Free In the Dead of Night by Aiden James

empty.
    “It’s getting too dark to know for sure, but we didn’t see anyone outside,” added Jackie, as she and Tony returned to the kitchen right after the others. “You don’t think this has anything to do with what happened last night and this morning, do you?”
    She looked at Fiona, who continued to clean the floor while everyone else awaited her response.
    “No…I don’t,” she said, standing up and carrying a handful of glass shards to the open trash container I’d brought over to the pile a moment ago. She dropped the pieces and brushed her hands over the container to rid them of flour and sugar grains, and no doubt a few small glass chips. “Tom doesn’t believe that either.”
    Now we all looked at him, eyebrows raised in puzzlement for most of us.
    “Okay,” he sighed. “She’s mostly right….but I think it could still be related to what’s going on elsewhere, or at least related to what we described tonight.”
    “What in the hell are you both talking about?”
    That was me, as I just looked down at my watch. 8:40 p.m.
    “Nathaniel. Nathaniel Smith is still here,” Tom explained. “I know it sounds nuts, though it shouldn’t since this is what we look for in other places….the haunted locales we visit. The guy never left after his death. Yes, I told you the truth about the grave stone out back, but the reason I got this house for twenty grand less than the asking price was on account of the ‘resident ghost’.”
    “So you knew this place was haunted?” asked Justin, moving into his Wayan brother voice pitch. “And you bought it anyway?? Well at least we’ll know what you’re up to if you decide to skip an investigation….’Gotta play with my kitchen ghostie, don’t you know!’”
    Ah, another mirthful moment to ease tension. But Tom and Fiona were both dead serious, and eyed him like he’d just called on Satan to make it rain. Then something else happened. The cupboard next to Justin began to tremble, like a small tremor moving through the foundation from deep below the earth’s crust. Only, this quake remained inside the damned cupboard.
    “What the…,” Justin squeaked. The previous impish look in his eyes was vanquished by real fear.
    “Well you pissed him off!” seethed Tom, moving over to where Justin stood, while Angie looked on wearing another smirk—she’s such a smartass. He shooed them both away to the other side of the kitchen. The tremor ceased. “Nathaniel was a cook in the army, until he retired in 1932. After that, he continued his trade until he contracted lung cancer, in 1943. Then he died here in the back bedroom in 1945.”
    “The spirit here is very protective of you, am I right about that?” asked Fiona. “I wish to apologize for all of us if we made him upset by what we were talking about.”
    She waited before going on, shooting a serious look to both Justin and Angie. As weird as it sounds, the oppression in the air around us began to lift.
    “You’re right,” said Tom. “Nathaniel doesn’t care much for my younger brother, Albert, nor his wife, Beth. Al and I have never really been close, but since we’re both getting older, we’ve been trying to work on our relationship. But things are still tense between us.... When I moved in here and enlisted their help, we had something similar to this happen in the middle of the night while Al and Beth were sleeping in the guest room. It was just pots and pans that night, and the drawer turned upside down. Nathaniel must really be ticked off this time.”
    “I guess he doesn’t care much for a black dude, either, huh?”
    Justin said this jokingly, but given the way people used to think, he might’ve defined the source for the spirit’s hostility.
    “Nathaniel was an African-American, too,” said Tom, moving back to the pile to finish cleaning up. “But respect for one’s elders remains much the same as it was back when he walked among the living.”
    “Sounds like he’s still walking