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Chapter 9

Author: Rhonnie Fordham

Nightfall had finally arrived at around 8:30. The Christy house’s interior was the only spot that offered light amidst the blanket of darkness outside.

In the dark, the house’s property resembled a foreboding landscape. Even the garden looked more like a graveyard littered with bouquets than Amanda’s innocent labor of love.

Inside the house itself, everyone except for Kevin and Linda were doing their own thing and hiding out in their own rooms.

An indifferent Tony leaned back on a couch in the living room, his eyes staring on at a boring newscast. He refused to stay in any of the guest rooms. After all, none of them even had a damn T.V. In a monotonous routine, Tony ate from a bag of potato chips, one flavored chip at a time. His nervous crunching did nothing to quash his inner fear.

The living room’s flatscreen was nothing more than a bland distraction from the house that plagued Tony’s mind and imagination. But sadly, neither the talking heads on T.V. nor the tasty chips were easing his mind.

At this point, Tony had stopped noticing the security camera constantly filming him. Or maybe Tony didn’t want to notice it. Instead, he wanted to drown out his concerns via the flatscreen.

His bored eyes looked on at the newscast. He raised the remote, ready to change the channel when the local news abruptly shifted from the cheesy weatherman Mike Begley to a round panel discussion. The change looked unplanned, like an otherworldly glitch had hi-jacked the station.

The round panel was all about the latest reports coming from the Christy house. The panel’s flashy headline read: Christy House Of Horrors. The panel members’ questions rolled in with melodramatic intensity: Where was John Baker? Where were his kids? Furthermore, are they alive?

On screen, the panel discussed Amanda Baker’s account. How the police had found her bloodied and bruised. With sensationalistic glee, the panel covered salacious details on the house, John Baker’s history of mental illness, Amanda’s claims that the house made him go crazy. Everything exploitative was exploited.

Still holding the remote, Tony stared at the newscast, frozen in morbid fascination.

The anchors’ collective of pretty eyes seemed to hone in on Tony. Their pointed words reminiscent of a siren’s call.

The murder-suicide of John Baker and his two young children. The tragic murders of the Christy family. The suspected evil entity that lived in the house. All of this was too much for Tony, but yet he couldn’t stop watching.

Heavy footsteps erupted from the other side of the room, so loud that even Tony heard them over the volume of the heated talking heads. The sound of glass being crushed beneath someone’s relentless feet alarmed Tony even further.

“Shit!” Tony exclaimed. Lucky to not get whiplash, Tony dropped the remote as he quickly turned toward the wall. The same corner wall Bridget saw all the blood on earlier.

But as soon as Tony turned his head, the footsteps stopped. Tony looked on at the wall, immense fear in his eyes. But not a fucking thing was there. Just the long shards stuck into the wall. Amongst all the mirror’s remnants, Tony did see smashed pieces of glass lined up along the floor… all of forming a trail of squashed glass leading straight to that wall. A trail someone had just made.

“What the fuck…” Tony said to himself.

Nervous, he looked back at the television. The channel was different. No longer on the newscast. Instead, it was just Tony himself, live footage of him off the security camera. A live feed of the terrified Tony sitting there on the couch.

Tony’s fear instantly and somehow accelerated to higher levels. “Oh fuck!” he yelled as he looked up the security camera.

Like a mechanical spy, it was pointed right at him. The camera wasn’t moving, and it didn’t want to. Their subject was right there.

“Fuck this!” Tony said. Throwing the bag of chips down, he staggered off the couch and rushed up to the unflinching camera.

The flatscreen showed the nervous Tony getting closer and closer to the camera. Minus the blaring news anchors, the living room was now filled with unnerving silence.

Finally, Tony reached his destination. He shoved a chair underneath the camera and used it as a stool to get eye-to-eye with the lens. He looked right into the security camera, inspecting it behind his uneasy eyes. There was nothing out of the ordinary with the gadget. No outward buttons anyone could press. No wires that hooked it up to the T.V.

In disbelief, Tony glanced back-and-forth between the security camera and flatscreen. Sure enough, there he was still projected onto the T.V. Man vs. camera.

And the camera wasn’t backing down one bit. Those lens stared at Tony like a master criminal refusing to talk.

“How the fuck are you doing this?” Tony asked aloud. He raised a hand toward the camera but hesitated. He didn’t know what to do. And he wasn’t sure if he wanted to touch the damn thing. “Fuck it.” Fearful of something inside the camera reaching out and snatching his wrist, Tony moved his hand in at breakneck speed toward the camcorder.

Before Tony could grab the camera, the T.V. changed back to the local news. Mike Begley’s excited voice cut through the tense silence like gunshots at the break of dawn.

Startled, Tony stopped and looked over at the flatscreen. The weatherman’s beaming smile greeted him as if he sensed Tony’s gaze. Momentarily forgetting he was on a chair, Tony took one false step backward.

“Shit!” he exclaimed as he fell over. His quick thinking led to him holding himself up on a sofa arm, keeping Tony from making a huge face plant onto the floor.

Tony breathed heavy, both annoyed and shaken. He glared at Mike the weatherman. “Yeah, fuck you, Mike!” Tony said with the toughness of a keyboard warrior.

Recovering from the odd scares, Tony got back on his feet. He snatched the remote off the floor.

With Mike’s voice booming through the room, Tony pointed the remote right at Mike’s fake smile and changed the channel. A 90s sitcom then filled the screen. Comfort food for Tony’s restless fear.

“That’s better,” Tony commented. He grabbed his bag of potato chips and sat back on the sofa, back to his station.

*

The lights were off in Amanda’s home office. It was completely silent other than the repetitive sound of an intermittent mouse click. The sound echoed through the darkness in a steady rhythm.

Cutting through the darkness was the glowing beam of the computer screen. The lone light in the room illuminated Amanda sitting right in front of the screen. She was playing the living room footage once more.

Amanda looked concentrated and focused, her eyes never straying from the screen. Indeed, they stared right at the same spot: the old mirror shattering into pieces.

Entranced, Amanda kept repeating those same crucial seconds of footage. With each time the mirror exploded, Amanda just rewinded it right back in a compulsive manner.

But it wasn’t just to see the shattered glass or the group’s reactions, instead, Amanda was looking at the little girl in the mirror. Amanda couldn’t keep herself from staring at the girl’s eerie glare. She was drawn to it out of heartache or fear. Or maybe Amy’s glare drew both of those emotions from Amanda.

*

A few empty bottles of wine now scattered along the floor. Linda’s guest room had apparently gone from a place to crash to a place to get smashed.

Kevin and Linda sat up in bed together, surrounded by the endless amounts of newspaper articles and files. Linda cradled another open bottle of wine. As the two became drunker, they enjoyed each other’s company even more, each of them laughing and having a good time. They didn’t even bother with glasses or whatever they thought was proper etiquette at this point. They were just gonna drink from the bottle. Amidst her most tipsy laughter, Linda would occasionally grab Kevin’s shoulder and bicep. She played it off like it was incidental contact, of course.

“So have you always been interested in this?” Kevin asked. He held his hand out toward the bottle.

Smiling, Linda handed it over. “Not until the last few years really.”

Kevin took a nice, long swig.

“After me and Ray divorced, I took it kinda hard. I got lonely, more withdrawn. I guess you could call me depressed.”

Sympathetic, Kevin handed her the bottle back. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Linda replied. “It’s fine now.” She twirled the bottle in her hand like it was a coping mechanism for discussing the past. “I’ve gotten into other things, so I’m okay. I’m content.”

Getting drunker by the second, Kevin watched Linda twirl the bottle, giving the bottle a kaleidoscopic appearance. The bottle held his gaze more than it should have.

“It was tough for a while,” Linda went on. “But you know, I really started to get into T.V. of all things.” Smiling, she took a big swig.

“What? Like soap operas?” Kevin joked.

“No.” Linda giggled as she gave him a light shove.

“I was just asking.”

“The haunted house shows,” Linda went on, her voice clearly showing reverence for her guilty pleasure. “A Haunting, Ghost Explorers. The good stuff. They have whole channels for that shit, you know.”

“But ain’t most of them fake,” Kevin quipped.

“Not all of them.” Linda’s sly smile couldn’t undermine her clear affection for these cheesy shows. “They were all just really interesting to me at the time. I’d always had a curiosity about the paranormal so it just resonated with me. I mean here I am, a divorced old woman-”

“Not old at all,” Kevin said with the flirtatious subtlety of a high schooler.

It worked. Linda couldn’t help but blush. “Well, thank you, but the older you get, the more you get more intrigued by these ideas. What happens when we die, where do we go. I just started to question these things more including my own beliefs. And as I kept watching those stupid shows, it only pushed my interest in it even more.” Even with a drunken monologue more fitting for an alcoholic philosophy major, Linda’s sincere passion for the paranormal was still well on display.

“Interesting…” Kevin took the bottle from her.

“All I’m saying’s that it really opened my eyes,” Linda said. “Well, both the divorce and Ghost Explorers,” she added with a chuckle.

After taking another huge gulp, Kevin nodded at the silver figurine. “Is that how you got all this shit-”

Linda gave him a quick punch to the shoulder. A playful yet still painful hit. “Ow!” Kevin exclaimed.

“It’s not shit, it’s spiritual!” Linda retorted.

“Okay…” Kevin said.

“There’s more to this than just the cheap thrills of finding ghosts or getting scared, you know,” Linda continued. “There’s this need to know more. I wanna know what does happen when we die. Where do we go, why are some of us still trapped on Earth wandering around like a bunch of restless, eternal spirits.” Linda looked right at Kevin, confronting him with her eyes. “Isn’t this what you wanna know too? Shouldn’t we all be interested in this?”

Put on the spot, Kevin hesitated. “Yeah, sure…”

“Why’s it so crazy that I’m interested in these questions and discovering more about the paranormal.” More defensive than ever, Linda motioned toward the figurine. “I mean who or what is in that thing for instance? No one seems to know. And why does it have so much power?”

Smiling, Kevin caressed Linda’s shoulder, trying to get her off the rant. “Hey, I’m sorry, Linda. I wasn’t trying to offend.” He looked over at the figurine. “I think this stuff’s cool,” he said, not meaning a word.

Linda grinned. “Oh, I know.” She looked down at the bottle. Not much was left. “I just get sensitive about it.”

“No, I completely understand.”

Feeling more horny and intoxicated because of the booze, Linda looked at Kevin with hungry eyes.

“Honestly, I like this whole spiritual, hippie vibe you got going on,” Kevin said.

Linda giggled. “Well, thanks, youngin’,” she replied in a sexy tease.

Kevin stumbled over his next words. “You’re a free spirit, I can appreciate that.” He rubbed Linda’s shoulder, much to her enjoyment. “Does that sort of thing carry over into all the other parts of your life?”

“What do you mean?” The excited glint in Linda’s eyes weren’t going unnoticed by Kevin.

“I mean do you ever do drugs or meditate,” Kevin said delicately even though his confidence was high.

Linda smiled with anticipation, knowing where this was leading. The first time in years a younger man had been this forward with her.

Kevin traced his hand down her arm. “Or have any unique sexual interests…” he continued.

“Of course,” Linda replied, not missing a beat.

“Oh?” Kevin asked, surprised to see Linda being this forward.

“I like men and women.”

“I see…”

With confidence, Linda leaned in closer. Now Kevin was the one blushing… or maybe just intimidated. “I like them young too.”

“How young?” Kevin asked, some unease cracking through his debonair act.

“Real young.” She was practically nose-to-nose with Kevin. Simultaneously Mrs. Robinson and a ferocious animal on the prowl.

Thick sexual tension swirled all around them. Kevin hadn’t anticipated things moving this quick. He couldn’t muster another word.

“You know,” she started as she held up the bottle. “You’re not so bad after a few of these.”

Kevin grinned. “Who isn’t?”

Amused, Linda motioned toward his suit. “Well, the whole real-estate shtick-”

“Just doing my job,” he defended.

“Oh, believe me, I can tell.”

“Sorry,” Kevin said with a salesman’s smile. He leaned in closer toward Linda. “It’s just my personal policy.” Now he could practically hear her heart thumping louder and louder. “Whatever it takes to consummate a sale,” he said in his sexiest voice.

Like she was entertaining a challenge, Linda smiled. “Whatever it takes, huh?”

In reply, Kevin gave her a soft kiss on the lips. Challenge accepted.

Linda smiled back at Kevin, not too surprised but still thrilled by his move. “You’re gonna have to do a little more than that, hon.”

“Oh, believe me,” Kevin started. Their eyes glued to one another, Kevin leaned in closer, running his smooth hands all down Linda back. He had Linda hooked, and he knew it. “I will.”