25

 

Williamson Park had been off-limits for me since the day I ran out on Barbara. I wasn’t anxious to go back, especially to meet with Pastor Steve, but he’d asked me to meet him there, and I couldn’t think of a way to get out of it.

His agenda: to talk about the ghosts. My agenda: to question him about Jimmy. Reason told me I didn’t have any evidence against the pastor. In fact, I wasn’t sure why I thought he might be guilty, but doubt was there, and since I had entertained the thought, it continued to grow like a wild vine, twining through my brain, grasping tighter, refusing to let go.

We couldn’t meet at the church, and neither house provided enough privacy. Pastor Steve suggested the park, and I reluctantly agreed. If we ended up in verbal warfare, it was as secluded a place as anywhere.

Trina was dusting in the entry as I was leaving. “I’m going for a walk.”

“OK, Dad.” She spoke so quietly I could hardly hear her.

“Why the whisper?”

“Shhhh.” She nodded toward the den, where Ted was on his knees.

“What’s going on?”

“He’s praying.”

“I know that. Why is he praying? Who’s sick?”

“No one’s sick. God puts a burden on his heart sometimes, and he prays.”

“So he has a burden?” I wondered if his burden had anything to do with my daughter’s illness, and his lack of attention.

“No, he doesn’t have a burden,” Trina whispered, “someone else does. God lets Ted know when someone is in trouble, and Ted prays for them.”

“Who’s in trouble? The preacher?”

“Ted doesn’t know. He just knows there’s a person who needs God’s help. Someone is being tempted by Satan and needs protection.”

I shrugged as I walked out of the house. I couldn’t imagine praying for nothing, but that was Ted. If I prayed every time I thought something was wrong in the world, I would never get anything done.

Walking down Cashua, turning right onto Spain Street, I ended up at a stairway leading down into the park. My meeting with Pastor Steve was to take place on the park’s other side, so I took the path to my left.

Four weeks of subtropical weather had doubled the size of almost everything green. Leafy Kudzu vines twisted around trees and blanketed the underbrush, forming solid green mounds. As I moved deeper into the park, green growth, in a myriad of shades and sizes, concealed much of the swampy ground. Avoiding the bench I had shared with Barbara, I chose another one farther away, and waited, trying to ignore the sweat that coated my palms. What would Steve do when confronted with my belief in his guilt? Trapped men tend to do desperate things.

A bird, leaving the protection of the trees, flew into the sky. A pair of squirrels scurried across branches so thin they looked like threads.

I was here to talk about ghosts with a man who may have killed a lovely woman’s grandson. Like the vines that twisted through the park, reshaping to suit their will, doubt had reshaped my heart. I was ready for the fight I knew was coming. Why hadn’t I thought to bring a weapon of some kind, perhaps a knife? I looked around for something I could use, a heavy stick, a large stone.

Muffled footsteps alerted me that Pastor Steve was approaching.

“Bill, good to see you.” The laugh lines on his face were now replaced by deep gullies, like those carved from torrential rain.

I slid to the far edge of the bench, not wanting his body to touch mine. I motioned for him to sit, allowing the palm-sized rock I had picked up to fall to my feet. I kicked it behind my shoes, within quick reach but out of sight.

“I called my seminary friends. They told me what I already knew.” Steve ran his fingers through his hair. “They were all in agreement, Bill. The Bible is clear: souls don’t linger after death.”

It had been my intention to control the conversation. Now, forced to reply to his agenda and fueled by my anger, I deemed to prove his theology wrong. Let him flounder as he tries to find rebuttals to my logic, and then I’ll finish with my accusation. A smile crossed my lips. Much better plan. “What about the witch of Endor?” I asked. “She contacted the spirit of Samuel.”

Steve chuckled. “Wondered if you’d bring that one up. It usually gets mentioned when there’s talk about communicating with the dead.”

“So what about it? That proves it’s possible.” My smug attitude amazed me.

“God permitted Samuel to speak to Saul. The witch had nothing to do with it.”

Steve sounded tired, but I wasn’t about to extend any sympathy. The same bland scripture-talk made the anger I was holding deep inside boil to the surface. I needed something that supported the fact that I had seen the actual ghost of Jimmy. If I had been able to communicate with Jimmy, he would have told me how he had died. Now I was forced to put the pieces together myself.

“Since the creation of earth,” Steve continued, “Satan has tried to steal us from God. Using demonic spirits to mimic God’s power, he pulls believers away from the light.”

I gazed at the scene in front of me as I wondered how soon I should bring up Jimmy’s death. The landscape was a wild maze, untamed for the most part, except for the path carved through it.

A path through the maze. That’s what I was looking for. A path through the confusion between what I had seen and what I had been taught. And it was becoming apparent I would not find it with the pastor.

There had been two ghosts. I had not asked to see them, did not seek them out. I did not go on a ghost hunt with fancy equipment. The two boys had just shown up, and my life had changed dramatically. I knew what I had seen.

And I had experienced something awful with Barbara. There had been nothing childlike about the threatening voice. And now the demon chose to dwell in Trina’s house, and I had no idea why. The ghost boys in my room, maybe they were protecting me. I only felt safe in their presence, where their invisible touch reached me.

Steve sighed. “Bill, you’re angry with God. It’s all right. He understands.”

Something in me snapped, like a rubber band breaking inside my brain, releasing the anger I had been holding back. I couldn’t tolerate his condescending behavior any longer. Now was the time. My heel pushed against the rock behind it. “Where were you when Jimmy was abducted?”

Seconds passed. I wondered if Steve would walk away. It didn’t matter. I would have my answer. His silence screamed responsible.

He lowered his head and grasped his hands between his knees. “You have no idea the guilt I feel. It’s been eating me up for weeks.”

I stiffened. Was he going to confess right here in Williamson Park? Just like my daily ghost hunts, I had no plan for a confession. I had planned for denial and anger, but not admission of guilt.

“I may have been the last person to see Jimmy. He was just getting out of school when I drove by. He was standing on the sidewalk, and I thought about asking him if he wanted a ride home.”

“But you didn’t?”

“No. And I will regret it forever. I was running late for my weekly visit to the nursing home, and didn’t want to take the time.” Pain etched his face. “Because I didn’t take the time, a little boy is missing.”

“He’s dead.”

“Most likely. When I was arrested, part of me was relieved. I deserved to be in jail. I did not kidnap Jimmy, but I might as well have. Satan knows this, and he’s using it to destroy the church.”

Steve’s confession shocked me.

“Satan takes every opportunity to cause trouble for God’s people. Arresting a minister is a big deal.”

“Satan just hangs around watching everyone in the whole world?”

“No, Satan isn’t omnipresent like God. That’s why he makes his demons spy for him.”

I had a hard time envisioning demons as spies. Obviously, they existed for some reason, but serving as spies for Satan? Why?

The memory of Barbara surfaced. What about Barbara? I knew deep within my core that the black figure that haunted Trina’s house was the spirit that had used Barbara’s body. The demon had not been outside of her, but inside, at least for those minutes in the attic. It was almost like Barbara had been… I choked on the thought. “What about demons?” I asked weakly. “Can they still inhabit people, or do they just hang around causing trouble?”

“There are documented accounts of demon possession in recent years, but Satan has developed some new tactics. He’s learned to be sneakier with our generation.

My heart shriveled. I had always known the demon had used Barbara’s voice, but the thought that she had been possessed had not registered.

Demon possession. All I had wanted to do was talk to someone who seemed like a nice person. Demon possession. Was she possessed all the time, or did the demon come and go? Another thought flashed into my mind.

What if the demon who spoke from Barbara was not the demon that remained in Trina’s house? I had been blaming Barbara for the demon being in the house. Had I attracted the attention of evil by my association with Barbara? Had the demon been watching, waiting… spying?

Had I opened the door?

Unworthiness filled me, and I tasted its bitterness. It had all started so innocently. I had not intended for any of this to happen.

“There are people who are discouraged with traditional Christianity. For one reason or another, it hasn’t met their needs. They’re burned out and need something to fill the gap left behind. It’s an easy reach to turn to the paranormal because of its supposed spiritual dimension. The paranormal soon becomes addicting, with demons being the middle-men, working through the empty words of psychics.”

Am I addicted to whatever Barbara introduced into my life? But I hate it. Does an addict love his addiction?

“You’ve been assuming you saw the ghost of Jimmy,” Steve said quietly, “but you’re wrong.”

“I did see Jimmy!” In spite of everything, Steve had said I still knew what I had experienced. I had seen the ghost boys. I had experienced the black shape of the demon. My head ached. The ghost boys could not be demons!

“I don’t doubt that you saw the image of Jimmy. But it couldn’t have been his soul. It couldn’t have been Jimmy.”

“I saw his picture.” My breath came in pants. “It was the same boy.”

A couple, holding hands, rounded the corner. We sat quietly until they were beyond hearing distance, then Steven gave me an appraising look.

“I think what you saw was supernatural.”

I stared at him. Either I had experienced the supernatural or I hadn’t.

My brain felt swollen within its bony confinement. The pain pills were at Trina’s. Probing for the lump on the back of my head, I pushed it. Pain radiated up my skull. I was still alive, but I wasn’t sure life was worth the struggle. Betsy was right. One cup of coffee had turned into the slippery slope I now found myself on. How could I ever find my way back up its incline?

Unworthy.

I dragged my attention back to Steve.

“There are two options. You could have seen a demon—”

“The ghost boys were not demons!” I paced in front of the bench, as close to tears as an adult male is allowed to be. Life was overwhelming. What had I gotten into? Where was God?

For that matter, where had God been when Nancy died, and now Trina? I wanted to shout in rage, shake my fists at the sky. I was close to being totally out of control.

“Sit down Bill. Please. There’s another option.”

I perched on the edge of the bench, my heart trying to escape my chest, hands clenching and unclenching, the weapon at my feet forgotten. Would I soon be running from Williamson Park for the second time?

“God could have sent you the vision of Jimmy.”

“God doesn’t do that kind of stuff.” Not the God I knew. Not the God that allowed demons to take the form of a little boy. Not the God that allowed a mother and wife to die, and a daughter to inherit the sickness. “God might have sent visions in the Bible, but you said yourself times are different now.”

“Times are different. But why can’t God send a vision? He’s God. He can do whatever he wants.”

“OK, say He does. Why send a vision of Jimmy to me? I’ve never met the kid.”

“That is the question we need to answer.”

A siren’s call sang in my subconscious: Leave. The urge to run from Williamson Park became overwhelming.

Steve’s voice echoed hollowly in my head. “Bill? Are you all right?”

The bush across from me rustled, and as it did, the bench faded; so did Pastor Steve. All that remained were me and the creature within the bush. It was a soothing place; a spiritual dimension. It was false. I knew it was false, but my head kept telling me that as long as I focused on the bush, I could stay in this place of comfort. I wouldn’t have to hear anyone, or make any decisions. I could simply exist. I should walk out of the park right now…

“Bill?”

I was back in Williamson Park, alone in my skin.

A foggy feeling remained, like the half-dream, half-waking state that follows sleep. I stared into the distance. My energy drained. My fight was gone. “I’m the only one who saw them—Jimmy, and the other ghost boy. They didn’t feel demonic; they seemed to be little boys. That’s what I thought they were.”

“I’m no expert Bill, but we would be naïve to think there are no evil spirits—demons—call them what you want, around us. Christians are Satan’s primary target.

“I read somewhere that every home where Christ is the head will have an occasional demonic visit. I think I’m having mine now,” Steve chuckled. “My goal is to keep the visit from becoming permanent.”

Leave!

The voice returned, but where could I go? The danger wasn’t in Williamson Park. It wasn’t Pastor Steve. These yoyo feelings had to stop. What, or who, was causing them?

I clamped my hands over my ears.

There was only one answer for my behavior, and the thought sickened me, but I had to know. “Do you think I’m demon possessed?”

Pastor Steve stared past me, toward the wooden bridge where Barbara and I had walked.

I held my breath, feeling death ready to consume me.

“No,” he finally said, “that’s not your problem.”

Before I had time to process his words, he continued. “You’re not demon possessed, but you did experience something supernatural in the attic. It came from either God or Satan. Regardless, it’s a message.”

My legs were fueled for a race, but I didn’t run. I paced in front of the bench. Back and forth, only a few steps in each direction, afraid to be too far from this man of God. “Since when does God—or Satan—send me messages?”

“God has always communicated through dreams and angels and in visions. Granted, it’s rare today, but it does happen. God can do the impossible, and Satan has always been the great imitator.”

I slumped back onto the bench, my brain still telling me to run, but my legs would no longer hold me. Arms filled with lead hung useless at my sides.

I had nowhere to go, no one else to turn to. I had used up all my options and still the answers hid from me. What were the ghost boys?

Pastor Steve placed a hand on my shoulder. As he began to pray, panic choked me. With wild eyes, I darted around the shadowy park, seeking escape, but seeing instead blackness behind every tree. If there was ever a time when the Holy Spirit needed to groan to God on my behalf, this was it.

“Lord, be with my brother Bill. Help him to understand the vision he saw in the attic. Help him to discern if it was from you or Satan. If it was from you, Father, help him understand what he is to do.”

Peace washed over me, through me, filled me. The inner voice went silent.

What if God had sent Steve to help me understand the ghost boys? He needed to know about Barbara.

“I have to go, Bill. I hate to leave Lisa alone for too long.”

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

Rubbing my hand across the bristle of hair on top of my head, I looked at Steve and wondered how he would take what I had to tell him. Would he turn his back on me as my sister had done? We headed through the shaded jungle-like path toward the parking lot.

“When I first saw the ghosts,” I said, “I have to admit I was afraid. And confused. I didn’t believe in ghosts, and yet I had seen something I couldn’t explain.

“Then I met someone, by accident. I met her at the bookstore when I…well…I mistook some kid for Jimmy.”

Steve was still walking with me, but I knew the real test was yet to come. The next part was the hardest, but I had to tell him if he was going to help me. I stopped walking, the parking lot still out of sight behind the tangle of overgrowth ahead. “The person I met, she’s a psychic.”

Steve’s eyebrows raised just a hint.

“I don’t believe in psychics…at least I didn’t then… no, I still don’t.” I was getting confused. “I’m not sure why I agreed to meet with her. She wanted to contact the spirit of Jimmy. The whole process was strange, and I was uncomfortable at first, but after about the third try I got used to it.”

“And did you contact Jimmy’s spirit?”

“No. I didn’t really expect to. But she was a nice lady, and I enjoyed spending time with her. We talked about our families and what we did for fun. The last time I was in this park was with Barbara, and I almost let a spirit enter me.”

Pastor Steve grabbed my arm, his face directly in mine. “She was here? Bill, why didn’t you tell me this before? And you let a spirit enter you?”

“It didn’t. I stopped it.”

“You need to talk, brother. You may be in more trouble than I thought.”

“It’s a long story.” I started to walk. “When Barbara suggested she couldn’t contact the spirit because she was so far from where I had seen him, I invited her to Darlington.”

“And did she contact a spirit when she was here?”

“She may have contacted the second boy.” How could I describe what I had seen and felt? The terror of that night, and all that had happened since, flowed through me. I ached for light, only a few steps ahead.

“We had barely gotten into the attic when it started. She actually looked different. This voice came out of her, like it was huge and had to force its way out through her throat. I felt like I was confronting the devil himself, except I was looking at Barbara, or what used to be Barbara.”

“What did the voice say?”

“I don’t know. It was some strange gibberish.”

“How did Barbara explain it?”

“She said sometimes a stronger spirit needs to be heard. I tried to explain how frightened I was, how she had changed. She claimed to understand, that she had reacted just like me the first time she saw her mother contact a spirit.”

I searched Steve’s eyes. “Man, this was more than contacting a spirit. I could swear she was possessed by whatever was in her. I don’t ever want to see that again.”

We had reached the clearing. In spite of the heat, I lifted my face to the sun, reveled in its warmth. Pastor Steve stared at me, his face reflecting a mixture of fear and urgency.

The sun was scorching, and the frame of Steve’s old Chevy felt like fire against my arm. I didn’t move from the heat.

“I’m confused about Barbara. She’s a Christian, Steve. She goes to church every Sunday, and she prays. She said her gift is from God, something He gave her to help other people.”

“Bill, listen to me. Barbara’s wrong. Not all churches are the same. You know that. Not all ministers preach the gospel, or even believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. Did you ever go to Barbara’s church?”

“Sure, one Sunday right before I came back here.”

“And?”

“It was different.”

“How so?”

“I didn’t feel like I had worshiped. I felt more like I had been to a lodge meeting or something. Barbara said I just needed to get used to it. I wanted her to go to my church but there wasn’t time.”

“Did you ever ask yourself where Barbara’s experiences came from?”

I hung my head, knowing I should have. “I guess at first not much happened, so I didn’t need to question anything. When she got to Darlington, things happened so fast. She was only here a day and a half.”

“Do you believe Barbara had a supernatural experience in the attic, or do you think she was playing a game with you?”

“Faking it? No way could anyone fake what I saw.”

“Then you’re saying Barbara was controlled by something else. There are only two options: God or Satan.”

“But I…”

“Face it Bill, Barbara was inhabited by a demon.”

Reality over what I had been involved in, and perhaps was still involved in, and how easily I had slipped into the occult, frightened me. I had not questioned any of the strange things that had happened. One built on the next, each benign, but together deadly.

When had I chosen death?

When had I lost my sense of reason?