In the Dead of Night

by Aiden James

  “Either way is fine,” said Fiona, usually agreeable unless a burger bore burnt edges.

  “Nothing that looks like shoe leather,” I said, not so agreeable when it comes to the version of roasted cow I prefer.

  “Did you remember Fiona’s dessert pizza?” he asked, nudging his glasses toward the bridge of his nose with his grilling mitt. “You can’t enter the back yard without it!”

  Despite the glare from several tiki torches reflecting off his wired lenses, I caught a glint of amusement, his eyes twinkling for a nanosecond.

  “I almost forgot,” I said, nudging Fiona to go on without me while I went back to the car for our contribution to tonight’s grill potluck.

  A recipe of my mom’s, the pizza is a concoction of fresh strawberries, blueberries, peaches, kiwi, and banana slices laid out on a pastry crust and covered with a light cream-cheese icing. I have to say it’s a hell of lot better tasting than it may sound, and something easy to whip up on short notice. It was perfect for tonight’s get-together, after Tom had called that afternoon with the news he’d finished developing the video and still-frame shots from last night’s investigation.

  “Umm that looks really yummy!” said Angie, once I rejoined the females gathered just inside the back gate.

  She’d never had the pleasure of sampling the dessert dish before. Fiona hadn’t made it since last summer. If not for Tom asking for it today, we probably would’ve picked up a pecan pie from Kroger on the way.

  “It tastes awesome!” I told her, sliding by on my way to a long redwood picnic table. Yeah, I guess I’m a little proud of Mom and Fiona’s party delicacy. “The only thing sounding better than this right now is an ice cold brew!”

  “Think fast, Rock Star!”

  I turned just in time to catch a Miller Lite can flying through the air toward me, while Tom and the girls held their collective breath. Justin high-fived Tony, so I knew one of them threw it. I think if I’d failed to catch the damned thing, Tom would’ve had a massive coronary on the spot.

  “Do you mind acting a little older than high school, you two?!” he scolded them, his normally deep voice carrying a shrill edge. “I doubt either of you make enough in a month to pay for a window if that had ricocheted through Jimmy’s grasp!”

  He pointed to the ornate stained glass panels on either side of the backdoor, while both Tony and Justin shrugged and quietly mouthed ‘sorry’. Such feigned remorse, though they both had a ‘oops’ look on their faces. They turned their attention to the cooler, reaching in to grab a pair of longnecks.

  I can see why he’s protective of his place. The property reminds me of a park setting, with lots of trees and such. And the house…it’s really nice. Built in the late 1920s, it looks like the Craftsman homes you sometimes see in movies, with lots of handcrafted oak paneling and millwork throughout. Frigging beautiful work, man. Of course, as my wife points out, it’s why they call this type of home a ‘Craftsman’ in the first place. Named after some homebuilder magazine from yesteryear.

  “What? Better not be any Heinekens in there,” I said, feigning irritation. “Hording the good stuff is totally unacceptable, you guys!”

  I hoped it’d take the edge off the morgue-feel suddenly permeating the air around us, since I could tell Tom was still fuming a bit. I’m not one for dull parties, and I definitely can’t tolerate a sour-puss gathering. The hell with that shit, I’d be just as happy getting an early start on rehearsal before the wounded puppies and Foghorn Leghorn turned tonight’s paranormal review into a pissing contest.

  “Hell, I’ll take a Heiney if there’s some extras in there,” said Angie, sauntering over to where the guys stood guarding their treasure chest.

  Like a pair of tin soldiers from Candy Land, they stepped aside to make way for her, so obviously intimidated by the pretty girl’s moxie. Sure enough, once she fully opened the cooler’s lid, a dozen green bottles peered out through crushed ice. She grabbed a handful and began her strut to the picnic table.

  “Throw me that can of cow pee and I’ll bring you a real beer, Cracker Jack,” she taunted, playfully, to which I immediately tossed the can without thinking first.

  More gasps—this time from nearly everyone including me. But Angie smiled naughtily, balancing the bottles between one arm and her bosom while she effortlessly caught the can and flipped it back toward the open cooler. The can careened off the lid and into the ice. No harm, no foul—unless Tom’s labored breathing counts for anything.

  While the rest of us marveled at Angie’s party trick, she moved over to the table. Tom hurriedly motioned for Tony to help him carry a platter filled with burgers and weenies to the table. Justin picked up the condiments from a small table next to the built-in grill on Tom’s deck, while Jackie grabbed a bowl of potato salad to go along with another one filled to the brim with baked beans.

  That left Fiona, who paused by the cooler until she fished out a bottled Coke, since a sinus headache’s onset was upon her. She joined me near the end of the table, and everyone else found an open spot. Jackie and Tom joined us on the side closest to the grill, while Tony and Justin hesitated for a moment on the other side, as if silently debating between them who’d get the frightful pleasure of sitting next to Angie. Justin won the honor, as Tony found an excuse to revisit the grill.

  “So, where’d you learn the over-the-shoulder bank shot, Muscle Mutt?”

  Hoping to further lighten the mood, I voiced the first thought that popped in my head. Angie really hates my pet name for her, since it brings to mind some muscle-bound body builder—which she’s not. ‘Body sculpting’ is the way she likes to refer to it, and recently Fiona and Jackie have been letting her teach them the basic initial exercises to help firm their thighs and legs, though I can’t really see where Fiona needs the help. Maybe she’s just trying to help Jackie not feel like the ugly duckling in our group. But Jackie’s not bad looking at all. The way the other guys’ eyes linger on her from time to time tells me they’d readily second that notion.

  “I grew up with three brothers—all older than me,” she replied, pausing to pass the potato salad to Justin, who then handed off to Tony at the table’s end. “The oldest was all-city basketball in Hartford, and my other brothers lettered in high school. So, along the way, I guess they showed me a thing or two on how to shoot deceptively, since I’m the ‘shorty’ in my family.”

  They must be frigging giants. Hell, Angie stands at least an inch taller than Fiona, who is considered pretty tall at five-nine. Since she grew up in Connecticut, Angie’s the second friend of Fiona from the east coast. Candi was the first, hailing from Trenton, New Jersey.

  “You must be pretty good, then,” said Jackie, nodding approvingly. “And here I thought your favorite sport was Taekwondo.”

  “It is, although Taekwondo is more a philosophy and way of life for me, and not really a sport. Tennis is a sport.”

  She glanced at me, as if this was some private joke…some secret dig brought on by my recent taunt? Maybe it goes along with her favorite moniker for me, ‘Cracker Jack’. I have no idea at all as to why she chose it. I mean, a smiling cartoon sailor on a box of sweetened popcorn with a cheap, meaningless toy inside every box…. Okay, maybe it ain’t so vague, since who in the hell wants to be compared to that?

  “This is excellent!” Fiona enthused, pointing to her burger. “Really good, Tom!

  Everyone else chimed in, and I have to say the burger and hotdog I ate seemed unusually good. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, as my appetite at lunch was obliterated by the details surrounding Dickey Rollins’ exit from this world.

  By the time eight o’clock rolled around, everyone had indulged in seconds and a generous slice from the dessert pizza. Fading sunlight peered through mature maples surrounding Tom’s property, creating an almost exotic feel, enhanced by the burning torches encircling the deck. Thirty minutes left before I needed to leave, rehearsal was set to start at nine o’clock sharp.

  An emphatic ta
p on my watch got everyone moving, and we cleared the table in a matter of minutes. The dishwasher in Tom’s custom kitchen whirring in the background, he motioned for us all to follow him back outside.

  Across the yard sat a revitalized small stone and log structure, built not long after the main house was erected. The ‘NVP studio’, as Tom called it. Fresh blue paint upon the door and window frames, the building seemed to glow under the backyard’s security lamps, nestled beneath tall pines and maples that were probably small saplings when it was built.

  Like a little playhouse from some urban fantasy, the studio seemed to beckon us. Ready for its first ‘official’ test drive, perhaps?

  I could hardly wait to put it in gear.

  Chapter Seven

  “You should all watch your step, since the sidewalk has a few ridges that have popped up due to the ground shifting over the years,” Tom advised, as we neared the end of the cement path to his studio. Additional security lights set up in a pair of tall maples turned on just before we reached the building.

  A crude miniature version of the main house, the three-room structure contained smaller stained-glass windows on each side of the doorway. Definitely not designed with a broken-down riding mower and rusted handsaws in mind—which is what Tom said it sheltered when he first visited the property. The floor had rotted through in several places, too, and the roof hung low in one corner. But that’s no longer the case. Everything old and busted has been replaced with brand new materials, starting with a new cedar-chip roof.

  “Before we step inside, and I should’ve mentioned this to Jackie, Tony, and Angie earlier, take a look at the long cement slab below the window,” he said, pointing a small flashlight at a narrow flowerbed located beneath the window sill.

  We followed him over to it. Most of the slab lay hidden behind a row of rose bushes, just beyond the reach of the security lights’ soft glow.

  “Jackie, would you mind holding this for a moment?”

  Tom motioned for her to take the flashlight. Then he carefully pulled the plants away from the slab. Fiona was the first one to gasp this time, and only because she immediately understood what the words and numbers meant, illuminated clearly by the flashlight’s bright beam.

  Nathaniel Smith…born January 24th, 1893…died July 7th, 1945.

  “Now that’s jacked up!” said Justin, while the rest of us…well let’s just say the rest of us were murmuring. Unfinished, nonsensical thoughts, like a Sunday Pentecostal service. “You mean to tell me some dead guy is buried here, in your yard?”

  “So it would seem,” said Tom, chuckling. “When I first noticed it a couple of months ago, it gave me a start, too. I should’ve told everyone then…. But, as it turns out, no one is actually buried here. At least according to the state archives. Mr. Smith is buried in Chattanooga. Apparently, this is just an extra marker.”

  He turned toward us, smiling. It must’ve been a sweet moment for him…all of us with mouths hung open until we realized there really wasn’t a body there.

  “I might add that Nathaniel was the second to last owner of this property, right on up to his death in 1945,” added Tom.

  Well, maybe the sucker’s buried here after all. I shuddered for a moment, and Fiona did too. Not a good omen.

  “Come on in, everyone,” he said, ushering us inside. “Let me show the best evidence to Jimmy, and if anyone else wants to hang out afterward, we can look over some of the other pictures and audio recordings I haven’t had time to examine yet....”

  I’m not sure if Fiona and I fully heard what he said after that, since our eyes were drawn to the opulence inside. Very little expense had been spared in outfitting the room with state-of-the-art recording equipment and a large monitor for close examination of visual images and deeper analysis of electronic voice phenomena, or EVPs. Even the long control board and furniture in the room looked expensive. Not to mention the hardwood floors, a second furnished ‘office’ complete with another computer system, and a small bathroom. That’d definitely be a necessity, as it seemed quite possible to never want to leave this place for days at a time, if one had enough paranormal data to review. A small fridge next to the main console would answer the remaining needs a serious investigator might require.

  Hell, if Tom had added a sound booth, I might be tempted to commandeer the studio to record my band for a week or two.

  “Is this place booyakasha or what?!” Justin enthused, laughing while laying a damned good Ali-G on us.

  “It’s just so sweet, man!” added Tony, sliding down into one of the high-back leather chairs in front of the console. “You’ve definitely outdone yourself, Tom. This will take our ghost investigations to a whole new level, y’all.”

  “Yes, it really is something special,” said Fiona, admiringly. “I can’t wait to see what everything looks like using this new equipment, Tom.”

  “Better than my old system,” he said, moving over to the other chair. “Much better.” He sat down and turned on the main board, which quietly came to life. Green, orange, and blue lights began to flicker across the console’s face. “Okay, Fiona…Jimmy. Gather round a little closer and get ready to see something special.”

  She and I moved over to where we stood directly behind him and Tony, with Angie and Jackie on Fiona’s right side, and Justin leaning in next to me. All of us waited expectantly for what would soon appear on the 60 inch LCD screen before us.

  “Okay…first off is the image in the window upstairs,” Tom advised. “For Fiona’s benefit, this happened when we were moving around the front of the house, and I pointed the infrared camera toward the upstairs window—the one above the main entrance.”

  “That’s where the younger kids sleep,” said Fiona. “Charlain told me during my initial visit to the house that her children hear voices up there.”

  “Well, that makes a lot of sense in light of what we’ve got here,” Tony advised, and then looked over at Tom, whose expression made it clear he wanted to completely handle the findings from last night’s investigation. “Oops, sorry, Tom…. I just got a little carried away.”

  “It’s all right,” he replied, somewhat tersely. “Anyway, here we go.”

  At first, only an intense yellow glare from the security flood lamps in the Thompson’s front yard filled the screen, amid a greenish glow from the infrared video. That, and Tom and Tony’s voices commenting on how it sucked to not be able to get any closer to the house without incurring additional problems—like worse camera angles due to the overhanging eves upstairs. Whoever built the place never considered the inconveniences presented for future ghost hunters.

  Roughly a minute later, the upstairs window came into clear view. As we noted last night, the curtains were slightly open—most likely the kids’ request to have more than a nightlight illuminating their scary bedroom. A pair of wispy sheers blocked most of our voyeur access inside the bedroom, but still a gap existed in the middle of the window. For our purposes, that’s all we needed to capture the image.

  At first, we could only see the green-hazed outline of the house and the reddish outlines from the security lamps’ casings, emitting heat from the powerful halogens. Then a dark red form appeared in the window. Fiona let out another slight gasp.

  It rarely happens with this type of technology, as often the forms caught by infrared cameras appear shadowy, undefined as to sex, though clothing such as hats and coats can be determined. Not this time. Facial details of a woman were clearly viewable, and the woman’s face was framed by ringlets. Only the eyes remained shadowed, hidden. The portals to the soul…even though her expression was blank, who could say for sure there was no menace implied?

  “Go ahead and run the video forward, Tom,” said Fiona, shifting to the mode the group has come to expect of her. From sweet-natured to the ‘take charge’ individual who has spearheaded NVP’s rise to the top shelf of Tennessee’s plethora of paranormal investigators vying for the more prestigious locations to explore.

  He looke
d back in surprise, maybe under the delusion that last night’s trauma and this morning’s second helping would promote him into the lead role…at least for now. Still, no one questions her direction when she gets into her zone—not even me, her closest confidante.

  “Okay,” he agreed, and the video resumed.

  Almost instantly the image dissipated.

  “Good.” She sounded relieved. “Very good, actually. If the image had lingered too long, we would have to consider the possibility of someone playing a prank on us. It doesn’t seem like something Charlain would do, but we’ve had it happen before. Remember the Miller investigation a few years back?”

  “Yeah, I do,” I confessed. “I’d just as soon forget about that one forever.”

  Thought I had, truthfully. So thanks a bunch, sweetie, for resuscitating such an embarrassing memory. We’re probably still the brunt of some jokes about it.

  “I’m still pissed off at those frigging bastards!” fumed Jackie, looking over at Tony for his response, since he was also present for that red-faced moment. But he gave no indication he remembered what had happened.

  Wish I could be like that, or have Fiona’s ability to shrug it off even though it remained fresh enough for her to recall with ease.

  “Well, if the image hadn’t faded away like it did, it would be easy to disprove,” continued Fiona. “From what I’ve researched in the Cumberland branch of the main library, the face we just saw looks a lot like Lizzy Robertson. I feel so much sadness with this haunting…felt it strong in the house, especially upstairs when Charlain showed me around.”

  “Did any of the other pictures we took turn up anything cool, or mean-like?” asked Justin, still in his Ali-G mode with arms raised and fingers pointed down, like he was casting a gangsta spell.