by Ally Blue
“Good thing for us they wired this place for electricity when they opened it to the public,” David said, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms.
“Speaking of which, are all the floodlights off inside the fort?” Andre glanced at Cecile, eyebrows raised. “Cecile?”
“They should be,” she answered. “Joanne turned them all off from the office right after we finished setting up.”
Andre nodded. “Good. They’re so bright they’d drown out anything we managed to catch on tape.”
“What would you like Sam and me to do?” Bo asked. He gave his braid a tug.
“I’d like to check out the psychic energy here, if that’s okay,” Sam spoke up before Andre could say anything. “Bo can bring a notebook and record whatever I pick up.”
“I have a better idea. How about if you take the notebook, and I take a video camera and audio recorder?” Bo nodded toward the equipment lined up on the table. “That way if you sense something, we can try to get some concrete evidence of it.”
Sam gave Bo a sharp look. Bo stared back. His expression was relaxed, but the glint in his eyes warned of dire consequences if Sam protested. Clearly, Bo knew Sam had been trying to keep their workload to a minimum. Bo wasn’t having it, and Sam knew from experience that he would argue his position all night if need be. The last thing Sam wanted right now was to fight with Bo over what they would and would not do in this investigation, and Bo knew it.
Sam sighed. “Okay.”
“Great. Let’s grab our stuff and get going.” Setting his clipboard and pencil on the table, Andre picked up one of the video cameras. “Teams are David and Cecile, Sam and Bo, Dean and me. We have stationary cameras set up in all the main hotspots, but I want everyone to take a handheld video camera anyway, along with EMF detectors and an audio recorder. Dean, you take the thermal first. We’ll meet back here in an hour to touch base and you can give it to Cecile then.”
“Gotcha.” Dean took the small two-way radio from his belt and switched it on. “We still using channel two?”
“Yes.” Andre turned on his own radio. “Come on, Dean. You and I will start from this first room on the left. David and Cecile, y’all start on the right. Sam and Bo, you can start up on top of the wall, if you want. The steps are across the courtyard from here.”
With that, the group claimed the necessary equipment from the table and broke up to begin the night’s work. Sam fished a notebook and pen out of a canvas bag lying beside the table. He trailed behind Bo as they crossed the five-cornered courtyard. The place looked eerie and mysterious in the moonlight.
On the other side, they stopped at the bottom of a flight of steep, narrow stone steps. Sam gazed up at the shape of the brick rampart against the night sky. “I think I’ll leave off tuning into the psychic channel until we get up there.”
“I think that’s a good idea.” Bo looked the steps up and down, lips pursed. “Look at this, Sam, there’s a trough worn right down the middle.”
Sam looked. Bo was right. Each step dipped in the center, the stone glinting where centuries of passing feet had worn it smooth. “We’d better be careful climbing these.”
“Absolutely.” Tucking the audio recorder into the front pocket of his jeans, Bo took Sam’s hand and squeezed, then let go. “I’ll go first.”
Sam ascended the steps behind Bo, one hand clutching his notebook and pen and the other pressed to the wall for balance. The brick was cool and rough under Sam’s palm. He let his psychic senses stretch just a little. The residual energy from hundreds—maybe thousands—of deaths swirled through him, making his head swim. He closed his mind to it. Falling down the stairs was not an idea which appealed to him.
Bo turned a stern look to him as he stepped out onto the wide rampart running the full length of the high wall. “I thought you were going to wait until we got up here.”
Sam widened his eyes. “I just wanted to see if I could sense anything. How’d you know what I was doing, anyway?”
“I looked back and you didn’t notice. You had that spaced-out look in your eyes.”
“Oh.”
“Did you feel anything?”
Sam smiled at the excited sparkle in Bo’s eyes. “Nothing unexpected. Just the normal energy from all the people who’ve lived and died here.”
Bo’s relief was clear, even in the dark. “Good. Let me know if that changes.” Switching on the video camera, Bo panned slowly from the steps out over the courtyard. “This is Sam and Bo, Fort Medina, Alabama, walkway on top of the wall,” he recited for the record. “Date is May sixteenth, two thousand and five. Time is nine-forty-two p.m.”
While Bo filmed, Sam wandered over to a deep, narrow notch in the wall. Pressing his free hand against the cool brick, he shut his eyes and let his awareness expand. Years upon years of death left behind a crackling energy which crawled over Sam’s skin like a swarm of ants. As odd and uncomfortable as the sensation could be at times, it was by now a familiar one to Sam. There was nothing sinister in it.
“There’s a lot of energy here,” Sam murmured, opening his eyes and pacing down the walkway away from the steps. “But nothing specific. Have there been sightings here?”
“According to Andre, a headless male figure is often seen here, just standing at the top of the steps for a moment before fading away.”
“Creepy.”
“Yes. According to the stories, a soldier was beheaded here during the Civil War. His head rolled down the steps and left bloodstains you can still see in the daylight.”
Sam turned to face Bo. “Do bloodstains last that long?”
“I have no idea.” Bo glanced away from the camera and grinned. “David thinks they paint over the stains from time to time so they can show people and tell the story of the soldier and his ghost.”
“You know what, for once I think David’s cynicism might be right on target.”
“Maybe so. I—” Bo staggered, his shoulder hitting the wall. “Oh. Damn.”
Alarmed, Sam hurried to his side. “What’s wrong? Is it your leg?”
“No. It aches a little, but no more than it usually does. I just…” Bo leaned against the wall, brow furrowed. “I don’t know.”
Sam took the camera from Bo’s shaking hand and switched it off. “Tell me what happened.”
Bo closed his eyes, his head resting against the bricks behind him. “I saw something. Or rather, I suppose you could say I saw nothing. For a split second, I felt like I wasn’t here, but someplace else. Someplace cold and dark, where the air was too heavy to breathe.” He opened his eyes, staring at Sam with a blend of wonder and dread. “It was so strange, Sam. I felt like I was there forever, but it was all over in less time than it takes to blink, and I knew that.”
The hairs stood up on the back on Sam’s neck. “I had a dream like that earlier. It woke me up when you were downstairs talking to everyone else after they came back from last night’s investigation.”
Bo’s expression hardened. “We’re both getting too much sun and not enough rest, and it’s causing us to hallucinate.”
Sam frowned. “Maybe so, but we don’t know that. After everything we’ve experienced in the past few months, we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this as imagination.”
“Not imagination. Hallucination. There’s a difference.” Pushing away from the wall, Bo held out his hand. “Give me the camera, and we’ll continue our sweep up here.”
Sam handed over the camera, then grabbed Bo’s arm to stop him from moving away. “Bo, come on. Don’t you think we ought to at least consider the possibilities here? You just had a…I don’t know, a vision or something, that was exactly the same as my dream. Don’t you think that’s enough to act on?”
“Act on how, exactly? What do you suggest we do?”
“Leave,” Sam said with a sudden rush of conviction. “Right now. And stay away.”
The look in Bo’s eyes told Sam what he was going to say before he ever spoke. “No. That’s ridiculous. We’
re not leaving. Whether we come back or not is another question, but at this point I think we should, if only to prove to you that there’s no danger here.”
Anger and frustration heated Sam’s cheeks. “I don’t know why you bother to ask my opinion, when it obviously doesn’t matter to you what I think.”
Bo snatched his arm away from Sam’s hand. “Did you sense anything when I had that hallucination? Anything at all?”
“No. Not that that proves anything.” Sam crossed his arms and glared at Bo. “And I notice you didn’t even bother to try and convince me you do care what I think.”
Bo’s eyes narrowed. For a second, Sam thought the argument was about to degenerate into blows. Then the hard, angry expression melted from Bo’s face. He closed the distance between them, wound his free arm around Sam’s neck and kissed him.
“I do care what you think,” Bo declared, his voice soft but firm. “I know I’m opinionated and overbearing at times, but your opinion is always important to me. You are important to me. Never doubt that.”
Sam nodded and forced a smile, but his heart wasn’t in it. He knew Bo loved him, and that he was important in Bo’s life. But when it came to this particular incident, it was clear that his opinion didn’t even register with Bo.
It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. When Bo made up his mind about something, there was no getting through to him. Either he talked himself into changing his own outlook, or it didn’t happen. Sam knew that and accepted it as one of the less endearing aspects of Bo’s personality, but accepting it didn’t make it any easier to deal with.
If Bo noticed Sam’s strained smile, he didn’t let on. He kissed Sam again, fingers caressing his neck, then stepped back. “Okay. Enough of that for now. Let’s finish this up.”
Sam pretended to fall into the half-trance from which he normally connected to the realm of psychic energy, but he couldn’t concentrate enough to actually do it. Instead, he watched Bo through slitted eyelids.
Something wasn’t right. He couldn’t pinpoint what, exactly, but the certainty that everything had just changed in a fundamental way hooked its talons into his gut and wouldn’t let go.
The worst part was, he knew he would figure it out eventually, and part of him very much didn’t want to know.
Chapter Five
The remainder of the night passed without further incident. They wandered the fort separately from the rest of the team, Bo filming while Sam watched him. After the first few minutes, Sam kept his psychic senses partially open, hoping to catch any changes if Bo should have another episode.
A couple of times, Sam saw Bo freeze and stiffen for a moment. Sam let his mind fully open to whatever might be there at those moments, even though Bo never mentioned any more visions. The fort’s energy pulsed and shifted to the extent that Sam couldn’t be entirely sure what he did and didn’t feel, but he never sensed anything alarming, and after a while he began to relax a bit.
Not that he was letting it go. He didn’t feel safe brushing the issue aside, considering BCPI’s experience with the portals and how little they truly knew about the phenomenon. Later, when they were alone, he planned to pin Bo down and have a serious talk. Now, however, wasn’t the time. He’d learned the hard way that pushing Bo about such a subject in the middle of an investigation caused more problems than it solved.
The group assembled at the entry arch at two a.m. and went to work taking down the cameras and putting away the equipment. They worked silently, all anxious to finish and get back to the house.
Sam yawned as he slung the bag full of extension cords into the back of the SUV. “Damn, I’m beat. I hate investigating at night.”
“You said it, brother.” David hefted two bulky camera cases into the vehicle. “That’s the last of it. Where’s Andre and Bo? I need to get in bed in the next ten minutes or I’m gonna collapse and sleep wherever I fall down.”
“I think they’re talking to Joanne.” Sam stepped back and slammed the tailgate shut. He turned around just in time to see Bo and Andre exit the ticket office, followed by a middle-aged woman in a calico dress. “Never mind, here they come.”
Bo, Andre and Joanne walked up as Cecile and Dean joined Sam and David at the back of the SUV. “Hey, Joanne,” Dean said. “Thanks for letting us use that table.”
“Sure thing.” She smiled, crinkling the corners of her eyes. “It’s in the office, so y’all can use it any time you want.”
“That’s very good of you, thank you.” Andre stuck his hand out. “Same time tomorrow night?”
She took his hand and shook it. “That’ll be fine. See you then.”
The group called goodbyes as she hurried to her battered old blue Subaru, got in and cranked the engine. She drove away, waving out the open window.
“Are we ready to go?” Cecile yawned and leaned against David’s shoulder. “I’m worn out.”
Andre nodded. “We’re ready.”
Sam pulled up the middle seat so Cecile and David could crawl into the rear, then locked it back into place and climbed into the middle seat beside Bo. “So, did y’all experience anything interesting?”
“I’ll say.” David leaned forward, folding his arms on the back of Sam’s seat as Andre pulled out of the parking lot. “We saw a mist form in one of the bunkers. I got it on video, and Cecile asked some questions to see if we could catch some EVPs. It was the same bunker where you got that thermal, Dean. May have been the same dude.”
“Cool.” Twisting around, Dean peered over the back of his seat at David. “Get this, y’all, I caught footage of the headless soldier.”
“Oh man, awesome!” David held his hand up over Sam’s shoulder, and Dean reached over to high-five him. “We didn’t see anything there.”
“Yeah, well, I hope the video comes out okay. I saw it pretty well, but it’s probably a residual, and you know how those are. They don’t always show up well on video.”
“We’ll see, I guess.” Andre glanced over his shoulder, a crease between his brows. “Sam and Cecile, did either of you feel a…” He paused, clearly searching for the right word. “A change in the energy of the fort? Nothing spectacular, just a very brief blip before it went back to normal?”
“I did, yes,” Cecile answered, her tone thoughtful. “Twice. Well, maybe three, I’m not sure. The psychic energy here is very strong, and it seemed to fluctuate a lot tonight, so it’s difficult to tell, really.”
The hairs stood up along Sam’s arms. “When did y’all feel this?”
“I don’t remember.” A car pulled out of a nearby drive behind them, its headlight illuminating Andre’s frown in the rearview mirror. “I wrote it down, though. I can look it up later when we’re going through the data from tonight.”
“Same here.” Cecile shifted in her seat, her skirt rustling. “Sam? Did you feel it?”
“No, I didn’t,” he admitted. “Like you said, the energy of this place is kind of hard to read.”
Bo gave him a sharp look, and Sam felt his cheeks flush under that penetrating gaze. Bo knew him well enough to figure out why he’d missed something the other psychics had felt. The hard, tight set to Bo’s features told Sam he’d be hearing exactly what Bo thought of that later.
Sam stifled a groan. He wasn’t in the mood for a lecture from Bo.
The rest of the short ride home passed in silence. Andre pulled into the circular drive of his sister’s beach house and parked right in front of the door. “Okay. Let’s get unloaded as fast as we can. I’m about to fall asleep here.”
“You and everybody else.” Dean opened the passenger side door and stumbled out, yawning. “Damn.”
The group piled out of the SUV and re-converged at the back. David opened the tailgate while Bo dug the house key out of his pocket and went to unlock the front door. Taking two large equipment bags out of the SUV, Sam followed Bo into the house. By the time he set his burden down in the living room, Bo had already gone back outside to help carry things in.
“You’re damn right, we do.” Bo shook loose of Sam’s grip, dark eyes snapping. “Upstairs, after we unload.”
Swallowing his growing anger, Sam nodded. “Fine. But you’re not the only one with something to say.”
He strode out the door before Bo could retort. Cecile gave him a concerned look as he walked past her toward the SUV. He pretended not to see. Cecile had been a good friend and confidante to him ever since Oleander House, but he didn’t feel like telling her about his latest conflict with Bo. He didn’t even know what to tell himself, never mind anyone else. When he thought about it, he could find no good reason why he and Bo should be so angry with each other, but for his own part he couldn’t seem to help it. Something about Bo destroyed his ability to think logically, reducing him to gut reaction. It was frustrating as hell.
Within ten minutes, all the equipment was unloaded and stashed in the corner of the living room where the group had set up shop. Sam said good night to his friends, then stalked up the stairs with Bo at his heels. He could feel the others watching them, most likely wondering what he and Bo were fighting about this time. He didn’t think he could explain it even if he wanted to.
Inside the bedroom, Bo shut the door and leaned against it, arms crossed. “Explain to me why you felt you had to watch me instead of reading the fort’s psychic energy like you were supposed to be doing.”
“Because you were deliberately ignoring something that might be important.” Sam dropped into the rattan chair next to the sliding glass doors and leveled a pointed stare at Bo. “I kept my senses partially extended. But after that vision you had—”
“Hallucination.”
“Vision. After you brushed it off and pretended it was nothing, even though it was exactly like the dream I had, I wanted to keep an eye on you, and I couldn’t do that if I was in full psychic mode.”
“It was nothing. I was fine then, and I’m fine now.” Bo pointed an accusing finger at Sam. “You had a job to do, Sam, and you didn’t do it. There’s no excuse for that.”