“Mr. LaChance, you do not know me, but I know everything there is to know about you.” The statement caught me off-guard and I had no idea where this was going. My first thought was that this could be the person who had been leaving me the little notes.
“Yes?” I asked. It has been my experience that you are going to find out a whole lot more by just being quiet and listening. Most of the time, people do not stop to listen and miss something important that was said. The one-word question is always the best way to go. Then you just sit back and listen.
“I am not going to tell you my name, because that is something you do not need to know. What I will tell you is that I know a whole lot about you and what is going on in your life. Things you have no clue about are at work around you, and you need to hear what I am saying and take it to heart. Because if you don’t, your family is going to get hurt.” Two words struck a chord within me and I was fighting the urge to lose my cool with this caller, but instead I just answered, “I am listening.”
His voice was serious and he sounded concerned as he continued with the call. “Mr. LaChance, I am dying. It does not matter to me if you listen or not. I have cancer and it is slowly eating away at me, but before I go, I want to right at least one of the wrongs I have participated in.” When he said he had cancer, that is when I noticed his breathing was labored and his voice was weak. “You are on a path of destruction and you have no clue. Right now, all of your phone calls are being taped.” That got my attention because I had noticed a strange clicking recently whenever I had been on the phone. “This call is being listened to as well. I can guarantee you that. They know where you are going, and they know exactly when you will be back or are coming home.” This was starting to sound a little too much like the “men in black” for me.
“Who is watching me?’ I asked, with a little bit of disbelief in my voice.
“The point I am making to you is that who is watching you is not of consequence, but it is what they want from you that is.” He began to cough heavily into the phone. I could hear a wheeze as he continued. “They want you to stop what you are doing. They want you to forget about the house and your experiences there and move on with your life, keeping your mouth shut. You are being followed and watched constantly, and with malice. You have no idea what you have stepped into here. These are not the type of people you want to make angry with you. They have enough resources to wipe you off the map without a second thought.” I noticed my hand holding the receiver had begun to shake.
“If you expect me to believe you, then you are going to need to tell me who they are.” There was a deep pause and then a breath before he continued.
“If I tell you who, then you are already dead. You might be dead already and this is not going to help you at all. But you need to listen. They have tried to stop you, and you keep on going. When they tried to hide information from you, you would just take another avenue to try to find it. They have tried to stop you, and you just will not stop. There are some things in this life that are better left alone, and this is one of them.” He coughed again, and it was clear he was getting worked up.
“Let me tell you a story of a captain who sold his soul. He did this because he was heartbroken over the death of his wife. The wife he had killed––along with a baby. Some would say Voodoo was involved. Some will tell you it was black magic. I am going to tell you the truth. It was far worse than anything you could imagine. The angels fell from heaven, Mr. LaChance, and some people have found it to their benefit to worship the fallen, instead of God. You might want to call it a cult. Many have died through the years by threatening their way of living. Money and power is a great motivator in the dirty actions of men who have it and do not want to lose it. You, Mr. LaChance, are in the way. When someone or something gets in the way, they are either moved or they are eliminated. You, Mr. LaChance, are in danger of elimination because you will not let it go. I have no care for myself. I am already dying. If they come for me, it might be a blessing to end my life now. But you have everything to live for and you are pissing them off.”
I took a deep breath and sighed. Something in my gut told me he was telling me the truth, but my stubbornness was getting in the way. “Tell me something to convince me they are watching me?” I asked.
“What were you doing, sitting on the porch recently in the middle of the night, into the morning hours?”
I shot back instantly without thought. “Anyone could have seen me. Even you could have. You are going to have to do better than that,” I said defiantly. He was clearly getting agitated with me.
“The police refused to help you with your little problem. You are pretty much on your own with that one, aren’t you? Little presents getting in the way?”
I grabbed the phone tighter. My knuckles were white. “Are those from you?” I asked.
“Don’t be a fool. Of course they are not from me. I am a dying man and have no energy to stalk you or your family, but someone out there does, and I think you are not going to like him very much. You need to stop now.” His voice went from stern to relaxed, in a matter of moments. “I have said all I have to say to you. I have nothing else. You are either going to listen to me, or you are going to regret it.”
I had to ask, “The person leaving me presents. He is one of them?” The voice began to chuckle.
“No, he is not one of them. He is just some rogue, messing with you on his own. They already know who he is, and believe me when I say this, he is not part of them. They will not play childish games with you like that. When they come for blood, you will not even see them coming. You, my friend, have some serious problems on your hands. You need to listen to what I am telling you, or those problems can and will blow up in your face, and they will take out innocent people in the explosion. Could be someone you know has already met up with them and it was too late. Could it have been on purpose, or were there supernatural forces at work? Doesn’t matter really; the end result was still the same. Blue in the dirt is a horrible way to go. That was a calling card, and you did not get it. The supernatural is real. You know this more than most people walking around. You know what the supernatural can do, but still you ignore it. I don’t want to see you end up a suicide, Mr. LaChance. Do you understand?”
He had made his point. He had given me the proof because no one knew where Tommy got the lethal dose of heroin. The police didn’t seem to care. Even if they did consider him some type of derelict young man, it did seem odd that they didn’t try harder to find the person or persons who gave him the deadly injection, which would kill him in the end. They just did not seem to care.
“Yes, I understand,” I said, and the caller hung up. I quickly looked at the caller ID to see if I could get a number, but it said UNKNOWN. Then, in the silence of the room, once again in my life, I began to rationalize the irrational. In the end, I would decide he was lying, or he was the person leaving me the notes. He had read about Tommy in the newspaper. It would be later when I would fully understand he was telling me the truth.
[contents]
Chapter 17
October 2006
Storms clouds surrounded me. In the distance I could hear the boom of thunder. The clouds in front of me were rolling and illuminated by the occasional flash of lightning. The air was heavy and cold as the wind began to blow around me. A storm was coming.
I was kneeling in a meadow. I was crying. The grass around me was whipping faster and faster with the blitzkrieg of the wind. The clouds were now overhead as the lightning began to hit the ground. Their strobes made the surrounding grass flicker even more in the cold, increasing wind as the booming of thunder hid my whimpering in the grass.
Ahead of me was a hooded figure in white. Shrouded in white from head to toe, the figure had its back turned to me and was screaming at the sky. Hands outstretched toward the oncoming clouds and heaven, with the lightning now coming down just ahead, smashing to the ground. In my mind,
there was a feeling of recognition inside me, which told me to get to my feet and head toward the figure in white. Was this Armageddon? Did Jesus stand before me, facing the oncoming storm? The oncoming clouds were in front of me now. I began to struggle to my feet. The wind was fierce now and I began to run toward the figure in white, while the lightning crashed to the ground around. Closer and closer I got to the figure in white; the figure was screaming something I could not understand to the sky. “ lç lah µyçpyfh, Liées h[r yl ryb[hl,” the figure kept screaming to the skies over and over again. Could it be Arabic or Hebrew I was hearing? “ µyçpyfh lç lah, Liées h[r yl ryb[hl,” the figure continued screaming over and over again.
My mind was telling me that I needed to get to Jesus. I had to touch him and talk to him. I ran faster and faster until I stopped directly behind the hooded, shouting figure. “Jesus?” I shouted through the deafening sound of the storm. The ground was now rumbling beneath my feet. “Jesus, is that you?” I asked.
The figure slowly lowered its hands and spoke in a language I could understand, with a deep chuckle, “No, I am not your Jesus.” The voice seemed low and almost morbid.
“Then who are you?” The figure slowly turned around as I spoke.
“I am one of the forsaken, just like you.” The figure faced me and began to pull away his hood.
“Jesus did not die for my sins.” He began to drop the robe from around his body to reveal black bleeding stumps where wings once were. “Your Jesus left you alone a long time ago, you fucking fool.”
I woke up with my heart beating out of my chest. I lay there for quite some time, and I tried to calm myself down. The damn nightmares had begun to come more often and become more bizarre. The sun was shining through the windows and I needed to get up to start the day. Today was the day of the A Haunting premiere.
I stepped into the shower with the hot water beating on my back. It was awfully quiet in the house. I must have slept while the kids left for school. I was a little irritated that they didn’t wake me up before they left. It was kind of an unspoken rule, between all of us, that we never left without saying goodbye to each other. I turned and let the hot water run over the top of my head. The water felt great as it ran off my head and down my back. I was thinking about the evening that was ahead. It almost seemed like a lifetime since we had filmed for the show A Haunting, and tonight we were going to get to see the end result.
I was feeling a bit of anxiety about the whole thing, because my life was getting ready to go out to millions of people. I was trying to weigh the possibilities of how people were going to react. The show was hugely popular at that time, so there was no chance that people would overlook it. They were going to see it. People in the town of Union were going to see it. I think that what worried me most was the local reaction. You know, the people you see in the grocery store, the gas station, and church. Those are the people who mattered. I was getting ready to tell the town of Union that it was haunted, in a very public way.
I heard commotion near the bathroom door, and then the sound of it opening. My first thought was that Matthew had stayed home from school. “You had better have a damn good reason for why you did not go to school today,” I said, sounding a little more than irritated. There was no answer in reply. “Did you hear me?” I asked, as I turned off the water and reached for my towel. Still no answer, but instead the footsteps moved closer to the shower. “I am not kidding. Answer me,” I said, but still no answer, as the footsteps stopped right outside the shower. I could hear heavy breathing. I quickly wrapped the towel around my waist. The only thing separating me from the intruder was the shower curtain that hung in between us. As I watched the curtain in fear, I noticed that it started to morph its shape. I could have sworn it was coming toward me. Nervously, I backed up against the wall of the shower. Once my eyes adjusted, I noticed what looked like two hands pushing through the vinyl drape. I remained silent because I knew, at this point, it was not one of my children. Reaching deeper into my comfort zone, the hands pressed on. Suddenly the outline of a face appeared and then I heard a deep inhale of breath. The curtain was sucked into the mouth of this unknown visitor. I reached for the curtain, drawing it back quickly, as I prepared for a fight.
No one was there. The bathroom door, which I had heard open, was closed. I ran for the door and flung it open. I ran down the hall, searching all the rooms, but I was alone. There was no one in the house. It was clear to me, at that moment, that whoever had been in the bathroom with me was not of the living.
I dressed hurriedly and left the house for a place with people around. I felt the need, at that point, to be among the living. And to tell you the truth, that moment had scared the hell out of me. I had to calm myself down. I found myself sitting in the White Rose Café, looking around at all of the people and, once again, I was wishing I was living a life like them, without a supernatural clue. I was resenting feeling the isolation and aloneness I was feeling at the moment. But I felt safe and that was what mattered.
That evening finally came. October 6, 2006, eight o’clock, Central Standard Time, was when A Haunting premiered “Fear House” on the Discovery Channel. Things leading up to that premiere had been a blur. I had been doing upwards of four interviews a day. It was a hard time for me. I found myself reliving the nightmare, over and over again, with every interview. It was harder on me than I thought it was going to be. Nothing could have prepared me for the onslaught of publicity leading up to the show, and the overwhelming response that was to come after. Life for us was changing very quickly. We were still getting the usual calling cards from our stalker. The boys found it funny that every time we turned around, there was a new sex toy with a note to throw away. It was kind of funny when you think about it. This guy must have been spending a fortune on dildos, because we would find at least one a week, all of them wrapped in the usual “coming to get you” note. The absurdity of the whole thing seemed to lessen the fear, but at this point it was just one more dildo to hit the can. I had to wonder what our trash men thought when they would empty our cans. And then, on the other hand, I would not want to think about it at all. Life was changing.
We went to my parents’ house to watch the show on the night it premiered. It was a very surreal moment to sit there and watch your life as it played out on the screen with someone pretending to be you. The show had its high points and low points. The low ones I just wanted to forget. I remembered the exact moment when the demonic clown came on the screen for the first time. I looked at Matthew and said to him, “Oh boy, you have done it now.” I was elbowing him in the ribs and we both laughed. It was good to see him laugh about it. Years later, he would describe the clown as having no eyes. Just eye sockets where the eyes should have been. How do you deal with something so horrible? I often wondered why the specter chose that particular way to play its evil game with him. For years, I found myself uncomfortable talking about the clown. John Zaffis had explained to me that it actually was more common than you would think. To understand this notion, you have to put yourself into the shoes of a child again. Once you do that, it becomes crystal clear why it chose the clown.
The high points left me wondering why they chose that particular moment to portray. The depiction of my dad as an old man, with white hair, got a laugh from the whole family and my mother quickly piped in, “If they decide to show me as some white-haired old lady, I am going to beat you.” She was looking directly at me and we all laughed some more, but there was a moment of fear when I had the thought they might just do it. Although it was a joke, there was part of me that felt responsible for how my family was portrayed. I wanted the show to reveal how close we all were. How if one of us had a problem, we all had that problem, until it was solved. I wanted the show to portray how loving my parents were and, at that moment, how young and vibrant they were, as well. But instead, the show characterized my father as an old, white-haired man worried about a fuse box.
Don’t get
me wrong. I think they did an excellent job of telling the story, in 48 minutes, for a general audience. I had to commend them on how they transformed what was a very R-rated story for a family who was sitting down in their living room for a night of television. But it left me feeling as if our lives had just gotten a whitewash. Much of the story went untold. It left me with mixed feelings.
The kids were excited when the show was over. They had just been on television. For a kid, that was a huge deal. Later, Matthew would tell me he was a superstar at school because of the show and later, when we toured on a national level, it solidified his status. That was a big relief for me, because in the back of my mind I always worried the outcome would be different, causing them to be outcasts among their peers. Michael was never too thrilled with the show. He was not part of it because he was never really comfortable enough to tell his version of events. To this day, I do not discuss Michael and his experiences with anyone because of that reason. What happened to him is his to choose to handle anyway he wants to. The attention and questions that came after the show bothered him a lot. I was told that when he was asked about it, he would tell the questioner to ask his brother or sister. I always felt a little guilty about that. I wish I could have made it go away for him. I wish I could have done so for all of us.
It was fairly late for a school night when we got home. The kids jumped out of the van and ran for the door as soon as I parked. We were laughing and joking around on the way to the front door. Sitting on the porch, waiting for us, was another package that I simply picked up and threw into the trash can, without letting it break into the good night we were having. It was as if it wasn’t even there. We went into the house, where we began our nightly routines. Settling into the normal routine that night, after the premiere, took some doing on all of our parts. The kids seemed overly hyper, and Michael had waited until the last minute to tell me he had an English research paper due the next day. In true Michael fashion, he had known about this paper for over a month. Now, pulling a topic out of your ass for a research paper after a long day is not always the easiest thing to do, but when last-minute duty calls, you have no choice but to do just that. I sat on the couch thinking, with Michael constantly questioning me, “Did you come up with something yet?” I was trying my best to come up with some sort of topic that we could write about together quickly, without too much trouble. I looked over at the TV stand and inspiration hit when I saw the DVD case sitting there for Oliver Stone’s JFK. A perfect topic: “The Assassination of a President.”
Blessed Are the Wicked Page 15