by Stan Mason
‘Not a chance!’ snapped Charles irately. ‘I’m not letting you play around alone in the room belonging to Jennifer and me! I’m going to be with you.’
‘Come on, old man... ’ remonstrated his friend before his colleague cut him short.
‘That’s the bottom line, Tom! You’re lucky I’m even going to let you into my bedroom. You don’t understand, do you? The bedroom was something special between Jennifer and me. Contrary to your opinion, I believe she’s still here and I really don’t want you to disturb her presence with all this paraphernalia.’
‘Let’s not fall out over this, old man,’ smoothed Cushing, adopting a new tack. ‘Even with all this scientific apparatus, the study of supernatural phenomena isn’t easy to say the least. Usually investigators have to work with second-hand evidence and reports from witnesses. This case is no different. The only facts... if one can call them facts... are what you’ve told me. All I’m saying is it’s the duty of every investigator to try to discover whether the paranormal activities have some realism, or are fake, or caused by some natural event. You can’t blame me for that!’
Charles clearly ignored the goodwill shown to him by his friend. The two men faced each other in the room directly opposed in thought and deed. The widower should have show his colleague the door, telling him he didn’t want anyone to interfere in his life at this particular time. Cushing, on the other hand, ought to have told him friend that there was little point in continuing the discussion if the main bedroom wasn’t available to him and he should have left. But etiquette, friendship and blind persistence made martyrs of people and the two men sat in the lounge enduring each other .
‘It may also interest you to know,’ added Roach, ‘that when you arrived and range the doorbell, I heard Jennifer’s voice telling me it was you, and she started to laugh as though she was amused. Now I know the reason why.’
‘Come on, old man! You knew I was coming here. When I arrived, your sub-conscious knew it was me. Let’s face it, the odds of my arrival at that time must have been a thousand to one.’
‘Then how did Jennifer know that you were bringing all this supernatural junk with you?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ came the reply. ‘Anyway, you don’t know that she was laughing at it. You’re only guessing!’
Charles got to his feet and returned to the cocktail cabinet to refill his glass. ‘Now that you’ve brought all this stuff here, I suppose I’m obliged to let you use it in the bedroom, although it’s against my better wishes.’
Cushing nodded gratefully. He had taken great trouble to obtain the equipment in the hope that he would either find a spirit or put the idea behind him. But it was Roach’s home and he was forced to respect the wishes of the other man despite his belief that grief was causing his colleague to allow his imagination to get carried away. ‘That’s sensible, old man,’ he responded gladly. ‘You won’t be sorry, I assure you.’
‘There’s one more thing. You’ll have to sleep in the armchair in the bedroom. The bed’s mine!’
‘That’s okay with me,’ returned Cushing. ‘I don’t expect to be able to sleep anyway.’
Charles picked up his glass and headed for the main bedroom with Cushing following behind him. He couldn’t discuss the matter any more without breaking down and becoming tearful. The last thing he really wanted was someone intruding into his life... let alone a person wishing to photograph Jennifer’s ghost! If her spirit was still around, it belong to him and him alone. He undressed and climbed into bed reaching for his drink as Cushing started to apply the apparatus, pointing the camera towards the foot of the bed. It had been an unnerving day both at the office and at home. What a pity he had smashed the telephone answering machine! The evidence would have sunk the scepticism of his colleague. But was Cushing right in his assumption that his sub-conscious was working overtime to offset the effects of his wife’s demise, making him believe that she was still in touch with him? What if all the words she had spoken to him were simply echoes in his middle ear? After all, he had suffered badly as a child when he endured a complex operation to restore his hearing. Perhaps his ability to hear Jennifer’s voice could be analogised like hearing the sound of the sea breaking against the short when one held up a shell to one’s ear... a kind of aural mirage! It was so easy to dismiss the fears or beliefs of Tom Cushing as bunkum. Clearly the man was trying to help a friend but was he correct in his assumptions... that someone was playing malicious tricks on him... or that the loss of Jennifer was causing him to lose his mind, temporarily at least. It was always a case of other people on the sidelines being able to see the game better than the referee. Tom may have hit the nail on the head. If so, he either needed more time to rest or required some counselling to help him get over his grief. The pills prescribed by his doctor were simply not enough!
After taking his tablets, he became engulfed in a coma-like slumber until Jennifer’s voice became audible to him in his middle ear. At first, he made a brave attempt to rouse himself but only managed to move to a lower level of sleep and no more. This enabled him to hear her without blundering into a field of awareness, or of awakening fully which might have caused him to break contact.
‘Hi, Charlie!’ she greeted, her voice becoming quite clear in his middle ear. ‘I seem to be drained of energy to become visible to you for the time being. Don’t get me wrong! I can still see you at certain times but you won’t be able to see me. It’s too difficult to explain the situation, darling. Explanations are not easy. I suffered no pain when that juggernaut hit me. I saw the dog slip the lead but before I could turn round to find out what was going on, I was knocked senseless, It happened so fast. When I came to, you were leaning over me. There was no pain. As a result of the multiple injuries, my brain had already made my body go numb so I didn’t suffer. I remember saying something to you and then I was gone. From that moment, it all started to happen. On the first tep of the journey, I realised that I had shaken off the mantle of my physical body. It was simply a case of letting go. Then out of my body I felt my spirit rising soaring upwards as though floating to the top of an enormous swimming pool. It was a most fantastic experience to feel in death. The remarkable thing was that I left all my earthly things behind. I had no sense of smell or taste or feeling yet I could still see and hear. My spirit had an extra eye which allowed me to witness a width and breadth of vision I’d never experienced before. The moment of transition from life to death is simple. Some people worry about death all their lives yet there is nothing to it. It’s an involuntary activity you don’t realise is happening... like the dilation of the pupil of an eye. I seemed to be travelling through a long tunnel with a pinpoint of light at the far end. A voice kept telling me to cross the bridge at the end and I moved across it as though I was on a cloud being carried forward at a very fast rate. There was a timelessness devoid of any haste or concern. I knew I would get to my destination in the end but neither time nor effort troubled me. When I crossed over the bridge, I emerged into the light. Not just an ordinary light but a dazzling of the brightest start you could ever imagine. One of total splendour with all the colours of the rainbow in superlative form. It was a brilliance unmatched by the most fulgent sun in any galaxy in the firmament. It’s extremely difficult to explain it to you. I can only say that one day you’ll enjoy the sensation yourself when you arrive here. There’s a sense of exultation accompanied by an impression of being close to the essence of life. I began to understand, in limited terms, a kind of reasoning about my place in existence and my relation to it, although clear-cut explanations are impossible. There’s also a kind of knowledge which impressed me about other realities, including divinity, but I can’t interpret any of it at the moment. Hopefully, I’ll comprehend everything I need to know in due course. When I emerged from the end of the tunnel and crossed the bridge, I moved at speed towards a net of high luminosity. It was stretched out all the way in front of me. I d
idn’t sense any fear even though I expected to collide with it violently, like someone in a circus being fired from a cannon to be caught in a mesh. There was an incandescent glow on each horizontal and vertical strand of the web like a live electric fence. But when I got there, I proceeded through it without any strand touching me. I appeared to be of no substance at all. As this happened, a reaction took place to undertake some kind of transformation in me. I can’t describe the nature of the transmutation. It had the effect of making me formless and indestructible. No doubt you would have already thought that after I crossed the bridge. The metamorphosis was not unpleasant but I understood it to be necessary. The catalyst changed me into an indivisible spirit, yet I recognised without a doubt that I was unique in some indefinable way, like a fingerprint which identifies an individual from birth to death. I can’t establish where I am or what kind of place this is. All round me is a great stillness and deep quiet but I’m not alarmed for nothing will harm me here. However I’m aware of two important things. Firstly, there is a high degree of control in which the rule is infinite and ordered but I have found nothing yet to confirm this concept. Secondly, I’m sure I’ve been here before. I couldn’t possibly start to form an answer but reincarnation comes to mind. Yes, I’ve been here before and more than once as well although it’s not really the kind of place to get deja-vu. I’ve been assuming it’s Heaven because everything’s so pleasant. I hope it continues this way. The void of timelessness seems to be a natural consequence. But who knows? It may be Purgatory... a waiting place. The reason why I can still communicate with you is quite strange really. As we cross the bridge, we leave our physical bodies behind in the human shell that’s buried or cremated. Also left behind, is an etheric spirit which takes time to dissolve. It’s what everyone knows as a person’s aura. The aura dissolves at a different rate for each individual which ranges from a a few hours to up to two months... but generally the time is short. The energy of the aura fades eventually without the host body and the ego. From what I’ve told you, you’ll probably think I’ve split into two sections but that’s not the case at all. I started to become visible but I soon began to fade. Now I can only reach voice level. It won’t be long before my aura dissolves and I leave your world for ever. In the meantime, I’ll try to tell you more about here. It isn’t somewhere in space. I know we used to talk about voyages in time and space warps as well as the fourth dimension in time. It isn’t that either. I’d call it the fifty dimension... the spirit world but, as a novice, it’ll take me a little time to find out more. Yes... I’ve definitely been here before, and more than once too! Yucca, Charlie, yucca!’
Her voice began to fade as she related the final words and then it was gone. Charles woke up quickly to reflect the words of his late wife, and he dwelt on them in the darkness for what seemed to be an eternity. There was no doubt that the voice in his mind was that of Jennifer. No one else could possibly know about ‘yucca!’ It had happened at a time when the work ‘yuk’ became a common expression for something awful or ugly. On Fridays, he would leave for work and return later in the day with flowers and chocolates for her as a gift. One week, he decided to change tack and brought home a yucca plant in a big orange tub. She took one look at it and said ‘Yukka! What’s an awful thing like that called?’ When he told her its name, they almost fell over laughing with amusement. And so it became a kind of secret password between them. No one else could have known that! He rose up and switched on the light to stare at the face of the clock. It was five-thirty in the morning. Cushing was fast asleep in the armchair totally unaware that Jennifer had been in touch with him. Not that it mattered to the investigation of his ghost-hunting friend. Charles wasn’t certain he really wanted to know what happened to a person once they passed into the next world or, as Jennifer had termed it, ‘across the bridge’. Such information was truly scary!
Cushing was the first on his feet that morning. He made breakfast for the two of them and then returned to the bedroom.
‘Room service!’ he called out cheerfully, intending to start the day on a bright note. ‘Breakfast is served, my Lord!’ He placed the tray on the bed before opening the curtains, tearing them apart swiftly to admit the morning light.
Charles opened his eyes and sat up. ‘I don’t think you had any luck with the equipment,’ he uttered tiredly.
‘I didn’t expect to,’ retorted his friend amiably. ‘I told you last evening that it was all in your mind. Maybe it was all a bit bizarre with this equipment but it may be the catalyst to settle your mind, especially with me here as well. Let me give you a bit of good advice, Charlie. Take a holiday somewhere to get away from it all. A change of venue, different surroundings and people, a place in Spain. You’ll get back to normal after a couple of weeks on vacation.’
Roach began to laugh suddenly. ‘I could just imagine your face if woke you up during the night,’ he went on. ‘You’re hearing-aid would have sent shock waves through your brain as my shouting became amplified. You’d have raced out of your chair, blundered into the cotton which would have taken your photograph with the camera. The tape-recorder would have turned itself on to hear your blasphemy. I could see you being tangled up with the cotton so that by the time you got to the bed, I would have been done to death and the intruder would be half--mile away. And if there was a ghost or apparition, it would have died of impatience waiting for you to see it.’
‘Very funny!’ commented his friend unhappily, showing no sign of amusement. ‘East your breakfast before it gets cold!’
Thirty minutes later, both men prepared to make their way to the bank. Cushing packed all the equipment away into the suitcase and placed it in the hallway. ‘I won’t be back this evening,’ he explained. ‘I’ll spend the night in the comfort of my own bed.’
‘I really want to thank you for what you did, It’s very much appreciated, I assure you. I can’t explain how I feel at present.’
‘Not to worry,’ came the response. If you see any apparitions or hear any voice, I suggest you go to your doctor. It wouldn’t do you any harm.’
They left the bungalow to move to their respective cars. ‘Okay!’ shouted Cushing in light relief as though he was a radio commentator at a motor vehicle race meeting. ‘We’re all here on the starting grid and the last one to get to the bank’s a cissy!’ He pressed his foot hard on the accelerator and shot away, with squealing tyres, like a rocket from a launch pad.
Charles smiled at his friend’s immature attitude to follow him at a respectable speed. He was glad that he hadn’t mentioned Jennifer’s soliloquy which had occurred in the early hours of the morning. Cushing would not have understood. In his current mood and with the current situation, Tom Cushing was not that kind of an understanding man!
Chapter Four
After witnessing the vision of Jennifer Roach in the bank manager’s office, Jim Purdy descended into a fearful mental condition. His physical state was hardly any better. In a short space of time he had been transformed from a strong silent man of powerful physique into a miserable nervous wreck. Unable to stand up steadily on his feet, his face became deathly white as a sheet, his eyes remained wide open with dilated pupils, while his breathing became erratic and shallow. The bank clerk was extremely concerned with the burden of responsibility when taking the ailing customer back to his home. The man was in a deplorable state and his condition could worsen at any moment. It took his some time to get the big man into the back seat of his car where the driver trembled like a mountain of jelly, his muscles flexing and contracting so that parts of his body jerked erratically. Once in the driving seat, he drove as fast as he could to the customer’s address hoping to rid himself of the problem by despatching him into someone else’s arms. It was gratifying to know that the bank did not have many customers with such afflictions otherwise, he mused, he would be well advised to train as a paramedic rather than to study to become a banker.
Wendy Purdy had just
finished preparing a meal which she placed into a heated oven. While it was cooking, it was her usual custom to check the television pages so that she could plan her evening entertainment. Her husband was away so often that, except for Wednesdays, when she went out with a neighbour to play bingo, her eyes were glued to the television screen every evening to watch the soaps, quiz or crime programmes. Having decided on what she wanted to watch, she glanced out of the window at the moment the bank clerk stopped his car outside. With concern on her face, she hurried from the house to help the man extricate Purdy from the back seat of the car. Together they carried him into the house, shuffling slowly towards the front room where Mrs. Purdy directed him into one of the armchairs. They sat him down carefully, breathing heavily with the effort.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ she asked flatly, staring at her husband in despair. ‘How did he get into such an awful state?’
‘I don’t know the details, ma’am,’ replied the bank clerk dolefully. ‘I think he had a bad turn in the manager’s office. From what I understand, he seems to have had some kind of attack.’
‘If he was having an interview with that Mr. Williams I’m not surprised. The way your manager treats his customers, it’s no wonder businessmen have attacks in his office.’
‘If I were you, I’d call a doctor right away,’ suggested the bank clerk. ‘Anyway, I must get back to the bank. Are you sure you can handle him?’
‘I’ve managed to take care of him all our married life,’ she snapped sharply. ‘I don’t know hwy I shouldn’t be able to do it now!’
The young man shrugged his shoulders and left the house. He had almost reached his car before Mrs. Purdy mollified her thoughts, realising his kindness in bringing her husband home. She ran to the front door to shout out her appreciation.
