Outfoxing the Paranormal #2
Some secrets won’t stay buried.
Oscar Fox grew up suppressing his psychic gifts. Now he and his ghost-hunting team, including his boyfriend parapsychologist Nigel Taylor, travel to Oscar’s hometown in hopes of learning more about his legacy.
A trail of family secrets lures them to an abandoned distillery, still haunted by the ghosts of Oscar’s ancestors. A curse lies upon his bloodline, and if the team can’t figure out how to stop it, he might be the next to die.
Our little band of ghost hunters is once again on the trail but this time the trail leads to Oscar's family. Okay, so even though the phrase is used in the blurb, "ghost hunters" is a bit lax, a bit neat, a bit simple in explanation. The group, Oscar, Nigel, Tina, and Chris, are doing so much more than just hunting them, they are attempting to set them free to move along. This time there is a curse, killing a member of the family every 25 years and guess what? Yeppers, it's been 25 years since the last death.
It's been over a year since Rattling Bone was released and 6 months or so since I read book 1, The Forgotten Dead, Rattling was just as deliciously danger-filled mayhem as Forgotten. I would say Rattling is probably marginally less horror labelling and more paranormal than book 1 but only by the slimmest of slims. On one hand the victims are less evil than the curser but they too have had generations to relive their ghostly fate and in letting it fester all that time they are definitely creepy and perfect for this horror-ladened paranormal gem.
As for Oscar's dad, well you want to hate him, think badly of him for trying to supress his son's gifts but at the same time you understand it stems from a place of fear after what his mother went through all those years earlier. Does it make me want to forgive him instantly? No but I do understand where it comes from and for that I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he'll accept the truth. Whether he does or not, well you have to read that for yourself to discover.
As to the original ghost who has cursed the family line? She's just pure evil, not saying there wasn't reason for her initial anger but to go after so many lines that had nothing to do with her fate is what makes her the big bad. There is just so many levels to this story and the characters, good and bad, you can't help but be intrigued, conflicted, but above all else entertained to the nth degree.
CHAPTER ONE
Nigel stared out the van window as they rounded yet another hairpin curve, his knuckles white on the armrest. His ears popped from the altitude change as the road kept climbing toward the ridge above, hidden in a shroud of trees. The branches were winter-bare, the forest floor beneath covered with only a dusting of snow even though it was deep December, the day after Christmas.
Thank heavens he didn’t get carsick. His stomach was already unsettled enough at the prospect of meeting his boyfriend’s parents.
He glanced at Oscar, who sat in the driver’s seat, attention thankfully on the narrow road. A big guy, in both height and girth, Oscar’s hair and dark eyes contrasted against his pale skin. Right now, his cute face was scrunched in a look of concentration as he steered the lumbering van around yet another blind, hairpin curve, the wheels only inches away from a drop down the mountainside.
According to Oscar, he hadn’t brought any of his other boyfriends all the way out to Marrow, West Virginia, to meet the family. Which was amazing—they’d only been together since early October, not even three months. Nigel hadn’t wanted to come off as clingy, had told himself to take things slow, but maybe this was a sign that Oscar also felt their relationship was serious.
It also made him nervous as hell. What if Oscar’s parents didn’t like him? Things were so new between them; parental disapproval might make Oscar think twice about taking it any further.
Chris leaned forward from the backseat, where they sat beside Tina. Their hair was currently dyed a vivid shade of neon blue. “Your folks really live out in the boonies, huh?”
They’d been driving for over five hours, up from Durham, North Carolina, across into Virginia. As they headed northwest, the interstate failed them, and they’d spent the last few hours on narrow state roads, climbing over the ancient spine of the Appalachians to get into West Virginia.
“You can say that again.” Oscar didn’t glance into the rearview mirror, eyes remaining firmly on the road. “Once we get over this last ridge, we’ll almost be there.”
“Thank God, because I have to pee,” Tina said. “I thought there would at least be a gas station or somewhere to stop out here.”
Chris sat back. “Too bad we didn’t pack the camping toilet.”
The back of the van was stuffed with almost all of their ghost-hunting equipment, but none of the camping things they’d used during the investigation of the Matthews house back in October.
“Do you have any ideas about the ghost in your parents’ house?” Nigel asked, grateful for something to distract him from his nerves. “Who it might be, that is?”
That was the reason they were all going to meet Oscar’s parents, instead of just Nigel. Oscar had been working on his mediumship, at least as much as he could, but with the holidays, jobs, and family commitments, OutFoxing the Paranormal hadn’t had time to do another investigation since the Matthews house.
The intermittent haunting Oscar had grown up with—and over the years trained himself to ignore—seemed like the perfect opportunity for him to get his feet wet as a medium. The spirit, whoever it was, wasn’t violent, and had seemed content merely to show itself now and again. Neither of his parents had ever even noticed it was there, so presumably it wasn’t very strong.
Still, from Nigel’s point of view, data was data. And it would be good for the OutFoxing the Paranormal show to put out something new after their Halloween spectacular. According to Oscar, they had some good sponsors lined up already.
“I don’t have any idea who she was, and it wasn’t like I could ask my parents.” Oscar grimaced, and Nigel reached out to touch his shoulder,.
“I’m sorry.”
Oscar sighed. “It’s okay.”
The road finally crested the ridge and began to angle steeply down. A gap in the trees revealed a river valley running roughly north-south below them, a small town nestled in the widest part of the flats, before the view was swallowed up again by the trees.
“Was that Marrow?” Tina asked.
“Yeah, and my folks live on this side of town, so you’ll have somewhere to pee in a few minutes.” Oscar hesitated. “Look…Mom and Dad don’t know about the whole ghost-hunting thing.”
Nigel dropped his hand and half-turned in his seat. “What?” Chris asked from the back, at the same time Tina said, “You haven’t told them about OtP?”
“How could I? You know how my dad is. Was,” he corrected hurriedly. “They know I’m bringing friends, but not that we explore abandoned buildings together looking for ghosts. But once they see some of our videos, they’ll be really proud of what we’ve accomplished.”
“What do they think I teach?” Nigel asked.
Oscar winced. “Psychology. Which is close!”
“It really isn’t.” Nigel pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes. “So you’re introducing your friends the ghost hunters, and your new boyfriend the parapsychologist, to your father who historically hasn’t reacted well to the concept of seeing ghosts.”
“It’ll be fine,” Oscar insisted.
Chris flopped back in their seat. “Or a complete disaster. One of the two.”
* * *
As he pulled into the familiar driveway, Oscar told himself yet again that there was no reason to be nervous.
Everything was going to be fine. He’d lay everything out, Nigel would say something smart, Tina something technical, and Dad would realize they were professionals. This was science.
Oscar wasn’t crazy.
This was going to be a new start for them, a chance to work on their relationship without any lies or tension between them. Maybe he could even get Dad to talk about his own mother, Oscar’s mamaw, who might have been a medium too.
The house, built around the turn of the previous century, nestled on the uphill side of the road. A convex mirror, mounted on a tree on the opposite side of the driveway, offered as much view around the curve as possible for anyone pulling out. The driveway itself was fairly short and quite steep, leading up to a two-story house set partly into the hillside. The siding was white wood, set atop a foundation of local rock mortared in place.
The front door swung open before the engine was even off. Mom and Dad both came out, Mom bundled against the cold as if she was going on an expedition to Antarctica, and Dad wearing a Christmas sweater depicting kittens in Santa hats.
“You get out first,” Nigel said with a glance.
Oscar winced. Okay, yes, he probably should have told his parents about the whole ghost-hunting thing before they got here. And he should have warned everyone else that he hadn’t, especially Nigel. But he’d been…
Scared. That was all. Worried about Dad’s reaction if he heard the news over the phone.
It was going to be different now, though. He climbed out of the van and walked to his parents, who immediately engulfed him in a hug. He took after his father in coloring, and his mother, who was the taller of the pair, in build.
“It’s so good to see you!” Mom said. “We missed you at Thanksgiving.”
They’d spent the holiday with Nigel’s mother, a cheerful woman who lived in Myrtle Beach. Before Oscar could apologize, Dad slapped him on the arm. “I guess we’ll have to get used to sharing, now that you’ve got someone special,” he said with a wink.
Oscar grinned and turned to the van. Everyone else had climbed out, Nigel hovering warily and Tina shooting desperate looks at the house. “Tina, the bathroom is through the front door, first door on the left.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t want to be rude,” she called as she power-walked to the front door.
Mom laughed. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve made that long drive myself plenty of times.”
“And this is my friend Chris Saito,” Oscar went on. “They/them.”
“It’s lovely to meet you,” Mom said warmly, and went straight in for a hug, followed by Dad who did the same.
“Thanks for having us, Mrs. Fox, Mr. Fox,” Chris said.
“Oh goodness, call us Lisa and Scott, we’re too young for that nonsense.” Mom laughed again and turned expectantly to Nigel.
Nigel looked slightly alarmed. “I’m, uh, Nigel. He/him.”
“DoctorNigel Taylor,” Oscar added, as Mom went in for a hug.
“It’s so good to finally meet you,” Dad said, shaking Nigel’s hand, then pulling him in for a hug. “Oscar can’t stop talking about you!”
A light blush spread across Nigel’s face. “Oh?”
“I love your name,” Mom went on. “Nigel; it’s so old-fashioned!”
Nigel blinked, nonplussed. “Thanks? I picked it myself.”
“We should get in out of the cold,” Oscar put in quickly.
“Of course, of course; I’ll help with the bags.” Dad took a step toward the van.
The van packed with their equipment. It was now or never.
“Um, so, something I haven’t mentioned.” He could hear himself speaking too fast but couldn’t seem to slow down. “Tina, Chris, and I have a hobby—well, it might be more than a hobby, we do get money from the videos and selling Chris’s pictures.”
Both Mom and Dad looked at him expectantly. Oscar took a deep breath to steel himself. “We’re ghost hunters.”
There was a seemingly endless moment of shocked stillness. Then Dad turned and walked back to the house without saying a word.
* * *
An hour or so later, Nigel found himself sitting at the dinner table, Oscar on one side and Mr. Fox—Scott—on the other, at the table’s end. Lisa sat beside her husband, and Chris and Tina filled out the rest of the table.
“I hope we made enough,” Lisa fretted, though the food on the table could have fed an army. “How are the potatoes?”
“Delicious,” Nigel said truthfully.
Oscar didn’t say anything, and neither did his father. Their tension toward one another radiated through Nigel’s space.
“Oh good, it’s my mamaw’s recipe,” Lisa went on, apparently determined to fill the uncomfortable silence. “The secret is to use buttermilk.”
“It’s all wonderful.” Chris reached for second helpings of turkey. “Two Christmas dinners in one year—score!”
“Well, it didn’t make sense to have it just for ourselves, since y’all were coming the next day.”
The Fox household didn’t go all-out on holiday decorations, but there was a tree in what would have been called the parlor when the house had originally been built, and now was referred to as the den. The sight of the wrapped presents underneath sent a current of panic through Nigel—was he supposed to have brought something?
He and Oscar had already exchanged presents; a book on the history of ghost hunting from him, and an incredibly warm woolen sweater, hat, and socks from Oscar. He hadn’t really thought about what meeting Oscar’s parents the day after Christmas might entail.
“Sorry we kept Oscar away for the actual day,” Tina said, “but if I’d missed the family dinner, my abuela would’ve turned me into a ghost.”
As soon as the last word was out of her mouth, she realized her mistake. She held up one hand, as if to catch it, but of course it was already gone. The tension around the table went up a notch.
Whatever Nigel had thought meeting Oscar’s parents would be like, this wasn’t it. Coming here had clearly been a mistake. Certainly they weren’t going to be able to try and contact any spirit lingering in the house.
Lisa glanced at her husband, then fixed on Nigel. “So, Nigel, Oscar tells us you teach at Duke University!”
With the sinking feeling things were about to get worse, Nigel nodded. “That’s right.”
“You’re a psychologist, is that right?” she prompted, when it became clear he wasn’t going to elaborate.
Scott murmured something under his breath. His mother had died in an overcrowded state hospital; probably he had just as bad an opinion of psychology as he would of Nigel’s actual job.
“I work in the Institute of Parapsychology,” Nigel clarified. “We study phenomena outside of known biological mechanisms. My specialty is the survival of personality beyond death.”
There was a long moment of silence, before Scott spoke up. “Ghosts?”
He was going to be thrown out of the house and forbidden to ever speak to their son again. “The technical term is incorporeal personal agencies, but yes. Ghosts.”
“Excuse me,” Scott said, and pushed away from the table. He stalked out of the room.
Oscar shoved his chair back, shot an “excuse me” at his mother, and followed.
The rest of them sat in excruciatingly awkward silence for a moment. Then Lisa picked up a serving spoon. “So…who wants more potatoes?”
Jordan L. Hawk is a trans author from North Carolina. Childhood tales of mountain ghosts and mysterious creatures gave him a life-long love of things that go bump in the night. When he isn’t writing, he brews his own beer and tries to keep the cats from destroying the house. His best-selling Whyborne & Griffin series (beginning with Widdershins) can be found in print, ebook, and audiobook.
If you want to contact Jordan, just click on the links below or send an email.
Rattling Bone #2
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