The middle drawer to the left of the sink, where the McCammons kept their odds and ends, was halfway open. Jessica took a picture of the open drawer with her digital camera, shielding her eyes from the flash. A quick breeze whispered past her back in the kitchen. She had closed every window and door five hours earlier, sealing them shut with special tape so any manipulations by passing air could be eliminated. She shivered, more from the tightening of the tension in her body than the temporary icy gust that crept around her.
She looked once again at the drawer, the exposure of its contents mocking her, daring her to find the secret hidden within the walls of the Tudor house.
One of her Trifield meters in the upstairs bathroom squealed for several seconds before tumbling to the floor. She heard the plastic device smack the hard, unyielding tile, bouncing twice before settling to a standstill. The Trifield meter was used to measure changes in electromagnetic, electric and radio/microwave fields. She wasn’t entirely sold on its efficacy, but it was the best of the limited lot available to paranormal research. And now she was down one.
“Oh, I see,” Jessica said aloud. “You want to play your games, just not with me. Can it be that you’re afraid of a nineteen-year-old girl? I’m all alone and I have all night. In fact, Kristen and Tim and the girls left the house to me all weekend, so I have nothing but time.”
Jessica’s ears popped a split second before she saw the couch in the living room move a few inches to the right. The legs of the couch scraped across the hardwood floor and the EMF meter on the table next to it wailed like a siren.
She decided to coax the presence in the house a little further.
“Moving furniture in other rooms doesn’t impress me. You did that once before and I was bored then.”
Slam! The kitchen drawer shut itself with enough force to crack the wood face.
Jessica considered the intensity required to do such a thing. This was new. The EB was either getting stronger or angrier…or both. Good.
She pulled her digital recorder from the custom designed leather holster around her waist and clicked it on. Even though there were more cameras down here, one in the kitchen and two in the living room, she wanted every piece of equipment she had at the ready to record her observations. She had also placed IR lights around the room to expand the scope of her cameras. IR lights boosted the distance her cameras could record in night vision mode.
“Kitchen drawer just closed so hard, the wood cracked. Time is two-forty-eight a.m. I dared the EB to be more demonstrative and it’s taking up the challenge. The air smells funky, like burning wires. No signs of smoke.” She stopped. Something started tapping on the walls around her.
Tap-tap, pause, tap-tap-tap, pause, tap.
Jessica continued, using meditative breathing exercises to calm herself, “I hope I caught that. It’s tapping out in a sequence.” Tap-tap. “Two taps, followed by three, then one. I’m not sure if it’s some form of Morse code or the beat to a song or what. It just keeps tapping, and the burning smell is getting stronger,” she whispered into the audio recorder. Then, much louder, “Are you trying to tell me something? If you speak into this recorder in my hand, I may be able to hear you. What does the tapping mean? Or are you just trying to scare me?”
A heavy rumble shook the floor beneath her feet.
Tap-tap-tap.
Tap.
Tap-tap.
Jessica put the recorder close to her lips. “I’m going to have to check the outlets. The burning smell is getting intense. Something — whoa!”
The recorder was knocked from her hand and skidded across the linoleum floor. The hand that had been holding the recorder felt like it had been dipped in a tub of ice. She gave it a few sharp shakes to halt the pins and needles sensation that followed.
The house was once again silent and the darkness seemed to intensify. Even though her eyes had acclimated to the night, she was finding it harder to make out the shapes of the furniture around her. It was as if a heavy, black gauze had oozed throughout the house like an obsidian blob.
She took a few tentative steps towards where she assumed her digital recorder lay. The air itself was heavy and she knew she was far from alone. She fought hard to fight back the tingling dread that threatened to dance up her spine. A part of her was sure that something was very close behind her. Silently, it approached with arms wide open, edging closer with each deliberate step. If she were to turn around now, she would come face to face with all of her worst nightmares brought to life.
If only she dared to take one simple peek.
In the dark.
So close she could feel the ripples of its intrusive essence caressing the back of her neck.
Jessica stopped when she reached the threshold of the dining room and closed her eyes. She felt like a blind person in a crowded room of silent guests, no one daring to breathe lest they reveal their presence to the woman in their midst, yet eager to pounce if she gave the slightest inkling that she was aware of their proximity. Her heart skipped a beat as she breathed deep. The fight or flight instinct was battling for control. Her body was in the throes of the primal, physical ache to flee. It would be so easy to run now. The front door was only twenty feet away. Just turn a couple of locks and she could be outside.
The floorboards creaked behind her, a slight groan of wood protesting the weight of a single, heavy footstep.
Three more breaths. Her heart rate slowed to a steady rhythm.
Another creak, this time to her right, near the breakfront.
Jessica smiled and she felt the tension release its grip from her shoulders.
Breathe in, hold, breathe out.
Something hard and small smacked into the glass top of the coffee table.
Breathe in, hold, breathe out.
The sound of glass under stress, spider cracks crunching their way across the surface of the table.
Now!
Jessica turned quickly and shouted “Boo!”
The coffee table top exploded in a shower of glass pebbles as she faced the empty darkness behind her. Bits of glass bounced harmlessly off her leather jacket. A picture frame flew from the fireplace mantle and crashed into the opposite wall. All of the kitchen chairs slid out from under the table at once, one of them falling completely backwards. Jessica turned back towards the living room in time to see the blinds on the front window part as if someone ran a finger from top to bottom. Upstairs, it sounded as if a brawl had broken out. The ceiling fan shook under the pounding of footsteps and falling objects.
The house was alive and it was not happy.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Island of the Forbidden
Copyright © 2015 by Hunter Shea
ISBN: 978-1-61922-690-6
Edited by Don D’Auria
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: January 2015
www.samhainpublishing.com