The White Night

by Desmond Doane

  Ellen’s home is craftsman-style with a wraparound porch that skirts the south, west, and northern sides. In back, facing east, the yard is fenced in by tall, wide slats pressed so firmly together that you couldn’t slip a sheet of paper between them.

  The home itself is fairly plain, and Lauren tells me that it’s because Grandpa has moved on to the great beyond, and with Ellen’s eyesight nearly gone, it’s less trouble. I can specifically remember when there were gorgeous, lush flowerbeds along the foundation, and huge, round pots standing along either side of the front steps, guarding the stairway like terra cotta sentinels.

  “Shame it’s sorta going to waste,” I say. “It’s a great place.”

  Lauren tells me that her parents are living down in San Diego where it’s warmer and they can be closer to their daughter. I ask forgiveness for prying, but I’m curious as to why they’re not here where their ancient, blind matriarch lives, who would appear to need more care than their wealthy television host of a daughter.

  She answers, “Mom and Grandma never got along, never ever. And with me living so far away, it was the perfect excuse for her to escape. My dad dug his heels in for about seven or eight seconds, but you see where that got him. Happy wife, happy life. They pay for a nurse to come by few times a week, and don’t tell my mother, but I spring for extra care when the nurse they hired isn’t around.”

  “You’re such a heathen.”

  “Hell in a handbasket.” We drive back around to the ocean-facing side of the house again, and Lauren tells me to slow down. “Park here,” she says, pointing to a spot in front of a compact sedan. I can tell by the corporate bumper sticker that it’s her rental.

  “Have any of the nurses ever seen these things here before?”

  Lauren rolls down her window. Thankfully, the rain is shooting in from the west, so the drops fly right over the top of the Jeep, and the only thing that enters is the salty scent of the ocean. She tells me not that she knows of, and none of them have said anything to her parents either during their weekly reports. She leans out the window, and I can’t tell what she’s looking at.

  “What’re you doing, Coeburn?”

  “Trying to see between the slats.”

  It’s pointless, I know, but I can’t fault her for trying. “You think they’re still in back?” My tone comes off a bit too incredulous, because she flicks her head around and narrows her eyes.

  “How should I know, Ford? Where do black-eyed children hang out? The YMCA?”

  “Point taken, though I doubt even supernatural monsters would be out in this.”

  “You’re kidding, right? Something tells me they’re not very discriminating when it comes to the weather.”

  “Hey, who’s the world famous paranormal investigator here with all the first-hand knowledge?”

  “If you say so.”

  A nearby streetlight flickers and goes dark, adding an extra layer of depth to the shadows. Was that chance or a deliberate act? I’ve been doing shit like this long enough to know that actual coincidences are rare.

  I ask Lauren if she’s ready to go in, and she gnaws on the loose skin of a knuckle. A deep breath later, she finally says, “I can’t. At least not until you check it out.” She hands me a single key with a rabbit’s foot dangling from the ring. “Here. Please?”

  “You’re gonna stay here? By yourself?”

  Her voice quivers when she says, “Leave the keys in the ignition.” It’s more of a question than an order.

  I relent. If she’s not legitimately scared to death, somebody should give her an honorary award.

  And the Oscar for plucking Ford’s heartstrings with the pouty-lip sadface goes to… Lauren Coeburn! I’d like to thank my agent, God, and Ford, for being a sucker.

  I zip up my jacket and flip up the collar. “Last chance for the truth. If you’re fucking with me about this…”

  “I’m not. I swear.”

  “Then I guess I’ll turn on the porch light for the all clear, okay?”

  She snatches my hand, squeezes it, and tells me to be careful.

  Funny. I think she actually means it, and it peels away a single layer of steel from around my heart.

  ***

  At first, I hustle up the walkway because of the weather then change my tactical approach.

  I remember why I’m here and slow down, succumbing to the urge to crouch. I’ve been around enough detectives and patrolmen to pick up some habits, so I slip up to the front of the house, climb the stairs, and then back up against the wall. The front picture window, which will have an incredible view of the ocean from inside the living room, is unblocked by curtains or shades. I dip to my left to take a quick peek. It’s dark in there, but I spot no movement.

  It’s full of what you would expect for a house: a couch, a recliner, a fireplace, and a coffee table, with a variety of knick-knacks sitting around on shelves, and end tables. I spot a television that might have been brand new when Gerald Ford was in office. Other than the TV that should probably be haunting anyone here, the room is free of anything paranormal.

  To my right, the porch disappears around the northern side of the house. I sidestep over and for the briefest of moments, while my back passes by the closed door, I feel my stomach clench, waiting on our demented friends to yank it open and grab me.

  It’s not possible, obviously, because Lauren didn’t invite them inside, and supposedly these things can’t enter unless you tell them it’s okay. Kinda like how a vampire needs to be given permission to enter, but the black-eyed children aren’t quite so obvious about their paranormal ambitions.

  Still. You never know.

  Nothing shatters the picture window and grabs me as my exposed back crosses in front of it. I exhale, my gale-like relief getting lost in the wind. I pause at the corner, count to five, then spin around to my stomach and flatten myself against the wall. I can feel the wind whipping raindrops underneath the porch roof and onto my jeans.

  Slowly… Slowly… And goddamn, I didn’t know it was possible to move so slowly… I’m slow like molasses fresh out of the freezer as I lean and ease one eye around the corner.

  Shit!

  I’ve never been afraid of spiders but when the rain-drenched wind pushes that little bastard forward, slinging him at my face, almost landing on my eyeball, I yip like someone stepped on a Pomeranian, and then have to catch my balance before I tumble back into the railing.

  I mutter, “You little jerk,” around a chuckle.

  Back in the Wrangler, Lauren calls out to me, asks if I’m okay and if I see our guests. I wave her off and tell her I’m fine, hiding the fact that I’m on edge, man.

  For real.

  Little white lies are preferable to big black ones.

  I just told Lauren a little white lie.

  Melanie got a lot of big black ones. There’s no question about why she left me.

  Given Lauren’s Hollywood cutthroat nature, I wonder how many lies she’s told during her life and career. Living under the roof of subterfuge is probably so natural to her, she expects it.

  She yells up to me, “Think it’s safe for me to come up?” Her words are scattered through the cacophony of Mother Nature’s wrath, yet I can make it out enough to suggest that she stay put. I tell her I’d like to check out the back first and then I’ll come get her. “Wait for the porch light. I mean it!” I yell, and she waves as she cranks the window back up.

  The backyard fence adjoins the blue siding about halfway back. The tops of each slat are pointed, reminding me of a long, jagged saw blade. In the low ambient light, even with the streetlamp still out, I can make out their rough-cut edges. They’re high enough that I’d have to jump, grab the top, and pull myself up. So, being the soft-skinned pansy that I am—and not too fond of splinters—I find a flimsy deck chair, one of those rickety plastic ones that cost about four cents to manufacture, and park it as close as I can get to the fence.

  It wiggles when I climb onto it, and, my heartbeat flitters like
the wings of a butterfly in a wind tunnel. First, I’m worried this plastic piece of crap will collapse and I’ll break an ankle. Second, what if I put my hands over the top and one of those damn things is over there waiting and tries to bite me? I don’t fancy my fingers disappearing the way a drunken college kid plows through a whole bucket of buffalo chicken on ten-cent wing night.

  You’ve waited years to see these guys, Ford. Put up or shut up. They’re only fingers.

  A blend of fear and morbid curiosity sends my tentative hands up, and then they retreat.

  Reach, retreat. Reach, retreat.

  Do it, Ford!

  I grab the peaks of the fence—lightly of course, to avoid the splinters—and pull my weight up on my tip-toes, poking my head over the top.

  It’s empty, thank God, and I feel both silly and relieved at my hesitation.

  It’s nothing more than an empty yard—a deep, lush green from the Oregon coast rainfall—and on the far side, I spy the wide open gate.

  Easy enough. No baddies.

  I dart around, emerge through the gate, and up to Ellen’s back door. Using the key that Lauren gave me, one that has been rubbed smooth by time and spare change in someone’s pocket for decades, the tumblers eventually relent with some wiggling and shimmying.

  The interior of the house smells and looks just how you’d expect a prehistoric cottontop’s house would. Kitchen grease, liniment oil, and probably mothballs, if I’m correctly remembering the scent from Grandma Ford’s home. The paint has faded on the walls and some of the historic furniture would fetch quite a high appraisal value on Antiques Galore every Sunday morning. Paneled walls, sagging cushions, rabbit ears on top of the television—I feel like I’ve traveled back in time.

  Aside from a miniature grandfather clock that stands resolute on the mantle, ticking like a hammer against steel, it’s silent in here. I give my eyes a few seconds to get adjusted to the even blacker shadows inside, and even though it’s theoretically impossible for the demonic shitheads to be in here, I decide to clear the upstairs first, because if anything is down here, I want the advantage of higher ground.

  It makes sense in my head.

  I tiptoe up the creaking steps to the second floor, then sneak from room to room. The master bedroom, spare bedroom, and reading room are all clear of paranormal thingies that go boo in the night.

  Good, I think. Looks safe up here. Supposing the downstairs is okay, we can fortify the place a bit and wait on the punks to come back.

  Fortification would be incomplete without weapons, and I try to think about what I could use, barring the materialization of a beginner-savvy firearm. I’m not a fan of guns, so I need something long, something that I can swing from a distance. I wonder if Grandpa Coeburn might’ve been a golfer.

  The hallway closet is void of devices that would create bruises or fleshy holes, unless I beat the shit out of somebody with a rolled up hand towel, and I’m about to give up looking when I find an item that’s totally unrelated to causing pain.

  An old video recorder, VCR-style, with those brick-sized tapes. Nice. I haven’t seen one of these things in years. I can set this up and try to catch evidence.

  The batteries are dead, no surprise there, but eureka and hallelujah, I find the plug-in cord on the shelf, along with a box of unopened blank tapes sitting next to another one with hand-labeled videos. I twist them around into the available light and read the fat, blocky handwriting.

  LAUREN CHEERLEADING MAY 1988.

  MOM DAD FISHING TRIP JUNE.

  HANDS OFF – PRIVATE.

  The last one gives me a chuckle and I’m fairly certain what’s on it.

  Sometimes skeletons in the closet are made up of adventurous couples.

  Oy.

  Thing is, if the recorder actually works, it occurs to me that if I tell Lauren about it, she’ll try her damned best to use it on me.

  The almighty Ford Atticus Ford, on a private home tape, on an actual paranormal investigation, with a princess of Hollywood.

  Imagine her ratings for Weekend Report.

  The desire to catch the black-eyed children on camera is overwhelming, so I’ll have to keep it hidden from her as best as I can. I find an outlet in the hall, plug in the recorder, slip a tape into the side carriage, and check out its operability.

  Damn if it ain’t perfect.

  Sometimes you catch a break and the universe tips its hat at you.

  Go get’em, cowboy, it says.

  I remember the large bookcase I saw in the living room and scamper downstairs where I do my best to use some hardback novels to conceal it on an upper shelf. I can barely see the lens, and an angled copy of Moby Dick hides the blinking red light. If we keep the lights low, it’ll be perfect. I don’t have a plan for getting the tape out of here in case we do manage to get them into the shot, but I’ll deal with that when the time comes.

  I’m giddy with the possibilities, images of my former glory catapulting through my mind, when there’s a knock on the front door. It spooks me, ruining the daydreams, and I murmur a handful of curse words when I see Lauren standing outside on the porch.

  Yanking the door open, I say, “You were supposed to wait for the light. That’s the all clear, remember?”

  She’s soaked and looking miserable. “You need to let me in.”

  “Fine, whatever, get in here,” I say, frustrated as I step to the side. “It’s your place, do whatever you want.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Chelsea Hopper

  Chelsea Hopper is seven years old now and will be eight in two more months.

  She often wakes from horrible nightmares where she is back in the old house, the one that other people call the ‘Hopper House.’

  The Most Haunted Place in America.

  She dreams of claws and fangs and darkness and the scent of rotten eggs. She feels fear that loosens her bladder in her dreams, but not in her bed, thankfully. At least not yet. She’s proud that she’s never wet herself, unlike that boy Gordon in her class, the one who always smells like moldy dirt and cat litter.

  Often, when she wakes from these dreams, she rises from bed, as she does now, and patters down the hallway into the bathroom. The nightlight plugged into the wall helps assuage her fright, but it’s never enough. She flips on the overhead lights, a gloriously bright row of seven bulbs over the mirror.

  And in this mirror, she stares at her reflection, first checking her eyes, then touching her cheeks, pushing the puffy skin around to make sure it’s still soft and bendy. She pulls her lower lip down first and then pushes the upper one toward the ceiling, checking her teeth. Next come her ears, then her fingers and toes, her nails.

  Finally, she pulls open the front of her pajamas and holds her breath as she looks down, breathing a sigh of relief that she hasn’t grown a scaly, shriveled penis.

  Chelsea is relieved to see that she is not the boy demon she becomes in her dreams—that evil, vicious creature with grotesque, pebbly, raised skin made of scales. Eyes yellow and slit like the stray tomcat that sleeps underneath their back porch. Fangs, long and sharp, which dig deeply into the flesh of Mr. Ford and Mr. Mike. Pointed ears that lay back against her head, listening to their screams.

  This happens to her practically every night. It’s terrifying, yet it has happened enough that it’s almost normal. The dreams were never this bad before, not even when she lived in the Hopper House. These violent nightmares have been happening for months, even before her parents mentioned the movie that Mr. Ford and Mr. Mike might be making about her life. They had asked her if it was okay, if she minded. She had said she was scared and wasn’t sure.

  They needed the money, they told her. They needed it, and it would be good for the family. They could pay for her school when she got older, and maybe now, too, if she wanted to go to a different place, maybe a less crowded one where not as many people knew her, where she could concentrate and not answer questions about ghosts and demons.

  I have friends here she had
told them. It’s okay, Mama, and don’t worry, Daddy. I’ll try to do better in school. I promise.

  I’ll do better in school, and I won’t tell you about the dreams yet, because maybe they had forgotten how horrible it was in that house when she was so little.

  Would they make her go back in the house with Mr. Ford and Mr. Mike?

  Carla, that super nice lady from Hollywood, the one who had given her candy corn and chocolate on Halloween night the last time, had said that Chelsea wouldn’t have to go back in the house. Never ever never again. Never ever.

  Mama and Daddy had said okay, Carla and her people could make the movie, but only for lots of money and as long as Chelsea wasn’t in danger.

  Chelsea almost told them about the dreams then.

  But if she did, if she told them how scary it was to become that demon and use her horrible fangs to bite the hearts of Mr. Mike and Mr. Ford every night, they would send her back to that awful man, Dr. Slade, who had breath like rotten fish and hands that were rough like sandpaper when he touched her skin.

  She kept her secrets to herself, and now she revisits the same place each night—that pitch black hallway in her old home. She climbs from a deep, dark place, claw over claw, for what feels like a hundred years until she breaks through the floor, smashing the wood and smelling the soot and ashes, feeling the flames licking at her heels. She gets to her knees and spreads her leathery black wings, then stands to her full height, towering over the two men she thought were her friends. Big, strong guys who were supposed to protect her from this thing that she has become.

  Satisfied that she’s not a demon—a horrifying, disgusting boy demon—Chelsea drinks a glass of water from her cup decorated with pink cartoon puppies and steps back from the bathroom mirror. It’s pure habit as she reaches for the light switch, then draws her hand away, just as she does every night. It’s better to leave them on.