by H. T. Night
“David, you’re really scaring me! Just leave it alone! I’m scared to death you’re going to fall and break your neck!!” Her voice cracked.
“I’ll be okay—honest!” The branch creaked beneath his weight. “I’ve got to get this shot, and I’m almost there.”
He leaned toward her and positioned the camera to his eye. A perfect shot. If only she didn’t look so damned worried.
“Smile, baby!”
A sudden strong gust distracted him, and he placed more weight on the branch. It cracked loudly and then splintered.
“David!”
The branch gave way, taking him with it. Desperate to avoid a free fall to the ground, he threw his arms around the tree’s trunk, surprised when something unseen shoved him up against it. Sliding to the ground, his sweatshirt ripped, and the oak’s sharp bark scraped his arms and hands.
“Oh, baby, are you all right?” Miriam scrambled up the embankment and gently helped him back to his feet. His initial grimace turned to a sheepish grin as he brushed himself off. “You’re hurt!”
“Well, at least I got the picture, huh?”
He retrieved his ball cap and surprisingly unbroken camera. His prized lens received a mere scratch on its black casing. Curious to find out what had pushed him up against the tree, he gazed up at the spot he’d vacated. The broken branch was next to the thickest on the tree, with no evidence anyone else had been up there. He squinted, wishing he’d brought his prescription-tinted eyeglasses with him, instead of the cheap sunglasses he purchased that morning in Gatlinburg. He didn’t see anything, but sensed unseen eyes glaring back at him. He shivered.
Get a grip, man… It’s just an empty old tree.
“I can’t believe you did that!” she scolded, following his gaze before attending to his injuries.
The scrapes on his arms bled, and his hands ached. Miriam guided him back over to the blanket and opened her backpack, pulling out a small first-aid kit. A dozen years as a successful pediatrician came in handy at a time like this. She helped him remove his sweatshirt and then dressed his wounds. The injuries largely superficial, their painful sting said otherwise.
“You stubborn, stupid man,” she said, kissing his hands. “You could’ve been killed just now, do you realize that?” She looked up, her eyes soft and misty.
Another breeze blew through the trees, much cooler this time, raising the gooseflesh on his bare back and chest. His wife’s kisses moved up his arms. Soon, she kissed his neck and then his mouth with fervor. Powerfully aroused, he saw urgent longing in her eyes. He pulled her down onto the blanket, where they made passionate love.
***
Miriam awoke in a panic, and immediately looked at her wristwatch.
“Oh shit!”
“Huh?” In the middle of a dark, fragmented dream, David looked around him. Disoriented. “What in the hell happened?”
Long shadows crept into the ravine. The sun had almost finished its journey across the autumn sky, and a cool crispness filled the air.
“It’s almost five o’clock. That’s what happened!” she announced, sharply. She grabbed her clothes to dress. “We must’ve fallen asleep.”
He stood up and moved to his pile of clothes at the end of the blanket, where chilled air embraced his naked body. He turned to face his wife, who scrambled to fix her bra and pull on her panties. The sight of her vulnerability aroused him, and he thought about taking her in his arms once more. But the waning sunlight told him it wouldn’t be prudent, not to mention she looked distressed. His well-toned body and powerful erection would have little influence now. It didn’t help matters that the opportunity to do anything else in the park was now lost on account of their scheduled flight back to Denver from Knoxville tomorrow morning.
“Are you going to just stand there and admire yourself, or do you think you can be dressed by the time I’m finished here?”
She smiled, but he knew better than to test her current mood. He dressed, wincing from his earlier wounds as he pulled on his sweatshirt. He finished before she packed the remaining wine and glasses in his backpack.
Miriam motioned for him to step off the blanket so she could fold it. Something metallic jingled…an object fell onto the ground near where his clothes had been. A golden glint caught David’s eye and he reached down to pick it up, his wristwatch.
“This is really strange.” He shrugged his shoulders and pulled the watch over his wrist, snapping the band shut. “You know I almost never take this off, only in the shower. I can’t recall removing it from my wrist.”
Still puzzled, he looked down again at the spot where it had fallen.
“What the hell’s this?”
A small cloth bag with a leather drawstring lay nestled in the grass. He picked it up. Near the top, “Allie Mae’s Treasures” was cross-stitched on one side in light blue thread.
“Let me see that,” said Miriam. Setting the blanket down, she walked over to him.
David frowned, looked over at the tree, then back at the bag. He shook his head.
“It’s got to be some sort of prank.” He handed the bag to her. “The name stitched on it is almost identical to the one on the tree.”
“That’s pretty weird,” she agreed, peering at the bag. Wary, she looked around. She examined the bag more closely, holding it up by the knot at the end of its leather drawstring. Another metallic jingle resounded from within the bag. “I wonder what’s inside?”
She loosened the drawstring and opened the bag. A musty earthen scent arose from it. Gingerly, she poured the contents into one hand and sifted through them with the other. Four items rested in her palm: a steel sleigh bell, a broken solid gold locket attached to a chain made from a lesser grade of plated gold, a blue silk hair ribbon, and a folded letter.
The bell and hair ribbon looked ordinary enough, though the ribbon’s quality was very fine. The locket appeared torn at the hinges, and may have contained a picture or some other keepsake at one time.
“I wonder what this is about.” Miriam opened the letter. She ran her fingers over the paper, admiring its texture.
“Do you think it’s such a good idea to be prying into someone’s personal business like this?” It made him uncom-fortable watching her casually skim over the letter’s contents.
“It can’t be too private since it was left on the blanket while you and I were sleeping—in the nude, no less.” Her eyes flashed with annoyance, enough to make him drop the issue. She spent the next few minutes silently reading the letter while he looked on. Finished, she refolded it and stood mute.
“What does it say?” he asked.
“Well, it’s definitely a love letter,” she confirmed, after another moment’s hesitation. “The penmanship is so graceful, as if from another era altogether, which sort of contradicts the occasional misspellings. And look at the ink. It has definite stops and starts as though an old-fashioned fountain pen was used. Part of the letter is unclear, like this girl named Allie must’ve read it over and over so that some of the writing faded over time.”
She opened the bag and placed the items back inside, the letter being the last thing in before she closed the drawstring.
“It’s from a boy or man named Seth,” she continued, handing the bag back to him to hold. She finished folding the blanket and placed it inside her backpack. “It seems he was on his way to some war. The words are too dim for me to make out which one it was. It doesn’t seem possible that the bag could belong to the same girl whose name is on the tree, since the carving was obviously made a long time ago….”
“The chances for that are probably less than winning the lottery,” he said, when she didn’t go on. This crazy scene made no sense whatsoever. As much as he prided himself on being straight minded and very practical, a CPA by trade, Miriam was even more so. Meanwhile, she busily searched the immediate area.
“You’re not thinking it’s the same person, are you?” he asked, after she took the bag from him and moved over to the tree. �
�You do realize how crazy that sounds—especially if the carving on the tree is as old as it looks.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” she agreed, while taking a closer look at the crude inscription and comparing it to the bag. “Of course, we both know a lot of things these days can be made to look a certain way with the right props and equipment. But who in the hell would go to such trouble?”
She sighed, and then looked back toward the tree’s carved image again.
“I guess seeing how lonely the name looks on the tree and the letter from the bag pulled on my heart a little bit,” she admitted. “It’s made me feel really sad. I hope this girl’s heart wasn’t broken too badly.”
“I’m sure it’s just some prankster trying to yank our chain,” said David. He moved over and wrapped his arms around her. “Who better to pull one over on than a pair of unsuspecting tourists like us?”
He looked around the ravine again, scanning for clues as to where a hoax perpetrator could have come and gone from. Only the broken grass and weeds from when he and Miriam had moved through the area earlier met his gaze. He thought again about the unseen force that pushed him up against the tree.
“We probably should be on our way, darlin’.” Definitely time to go. Time to get far, far away from this frigging creepy place.
“Yeah…. Is there anything else near where you found this?” she asked.
He glanced at her, ready to say ‘no’. But an imploring look flickered in her eyes. He knelt down and groped through the grass. The cool blades brushed against the scratches on his palms, eliciting a brief tingle. He patted around and then touched something—a small nut or pebble? Ready to leave the object in the depths of the grass roots, it turned over in his grasp, and a sharp, jagged edge lashed at his fingers. Grasping the item, he lifted it out of the grass.
“Holy shit!” he whispered in surprise.
A broken bicuspid lay in his palm. Dried, crusted blood covered one side.
Miriam walked over and looked at the tooth. “There’s something really wrong here. We need to take this stuff over to the visitors’ center and have someone look at it. We’d better tell them about the tree too.”
Also available at your favorite ebookseller:
DEADLY NIGHT
A Ghost Hunters 101 Novel
by
Aiden James
(read on for an excerpt)
Chapter One
I’d never seen a fresh corpse before. At least not human.
Blood dripped below her face, spreading across the chipped linoleum kitchen floor of our host, Johnny Rush. Candi Starr stared back at me, a red grotesque halo framing her tussled golden hair, still wrapped in foil strips. Her stone gaze facing us all as we stood in shocked silence.
Her head barely attached at the neck, a deep jagged wound traversed from ear to ear beneath her chin. Sprawled upon the floor, the expression in Candi’s lifeless steel blue eyes was one of sudden surprise.
Johnny sat at the kitchen table, across from Brenda Wright. Rope-bound to a pair of high back vinyl chairs, one olive green, and the other merlot. Both wore matching black t-shirts and jeans. Intense terror visible in their eyes, both mouths lay open, slack-jawed, and emotionless in contradiction. Their single fatal shots to the forehead announced assassination. Not intended victims, but here just the same. In all likelihood the pair not only witnessed the murder of their famous companion, but also had plenty of time to anticipate their own demise.
So...correction: I’d never seen three dead human beings before.
When I was finally able to tear my eyes away from the scene, my attention was drawn to Fiona. The loveliest, smartest and bravest woman I’ve ever known didn’t seem so at the moment. Being grilled by a pair of cops in the dining room, one dressed in uniform and the other plainclothes. Her gorgeous hazel eyes which often morphed to amber and pure gold depending on her attire and mood were now swollen. Red puffiness from a deluge of tears. Her grief genuine, as these were real friends, she struggled to answer their questions—despite the pained looks each man wore, nodding quietly in response to her clipped answers.
What questions did they ask? I could only imagine, but I managed to hear a few. Basic things like ‘how long have you known the victims?’ and ‘can you think of anyone who might hold a grudge, one bad enough to do something like this?’ No doubt they also want to know what she and the rest of us are doing here, anyway.
Meanwhile, two forensic techs just brushed past me and the others on their way to begin the painstaking task of moving from the stiffening corpses in the kitchen to the living room to look for more evidence. It makes me feel awkward, standing here near the entrance to the living room. I fidget, unsure of what to do…or where to go, half horror movie, half feeling five years old and told to stand in the corner.
The plainclothes cop keeps eyeing the rest of us. He glares a bit while the other continues questioning Fiona. I’m sure my face is turning red, thinking of what I’m about to have to explain.
My name is Jimmy Alea, and I’m a paranormal investigator. Spook chaser, ghost hunter, or a supernatural whack-job, whatever euphemism makes normal folks feel any better. Hell, that’s what my pop thinks back in Denver, my hometown. I came to Nashville, or as we serious musicians like to refer to it—‘Nash-Vegas’, nine years ago. But like 99.99% of the more than 80,000 music hopefuls who call this place home, I haven’t made it yet. Maybe I never will, but I try not to think about that.
Yeah, the cop will probably pass judgment just the same. I can already picture him saying something smartass like, “Did Casper call and tell you there are three brand new ones?”, and then laugh at his own lame joke. But this is what I do. I don’t try to see dead people. Rather, I attempt to catch evidence of their spiritual essence, whether ethereal or physically tangible. It’s somewhat like TAPS and the other ‘hauntings’ shit on TV.
But that ain’t the story here…not exactly. Me and my gang were just stopping by to drop something off at Johnny’s. A little something to welcome him and Brenda to their new digs. Fiona planned a quick psychic reading for Candi before she set off on her first international tour. Afterward, the plan was to investigate another home where supposedly a lot of weird shit’s happening. A ‘paranormal event’ is what we call this sort of thing. Apparently stuff’s been going on for several years in that particular locale along the Cumberland, but getting worse…more aggressive lately.
It’s probably best to stop thinking about the cop and my imagined exchange, and instead focus again on Fiona. She’s still talking to both him and the uniform right now. Wish I could take her and wrap my arms around her, to somehow ease her profound pain. She is my wife, and I always feel the need to protect her. I won’t be able to erase this from her memory and I can’t make the cops shut up.
The uniformed cop is really trying to flirt with her. Granted, Fiona’s a tall, gorgeous blond with a smile that lights up any room, and a statuesque build that spells trouble for any male with a pulse. She’s the only thing that’s ever distracted me long enough to make me reconsider my life’s direction. Fiona literally saved me from the destructive course I once was on. I truly pity the dudes who wish they’re me.
But right now I could use a new diversion—anything to take my attention away from the bodies and some dude smiling at my wife at such an inappropriate time. There’s a female uniform staring at me from near Johnny’s bedroom. I’ve often wondered about homicide cops and how they deal with it. As I look at her again she’s now smiling. Maybe for some cops...the aggressive ones...it’s a type of foreplay. Kind of like people who go home with a complete stranger and screw their brains out.
As she looks at me her smile is getting wider. I’m pretty sure I know what she sees.... My wife, among others, tells me it’s a six foot two, one-ninety pound man, with very little body fat. Hard and lean, with chiseled features inherited from a handsome Cuban/Italian line, I possess an easy smile, and piercing blue eyes that become deep cobalt pools if I’m pissed. And, I’m
lucky to have a full head of dark wavy hair hanging down to my shoulders.
Nobody will ever find me wearing a suit—not unless somebody’s getting married or buried. T-shirts, jeans, and boots—I’m either biker or cowboy, depending on my mood and the weather. Thank God the dudes I roll with share my taste in threads, and my daytime employer can hang with the way I am too. As long as I occasionally wear a polo shirt and slacks. It sucks, but I’ve gotta have something steady to pay the bills.
Fiona’s now motioning to me, and to be polite the two cops nodded. I wonder if they’ve heard of her, since she’s helped Metro’s finest solve nearly a dozen crimes over the past few years. Clairvoyant, clairaudient, and clairsentient. They are valued commodities among a few detectives these days, though most won’t admit it. Regardless, I can tell these guys don’t think much of the thirtyish biker-looking dude and his cronies blocking the doorway to the living room. At least they like her…certainly looks like her tear-streaked face hasn’t diminished her charm. Not in the least.
“Do you want me to call ahead to Charlain and tell her we’re going to be late?” said Jackie Holland to Fiona from behind me. “Or, should we try and reschedule?”
One of Fiona’s best friends since childhood, Jackie’s usual gruffness was muted. They grew up together in east Nashville. Her dark brown hair is almost kinky, but it fits well with her eyes. Almond shaped and light blue in color. And her athletic build is heavier than Fiona’s.
A little on the short side, Jackie makes up for it with her commanding, almost abrasive presence. A no-nonsense girl with a dry sense of humor, she has a keen passion about all things paranormal. In fact, she’s the reason Fiona became interested in exploring haunted locales back when they were in high school.
