Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More

by Rebecca Hamilton

  She was falling in love.

  Sarah pulled the quilts closer to her chin and glanced at her. “I hope you’ll be able to sleep tonight, considering you’re sharing a bed with me and not Thomas Cooper.”

  “You exaggerate, Sarah.” She muttered, pulling the blanket over her head to hide her flushed cheeks. “I don’t expect him to bed me after one kiss.”

  “He obviously wants to, Addy. I saw the way he looks at you.”

  Adelaide’s mind drifted back to the afternoon with Thomas, their affection concealed by the strong gates of the US Armory. His touch was soft, but his fingertips pressed against her flesh with intensity. Her body craved him; she wanted more than just a kiss. “I don’t want to talk about Thomas Cooper anymore, Sarah. Let’s just sleep. We can dwell on my lustful behavior in the morning.”

  Sarah rolled to her side, facing the wall. “Bed him if you want to, I won’t judge your behavior. I’d bed him. Sweet Jesus, Addy, his body looks like it was cut from solid granite.”

  Adelaide stared into the darkness of the bedroom, her cheeks flushing at the memory of his touch. Thomas was strong and sinewy, his body tight from the physical labor demanded from his employ at the Armory. But she’d felt his erection through his trousers, the response of his body when she kissed him and pressed her body against his. He wanted her, as much—if not more—as she wanted him.

  “I’ll issue no further comment on Thomas Cooper’s body, Sarah. Go to sleep.” Adelaide pressed her fingers to her lips, thinking of the way he’d kissed her. She wanted that again—and soon.

  And she wanted more than just the soft caress of his lips.

  * * *

  ADELAIDE AWOKE WITH a start. It seemed like she’d just fallen asleep seconds ago, her body jolting and twitching as she drifted into slumber. She wasn’t entirely certain what ripped her from her desirous dreams of Thomas; it sounded like wet wood popping and crackling in a fireplace.

  Being careful not to wake Sarah, she crawled out from underneath the covers and crept across the bedroom, stepping over the floorboards she knew would creak under her weight. Pressing herself against the window, she peered into the inky blackness outside. She could barely make out the nearest Armory buildings in the moonlight, but didn’t see anything amiss out in the street below.

  She crawled back into the bed, drawing the covers up to her chin. Sarah murmured unintelligible words in her sleep and snuggled further down the mattress. Adelaide cast one final glance towards the window and pulled the covers over her head.

  It was difficult to fall back asleep.

  * * *

  Monday, October 17th, 1859

  “ADDY, WAKE UP.”

  Someone was shaking her shoulders; her eyes shot open. “Robert? What’s wrong? Has the baby come early?”

  He started rousing Sarah. "No, something has gone wrong at the Armory.”

  Adelaide raised up on one elbow and stared at him, her pulse pounding so hard it felt like it might be visible in her throat. Thomas worked at the Armory. What if something had happened to him, what if he was hurt? “What’s going on?”

  “Mr. Boerly has been shot.” Robert peered out the window facing the Armory. “Luke said on his way to work this morning a man told him to turn around and go home at once.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sarah’s eyes widened. “Is Mr. Boerly–”

  “I don’t know.” Robert’s voice sounded hesitant, like he knew more than he was letting on. “You need to get dressed. Poppa wants us ready to go to the cellar in a moment’s notice.”

  With that said, he left the room, leaving the sisters to exchange frantic glances. Adelaide’s body trembled as she crawled out of bed and, for a moment, she thought her knees wouldn’t hold her upright when she stood. She’d been warned she’d see death. Was this it?

  The loud chime of the Lutheran church’s bell shrieked out from Church Street. She jumped, her breath catching in her throat—the bell never rang this early. Each strike, each continual peal, was a sign: a warning. Whatever was happening was bad.

  She glanced at the time piece pendant Poppa had given her for her sixteenth birthday. It was nearly seven o’clock in the morning.

  She threw her corset on over her chemise and glanced at Sarah. Her sister looked terrified, her hands visibly shaking as she buttoned her dress. “Addy, what could possibly be going on? Why would someone shoot Mr. Boerly?”

  Adelaide pulled a petticoat over her head and knotted it around her waist. “I don’t know, Sarah. Maybe it was an accident.” She grabbed her work dress and hastily pulled it on over her petticoats. Not even bothering to pull back her hair, she raced from the bedroom. Sarah was only a step behind.

  The church bell was still ringing.

  Poppa was seated at the table, his hands cupped around a mug of coffee. The smile on his face upon their entrance clearly betrayed the worry in his eyes. Before he could say a word, however, there was a pounding on the door. “Elijah! Eli, open up!”

  Adelaide recognized the voice: it was Mr. Frankel, Annie’s father.

  Her father nearly upended his coffee cup as he rose from the table, opening the door and motioning him inside. “Philip, is there news?”

  Sweat trickled down Mr. Frankel’s face. “Eli, they’ve taken prisoners. They have men held in the Armory buildings.”

  “Who are they? What do they want?”

  Mr. Frankel shook his head. “Only Mr. Barry and Mr. Young have spoken with them and Mr. Barry was almost shot where he stood. Young says that he was on his way to the Rifle Works when they stopped him. They told him they were here to free the slaves of Virginia.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Eli.” Mr. Frankel stared at Adelaide’s father. “Young says that it’s Ossawattomie Brown.”

  Sarah grabbed her hand. Adelaide had only heard the name Ossawattomie Brown once before. His real name was John Brown; he murdered several men in Ossawattomie, Kansas, not long ago. He butchered and murdered them in their homes, claiming that he was an abolitionist set on redeeming the wrongs of slavery.

  Mr. Frankel continued, unconcerned that Sarah and Adelaide stood in the room. “He handpicked some of his prisoners, drove them in straight from Charlestown. The rest are workers from the Armory. Grabbed them as they arrived to work.”

  Adelaide felt lightheaded. Thomas.

  “Boerly?” Her father’s voice sounded hoarse, as if he already knew the answer to his query but felt he needed to ask anyway.

  Mr. Frankel shook his head.

  Poppa didn’t respond.

  “Eli, we may have a chance yet.” Mr. Frankel lowered his voice. “We moved those weapons up from the Armory in the spring, remember? When the Shenandoah threatened to flood again?”

  Poppa nodded slowly. “Yes, of course. We stored them up towards Bolivar.”

  “We have to get those guns.” Mr. Frankel hesitated. “We still don’t know how many raiders there are. They planned this well. The first thing they did was capture every gun in the Arsenals. They’re in the Rifle Works, too.”

  Poppa straightened slightly, his droopy, bulldog face wrinkled in a frown. He looked angry. Determined. “Robert.”

  Her brother dashed into the room, no doubt listening from the hallway the entire time. “Yes, Poppa?”

  “I want you to get the flintlock from the trunk beside my bed. Mr. Frankel and I are going to see about arming the town.”

  Robert’s eyes widened. “Poppa, I want to go along.”

  “No.” Their father’s voice was firm, it was the tone he used when the conversation or debate was over. “You need to stay here and take care of your mother and sisters. Tell Luke and Levi they are in your charge. Your word is as good as mine.”

  Adelaide felt like her feet were rooted to the floor. She exchanged a glance with Sarah and Robert. Neither spoke.

  Robert followed their father to the door and, without another word, closed it behind him and Mr. Frankel. He turned the lock and then rested his foreh
ead against the frame, exhaling the air from his body with an audible groan. Finally, after a moment, he turned to her and said, “I’m going downstairs to the store.”

  “Robert, no!” Adelaide stood in front of him, blocking him from moving away from the door. “You heard Poppa: you have to stay here with us. What do you expect me to do if they get inside? Stab them with a crochet hook?”

  Robert grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her aside. “Addy, they could come up the backstairs from the store and right into here. If they really want to get into the house, they will. But I’m going to stop them from stealing from us as they break in and murder you.”

  He pushed past her and stormed out of the kitchen.

  She chased after him. “Robert, I’m serious. What if someone tries to get in through this door? What do you expect me to do unarmed? Give me a gun. I’ll shoot them myself.”

  He burst into their father and Rebekah’s room without knocking. Rebekah and their youngest brother, Levi, looked up from the book she was reading to him. Without looking at their stepmother or even acknowledging her presence, he walked to a trunk against the wall and pushed the lid back.

  “What’s going on?” Rebekah closed the book, keeping the place with her finger. “Robert, what are you doing?”

  “My father told me I needed to protect the house.” Robert grabbed the flintlock and powder pouch out of the trunk and kicked the lid down. “I’m going downstairs to keep them from coming in the store.”

  “Stop him.” She stared at Rebekah, willing the woman to, for once, do something other than sit and stare blankly. “Tell him he needs to stay up here and protect us. There’s no point in worrying about the store if we’re all dead.”

  “Adelaide, protecting the store is protecting our home. Without incoming money, we can’t well survive. Can we?”

  Adelaide glared at her, her voice frozen in her throat from the slag’s mind-numbing idiocy. Rebekah was barely older than she, yet felt it was her position to boss them all around; acting like she knew what was in their best interest. Adelaide didn’t think Rebekah would know what was in their best interest if it hit her in the face.

  “Arm yourself with the fire poker.” Robert reasoned, pushing past her again. “Stay near the door.”

  Adelaide opened her mouth and then promptly closed it. There was no arguing with the situation at that point. She turned to the fireplace and grabbed the poker from the stand.

  Sarah followed her back into the hallway. “Useless hag. The only orders I’ve ever seen her give have been to us, you know that as well as I. If you ask me, she was after Robert the whole time and only settled for Poppa.”

  “You don’t want to know what I think.” Adelaide shoved the poker into her sister’s hands. “Watch the door.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Adelaide returned to her bedroom and peered out the window. “I want to know what’s happening. We have to be able to see the street and I want to know if Thomas is okay.”

  “Get away from the window!” Sarah sounded panicked. “Addy, they’ll shoot you, just like they shot poor Mr. Boerly.”

  “I’m more concerned about the spirit of Mr. Boerly. Cut down like that? In the street?” Adelaide couldn’t tear her eyes away from the silent Armory buildings. What if all the workers were dead? How close had her brother Luke come to joining them in their captivity? And Thomas…

  “Addy, please!” Sarah’s voice was already at a near sob; she’d always been a hysterical child. “Please leave the window!”

  She could see movement along the fence surrounding the Armory. From the angle and distance, Adelaide couldn’t make out who the people were: whether they were raiders, citizens or, worse, spirits. She had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, like her soul had frozen against her spine. She was hardly conscious of stepping away from the window and allowing Sarah to drag her back to the kitchen. Her vision was clouded, her mind practically throbbing from the heavy, gnawing sensation that they were on the cusp of some nameless atrocity. Something was coming.

  And it was worse than Ossawattomie Brown.

  Sarah pushed the poker into her hands. “What do we do if they come in?”

  “We have bigger problem than that: Boerly. You know as I do that shot like that—dead in an instant—leaves something behind. His spirit is going to be lost. Confused.” Adelaide frowned. She reached back and tied her hair with a piece of cord. “It could be vengeful. The last thing we want is some creature roaming around town, bent on going after flesh and blood.”

  Her sister buried her face in her hands. “I wish Poppa would come back. I want him to come back and tell us what to do.”

  “We know what to do.” Adelaide tightened her grip on the poker. “Be alert. Be cautious. And always be attuned to Those we can’t see.”

  Sarah nodded.

  Poker in hand, Adelaide walked back to their bedroom and pulled her pocket watch out from under her pillow. When she returned to the kitchen, Sarah was just finishing up a salt circle around the outer extremes of the room. “I wish we’d thought to ask Lucy how to do a containment spell.”

  “We didn’t think this would happen.”

  “I bet it works better than salt.”

  Adelaide sat down on a stool near the stove and closed her eyes, trying to calm herself down to the point where she could feel the presence of spirits. It was dangerous to open herself up like that, but what other option was there? They were supposed to stay inside. She’d have to lure them in…if they were close enough to the Ferry Lot to respond.

  The odor of sage tingled her nostrils. She opened her eyes; Sarah sank down against the far wall and leaned her head against it, binding the herb with red cord. “Will it be over soon?”

  “I’m sure it will be,” Adelaide exhaled deeply, the sage tickled her nose, “but that’s when our troubles will begin. Annie was right: the other spirits were an omen. They knew this was coming.”

  “This damned town is marked.”

  Adelaide didn’t respond. Maybe it was. Her mind was racing in a hundred different directions: worrying about the town, worrying about the raiders, but moreover, worrying about Thomas. It consumed her, the worry that he could be laying in the Armory complex, bleeding—dying—she couldn’t handle it. Something deep in her brain pricked and pulsed. She’d have to face spirits tonight.

  And she couldn’t handle it if one was him.

  The uncomfortable silence of the house was occasionally broken by the crackle of gunfire out on the street. Adelaide wanted to clasp her hands over her ears and block it all out. Anything could be happening out there. Boerly was dead. Men were prisoners in the complex. What about her father? Annie’s father? Jesus, everyone could be dead. She and Sarah wouldn’t know until it was too late: until the raiders came for them.

  Or the spirits.

  The rays of the morning sun did little to cheer her. The only good thing about daylight was the fact spirits couldn’t utilize shadows to their benefit. They had no place to hide. In the same regard, though, there was no cloak of darkness to cover the potential carnage in the streets. She had to find a way to keep busy. Distracted.

  Without speaking to her sister, she set the poker on the table and pulled some crusty bread from a box near the door. She unwrapped several pieces of pork from brown paper and tossed them in an iron pan. Using a knife, she scooped lard out of a barrel and dropped it in the pan with a satisfying plop. After she placed a lid on the pan, she set it on the hot embers in the fireplace, burrowing it down so that it would cook faster. While the meat cooked, she used the knife to cut a wheel of cheese into smaller portions.

  Sarah watched in silence. She slowly got to her feet and poured water from a wooden bucket into a kettle and placed it on top of the cook stove.

  “Coffee?” Adelaide asked.

  She nodded.

  They prepared the food in silence. Adelaide scooped water out of the bucket with a mug for Levi and began to distribute the food onto white porce
lain plates. A piece of cheese, a slice of meat, and a hunk of bread for each plate. Juggling two plates in one hand and one in the other, she carried the food down the hall to her stepmother and brothers. Luke and Levi dug in to the food like ravenous dogs. Rebekah, on the other hand, smiled and set the plate next to her on the bed.

  “You have to eat.” Adelaide knew she sounded uninterested. She didn’t actually care what ‘Mother’ did.

  Rebekah looked down at her swollen belly. “I know. But–”

  Adelaide interrupted her. “You have to eat. If Poppa finds out that you pushed food away in your condition, he won’t be pleased.”

  She returned to the kitchen and brought mugs of coffee in for Rebekah and Luke; Sarah was behind her with Levi’s water. Even though he was eleven and more than welcome to have coffee, he insisted he thought the drink tasted like boiled feet and would have no part of it.

  She didn’t give Rebekah the opportunity to make additional comments on eating or not eating or, more likely, what she thought Sarah and Adelaide should be doing to pass the time. She set the coffee mug on the bedside table with enough restraint as to not spill the hot liquid and then left the room.

  Even just the thought of talking irritated her. It was easier to take lunch in the kitchen. Setting her plate next to the fire poker and her pocket watch on the table, she nibbled on a portion of cheese. No doubt all over Harpers Ferry, other women and children were doing the same: holed up and hiding, slinking around their homes like trembling rabbits. The men were out handling things. For Christ sake, the Ferry was a city. Robert wasn’t out running through the woods shooting wildlife, improving his marksmanship on a daily basis. They’d last fired Poppa’s flintlock when they were twelve—and she was a damn better shot.

  Sarah held her bread to her mouth, but didn’t take a bite. “We should bring Robert a plate.”

  “I don’t think he wants us downstairs.”

  “But he might be hungry.”