“Moe!” Aubrey shouted. “Mira! Mira!”
“What?”
I was in the fourth hall building working my way slowly through when I heard her call for me. I shouted out that I was on my way back. The fourth building was missing parts of a wall on the far side. Animals and a slew of homeless people had come in to claim it. They were gone now, but signs of their presence still lingered.
“I’m going to need you to take a look at this.” Aubrey shouted switching back to English. She knew I didn’t speak Spanish and sometimes got annoyed at her for using it. Especially when she was cursing at me.
I rounded the corner and worked my way down the stairs. Careful to hold the railings, I kept focus on trying to breathe through my mouth to minimize taking in the smell. Each step had to be taken with care. More than just whatever ungodly thing I could step in, I was worried the building would break apart under me.
The long open stretch of the bottom floor echoed my footsteps as I walked across it, imagining long ago, conveyor belts and assemble lines as whatever this building was originally used for pumped out its product with ease.
Thunder crackled as I walked out the open doorway. The broken door hung on one hinge, and I moved past it slightly nudging it. I’m a large man, not fat, but large. I have my dreadlocks tied tightly behind me. They’re thick and go down to my waist. My head pulls back as they touch something.
“I can’t believe how slow this is taking.” I told Aubrey as I walked down the three steps and onto the small sidewalk. The sky is brown covered with clouds that glow with lightning and a storm that wants to come but won’t.
“See anything weird?”
“Everything weird. Things that don’t belong in an abandoned factory block. I can’t believe we have twelve buildings to walk through.”
“No.” Aubrey tried. “Look again. Do you see anything weird?”
I looked across the sidewalk. Our supplies are still in a pile next to an open bag. The EMF meter was sitting next to the camera, the voice recorder, and the thermal thermometer to gauge temperature readings. Things had been pulled out, but nothing had really been used yet. I didn’t imagine we would get a chance to use anything today, but it was nice to have it handy.
“Not our stuff.”
“I don’t believe in what you’re doing.” Bill Bronson said. His arms crossed as he sat across the table from Aubrey and me looking at my dreadlocks.
“Then don’t hire me. I have enough jobs. I don’t need this.” I made to stand when he uncrosses his arms and held a hand up for me to sit.
Aubrey put her hand on my arm. I didn’t have time for this. We’ve been backlogged for a few weeks now. It’s making us a little worn out. Aubrey was handling it better than I was, but we needed a break soon. Taking on Bronson’s job would keep us in business for another week or two longer. When we had started AI (that’s Abnormal Investigations), we had weeks of downtime between jobs. Now, it was back-to-back and beginning to wear on me.
“Please.” Bronson said. His arms go on his desk and then cross again. “My workers won’t go to the site. It’s less than an hour out of town and they talk as if it’s too isolated. I need the buildings 4, 8, and 9 torn down. I need the others refurbished to get my new location up and running. This would provide jobs for….”
“Save the PR comments for the media. Tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s never anything new.” I told Aubrey in the car before the meeting. “Someone got spooked. Fear gets contagious. We’ll find a group of homeless people who were trying to scare off the workers or nothing will be happening at all.”
“He’s paying top dollar.”
“I know and bumped himself to first on our list. Any word on Walsh investigating the site history?”
“He’s on it. His initial guess is it’s an old Indian site. Especially this close to Mexico.”
“This close to Mexico, we’re….” Trying to do the math, Aubrey didn’t wait for me.
“6 hours.”
“What’d you say?” I couldn’t help the smile that came across my face.
“I told him he always says that.”
“Good. Usually, they’ll like that when we tell them nothing is going on. It’s wind. It’s homeless. It’s… whatever.”
“We’re going to need to wash the car every day to get a handle on this dirt kicked up out here.”
“Can we charge Bronson for it?”
“The amount he’s paying….”
“Not our stuff.” Aubrey said.
I cock my head to the side and look at the garbage strewn across the sidewalk and out into the street. An old DVD player, coffee cup with rusted spoons in them, and books half torn in two lingered haphazardly about. Building four wasn’t as bad with the piles. Piles of trash were on the outside. I wondered how much of this were people avoiding dumping fines and how much of this was Bronson’s crew dragging the garbage out into the street.
The piles weren’t exactly normal, I realized, as I saw an open small box with a moldy stuffed animal sticking out of it. Still, what was Aubrey looking at? Laying nearby, a few more books and a garbage can that was turned on its side. I looked at Aubrey who looked not on the sidewalk but in the street. Then I saw it. My mouth opened.
A large rocking chair, light brown with two regular pillows standing on their side in a way that wasn’t possible if someone weren’t sitting in them keeping them upright sat facing us. It was about 6 feet off the curb. I turned to Aubrey feeling my skin crawl.
“It was rocking when I was out here alone. I thought maybe the wind or something, but the air was still then. When I called for you to ask about the batteries of the EMF, it stopped like that. Leaning forward.”
Thunder crackled again. The winds moved above us, but the buildings made the air feel still until a small gust went through. I waited, thinking the chair would rock, but when it didn’t, I realized, the chair, the rocking chair, was leaning forward. It was perched in the middle like at rest, but it was leaning forward, with the pillows upright bent slightly forward but hovering in the air as if someone were sitting in it, leaning forward watching us.
The wind blew. The chair didn’t rock. The pillows continued to defy gravity. I looked over at Aubrey who was pulling out her crucifix necklace, a little too prematurely I thought. The chair eased a little moving back before stilling.
“Save the PR comments for the media. Tell me what’s going on.” I asked Bill Bronson who turned his chair 45 degrees away from me and looked up.
“I don’t believe in any of this.” He said in a different tone. A little lower, a little more real. It was almost as if he would’ve preferred to hire a whole new construction crew than to demean himself to hire us.
“Who told you about us?” Aubrey asked knowing 90 percent of our work now was due solely to word of mouth.
“Sarah Ellen who lives….”
I raised my hand. Sarah Ellen had been hearing French music through her house. She was as close to aristocratic as anyone in Scottsbluff, but when she couldn’t find a cause for it, she called workers, electricians, handy-men, and then us. We figured it out in twenty minutes.
I was proud of that case even though it was Aubrey who gave us the first clue when asking Mrs. Ellen when she had first started hearing the music and then asking for a list of receipts from that time. New bed frame and backboard was the largest purchase. The metal coils in the bed frame picked up a French radio station, not usual but not unheard of. The backboard had these large poles going up the side, and the poles were hollow creating amplification.
Sarah Ellen might have been why we’ve been so busy lately. If there was someone to know in the Scottsbluff, it was her. She was impressed.
“Anyway,” Bronson continued. “Machines are breaking down. Not one but there’s times where I’m getting reports that nothing electronic is working. Then after a few hours, they turn on.”
“Phones too?”
Bronson looked down and shook his head. “I suppose not, they called me when the bulldozer stopped and then the hydraulic shovel and…. No, if they could call, then it was just the equipment. Do you understand?”
“Anybody not want you on this site?”
“Who are you?” I asked the rocking chair.
I started AI because I get feelings. I’m a highly empathetic, intuitive person. I’m not a psychic. I’m not a seer. I get feelings. I just know things. Often a handshake or a touch will open something inside of me. It helps me see something completely different.
Aubrey saw this and pushed me to open this business. She is technical. She’s logical and has an amazing mind. She’s been my better half for a few years now and while we’re at work, we keep it professional. She knows I can’t hold her hand if I’m trying to get a handle on a place. But she keeps me anchored.
“Wires?” I cock my head to the side. Aubrey who was standing behind me muttered a very quiet no.
I stepped off the curb toward the chair. The wind picked up and blew forcefully against me causing me to stumble back onto the sidewalk. Once there, the wind died again. The rocking chair began rocking back and forth. Faster and faster. I felt my heart race.
We’d done a hundred jobs. Only a few were something more than just radio signals or creaky closets. Most people just didn’t want to feel afraid.
I stepped off the curb again. Fear was not something I handled well. Ironic for my line of work, I know. Most horror movies, the black guy dies first. There’s not a lot of good things that happen to black people in horror movies. Jordan Peele was doing better for us than anyone else.
Aubrey tensed as I stepped more forcefully into the street. The wind picked up as the chair stopped again.
“I don’t have time for this.” I said as kick the rocking chair.
“Anybody not want you on this site?”
“We’re doing a service to the community.” Bronson tried with his best press conference voice.
“I told you to save it. I don’t need to hear it. Who wants you to fail?”
Bronson looked puzzled for a minute as I can see him trying to think of someone who doesn’t want him to succeed. It unnerves me that he’s struggling this hard for an answer. I have enemies everywhere. Maybe just because of the profession I’ve decided to pursue. Maybe it’s my personality. There’s always someone that doesn’t like me.
He held his hands out and gave a little shrug. “I can’t think of anyone.”
“Competitors?”
“There really aren’t any. When I was younger, but….”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I don’t have a lot of people who are competitors. Not anymore, I’ve worked with my competitors to make sure everyone gets a piece of the pie. I’ve turned my competitors into allies. The site is abandoned and full of trash. Even the environmentalists are happy I’m cleaning it up.”
“I don’t have time for this.” I kicked the rocking chair.
Everything slowed. My foot contacted the chair. The pillows bunched over. The chair pushed back a foot before shattering and collapsing into pieces, an old piece of junk. By the time my foot came down, I saw him in front of me.
Aubrey, who I assumed was somewhere behind me, was out of my thoughts completely. The building on the other side of the street was gone. The open field ahead of me sprouted into wildlife with open blue skies above. Wind flutes started playing as the dust rose.
The man walked slowly toward me. My heart drummed in my chest. He wore long animal skin around his waist. Blue painted drawn in lines across his body. He showed his rotted teeth. His hair back and tied neatly under a head dress that had feathers sticking out every side.
I held my hands up to try to stop him from coming toward me. His sunken face growled at me. I could feel the ferocity as he muttered words to me that I didn’t understand. I tried to say something, and he grabbed me by the shirt.
At first it was just with one hand and then he grabbed me by the collar with two. He laughed suspending me in the air, which was no tiny feat considering my size. I could feel my dreadlocks loosen as he pushed me closer.
I could smell the death reeking off of him as his grim grin stretched across his face, “I see you.”
Seeing is as important as any part of my work with Abnormal Investigations. People walk through the door, and they want to be seen. They want to be heard. They want someone that understands them. Maybe that’s true for everyone. But for me, it’s been the foundation of what I do.
Fear does things to the mind that makes people want to act out of character. I’m not in the place to try and fight what makes them feel afraid. I’m in a place to help them see that fear. If you can see what makes you afraid, then you can change it. It takes away its power.
One case out of a hundred had a legitimate paranormal occurrence going on. I did what I could for the people suffering through it. But I didn’t have anything for them, not really. I didn’t know what I could do. I tried contacting the Catholic Church, but they’re so backlogged on cases that who knows if they’ll get to the people after and hurting. I wish I had some kind of connection, but again, nothing.
What makes you afraid, might not make other people afraid. It’s all subjective. My job, at least how I see it, is helping people come to grips with that fear. I try to help them see it. If they see it honestly, there’s a greater chance they’ll be able to move on from it and hopefully be free of it.
“We’re going to need to wash the car every day this week to get a handle on this dirt kicked up out here.” Aubrey said as we drove onto the site and started driving around every building.
I was happy to have the Escalade. It wobbled back and forth as we drove around kicking up dirt. I didn’t want to start so soon after meeting up with Bronson. But I liked to get a lay of the land first. I liked to walk it. Get a feel and then see what I could see. Aubrey would check the instruments outside the building, but nothing started quickly. I wanted to see it. Then sleep on it. See what my mind might have to say about it when I woke up.
“Walsh did have something to say about Bronson though.”
“Oh?”
“He’s clean.”
“No one that rich is clean.” I say absentmindedly. “Maybe we need to hire someone other than Walsh.”
“What was your….” Aubrey searched for the word. She knew I got feelings from people. “What did you see?”
“Huh?”
“You shook his hand. What did you see?”
“He’s a good man.”
“Why don’t you trust that?”
“No. There must be something wrong with him. There must be something.”
“Why? Cause he’s white?”
“No. Cause he’s in a position of power.”
“I see you.” The Indian said lifting me into the air.
The buildings disappeared around of me. Open field lay behind the Indian while on my sides were forest. Trees were sprouting and growing upward. The sky was an array of colors and life. Above me, I could see the stars being scattered above lifted and illuminated. The leaves bristled with a new wind, cool and inviting accompanied by the sounds of flutes.
Out of the dust, I saw men and women warriors rising covered in blue war paint. They wore feathers on their heads and spears. The red on their faces was smeared with blood. They had eaten their enemies. I knew just by seeing them. They were soul-eaters. The dust fell off them in small clumps as they made small jerking movements.
The Indian, the chief, stepped forward, saying again, “I see you.”
I tried to rise. I don’t know why. It was a foolish move especially when there was nowhere for me to go. I was in the past. I was in the shadows. I was where no one else could see me.
“I see your blood. Your past. Your line. You are the line of King Jabb.”
I rose and felt the beads around my neck dangle. Not just the dreadlocks, I realized. I reached upward and felt them. I saw bright red beads contrasting my dark skin.
King Jabb was a myth, I told myself. My grandmother told me the story, claiming her grandmother had told her the same story and the grandmother before that and maybe before that. A righteous warrior who fought lions and defeated his enemies. A man who was clever and had his way with the world. A man blinded by betrayal. A man who as I grew older realized was really the story of Samson.
There was no King Jabb. My family told the story to make themselves feel better being stolen from Africa and brought to this land. This foreign land and enslaved. My family told each other lies in order to make ourselves feel better.
No more. I would not tell our children, if we had children the same lies. I would not let them. The lies would die with me.
“I see you, son of King Jabb!”
I rose and felt the red beads bounce off my bare chest. White paint merged with red covering my ebony skin. I looked down, shocked at how I appeared and saw the Indian smile.
“See for yourself, you are of King Jabb. A noble warrior.”
See for yourself. He had said. As he spoke, my eyes opened and looked upward. I heard the whoops of the Indians. I saw the large white sails with red crosses coming toward us from a far land that looked out onto the ocean. The red skies foreshadowing doom. It was not my story, I knew. I knew it was this Indian’s, King Hebehoptep’s, memories.
White sails coming, large red cross painted on them, the ships looked magnificent. Foreigners, we readied the warriors. Made them known the plan. We waited to see what they had. We quieted the blood from curdling on the ground.
Hebehoptep leaned forward on his throne as he had sat in the rocking chair listening to the reports of the giant ships. His eyes glazing over with cunning and possibility.
When we fought, we were no match. Outwitted and outmatched, we fought and failed. I looked at King Hebehoptep and he nodded back at me. He had shared these memories with me. He wanted me to see them.
“I see you.”
As I had seen his story, he had seen my people taken from their land. Taken, put in dire situations of boats, and shipped away. Persecuted and abused. I felt the blood burn inside of me as the Indians, warriors, my warriors let out a war cry.
“I see you.”
“How long has he been like this?” Bronson asked.
“A few minutes.” Aubrey said as they looked out at me standing street staring into the spirit realm unmoving.
Brey, Bronson’s bodyguard, took a step out into the street. He put his hand on my shoulder and as I felt the touch, Hebehoptep smiled.
I turned from the spirit realm but was very much still a part of it. I roared at the bodyguard, lifting him by the arm and flinging him several feet away. The roar coming out from within was that of Samson.
Aubrey let out a gasp as my dreadlocks dangled free no longer constrained by elastic tie holding them together. I felt free. Drums began beating not from the Indians, but from the follows of King Jabb. I had merged with Hebehoptep. We were one.
Before me stood a white man and a Hispanic woman. I saw them as they were. Destroyers of my people. Invaders of my land. They were the enemy.
“I see you.”
The white man, the symbol of power. Kidnapping my people, they brought me to a strange land. They took everything from me. He held his hands up at me in a stopping motion. He was the symbol of my oppression. Years of oppression or hate keeping me under his foot. If not with slavery, then with poverty, if not with poverty, then with drugs.
I showed him my teeth and I lifted my hand; I saw the knife. The blade, a sword really, stretched out over a foot long. The Indians whooped urging me on. Hebehoptep nodded with approval.
“Moe, no!” Aubrey’s voice. It felt like it came from down a long far away corridor.
I felt the disdain rise as I saw her blood mixed with the conquistadors. I saw she was no more than a dog, a descendant of rape and murder. Her blood was no longer pure. The true line was now nonexistent as was our language. I heard Hebehoptep laughing inside of me knowing she was as much a part of the problem as Bronson was. They were the symbols of my oppression. They were the embodiment of my hate.
“Moe,” Aubrey cried.
The lone tear streamed down her cheek. Ten minutes before, I would’ve fought the world to keep a tear from falling. I hesitated. I could hear her laughter inside my soul as I waged against what was coming.
I kept walking forward. Anger and oppression on top of anger and oppression. Hate on top of hate. I growled and could feel the anger of King Jabb rising inside of me. I turned to the Indian as he spoke.
“You’ve been oppressed. You’ve fought the outsiders for a long time, King. Do this. Free yourself. Free us!”
I saw him. I saw the power that he wielded toward me. I felt my knees tremble as I saw it wasn’t Bronson and Aubrey, but it was the power that was wrong. Hebehoptep just another source of power. It wasn’t the people. It was the power. I stepped forward.
Hebehoptep grabbed my neck. Only a moment of hesitation and he rushed toward me. I saw him. I saw him before the conquistadors came. They were as savage as any people. If they had won the day, it would have had little change on the world. Power is the corruption. Power, the true corruptor, threatened anyone who longed for freedom.
I felt my dreadlocks dangle as Hebehoptep held me down. I grabbed his wrist with my one hand. The other hand still held the knife, but I couldn’t lift it against him. I couldn’t strike him with his own sword. He laughed.
“You will do it, or I will do it, but it must be done.”
King Jabb. Samson. Whoever he was. He was not me. But I felt the beads bounce off my chest, I thought maybe he was. There was something in the blood that kept us all together. I heard the soft cry of Jezebel or whoever she was those centuries ago and she sounded like Aubrey. I saw Samson nod toward her wrapping her in his arms.
I let go of Hebehoptep’s wrist. The Indians whooped seeing victory as he laxed his grip. I was the descendant of King Jabb. Fighter of the Philistines, warrior of the Israelite people. Descendant of Jacob, I was a bastard child of Jezebel. I was Samson.
I grabbed my dreadlocks with one hand and immediately cut as many as I could with the knife still in the other. Hebehoptep roared in rage at me as he the strength of his hold loosened from me.
“I see you.” I shouted out as I did not fall back but slowly rose forward. “Your power is no different than theirs!”
I roared in the last throes of strength, cutting my dreadlocks, releasing me of past and my burden. Trying to honor what had happened, I felt as if it had become a stranglehold on who I was to become. As the knife fell from my hand, they began to sink into the dirt.
Aubrey came into arms. I wept as she wept. Brey the guard walked up to me. They had seen me pushed back. They had seen only me in the whole event. Brey crouched down to pick up the knife, but I stopped him. I held his wrist and felt myself tired and weak.
“Don’t touch it.”
Brey nodded. I laughed. I could see him flying back from my blow. I could see his thoughts as he thought he would die. His daughter and wife in his arms. I laughed and used my arms to reach around Aubrey, Bronson and him.
I pulled back and shook Bronson’s hand and apologized.
“What happened?” He asked.
“There’s some evil powers at work out here.”
“What do we do?” Bronson asked.
I looked down at the pieces of my dreadlocks on the ground. Had I stopped it? Was it over?
Kris Green lives in Florida with his beautiful wife and two savage children. He’s been published over 35 times in the last few years by the wonderful people at Nifty Lit, The Haberdasher: Peddlers of Literary Art, In Parentheses Magazine, Route 7 Review, BarBar Magazine and many more. This year, he’s won the 2023 Barbe Best Short Story and Reader’s Choice Award for his short story, “Redemption”.