by Noel Hynd
“Whatever it was,” the doctor said, “it was toying with us. It was invisible.”
But it kept walking toward them. The footsteps continued across a bare floor. The sound was like heavy old-fashioned shoes dragging slowly. The pace was deliberate and came straight toward them.
“Bonnie was beside herself. She was yelling at me, begging to leave. But still I had this fear. I was afraid this thing would follow us wherever we lived, wherever we went, if we didn’t settle our business right there.”
The footfalls stopped. Still, the Friedmans couldn’t see anything.
But they felt.
“It was very palpable,” Dr. Friedman said. “Like a change of air pressure in a room. It made us feel low and sickened. Then, somehow a thought was communicated to us. We shuddered and we both felt it at the same instant. We were to turn around. No one said anything. We just both knew at the same time, we were to turn.”
There before them, the doctor said, was exactly the same vision their daughter Rachel had described. This was in broad daylight and the figure looked very real. He looked like an old fisherman, the physician remembered, with a straggly beard, a misshapen bloodied head as if he had died in some horrible accident, clunky boots and a battered mackintosh.
“His eyes were horrible,” Dr. Friedman recalled. “Sickly white. Something wrong with the pupils as well as the sockets. Dead eyes, that’s what they were. They reminded me of a cadaver’s.”
Dr. Friedman exhaled. “My wife turned away from him and I could feel her tremble as I held her. No words were spoken. But both Bonnie and I now knew. We were free to go, as long as we left immediately. He had won. This… This ghost, this angry, unsettled spirit, had driven us out. And he was there now to make sure we left.”
Dr. and Mrs. Friedman picked up their remaining belongings and turned toward the front door. Richard Friedman was the last to leave.
“I never looked back,” he said. “Didn’t dare. And I never went back in that house again. It’s sitting empty now. The real estate people come by now and then, but we’ve had no offers. People get a bad feeling just being in there.” Dr. Friedman heaved a dismal sigh. “Exactly what will happen eventually, how the next tenants will be treated, I don’t know. But there is not enough money in the world to send me into that place again. I don’t need it!”
He drew out a long breath. With a handkerchief, he dried the palms of his hands. He looked at his audience, which remained very still.
“Wow,” he said, trying to elevate the mood. “That’s something, eh? Sorry I can’t be more uplifting. Sorry I can’t relate to you the spirit of a loved one in a contented afterlife, or how a vision from after death came back to save a family homestead. All I know is that our family was run out of our summer home by an evil, malevolent spirit that didn’t want us there. I have no doubt that our lives would have been wrecked, or maybe even end, if we had stayed. That’s the bottom line. And that’s my story in its entirety.”
There was some applause.
Reverend Osaro took a half-dozen questions from the audience. Then he glanced at his watch. It was nine thirty-five P.M.
“We have a minute or so left,” Osaro said, “and I’d like to claim it, if I may.”
No one objected.
“There are those,” he said in closing, “who find this whole subject difficult to fathom. And there are those others who want to believe, but can’t. I’d like to address that in a word or two.”
He weighed what he was about to put forth.
“Nantucket is an aged place,” Osaro said. “People have old houses. Generations upon generations have lived on top of each other here. Spirits like to cling to what they have known in their worldly life. So why should it really surprise us when a spirit becomes displaced, when one decides to stay in such close proximity to us that we occasionally catch a glimpse of it?”
There were smiles around the room, Tim Brooks noted. Smiles and nods. Brooks listened to his friend.
“A lot of places have them, of course,” Osaro said. “There are probably spirits in every old house, if the truth were known. Some of us in this room here tonight can see them, sense them. You know, those displaced things that lurk. That flit by. Those movements or shadows that you see out of the corner of your eye. Then if you quickly look toward them, they’re gone and you convince yourself that you didn’t see them.”
There were a few soft laughs. Brooks folded his arms.
“But we know they exist,” Osaro said. “Deep in our human hearts we know. Some of us insist that they don’t. But we know. Don’t we?”
From the corner of his eye, Brooks was aware of a consensus around the room. The ascent of the converted. Yet, he noted further, there was no indication of this being a crackpot crowd. These were sane, rational people. Businessmen and homemakers. Summer vacationers. Students. Working people.
“And so,” Osaro concluded, “with so many spirits about, is it any wonder that eventually a few of us on our side of death interact occasionally with someone from the other side? Should we really be so incredulous if that happens now and then?”
Osaro paused and looked around. He sensed an unspoken answer from the assemblage.
“I think not,” the minister concluded. “And I trust that many of you agree with me.” He smiled. “That’s our time for tonight,” he announced cheerily, his fingers playing with the lip of his pipe. “Thank you all for coming and a special thank you to our panelists for participating. “
There was more applause, given with enthusiasm. Then the symposium concluded. Afterward, Tim Brooks remained seated. A number of those who had attended pressed forward to ask individual questions of the participants. Brooks moved forward at this time, too, but waited patiently.
Finally the group thinned. Mrs. Rovere and Dr. Friedman were the only panelists left, aside from the pastor. “You waiting to see me, Timmy?” George Osaro finally asked.
Brooks nodded.
“I’ve never known you to come to one of my spiritual evenings,” Osaro said.
“First one I’ve been to,” Brooks confirmed.
“What did you think?”
Brooks answered as only a friend could.
“I’ve never heard such crap in my life,” Tim Brooks said softly. “I’m amazed anyone could believe a word of it.”
“Ah, Timmy… Always the ‘Doubting Thomas,’ right? I should call you the Doubting Timothy. Believe me, your day will arrive, too.”
Brooks scoffed again. He was about to give his pal the minister some more heat on the subject when he realized that time wouldn’t permit it.
The maintenance staff, volunteers all, was taking over the meeting hall. They were straightening chairs and sweeping the floor.
And more important, one by one, the lights in the church were going off.
Chapter Two
Ever since she had been a little girl, Mary Elizabeth DiMarco had loved to sleep under the stars.
At four-fifteen on Friday afternoon July tenth, Mary Elizabeth looked at the office clock and felt a flutter of excitement. She had almost finished her day of work at the Kramer Insurance Agency in Barnstable, Massachusetts. Mary Elizabeth, Beth to her friends, held a thirty-hour-per-week summer job at Kramer’s. But with the labors of the week almost concluded, she could turn her attention to what lay immediately ahead. She would rendezvous with her boyfriend, whom she knew from the university, for the weekend. On this occasion, for two glorious summer nights, they could both sleep under the stars. She was in love with him. And when she thought about the forty-eight hours ahead of her, the flutter of excitement swelled to a deep tremor.
Portly, fifty-two-year-old Charlie Kramer, who owned the office, was an agreeable family man for whom it was not difficult to work. His agency ran smoothly, almost by itself. The most difficult decision left to Kramer each day was whether to wear his belt above or below his paunch. Thus he allowed his “girls,” as he called them, to leave a shade early on summer Fridays if their office work wa
s complete. Insurance claims tended to arrive on Monday mornings. Most afternoons were usually spent invoicing. And few policyholders ever rushed in to pay a bill late on a Friday in mid-July.
So when the office clock marked four-thirty P.M. – official Kramer Insurance Time the staff called it – Beth took her cue. Work finished. Fun begins. She turned her attention to the two travel bags she had stashed in a closet near her desk. One was a blue crushable duffel, packed with leisure clothes, swim wear, tanning lotion and toiletries. The other was a sleeping bag. Beth disappeared into the washroom and changed from a respectable “businesslike” print blouse and dark skirt and pumps to a pair of red shorts, a blue University of Michigan sweatshirt, and brand new white Nike sneakers with floppy pink socks. She said goodbye to Ramona and Millie, two older coworkers with families whom Mr. Kramer employed full time and year round. As Beth tidied her desk, the two women checked out her change of attire. The persona of the serious young female office worker had been transformed back into fun-seeking college girl. Then they spotted her two traveling bags.
“Off for a weekend?” Millie probed.
“Nantucket Island.”
Millie and Ramona made the appropriately envious clucking sounds. “Ever been there before?” Ramona asked.
“No.”
“Going alone?”
“With a friend,” Beth DiMarco said. “My friend has been there before. “
Hesitation. Millie and Ramona looked at each other.
“A boyfriend?” Ramona asked.
Mary Elizabeth grinned sheepishly, rolled her eyes and didn’t answer further. “Maybe,” she answered. Then, “What do you ladies of the world think?” she added coyly.
The two secretaries laughed conspiratorially.
“I never had the nerve to go away with a guy when I was a kid,” the sixtyish Millie complained to her younger peer. “I was raised strict Roman Catholic in north Boston. My father would have shot me and my boyfriend, too.”
“I would have done it,” said the other woman, turning around at her desk. “But I never got asked.” They looked back indulgently to the pretty college student.
“What’s your guy’s name?” Millie asked amiably, taking the lead in the inquiry.
“Eddie.”
“Does he have a last name?”
“Just Eddie. “
Beth pondered the point for a moment, then reached for her purse. She flipped open a wallet and presented Millie and Ramona with a color snapshot of her with Eddie on the University of Michigan campus. Millie fumbled with a pair of glasses. Ramona needed no such assistance.
The picture showed a nice-looking sandy-haired boy a few inches taller than Beth. He held his arm around her waist. Eddie wore a red football jersey with a huge white 12 on its front. Beth was snuggled close to him, her head resting against his shoulder. They appeared to be at an outdoor party on a bright football afternoon in the early autumn.
The photograph seemed to please Millie and Ramona. It made a strong case that this was a young couple in love. So anything naughty they did, the ladies decided, could be indulged, as long as it was being done responsibly. Modern times, after all. Millie and Ramona made low oooh-ing sounds to each other. Mary Elizabeth blushed.
“Does he treat you okay?” Millie asked, suddenly very serious. She accompanied the question with a slight nod, hoping to evoke the correct response.
“Eddie treats me real well,” Beth answered honestly. When the two women continued to look at her, Beth felt compelled to add more.
“I’m twenty-one years old,” Beth said patiently. “I know what I’m doing.”
“I didn’t when I was twenty,” Ramona said, more as a general statement than to either of the other woman. “I didn’t know anything about you-know-what until the night I was married.” She sighed. “Ah,” she half teased, now shaking her head, “you college girls today… With your Blackberries, your cell phones and your pills… God bless you. You know everything I didn’t.”
“Your parents don’t mind?” Millie asked.
“My parents don’t know,” Beth said. “And it has to stay that way for a while. Okay?”
“Be careful, honey,” Millie said, reluctantly extending her approval. She released the photo and allowed Beth to tuck it back into her wallet. “And have a good time.”
Beth had every intention of doing both.
After work, Beth took a bus to the ferry depot. There she met Eddie, who had arrived via a different bus from Providence, where he held a summer job doing landscape work. He met her with a kiss and a strong embrace, and swirled her off her feet. Beth and Eddie had known each other for five years, since high school, when his family had moved to Massachusetts from Maryland. It was less than a coincidence that they had applied to the same university. And they still acted as if they were newly in love.
The steamship to Nantucket took two hours and twenty minutes. But the time passed quickly. If Beth and Eddie hadn’t seen each other for a day or two, there was always much catching up to do. The boat was crowded. They sat with each other in a corner of the top deck, outdoors. Eddie sipped from a bottle of Heineken. Beth drank a Diet Coke. Eddie disappeared to smoke a cigarette on the sly. When he returned, she chided him for what she called his “filthy, unhealthful habit.” If he had one vice, this was it: sneaking off to have a cancer stick. He half kidded her that he hadn’t been smoking at all. Rather, he had been scouting locations on the boat, looking for a little nook where they might make love quickly without being caught.
“Your breath smells like an ashtray,” she answered, “and what kind of cheap date do you think I am, anyway?”
“A terrific cheap date,” he kidded. “If I were a wealthy ugly old Arab I’d buy you for my palace. You’d be my sex slave.”
“Who needs a palace?” Beth answered.
The boat arrived at Steamboat Wharf on Nantucket Island at half-past eight. Hungry, they wandered to a busy tavern at the foot of the wharf. Both had been paid that day. They had cashed their checks. To each of them, a few hundred dollars felt like a fortune. Anything was possible. Beth ordered a shrimp salad, Eddie a two-pound lobster. They split a bottle of California Chardonnay, held hands across the table and wandered out of the restaurant arm in arm shortly after ten.
They arrived at a noisy bar on South Water Street where live music was performed. There was a ten-minute wait at the door, but they stood in line, still carrying their travel bags, and listened to a blues-based rock band for an hour. When they came out, the street was still busy. It was a Friday night and the excitement of a summer weekend was in the air. But it was decision time. Would they find lodging in an inn or guest house? Or would they go do something exciting?
When Eddie brought up the question, Beth looked upward at the brilliantly clear sky. Then she cupped a free hand to his ear and whispered. “Outside,” she said. “At least for tonight.” Such an arrangement was, after all, her passion.
“Okay,” Eddie said. “I know where.”
He did. He knew not because he had done this with other girls. He hadn’t. He knew because friends who worked on the island had told him where.
They walked up Main Street through the center of town. As the street lamps became more intermittent, they passed a trio of old whaling mansions, then a civil war monument. Then they were on a quiet stretch of upper Main’s shadowy, deserted sidewalk. Eddie held her hand.
“You sure you know where you’re going?” she asked.
“Trust me,” he said.
She did. He used an old cemetery as a guidepost, and turned right at the corner of the graveyard. Less than five minutes later, he guided her off onto a side street. They tiptoed across someone’s lawn, giggled as they climbed across a rear fence, and then were at the edge of an open field. Making their way carefully in the moonlight, they found a protected corner of the field, shielded by a pair of wide old trees, yet beneath a wide starry sky.
Eddie made the announcement. “This is the place,” he said.
<
br /> He was right. It was perfect.
They dropped their bags. They stood for a moment and kissed. Then Eddie laid a plastic sheet across a flat grassy section of ground. They unwound their sleeping bags and spread them one next to each other. They lay in each other’s arms kissing for a few minutes.
Even as a child, when she had spent summer nights on the second-floor deck of her parents’ summer home in Wellfleet, Beth had preferred stars to a ceiling. It had been so safe and snug back then, out under the sky with blankets and pillows and her two older sisters, her parents sleeping protectively a few rooms away. But a night like this, as a big girl with her boyfriend, cozied into a sleeping bag on an historic island twenty-five miles off the coast of the American mainland, well, this would be magnificent as well.
Then Eddie drew away from her for a moment. In the dimness, Beth could see him put a finger to his lips.
“I thought I heard something,” he whispered.
They lay very still and listened. Beth reached to her sweatshirt and pulled it to her in case a flashlight suddenly pierced the darkness. But nothing followed. If Eddie had heard something, they decided, it had been a night bird. Or a cat. Or a raccoon. Or something that need not concern them.
A full minute passed. Whatever had been nearby — if it had been anything at all — had vanished. Beth and Eddie giggled again. Then they playfully undressed each other. They used their hands and their lips to tease each other’s body for a few minutes. Then, unleashing the physical passion that had been building since they had last seen each other two weeks earlier, they made love twice on his sleeping bag. Afterward, arms and legs still intertwined, they lay together and spoke softly for many minutes until first she drifted into a pleasant even sleep. Then he followed.
There was nothing, after all, comparable to sleeping under the stars with someone she loved.
Chapter Three
The bedroom was dim, long and low and had once been a maid’s quarters. Sometime in the early part of the twentieth century, someone had restored the 1730’s New England house and put a great deal of love and care into it. The problem was that many years later, witnesses were later to attest, the aging edifice assumed an attitude of its own. The house, partially through the events that surrounded it, would become an ominous, “otherworldly” place. So seen in retrospect, the unnatural horror of what eventually transpired was readily predictable. But that’s not something that Annette Carlson knew when she bought her home. All she knew, when the troubles began, was that she had been in the midst of a deep, satisfying sleep and she was enjoying a very pleasant dream.
