The Loveliest Dead

by Ray Garton

Kimberly said, “Yeah. Sure.” But she did not sound confident.

  “Now, at some point, I’m gonna need you both to put your fingertips on the planchette. Don’t press on it. I want you to barely touch it, understand? I want your fingertips more off it than on.” She turned to Kimberly again. “When you start writing, keep one hand on the planchette—can you do that, hon?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “When you feel the planchette move, don’t take your hands away,” Ada said.

  “I’m sorry,” Kimberly said, “but if that thing moves on its own, you two will have to figure out the writing problem yourselves.”

  Ada laughed, but it quickly turned into a series of coughs that required her to remove the cigarette from her lips for a moment.

  “Do you want me to turn the lights out, or pull the shades?” Jenna asked.

  “Oh, no,” Ada said. “That’s just in the movies. You get it dark in here, I can’t read what they’re trying to say. Now, first, we’re just gonna hold hands here around the board for a while, and we’re gonna close our eyes, and all we’re gonna think about is little Josh.” She reached out and took their hands. Jenna and Kimberly reached across the table and clasped hands behind the Ouija board. Ada lowered her voice near a whisper and spoke in the same gentle, almost reverent tone and with the same vaguely singsong cadence one might use when saying a familiar prayer. Her rough, cigarette voice softened. “We’re gonna think about little Josh’s spirit somewhere in this house, and we’re gonna call him to us and he’s gonna sense that, and eventually, he’ll respond. Just concentrate your thoughts on Josh right now, on his spirit...”

  Ada went on and on while Jenna tried to concentrate. It was difficult to do on top of dealing with the fact that she was actually doing this, and wondering what she would tell her mother if she were to walk in the room— or, even worse, what if David came home? That thought scrambled her mind like an egg and, for a moment, made her forget what she was supposed to be thinking about in the first place.

  This is a seance, Jenna thought. That’s what a sitting is, it’s a seance. I saw them do this on Geraldo one Halloween hack in the eighties. What am I doing here?

  She started listening to Ada, followed the singsong rhythms with her mind, and each time Ada said Josh’s name, Jenna felt a small pain deep in her chest. The seance seemed to melt away when the realization pierced her that she was trying to reach her dead son.

  That’s what you’re doing here, she thought.

  Mommy—

  “We’re just gonna keep thinking about Josh and focusing our thoughts and our energies together here, over this board, and we’re gonna draw him to us ...”

  Jenna had no idea how long Ada had been rambling on when something in the air changed, but it had been a while. The temperature in the living room dropped noticeably and the air became charged with electricity. Jenna opened her eyes and found Kimberly staring at her wide-eyed, lips pressed together so hard they’d gone white—she sensed it, too.

  “Okay,” Ada said as she let go of their hands, “someone is with us.”

  “Someone?” Jenna whispered. “You’re not sure if it’s Josh?”

  Ada peeled the filter tip from her lips and tapped the cigarette over the ashtray as she quietly said, “Remember what I said about this being a little like fishing? Now, put your fingertips lightly on the planchette, very lightly.” She put the cigarette back in her mouth and placed her fingertips on the planchette’s broad bottom edge.

  Jenna gingerly touched her fingertips to the planchette’s curved edge and suspended her hands above the board.

  Kimberly reached out with both hands—Jenna noticed that her fingers were trembling—but pulled them back before she touched the planchette. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t do it. I’ll write down the letters for you, but... I just can’t do it.”

  Jenna said, “It’s okay, don’t worry about it. Sure you want to stay for this?”

  Kimberly took a moment to think about it. “I’ll stay as long as I can, okay? That’s the best I can do. But I can’t put my hands on that thing.”

  “Don’t worry about it, honey,” Ada said, then turned to Jenna. “Now let’s not waste time. They’re here.”

  “They?” Jenna said.

  “They, him, whatever. You never know who’ll show up. Put your fingers on the planchette and keep concentrating on Josh, just think about Josh, keep your thoughts focused on Josh ...” Ada was speaking with that lulling cadence again.

  The planchette was cool beneath the pads of Jenna’s fingertips, and she stared at it awhile as she tried to keep thinking about Josh, then closed her eyes. Her thoughts were shattered when the planchette budged forward—the varnished surface moved smoothly beneath her fingertips. Jenna’s hands jerked reflexively away from the thin slice of wood when it moved, and she opened her eyes.

  “... keep our thoughts focused on Josh and your fingers on—” Ada opened her eyes. “Jenna, keep your fingers on the planchette, touch it lightly so it can move independent of your fingers. Don’t push it with your fingertips, follow it with them.”

  Jenna forced her hands back down, placed her fingertips lightly on the smooth, varnished surface.

  It budged forward again. This time, Jenna saw it move beneath her fingers and Ada’s. She moved her hands along with it as the planchette inched up past the U to stop with its pointed end on the H. Ada said the letter out loud.

  Kimberly sat frozen in her chair and stared open-mouthed at the planchette.

  Ada said, “Sweetheart, you’re gonna have to get these letters down, ‘cause I won’t be able to remember ‘em, okay? Now—H.”

  Eyes wide, Kimberly nodded, then wrote down the letter.

  The planchette moved to the left in tiny little budges and stopped at the E. The next letter was L.

  Hello, Jenna thought. My baby’s saying hello, he’s saying—

  The next letter was P.

  “Help,” Kimberly said.

  Ada’s cigarette bobbed as she looked vaguely upward and said, “How can we help you, dear? That’s what we’re here for, just tell us.”

  Jenna feared her heart would explode—-Josh needed help? How could she possibly help him? What good would all this do if she were only to learn he was in some kind of danger in a place where she could never reach him?

  Jenna leaned toward Ada. “Ask him what’s wrong. Why does he need help?”

  Ada said, “You ask him, honey, he’s right here with us.”

  Jenna looked over at Kimberly. The color had drained from her face. Her lower body was turned so her legs were at an angle, ready to shoot from the chair and run out of the room on short notice. Jenna sniffled, took a breath. “Josh, why do you need—”

  The planchette moved again, this time to the center of the board. Then it slowly made its way back to the P, over to the U. Ada called out the letters and Kimberly wrote them down, until she had two words on the page: HELP PUPPEEZ.

  “Puppies?” Ada muttered. “Do you have puppies?”

  Jenna shook her head. “We have no pets.”

  Mrs. Frangiapani had asked if Miles had a puppy.

  Jenna’s eyes widened slightly. He called me a puppy, Miles had said of the man in his nightmare.

  The planchette continued to move, but it hit the same letters three more times: HELP PUPPEEZ.

  “What about the puppies?” Ada said. “You’ll have to explain, because nobody here knows what you’re talking about.”

  The planchette started to move again, but stopped when another drop in temperature occurred and the room became cold. Something happened that made Jenna feel vaguely nauseated—the air itself seemed to darken. A few things happened all at once.

  One of the four lightbulbs in the overhead light went out with a pop and threw some sparks into the air, as did the bulb in the lamp on one of the sofa’s end tables. At the same instant, a force like a large fist slammed down on the table and made it quake so hard it nearly collapsed. Jenna and Ada pulled
away from the table. Kimberly scooted her chair backward as quickly as she could. The planchette cracked down the center and collapsed inward before being swept off the table. It missiled through the air straight for Kimberly and landed in her lap. Kimberly screamed and fell over backward in her chair.

  “You got a poltergeist,” Ada said as she stood.

  As suddenly as it had changed, the air was fine again, the temperature normal.

  “Jesus, oh Jesus,” Kimberly whispered to herself as she got to her feet and hurried away from the table. She stood in the entryway near the front door, arms folded beneath her breasts. Bending at the waist, she bobbed up and down slightly as she whispered repeatedly, “Demons. Demons.”

  Jenna stood and hurried to Kimberly’s side. “What did you say?”

  “Demons.”

  “I don’t understand. What demons?”

  “I was raised to believe you don’t go to Heaven when you die,” Kimberly said. “Seventh-Day Adventists believe that won’t happen until after the second coming of Christ, when the dead are all resurrected and everybody’s judged and either thrown into the Lake of Fire or taken up to Heaven with Jesus. Until then, the dead are just... dead.”

  “Then how do they explain the spirits?” Ada said.

  “They don’t believe there are any spirits—only demons posing as the spirits of dead loved ones.”

  Ada wrinkled her nose and curled her upper lip. “Huh? Why?”

  “It’s one of Satan’s most successful lies—that we live on after death, that we’re immortal apart from God. It’s a lie to trip us up and lead us away from the truth.”

  “Well,” Ada said as she picked the board up off the card table, “the truth here is, you got a poltergeist.”

  Jenna said, “I’m sorry, Kimberly, but it’s okay, everything’s okay, those bulbs going out—that’s our wiring, there’s something wrong with our wiring. I’m serious— I’ve got an electrician coming tomorrow morning to take a look at it. Everything’s fine.”

  Kimberly silently turned her head back and forth in disagreement as she calmed herself down.

  Ada carried the board to the couch and dropped it into the open suitcase. “I don’t do poltergeists.”

  “What’s a poltergeist?” Jenna asked.

  “A poltergeist is a spirit that could use a good ass-whooping, if you ask me. You got a teenager in the house? A girl?”

  “No, only our son. He’s ten. Why?”

  Shrugging, Ada said, “Poltergeist activity’s usually associated with adolescent girls, but not always. A boy of ten—who knows? But you got a poltergeist.” She took her notebook and pen from the card table, tossed them on top of the Ouija board, and closed and snapped the suitcase. “Poltergeists don’t wanna talk, they wanna piss you off, and I just don’t take any shit off ‘em anymore. Let somebody younger screw around with the little bastards.” She put on her coat, then stood with the suitcase at her side. She took what was left of her cigarette from her mouth and stubbed it out in the ashtray. “You can pay me now, and then I’d like to go home.”

  Jenna went to her and said, “I’m sorry about the planchette, Ada. I’ll be happy to pay for it if—”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, honey. That comes with the territory. How could you know you had a poltergeist?”

  “But... how do we get rid of it?”

  “That’s why poltergeists are such a pain in the ass. There’s not a whole lot you can do about ‘em. They eventually go away. They never stay for long, but they’re a real pain in the ass as long as they’re around. You can’t believe anything you see or hear in your own house as long as you got a poltergeist. It’s like having a tantrum running loose in the house. And like I said, I don’t do ‘em. And not only don’t I do ‘em, I don’t hang around in houses that have ‘em, so you can pay me outside in the bus.” Ada walked past Jenna, through the entryway, and out the front door.

  With Kimberly’s help, Jenna quickly put the table and chairs away and replaced the coffee table in the living room. Then they drove Ada home.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” Kimberly said on the way back from dropping Ada off in front of her trailer. In spite of the rain, they drove with the windows rolled down to get the smell of Ada’s cigarettes out of the SUV. As the woman had complained about everything under the sun, Jenna had watched Kimberly wiping tears from her eyes as she drove. Once Ada was gone, Jenna had waited for Kimberly to speak. “I’ve never believed in them,” she said. “That night I saw my grandma—I’m not sure what that was, but it wasn’t a ghost. She didn’t hang around and haunt me or anything. I don’t believe in them.”

  “Neither have I,” Jenna said. “Until now.”

  “Do you, now? Really? I mean ... just all of a sudden?”

  “I’m so sorry. I had no idea this would upset you so much.”

  Kimberly smiled, squeaked out a couple laughs. “Neither did I. I’m as surprised as you are. I haven’t thought about this stuff in ... well, in a lifetime. But seeing that board—and then when that planchette moved—I could tell neither of you was moving it, it was moving by itself—and that sudden crash—”

  “I know, that was scary, wasn’t it? All of this is kind of scary.”

  “Not only that, it might be ... I think it might even be dangerous.”

  “Dangerous? How?”

  “Well... just because Ada says you’ve got a poltergeist, or a ghost, or whatever, doesn’t mean she’s necessarily right. It could be ... well, something else. Maybe something harmful.”

  “I didn’t think you believed in that stuff anymore.”

  “I said I wasn’t a Seventh-Day Adventist anymore. But I had that stuff drilled into me from a very young age. I guess it’s hard to completely shake it. I’m sorry, Jenna, but that really shook me up. And it made me think. And all I’m saying is, you should think, too. I still think Mrs. Frangiapani was right—you should just leave this alone and focus your attention on your family.”

  “Ada says I have a poltergeist. You’re saying I have— what, an evil spirit? A demon? Which is it?”

  “I’m just saying you should think about it. You’re new at this, remember. You said you didn’t believe in anything before this. Well, some of us have had a little experience with beliefs, and I’m sure we’d all tell you the same thing—don’t put all your eggs in one dogma.”

  Jenna chuckled.

  “Hey,” Kimberly said, perking up a little, “maybe that just pushed some of my old buttons back there, I don’t know—seeing that Ouija board, and those lights going out like that...”

  “I was telling the truth, Kimberly. That’s happened a few times before in the house. An electrician is coming out in the morning to take a look at the wiring.”

  “Still, I saw that planchette move,” Kimberly said. “And I saw it get crushed by ... well, by nothing. I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life. The only way I know how to process it is through the filter of the religion I was raised with and trained in. So maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. But Ada’s opinion is just that—an opinion. I want you to promise me, Jenna, please, promise me you’ll at least keep an open mind. Maybe Ada’s right and you’ve got a poltergeist, or maybe something else moved through your living room today. Something dangerous.”

  Jenna turned her eyes front and stared out past the sweeping wipers at the road ahead. Something had hit that table nearly hard enough to make it fall apart. It had broken the planchette and swept it through the air. There was something in the house. But until that moment, she had not considered the possibility that her family might be in any danger from it. The thought tied her stomach in knots.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lily. Tuesday, 10:16 A.M.

  While Jenna and Kimberly were picking up Ada that morning, Lily Rourke sat at her kitchen table in Mt. Shasta, sipped coffee, and read through the information Claudia had found on the Internet about the Binghams. Lily found searching the Internet tedious and frustrating, but Claudia was
a wiz with her laptop. She had assembled a number of articles and links and e-mailed them to Lily. Along with that, Lily had skimmed through the books Claudia had brought her.

  The computer took up much of the small round table. There was a desk in the spare bedroom where she would’ve had more room, but Lily preferred working in here where she caught some sunlight and the coffeepot was close. A cup of hot coffee stood beside her keyboard, and beside that, one of the cheese Danishes Claudia had brought to work with her, half-eaten on a napkin. Claudia was working the register up front, but Lily hadn’t heard a sound so there had been no business yet.

  Since Saturday, Lily had learned more than she’d ever wanted to know about Arthur and Mavis Bingham. The problem was, she believed very little of it. It seemed the only people providing information about the Binghams were the Binghams themselves, or their students. Their “students” were anyone who had attended any of their many lectures at colleges and churches around the country, or had taken any of their classes in demonology, the dangers of witchcraft, the evil truth about the Ouija board, or half a dozen other subjects they taught at their Phoenix Society of Paranormal Research in Phoenix, Arizona.

  Arthur and Mavis had been born and raised in smalltown Wisconsin, where they were married in 1956. They left the cold winters behind six years later and moved to Phoenix, where they founded the society in 1962. Mavis was, according to their bio, a renowned clairvoyant whose abilities had been tested and well-documented at Arizona State University in Phoenix under the supervision of Dr. Melvin Roberts. That documentation, however, was not provided in any of the books or articles. Lily had made some phone calls to the university. An especially friendly and chatty woman in Records had told her that Dr. Roberts hadn’t been there since 1969, when his Parapsychology Department was discontinued after an embarassing scandal. One of the three female students Dr. Roberts had been sleeping with at the time had found out about the other two and, as revenge, had revealed to the university’s administration that Dr. Roberts had doctored the results of much of his research.