Fiction
The Death Of Henry James Part 3
A Sunny Alexander-Johnson and Roberto De La Cruz Series By P.G. & Sharon Barnett
My name is Sunny Alexander-Johnson. And I’m Roberto De La Cruz, and we’re writers for Dark Sides of the Truth magazine.
Loretta Chambers led us up the stairs to the second floor of her home then stopped in front of a closed door, halfway into a hallway to our right. For several seconds we stood in silence. We were half expecting the woman to turn the knob, open the door, and lead us in, but Loretta had other intentions. She turned away and faced us.
“This is our bedroom. This is where I keep hearing noises come from, where things seem to move on their own, where the temperature of the room goes from normal to freezing in seconds. That’s why I can’t sleep here. That’s why after Roy disappeared, I never go in this room.”
“You’re saying your bedroom is haunted?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying, Mr. De La Cruz, but I’m telling you something in this room isn’t right.”
“May we?”
“Suit yourselves. Take as long as you want. I’ll be downstairs in the kitchen when you’re done.”
We hesitated only long enough to watch the woman approach the stairs and then nodded at each other and entered the room. Loretta had been right about not entering the room. The bed was unmade, the sheets and coverlets tossed back as if someone had gotten out of bed in a hurry, a fine layer of dust coated almost everything in the room. The ceiling fan had either stopped running by itself or had been turned off, and it was eerily quiet in the room. Almost soundproof quiet.
When we spoke to each other for some strange reason, we whispered as if the sounds of normal speaking would somehow bring about an unintended consequence.
“What are we looking for, Sunny?”
“It’s like Henry used to say, we’ll know it when it finds us.”
“You miss him, don’t you?”
“Let’s just concentrate on the story, Roberto.”
“Sure, sorry.”
We moved about the bedroom, gently lifting and inspecting anything we could connect to, a self-photograph of a much younger Loretta and apparently her husband Roy, both wearing hiking gear standing beside a marker on a trail. They seemed genuinely pleased to be there, at that moment in time, capturing a memory of a fond dream gone by, a different time, a much different life.
The full-length mirror Loretta spoke of was placed to the right of the dresser. According to Loretta, it often moved from the left to the right side and back to the left of the furniture on its own. All it took was a simple gaze into the mirror, and the “it” we were looking for suddenly found us.
“Oh, dear God!”
“What?”
“Come over here, Roberto. Look in the damn mirror. Do you see that?”
“I see me and you and really Sunny, you look like you’ve seen…oh crap. He’s here, isn’t he?”
The next instant, the room grew cold. Not like a sudden chill which shakes your body a bit and then departs. This was an immediate and consistent lower of the temperature so much we could see the vapors of breath billowing out of our mouths.
“You can’t see that? For the love of God, Roberto, he’s messed up. It looks like he got hit by a train or something.”
“No, I can’t see him. What’s he doing?”
“Standing there, staring at us.”
“You gonna say something?”
“You mean like try to communicate with him?”
“Uh, yeah. Isn’t that would you and Henry used to do?”
“Don’t remind me.”
“I just did.”
“Dammit, okay, here goes.”
We both spun around, and although it was apparent Roberto couldn’t see what the other was looking at, he at least turned his head in the direction his partner was gazing at and remained quiet.
“Roy? Roy Chambers?”
“Yes, I’m Roy. Who are you? Why are you in my bedroom?”
“Roy, I’m Sunny. This is Roberto. We were sent to find, uh, find you. What happened, Roy? Can you tell us where you are?”
“Not here. I keep trying to come back.”
“We know that Roy. Where? Where are you?”
“Loretta couldn’t come. Her back went out. Said it was okay, but to be back before nightfall.”
“Where did you go, Roy? Do you remember where you went?”
“We loved to hike Loretta and I. It was supposed to be our special day.”
“Your special day? What day was that, Roy?”
“Their anniversary, maybe, Sunny?”
“Roy, was it you and Loretta’s anniversary? Were you two supposed to go hiking on that day? Where had you planned to go?”
“Yes, please find me. I need to get home to Loretta. I want to come home.”
“Dammit! He’s gone.”
“Okay, so what did he say about the anniversary thing?”
“He said yes, whatever happened to him was on their anniversary.”
“Probably not as important as where he went. Did he tell you that?”
“No, so somehow we need to figure that out.”
“Maybe Ms. Chambers remembers.”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
As we turned toward the doorway, Roberto took two steps toward the door and stopped. We both turned as the sound of one of the dresser drawers slowly slid open of its own accord, inching outward, then stopping, then inching out again. When it finally stopped almost halfway open, we stared at it in wide-eyed amazement then gazed at one another.
“You going to see what’s inside?”
“Uh, no. Why don’t you do it.”
“It’s your ghost, Sunny, not mine.”
“Coward.”
“In the boxing ring, I can’t hit what I can’t see.”
“Fine.”
“What is it?”
“Will you give me a minute, Roberto? Hmmm, okay, so evidently, Roy wanted us to see this.”
“A journal?”
“Yes, come on. Let’s at least respect Roy’s uh, privacy, and show this to Loretta and see if there’s anything inside that help us.”
Read On — The Death Of Henry James Part 4
Let’s keep in touch: P.G. & Sharon Barnett ([email protected]) © P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.