In the Shadows Read online

  I smiled at her and restrained my desire to punch him.

  Long and shallow, the living room held a couch with lumpy cushions, a desk in need of refinishing, and a lamp whose shade was dented in on one side like it had taken a fist. The ceiling even demanded attention as it swooped into a strange design thanks to an added-on laundry room.

  The jutting wall created an alcove of sorts and sported a shelved collection of glass dogs. One shelf was obviously empty.

  I glanced at the shot sheet that Manny Owens’ assistant had faxed to me. “Is this the shelf?” I asked politely.

  She nodded. “Yep. The ghost pounded on the wall there so violently that my glass poodle flew off. It ended up there,” she said, pointing at the floor where a threadbare rug lay.

  “I’ll get this,” Dwayne said, turning his camera on.

  “Narrate what happened for us,” I suggested to Mrs. Keith. As she told the story of a ghostly smoke floating up from the floor to the wall and the end result of shattered glass poodle, I couldn’t help but consider the possibility. A possibility made more real by the fact that this woman really believed the story she told. It showed in the way she clutched her arms around herself and stared at the spot where the event occurred.

  I consulted the shot sheet again. “Where’s the bathroom? This is shot two,” I told Dwayne. She led the way to a small bath decorated in powder blue.

  “The ghost refuses to allow towels to hang on that rack.” She waved at a metal towel rack nailed into the wall over the toilet. “I got tired of fishing them out of the commode, so now we just don’t hang them there.”

  Dwayne taped the whole room coming to rest on the shot of the empty towel rack.

  “Could we sort of re-enact the towel thing?” he asked me.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, guess we could give the production people the choice of using it or not.”

  Dwayne backed out and prepared to re-shoot. I took the small blue hand towel hanging in its new home over by the sink, and draped it over the haunted towel rack.

  He turned his camera on. Before I could slowly pull the towel off for visual effect, it slid off the rack all on its own, barely missing the toilet.

  We stared at it.

  I spread the towel over the rack and turned my camera on. The towel once again slid off. This time hitting the toilet seat lid which was thankfully down.

  “Whoa!” Dwayne moaned. His eyes were wide as a five-hundred carat diamond.

  Mrs. Keith stood in the doorway. “See? Never fails.”

  We quickly left the bathroom. Dwayne needed to take a trip outside to breathe some fresh air and find his happy place. Mrs. Keith joined him for a smoke.

  I returned to the bathroom and hunted for another towel, settling on an oversized one that could be used at the beach. I draped it over the rack and stepped back to watch.

  The towel stayed put. I rearranged it a couple of different ways.

  It never moved. I yanked it off and put it back where I had found it in the tiny alcove used for linens.

  “Sure,” I said aloud. “Be picky about what size towel we use, how about it?”

  The assumed apparition didn’t answer. Another reason not to believe in such goofy goings-on. Ghosts didn’t talk. I checked my mascara in the mirror over the sink. Nothing strange stood behind me, glaring evilly like ghosts did oftentimes in the movies.

  “Bah, humbug.”

  Later, once Dwayne had time to analyze his feelings, and do a little deep breathing, I consulted the shot sheet and asked, “Okay, where is the area where the ghost rattled pots and pans?”

  “In here,” Mrs. Keith said, leading the way to the small kitchen. Next to the sink stood a dented washing machine nestled right against the wall.

  She tapped the copper pots hanging there. “It knocks them down every other night seems like.”

  I waved Dwayne away, and he pretended to be interested in a flyer spread out on the table. If he had ears that swiveled, they would have been turned in our direction.

  My camera shot slowly panned from the pots to the woman who related the story behind their strange nightly musical. Dwayne got the same shot from a different angle.

  “Makes a terrible racket when they fall on the washing machine. Always happens after we’re gone to bed. I think the ghost likes scaring me out of a sound sleep.”

  I stifled a laugh. “Didn’t you say you caught the ghost in a picture?”

  Dwayne glared at me. He didn’t want to see any evidence.

  Mary moved back to the front room, and we followed. She pulled a small photo album entitled ‘Mom’s Brag Book’ out from under the end table. “Here you go.”

  She handed it to me. I flipped through the images. Dwayne came to stand behind me, curiosity getting the better of him. I paused my perusal of the images to peer closely at a photo of a tabby cat staring at the camera. In the foreground, the photographer’s finger could easily be seen. A thin stream of blue smoke floated between the cat and the photographer.

  “I took that just last week.”

  “Oh?” I asked, politely. To Dwayne, I said, “Turn your camera on for this.”

  He lifted it and shot down at the image.

  “Show me where the ghost is in this,” I instructed.

  She moved to my side and pointed at the smoke. I tried hard not to make a derisive sound.

  “That’s the paranormal ectoplasm.”

  “I see,” I said.

  She believed that because smoke was on the image, it was a ghost. I would bet a dollar to a donut she had been smoking while taking the photo. I gave Dee time to get his shot and turned the page to another one of the cat.

  “Where is this cat?” I asked, pointing at the image.

  She glanced around. “She’s here somewhere. Doesn’t really like strangers. Her name is Fluffy. I would call her, but she won’t come to it. And I mean, really? Do cats even do that?”

  I shrugged.

  She took the photo album and flipped forward a few pages. “I bet Fluffy is with Becky.” She tapped a photo, and I leaned over to look. A freckle-faced kid in pink was grinning for the camera with the tabby in her arms.

  “Becky is your daughter?”

  She nodded. “See? The orbs are over her head in this shot.”

  I followed where her lime-green polished nail pointed. “Most of these pictures with Becky have orbs.”

  “Dwayne,” I said, turning to face him. “Come over and look at this.”

  He moved to where we stood and peered over my shoulder. “Ah, hum.”

  “Wonder if we can get some orbs in a shot, too?” I asked, hoping Dee wouldn’t skitter out of the house in horror.

  “They’re always around my Becky.”

  Dwayne lifted his camera on the monopod to his bony shoulder and nodded. He was so in—his utter curiosity overcoming fear.

  As Mrs. Keith led the way to her daughter’s room, I said, “Well, listen, Mary, they won’t use this. They don’t want kids on this, or at least they didn’t tell us to shoot your daughter.”

  Dwayne giggled.

  “I mean,” I stammered. “Tape your daughter. Not shoot her…tape her.”

  She nodded and smiled at me, and then opened the door. Afternoon sunlight illuminated part of the room and dust motes filled the light shard like snow. The bed was covered with a soft pink chenille cover and there were dolls scattered all over it.

  I glanced around for Becky, who wasn’t visible.

  “Bec?” Her mother called softly.

  A little blond head popped up from the opposite side of the bed. “Hi, Mama.”

  “These folks are from the Manny Owens show. They want to see the orbs.”

  Chills traveled in prickles up my arms. Were these orbs true psychic phenomenon, and could they be called in at will? I wished I’d done more research. Orbs were in the images around the kid, but that could be failure or limitations or defects in the lens of the camera. That sometimes happened when people used those cheap disposable c
ameras from the dollar store.

  At any rate, I didn’t think she should have been telling her kid about orbs—which might be ghosts following her around—but I wasn’t a parent.

  The little girl, Becky, appeared to be about 8 years old or so. Dwayne quietly videotaped her every move. I flipped my camcorder on and shot straight at her with no video light. I didn’t want to watch the footage later and wonder if the orbs were the result of light refraction. No light, no refraction. She stood and brushed her shorts off.

  She moved onto the bed, and Dwayne moved to the footboard, shooting all the while. I smiled to myself. He wasn’t going to miss anything, that was for sure.

  I pulled my screen out from the side of the camera and perused the image I was capturing. It brimmed with orbs, but they were just sunspots. The angle of the sunlight coming to the lens was perfect to catch them. I moved the shot to the left and they disappeared.

  I shut my camera down and motioned for Dwayne to follow me out of the room.

  “Shoot the B roll, and I will wrap up.”

  He strode toward the living room, without so much as a sniff or snort of derision.

  When Mrs. Keith came out into the hallway, I asked, “Do you recall when the images in the brag book were taken?”

  “When?” She gave me a blank stare.

  “What time of day,” I answered.

  “Oh, probably like now. Becky had just come in from playing outside, and I was trying to get her calmed down enough to take a bath.”

  I nodded and led the way back to the kitchen. “Is there anything else we need to shoot for the show?”

  Before she could answer, Dwayne uttered a strangled cry, and we darted through the house. He sat on the couch with the tabby cat standing beside him on the cushion.

  On the floor in front of them lay one of the porcelain dogs. Dwayne’s eyes widened, and his mouth flopped open.

  “What happened?”

  “G—ghost…” He placed his hand to his heart, moved to clutch the prayer beads, and pulled the cross out of his pocket with the other. Then, he closed his eyes and whispered, “I’m ready to go.”

  I fiddled around trying to decide what to do or say, but he quickly stood, placed the cross on the couch, gathered his equipment, and fled the house.

  I cleared my throat, glanced at Mrs. Keith apologetically and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  I walked out and saw him at the tailgate of the car loading his cameras inside.

  “Dee.” I strolled to where he stood.

  He lifted a hand to stop me. “Save your breath. You probably have plenty of explanations for what’s going on in this house, but at this point, I’m leanin’ on my own. And what I think—no, what I know—as sure as my granny is white-headed, is…that this place has a bad vibe. I’m done.”

  “If you would let me finish I could explain it all.” I gave him my best pout, but that worked like a feather on his hard head.

  “There might or might not be a reason for this … this…” He waved at the house. “Whatever this is. All I know is my heart can’t take no more scares. That damn glass poodle came tumbling off that shelf with no help. Jesus help us. What have we stirred up in that house?”

  I threw my hands up in exasperation. “Fine. I’ll finish up.”

  He shut the trunk and shoved the vial of holy water into my hands. “Take this. And if you don’t come out in fifteen minutes, I ain’t comin’ in for you. Better keep your finger on speed dial for 911. I’ll be in the car.”

  This was not going like I wanted it to. I tossed the vial into the bushes as I passed by, and muttered and huffed and puffed all the way back inside.

  I apologized to Mary Keith.

  “It’s okay, honey,” she said. “The ghost likely just doesn’t care for the cameras being all around. No biggie.”

  I stifled a rude comment about her ghost. Then, I grabbed my camera and reshot everything we had done before, all over again, as if I were the only cameraperson. I was pretty sure Dwayne’s would be unusable if he was as scared as he seemed to be. He probably trembled throughout the whole event. Likely the footage would be so shaky I wouldn’t even be able to watch it.

  I grumbled and mumbled silently, calling him names I would never utter audibly.

  When I finished shooting, I interviewed Mrs. Keith on-screen using the suggested prompts on the shot sheet. In a short while, I was finished. Between all the footage taken from beginning to end, there had to be something that the Manny Owens people could use.

  I tapped the trunk to get Dee to open it, stowed my equipment inside, and flopped into the passenger seat. “Let’s go.”

  The digital clock on his dash showed we’d only been shooting for two hours. Well, four hundred dollars was better than nothing.

  Dwayne was silent for most of the way back to the office. I didn’t know what to say. It would serve no purpose to irritate his sore spot. He was scared of anything considered paranormal. There was no way to change a lifetime of being indulged in such idiocy. The porcelain dog likely had been too near the edge of the shelf and vibrations from our moving around in there sent it off the edge. Or wind from Dwayne’s passing could have done it…or the cat could have done it. The fact that he didn’t see the cat drop down from the shelf only made me shrug my shoulders. Who knew?

  Ghosts? R-i-ight.

  I didn’t believe in all that tripe. I always said to anyone who talked about sightings and such that I would have to see it with my own eyes before I would believe in it. And even this job, in a supposedly haunted house, hadn’t changed my mind.

  The owner of that house was a kook.

  When we got back to the office, I took all the SD cards and prepared to transfer them to the computer to get them in some sort of decent order to burn disks for our client. It was the most normal part of the day to me.

  Dwayne lounged in my doorway, leaning against the wall. “I bet those orbs were from the cat. Bet that damn cat is possessed.”

  “Close,” I told him. Now was the time to explain stuff. “The cat was why stuff happened, I bet. I mean, that broken bric-a-brac totally could be explained that way. The cat could have been dragging the towel off the rack, the cat could have been playing on the washing machine and knocked the stuff off the wall. It’s plausible.”

  He shrugged. “That cat didn’t make that glass figurine fall off that shelf while I sat there. But that’s beside the point…don’t matter one bit. I was glad to leave.”

  I shook my head and gave him my best shaming look.

  “Can’t help what my gut says, Wall-ass,” he replied, ending my chances to make him see reason.

  Dwayne took off to get food for us. I suspected he would return with chicken from the Cluck and Go down the highway. Humming, I watched the footage slowly float across the screen as it downloaded into our capture software. It was like watching it in slow-mo.

  When I saw the towel slide off the towel rack, I laughed. That was no fault of a ghost. That was plain old gravity. A blink later, a faint shadow darted across the screen. I sat up straighter. What was that? A cat maybe? I nodded at the potential. That cat was the ghost.

  I changed disks, and as I prepared to capture it, Dwayne returned. The smell of fried chicken wafted in with him as he strode to his desk. I laughed to myself. Boy, we were like an old married couple.

  “I brought you fingers and fries. That okay?” he yelled from his office.

  “Sure,” I yelled back.

  We ate a lot of fried chicken these days. I would have to spend more time on the treadmill if this continued. I needed to drop a few pounds before Halloween anyway. Candy was my downfall. I opened my middle desk drawer at the thought of it to check to see if I had any mini-bars.

  Nothing. Drat.

  As the footage crawled across the screen, I watched the events in the little girl’s room. Becky stood and brushed her shorts off. When she moved to the bed, a shadow figure stood underneath the orbs. The figure had long dark hair and wore a very fli
msy dress. She moved backward and disappeared into the wall.

  I slapped at the keyboard trying to find the shortcut to stop the capture. My heart pounded in my chest taking my breath away.

  What the hell was that?

  My feet shoved my chair backward as hard as it could go, and if there hadn’t been a wall there, I would have kept backing.

  There was no freaking way. “No way, man.”

  Dwayne, whistling some silly tune, strolled into my office about that time. “Yes, way. Here’s your—what’s wrong?” he asked dropping the bag on my desk. “What’s the matter? You look like you’re about to puke. Did you eat some of that spaghetti in the fridge because it’s older than...”?

  I shook my head and swallowed. I couldn’t tell him about the footage. I couldn’t tell him his worst fears were true.

  “N-no. I saw a s-spider.”

  He bent down to look under my desk. “Where?”

  I rolled my chair back to the desk and pulled up my computer desktop so he couldn’t see what I was looking at. “I don’t know. I think he went toward the door. I was too scared to do more than scramble away from him.”

  That much was true anyway.

  He looked all around the office before declaring it was clean of all arachnids. Only he did it like the weird woman on the old movie, Poltergeist, which freaked me out even more. I saluted him with a chicken finger, terror making me silly. At the moment, I’d do anything to remain normal.

  I restarted the capture, watching closely. Hoping to see a cat that paraded around like a shadowy little girl.

  Ghosts? For real?

  I wiped my hands on a napkin and took calming breaths. The bathroom scene came up, and I watched as no shadow blurred the room this time. What the hell?

  Trembling, I ejected the disk, and inserted it again, then restarted the capture for the third time. The little girl’s bedroom appeared. When Becky stood and brushed herself off, I tensed, like when you pull a bandage off a particularly painful cut.

  This time, the shadowy figure wasn’t standing in the shadows beyond the sunbeam. I leaned forward to take a better look. I tried and tried to see it by replaying and re-capturing the footage over and over. She never reappeared.