Eli McMorn and the Strange Case of the Selma Seance - Chapter 1

Those of you who know me know that every word that follows is the absolute truth.

The story begins on the night of Oct. 30, the night before Halloween. Obed Upton, the youngest member of the Claiborne Bible Society, stopped by the newspaper office to invite me to accompany him to an exclusive, holiday seance at the historic Corwin Mansion in shadow-haunted Selma. He'd been invited by Zadoch Corwin, the wealthy eccentric, who told Obed he could bring a colleague.

"Come on, McMorn. Don't be yella." Upton said in a feeble attempt at reverse psychology. "I want you there to debunk the slight-of-hand that will surely be taking place. If you don’t go, I will be forced to tell everyone there that the great Eli McMorn, Alabama's foremost paranormal investigator, was afraid to attend."

I rolled my eyes and shook my head at my young friend. "Tell them whatever you like, but the fact is some of have to work. I'm all out of days off because of that fiasco aboard The Demeter. Plus, I promised myself a long time ago to avoid anything with Corwin's name attached to it."

I'd met Corwin years ago and remembered all too well how our viewpoints differed on the study of certain esoteric subjects. Through close friends in the Claiborne Police Department, I'd also kept him from going to jail after he walked out of the Dellet Museum's Archive of Special Literature with a coded parchment from the DeSoto Collection. I've only heard from him once since then.

"Besides, tomorrow is Halloween."

I didn't have to remind Obed that Halloween is always a busy time for the night shift at The Claiborne Herald. "Devil's Night" isn't just a Detroit thing.

Obed smiled good naturedly. "You'll regret not going." With that, he struck off for the train station to board the No. 19 for Selma, saying he would give me a full report if I wanted to meet for an All Saint's Day supper on St. Leonard's Square. 

Two days later, All Saint's Day came to pass with no word from young Obed. He didn't answer his cell and my texts didn't go through to him. Around five o'clock that evening, I took the pedestrian bridge over the Alabama River to the Old City on the west side of town and saw no sign of him outside St. Leonard's Cathedral.

To kill some time, I had one of the square's old fortune tellers give me a tarot reading. After that, I set off for the Shamrock Grill. One cheeseburger later, I was back on the street and headed towards the newspaper office. 

Once inside, I unlocked my dark office and saw that someone had slipped a sheet of paper under my door. I snapped on the light, picked up the paper and turned it over. It was an Alabama Bureau of Investigation’s Missing Person report regarding Obed Adams Upton, who had been last seen by family in Claiborne two days ago.

(All rights reserved. This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.)