by J. M. Barlog
Dwight scribbled a series of questions on his pad.
Were any paranormal investigations performed to validate the boy's claims? How much more documentation is available relating to this particular case? What ever happened to the Lukenhan boy?
For now, Dwight decided to contact the London office of the International Society of Paranormal Phenomena for more data. Hopefully, they would have a complete file on this case even though it was over twenty-five years ago. If Dr. Grayworth were still living, he might be able to provide bits and pieces that could assist Dwight in his investigation.
As a result of a telephone call he made before leaving the university to return to the Garrett house, Dwight learned the psychiatrist treating the boy died in the late seventies, but he had written a follow-up paper on that particular case. The center supervisor promised a complete package would be forwarded to Dwight within the next few days.
Dwight was elated—until he got into his Voyager and it wouldn't crank. Wishing to avoid losing a whole night at the Garrett house, he had the van towed and borrowed a colleague's car.
He wrestled with the information he had learned and on the drive to New Brighton, decided to withhold what he had learned until he knew more. After all, there was little data to indicate the Doppelgänger really existed in that London case documented back in 1967.
****
Jenny picked at her dinner, complaining to Warren that even though she had slept during the afternoon, she still felt exhausted.
Warren had hoped to get Jenny downstairs into the sitting room for awhile, just to offer her a change of scenery and give him a chance to relax in his favorite chair.
Television bored Jenny, so she clicked it off early and closed her eyes.
Warren used the opportunity to sneak back to his den to check on the trading day in Tokyo, then go out for some fresh air.
In minutes, Jenny fell asleep.
Like water leaking in somewhere, the voices rose out of the depths to torment her.
...get the pressure... we're...
adrenalin... the needle... hurry...
Jenny's heart raced out of control. She felt herself being pulled under, unable to breathe. Something was sucking her down an endless chasm. She snapped up in the bed.
“No,” she screamed, her face stripped of life, her lungs gasping for a final, living breath.
Dwight's head popped up from behind his instruments. He rushed to the bed, cradling Jenny in his arms without thinking.
Her cold skin was soaked in sweat.
“You okay?” he asked, pressing her against him in an effort to calm her trembling body. Pulling her closer he sought to keep her warm and safe.
“Oh God...”
“Jenny, it's okay. I'm here.”
“Dwight?”
“Yes. Take it easy, Jenny. Everything is okay.”
Jenny's breathing slowed along with her heart. She wiped away the sweat and covered her face with her hands.
“Where's Warren?”
“Out. You were asleep. He figured it would be okay as long as I was here.”
Jenny closed her eyes and swallowed hard, wanting nothing more than the peace she had known in her life prior to the accident. This torment was slowly, torturously tearing her to pieces. How much longer could she withstand this?
“You want some water or something?”
Dwight released Jenny, albeit reluctantly, once her trembling had subsided. She felt so good against him that he wished he could hold onto her forever. He couldn’t remember the last time he held a woman so closely. It was wrong—he knew that—yet he wanted her. He wanted to be intimately close to her. When her body was against his, he could feel her heart beating. Could she feel his heart racing at their touch?
“Was it... the ghost?” he asked.
“No. Not the ghost. There are voices in my head, screaming in desperation. I can't force them out; I can't get rid of them.”
“What do they say?”
Jenny repeated the words as she remembered them and told Dwight she thought one of the voices was the doctor who had performed the surgery on her.
“Are you sure?”
“I'm sure.”
“It sounds...like you might have somehow...I don't know how it could be possible...could you be recalling things said in the operating room?”
Dwight was talking more to himself than to Jenny. He had heard of cases where patients under the knife regained some level of consciousness prematurely and were able to actually feel the surgeon working on their insides. But the effects of the anesthesia were still sufficiently potent enough to prevent them from moving or making any sound. The very thought made Dwight shudder.
Just then, a needle on one of his instruments started scratching back and forth. Dwight and Jenny looked first at the bedroom door, then to the instruments and monitors in the corner.
Mr. Chips lifted his head from his place on the floor, but did nothing more than sample the air with his snout and return to his shallow sleep. Dwight tried to read into the dog’s actions.
Turning back to Jenny, Dwight could see the tremors of terror rising up through her body. He shifted his gaze to his video monitors, which showed a deserted hall and staircase.
Jenny clung to his hand, refusing to release it despite the fact that Dwight rose to return to his monitors.
“It's okay. I'll be right here.”
“But...”
Dwight left the bed and returned to his collection of sophisticated gadgetry. His heart was surging. His eyes swept from instrument to instrument trying to catch everything, yet still hide his brimming excitement.
“I'm getting a reading from the den,” Dwight said as his hands moved across the knobs and switches on his monitors and recording instruments.
“Warren?”
“No. We would have heard Warren long before he got to the den. The hall sensors would have picked him up.”
When Dwight lifted his eyes away from his instruments he saw Jenny clutching her blanket with balled fists. Her eyes never left the open bedroom door.
Stay cool, calm, and clinical, Dwight thought to himself.
A second later his excitement evaporated.
“False alarm. I ran a calibration check on the sensors. The den sensor isn't reading properly. Just a bum sensor. I need to replace it. Will you be okay?”
“S-sure...it's just a b-bad s-sensor.”
Dwight flicked the overhead light on and pushed Jenny's bedroom door wide open before going down the hall.
The den was quiet and dark, just as Warren had left it before departing the house. Dwight took the handle and eased the door open. A foreboding chill swam under his skin. The handle was cold to the touch. Without further effort from Dwight, the door continued its arc until it banged against the wall. Something wormed its way deep inside Dwight. The den had taken on a different air from when he had planted the sensors in there earlier.
He quickly slapped on the light switch. The room appeared undisturbed.
Across the expanse of a cluttered desk, situated below a window so Warren could look out without having to leave his chair, the blank screen of a quiescent computer reflected his faint image. On a side wall, just inside the room, newspapers and books had been stacked on a long trestle table.
Warren put neatness low on his list of priorities. Above the table, the sword Excalibur gleamed. Flanking the blade on either side were two armor chest plates.
“A knight in shining armor,” Dwight muttered aloud. He wondered if that’s how Warren viewed himself. Or was that how Jenny saw him?
Dwight crossed to the desk and scanned for anything that might have triggered the sensor. Nothing. No papers had toppled from the desk to the floor. No teetering pencil had rolled off as a result of vibrations from a passing truck outside. Not one thing rose up to plead guilty for tripping the sensor. Therefore, the sensor must have just failed.
Even the night air was ominously still beyond the window; so still that no branches scraping the glass cou
ld have triggered his instrument.
For a long moment, Dwight stared out the window at the night. The shrubbery below sat like black boulders in the inky murk. During that time, Dwight thought about nothing.
“Dwight?” Jenny called out.
“Everything's all right. I'll just need another sensor from my van...”
Then Dwight realized his van was right now sitting in a mechanic's garage. He had no spare sensors on hand with which to replace the faulty one.
Dwight turned to leave, but when he did, he caught something out the corner of his eye on the long table. He went over to check it out. Setting both hands on the table, palms flat, he stared at a magazine page. The model in the picture was the same gorgeous woman he had seen at the Garrett house a few days ago.
Dwight whistled softly, his eyes lingering on the sleek curves of Bridget's body in a full-length black leotard. Her perfect roundness stole every ounce of his attention.
Suddenly, the sword sliced down, stabbing into the soft flap of skin between Dwight's thumb and index finger.
Dwight screamed as blood gushed from the wound.
The force was so great that the point stuck into the table and the blade quivered back and forth.
Dwight's scream spiked terror in Jenny. She fumbled her way out of bed and dashed from the bedroom a step behind Mr. Chips.
Dwight locked his jaw while he worked his bloody hand out from beneath the sword. He stared at the glistening blade while fumbling with his handkerchief to wrap the wound and stanch the bleeding.
Jenny hobbled to the den doorway, supporting herself with a hand on the frame of the door.
“What happened?”
“Nothing Jenny, it's all right.”
“You're bleeding...”
When Dwight stepped toward her, she saw the sword sticking in the wood.
“What happened?”
“It's nothing, really. I was just reaching for the sword to get a closer look. It fell from its mounting and nicked me. Nothing to worry about. I just need to get a compress to stop the bleeding.”
The uncertainty in Dwight's eyes and a discernible weakness in his voice caused Jenny to question the integrity of his explanation.
“Come on, Jenny, let's get you back to bed now.”
Dwight tightened the handkerchief around the gash and then slid his good hand under Jenny's elbow to help her back into her bed.
“I'll change the sensor tomorrow.”
Jenny looked back into the den expecting to see more than just the sword stuck in the table.
On their departure, Dwight scanned the den once more. Then he made sure he closed the door tightly.
21
With the morning came Warren’s insistence that Jenny and he leave the house so she could convalesce upstate while Dwight remained behind to monitor his equipment and do his 'ghost hunting' in the house. Neither Jenny nor Warren put much stock in Dwight's story about the sword incident. The tip of the blade had buried itself a good inch into the oak tabletop. Warren had to yank hard to pull it free. It would have taken more than just the force of a two-foot fall to stick so deeply in the surface.
Jenny resolved that Dwight had avoided the truth about what really happened. Her ghost had caused the sword to come down into his hand. The spirit was leveling a warning to Dwight.
Warren was also certain Dwight was avoiding the truth. He hypothesized that Dwight, himself, stuck the sword into the table and intentionally cut his hand to keep Jenny from losing interest in her haunting. The guy was nothing more than a charlatan using his gadgets to suck money from them. The shit was going to be damned surprised when he found out there was none.
“You don't understand,” Dwight said to Warren when he refused to budge. They were in the kitchen out of range of Jenny. Dwight actually had to take hold of Warren’s arm to get him to come about and listen.
“We're leaving,” Warren said with finality, jerking his arm free.
“Listen, goddamnit, this spirit is linked to Jenny. That's why it appeared in the hospital and in your home. You can't just go to a motel and think the ghost won't be able to find you.”
“I listened to about as much of your psycho mumbo-jumbo as I'm going to.”
“I need you here, Jenny,” Dwight said. Jenny appeared in the doorway, having descended the stairs by herself while the two argued.
Warren, it seemed, had completely tuned him out.
“For whatever reason, this ghost is tied to you. It is an apparition of yourself. Not only do I doubt that we can be successful if you leave here, but I believe that there’s no way you can escape this thing.”
“This is absolutely crazy,” Warren muttered. “My wife's seeing a ghost of herself, and you're telling me that it's going to follow us wherever we go.”
“No. It’s going to follow her. This phenomena isn't something that's been dealt with before. We’re dealing with something uncharted.”
“I can't believe I'm even listening to this,” Warren snapped more to himself than to Dwight.
Jenny stood there, torn between the two men in her kitchen. Warren was obviously losing patience with her. She saw it in his eyes, and felt it in his voice. And Dwight seemed more concerned about his work than her safety.
“Please, Warren, just listen for a minute. I've investigated a number of cases where people believe they're seeing ghosts, but I've never been involved in a case where the ghost of a living person is appearing before them. You see, if a ghost is a manifestation of death, then how can Jenny's ghost haunt her while she's still alive? It’s a psychic paradox. It's a contradiction to say that the ghost of a person can exist while that person is still alive. At least to our conventional way of thinking.”
“Conventional way of thinking? This whole exchange is ludicrous. Now Jenny must remain here while you play with your electronic Tinker Toys, hoping to prove she's not hallucinating.”
“It's just until I've had a chance to monitor the environment when she's having a visitation. I'm hoping we'll pick up something that can be used to substantiate her claim.”
“Or her hallucination,” Warren said.
“If you wish.”
Warren left the room and the conversation. He aided Jenny back to her bed, seeing the turmoil in her eyes that their heated exchange had brought on. If Jenny wanted to remain, then they would remain.
Dwight spent the next two nights curled up in a sleeping bag on the floor of Jenny's bedroom. For his effort, he had a stiff neck, aching back and headaches that felt like mini-nuclear explosions inside his skull. Nevertheless, his first duty upon opening his eyes was to check his instruments and hope something had gone his way for a change.
One of his instruments, the one with a needle writing to a circular disk, constantly sampled the air temperature in various sectors of the room. Another recorded to magnetic tape the magnetic fields on the entire second floor and could capture the slightest deviation from the initial settings gained during Dwight's first survey.
A third instrument with a round cathode tube that looked like a mini-television tube monitored for infrared radiation and recorded its findings onto a video recording machine set on Jenny's bureau. It had a playback capability that would allow them to view over and over anything they might pick up in the bedroom or hall.
The wires strung about rekindled painful memories of Jenny’s weeks in the hospital, of the endless hours lying in that bed staring at nothing. But she had been glad to be alive. Now she questioned whether she really was glad to be alive.
With a flood of effervescent warmth from the morning's light, Warren served Jenny a breakfast of waffles with jam, and on his return to the kitchen, found a sleepy Dwight sitting at the table over a cup of coffee.
“I hope you don't mind,” Dwight said, indicating the coffee.
“There's a McDonald's three miles down Bunker Road if you're hungry.”
“Oh. I didn't think you'd mind...”
“Mind? Why should I mind? You've filled our bedroom
with electronic eaves-dropping gadgets, which probably overloaded the electrical circuits up there, and you're sleeping closer to my wife than I am. Why should I mind?”
“I understand how you feel.”
“Do you? Let me ask you something. And shoot straight from the hip.”
“Okay.”
“Do you really believe in this paranormal bullshit you're shoveling around?”
“You know, nobody believes in ghosts until they've seen one. Those that have—I mean those that have really encountered an image that defies all our natural laws—believe. The question is: Do you believe in your wife?”
Warren swallowed a sudden rush of guilt at the force of Dwight's question. It forced him to pause and look deeper into himself than he had for many months. The moment of silence lingered between the two. Warren sensed Dwight had not just delivered a rhetorical question.
“Have you ever seen one?” Warren countered.
“No.”
“But you believe they exist?”
“Yes. I even once got readings on my equipment that pointed to the notion that something beyond what we can explain...”
“Let's just make sure you understand one thing, Bud. There is no way you are ever going to get a dime out of this. I’ll put an end to it the first time you open your mouth—or your hand—for anything but a thank you.”
Dwight returned to his coffee, staring for a long time at the dark reflection of two eyes.
Warren busied himself with the mess from breakfast.
“Let me ask you something else. Let's say for some cosmic reason you're right. Jenny is being terrorized by this ghost. What can you do to help her? I mean really help her?”
“Nothing...I don't know if anyone can help...” Dwight answered with deep resignation.
Jenny's scream ripped through the air from above.
Dwight was out of his chair and up the stairs; Warren was a step behind.
“What happened?”
“She was here. She came through there. She looked at me.”
Warren was at Jenny's side while Dwight scanned his machines. Warren looked to Dwight with genuine concern. Jenny's body was trembling out of control in his arms.