Voices in a Midnight Mind: Haunting Tales, Requiems and Epitaphs

By Ken Michaels

Voices in a Midnight Mind is a compilation of horror stories that will run a cold skeletal finger down your spine in the dim reading light of your otherwise cozy room. The descriptive, often dark, narratives between these book covers will escort your thoughts with a sure hand and unsound mind, from the playful beginnings of two boys in The Dare through the unique solution to the worlds energy sources in Oilganic to the poignant redemption of a cold lonely man in Batting Cleanup. Each haunting tale welcomes you like a creaky door to a dark house and bids you farewell with the gentle caress of a shovel on your grave. And you will be left wondering, and wandering, in the dark room of your imagination . . . your own midnight mind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jun 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781466993600

Ken Michaels

Ken Michaels’s life-long passion has been carefully weaving tales of haunts, hauntings, and the haunted—always attempting to snag, if not tear, the thin fabric between all three. Yet though he has been writing ghost stories since his youth, the chilling narratives contained within Voices in a Midnight Mind are his first published works in the genre. His previously published work was Tales from a Poet, a collective of his acclaimed poetry. A free-lance paranormal investigator with an electronic engineering degree, he works to bridge the gap between modern electrical principles and the age-old question on the existence of legitimate paranormal activity. Ken lives in Florida with Sherri and his two cats, Mosey and Wrigley.

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Copyright 2013 Ken Michaels.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-9361-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-9359-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-9360-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013910203

Trafford rev. 06/04/2013

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Contents

The Dare

The Good-Night Kiss

The Revenge of Robby Weaver

Unwilling Romeo

Oilganic

Sleepyhead

The Exterminator

The Great Divide

Batting Cleanup

Denizens of the Crimson Threshold

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The Dare

The house that stands at 1528 Poplar Street was not haunted, though local folklore and rumor betrayed this mere fact.

The home itself was located in the middle of Poplar Street in the small Illinois town of Oakdale. Built over a hundred years ago, it was a vision of well-crafted art drawn in the guise of a three-story home. The spacious wraparound porch that curled to the backyard on both sides of the house added to the opulence. Many large windows were placed in the first two floors of the home. Small windows stared blankly from about the third floor, keeping a silent watch of the spruce pine trees that surrounded the perimeter of the side and back yards. The steeped roof gave the house a definitive Victorian style, indicating past grandeur to its era and initial owners.

A wrought-iron fence surrounded the property on which it stood. A creaky gate hung at the entrance to the front yard, where it would clang noisily on the metal latch as it swung in the transparent clutches of a nighttime breeze. Beyond the gate was a stone-covered walkway that led to the stairs for the front porch.

The house had passed ownership five times in its history. The last owners of the house were Thomas and Joyce Bennett, who bought it in 1960. Childless, they owned the house for thirty years. In 1989, Joyce was diagnosed with cancer and succumbed to it one year later at the age of sixty-six. A few weeks after her death, according to witnesses, Thomas, likely distraught over his wife’s death, shuffled drunkenly out on the front porch one night, twelve-gauge shotgun in hand, and started firing it into the air, yelling obscenities to his neighbors. Sheriff’s deputies were called, and after a brief but successful negotiation for him to surrender his weapon, he was hauled away to the local jail. A few days after being incarcerated there, though, he had died of a heart attack.

This small blip in the home’s history had given it the undeserved reputation of being haunted. Almost immediately after Mr. Bennett was taken away, rumors started flying that the spirit of his dead wife haunted the house and that it caused him to go crazy. Further gossip indicated that the couple had a son who was hidden in the attic, accidentally killed by the father, and buried on the property. These types of rumors made it difficult to sell the home, and for the last ten years, it remained empty.

And for each year that passed by, wild imaginations and fabricated stories by local residents added new layers to the house’s history like dust upon its creaky wooden floorboards. So the house stood proudly in its inanimate state, unaware and placid to the stormy gossip that surged through the town’s veins about its new reputation as a haunted house.

But it was immune, as most houses are, to unearthly inhabitants since no amount of rumor could make a ghost walk the empty halls and rooms. Gossip could not cause a misty apparition to glide silently up the carpeted stairway that led to the second floor. Innuendo could not make phantom blood appear. Folklore could not slam doors, could not perpetuate concealed maniacal laughter from a disembodied spirit, nor could it rattle chains.

And so, for all the myth, one thing was certain.

It did not have a ghost.

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Halloween ended too early from the perspectives of Paul Bolden and Joey Armstrong, two thirteen-year-old boys who lived in this quaint town. The nighttime curfew of eight-thirty for the trick-or-treaters had long passed, thus making the rest of this Friday night an unbearably boring burden on their mischievous psyche. Their brains, wide awake in their respective Halloween candy-induced highs, betrayed their tired bodies and feet. They wanted fun, and they wanted it now.

What a waste. It’s Friday. They should at least be able to let us trick-or-treat later than this, Joey said, disgusted.

Paul nodded his head. I agree. It’s a perfect Halloween night.

My dad says he used to trick-or-treat from the time they got out of school until ten o’clock at night. We should be able to do that, at least. Joey practically spit out the words of the last sentence.

Well, what are we gonna do? asked Paul.

I dunno. We’ll think of something, Joey said with assurance. Paul looked at Joey, knowing that he would.

I’m sure you will. If there’s one thing that Joey could be counted on, it was shocking entertainment.

Paul and Joey, both seventh graders, had only known each other a couple of months, but they were getting to be good friends. Paul had moved from Michigan to Oakdale just before school began in September. His parents had bought a house down the street from Joey’s, but it wasn’t until a few weeks after school began that Joey, prodded by his mom (who thought Paul may have been a little shy), had made the first move to be friendly.

Once they got to know each other, they realized that they had a lot in common. Both liked baseball, although Paul liked the Detroit Tigers while Joey liked the Chicago Cubs. Both liked Italian food. Both liked building model airplanes. But more than anything else, both were competitive.

Neither could stand to lose. In the short time that they’ve been friends, several arguments (not to mention one shoving match) started as a result of one or the other not accepting a loss. Both accused the other of cheating at times; it didn’t matter if it was at Trivial Pursuit or darts. After the tempers died down, though, they usually shook hands.

One game that they could not resist playing with each other was the Dare. It was used as a subtle form of punishment when one or the other was getting a little too cocky for his own good.

Most of the dares were harmless, such as I dare you to talk to Mary Davis (the prettiest girl in eighth grade) or I dare you to shoot a rubber band at the teacher’s butt.

Others were downright criminal, such as daring each other to steal a Pepsi from the 7-Eleven or to peek in on Ms. Berger through her bedroom window as she was changing her bra and panties.

In almost all the dares, they both followed through on them. Better to do that than face the ridicule of the other until given the chance to redeem oneself, usually to a dare at a higher risk.

Joey stopped abruptly and grabbed Paul’s arm. He pointed in the direction to the Bennett house and said, Oh… my… gosh.

What’s the matter? Paul asked, annoyed and confused.

Do ya know what that is? Joey inquired. That’s the Bennett house.

So? Paul looked at the house without concern.

I hear it’s haunted, Joey said, nodding his head.

That’s ridiculous. I mean, I have to admit, it’s creepy looking, Paul said, looking over the property. He turned to Joey. But no way it’s haunted. There’s no such thing as ghosts.

If you say so, Joey said, raising his eyebrow, shrugging his shoulders, and looking at his feet.

I say so, Paul said confidently.

Joey looked up at Paul and asked, What makes you so sure?

Well, for one, I’ve never seen a ghost. Have you?

Mmm… No.

Paul looked at Joey in a manner that indicated, Well, then?

So what? Just because you and I haven’t seen one in OUR homes doesn’t mean they don’t exist? I saw this show on television—I think it was Discovery Channel or something like that. Anyway, the guy on the show says in order for you to have ghosts or poltergeist activities in your home, you have to have ‘negative energy’ or something like that.

Negative energy? What the hell does that mean? Paul looked perplexed.

It means that something bad had to have happened in a particular place in order for you to have ghosts. Or that the person who died had some unfinished business and didn’t feel like moving on to the next world.

Ooooooh. The next woooorld, teased Paul, wagging his fingers of both hands in front of Joey’s face.

I’m serious, dumbass, Joey said, furrowing his eyebrows.

Do you think there’s negative energy here? Paul asked laughingly. You must be a real idiot to believe in that stuff.

Joey sighed and looked at his feet, trying to think of a comeback to the idiot comment. Instead, Joey got inspired to have some fun with Paul I Don’t Believe in Ghosts Bolden. He looked at Paul, and before he could stop it, the story started to flow from his lips.

I’m not sure, said Joey. But no one, and I mean NO ONE, has stayed in this house one night since the murders.

What murders? Who was murdered?

Joey looked at Paul in mock disbelief. Man, don’t you know?

How would I know? I’ve only lived here a couple of months. Paul was perturbed.

Oh yeah, Joey said, slapping his forehead in mock remembrance. Man, I forgot. You didn’t grow up here. It’s practically a legend in this town. God, it was awful.

Who was murdered? Paul repeated his question.

Actually it was a double murder and a suicide, said Joey matter-of-factly.

A murder-suicide? You lie, Paul said, waving his hand at Joey.

No, I’m not. I swear. Joey made the sign of an x over his heart. Hope to die.

A town this small does NOT have murder-suicides, Joey.

I’m serious, Paul.

Oh yeah? Paul said, trying to catch Joey in a lie. What was their last name?

Their last name was Bennett, he answered unflinchingly. At least that part was true, he thought. And with a little bit of rumor and a young boy’s imagination, Paul was about to be immersed in a tale as if he were being baptized in the little-known history of the town. There was the mom and dad. And there was little Billy Bennett. He was about eight years old. The people in the neighborhood didn’t know them that well because they kept to themselves. But do you know what I heard? Joey looked both ways down the street, as if someone might be spying on them or listening in on their conversation. Paul thought this a little ridiculous since there was no one in sight.

What?

I heard that Old Man Bennett used to come home drunk almost every night. Sometimes, if he came home in a bad mood, he’d beat up little Billy and his mom ‘til they were black and blue. I guess he was real mean. Joey’s imagination was in full swing now. He was making it up as he was going along and, boy, was this getting good.

Geez! Paul exclaimed, sounding generally concerned.

Joey seemed to ignore him and continued speaking. One day, Billy’s dad lost his job. I guess he was getting in a lot of trouble at work because of his drinking. The rumor was that he accidentally puked on his manager after having beer with his breakfast.

Who would have beer with their breakfast? Paul asked incredulously.

A drunk, you fool! Joey said, sounding exasperated.

Hey, I don’t know! It’s not like my parents drink a heckuva lot, offered Paul.

Neither do mine, but I suppose a drunk is going to drink anytime they want to. And puke on anyone they want to, also.

Paul agreed. I imagine so.

Now stop interrupting me! Joey said harshly, trying to seem stern and serious. On the inside, however, he was practically giggling and could barely contain his laughter. He continued to spin his web of lies. Well, he came home at around midnight just as mad as anything. Billy and his mom were sleeping upstairs when Old Man Bennett went in the house, went upstairs, grabbed Mrs. Bennett by the hair, and dragged her out of the bed into the upstairs hallway, all the while yelling at her to make him some dinner.

By the hair? Paul was now staring off into space, seemingly mesmerized by his own vision of what Joey described.

Yep, Joey affirmed. Anyway, she somehow got loose when he fell in the hallway, probably because he was drunk. She ran to their bedroom, went in the closet, and grabbed their shotgun. She went back to the hallway and was aiming to shoot him as he was getting up off the floor. Joey made as if he were leveling an imaginary shotgun at an object, taking careful aim.

He continued, But instead, he ducked just as she pulled the trigger. The shotgun blast was loud, and it blew a hole in the wall at the top of the stairs that is still there, from what I hear. The sound of it woke Billy up, and he came out to the hallway to see what’s happening. Mrs. Bennett only got off one shot before Mr. Bennett got off the floor and tried to take the gun from Mrs. Bennett.

Joey could tell that his story had Paul spellbound. His eyes were wide and unblinking, watching as Joey gesticulated throughout the story.

What happened then? Paul asked, anticipating the rest of the story.

Old Man Bennett somehow got the shotgun away from her and pushed her away toward the top of the stairs. He pointed the shotgun at her and shot her. Cut her right in half. And I’m here to tell ya, RIGHT… IN… HALF!

Holy cow! Paul whispered to himself. Joey, now hitting on all cylinders with his story, knew that Paul was starting to take the bait.

That’s not all, Joey exclaimed, now caught up in the story himself. As she started to fall down the stairs, Billy went to reach for her. But he could only grab her bottom half while the top half of her body fell down the stairs. Well, Billy lost his balance, and he, with his mom’s bloody bottom half, ended up falling down the stairs. When Billy hit the bottom of the stairs, he broke his neck. To add emphasis, Joey gestured with his hands as if breaking a stick while adding the sound of snapping bone with his mouth.

What happened to the dad?

They say that he ran down to the bottom of the stairs to help them, but it was too late. They were dead. Once he realized what happened, he committed suicide. Put the shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. BLAM! Joey took satisfaction from watching Paul jump.

From what I hear, it took them forever to clean the brains off the ceiling. Joey had to stifle a laugh when he finished this sentence because Paul instinctively looked up above him.

Now, Joey thought, he was going to lure him further into the ghost story.

The cops showed up and found the three of them at the bottom of the stairs. All dead. From what I hear, the place has been haunted ever since. You must admit, there’s bound to be a lot of negative energy surrounding THAT event. A couple of years after that, a family moved in. But they moved out after a month of living there. They said they would hear noises.

Paul snapped his head around to Joey, as if breaking out of a trance. That’s bullshit! What kind of noises?

Late at night, Joey whispered, they would be awakened by the sound of a shotgun blast in the hallway. The parents would run out to the hallway and would see nobody there. But there would be the smell of the gunpowder. Sometimes, after the gunshot, they would hear people falling down the stairs. But when they went to the stairs, there was no one around. But do ya want to know what’s really freaky?

What’s that?

No matter how hard the family tried, they couldn’t get the bloodstains off the ceiling. And some of the local people, you know what they say? They say on cold nights like tonight, when the wind’s not blowing hard, you can hear a little boy crying as you walk past the house. That last statement even gave Joey a chill up and down his spine. Man, I’m good at this, he thought. I should write this stuff.

Paul looked at the home and then back at Joey with skepticism.

Well, the murder-suicide may be true, I don’t know. But I can’t believe that there are ghosts in the house because of that. THAT part, you’re making that up.

Go see for yourself, then, if you’re so brave, Joey said, gesturing toward the house.

I should! Just to show you that you are full of it!

Well, go ahead then. I dare you. Joey had him right where he wanted him.

Paul shook his head and said, No way, I’m not going in there by myself.

Why? You scared? Joey said, a smile curling on his lips.

No, I’m not scared. It’s just that it’s trespassing. Or you’ll end up running away, and if I get hurt, no one will know until it’s too late to do something.

I won’t run away, Boy Scout promise. I’ll wait right here. Joey held up his fingers in his Boy Scout salute.

Paul folded his arms, shook his head, and stated emphatically, You were never a Boy Scout. Besides, I’m not going.

You hafta go. If you don’t, I’ll tell everyone you chickened out. And I’ll make up a story so good about you being scared that no one will believe you. I’ll tell everyone that you went halfway up the walk and wet your pants.

You’re a jerk, do you know that?

So? You goin’ or what? Joey asked again, as if not hearing Paul’s comment.

Paul looked at the house and back at Joey. Do I just go up to the porch?

Joey smiled slyly. No. You have to go in, go up the stairs to the master bedroom, and wave to me from that window.

No way! Paul exclaimed, waving his right hand at Joey, as if brushing him away.

Yes way! Joey said, mocking Paul, both in voice and hand waving.

Where are you gonna be? Paul asked skeptically.

I’m gonna be right here. Waiting for you, Joey said. So are you gonna go or what?

Why don’t you come in with me, if you’re so sure? You’ll see for yourself if there are any ghosts.

I dared YOU. Besides, I already believe in them, remember?

Paul thought about it for a moment. And what if I do it? What am I going to get? This has got to be worth something in return.

Hmmmm. What do you want?

Five bucks! AND you have to tell the kids in school how brave I was. AND you have to use the same imagination to tell that story that you used to make this stupid ghost story up. THEN I get ten free passes on dares.

I didn’t make this up. But, okay, you’re on. I’ll tell the kids at school, AND you get ten free passes on the dares. Agreed? Joey reached out his hand to shake Paul’s in their typical agreement.

Paul grabbed it and said, You better wait right here, butthead, or I’ll kick your rear end. I mean it.

You don’t see me going anywhere, do you? I’m gonna wait for ya right here so I can be the first to see you chicken out.

Paul set down his bag of candy on the sidewalk, and he walked to the front gate. As he reached for the latch, a strong breeze blew the gate wide open, as if greeting him. He looked back at Joey.

Joey looked at Paul, stretched his arms out, and shook his hands out in front of him. Ooooooh, scaaaryyyy.

You’re such a dumbass, Joey, Paul said, shaking his head. He turned back to look up the walk leading to the house. The wind, which was picking up now, blew dry leaves across the