Shadow Kiss

Chapter 12

The following night
MacMiller House
9:00 P.M.

“The time has come,” Aaron said ominously into the lens of his handheld camera.
I smacked him on the arm. “Shut up, Aaron. You’re going to freak yourself out before we even begin the investigation.”
“I’m not that scared of this place. I’ve been in scarier places,” he scoffed.
I kicked a stray nail across the wooden floor. Aaron swung his camera around in every direction.
“Holy shit, dude. Did you just hear that?” He whispered still looking for the source of the noise through his camera.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you’re not scared. That was me kicking a nail across the floor.”
Aaron lowered his camera down to his side. “Not funny, man. I thought we had actually captured something.”
“C’mon, Aaron. It’s time to get serious,” Zak frowned.
“So, how are we going to split up?” Nick asked looking down at the hand drawn map Zak had made. Scattered throughout the map were 3 black X’s.
Zak pointed to the first X that was located in the basement and looked up at Aaron. “Aaron, you’ll be going down in the basement by yourself and see if you can capture anything.” Zak stared into the camera then. “The owner of the house reported hearing the cries of a small child and the occasional tugging on clothing. From what she said, James MacMiller who built this place…his daughter was playing alone inside the house while her parents were outside when she tripped and fell down the stairs to the basement snapping her neck on the way down. When the parents found her, she was already dead.”
Zak glanced back up at Aaron. “So see if you can coax her out and get her to talk, alright? We laid out some toys and a couple of dolls down there for her to play with in the hopes of getting a response.”
“Come on, dude! Why do I always have to be the one to go down into the creepy basements by myself?” Aaron whined looking into Nick’s camera lens.
“Because the little children all love you, Aaron,” Nick teased. “You’re like the giant teddy bear they never had.”
“Shut up, Nick,” Aaron laughed.
“Okay, Nick you’ll be covering here on the first floor in the dining room,” Zak informed him pointing to the next X.
“Was that the room they claimed things were being moved around the room?” Nick inquired.
“Exactly. This is where the owner claims to have left certain objects in specific areas only to return the next morning to the room and find everything switched around. When they check the security tapes they found absolutely no evidence of someone breaking in, but they were able to capture a candle moving from one end of the dining table all the way to the other end,” Zak said straight into Nick’s camera. Although we weren’t live, he still had to explain about some of the areas we were investigating and why. I’m sure once this episode aired Zak would play the clip that showed the candle moving.
“Let’s hope we can catch something of our own, huh?” Zak smiled before turning to me. “As for you, Aerolynn, you’ll be coming along with me and we’ll be investigating the second floor in the master bedroom. This is where claims have been made about seeing a tall, dark apparition appear at the end of the bed and just standing there before walking away and disappearing into the bathroom.”
“Oooo, sounds scary,” I smiled doing my best to hold the camera steady while I filmed Zak. Nick turned his camera on me.
“Are you ready for this, Aero?” he asked.
“I was born ready, Nick,” I confidently answered.
“Real quick, Aaron, let’s show them just how dark it is in here,” Zak replied.
I watched through the night vision on my camera as Aaron turned the night vision off on his own camera.
“This is what we are seeing right now,” Zak informed. “All we have to see by is these little LCD screens of the cameras. I can’t even see my hand that is right in front of my face, it’s that dark.”
Aaron turned his night vision back on and turned around to film a different area of the house.
“Alright guys, let’s split up and start this lockdown. Come on, Aerolynn, this way,” Zak motioned for me to follow him up the stairs.
I viewed the stairs through the small LCD screen of the camera so I wouldn’t trip and fall into Zak on our way up. As we approached the top of the stairs a sudden chill raced down my spine.
I swept the camera down the hallway to my right and then to my left. Nothing. Maybe I was just psyching myself out.
“Alright, let’s go th—”
That’s when I heard it. My name. Aerolynn. It was barely above a whisper.
“Zak…” I softly called out to him grabbing the back of his shirt. He turned back to look at me, a concerned expression on his face.
“I heard someone call my name,” I told him looking in the approximate direction of his face.
“Was it loud enough you think you might have caught it on the camera?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Well, let’s see. Here hold the EVP. We’ll check it next,” he said exchanging his EVP for my camera. Hearing my name whispered in the darkness was more unnerving than I wanted to admit.
As Zak checked the film I glanced up to look down the hallway where the moonlight shone through the crack in the curtain at the end of the hall.
And that’s when I saw her. She was no older than the age of 10 wearing nothing but a white summer dress and holding onto a curly haired doll. She smiled at me before darting through the door into a room near the end of the hall.
Not even thinking about Zak at the moment, I raced after the little girl vaguely hearing Zak quietly call out to me.
I swung open the door the little girl had disappeared into and saw her playing with her doll in the corner of the room. I was able to see through her to the toys that lay behind her. That’s when the reality of it hit me. I had just followed an apparition of a little girl into a room by myself. A little girl who was now smiling too widely and maniacally for my comfort. My eyes widened in horror when I realized the mistake I had just made. I pivoted on my heel prepared to race out the door and back to Zak, but the door slammed in my face. The unmistakable sound of the lock clicking into place.
“Zak!” I cried out pounding on the door. I turned the doorknob, but to no avail. I was locked inside.
“Aerolynn! Unlock the door!” Zak called from the other side of the door. Tears ran down my cheeks. We weren’t even twenty minutes into the investigation and something like this had already happened to me.
“I can’t Zak. Sh-she locked it,” I sobbed.
“Who?”
“The little girl!”
Not again. This couldn’t be happening to me again. I should have known from my last mistake to never go anywhere alone when at a haunted place because stuff like this always happened. They realized I could see them beyond the ability of a normal person. They believed I would be able to help them leave the darkness and step into the light, but I was never able to help them. Most of them had already given in to the darkness that slowly ate away at the humanity left in their soul.
I slowly turned around to come face to face with the pale white smiling face of the little girl.
“Hello, Aerolynn,” she greeted in a soft, soprano voice. “Let’s play a game.”