Death Theory Read online

  Debbie had a unique country sense of humor greatly enhanced by her distinct southern drawl. It was not a Missouri accent, more like Georgia or South Carolina. She was born and raised in Springfield, so her speech was as much of an anomaly as the orb pictures.

  When Debbie finished listening to the EVP recordings, she took off the closed-ear headphones as if they were some creepy thing nesting on her head. She then broke into a wide smile.

  “Well that’s neater than hoot owl babies!” she proclaimed.

  “Hoot owl babies?” asked Jeff between laughs.

  “Have you ever seen a hoot owl baby?” Debbie asked.

  “No,” Jeff admitted.

  “Well they’re pretty neat!” she said, passing the headphones to Elvis.

  Everyone found the EVP recordings impressive. Even Elvis had to admit he was baffled.

  “I have studied the EVP phenomenon pretty extensively,” Elvis remarked. “I have no explanation ... they are still the most compelling evidence out there.”

  “How do you think ghosts talk to us?” Debbie asked, leaning forward with her elbows on the table. “I mean they don’t have vocal cords or anythin’, you know.”

  Pac gave a sarcastic snort.

  “They don’t need vocal cords when they can manipulate energy!” he snapped.

  Debbie flashed Pac an annoyed smirk.

  They all turned to Jeff for his take.

  “I don’t have an explanation,” Jeff began. “Debbie has a valid question, and Pac has a plausible theory. It is thinking like this which will enable us to work together through scientific method. I hope to discover the answers we are all searching for.”

  Liz brought everyone’s checks and told them she would collect when they were ready. Pac huffed when he examined his bill.

  Jeff glanced at his watch and noted it was now 8:30. He had a couple more topics he wanted to cover before adjourning the meeting. Producing a sheet of paper from his laptop case, he passed it to Debbie.

  “I need to get everyone’s contact information on this sheet before you leave, if you don’t mind.”

  Debbie grinned and jotted down her phone number and e-mail address, she left the physical address blank. She was a young woman with three guys she did not know. Jeff felt stupid. He should have given the sheet to Elvis and Pac first because they would both see her contact information as they filled in their own.

  Once the sheet was filled in, Jeff gave it an obligatory glance before placing it back in his case. He smiled and asked, “Does everyone have next Friday night available?”

  They all exchanged curious glances.

  “I think so,” Debbie said, hesitantly.

  Pac and Elvis both shrugged.

  Jeff leaned in to the group, his face shining with excitement.

  “How would you guys like to check out the old Chilton House next Friday?”

  The name did not register with Debbie, but Elvis and Pac were elated.

  “How did you swing that?” Elvis asked. “The place is privately owned and no one has lived there for years. It’s locked up tighter than Fort Knox!”

  “Dr. James Freeley has owned the place for the past ten years. He was a good friend of my dad’s. He always wanted to own an old Victorian home and fix it up, but time has been a problem. I called him the other day and he seemed fascinated that I wanted to check out the house. He said he has had some strange experiences there himself.”

  Jeff’s eyes twinkled when he said, “I think he hasn’t fixed the place up because he is scared to be there alone.”

  “I don’t get it,” Debbie interjected. “What’s so special about this house?”

  “You mean you haven’t heard of the murders that happened there back in the 1890’s?” Pac asked.

  Debbie shrugged.

  “Oh man,” Pac chuckled. “It was some intense shit!”

  Elvis smiled at Debbie and said, “I guess you’ve got to be a little screwed up in the head to pay attention to this stuff, Debbie. Screwed up like me and Pac,” he added, glancing in Pac’s direction.

  Pac held up his hands as if to say ‘guilty’.

  Elvis drained the last remnants of watered down Mountain Dew from his glass before setting it on the table. He winked at Debbie and then began the story.

  Chapter 4

  “IT ALL STARTED WITH the man who built the house, Pervis Chilton,” Elvis began.

  “Pervis made most of his fortune working with Pinkerton Security. He oversaw railroad security from St. Louis to Kansas City, and Jefferson City all the way down to Little Rock. As you may know, it was the heyday of train robbers when Jesse James used to run rampant through these parts.”

  He emphasized this point by making a gun with his thumb and forefinger.

  “Anyway, he had a pretty good little lump sum saved up when he retired and he built the house with his dough over on 12th Street. He married a pretty, young seamstress from Bolivar, Missouri. She moved in and decorated the interior, sparing no expense. The house was quite a showplace back then from what I’ve heard.”

  “Come on, get to the good part!” Pac chided.

  Elvis smirked and retorted, “If I don’t tell the back story, the ‘good stuff’ doesn’t have the same impact.”

  Pac made quick circles with his forefinger, urging Elvis to continue.

  “Pervis and his wife had a good life with a lovely home. God blessed them with twin children, a boy and a girl. They seemed the perfect family. However, something was terribly wrong under the surface. It was probably paranoia, I mean, being in security as he was, paranoia was part of the game.”

  “What was he paranoid of?” Debbie asked.

  “Well, you have to keep in mind his wife was almost twenty years younger. She was a beauty and a very social person in the community. He was also gone for days at a time on business. Mr. Chilton got it in his head that his beautiful wife was cheating on him.”

  “Was she?” Debbie asked.

  “No one is really sure. She was young, he was never home.”

  “In any case, he believed it to be true. He came home one evening and snapped,” Elvis said, pretending to break a twig.

  “What’d he do?” Debbie asked, expectant horror clouding her face.

  “He killed them,” Elvis replied solemnly.

  “Them?” Debbie asked, her jaw agape.

  “Yes, his wife and children.”

  “Why did he have to kill all of ’em?” Debbie squeaked.

  “Well the story or legend says he killed the children to spare them from a lifetime of suffering. He did not want them to agonize over the memory of witnessing their mother committing carnal acts.”

  “Screwing,” Pac said with a smirk.

  “Thank you, Dr. Ruth,” Debbie said.

  She turned back to Elvis and whispered. “How did he kill ’em?”

  “Well... it’s disturbing,” Elvis began.

  Pac was giddy with anticipation.

  “He cut their throats one at a time, and then dismembered the bodies in the kitchen. Legend has it he even removed the children’s eyes. In his mind, it released them from the destruction of their innocence, having witnessed such evil and immoral acts,” Elvis said.

  “Bumping uglies,” Pac commented.

  Liz bustled through the door, thanked them for their patronage, gave them their receipts, and then reminded them the restaurant would be closing in five minutes.

  As they got up and prepared to leave, Jeff made an announcement. “When I get the final details on the investigation next Friday, I will e-mail everyone. If you can make it, let me know and bring whatever equipment you have.”

  Debbie insisted on hearing the rest of the horrific details concerning the Chilton House. They all reconvened in the parking lot a few minutes later, where a wall of humidity hit them. Even though the sun had set, the heat-baked asphalt was stifling.

  “Okay, so tell me, what’d he do with the bodies? Did he get caught?” she asked.

  “Yep. Caught, t
ried, convicted, and hung,” Elvis said grimly, wiping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. “He dismembered the bodies and then dropped the pieces down a well behind the house. That much is certain and verifiable fact, but...” he trailed off with a grimace.

  “But what?” Debbie almost shouted.

  “Well, you must understand the rest is rumor, mixed with legend, and not verifiable. The story says his children’s eyes were never found. Also, his wife’s private parts were removed and never found.”

  Debbie’s face creased in a noxious scowl.

  “Why the hell would anyone do that?” she croaked.

  Pac chimed in once again. “They think he ate them so he will always have his children close and his wife can never have anyone else. Gives a whole new meaning to inner vision and oral sex, doesn’t it?”

  Debbie slapped Pac on the arm causing a mischievous smile to spread across his face.

  “This should be an interesting investigation,” Jeff said.

  “Well I don’t know about you guys, but I need to get under some A/C,” Elvis said, mopping sweat from his brow again.

  They all agreed it was time to call it a night and Pac added another crude comment about sweat running down his butt crack.

  “Try and keep next Friday open and I’ll contact you with the details,” Jeff said as he climbed in his truck. They all pulled out of the parking lot with air conditioners in overdrive.

  Jeff cracked his window an inch and averted the air vents toward the passenger side of the cab. He fumbled in his glove box with one eye on the road and retrieved a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He withdrew one from the pack, placed it between his lips, and lit it. He took a deep drag and exhaled tendrils of gray smoke through the cracked window.

  Jeff was not a smoker, not really. It was not an addiction, merely a useful diversion to calm his nerves. He hadn’t lit up in almost two months, but he felt he needed it tonight. He was nervous about the prospect of starting a new group. Were these the people he wanted in his group? They all had their flaws.

  Debbie seemed squeamish. This was not a good characteristic to possess when investigating a dark and unfamiliar location.

  “But she’s hot!” the testosterone flooded patch of his brain interjected.

  “Yes, she indeed was,” his rational side agreed. He knew he couldn’t let this detail influence him.

  Pac seemed educated, but he was arrogant and crass. Crass is something Jeff could handle, but arrogance was a different matter. It could be detrimental if it alienated other members of the group. Arrogance closes the mind to accept new thoughts and possibilities. Science, true science, has no room for arrogance; nor did Jeff’s patience.

  Elvis was an enigma. He seemed knowledgeable and well-read about science and the paranormal. No one would have thought anyone, other than a professional photographer, would study orb phenomenon. He was also a laid back and mature. Jeff liked him, but there seemed something odd about him.

  Yes, everyone had their flaws. But he couldn’t expect, a bunch of scientists from MIT or Stanford. Jeff learned one thing from his brief history in the paranormal. As a rule, most scientists will not touch the topic of paranormal research with a twenty-foot pole. For every scientific minded person researching the paranormal, there are at least ten who have other motivations. They are in it for the attention, goofs on a Saturday night, or other less than honorable intentions. It’s understandable why science has dismissed the paranormal as fantasy.

  The thing is, there is something to it. The paranormal held a deeper secret much more than ghost stories and legend. Jeff knew this because he witnessed it firsthand. He had started this quest with the hope of talking to his parents again. However, the evidence he collected in the past year kept raising more questions than it answered. It kept him going. Some would consider it obsession, but in Jeff’s case, it was passion.

  Jeff pulled into his driveway, and went inside. He felt queasy. Maybe it was nerves, or perhaps it was a nicotine induced stomach ache. More likely, it was a combination of those on top of greasy food. He popped a couple of Tums, chased them with a glass of 7-Up, and then went to bed.

  Try as she might, Debbie could not get the horrific mental picture of Pervis Chilton out of her head. This imagery incited her insatiable curiosity. She wanted to see the house.

  Debbie pulled into a nearby gas station to top off her tank for the upcoming week. While the fuel pumped, she did a quick Google search of the Chilton house on her iPhone. The search yielded more than one result. Without exception, each site described the Chilton house as haunted. Most relayed similar versions of the murders. She tapped the address into the phone’s GPS and then followed the turn-by-turn directions. After about fifteen minutes, she pulled up in front of a wrought iron gate on 12th street.

  The neighborhood was one of the older areas of Springfield. The historic homes’ construction ranged from the 1880’s to the 1930’s. Even though it was old, it was one of the more affluent areas of town. While most of the homes were restored and inhabited, the Chilton house was an exception.

  Debbie was somewhat familiar with this area of town. Her grandmother insisted on taking one night during the holiday season to drive around and admire Christmas decorations. “The Old Town” was a perennial highlight of the holiday season for Springfield residents. Debbie remembered the glowing feeling of warmth and childlike anticipation as she and her grandmother cruised the streets. It was hard to imagine an area where goodwill and cheer seemed to be in abundance, there resided a setting of such horrific evil.

  A street lamp across the road from the house provided enough ambient light for Debbie to feel safe getting out of her car. After all, this was an upscale community with an almost nonexistent crime rate.

  Debbie walked around the car and peered through the wrought iron gate leading to the front walk. The chain and padlock securing the gate were a stark contrast to the safe neighborhood.

  Houses can often have characteristics in common with people. Windows can resemble eyes; a door may appear as a nose or mouth and a railed front porch can add a toothy grin. The Chilton house possessed these features.

  The front porch was a rounded design that grinned back at Debbie. Save a few missing railings or ‘teeth’, many of the original features were still intact. The first floor was wood siding over boxboard. An ornate cornice separated it from the second floor. The second story was sided with wood shakes. The attic dormers with crests gave the house an air of sophistication. The sag of the balconies below the windows made them seem as tired and sad eyes.

  The house was old and withered, but it still held a rare charm beneath the cracking paint and sagging boards. This house was once a stereotypical affluent manor, but now resembled a clichéd-haunted house.

  Debbie gave the house a quick inspection. She didn’t want to stare too long for fear the toothy smile would reach out and take a bite out of her. She examined the yard, which seemed well kept despite the appearance of the house. There were two enormous oak trees on either side of the walk leading to the house. Their branches swayed with a faint creak as the rustle of leaves fluttered in the lazy, summer breeze.

  Debbie’s attention focused on a stone birdbath underneath the tree to the right. A large black crow stared back at her before dipping its head in the water. She was about to whistle at the bird when something made her pause. A potent odor met her nose; the odor of death and decay.

  A random thought came to mind, causing her to let go of the gate and take a step back. Wasn’t the well behind the house ... the direction from which the wind was blowing? She thought about Pervis Chilton cutting up his family, like a mad chef deboning chickens, and dumping their parts into it. Debbie’s rational self-told her these events happened over a hundred years ago. Surely, all the body parts were removed and buried when Mr. Chilton’s heinous crime was discovered. This had to be some dead animal nearby...a possum or perhaps a raccoon. She started to agree with her internal reasoning before something happened, mak
ing her rational-self retreat to the recesses of her mind.

  The voice of a child called faintly over the rustle of the branches. It was an otherworldly, pleading voice.

  “No Daddy, no! Please don’t hurt us...please don’t take my eyes, Daddy!”

  Debbie’s own eyes bulged to the size of saucers. Her heart leapt into her throat and slammed back into her chest. She took two steps backwards gasping for breath. She felts as if someone had stuck a vacuum hose down her throat and sucked out every last bit of air. On her third step back, her heel caught on a joint in the sidewalk. She toppled backwards, landing with a bruising jolt on her fanny. A shriek of pain was stymied by her still depleted supply of oxygen. It came out in a croaking ‘a-a-a-a-a’ sound.

  She was about to push herself back up when she heard a heavy rustling in the hedge running alongside the wrought iron fence to her right. She began to crab walk back to her car when two dark figures emerged from the hedge. Debbie’s rational self was still hiding when she screamed in her mind, “It’s the two murdered children!”

  As the figures stepped onto the sidewalk, she could see it was two young boys, no more than ten years old. One was short and tubby, while the other was tall and slender.

  “You okay, lady?” asked the skinny kid. “We was just foolin’.”

  Debbie pulled herself up on the back of the car, glaring at the little mischief-makers.

  The fat kid raised his hands above his head and shouted, “Boo!”

  With a gleeful snort and giggle, he grabbed his skinny accomplice’s arm. They turned and bolted away down the sidewalk, disappearing up a driveway.

  “Little assholes!” Debbie muttered.

  She brushed dirt from her butt and elbows, flinching in pain when her hand brushed her rear. The throbbing ache radiating from beneath her jeans confirmed one thing; her cheeks were bruised. As she examined her hands, Debbie saw they were covered with a faint layer of sidewalk grime. This made her recoil in disgust. She thought of all the critters that had pooped in the same spot on the sidewalk. There were also two preteen hell raisers in the area. They probably had no qualms about spitting and flicking boogers without care when they weren’t busy scaring the crap out of curious gawkers.