Deadly Night (14 page)

“
Yes…follow me upstairs.”

Man, she didn’t want to do this. Despite having to continue her stay in this place, we could all see Marie’s terrible fear. It was almost like tattling on the ghosts would incur some dire consequences.

Tom appeared at the top of the stairs holding his infrared camera in one hand and a more advanced EMF detector in the other. He stepped aside to let us up, all the while Jackie and I shot numerous photographs around us. In a freaky situation like this, neither of us cared if the lights are on or not. Anomalies might still show up....or so we hope.

“
Right here…it happened right after I turned the hall light off and stepped toward my bedroom,” said Marie, her voice shaking.

“
Then it grabbed you, and pulled you
down
the stairs?” asked Jackie, her tone incredulous.

“
Yes, it did…can we move away from this spot, if you don’t mind?”

She didn’t wait for us to follow her down the hall, moving to Kelly’s bedroom. Inside, Matt and Kelly sat on the floor playing a card game.

“
I’ve got two voice recorders and video cams set up in both kids’ rooms, and another recorder and camera set up in Marie’s bedroom,” Tom advised, clearing his throat when Marie shot him a wary glance.

Don’t worry, sister…Tom may look like a nerdy perv, but I seriously doubt the dude rummaged through your panty drawer.

“
What have you picked up so far?” asked Marie, posing this question to Fiona. “Anything important yet?”

“
Yes,” said Fiona. She paused and looked above her, listening to some disembodied voice unavailable to the rest of us. “One of the spirits here is talking to me…her name is ‘Rachel’.”

She moved over to the spot where Marie claimed she’d been attacked.

“
It’s not her…she’s not the one who tried to hurt you,” my wife continued, looking back at all of us, standing just outside Kelly’s bedroom door. The kids continued their game inside the room. “It’s a male, but not one normally from here. Rachel talks about the others, and they don’t want the male spirit to hurt you. But he’s more powerful than they are…. She says Josiah, a slave spirit who resides here, is afraid of this other spirit. He calls it a demon…but Rachel says it’s not. It’s just a bad man.”

For some reason I thought of the dude with red hair. Weird association among predatory males, I guess. Or, could it be some crazy connection in my warped mind that tied a psychopathic killer to a psychopathic ghost?

Fiona looked over at me, a queer expression on her face while her bottom lip quivered. I quickly thought about something else to distract her: Shelby and Porkchop. Probably sitting on the porch wondering when we’d be leaving Soon, my dear boys…hopefully very soon.

“
I’d like to speak with Matt for a moment,” she said, stepping past us into Kelly’s room. Matt stood up while Kelly looked on. “Do you see them around you?”

He nodded, looking down at the floor.

“
There’s one in the room right now,” he advised, his tone soft, like he carried fears similar to his mom. “It’s standing next to me.” He pointed to his left side.

Fiona snapped two quick photos without warning. It surprised both mother and child.

“
Sorry, Matt,” she said, kneeling down to give him a hug. “You poor baby…we’ll find a way to make it go away. We’ll make them
all
go away.”

***

Tom kept everything on track, reminding us that we still had a planned exploration of the grounds to complete before our scheduled departure at midnight. As much as I enjoyed the inside investigation, I really couldn’t wait to look around outside.

Yeah, all cynicism aside it was a necessary evil. In the literal sense.

I could live with a quick tour of the immediate grounds around the house. But, no way in hell was I going back into the barn. My last visit there almost earned me a trip to the hospital. A frigging pitch fork nearly hit me in the head—and I’m not saying something or someone threw it at me. It could’ve just fallen off its hook by some natural means. Just the same, I had no intention of finding out the truth on that one. I didn’t want anyone else in our NVP group to explore that spot either.

It may seem like some real bullshit here that I could bravely face the crazy asshole who followed me home a couple of nights ago, and then be such a pussy when it comes to dark shadows that look like human forms. Well, the dude from the other night turned around and left, so it’s hard to say what I’d have done had the black Buick tried to run me down. Not to mention I’d readily fight to the death to protect Fiona and the boys from any menace, alive or dead. Period. End of story.

But, something sinister that I can neither see nor grab around the neck, and on somebody else’s turf? That’s a different scenario entirely. An icy touch from a shadow person can penetrate the heaviest clothing and painfully cut through flesh and bone.

Luckily, other than Porkchop’s skittishness the outside investigation was pretty much uneventful this time. No creepy feelings that indicated a hostile entity followed us around. None at all. I guess all of the ornery suckers decided to stay inside the house tonight.... We’ll have to wait and see if we caught anything with our cameras and audio recorders, since Tom’s infrared came up empty as well.

When we finally called it quits, Marie seemed very reluctant to let us go home. It’s quite understandable after being stalked and brutally harassed by an invisible menace for weeks on end. Fiona gave her a warm hug while glancing at me. From under the porch light’s bug-flickering glow, I saw something in my wife’s eyes…something that would stay with me for much of the next week.

Our own hidden menace is getting closer, ready to strike again. Perhaps someone dearer to us than those we’ve already lost will be next. The terror in Fiona’s expression confirms this as a real premonition.... I hope I’m not being an idiot by keeping my ‘night stalker’ knowledge to myself. Especially in light of what she told me earlier this afternoon, after she informed me that the cops don’t have any strong leads yet. “It’s all a big game to this guy,” she had said, worriedly. “The longer it takes to catch him, the less fear he has of being discovered. I believe he’ll raise the stakes...soon.”

I pray she’s dead wrong about that. I’m in no hurry to personally understand Marie’s point of view. Only instead of ‘stalked and harassed’, it could be ‘hunted and killed’.

“
Well look-ee here…Jimmy’s all churched up!”

Justin is the first to greet us at Sunday’s memorial service for Candi, Johnny, and Brenda. Held at West End Presbyterian Church, the place is packed. Celebrities and common folks like us, innumerable...or so it seemed. Another likeable quality of Candi’s, since the lawyers handling her estate knew firsthand she’d prefer being honored along with her hairdressers, two of her closest friends in life to join her in death’s memoriam. Classy lady, despite what anyone thought of her name.

“
Yep, you’re seeing me in the only suit I own,” I told him, standard handshake this time, given the locale and circumstance. “But I’ve got nothin’ on you, bro!”

Very true. Fiona readily agreed, unable to resist a hand brush against the right sleeve of Justin’s designer suit. Not that my pinstripes didn’t catch an eye. But he looked just like Michael Vick on the pages of Sports Illustrated, right before he signed with the Eagles when he got out of prison. Justin trimmed up his beard, too…so suave.

Jackie could scarcely contain her excitement about ‘sexy Justin’, announcing his dress details to us when we first arrived, followed by a faux fan wave as if she might faint from desire. This, despite her partner Michelle standing nearby. Even Angie noticed, standing nearby and smiling in admiration. Poor Tom and Tony, both dressed in impeccable suits as well, received no such fanfare. Not that it’d matter outside of our small circle of friends anyway. With so many pretty people from the music industry in attendance, just those who looked like they belong in that group got a second look. Justin, a GQ looking African-American couldn’t help but get noticed in a predominately white affair. The rest of us just sort of blended in with our surroundings.

As for me, my only concern is looking halfway comfortable in a suit. Hate it, I do. But since it’s to honor our friends today, I’m happy to wear it for them.

The ushers moved us up near the front, just a few rows behind Candi’s and Brenda’s families, who took the trip out west from New Jersey and Vermont. Fiona had met Candi’s mom previously, Shirley Miller, so before sitting next to me she went up to her and gave her a tearful hug. Really, an intense and poignant moment, since shared grief and hoped for healing are the only noble reasons to be here. Though I didn’t grieve like Fiona and Candi’s mom did, I hurt a lot more right then, watching them.

Candice Miller, as the minister later told the audience, loved life. She lived it fully, as evident in her music career that she pursued seriously after a failed marriage in her early twenties. Her divorce set a fire under her ass, giving her inspiration for her songwriting that later fueled her career as a country artist. Grammys and CMAs already in abundance, what stood out most about Candi was her steadfast devotion to her family back in Jersey, and the cherished friends she made in Nashville during the past few years.

Unlike many of the folks Fiona does readings for and has associated with in the music industry over the years, Candi was completely genuine. It seems ironic that she grew up in an area where people are supposed to be a little cold and unapproachable. Not her. An open book, she reminded me of folks born and raised in rural Tennessee and Kentucky. Country fit her, like Loretta Lynn, Dolly Pardon, and people like that.

It’s why I never understood why she changed her name to Candi Starr. Sounds like a pole stripper down at
Déjà Vu
. Fiona told me a while back that her first manager made her change it. He said it’d help her rise above the competition.

Her talent alone did that.

“
Do you believe in God?”

Justin asked me this after we’d all paid our final respects to our three departed friends and exited the main sanctuary. Johnny was scheduled to be buried in Mississippi this Tuesday, while Candi and Brenda would be buried on the east coast later this week.

“
That’s a strange question to be asking in a place like this.”

Yeah, I know it isn’t, and Justin snickered at my response.

“
Well do you?”

“
Yes…I believe in something beyond us,” I told him. We moved out of the main aisle to wait on the girls, who were blocking traffic while chatting with the Dixie Darlings. “I grew up Catholic, and I flirted with the holy-rollers when I dated a Born Again Christian in high school. But, I relate best to the ideology of Thomas Paine.”

“
What, a frigging deist?”

He made it sound so bad, and I would’ve called him on it, since I figured his religion had to include the Greek pantheon, since he’s such a dedicated hedonist. But, his iPhone beeped with an incoming picture message from his latest girlfriend, Lakisha.

“
Yes, a deist, and proud to be one, I might add!”

Justin simply nodded, while chuckling at the image she sent. He totally missed my charade at sounding offended.

“
Here, check this out, dude.”

He showed me the image on the screen. Him dancing snake-like with a white turban on his head, shirtless…not sure what else was missing since the camera focused on his naked muscular torso and chiseled facial features. And the turban, which I could tell was a bath towel wrapped around his head.

“
Rebel Soul?”

“
Don’t pay attention to that, man—just the picture,” said Justin, placing his forefinger over his email user name, as if that’d make it somehow disappear from my mind. “It’s Jafar, dude!”

“
Okay, Jafar…Rebel Soul,” I teased. “So, when did you decide to pick up the Chippendale strut?”

That got him, at least for a moment. Just a glint of fire in his eyes, before he started chuckling. He’s got a great sense of humor, always.

“
Man, this was taken a month ago, when Lakisha and I visited her family in Miami. We were goofing off in the hotel, and I just wrapped a towel around my head, acting like some stupid terrorist and shit,” he explained. “She just got around to downloading the video to her phone and now sent it to me, I guess.”

“
Hmmm…you make a good terrorist—really you do,” I said. “I should probably keep an eye out for your box cutters, huh?”

“
Dude, unlike you
I’m
Christian! I ain’t lookin’ forward to no seventy virgins when I die!”

He feigned indignation, louder than I think he intended. Some of the crowd passing by us turned to look, their scowls reminding us both we conversed in a church lobby—not the latte line at Starbucks.

“
So you say…Rebel Soul!”

“
Shhh!!
Hey, Fiona likes that name, man!”

He looked back toward the sanctuary, but she and the other females were still talking. The crowd gathered around them and the Darlings quadrupled in size. We, the guys, could be stranded here in the lobby indefinitely.

“
That’s how I came to really know ya’ll,” he continued, turning back to face me. “After Sherri Taylor’s party, I ran into Fiona on that Civil War chat site she talks about. Rebel Soul was what drew her interest, and then we found out we were both big Franklin Civil War buffs. The rest you know, man…the Union Army ghosts that used to parade in my Granny’s backyard off of 8th Avenue in Nashville, and other stuff.”