The White Night

by Desmond Doane

  I leave it alone. That’s a discussion for another day. Besides, talking about my wife’s erratic emotions is not something I’d care to partake in right before I investigate Dakota Freakin’ Bailey’s multi-million dollar beach home.

  We have a ways to go yet, so we chat about some of the episodes of Graveyard that she’d seen, and I ask about all the incredible meals she fixed on Yes, Chef! and if she prepares those any more.

  It’s a gentle, easy conversation. It’s fun, and we don’t have to try.

  This is what it should be like.

  I remember how it used to be that way with Toni so many years in the past.

  Good times gone.

  “Back again,” Dakota says once we reach her steps. They’re faded and gray and splintery and will likely get smashed and sucked into the ocean if The Big One ever comes. Meteorologists keep talking about how global warming is getting worse, and hurricanes are getting stronger. I say let them come to wash all this excess away, my house included, so we can start again with reasonable lives.

  I follow Dakota up, trying to pretend I’m not some tongue-wagging cartoon wolf as I check out her calves and that ridiculously incredible bottom. I believe in God, and I believe that he created yoga shorts for lonely men in bad relationships who still need proof that the downstairs equipment is alive.

  Horrible, just horrible, Mike. Control yourself.

  Human nature, bud, whispers the devil on my shoulder.

  I turn my attention to the massive mansion at the top of the steps. Bay windows line the ocean-facing side, perfect for that morning experience of watching the sunrise. There’s another deck up on the second level, and I can see the tops of chairs pushed up against the wall. To the left of that is another boxlike structure of rooms, and then up and to the left of that, another, smaller box. Imagine a set of stairs going down from left to right, that’s what the house is shaped like; an odd conglomeration of designs, like the architect wanted to experiment while high on some designer drugs, yet she mentioned earlier that she paid about four and a half million dollars.

  If I recall correctly, the prize money Dakota won from Yes, Chef! only amounted to about three million. Then there were some sponsorships, which I’m no stranger to, but they wouldn’t pay enough for this place. Her restaurant must be killing it up there in the Big Apple.

  How she affords it is none of my business.

  I bought our beachfront home when the Graveyard contracts were renewed after the fifth season. Back then, Casa de Long was worth around two-point-five, and I paid for it with a single check. Now I cringe whenever Toni brings home two-ply toilet paper because I feel like we’re on the precipice of pinching that final penny. Toni knows this, and doesn’t seem to care.

  My saving grace will be convincing Ford to do the documentary, after which I’ll be able to breathe without feeling like I’m a thousand feet under the ocean surface.

  Breaching the top of the beach stairs, we stroll across a small expanse of sand and seagrass before we reach the ground-level deck. It’s painted a greenish-gray color and sits completely empty except for two large pots. They’re filled but flowerless, and the dirt looks so old and void of moisture that it couldn’t grow a cactus.

  Dakota notices me taking in the barren wasteland of a deck and says, “I’ll get some stuff out here soon. Haven’t been here long enough to really decorate yet.”

  “Lots of potential,” is my pathetic, small talk reply.

  She points overhead and says, “I’d been here for about a week before the ghost-thing showed up for the first time. I mostly hung out on the upper deck where I didn’t have to—” She stops midsentence and unsuccessfully tries to hide an embarrassed smile with her hand. “This is silly. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this stuff. Maybe it matters. I don’t know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Since it—what’s the word? Oh, manifested. Since it manifested the first time, I’ve had this sort of gut feeling that it was—I don’t know—into me, if that makes any kind of sense whatsoever.”

  “Gut reactions are usually right, and a lot of entities have sexual motivations, believe it or not.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup. And I don’t mean to get too personal, and I’m not accusing you of anything, not in the slightest, but do you think you might’ve done anything to provoke it?”

  “Not intentionally, no. The thing is—the hell with it, this is what I was gonna say earlier. My ex hated tan lines, like he was a freak about it. Some habits stay habits, and besides, I’m at the beach. That deck is sorta private and most of the neighbors are hardly ever here. Why wouldn’t I lay out with all this sun?”

  “Right,” I say, and I won’t deny where my mind goes with the mental imagery.

  Mike! Chill.

  Okay, fine.

  I will say this, however: that little devil on my shoulder is furiously working on stronger forearms because he hasn’t felt an actual wiggle downstairs in a long, long time.

  “I stopped for a couple of reasons. The ghost is one.” Dakota scoffs and puts her hands on her hips. “I feel so ridiculous admitting this stuff, but the neighbor’s kid—the one over there in the gray house?”

  “Yeah?” I look to where she’s pointing at an equally impressive mansion. It’s a lighter slate color with white trim, black shutters, and a balcony that wraps around the entire second floor.

  “I’m fairly certain it was the same day the black mist showed up, but I caught the creepy little shit with a video camera. Standing right up there, up on top of the house where they have a sun deck.”

  “No way. You tell his folks?”

  “Nah, no real harm,” she says with a dismissive wave. “My fault for being out there naked. Obviously he’s going to look. Birds gotta fly.”

  “But he was recording you. Aren’t you worried about it showing up on the Internet?”

  “I doubt he knows who I am, and even if he does, that’s when you know you’ve made it, right? When strangers care about seeing you naked?”

  I admire her levity. It’s refreshing.

  Although, that fact doesn’t prevent me from feeling a twinge of overprotective jealousy and envisioning myself punching some teenage punk in the nose.

  She adds, “All it took was me standing up and flipping him the bird. He ran like I’d pointed a gun at him.”

  “Funny.”

  Dakota takes another step closer to the house, but doesn’t go any further, silently surveying the interior of her home through all the spotless windows. She’s looking for the entity, and I am, too. Rather than seeing a floating, swirling black mass, I spot a single couch in the living room to the right. A blanket is wadded up and hangs limply over the ocean-facing arm. I suspect she’s been sleeping there because it’s a faster escape. A television the size of a small drive-in theater screen is mounted on the wall and a wilted fern rests underneath it. There’s no artwork hanging. It’s decorated less than a dentist’s waiting room.

  Over in the kitchen a lone coffee cup rests on the glass table—a petite four-top that she probably bought just to make the place feel like home. No pots and pans hang on hooks over the island counter, nor does anything like a toaster oven or microwave populate the rest of the long counters that angle around the far walls.

  The refrigerator seems to be about the size of the Titanic, and I’d bet a hundred bucks that it’s empty too—even for a world-class celebrity chef.

  I’m certain I’d win that bet because the trashcan is overflowing with fast food bags. Burger joints, tacos, subs. When she said she needed a break from her old life, she was more serious than I thought.

  Dakota catches me looking at the artery-clogging remnants and says, sheepishly, “That’s our secret. And who would eat a five-star meal here if I fixed it? Me and the ghost?”

  “Zipped lips.” I take one final glance around. Seems safe. Then again, it’s the quiet houses you have to worry about. “Should we go in? Get started?”

  She rubs
her arms like she’s cold, and I know it’s not the temperature outside. Feels like we’re in the high seventies already. Not even the breeze is chilly enough to cause gooseflesh like that. “I think maybe you should go in. Alone, I mean.”

  “Positive? It’s not every day you get to hunt a ghost with a world famous paranormal investigator.”

  Shifting her weight from foot to foot, daintily nibbling her bottom lip as she tries to make up her mind, Dakota eventually takes a single step closer to the gorgeous, beachfront mansion that she so desperately wants to call home. “Okay,” she says, the single word shuddering itself into pieces. “I can—I can do this.”

  “We,” I remind her, raising my voice like Ford used to do during so many investigations. He’d put on this locker room speech before filming, every single time, and the crew loved it. So did I, honestly. It got everyone revved up and ready to rock, and I’d like to do the same for Dakota. “Let’s go in there and kick some ghostly ass. Let’s go tell this piece of shit where he can shove it, and let’s take your home back, because you’re Dakota Freakin’ Bailey.”

  “Damn right,” she squeaks, without a single bit of confidence.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ford Atticus Ford

  It’s easy to be a good person, and it’s also easy to be a bad person.

  Making the right decisions is the line that divides the two.

  And sometimes that line is blurry.

  The choice I have to make at the moment is whether to believe Lauren Coeburn or call complete bullshit whilst throwing her and her dog-slobber-covered Grandma Ellen out of my condo and into the ferocious rainstorm. Ellen—I’d probably be cool with her hanging around. She’s nice, gentle, low maintenance, and has never completely gutted me on national television in front of millions of people.

  Am I a humongous jerkface for holding a grudge? Depends on your angle, I suppose.

  My therapist, bless his pointy little goatee, wire-rimmed glasses, and fatherly tone, always suggests that forgiveness will open my heart to the light of the world and fresh possibilities. I generally try to follow his advice; then again, he doesn’t really know what it’s like to stand across the kitchen counter from a woman who slid a sharp blade across your reputation’s throat.

  What she just now told me is so thoroughly unfathomable that my brain can’t even comprehend the enormity of it.

  Tell Ford we’re waiting for him.

  I—seriously? For real?

  First, Hamster Hampstead’s grandfather, Papa Joe, called me out by name in that abandoned farmhouse.

  Then, the demon right-hander that had attacked poor Dave Craghorn—and we’re fairly positive it was the same one from Chelsea Hopper’s house—that bastard knew me and knew my name as well.

  I mention this to people all the time. The police detectives I work with on a regular basis, the families I try to help… I try to make them understand that it’s all connected. There’s sort of a universal energy out there, and you can look to George Lucas and Star Wars for a fancy nickname for the thing that binds everyone together, living or dead, earthly or otherworldly. My theory is that information can travel across this plane of energy in the spiritual world, which is exactly how Papa Joe—grumpy old cuss that he is—was trying to warn me about what’s coming, especially in relation to Chelsea Hopper and that all-too-powerful right-hander.

  But this? Black-eyed children, some of the least known and least researched paranormal entities sending me a message, by name?

  Well, color me stunned.

  It’s terrifying, confusing, and bowel-loosening, all at the same time.

  And I don’t want to believe it.

  Because what’s next? Will I get an email from Bigfoot?

  Ford! Dude! Let’s grab beers this weekend. This amigo of mine, he lives up the hill and has some wicked cavebrew going on. You need to try it, yo!

  Except that I might actually enjoy having a couple of pints with Bigfoot, rather than some cross-dimensional demonic entities out there trying to throw down.

  What I prefer to believe is that Lauren Coeburn is lying out of that succulent mouth of hers, right between those pristinely bleached teeth. What I would also prefer to believe is that she did some research—probably remembering some interview I did five or six years ago where I mentioned how spooky the black-eyed children are—and now she’s here to play against my fears, sidle up next to me, and pickpocket whatever info I have on Carla Hancock and Spirit World Productions.

  If that’s the case, I’m might go caveman on her, grab a handful of hair, and drag this screaming blonde pixie out of my condo where I’d deposit her in the deepest puddle in the parking lot.

  Ellen might get shown the door, too. I’d be gentler, though—like maybe an angry piggyback ride.

  That would be so much easier than the difficult decision I’m about to make.

  I’m going to trust that Lauren is telling the truth for the time being.

  The black-eyed children have tossed out a vaguely concealed threat, and I’m not one to back down from paranormal fisticuffs.

  Lauren says, “Ford?” which shreds apart my mental seesaw and yanks me back into the kitchen.

  The beer bottle is cold in my hand. The tiles are cool under my feet. And when it comes to the woman occupying the stool across from me, it seems like my heart isn’t as frozen as I thought it was.

  Open yourself to forgiveness, Ford. People make mistakes. The world isn’t made up entirely of demons and belly-crawlers.

  Lauren asks, “You heard what I said, right? He mentioned you. By name.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  She flattens her lips together and considers my statement, then spins around on the stool to check on Grandma Ellen, who has dozed off with one of Ulie’s floppy ears gently curled up in a bony hand. He appears to be enjoying the affection and unwilling to move and disturb her at the same time. Lauren hooks a thumb over her shoulder. “I can’t take her back there. Not until it’s safe.”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  “We?”

  “I can’t call the police, especially not me. They’d think I’m crazy. Next thing you know, I’m on the news. All those L.A. frenemies of mine would see it; goddamn story goes viral in a heartbeat, and boom, they yank me off Weekend Report.”

  “Imagine the horror.”

  She’s quick, this one, picking up on my sarcasm right away. She reaches across the counter and touches my arm with a clammy palm. “Sorry. You know what I mean.”

  “Yup.”

  “Everybody in the business, we all have to tiptoe around everything we do now, and it just completely sucks.”

  “Yup.” Preaching to the choir, sister.

  “Did you read about Kaylynn Simms last week?”

  “I have no idea who that is.”

  “The cute redhead on Smile High Club.”

  “That’s a TV show?”

  “Where have you been? It’s that Thursday night dramedy about the promiscuous flight attendants? Really? You haven’t seen it? You are so missing out. It’s—”

  I hold up a hand to interrupt. “What about her?”

  Lauren wiggles her bottom on the stool and claps her hands in glee. “It’s so good. You have to watch it. Anyway, my point is, some ‘razzi took a picture of her last week wearing this t-shirt. Only thing it said was, ‘I drink orange Jews’ underneath a cartoon orange wearing a yarmulke.”

  “So?”

  “So? Ford, it’s a fucking t-shirt that’s actually kinda funny, and it only took about six hours for people online to go ballistic. The Internet blew up about how Jewish people are still being persecuted and when will it ever end, the whole nine. She apologized, but it was too late. Rumor is, they’re reshooting the next episode of Smile High to kill off her character.”

  “Seems a bit excessive for a t-shirt.”

  Lauren throws her hands out wide. “Thank you. That’s what I’ve been saying, too. It’s not
like she got a five-year-old girl attacked by a demon, right?”

  “Ouch.”

  “I’m just making a point. No harm intended.”

  “You sure?”

  “I just meant it’s not quite on the same level, and…”

  “I get it, Coeburn.”

  “Give me a sec, will ya?” Lauren stands up from the stool and wobbles a little. Looks like breakfast finally caught up to her. She plays it off like a pro, however, apologizes again, and excuses herself to go to the bathroom.

  Which leaves me standing here in the kitchen, wondering what to do next. I don’t have the slightest bit of paranormal investigation equipment with me. I’m supposed to be here relaxing, so yeah, I’m severely unprepared.

  Then again, these little black-eyed bastards are kinda front and center. I won’t need much to have a face-to-face conversation. Any sort of camera would be nice for proof, and I figure my cell phone will have to do for that. I’m not about to run down to the nearest superstore and walk out of there with a few cameras and voice recorders. There’s too much risk of being recognized and drawing attention to the fact that the almighty Ford Atticus Ford is up to something.

  Aside from a smartphone, what does one take into battle against a paranormal entity that appears to be flesh and blood, but may not actually be alive?

  I don’t carry a gun. Never have. Even when my celebrity star was at its apex in the sky, I didn’t carry any heavy-duty protection with me. I figured if a stalker or some overly excited fan got a little too rowdy, I’d trust my instincts and charm.

  What to do? What to do?

  This condo isn’t mine, so I spend about thirty seconds rifling through cabinets and drawers, looking for something to use as a weapon besides a kitchen knife. How about a lighter and some cleaning spray? Or maybe I could throw a handful of flour in their eyes and then use some karate-chop action. I find a half full bottle of canola oil over the stove and get a slightly hilarious and cartoonish image of pouring it on Ellen’s steps, then watching them hilariously slip and slide off the edges.

  I’m bordering on absurd now. What else is there?

  All this shit is scary as hell, but sometimes it’s so unbelievable that all you can do is laugh at it and at yourself.