“I don’t think so. He tells him what to do, but I don’t think he’s mean like Martin.”
“I’m going to have a talk with Bradley too,” said Evan.
That was all Evan could do for now. He got to his feet as Carter and Brenda walked with him to the door.
“When are you going to have a conversation with Bradley?” Carter asked.
“Right now,” said Evan. “We can’t let this go on any longer. It sounds like the spirits are getting out of control. The children are scared. You don’t want to lose your six-year-old boy any more than the Oldman’s want to lose their six-year-old boy. Do you know what it’s like to lose a six-year-old boy?”
“No, but I can tell you that it would be the worst day of my life,” said Carter.
Evan looked at Carter and his look glazed over. He began to choke up, so Carter wanted to change the subject, but Evan beat him to the punch.
“The worst day of your life? You’re sugar-coating it.” Evan then turned and headed for the door, but Carter stopped him in his tracks.
“You’re not going over there to talk to Bradley about this without me,” said Carter.
“Oh, yes I am,” said Evan. “I need to do this alone.”
“Evan, my son is deep in this. I need to be involved, and I will be involved. If you want me to do everything I can to prevent something from happening to my six-year-old son, then you’ll let me go.”
Evan looked at Carter and the glazed look had cleared some. “Come on, Carter,” he said. “We’ve got some work to do.”
CHAPTER 20
By the time Carter and Evan made their way back to the Oldman’s house, Dan had arrived back from work. Carter was not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but there was only one way to find out. When Victoria answered the door and invited them in, there was a small crowd in the living room. Carter had filled Evan in on the argument the Oldman’s had the previous night, so with that in mind, they passed through the door by telling Victoria that they wanted to settle the dispute once and for all and pursue it or put it to rest.
That proposal interested Dan. He couldn’t wait to have Skippy go through the house and clear it of the so-called spirits that Victoria was yammering away about. He was so fed up with hearing all about it, but having not one shred of proof. He was beginning to think she was losing it, and he was worried about his son for that reason, and that reason alone.
Once they got seated in the living room, Victoria remained standing as she normally does in hostess-like fashion, since that was the way Dan liked it. Bradley was right in the thick of things on the couch next to his father, who couldn’t wait to get this thing started and over with.
“So…Evan? Is that what they call you?” asked Dan.
“Sure do,” said Evan, “since birth.”
“What is it that you do? What do you plan on doing today?”
“Well sir, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a look around and check the place out to see if there’s anything going on…any spiritual hot spots.”
“And how do you suppose you’re gonna do that?”
“Well, sir, I’m gonna walk my dog around and see how he reacts to…”
“So you’re telling me that your dog sees ghosts?” A big goofy smirk formed on Dan’s face.
Evan got to his feet and stood before Dan Oldman. Carter had seen Evan in action with those punks in the street, and his age did not get in the way of his determination. He was also a Vietnam vet. You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but Carter knew better than to piss him off.
“I’m telling you that my dog has worked in the canine unit with me for years with the Boston Police Canine Division, and he’s trained to pick up senses of the paranormal variety, and he’s a pro. I’m also telling you that if you want me to clear this house, then I will do so, but if it does not clear, and the dog picks something up, then I get time with your son to ask him some questions without your interference. Now do we have a deal?”
Dan sat back and considered Evan’s proposal. There were no more wise cracks after Evan stood his ground in an imposing manner. Not only was he somewhat of a threat to Dan, but he made a damn good point. He could rid this house of ridiculousness. He and the dog could shut Victoria up. Dan looked up at Evan, then raised his hand up to offer his hand to seal the agreement with a handshake.
Evan reached down and accepted his agreement, and then immediately got the show on the road by pulling the leash and leading Skippy upstairs. His plan was to go right to Bradley’s room, but he needed Victoria to bring Bradley up there first, which she did. Evan proceeded up the stairs behind them as Skippy began hemming and hawing as he made the ascent. From what Evan had experienced the first time through this house, it seemed that Mr. Jenkins was a part of Bradley. In order for Evan to get an interview with Bradley, he needed to ensure a victory by bringing Skippy to Bradley’s room with Bradley in it.
Dan slowly made his way up the stairs. He wasn’t buying it, but was willing to entertain Evan’s proposal just to shut Victoria up with all of her nonsense. He was so ready to put it to sleep. He made it to the top of the stairs where Evan and Carter and the dog were waiting outside the door. Victoria and Bradley stood inside his bedroom waiting for this experiment to take place.
“So, what can we expect to happen here?” asked Dan. He was looking at Evan who had just led his dog into the room.
“When I come…”
The dog lunged at Bradley, showing his teeth and barking. Evan expected this and had a firm grip on the leash. Carter looked at Dan, who appeared startled as he backed up to the far wall in the bedroom. It seemed as though it took about two seconds for Evan to convince Dan that there were spirits lurking in the room from the other side. He tried to play it cool, but it wasn’t working out too well with Skippy’s reaction.
“The dog probably barks all the time,” said Dan.
“This is a trained dog. He only barks when he sees what he’s looking for, and he knows we’re hunting spirits today.”
“How does he know?” asked Dan.
“He’s been in this line of work for the past decade. That’s most of a dog’s life. He knows.”
“How do you know if the spirit is in this room or inside my son?”
“Right now…we don’t.”
“So what do we need to do now?” Dan’s interest was growing.
“Well,” said Evan, “your questions are very good ones, but some of the answers are within your son, and I’d like to pry them out of him, so without further ado…if you don’t mind, I’d like to have my line of questioning with your son.”
“What do you think, he’s possessed or something?” asked Dan
“Dan,” said Victoria, “he made his point and the deal was that you would let him speak to Bradley…now stop holding everything up.”
With that, Evan handed the leash to Dan and asked him to keep an eye on his dog while he spoke to his son in the other room. Dan accepted, but was not too pleased by it. He knew that Evan had a pretty good argument for a haunting, and he knew that Evan was only trying to help Bradley, but he hated to lose, and the last thing he wanted was to lose to his wife. This experiment was beginning to spiral out of control, and the last thing he wanted was his entire house overtaken by paranormal researchers.
Dan and Victoria joined the Spence family outside of Bradley’s bedroom. They kept the door open and chatted in the hallway, while Evan and Bradley got comfortable in two chairs that were brought up from the kitchen. They were within earshot, but none of them could hear, which was a prerequisite for Evan. He needed this to be an untainted two-way communication process in order to obtain the best results. If he knew that his
parents or anyone else was listening, then the experiment could be compromised.
Evan was sitting and looking at his subject, having positioned the chairs to face each other. Bradley fidgeted more than a normal six-year-old boy would fidget, probably a bit scared about what was about to happen, and perhaps terrified that Mr. Jenkins was listening. Evan’s job was to convince him that he needed to be truthful and promised him that the truth would set him free from Mr. Jenkins, and he stressed that he would know if the answers to his questions were not truthful.
“Bradley,” he began. “I was speaking to Adam today and he told me that he had a secret. There’s someone in Adam’s room who is invisible, but talks to him and tells him to do things that he doesn’t necessarily want to do.”
Bradley just looked at Evan and listened. He was not ready to speak, and since there wasn’t a question, he waited until he was asked to speak. Evan saw that Bradley was not ready to offer up anything, so he pushed on.
“My doggie was pretty excited to see you.”
Bradley looked up again, but still no question.
“Do you like my doggie?” asked Evan.
“Not so much,” replied Bradley.
“Not so much? Is it because he jumps all over you whenever he sees you?”
Bradley nodded his head, and then replied, “Why does he do that?”
“Skippy’s a special dog. Skippy spent many years on the police force and has been trained to make discoveries to fight crime and other things that help policemen. He and I worked together for years, and over that period of time I also dabbled in paranormal activity…ghosts and spirts and things like that.”
Evan could see that he had Bradley’s attention now. Talk about a ghost and you’ve got any kid’s attention. He kept it going along those lines for a much better result.
“Are you afraid of ghosts?”
“No,” said Bradley.
“That’s good. Is that why you listen to Mr. Jenkins and do what he asks?”
Bradley looked around the room, but then his eyes were fixated on his closet. It seemed to generate a lot of interest, and it almost looked as though he was looking for permission from the closet.
“Well,” said Bradley. “I listen to Mr…what’s his name?”
“Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins.”
“Yeah, him,” said Bradley. “He tells me to do things, but I can’t see him. I’m afraid of him.”
“Why are you afraid of him?” asked Evan. “Has he ever hurt you?”
“No, but since I can’t see him and he tells me he could hurt me, I do what he says.”
“What does he tell you to do?”
“He tells me to fix the yard, mostly.”
“He wants you to do the yard work? That’s an unusual request. Does he ask you to do anything else?”
“He just wants me to do the yard. Did he live here before or something?”
“Yes,” said Evan. “That’s exactly right. He was a gardener by hobby. He lived in this house; actually helped build it with his father. He lived here and turned the place into a giant garden. Back in his day, Adam’s father would always see all of the beautiful plants and flowers that he worked so hard cultivating. Right to the end, he would be outside every day, and he was a perfectionist.”
“What’s a fectioniss?”
“Perfectionist. He wanted his yard to look perfect.”
“Is that why he’s back?” asked Bradley. “He’s back to work on his garden?”
“That’s exactly what I think, Bradley. He’s back to get someone to work on his garden, because he’s frustrated that he can’t do it himself and it’s a mess, and that someone seems to be you.”
“Why did he take so long?”
“Because after the death of Mr. Jenkins, the house was vacant for about four years.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that nobody lived here for four years. He didn’t have anybody to help him get it done. That is…until your family moved in.”
“Oh,” said Bradley, “but why me? Why can’t my mom and dad help?”
Evan smiled at Bradley. “Well, I guess I’d have to say that Mr. Jenkins feels he would have a better shot at getting a kid motivated to carry on his work rather than an adult.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s a greater chance of a kid doing what he asks because they’re scared. An adult wouldn’t just listen to a message from a spirit and do it, especially if they actually had to do something like leave the house and sit in a cemetery overnight, like Adam had done. Plus it’s much easier to scare and brainwash a child into doing something, and these spirits can also make you do things without you realizing that you’re doing them.”
Bradley considered what Evan was telling him and was convinced that he should trust Evan and tell him everything he knows. Although he didn’t know Mr. Jenkins, he did know he loved plants and flowers. All the old man really wanted was to keep up his garden, even beyond the grave.
“Tell me Bradley…how many times has Mr. Jenkins contacted you?” asked Evan.
Bradley’s eyes bounced off the ceiling and back and he replied, “Three.”
“Three times,” confirmed Evan. “Wow…that’s a repeat customer. He must really want something from this life.”
“Garden,” said Bradley.
“Yeah, I think that’s what he wants, strangely enough. I mean, he was supposedly a nice man in life and I can’t imagine him being any other way in the afterlife. How does he talk to you if you can’t see him?”
Bradley did not answer this question right away. He stalled by looking around the room and fidgeting with his hands. Then he said, “He puts words in my head.”
“What do you mean he puts words in your head?” asked Evan. “You don’t hear him speaking out loud?”
“No. He put them there like I’m thinking it. Then I just do it.”
“So how did it work that night? He made you think that you needed to get Adam in the middle of the night to help you?”
“Yup…”
Evan considered Bradley’s answers thoughtfully and believed he had enough for now. He wanted to compare them with Adam’s answers to see if there were any correlations. This was an important step in their quest for answers. Any similarities that could shed light on what was going on in this spiritual mess would be beneficial to both families.
. . .
There were two spirits at work in two houses side by side. That was quite unusual, and what Evan found was that one of the spirits was mean and one of the spirits was not. The spirit of Mr. Jenkins had waited a few years after his death until a family moved in to carry on his work. He was so addicted to his garden and gardening that even in death he needed to keep it up. It must have been killing his spirit to not be able to do anything, so he got to work right away when the Oldman’s moved into the house and they had a six-year-old child he could use as his vehicle to keep up his work beyond his death.
The yard had gone to hell in any basket of one’s choosing. To see such abandonment going on at the house next door was an eyesore for Carter and Brenda, but there was also a problem in their own house in Boston, Massachusetts. The spirit of Martin had apparently tagged along and this spirit was using Adam Spence as his vehicle.
There was now a spirit next door and another child involved, but Martin was the spirit not to be trusted. He didn’t know how to play nice, and what Carter and Brenda needed to do was move him into the afterlife permanently. They could not seem to do that. They tried leaving Colorado, thinking that Martin was attached to the house. Now they know that wherever Brenda goes, Martin will f
ollow. Only when Martin completely passes over will she be at peace.
If Martin cannot get to Brenda, then he finds a way. He has a long history of finding a way, and he always does. He always finds a way. It may take a while, years in fact, but he finds a way.
“I’m not sure if an exorcism would work,” said Brenda. “We thought he was attached to the house in Colorado, and he found a way to Massachusetts. He may have transformed from a spirit attached to a house to a spirit attached to a person.”
“Yeah…you,” said Carter.
“Yeah…me. They can’t do an exorcism on the house and they can’t do an exorcism on me because his spirit is not within me.”
“No, but he’d like to be,” said Carter.
“Unfortunately, he’s taken our son hostage.”
“But how?” Carter asked. “Where the hell is his spirit? Is his spirit in the house or in Adam?”
“From what Evan said, Martin is planting messages in Adam’s head in much the same way Mr. Jenkins is planting messages in Bradley’s head.”
“So exorcism will not work?” Carter asked.
Brenda thought about that for a moment and replied, “I don’t really know, but we need to find out what will work.”
If there was an exorcism on the house or on Adam, then Martin would probably be missed on both occasions. He’s elusive. He’s sneaky. He’s a wayward soul who needed to be put to rest. Martin wanted Shirley back because his ex-wife became Brenda. He was not going to sleep until he got what he wanted. He needed to be shoved forcefully into the afterlife if Brenda was ever to get a day of peace.
Their lives were consumed by Martin, whether they liked it or not. Martin was still at work trying to move his chess pieces in a way that would bring Shirley back to him in one form or another. He’d been planting memories of Shirley within Brenda ever since she was a child, knowing that one day she may act on those thoughts and reunite with him. Since his initial success in getting Brenda out of Iowa and back to Colorado, he had managed to stay connected to her in one form or another, whether it be the house or the people within the house. He always wanted Shirley and nobody was going to take her away from him. Nobody. Ever.
Desert Son Trilogy: Desert Son, Wayward Soul, Spiritual Intervention (Books 1-3) Page 63
