The Shadows Call Read online

  ‘Don’t just rely on the equipment,’ Brianne told me, the first time we’d had any real interaction. We were at the foot of the stairs on the ground floor; the others were down in the basement. ‘Sometimes our best investigative tools are our own senses. We see, hear, smell, taste and touch things that the recording devices never will. Don’t be afraid to say something if you experience anything odd.’

  ‘I’ve experienced a few weird things lately. It’s only a shame that my senses will never be accepted as proof, or my word. Steve made it quite clear he’s doubtful of what I told him. I’m almost frightened to say if anything happens for fear he’ll bite my head off.’

  ‘You really shouldn’t pay too much attention to my husband. He doesn’t intend to be personal. He comes across as pushy, yes, but that’s him aiming to present a businesslike front. Really he’s determined to prove the existence of spirit, and he is frustrated by some of the supposed evidence some of the other paranormal groups present. He only hopes that the evidence he comes up with is beyond reproach. He likes to set the boundaries so that our clients know what to expect from us, but also what is expected of them.’

  ‘Yeah, he made that abundantly clear,’ I said.

  ‘Once he relaxes into the investigation, you’ll find that he’s not such a bad guy. You might even get to like him.’ Suddenly a shard of diamond settled in her eyes. ‘Your girlfriend does.’

  Hilary ascended the stairs from the basement. I’d removed the temporary plywood door and placed it aside. She offered us the thumbs up signal. Steve and Sarah were alone downstairs in the dark. I wanted to charge down there, and I could sense Brianne shifting too. Trust your senses, she’d more or less said, and we were both worried about the same thing. But it was short lived. Sarah came out the stairwell a couple of seconds behind Hilary. She looked from Brianne to me, and announced ‘Almost ready to start. Steve’s just setting the cameras off then we’re going to lock this area down so there’s no contamination.’ To me she added, ‘All exciting stuff, eh?’

  I gave her double thumbs up and a little quirk of my shoulders. Not because I was excited, but because I was relieved she’d resisted Steve’s charms.

  27

  White Noise

  The evening passed in a blur and segued through the witching hour without any fanfare. Both Sarah and I had to be up for work for seven in the morning, but we were caught up in the chase. Sleep wouldn’t come for hours yet. As a group we’d conducted various experiments, but with little tangible result. At one point a faint knocking came in response to a prompt from Steve, but we tracked it back to the kitchen and an airlock in the water pipes. Steve aimed an arched eyebrow at me. The knocking was nothing like the banging we witnessed when Sarah stayed over on Thursday night, but to Steve it was the obvious explanation. He was sceptical, critical in places, and very much like I had been only a couple of weeks ago. Insufferable. But he was also funny on occasion, and having relaxed into the investigation hadn’t once cast further aspersions on my integrity.

  We took a short break, converging in the kitchen where I poured us all strong coffee. Hilary popped outside with her cup, going for a sly ciggie. I could tell Sarah wanted one too, but thought it more important that she stay behind. Steve and Brianne stood at one side of the kitchen, Sarah and I the other, facing each other over the scuffed linoleum.

  ‘It has been an interesting night,’ Steve offered, but he was vague enough to remain noncommittal.

  ‘Can’t say as I’ve seen or heard anything strange tonight,’ I said.

  ‘It can often be the way,’ Steve said, ‘when we first arrive. Think about it: if you were a spirit and a bunch of strangers invaded your home would you be happy performing parlour tricks for them?’

  ‘Sometimes we have to do repeat investigations before we come to a final conclusion about a case,’ Brianne said.

  ‘Ghosts can’t be expected to perform on command,’ Sarah also chipped in.

  To me they all sounded defensive. As if the lack of phenomena was their fault, but they weren’t prepared to accept the responsibility. Funnily enough, I wanted to argue that there was definitely something there, even if it hadn’t showed its face yet. Quite a turn around. I was supposed to be the sceptic, these guys were the believers and it was as if there had been a complete about face in our attitudes.

  ‘We’ve a stack of devices running, all recording,’ Steve added, ‘that will require checking over the next few days. If it’s there, we’ve probably caught it. We won’t know until a full analysis of the footage has been completed.’

  ‘You’ll let me know?’ I asked.

  ‘One way or another.’

  Steve nipped his bottom lip between his teeth. Despite his boldness earlier he now sounded reserved about his judgement. Brianne mentioned he was determined to prove the existence of spirit, but I was beginning to think that a more appropriate choice of word was desperate. He wanted to find something in my home as much as I did, and I gained the opinion he had been hoping for much more than we’d experienced until now. He wasn’t ready to pack up his ghost hunting kit yet.

  ‘So what’s the plan for the rest of the night?’ I asked.

  ‘Once we’re refreshed I think it will be a good time to run a spirit box session. We’ve recorded interesting results from it in the past. From what I’ve heard from both you and Sarah the predominant activity here is in the form of noise and voice phenomena – the SB-seven should confirm it for us.’

  Hilary had given me a brief run down on the SB-7 device, but to be honest I wasn’t fully conversant with how it worked. Steve must have noticed something in my expression.

  ‘I know that results from the spirit box is subjective but the theory behind it is sound. The device rapidly scans through white noise, performing a sweep through the bandwidths at a rate of approximately four channels per second. Because it only pauses on a specific frequency for a quarter of a second it shouldn’t be possible to hear any full words, certainly not any phrases or sentences and yet we do. The idea is that the spirit can manipulate the white noise to allow its voice to be heard.’ Steve placed down his coffee and folded his arms. ‘As wacky as the idea sounds, the device is proving very popular with paranormal researchers these days. But the idea is certainly not a new one: Thomas Edison, who also invented the phonograph, allegedly worked on the first ‘spirit phone’. In the nineteen twenties radio had recently gained huge audiences, but prior to that the very notion that voices travelling wirelessly through space could be heard was deemed impossible. With his phonograph Edison had already performed a miracle - showing that through recordings he could preserve the voices of the dead for future generations - and it was his opinion that, with a radio, if you could hear living people speak through a box then why not the dead?’

  ‘I think I watched a programme on the Discovery Channel about that,’ I said.

  ‘Quite possibly. There have been other precursors to the modern device. William O’Neill’s Spiricom and Frank Sumption’s Ghost Box are probably the best known. Sceptics say that the device is picking up random radio chatter, or voices from CB radios or even baby monitors, and we must take this into consideration. The other argument they use is that we’re all suffering the effects of auditory pareidolia: basically we have an expectancy to hear voices and therefore form words from random noise. Again, I have to agree to some extent. But what I’ve found through my own studies is that their arguments don’t offer a full explanation for everything that’s heard.’

  Brianne also laid credibility in results gained from the spirit box. ‘Isn’t it ironic that the scientific community claims that research into EVP and Instrumental Transcommunication is carried out by amateur researchers-’ she indicated her husband ‘-who lack the training or resources to conduct scientific research, and who are governed by subjective motives. Yet their scientific opinion is wholly subjective on claiming we’re either misguided loonies or that we fake the results ourselves. Can I just remind everyone that these are the sam
e people that burned heretics who claimed the earth was round.’

  ‘If only they were prepared to think outside the spirit box, eh?’ Sarah quipped.

  ‘Anything that challenges accepted science is always ridiculed,’ Steve said forcefully. ‘I’m surprised that the human race has made any advances from cavemen when faced with such closed minds. They work between such rigid parameters that they try to fit everything inside them. Then again, we probably don’t help our own credibility in the eyes of the wider scientific community. There are too many paranormal groups out there using dubious methods to capture equally dubious evidence – and I use the term “evidence” very loosely.’

  ‘To a sceptic no proof is possible, to a believer no proof is necessary.’ Brianne raised her sculptured eyebrows at me. ‘You’ve probably heard similar phrases bandied around when it comes to the study of the paranormal. Our ethos is that we should sit between those opposing viewpoints; sadly, because of our stance we’re sometimes looked upon as “fence sitters” by both sides. But that’s fine: it also makes us trend setters.’ She smiled, happy at the notion.

  ‘Particularly if we snag some evidence that is irrefutable,’ Steve added, and it was the unofficial signal to put down our cups and get on with the next experiment.

  Hilary appeared in the kitchen doorway. She put down her cup on the counter, began rubbing her palms together, feeling the chill outside. I caught a waft of breath from her, acrid with smoke. ‘We all ready for round two?’ she asked.

  There was no single location in the house that was more active than another, but a few where nothing unusual had happened. I’d experienced activity of some sort in all the top floor bedrooms, the landing and bathroom on the first floor, the parlour on the ground floor and the basement. The first floor rooms and living room next door to the parlour we could largely ignore. Hilary collected the SB-7 and portable speaker, plus a digital voice recorder, while Steve led us up the stairs to the very top. Although we’d been in the bedrooms already I was a tad uneasy when Steve arranged us in the kids’ bedroom, in full sight of my slapdash attempt at covering up the words on the walls. I made a mental note to pick up extra spackling paste at my first opportunity.

  Hilary set out the equipment. She placed the spirit box and speaker on the top bunk, and to ensure a clear recording of the experiment, she placed the recoding device on the lower bunk. Sarah had carried up a digicam to visually capture the scene.

  ‘We’re rolling,’ Hilary said, and switched on the spirit box. The harsh white noise dug a dagger inside my skull. It was constant, periodically under laid by a soft blip, a single syllable or note of music snatched from the ether.

  Steve introduced the group and because the others made their hello’s I too offered a quick ‘Hi’. Steve continued with the routine, time and date stamping the experiment for evidential purposes. He then asked if there was anyone else in the room, encouraging them to use the energy from the SB-7 to speak to us.

  Ksshhhhhhhhaaaaaksshhhhhaaaaaa…

  The white noise made the skin on my skull shrink. I moved to the far wall, propping my hips against the windowsill. It had no discernible effect on the volume, but at least it didn’t feel as if ants were crawling all over me.

  ‘Let us know your name,’ Steve called.

  White noise. A blip. White noise.

  ‘Was that a voice?’ Brianne ventured.

  We all shrugged, but Steve picked up the pace a little. ‘We think we might have just heard your voice. Try again. Use all the energy in the room, use the energy from the device,’ he touched his chest, ‘or use our energy. Just let us know your name.’ He paused.

  “Mwa…”

  ‘Was that ‘Mike’?’ Sarah wondered aloud. Her statement confirmed the subjectivity of using such devices to supposedly communicate with the dead.

  “Boh…”

  ‘Bob?’ offered Brianne.

  They were snatching syllables from the white noise and making them fit. To be fair, Steve didn’t rise to their suggestions. He wore a frown as he listened. Softly shaking his head.

  ‘Come into this room,’ he said. ‘Let us know you are here. Tell us your name.’

  White noise reigned.

  ‘OK. If you don’t want to tell us who you are, tell us who is in this room.’

  “J-ack.”

  All eyes turned on me. Shifting uncomfortably, I could only offer a shrug.

  ‘It just said “Jack”,’ Sarah said needlessly.

  ‘It sounded like “Jack”, but might not have been,’ I said. ‘It sounded more like a part of a word.’

  Sarah eyed me over the top of the camera’s viewfinder. Her mouth made a frustrated shudder.

  ‘Come on. Did you just name Jack? Say “Yes”, confirm to us that it was you speaking.” Steve’s voice had grown in volume, in direct competition with the white noise blaring from the speaker.

  “Mwa…” the same noise came as before.

  ‘Say it clearly for us,’ Steve commanded. ‘Say “yes”, or name another in the room.’

  “Essair….uh…ksshhaahhh….”

  ‘Sarah,’ both Brianne and Hilary intoned together. They both turned to look at my girlfriend, but her attention was still on me.

  ‘Where have we heard that before?’ she asked.

  Remaining noncommittal, I stayed silent. Sarah swung the digicam off me towards the device.

  ‘You try speaking with it, Sarah,’ Steve said.

  Sarah pinched her lips. She took a few unnecessary steps towards the bunk beds. If there was indeed a ghost listening, I doubted it needed to stand beside the SB-7 in order to project its voice through it. ‘Are you trying to tell me something?’ Sarah ventured. ‘Please make it clear.’ She extolled the spirit to use the energy from the box. ‘Speak through this box or give me another sign, show yourself in front of this camera.’

  “Essair…”

  ‘That’s right. That’s my name,’ said Sarah, ‘but what are you trying to tell me?’

  White noise.

  ‘Come on, gather all the available energy and speak.’ Sarah adjusted the camera, as if by doing so it would offer the supposed spirit a better angle to come through.

  “Not.”

  ‘Not? Not what?’ Sarah called.

  “Safe here.”

  ‘Not safe here,’ I said, parroting what I’d just heard. It was the self-same phrase caught on the digital recorder when the deliverymen conducted their search for the mysterious bleeding woman. The words burned my throat as if laced with acid. I clamped my teeth, swallowing hard.

  Sarah turned and peered at me. Her eyes were huge. Frightened. ‘Oh my God,’ she mouthed.

  I shook my head. ‘It’s not the same. That’s a man’s voice.’

  Steve interrupted. ‘The voices we are hearing are those that the spirits are able to manipulate. They pick up on the available voices on the various airwaves and use them as necessary. It could be male, female, or anything else that is speaking.’

  Anything else? What the bloody hell did he mean by that?

  ‘Not safe here?’ Steve called loudly. ‘Who isn’t safe here?’

  “Essair…uh…”

  ‘Sarah!’ Again the name was spoken by more than one in the group.

  ‘Do you mean Sarah harm?’ Steve asked.

  White noise.

  ‘Tell us,’ Steve commanded this time. ‘Do you mean to do Sarah harm?’

  “Murrrd…”

  ‘You’re making no sense,’ Steve said.

  “Murrrd…”

  ‘Murder? Is it trying to say murder?’ Now Brianne’s eyes were as large as Sarah’s.

  Steve held up a hand for silence. He addressed the unseen spirit. ‘Is that what you’re trying to say? Murder?’

  White noise.

  ‘Speak to us.’

  “Murrrd….J-ack….murrrd…”

  ‘What the fuck?’ I whispered. ‘It wants to murder me?’

  Before anyone could comment the white noise was shattered
by a static crackle. The voice that then emanated from the box was unmistakable. “Want you…Want you…I…Want…YOU…”

  Before any of us could absorb what we’d just listened to, Steve took a hurried step towards the bunks. He leaned, seeking the buttons to silence the spirit box. ‘Ending session,’ he announced.

  28

  Lies, Damned Lies and Fantasy.

  ‘That ended much too soon for my liking.’

  Sarah’s naked body was slick against me. We were twined together, one of her knees between mine, an ankle hooked around my left foot. Her breasts were pressed to my chest, her face nuzzled in my neck as she spoke. I played distractedly with her hair, running it between my fingers, letting it float and fan out across the damp pillow.

  ‘I tried to hold back as long as I could…but you’re just so hot I exploded.’

  Pushing up on to one elbow Sarah eyed me in wide-eyed scandal. ‘I didn’t mean the sex. I meant the spirit box session!’

  Smug as hell, I said. ‘I knew what you meant.’

  Sarah tweaked one of my nipples and I jerked back with a yell that was part giggle part scream. ‘Don’t,’ I cried, ‘I’m ticklish.’

  That was like waving a red rag to a bull. She tweaked at my nipple again and I almost went over the side of my new double bed. We both laughed. Sarah got up on her knees, then straddled my stomach. Her pert breasts were barely pendulous. I reached for them, but Sarah grasped my wrists and pressed them down either side of my mussed hair. Her face grew serious.