Closer: Bay City Paranormal Investigation, Book 4

knew it.
Sam sighed. “Okay.”
“Great. Let’s grab our stuff and get going.” Setting his clipboard and pencil on the table, Andre picked up one of the video cameras. “Teams are David and Cecile, Sam and Bo, Dean and me. We have stationary cameras set up in all the main hotspots, but I want everyone to take a handheld video camera anyway, along with EMF detectors and an audio recorder. Dean, you take the thermal first. We’ll meet back here in an hour to touch base and you can give it to Cecile then.”
“Gotcha.” Dean took the small two-way radio from his belt and switched it on. “We still using channel two?”
“Yes.” Andre turned on his own radio. “Come on, Dean. You and I will start from this first room on the left. David and Cecile, y’all start on the right. Sam and Bo, you can start up on top of the wall, if you want. The steps are across the courtyard from here.”
With that, the group claimed the necessary equipment from the table and broke up to begin the night’s work. Sam fished a notebook and pen out of a canvas bag lying beside the table. He trailed behind Bo as they crossed the five-cornered courtyard. The place looked eerie and mysterious in the moonlight.
On the other side, they stopped at the bottom of a flight of steep, narrow stone steps. Sam gazed up at the shape of the brick rampart against the night sky. “I think I’ll leave off tuning into the psychic channel until we get up there.”
“I think that’s a good idea.” Bo looked the steps up and down, lips pursed. “Look at this, Sam, there’s a trough worn right down the middle.”
Sam looked. Bo was right. Each step dipped in the center, the stone glinting where centuries of passing feet had worn it smooth. “We’d better be careful climbing these.”
“Absolutely.” Tucking the audio recorder into the front pocket of his jeans, Bo took Sam’s hand and squeezed, then let go. “I’ll go first.”
Sam ascended the steps behind Bo, one hand clutching his notebook and pen and the other pressed to the wall for balance. The brick was cool and rough under Sam’s palm. He let his psychic senses stretch just a little. The residual energy from hundreds—maybe thousands— of deaths swirled through him, making his head swim. He closed his mind to it. Falling down the stairs was not an idea which appealed to him.
Bo turned a stern look to him as he stepped out onto the wide rampart running the full length of the high wall. “I thought you were going to wait until we got up here.”
Sam widened his eyes. “I just wanted to see if I could sense anything. How’d you know what I was doing, anyway?”
“I looked back and you didn’t notice. You had that spaced-out look in your eyes.”
“Oh.”
“Did you feel anything?”
Sam smiled at the excited sparkle in Bo’s eyes. “Nothing unexpected. Just the normal energy from all the people who’ve lived and died here.”
Bo’s relief was clear, even in the dark. “Good. Let me know if that changes.” Switching on the video camera, Bo panned slowly from the steps out over the courtyard. “This is Sam and Bo, Fort Medina, Alabama, walkway on top of the wall,” he recited for the record. “Date is May sixteenth, two thousand and five. Time is nine forty-two p.m.”
While Bo filmed, Sam wandered over to a deep, narrow notch in the wall. Pressing his free hand against the cool brick, he shut his eyes and let his awareness expand. Years upon years of death left behind a crackling energy which crawled over Sam’s skin like a swarm of ants. As odd and uncomfortable as the sensation could be at times, it was by now a familiar one to Sam. There was nothing sinister in it.
“There’s a lot of energy here,” Sam murmured, opening his eyes and pacing down the walkway away from the steps. “But nothing specific. Have there been sightings here?”
“According to Andre, a headless male figure is often seen here, just standing at the top of the steps for a moment before fading away.”
“Creepy.”
“Yes. According to the stories, a soldier was beheaded here during the Civil War. His head rolled down the steps and left bloodstains you can still see in the daylight.”
Sam turned to face Bo. “Do bloodstains last that long?”
“I have no idea.” Bo glanced away from the camera and grinned. “David thinks they paint over the stains from time to time so they can show people and tell the story of the soldier and his ghost.”
“You know what, for once I think David’s