The Dead are Watching

by Debra Robinson

  “Sure, let’s go,” Joe said with a smile. He opened the door right across from where we’d been sitting, and I followed him down a steep set of wooden stairs as he told me a story.

  “I’ve never seen too much here, which is just the way I like it, by the way.” Joe laughed over his shoulder. “Lorrie hasn’t been so lucky though.” We reached the bottom of the stairs and the walls consisted of gigantic hand-hewn stone blocks with pick marks on them, common to the era almost two centuries ago.

  One night the bar was busy upstairs, and Lorrie ran down to get a bottle of something. She saw Joe just ahead of her as he turned the corner into the next room, and she started talking to him, asking Joe to grab a bottle of wine for her. Then she turned the corner and no one was there. She’d clearly seen a dark, pants leg and lighter shirt on a man’s form rounding the corner and just assumed it was Joe. Just then, she heard someone start down the steps behind her—that was Joe. Lorrie was pretty upset.

  “No wonder she doesn’t like to come down here alone,” I told Joe. Lorrie had just mentioned that fact to me earlier that night.

  As I walked through the basement, I could sense certain hotspots—places where the psychic vibe was strong and there was some sort of lingering residual energy or presence. I pointed out a couple of these places to Joe. I decided to speak out loud to whoever might be listening. I sensed shyness or fear from them, like they were holding back, just quietly watching us.

  “I can feel you here,” I told them. “Don’t be afraid. Joe and Lorrie are the new owners now, and they’re good people. You have nothing to fear from them—or from me.” I stood quietly listening, but there were no answering sounds, nothing to give away the presence I knew was hiding there.

  Joe showed me through the rest of the basement, then we made our way back upstairs and finished playing our last set of music. I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but I soon heard from Joe. He wasn’t too thrilled about the results of my little talk with the spirits at Uncorked in Roscoe Village.

  “Man, you sure stirred something up,” he told me a few weeks later. “I was there alone one night, getting ready to close. I was standing behind the last two customers, who were sitting at the bar. My arms were folded across my chest, like so.” He crossed his arms to show me. “All three of us were watching the game. Suddenly, someone lifted my elbow up about four inches.” Joe raised his elbow, arms still crossed, to show me what he meant. “Someone invisible! I’ve never been so scared in my life.” Joe said he got the hell out of there and didn’t really want to go back! But obviously, since it’s his business, he had to.

  This does happen sometimes. I believe that after I talked to the spirits at Uncorked, they knew someone could sense them and was acknowledging them. And maybe someone even cared enough to explain who the owners were. They felt understood. After seeing Joe there with me in the basement, they must’ve felt close to him as well. Close enough to make their presence known to Joe that night they lifted up his arm, much like an old friend would. But Joe did not want to be friends and he was not amused.

  “I don’t want them touching me or showing up here when I’m alone. It’s just not good!” Joe shook his head, and I explained how to talk to them himself; just speak out loud and set some rules. Like the people they once were, they understood rules.

  I told Joe he just had to tell the invisible residents that he didn’t want to be surprised by them. This is what I’ve had to do in my own house over the years. It’s always worked for me. I gave him some background on my haunted house, and he seemed relieved. The next time I saw Joe, he told me it had worked so far, although one night he set a bottle on the bar, and when he turned around, it had been moved carefully to the floor.

  “That, I can take,” he said, laughing. “It was a far cry from picking up my elbow that first night! I guess they just didn’t want that bottle set on ‘their’ bar at that moment, and they wanted to let me know!”

  Joe continues to talk to the ghosts at Uncorked, and they seem to listen—just as James seems to listen to me.

  Not too long after Joe’s talk with the spirits in Uncorked, he and Lorrie invited me to hold a book signing there. It turned into a fun day, with many friends stopping by to say hi, buy books, and eat a cookie or three. After everyone left, I packed up and was walking across the patio outside when someone called my name. I turned to see an old friend seated at an outdoor table with her husband. This was a lady who’d had many readings with me. I hadn’t seen her for a while and we hugged.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” she said, spying my box of books. “And I want to buy some books too!”

  I signed both of my books for her, and we filled each other in on what we’d been up to since the last time we’d talked. Her husband offhandedly picked up my fiction title, Sarah’s Shadows, which has a picture of a ghost on the cover. “I think I know what this one is about,” he joked.

  I laughed and told him it’s what they all were about! My friend glanced at her husband, then back at me and told me her husband didn’t used to believe in that stuff.

  “Really? And he does now?” Her husband nodded, and I asked him what had happened to change his mind.

  A couple weeks earlier, they’d been sitting out on the patio facing the street, when someone came up behind him and slapped the back of his head pretty hard. He just figured it was Joe or one of his other friends playing around. When he turned around to see who it was, no one was there. That really freaked him out. I thought about my musician friend Joe, the owner of the bar. Maybe his talk with the spirits drove them outside to pick on unsuspecting customers! My friend’s husband continued telling me about his experience that day.

  “Then when I went in to the restroom, the door to the urinal slowly swung open. After that, I was pretty nervous. I even checked the stall door—it was level; it did not move or swing open on its own. I can now honestly say I’m a little less skeptical!” He rubbed the back of his head, as though still feeling that slap, a slightly worried expression on his face.

  I was familiar with the odd feeling in the ladies’ room. The women’s restroom definitely has a heavy vibe. It has always creeped people out. I talked with the couple for a little while longer, then we said our goodbyes and I headed home. I wondered about the restroom areas, which held both the men’s and women’s, side by side. What might lurk there? I’ve never seen anything there, but I sure can feel it. And I know others who have had things happen to them there too. Joe just might have to have another talk with his spirits—and tell them not to approach patrons at their most vulnerable moments. And no slapping allowed!

  [contents]

  3

  School for Ghosts

  My cousin Joyce called one night and asked me to come out to the edge of town to her workplace. She’d been a longtime volunteer at our local genealogical society and had taken on the job of archiving and microfilming a huge stockpile of wills and death records for our county. These records were stored in the basement of the county’s old nursing home mostly because there was no room for them anywhere else, and some were getting damaged. The genealogical society was working to have all county records compiled electronically before they were lost forever. Though in transition, the county home still served as a nursing home for a few elderly and disabled indigent residents. The basement, however, had long since been abandoned, except for the farthest room in the back: the laundry room.

  My cousin Joyce and I have always been close. She’s a few years younger, but because our dads were brothers and our moms were sisters, we had all the same relatives on both sides. So we’ve always felt closer than just cousins—more like sisters. Joyce has shared my interest in the paranormal almost her entire life, and she also inherited the family artistic streak; mine leaned toward music and hers toward art. She’s a talented artist, and these days Joyce creates delightfully eerie art dolls. They call this Halloween Art, and it has a very large
fan base of collectors. Joyce has experienced my psychic abilities firsthand and has a bit of the psychic streak herself.

  I spent a lot of time with Joyce when we were younger, experimenting with my own psychic abilities, trying to both define and understand them. She helped me practice sending and receiving clairvoyant messages back then. Joyce would look at a random picture in a magazine, and I would tell her what I was seeing in my head. One time, she picked up a magazine with an advertisement of a baby lying on its back in a crib with its feet up in the air. The baby’s feet were foremost in the picture and enlarged in the camera’s eye. At the time, I had a pin I wore on my coat—a pair of tiny silver feet. I told Joyce that what I was seeing looked like the pin on my coat.

  We realized then that a direct hit like that proves that I was reading Joyce’s mind telepathically. After this, I was always cautious when seeing any clairvoyant picture, always careful to discern whether the information was something that I could pick up by mind-reading—something already accessible in that person’s thoughts. If not, I knew it was truly coming from a source other than myself. This has caused confusion over the years, and for a long time, I wondered if clairvoyance was coming from some outside force—namely, a spirit or even something evil. After much research and debate, I finally decided it was a spiritual gift. But until I did, it gave me a lot of torment. Even now, I still have the occasional moments of doubt. I still experiment too, using myself as a guinea pig.

  When I answered the phone, I was glad to hear Joyce’s voice.

  “I’m hearing noises,” Joyce told me, “and I really don’t like the vibe down there, at all! I’m all by myself, and it’s really creepy! Please come visit me, okay?” Joyce usually had an assistant with her, but the next day she said she’d be there alone.

  “Okay, but don’t tell me anything else about the place. I want to see what I can sense on my own.”

  Joyce agreed, and I told her I’d be there at 2:00 the next day.

  As I drove to the edge of town, the old county home could be seen from quite a distance. It sprawled majestically on a knoll off to my left. Built of red brick, with a center section and two enormous wings stretching out to each side, it was a handsome old building. I thought I remembered hearing that the original building dated to the 1840s, with sections added on every so often. A long,

  curving blacktopped driveway snaked up the hill to a parking lot in front. Joyce had told me to come around to the left-hand side, to a door that was tucked neatly into the corner of the south wing where it met the main building. I looked at my watch; 2:00 exactly.

  Just as I took the sidewalk around the building, Joyce appeared. “You made it, fantastic!”

  I was always happy to see my little sister/cousin, and we talked as we approached the door to the basement.

  I asked her what was going on there, since she sounded so upset the night before.

  Joyce laughed nervously and told me there were some stories there that were pretty weird. Joyce pulled open the basement door. “Just tell me what you feel down here,” she said.

  We descended into an area that had seen better days; old paint peeled from the walls, and as I walked in, I saw a few of the smaller rooms showed streaks from water damage where it had run down below the window wells. Initially, I saw many small rooms along the corridor, and I stopped beside one that had the strongest psychic sensations to it.

  This first room had a pretty strong vibe—I sensed chaos, fear, and lots of bad stuff. A bench lined one wall, which was painted an industrial green, and the paint above the bench was peeling away in strips. I told Joyce what I was feeling.

  Joyce nodded and told me this was where they brought patients in: the intake room. The building had been an infirmary, a poor house, and a nursing home—sometimes even taking in mental patients; it had been lots of different things over the years. Joyce told me that sometimes, if someone was mentally handicapped and upset, they would leave them here in this little room for hours until they could evaluate them. I could sense a lot of negativity in that one small room.

  We moved down the hall to where Joyce was set up. It wasn’t in much better shape than what I’d seen so far—more peeling paint, crumbling walls, water damage, and dirt on the cement floors. Joyce told me she found some dead mice in there too, which, knowing her, would have been bad enough! She had a small desk and a chair set up in the middle of the room. One tiny window let in a little bit of light, and a bare bulb hung suspended from the ceiling. Under the window, tables against the wall held box after crumbling box of papers: the old county records.

  “This is pretty creepy,” I admitted, looking up at the ceiling. I could discern weird vibes coming from all around. And Joyce had been down here every day! My unease was apparent and Joyce gave a little shiver in the dank room. She walked to the doorway and pointed into the dark recesses of the hallway past her room. “Come back here. I want to see if you feel anything.”

  Joyce stepped aside, allowing me to lead the way, and I opened up to the sensations I was getting. A strong sense of something dark drew me deeper into the building, and we passed more small rooms until finally we came to a large one that appeared to run almost the length of the main structure. I had a sensation of fear, and yet it was mixed with hatred as well. This is where it’s coming from. I stopped, feeling a presence in the dim room. I suddenly pinpointed it. It’s over in that far corner, behind those old dryers. I squinted into the shadows—I couldn’t see anything, but I could sure feel it! The room was very quiet. “Who’s back there?” I called tentatively. I took a step forward, then another. A thick, black wall of rage took my breath away for a moment, and, terrified, I stopped. It’s going to get me!

  “Something’s in that back corner,” I stage-whispered to Joyce. She nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. I backed up suddenly, wanting out of there. “Let’s go,” I said hurriedly, still walking backwards, not wanting to take my eyes off whatever was in the corner. I still couldn’t see anything. But I could certainly feel it. When we got to the hall, I turned and we both sped back to the relative safety of Joyce’s room—which suddenly felt warm and welcoming, peeling paint and all!

  “I just knew you’d feel something … you pinpointed exactly where they heard it.”

  “Heard what?” I expelled the breath I’d been holding in a whoosh. “All right, tell me what you know!”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Joyce said. She inclined her head toward the exit and said she needed a smoke.

  We climbed the stairs, and she told me there had been a lot of noises since she’d been working there. We headed back up into the sunshine while Joyce began to talk, relaying the story she’d just heard from one of the few remaining employees in the nursing home above.

  Joyce had finally felt driven to tell a few of the workers about what she’d been hearing: things moving, thumps, scraping sounds—and one of the kitchen workers told her a story that really scared her.

  The people who worked there heard a lot of noises too, and none of them ever wanted to come to the basement to do the laundry. There were only a few residents left, but the workers still had to take care of them and wash the bed linens. One of these ladies broke down and told Joyce the story that scared her so badly.

  One night in the 1950s, a nurse’s aide came down to do the laundry, and she could hear the sound of heavy breathing coming from the corner I’d pointed to. This worker ran to get her supervisor because there were a few residents there who were mentally handicapped—and some were violent. The worker figured one had probably gotten out of their room and was hiding in the basement. The supervisor returned with some backup, and they all carefully called for the patient to come out, reassuring him that they wouldn’t hurt him, and so on. But the supervisor couldn’t coax anyone out. Finally, the nursing supervisor went back upstairs to do a headcount, to try to ascertain exactly who was hiding in the basement and whether they were violent or no
t.

  After the headcount, the supervisor found that no one was missing upstairs. At that point, she decided to call the local police, thinking maybe some derelict had broken in and was hiding down there.

  The cops arrived to find the supervisor in the parking lot waiting for them, and she explained that there was someone in the basement hiding behind the dryers. The police went down the basement stairs with guns drawn and stood quietly, listening in the large laundry room. They too could hear the steady, strained breathing, rasping and wheezing, in and out, heavily. Joyce took a drag of the cigarette as I waited in suspense. Finally, she continued her story.

  The cops slowly approached the corner and made their move into the space behind the dryers. But nothing was there. Then they searched everywhere else in the room. There was nothing there either. Joyce exhaled cigarette smoke. “The place was empty. Yet that heavy breathing sound went on and on.”

  The baffled cops finally left, seriously disturbed by the loud breathing coming from the room with no human being there to cause it. After that first time, the same thing happened several more times, and the same scenario was repeated—the nurses called about heavy breathing in the basement, the cops came out, and nothing could be found. The local cops knew what to expect after a while. It was always the same when they came; loud breathing in that back corner of the basement laundry room. But nobody was ever found there.

  “Oh my lord,” I whispered. “I could feel it back there, but I don’t know what it is.”

  “Thank God I’ll be done microfilming soon,” Joyce whispered. “I just don’t want to be in there anymore.”

  “I don’t blame you.” I was glad to get out of there, to be honest.

  Joyce walked me to my car and I felt bad leaving her there, but relieved that I was going. What a creepy place!