Free Fatherland (Prequel to Primal Shift) by Griffin Hayes

-1-
    T he rain was coming down
in sheets and Thomson wondered if it would ever let up.
    “Been crapping on our
heads like this for nearly a week,” his partner Brooks said, wiping the water
off the brim of his hat with one finger. Brooks wore one of those snap-brimmed
antique hats that looked about as beat up as the man wearing it, but his
partner seemed to think it made him look like Nick Nolte in the movie Mullhulland Falls. Cept we ain’t detectives, Thomson thought, gritting his teeth, and
this ain’t L.A.
    Brooks rang the
doorbell again, just as the woman answered.
    She was slight and
plump with soft skin the color of clean linen. “I’m so glad you came,” she
stammered, wringing her hands.
    Thomson and Brooks
entered and removed their trench coats. Threads of water collected on the sterile
off-white tiles at their feet. Place almost looked like a hospital.
    She took the men’s
coats and hung them up. “Don’t you have any equipment? I mean, you did say you
would run a battery of tests.”
    Thomson was the one to
speak. “Mrs. Kesler, our first order of business is always to speak with the
child. Your claim is quite... extraordinary... therefore we make it a point not to
rush anything. I hope you understand.”
    She nodded in
agreement, although the look of concern on her face said otherwise. “I just
want to know, one way or another.”
    “We understand,” Brooks
cut in. “But if it’s any consolation, given what you told us over the phone,
the whole thing is rather incredible.”
    “Incredible is hardly
the word I’d use,” she snapped and Brooks recoiled slightly.
    Thomson shook his head
in contempt at Brooks’ blunder. Lack of experience was all it came down to. Kid
was as green as a grape and about as soft as one too. Of course, paranormal
investigators don’t need psych degrees, but knowing a thing or two about the
way people think can often be the difference between a paycheck and the
unemployment line.
    “Let me apologize for
my partner,” Thomson offered. “It was a poor choice of words. Let me assure
you, if there’s anything at all to your suspicions we’ll get to the bottom of it
tonight. Before we begin however, there is the small issue of our fee.”
    “Oh yes,” the woman
said and pulled a thick envelope from her apron. She handed it to Thomson who
made it vanish into the inner pocket of his dark blue blazer with all the grace
of a street magician.
    “Now, Mrs. Kesler,
where is your son?”

-2-
    T he three of them
ascended the stairs while Mrs. Kesler told them what a wonderful boy Donald
was. For a moment, Thomson almost felt guilty taking this poor woman’s money.
He and Brooks had investigated well over a hundred cases of supposed paranormal
activity and during each and every one the pattern had played out the same.
Brooks always found one more piece of evidence to bolster his belief that
strange things did, in fact, go bump in the night. But for Thomson, every case
drew him one step closer to the inevitable realization that Brooks was a
gullible fool. Perhaps the perfect example of this was the case of the old man
in Hardin County, Tennessee. The old hoot’s name was Joshua Cosgrove and he claimed
to have daily conversations with Albert Sidney Johnston, a General killed at
the battle of Shiloh in 1862. So was it any surprise that the good general
developed a sudden case of stage fright whenever Thomson and Brooks set up
their equipment to record the ghostly meetings?
    And then there was Mrs.
Patel, who swore that her statue of Vishnu cried real tears of blood. Not
surprisingly, when the blood samples came back from the lab reading Porcus
blood, as in pig, well even that didn’t seem to sway her one bit. Thomson was
into facts, the colder and the harder the better. Brooks had speculated whether
the lab had made a mistake. But gullibility aside, Brooks wasn’t all bad. There
were trade-offs, like his connections over at the local university where the
bulk of their