While honing in on the one way discussion, Carter and Brenda nearly bumped heads while vying for access the ideal listening spot. They stopped when the sound quality did not improve. This was where they set up camp, and they did their best to breathe softly.
“That’s what they told me to do,” said Bradley. He would say things, and then pause while Mr. Jenkins was apparently planting messages into his head.
“I did get Adam to come help me, but we get dirty, and they find out.”
There was a moment of silence before Bradley said, “No, I don’t think they can hear me.”
Carter and Brenda froze, and were careful not to gasp from holding their breath. Then they heard footsteps. They heard his bedroom door open and the three of them were like deer in headlights. Carter and Brenda pulled away from the wall so it didn’t look ridiculous. Then the bedroom door shut, and the footsteps returned to the other side of the wall.
“No, there’s nobody there. They can’t hear me.”
Apparently, Bradley’s head was somehow getting filled with instructions because there was another period of silence after that. Carter and Brenda returned to the wall as Victoria remained back. Bradley continued speaking.
“Adam says that someone is telling him to do things too. He’s sort of like you, but he said he’s meaner. He said his name is Martin.”
There was another long pause, and then they heard Bradley whisper, “Why do you think they’re on the other side of the wall?”
Carter and Brenda pulled their ears from the wall and motioned for Victoria to follow them out of the room and they dashed away before hearing the bedroom door open and Bradley coming out. They made it to the living room couch and were sitting by the time Bradley made it into the living room.
A new plan had to be devised, so they decided that Bradley would be sleeping over Adam’s house. They’d set up a spare bed in Adam’s room, and this way they could get a camera on Bradley. They set it up for that evening, and Adam was coached into the plan. They wanted their world to be spirit-free and Adam was on-board with it. The stress of having an evil spirit attached to Adam was taking its toll. He was just a child, and the demands Martin was making on this child were unrealistic, yet Adam was scared into submission. At this point, Adam just wanted the scary old man to go away.
Carter and Brenda felt confident that it really was Martin haunting her son and Mr. Jenkins haunting Bradley. One was nice and one was far from it. They needed to figure out a way to get both of the spirits into the afterlife, where they belonged, but the task was enormous. First of all, Martin was a total menace and they weren’t sure if they could do anything with this meddlesome spirit at all. They did think that it was perhaps possible to get Mr. Jenkins into his afterlife retirement home in the sky by getting together and getting his yard in the shape it was in when he died. If he’s hanging around and using the kids to get this work done, perhaps this goal would be attainable once the reason for his being here was removed.
The problem was getting Martin into that retirement home in the sky. Since they were not sure it was possible, they needed to take Evelyn up on her offer to see what she could do in that regard. They wanted to see if they could get some more information to Evelyn before she began, so she would know what to look for and how to proceed. She needed a place to start. If they could put the two boys together to see if there would be any interaction of the spirits in any way, then that could be beneficial.
Since Adam was in on this experiment, it didn’t matter that he was aware of the cameras. He agreed to work with Bradley to bring out the spirits, and they would be right there and able to see everything happening should anything get out of hand. It was out of hand from the start, so desperate measures had to be taken in order to resolve this dilemma. They would roll the film, and Carter and Brenda would watch the results, while Victoria cooked dinner for Dan at home and wondered how things were going at the house next door.
Once the plans went into motion when the kids were in bed, Carter and Brenda were all over the video. This was certainly a long shot, but since Dan did not want to play along, alternate plans had to be taken. They purposefully added lighting to the bedroom with a second lamp and additional night lights. They had a perfect shot of the boys. They saw Bradley sleeping in the spare bed they had set up next to Adam’s bed. Both beds were on one side of the room, and the closet was on the wall that their feet were pointing toward. Bradley didn’t suspect a thing, but Adam’s job was to keep him up and ask him questions.
“Hey, Bradley,” said Adam. “I like that you’re sleeping over my house tonight. It’s fun.”
“Yeah,” he replied, “I like it too because I don’t know anybody around here.”
Carter peered in at the computer screen from the comfort of their living room. Unfortunately for Victoria, she was unable to join them due to her husband forcing a covert operation. This mission began slowly, but they could tell that Adam was all in on this mission as he was performing like a pro. They watched kid banter as Adam was getting Bradley comfortable in his new surroundings before he would whip out the tougher questions.
“So, Bradley…what happens when you’re told to work outside.”
“What do you mean?”
“The messages you get. How does that work?”
“Why?”
“Just wondering. I wanted to see if it was like mine.”
“It’s just…I don’t know…like a thought.”
“Do you hear a voice?”
“Sometimes, but sometimes I think it.”
“You have to do what he says or thinks?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you come to my house late at night?”
“He tells me to.”
“Who tells you to?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s in my head. I don’t know how to say it, but I feel like I need help, and you’re the only one I know around here who might do it. My parents won’t help me. My dad doesn’t believe anything about me, and if my mom helped then my dad would get mad at her and do bad things. It’s just easier to do what he asks…so nobody gets mad…nobody gets hurt.”
Adam considered what Bradley was saying, and came up with a follow-up question. “You sure it’s a he?”
“I guess. Everybody says it’s a he. They all say Mr. Jenkins lived here and used to work on the yard day and night, and even dead he finds a way.”
Adam had been coached to let Bradley speak at all cost, and that he should not interrupt him. If he had something to say, then let him have at it. He was asked to be quiet when Bradley was speaking. So Adam did just that, and he waited to speak, held his tongue when necessary, and jumped in only during silence, which was remarkable control for a six year old. However, Bradley made Adam’s job a whole lot easier because when he got on a roll, he never shut up. He was like a little man. The information that was pouring out of Bradley was information they could use, and Carter and Brenda were absorbing it like a sponge.
“Sometimes I don’t remember doing things that he asks. Sometimes I just do them and don’t realize I’m doing them until I’m actually doing it. He’s a magician. He takes over my body and acts with his mind and my body.”
“What do you mean?” asked Adam.
“If he wants to do the yard, he thinks about it and then puts the idea in me. If he wants two people to do the job in the night, then he puts it in my head to get you. Usually it’s real late when my mom and dad are asleep. He doesn’t want them to know because they wouldn’t let me go, and nothing would get done.”
Carter and Brenda were not only watching from the living room, but they were documenting every word that Bradley was saying, and he was saying a lot. They could see that Mr. Jenk
ins had departed this world with a chip on his shoulder because nobody would be around to tend to his yard after he died. He had pretty much become addicted to his garden, and was out there day and night.
They knew that old Mr. Jenkins would pass the time in his yard, but they had no idea to what extent. They did see him out there in the dark one night, watering the plants. Sure there was odd behavior, but that could have easily been overlooked and chalked up as the result of Dementia. Even if he didn’t have Dementia, it could be chalked up to just being old. He was in his eighties, and dementia seemed to follow him into the afterlife.
He became so attached to this yard that he could not leave it even in death. If he couldn’t work on it, then he would find someone who could. He was frustrated beyond belief when nobody took over the house. He couldn’t attach his spirit to anyone because there was nobody in the house. He needed somebody to be living in the house so he could trespass on the family who took ownership.
When there were finally new owners of Mr. Jenkins’ home, he was overanxious as the house had gone into utter disarray in the years following his death. He must have been dying for someone to get in there, and when they did, it didn’t take him long to find his victim. He found Bradley, who turned out to be a perfect vehicle to get the job done. Not only was he living on-site, but Mr. Jenkins had a child he could intimidate and coerce into doing whatever he told him to do without saying anything to anybody.
Carter and Brenda knew a little bit more about the workings of Mr. Jenkins with Bradley, having taken the liberty of coming up with this hypothesis based on the information that Adam was able to extract from their subject. This was made possible only because it was the only way to obtain information from Bradley without Dan knowing.
Now they needed to determine how to process that information and think about how they could make it relevant for Evelyn. If she were to reach out to Mr. Jenkins and perhaps coax him into the afterlife, then that would be best for all parties involved. They then had to turn their attention to the spirit of Martin, who was a pain in the ass that would not go away.
Martin was their first priority, and they thought about how Bradley’s situation could be used for Adam’s situation. There were a lot of similarities based on what they knew about both, so they tried to formulate a plan based on what they knew so far.
“What would happen if the two spirits were together in a room?” Carter asked.
Brenda pondered this one and said, “I wouldn’t know where to begin with that, but maybe Evelyn will be able to shed light on the best approach. After all, she’s probably helped a lot of families who had fewer details than we do.”
They returned to the monitor and saw that Adam and Bradley had resumed their discussion.
“Is yours like that?” asked Bradley.
“Yes,” said Adam, “but not really.”
Bradley laughed at the two answers that weren’t much alike.
“It’s like it because he puts things in my head that he wants me to do, but I don’t think you fear yours like I fear mine. I have to do what he says or else I’m in trouble.”
“I’ll be in trouble too.”
“Not like me,” said Adam. “Mine is mean and yours isn’t. Mine is Martin and yours is Mr. Jenkins.”
Carter and Brenda pretty much had exhausted the discussion and it wasn’t much help without seeing the spirits in action. Perhaps the spirits only came out when the kids were alone and in their own room. That seemed to be the case, but they didn’t have a lot of evidence either way. Mr. Jenkins seemed to be more pleasant and okay with bringing another kid along to complete his mission, but Martin was the mean one who wanted Adam to act alone.
They discussed their thoughts about what would happen should the two spirits unite. They were so different and wanted different things. It seemed that Martin was content in the in-between, wreaking havoc with people on earth, while Mr. Jenkins was just trying to get everything in line so that he could go peaceably into the afterlife and live happily ever after. The thing they had in common was that they were using children as capsules to reach their goals. Perhaps Carter and Brenda could get the good spirit to get rid of the evil spirit. They couldn’t even begin to figure out how, but they had a few ideas for Evelyn.
Once the boys fell asleep, Carter and Brenda were still monitoring the bedroom surveillance cameras to see if there was any activity going on. They did not expect Martin’s spirit to make an appearance with Bradley in the room, but the question remained whether he could pull off a visit without Martin aware of it. He was not a nightly visitor, so he could always wait a night to see if the next night would be better. They were very interested in whether or not Martin would even attempt to mix it up with Bradley in the room, not knowing if a spirit would be attached to him.
There was a light rumble of thunder, but it was the type of sound that makes you wonder if it was thunder or something else, so another rumble was needed to confirm. They waited for a rumble that did not come. However, they soon heard light pings onto their roof. That wasn’t a sound that could be something other than rain, so they were able to put two and two together and confirm that it was indeed thunder that they had heard.
Within a few minutes, the storm began to approach with an eeriness that indicated something severe was about to happen. It was raging moments later. Wind shifted so sharply that it nearly took the house with it one way, and then the other way, trying to lift it from its foundation. The wind blew in the rain, and large drops sporadically pelted the old roof hard and fast. The worst thing that could happen in this situation, when you want to run for the television or radio to get storm updates, would be for the power to go out, and that misfortune reared its ugly head on this night.
Carter felt his way through the room and out to the kitchen for flashlights and candles, while Brenda felt her way to Adam’s room where Adam and his guest, Bradley were asleep. However, they were not asleep for very long because there was a loud crashing noise that shook the house, and it sounded as if a tree had fallen on it.
Now with the two boys awake due to some cataclysmic event, Brenda tried to keep them calm by telling them that everything was going to be okay. She was well aware that she couldn’t offer any guarantees on that statement. Carter’s flashlight ushered him toward the sound of the boom. He shined the light ahead of him as he made his way toward the garage, where he believed the sound to come from.
The storm intensified as he neared the garage, and when he opened the door, the wind blasted his hair back. He quickly retreated and slammed the door shut. The garage was not detached, so there should be no wind. He slowly opened the door again and shined the light ahead, and saw that a large tree had crashed through his garage.
CHAPTER 27
Carter needed to survey the damage to the garage, so he opened the door not much more than a crack to avoid flying debris. He looked again and saw that the tree had crushed the roof of the garage and was sticking through, narrowly missing their car. The wind swirled hard and the rain saturated the inside of the garage. He realized that there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. He couldn’t just throw a tarp over the roof damage. The damage was too vast and the storm continued to rage on.
As he was surveying the tree damage, he heard Brenda scream. He shut the door hard and made his way through the house with the dim flashlight. He always wanted to get a higher powered flashlight, but he used flashlights so infrequently that it was not at the top of his priority list. However, a high-powered flashlight moved up a couple of notches on that list.
He closed in on Adam’s room, bumping into everything in his path. He knew that he would be bruised just from that rushed walk, but it wasn’t enough for him to stop and rub wounds. He made it to Adam’s room, and screamed, “Brenda!” There was no answer. He
knew they were in trouble, but the door was closed. He had left it open when he went to check on the loud noise.
The door would not open. He called out again, and had to shout over the sound of the rain and the wind and the thunder blasting away outside the house. Again, there was no answer. He knew they were in there. They had to be in there. They were in there when he had left just minutes before. Brenda had just screamed, and now there was no response from her or anyone else on the other side of the door.
Carter began pounding on the door. He continued to scream names, “Brenda! Adam! Bradley!” There was no reply. His panic went into overdrive. He backed up and tried charging the door with his shoulder. The only thing this did was screw up his shoulder. He tried to figure out his next move. Going outside and looking up to the bedroom window was not a very solid plan. The way the storm was pounding the neighborhood, he could very easily get clobbered by a tree or struck by lightning.
He removed that as an option, and kept screaming names, but none of the names responded. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, and quickly whipped his head around and saw, who else, but Evan. He had his dog with him, too, and they were both dripping wet.
“You’ve got to get out of here!” Evan pleaded.
Carter looked at him and said, “Evan, what the hell are you doing out in this storm?”
“You’ve got to get out of here.” He said it a second time. “You must leave this house?”
Carter was finally able to hear what Evan was saying, but he did not know why he was telling him to leave. He looked at Evan’s face, and it was frantic. He kept on shaking Carter’s shoulder as if he had not yet gotten his attention. Carter finally turned around again and said, “Evan, what is it? Why are you saying that? Why do we have to leave the house?”
Desert Son Trilogy: Desert Son, Wayward Soul, Spiritual Intervention (Books 1-3) Page 69