Dark Fiction

by David Kempf

“You know what I am, gentlemen,” said Thomas.

  A low profile would save his life and ensure a future for his unfinished work. Jack Smith and Martin Wesley were close but yet so far away. He would avoid them for years. He was already in another state. Still, he knew he would see old Jack and Martin again. They were dragons now and these creatures must be slain.

  Thomas Grey was more than just another criminal to them. Yes. He could almost see it now. He would be in battles with them for a long time to come. The thoughts of his future kept flying by like dragons. When he was a little boy he went to an amusement park. All of the children had a great time except for one. There was a little girl in a wheelchair that couldn’t go on any rides. Why would God allow that? If there was no God, then why didn’t glorious, secular science solve her dilemma? Thomas’s thoughts were deep and dark. Yes, he thought. We’re going to be together for a long time, my friends. I’m not just another adversary for you. Jack, Martin, I’m so much more and so much closer to the both of you.

  “I’m your nemesis, gentlemen, until death do us part.”

  Memento Mori!

  Chapter 8

  They Want to Talk!

  By Christopher Wisdom

  The dead always make great listeners. Where have I heard that before? In fact, most of the time they don’t do any talking at all. There is a reason for the expression “silent as the grave.” My name is Edward Cleo. I talk to dead people all the time. It’s not only interesting to talk to them; it’s become a fairly profitable way to make a living. Yes, I am aware of the irony that I make my living from the deceased. I used to be a fraud but that was a while back. I was a phony psychic for many years. Hey, now I’m the real deal. I can really talk to the dead and boy, do they have a lot of things to say to the living.

  It started about eight years ago when I was thirty-three years old. I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I had gone from one dead end job to another. I was looking for a good scam. My first idea was to maybe become some kind of televangelist or magician. Most people who knew me wouldn’t believe I was religious or spiritual. There would have been too many words to swallow short of some kind of miracle. I did do some magic, like at kids’ birthday parties, when I was in my twenties. I was pretty good, but not in the league of someone who could become rich and famous. Then I went to a friend’s funeral. Everyone in the family was talking about how they wish they could talk to him just one last time. His mother said she would give anything; that’s right, anything, just to tell him she loved him. That really got me thinking. I mean, people would pay anything to talk to their dearly departed loved ones. My first thought was that was a very promising thing from which I could profit. People would certainly watch a television show featuring a psychic who could speak to the dead. There would certainly be a market for that.

  I did eventually become a smashing success with my television audience. The problem was that I underestimated the market. I mean, I found ways to make a living. I found a publisher for my book, They Want to Talk, with no problem. Next thing I knew, I had a talent agent and I was traveling the United States talking to dead people in every state. I was actually very popular on the college circuit.

  I’m not sure why. I think a lot of those college kids were actually making fun of me. What the hell, they were still paying to get in even if they knew I was a fraud. Like I said, I WAS a fraud. That’s not the case now. I’ve really, truly been able to speak with the other side for about six months now.

  I’ve had my fair share of problems and people who didn’t believe me. A group of skeptical protestors follows me still. Their leader Justin Ironside would follow me around, making accusations at me in public.

  “How does it feel to take advantage of people’s grief and be such a scumbag, Cleo?”

  I told him that I was a real psychic and not a charlatan, so I wouldn’t know.

  “We both know you’re not for real. You are a terrible excuse for a human being, preying upon people when they’re most vulnerable. Someday you’ll pay for what you’ve done, you low life.”

  The police would escort my friend Justin away and then I would go on about my business of talking to the dead. I couldn’t help thinking about the way that the funeral industry takes advantage of people’s grief. I mean no one has to buy my book or watch me on TV. People have to have a coffin in which to be buried, or at least an urn.

  Jenny Goodstar was always available to communicate with the dead. Well, apparently this was true. Jenny had her own television show called “Let’s Talk with the Dead with Jenny” for about eight years or so. I guess you could describe my feelings as jealousy, but that wouldn’t quite be fair. I mean, jealous could mean anything. I was feeling outraged that someone else had cornered my niche in life and was going all the way with it. I mean, who the hell was Jenny to take my place in the media spotlight? Who the hell was she to steal my thunder? I always thought she was nothing more than a big phony. I mean, I am fully aware of the irony. Anybody who really knows me also knows I am also a complete and total phony. That’s fine. I used to be a complete and utter fraud and I know it.

  Well, I know that it used to be true. Now, I am the genuine article. I mean, I can really communicate with the dead. I hear their voices. I mean, they want to talk. More specifically, they want to talk to me. Many people have written off the supernatural as nonsense. They don’t consider it could actually be part of their objective reality. They think that religion and science are polar opposites. You can blame higher education for that one. The truth is that if I wasn’t on the receiving end of “the other side,” I would think it was all nonsense, too. Unfortunately, I don’t have that option anymore.

  Once you grow in your understanding of the universe, things tend to really change. That’s what happened to me. I mean, I was a skeptic, a fraud, and a rock-bottom materialist by nature. The dead changed me. I mean, they really changed the nature of who I am and the way I looked at the world.

  I can honestly say if these things happened to you that the feeling would definitely be mutual. I guess it would have to happen to you for you to fully understand and appreciate exactly what happened to me. It was, dare I say it…miraculous. Anyone who has not experienced the supernatural is probably stuck in the same dead-end, ‘life ends at death’ materialism that I was stuck in. I knew I was a phony. I knew I was ripping people off and exploiting their grief. I guess deep down inside I even knew that what I was doing was morally and ethically wrong. I didn’t care. I wanted the money. I had also seen a lot of business dealings that were, in my opinion, far more unethical than my transactions with the deceased. At least they were for the benefit of surviving family members.

  Let’s get back to Justin again. When I was a phony he would actually wait for me in the parking lot of the TV studio. The limo driver usually called the police before he could say anything. Sometimes he still managed to get a few good words in on me.

  “I told you that someday you’ll pay. I really mean it. It’s not right what you do. It’s not right by a long shot. You’re going to have to stop this and tell everyone you’re a fake. Then apologize….”

  The police escorted Justin away again but back to my nemesis….

  Let me say, first of all, that Goodstar was always my competition from the very beginning of my psychic career. Essentially, I really hated her from the start. I mean, she wasn’t just another phony like myself….she was a self righteous bitch. I guess you could say that I always hated her guts for that. I was just somebody who pretended to be well acquainted with the supernatural to make a quick and profitable buck. I mean, hey, if exploiting people’s fear of death to make a profit wasn’t the American way, I don’t know what is. The phony preachers and magicians who have taken away a fool’s money compose a major part of our nation’s history. What is the expression now? “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste and intelligence of the American public.”

  I’m no fool. I know it’s much bigger than that. I mean, there are psychics like myself i
n Great Britain and the rest of Europe. Hey, grief and death affect humans on all corners of the globe. It’s only the wealthy indulgent countries that can afford sideshows like mine. I mean, most people in the world are trying to survive. They don’t have time or money to pay someone to talk to the dead. However, they do often still believe in life after death. It’s quite a phenomenon that people everywhere seem to need to cling on to this hope; this hope that there is something beyond the grave.

  It’s like human beings are too intelligent and important to live for such a short amount of time and then simply…die. Yes, die, as in gone forever and rest in peace. How could that be? We’re too important a species for that. It can’t be true that we simply die or pass away. There is, of course, no proof for life after death. Not even a shred. There are these so-called near death experiences, but most of them can be scientifically proven to be hallucinations. Did I mention that I used to feel this way about the subject of life after death?

  Now I know there is life after death. I mean, I can’t prove it to you. You would have to possess the same gift that I have to fully understand and appreciate it. That’s all there is to it. When I was scamming people, I started out visiting people’s homes and asking them questions about the deceased. The law of averages would eventually work in my favor. Sooner or later I would get the right information so I could pretend to talk to the dead. There were always one or two skeptical family members looking at me like I was a scumbag. That was okay. Money is always green whether or not the person who gave it to you hates you. It was pretty easy. Sometimes things were really easy. There did not appear to be a skeptic in sight. That’s when I just used common sense. It was no miracle or even a clever magic trick. I simply had the benefit of reading some very detailed obituaries. That was always nice. It appeared as though I knew everything there was to know about someone I had never even met.

  I started to attract a more wealthy class of clientele. The middle class homes I visited were turning into mansions and estates. My financial problems were beginning to disappear. The dead wanted to talk and they did talk. They would talk to me and for a high price; you could hear what they had to say. Next thing I knew, I was traveling all over America. Then my book came out. The only problem was that I never got my own television show. My agent offered me my own radio show. That was a tough gig. I couldn’t read people’s faces when they weren’t in front of me. I had to hire an assistant who had to read more obituaries than any other person in the history of radio. My radio show became quite popular. I think that many people just wanted to say goodbye to their loved ones, even if it was just one last time. When people don’t have to pay for such services, like callers on a radio show, they go for it. I think that many callers didn’t believe in life after death. Sometimes, they just wanted to be on the radio. That’s fine. I got paid the same either way.

  I almost got in some trouble for my book because I used real life examples of people I “helped.” I stopped printing that version and came up with another edition in which people’s names had been changed. Then I was okay.

  We did have to shell out some royalty fees to several families. That was okay. I mean, there was more than enough money to go around. I guess you could say I was always a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. This was true in all aspects of my life except one. That was the deep and hateful jealousy I felt for that damned Goodstar woman. All I had to do was look at her for a moment or even just hear the sound of her voice. It didn’t take much for her to ruin my day. When we would bump into each other she would condescendingly ask me how my “radio show” was. She seemed to forget that there was an awful lot of trash on television: the daytime talk shows, the soaps, the reality shows. It’s not as if television was a positive influence on American culture. I guess I just wanted my shot at being part of the cultural wasteland of daytime TV. It was hard for me to admit sometimes, but I was so jealous of her that I could just scream. She was on a television show that by all rights should have been mine.

  Even as my psychic career started to make monumental gains, I still had to pay my dues. There was more than one occasion when a relative of a murder victim would pay me top dollar to speak to the deceased. I mean, think about it. Who better to identify the murderer than the actual murder victim? I would typically get twice my usual pay rate for these golden assignments. The problem was that I didn’t actually know who killed these people. I would usually say the victim didn’t get a chance to see who did it. That posed a problem because a lot of folks seem to think that once a person dies, the soul becomes omnipotent and knows all of life’s mysteries. You know, like the reason we are here and what happens after we die. I say I was paying my dues because I did get punched in the face on more than one occasion. There were at least two times when my nose got broken. I didn’t complain. I had an excellent attorney and ended up getting money through my assault and battery charges against family members of clients who couldn’t control themselves. It was all in a day’s work and the work paid very well.

  Then one day it just kind of happened. I was having dinner with some friends and old Ms. Goodstar walked up to meet me. I was cordial to her. I was professional enough to hide my insane jealousy of her. She asked me if she could come by and watch me do my radio show. I didn’t really want her to come but, unfortunately, my agent was among my friends that evening. He was thrilled that Jenny was taking an interest in me and my career. So she watched me do my show. She told me that I had genuine talent. I was actually flattered by her praise. Still, she seemed like she was questioning my motives. It’s not like she wasn’t making a fortune with her TV show. It’s wasn’t as if she was some not-for-profit charity.

  She asked me out for dinner and we started seeing each other socially. It was quite strange to date Jenny because I had always described her to others as this insufferable she-devil. Our dating was encouraged by my agent. The newspapers enjoyed making fun of the psychic couple who could speak to dead people. When we started to become more serious and our relationship became exclusive, I began to question my own intentions. Was I so desperate to be in the spotlight that I would make my one time arch rival my fiancée? It seemed like I was a pretty shallow guy. I could deal with my own selfish nature. Jenny Goodstar and I became engaged. It was going to be a very interesting wedding. The wedding was attended by many important people. There were actors, musicians, politicians, and even royalty.

  We went all over Europe for our honeymoon. Jenny liked most cities in Europe, especially Paris. Once we returned from our trip, it was business as usual. Her TV show was thriving. It was more popular than ever before. My radio show had gained multitudes of new listeners. We were a popular couple. The earnings we made changed our lives. We had homes in New York, Hawaii and Rome. I woke up every day almost feeling like I was living in denial. It seemed more like a dream than real life. This was the lifestyle of the rich and famous and it was mine. We had servants and threw parties for world leaders and movie stars. All of this was made possible by pretending to do the impossible. No one could talk to the dead. That’s what I had always known. Once you are dead you are gone forever. Only a fool would think otherwise. That’s what I used to think before I discovered I had the true psychic gift.

  It was a year into our marriage when I started to wonder about my wife. How seriously did she take her own “psychic” abilities? Did she know this was all show business or was she deluding herself? Unfortunately, I got my answer.

  “I’m very fortunate to have been blessed with this gift. I guess the reason we’re so successful is that we use our powers to help others. It must be part of some plan,” she said.

  No. It wasn’t part of some secret or divine plan. It was part of a financial plan. I couldn’t believe someone so successful could be so stupid. Then I forgot about how the entertainment industry is full of people who earn millions but are completely broke when it comes to common sense.

  “Edward, don’t you feel blessed because of your gift?”

  I couldn’t take it a
nymore. I was going to have to tell her the truth. I mean you can’t share your life with someone and not let them know you’re a fraud. I was proud of being a phony. It takes great resolve to fool people like I did. I mean, to convince people you believe something that you knew to be absolutely absurd.

  “No. I don’t feel blessed because I don’t believe there is any such thing as the gift.”

  “Edward, that’s terrible. You’re a fraud.”

  “Now, Jenny, take it easy.”

  “I will not! I’ve never been so outraged in my entire life. Edward, to think that I was actually going to have you co-host my TV show!”

  Oh boy. Now I had really done it. Telling Jenny that psychic abilities were nonsense was a really bad mistake. I would have to lie to her. I knew how to tell a good lie; it was, after all, what I did for a living.

  “Jenny, please just listen for moment. What I meant to say was that anyone can learn psychic ability. It’s not some gift for just an elite few. The spiritual gift of second sight is in all of us. All people have a seed inside them. They just need the faith to allow it to grow, that’s all.”

  I sure hope she bought it. I really wanted to be off the hook.

  “Oh, Edward darling, I’m so sorry that I doubted you. It sounded like you were one of those horrendous skeptics. I don’t like them but I really don’t like people who would mock special gifts.”

  I was going to be all right. Actually, better than all right; I was going to be on TV! This was going to be terrific. It was a shame that I had to lie to my beloved, stupid wife. Something had to be done to get me on the air.

  “Thank you, Edward. I’ll call my agent tomorrow. The idea of having you on television with me is inspiring.”

  Yes. It is inspiring. I was torn between the joy of finally getting on television and the inconvenience of sharing the limelight. Now that being said, I was starting to feel some other emotions as well. I didn’t expect it but I was really feeling angry at Jenny. How the hell could she be so damn stupid? Did she really think she could talk to dead people? I learned something about my wife that day. She wasn’t a fraud like me. Jenny Goodstar was utterly delusional. This woman was deluding herself and I was really beginning to hate her for it. I loved being married to a celebrity. I hated being married to a moron. It wasn’t like being married to some great actress who believed in reincarnation. This was somebody who should have known that there are no psychics. She should know that anybody who tells you they can talk to your dead friend or relative is a liar. Anybody who thinks otherwise is a fool.