“But we weren’t. We weren’t killed.” I grinned heartily, twirling the red leaf I had yet to let go of. Phillip gaped at me as if I were from Mars. He then rested against his dilapidated car, lowering his head.
It was ironic. I had credited Phillip for keeping my dreams to a minimum. Yet there we were, our lives saved by one. I was quite proud of myself. The dream had tipped me off to the crash, and combining the information I had gleaned with my spacecraft piloting skills, I had found a way to outsmart evil—and save Phillip.
Shouts came from above as several first responders began to slide their way down the steep hill to assess our lives. “Hello! Help is on the way!”
32
Rejecting the Null
Even though Phillip wasn’t yet back from his night class, his mom let me into his bedroom to wait for him. I was flipping through his biology book when Ginger burst into the room clutching a folder. “I thought I’d find you here,” she said, nearly out of breath. She beamed with an equal measure of excitement and intensity. “I’ve found it,” she declared. Without warning, she slapped down a photocopy of Thomas Gouldman’s obituary, as well as a brief accompanying article. And suddenly Thomas was real. At least as real as he could get in grainy black and white. His photo was of a young man with moppy hair and an endearing snaggletoothed smile.
After several weeks of not hearing from him, Ginger and I had agreed there was little possibility Thomas was still hovering about in the Ruthsford Cemetery. Although our plan was to collect more data, clearly he had chosen to transition. Reluctantly, we had no choice but to conclude our study. The time had come to factually confirm whether or not the bits and pieces we had learned about Thomas through our voice recordings matched the circumstances of his death in any way.
The headline of the article read, Local Student Killed in Fiery Crash. That alone was a direct hit. Not only did it in fact “happen in the car” as Thomas had told us. But his demise also involved fire.
“We did it,” I said, satisfied. “The voice on the tape really is Thomas. Has to be.”
“Yes. Yes. I think we’re safe to reject the null and accept our hypothesis.” I had no idea what she was talking about, but I assumed rejecting the null had to be a good thing.
“But there’s more to it than that. Listen to this,” she said and began to read from the article.
Gouldman was a junior at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He had been driving back from the eastern part of the state to visit family in the suburbs of Lanford.
Police report Gouldman attempted to avoid an oncoming car when his vehicle slid off the road and was propelled into a heavily wooded area. The vehicle struck a tree before falling down a steep gorge. Investigators speculate Gouldman became unconscious either upon impact with the tree or due to smoke inhalation, which would have made it impossible to escape the flames.
Several residents who live near the crash site were critical of the city for not installing a traffic light at the intersection. Records confirm dozens of accidents per year have taken place at Evergreen Road and Monroe Avenue since the thoroughfares were connected during a road commission project in 1981.
“Did you hear that? Evergreen and Monroe! That’s the same intersection where you and Phillip were almost killed. Just think about it. If Phillip’s car hadn’t wedged between those branches the way it did, the same thing could’ve happened to the both of you.”
“Is that what he told you?” I fumed. “That we were stuck in branches?”
“How else could you have survived? It’s amazing, really. Must be kismet.”
“Kismet?”
“Fate. Destiny. There’s no other way to explain a coincidence like that. All this time we were talking to Thomas, and his fate was so close to what yours could’ve been.”
“Yeah. That’s wild,” I agreed. But in that moment, I was less enthralled with all the kismet swirling about. I couldn’t get past the fact that Phillip had thought branches were what was holding us above the canyon—when we were clearly hovering in the craft.
“Even though Thomas is gone, we should keep listening for other voices,” I suggested.
She tapped her index finger on her lip. “You’re right. If this were a real study, one case wouldn’t be enough. We’d need more subjects. But the Ruthsford Cemetery is pretty small. The odds of capturing more voices there is probably pretty low. If we really wanted to continue, we’d need to expand. Go to other cemeteries. Bigger cemeteries.”
“Everett told me about this huge cemetery up north. Grand Hallow. He said it’s the size of a city.”
“That’s perfect. We’d need better equipment. A professional recorder. And microphones with filters on them so we’re not recording so much wind.”
Talking about the next phase of our research got me excited. Yet when Phillip came home and we ran the plans by him—he promptly dumped a bucket of ice water over them. “Uh. C’mon, guys. Let’s give the voices from the other side a rest for a while,” he groaned.
33
Space Junk
“You’re floating,” he said. I looked to the floor in case he meant literally. But my shoes remained on the carpet. When I lifted my head, I didn’t meet his eyes. Instead, I focused on his mouth and short goatee. Out of the corner of my eye, I kept track of the large orange-and-white fish swimming circles in the aquarium. “In space,” he clarified. “You have no gravity. No balance. No direction. Your course is dependent upon what objects you happen to hit. You hit something . . .” He slapped his hands together to provide me a visual and then quickly separated them. “And then you’re off spinning in another direction. You’re like a wayward piece of space junk. Bombarded by random objects. Allowing gravity to take you where it may. You’re reactive. Not proactively steering your own path.”
Dr. Griffin was young for a psychiatrist. Maybe in his late twenties or early thirties. Actually, he wasn’t a psychiatrist. He was a psychologist. I wasn’t really sure of the difference except he told me he wouldn’t be able to prescribe medications should I need them.
“You’re making your way through,” he continued. “You’re functioning. But you’re on autopilot. You’re not in control. You’re not an active participant in your own life.” He stopped for a moment to chew on his nails, which were nothing more than stubs. I let out a muted chuckle, wondering how seriously I should be taking advice from someone who was supposed to be an example of mental stability yet was an obsessive nail-biter. “Ayden, does that make sense? Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“Do you agree with that assessment? If it’s not an accurate representation, then let me know. You know yourself better than I do.”
“No. I mean, yes. I do agree with that assessment.”
“OK then. So what are you going to do about it?”
I turned my attention to the aquarium. Each time I looked to the tank, I attempted to will the orange-and-white fish away from the coral at the bottom. It looked real, and I was afraid he’d rip one of his fins should he brush against it. “You mean how do I stop being space junk?” I asked.
“Yes, if you’re not offended by that analogy.”
“Well, I’ve decided to go back to school next semester.”
“Fantastic. That is definitely a move proving you can steer your own ship. I believe you’re on your way to becoming a total independent thinker.”
“Let’s not rush things,” I replied sarcastically.
He jotted a few notes and then flipped to a fresh page in his notebook. “How have your dreams been?”
“Not so bad.”
“And Everett?”
“You mean, in my dreams?”
“In your dreams. Or otherwise.”
“When I dream, if things get bad, if I’m attacked—he’s there. He helps me escape from the demons. But he can’t fight them, even in my dreams, because they know he’s dead. In one dream, monsters were chasing me through the woods. But I saw Everett above the trees. Floating. I followed hi
m, and he led me out of the forest and to a cabin. I barricaded myself inside and stayed there until I woke. Outside of dreams, no. I’ve only seen Everett that one time at the hospital.”
“As long as he remains confined to your dreams, I’m not too concerned. In fact, if your progress stays on track, I believe you could expect him to even further regress until he makes only the occasional appearance. And eventually, I expect he’ll be limited to ordinary memories. What about the other hallucinations?”
“Mostly animals. Cats. There was a cat in my bedroom. It jumped from the dresser and crawled under the bed. But when I looked, it wasn’t underneath. And birds. A blackbird flew into my windshield while I was driving home from the dentist.”
“But it didn’t really, did it?”
I shook my head. “I flinched when it hit. I closed my eyes. But when I opened them, there was no bird. Oh, and did I tell you about the pop can?”
“Not that I recall.”
“There was a pop can on the kitchen table. For some reason, I found myself staring at it while daydreaming. And then, all of a sudden, it started spinning by itself. I’m still crazy,” I assured him, followed by an uneasy laugh.
“I’d say those are still relatively mild. Interesting, but mild. As I’ve said before, I don’t believe you need medication or other forms of treatment for these types of sightings. As long as they’re not frightening to you or interfering a significant amount in your day-to-day activities, I say just enjoy them for what they are. They may just always be that something you have that’s different from everyone else.”
He scratched his goatee. “Now, would you like to tell me more about Phillip and Ginger? If I remember correctly, at the end of our last session, you were telling me the point at which you began to feel—I think the word you used was—betrayed.”
“All right,” I agreed half-heartedly and began to tell him about the night I helped Phillip look for a new car.
Phillip had been without a car since the accident and was getting tired of having to rely on Ginger and me for rides, so I drove him to the used car lot one evening. The lot was closed. We were alone, just us and the frosted cars. The sky was a thick, dark gray. It was one of those nights where it seemed too cold to even snow. He was unusually silent as he examined the vehicles in his price range. We moved from car to car with our hands in our pockets and our coats zipped to the collar.
“The semester’s almost over,” he finally said, wiping ice crystals off the window of a red Grand Prix. He peered inside as I stood at its rear, barely pretending I knew what to be looking for when choosing a car. “Final exams are coming up already.”
“I’m not worried about exams.”
“That’s good,” he said before heading to the next car. “You know, it’s my last semester before transferring.”
“I know.” How could I have forgotten?
“And Ginger—it’s her last semester too, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, becoming perturbed by the unnecessary reminders about what already had me filled with anxiety.
“And good news. You know how Ginger was going to go to that school in Chicago? Well, now she’s decided to go to Western with me.”
“Yeah. Good news.” I pressed my thumb onto the trunk. I watched as the frost slowly dissolved around my skin, creating a halo on the dark-blue paint beneath.
“You’ve enrolled for next semester, right?”
“Nope,” I replied bluntly. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. I couldn’t imagine it without him and Ginger.
“Well, I think you should keep at it, even if your degree does end up being liberal arts,” he teased.
I thrust my fists back into my pockets, attempting to relieve the sting of the cold. I looked up to the sky. It was vast yet hung low over our heads. Thick and murky. It blanketed the earth, attempting to suffocate it. My eyes stung from the cold and began to tear. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do now.”
“Well, you should go,” he persisted. “Even if it means you have to go alone. But you won’t be alone. You’ll make new friends. Maybe even someone you can share rides with.”
I turned my gaze to the old Grand Am parked near the entrance. It hadn’t yet become frozen like the other cars. I had the sudden urge to climb inside and drive away. I imagined just driving and driving. I rubbed my stinging eyes. “It’s fucking cold out here.”
“Yeah, I know.” He gently tugged my coat toward the car. “We can go.” The seats were freezing. I turned the key. The car struggled to come to life. I switched the heat on high, but cold air blasted us through the vents. “I talked to your mom,” he announced. “She thinks you should keep going to school too.”
“You talked to my mom?” I asked, perplexed.
He rubbed his hands together. “We talked about something else too,” he hesitantly revealed. “We talked about you seeing someone.”
“Seeing someone? Like a girlfriend? You talked to my mom about me getting a girlfriend?” I was horrified.
“No. We were thinking you should—see a psychiatrist.” Lukewarm heat began to blow through the vents, but I had already started to perspire. My face burned. I was stunned and humiliated. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t speak. “I was hoping you would, but you never really made any other friends at school this semester. Your mom and I just thought that with Ginger and me gone, it would be good for you to have someone else to talk to.”
“What? I can’t talk to you anymore?” I managed to croak.
“Sure. You can. It’s just that Ginger and I are going to be living in dorms at Western. So I doubt we’ll be back here that much. And talking to someone else could help you.”
“Help me? With what?”
“For one thing, I know it hasn’t been easy for you coping with Everett’s death.”
“I’m coping just fine.”
“C’mon. It’s obvious with all the fantasizing about Thomas that—”
“Fantasizing! You heard the tapes. You heard his voice. That wasn’t fantasy. That was real.”
“Yeah. OK. But I think you need help sorting through your relationship with Everett. You already know how I feel about him. It doesn’t mean I’m glad he’s gone. Not at all. Who knows? After I stopped hanging around him, he could’ve changed. He could’ve become an entirely different person. But even if he did, that doesn’t change the fact that at one time he controlled you with his crazy ideas. And you have to agree that he and his death had a huge effect on you. I think if you could learn to understand that, then you could be more—grounded. You could be more social. And you could be—less dependent on Ginger and me.”
What was it with him deserting me on cold November days? My mind instantly flashed to the time Phillip had left me to deal with Kirsten on my own. Not only was he abandoning me a second time, he was trying to push me off on some psychiatrist, which felt even worse. I put the car in drive and pulled onto the street as my insides began to splinter. “I can’t believe you talked to my mom” was all I was able to utter.
“I’m sorry. But she checked into it, and it’d be covered by your insurance.”
“Stop,” I commanded. I couldn’t take any more. All I could think of was that I had saved Phillip from certain death—that if it hadn’t been for me, he would’ve perished in flames like Thomas Gouldman. For the first time, I didn’t want to be near Phillip. I wanted to shove him out of my car.
“My guts felt like they were in a blender,” I painfully revealed to Dr. Griffin. “When Phillip and Ginger left, I didn’t reenroll that semester. I couldn’t. But after a while, I forced myself to at least try to understand why Phillip said what he said. And that’s when I came to see you.”
“Well, I’d say Phillip was a very good friend to you—even if it didn’t feel that way at the time.” I nodded in agreement. “In fact, it seems his theory on your psychological state is similar to mine. We both see Everett as the figure central to your problems. It started easily enough by him casting himself in
the role of rescuer in your dreams. He encouraged fantastic delusions. Forced you to accept a fantasy world fabricated by him, which ultimately progressed into three-dimensional hallucinations. Because of this, understandably, you had tremendous difficulty interpreting reality, participating in it. The frequency at which you had become accustomed to escaping—through dreams, hallucinations, through the sensation of leaving your body, by indulging in the intricacies of nature—is, frankly, astounding. You relied on these mechanisms as a way to cope with suffering. Yet constantly escaping in so many ways, you weren’t truly a whole person. It sounds as if you’ve spent more time floating outside your body than living inside of it.”
At first, I didn’t want to admit it to myself. But after many sessions with Dr. Griffin, the past started to become clear. It began to make sense. Ultimately, because of Phillip, there was logic to it all. Finally, the sparks that fed Everett’s flames began to die, until he was reduced to nothing more than a fantasy himself. Just like the monsters, his legend had been fabricated. I no longer viewed him as my protector. I was his puppet. His joke. He had taken advantage of me. Manipulated me. Betrayed me. He was evil. And I hated him. And as I switched my brain to seeing Everett in a new light, the hallucinations began to fade. I no longer needed Phillip to keep demons away. With my newfound knowledge, I was able to chase them back into my own mind, reduce them to harmless characters in dreams.
Still, from time to time, I’d indulge myself. I’d visit Phillip and Ginger. I was there when they graduated from college. I was there when they moved into a house together in a new development where only saplings lined the streets. I watched them from the ceiling, from inside the walls. I knew it wasn’t real. Had he known, Dr. Griffin would’ve certainly deemed my behavior unhealthy. He would’ve told me that I was only disassociating again, creating a barrier that would make it more difficult for my mind to function properly in reality. But after even the cats disappeared, the secret visits were all I had. They gave me comfort. They were my security blanket.
Where the Cats Will Not Follow Page 20