In the Dead of Night

by Aiden James

  By the time we arrived at Ms. Thompson’s 1860s spacious Italianate Victorian overlooking the Cumberland River, we were nearly two hours late that Wednesday evening. At least the oppressive July heat had subsided, though the air was still thick and sticky. Honeysuckle vine, that sweet Tennessee perfume, hung in the air.

  Before we’d even stepped out of the van, after parking on the cobblestone circular drive in front of her mansion, she stood waiting for us. Waiting impatiently, I should say, with both hands on her hips, long red nails tapping away. She stood near the edge of the steps that led up to the front door, announcing as usual it was her turf. Lady—and I use that loosely—of the manor.

  “Where’s Fiona?” she asked, her snappy tone laced with ice, the hallmark of any woman in need of a good lay, made worse since it’s her. “You were supposed to be here at six-thirty at the latest, and my little ones will be getting ready for bed soon. Don’t even think about bringing your equipment in here tonight!” she finished, pointing toward our van where Tony and Tom had begun unloading.

  I just glared at her, wishing I could assault her ears with the grotesque details of our evening up until then. I managed to tune out her lecture, her face pinched by her dark hair pulled back in a severe bun. All I really heard from her was ‘wah,wah, wah’ like an adult in a Charlie Brown cartoon. The fabric in her dark gray tailored jacket made a whipping sound as she waved her arm around in exaggerated fashion, her skinny forefinger pointed out like a witch’s wand.

  Before Tom went to the trouble of putting everything back inside the van I snapped out of my self-preserving stupor and motioned for him to wait as I worked to apply my charm on our dissatisfied client. I do it every day for a paycheck working as a supervisor for one of the nation’s largest ‘bargain’ wireless providers.

  “I am so very sorry, Charlain,” I told her, in the most sincere tone I could muster. I closed the passenger door gently before taking a step toward her.

  Her menacing finger disappeared into a fist that quickly flew down to her hip, like a gunslinger standing down. She didn’t need to do anything else for me to know I had just a moment to try and fix this situation. So I decided to be blunt.

  “Three of Fiona’s dear friends were murdered, and she was the first one to discover their bodies this evening.” There it was...brutal truth. It even caused her face to soften a bit.

  That’s always been the problem with me…. I’m sure my wife would’ve cringed and shot me her own evil eye if she’d been witness to the way I addressed Ms. Thompson. Fiona’s way of dealing with delicate matters is to ease her way into figuring out the best way to word it. Though at times, she’ll keep things completely to herself. As for me, I fail to see the need for evasiveness, especially when being honest and laying out the facts can defuse a volatile situation. I’m a complete straight shooter. Always have been and always will be.

  Charlain stood in what seemed like shocked silence. Half-expecting her to scoff and deliver another smartass comment, I was pleasantly surprised when she finally managed to speak softly, and with a hint of actual concern.

  “You’re not talking about what happened to Candi Starr tonight, are you?”

  “Afraid so,” I confirmed, my serious tone hopefully matching an equally solemn look on my face. Her reaction gave me pause to consider she might not have a Grinch-sized heart after all. “We were there to drop off a gift, and then the plan was to come here afterward. Fiona really looked forward to the investigation tonight.”

  Her next response was a pensive nod. “Well…it’s still too late to set things up inside,” she said, after releasing a low sigh. “I guess we’ll have to reschedule.”

  There wasn’t any real compassion in her tone. No remorse for what happened to three fellow human beings. Plus this negates the hard work already put in by Tom and Tony, especially Tom. I motioned for the guys to wait a moment, as an idea to salvage what we could from tonight came to me.

  “We can do that, no problem at all,” I said, turning my attention back to her. “I’ll have Fiona contact you in the next few days, after all the craziness surrounding what happened tonight simmers down some. In the meantime, we could do some work just on the outside of your home, which is part of what we would’ve done this evening anyway.”

  “Fine, but keep it to the front yard and watch out for the gardens,” she warned. “I’ll expect a call from your wife by Monday.”

  She turned and walked in stiff steps back to the house. Even so, we had achieved a partial victory, though unfortunately one which meant Tom and Tony would have to put the consoles back in the van. We’ll only be using cameras and handheld recorders tonight, along with our standard EMF detectors. The upside is we could be out of here in an hour or so. The only other thing that sucks is the fact Charlain refused to turn off the front security lights. Anomalies are harder to detect unless photographed or caught on video in complete, or near, darkness. I’m not sure why it is, but every ghost hunter we’ve encountered gets their best evidence of paranormal activity in darkened conditions. Only every now and then does someone in the ghost hunting community catch an amazing apparition or anomaly during the day.

  “So, are we going in or not?” Tony asked me, as I rejoined the guys who were still waiting at the back of the van.

  Tony Perez is a former roadie and longtime friend of mine. He also works in the same call center as me. He loathes it much more than I do, but he’s got bills to pay same as everyone else. Like me, he’s part Cuban, so we hit it off right away. He has very little patience for bullshit and diva bitches messing up his investigative plans.

  “Well?!” he demanded, removing his University of Kentucky ball cap and scratching his near-bald head. His beer gut bounced a bit as he took two steps toward me while looking me straight in the eye.

  “Nope, man, it ain’t gonna happen tonight,” I told him, returning his serious gaze with my own.

  Man, I feel for poor Tony. He’s dripping with sweat and his Red Wings jersey is damp around the neck from exerting himself with the consoles. And as I feared, he didn’t react well to the news.

  “That’s just frigging great!” he seethed, tossing his well-worn hat to the ground.

  Yeah, he’s frustrated, but he didn’t throw it too hard, since the hat and his Red Wings jersey are his unofficial ‘ghost hunting’ uniform Very tacky, yet it’s so Tony. Hockey, Kentucky basketball, fishing, and investigating the paranormal are all he really cares about. And that bitch just took out his favorite thing on an already bad night.

  Tom shook his head in disgust, obviously thinking this was a wasted trip out here.

  “But, and I mean this is a good ‘but’, Charlain’s gonna allow us to reschedule the inside investigation!” I quickly spouted, hoping to appease them both. “Fiona just needs to call her by next Monday to schedule a time.”

  That meant it’d be my job to make certain it happened, and all three guys implored me to stay on her, to insure she didn’t procrastinate. I think they forgot for a moment what we’d witnessed just a couple of hours ago, and the unknown long-term impact from that gruesome experience on Fiona’s psyche. Not to mention a conversation with Charlain in light of our missed appointment would likely be most unpleasant, similar to visiting a dentist to get a painful tooth pulled.

  “Man, I heard the way Charlain talked to you just now,” said Justin, grinning while he grabbed his analog camera and a small tape recorder,

  Like my wife, he’s a purest when it comes to gathering paranormal evidence, meaning only analog devices for him. God forbid he capture a great EVP or picture, only to have the evidence questioned due to the ease of faking a digital sample.

  “She really is a bitch, man—”

  “Sh-h-h!” I hushed him, glancing toward the house to make sure no one heard him outside of the van. Tony snickered.

  “She ain’t listening, man!” continued Justin, feigning indignation, and cracking a wry smile. “But she’s not bad to look at…not bad at all. I wouldn’t kick
her out of bed, though I’d be sleeping with one eye open, in case she went all ‘Fatal Attraction’ on me!”

  Funny guy, especially when he added a high-pitched ‘Eek! Eek!’ at the end. Fiona and I met Justin, whose last name is Pierce, at a record release party for some new star. We became friends—especially Fiona—due to shared passion and interest in Civil War stuff. The odd thing about that is Justin’s black. Not exactly the norm for Ole Dixie enthusiasts.

  He wears his hair in corn rows, and sports the gold chains and finger jewelry prevalent among many of his peers. Basketball jerseys are his faves, but he likes to wear Gettysburg and Battle of Franklin T-shirts as well. But the real cool thing about him is his infectious laugh and penchant for extremely funny rants. Similar in height and build to me, I have to agree with Fiona and Jackie’s assessment that he’s sort of a cross between Reggie Bush, the football star, and Chris Rock, the comedian.

  “Well, dudes,” I said, chuckling while I grabbed my camera and a digital recorder. “Ms. Thompson wants us to watch out for her petunias and shrubberies. So watch where you step. Oh, and it’s just the front yard tonight.”

  “She needs to turn those frigging security lights off!”

  I doubt Tom meant to come off so gruff, but being quite meticulous when he gets into his groove, he gets a little testy sometimes. A middle-aged, ‘seasoned’ paranormal investigator from Kentucky, with twenty years experience, Mr. Gaither is the tech-savvy guy in the group and another one on the heavy side. Like me, Tom wears his silver hair long. He has a beard and gray eyes that sometimes seem to glow from behind his wire-rimmed glasses. He reminds me of Oliver Reed, the actor, and joined NVP after reading about Fiona and her extraordinary abilities in The Tennessean a couple of years ago.

  “Sorry, man, she ain’t budging on that,” I advised, moving away from the van before he could respond.

  At least he gets to use his precious infrared device. The rest of us can only look at it while he wraps his baby so tight in his grasp that his knuckles turn white. Tom will never be one to share his favorite toys.

  I caught up with Justin, who was already snapping pictures. The sound of cicadas surrounded us from within the tall maples and magnolias that dotted the front yard. The sporadic glow from swarms of lightning bugs hung just below the maple’s highest branches, and unfortunately, swarms of mosquitoes were present as well. All of this will make it hard to tell what’s paranormal from twinkling insects.

  He moved deliberately along the driveway pointing his camera and recorder toward the darkened corners of the yard and house, but mostly at the second floor veranda. That’s where Lizzy Robertson hung herself, and where her incestuous father, Jeremiah, shot himself in the head back in 1873. The ruination of his cotton farming business just after the Civil War proved too much for him to handle, or so the history books say. But local lore tells a different reason. Lizzy’s restless spirit made sure the tormentor from her youth paid for his crimes…the beatings and molestations which modern therapists would detect early on in a young child’s life.

  Charlain Thompson bought the home with her husband Peter, nearly eight years ago. No problems were reported for the first several years, until shortly after the couple divorced. Knowing her, that came as no surprise to anyone. She took Peter to the cleaners, from what I understand. Left the poor fool homeless after making sure their lengthy divorce proceedings cleaned his coffers. Rumor has it he lived out of his car for nearly a year afterward. Quite a peach, this client of ours.

  Anyway, apparently the kids have often heard voices, disembodied whispered conversations between a man and woman. Sometimes blood curdling screams are heard upstairs when everyone among the living is either downstairs or outside on the front porch. But the thing that prompted the call to Fiona was what recently started happening to the chairs in the kitchen.

  A large eat-in room, Charlain told Fiona how she’d step into the kitchen, and where minutes before the chairs had all been pushed in under the mahogany table, suddenly they’re strewn about the room. Other than a slight squeak from a chair rubbing against the kitchen’s marble tiled floor, no other sound gave warning as to what awaited her once she stepped back into the kitchen. The bizarre events began a month ago, and have steadily increased in frequency.

  Fiona’s initial investigation turned up nothing unusual. But since it was just an interview and a tour of the property involving a few photographs and a small recorder, along with Fiona’s psychic gifts, not finding immediate concrete evidence to support a haunting wasn’t the end of the process. That’s where the rest of the gang and our various gifts and tools come into play.

  But this investigation will now be three-fold, due to tonight’s detour.

  “Anything of note, yet?” I asked Justin.

  To make sure we didn’t overload on pictures in one area, I aimed my camera and recorder toward the lower level of the house.

  Justin glanced at me before snapping another picture. He snickered.

  “Nothing yet,” he replied. “At least not readily apparent. We’ll see after Tom develops all of the photographs tomorrow.”

  “Hey, Jimmy! Tom’s got something on the infrared!”

  Tony motioned excitedly for us to come join him and Tom, standing in the middle of the front lawn, beneath a towering oak. Once we arrived, Tom carefully positioned the LCD screen on the camera, keeping it in video mode. He replayed the captured infrared images from the past few minutes, when the camera was aimed at the second floor.

  “Now, it might be somebody up there who actually lives here,” Tom explained. “But check this out.”

  At first, it looked just like the images in Justin and my camera lenses, albeit in green, yellow, and reddish hues. But then something appeared in the window…and it didn’t seem like a child or the ‘villainess’ who rules this castle. It was doubtful that any of the Thompson’s could materialize as just a face with a partial torso…at least not any living Thompson. Besides, the dark ringlets framing the face didn’t fit the current fashion, or any popular style for like the past hundred years.

  “That’s so frigging cool! Just wait until Fiona and the girls see this!!”

  I could barely contain my enthusiasm, and neither could the others. Even Tom was excited, and his trembling hands told me this was one of the most significant ‘captures’ he’d witnessed in years. He almost dropped his prized camera, having caught it before it hit the ground. The camera’s lens now faced the woods next to the house on the east side. Another figure appeared on the screen, this one was even more solid than the image in the window.

  “What in the hell?” Tom whispered, warily looking toward the woods.

  The rest of us looked toward that direction as well, but didn’t see anyone. Too damned dark. Justin and I snapped a flurry of photographs, the flashes bright enough to illuminate the immediate area on the wooded edge of the Thompson property. There was nobody there, and nothing out of place. Whatever had been there a moment ago had since vanished.

  Tom pointed the camera again toward the area, but nothing unusual reappeared. The dark figure witnessed a moment ago was gone.

  “Well doesn’t that beat all!” he fumed.

  “What are y’all talking about?”

  Justin was the only one who missed seeing it the first time, and now waited impatiently for Tom to hurry up and replay the segment. When he did, Justin’s mouth dropped open.

  “Is that a shadow person?” he asked, alluding to a phenomenon on the rise in which only a dark figure is present, instead of more common wispy ‘light’ spirits. Found in various locations throughout the south, these more menacing phantoms are especially prevalent in Tennessee.

  He could scarcely contain his nervous anticipation, since it’s so rare to catch full apparitions of this kind.

  “I don’t know,” said Tom, his voice again a mere whisper. “The body looks too defined, I think. But the face is featureless, and that would be consistent with reported sightings. There are not many pictures of
shadow men to compare this to.”

  “Or shadow women,” I added, keen on equal opportunity in the spirit world and always ready with a smartass comment whenever possible.

  “I’m not sure if it’s either one,” said Tony, wearing a wry grin while quietly observing the video as Tom replayed it again. “What if it’s someone like us? I mean, a living person?”

  Good point. If it wasn’t a nocturnal wraith, then it likely was a person. But a person doing what? Some burglar clad in dark clothing, scoping out one of the surrounding homes to hit? Or, perhaps it was someone watching us while we searched for flitting spirits in Charlain Thompson’s front yard. If that were the case, did this individual do so out of mere curiosity, or did they have something else in mind?

  Something sinister?

  With the horrific scene from earlier that evening still fresh in my mind, I entertained a fleeting thought that somehow the two events could be related. How? I hadn’t a clue, and it was a far-fetched notion. Just a thought for now, and one that I assumed would disappear before the night ended, like the fleeting phantoms we sought evidence of in our nighttime investigations.

  Chapter Three

  “So, how did things go tonight?”

  Busy in the kitchen, Fiona finished the dishes from earlier. Justin had dropped me off at our log home in Arrington, just south of Nashville, since Jackie had driven my wife home in our car. It used to be only my car, my Camaro, until the engine in her Subaru blew up. We now share one vehicle, unless the weather’s nice enough for me to take my Harley.

  “Well, other than dealing with Mother Theresa, it went all right,” I replied, setting my briefcase down next to my cherished recliner. All of my ghost hunting equipment and journals are inside and I never go on an investigation without them.