, adopting an air of attempted dignity. “You might not believe in ‘em, but there’s least one here that’s out for blood an’ I ain’t gonna be the one to donate.” He smoothed his hands through his hair and brushed dust off his hands before asking, “Mind if I stick around for this part? I ain’t ever seen this in person and I’m curious. And seein’ as how this is sort of my home and all…”

  We kitted him up with one of the EVP meters and promised to keep him out of the shots as much as possible since he had no desire to end up on UnReality any time soon. It wasn’t dark yet, but Ernest was definitely growing more agitated by the minute. “If you need to leave,” I said quietly while Ezra did a final check on his little cameras, “just set the meter down and try not to slam the door on your way out, okay?” Ernest nodded, eyes flicking from one spot to another then another. Weems turned off the lanterns and Ezra held up three fingers, counting us down to
start. On two, I stepped away from Ernest and took up a spot by the cold marble mantle over the ashy hearth. On one, I started talking. “This room is said to be haunted specifically by Matthew Hendricks who died of suspected,” my emphasis on the word did not go unnoticed by Weems, who snorted softly, “food poisoning over a hundred years ago. His death was but one of several, all in the same family over a relatively short period of time, and his spirit is alleged to linger on here at the home he built for his family. Now, we’ll begin with some questions.”

  We each took a turn with questions, Ezra going first and asking any spirits present to make themselves known (politely, thank you—people who go into haunted houses shouting at the deceased and generally acting like twats deserve to be mocked frequently and loudly, and they also deserve the disturbing hauntings they themselves get later) and if there was anything they needed to share with us. Ernest shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, staring at the blinking lights on his meter with an intensity I’d previously only seen in videos of neurosurgery. “We gonna hear them if they got something to say?” he asked in a gruff whisper.

  Weems glanced towards the camera Ezra had placed on the mantel for this first part, capturing three of us by the billiard table. Ezra mouthed ‘edits’ at him and Weems nodded. “EVP functions on the possibility that, should a spirit communicate, it would not be easily heard or heard at all by typical human hearing. These,” he tapped the meter held loosely in his hand, “are sensitive enough to pick up sounds we would not be able to hear usually.”

  Ezra made an exaggerated surprised face. “Look at that. He can be taught!”

  “Fuck’s sake,” Weems muttered. “Just because I exercise an abundance of caution and don’t jump to the first conclusion doesn’t mean I’m lacking in intelligence. Sometimes a knock on the walls is just a tree branch and not the disembodied soul of some Civil War soldier!”

  The chill in the room grew sharper, painfully so. “Gentlemen,” I said firmly. “I suggest we take a moment to regroup and calm down before we continue filming.”

  Weems’ jaw worked. “Fine. Shut off the camera and let’s hash this out, Baxter. What is your problem with me?”

  “I refuse to watch my best friend made a fool of,” Ezra barked.

  “Gentlemen…” I grabbed the camera and fumbled for the off switch only to drop it and send it spinning across the wooden floor. It stopped near Weems’ foot, pointing up at his face for what I was certain would be an extraordinary view of his sharp jaw that I could appreciate more fully once all this was done. “We’re wasting time,” I shouted over Weems’ protests that he was not making a fool of anyone.

  “Fellowes is a big boy,” he snarled. “He’s dealt with skeptics before! Why the Hell would I make a fool of him?”

  “I’m not talking about your position on the show,” Ezra said, voice flat. “I…” he stopped, shaking himself visibly before turning back to me with wide, scared eyes. “I’m so sorry, Oscar. I don’t know… I just felt it and…”

  “It’s okay,” I said quietly, moving between them to pick up the camera. I glanced down to see it was still running so I took a moment to hold it at arm’s length. It was never a great angle for me, but I didn’t know what was going to end up on the final reel for the day and wanted to at least try to mitigate the fuckery that just went down. “Ezra’s not a medium like me, but he has talents which are invaluable during investigations. He’s an empath, but more specifically he is able to feel the energy of places and sometimes, yes, ghosts, more-so than I am. While I speak with, hear, see, and sometimes even am touched by spirits, he feels what they feel or felt, and the residual energy of places.” I panned the camera back towards Ezra, who had his lips pressed together in a thin line and was, even in the green-tinged view of the camera, unhealthily pale.

  “I’m okay,” he lied. I knew him too well to believe he was telling me the truth. “This, ah, it wasn’t anything to do with my gift,” he added, looking anywhere but at the camera or me. “Let’s chalk it up to stress and edit it out later, eh?”

  Weems met my gaze over the camera, something in his expression knowing and sad. “Let’s keep going,” he agreed. “Sun will be going down soon.”

  Ernest was quiet, clutching the EVP meter like it was a lifeline. “Yeah, let’s… let’s go on.”

  We let Ernest ask questions next, the stilted atmosphere of the room only made worse as the temperature crept steadily downward. I itched to pull my pendulum out, unconventional as it was for the situation. I didn’t want to wait for the EVP to be run through the computer and cleaned up so we could hear what was being said, and there were definitely things being said—the flashing lights on the meters told me that much. Ernest asked just about what I’d expected him to ask: Was it really Matthew there, did he know who killed him, did he know he was dead. The last question, though, gave me pause. “Are you sorry yet?” Ernest asked softly. He didn’t seem to be aware he was asking it until the words were out. He blinked rapidly, shaking his head and shoving the meter blindly at Weems. “I need to, ah. I need to go. It’s gettin’ on and I need to, um.”

  “Go?” Ezra suggested mildly. He was still pale, still sweating heavily, but he sounded like his usual self. “I think this is all a wash,” he added. “We need to regroup. Maybe come back after dinner or something. I heard they’re bringing back burgers?”

  The cabinet by the window creaked open slowly, horror-movie perfect. Someone was whispering—no, not whispering, talking but as if from a distance. I was hearing them from a long way off, unable to parse out individual words but definitely able to discern tone. They were angry. No, beyond angry. Distraught, furious, something hot and cold all at once. I checked on Ezra—he still looked unwell but no worse than a few moments before. Weems, though, looked distinctly unsettled, lips turned into a bare line in his face, hands pressed to his stomach like he was about to be ill and trying to hold it in. The rack holding the cues rattled like someone was trying to move them out of the way but found it too difficult. They gave another short rattle and the door flew wide, opening both sides of the cabinet. The rack holding the cues pulled free from the wall of the cabinet, scattering its contents across the floor while the wooden rack itself flew out and landed on the billiards table. The room was so cold it made my joints hurt, each one of them protesting as I pushed forward past Ezra and a statue-still Weems whose eyes were so wide I could see whites all the way around the irises. The cabinet gave a creaking groan and shook hard like someone trying to rip it from the wall. Another groaning shake and one side did pull free, the entire assembly swinging open to reveal a shallow closet arrangement, a waft of musty, sticky-sweet air hitting us in the face, making me gasp and choke on it even. “Stop,” I said firmly, loudly. “I can help you. Just tell me what you need.” The distant voices were louder but no more clear, someone definitely shouting. I realized, belatedly, they were yelling at me, not some ephemeral argument from the past caught in a loop, not a spirit raging at their situation, their death. I caught enough of the cadence to recognize my name. To know the anger was directed at me. Something in the dark closet space moved, a low shadow darker and more solid than the space around it. For a glaring-bright moment, I experienced a bone deep fear that I’d never known I could feel. Never in my life had I feared ghosts, not even when I was a small tot and saw my first specter lurking in Granmere’s kitchen, an angry Roundhead still seeking vengeance centuries later. I’d thought I wasn’t capable of it somehow, that maybe my abilities made me immune to the silly nerves others felt at the very idea of the supernatural. But I was so, so wrong. I tasted metal on my tongue as my legs threatened to go liquid, my sharp gasp jolting Weems into motion. My panic lasted all of two seconds, but it was enough to make him break out of his frozen state and grab onto my elbow, pulling me back as the dark shape lurched forward.

  “Fucking Hell,” Ezra cried. “It’s a goddamn drinks cart!”

  Ernest wheezed something like a laugh but far more forced. “Matthew Hendricks
being hospitable, I suppose?” His voice shook, thin and brittle. The cart shook. I couldn’t see the ghost but I had the very sharp impression that someone—Matthew, probably—was shaking it with their hands, trying to rattle something loose. That they had been trying to get my attention for some time and were fed up with being polite about it. Ernest let out a thin, high wail as the cart tipped onto it’s side and a single bottle rolled out.

  “Whiskey,” Weems announced when it fetched up against his shoe. “Everything inside’s dried up, no surprise given its age, but you can tell here,” he toed the bottle gently. “There’s a line where the liquid level was when the bottle was locked away and first started drying out.” A dark, scummy-looking line circled the inside of the bottle about halfway down.

  “That’s the smell,” Ezra murmured. “That sweet smell. It’s alcohol.”

  Weems retrieved one of the lanterns from the billiard table and flipped it to max, holding it up so we could see inside the hidden closet. Bottles littered the floor, shattered on the unfinished wood. Dark stains showed where the contents had spilled and dried out over the years. Gingerly, Weems crouched to pick up the bottle by the neck, holding it between his thumb and forefinger. “Before you ask,” he said carefully, “I don’t have an explanation at the moment.”

  The shouting had stopped, but the room was still freezing. The lantern flickered, making us all whip around to stare at it. “Do you think,” Ezra said softly. “It might be time…?”

  I closed my eyes and nodded. “I don’t have any salt with me.”

  “Automatic writing?”

  Ezra knew how much I hated doing it, his hesitation clear in his voice. Weems cleared his throat softly, swallowing his professional objections even as I nodded again. “Clear a space. Ernest—”