“Then believe me that I’ll communicate with David, and nothing will stop me. I’ll get to the bottom of this and soon.” This was a promise that Sidney Pratt was hell-bent on keeping; this was his life’s work. As far as he was concerned, he had all the time in the world, and David had even more time in the next one.
Chapter Twelve
They sat around the fire, keeping nighttime vigil, swapping stories, and remaining watchful, careful of their surroundings, eyes silently searching for the slightest disruption of the snug setting. Only the warm, orange-blue glow from the hearth and a dim table lamp lit the room, but several fluorescent lamps brought by the team in the event of nighttime activity, stood tall, turned off, and waiting...just in case.
The overnight guest arrangements had been settled. Dylan and Brett opted for the living room, where the day’s activity had occurred. They would be there to record any recurrence erupting in the night. There were two guestrooms: one for Sidney, the other for Leah. The team agreed that Leah should be as near as possible to Tracy, a concern that made Tracy feel like the target, the agent, and the eye of a brewing storm.
Susan decided not to stay; she would leave when all were ready to settle down for the night. The passing evening hours gave her and Sidney the chance to discuss all of life’s happenings since the day she saw him last, a boy in her office. She talked more to Leah about her father and assured her that she was going to help Tracy in the exact same way. And then the night’s conversation suddenly shifted focus toward Tracy, who sat sulking, quiet, and subdued.
“Hey,” Sidney said to her. “You still haven’t told us all about your life before all this, you know: your family, your career, whatever...”
He playfully prompted her to join in the conversation, realizing that the more they knew about Tracy, the better. He wondered if something in Tracy’s early life could have enabled her to be receptive to this type of activity, though he remained quiet of his suspicion. In his mind, he kept hearing that voice over and over about time slipping through the hourglass.
They stared at her as she rose, retrieved her purse, and sat back down. She fumbled inside the brown leather bag and pulled out the diamond engagement ring that David had given her. The shine on the octagonal rock glimmered even by the soft spark of firelight in the dimness, and she maintained a steady gaze upon it, lost in silent memories, while anxious faces awaited the sound of her voice.
“I can’t imagine ever parting with this,” she said, holding the ring between the fingers of both hands. “It was months before I could even take it off.”
The crackling fire stressed the solemn, silent pause.
“What’s to tell? I was an only child of two simple people; my father was a successful insurance salesman, and my mother was a secretary. They retired comfortably, gave me this house, and packed up to Florida. David and I met while I was in nursing school, and he was an EMT. My parents assumed that David and I would live here once we were married, but of course, that didn’t happen. Well, who knows, maybe it will?”
She choked on a sudden, surprising, chuckle, as brief insanity lingered.
“Stranger things have happened, right?” Her tone echoed the sarcasm of someone predestined to defy the odds, and she had. Dylan spoke up.
“Tracy, Brett correctly explained our uncertainty of whether this poltergeist hijacked the pipeline connection, or whether it was already a present force, allowing that connection to occur. We can’t be sure, but maybe we can discover that through you.”
She sighed, a sound of fatigue and said nothing.
“You know,” Susan said, “we never finished our sessions regarding your survivor’s guilt. Why don’t you talk about that?” Tracy eyed Susan’s hand as it made a gentle rest on her shoulder. She was silent, but her eyes began to submit like a child about to come out of her room. Sidney came over to her other shoulder.
“Why don’t you tell us all about that night, as best you can remember?”
“It plays over and over in my mind,” she said, taking a deep breath. “It doesn’t stop. I keep seeing Rex’s house: the bar in his den, the music, the booze, even the popcorn I was stuffing myself with. I never meant to drink as much as I did that night.”
She broke off as the tears streamed down her cheeks. Something much like a sword pierced her chest every time she thought of the truth, the words of which wouldn’t form on her lips. She began to taste the salt of her tears. She cleared her throat and looked up at eyes anxiously waiting. Now was the time for the truth.
“I am the one who should be dead right now, not David. Don’t you see that?”
This revelation struck a chord of surprise, reverberating a silent apprehension through the room. The team had been unaware of this, but Susan wasn’t. She sat down next to Tracy and induced her to go back, think out the evening as it had occurred. Her soothing tone purged the events from Tracy’s recollection in chronological clarity.
She sat with her eyes closed; her mind drifted back into past memories like a raft out to a wide and familiar sea. One single moment in time, forgotten before, replayed in her mind. It was just before they’d left to go out that night, having decided to go to the party, and she and David were here, in the house.
“You drive home tonight,” he’d said. “I’ll probably be too tired.” And she had agreed; she would be the designated driver that night, but she had reneged as the night’s events unfolded.
The music, the atmosphere, the good time, as well as the night air that made her feel so alive, all conspired against her, blinding caution and lifting temptation. A sip of Rum and Coke left lingering joy on her lingua, and her promise was soon broken by the insatiable craving. She had drunk four of them, plus a beer, and then...
“I’ll be fine; besides, you’re now the designated driver, tonight, so there.”
She recalled poking him in the chest after he’d nagged her about the popcorn. He’d seen that she was too far gone to drive now, and that he would have to. But it was okay with him; he wasn’t in the mood to party. She revealed all of this to them through a voice that cracked with pain, sorrow, and the torturous inability to turn back the clock.
They had left the party, and she could still feel that night’s cool, midnight air as it washed her somewhat sober. They’d said little on the way home, and an unbridled silence of unspoken words spanned a bridge between them. Then, she turned to see...
“When I looked, he was asleep at the wheel. I screamed to wake him and grabbed the wheel, but it was too late. We went over the edge, over Shadow Valley Curve. If I hadn’t been drunk that night, David would still be alive! Why? Why did we even go? It was my fault--all of it! He was the one crushed and mangled, but it should have been me! I am the one who should be dead; I was supposed to be driving!”
Tears cascaded from her eyes, and heaving sobs reached high for breath in uncontrollable spasms. Susan put of her arms around her and held her. Leah turned away so Tracy wouldn’t see her own swelling tears and the others lowered their heads in speechless uncertainty.
“Tracy,” Susan said, her voice soft and calm with the intent of eliciting control over a patient. “If we had power over every little moment of our lives, ordering and maintaining every minute detail to perfection, we would never actually live. So the butterfly spreads its wings and causes a typhoon halfway around the world; should we live in constant worry of butterflies and fear of typhoons? There are things, many things, of which we have no control.”
“But if only—”
“If only what?” Susan’s tone changed to one of exasperation, and she held up her hands, quizzing for a hypothetical scenario. “Maybe neither of you should have gone that night, maybe David should have stayed at home if he were tired, maybe someone should have offered to bring you both home. But did any of those things happen? No, they didn’t; so whose fault is it? Don’t you see, Tracy? You would have to blame everyone, including David. And how do you picture the outcome had you been driving? You would both be dead.”
Susan’s words hung dead in the air like an unfamiliar stench that no one would acknowledge. Something about those words seemed haunting, emitting a strange, illusive foreboding felt by all. Tracy focused a stare at her, a thick fog finally beginning to lift in her mind. She wiped her wet eyes and nodded.
“Maybe that was the point.”
Now her own words sounded ominous, and still, no one said anything, hoping the crackling fire that maintained the momentary quiet would speak for them. Dylan sat down beside her.
“So, you think that all of this mayhem is some form of retributive justice against you, who lived? I don’t buy that,” he said. “In fact, I’m going to disprove it. I’ll not allow this force to eclipse our communication with David. Things have calmed down now, but we are not going to allow the pipeline connection to fail.
“Brett spoke earlier about how David’s spirit exerted some form of energy upon the keyboard to display a message. If it was David, we are going to find out. We are going to leave that line of communication open.”
He rose, walked over to the computer, and sat at the swivel chair in front of it.
“I am going to open a blank e-mail, as if I were about to write and then leave it up on the screen. By doing this, I am inviting the pipeline connection to recur, like a ready vehicle awaiting a passenger. We need only watch for the next message.”
“So, you’re going to use the computer like a Ouija board or a ghost box?” Sidney stepped behind him, glancing at the screen.
“Yes,” Dylan said. “But Sid, I want you to keep focused as well, in case you start hearing again. The same goes for you, Leah, I want to know the moment you see anything.”
“But won’t this “invitation” also extend to the poltergeist, with possibly more disastrous results?” Susan questioned not only the reasoning but the rationale behind what she considered a bold and reckless maneuver.
“Possibly, but we’re ready this time,” he said. “And remember, it’s the communication with David that is important here. Our objective is to help him to move on, and in doing so, we eliminate the poltergeist.”
Dylan was well aware that now wasn’t the time to point out to the good doctor that he felt that Tracy’s emotional upheaval was responsible for the poltergeist, feeding it as though it were a stray cat. Once the issue with David was solved, her emotional state would begin to balance. She may have agreed, but she seemed to be leaning more towards Sidney as the culprit. There was no sense in debating the issue; either way, they had a job to perform.
Dylan opened a blank e-mail, and the empty white page stood ready with its blinking cursor, awaiting a phantom author. The investigators gathered around the computer, examining it in the event that it would foster a pipeline connection.
“There,” Dylan said. “I was also thinking of turning on the TV and radio, keep as many lines open as we can. Leah and Sidney, I want you both to be focusing. If we combine our efforts and extend the invitation, it may be the easiest way to regain contact with David.” Dylan continued to speak and instruct, but to Tracy, his voice began to dwindle away, becoming fuzzy, distant, and irrelevant.
“Stop!” Her impatience and frustration bubbled under the surface like molten rock about to spew from its volcanic entombment. “What good will it do anyway? Don’t you see? David may never rest because of the tragic way his life ended, and that thing has found its way in. Who really knows when it will leave, if ever? It may just decide to stick around long after we’re all dust and bones, because it doesn’t have to leave!”
Her voice became the sound of frenzy, climbing in a harrowing crescendo over a tipsy slur of words that announced her separation from reality; a dark process that had unfolded was now becoming complete.
Sidney grasped her by the shoulders as he heard the sound of her voice, the voice of a mind that had stepped away from the edge of sanity.
“Do you want to go on like this forever?” His voice came down hard and heavy on her. “Well? Do you think you can?” He shook her lightly, as if to wake her.
“No,” she said, her voice a rasp whisper. “It’s all because of me, Sidney.” The tears flushed down her face, and she heaved through an agonizing whimper. “I’ll never get over killing David.” Desperate sobs gave way into helpless oblivion, and Sidney hugged her tightly, her tears wetting his shoulder through his shirt.
And then it began again.
The small, kindled fire in the hearth shot upward with a whooshing sound that turned all heads toward it. What was once a small, incandescent pyre had leaped into a flaming, orange inferno that towered not so neatly up the chimney shaft, and dirty, black clouds of soot billowed from the hearth and blackened the surrounding stone frame.
Brett turned a camera on the hearth, recording the roaring blaze that blistered unhindered, struck up and ignited as if by its own cognizance. They felt a tremendous bang like some alien force had picked the house up from its foundation and slammed it back to the ground; the walls shook along with the clamor, and puffs of plaster sifted to the ground like sawdust.
Unbounded banging, crashing, booming, and creaking unleashed throughout the house, the loudest of which, came from upstairs. Tracy turned her head upward, fearing the scenario that was unfolding above. That’s when she saw the water trickling down the walls and falling in dime sized droplets from the ceiling.
“It’s come back.” Dylan’s announcement was like the warning of an oncoming train. They all became aware of the water now running down the walls in thin streams, and the droplets falling from above began to pour. A bizarre, indoor shower was occurring, dampening the cozy, fireside ensemble.
Sidney gently moved Tracy out of the way and went for the cameras lest they be damaged by the water. He moved them towards the back of the room, hoping to gain footage of the flooding walls, as well as the carpet that was soaking around its edges and turning a darker shade of beige.
A mask of hysteria froze on Tracy’s face, and Sidney moved back toward her.
“The water,” she said, as the droplets pelted her face. “Where is it coming from?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “This is going to be difficult, but be still, and let us handle this.” He turned away from her for only a second, as the team worked fast to document the occurrence. Leah’s eyes scanned the room, while Sidney called out to whatever ghostly force was listening.
“Where is David? David, speak to me!” Sidney’s voice bellowed and the banging noises grew stronger in response.
Tracy looked at the walls around her and the blaze as it continued to soar; she watched her home shake as if by earthquake. The fear began to build, her breath began to climb, and her mind cried out for reprieve. Through eyes tired of tears, she saw her entire world turn upside down, a world that once held promise for her and David now opened up like a portal into Hell.
“I can’t take this anymore,” she said. “I can’t take this anymore!” She screamed amid the commotion, and puzzled faces stared back in urgent alarm. This was the moment they had hoped wouldn’t occur: the moment where she cracked, and they lost her to the breaking point of madness.
Then the blaze shot out from the hearth like the flaming breath of a raging dragon, and shrieks cried out as it missed Brett and Dylan, searing close enough to singe hair. Tracy’s anguish became upstaged by the turbulence, and fear, anger, and desperation raced inside her, coursing its way through her veins. She had opened Pandora’s Box, and the end result was being performed in perfect pandemonium.
She had reached the end; this was the final act.
She looked over at the door that led upstairs, while the others did their best to tame the blaze. Her mind made up, she ran for the door. She flung it open with a creaking sound and before Susan could stop her, Tracy was out the door and up the stairs, her footfalls hard and quick yet audible through the excitement.
“Tracy, no! Wait!” Susan yelled, alerting everyone’s attention. Tracy was in no condition to leave; she’d been drinking for hours, days for
all they knew.
“Stop her!” Sidney shouted over the clamoring noises, the roaring fire, the pounding that came from upstairs—that now uncertain domain that Tracy was walking right into.
Susan, Dylan, and Brett ran to the door after her. Just as they neared it, the door slammed shut with the solid slam bang of wood, leaving the three to grasp the handle and pull. It wouldn’t budge; some force was pulling it shut on the other side.
“It won’t open!” Susan shouted over the clamor. She stepped aside and let Dylan try the handle. It was as good as locked, and they were trapped.
Suddenly, the inferno seemed to withdrawal back into the hearth, dwindling itself back into a fire. Sighs of relief escaped them, realizing that nothing, not even the insulated tiles that patch worked the ceiling, had caught. Sidney quickly checked the blank e-mail left open on the computer--nothing.
“Try it again, we have to catch her!” he shouted. Several sets of hands pulled at the door handle in a final combination of strength and effort, then the door flew open with the force of two magnets being pulled away from each other.
Chapter Thirteen
She reached the top of the stairs and felt the upper level of the house shaking. She watched as objects were thrown to the floor, windows broke, and her kitchen cabinets tottered and wobbled precariously close to collapse. The breaking glass, the pounding, the slamming, all noises blended together in an endless cacophony. She didn’t care anymore; she wanted out. She snatched the keys to her jeep from the countertop and fled.
The cool October air struck her as she broke free from the front door, drying the beads of sweat on her face with its cool wash of wind that reunited her with reality. She ran up the sidewalk, opened the door of her jeep, and hopped into the driver’s seat. Her tires screeched as she pulled away from the house.
* * * *
Sets of feet stormed up the stairs in single file, cautious not to tumble backward down the narrow enclosure. They reached the upstairs and glanced around at the havoc that had been wrought, the near devastation of a once tidy, well kept, domicile. Kitchen chairs were overturned, papers were strewn, glass was broken, and a door on one of the kitchen cabinets swung away from its hinges, falling to the floor. The quivering cabinet range almost followed.
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