“So, two birds with one stone, as they say,” Sidney said. Susan didn’t answer. Sidney Pratt had grown into a genius with an IQ level so high that no one talked about it except behind closed doors. His scholastic work had been published in nationwide journals, some of which came to Susan’s attention. He was no one’s idiot. “Besides, aren’t you supposed to be a skeptic?”
“I was, but I’m not now and haven’t been for a long time. And you know exactly why that is, don’t you, Sidney?”
Now she had moved straight to him, and they stood with noses almost touching. Sidney’s chocolate chomping ceased as a wave of guilt washed over him. He felt like the boy in her office, hearing the sounds of war and the voice of the man she loved. He knew what she was about to say.
“You’re parents brought you into my office,” she said. “I tried to help you, but instead, I got a little sneak preview of your abilities, didn’t I? You mentioned Mark and called me ‘Suzy Q.,’ neither of which you could possibly know. Then your parents just whisked you away and kept you hidden from me, never to finish what you’d started. Sidney, that wasn’t fair.”
He put the Snickers down. He was no longer hungry, knowing she was right.
Dylan stared at the confrontation with his arms crossed, and the puzzled squint of his eyes grew deeper as he hung on every word. He stepped forward with the intent of a captain taking helm of his ship, but his facial expression resembled a stage director whose production became usurped by a bigger name.
“I don’t mean to sound rude, Dr. Logan,” he said, “but you are on my time, and this matter concerns Tracy, not Sidney. Whatever unfinished business you have with him is going to have to wait.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Rasche. I won’t be treading on your turf, or stealing your thunder if you do produce results.” She had come across his name while searching for Sidney and Dylan’s face melted at the implication. Susan Logan was no one’s fool either; she had pulled a hidden something from his soul and held it up to his face.
She smiled and continued to speak.
“As I said, I was once a skeptic, that is, until I met Sidney. You all know him, so I’m sure you know the story. Sidney’s parents had filed a court injunction against me and I was prohibited from speaking to him until he reached the legal age. After that, I didn’t want to impose upon his education.
“Since that day, I have poured myself into research of the paranormal: ghostly encounters, sightings, communication. I had become convinced of Sidney. My life, my career path, suddenly changed after that day, and all I could do was study and search for the reasonable explanation, but there wasn’t one. I have since helped many patients who have dealt with hauntings and encounters, but unfortunately, you wouldn’t give me the time of day, Tracy.”
She turned when she said this to Tracy, who sulked. She was unaware of Susan’s secret prowess into anything other than head shrinking.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me this during the sessions?”
“You never mentioned anything about seeing or hearing David,” Susan said, and Tracy knew this was true. None of this had occurred at that time and when it did, Susan was the last person she would have told. “I really wish you would have called me. I could have helped.”
“She’s right.” Leah spoke up. She had been staring at Susan the whole time and Susan stared back, rummaging through the files stored in the recesses of her mind. She’d seen that beautiful, angelic face before, but where? “She’s the one who helped my Dad.”
An instant identification rubber stamped in Susan’s mind. She could still clearly see the picture the patient had kept in his wallet. The little girl with the golden tresses and the deep, penetrating, blue eyes, peeping above the perfect, smiling face of a cherub. It was her: the daughter who saw the dead as clearly as she saw the living. The child who could bare testament to everything that had transpired in that house was now a paranormal investigator, and Susan realized that this grown beauty was the direct opposite of Sidney Pratt.
“I’m Leah Leeds,” she said, coming forward and extending her hand in a handshake to the unexpected guest. “My father is Paul Leeds.”
“It is an extreme pleasure to meet you,” Susan said, and began to say something else until the girl interrupted.
“You saved my father, and I don’t know how to begin to thank you.” Susan was overwhelmed at the grace of her and those unmistakable, transfixing eyes.
“There’s no need to thank me, dear. I would never have been able to help him had it not been for Sidney.” She glanced over at him, his jaw agape in surprise at the connection to Leah, one she’d failed to mention in her history.
Paul Leeds became a patient of Susan Logan’s right around the time that she had declared her questionable interest to the hospital in patients traumatized by paranormal experiences. She came to know the entire story of the Cedar Drive house through Paul. He had suffered from acute anxiety disorder and what most believed were hallucinations, as well as violent nightmares that led to sleep deprivation. His final thoughts of suicide were prevented only by the picture of his little girl that he kept in his wallet. Now she spoke of Paul as a survivor, a man who had faced the devil and won.
“Paul is okay now,” Susan said. “He has himself to thank for that, and you.” She touched Leah’s shoulder and smiled, then turned to the others.
“I would like to stay, but that is up to you, Tracy.”
“Sure, of course,” Tracy said, mumbling a soft tone of embarrassment.
This awkward silence served as Dylan’s moment to resume control, which he did. A look of uncomfortable apprehension toward Susan wore on his face like a Halloween mask. He stood at the spot that Tracy indicated earlier.
“Just before you arrived,” he said to Susan. “Tracy told us that she had seen David standing, right here. We were also discussing the chill in the room because the temperature had dropped, and I think it’s even colder now.”
Tracy had paid no attention, but the house did seem to be getting colder. Leah checked the thermostat—69 degrees. Dylan began explaining to Susan the role that temperature change played in manifestations, when it all began.
All the lights in the house flicked on and off, beaming brighter than usual, flaring up a gulf of hot, white light. The TV had been kept on, but the all news channel reporting in the background had been ignored, until the crashing sound of static recommenced. The clamorous, mechanical roar was a call to attention, rising in volume with an incessant, maddening rush that diverted all eyes to its command. Then, six people stepped slowly towards the gray, snowy field that absorbed every inch of the screen.
Chapter Ten
Brett knelt down in front of the set, and Dylan crouched alongside him, while Leah looked around the room and Sidney shut his eyes in concentration, hoping to hear some faint trace of anything other than the static. Tracy nibbled on dwindling fingernails, her chest heaving faster with each passing moment. Susan surveyed the scene with eyebrows arched upward in attention.
A warbled, twisted sound spoke through the static.
“Identification,” Brett said, “vocal pattern: unidentified.”
“It’s a voice,” Leah said.
The voice spoke in a drawl, the sound of a vinyl record playing on the slowest speed of a vintage turntable. The recorder reels were spinning pinwheels undeterred by the noise they would later represent, a deformed melancholy attempting escape from the crashing static.
Tracy wriggled her nose and sniffed as something familiar swept the air. The well remembered pungent musk of him, thick and oily with its royal scent, had returned from a heartbreaking absence. It was his favorite cologne: a Swiss scent ironically named, “Good Life.”
“Can you smell it?” she asked, whiffing the tainted air.
“I smell it,” Susan said.
The others looked at her in agreement; the smell of men’s cologne wafted through the room, an unmistakable calling card attached to a life that was no more.
“Neith
er of you guys are wearing cologne or after shave, right?” Dylan asked the question, knowing the answer but wanting to establish a fact: the scent was unmistakably David’s.
“Never touch the stuff,” Sidney said, and Brett threw his hands up in refute.
Dylan faced Tracy and the severity of his expression was an indicator of the seriousness the team could now confirm. He showed her the EMF meter; the needle inched its way between the notches marked five and seven.
“When this needle jumps that high, there is spiritual activity. And when a sudden scent invades a room, it’s a sign of a spirit’s presence. That’s why we as investigators never wear cologne or perfume to a sight because it might mask any sudden, unusual scents. You have identified it for us, Tracy. David is here. ”
She closed her tearing eyes and breathed heavily, trying to picture him in her mind, and the image she perceived was of him rubbing his hands together and slapping cologne on both cheeks. She opened her eyes, hoping that the trace of him would be standing there as it had the night before, but only the five faces stared back at her.
The warped voice penetrated the static once more with muffled attempts at words both indecipherable and chilling. It was thick, heavy like molasses. Then a deeper, throatier, growl interrupted, shouting a sharp bark. Two sounds mixed together: one louder, faster, and dominant, the other slower and weaker. Then friction between the two noises battled back and forth, emitting a high-pitched, screeching sound now set on the highest speed of the phantom turntable.
Sidney, with eyes shut and mind open, listened. Suddenly, something amid the background noise silenced the coarse chaotic mainstream. The voice that Tracy had heard the night it all began became clear and present and it spoke.
“Tracy.” It was soft and fleeting but heard by all.
The heat of shock swallowed her in a wave, and she made a steeple with both hands over the lower part of her face. Leah came forward and grabbed her hands away, clenching them firmly for support. Dylan and Brett both crouched in front of the TV, and Susan’s legs buckled under her, dropping her to the loveseat. Sidney opened his eyes and stared at the screen. They all had become listeners as the pipeline breached an earthbound and forbidden barrier.
“David, is that you?” Sidney said, as he stepped inches closer to the television.
“Tracy.” The voice repeated its call in a distant, lifeless monotone.
“It’s him,” Tracy said, shaking as Leah held her.
“David, my name is Sidney. I can always hear you, if you let me. Can you tell me why you’re here?”
Sidney spoke in a tone usually reserved for those who were hard of hearing, but underneath was a coaxing and friendly invitation.
“David, we are all here to help you,” Sidney said to the static filled screen. “What is it that you want to tell us?”
No answer returned, and seconds passed with the crashing sound of static unchanged. The small span of time hinted at a spirit in confusion until one more word was spoken.
“Prince--cess.” The final “esses” blended amid the static, but the word was clear.
“David!” Tracy shouted at the screen. Then, a moan of pain and agony blared out from behind the screen, heightening into a deformed, wailing cry that overwhelming the static, and the fear of five hearts pounded in perfect percussion. This voice wasn’t David’s; this voice belonged to another.
The bitter, angry, groaning burst louder through the speakers, sending Brett, Dylan, and Sidney, spiraling backward from the force and tone of it. The lights flickered on and off, and the temperature of the room turned to ice, as though someone had opened the door and admitted an early winter’s blast into the house.
“What’s happening?” Tracy called out in the erupting confusion, but the combination of fear and mystery on Leah’s face told her the answer. Dylan and Brett stood aside, while Sidney faced the TV.
“Who are you, and where is David? Speak to me. I can help you,” Sidney’s voice boomed with the intensity of a proud and pious preacher from the pulpit. He opened his eyes and listened, awaiting the voice from beyond, but the sound of something else stirred. It was a soft rumble that grew louder, a rolling ball of thunder gathering strength and gaining magnitude. Then, it happened.
A brilliant flash of white struck simultaneously with the calamitous sound of thunder. The bursting of some unseen energy exploded like a bomb throughout the room, sending objects flying, lamps and vases breaking, tripods tumbling, and those present cowered in the corners away from the TV. A great gale of icy wind swept the house.
Sidney was knocked back a few feet but quickly turned, catching his breath and facing the unknown nemesis. A crack split the left lens of his now broken glasses, but the TV screen remained intact, the unwavering static taunting him.
“Now I’m pissed,” he said. A wash of sweat dampened his wavy, brown hair as he seethed. “Who are you, and where is David?”
The loud moaning continued, bellowing an urgent SOS that sought pardon from the shadowy confines of death, attempting to usurp the static that grew louder with the rising TV volume. Both noises became unbearable, and all plugged their ears except an irate Sidney, who stood firm and commanding.
The sounds died away to a strange humming, and the mysterious gust of wind had passed, leaving behind the icy chill that still pervaded the room. The lights continued to flicker, some of which had been off all along.
Dylan and Brett scurried to retrieve the toppled tripods, righting them and examining them for possible damage. Leah held on to Tracy, and Susan sat with her fingernails clawing into the arms of Tracy’s loveseat.
Sidney was panting when he called out again.
“David, are you there?!”
Nothing but the strange humming responded.
Suddenly, Leah’s eyes widened and stared straight at the center of the vast living room. An all too familiar fear gripped her, an almost friendly foe on a revisited playground. In her mind’s eye, the aura of her present surroundings was changing, switching like stage lights from red, to green, to blue, to a gray uncertainty.
“Sit down,” she said, gently pushing Tracy back down to the couch. She strutted and stepped forward, a sudden lioness about to battle. “Sidney, move away from the screen...now! There’s someone standing right in front of you.”
His face displayed the look of someone held at gunpoint, so Sidney did as he was told, stepping back behind the seer who assumed control. She stood solid, her blue eyes unblinking in focused fixation at a specter standing tall before her. It would be only her eyes in this instant that would glimpse the unknown ghost of a man that surely wasn’t David, and was in fact, the culprit of the interrupting calamity. The seer and the spirit faced each other with eyes recognizing from worlds cosmically apart.
“Leah, what do you see?” Dylan asked in a slow and cautious tone, careful not to obstruct the vision that consumed her.
She described the lurking menace in detail, as he stood in towering height with penetrating eyes as black as midnight, the kind that gazed deep into one’s soul. His dark hair was slicked back, and she could see the insidious grin stamped upon the face of what should have been a lifeless form, but instead, a vital, ageless phantom thrived and loomed large in height, a master manipulating multiple realms.
“There’s a man standing there,” she said. “It’s not David.”
“Do you recognize him?” Sidney said, standing behind her.
“No, but he is who—or what, interrupted. He’s just staring at me with this expression like he’s in absolute control, dominating everything. His eyes are black, so black there are no pupils.”
The reddish aura that surrounded the specter began to change, becoming brighter and stronger in luminescence, then pulsating to the rhythm of the humming noise that grew louder. Leah watched the aura morph into a golden hue and form a glowing ring around the specter, then it flared another hot-white, flash of light. Gasps escaped those assembled as the ghostly intruder became visible to all.
<
br /> “Do you all see him?” Leah’s voice trembled, realizing that what she beheld was strong enough to manifest its presence to an audience. The sounds of confused affirmation behind her confirmed it. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
The looming figure stared at her in silence, then looked at Sidney standing beside her, then to Susan Logan, who sat speechless and shaking. It moved its head toward Dylan and Brett, surveying everyone, sizing up the creatures of a world it no longer inhabited. Then with another quick move of the head, it fixed its gaze upon Tracy with a solid, comprehending stare that lingered in silent fascination.
Tracy winced, feeling the grasp of someone or something that reached inside and shook her soul, leaving behind a feeling of dark foreboding, the emptiness of an unspoken omen.
“What do you want?! Where is David?!” Leah shouted, breaking the concentration it lavished upon Tracy. It spun its head toward her, and those black eyes resumed their focus on her baby blues. She found nothing as she searched the rounded orbs of obsidian, so black that reflected light bounced off of them in diversion. The equally dark brows were raised upward in a malicious arch, and the facial expression bordered upon a sadistic and spiteful tyranny.
“Speak to me, damn you!” Sidney shouted at the leering entity whose piercing eyes were now redirected at him. “I can hear you. I can help you, but you must let me.”
The black eyes narrowed and cast a cynical stare sent to stifle him. Sidney stepped closer as the surrounding sounds went silent, and the temporary deafness in both of his muted ears shunned a sounding, human world.
“The sands are slipping through the hourglass, Sidney.”
The specter spoke without moving its lips, and the voice boomed an echoing timbre of sharp, crystal clarity. The somber tone was dead, yet alive and only Sidney had heard the riddle of mysterious words.
Then, all eyes became distracted. A flickering sea of light suddenly rippled in waves above the ghostly intruder’s head that now turned upward to greet it. The floating web of lightning seemed to belong to it, and the black eyes were now entranced in a hypnotic thrall toward its sanctuary. The specter glanced once more upon the earthly faces gathered round and then back up toward the luminous gateway glowing above and beyond.
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