by Barry Napier
He arrived at Mary Guthrie’s house at 8:50, just as the last hues of sunlight were fading from the sky. The sky was a dark purple, tinged with black at the horizon. It looked like a large bruise over the ocean.
When Mary answered the door, she looked both excited and fearful. It was a peculiar look to see on the face of a woman that was nearing sixty mainly because it made her look younger in the eyes, but older everywhere else on her face.
“Come on in,” she said, ushering him inside.
He did as she asked, walking through the door and into a small foyer. The colors in the foyer were bright and beachy, clearly having recently been cleaned and decorated for the vacationers that would be occupying the house in the coming months. There was even a decorative wooden sign along the foyer wall featuring flip flops and a beach umbrella that said Welcome to the Beach!
“Are you sure you still want to do this?” he asked before stepping through the door.
“Absolutely.”
He noticed at once just how quiet the house was. There was no TV on in the background, no music. Even the crashing lull of the ocean through the walls seemed to be more muffled than usual.
Mary led him straight through a hallway and into her kitchen. They sat down at her kitchen table where she already had the bag of Scrabble tiles out.
“How does this work?” Cooper asked. “Do you just ask them if they feel like talking?”
“No. Usually, they do as they please. Most of the time, they’ll talk if they see the Scrabble tiles out.”
“And it doesn’t scare you?”
“It did the first few times. I felt like I was maybe getting involved in something that I wasn’t supposed to be messing with, you know? I’m not a religious or spiritual person by nature, but I do know that there is evil in the world and that things out of our sight and control probably shouldn’t be tampered with.”
“A good train of thought to live by,” Cooper said.
“Given everything you and your lady friend told me about your history, I assume you have never really lived by those rules, though. Right?”
Cooper smiled, not quite sure how to respond. He had done a lot of self-reflection since reappearing nine months ago and had discovered some things that had come as quite a surprise. He had yet to voice any of these things and found himself anxious to get them out. Did it really matter if the first person he spoke some of these things to was a stranger?
He didn’t think so.
“I was very cocky and sure of myself not too long ago,” he said. “My book was being gobbled up by not only the paranormal community, but was also getting respect from some mainstream outlets. And the thing that got me all of that attention was my fascination with those very things you feel we shouldn’t mess with—trying to communicate with the other side and all of that.”
“Do you think there is another side?” Mary asked.
“I do. I just don’t think it’s what we all think it is.”
“And what do you think it is?”
“I don’t know,” he said. Admitting it hurt him a bit. After all he had been through, before, during, and after his disappearance, he still had no idea what all of his efforts had been for.
“Well how do you feel about what we’re about to do? This thing with my Scrabble tiles…is that dangerous in any way?”
“There’s no way to be certain. But I don’t think so.”
“I use what I have,” she said, with a smile. “I thought about going out to get a Ouija board and try that but the idea of it scared me.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t. I don’t know how it happened, but Ouija boards got this innocent sort of board game reputation somewhere in the last decade or so. The truth of the matter is that if you use them in a place where there is real, legitimate power and evil, they can be dangerous. They can be doorways.”
Mary’s face grew very serious and alarmed. Cooper had never been good at filtering himself. He had to constantly keep reminding himself that not everyone was as accustomed to the supernatural as he was. He could be off-putting to say the least. Stephanie’s absence was proof of that.
“You’ve seen this?” Mary asked. “This…evil?”
“I have,” he said coldly. The memory of it still chilled him years later. What made no sense to him in that moment, sitting with Mary in her kitchen, was that he had gone back looking for similar things time after time.
“I’m sorry,” Mary said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s okay. It does me some good to talk about all of this. Especially now.”
He could sense her wanting to ask more questions about his past. Part of him wished that she would so he could verbalize some of it, hoping to uncover some hidden truth he had yet to realize. But another part of him wasn’t quite ready to look into the darker shadows of his past—especially not with an older woman he didn’t know.
Instead, they shared a string of polite conversation about the upcoming tourist season. As they spoke, Mary put on a pot of coffee. The conversation eventually led Cooper to sharing details about his day and what he had discovered about Douglass Preston. Mary knew very little about the more intimate history, having only heard the whitewashed version of it. The tale seemed to make her uneasy.
Still, as ten o’ clock approached, he saw Mary slowly reach out for the bag of Scrabble tiles. She dumped them out onto the table with delicate care. Cooper watched as she started to flip them all over, letters-up. Cooper joined in and they sat there with the tiles between them, pushed to the edge of the table as if awaiting a third person to start a game.
“That’s it?” Cooper asked.
“Yes. Of course, now we just have to wait for them to come.”
Cooper nodded, but even as she spoke, he started to get a very familiar feeling. It was one that he had felt so much in his past that it had become almost common to him. It was the feeling of a slight chill to the air accompanied with the feeling of being watched. He felt something very close to a mild pins and needles sensation in his fingers, groin, and neck.
He was pretty sure that Amy and her friends were already here.
With a shaky sigh, Mary turned towards the open kitchen and adjoining living room.
“Amy?” she asked. “Are you and your little friends here? I have a friend of my own here that would very much like to speak with you.”
A minute passed. The room was silent and still, yet Cooper continued to feel that familiar sensation. He was certain that there was something here with them. Based on past experiences, the slightness of the sensation indicated that whatever force was here with them was a harmless one. In cases where the unseen force or entity was malevolent, there was usually a weird unsettling feeling in the stomach of anyone within the room. Some people also reported a scent similar to charred bread or thick dust.
But Cooper was not picking up any of that. What I wouldn’t give for some of my old equipment, he thought to himself. An EMF detector or even just a thermal imager would be incredible right now.
He took a sip of his coffee to calm himself, knowing that something important and probably supernatural was about to happen.
Cooper almost opened his mouth to call for Amy as well. But before he got the chance, the Scrabble tiles on the table started to move.
There was nothing dramatic about it and nothing at all frightening. The tiles just moved, sorted by invisible hands, scattered across the table softly. Cooper watched, fascinated. He was very aware of the smile on his face but let it stay there.
As he watched, two tiles were pushed out across the table. They were then scooted side by side, forming HI.
“Hello,” Cooper said, trying to sound serious and friendly rather than excited and awed. “Are you Amy?”
The HI was pulled down to the rest of the pile and then other tiles were sorted through. Again, two more tiles were pushed away from the others and placed side by side to spell a word. This one was NO.
“What’s your name?” Cooper said.
After a few seconds, Cooper got his answer. KEVIN ELEVEN YRS OLD
Cooper’s body went cold all over. Oddly, his thoughts turned to Kevin’s parents, having left the beach and headed somewhere else to escape the recent death of their son. If they only knew, he thought.
“Nice to meet you Kevin.” He almost added Sorry about what happened to you, but he wasn’t sure how the ghost of a recently deceased child might handle a reminder of their death.
Mary then spoke up, speaking softly. “Is Amy here, Kevin?”
They watched the tiles move for another thirty seconds or so until they received an answer: NOT RIGHT NOW.
“Kevin,” Cooper said, “I am trying to find out why a little boy died a few years ago. His parents are very sad and miss him and there are strange things happening in their home. Their son’s name is Henry. Henry Blackstock. Do you know him?”
The letters moved again, a bit quicker now as the ghost of Kevin got more familiar with them. There was a confidence in the way the tiles moved now, clicking and clacking against the table.
I DO NOW BUT NOT BEFORE
The answer was loaded with mystery and begged more questions. But Cooper was pretty sure he knew what it meant. And while he certainly appreciated Mary’s approach at handing what seemed to be the ghosts of children with kid’s gloves, he had never quite operated that way.
“Do you know what happened to you?” Cooper asked.
After a few more seconds of clattering tiles, the answer appeared. DROWNED
“When you drowned, were you close to this house? Were there tall black rocks sticking out of the water?”
YES
“And did someone pull you into the water?”
NO BUT I SAW A MAN
The tiles were moving faster now. Cooper was pretty sure that they were moving too fast. He didn’t think they were being moved by fingers anymore. He’d always wondered if ghosts—poltergeists in particular—were able to move objects not with the physical movements of their phantom bodies but with some form of emotional thought. If so, he felt certain that was what he was witnessing with the Scrabble tiles.
“Kevin?” Mary asked. “Have you been here in my house before?”
YES ONCE
Mary’s smile faltered a bit and Cooper didn’t blame her. He tried to think of what questions to ask to get the information he needed but his thoughts were interrupted by the scattering of tiles again.
He watched them dance and slide as Kevin spelled out: BYE NOW AMY
The tiles sat still and motionless as Cooper and Mary stared at the message. Cooper was afraid it meant that the weird little session was over, but Mary was looking skeptically around the room as if she knew better.
“He’s gone,” Cooper said, no longer feeling the coolness in the air. It was a hard sensation to describe. To Cooper, it felt as if someone had placed a thin layer of wet paper towel on the back of his neck for several minutes and then removed it.
But as soon as he was certain Kevin had gone, he felt it again. This time, the sensation was a bit more present—a bit more there. If he’d had his thermal imager, he was pretty sure he would have been able to pick up the figure a small person standing a few feet away from them.
Cooper gave Mary a quick wave to get her attention and then nodded to the tiles. She looked down just as they started to move again.
HI MARY
“Amy?” Mary asked.
The tiles were moving slower now, back to a normal speed. They were moved with a child’s care as they were sorted out, three tiles pushed to the side to spell out YES.
“I have a friend here to visit you,” Mary said. “Is that okay?”
Amy quickly spelled out GOOD.
When Cooper spoke again, he understood how surreal this truly was.. He was essentially speaking to a stack of Scrabble tiles. But he had seen and felt more than enough in the last ten years or so to know that there was some supernatural force standing by the end of the table and manipulating the tiles.
“Amy,” Cooper said, “I asked your friend Kevin about a boy named Henry Blackstock. Do you know him?”
The tiles moved slowly at first, but then quicker. By the time Amy was done with what was the longest message they had seen tonight, there was an obvious urgency to the message.
YES HE DROWNED was spelled out and then pushed to one side of the table. Then, on the other side, the one closest to Mary, the tiles moved around and spelled out HE SAW DARK WATER.
“What do you mean by dark water?”
HIS WATER
“Henry’s water?” Cooper asked, confused.
The tiles were flipped through and scattered again and now it was very apparent that they were being moved by much more than just phantom fingers. As they were sorted through, some of them moved with such speed that they seemed to be a blur as they were moved.
NO THE BAD MANS WATER
The tiles were scattered, rearranged, and then once more spelled out DARK WATER.
“Amy, I don’t know what that—,”
He didn’t get a chance to finish before the tiles started moving again. They moved with such speed and prominent clicks against the table that it was obvious that Amy was trying to interrupt him. Cooper snapped his mouth shut and watched the tiles move, spelling out a series of messages that made his heart grow cold.
NO TIME HE KNOWS YOU R HERE
This message was swiped back into the pile, leaving a blank table for only a few seconds before she started spelling out another one. This one read: HES ANGRY WANTS TO HURT PEOPLE
“Who?” Cooper asked. “Who does he want to hurt?”
DROWNS KID IN DARK WATER
“How can I stop him?” Cooper asked.
DONT KNOW
“Amy, was the dark water the last thing you saw?”
YES
Cooper wondered if, like Henry Blackstock, her body had remained undiscovered.
“Is Henry with you? Not here tonight, but wherever it is that you are the rest of the time.”
YES BUT NOT HERE NOW
Mary spoke up next. Cooper was surprised to find that she was close to tears. Her bottom lip trembled slightly as she spoke. “Amy…where are you? Where do you and your friends stay?”
DARK PLACE WITH BAD MAN
This message was swiped aside and then the entire pile of tiles seemed to separate slightly. Cooper watched as one of the blank tiles was selected and then slid all the way over to him, directly beside his coffee cup. This was followed by the spelling out of a repeated message.
HE KNOWS YOURE HERE HATES YOU
“He knows I’m trying to stop him” Cooper said out loud.
YES
“Do you know his name?” he asked, certain that the bad man the little girl was referring to was Douglass Pickman.
NO
“Where is he? Where can I find him? Is it in a cave?”
The tiles moved with blinding speed. As he watched them move around, Cooper became aware of the air growing even colder. The room started to feel thick, as if the oxygen was slowly being sucked out of it.
From across the table, Mary whispered to him. “Do you feel that?”
He nodded, still watching as a new message was spelled out.
DONT KNOW COLD NO LIGHT DARK WATER
“What else can you tell me?” Cooper asked.
NO TIME HAVE TO GO HES MAD
“Amy, please…,”
The letters were being moved frantically now, the clicking of tiles against the table like the sound of someone typing.
HELP HE HATES PLEASE DARK WA
But Amy was not able to finish her last message. The tiles exploded all across the table, some being flung across the room where they clattered against the wall and fell to the counter. One hit Cooper square
ly in the face, bouncing into his lap face-up to reveal an M.
Mary cried out and jumped back in her chair. She looked around the room frantically, as if she was looking for someone. There was a profound look of sadness on her face. When she looked to Cooper, he saw that she was terrified.
“That’s never happened before,” she said.
Cooper nodded slowly, looking around at the scattered Scrabble tiles. He looked for hidden messages in them but could find none. He stood up, staring to the table where he had witnessed one of the oddest things he had ever seen in his controversial career.
“Are you okay?” he asked Mary.
“I think so,” she asked. She thought about something for a while, looking through her sliding glass door and to the night-shrouded beach beyond. “Do you think the he Amy mentioned is this Pickman character you learned about?”
“I do.”
“She made it sound like he pulled them under water somehow. And now he’s keeping them trapped in the dark with him.”
Mary stifled back a weak sob that made Cooper think that, oddly enough, Mary had grown quite attached to Amy.
“It seems that way,” Cooper agreed without much emotion.
Still looking out to the ocean, Mary asked, “Do you think you can stop him?”
Cooper faced the sliding glass door and looked out to the beach as well. He stared towards the black ocean, in the direction of where the black rocks broke through the water. He could not see them; all he could see out there were the white crests of waves, like fissures in the surface of the world.
Looking out into the darkness, he said, “I’m sure as hell going to try.”
21
When Cooper returned to his hotel room, it was just after eleven o’ clock. He looked a the bed skeptically, well aware that he was too wired to sleep. He had a plan in mind—an idea to potentially stop whatever it was that Douglass Pickman had planned—but it would be useless to start before morning. He sat on the edge of his bed and pulled out his phone.