The Dead are Watching

by Debra Robinson

  Lani told me she had driven to an old cemetery in Coshocton County and had brought her video camera along. She’d been searching for the graves of some of her husband’s relatives. This cemetery was a small one, more or less in the middle of nowhere. There were no houses nearby, and there weren’t any cars passing by either. It was very quiet and isolated, at the end of a long dirt road that led back into the graves. But it was a beautiful summer day, and Lani decided to switch on the camera as she walked through the cemetery. As a sort of narration, Lani decided to read off some of the headstones out loud as she passed by while she continued to look for her husband’s family surname. Lani started making comments about a few of the stones. Some were decrepit, with chunks missing or huge cracks marring the names of the deceased, and she commented on that sad state of affairs.

  Lani then saw several stones of very young children who’d died, one of them just a baby. This was depressing, and she remarked on that too. She kept a running dialogue for a good ten to fifteen minutes until finally, near the back of the cemetery, Lani found her husband’s family name. At that point, Lani shut the camera off and studied the headstone information.

  Just as Lani got to this point in her story, customers walked through the front doors of her shop and Lani greeted them as they passed us. Lani smiled apologetically at me for the interruption, then turned toward her laptop on the counter, brought up a file, and hooked up a small satellite speaker. “Here, listen for yourself,” Lani told me as she fiddled with the computer.

  After Lani had returned home from the cemetery trip, she’d downloaded the video and watched it. It was pretty shocking.

  Lani started the video, and we both stared at her laptop screen. The first thing I saw was the lush green grass bathed in the full sun of a summer day. The weathered tombstones were brightly lit. Then I heard the sound of Lani’s voice begin commenting on the stones as she started her tour through the small cemetery. The trees could be seen in the background with their leaves undulating in a light breeze. A perfect summer day.

  Suddenly, I heard something else. Cocking my head to the side, I listened closely, searching Lani’s face. She nodded confirmation at what I was now hearing. There was another sound coming from the speaker now—a second intonation—a whispery, paper-thin voice, seemingly ancient with age. It faded in and out, rising above Lani’s calm narration, then dropping to nearly inaudible syllables. But as Lani commented on the tombstones of the children and the baby who’d died so young, the raspy voice rose and became clear and distinct. “Get the baby … ” gasped the woman. My mouth nearly dropped open. The sound of Lani talking on pleasantly, obliviously, came from the speaker. So did the strange woman’s voice, mumbling something, carrying on a conversation as though she walked right beside Lani, telling her secrets and trying to get her attention. I got the feeling it had been a long time since anyone had been to that cemetery, and the woman was simply conversing with this welcome person who’d happened along. Then suddenly the odd, scratchy voice rose again. “GET THE BABY!” she shouted, very distinctly, as if this demand was of the utmost importance—and as if she wasn’t long dead and wasn’t trying to save a long-dead baby.

  I looked at Lani, amazed, and she nodded and shut the video off as it finished. “Lani, do you realize that paranormal investigators spend thousands of hours just to get a single EVP? Just one significant, clear word, or if they’re very lucky, a short sentence from a spirit? And you have recorded a fifteen-minute conversation; a class A, clearly articulated, and distinct communication from a spirit? It’s unbelievable!”

  Lani nodded again and then replayed the video in its entirety. We both watched and listened again in silence, with me shaking my head in awe. It was pretty amazing.

  “If only I’d have known she was there,” said Lani.

  “Did you go back, to see if you could get anything else?” I asked.

  “No, I never did,” Lani trailed off.

  My always-curious investigator antennae were twitching wildly by this point, and I got her to explain exactly where this cemetery was, thinking that maybe I could go with Brian or some of my ghost hunter friends later on. It was truly an amazing piece of video, and I’d never seen anything like it before. A thought struck me, and I asked Lani if she’d ever had any other experiences like this one. I was thinking maybe Lani was a bit psychic herself and, like most sensitive people, might have attracted this sort of thing.

  Lani told me that after her mom died, she was really torn up about it. Her mother had always said if there was a way she could come back and let Lani know something, she would. Right after her mom died, Lani went down to her basement to work on crafts, and she started thinking about her mom. She began to cry a little bit, and spoke out loud to her mother too. And suddenly, the lights switched off and then back on, eight times. She knew how many because she counted it. Lani was able to laugh out loud then and tell her, “Okay, Mom. I know it’s you, and I know you’re okay.”

  I told her this had happened to a lot of people I’d talked with. Somehow, sometimes, our loved ones seem able to come back to give us a sign when we need it most.

  Lani told me that the only other time she’d really noticed anything like this was in an old cabin they’d lived in for a little while when her kids were younger. Lani’s kids hated this place—they said there was an old man upstairs with them! They could smell old-man aftershave, and they were constantly teasing each other about it, saying the old man was gonna get one of them, and that sort of thing. They said their clothes would move around. One time they said the old man picked up a pile of their clothes and put it outside their door in the hallway.

  As their mother, Lani didn’t know what to believe.

  “I’d felt a few odd things myself but was so busy, I didn’t pay much attention,” Lani told me. Finally, they were ready to move and leave the cabin for good. Just two nights before they moved, Lani talked out loud to the old man her kids said lived there with them.

  “We’re leaving,” Lani told him. “So if you really are here, I just wanted to say goodbye.” Lani was alone that night, as her husband was out of town. After she crawled into bed, there was sudden pounding on her bedroom door. It was very loud—so loud it vibrated things in the bedroom. Lani jumped up terrified, then slowly and carefully opened the door. No one was there. The next night was their last night in the cabin. Lani’s husband was in bed beside her when the pounding on the door started up again. She’d told her husband what had happened the night before, but he hadn’t taken it too seriously. When the pounding started again this night, he jumped up, shocked at how loud it was. The sounds reverberated through the walls and door, shaking everything in their bedroom—it was a huge noise. Lani’s husband opened the door, ready for battle, and no one was there. Could this have been the old man letting them know he really was there with them? They never knew for sure.

  Just then, Lani’s husband, Rudy, came into the store, returning from an errand. He had a story to tell me regarding something that had happened to a friend of his.

  Rudy’s friend was a plainspoken, serious man, who had never previously held beliefs in ghosts or paranormal things. Then one day, something happened while he was babysitting his granddaughter. He and the little girl had been out in the yard with a metal detector earlier that day and had found a few items that were obviously from the past century. The house was older, and many had lived on the land over the years. The young granddaughter was as rowdy as children can be, and she and her grandpa had played together and even gotten down on the floor with a game later that evening.

  Rudy’s friend realized at some point that he’d lost his cell phone. So he called his cell phone number from

  his home phone. It rang, and the man discovered that the cell phone was under a living room easy chair, probably lost while he and his granddaughter had been playing on the floor. He hung up his home phone and grabbed the cell phone. But as he picked up his cell
, it popped up that he had just received a new voicemail. So the man checked his voicemail on the cell, and it was a voicemail from his landline. Somehow, when he had just called his cell phone, a strange voice had been able to leave him a message!

  Rudy’s friend was so shocked, he had sent Rudy the message. Rudy had it recorded on his own phone, so he played the message back for me. The shaky, tired voice of an old woman began to speak as Rudy pressed the voicemail key.

  “This craziness has got to stop. It’s unwarranted.” Then the voice’s register dropped lower, almost as if the speed was slowing down or the energy was dissipating. “This craziness has got to stop,” said the old woman’s voice in a slightly lower register, and then again, even lower: “This craziness has got to stop.” This last time, the register had dropped so much lower while also slowing down that it sounded like a horror movie special-effects trick.

  It was my turn to be shocked. This was the creepiest thing I had ever heard besides the woman screaming about the baby that Lani had recorded! Rudy swore his friend was not savvy enough to fake this, or to even know much of anything about ghosts. But this cell phone message had upset him badly, and he believed the old woman wanted him to quit digging on the property, as he’d been doing that day with the metal detector. The man also thought maybe the wrestling around with his granddaughter had upset her too. He has been quieter lately, hoping she is appeased.

  It was the scariest evidence I’d ever heard.

  I thanked Lani and her husband for their stories and headed back home, thinking about what they’d told me on my drive. Maybe her recognition of the old man had finally brought him forth from the kid’s room. Or maybe he didn’t want the family to leave; maybe the kids didn’t really bother him all that much. And just maybe, some ghosts and spirits can become attached to their new families.

  And as for the old woman who thought the rowdiness was unwarranted—well, I don’t even know what to think of that. If spirits do exist here on our plane with us, then surely our antics must annoy them at times. And, as an adult, the older I get, the rowdier children seem! I can see how they must sometimes appear to our unseen visitors, especially when they have to share the same house. And the thought of that is enough to keep me awake, and watchful.

  As a psychic and paranormal investigator, I’ve heard of so many NDEs (near death experiences) that point to an afterlife as either a good or a bad place. But how can ghosts or spirits be reconciled with this? Could our loved ones’ spirits be allowed to visit those of us left behind? Is there a certain window of time where our invisible spirits, our matter/energy, hangs around after death, until we finally dissipate? Could some souls be stuck in a sort of purgatory, an in-between state Catholics believe in? I’d always heard ghosts were those not at rest. But this didn’t always seem to be the case. Still, this is exactly what I didn’t want for my son. But that didn’t stop the strange returns of my son’s spirit from happening.

  I’d done a fair amount of research since James and my dad had died. My father’s and James’s returns had frightened yet fascinated me—but I didn’t know how to help them. I’d never been able to use psychic abilities to help myself, and I’d heard other psychics say the same. I’d gone through hell after James’s and Dad’s deaths, mostly self-blame, thinking I’d brought about this series of personal tragedies. Then being unable to get any sort of psychic info about my son and father was equally frustrating—when I regularly was able to get this sort of information for others. It was almost too much to bear.

  Ever since my early teen years at my parents’ haunted house on Fifth Street, I’d always known there was more than just this life, so I was probably a little less shocked than most people might be when James began to return after his death. Still, it was traumatic. You just don’t expect visits from beyond from those you loved so dearly.

  As a young teen in the haunted house, I’d never quite figured out if it was my use of a Ouija board that let something evil in or if spirits were attracted to my psychic streak. I’d found through research that St. Theresa, a Catholic saint, believed that “with extraordinary gifts, come extraordinary trials.” I didn’t really want to hear that. In fact, it made me feel sick. My religious upbringing hadn’t prepared me for anything like this—not returns of loved ones after death, nor psychic abilities. Some of it fit in, but most of it didn’t. I’d always leaned toward being a Christian psychic, but that was also an anachronism. The two just didn’t really mesh well, at least not in today’s society. But the truth is that people from all religious beliefs and all walks of life have these ghostly experiences happen to them. It’s a simple fact.

  A friend once told me a story about her relative, a generally unpleasant and violent man with lots of problems. Drug addiction, alcoholism, you name it, he had it. These addictions led him to steal anything that wasn’t nailed down—even from family and friends. He sold these stolen items for drug money. This man was also a terrible parent to his young child, who was beaten and neglected on a regular basis, until finally, the child was taken away to live elsewhere.

  Then the mean man got sick—and he died on the table in the ER. The doctors were able to revive him, but afterwards, he told an incredible story of his near-death experience. The man said he found himself on a platform in the dark, fighting off demons—horrendous-looking creatures—and they were ripping him to pieces. This man recovered from his near death and never touched drugs or a drop of alcohol again. He became very religious and was grateful for what he considered his second chance. This certainly does give pause for thought. Fear is a great motivator. When nothing else worked to stop the addictions, the fear of these demons did. And apparently it was real enough to this man that it didn’t take a twelve-step program to stop the addictions in their tracks.

  There are many stories of people experiencing a negative afterlife, and this would certainly make an impression on most of us if it happened. I remember my psychic grandma reaching toward the sky before she died, as though toward something or someone only she could see. My dear uncle, Joyce’s dad, within days of his death and right before he lapsed into his final coma, asked Joyce and her mom if they could see that bright light up in the corner. Of course, no one but my uncle could see it—he was about to go into that light, and they were not.

  An acquaintance told me that his father, after being mute and unresponsive to people and stimuli for years with end-stage Alzheimer’s kept staring up at the ceiling on the last day of his life. His father was an atheist; he believed that when you died that was it. He was also an abusive, controlling, and violent disciplinarian, administering regular beatings to his youngest son, whom he seemed to single out. This treatment caused permanent lifelong psychological damage to the boy when he matured, leading him to become abusive himself. The entire family lived in fear of the father’s tirades. Eventually the Alzheimer’s softened the man’s personality somewhat, which helped his son to partially forgive his father for his past abuse.

  “Dad, what are you looking at?” the son asked his father. “Are you seeing God, and heaven?” His father turned his head to meet his son’s eyes, acknowledging him, as though to say “yes,” then went right back to staring intently above him. He hadn’t acknowledged his son, or anyone for that matter, for years, due to the disease taking away his ability to recognize them. But just hours later, the man was about to find out the greatest mystery of them all, and according to some religions, he would have to pay for his cruelty to his pitifully damaged son.

  [contents]

  Epilogue

  My neighbor Tammy met me out front for our evening walk. And she had a brand-new smartphone. She’d been waiting for it to be shipped and was excited to get it.

  “Look what I got on it,” she said. While Tammy had been telling me about her new phone the night before, I mentioned the free ghost-communicator app that some friends had on theirs. I was under the impression this app was for entertainment purposes only and that i
t didn’t do anything more than generate random words while occasionally showing a fake ghost blip on the little green radar screen. Most ghost hunters are pretty skeptical of these types of things. After all, how do you know it’s a real device? For instance, how does it work through a cell phone? There are just too many questions needing answers, and most of the answers can’t be proven. It is too unscientific, as my skeptical ghost hunter friend Brian of Massillon Ghost Hunters Society would say. But then again, psychic abilities are pretty unscientific too. They couldn’t fit into the scientific parameters most felt were necessary to be proven. Yet I had proven my own abilities to Brian many times over.

  Tammy held out her phone and showed me the radar screen of the ghost communicator. Always up for research at the spur of the moment, I asked her inside my house.

  I really didn’t expect much.

  Tammy told me the communicator app hadn’t been showing much of anything at her house, nor had it been reacting while she was out front waiting for me.

  We climbed my front steps and came into the front room of my house. I asked her how it worked, and Tammy showed me the screen, which had a fingerprint at the bottom left where you were supposed to place your index finger. I complied and began asking questions.

  “Is anybody there?” The random-word generator spelled out “Death.” We looked at each other, and Tammy’s eyebrows shot up. My husband, Ron, came into the room and joined us. “Can anyone hear me?” I continued. The word on the screen changed to “Penny”—my sister-

  in-law’s name. Then it changed again to “Dane,” my brother’s name. Then it spelled out “Brooke,” my sister’s name. Then “book.”