The Dead are Watching

by Debra Robinson

  I told Sarah it was probably Evan—that’s the same noise James made when he came back. It’s very like an electric sparking sound, like papers being crinkled or a water bottle crackling when you squeeze it.

  “That describes it perfectly. I think he just came back to see us, because we were both lying on the bed napping.” Sarah looked wistful, and shook her head. “We miss him.”

  For one so young, Sarah has been through so much.

  I think that our loved ones do whatever they can to let us know they’re still here with us. But sometimes, the same can be said for spirits we don’t know too. Sarah told me about a ghost she saw one night in her house. It scared her, yet the apparition didn’t really feel threatening. She was lying in bed with her little boy asleep next to her. He crawled into bed with her a lot. She was looking into the hallway and saw a tall man walk by. He took two steps through the hall, with his head down, as though he was sad. Sarah couldn’t see any features or clothes, just a solid white shape, but she could tell it was a man.

  Sarah’s young son is six and still terrified to sleep in his room because of the ongoing haunting in their house. This is the same house where Sarah innocently invited a ghost hunter one night to record EVPs after hearing sounds, in hopes that it was Evan coming back to them. The EVP recorded growls and an evil voice saying, “Sarah, you’re dead.” Her son always sees a black shadow in his room, which is why he won’t sleep there anymore. One night, the boy awoke to see a woman hovering over him, and he tried to wake his mom but he couldn’t get her to wake up. He was really terrified, and even more so by the fact that his mom couldn’t seem to be awakened to save him.

  A friend of Sarah’s saw this same shadow go into the closet one night. He said it moved really quickly. He went over to the closet, looked through it all, and nothing was there. Sarah used to see it all the time too. She feels the greatest sense of a presence in their basement—that’s where the investigator picked up the EVPs of the growling and the threatening voice.

  After our lunch, I drove home. Brea’s, my son’s, and Sarah’s friends’ returns were on my mind the entire way. I remembered another recent mysterious visitation I’d witnessed—I’d even helped deliver a message because of it.

  I’d just given a lecture a month before at a large county library on the Ancient Art and Science of Palmistry. It was well attended and things were going great. I’d presented three-fourths of the information and was nearing the end of my program. I use a very big poster of a palm with all of the lines represented and a laser pointer to explain the various meanings behind each line. Since I need to move quickly from one area of the palm to another to fit in all the information in one hour, I have to map out the lecture carefully. I reserve a question-and-answer period at the end, but really can’t stop during the presentation to answer anything.

  On this particular night, other than two cell phone calls being taken by attendees—which almost derailed my train of thought—it had been fairly uneventful. A few people asked for clarifications during the presentation, and luckily I was able to answer them without getting too far off track.

  I was rounding the home stretch when a lady in front took advantage of a brief lull as I searched for the thought I wanted to convey.

  “Can you do a reading for me right now?” she blurted out suddenly.

  I stood, mouth open, trying to think of the best way to say, “Um, no—the other hundred people sitting behind you might be offended,” without sounding rude! Instead, I politely explained that I needed to wrap up the lecture, and maybe I could speak with her afterward. But she wasn’t having any of it.

  “What do you see for me, right now?” she insisted. This was getting out of control. Plus it was inconveniencing everyone else. I honestly didn’t know what to do other than stop everything and focus in on her for a moment. I stared at her face and heard the name “Harold” whispered inside my head. The rest of the crowd held their collective breath.

  “I see someone named Harold around you, trying to come through. Do you know a Harold?”

  The woman thought for a moment then shook her head. “No, I don’t know any Harolds,” she said. I tilted my head quizzically, listening again. “It’s definitely Harold, or Harry,” I said.

  The woman again denied knowing anyone by that name. Great, wires sure got crossed on that one! I couldn’t figure out why I was hearing that name so strongly, and I was confused. This was slightly embarrassing, but it happens sometimes.

  I continued on as best I could, after explaining that sometimes I pick up things for others or that sometimes spirits seem to jump in for someone else and that it’s hard to sort out exactly who it’s meant for or what exactly it means from a psychic perspective. The woman quieted down after this.

  I finished the lecture, took some questions, thanked the audience, and it was over. Many people in the crowd lined up to speak to me afterward, and finally one lady who’d been seated far in the back and had waited patiently for the line to move, reached me. She leaned across the lectern confidentially, as those around us waited their turn.

  “You know that woman in front, the one who you saw Harold around?” I nodded. “She worked at the hospital, every day, with my husband. I don’t know why she didn’t tell you.” I waited, not understanding.

  “My husband died this past year. His name was Harold!” she said, a look of astonishment on her face.

  “Oh, so that’s what it meant!”

  The woman nodded her head, perplexed. “I don’t know why she didn’t tell you she knew a Harold—she worked with him every single day!”

  I realized then how hard Harold must’ve tried to get me to hear him, to try to get the woman in front to recognize him, for his wife’s sake. Just so his wife would know he was there—his wife, who had sat too far back in the room and was too polite to blurt anything out! I told Harold’s wife that this was probably Harold’s way of letting her know he was there for her and that he was okay. She thanked me gratefully, then walked away. I still don’t know why the woman in the front row didn’t acknowledge her coworker that night. But I do know that sometimes people forget names of close friends or even family when put on the spot by a psychic. Harold was probably as frustrated about it as I was!

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  9

  Gifts From Beyond

  We held our annual charity event in James’s honor at the end of August, and I was tired, but tired in a good way. It took about a week to recover from all the work it involved. The James Short Memorial Session had become huge since its modest beginnings just after James’s death. This year was the biggest yet, and from noon until 11:00 p.m., pro rollerbladers, food, and music—James’s favorite things—were combined into one event where everyone had a lot of fun. And the money the event raised helped many charities throughout the year as well.

  We’d had houseguests all week. James’s old friend from Detroit (who had encountered our home’s ghost in his younger years on an overnight stay), his girlfriend, and two other old friends. One of the legends of the skating industry flew in from California to emcee the event. They’d all just left a few hours before, and I already missed them terribly. But I was also looking forward to relaxing and getting back to my routine.

  I hadn’t had enough time to myself to think while all the hoopla was going on, and now I wanted to rehash several things that had happened, things that again pointed to James being the culprit. First, I’d run into my next-door neighbor in the driveway between our houses, and after she asked if I was working on a follow-up to my first book, of course the topic of James came up.

  “I’ve never told you before, I was kind of afraid to, but now that some time has passed, you should know.” She hesitated and I told her it was okay, that I’d like to hear whatever it was.

  “That week after James died, I swore I saw his beanie pacing up and down the driveway, back and forth, back and forth.” Her kitchen wi
ndow looked out on our driveway and her short stature only allowed her to see the tops of heads that walked past. James and his friends had done just that, many times, on the way to his childhood hangout, the “shed.” James had moved back into the shed just months before he was killed.

  “Then my husband cornered me,” she continued. “He told me he thought he was going crazy ’cause he thought he saw Jamie several times out there. Once I told him I had too, we knew it was for real.” The neighbors still often called him Jamie, his childhood nickname.

  I thanked her for telling me, and shook my head sadly as I went back to my guests. There were no words.

  Now that all my houseguests were gone, I wanted to get outside, breathe the night air, and gather my thoughts about my neighbor’s revelation. I’d missed my nightly walks with my little dog Bo Bo each evening. I’d had to postpone taking them to tend to my guests.

  I was coming down the front staircase for my walk, thinking about the odd occurrences during the previous busy week. I rounded the corner on the landing and started down the final flight, when right beside the wall covered with James’s pictures, I ran into a huge bug—I thought.

  “Aaahhhh,” I shrieked, as the heavy sound of a large bug’s rapidly vibrating wings buzzed loudly in my ear, then touched the top of my head, lifting up my hair. I raised my hands to swat at it, but encountered—nothing. It was there one instant, then gone. It sounded and felt like one of our large Ohio locusts, size-wise at least. They grew to a couple inches long and were very loud, not to mention gross! Only something that big could make that loud a sound—and lift my hair! But nothing was there. And I realized suddenly, this had happened twice before in this same spot in the past week, although I’d shrugged it off because I’d been on the run with an errand for my houseguests. Now it was quiet here—quiet, and also very obvious: there was no bug. This was something new, something that had never happened before in the house, which had been haunted since we’d moved in many years ago. I’d also never previously dealt with this feeling as a paranormal investigator or psychic. If it was some sort of spirit communication, it was a new, unfamiliar method!

  “James, did you touch my hair? I felt and heard a heavy vibration, like wings! Was that you?” I talked out loud to him to be sure he heard me if it was. If so, it was the third time he’d tried it that week. I’d been oblivious before this, but I finally put it together.

  My husband and I discussed it for a few minutes, while I hooked up Bo Bo’s leash for our walk. Just an hour earlier I’d been coming down the stairs and heard a male voice saying something. “What?” I asked my husband, who was sitting at the table below.

  “I didn’t say anything,” he replied.

  “Well I just heard somebody say something!” I was getting upset because this had happened a couple times already that day! After comparing notes, my husband admitted it had happened to him too.

  This set the tone for my thoughts on my walk that night. I also thought about the recent investigation, trying to hear any psychic info that might come my way about it. Many times, just turning my mind to something like this led to incredible information coming to me. And of course, those thoughts then led to others—namely James’s returns. I also thought about my bug phobia—and how James knew this phobia well. Sometimes, being too close to a bug would make me feel the need to spit, as though it was in my mouth. James would know this would get my attention, I thought, as Bo Bo and I stepped off the front porch into the night.

  I live on a fairly busy street, though it was a Sunday and traffic was sparse. I love to walk at night, and my smallish town is relatively safe and the streets well lit. With Bo Bo pulling like a maniac, I wasn’t a block from my house when I saw a dark shadow on the sidewalk flying over me. I looked up just in time to see it, darker against the midnight blue sky. Puzzled, I thought maybe a plane had caused it at first, but then realized I’d heard nothing, and a plane wouldn’t have made a shadow at night. That was weird. It put me on alert and fit right in with everything else that’d happened.

  I remembered something else. That morning, while finally taking my shower in between the other six people in the house, I’d turned off the water in the shower only to hear water still running full blast. I threw back the shower curtain and saw the hot water faucet on the sink wide open and gushing. I hadn’t yet used the sink at all. This had never happened before either. The handles weren’t bad or loose. There just was no real explanation for it, other than James.

  We’d always held the JSMS the anniversary week of James’s death. This year was the third anniversary, but because of the way the calendar fell, the JSMS was a little early, on Saturday the 25th. It hit me then! It had been exactly three years ago, August 26, to the minute, this very night, that James had been hit by the drunk driver. He died four days later, never waking from the coma.

  I thought about the coincidence of the “bug,” the voices, the faucets, the shadow, and wondered. Could having all James’s friends here on this anniversary of the tragedy have somehow connected with him and brought him back to us again? These new occurrences had been almost as intense as the ones right after he’d died, when we’d had no doubt it was him. And my neighbor’s story of him pacing the driveway fit right in.

  So many mysteries in life, I thought. I loved James as much as ever; death didn’t change that. I wondered if it would ever fade, as a little bit of the pain finally had.

  I breathed in the cool night air, somber now, and tried to ignore the dense shadow that seemed to be standing at the end of a long dark fence on my way home, telling myself it was only my imagination. Spooked, though, my skin prickled and tingled as I went past nervously.

  James had been on my mind a lot after all this, and the next day, after I grabbed a fast-food meal at a drive-through, I passed by our local park, and nostalgia—the good kind—struck me. I decided to eat there, and I pulled in. I parked at the top of the hill and climbed up on one of the picnic tables in a covered shelter, sitting on the tabletop with my feet on the seat. A beautiful hillside covered with mature oak trees stretched out before me, and the sounds of the merry-go-round and children’s laughter drifted up from the park below, carried on a gentle breeze. So peaceful, so beautiful, I thought. Waves of memories and emotions hit me, and I fell into my habit of talking out loud to James.

  “Ahh, James, remember all the times we came here? You wanted to live here when you were little, you loved it so much.” Many days I’d left the dishes in the sink and floors unswept, just to be able to take him to the park. My rheumatoid arthritis had made me face mortality at the young age of twenty-four, and that taught me to believe it was more important to lavish James with love than do the day’s dishes. I really didn’t think I’d live a very long life, so every moment was precious and weighted with that belief.

  I looked down to be sure of my footing and jumped off the picnic table. I walked to the nearest tree and leaned on it as I let the memories flood back. There was the football stadium below where James got in his first fight; a kid from another town started it because James walked on the opposing team’s side of the stadium, unaware of the unspoken rules. Just past the stadium were the kiddie rides I took him on as a little baby. In the opposite direction was the pool where I’d drop James off with a friend each summer as he got older. Again, the unfairness of his death struck me. I guarded against allowing these feelings in every single day, but sometimes, especially when alone like this, they all came rushing back, as though making up for lost time. I still missed him so much.

  With a sigh, I walked back to the picnic table and stepped up on the seat again, but I saw something dark beside my right foot. I turned and plopped down on the tabletop again, reaching for the small object. It was a black guitar pick! Where in the world did that come from! I picked it up, astonished, and saw that it had a fancy scrolled “W” on it, in white. I was flabbergasted. The black pick stood out against the scuffed wood of the picnic tab
le seat—it had not been there just a couple minutes before. I would have seen it! I’d bought James a Washburn guitar when he’d first started playing, and he used it until his death. I wondered if this “W” stood for Washburn. This was exactly the kind of pick James used.

  Once again, I felt James was making his presence known, maybe responding to my talking to him. His life had consisted of music and rollerblading, and this guitar pick was the perfect way to get my attention. Apports are objects that can be moved from place to place by a spirit, or even materialize out of thin air. James had done this right after he died, when a white feather came floating from my living room ceiling—when there were no feathers anywhere around that could’ve explained this. Maybe James was trying hard to make himself known. By placing this guitar pick on the bench where I’d been sitting. It worked.

  “I know I need to try to let you go, James,” I whispered, “but I’ll never really be able to let you go—you’re still a part of me, the best part of my life—you’ll always be with me.” I smiled as I looked at the pick. “Thanks for the pick,” I told him. I treasure the gift.

  Maybe the average skeptic wouldn’t have taken this as a direct message from James, but I’d already been given too much direct evidence to doubt it. Letting go of James was still hard. And I wasn’t too sure he wanted me to let go.

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  10

  Mourning Death (Your Own)

  Sometimes history tells us only about the events that result in tragedy, but not the aftermath. This is a story about what happened after a tragedy that formed the backdrop for a generation. About the haunting that resulted.