Soldier of Love (4 page)

“I think I might have forgotten the batteries on my desk.”

Thomas loosened his grip. If Brad had to forget something, batteries were about the best thing.

“We’ll swing into the next station. I’ve got to fill up the van and pee anyway.”

Brad gave an apologetic shrug.

* * * *

Thomas reached for his wallet. The gas station clerk was a pale, thin woman whose droopy skin looked two sizes too large. Her frizzy, dull brown hair was almost certainly the result of a cheap home permanent and hair dye combo, and her thin lips stretched over enormous equine teeth. She was grinding a big wad of gum, which made her mouth appear even more horse-like.

The clerk glanced out the store’s front window and nodded towards the van. Her fried curls-in-a-box hairdo bobbed.

“Paranormal Research Team, huh? You’re that guy. Right? My husband watches that show. He buys into all of that hocus-pocus crap. Personally, I think it’s a load of bull manure.”

Thomas knew he should be accustomed to this kind of uncensored comment, but even after four seasons, the sheer tactlessness of it still stunned him. People seemed to think that the basic decency requirement didn’t apply when talking with a celebrity. It was part and parcel of being in the public eye.

It was hard to fault the sceptics—even the rude ones. Thomas’s own scepticism was growing with every episode. Occasionally they would investigate a haunting claim and walk away with more questions than answers, but being unexplained and being genuinely supernatural were two very different things. Mostly, they turned up a big, fat, nothing, all the while the network hounding them to make it into something. Make the lighting spookier. Use more flashy gadgets. Look more terrified as you speak into the camera in an ominous tone.

This definitely was not what Thomas had had in mind when he’d got his journalism degree.

Thomas leaned on the counter. The clerk was staring him down and chomping at her gum with her oversized teeth.

“Have you ever seen a ghost?” he asked her, genuinely interested in her answer.

“Nope,” she said, popping the letter P for emphasis.

“Yeah. Me neither.”

Thomas returned his wallet to his jeans pocket, scooped up the plastic bag of batteries and headed back to the van. He opened the driver’s side door and passed the bag to Brad.

Thomas climbed in and shut the door. He caught Brad’s gaze in the rear-view, then turned to Bridget.

“I’m done. This is my last one. Once we wrap this investigation, my ghost-hunting days are over.”

“Geez, I’m really sorry, Thomas,” Brad said.

Thomas looked back into the mirror. His cameraman seemed crushed.

“I’ll do better. I can write notes to myself, or maybe make a checklist of things I need to bring on shoots. Hey, I know, I could start taking those memory vitamins. Or…”

Thomas turned and reached between the seats. He patted Brad on the shoulder to stop the apology.

“It’s not you, man, It’s all this,” Thomas said, gesturing to the equipment lining the interior walls of the van. “It’s the night-vision goggles, and the infrared cameras and the EMF meters. I mean, what the fuck does an EMF meter really do anyway?”

Brad tilted his head and wrinkled his brow. “Electromagnetic Field meter? You know what it is, Thomas. It’s used to detect fluctuations in—”

Thomas held up his hand to stop the explanation.

“Yeah, I know what it does, but who says a disturbance in the electromagnetic field means there’s a ghost? Who says that if the temperature in a room drops a couple of degrees that there’s a ghost? Who says that every unexplained creak and bump in the night can only be attributed to a fucking ghost? Huh? We do.

“We go on television and pretend like we know what we’re doing and that we have all the answers and there are people out there who actually believe it. It’s bullshit and we’re bullshitters and I’m done with all of it.”

Thomas backed out of the parking space, slammed the gearshift into Drive and peeled out onto the two-lane county road. He glared through the windshield. “By the way, how did the ghost
tell
the subject to call us?”

When Bridget didn’t answer immediately, Thomas jerked his head to face her and then returned his attention to the road. “Well?”

“He, um, well…” Bridget’s answer came in a voice so small that Thomas and Brad had to lean in to hear. “He kept changing the television channel to our show.”

Thomas let out a “Ha!” that could in no way be mistaken for laughter then seemed to be talking to himself as he muttered, “Well, that’s just great. He changed the channel.”

The team was silent as they travelled the last ten miles to Soldiers Orchard and the reportedly haunted inn.

* * * *

Keeping it from the guests was impossible. Toni nearly jumped out of her skin every time someone entered a room or said her name. Each morning she served big, farmhand breakfasts to fortify the re-enactors before driving them out to the battlefield. The table talk invariably turned to suddenly freezing cold bedrooms, invisible nudges at the bottom of the staircase, the “unusual” and vivid dreams.

The morning after her own dream encounter, Toni was forced to face the truth. Over shirred eggs and thin-sliced ham, Jerry Simpson—a portly New Jersey accountant whose alter ego was a Confederate Army private named Tobias Clementine—finally gave voice to what everyone was thinking.

“Toni, is the inn haunted?”

Toni was glad for a mouthful of food and took her time chewing as she formulated her answer. She glanced up at the ceiling over the dining room table. Two weeks ago a huge section of the plaster—in roughly the shape of Australia—had liberated itself and crashed down upon the scarred mahogany table in a pile of chunks and powder. The next morning, the ceiling was a perfectly smooth field of freshly-painted white.

Toni swallowed and swept her gaze over the six visitors at the table. They each leant forward, eagerly awaiting her reply. The months of worry over the inn’s insufficient cash flow drained away.
They want it to be haunted
, she thought. As it stood, the inn was one of a thousand, a decrepit nineteenth-century house used to lodge history buffs on their annual pilgrimage to Civil War fantasy. But with a resident ghost…

Toni was well aware of paranormal tourism. There were frequently articles about it in the hospitality trade magazines she subscribed to. Reportedly haunted hotels and inns made a killing. Some hosted Murder Mystery Weekends, séances, and even ghost-hunting conventions complete with guest speakers and mediums. Toni imagined the kind of improvements that she could make with a little ghost money rolling in.

“Yes,” Toni heard herself say. She was suddenly outside herself, looking down on the yarn-spinner she’d become and the rapt listeners leaning in to hang on her every word. “Yes, Jerry, the inn is haunted.”

Six chairs creaked as the men sat back tall in their chairs, each with an ‘I knew it!’ expression on his face.

“The inn is haunted,” Toni paused for effect and caught each man’s gaze in turn, “by the ghost of none other than John Buckman himself.”

Half a dozen eager faces wore expressions of shocked delight. Mouths hung open. Eyes widened. Heads shook in rapturous disbelief.

Jerry, who’d become something of an instant hero for daring to ask the question they all harboured, pulled back his sloping shoulders and cleared his throat.

“Have you actually seen Captain Buckman’s ghost, Toni?” he asked.

Toni bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning at the abrupt change in fortune. She concentrated on sounding sombre.
Spin it, Bianchi
, she silently coached herself.
Spin this right and you’ll have all twelve rooms booked by the weekend.

Toni felt a shiver of excitement prickle over her skin. She embraced the sensation and allowed her body to shudder. The effect, she knew, was that of a woman terrified by the tale she was about to tell.

“The other night—the night of the rainstorm, when I dropped you all off at The Slaughtered Lamb after manoeuvres—I saw him. I was trying to open the carriage house door so I could pull in the pickup. The door handle came off in my hand and I was so frustrated, I threw it across the driveway. I actually fell in the mud—flat on my ass.”

The men responded with a chorus of nervous giggles and nods, urging her to go on.

“I got up and tried to brush myself off, but I was soaked.”

Her guests were so silent. Toni supposed they must be holding their collective breath.

“I was trying to scoop away enough mud to open the door. I looked up, across the alley, and I saw him. At first I thought it was one of your guys, but the uniform was so good! This hair and moustache looked so real!”

Mike Briggs—a handsome, slightly awkward, real estate salesman from North Dakota—actually let out a little squeak of delight. Under the table, Toni pinched her own thigh to squelch her laughter. She drew in a deep breath through her nose, and when she was sure she wouldn’t break character, she laid her hands over her left breast.

“He was in the shadows. He gave a tiny bow and touched the brim of his cap. I was waiting for him to step into the light so I could see his face. I turned away for a split second…” Toni paused.

Mike Briggs’ thumb went to his mouth and he gnawed at the nail.

“When I looked up, he was gone.”

The men glanced at each other and grinned nervously. They seemed conflicted, as if they wanted more than anything to believe her, and were desperate not to. Toni didn’t let her audience step back from the precipice.

“But the weirdest thing—” she began.

They all leaned in.

“Well, maybe it’s best to show you.”

Toni pushed away from the table and walked towards the kitchen, certain that they would follow. She heard silverware clatter onto china and half a dozen chairs scrape backwards as she pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen. They were hot on her heels when she passed through the squeaky screen door and stepped into the back yard. She turned and walked backwards, leading her rapt audience over the flagstone path to the carriage house, like a museum docent leading a tour group.

“I didn’t want to believe it, but see for yourself,” she said, then turned and strode towards the carriage house.

Toni reached out for the door handle and gave it a hearty tug. The men shouldered in around her and examined the fresh repair.

Arthur Edwards, a rail-thin Wisconsin history professor, squinted and crossed his arms over his concave chest. “So, are you telling us that your ghost does home repairs?”

The other men laughed nervously.

Toni held out her hands, palms up, and shrugged.

“I can’t explain it, Dr Edwards. All I know is that when I went to bed the wood was splintered and the door handle was lost somewhere in the mud. When I went to get the truck the next morning to drive you all to the battlefield, this is what I found.”

Toni watched as five heads swivelled between her and the university professor, waiting for him to return the volley. Arthur Edwards stroked his chin and looked thoughtful.

“I see,” he said, seeming not at all sure.

Chapter Three

Toni drove her six guests to the battlefield without telling them about the possessed kitchen television and cordless phone. Something told her that there was a fine line between a titillating ghost story and room-clearing terror. Nor did she mention that she’d contacted the Paranormal Research Team and they were now on their way to the inn.

The re-enactors wouldn’t return to the inn until well after midnight. They would play out a battle in the morning, after which the Soldiers Orchard ladies’ auxiliary was scheduled to cook an historically correct field lunch for the men. They would then repair to The Slaughtered Lamb for a traditional dinner, followed by a period-costumed dance.

Toni scraped the breakfast dishes and sank them into a bath of suds. She slung a dish towel over her shoulder and glanced at the reproduction antique clock over the stove. The Paranormal Research Team should be arriving any moment. Toni fought the urge to stand watching for them at the parlour window. She began sponging dried egg from the mismatched plates, cocking her head to listen at every vehicle passing in the street. When she’d washed the last plate and coffee cup and piece of flatware and placed them in the drainer to dry, she pulled the plug, dried her hands and leant forward to drape the damp towel over the stainless steel bar affixed to the cupboard above the sink.

A wispy tickle on the back of her neck made Toni involuntarily shrug. It felt like one of her curls had sprung free from her upswept hair. She reached behind her head to smooth her hair into place, but found no stray tresses on the back of her neck. Gunpowder. Toni now understood from listening to the guests that what she smelt was smoke from the barrels of actual rifles, not toys. Her arms broke out in goose bumps. She hugged herself against the sudden chill. The light bulb over the sink glowed bright then burned out with a
zzt
. She could feel him standing behind her, pressing his body against hers from shoulder blades to buttocks.

Toni slowly turned her head towards the darkened screen of the television on the shelf to her left. She could see her own image in the mirror-like surface. She was bent slightly forward over the sink, hinged at the hips with her spine straight. Her nostrils filled with the smell of wood smoke and wet wool. She couldn’t tear her attention from the blackened TV screen—she was alone in the reflection. She started to tremble. She felt his prickly whiskers against the side of her neck and her nipples hardened in response. She gripped the edge of the sink as her hips were yanked backwards. Invisible hands slid over the deep curve of her waist, then around to the front to claim her breasts. Her breath shuddered when she inhaled. Ghostly fingers kneaded her roughly and pinched her through the thin calico. Toni cried out. The unmistakable jab of an erect cock pressed into the plump flesh of her ass. Toni’s knees began to quiver. She was swept under by a thrilling wave of fear and sexual anticipation. A cool palm flattened between her shoulders and pushed her forward until her breasts hung down into the empty sink. The invisible hands were back on her hips, pulling her ass into the hard shaft.