The White Night

by Desmond Doane

  Perhaps Ellen will have something useful at her house. I’m not above using a kitchen knife to protect us.

  I feel awkward about the possibility of stabbing a child, yet if there’s a demented alien or upper-level demon possessing its host, one that has its sights set on dragging me down to hell, I might just have to find out if these things bleed.

  Lauren enters the kitchen from the hallway, looking fresher. She says, “I’ll have to leave a thank you note for the owners. I feel a little more like myself.”

  “How so?”

  “Fully stocked drawers.”

  Finally, I see what she’s talking about. She has on a touch of makeup now and it suits her well. Much subtler and normal than the garish, exotic-bird tones she was flaunting this morning. Little bit of lipstick, little bit of eyeliner. I’m not sure what the need is because she’s here, in jeans and a sweatshirt, and she doesn’t know it yet, but she’s about to go confront some terrifying paranormal entities.

  Hey, I said I’d forgive her—I just didn’t say I’d be entirely nice about it. I’m not letting her hang out here while I go parlay with the beasts by myself.

  ***

  We drape a patchwork quilt over Ellen and leave her behind with Ulie. I like the idea of him staying behind to protect her rather than risk being exposed to the unknown potential. He’s my little buddy, you know? I feel like I’m the overprotective parent, doing my best to guard him from harm.

  Lauren isn’t too thrilled to be going back. I understand why, obviously, and she relented once I told her that this could go a long way toward retribution in my eyes if she’s sincerely apologetic about her actions two years ago.

  We rumble along in the Wrangler, its fat, knobby tires thrumming along on the blacktop, hissing over the layer of rain covering the streets. The waterfall downpour hammers the canvas soft-top, and it sounds like we’re sitting inside a snare drum. It smells musty in here due to all the small leaks in the canvas ragtop. Maybe I’m driving a jalopy into battle instead of a tank, but I wouldn’t trade it for an armored car shaped like a crucifix.

  I focus on the road, trying to see past wipers that can’t handle the deluge, while Lauren can’t keep her hands still in nervous anticipation.

  She says, “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  “From nerves or the scotch?”

  “Both, probably.”

  “Don’t hork in here, please. I’ll pull over.”

  “What’re we gonna do, Ford?”

  “You’re asking if I have a plan?”

  “Yeah. It’s not like we can invite them in for tea.”

  I ease up to a stoplight. Ellen’s house is three blocks away, and I’m more than a little freaked out. I have shit for plans and no qualms about delaying the inevitable. Sitting here for thirty seconds longer is not a problem. I’m also not going to tell Lauren. She needs to be reasonably calm in case the black-eyes feed off of—and get stronger with—negative energy.

  “We wait,” is all I tell her. The downpour slams against the soft-top overhead, the repetitive, slightly muted ratta-tat-tat on canvas heightening my anxiety.

  “We wait? For what? For them to kill us?”

  “No. To talk. To see what they want.”

  “It can’t be good, can it?”

  “You never know. Could be like a singing telegram.”

  “This is not the time.”

  “I’m serious. They’re not going to hop up on the front porch and sing a jingle, but maybe they have a message for me.” About three molecules in my brain actually thinks this might be a possibility, simply because Papa Joe had asked for me by name then granted me a Class-A EVP with some vague details about Chelsea Hopper.

  “You don’t actually believe that, do you?” Lauren leans up against the window and stares out into the night.

  The light turns green, and I allow the Wrangler to drift forward.

  I don’t answer her.

  Lauren says, “So this is how we die, huh? I was hoping to go out with a pool boy in my lap and a martini in my hand, but I guess you’ll have to do.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mike Long

  “I’m going to change,” Dakota tells me as we tentatively step across the threshold and into the breezeway. “Funny how I don’t mind running in this out in public. Now I just feel…” She shakes her hands like she can’t find the right word.

  “Exposed?”

  “Exactly, especially with a ghost around.”

  I understand, and somehow I manage to hide my disappointment.

  If I haven’t fully acknowledged it yet, this is the part where I finally grasp that it has been an excruciatingly long time since an attractive woman was nice to me. It’s emotional as much as it’s physical. Sure, fans of the show will say hi while I’m in line to buy a soda somewhere, but that’s different. This is up close. Personal niceness.

  Dakota heads for the stairs and stops three steps up. She looks back at me and asks, “Coming?”

  “Right behind you.”

  I won’t lie—in the porno movie in my head, the head that should be focusing on the impending ghost hunt instead—this is the way it would go down. The mustachioed, giant-sideburn-having investigator gets invited in, magic happens, and hallelujah, Mikey Sweetheart is singing like a choir of angels.

  Bow-chicka-bow-bow.

  Just as quickly as the imagery flashes through my mind, I mentally flick myself in the testicles, which works, somewhat.

  Horny old man. Good grief, dude. She’s scared. She needs you.

  I have a job to do here, for someone I admire, who is terrified of the black, floating, unholy mass in her home, and here I am letting my imagination turn into an X-rated funhouse.

  Wow. I’m totally acting like Ford would. Two days with him in Hampton Roads and Captain Penis is saluting the first woman that smiles at me.

  Ghosts. Ghosts. Ghosts.

  Grandma on the toilet.

  Roadkill.

  The smell of spoiled ham.

  Yuck.

  Okay, that did it.

  Back to business.

  We breach the landing, and she stops at the second set of stairs leading to the master bedroom one floor up. She pauses, looks over her shoulder at me. I can tell she’s worried about being alone.

  “Need me to come up with you?” I ask. Dakota raises an eyebrow and the opposite corner of her mouth. Is she flirting with me? And in the amount of time it takes me to realize how stupid that idea is, I get flooded with warm mortification. “Oh, shit, no—uh, I mean—like wait outside the door. You know, for the ghost and stuff.” Hand goes to forehead and eyes go to the ground, embarrassed.

  “Hah, relax. I’m messing with you. Just gonna throw on some shorts and a t-shirt. Hopefully I don’t get possessed in the two minutes that’ll take. Wish me luck.”

  I tell Dakota not to worry and jokingly suggest that her fearless protector will be right down here, adding that I’ll do some recon work while she gets dressed.

  She steps back over to me. “What kind of recon?”

  “Eh, just boring stuff. Baseline EMF reads, things like that.”

  “I’d like to try that. Will you wait on me?”

  “I… sure,” I reply, sounding unsure.

  “I’m serious,” she says. “After watching you and Ford, I always wanted to see it firsthand.”

  “But that’s the boring part. Just staring at numbers.”

  “No, it’s fascinating to me, at least. It’s like tracing the outline before you color in the picture, right?”

  “I never thought about it that way. Okay, Picasso, I’ll be here.”

  She holds up a wait-a-sec finger. “Two minutes. Have a look around, but there’s not much to see.”

  And then she’s gone, climbing the stairs to the master bedroom—that box on top of a box on top of a box. I hear her footsteps overhead, and it reminds me of the thousand or so investigations that I did with Ford. I’ve lost count of how many times we heard footsteps on the fl
oors above us, knowing full well that we were the only two living human beings present. I still get chills thinking about it.

  When Ford talked me into doing the show, on that ancient night when we investigated that asylum back in—what, 2003?—all I ever wanted was to impress Toni, the former college cheerleader that I had a massive crush on, and say to her, “Hey, look, I’m gonna be on television!”

  I figured we might have a good run at a single season; the producers would soon be on to our shenanigans and the fact that we had no clue what we were doing. By then, Toni would be so madly in love with me and so thoroughly impressed that her future hubby was on television that we’d stroll happily into the sunset.

  A second season came around, and a third. We got married in the middle of filming the fourth season. The Paranormal Channel put everything they could behind Graveyard, and the show scored well right away. Then we hit some magical tipping point before the start of the fifth season, and after that, all aboard the gravy train.

  Like I’ve told Ford a hundred thousand times, he was the face, the talent, and the reason we did so well in the first place.

  I started calling him the ‘Almighty’ Ford Atticus Ford way back when, and it’s always been the truth. His onscreen presence turned us into worldwide megastars, and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy parts of it—like the money, mainly—but yeah, all I ever wanted was to impress a girl.

  And that girl is no longer impressed.

  I hear the toilet flush up in Dakota’s bedroom and decide that I should be down at the far end of the hall, pretending like I had already given her some privacy. The bulk of the mansion is downstairs, but the second floor has a lot to offer, especially if you have plenty of overnight guests or about thirteen children. There are at least five spare bedrooms on either side of the hall, each as empty as the last, and plain white walls with a cream colored carpet so plush you could sink into it and get lost. You’d need a machete to hack your way out.

  No pictures or decorations yet, which doesn’t surprise me. The bedrooms on the eastern side of the hall would be preferable since they have a sweeping view of the Atlantic.

  A few miles out to sea, hovering over an oil tanker, I see a fat, dark storm cloud.

  If I were the dramatic sort, I’d pretend it’s an omen.

  But I’m not, so it’s a cloud, from which rain falls.

  I find her office and it’s nearly as empty as the rest of the house. There’s a desk pushed up against the wall. On top of that sits nothing more than a closed laptop and a lamp.

  Some paranormal cases have a clear reason why the house is haunted. Say, for example, a curious teenager and her friends have a sleepover. Tina Teenager brings along a Ouija board for fun and a group of giggling teen girls unwittingly and accidentally unlock a gateway to Hell, thereby opening up all of that youthful energy for something to cross over to our side. Seen it a couple hundred times. Those are easy to figure out.

  Other times, someone has passed on, whether specifically in the home or not, and they have unfinished business. Messages to send, guilty consciences to allay, reassurances that they’re fine if only the intended recipient could hear them. Often, if Ford and I were able to communicate with the spirit in an intelligent haunting like that, they would be satisfied and go into the light. Whether that light was cast down through the pearly gates or lit by the flames of Hell was for them to find out.

  If it’s intelligent, you can potentially communicate with it—human or demonic.

  If it’s a residual haunt, it’s nothing but leftover energy imprinted on the film of time, and you can’t do anything about it. Ford used to describe it as a looping video, replaying throughout infinity. It’s not going to hurt you, and those footsteps you hear at three in the morning, every single night, will be there long after you’re gone.

  Based on what Dakota told me, the entity in her home isn’t residual, so it’ll be my job to uncover the reason it’s here. Today, during the daylight, we can do some baseline checks and try to communicate with it via digital voice recorder. Later, I might run into town and see if I can dig up the history of the home, like whom the previous owners were, before the billionaire, or if there have been any violent deaths on the property.

  Then, the real investigation can begin with nightfall.

  Unless Dakota wants to participate, I’ll probably send her to a hotel, but definitely not back to hang out with Toni. That’s an invitation for trouble, and I’m all out of RSVP cards.

  Bad joke, dad joke.

  Dakota is whisper quiet as she enters the office, which is why I don’t hear her come in at first. She says, “Hey,” sharply, and I launch an inch off the ground, clutching the DVR in my hand like a sword.

  “Gah. Jesus, you scared me.” My free hand goes up to my chest, pretending to check for a heartbeat. I grin at her around a raspy laugh.

  She pats me on the shoulder. “Nerves of steel on the famous ghost hunter, huh? Couldn’t resist. You find anything yet?”

  “Nah. I was just processing. Getting a feel for the place.”

  I’m definitely disappointed to see that she’s dressed like a normal human being now, rather than an elite athlete, and yet, she looks amazing in a simple white tank top and a pair of tan shorts that show off her quads. Looks like Dakota hasn’t skipped leg day in a long time. Her hair is now pulled back in a ponytail, which is awesome, because it shows off her fabulously long neck and sleek jaw line.

  I process all of this in about a third of a second to keep from staring at her, and then proceed to ask her some more of our—I mean Ford’s—standard questions, like does she know of any deaths in the home, was the former owner into Satanism, is she into Satanism, or has she conducted any séances lately that might’ve involuntarily invited something into the home.

  The answer to all of these is no, of course, and I knew it would be. It’s always a good idea to ask, just in case, because sometimes you can catch an untruthful person through their body language. Ford was better at this part than I ever was. Still, I learned enough by watching him to know that Dakota isn’t lying.

  The only thing she says is, “The guy who owned it before me, maybe he sold his soul to the Devil to get that kind of money, right?”

  I say, “I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised,” though I stop short of telling her that I would’ve sold mine to hang on to what I used to have. I don’t, because that’s not the impression I want to give Dakota. The money was good, but not everything. Then again, you get used to a certain lifestyle. Woulda coulda shoulda. I add, “We talked about this a little earlier. Did your real estate agent mention anything at all about him or the history of the home?”

  “Nope. Nothing other than the fact that he was selling this place and moving to his private island. Makes you wonder if he left because it’s haunted.”

  “We could always ask. Best to cover our bases.”

  “True. I’ll call my agent later. She might know something or know how to get in touch with him. I think he’s somewhere in the South Pacific, so he may not even have access to a phone.”

  “I doubt he went dark. Billionaires like that, they can’t stay unconnected.”

  Dakota steps over to the window and swipes a bit of dust off the windowsill, rolling it between her fingertips. “This place… All I wanted was an escape. I left one prison for another.”

  I move over beside her. “Don’t get discouraged. We haven’t even started yet. I’ll get it cleaned up. Promise.”

  “You know what’s funny? I already feel safer. With you here, I mean.”

  I can feel the instinctual longing down there in my subconscious, wishing there was a deeper meaning to that statement. I know she’s talking about the fact that she has an experienced paranormal investigator around.

  Dakota adds, “It feels lighter in here now, like that thing isn’t around.”

  I lean up against the window with my shoulder, turning to face her. Man, she looks amazing in the early morning light. “Don’t tempt fa
te. It’s probably just taking time to recharge. Matter of fact, I should probably check these batteries.”

  As if I had flashed a signal in the sky to call it to us, from down the hallway, the loud crash of a shattered mirror sends Dakota into my arms.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ford Atticus Ford

  Lauren and I decide to do some recon work around Ellen’s property before we go inside, and when we cruise past the front, it occurs to me that I’m somewhat familiar with this old house.

  I’ve seen it a bunch of times on my way to and from the condo during my vacation trips of the past. I even remember Melanie pointing it out one time, years ago, when we were here on a mini-vacation before we starting filming whatever season that was.

  Like the ass I can be, I was already in the midst of numerous affairs by that point, and I specifically recall feeling like a huge douche-pickle when she pointed out that Ellen’s house would be a perfect little retirement home for us once the show had finished its run.

  I keep that bit of information from Lauren. Anything I say has the potential to be used against me. I do, however, tell her that I’ve seen her grandmother’s house before, and have always been envious of the view.

  “Incredible, isn’t it?” Lauren says, wistfully.

  “I’d live on that front porch, if she’d let me. Just give me a sleeping bag and a cardboard box.”

  Ellen’s house sits up on a hill, and I examine it closely as we circle the block three times looking for anything suspicious. Unless they’re hanging out in the backyard, there’s no sign of the beastly creatures waiting on us, giving me time to observe what’s soon to be our fort for the night.

  It’s dark and pouring. Most of what I’m able to piece together comes from the wet view I have now, coupled with daylight memories. The exterior, when the sun is shining on it, is painted the color of a bluebird sky that you get on a cloudless summer day here on the coast. The shutters are white, and the awnings are white.

  In fact, it reminds me of a dress shirt I once owned—blue, with a white collar and white cuffs. I left it in Hawaii about seven years ago. Funny that should pop into my head now because that was the first time I’d heard about the black-eyed children. It was a hotel maid who mentioned it. Sadly, we never had time to go investigate her home, and given the circumstances, I’m wishing we had, just so I could come into this with some experience.