Having secured Kate’s approval, I told Melanie that we could meet her the next evening at the Mill, a local seafood restaurant with a great bar area and delicious appetizers.
Soon I was back at my desk re-writing, when I suddenly felt I was being watched. I whirled in my swivel chair — no one. Later an even stranger feeling came over me as I neared the end of the workday; despite not being finished I decided that it was proper time to get my butt on the road home to Kate and the incredible dinner she’d promised me.
The sun was still up as I neared the cemetery, but the front gate was already closed. I glanced at the dashboard clock to see it was 4:35 PM and as I cleared the area of road that ran by the cemetery my phone rang. I expected it to be Kate, but instead it was the voices calling, almost chanting my name in unison. “Storyteller you must be silent… silent… silent. Storyteller you must be silent… silent… silent.”
“Who the hell are you? What is it that you want me to be silent on?! Don’t just call me and spout your nonsense. Why do you call me? Why ME?”
Then there was nothing but static and the sound of wind blowing, and then overwhelming silence. I looked at the caller ID, and when I did I hit the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road. The number was Ulster 5-8076, my family phone number when I was growing up.
Nervously, I called it back and it rang through. After several rings someone picked up but there was absolute and utter silence after that. “Hello… hello,” I said with some trepidation. I cringed, dreading what I might hear next. Then the mantra started again: “Storyteller you must be silent… silent… silent. Storyteller you must be silent… silent… silent. Do not even whisper it. He will hear. He must never hear it… never… Never.”
“He who?” I cried into the phone, “He who? Why won’t you tell me who he is? How can I not let him hear, if I don’t know who he is?”
The phone went dead again.
I lurched the car back onto the road heading home, my mind spinning, but I couldn’t permit myself to lose control. Not now, for this was all going somewhere, and I was going with it.
That night I tossed and turned in my sleep so much that I woke myself up as I fell halfway out of bed. Catching myself by grabbing the night table next to my side of the bed, I startled Kate awake; she sat up quickly, looking around. “What happened?” she asked, alarmed at seeing her husband sprawled over the side of the bed.
“Nothing honey, I was just doing some sleep calisthenics, I guess,” I said as I got myself back into the bed. “I don’t remember dreaming anything but I sure was active for a bit, wasn’t I?”
She threw on a robe saying she was going downstairs for a glass of milk. At the stairwell she called out. “You want something while I’m down there?”
“No, I’m good, Babe. Thanks,” I answered as I got up to go to the bathroom. It was then that I heard Kate scream.
I raced toward the stairs and as I rounded the banister I saw her standing on the bottom step with her hand over her mouth, staring into the living room. I ran down and got in front of her asking what was wrong. She pointed her finger towards the corner of the room. It was the veiled figure from the desert.
I put my arm around Kate and ushered her quickly back up the stairs and toward the bedroom, telling her to lock herself in and call 911.
I turned again and reluctantly started for the stairs not realizing right away that she was right behind me on the phone, whispering to the 911 operator. I asked her not to follow me. “Kate, please don’t. I’ll handle this.”
“I’m not letting you go alone… okay?” she said. I stared at Kate; I’d rarely loved her as much as I did in that moment. I nodded. She was in and not backing out, no matter what I said.
After I’d grabbed the gun from the dresser drawer, together we proceeded slowly down the stairs.
At the bottom of the staircase we stood at the entrance to the living room as I reached for the light switch on the wall. The room flooded with light and I approached the veiled figure, I saw that it was just a veil thrown over a floor lamp. In the dark it looked like someone had been under the veil.
“How did that get there, Tell?” Kate was very upset. “Someone did that… someone got in our house and did that,” she said, pointing at it. “I’ve never seen a veil like that before. It did not come from this house.”
“Someone may still be in here,” I whispered in her ear as the police arrived.
They entered as I opened the door. We quickly explained what had happened and they began searching the house with guns drawn. One stayed with us while the other two went through the house in a thorough search process.
I had my arm around my shivering wife trying to comfort her while talking with the police officer about the last time I had seen one of these things in Arizona.
He asked if anything like this had ever happened in this house before and we both said no. Kate looked like she wanted to say more, but thought better of it and didn’t.
The police officer picked up on it and asked her if there was something else… but she shook her head.
One of the officers was a sergeant and he was obviously in command. “We checked all the doors and windows and there’s no sign of breaking and entering. Did you hear anything at all before you saw this?” he asked, pointing to the veil which was now lying on the sofa chair next to the coach.
I answered no.
“Could you have accidently left the front door, or another one unlocked?”
“No, it had the chain lock latched in place,” I responded quickly.
He asked that we remain where we were and he and his partners went back through the house, top to bottom for the next half hour, again finding nothing. They said the house was clear and assured us we were safe. They took the veil with them and suggested that we go back to bed.
“That sounds like a good idea but I think it might be a little difficult to sleep, with all that’s happened,” I muttered.
After locking the door when the policemen left, I took Kate back upstairs trying to put my strongest face on. I wondered if our intruder had gone into our bedroom as we lay asleep. I no sooner thought that, when Kate put it into words, very upset words.
“Honey, I think we should get an alarm system installed immediately,” I said, “and one that is sophisticated enough that it will secure inside and outside the house. I hate that we have to resort to this, it’s like we’re back living in the city.”
“And…what about the gun? Are you going to get me a gun? Because I sure as all hell feel like I need one. This is nonsense and whoever is doing it, will understand how much I disapprove of it when I bust a cap in his… or her ass.”
“If they have an ass,” I said.
“What does that mean?” She seemed curious at my remark.
“We don’t know what we’re dealing with, Kate, and I’m afraid that whatever it is, won’t be phased by a gun.”
“The Chinese believe that you can scare off evil spirits with loud noise. That’s why they have so many firecracker factories,” she said, looking at me as we topped the stairs.
“Who told you that?”
“You did… I think it was one night when we were drinking.”
“I did?”
“You, or whoever it was I was with that night… nimrod,” she chuckled as she spoke.
I was glad that she seemed to have somewhat recovered from the shock of the veil.
My phone rang. “Who the hell? At this time of night?”
“Storyteller… Scheible… silence… Storyteller… Scheible… “ The numb chorus of dead voices called out to me in the night, were at the other end of the call.
I was about to let Kate hear it, but thought better of it and went on listening to the morbid chorus until the call ended. “Guess who that was. No, let me just tell you.”
“It’s those people? The voices that sound like they’re coming from the grave?” Kate asked. Then she went on, “What number is on the caller ID?”
“Ulst
er 5-8076.” I said with head down looking at the number on the phone in the palm of my hand as the call ended.
“Call it back, Tell.” The tone of her voice and her body language told me that she really wanted me to do that.
“I don’t think I want to, right now.”
“Gimme the phone,” she said, extending her hand.
“No, Kate. Let’s think this through.”
“There is nothing to think about — other than finding out where these calls are coming from and who’s doing it. Give me the phone.” She wiggled her hand in expectation.
I just dialed the number and waited. It rang once, twice, three and four times and as I started to hang up, a man answered. I thought I was going to pass out…when I whispered, “Who is this?” And I heard the unmistakable voice of my father, who had been dead for over ten years. “You know who it is, Tell.”
“Dad?” I said. Kate gasped and put her hand over her mouth with a look of disbelief in her eyes that turned to terror.
“You know who this is, Teller… you know,” came the voice.
“This can’t be… Dad? Talk to me… how, how are you able to be on the phone with me?” The phone went dead as I was asking, “is Mom there—”
“Kate… I just spoke with my father. My father…” I was staggered.
She sat down on the side of the bed with me, stunned beyond speech.
I dialed the number again and it rang without being answered.
“We need to tell the police about this,” she said.
“Tell them what? That I just spoke with my dad on the phone, and oh yeah, by the way he’s been dead for ten years but he did finally manage to call me after all this time.” I immediately regretted my sarcasm; Kate didn’t deserve that.
“You could tell them about the dead sounding chorus. You have no idea who they are or what they are. They could be alive and breathing and fooling the hell out of us.” Kate was animated.
“That could be, but how do you explain my father?”
“Maybe it’s someone who sounds like him. Or is impersonating him,” she countered.
“That was my father, Kate.” Immediately the thoughts started flying through me head. Why didn’t I ask him where he was? Would I be able to speak with him again? Could I speak with my mother? Did he look like he did in life? Were there other family and friends there too? Had he seen Elvis? Was there food there? What was the weather like?
I just spoke with my father… but how could that be? Sure, I supposedly met my old high school Latin teacher, and a kid who claimed to be my uncle. But this, this, was my father. I spoke with my father, who had been dead for ten years. I was stunned beyond comprehension. Was I still sane?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The next evening we kept our date with Melanie at the Mill for cocktails. Kate and I were both so exhausted from the events of the night before that initially our conversation was fairly dull. But then Melanie said that her father had experienced a near death himself, and even though he’d recovered, at first, “his mental acuity suffered somewhat.” She said that he made strange statements about people and things that didn’t seem to exist for the entire two years he lived after his near death. As she talked I studied her finely chiseled features, with eyes shining under full head of brown hair, and it became very apparent to me that there was something vaguely familiar about her, something that I hadn’t grasped ‘til that moment.
Then the conversation shifted to my own near death experience and all that had happened since but what was a bit strange to me was Mel’s fixation on the part of my story where Brother Scheible made his appearances. I could not in any way fathom her knowing him — so why the preoccupation with him? That question was answered a few moments later when she asked me where I was from and where I had gone to school.
“College?” I asked.
“Sure, and High School too.”
“I grew up in Brooklyn,” I said, “and I went to Sacred Heart High School.” Melanie caught her breath.
“Jeremy, I have a strong suspicion that you went to that school around the same time that my father did.”
“You’re saying that your dad went to school with me?”
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Fifty-seven.”
“My father would have been fifty-seven too; he passed away a few years ago, but he went to Sacred Heart, too and I heard him talk about a Latin teacher who I believe was a man named Brother Scheible, who he described as a bit of a naïve person.”
“What was your dad’s first name, Mel?” Kate inquired.
“James… but his nickname was Jimbo.” Then I started to say the nickname with her because it suddenly dawned on me just who her dad was and now it became apparent to me that, female or not, she was the spitting image of her old man.
“Jimbo Morris?!” I exclaimed. “Your dad was a friend of mine in school. What a hoot he was. I’m so sorry to hear he isn’t with you anymore.” I’d liked her dad a lot. He was someone who could get a laugh out of a rock and he could handle himself in a fight, too. I couldn’t believe what a small world this was getting to be. Melanie’s father was no one other than the great, ‘Jimbo’ Morris. I often wondered where life had taken him after high school and now I at least got to meet some of the product of his life who strangely turned out to be a colleague on a scientific research project.
“You know that he claimed to have been visited by his old Latin teacher, who I swear he said was Brother Scheible after his near death experience? He told me that he laughed at him at first, and then he realized that there was something strange about getting a visit from a man he hadn’t seen in over thirty years — who looked exactly the same as he did way back when. How did he look to you?” she asked as she sipped her drink.
“Same thing. The same as he did in my high school years. Do you have any siblings, Melanie?”I wanted to know more about what life had been like for Jimbo Morris.
“Yes, I have a brother named Fred and a sister named Ricki. My brother’s two years older than me and Ricki’s two years younger. My mom is from Minnesota. She met dad in State University and it was love at first sight for both of them. They wound up getting married when they graduated and buying a house in Queens and then we started coming along.”
“What did your dad do for a living?”
“Oh, he owned several restaurants around the city. His favorite one was a Jewish deli in Coney Island. That was my favorite, too,” she said sentimentally. “You’re so right, he was such a hoot. A Catholic boy owning a Jewish deli.”
“What happened to him, Melanie?” Kate asked. “What caused his near death?”
“It was a fall from a ladder. He was putting up Christmas lights and slipped fell from the top rung. We were terrified. It took them seven minutes to revive him.”
“Were there others?” I was moving toward the edge of my chair anxiously awaiting her answer.
“Near death experiences? Just one, but it was enough. The results of the fall eventually got him,” she lamented. “You know, I always felt that he eluded that old grim reaper but he was only allowed to do that once.”
“What was it just the head injury?”
“Yes and no; just the head injury, but it led to complications that were literally mind boggling. He went fast at the end. Like a light switch being turned off.” She smiled slightly, chuckled with a bit of irony saying, “But you know my mom sometimes talks to him like he’s still there, sitting across from her. She will not accept that he’s gone.” “How did Jimbo behave right after his near death? Did you notice changes right away?” I was burning with curiosity.
“I’ll say. He started seeing people who weren’t there.”
“When did it start? Was it in the hospital or later?” I pressed.
“Tell, don’t push the poor girl,” Kate chided.
“No, no. It’s okay. I haven’t talked about him much. All this stuff. It feels alright.” She took a drink before continuing. “It was the first day, as so
on as he regained consciousness, he told me that he had been visited by, of all people, his old high school Latin teacher.” She continued, “Of course, I didn’t think too much about that as I was thankful that he was awake and talking. Then the next day he complained that his high school teacher was bothering him every time he was trying to fall asleep. I asked when that had happened and he said it was the night before, right after we all left.”
“Did he say what Brother Scheible was asking him?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did he mention any one else visiting him?”
“Well he did have an imaginary doctor who he claimed he had been seeing after he was released from the hospital.” She laughed a bit.
“What was his name?” I asked tersely.
“I don’t remember that either, but he always went to his sessions with him alone, Dad insisted on driving himself. That bothered Mom — but he said that he needed to go alone. It might have been a generational thing. You know, because of the imagined stigma of going to a shrink.”
Kate had tensed a bit during Melanie’s story, but I tried to avoid eye contact with her not wanting to destroy the flow of Melanie’s recounting of this story.
I asked, “Did he talk about anyone else from his past reaching out to him?”
She thought for a moment before asking “Where’s this going, Teller?”
“Melanie, this all sounds so familiar and, it’s starting to help me make some sense of what’s going on with me. Your dad and I shared a common history, at least during our high school days and then again more recently, with near death experiences.” I thought for a moment, and then continued, “I think that maybe there is a grander scale here, more than just our near death experiences, a much grander scale.”
We continued talking extensively about what Jimbo’s final years were like. We eventually got back around to what was going on with Kate and myself, and how strange and oftentimes terrifying. She sat nodding her head either in understanding or agreement, or both. It seemed at times that part of what I was relating to her was exactly the same things that had happened to her father.
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