I told her about what had led up to me having a gun in my hand and talking to what she considered an imaginary dog.
“I’ll check the house to make sure a dog didn’t get in here through the doggie door.”
“We’ll check the house,” she corrected. “And, um. Why don’t you give me the gun?”
I was glad to have her company and had no problem with giving the gun to her. We found no dog and then I put the security slide over the doggie entrance.
“That was strange,” I said as we headed back upstairs. “That dog looked exactly like the first dog I ever had.”
“You mean the one you had when you were a kid? Terri?”
She knew about Terri because I would always measure any of our dogs to the ‘Terri Standard.’
“Are sure you weren’t dreaming this?” she asked, concerned.
“At this point I can’t be sure of anything. But, if it was a dream, it came with panting, fur, and the most intense look I’ve seen on any dog.”
We lay there silently before we fell back to sleep.
The next morning I got up first and headed downstairs and out the door to the driveway for the daily newspaper and as I opened the door I was startled to see a tennis ball laying there on the welcome mat. That was a habit of Terri’s that I remembered quite clearly, she would bring home a ball and lay it on the front porch whenever she went meandering. Probably as a peace offering for the worry she caused me. I picked the ball up and looked for signs of chewing but there were none.
“Look,” I said to my wife, as if offering the ball as evidence.
“Where’d you get that?”
“It was lying on the welcome mat.”
“I’ll bet one of the kids are responsible for that… They probably bounced it off the house and took off thinking they broke a window.”
“I hope that’s all it is,” I said, trying to think it through. “It could also be…” I stopped short of telling her what Terri used to do.
She wasn’t listening closely to what I said as she went into the kitchen and started preparing our morning coffee.
I decided to drop it and keep it to myself; I didn’t want Kate to think I was going insane. Even though, in truth I myself was getting worried about my mental state.
CHAPTER FIVE
That afternoon I got myself back into a research article I was writing for my publisher on the boom of weird weather incidents which seemed to be occurring in sequence around the globe for the past 40 years. I called a friend, Justin Timmins, who’d emerged over the several years previous as one of the foremost meteorologists this side of the equator. He was a leading authority on all things “weather weird” and usually eight steps ahead of his colleagues, and he was also a very brilliant physicist. His theories were sometimes dismissed by academia and some of the media as being too far off the paper. However there were those in the emerging media who found him to be in the very center of weather logic and very much on the mark with the climate of mother Earth. I thought that maybe there was something going on that could be causing a shift in the energy system of the Earth and opening something that might be causing these experiences. What the hell? Anything is possible.
Since I covered him in a magazine article five years back, and treated him and his work with respect he came to be one of my greatest sources on climate and someone I greatly enjoyed having a beer with at a favorite local watering hole.
“Hey Justin, how are you doing?” I greeted my friend as he answered his phone.
“Hey to you! Where you been? I get worried that I’m losing my ties to the normal when I don’t hear from friends like you.”
“I died,” I said with a smile, “but didn’t stay that way long.”
“You died? You’re serious?” he asked.
“Serious as the heart attack I had,” came my response.
“Shit. Are you okay now? Can I do anything? Do you need help?” he blurted.
“No… I’m alright. Believe me. I got a stent which opened up my blood system. Like a windy day opens the flow of weather. Just like that. Can I meet with you soon?”
“Sure, why?”
“I need to finish an article on weather, and I have some things that I want to run by you.”
“Sounds like we need to have a beer. When?”
“How about tomorrow? We can take advantage of happy hour prices at Lenny’s Pub. Say about 4? You in?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Stay well,” I said.
* * *
We greeted each other with a hug and a handshake the next day. He asked me how I was feeling and could I still have a beer without risking another heart attack. “Can you still have sex? I hear that after a heart attack you can’t even take stimulants.”
“Not a problem, so far. What are you drinking?”
We ordered beers and started our visit with light conversation. Justin was in his mid forties, African- American, handsome and wise beyond his years. He was highly respected by all who worked with him but because he was usually on the cutting edge of things he was sometimes controversial.
“How is your latest study on the Antarctica going? Are the tree huggers still ignoring your fact finding that it’s getting colder there while the arctic is warming?” I asked before I took a sip of beer.
“Nah, they don’t want to confuse themselves with the facts. Why would they ever do that?”
“Is it still that way with the media and some of the more vocal professors? Are they still putting you down?” I chided him.
“Hasn’t it always been so? The media? Upper Ed? Congress? My mother-in-law? Oh the shame of it all. I tell ya, I can’t get no respect.” He did his best Rodney Dangerfield impression with bug eyes and all. He looked the part of a weatherman who was trying to look different. He was tall and weight proportionate. His clothes were fine and his shoes were always shined. He wore progressive glasses, the kind of lenses that reacted to light. He didn’t look like the weather people on TV and maybe that was because he was given to so much more than merely reading the forecast, after all, he was at root, a physicist.
“I need your latest quote so that I can wrap this piece up and put it to bed with a statement from you that will guarantee the usual controversy. I have to get myself caught up after all the events of the past months.”
“Are you really feeling okay?” he asked as he put his hand on my shoulder in a supportive way. His eyes conveyed concern.
“Physically I’m feeling quite well. It’s not that. But it seems like mentally I may have a challenge.” I said.
“What do you mean? You’re having problems? What’s going on?” He leaned in, awaiting my response.
“When I died I had a near death experience that has me moving in and out of a surreal reality that I can’t seem to get my arms around.” I shrugged my shoulders as I made my statement. “I have made a living describing things in writing based on my observations. Until now I have never been at a loss for words, what I have now is great difficulty understanding what is going on with me. I can’t even explain all of this to my wife and you know how we are as a couple.”
“Have you sought help?” He was extremely focused.
“I’m whining.”
“So whine,” he said, reassuring me that he wanted me to vent.
“No, I do not want to complain… and yet can’t pass on an opportunity to do so. But, ya’ know I’m alive and married to the greatest woman on the planet,” I crowed with a broad grin.
“Second best.” He cleared his throat and smiled.
“Oh yeah, I forgot about Mrs. Weatherman/Physicist, the lovely Mrs. Timmins.”
“Yeah. But don’t misunderstand, yours ain’t that shabby, my man.” He smiled, full of himself. “Tell me what I can do to help you?” He was serious again.
“I don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “Do you think that there is something going on with the planet that could be causing this? I mean, like sunspots or the solar wind? Maybe a shift in the ma
gnetic field?”
“Hey, anything is possible but I somehow don’t think that if any of that was going on that could effect just you and leave the rest of the world alone,” he said.
“Don’t be so sure.”
“What’s that mean?”
“There are others experiencing this. I know for sure of one other, at least.” I said with all of the authority I could muster.
“Who else?” He was quite curious.
“My shrink,” I said without thinking. “But you know, we’d best keep that just between us,” I cautioned, because I didn’t want to compromise the rapport I had with Keough. I felt that I needed his support desperately until I could get through this storm.
“Can you tell me what else it is that is going on? I mean, come on; whatever this is, looks like it is scaring the shit out of you. Is there more?” he asked.
“When I was dead I met an old high school teacher of mine who sent me back to my body, but before I go back he tells me to be cautious of someone who will want to know something about a name which I will know, and should not tell this person. Then, I have these vivid dreams where I meet a kid named Joe who claims to be my uncle and wants to tell me something that he can only tell me… then, on to seeing people who aren’t really there, but somehow tie into my near death experience.” I ran all this off as he looked at me incredulously.
“If you come up with anything… I mean anything, that you feel scientifically could be causing some aberrations please get that to me immediately.”
“You got that,” he assured. “But, I have never known anybody who has had a near death experience, and lived to tell about it. What’s it like on the other side? What happens to you?” he asked.
“Hey Mister Science, you aren’t supposed to believe that near deaths aren’t anything more than hallucinations.”
“Really…” he said with a strange look on his face. “Now don’t you be so sure.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve had one too?” I leaned across the table inviting him to say more.
“I’m not and I didn’t,” he said as he backed into his chair.
“Then, what are you talking about?”
“We’ll talk… but not now,” he said. There was a knowing tone in his voice and it struck a chord with me but I couldn’t take it anywhere from there. At least at that moment.
* * *
We went on with the article I was writing and I got several great quotes before we wound up our visit. We hugged each other goodbye and planned on another get together in the near future.
As I walked through the parking garage on my way back to my car I noticed a dog following me. I wondered why a dog would be in a parking garage alone, and then I saw the dog more closely. I automatically called “Terri! Terri, come here girl!” I called to her and as she began wagging her tail in response, a car came barreling around a turn, sending her scurrying. When the car passed, she was nowhere to be found. I whistled for her but got no reaction. She looked exactly like my old dog Terri and I wasn’t dreaming when I saw her wagging response to my calling her name.
Funny, why would a dog be here in a parking garage like that? I was concerned and then realized that I had to get the idea that the dog was my beloved pet, Terri, out of my head. That notion was crazy on a good day, and total insanity on a bad one.
I found my car and climbed in. I sure love my SUV… no matter what kind of a carbon foot print it leaves. It wasn’t so bad on gas and I could haul all kinds of things almost anywhere. I threw her into reverse and started backing out of my space when I saw the dog again. Driving slowly toward her I tried to keep her from being spooked and taking off again.
I stopped and got out of the car and she posed with her front legs down, seeming to dare me to try to catch her. Terri used to do this… but this couldn’t be Terri… no way.
She then started looking at something behind me that seemed to unsettle her. I turned around but saw no one.
When I turned back there was no sign of her, so I reluctantly got back in the vehicle and drove off.
CHAPTER SIX
“What is at the end of the universe? Can the universe be endless? Can you conceive of there being no end to something? How can that be?” I was awakened by a voice in the night. I could only hear the voice but could not see who was saying it. I couldn’t even tell if it was the voice of a man or a woman.
I jumped out of my sleep, startling my wife.
“The name… the name,” I heard the voice say, even in my wakened state.
“Did you hear that?” I said as Kate rubbed her eyes.
“Hear what?” she asked sleepily.
“Shit, Honey; that voice… the one I just heard,” I said, slightly annoyed.
“I can’t say that I do, when I don’t.” She came back sensing my annoyance.
“I’m sorry, Kate. I don’t mean to be an asshole. It’s frustrating because I’m hearing a voice that starts out in a dream and then follows me through to my awakened state. But you didn’t hear it and that tells me that I’m probably imagining it or on some plane that is halfway between.” I was looking for sympathy while trying to understand what was going on.
“Between what, Baby?” She said, now with her usual loving tone.
“Between here and there… reality and fantasy… sanity and lunacy.”
I got up and went to the bathroom and on my way back to bed I passed the window closest to my side of the bed and saw something that made me look out. There in a patch of moonlight in the yard, near the back fence stood a young boy looking up at me. It was “Uncle Joe.” Even in the darkness I could feel his eyes on me and I knew he could feel mine on him.
I didn’t say anything to my wife who by now had fallen back fast asleep and I didn’t want to discuss this with her as I would have had to explain Uncle Joe being in the yard in the middle of the night. She probably wouldn’t have been able to see him anyway.
I ran down the stairs and out into the yard where I came face to face with the kid who claimed to be my uncle. “Why are you here?” I asked him. “What is it you want from me?”
“I want to help you find out the name. So that you don’t say it, by accident” he replied looking up at me with a serious expression on his face.
“What name are you talking about? Who are you talking about?!” I asked someone who probably didn’t exist.
He didn’t answer me but remained standing there, watching me.
“Where did you come from and why did you wait until now to show up in my life?” I demanded — again realizing I was probably speaking with a figment of my imagination.
“I am from the other side. I live there with many people who once lived here on this side.” he said.
“The other side of what?” I asked. “Who do you live with? Do they take care of you? You’re just a kid.” I was rambling.
“Take care of me… take care of me, in what way?” he asked.
I realized he was not talking like a child but more as an adult. It was hard to keep the conversation on track with the realization of this, yet I went on with, “Who is there? Do you have angels around? Have you seen God?”
“No, none of us has seen Him. We live on a level that is right above this one but far below the level of God or even the one where the angels live.”
“Why do you believe that God has a name?” I asked him.
“Because they told me He does. Doesn’t everyone have a name?”
“They… who?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He answered sadly, his eyes cast downward, “I don’t know. But everyone there wants to call on Him but none of us know His name. They think that if we knew it that would give us a way to talk with Him. To see God.”
“It’s funny… I’ve always thought that His name was, God,” I said with somewhat of a chuckle.
“No, they say that His name has a vibration that is a sound which will create an energy that will open a door to Him.” This boy sounded wise beyond his apparent years.
“It opens doors but His name will open the one that is absolute, and let us stand in His presence,” he assured.
“I don’t believe that you are real and that I am having this conversation with anyone but myself,” I blurted from out of nowhere. “Give me something,” I demanded.
“What?”
“Give me something, anything you have on you so that I can know that you aren’t a hallucination after you’ve gone… give me something.” I raised my voice to a loud whisper.
“I can’t do that. Not now,” he said without emotion.
“That’s exactly what I thought you would say,” I said, with a little edge of contempt in my voice.
“Look… I am here with you, in your life at this time, because when you died, a door between our worlds opened for you and the dead. It happens that you are one of the few, in all time, who actually said the true name of God, accidentally. That moment caused a ripple throughout all that is which was recognized but for some reason not heard by anyone, not even the high angels.” Joe paused a moment to give me time to catch up. “The fallen one knows what this means more than anyone other than the Lord God Himself, and wants to use you as his key to unlock the door that separates him from the Creator. Beware my nephew, for you stand in the middle of a great conflict, and there is great danger and also greater deception.” He stared at me meaningfully, then continued.
“I have to leave soon and I don’t know if they will let me come back again, but please believe me, you are now the focus of great evil and face something you have never known before,” Joe warned.
“Great evil? Something I have never known before? I still don’t understand what all this means and who you are talking about.” I looked at him with frustration as I found myself waving my arms around.
“Hey wait a minute, you’re not leaving yet. You have to finish this,” I said quickly.
“I can’t… they are calling me. I have to go.” He turned around and started running; he disappeared into the darkness not acknowledging my plea.
The Ultimate Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Bestsellers) Page 102