Shadows of Eternity: The Children of the Owls (Frost and Flame Book 2)

by Rick Kueber

  She whispered loudly to the girls as she and the embers crumbled into ashes and dust and disappeared into the cracks between the brick-laid floor of the pit.

  “Monsters do exist...Save the children, before it's too late.” Her voice echoed in the nearly empty room, and her words haunted the girls' thoughts.

  “You two ready to get outta here?” I said, poking my head around the corner. The two jumped as if I had thrown a bucket of ice water on them and I couldn't help but laugh, which earned me a pair of 'brow-beating' scowls and spluffs.

  “Cheese and crackers!” Jennifer yelled out. “You scared the crap outta me!”

  “Ya think?” Katie mocked Jennifer's sarcastic comment from earlier in the night.

  “Let me gather myself together... and yeah, I think we are ready to go.” Jenn's voice trembled. “Yeah, but we aren't finished here. We have to come back.” Katie added with conviction. “There are children here, and monsters... we have to see this through.”

  “I will talk to the Heerdinks, but I am pretty confident that we will be welcomed back.” I didn't even question Katie's comment about monsters. Our brush with Ashley's shadow demon taught me that monsters may not be what we have been taught they are, but they are as real as you and I.

  The next half hour or so was spent gathering up our equipment and packing it safely away. Our black and silver hard cases were stacked neatly near the entrance, and after taking a second run through the building to be sure we hadn't left anything behind, we headed back to the main level. The five of us gathered in the open bar room, under the dim green light of exit signs and erratic bouncing flashlight beams.

  “Thank you both so much for having us out. It was a night to remember, most definitely.” I said as I shook the hands of Barb and Del. “I hope we can schedule a follow-up investigation very soon. There is a lot happening here, and we have only scratched the surface of this mystery.”

  “Of course! You are welcome back anytime... We are very impressed with your professionalism and we've seen some things tonight, we have never seen before.” Barb said with excitement.

  “Yes, we would love to have you back soon... I will just have to let the trustees know ahead of time, so they can plan for it... normally the bar doesn't close until 1, and we have a hard time getting everyone outta here before 2” Del added.

  “Sure thing. Plus we hope to be back soon to let you know if we caught any evidence.” Jenn explained.

  “I'm really looking forward to that! I hope you guys caught something.” said Barb. “We want to have something to show the trustees and the officers, so they can see it was worth while having you out.” Del finished her thought.

  “I'd be surprised if we don't have any evidence. It was a very active night.” Katie chimed in correctly. It was rare that we had been to an actively haunted location and not captured some form of evidence, in fact many times when we left a place certain it wasn't haunted, we would later find bone-chilling evidence proving that we were ‘dead wrong’. (Pun intended)

  We shook hands, said our good-byes and as always, Jenn passed out her hugs. The equipment was loaded in the cars and we were about to leave when Katie stopped and looked up at the old building. Her eyes grew wide, and her jaw dropped open as she covered her open mouth with her hand and gasped.

  “You okay, chica?” Jenn asked, looking from Katie to the building and back again. Katie's huge brown eyes filled with tears, but didn't spill down her cheeks. “I know it wasn't real, but I swear I just saw a woman in a dress falling from the second floor of the building.”

  “I didn't see or hear anything, but I wasn't looking the right direction.” I said sheepishly. “It was silent... but she was a ghostly white, and fell almost in slow motion, but not quite... either way, it was a terrible thing to see.”

  I remembered back to when I had seen a troubled young man jump from a parking garage in downtown Evansville, in such desperation that he felt he had no other option. The sound of his body smacking the pavement, like a raw steak dropped on a tile floor, still haunts me to this day.

  “Just another question that needs answered, and another reason we need to get back here as ASAP!” I meant every word I said.

  “And we need to get with Theo before we come back. There is something evil there.” Jenn said looking to Katie with a look of knowing more than she was saying.

  “Okay girls, what's going on?” I had to know everything. It was the only way to prepare for our return. “Well... when you left us alone in the boiler room, Ash came back for a 'visit', I suppose you could say.” Katie shrugged her shoulders looking down as her foot stirred the bits of loose gravely pavement. “She said there are 'monsters' here and to 'save the children' before it was too late.' Not sure what all that means, but I agree. We should get Theo's help.”

  I was disappointed and relieved that I hadn't been a part of Ashley's second visit that evening. I wanted to know every detail, but instead of asking for more, I simply continued on in a way that let them know I didn't doubt them, and trusted them 100%.

  “Jenn, you want to try to dig up some research on this place, and maybe you can help too.” I said turning to Katie. “After we review the audio, video and photos, and get that all put together for an evidence reveal, maybe you two can find some more history to share with Del and Barb. That way, if by some rare chance we don't have any evidence, we might still be able to offer them something.”

  “Sure, that could be pretty interesting, trying to dig up

  some dirt on dead people.” She said jokingly. I knew it was only in an attempt to be humorous, and avoid the obvious fearfactor that this haunting already had instilled in us.

  “Great. Then, when I get finished going over my footage and audio, I'll contact Theo and see if he can make himself available. You want to come over tomorrow afternoon or evening and use the computers in the office to review everything, as a team?” I blurted it all out at once.

  “That'd be good. Then we can get each other's opinions on what we think is legit.” said Katie. “Sounds good to me too... I'll give you two a text when I am awake and back among the land of the living.” Jenn said in her typically sarcastic and somewhat morbid way.

  We parted ways for the remainder of the morning. It was already going on 5am, and I didn't expect to hear from either of them until, at the soonest, tomorrow evening.

  Chapter 6 VOICES of the DEAD

  I had fallen asleep as quickly as I had turned the nightstand lamp off. A deep and restful sleep was what I needed, and it is exactly what I had, until my phone rang at 2pm on Sunday. I rolled over and pulled it off of the charger.

  “Hello?” My raspy and groggy voice struggled its way out.

  “Hey Rick! I didn't wake you did I?” The overly cheerful voice on the other end belonged to Barb Heerdink. “Um, no... I've been awake for a little while already. What's up?” I tried to sound more awake than I was, though I don't think I played it off as well as I had hoped.

  “Well, I just wanted to say thanks for coming out last night, and I had to call you because I have a couple of pictures from last night for you to look at and because of a conversation I had with my friend Linda. She and her husband Fred, who is the local President, actually live next door.” Barb spoke, and I could hear something inside her bubbling over. I wasn't ready for a real conversation, but I felt the need to find out what had caused her to be so energetic and peppy this ….ugh... afternoon. I couldn't believe it was already 2pm.

  “You're welcome, and thank you for having us. It was a great investigation and the team is getting together later to start reviewing our evidence. So, send me the pictures and we would love to have a look at them. Now... tell me about this conversation you had.” I was now up and moving around. As I walked into the kitchen to put on a pot of overly strong Colombian coffee, Barb began to tell me about her discovery.

  “Okay, I usually help out during the lunch shift here at the Owl's on Sundays, and even if I'm not, I'm always here. So I wasn't working
today, but I couldn't wait to get there and tell all of my friends about the crazy shadows and everything last night. So, I was waiting for any of my friends to show up, and Linda was the first. She came in for lunch and I was getting her a refill on her coffee, I just do that kinda thing even when I'm not working, and out of the blue she actually asked about our 'ghost hunt'…” Barb's tale had been broken and a bit scattered, but I knew she was getting to a point, and I was following her. I could also tell that the more she spoke, the more excited she was getting.

  “Go on...” I tossed in politely, to show her that I was listening and interested. “Well, I was shocked that she showed an interest that we had you guys out last night. She isn't a fan of spooky things. But, when she asked about it, I was so surprised, that I sat the coffee pot down, and I sat down too, right there at her table.” While she spoke, I poured the first of many cups of my own coffee, and added a few cups of sugar and French vanilla creamer. Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration about the sugar, but not too far off. “So I sat there for a few minutes and told her about the investigation last night, but left out the scary details, and I told her about the history that Del and I had found about the Owl's Nest, and the building, and the family that lived here before. That's when she said something that shocked me.”

  “You have my complete attention.” I was on the edge, waiting to hear what the woman had told Barb that was not only shocking, but could possibly relate to our paranormal investigation.

  “Alright, here is the jist of it… She said she used to know a woman named Allison Bettiger! And she was supposed to be directly related to the Bettiger's that owned this place. Not only that, She said she was pretty sure that she was still alive, in her 90's, but alive... well, that's what I wanted to tell you. I just thought you might want to know.” Barb finished up and I could feel her waiting to hear my response.

  “That is pretty incredible. I have to admit. I'm going to share that with the girls, when they get here, and maybe they can do some research on her too.” I was actually quite intrigued by the thought of a living relative to the family that had so many tragedies. “Thanks Barb. I'm going to have to get off of here and get the office opened up and ready for our review.” Although what that mostly meant was opening the door to the spare room, turning on the computers, and hooking up the video monitor. We said our good-byes and hung up the phones.

  The girls arrived together just after 4pm, packing in their cameras and digital recording devices. We crowded into the ten foot by thirteen foot room. Office style work stations lined one wall and two desktop computers and one laptop filled the space. There were two large, high backed, black leather office chairs, and one smaller one. I snatched up the smaller one positioned in front of the laptop, calling it as mine, and left the two more comfortable ones for the girls.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” I asked them both in one question. “Dr. Pepper?” Jenn asked. “Bottled water?” was Katie's choice.

  “Yep.” I said pointing to each of them. I quickly returned from the kitchen with their drinks, and a Mt. Dew for myself in only a couple of minutes, but by then, the two had selected their computers and were already hooking up headphones and digital audio recorders. Once we were all situated, I'm sure it would have been a sight to see from an outside point of view, the three of us lined up wearing headphones and holding them tight to our ears as we listened, every minute or two stopping our recordings to back them up and give a second or third listen to a clip in question. About thirty minutes into the audio analyzation, I was listening to the file that was recorded in the 'pool room'. After replaying the clip nearly half a dozen times, I paused it and slowly removed my headset. Turning towards Jenn and Katie, who sat to my left, I watched them for a few minutes until they felt my stare and stopped what they were doing.

  Katie smiled at me and said, “What?”

  “You get something?” Jenn asked. “Oh, I just want you to hear something... just to see if you hear the same thing I do?” I said, as I handed Jenn my headphones. “This is down in the basement. Remember when we heard that loud metallic bang?”

  “Oh yeah!” Jenn said enthusiastically. “I have been dying to hear that playing through the program, and I thought if we analyzed it we could, maybe, figure out what made the sound.”

  “I don't think we need to analyze anything here... it seems pretty obvious to me, but I want you two to hear it to get your impression.” I was quite impressed with the clarity of this particular clip.

  Jenn slid the headphones in place and cupped her hands over them. I pressed the play button, and watched as she closed her eyes tightly. Her lips moved with our voices as they played out on the recording. When the interesting part played, her eyes and mouth opened wide.

  Jenn pulled the headphones back and rested them around her neck, “Shut up! ... Are you freakin' kidding me?” I grinned back at her.

  “What? Don't keep me in suspense!” Katie said, reaching her hand out to Jenn, coaxing her to pass the headset to her.

  “Wait, I wanna hear it again!” Jenn said in a whiny, pouty voice that did not accomplish what she had hoped. “Tough cookies, girl! Hand 'em over, and nobody gets hurt.” Katie chuckled as she poorly attempted to be the 'tough girl'.

  Jenn reluctantly passed the headphones to her while I reset the audio clip. Katie put them on, closed her eyes and concentrated on the loud, static filled recording. She listened through the noise and tried to concentrate on the background sounds and our voices as we talked.

  She clearly heard Jenn say, 'I want to talk to the children that are here.” and she awaited the metallic hammer smacking sound that never came... in its place was a completely different sound, a voice. Amidst the painfully loud static, a voice, that of a child came across coldly and clearly, “You can't find us.”

  “No flippin' way!” Katie said in an overly boisterous voice, still having the head set on. “That was so clear!” She said as she removed the headphones and handed them back to me. “What do you think it means?”

  “I don't know, but it seems to me that the ghost children feel the need to hide, and not be found, for some reason. Now we just have to figure out why.”

  “Yeah, that's probably going to be hard to figure out, unless we find some ancient book of local stories... again.” Jenn said raising her eyebrows and rolling her head towards Katie.

  “Yeah, I doubt that's happening. You know, we could maybe ask Ash.” The room fell abruptly silent. “Sorry.... but Jenn and I had a message, or warning from her. She said we needed to 'help the children before it was too late.' I'm not sure what that meant, but maybe we could ask her?” Katie was braver than she realized. Just offering to try to contact Ashley on purpose took an immense amount of courage.

  Katie and Jenn shared the task of recanting the tale of Ash's visit with them in the boiler room, leaving out no detail, no matter how gruesome it may have been.

  “So, Ash is saying there are monsters in the old house, and the children need saved... geez! This is getting weird.” I was beginning to question our experience and our level of understanding, but I knew we had been brought to this case for a reason, not just by chance. “Can we handle this?”

  “All I can say is... we have to try.” Jennifer's statement was honest and sobering. She was right. How could we make the decision to turn our back on these shadow children, when they obviously, and so desperately, needed our help?

  “I don't know if this will help, but we might be able to get some more information about what happened to the kids... maybe... I got a call this afternoon from Barb, and she let me know that there may be a living descendant to the family, not sure how, or the relationship, but her name is Allison Bettiger, and if she is still alive, she is in her 90's.” I passed the name and information to the girls and they received it like a birthday gift, with surprise and excitement.

  “We have some sleuthing to do!” Jenn said to Katie with a grin. “Okay, before we get off on to much of a tangent, we need to get back to
analyzing our audio.” The girls agreed with me and soon we were all nerdily studying the recordings again.

  As I searched through the audio I was interrupted by an email alert. I had received the photos from Barb. I paused the playback and opened the email attachments. The first photo initially appeared to be just a blurry picture of Katie, but the longer I studied it, I began to realize that only part of the photo was blurry. Squinting my eyes, I came to the realization that the blur appeared to be the transparent face of a woman very close to the camera lens. I was excited by Barb's discovery and was excited to see the second picture.

  Opening the second photo, I noticed that it was also a picture of Katie. This photo was in the basement, and the only this unusual about the photo was an orb that hovered above her. I am extremely skeptical when it comes to any orb, and at first I almost rolled my eyes. Then something caught my attention, this orb was pink. That was a first for me.

  “Ladies, take a look at these pictures.” I said, and then as I showed them the photos, they dissected each one very closely.

  “I see a face.” Katie said while Jenn seemed puzzled until a look of realization came over her face.

  “I see it now!” She exclaimed as she began to point out the jaw line, brow, and hair. “That is cool, huh?” I asked and then continued with, “But this one is something I can't say I have ever seen before. A pink orb...and fittingly, it is over Katie.”

  They investigated the photo, and while Jenn and I were actually impressed with the picture. Katie studied it closely and a sharp look of disappointment showed in her eyes. Her hand went to her head, and she turned to Jenn and me.

  “Sorry to disprove this one, but that pink orb is a reflection off of the face of my pink watch face.” She explained. “Don't be sorry. Debunking is just as important as finding evidence. I think you did a great job of disproving the orb in this picture as paranormal.” I complimented her.

  Though there was no clock on the wall, time ticked away slowly, minute by minute, hour by hour. Inevitably, we were all stopped again when Jenn interrupted us, with another possible e.v.p.