Johnny’s spirit possibly hanging around the murder scene. Hell, it’s still his and Brenda’s house, until their next-of-kin figures out what to do with the place. That is, once the police finally remove the yellow tape from the home’s entrances. The ‘dryer-hose’ reference of Tom’s is investigator lingo for spirit evidence in light forms, strongly resembling the hose on the back of a standard clothes dryer. Just goes to show how non-scientific our field is. It’s not like someone can go to college and get a degree in paranormal investigation techniques. At least not yet.
“ It might not be anything we can prove,” offered Tony, when Tom merely shrugged his shoulders and went back to view the pictures under a magnifier he brought with him. “Remember the faces we’ve seen before that turned out to be just weird light reflections?”
“ Yes,” she sighed, looking over at Angie, before the two women looked over at Fiona.
“ He’s right,” Fiona conceded. “But, why not let Jimmy take a look at the pictures anyway? Who knows…he might see something else we’ve missed.”
True. It’s sort of my forte. Other than Fiona’s keen eye, I’ve found more faint anomalies than anyone else in the group.
Tom handed the pack to Tony and he gave it to Angie, who passed it on to Fiona. Why Angie didn’t just give it directly to me…well whatever. Fiona handed the pictures to me, and asked Tom to lend me his magnifier. Just then our food arrived.
While everyone was being served their dinner entrees, I scanned through the pictures. I readily believed the dryer-hose shots were legitimate evidence of something paranormal. Especially one photograph, where the image bore reddish and yellow hues along its edges. It was solid in its consistency too. That’s something we look for.
As for the image in the window…damn, it really did look like a face. But I sincerely hoped it wasn’t. It looked an awful lot like Johnny... his face, full of anguish and acute sorrow.
I shuddered.
For the first time ever, the smothered chop steak didn’t quite hit the spot. I couldn’t quit thinking about the photo and how Johnny and Brenda looked when I last saw them…weeping bullet wounds and intense terror, while the blood-halo around Candi’s surprised expression spread across the kitchen floor.
***
The Carnton Plantation is probably Middle Tennessee’s biggest Civil War tourist attraction. One of its esteemed owners, Carrie McGavock, played a gallant role in the historic Battle of Franklin. Credited with offering her home up as a military hospital, she later took it upon herself to recover hundreds of individual soldiers who were buried in mass trenches on her property. Successful in identifying many of these fallen heroes of the Confederacy, they are interred within the graveyard she created for them, sectioned by the southern regiments they represented going into the battle.
This brings us to our nefarious ambitions tonight.
Well, maybe that’s a bit strong. More accurately…we are gathered in the graveyard afterhours. After dark. After the Plantation tourist center has closed up and the Carnton’s employees have gone home for the day.
We’re trespassing. Violators of Franklin’s penal code.
But I like to think of us as violators with a noble cause. Ambitious seekers of paranormal truths and century-old secrets only revealed in the dead of night.
Our plan tonight is this: First, sneak into the graveyard. Then, after spending an hour or so exploring and gathering evidence in video, audio, and from our own sensory perceptions—both physical and extrasensory, we will move on to exploring the grounds surrounding the house.
The first phase can merit a stern warning, if we’re caught. But the second phase of tonight’s agenda is actually the one that could get us arrested by Franklin’s finest, and our asses thrown in jail for the entire weekend. Yeah, that’s made me think twice on more than one occasion
“ It might not be anything we can prove,” offered Tony, when Tom merely shrugged his shoulders and went back to view the pictures under a magnifier he brought with him. “Remember the faces we’ve seen before that turned out to be just weird light reflections?”
“ Yes,” she sighed, looking over at Angie, before the two women looked over at Fiona.
“ He’s right,” Fiona conceded. “But, why not let Jimmy take a look at the pictures anyway? Who knows…he might see something else we’ve missed.”
True. It’s sort of my forte. Other than Fiona’s keen eye, I’ve found more faint anomalies than anyone else in the group.
Tom handed the pack to Tony and he gave it to Angie, who passed it on to Fiona. Why Angie didn’t just give it directly to me…well whatever. Fiona handed the pictures to me, and asked Tom to lend me his magnifier. Just then our food arrived.
While everyone was being served their dinner entrees, I scanned through the pictures. I readily believed the dryer-hose shots were legitimate evidence of something paranormal. Especially one photograph, where the image bore reddish and yellow hues along its edges. It was solid in its consistency too. That’s something we look for.
As for the image in the window…damn, it really did look like a face. But I sincerely hoped it wasn’t. It looked an awful lot like Johnny... his face, full of anguish and acute sorrow.
I shuddered.
For the first time ever, the smothered chop steak didn’t quite hit the spot. I couldn’t quit thinking about the photo and how Johnny and Brenda looked when I last saw them…weeping bullet wounds and intense terror, while the blood-halo around Candi’s surprised expression spread across the kitchen floor.
***
The Carnton Plantation is probably Middle Tennessee’s biggest Civil War tourist attraction. One of its esteemed owners, Carrie McGavock, played a gallant role in the historic Battle of Franklin. Credited with offering her home up as a military hospital, she later took it upon herself to recover hundreds of individual soldiers who were buried in mass trenches on her property. Successful in identifying many of these fallen heroes of the Confederacy, they are interred within the graveyard she created for them, sectioned by the southern regiments they represented going into the battle.
This brings us to our nefarious ambitions tonight.
Well, maybe that’s a bit strong. More accurately…we are gathered in the graveyard afterhours. After dark. After the Plantation tourist center has closed up and the Carnton’s employees have gone home for the day.
We’re trespassing. Violators of Franklin’s penal code.
But I like to think of us as violators with a noble cause. Ambitious seekers of paranormal truths and century-old secrets only revealed in the dead of night.
Our plan tonight is this: First, sneak into the graveyard. Then, after spending an hour or so exploring and gathering evidence in video, audio, and from our own sensory perceptions—both physical and extrasensory, we will move on to exploring the grounds surrounding the house.
The first phase can merit a stern warning, if we’re caught. But the second phase of tonight’s agenda is actually the one that could get us arrested by Franklin’s finest, and our asses thrown in jail for the entire weekend. Yeah, that’s made me think twice on more than one occasion
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