Chapter Ten

 

Brett knelt down in front of the set, and Dylan crouched alongside him, while Leah looked around the room and Sidney shut his eyes in concentration, hoping to hear some faint trace of anything other than the static. Tracy nibbled on dwindling fingernails, her chest heaving faster with each passing moment. Susan surveyed the scene with eyebrows arched upward in attention.

A warbled, twisted sound spoke through the static.

“Identification,” Brett said, “vocal pattern: unidentified.”

“It’s a voice,” Leah said.

The voice spoke in a drawl, the sound of a vinyl record playing on the slowest speed of a vintage turntable. The recorder reels were spinning pinwheels undeterred by the noise they would later represent, a deformed melancholy attempting escape from the crashing static.

Tracy wriggled her nose and sniffed as something familiar swept the air. The well remembered pungent musk of him, thick and oily with its royal scent, had returned from a heartbreaking absence. It was his favorite cologne: a Swiss scent ironically named, “Good Life.”

“Can you smell it?” she asked, whiffing the tainted air.

“I smell it,” Susan said.

The others looked at her in agreement; the smell of men’s cologne wafted through the room, an unmistakable calling card attached to a life that was no more.

“Neither of you guys are wearing cologne or after shave, right?” Dylan asked the question, knowing the answer but wanting to establish a fact: the scent was unmistakably David’s.

“Never touch the stuff,” Sidney said, and Brett threw his hands up in refute.

Dylan faced Tracy and the severity of his expression was an indicator of the seriousness the team could now confirm. He showed her the EMF meter; the needle inched its way between the notches marked five and seven.

“When this needle jumps that high, there is spiritual activity. And when a sudden scent invades a room, it’s a sign of a spirit’s presence. That’s why we as investigators never wear cologne or perfume to a sight because it might mask any sudden, unusual scents. You have identified it for us, Tracy. David is here. ”

She closed her tearing eyes and breathed heavily, trying to picture him in her mind, and the image she perceived was of him rubbing his hands together and slapping cologne on both cheeks. She opened her eyes, hoping that the trace of him would be standing there as it had the night before, but only the five faces stared back at her.

The warped voice penetrated the static once more with muffled attempts at words both indecipherable and chilling. It was thick, heavy like molasses. Then a deeper, throatier, growl interrupted, shouting a sharp bark. Two sounds mixed together: one louder, faster, and dominant, the other slower and weaker. Then friction between the two noises battled back and forth, emitting a high-pitched, screeching sound now set on the highest speed of the phantom turntable.

Sidney, with eyes shut and mind open, listened. Suddenly, something amid the background noise silenced the coarse chaotic mainstream. The voice that Tracy had heard the night it all began became clear and present and it spoke.

“Tracy.” It was soft and fleeting but heard by all.

The heat of shock swallowed her in a wave, and she made a steeple with both hands over the lower part of her face. Leah came forward and grabbed her hands away, clenching them firmly for support. Dylan and Brett both crouched in front of the TV, and Susan’s legs buckled under her, dropping her to the loveseat. Sidney opened his eyes and stared at the screen. They all had become listeners as the pipeline breached an earthbound and forbidden barrier.

“David, is that you?” Sidney said, as he stepped inches closer to the television.

“Tracy.” The voice repeated its call in a distant, lifeless monotone.

“It’s him,” Tracy said, shaking as Leah held her.

“David, my name is Sidney. I can always hear you, if you let me. Can you tell me why you’re here?”

Sidney spoke in a tone usually reserved for those who were hard of hearing, but underneath was a coaxing and friendly invitation.

“David, we are all here to help you,” Sidney said to the static filled screen. “What is it that you want to tell us?”

No answer returned, and seconds passed with the crashing sound of static unchanged. The small span of time hinted at a spirit in confusion until one more word was spoken.

“Prince--cess.” The final “esses” blended amid the static, but the word was clear.

“David!” Tracy shouted at the screen. Then, a moan of pain and agony blared out from behind the screen, heightening into a deformed, wailing cry that overwhelming the static, and the fear of five hearts pounded in perfect percussion. This voice wasn’t David’s; this voice belonged to another.

The bitter, angry, groaning burst louder through the speakers, sending Brett, Dylan, and Sidney, spiraling backward from the force and tone of it. The lights flickered on and off, and the temperature of the room turned to ice, as though someone had opened the door and admitted an early winter’s blast into the house.

“What’s happening?” Tracy called out in the erupting confusion, but the combination of fear and mystery on Leah’s face told her the answer. Dylan and Brett stood aside, while Sidney faced the TV.

“Who are you, and where is David? Speak to me. I can help you,” Sidney’s voice boomed with the intensity of a proud and pious preacher from the pulpit. He opened his eyes and listened, awaiting the voice from beyond, but the sound of something else stirred. It was a soft rumble that grew louder, a rolling ball of thunder gathering strength and gaining magnitude. Then, it happened.

A brilliant flash of white struck simultaneously with the calamitous sound of thunder. The bursting of some unseen energy exploded like a bomb throughout the room, sending objects flying, lamps and vases breaking, tripods tumbling, and those present cowered in the corners away from the TV. A great gale of icy wind swept the house.

Sidney was knocked back a few feet but quickly turned, catching his breath and facing the unknown nemesis. A crack split the left lens of his now broken glasses, but the TV screen remained intact, the unwavering static taunting him.

“Now I’m pissed,” he said. A wash of sweat dampened his wavy, brown hair as he seethed. “Who are you, and where is David?”

The loud moaning continued, bellowing an urgent SOS that sought pardon from the shadowy confines of death, attempting to usurp the static that grew louder with the rising TV volume. Both noises became unbearable, and all plugged their ears except an irate Sidney, who stood firm and commanding.

The sounds died away to a strange humming, and the mysterious gust of wind had passed, leaving behind the icy chill that still pervaded the room. The lights continued to flicker, some of which had been off all along.

Dylan and Brett scurried to retrieve the toppled tripods, righting them and examining them for possible damage. Leah held on to Tracy, and Susan sat with her fingernails clawing into the arms of Tracy’s loveseat.

Sidney was panting when he called out again.

“David, are you there?!”

Nothing but the strange humming responded.

Suddenly, Leah’s eyes widened and stared straight at the center of the vast living room. An all too familiar fear gripped her, an almost friendly foe on a revisited playground. In her mind’s eye, the aura of her present surroundings was changing, switching like stage lights from red, to green, to blue, to a gray uncertainty.

“Sit down,” she said, gently pushing Tracy back down to the couch. She strutted and stepped forward, a sudden lioness about to battle. “Sidney, move away from the screen...now! There’s someone standing right in front of you.”

His face displayed the look of someone held at gunpoint, so Sidney did as he was told, stepping back behind the seer who assumed control. She stood solid, her blue eyes unblinking in focused fixation at a specter standing tall before her. It would be only her eyes in this instant that would glimpse the unknown ghost of a man that surely wasn’t David, and was in fact, the culprit of the interrupting calamity. The seer and the spirit faced each other with eyes recognizing from worlds cosmically apart.

“Leah, what do you see?” Dylan asked in a slow and cautious tone, careful not to obstruct the vision that consumed her.

She described the lurking menace in detail, as he stood in towering height with penetrating eyes as black as midnight, the kind that gazed deep into one’s soul. His dark hair was slicked back, and she could see the insidious grin stamped upon the face of what should have been a lifeless form, but instead, a vital, ageless phantom thrived and loomed large in height, a master manipulating multiple realms.

“There’s a man standing there,” she said. “It’s not David.”

“Do you recognize him?” Sidney said, standing behind her.

“No, but he is who—or what, interrupted. He’s just staring at me with this expression like he’s in absolute control, dominating everything. His eyes are black, so black there are no pupils.”

The reddish aura that surrounded the specter began to change, becoming brighter and stronger in luminescence, then pulsating to the rhythm of the humming noise that grew louder. Leah watched the aura morph into a golden hue and form a glowing ring around the specter, then it flared another hot-white, flash of light. Gasps escaped those assembled as the ghostly intruder became visible to all.

“Do you all see him?” Leah’s voice trembled, realizing that what she beheld was strong enough to manifest its presence to an audience. The sounds of confused affirmation behind her confirmed it. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

The looming figure stared at her in silence, then looked at Sidney standing beside her, then to Susan Logan, who sat speechless and shaking. It moved its head toward Dylan and Brett, surveying everyone, sizing up the creatures of a world it no longer inhabited. Then with another quick move of the head, it fixed its gaze upon Tracy with a solid, comprehending stare that lingered in silent fascination.

Tracy winced, feeling the grasp of someone or something that reached inside and shook her soul, leaving behind a feeling of dark foreboding, the emptiness of an unspoken omen.

“What do you want?! Where is David?!” Leah shouted, breaking the concentration it lavished upon Tracy. It spun its head toward her, and those black eyes resumed their focus on her baby blues. She found nothing as she searched the rounded orbs of obsidian, so black that reflected light bounced off of them in diversion. The equally dark brows were raised upward in a malicious arch, and the facial expression bordered upon a sadistic and spiteful tyranny.

“Speak to me, damn you!” Sidney shouted at the leering entity whose piercing eyes were now redirected at him. “I can hear you. I can help you, but you must let me.”

The black eyes narrowed and cast a cynical stare sent to stifle him. Sidney stepped closer as the surrounding sounds went silent, and the temporary deafness in both of his muted ears shunned a sounding, human world.

“The sands are slipping through the hourglass, Sidney.”

The specter spoke without moving its lips, and the voice boomed an echoing timbre of sharp, crystal clarity. The somber tone was dead, yet alive and only Sidney had heard the riddle of mysterious words.

Then, all eyes became distracted. A flickering sea of light suddenly rippled in waves above the ghostly intruder’s head that now turned upward to greet it. The floating web of lightning seemed to belong to it, and the black eyes were now entranced in a hypnotic thrall toward its sanctuary. The specter glanced once more upon the earthly faces gathered round and then back up toward the luminous gateway glowing above and beyond.

The rushing sound of wind through a tunnel returned and moved like a tornado, breaking the muted pause that filled Sidney’s ears--and then an exploding sound...

POW!

The sound reverberated, bouncing off the walls. The figure disappeared, gone with the blinding brilliance that radiated from it.

No one spoke. They heeded the static, the only sound to remain. Leah closed her eyes and opened them again. There was nothing, not the strange figure, not the brilliant force of light that showcased it, not the icy wind inside the room, only the static.

“What’s that smell?” she asked, twitching her nose. They whiffed as an invisible rancidity wisped through the room, invading their nostrils. The freeze dried smell of rotten meat lightly singed had lingered, forcing them into choking gasps and futile attempts to close their airways.

Brett’s response was one of recognition.

“Residual smell---often left behind by—”

“Poltergeists,” Leah said, and the sound of the word struck a chord of fear in Tracy’s heart.

Dylan glanced down at the dial of the EMF meter still in his hand; now the needle was being pulled back and forth in a magnetic fit far beyond the white notch pointing to seven.

“The EMF reading has surpassed seven, a confirmation of poltergeist activity with six witnesses to the manifestation.” He spoke for the main audio recorders and the reset video cameras that were taping the entire episode, unimpaired by the force that had toppled the tripods.

Tracy stared around the room, her quivering breath in synchronicity to the shakes that ravaged her body.

“But where is David?”

They glanced back at the screen, awaiting an answer from the static that droned on as normal. Then, the incessant inertia stopped. Seconds of a solemn silence wrapped the room in a soft cotton blanket of quiet.

They waited with eyes unblinking, hearts pounding, sweat breaking, as the TV set said nothing. Then the audio returned, blaring from the volume level that had climbed in the chaos. The day’s news was heralding, shouting out from reality which had begun again. Brett turned the raging volume down.

“I think it’s over,” he said.

“For now,” Sidney said. “It’s over for now.”

* * * *

Tracy was the first to walk away, and as she strode off to the kitchen, they followed and watched her open the cabinet and reach for the bottle she’d failed to finish the night before.

“Anyone else want a drink?” She asked, twisting the cap from the bottle. “Because, I sure as hell need one.”

“No, wait, Tracy,” Dylan said. “That is something I wanted to address to you.”

Tracy uttered a soft laugh under her breath.

“What? Are you going to tell me not to drink in my own house?”

“It’s not that--”

“Now is not the time, Dylan,” Leah said. “I could use a drink myself, right about now.” Though Leah’s life had been spellbound and plagued by visions, poltergeists, and hauntings, she had yet to be granted immunity from the preternatural. The clearly manifested appearance, the contrived face that stared back at her with those menacing black orbs, the malevolent intent, the gale force wind and flying objects, all of it made so much knowledge and experience seem callow in the space of only seconds. It was then that the memories of the Cedar Drive house seemed to occur all over again.

“Make that three,” Brett said.

“Oh, great.” Dylan had no recourse but to explain why. “It’s said that poltergeists are often triggered by something or mainly, someone. That is, someone who may be exuding a certain amount of trauma or mental anxiety in the course of such events.”

“Okay, so you think it’s Tracy that was responsible for that thing that just blew in here from Hell?” Leah’s voice climbed in protest. “Dylan, Sidney and I have a history of being surrounded by this type of activity. These things are attracted to people like us. So, don’t you think that whatever that thing was could have been generated by one of us?”

There was a silence.

“Well?” She demanded.

“It’s possible, but unlikely” he said, reluctant, but truthful. “You know as well as anyone that the exertion of high-level, mental stress in certain people often causes a telekinetic response. Tracy’s recent stress is a prime example.”

“And, it is known that grief, and especially guilt, can trigger the mental mechanism known as ‘psycho kinesis,’ which can lead to poltergeist manifestations.” Susan broke into the debate, no longer the silent spectator, but the psychiatrist who had just witnessed everything. Her trembling hands shook along with her voice. “Tracy’s struggle with survivor’s guilt could be that trigger.”

“Well, someone’s done their homework. I take it this is the first time you’ve actually seen this?” Sidney directed his comment at her quivering attempts at composure. She said nothing.

“No,” Leah said. “Something was different. You saw the way it looked at all of us. If you were right, you would be saying that she projected that thing from her mind. Did that thing or person, look familiar to you, Tracy?”

Tracy shook her head.

“I think you’re right,” Sidney said. “It spoke to me.”

“What did it say to you, Sidney?” Leah’s voice issued an urgent demand, implying that her old pal might forget or fail to reveal everything. “What did it say?!”

“It said something about time slipping through the hourglass.” Sidney closed his eyes for a second, recalled the words, then repeated them verbatim.

“So, it’s got us on a time schedule, for what?” Dylan said. “That doesn’t make any sense. David was definitely here, Tracy; you heard him. Whatever that thing was that intervened had taken over. Yes, sometimes another spirit is present, but these interruptions are often caused unintentionally by human emotions. Either way, I wasn’t judging you about your drinking.”

Tracy nodded in dismissal and Dylan turned to face everyone.

“The spirit world has been opened to us all. We need to be extremely cautious of our emotions and reactions. I don’t need to tell anyone here of what an extremely rare occurrence we just experienced. We faced it, but I don’t think this is the end of it.”

“I don’t understand the message of time,” Sidney said. “It spoke with no emotion, but somehow, it was taunting me.”

“Perhaps it’s pressing of you for time was a projection from your mind, Sidney?” Susan had settled into a kitchen chair. “It could also be that your inner anxiousness is what manifested itself into what we saw, your subconscious quest for perfection in a timely manner that was fueling that thing. Leah is right; Tracy is not the only possible source. If it realized that someone who could hear it was present, then why can’t you be the host that invited it in? And although this is my first time as an actual eyewitness, yes, I have done my homework. Somewhat like you, Sidney, I listened.”

No one spoke, and the only sound now was the clinking of broken glass in the living room, as Brett had begun clearing away the pieces that were once Tracy’s lamps and crystal vases. Tracy looked in on the disaster area she had ignored moments earlier and gave a heavy sigh.

“Don’t worry,” Leah said, patting her on the shoulder. “We’re all in this together.”

Her voice sounded less confident than before.