Haunted

by Randy Wayne White

  Well . . . there was an easy way to settle the matter. I would go inside the house. First, though, rather than leave the camera unattended I returned to my SUV and opened the back. When I did, a startling option presented itself. Piled against the seat were a blanket and a few towels. Beneath them, I had hidden the pistol that Birdy had wanted to see. There was a loaded magazine, too.

  Put the gun in the camera bag? I thought about it for a moment, but only a moment.

  No . . . I didn’t need a gun to confront a woman even if she was a ghost. I had my cell phone. If the woman didn’t make her presence known when I entered, I would press the issue—but only after getting the pictures I needed.

  I was losing my light. It is a phrase that photographers use.

  • • •

  THEO HAD BEEN inside the house . . . and maybe still was. The lingering odor of marijuana and freshly burned resin hung at nose level when I entered. A broken cookie on the floor told me Lucia and the witches had been here, too.

  I stopped in my tracks and listened. Theo, the nonstop talker, couldn’t bear silence. But that’s what I heard, silence: the slap of wind against roof, the creak of old wood. A full minute I stood there.

  The fire, although smoldering, was nearly out, but that was no guarantee the house was empty. The realization spooked me. If there was a woman upstairs, ghost or not, she was welcome to leave or stay. That was up to her. I wasn’t going to risk confronting a man who had dodged a rape charge. Another concern was that, after only a few minutes inside, smoke that hazed the windows had already moved into my bloodstream. I could feel it. The chemical it contained sparked a glowing clarity that soon teetered between giddiness and despondence.

  Maybe I spoke my thoughts aloud. I’ve got to get out of here.

  I did. I retraced my steps, padlocked the door, and was dialing 911 when I remembered why I’d come. Pictures . . . I needed pictures. Photographing the archaeological dig site required me to break federal law. I couldn’t call the police. Not yet.

  Damn it.

  It made me angry to be in such a position—caught between the law and my fear of a man I had disliked at first sniff. Which is why, when I opened the back of my SUV, I made a decision that was unlike me. I pulled the blanket back and removed the pistol from its clever carrying case. And it was clever: a leather box the size of Webster’s Third. It looked like a book, too, NEGOTIATORS embossed in gold on the cover. I had no idea what the title meant—another ruse, I assumed.

  My Uncle Jake, in life, had been wise and sweet and bighearted as a retriever. But, in death, by leaving me this gun, he’d become a man of mystery. The gun was silver steel, smooth as glass in my hand, and a mystery in itself. Even finding it on the Internet had been a chore. Thirty-some years ago, a master gunsmith had produced a concealment weapon for a government agency. The name of the agency was still classified, although it was known that fewer than two hundred of the special weapons had been produced. The pistol was a shortened Smith & Wesson with a hooked trigger guard, a sleek fluted barrel, plus other tweaks for fast and lethal shooting. My gun expert friend, Birdy, had pronounced it “Beautiful; perfectly balanced.”

  Odd . . . Until this instant, I had thought the pistol ugly, even brutal, in appearance. There was a reason. I had used it to shoot a killer. The thump of bullet taking flesh, the man’s screams, still troubled me during moments when I lacked confidence or doubted my own virtue. Even touching the barrel could spark a response similar to what I’d felt that day: body shakes, labored breathing. It was humiliating what fear had done to me. And that was the problem. I felt no guilt about shooting the man. Quite the opposite. Bunny Tupplemeyer had guessed correctly about me first aiming at his genitals but losing my nerve. What haunted me was the memory of how helpless I had felt . . . and the knowledge that the frightened girl inside me could not be trusted to overcome life’s inevitable dark surprises.

  The gun reminded me of the truth. That’s why I avoided the very sight of it. Perhaps I was feeling the effects of the smoke and whatever drug it contained because the truth was vividly clear now. And the truth was this: fear was my enemy, not the gun. Fear—and weakness—both separated me from the woman I pretend to be. Why hadn’t I realized this before?

  Suddenly, the decision was easy. I was alone in a lonely place. Theo Ivanhoff was somewhere nearby. I had a right to defend myself . . . And yes, by god, I would.

  A magazine loaded with seven bullets was also in the box. Federal Power-Shoks. Birdy had said they were best man-stoppers made and had given me a box. I inserted the magazine with care, then held the pistol away to catch the sunlight. On the handgrips, in red, an archaic Scottish word was stamped: DEVEL. That had taken some time to research, too. The word meant to smite or knock asunder. It could be pronounced DEAH-vil, but I preferred dah-VEL, which was acceptable according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

  As I studied the pistol, I realized I should have also taken it to the gun range and practiced. Birdy had invited me often enough. Three times I’d joined her, wearing safety glasses and earplugs. We had taken turns firing her Glock, which was lighter and, in appearance, as utilitarian as a cookie punch. There’s nothing elegant about plastic. But the Glock held eighteen bullets, not seven like mine. And it was foolproof enough that I had outscored Birdy on our first trip to the range—a mistake on my part because it put her in such a foul mood. After that, missing the center ring had taken more effort than hitting it. But I’d managed.

  The fact was, my Uncle Jake hadn’t just taught me to shoot, he had made me practice until my hands and eyes automatically knew what to do. Hundreds of rounds through a little .22 caliber revolver, then hundreds more with a variety of guns. Same with using a fly rod and an axe—an approach that worked equally well with the clarinet. Jake had been very proud when I was named first chair as a junior.

  “Women learn faster than men because they have to,” he had said. Which, to a girl of twelve, had seemed a frivolous compliment, but now, standing outside the gate to the Cadence mansion, assumed an unsettling new meaning.

  I did a quick review of the pistol’s mechanics: on the left, beneath my thumb, was a de-cocking lever. The weapon had no safety or other frills. The front sight was iridescent red. Shuck the slide, point, and pull. Simple enough. Unless that red sight was centered on an attacker’s chest—or his genitals, as I knew too well.

  Enough! Let it go.

  I did.

  I stowed the pistol in my camera bag and said aloud, “You’re a fool if you try.” A warning that was also a plea, both of them directed at Theo as if he were listening.

  Had Birdy’s words about fortune-tellers and electronics come to mind, I might have realized Maybe he is.

  I was done with photos, putting gear away, when I heard a shriek that had an animal quality. Not human—or so I believed. I figured a hawk had snatched something warm and furry that, in its death throes, was alerting its kindred to hide. Rabbits can rival operatic sopranos in volume. I had heard them often enough with Jake, who liked hunting in the Everglades.

  I looked up, thinking I might find the hawk. No . . . only vultures adrift on a molten sunset. The lighting feathered trees with lace while the sky descended, joining clouds with mist and smoke from distant fires. Daytime vanished in a gray haze. My eyes were still in photographer mode. Had I looked an instant later, I would have missed the abrupt transition from daylight to dusk. I also wouldn’t have seen dust from a vehicle that was leaving or approaching the house. Driving fast, too, on the gravel road.

  That gave me a start because I was standing between two fresh dig sites where signs warned Federal Antiquities Site. Access Prohibited.

  I grabbed my bag, bundled the tripod under my arm, and ducked beneath the rope in a hurry. When I’d put some distance between myself and an arrest citation, I stopped to reorganize. As I did, it dawned on me to hide the camera’s memory card. If police had arrived, I d
idn’t want to provide them with easy proof I had been trespassing. I also didn’t want to lose the hour’s work I’d just finished. Work I had enjoyed, true, but still intense and draining because of the subject matter.

  I had been photographing mass graves.

  I ejected the memory card with care. It contained more than two hundred images of the dig site we’d seen earlier, plus another site that Dr. Babbs had claimed he was too busy to visit. By carefully placing the tripod inside the excavations, I’d been able to shoot close-ups without risk of damaging artifacts that lay exposed or just beneath the surface.

  I felt good about that. Further penance was the opportunity to whisper a prayer for those whose lives had ended here in violence. No fewer than ten human skulls lay exposed, maybe more. Most had been shattered and burned, so it was difficult to be sure. Three had been pierced by bullet holes.

  According to Capt. Summerlin’s journal, five men had been guilty of attacking the Brazilian’s wife. But twice that number of bodies had been tumbled into these holes. Members of the Cow Cavalry would not have treated their own with such disrespect, so I knew these were the remains of their enemy.

  The bones told a story: what had started as a quest for revenge had turned into a bloodbath. The question nagging at me was answered when I understood that. Yes, the shallow graves were haphazard and chaotic. Yes, they contained the remains of Union soldiers. But, in fact, these were not Civil War graves. What the archaeologist was actually excavating was a crime scene—victims whom killers had tried to cover in haste.

  I had dozens of photos of other artifacts that, to me, proved the theory was valid: two rusty cannon with four-inch bores, two bayonets with Union markings, a gold pocket watch with a Masonic emblem on it. Soldiers would have taken these valuable spoils of war. Only murderers would have buried them.

  A second prayer was offered on behalf of Capt. Ben Summerlin, a solid man who had given in to his darkest instincts—if I was right. And feared I was. Once again, understanding such brutality failed me. What had driven my great-uncle to cross the line?

  The Gerillas has been loosed & hells flames is ready. His words, written a century and a half earlier, hinted at an explanation. Guerrilla warfare was unconventional. Jungle tactics had no rules or moral boundaries. Survival demanded that the beast within a man be unleashed. Once victory was secured, the beast could be returned to its cage. But only then.

  The beast within. Better than any other, the term fit. It could be blamed for every savagery and sin I could think of—a disturbing concept to linger on, so I shoved it aside.

  It was a little after seven. I ejected the memory card, which I slipped into a change pocket. I was going through the camera bag, looking for a card to substitute, when I heard a second shriek—but this was no rabbit. It was a response to terror. And unmistakably female.

  Instantly, my brain associated the sound with dust rising from the gravel road. What if Birdy, in her BMW, had returned and surprised the occupants of another car? Theo and Lucia, possibly. That’s what I feared.

  I dropped the tripod but hung on to the camera bag and ran toward the trees, the old house hidden just beyond. A sustained scream caused me to slow, but only long enough to dial 911.

  The dispatcher who answered was dubious. After I had repeated my name, repeated the address, and twice explained why I was breathing so heavily, she said, “This is the third call we’ve gotten, ma’am, and the officers didn’t find anything earlier. Are you sure it’s not just kids having fun?”

  I asked, “Are you talking about the old Cadence house?”

  “This time of year, we get two or three calls a night. High school kids like to go there and scare each other. Did you actually see something?”

  I was on a weedy footpath that led through the trees. “I told you, a woman was screaming. I’m not making this up.”

  “Are you in the house?”

  “No, but—”

  “Do you see anyone inside?”

  “I’m not close enough. Look, the woman I heard wasn’t having fun.”

  “Then how do you know she’s inside? Unless this is an emergency, ma’am, Saturday nights we’re spread pretty thin. Where are you exactly?”

  I was exiting the path from the southwest, the house’s tin roof and cupola silver in sunset’s last light. There were no cars outside the gate except for my SUV. No one on the balcony either. The front door was still chained, no sign of light or movement inside. I said, “I wasn’t imagining things. Someone is inside that house and she’s in trouble.”

  “Do you still hear her?”

  “Well . . . no.”

  “Let’s give it a few seconds. I’m not doubting your word, ma’am. You said your name is Hannah Smith?”

  I continued toward my car and opened the door, phone to my ear. While I waited, I hid the memory card in the glove box. Soon she asked, “Still nothing? Then it was probably kids in a passing car. That’s usually what it turns out to be. Are you in any personal danger, Miz Smith?”

  I said, “Could you please send a deputy just to check it out? I’ll stick around. And you have my number.”

  “As soon as one’s available, I’ll get a car there,” the dispatcher assured me.

  Of course the moment I hung up, I heard another scream from somewhere beyond the balcony. I looked at the phone, then shoved it in my pocket and ran toward the house. The screaming did not stop until I had managed to open the padlock.

  It seemed to take forever, the way my hands refused to cooperate.

  • • •

  IN THE PARLOR, with its chandelier, the fire was out, but the room was still smoky when I entered. Not thick, but enough to swirl aside when I crossed to the stairs and called, “Who’s up there?”

  No response.

  I shifted the bag on my shoulder and tried again. “If you’re in trouble, I’ll help. Say something.”

  This time I heard a click and muffled thump as if someone had closed a door.

  I fanned the air to get a clean breath, unsure what to do. A woman didn’t make the sounds I had heard unless she was at her wits’ end. I couldn’t go off and leave her. But I also didn’t want to climb those stairs.

  It wasn’t dark, but windows were dimming, so I opened the bag and chose my little flashlight, not the pistol. Smoke tunneled the beam when I switched it on. In a way, what I saw was comforting. Someone had been very busy here during the last hour. The broken banister had been moved and the stairs were draped with toilet paper. White streamers hung from the landing and chandelier. Oh . . . and a crushed Budweiser can was balanced between the horns of a hat rack. Several scorpions smashed flat on the floor, too.

  Theo and Lucia hadn’t done this. The dispatcher had been right about teenagers. They had broken in and had fun decorating as if for a prom. I hadn’t heard their vehicles coming or going, had seen just the dusty signature of a car that hadn’t stopped . . . or had stopped just long enough to gather a few artistic vandals.

  At least one young woman, though, had been left behind.

  I tilted my head toward the upstairs. “I know you’re up there. I already called the police, so you might as well come down and explain.”

  Mentioning police did it. A door banged open amid wild laughter. Footsteps galloped overhead while a girl’s voice warned, “Krissie, we’re gonna leave your ass.” Then another bang and tinkling glass at the back of the house.

  High school girls. No need to fear them nor them to fear me. I didn’t want them to break their necks escaping, so I hurried through the sitting room to the kitchen and looked out. The secret access to the upstairs was an aluminum ladder that hadn’t been there yesterday. I got a glimpse as the trespassers scuttled down: two skinny teens, one in coveralls, the other dressed bizarrely in an evening gown that had been shortened with scissors. Beneath it, black leggings with zebra stripes and cowboy boots.

>   Neither wore a red blouse, unlike the woman I had photographed earlier. But that was okay. I smiled at the girl’s costume until she turned and yelled, “Krissie—you asked for it, you bitch.”

  From above, a pitiful wail responded, a wail that soon turned shrill and familiar. Whatever friendliness I might have felt toward the two girls vanished when they abandoned their friend by jogging toward the river.

  At least I had a name to work with when I found the girl they had left behind.

  I circled back and inhaled a gulp of air at the door, which was open. Then went up the stairs, calling, “Kris . . . Krissie? There’s no need to be afraid.” Several times I repeated soothing variations while I panned the flashlight across the landing. Soon, I heard a cooing, whimpering noise that seemed to come from the music room, where one French door hung loose on its hinges.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I said, then followed the flashlight inside, where the piano had also been adorned with white streamers and beer cans. Something else I recognized: seeds from a mimosa pod littered the floor. They were flat and shiny, as brown as miniature cow chips. Some had been powdered and heated in a pan. The pan showed scorch marks from a flame.

  Smoking drugs, I thought. The same smoke from the fireplace . . . That’s why I feel so odd.

  The mix of giddiness and despondence I’d experienced earlier was curling its way into my brain. Not strong, but noticeable. Thankfully, my awareness produced a counter-emotion: anger. How reckless, I thought, and how cruel, to poison unsuspecting people by filling this house with their smoke. It made me more determined to help the girl.

  I did a slow search of the music room. On the far wall was a poster that had been left behind. The lettering was big and easy to read despite its toilet paper adornments:

  MEET CHUMAN

  Love Child of Woman & Ape

  (As seen on National Geographic)