Jack shrugged. “From what I’ve heard, yes, but I’ve never died before so I really can’t verify that.”
Nonie glanced over her shoulder, and she and Buggy drew in a deep breath at the same time. Both looked about as excited to go upstairs as they’d be at the thought of crawling through a vat of roaches.
“Look,” Jack said. “When I’m done in the kitchen, I’ll go upstairs and join you, okay?”
Nonie chewed on her bottom lip.
Buggy nodded.
Both left the kitchen almost robotically and headed for the stairs. Jack couldn’t help but watch Nonie as she left. She looked to be twenty-nine, thirty at the most, stood maybe five foot-four and was slender. She had shoulder-length, curly, walnut-colored hair and the largest most beautiful blue eyes he’d ever seen. Her nose and ears were small in comparison to her full lips, which he’d give anything to kiss. Jack knew by her beautiful eyes that she was terrified to go upstairs.
All of them were since this was their first time at ghost hunting. He had to give them kudos for going through with it, despite their fears. Then Jack suddenly remembered something and called out to Nonie.
Nonie and Buggy were back in the kitchen in a heartbeat.
“Yeah?” Nonie asked.
Jack tilted his head, curious. “Earlier, when the two of you were in the kitchen, I heard the two of you talking. Did you see anything or hear anything? It almost sounded like you were responding to something that was being said. I mean, I heard you talking to Buggy only what was said in response didn’t seem to apply to what you said. Make sense?”
Nonie glanced at Buggy and back at Jack. “Probably just talking to myself. Doing a little rundown on what I would tell a ghost if I saw one.”
Jack could tell by the way she wouldn’t look at him directly in the face that there was more to the story than that. And he planned to find out what it was but now wasn't the time.
He hesitated for a couple of seconds then said, “Okay, you two, upstairs. I'll take care of EVPs here.”
When the girls left the room Jack placed a digital recorder on the kitchen table and walked around the small area. “Are there any spirits in this room that want to communicate?” Jack asked. “There is a device on the table that will record your voice if you have something to say. You can speak into it and we’ll hear your voice.”
“No!”
Jack jumped, he heard that word loud and clear, and it seemed to be coming from right over his left shoulder. He turned around, but no one was there. His heart started beating faster. He was thankful for the digital recorder because it would definitely pick up his question and the answer he’d heard audibly. In the ten years he’d been investigating that had only happened to him twice.
“Communicate with me,” Jack said. The only sound he heard were windchimes that he assumed were hanging outside, near the back door of the kitchen.
“What’s your name?” Jack pressed. “Are you male or female?”
“Man,” the voice said loudly. Jack jumped again surprised he’d heard it so clearly. He was anxious to get the recording to the producers of WXRT so they could hear what he'd just heard.
“Is there something we can help you with?”
No answer came through that he heard, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t received an answer. It might have come through the recorder but he wouldn't be able to tell until he brought it home.
“Is there something that we can do to help you move on? Are you stuck here?”
“NO!”
The voice was strong and loud and sent a shiver up Jack’s spine. If there was a spirit that strong in the kitchen, it was no wonder that Nonie’s Rem Pod had gone off earlier.
“Do you have a message for anybody in this house?”
No response.
“Is there anybody in this house or outside of this house that you want to communicate with specifically? If it’s outside of this house, we can bring a message to them. If it’s inside of this house, your message can be related to them.”
No response.
“What has you so quiet now? Why won’t you talk to me?”
Still no response. Nothing that he could hear with his own ears anyway.
“If you want me out of this room, you'll have to show me a sign, give me some kind of sign that you want me out! Otherwise, I’m not leaving.” In that moment the cabinet door right above Jack’s head swung open with enough force to whack him on the forehead before slamming shut.
“Shit,” Jack said. He knew better than to provoke any kind of spirit that tried to manifest itself, but he'd done it anyway, and he deserved the goose egg he felt already forming on his forehead. His vision was a little blurry, so he stood for a moment, waiting for it to clear.
Then he left the kitchen and went into the bedroom and bathroom where Shaundelle and Tatman were working.
When Shaundelle spotted Jack, she did a double take. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Guess we’ve got a spirit around here that doesn’t like our company,” Jack said.
“What?” Tatman said. “What happened?”
“I did what I knew I shouldn't have done. I was getting some good EVP's, even picked up some words I heard with my own ears. I told the spirit if it didn’t want me here to show me. That’s when one of the cabinet doors flew open, one right above my head, and the knob popped me on the forehead.”
“Oh, uh-uh,” Shaundelle said. “I’m not gonna be no place where no ghost is gonna be knockin’ nobody upside the head. I’m outta here. I’m not going to take no chances that some ghost is gonna mess up this pretty face.”
Tatman grabbed Shaundelle by the arm. “Take a picture of Jack’s face. You're the one with the camera. Take a picture of his face so that the knot on it will be more proof.” He turned to Jack. “Do you have any film of the cabinet door opening?”
“No, I didn’t have anything with me but my digital recorder. I was going to just get EVP's. But still, Shaundelle, take a picture of this goose egg so I can put the story together for the producers.”
With shaky hands, Shaundelle did as she was asked. As soon as she was done, she started to hightail it out of the bedroom. Jack caught her by the arm.
“We need you here,” Jack said to Shaundelle. “We have five of us to work with. One short is going to leave us in a bind when we get to the plantation. How are we going to hunt that big place and keep someone watching the monitor?”
“I ain’t gonna have no ghostesses punching me upside the head,” Shaundelle said. “If they are pissed off here, they gonna be more pissed off there ‘cause it’s a bigger place.”
“We don’t know that,” Jack said. “And besides, I’m the one who provoked the spirit in the kitchen. That’s why I got whacked by the cabinet door. Just don’t provoke. Don’t say something like, ‘You come out and get me you big ugly sonofabitch,’ because they just might.”
“Do I look stupid to you?” Shaundelle said. “I guarantee you I ain’t gonna be provoking nothing.”
“Shaundelle, we really need you,” Tatman said. “You’re an important part of this team. This gig is already a given. That’s five hundred dollars in your pocket. You gonna just throw that away?”
Shaundelle gritted her teeth and huffed. “All right, all right. But if something all googily comes after me, I’m outta here, y’all understand? I wasn’t expectin’ all this shit to come down.”
“You’ll always have somebody with you,” Jack said. “I’ll make sure you’re not alone. Just remember, you’re the one who’s alive. They’re dead.”
“Yeah, I can see how that works considerin’ that big-ass knot on your forehead, “Shaundelle said. “Just because they’re dead doesn’t mean that can’t cause you any harm.”
“I told you it was because I provoked it,” Jack said. “All you have to do is keep your questions simple and don’t provoke. It won’t have reason to attack you.”
“Hell I sure ain’t gonna provoke shit,” Shaundelle said. “All I�
��m going to say is ‘Happy birthday,’ ‘How’s your mama?’ and ‘What was your favorite meal when you were alive?’ I’m not going to be asking anything that’s going to piss them off. You can count on that. If I’m going to keep this up, you’d best watch my back,” she said to Tatman.
“And, Jack, you provoke again and you’ll deserve another knock on the head,” Shaundelle said adamantly. “You tellin’ me not to provoke, then you best listen to your own self. ‘Cause it looks like whatever’s in here don’t want us here. Now where is Nonie and Buggy?”
“I sent them upstairs,” Jack said.
“By themselves?” Shaundelle all but yelled. “Nobody told them not to provoke anything. Suppose they start spouting off at the mouth, trying to get a ghost to respond? What then?”
“Nonie’s not the type to provoke,” Jack said.
“But Buggy is,” Shaundelle said. “If she gets pissed off enough, she’s gonna speak her mind and speak it loud and clear.”
“Then I’ll just go up there and make sure they don’t,” Jack said. “By the way, did you guys pick up anything in the bedroom or bathroom?”
“Not even a blip,” Tatman said. “It was as quiet as an empty church back there.”
“Okay, then you and Shaundelle take your turn in the kitchen and living room, and I’ll go meet Buggy and Nonie upstairs and give them a heads-up on provoking,” Jack said. “Though I doubt either one would do it, I guess it’s better to be safe than sorry. I don’t want to take any chances.”
“You better not take any chances with my girls,” Shaundelle demanded. “Either of them come back with so much as a scratch on ‘em, I’m going to take that lump that you got on your forehead and add another one to the bottom of your chin. Got that?”
“Oh, I’ve got it,” Jack said. “You’re the one I’m a bit concerned about provoking. Your temper sometimes jumps out of your mouth before it goes through your brain.”
“Yeah, but I know when to let it flare and when to keep it in check, and when it comes to ghostesses, it’s checked, double-checked, and triple-checked. It’s gonna be like Walmart, show me your receipt. I’m gonna be the nicest thing them ghostesses have ever seen.”
Jack nodded and headed upstairs, where Nonie and Buggy were working, hoping he wasn’t already too late to warn them.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nonie took the staircase leading to the attic sideways, keeping her back to the wall mostly to avoid having to look at the freaky Madonna and Child portrait that hung at the foot of the stairs. Just looking at it gave her the creeps so bad it made her shiver. Had she seen it or stared at it any more than she already had, she’d have lost her nerve and not made it up the stairs.
Alongside of her, Buggy clung to Nonie’s shirt, taking the steps sideways like Nonie. She was certainly small enough to take them head-on, but evidently chose to follow her friend’s lead.
As Buggy held on tight and concentrated on Nonie’s footsteps, the one thing she didn’t realize was that Guy was following up the rear, a look of worry on his face. He stayed two steps below Buggy so she wouldn’t pick up any sense of him. Nonie had to give him kudos for doing exactly as she’d asked him to do. Watch over them but not get in the way and create any shenanigans.
When Nonie made it to the top of the stairs the opening looked like any regular attic door opening, except it had no door, just a wide maw, wider than an average attic door. The last step allowed her to walk into the room and that’s when she saw them. She nervously held out a hand to help Buggy up the final step,
When Guy made it into the room, he said, “Holy shit.”
There were three old army cots lined up side-by-side in the attic. Two of them had Confederate uniforms laid out on them without bodies. The third held an old gentleman with a white beard. His eyes were closed and he lay on his back. Nonie could tell by the way his right leg was bandaged that he'd lost part of his leg from the knee down.
When all three were up in the attic, the old man opened his eyes.
“Who dares interrupts me at this hour?” the old man said, then rolled over onto his side. A gun appeared in his right hand. Nonie was no expert on guns except this one looked like the type that used musket balls for ammo. He aimed it at her.
“I said who comes in and dares bother me at this hour? Can't you see that I am recuperating from a dire injury?”
Nonie told Buggy to start rolling camera on the beds. She turned her digital recorder on and placed it on the fireplace mantel that sat against the east wall of the room. Nonie started flashing pictures with her camera. The old man sat up, put his eye to the sight of his gun and aimed it at Nonie’s head.
“You dare walk into this room without permission? You dare walk into this house without permission? You will die. You are a Yankee aren't you? Only Yankees have no courtesy. Southerners are the only ones who would have enough sense and courtesy to ask, to knock, to see if anyone was home, to see if it was convenient for anyone home to have visitors.”
“Oh, Captain, leave the poor dear alone,” an old woman’s voice said, sending Nonie spinning on her heels. Near the back of the room on the opposite side of the fireplace Nonie saw an elderly woman that she could virtually see through. There was enough matter to her to make out what she looked like, though. Short and bow-backed, a little chunky in the gut. White hair tightly permed. She wore a pink housedress decorated with white and yellow flowers and had pink slippers on her feet. The glasses on her face kept sliding down her small nose.
“Can’t you tell a Southerner when you see one?” the old woman asked Captain. “These women aren’t Yankees. They’re from around here.”
“How do you know,” Captain said, his voice booming.
“I’ve been listening to their accents since they came into the house.”
“Did you invite them here?” Captain asked.
“No, but my son did and whatever my son wants he gets, so leave it be. It's none of your business. Go back to recuperating. You’re not going to shoot anybody today.”
With a harrumph, the Captain lay back on the bed and placed the gun on his right side.
“Hello, dears,” the old woman said. “My name’s Helen. I’m Frank’s mom.”
Nonie nodded.
“Do you have trouble speaking?” Helen asked.
“No ma’am,” Nonie finally answered.
“What?” Buggy asked. “Do you see somebody?”
“A couple of somebodies,” Nonie said in a stage whisper. “I'm talking to an old lady right now. Her name is Helen.”
“That’s the first Ms. Louisiana!” Buggy said. “That’s Frank’s mom.”
“I know. She just told me that. Look, I want you to record just past the fireplace, and aim the IR Vid in that direction.” Nonie pointed to where Helen stood. “See if it picks up anything.”
“Do we mind if we take pictures of you?” Nonie asked Helen.
Helen tapped her permed hair. “Oh, dear, I'm certainly in no condition for photographs, but I’ll allow you one or two.”
Nonie held the IR camera, looked through the viewfinder. All she saw was a shadowy silhouette. She took pictures of it regardless.
“Now how can I help you?” Helen asked.
“We’re with a scouting team,” Nonie said, And we’re looking for haunted locations. There’s a film crew that wants to put the most haunted locations on television. A program called Something’s Out There.”
“I’m picking up moving shadows,” Buggy said, her voice shaky.
“Keep filming,” Nonie said. “Hopefully we’re getting her conversation on the recorder.”
“Oh, my goodness,” the old woman clapped her hands. Nonie saw the motion but didn’t hear the clap. “I would love to be on television. Can you set it up so that I can be?”
“I don’t know if anyone would be able to see you.”
“Why can you?”
Nonie shrugged. “I have since I was a little girl. See the dead I mean. As for you being on television,
I can’t promise anything. All we have to do is bring enough evidence to the producers, and they decide whether or not to send a film crew out here.”
The old woman pursed her lips, then said, “Okay, what kind of proof can I give you?”
Nonie thought for a second, long enough for Buggy to nudge her and ask, “What’s going on?
“Can you make something move?” Nonie asked.
The old woman laughed. “Make something move? Oh, my dear, I'm quite adept at doing that since I passed on. My arthritis is completely gone.”
“What’s she saying?” Buggy asked.
“I’ll fill you in later,” Nonie whispered.
“I take it your friend there can’t see or hear me, right?”
“Right.”
“What about the young man standing beside you?”
At the mention of someone standing beside her Nonie flinched and glanced in the direction the old woman indicated. Guy stood next to her grinning like a kid who’d stolen a bag of chips from a vending machine.
“Yes, he can see and hear you. He’s passed on, as well, just hasn’t made it to the other side yet,” Nonie said, giving Guy a hard look.
The old woman nodded her head. “I know where he’s coming from. The light came for me, but I wasn’t ready to go. Have been in this house with all my memorabilia for way too many years. All the stuff my son is trying to pack away means the world to me. It should be left alone so people who come to visit the house can enjoy it.”
“Is that why you’re still here?” Nonie asked. “Have you tried communicating that to your son?”
The old woman tsked. “He can’t hear or see me. I’ve tried leaving obscure messages around the house, like unpacking boxes he’s already boxed, but he’s not really a believer in such things. I want to talk about the television thing again,” Helen said. “How does this work for you?”
“Can you make something move?” Nonie asked.
“Of course, my dear,” Helen said with a chuckle. With that she walked over to one of the empty cots that held a Confederate uniform. As she headed that way Nonie told Buggy to aim her video camera in that direction. As soon as the camera was pointed in that direction, one of the cots flipped over on its side.
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