Death Theory

by John Mimms

  “No, I need to go check on her,” Pac said, hopping to his feet. “Y’all carry on and let me know what you find.”

  Pac hurried through the door and ran into Jeff and Debbie at the landing on top of the stairs. Jeff offered to turn the breaker back on to help him leave.

  “No ... shine your light down the stair railing and I’ll be good,” Pac huffed.

  Pac stumbled down the stairs and out the front door without another word. A moment later, they heard his car fire to life followed by squealing rubber.

  “Is he, all right?” Debbie asked. “I heard him scream and then hit the floor.”

  Elvis had now come out to join them on the landing. “It was him?” he asked with a disbelieving laugh.

  Debbie shrugged, “I hollered, but not that loud. He sounded like a hungry hoot owl baby.”

  Jeff and Elvis laughed.

  “Hoot owl babies again?” Jeff chuckled.

  “Well, the experience was as neat as hoot owl babies,” Elvis said, holding his flashlight under his chin and giving Debbie a wink.

  “I know it was a funny experience and all, but we need to remember that Pac is a member of our group,” Jeff said. “We need to be professional when dealing with each other. There’s no need to bring this up again.”

  Elvis and Debbie squelched their giggling and nodded.

  “Do you think he will be okay?” Debbie asked.

  “I hope so,” Jeff said, “I’m sure his pride is hurt, but maybe it won’t discourage him. After all, he did get us an interesting result.”

  “What the hell was it?” Elvis asked. “Did you find any drafts or anything?”

  “Nothing that would have caused the door to slam. Judging by the weight and resistance of the door, it would take at least a thirty to forty mile per hour gust of wind. I’m stumped,” Jeff replied, rubbing his hand over the door’s surface.

  Debbie opened a window to cool off. She jumped when she heard a faint voice coming from outside.

  “No Daddy! Don’t take my eyes, Daddy! Don’t kill me, Daddy!”

  She replaced her shock with a knowing grin. She recognized the prepubescent voices of the two pranksters who terrorized her last week. An idea started to form in her head.

  Debbie entered the bedroom to discuss her idea with Jeff and Elvis. As she walked in, she detected a faint odor intermixed with the moldy smell of age. This smell had become all too familiar with her in the past week. It suddenly registered why Pac had left in such a hurry. She felt pity for the person she considered to be an obnoxious jerk. She could sympathize.

  “The poor guy,” she thought.

  She wouldn’t say anything to the others, it would accomplish nothing. She quickly brushed these thoughts away because she wanted revenge on the unsuspecting punks hiding outside.

  PAC DROVE HOME IN A rage. He was angry at his own pathetic self, but also because his cloth seats would smell of urine for a month.

  Despite his own embarrassment, he decided to direct his rage at one person – Elvis. The fat old bastard knew what he had done and was mocking him. He was probably, right now, at this very minute, yucking it up and talking about the little boy pissing his pants. He had called him ‘son’ and Pac hated that word. The only person who ever called him ‘son’ was his mother. As of late, she wouldn’t even use the word to refer to him. This hurt the most.

  His anger and frustration boiled. Not even the air conditioner set on maximum cold, blowing on his saturated jeans could cool him down. He pulled in his driveway, dashed for the door, and then slammed it hard behind him.

  JEFF WAS ABOUT READY to call it a night when Debbie sprung her idea for vengeance on them. Old skunk head wanted him at work bright and early in the morning. It was already past midnight, but he felt he had enough time and energy for one little prank before heading home.

  Debbie decided she would go out front and wander around as a decoy. Jeff would stay inside and wave his flashlight around as if the investigation was still in full swing. Elvis would sneak out the back door and around the hedge, approaching the pint-sized delinquents from behind.

  As Debbie wandered up and down the sidewalk, a smile broke across her face. She had to suppress the urge to giggle when she heard the ‘ghostly’ voices again.

  “Please no, Daddy, not my eyes!”

  Elvis moved rather nimbly for his build. He managed to get within five feet of the youngsters before springing the trap. He took his flashlight out of his pocket and positioned it under his chin. In one quick motion, he flicked the switch, casting an ethereal light on his features. In a deep and sadistic voice, he began to speak.

  “Elvis is not dead! He lives to collect the souls of little assholes!”

  He followed this with a guttural moan. The moan was unnecessary because it was drowned out by the cries of the youths. They turned and ran pell-mell through the hedge, stumbling over each other as they reached the sidewalk. In a moment of poetic justice, they happened to peer back up the sidewalk. Debbie stood there with her arms raised over her head.

  “Boo!” she taunted.

  They slowed a little when they realized they’d been tricked, but they took off again when they heard Elvis’s heavy footfalls stomping through the hedge. When they reached the safety of their driveway, the fat one turned around and gave them a double flip of the bird. He then demonstrated a series of obscene gestures well beyond his years of experience.

  Debbie laughed so hard she had to stumble over to the wrought iron gate for support. Jeff came out to witness the revelry, joining the laughter when he saw the fat kid’s final few acts of dirty charades.

  Elvis dropped to his knees and doubled over, red-faced and wheezing. Jeff thought he was having a heart attack until he heard the roar of a deep belly laugh. When they were done laughing they took a few moments to wipe tears and catch their breath.

  “I think they were mad as a mule chewing on bumblebees,” Debbie said, rubbing the stitch in her side.

  This brought on another round of laughter from Jeff and Elvis.

  “First it was hoot owl babies, now it’s mules and bumblebees?” Jeff said between snorts.

  Debbie put one arm around Jeff and the other around Elvis before giving them a squeeze. “Thanks for an exciting time tonight, guys; I can’t ever remember being scared silly and tickled silly all in the same night.”

  They turned the breaker back on in the house. Once the lights were on, they made sure everything was secured and locked. Before going their separate ways, each agreed to review their recordings and pictures.

  “I’ll try and get us another investigation lined up,” Jeff told them. “If not, we will have another meeting in two weeks; Elvis has an interesting theory I want to discuss.”

  Elvis smiled and shrugged with embarrassment.

  They all drove home reliving the experience of the door in their heads. What could it have been? Maybe the evidence would give some clue.

  Excited anticipation soon gave way to sleep upon returning home, but sleep breeds nightmares. Debbie, unfortunately, had become all too familiar with this concept. She awoke screaming and flailing her arms. There was something wrong this time, something different. As full wakefulness entered her head she realized this, but it was too late. With the heart hammering panic of those who dream of falling; Debbie tottered backwards and landed with a bruising thud on her tailbone. She shook herself awake and glanced about wildly. The faint glow of her porch light cast the long shadow of her fichus tree across the floor.

  She was on her kitchen floor.

  “What the hell?” she whispered to the beige linoleum as she rolled on her side.

  She pushed out her legs and tried to rise to her feet. Her feet slipped on something wet and warm. She fell back to the floor with a hard thud, knocking the wind out of her already panting lungs. She lay on the floor gasping and wheezing with eyes squeezed shut. It didn’t take long to sort out what had happened.

  The overwhelming smell of urine lingered in the air. She had w
alked into the kitchen during her nightmare, squatted in the floor, and urinated. When she woke, her confusion caused her to topple backwards onto her rump.

  Debbie pulled her knees to her chest. Lying in a pool of sweat and urine; she began to weep.

  Chapter 10

  DEBBIE CRIED UNTIL her guts hurt. The loss of sleep was bad enough, but the damned nightmares made it unbearable.

  “You don’t have a physical problem, it’s mental,” she said with outraged sarcasm. “Damn you, Dr. Boyd.”

  There was something wrong with her, something wicked; it seemed to relish in her torment. How could a nightmare relish anything? It’s not alive. To Debbie, it was as real as an intruder in her home. The feeling of helplessness and violation was indistinguishable.

  She knew she had to do something soon. The only answer presenting itself lay in the bottom of her purse - the business card of the shrink.

  “I’ll call Dr. Stacker or Saben, whatever the hell his name is, tomorrow,” she grunted.

  Debbie jumped in momentary horror when she felt something moist brushing over her cheek. Lily had come over to check on her trodden master, delicately licking the sweat from her cheeks. Debbie opened her eyes. Lily cocked her head to the side as if to say, “You okay?”

  Debbie sat up and stroked the head of her loyal companion. She brought her other hand up and wiped a sheet of sweat from her brow.

  “I’m sweatin’ like a dog poopin’ peach seeds!” she said, cradling Lily in her arms.

  Debbie picked herself up from the floor, taking care not to slide in the puddle. She stood for a moment examining the situation in the ambient light from outside. She removed her t-shirt and panties, before using the dry part of her shirt to mop the linoleum. She once again made the unpleasant trek to her washing machine and threw in her clothing.

  “At least I don’t have any sheets tonight,” she thought.

  She gave herself an impromptu sponge bath with a stray bath towel from the laundry hamper, and then threw it in with her clothes. She was beyond exhausted.

  Debbie returned to her bedroom and put on new sleeping attire. She sat down on the bed and rummaged through her purse until she found the card for the shrink. Dr. Conroy Staples would be getting a call from her first thing in the morning.

  “I know it’s Saturday, but I don’t care...I’ll at least leave a message,” Debbie said to the empty room.

  She placed the card on top of her cell phone as a reminder, even though she didn’t think a reminder would be necessary.

  “Who is the little girl?” Debbie wondered as she drifted off to sleep.

  The image of a very young girl squatting and urinating spun in her head like autumn leaves in a faint breeze. The image twirled into oblivion as she followed it into a welcome deep slumber.

  JEFF SLEPT WELL AND woke early. The anticipation of reviewing the evidence from the investigation was too much. Jeff had to get up early anyway because of old-skunk-head’s mandate. He made it a point to upload his digital recorder data to his computer before jumping in the shower. He would download the clips, convert them to mp3’s, and then e-mail them to his work computer. Jeff had a secluded office cubicle, so he wasn’t worried about getting busted because Old-Skunk-Head should be two-hundred miles away today.

  Jeff got dressed, converted the audio files, and then sent them via e-mail. Making sure to put his headphones in his briefcase, he left with uncharacteristic excitement for going to work on a Saturday morning.

  He jumped in his truck and headed for a drive-thru. An Egg McMuffin and black coffee would be his breakfast of choice this morning.

  “Mickey D’s and EVP’s.... tada da da da, I’m lovin’ it,” Jeff sang as he whipped into the drive-thru line.

  ELVIS WAS UP AND AT his computer as the sun broke over the thick woods behind his house. He decided to listen to all three hours of recordings this morning. Of course, he and Jeff would both listen to the recording they had made in the upstairs bedroom first. You never know when an EVP is going to turn up, most of the time it is in a situation where you least expect it. The bedroom had potential. At the very least, they could relive the humor of Pac’s offensive taunting climaxed by his girlish scream.

  Elvis loaded his recordings on the computer. He put on his headphones and started to listen about the same time Jeff was receiving his bag of fast food goodness. It didn’t take him long to hit pay dirt.

  The first fifteen minutes were boring nothingness of him and the rest of the group asking random questions. A moment of excitement was dismissed as the demonic sound of someone’s stomach growling. Then, the moment Pac issued his last insult, the hair on the back of Elvis’s neck stood up in hackles. A male voice spoke in a gruff and loud whisper.

  “My house!” it proclaimed.

  This deafening boom of the heavy door slamming shut followed. Elvis rewound and listened again, it was unmistakable. This was not the latent noise of preteen pranksters screwing around outside. This was the voice of a grown man, a man very close to the recorder.

  His heart hammered with excitement. This was not the first EVP he had ever captured, but it was the clearest. He had to share this news ASAP or he felt he would bust. He picked up the phone and called Jeff’s cell.

  GIGGLES ERUPTED ON the floor of Nuverian Health. The laughter was accompanied by several gopher peeks over cubicles as Jeff sat down at his desk with his breakfast.

  “Love in an Elevator” was Jeff’s current ringtone of choice and Steven Tyler belted out the chorus from his pocket as Elvis waited on the other end of the line to share his exciting news.

  Waving sheepishly to his co-workers, Jeff removed the phone from his pocket, set it on silent, and then placed it on his desk. He saw it was Elvis on his caller ID. Why was he calling him so early? Jeff figured it must be important, so he made plans to call him back as soon as his computer and e-mail booted up.

  When Jeff called back, Elvis answered on the first ring.

  “Have you listened to your recordings yet?” Elvis asked excitedly.

  “No, I just got to work. What’s up?”

  Elvis recounted the recording from the bedroom, not bothering to take a breath.

  “You’re kidding!” Jeff exclaimed. “How far in?”

  “Well, I think we all started our recorders about the same time. On my recording, it is fifteen minutes and thirty-one seconds.”

  “I brought my recordings to work,” Jeff whispered, trying to avoid the eavesdropping gophers in the neighboring cubicles. “I’ll give them a listen and holler back at you to let you know what I found.”

  Jeff discontinued the call and quickly scanned through his e-mails and found the one he had sent earlier. He cautiously removed his headphones from his briefcase, checking to make sure he wasn’t being observed. He then plugged them into the computer’s headphone jack. Jeff opened the file from the bedroom and began to listen. He reached the point in the recording indicated by Elvis and rewound several times to double check.

  A crestfallen expression washed over his face as he sat the headphones on his desk and rubbed perspiration from his ears. He heard Pac’s taunts, the slam of the door, and Pac’s high-pitched scream. He heard all of this, but he heard no ghostly voice.

  DEBBIE AWOKE A SHORT time later to Lily’s desperate pleadings. She got up and let Lily outside.

  Debbie returned to her bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. She forced herself to pick up the phone and business card from the nightstand. She sat the phone in her lap and rolled the card over and over in her fingers. She didn’t want to make the call. She felt as if her fingers weighed a thousand pounds as she picked up her phone and began to punch in the numbers.

  After she entered the last number, Debbie took a deep breath, gulped, and hit call. She shut her eyes tight as she held the phone to her ear and listened to the drone of the dial tone. A moment later, her eyes flew open and her heart fluttered when someone answered.

  “Hello? This is Dr. Staples.” There was silence
for a few moments as Debbie swallowed hard, almost choking herself.

  “H-hello, is this Dr. Conroy Staples?” she wheezed.

  “Yes, it is. To whom am I speaking?” Dr. Staples asked pleasantly.

  “My name is Debbie Gillerson. Dr. Kathy Boyd gave me your number. She thinks I need to see you.”

  “What do you think?” Dr. Staples asked.

  Debbie was silent again. She did not know how to answer this simple, but direct question. She had anticipated calling Dr. Staples’s office and leaving a message. Perhaps, at the most, she might make an appointment with an assistant.

  “Well...I’m not sure,” Debbie stammered.

  Dr. Staples returned a few moments of uncomfortable silence of his own before commenting.

  “In my experience, knowing you have a problem and seeking a solution is the first step to solving it. The act of calling me today suggests you are on the right track; you only need someone to help steer you where you need to go. Am I right?”

  “Yes, I suppose.”

  “Well then Ms. Gillerson, let me be the first to congratulate you on taking the first and hardest step. It only gets easier from here if you are willing to keep going. Are you willing?”

  “Yes.”

  Debbie wasn’t completely sure she was willing, but Dr. Staples put her at ease somehow. She felt a little bit better about making the call.

  “Would you like to talk to me in person, Ms. Gillerson; may I call you Debbie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, to one or both?” Dr. Staples asked with a smile in his voice.

  Debbie chuckled nervously and then and replied, “To both. When do you have an opening?”

  “Are you free this morning?” Dr. Staples asked.

  Debbie’s heart jumped into her throat. Today? She figured it would be at least a week or two before she could get an appointment.