In the Dead of Night

by Aiden James

  I’m still amazed she pulled it off, and seemingly with very little effort involved on her part. Maybe she ‘glamored’ all three into seeing things her way, and even spun some magic on her old man to boot. Regardless, after we visited the old federal-styled plantation near the Red River—which turned out to be an uneventful experience—Justin, Tony, and Ricky told us that they were all really jazzed about Saturday’s investigation. Furthermore—and this really blew me away—they said they looked forward to burying the hatchet with Tom and the girls, and they would do their best to get along with the Thomas twins.

  Glamored—all of us—by some latent hexing ability my wife carries with her from a long Scottish line of druids and witches….

  “So, is everyone meeting us at the visitor center at Stones River?”

  Flash forward to Saturday afternoon. It wasn’t as warm as the last weekend, with temperatures in the low forties. But at least the sun was out, with nary a cloud in the sky. Fiona and I were on our way to meet everyone else, after dropping off our kids at their grandma’s new condo in Brentwood. Traffic to get to I-24 was horrendous, which added a hefty dose of stress, since my wife loathes being late for anything.

  “Yes, and we’re going to be so frigging late!”

  Some might wonder if I ever try to tell her, even nicely, that she doesn’t need to raise her voice at me when she’s frustrated with stuff going on in life. Indeed, I do take that approach…but only when I forget the response such an entreaty got me the last time I tried it.

  It must’ve been a mind fart that I suffered, right before we veered from Bell Road onto I-24 heading south.

  “You think this is shouting??!” she said, shooting me a glance that if it had hit me squarely in her target zone, I might’ve been melted into a puddle of Jimmy goo in the passenger seat. “I’ll be happy to show you some real shouting, Jimmy!!”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I said, wishing I’d been the driver that day. I shifted in my seat in hopes it might provide me a little more protection from the sudden wrath I had ignited. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything…really, it’s my bad.”

  I offered a sheepish smile while wondering if I had missed anything in my full surrender. No, I’m truly not a wuss…and most of the married guys out there who enjoy a relationship that is loving, happy, and largely stress-free know what I’m talking about. In times of emotional duress, your woman is always right.

  Of course, Fiona didn’t verbally acknowledge what I said. And I tried to ignore her subtle headshakes as we moved onto much lighter traffic on the highway, along with the stereo going up a few notches. That was the only response I got for my olive branch. But, wouldn’t you know that as soon as we pulled up next to Jackie’s Lexus in the main parking lot at Stones River, the storm cloud over my wife’s countenance had passed. Completely.

  “Hi, hon’!” she said to Jackie, who had rushed over to greet us as we got out of the car. “Sorry we’re late. Traffic was horrible!”

  No verbalized anguish this time…of course.

  “What?”

  Oops…that thought was not sheltered, but at least my darling girl smiled lovingly toward me once more. The issue would be as good as gone forever, if I’d just let it go.

  Yeah, I’m not as stupid as some might think.

  “Nothing important,” I said, returning her warm smile with my own. “It’s good to see you, Jackie…and you, too, Michelle.”

  Everyone was on the way to greet us, including our camera crew. Honestly, I forgot about our silent trio until right then. I was more concerned with Detective Silver’s presence, or more accurately, the lack thereof. But, hamming it up at the drop of a hat is something I’ve learned to do very well over the years. Big smile. Make it a really big happy smile that surely bears some pretentiousness…. But, hell, the smile Justin wore right then was worse.

  Even so, I doubt the Thomas twins could tell the difference. For the moment, they seemed to be getting along swimmingly with Ricky, Tony, and Tom. As long as Justin kept his contempt at bay behind his frozen Chris Rock grin, we might get through the afternoon with some great footage to make our soulless producers and their New York bosses quite happy.

  “Well, I guess we should get this show on the road, huh?”

  Immediately, Sally and Sam had their cameras turned on and pointed in my direction. As I mentioned, hamming it up is easy enough for me. However, unlike our previous investigations when we had the good fortune of being among the very few living souls present, there were roughly fifty people in the parking lot. Some even looked as if they recognized us from our TV show. I would’ve preferred us getting away a bit from these park visitors before filming. From the looks on Fiona’s and Jackie’s faces, they felt the same way. The plan was to keep the investigation low keyed until just before sunset, when we would be given about an hour to catch a few shots in the famed battleground’s more notorious areas and, of course, the main cemetery.

  “Can we not do this until we’re inside the park?” I asked Sam. He looked surprised that I addressed him, and gave no response other than to continue filming me. “Seriously, Sam.”

  He continued to ignore me until Sally grabbed his arm and shook her head in silence.

  “Jimmy’s right,” Jackie agreed, but offering an apologetic smile to both Sally and Sam. “This was one of the problems we anticipated by filming the park in daylight hours. The park wouldn’t make an exception for us to get started after dark tonight.”

  “That’s why the Murfreesboro group and MPI from McMinnville are supposed to be here, to offer interference as we move through the park,” said Tom. His ear-to-ear grin from a moment ago had vanished.

  “Yeah, they are, “Jackie agreed. “In fact, I think that’s Louise’s Volvo pulling up now.”

  A beat up yellow eyesore from long ago pulled up next to the Camaro. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I pictured the rust from nicks and dents on the driver’s side, and from the deteriorating undercarriage, trying to hitch a ride home on our sports car. I’m not near as protective with it as I am with my cherished Harley…not unless I sense a careless ding might be in the offing. But, a clunker parked almost too close to comfortably open the front and back doors certainly raised my pulse for a moment. Thankfully, the men and women crammed inside skillfully slid out with plenty of room to spare.

  “You better hope they’re that careful when they’re leavin’ tonight!”

  “Huh?”

  Justin caught me by surprise, as I hadn’t heard him sneak up behind me. I doubt anyone else heard him, although Fiona wore an amused expression as she glanced at me before she and Jackie offered warm hugs to the combined ghost hunter gangs that agreed to join us for the event. Four gals and two guys, their small stature explained how they all managed to travel in such tight quarters and crawl out of the ancient Volvo like Lilliputians sneaking past Gulliver. The tallest member might’ve been five feet tall, which made our group of near six-footers and above look like giants in comparison.

  “You heard me, man,” he chuckled. “So, that’s our only protection for the afternoon, huh? Jackie says we won’t see the Murfreesboro cops until dusk…if they show up at all.”

  “So, Mr. Ed won’t be gracing us with his presence and his Gene Autry six-shooter, I take it?”

  “Haha! You’re too funny, Jimmy!” Justin chuckled a moment longer and then he sighed. “You damn well know he’ll be here, sooner or later…. Well, I see that Brandon’s got his boom pointed at us, so we better shut the hell up and get this party revved up. I’m likin’ me some pretty KKK white boys and shit…can’t you tell?”

  Well, at least he was being a good sport about our unfortunate marriage to the station’s choice of companions. But with just two more big events to go before the investigative portion of our Civil War tour ended, maybe everyone could just pretend we are all one big happy family, until it’s no longer necessary to do so. That is, unless the station’s long term plans for the future of Paranormal Thi
s Week dictated otherwise…. That could be bad.

  “All right, everyone!” said Fiona, right after she had shared a warm embrace with Louise Johnston and her sister Marie—the two heads of the ghost hunter groups joining us that late Saturday afternoon. She motioned for us all to gather close to where she stood, next to Tom’s truck. “We’ve got about an hour and a half to do our preliminary setup and exploration, and then Ed and the Murfreesboro officers will join us for the hour we’re allowed to be here by ourselves.”

  Jackie and Tom nodded approvingly, so I guess this update came from them. Then again, I might’ve aggravated my wife enough on the way here to where she didn’t feel like updating me on the day’s agenda. I’m sure she assumed I had figured Dick Tracy and two additional cops would be in attendance at some point during our little expedition.

  “If an ex-military marksman decides to pick us off one by one before they get here, I guess we’ll be shit out of luck, huh?”

  That was Tony’s comment, which was followed by Ricky and him chuckling. Please, guys…don’t give up the charade of Kool-Aid bliss just yet.

  “I’ll be your huckleberry if we get ambushed,” said Jason to Tony. He grinned wryly while pulling back his jacket to reveal an older Colt revolver strapped to his waist. “I’ve got a permit to use it, too. Woe to any asshole who tries to hurt my new buddies!”

  Up until then he was by far the quieter of the twins. He let out a subdued rebel yell while slapping a high-five on his brother’s outstretched palm, the smack sending a slight echo across the parking lot. More people stopped to look over at us, wearing perplexed expressions that surely matched the ones hiding behind our nervous smiles. These two guys were way over on the wild side—even by my rocking standards. But, I had to consider their redneck bravado as better protection than what Detective Silver and anyone else in the local law enforcement ranks could give us. Jason and Jerry were like a pair of big carefree kids, and they slapped hands with everyone gathered by the Navigator. Hell, it was infectious. Even Justin participated, although strictly out of a sense of self-preservation, I’m sure.

  I had no doubt that Jerry was packing similar heat, too. We’d be as protected as well as possible, which no doubt made the guys and gals among us feel a bit better. As for me? I honestly didn’t detect an immediate threat, either among the living or the dead. It sort of felt surreal visiting this amazing site for the very first time, although Fiona and I had driven by the river on several occasions in the past. But it was our first time to actually walk through the park.

  Unlike the battlefield monuments in Franklin and throughout much of middle Tennessee, it’s easy to picture thousands of troops spread out across both sides of the scenic waterway. According to a brochure I picked up in the visitors center, the Battle of Stones River was one of the bloodiest of the war. More than three thousand men lost their lives during the skirmish, which lasted three days, from December 31 1862, until January 2, 1863. Nearly sixteen thousand more were wounded. Some of these men spent as much as seven agonizing days on the battlefield before help could reach them. As bitterly cold as it can get in this part of the country during early winter, I could only imagine the incredible courage these soldiers possessed—especially those clinging to life for days on end in such brutal conditions. All told, the two armies sustained nearly twenty-four thousand casualties, which was almost one-third of the eighty-one thousand men engaged.

  “They’re better men than you or me,” said Tony, when he asked to look at the brochure, while we set up four stationary cameras in the main cemetery.

  Our main focus in this area was the Hazen Brigade monument, where Louise’s group had previously captured the image of what looked like a Union officer—something that is very unusual in graveyards that mainly contain the remains of fallen Confederate soldiers. We were hoping to get that lucky again…but would gladly settle for any solid paranormal evidence, regardless of which army it came from.

  The fading sunlight cast long shadows across the rows of tombstones and monuments spread throughout the walled national cemetery. As it did, a cool breeze blew around us.

  “I hope we never have to find out if that same courage lies within us, bro,” I told him. Tony and I had known each other for many years, and at one time were almost like real brothers. If reincarnation turned out to be true, I could readily picture him as a mountain man in a past life, living his dream of tracking wild game in the western wilderness while one of the most grievous times in American History took place fifteen hundred miles to the east of the Continental Divide. “We’ve got enough time to add the extra recorder you mentioned to The Slaughter Pen.”

  Yeah, I’m sure that place sounds like something out of Friday the 13th or Dawn of the Dead. Or, perhaps it brings to mind the same moniker for a site at Gettysburg. No doubt they are both notorious for the intense fighting and bloodshed that took place in each location. The one here in Tennessee apparently was so full of dead Union soldiers, horses, and broken down cannon, that more than one Confederate officer later commented on the scene being unmatched for is macabre qualities anywhere else in the Civil War. I assumed that Fiona was musing about this very aspect as Tony and I came upon her and Michelle as they began their early evening investigation of this paranormal hotspot. Sally was inside the pen capturing a panoramic view in the growing dimness.

  “Hey, darlin’,” I said lovingly, blowing warmly on an exposed area of her neck left uncovered by her wool scarf. “Pick up anything yet?”

  She reached back and wrapped her arm around my waist to pull me close. We snuggled for a moment, and it warmed my heart to know that our own little skirmish was now also history.

  “Not yet…but this place is so sad,” she said, pausing to release a low sigh. For those unfamiliar, that is one of her traits when she is taking in the aura of a place. “There are so many lost souls still here, and when I tried to reach out earlier, my guides told me to be careful. Most of the men and boys trapped in this place are unwilling to leave…the war is still going on for them. The worst part is when they see each other it only feeds that reality for them. I had no idea before coming here that it’s the chief reason so many soldiers remain. Their sense of obligation to each other and the armies they served make it nearly impossible for any of us to break through the illusion to help them move on.”

  I could literally feel the overwhelming sadness threatening to smother her, and this was on top of my own clairsentient abilities to feel the terrible sorrow and loneliness that pervaded the area. And, it was getting worse as the setting sun gave way to dusk. An oppressive feeling fell upon us, and I could tell that Michelle and Tony felt it, too.

  “I’m just going to set this device over by the cannon closest to us, and then I’ll come back for it later…maybe even tomorrow,” he said, snickering nervously. “We should get something from th—Ah, shit! What in the hell was that??”

  “Tony, are you okay?” I asked, running over to where he had slipped and fallen to the ground. He was grimacing, holding his knee.

  “No…I mean, help me up,” he said, trying to get back to his feet. He looked worriedly around him, and when I grabbed his arm he was trembling badly. “Someone shoved me hard in the back, and right into that frigging wheel, man!”

  He pointed to the lone cannon wheel that was upright, as the other wheel lay on its side. Perhaps some of you have seen this particular cannon before, as it has been depicted in Civil War paintings and also photographed extensively. In fact, it graced the inside pages of the brochure that I could no longer read without the aid of my flashlight.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” I told him, motioning to Fiona and Michelle to leave the area while I supported him with my shoulder as I helped him walk out of the pen. Sally was already hurrying back up to the main path ahead of us. “Where is everyone else, babe?”

  “They’re spread out everywhere, but we’re all supposed to meet back at the Artillery Monument by six o’clock!”

  Fiona sounded str
essed again, and pulled Michelle close to her while she waited for Tony and me to rejoin them. By the time we were back on the main path, she was on her phone talking to Jackie.

  “Where are you guys? …What…we have to leave right now?... Great…just frigging great!” she fumed, and motioned for us to hurry as best we could, as she began making her way back to where the tall white obelisk stood in the fading twilight. “Wait, wait…run that by me again. What?! Oh shit! …Shit, shit, shit!! …Okay, we’re coming!!”

  “What’s going on—”

  “Ed’s been shot!”

  “What?!”

  I could scarcely picture what she said, while the ominous feeling from The Slaughter Pen seemed to follow us. I suddenly pictured a masked assassin in my mind. Unlike what I expected to encounter here in this haunted place, this would be the warm-blooded kind.

  “He was shot in the parking lot, along with one of the policemen!”

  “Oh, shit!”

  An ominous feeling, indeed.

  Chapter Eight

  Due to the eventful past two weeks since our last investigative review, I would’ve expected everyone to be ready to roll at 6:00 p.m. sharp, Sunday night, as planned. For those who remember, we hold these meetings at Tom’s place in his backyard state-of-the-art studio. Often, we’ll have a potluck before discussing the information we’ve collected from our most recent paranormal investigations. The only time we’ve missed this weekly event as a group was last Sunday night, due to our exclusive Carnton plantation visit. Of course, I also missed three weeks back in August when I was up in New York working on Quagmire’s accursed album project.

  But even during my band absence, our vets met together each week to plan our revised PTW show launch for September. So, this recent hiatus was our longest of the year.