Deadly Night by Aiden James Page B

else wants to hang out afterward, we can look over some of the other pictures and audio recordings I haven’t had time to examine yet....”
    I’m not sure if Fiona and I fully heard what he said after that, since our eyes were drawn to the opulence inside. Very little expense spared in outfitting the room with state-of-the-art recording equipment and a large monitor for close examination of visual images and deeper analysis of electronic voice phenomena, or EVPs. Even the long control board and furniture in the room looked expensive. Not to mention the hardwood floors, a second furnished ‘office’ complete with another computer system, and a small bathroom. That’d definitely be a necessity, as it seemed quite possible to never want to leave this place for days at a time, if one had enough paranormal data to review. A small fridge next to the main console would answer the remaining needs a serious investigator might require.
    Hell, if Tom had added a sound booth, I might be tempted to commandeer the studio to record my band for a week or two.
    “ Is this place booyakasha or what?!” Justin enthused, laughing while laying a damned good Ali-G on us.
    “ It’s just so sweet, man!” added Tony, sliding down into one of the high-back leather chairs in front of the console. “You’ve definitely outdid yourself, Tom. This will take our ghost investigations to a whole new level, ya’ll.”
    “ Yes, it really is something special,” said Fiona, admiringly. “I can’t wait to see what everything looks like using this new equipment, Tom.”
    “ Better than my old system,” he said, moving over to the other chair. “ Much better.” He sat down and turned on the main board, which quietly came to life. Green, orange, and blue lights began to flicker across the console’s face. “Okay, Fiona…Jimmy. Come a little closer and get ready to see something special.”
    She and I moved over to where we stood directly behind him and Tony, with Angie and Jackie on Fiona’s right side, and Justin leaning in next to me. All of us waited expectantly for what would soon appear on the 60 inch LCD screen before us.
    “ Okay….first off is the image in the window upstairs,” Tom advised. “For Fiona’s benefit, this happened when we were moving around the front of the house, and I pointed the infrared camera toward the upstairs window—the one above the main entrance.”
    “ That’s where the younger kids sleep,” said Fiona. “Charlain told me during my initial visit to the house that her children hear voices up there.”
    “ Well, that makes a lot of sense in light of what we’ve got here,” Tony advised, and then looked over at Tom, whose expression made it clear he wanted to completely handle the findings from last night’s investigation. “Oops, sorry, Tom….I just got a little carried away.”
    “ It’s all right,” he replied, somewhat tersely. “Anyway, here we go.”
    At first, only an intense yellow glare from the security flood lamps in the Thompson’s front yard filled the screen, amid a greenish glow from the infrared video. That, and Tom and Tony’s voices commenting on how it sucked to not be able to get any closer to the house without incurring additional problems—like worse camera angles due to the overhanging eves upstairs. Whoever built the place never considered the inconveniences presented for future ghost hunters.
    Roughly a minute later, the upstairs window came into clear view. As we noted last night, the curtains were slightly open—most likely the kids’ request to have more than a nightlight illuminating their scary bedroom. A pair of wispy sheers blocked most of our voyeur access inside the bedroom, but still a gap existed in the middle of the window. For our purposes, that’s all we needed to capture the image.
    At first, we could only see the green-hazed outline of the house and the reddish outlines from the security lamps’ casings, emitting heat from the powerful