Debbie didn’t open the sofa bed on Tuesday evening. Instead, she told Zack and Eric they could sleep in her bed, and she would stay in the living room on the couch. She left the door to the bedroom partially open, and in the living room kitchen area of the garage apartment, the only lights on were the two lamps sitting on the end tables on either side of the sofa.
Dressed in a pair of sweatpants and one of Clay’s old T-shirts, she sat on the sofa and called her sister, Robyn, on the cellphone.
“Hey, Deb, what’s up?” Robyn answered the call.
“Can you come over? I need to talk to you, and the boys are already in bed.”
“Why don’t you just walk over here? The boys will be okay, and I might wake them up walking through the living room.”
“They aren’t in the living room. I put them in my room for the night.”
“You aren’t sleeping on the sofa bed, are you?”
“No. I’m not going to pull it out. I’m just going to sleep on the couch. Not a fan of pull-out beds.”
“Then why are the boys sleeping in your room? They don’t mind the sofa bed.”
“I’ll explain it when you come over.”
“Okay. Now you have me curious.”
“One more thing.”
“Sure, what?”
“Do you have any wine?”
“Deb, you don’t need any wine.”
“Yes, I do. Please, Robyn.”
Robyn and Debbie sat side by side on the sofa, each with a glass of wine in hand, and the partially empty bottle sitting on the coffee table, with their stocking-clad feet propped up on said table.
Robyn held her glass of wine in one hand while her other hand held the two sheets of paper with the notes written in cursive. She studied the top sheet and leaned forward, setting her wineglass on the coffee table so she could shuffle both sheets in her hands, to better examine and read the notes.
Robyn shook her head. “Are you sure the boys didn’t write these?”
“No way. Their handwriting is horrible.”
“But they had to. They’re pranking you.”
“You didn’t see how upset they were. Afraid. They’re certain this place is haunted, and they wonder if it’s their dad.”
Robyn dropped the pages onto her lap, leaned forward, and picked up her wineglass. She took a sip and looked at her sister. “What do you think?”
“I haven’t seen anything unusual around here. Other than these notes. I certainly didn’t see a pen write it like they claim.”
“Well, we know one thing.” Robyn took a gulp of wine and then turned back to Debbie. “The boys are either telling the truth and this place is haunted, or Zack and Eric are trying to freak you out. It would be one thing if the boys claimed to have found the notes. We might then assume someone broke into the apartment and left the notes maliciously, maybe to get us to leave. But since they claimed to have seen the pen write it, then that means they’re in on it. Do you know who they might have gotten to write the notes for them?”
“They didn’t have anyone write those notes.”
“Then you’re saying my garage apartment is haunted.” Robyn downed the remainder of her wine.
Zack had smuggled his mother’s iPad into the bedroom with them. Too afraid to go to sleep, the boys pulled the sheets over themselves and found a movie to stream, using a pillow to prop up the iPad so they could watch without having to hold it. They shared a pair of wired headphones, with Zack using the right earbud, and Eric the left.
After Robyn left, Debbie went to get her iPad and found it gone from its regular place. She knew immediately who had it. Debbie slipped quietly into the boys’ room and found them both asleep, with the sheets and covers now kicked off their bodies, the iPad streaming a Disney movie, with one earbud in Zack’s right ear, while the other earbud lay by Eric’s head. She carefully removed the earbud from Zack’s ear, picked up the iPad, turned it off, and then covered up the two sleeping boys.
Eric looked around the room. He was alone in Police Chief MacDonald’s office, sitting in the same chair he had been sitting in the other day. How did he get here? Why was he alone? The next moment, he heard his brother say, “What are we doing here?” Eric turned to see a confused Zack sitting on the chair next to him.
“You weren’t here a minute ago,” Eric said.
“Is this another dream? We were in bed, watching a movie, and now we’re here.”
“Hello, boys,” a new voice said. They turned to the voice and found their father sitting at the police chief’s desk.
“This is a dream,” Zack said.
“You read the notes, didn’t you?” Clay asked.
“Did you write them?” Eric asked.
Clay shook his head. “No. Someone wrote them for me. I can’t move things.” Clay then picked up a pen from the desk, looked at it, and then let it drop to the floor. He looked back at his sons and smiled. “I take that back. I guess I can move things in a dream. But that’s about all.”
“Why are you here? Are you really here?” Eric asked.
Zack shook his head. “It’s a dream.”
“Then explain the notes,” Clay challenged.
Zack looked at his father. “Okay, let’s say you’re really here. Why? Why did you bring us here to your old office?”
“This was never really my office. I was covering for Chief MacDonald, and I was using his office. But it was never really mine.”
“You said it was,” Eric said. “You said you were going to be the new police chief.”
“And then you got arrested,” Zack said.
“But you came back,” Eric added.
“And then someone killed you,” Zack whispered, his gaze focused on his father. “And you’ve come back again.”
“I came back because I love you both. I ruined my life, your mother’s. At the time, I didn’t realize what I was doing. Back then, I was just so focused on getting what I wanted. It didn’t matter how it might hurt others, or what I was teaching you. And if I’m honest, back then I thought I was teaching you how to go after whatever you wanted, no matter the cost. Even if it meant hurting others. It didn’t matter as long as I got what I wanted. But I was wrong.”
Eric studied his father for a moment and then asked in a serious voice, “Dad, if you hadn’t been caught, would you still be telling us this?”
Clay leaned forward, placing his elbows on the desk. He looked across it at his sons. “If I hadn’t been caught, and then got everything I wanted, and continued to hurt others, yet ended up living a long life, and I died wealthy and powerful, happy, even…would I still come back and try to warn you?”
“Would you?” Eric prodded.
Clay nodded. “Yes, but by then, it would be too late. You’d be grown men.”
“But what if we were just like you? And never got caught, not like we got caught breaking into the hobby store. What if we never got caught, and got really good at it,” Eric asked.
Clay let out a sigh. “You see, that’s the thing. You will eventually die. Like I did. We all die. That’s something none of us can avoid. Some of us, like me, die sooner than others. But you see, when that time comes, how you lived here will determine how you feel after you move on.”
Zack shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“There’s an emptiness. Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, and I don’t think I can adequately explain. And I know instinctively it has nothing to do with the fact I was arrested and then killed. The emptiness I feel right now…” Clay shook his head. “I can’t explain.”
What looked like snow fell from the ceiling. The boys looked up. “What’s that?” they chimed.
The snow landed on the desk and swirled, resembling a twister, and from the twister emerged an image of a young woman who looked as if she had come from the early 1900s. Once her image was fully visible, the snow vanished, and her effervescent image hovered above the desk.
“Eva,” Clay muttered.
She nodded at Clay and turned to the boys. “My name is Eva Thorndike, and I thought perhaps I might be able to help your father.”
“You’re beautiful,” Zack muttered, his eyes wide as he stared at the apparition.
“Why, thank you.” Eva smiled. “Your father loves you. That’s why he’s here. He wants to spare you the pain he’s currently experiencing.”
“He’s in pain?” Eric asked.
Eva nodded. “You boys are alive. You have a spirit and a body. Your father and I, we are no longer of the world you live in. We only have our spirit—some call it a soul.”
“You and Dad have bodies,” Zack argued.
Eva shook her head. “No, what you see is only an illusion we create with our energy. And when you die, your spirit will leave that body and move on, like your father did. But the body and the spirit have something in common.”
“What?” the boys chorused.
“They must each be fed to grow and survive. The food you eat affects the health of your body, even how you feel. Have you ever eaten an entire bowl of candy or two pieces of cake and then afterwards felt sick?”
“You mean like when Mom tells us junk food is bad for us?” Eric asked.
Eva nodded. “Exactly. Well, your soul—your spirit—also needs to be fed in order to grow and feel healthy.”
Zack wrinkled his nose. “What does a soul eat?”
“How you live your life, how you treat people. Those are the things that feed your soul. But for some people, they don’t truly appreciate their poor diet until after they die—and then it hits them. That’s what has happened to your father. That empty feeling he can’t quite explain. It can be overwhelming. Something you can’t avoid. What makes it worse is realizing someone you love may be facing your same fate. He’s here to help you boys. He doesn’t want you to feel how he does, nor to face what he’s ultimately facing.”
“What do you mean, ultimately facing?” Zack asked.
Eva looked at Clay, waiting for him to explain.
Clay sighed and looked from Eva to his sons. “I must eventually move on. I’m sort of in a limbo state. But when I move on, well, I’m not sure what awaits me. I just know I’ll be held accountable for any wrongs I’ve committed during my life. Just because you don’t get caught when you’re alive doesn’t mean it won’t catch up to you.”
Zack’s eyes widened. “Dad, are you saying you’re going to hell?”
Clay shrugged. “I don’t know.”
The boys looked anxiously at Eva, waiting for an answer.
Eva smiled down at the boys. “Not in the way you imagine.”
“Boys, look at me,” Clay asked. They did. “I want you to ask your mother to let you talk to Police Chief MacDonald again. And when you see him, tell him you want to try, and that you want to make better decisions. Promise me. He is a good man and a good father. He can help you. But you have to be willing to try.”
“We promise,” the boys said.